Newtopia | Issue #4 - October 2002

When I first began coming in the late 80's with my then college girlfriend, the vapid debutante from the storied NY insurance family, we rented a weekend pad on 4th and A for when we wanted to have Ecstasy parties, thereby not "inconveniencing" her father who lived on 82nd and Fifth, across from the Met. We still paid $500 a month for it even then, and the neighborhood was a war zone, back in the headier days of "Alphabet City" when Tompkins Square was affectionately known as "tent city". On 9th and A was a small Rastafarian "record shop" where illicit chemicals of all sorts could be purchased merely by flashing one of their signed business cards. Now the shop is a design studio, and no one buys weed in the park anymore, much less more complicated molecules. Throughout the early to mid-nineties the Yuppies showed up, and by the time I left in '96 a glut of Bistros filled the area, with handwritten chalkboard signs out front announcing "BRAD PITT YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE!

Cuba is off the tourist trail for Americans. The U.S. "no visit, no business" policy is very much in effect, condemning travel in Cuba unless you have special permission. So, why go to Cuba? Of course, I had an official reason. I'm a psychologist with published essays on feminine archetypes in film, sufficient credentials to qualify me for a research category authorizing first hand study of Cuban culture by a U.S. citizen. But the quirky "yes, but" smile on people's faces when I give that answer tells me I'm not giving the answer they want. And I admit it. I did have a personal reason. I wanted to feel and draw my own conclusions about the spirit of a people cut off from the rampant, relentless materialism, consumerism and media-ism America has known and exported for the last forty years.

The drums of war beat louder with each passing day: all that is missing is a pretext to invade an already battered and miserable Iraq. Try as it might, the CIA has been unable to show even a hint of a connection between Saddam Hussein's aggressively secular regime and the fundamentalist Al Quaeda; Iraq's once supposedly mighty conventional forces are a shadow of their former selves and do not form a credible threat to anyone; and in any case there has not been the remotest suggestion of a threat to other countries in the region. But, ipso facto, as there will be a war, there must be a reason. And the only remaining reason, no matter how unlikely, will have to do. A pre-emptive war will be launched to prevent Saddam Hussein from acquiring and using weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

My first recollections of India were in 1984, again through the TV screen, and on News at Ten. The American owned Union Carbide factory hit the headlines and I remember an exodus of thousands of people escaping from the poisonous fumes that spewed out from the plant and hung over Bhopal. I visited the city in 1998 and stood outside the main gate of the now closed Carbide factory. Across the road is a slogan that reads "Hang Anderson", the man in charge of the plant at that time. In front of the slogan is a quite small and humble looking statue of a veiled woman covering her eyes, and carrying a baby. Another child is at her feet. It is a memorial to those affected by that particular outrage. I always remember those TV images of Bhopal. They were awful. I never once thought that I would ever go to India, let alone Bhopal.

The American Dream - these are the words that have driven our great nation from a grouping of sleepy imperial colonies to what it is today. While very specific in each person's own mind, that dream is a truly fantastic and ambiguous idea. This dream drove New York to build the world's largest collection of skyscrapers. It drove the thousands of artists and writers who have tried to capture our country's astonishing beauty and magic in paint and ink. That same idealistic spirit drove my grandfather to build a house, start a family with my grandmother, and raise thirteen children, including my mother.

Most Baby Boomers are not far past the prime of their careers. They are earning as much or more than they have in the past, or will in the future, and most continue to invest in publicly traded companies.

"Notice of Unauthorized Construction" and "Abe and W, in their own words.

If you're still reading this then you're probably part of the choir. No sense in preaching to you about recreational herb users going to prison, medicinal smokers having their homes seized, or pot dealers doing more time than people importing heroin from the Golden Triangle. In fact, friends, what I'd like to point out is the log in our own collective eye.

I'm sitting in the delivery room awaiting the slow drip of chemicals infusing my wife's blood with little contraction ions to work their mysterious wonders and bring forth my latest progeny. This is a long process, so my mind tends to wander. There she is, looking all radiant and wife-like, drinking water with ice chips and talking to the nurse. They have plunged a needle into her spine and presented her with a "bolus" of special drug things to prevent her from feeling anything from the sunshine buttons down. And naturally, my mind turns to all things pharmacological.

I try every angle I can imagine. And I have trouble. I'm not even sure how passionate I am myself about this issue. I am without question a supporter of legalized medical marijuana use. But more importantly, I'm vehemently opposed to the federal government's disregard of my state's laws. But as I continue, I become more and more turned off. The only interest I'm getting is from stoners who make it clear they don't give a fuck either way and just think there'll be a lot of free weed for them at the protest. And my most violent opposition comes from those who think I'm just another stoner who wants to be able to get high without going to jail, exactly the kind of individual who is signing my bus sheet.

Saddam Hussein seemingly became the de facto speaker for the entire Middle East Islamic community, and was soon dehumanized beyond description. Despite his reputation, the State Department and the media essentially turned a local thug into Adolph Hitler. Then, as quickly as it had begun, they told us it was over. We, America, had won. And the evil dictator Nostradamus predicted would rise out of the "Persian Lands" was now nothing more than a blundering idiot who decided to pick on the wrong kid, a kid who had an oil-guzzling big brother with lots of guns.

As the heavens fall, / so too falls the hour. / The drafts of a thousand / empty rooms / dance over the streets, / then retreat.

This month marks the 47th anniversary of the infamous Beat poetry reading at Six Gallery in San Francisco, which included the likes of Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Kenneth Rexroth, Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Michael McClure, and saw the first public performance of Allen Ginsberg's seminal poem HOWL.

Editor-in-Chief Charles Shaw tries to make sense of a senseless world and provide a blueprint for tomorrow.

8. The SOMA-tization of America
9. The Christian and the Heathen Discuss Iraq

An alternative to the life you've been dreaming, the ideas you've been drinking, and the rhetoric you've been eating.

8. Ode to Little Green Men
9. Pissinformation

The current state of affairs in sex, relationships, and sexuality from a global, political and cultural perspective. All things cold, detached, multi-partnered and hedonistic.

Newtopia associate editor Greg Everett's unfiltered column. It's a little dirty and doesn't always taste too good, but it's real and it keeps you alive.

Newtopia's resident mother hen chimes in on Motherhood and its role in the New World Order.

1. An Immodest Proposal
2. Kids & Career: How to Manage
3. Why do People Have Kids?
4. Gimme a Cig

A monthly musing from our boys across the pond at CODE UNCUT MAGAZINE