Nazi Flying Saucers and a Secret Son of Adolph Hitler By Sean Casteel
Nazi Flying Saucers and a Secret Son of Adolph Hitler By Sean Casteel
A new film called “Iron Sky” was shown at this year’s SXSW festival but has only recently found a U.S. distributor and may not be in theaters until this fall. Called a “science fiction comedy,” it deals with the long-held belief by some in the UFO community that the Nazis were able to create a crude kind of working antigravity propulsion system toward the end of World War II that they used to power a fleet of flying saucers. To UFO believers of a certain stripe, that idea is no laughing matter. While a great deal has been written and talked about regarding the notion that Nazi German scientists may have developed functioning flying saucer technology that was later suppressed by the victorious Allies, one may never have heard the following story, taken from the middle section of the recently published (by Global Communications) “Trilogy Of The Unknown,” and authored by the mysterious contactee, Michael X. Michael X is a fascinating story in his own right, and it’s well worth buying the book to learn more about him and his warnings on the darker elements of Ufology.
In the book, Michael X relates the rise and fall of a German named Karl Michalek, who in 1958, while living in Santiago, Chile, began to write some very unusual articles. He sent his articles to a German publication called “Neues Europa,” or in English, “New Europe,” which was published by Louis Emrich. Emrich printed everything Michalek sent him, and within a short time, Michalek had garnered a large following of readers. The small newspaper had at first printed articles of general interest, but as time passed, Michalek’s messages began to dominate the publication. [Michael X is quick to acknowledge the similarity of his own name to Karl Michalek’s, which he feels is an unfortunate coincidence that hopefully won’t confuse people reading this account.] “The German readers were fascinated,” Michael X writes, “intensely so.” Just what was stirring up so much excitement? Michalek was calmly announcing in the “New Europe” that he was in positive contact with the governmental heads of the planet Venus. The name of the particular intelligent being from Venus who was acting as Michalek’s present contact was “Ase.” “Ase and Michalek are desirous,” Michael X writes, “of bringing about everlasting peace and order to our planet Earth. In his series of regularly appearing articles, Karl Michalek presented himself as a sincere, God-fearing man who believes in the almighty power of the Creator. He is against those world groups that are promoting war, which Michalek
knows will destroy the planet.” Michalek also authored a book laying out his beliefs called “Michalek: The Prophet of the New Era. Unearthly Forces and the Human Race.” He was not only egocentric enough to call himself a “prophet,” he also declared himself to be “the spiritual bearer of this great idealistic world idea” and “the President of the coming majestic government of the World Republic of this Earth.” He sent stern warnings to leaders like Nikita Khrushchev and Dwight Eisenhower not to meddle in his Venusians’ plans for world conquest or Moscow and Washington would be wiped out. Michalek also told his followers reading the “New Europe” that the ships from Venus would land on “X-Day,” in December of 1958, in Berlin itself, causing great excitement among his loyal throng. Predictably, the day came and went and not a single UFO was seen. Michalek covered his embarrassment by saying that the President of Venus had passed away unexpectedly at the age of 193. Ase, Michalek’s contact among the Venusians, was forced to delay the landing maneuver for a short period of time. “Two years later, Michalek again predicted ‘Der Tag X.’ This time he stated that it was fixed and irrevocable. The date of the Venus Fleet landing was to be April 21, 1960! Note how X-Day was set for one day after Hitler’s birth month and day, April 20. “April 21st arrived – uneventfully. Again, for some unknown reason, the Venusian UFO fleet had seen fit to stay away. This time, the failure of the spaceships to ‘arrive’ as Michalek had promised brought forth a storm of protesting letters from readers of the ‘New Europe.’ Because the predicted Venus landing didn’t take place, the curve of Michalek’s success has sunk into the negative realm, and Michalek has sunk with it. INTERPOL in Austria takes a very dim view of his claims and is opposed to him. Even Michalek’s former staunch supporters, including the disillusioned publisher Louis Emrich, have fallen away.” But there is more. In 1959, Michalek claimed, “For some time now, I have been the one designated to be President of the highest govern-
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mental authority of the coming World Republic. I have been so designated by the power of the Chief Leader of the planet Venus.” Michael X then backtracks to 1945, a mere fifteen years previous to the time in which he was writing. Michael X says that when Hitler was drawing up his last will and testament, he did not name a second Fuhrer to succeed him. He chose Admiral Karl Doenitz as the next President of the Reich, Joseph Goebbels as Reich Chancellor, and Martin Bormann as the Party Minister. From there, Michael X reasons that Hitler had secretly survived his supposed suicide in Berlin in 1945 and was in fact living in South America. This was easier to believe in 1960, when Hitler would have been in his early 70s. In any case, it was a surviving Hitler who was the true authority that Michalek served, not the disappointing Venusians. “It is possible,” Michael X writes, “that Karl Michalek is in actuality the illegitimate son of Adolph Hitler. Mind you, I say it is ‘possible.’ I do not claim it is the gospel truth or a proven certainty. No. It’s a simple hypothesis and nothing more. So far, Michalek has not ‘delivered the goods’ in regard to his predictions of UFO landings, and his own broken promises have dubbed him a charlatan, a hoaxer on the grand scale. Those who formerly believed in him now DO NOT.” The point is that Michalek, as a Nazi conspirator and a member of a surviving Hitler’s inner circle, did have knowledge of genuine UFOs, but of Nazi design as opposed to true extraterrestrial spacecraft. “The Michalek story may be part of the Nazis’ plans, a preliminary test phase that for some reason, perhaps a good reason, had to be discontinued. If our hypothesis is right, Hitler has the UFO secret. And if we could manage to look in on his Argentine Hideout, we’d no doubt see quite an armada of earth-built UFOs. Not only that. It is also likely we’d find the craft well-armed.”
As an interesting side note, just as this article for “Weird” was being written, a news story appeared on the Yahoo! website with the headline “Did Hitler Have A Secret Son?” According to the article, until his death in 1985, a man named Jean-Marie Loret believed he was the only son of Adolph Hitler. The article says there is currently a renewed attention to his claim because of evidence from France and Germany that adds credibility to Loret’s story. “Loret claimed that his mother, Lobojoie Charlotte, met Hitler in 1914, when he was a corporal in the German army and she was 16. She described Hitler as ‘attentive and friendly.’ She and Hitler would take walks in the countryside, although conversation often was complicated by their language barrier. Yet, despite their differences, after an inebriated night in June 1917, little Jean-Marie was born in March 1918, according to Loret.” In evidence, Loret offered the results of two studies, one that proved his blood type is similar and another that proved his handwriting is similar to Hitler’s. The evidence is inconclusive but Loret’s story continues to be investigated by a leading French newspaper called “Le Pointe.” Meanwhile, the official story is still that Hitler died childless in 1945 at age 56. So if you decide to make that trip to the theater to drop a dime on “Iron Sky,” walk in armed with the knowledge that the belief in Nazi flying saucers and the survival of both Hitler and his rumored illegitimate offspring are not necessarily new ideas. While these bizarre theories are most likely the product of an over-the-top paranoia that often accompanies some of the more negative takes on the UFO phenomenon, no one has been able to refute them completely – and the unknown continues to be the unknown.
EAT ME THE RAILYARD! melted Jack cheese and fried YES FRIED Jalapenos on a toasted sweet bun. The BUNS are as good as the burger! Yes I like my Buns Sweet. I said it! Really, and with an ice cold DOS XX to get me going I decided to start off with Bacon Shrimp Wraps. These monster sized shrimp are wrapped in bacon jalapeño half’s stuffed with delightful cream cheese and mandarin slice drizzled with ancho honey sauce. Garnished with cucumber slaw!
THE RAILYARD By Russell Dowden
I finally made my way into the Railyard NOT for a beer this time, well ok I had a beer, but, this visit I tried the food and man I was really surprised by 2 things regarding the food. One, the price is easy on the wallet, and two. The Taste. The De-Railer is the premiere burger at The Railyard and at $8 is worth every penny! A half-pound beef patty with Romaine lettuce, Roma tomatoes, chipotle mayo. Topped off with house queso,
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Be sure to remove the tail of the shrimp before conquering these tasteful morsels. At just $7.50 for six of these little guys they are great to wash down your 1st beer, Outdoors there are ping pong tables, and a nice patio, and great environment to spend the afternoon or evening hanging out with friends. Shoot some pool, or catch the game on any of the TVs. Also, by the way, when the TRAIN goes by, Happy Hour prices apply. They also offer an entertainment room, complete with Flat Screen and XBOX for private
parties! In total the RAILYARD is a great local place in San Marcos to hang out, cool off and still get your grub on without a major pinch on your wallet. I spent $18.25 (before tip) for shrimp wraps, the largest burger on the menu, and a DOS XX! Not bad! So when you hear the train go by in San Marcos remember one
thing. It’s Happy Hour at THE RAILYARD and the beer and burgers and staff are waiting for you. So go on by and have a cold one and tell them Weird Magazine sent you by! Choo Choo!!
The Babylonian Origins of Easter (Ishtar) There was violent conflict on Vatican Hill in the early days of Christianity between the Jesus worshipers and pagans who quarreled over whose God was the true, and whose the imitation. What is interesting to note here is that in the ancient world, wherever you had popular resurrected god myths, Christianity found lots of converts. So, eventually Christianity came to an accommodation with the pagan Spring festival.
The Pagan Origins of Easter As a religious holiday, Easter is especially important to Christians as it represents the entire foundation on which Christianity was built. Jesus was crucified, died for all of the sins of humanity, and later resurrected with the promise of eternal life for those who accepted him as their savior. Yet, Easter is also a strange mixture of traditions, bunnies who bring colored eggs for example, that seem to have little to do with the Biblical resurrection of Jesus story. So, what’s the deal? As far as is known, there’s no story in the Bible about an Easter Bunny bringing eggs and candy to all of the little children of the world. Nevertheless, Easter traditions are not alone in the fact that many cherished Christian beliefs and customs have no Biblical origins. It may be a shock to those who assume that modern Christianity, along with the celebrations that surround it, is the absolute, unblemished word of God, but Easter is a fine example of a Christian holiday that is almost entirely pagan in origin. Yes, that is correct. Easter is a pagan festival.
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Early Christianity made a pragmatic acceptance of ancient pagan practices. After all, pagans had been around a lot longer than the new kids on the block Christians. The general symbolic story of the death of the son (sun) on a cross (the constellation of the Southern Cross) and his rebirth, overcoming the powers of darkness, was a well worn story in the ancient world. There were plenty of parallel, rival resurrected saviors too. The Sumerian goddess Inanna, or Ishtar, was hung naked on a stake, and was subsequently resurrected and ascended from the underworld. One of the oldest resurrection myths is Egyptian Horus. Born on December 25, Horus and his damaged eye became symbols of life and rebirth. Mithras was born on what we now call Christmas day, and his followers celebrated the spring equinox. Even as late as the 4th century AD, the sol invictus, associated with Mithras, was the last great pagan cult the church had to overcome. Dionysus was a divine child, resurrected by his grandmother. Dionysus also brought his mum, Semele, back to life. In an ironic twist, the Cybele cult flourished on today’s Vatican Hill. Cybele’s lover Attis, was born of a virgin, died and was reborn annually. This spring festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday, rising to a crescendo after three days, in rejoicing over the resurrection.
Although we see no celebration of Easter in the New Testament, early church fathers celebrated it, and today many churches are offering “sunrise services” at Easter – an obvious pagan solar celebration. The date of Easter is not fixed, but instead is governed by the phases of the moon – how pagan is that?
All the fun things about Easter are pagan. Bunnies are a leftover from the pagan festival of Eostre, a great northern goddess whose symbol was a rabbit or hare. Exchange of eggs is an ancient custom, celebrated by many cultures. Hot cross buns are very ancient too. Rabbits, of course, are a potent symbol of fertility due to their prodigious output of young. Eggs, likewise, have always been considered representative of new life, fertility, and reincarnation. In the Old Testament we see the Israelites baking sweet buns
for an idol, and religious leaders trying to put a stop to it. The early church clergy also tried to put a stop to sacred cakes being baked at Easter. In the end, in the face of defiant cake-baking pagan women, they gave up and blessed the cake instead. The first Easter bunny legend was documented in the 1500s. By 1680, the first story about a rabbit laying eggs and hiding them in a garden was published. When the Puritans came to North America, they regarded the celebration of Easter, and the celebration of Christmas, with suspicion. They knew that pagans had celebrated the return of spring long before Christians celebrated Easter.
in Pennsylvania Dutch country, brought their Easter traditions with them. So, for the first two hundred years of European life in North America, only a few states paid much attention to Easter. Not until the end of the Civil War did Americans begin celebrating Easter. So however you choose to honor Easter, you can rest easy knowing that you are taking part of a celebration that in one form or another, stretches far back into the very dawn of history.
However, in the 1700s, German immigrants who settled DAWN OF THE NEW MILLENNIA
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Experts Examine Mystery Object That ‘Fell From the Sky’ NEAR a village in Siberia Head of Department for Civil Defence and Emergency Situations of the Kuibyshevski, Valery Vasiliev, said part of the fragment was made of ultra strong titanium. Finder Sergey Bobrov undertook in an official statement that he would keep the UFO safe, but locals reported that ‘police came during the night and secretly removed it’. A local police spokesman confirmed the object was now under guard by the force on orders from unspecified authorities. ‘You can see inside it, all is open, it’s empty, no danger here. We were asked to take and store it. We brought it here. And now we are going to wait until they come to take it if they need it’ said Sergei Sulein.
Experts Examine Mystery Object That Fell ‘From the Sky’ Space experts are trying to solve the mystery of ‘a UFO fragment’ which crashed close to a village in Siberia. Locals insist the metallic object – which resembles a large rubbish bin – fell from the skies but initial checks by experts have concluded it is neither from a rocket nor a missile.
It is now under police guard as interest in the ‘visitor’ intensifies. Weighing 200 kilograms and around two metres in height, locals fixed it onto a trailer and took across the snow to the village where local inspectors checked it. ‘The object found is not related to space technology. A final conclusion can be made after
a detailed study of the object by experts,’ said the Russian space agency Roscosmos. Locals insist the metallic object - resembling a large shiny rubbish bin - fell from the skies. The object is six feet long and is at least partially made of titanium steel. It’s now under police guard as interest in the ‘visitor’ intensifies. It was found near a village called Otradnensky some two thousand miles and three time zones east of Moscow. The Russian media immediately claimed ‘fragments of a UFO’ were discovered in the remote forest. Locals had heard strange sounds in the thick woodland in December, it was claimed. But it was only on Sunday that the find was reported to local police who then alerted Moscow.
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Yuri Bornyakov, head of rescue service department of Kuibyshevski district of Novosibirsk region, said: ‘We measured the radiation level near and inside the object. We found no radiation here.’
Initial theories that it was part of a space rocket or a satellite form a failed launch in Kazakhstan have been denied.
Source: Daily Mail http://www.dailymail. co.uk/sciencetech/article-2118280/Russianspace-expertscalled-examine-200-kiloUFO-fragment-fell-sky-Siberia. html
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APRIL 2012 CROSSWORD PUZZLE
Across
1. Commerce org. 4. Cover a road 8. Word of attention 12. German composer Franz ___ 15. Consumed (2 wds.) 17. Porters 18. Western African nation 19. Asian principle 20. Protrude 21. Engine stat 22. _____ in love & war (2 wds.) 24. Don’t beat here! 27. Coins 28. Songbird 29. Pindaric 30. Halo 31. Tarboosh 33. Highway (abbr.) 35. Figured right here 39. Roman road 41. Pig palace 43. Office worker 44. Beryl, for one 46. Desolate 47. Ohio city 49. Chilled 50. Airline name 51. One-armed bandits 53. Slither 55. Changes 57. Norse god 59. Record 60. Sealing wax 61. Bay tree 64. Subtraction 66. Demonstrates 70. Sea eagles 71. Celebrity, to some 73. Animal foot 75. Chem. suffix 76. Slight amount 77. Tropical fruit 79. Delirious 81. Gr. portico 82. Arrested, sent here (2 wds) 86. Fuel 88. Presidential monogram 89. Angular units 90. Rapscallion 91. ___ Arnaz 93. South Korean city 95. Bachelor’s last position 100. She has him here 103. Computer company 104. Society 105. Period 106. ___ Shady 107. Egyptian river 108. 1961 Heston movie 109. Tree type 110. Gratuities 111. Food shop 112. Guitarist Paul
Down 1. Ticket section 2. Freezing (2 wds.) 3. Foreshadow 4. Way of life 5. _____ vera 6. Prohibition (ger.) 7. Portuguese money 8. Handmaiden 9. Film producer Roach 10. Annex 11. Slip-up 12. Rehang it! It’s this 13. Decoy 14. Rocky hills 15. Textile 16. Pan or Griffin 23. Nonflowering plant 25. Explosives (abbr.)
26. Getting a room ready (2 wds.) 30. Footless 31. Lies 32. And others (latin) 34. Airport abbreviation 36. Mild oath 37. Compass pt. 38. Time period 40. Does 4 Across again 42. Distance measurements (abbr.) 45. Real estate inits. 48. Bummer! It was this 50. Prints on metal 52. Compass pt. 54. Charged particles 56. Sp. article 58. Coordinates 61. Allow 62. Saddle horse
63. Witness locale? 64. Lot’s son 65. America’s Uncle 67. Where you end up after a tragic mistake 68. Romances 69. Spline 72. Rechewed food 74. Jiggle 78. Mourning wear 80. Fla. county 83. Pull 84. Least busy 85. Coins collectively 87. Swamp plant 92. Braincase 93. Pop 94. Adam’s grandson 95. Resistance units 96. Gimme a Break star, Carter
97. Three, in German 98. Whitney and Manning 99. Doctor of Education (abbr.) 101. Actress MacGraw 102. Drink, a little at a time
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NAZI SPACE THIRLLER MAY FALl From the Sky And QUICKLY TO DVD have been considerably buoyed up during the six-year production period for Iron Sky by a large online community, cultivated since the early 90s when Torssonen began offering up a series of Star Trek parodies, which you can still see on YouTube. Iron Sky appears to be a textbook example of how to harness the digital community for both marketing and crowdfunding purposes. But it also shows the limits of the communitygenerated movie: proper comedy is a rare gift, and all the fancy, fanboy-titillating CGI effects in the world can’t make up for it.
IRON SKY: BACK DOWN TO EARTH! After the big build-up: the crash. Arguably the most anticipated film of this year’s Berlinale, the Nazis-in-space comedy Iron Sky turned out to be one giant damp squib. It’s not terrible, by any means: just not nearly as funny or cruel as its killer premise suggests. The poster tagline, one of the all-time greats, bears repeating: “In 1945, the Nazis went to the moon. In 2018, they are coming back.” But Finnish director Timo Vuorensola and producer Samuli Torssonen simply don’t deliver.
That said, Iron Sky looks impressive: a lot of time and effort has clearly gone into creating some topnotch space-flight CGI, while the Nazis’ swastika-shaped moon base – where a community of superrace refugees have holed up, under the leadership of the Führer
Vuorensola and Torssonen
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But what ensues is more Carry On than Starship Troopers: after being disturbed by an astronaut (Christopher Kirby), evil Nazi Adler (Götz Otto) jumps the gun and heads to Earth, in an attempt to grab a mobile phone or MP3 player that will get the Nazis’ giant battle cruiser, the Götterdämmerung, into the air. Perky Julia Dietze plays a not-really-evil Nazi mädchen called Renate, one who has swallowed all the brotherhood of the volk stuff, but not noticed all the ranting about killing. Renate’s head, moreover, has been turned by hunky African-American Kirby, who her doctor dad promptly injects with a whitening serum. Some of the gags aren’t too bad – there are funny lines at the expense of North Korea and Finland at a world Earth conference, and it’s amusing for about half a second when it turns out Sarah Palin is 2018’s US president. But no one on show has what you would call natural comic timing – a difficulty reinforced by the fact that half the cast aren’t speaking their native language in a decision – presumably for commercial purposes – to write most of the dialogue in English. Vuorensola, moreover, has no Paul Verhoevenesque moves
to offer; there’s hardly any edge and little thrill. Vuorensola and Torssonen can console themselves with the likelihood that the remake rights will be worth a bomb; I’ve no doubt a queue is already forming. Theirs is an
idea that Hollywood could do much better with.
Free Energy
PLAYING THE UFO CARD: A NEW WORLD ORDER AGENDA! DAWN OF THE NEW MILLENNIA
curity state designated the Soviet Union as a mortal enemy. It inaugurated the Cold War, a multiple trillion dollar, decades-long bonanza for the military-industrial complex Eisenhower would later warn about. Korea, Vietnam, and dozens of other countries around the world became the battleground for an epic (if largely mythical) and profitable struggle against an enemy created by Wall Street bankers (who also empowered Hitler and the Nazis).
Mars Attacks: Military Prof Says Pentagon Has Plan to Fight Aliens Kurt Nimmo Infowars.com April 10, 2012 Following the Second World War, a newly minted national se-
Following the takedown of the Soviet Union, the ruling elite manufactured the specter of Islamic terrorism. This fictional enemy has provided an effective if limited pretext for continued military adventures and mass expenditures. It has also fed the growth of a domestic police and surveillance state. However, like the Soviet “threat,” the Islamic boogeyman does not have the capacity to truly frighten the masses and stampede them into unquestioning servility. It does not have the capacity to inculcate them with the proper fear-based
mentality for permanent war. Enter the alien threat. The scheme was pushed over the Easter holiday on Australian television by Professor Paul Springer from the U.S. Air Command and Staff College. During an interview, Springer said the government and the Pentagon have plans for an alien invasion. The idea of an alien invasion is nothing new. Ronald Reagan mentioned the farcical possibility during a speech delivered before the United Nations in 1987. “In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world,” he said, alluding to the “common bond” of world government. Aerospace executive and space and missile defense consultant Carol Rosin claims she had a discussion with Dr. Wernher von Braun, the former top ranking SS officer who headed up the
Nazi rocket program during WWII and was sent to America to oversee its space program. According to Rosin, Wernher von Braun said the global elite will use a fake alien invasion in order to consolidate power and implement world government. The Pentagon, of course, spends a whole lot of our money preparing for infeasible invasions and crises – including the discredited theory of climate change – but before you dismiss the idea of an alien invasion as ludicrous, consider the fact a number of prominent people are pushing it, including the Keynesian economist Paul Krugman and the renowned physicist Michio Kaka (see videos below). Not surprisingly, Kaka said we’d need a world government to fend off the threat. Krugman approached the unlikely prospect from an economic perspective, claiming in essence an alien invasion would be the greatest makework project in human history and would help us out of the current economic downturn (also created, like the fake alien threat, by the global elite).
The man-made climate change crowd – exceedingly desperate now that their junk science theories have been disproven – are also pushing the alien invasion threat. A “scenario analysis” published by Cornell Universality states that aliens may punish us for emitting carbon into the atmosphere.
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“A preemptive strike would be particularly likely in the early phases of our expansion because a civilization may become increasingly difficult to destroy as it continues to expand. Humanity may just now be entering the period in which its rapid civilisational expansion could be detected by an ETI because our expansion is changing the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere, via greenhouse gas emissions,” the report states. “Green” aliens might object to the environmental damage humans have allegedly caused and wipe us out to save the planet. “These scenarios give us reason to limit our growth and reduce our impact on global ecosystems. It would be particularly important for us to limit our emissions of greenhouse gases, since atmospheric composition can be observed from other planets,” the Guardian reported last August, citing authors of the dubious report. The reason for a fake alien invasion is not really important, though. What matters to the global elite is creating a supercrisis far worse than anything that could ever be produced by cave-dwelling Muslim terrorists manufactured by the CIA or posed by a super-state like the Soviet Union. If Jim Marrs and others are correct – the United States military has an array of technologically advanced space craft and other technologies– these may be used by the elite to stage the ruse of an alien invasion and usher in world government as a savior.
Texas Marijuana March: Interview with TX Director. Josh Schimberg - Executive Director, Texas NORML
W: Welcome to Weird Magazine Josh. Tell us about the upcoming march on May 5th. TXNORML: First off, thanks for doing this interview, and for your dedication to promoting NORML’s cause in Weird Magazine. The Texas Marijuana March is an event in Austin, Texas, sponsored by Texas NORML, and done in conjunction with the Global Marijuana March which is held the first Saturday of May every year in cities around the world. It incorporates an activist march through downtown Austin, ending at the South Steps of the Texas State Capitol. We are hoping to have at least a couple thousand people in attendance this year, but in years past the attendance has topped out at an estimated 12001500. Later that evening, we’ll be at Flamingo Cantina, on 6th St. in downtown Austin for an afterparty celebration. Weird Magazine: For how many years has the March been going on now? TXNORML: Austin, along with 24 other cities, took part in the first ever Global Marijuana March in 1999. With the exception of the years between 2004-2007, Austin has always been a part of the event. Weird Magazine: What do central Texans need to know about the TEXAS NORML group? TXNORML:The first thing Texans need to know about Texas NORML is that this is a non-
profit organization run entirely by volunteer activists who care deeply about ending the arrests of our fellow citizens for marijuana. Nobody gets paid for working with Texas NORML. Secondly, Texans need to know that Texas NORML is a member based organization, and without our member base, we could not do the outreach, educating, and lobbying that we do year in and year out. Third, Texans need to know that Texas NORML needs much more support from marijuana consumers, and those who have a stake in this issue. Texas NORML has been able to help get thousands of letters, emails, and calls made to the Texas Legislature, but we desperately need more people to step up and put our legislators’ feet to the fire about ending arrests for responsible adult use of marijuana. Weird Magazine: Tell us who you have speaking at this years event? TXNORML: We have several people speaking at the Capitol this year; Clif Deuvall, Founder of NORML at Waco and current Candidate for Texas House Dist. 56; Dr. Kenneth Hendrickson, Sam Houston State Univ. NORML Kats Faculty Advisor, and History Professor; Vincent Lopez, Texas NORML Patient Liaison, and creator of The Austin 420; Jamie Spencer, Texas NORML’s Legal Counsel & Lifetime Member of NORML’s Legal Committee. We’ll also have a musical performance by one of our members, RPD, who plays an eclectic mix of styles he calls “cage free country crossover.” Weird Magazine: Tell us where the march begins and ends at, and what time etc? TXNORML: This year, the march to the Capitol will begin at Austin City Hall, at noon, and once the march arrives at the Capitol, the protest rally will be held from 1-3pm. This rally will feature
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those speakers I listed, including myself.
Weird Magazine: We also have been printing articles from Karli at the San Antonio chapter of NORML, and look forward to your contribution throughout the pages of Weird Magazine. TXNORML: I have seen the articles from Karli, and am very happy and grateful to you & Weird Magazine for featuring NORML so prominently in your publication. It is definitely a great help to NORML’s cause in Texas. I hope to be able to continue contributing in the future as well. Weird Magazine: How can local business owners donate or support TEXAS NORML? TXNORML: Local business owners can donate directly to Texas NORML on our website, Texas NORML dot org, and they can also support us by making donations to the chapter of things that we can raffle or auction off. Also, as far as venue owners, Texas NORML is always on the lookout for new venues where we can get our message out to the public. Whether this means allowing us to organize an event at a venue, or just come to set up our table and talk to folks, it all helps Texas NORML accomplish our mission; which is to affect public opinion sufficiently so that marijuana possession, use, or cultivation, is no longer a criminal offense.
Weird Magazine: So this April for 420 what have you guys got going on? TXNORML: 4/20 this year falls right on the first day of Austin Reggae Festival, and Texas NORML will be out in full force for that 3 day event. The Austin Reggae Festival over the years, along with our membership base, has been the primary source of Texas NORML fundraising. Weird Magazine: Is the Bob Marley event one of the biggest events of the year for you guys?
TXNORML: The Austin Reggae Festival is definitely the biggest event, every year, for Texas NORML. A significant portion of our yearly budget is made during that weekend, and we have the chance to speak with tens of thousands of people from all over the state. Without the Austin Reggae Festival, Texas NORML would not have been able to grow nearly as quickly as we have over the past 6 years. Weird Magazine: Where does NORML meet weekly or monthly? TXNORML:Texas NORML has a monthly public meeting the first Wednesday of every month at Flamingo Cantina on 6th St. in downtown Austin. The meetings start around 8pm and usually don’t last more than an hour and a half. They are always free to attend, and open to the public. Also, after each meeting adjourns, there is free live Reggae music provided by Flamingo Cantina for those meeting attendees who can stay a little later. The music is almost always played by the Mau Mau Chaplains, a longtime Austin roots Reggae band, and one of my favorites. Weird Magazine: Will Texas ever come close to California law. Think of the Jobs and economic stimulus legalizing cannabis would create? TXNORML:I believe that Texas will eventually come close to California law. In fact, I’m an optimist in this sense, because I firmly believe that sooner,
rather than later, marijuana will be legalized across the country. And, if you look at the history of issues like this, it begins at the state level. Using the California example for medical marijuana, their Prop 215 which legalized medical marijuana in 1996 was the first in a long string of states to follow suit. Now, 16 states and D.C. have legalized medical marijuana in some form, and just this year 20 more states are considering medical marijuana laws. The bigger news this year, however, are the outright legalization initiatives that are being worked on in 6 separate states; California, Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, Oregon, and Washington. There is a really good chance that at least one of those states will pass a legalization initiative this year, and once that happens, the dominoes will begin to fall just as they have with medical marijuana. Weird Magazine: I understand their is also an after party at Flamingo Cantina after the march on May 5th? TXNORM: We are hosting an after party at Flamingo Cantina on May 5th.The lineup is yet to be announced, and is being worked on by the management at Flamingo Cantina. It will almost definitely be a Reggae lineup, and will have a small cover charge at the door.
Dimitri’s Ascent Interview W: Welcome to Weird Magazine guys. Groovy tunes. DA: Thanks, we like to groove. Going with the flow of the collective consciousness and rolling with the changes. Weird Magazine: Tell us about Dimitri’s Ascent and introduce the band members? DA:Dimitri’s Ascent was originally formed in ‘06 as a four piece. It has undergone many changes in the lineup along the way. Kenny Broussard, the guitarist, has been with the band from the start. He created the name and wrote much of the early material including Farkle and Je M’appelle. Our current keyboard player, Russell Dobda, used to play sax for us when we’d do shows with his other band, ToasT. However, our old keyboard player moved away a couple of years ago, and we saw a great opportunity to improve that part of our sound. Our original drummer used to run all of the electronics, but he took a full-time engineering career, so we gave Russ the duty to pull all that into his computer. Surrounded by keyboards and with the occasional sax improv, he definitely keeps pretty busy. Our current drummer, Alan Eckert has been with us for almost a year now. He’s generally smiling back there, and he’s got a very versatile and energetic sound to his playing that we enjoy. Brian Felker is our newest addition on bass. The old bassist went to play with Wise Child and the Food is Free guys here in
Austin, but Brian is practically a virtuoso and plays every instrument, so we’ve found ourselves progressing exponentially since he’s joined. Right now, we feel we have the best lineup we’ve ever had. Weird Magazine: Your sound is quite unique, I caught your show last year at Tantra for the first time and I been meaning to get you guys in the Magazine. 420 Issue! Who knew? Describe the sound in your own words? DA: Some might call us jamtronica, but we don’t like to put ourselves in one box. As with many of the Austin jam bands, we pretty much cover everything. We definitely have the 420 vibe, but then again, just about everything sounds cooler after a toke. We like to blend things and touch what’s popular today, such as electronic music, but we still stay true to our instruments and the jazz influences keep our music heavily improvisational. The rebirth of disco (reformed and rebranded as ‘electronic dance music’) has been fun for us, hence the computer. We focus on utilizing all of our influences in the sounds we make, and we’re not afraid to leap from one genre to another. We love to listen to bluegrass, jazz, rock, funk, and dubstep in our free time so you can imagine how that might translate. There are no predefined limits and we are constantly changing and growing with the music. We have a definitive style and sound that has a way of letting the listener
know, no matter what style of music we may be playing, it’s most certainly Dimitri’s Ascent. Weird Magazine: Name some influences for the band? Do you guys like Phish? The Dead? The Live show is a bit psychedelic is why I make the reference. DA: We are definitely deadheads and all of us have been to a plethora of Phish shows over the years. We truly appreciate the ‘in the moment’ nature of long sections of open improvisational jamming, and the virtuosity and complexity of arrangements from Phish keep us on our toes. The improvisation aspect is a huge part of what we do. We’ve even done entire performances where we show up with nothing prepared and just improvise all night long, changing the key and syncopation in the moment based on what we feel in the room. Improvisation really helps music stay current because that is the quintessential way to play ‘in the moment.’ Getting locked into playing the forms of songs for a long time is a good way to stay tight, but it can also become stagnant and predictable. We like to keep it fresh. Weird Magazine: Tell us why the name Dimitri’s Ascent ? DA: Kenny -“Dimitri” represents the molecule DMT, which is naturally occurring in plants and animals, including humans. It is believed to have importance in the growth, evolution, and ascension of a human being. Weird Magazine: What upcoming gigs or festivals are you performing this Spring? DA: We are doing a run through the month of April that kicks off at Trees in Dallas where we will be playing with Zoogma and Fatty Lumpkin. Then, we’re off to Lubbock for a night of college town debauchery on our way up to visit Sancho’s in Denver, Colorado to play their legendary Monday night gig where people will get to see us play all night for
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one dollar. We cap it off with Eeyore’s Aftergathering at the Vortex in Austin on April 28. This one is going to be a ‘keep Austin weird’ event for sure. We’re doing a silent disco and you’ll get to watch us play in the theater or listen to us over headphones as you gaze at the stars outside. It’s a unique concept that seems to be exploding these days, and we like to be with the times
Weird Magazine: How do you write the perfect song?
Weird Magazine: What Inspires the band? the use of LSD and other psychedelic drugs.
Weird Magazine: What is your favorite groove band? Who do you guys like of local artist?
DA: Our inspirations are far and wide. All of us have a deep-rooted relationship with music and find a strong spiritual connection with it. Admittedly, we have also spent some time expanding our minds with various substances over the years that Mother Earth has provided us such as the green plant over which 420 lovers rejoice and the fungus among us. We have been known to dabble a bit in the use of waLter (water with L in it) to a small extent during some of our more experimental sets. Our keyboard player has been developing methods of reaching these kinds of altered states without the use of chemicals and is writing a series of guided meditations using binaural beat technology to help people to manifest to their higher selves. We definitely aren’t afraid to experiment with consciousness, especially through our music, but we are also aware that the real gift is already within ourselves and not external.
DA: The perfect song writes itself, and we are merely the messenger. When you get in the zen, you don’t have to consciously write anything; you simply let flow what the creative consciousness guides you to write.
DA: Everyone is going to have their own opinion on this. For Kenny, it’s the powerhouse jam bands: String Cheese Incident, Phish, Grateful Dead, and STS9. Russ pretty much can’t fall in love with a band unless it has at least one keyboard or horn in it, so Medeski Martin and Wood and Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe are at the top of his list. Felk’s early influences include Frank Zappa and Miles Davis, and nowadays he finds himself listening to lots of electronic dance music like Pretty Lights. Alan has some pop influences like Radiohead, but also loves electronic groove music like the New Deal. He grew up in a house of jazz musicians and his dad actually played sax on “Play That Funky Music White Boy” back in the day. As for Austin, we have a great local scene. Grooveland is one of the production companies out there doing the good work to showcase a lot of them such as ToasT, Funkotron, Moving Matter, A Live One, Holding Space, Wise Child, the Trim, and Interstellar Transmissions.
Dimitri’s Ascent Interview The Dead, and shake it all up into a bottle of Blueberry Jam, how would you eat the psychedelic spread? DA:On a Phish sandwich of course. Weird Magazine: In my best Wayne Campbell voice:
Weird Magazine: Where will you guys be on April 20th this year? DA:Wherever it is, it will probably smell green. Weird Magazine: What are your thoughts on the MAYAN calendar and Dec 21st 2012? What will happen? Something Good? Something Bad? Nothing at All? DA: We like to remain optimistic, so we’re going to set a positive affirmation that this date reflects the dawning of a new age of consciousness where
Excellent! Damn you guys rock! That last question was inspired by the 7. Je m’appelle track on youtube! Jeesh yall GROOVE! Any Final thoughts to weird readers?
DA:Believe in yourself and always continue to try to ascend to your higher self. Don’t let anyone bring you down with self-defeating attitudes or judgements of your personal path. Do your thing and enjoy your life! Share and share alike! Oh, and don’t forget to come out to Eeyore’s Aftergathering at the end of this month to get weird with us!
people start to realize that they already have all the gifts they need within themselves to manifest any dream they wish, and the folly of judgmental and hypocritical attitudes such as making plants illegal in favor of powerful man-made pharmaceuticals becomes apparent. Hopefully, this also includes the realization that our current monetary and political system is a joke and there’s a better way to work together as a species to make the world a better place for all of us. Weird Magazine: If you could bottle Ken Keasey and the Merry Pranksters in a mason Jar with Roky Ericson, Pink Floyd,
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WEIRD WEATHER in unprecedented extreme weather and climate events,” the report found. Some of the documented imbalances in the climate have certainly become remarkable.
Weather Runs Hot and Cold, So Scientists Look to the Ice Some people call what has been happening the last few years
“weather weirding,” and
March is turning out to be a fine example. As a surreal heat wave was peaking across much of the nation last week, pools and beaches drew crowds, some farmers planted their crops six weeks early, and trees burst into bloom. “The trees said: ‘Aha! Let’s get going!’ ” said Peter Purinton, a maple syrup producer in Vermont. “ ‘Spring is here!’ ” Now, of course, a cold snap in Northern states has brought some of the lowest temperatures of the season, with damage to tree crops alone likely to be in the millions of dollars. Lurching from one weather extreme to another seems to have become routine across the Northern Hemisphere. Parts of the United States may be shivering now, but Scotland is setting heat records. Across Europe, people died by the hundreds during a severe cold wave in the first half of February, but a week later revelers in Paris were strolling down the Champs-Élysées in their shirtsleeves. Does science have a clue what is going on? The short answer appears to be: not quite. The longer answer is that researchers are developing theories that, should they withstand critical scrutiny, may tie at least some of the erratic weather to
global warming. Specifically, suspicion is focused these days on the drastic decline of sea ice in the Arctic, which is believed to be a direct consequence of the human release of greenhouse gases. “The question really is not whether the loss of the sea ice can be affecting the atmospheric circulation on a large scale,” said Jennifer A. Francis, a Rutgers University climate researcher. “The question is, how can it not be, and what are the mechanisms?” Some aspects of the climate situation are clear from earlier research. As the planet warms, many scientists say, more energy and water vapor are entering the atmosphere and driving weather systems. “The reason you have a clothes dryer that heats the air is that warm air can evaporate water more easily,” said Thomas C. Peterson, a researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A report released on Wednesday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations body that issues periodic updates on climate science, confirmed that a strong body of evidence links global warming to an increase in heat waves, a rise in episodes of heavy rainfall and other precipitation, and more frequent coastal flooding. “A changing climate leads to changes in the frequency, intensity, spatial extent, duration and timing of extreme weather and climate events, and can result
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United States government scientists recently reported, for instance, that February was the 324th consecutive month in which global temperatures exceeded their long-term average for a given month; the last month with below-average temperatures was February 1985. In the United States, many more record highs are being set at weather stations than record lows, a bellwether indicator of a warming climate. So far this year, the United States has set 17 new daily highs for every new daily low, according to an analysis performed for The New York Times by Climate Central, a research group in New Jersey. Last year, despite a chilly winter, the country set nearly three new highs for every low, the analysis found. But, while the link between heat waves and global warming may be clear, the evidence is much thinner regarding some types of weather extremes. Scientists studying tornadoes are plagued by poor statistics that could be hiding significant trends, but so far, they are not seeing any long-term increase in the most damaging twisters. And researchers studying specific events, like the Russian heat wave of 2010, have often come to conflicting conclusions about whether to blame climate change. Scientists who dispute the importance of global warming have long ridiculed any attempt to link greenhouse gases to weather extremes. John R. Christy, a climate scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, told Congress last year that “the weather is very dynamic, especially at local scales, so that extreme events of one type or another will occur somewhere on the planet every year.” Yet mainstream scientists are determined to figure out which climate extremes are being influenced by human activity, and their attention is increasingly drawn to the Arctic sea ice.
Because greenhouse gases are causing the Arctic to warm more rapidly than the rest of the planet, the sea ice cap has shrunk about 40 percent since the early 1980s. That means an area of the Arctic Ocean the size of Europe has become dark, open water in the summer instead of reflective ice, absorbing extra heat and then releasing it to the atmosphere in the fall and early winter. Dr. Francis, of Rutgers, has presented evidence that this is affecting the jet stream, the huge river of air that circles the Northern Hemisphere in a loopy, meandering fashion. Her research suggests that the declining temperature contrast between the Arctic and the middle latitudes is causing kinks in the jet stream to move from west to east more slowly than before, and that those kinks have everything to do with the weather in a particular spot. “This means that whatever weather you have today — be it wet, hot, dry or snowy — is more likely to last longer than it used to,” said Dr. Francis, who published a major paper on her theory a few weeks ago. “If conditions hang around long enough, the chances increase for an extreme heat wave, drought or cold spell to occur,” she said, but the weather can change rapidly once the kink in the jet stream moves along. Not all of her colleagues buy that explanation. Martin P. Hoerling, a NOAA researcher who analyzes climate
events, agrees with other scientists that global warming is a problem to be taken seriously. But he contends that some researchers are in too much of a rush to attribute specific weather events to human causes. Dr. Hoerling said he had run computer analyses that failed to confirm a widespread effect outside the Arctic from declining sea ice. “What’s happening in the Arctic is mostly staying in the Arctic,” he said. Dr. Hoerling suspects that future analyses will find the magnitude of this month’s heat wave to have resulted mostly from natural causes, but he conceded, “It’s been a stunning March.” That was certainly what farmers thought. Mr. Purinton, the syrup producer in Huntington, Vt., has been tapping maple trees for 46 years, since he was a boy. This year he tapped the trees two weeks earlier than normal, a consequence of the warm winter. But when the heat wave hit, the trees budded early, and this tends to ruin the taste of maple syrup. That forced him to stop four weeks earlier than normal and cut his production in half compared with a typical year. “Is it climate change? I really don’t know,” he said. “This was just one year out of my 46, but I have never seen anything like it.”
Studio 13 Interview Studio 13 : The 21st will be the same as the 20th, the day before. The NWO will continue it’s plans to fake space aliens landing on earth. ET’s will plan to conqueer our world and devide it up with the remaining NAZI that have survived since WW2, A global domination of the Arayan Race. Damn these bankers and the New World Order. so F is our answer! Weird Mag: What makes Studio 13 so unique?
Weird Magazine:
Welcome to Weird Magazine guys! Studio 13 : Thanks glad to be part of weird mag the pulse of San Marcos. Weird Magazine: Tell us about Studio 13 in San Marcos. Studio 13 : We are a mom and pop shop we came to San Marcos 4 yrs ago and its been anything but dull there is always somthing cool happing in San Marcos. Weird Magazine: How long have you guys been in business? Studio 13 : A couple years here at Hopkins and hopfully for a few more years here! Weird Magazine: The store has really improved since you’ve been in the new location. Is that fair to say? Studio 13 : That is fair to say, we’ve just had fun and made improvements since we have moved to the Hopkins location and we really like to thank our customers for the recent suc-
cess. Weird Magazine: What Specials are going on for 420 this April at Studio 13? Studio 13 : 20% off all glass for the month . We are always doing sales or specials .Also when we can we have herbal samples availble too. Weird Magazine: What is your favorite 420 Movie of all time?
Studio 13 : Half Baked , Up In Smoke , Dazed and Confused and The Right Smoke too! Weird Mag:
What happens Dec 21st 2012: A: Mankind awakens to it’s true inner purpose of enlightenment B: Mayan Aliens invade Mexico and conquer Texas C: Bigfoot gets fed up with Chemtrails and speaks to CNN for his first exclusive interviewD: All of the Above E: None of the above but A would be the coolest -
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Studio 13 : Quality control. We use our products too. Also, customer service, a diverse variety of glass, and of course great prices!
and they go through a rigorous testing process before hitting our shelves! We love trying products and finding cool stuff to move on our shelves!
Weird Mag:Thanks Guys! Any final thoughts to Weird readers?
Weird Mag: Are there always different herbal blends for incense use ?
Weird Mag: What Special deals are you offering on April 20th?
Studio 13 : We love San Marcos and invite everybody in Austin or SM to come by the shop and say hi!
Studio 13 : Yes, we carry a large variety we constantly are searching for new things to try. We test all our products
Studio 13 : 20 % Off all Glass in the Store ALL month long! As for us, we will be totaly baked! That is, the pancake is done!
Weird Magazine rocks!
THE 420 SPOT
Weird Magazine:
Welcome to Weird Magazine and our 420 issue. Hey wait . . . your the fourtw. ..... 420 SPOT : entyspot....its really a state of mind. Where you are in your head. We like to practice this daily.
Weird Magazine: Groovy! So what’s popping at the Spot this April? 420 SPOT : We are just getting ready for all the fun events coming up this summer. We are finally able to host our monthly First Thursday Parties!! It is something we started at our old location a few years back. We had a party each month on First Thursdays. Even in February with no heat, it was snowing, and we where serving hot cider and jamming out to local blue grass. Our parties consist of Live Glassblowing Demonstrations, a raffle for a great prize, live music and usually drinks. Its always fun and they start May 3rd. We are always stocking up on local glass, we buy it weekly. Besides that the usual in house glassblowing taking custom orders and repairs. Weird Magazine: So not only do you guys feature
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local glass artists, but you blow your own glass right here at the 420 SPOT? 420 SPOT : Thats right. We feel like that is our niche. There are a lot of smoke shops in this town. Most of them feature local glassblowers. Which lucky for us Austin has a ton of talented artist. We offer the local glass and we go a step further and create glass pipes, chillums, bubblers or anything that we can really. We have fun with it and so do our customers. If you have a broken water pipe or just have something in your head you havent been able to find anywhere else, come by our shop and we can help. Weird Magazine: Will the 420 Spot be offering some cool deals on glass this month? 420 SPOT : You bet we will.... around the week of 4/20 we will be doing some fun things and having some great deals. Come in for your self to find out or find us on Facebook for more details. Weird Magazine: Favorite 420 Movie of all time? Favorite 420 Snack?
420 SPOT : Our favorite bands are.....dimitris ascent, toast, funkatron, holding space, moving matter, interstellar transmission and dead eye.....just to name a few....check them out.... they are all funky!! 420 SPOT : Oh of course its Cheech and Chong in “Up in Smoke”. That movie is hilarious. Russell, we need to somehow create another van like their van(probably in california). Our favorite snack? We think the question should be what is not good to snack on in the 420 mind state....um.... We think everything is good then Weird Magazine: Do you know the history behind 420?If not See Page 28.
420 SPOT : I believe it has to do with students hanging out after class....finding that state of mind....but we will see what you guys have to say. Weird Mag: What makes the 420 Spot so unique in South Austin? 420 SPOT : We are about as local as it gets in south austin and headshops. We are owned locally, the owner works at the shop all the time, we buy local glass and we have glass blowers working in the back of our store. Creating anything we can with borosilic glass. Weird Mag: Who is your favorite Local band? you can name a few.
Weird Mag: Why do weird magazine readers need to come to 420 spot this month? 420 SPOT : Its April...come on, get real. Everyone needs to stop by the 420 spot this month and pay homage to our roots!! No but really, come by and see for yourself what we are doing here at our store. You can watch us blow glass anytime and mention weird magazine and get free papers just for stopping by. Weird Mag: What if someone comes in to the 420 Spot at 4:20 PM on April 20th?Will a time warp occur? A rift in the space
time continuum? Free Papers? What will happen in that :60 sec span of time? 420 SPOT : Um....it will probably be closed. Thats right....we will probably be closing at around 4pm that day. Unless we can find someone to work....but that would be weird right? But if you stand under our porch at 4:20 I think you might travel back in time or something Weird Mag: Hey thanks guys! See ya at the shop this month! 420 SPOT: Thank you weird magazine. You guys do a great job of keeping it weird here in Austin TX. We keep it weird at the shop. I hope all the readers are keeping it weird. Thanks Guys!!
BARTENDER OF THE MONTH PAGE
Knowledge is Power - use it to Party Hardy and Avoid Jail ) - By Jamie Balagia Knowledge is Power - use it to Party Hardy and Avoid Jail By Jamie Balagia
thing possible to make sure it was on a timeline unless it was for a self surrender on an arrest warrant. Typically, you are driving home when the red lights come on and your journey to the pokey (when did that term get popular) begins. Most of us don’t
April is a month of party events from San Antonio to Austin and all around those two cities as well. Make sure that you don’t let the party get out of control and have the cops turn “party pooper” on you and your friends. There is nothing worse than having a good time turn into a bad time at the County Jail. “Knowledge is Power” and here are some thoughts and tips that can help you avoid spending the night in a jail cell.
memorize phone numbers anymore since they are saved in our cell phones. When you are given your one phone call from jail you better know who you are calling and what to say to them. Some officers are polite enough to let you copy a phone number out of your cell phone but usually they don’t so always have one responsible person’s contact information memorized.
1. Everyone should make an agreement with a family member or friend that they will help each other out if an unexpected arrest occurs. Keep my phone number (512-278-0935 for San Marcos to Austin & 210394-3833 for New Braunfels to San Antonio) in your cell phone and make sure your family and friends have it as well. It is very frustrating to try and find the right criminal defense lawyer with zero notice. I have bail bond companies on “stand-by” to assist my clients to get out of jail ASAP! We also keep an attorney ready to see a judge at all hours.
I am often contacted by potential clients that tell me that they regret staying with the attorney that helped them initially because they hired the wrong person at first. This does not have to happen if you are prepared for an emergency like this up front. This is one reason why it is so important to have good contact information at hand when trouble strikes. Of course, you have the right to correct this mistake by hiring my firm and getting us to file a “Motion to Substitute” in on your case. But it is always best to hire us up front so mistakes are not made and deadlines are not missed in the early stages of your representation. I have been hired on the eve of a Jury Trial setting too many times to remember when the initial lawyer tries to tell you that a guilty plea is the only option.
The cops do not let you decide when they take you to jail - they decide. I can’t remember a time when I was hired by someone that told me they planned to be arrested and did every-
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The judges want to avoid appellate errors so they will usually approve the Motion to Substitute if a good lawyer explains it. *** (Remember good lawyers aren’t cheap and cheap lawyers aren’t good!) 2. If you are drinking always take money for a cab. I also want to remind the girls to keep that money separate from your purse so in case someone rips it off you won’t be stranded. The police officers are more likely to arrest you than let you go if you are driving with an alcoholic odor on your breath. I advise people that if you drink and decide to drive then tell yourself that you will be stopped by the cops and investigated for DWI. If you are certain that you will not be arrested because you are not intoxicated then ask a sober person if they agree with you before getting behind the wheel. If you don’t drive a vehicle you can’t get busted for DWI, except in Austin where the DWI Task Force arrested two Mexican citizens for riding a horse and a mule down Sixth Street. They should have drug tested the officers that made those arrests which were finally dismissed after the Travis County Attorney’s Office did everything they could to get the charges into a courtroom but failed to do so. Remember that both breath and blood results can be misleading and show you to be intoxicated when you aren’t. I almost always advise people not to take those tests but it is your decision and you will have to deal with the drivers license suspension issues. (go to dwidude.com for info) Always call my office within the first week after being arrested so I can make sure that we appeal any drivers license suspension and fight the drivers license case at the DPS hearing. I advise that you never take the roadside agility tests (SFST) unless you know what the officers are looking for and you can absolutely nail the tests with 100% accuracy. You should also go to dwidude.com and review the information on the SFST information ahead of time so you will know what the heck is happening before being put on the spot on the side of the road and messing up. 3. Don’t accept any beverage from someone you don’t know well enough to bet your life on.
I have handled a number of cases that have me convinced that someone put a “Mickey Finn” in their drink. There have been a number of cases involving GHB and other hard to identify drugs in Austin and San Antonio where people have been involved in auto accidents and didn’t even know they were driving. Some of these cases were attempted “date rapes” gone bad and others involved people thinking it was a prank to dope up a friend’s drink without telling them. I have also worked cases when someone took Ambien or other sleep aids and went to bed only to wake up in their pajamas in the drunk tank. Also, be very careful when you take a new medication or when mixing alcohol with any medication for the first time or against doctor’s orders. The last thing you want to do is hurt yourself or someone else and wake up facing a Felony charge exposing you to a long prison sentence. Prosecutors, judges and juries are not opposed to handing out prison sentences to first time Intoxication Assault (2-10 years exposure) or Intoxication Manslaughter (2-20 years exposure) offenders. Worst of all is having to live with the injuries you can cause others and yourself for the rest of your life. There is nothing sadder than being in a courtroom when a family starts talking about missing their dead family member. 4. Never decide to drive because you are “not as drunk” as your friends or the designated driver who went overboard. I have represented a bunch of people that fit this description. It can get confusing about who should drive when you are just a little bit over the limit but compared to all your drunk friends you appear to be in pretty good shape. Always decide before you start the party what your role will be so there won’t be any confusion later about who is driving. If your friends or the designated driver is not absolutely sober then use that cab money from tip #1 and get everybody home safe. And if the cops wrongfully arrest the “Designated Driver” due to odor and red eyes, I can assure you that everybody in the car is going to jail for Public
Intoxication. Spending the night in the drunk tank is a bona fide bummer.
5. Don’t carry any 420 type stuff in public, your car or your inner tube. In Guadalupe County, the Party Pooper Police are illegally searching the containers and ice chests of people floating the river. The problem is that you do not avoid the trip to jail, the confiscation of your 420, the price of bond and the cost of hiring the 420Dude at the Law Office of Jamie Balagia to get the arrest tossed out. I want you guys to have a great April and paying out a ton of cash to fix trouble that could and should have been avoided ain’t cool. (see 420Dude.com for great info) 6. Keep the party within limits by setting limits before the party begins. This wasn’t necessary when I was partying hard at college in San Marcos. The drinking age was 18 and we were absolute party animals but unfortunately times have changed. Nowadays, it seems like the cops are trying to arrest everyone they can for everything they can possibly charge them with. They used to tell us to turn it down a little so the neighbors will stop complaining. Except for the flame throwers we put the X Project to shame with our ten kegger parties and roll your own smoke fests. Today that would get the National Guard and Home Land Security called out in mass with buses to haul us all to jail. (see jamiebalagia.com)
Knowledge is Power - use it to Party Hardy and Avoid Jail ) - By Jamie Balagia legal way to catch those police lies. I am not talking about all officers but the percentage is increasing every year if what I am hearing from defense attorneys is accurate.
When I was a cop in Austin from 1979 to 1990 we thought our job was to “To Protect and To Serve” the citizens, not give them all criminal records. We concentrated on protecting good people from violent people but sadly, times have changed. The current policies of most Police Departments, Sheriff’s Offices and Prosecuting Attorneys would have us stand silently by while watching our neighbors for violations of the anti-fun rules so we could snitch them off like the “good Germans” did during WWII. It is getting harder and harder to find the “cool cops” on patrol. I won’t go into the effect
9/11/01 and the continuing call for “tough justice” has had on the juries that are hearing your criminal cases but I have never seen a time that jurors are more apt to believe the testimony of police officers. And this even when the cross examination process shows that the officers are sometimes making up testimony from the stand. That goes along with police officers thinking that it is acceptable to “testi-lie” while under oath if that will assure a guilty verdict. And I am talking about cases that involve traffic tickets to misdemeanors to felonies. I can’t tell you how disappointing it is to listen as officers go from slanting their testimony to outright lying if there is no
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I mention that because indeed times have changes and you and your liberty is at risk. President Obama promised us that the Federal Government would not pursue Medical Marijuana providers if that State’s lawmakers had provided procedures to be followed. Obama lied and lives are being harmed and careers destroyed. Get a marijuana conviction and you lose your driver’s license and federal college financial aid. You can get kicked out of some colleges and lose your job and careers. We are witnessing police forensic lab scandals across our country and DNA testing is showing hundreds of cases where we convicted innocent people. There has never been a time in our lives that we are seeing our civil liberties being restricted. Please stand up and shout out that this must stop. We are “We the people…” that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are talking about. If we don’t stand against the tyrants in our own government, who will? If we don’t start doing so right now, will we ever do so? Talk about these issues
with your friends, in college classrooms, at work, at parties, in bars and clubs. And stand up to any police misbehavior by videotaping every police encounter you see with other citizens. No law enforcement officer or prosecutor or politician should ever object to being videotaped while they are doing their job the one we pay them to do. They work for us! Demand accountability from all of our employees, all the time. And demand involvement from yourself, now. At the Law Offices of Jamie Balagia, we answer our phones 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We use an answering service that forwards the live call to the “on call” attorney and your contact information and message is also texted to us in case there is a phone line issue. It is always best to contact the responsible person and have them call our office so that we have someone we can talk to that is not locked up. Go to all of our websites to learn about your various legal rights and also to correct any misinformation you may have been wrongfully told or learned over the years. DWIDude.com,
420Dude.com, DrugDude.com and JamieBalagia.com all have great content that you should be aware of before you need to know it. Remember the power that knowledge can give you and make sure you are prepared to face the adversity of an arrest, wrongful or otherwise. Don’t hire an attorney because they talk good, ask about their track record in the courtroom and in jury trials. Fight the Power! Jamie Balagia jamie@dwidude.com
420 - a History of the time - the date - hail the caniubus culture. but where did it begin? - By Molly Maroney
service member that could no longer care for his plants that were located somewhere near the area’s Coast Guard station. All athletes, the group of friends decided to meet everyday after practice, around 4:20 p.m., in front of a statue of Louis Pasteur, calling their plan “420 Louis” and eventually just “420.” “We’d meet at 4:20 and get in my old ‘66 Chevy Impala and, of course, we’d smoke instantly and smoke all the way out to Pt. Reyes and smoke the entire time we were out there. We did it week after week,” Steve reported to the Huffington Post. “We never actually found the patch.” Though they came back empty-handed they found a useful codeword, a codeword that would soon spread throughout the Grateful Dead subculture. The Cheshire cat got out of the bag and soon spread like bong water, beginning where any stoner would logically start – The Grateful Dead.
Everyone has the same answer for what it means, but where it comes from always seems to produce a different response: It’s got something to do with Hitler’s birthday and the Columbine massacre. It is the temperature at which marijuana burns and the number of chemicals in THC. It’s the numbers in a Bob Dylan song multiplied. The bill to legalize marijuana was number 420. It was the radio code used by police that means someone was in possession, and it’s the time kids get out of school and meet to light up. These are just some of the myths surrounding the term 420, and while the real origin of the term seems to have been lost in the hazy minds of
The Waldos, a self-named group by virtue that they hung out by a wall outside their school, were the true originators of the expression. The Huffington Post reported that they spoke with Waldo Steve, Waldo Dave and Dave’s older brother, Patrick, and confirmed their identities, which they are keeping secret for professional reasons.
Waldo Mark’s father took care of real estate for the Grateful Dead, and Waldo Dave’s older brother, Patrick, managed a Dead sideband and was good friends with bassist Phil Lesh. . The Huffington Post reports that Waldo Steve recalls, “The Grateful Dead had this rehearsal hall on Front Street, San Rafael, California, and they used to practice there. So we used to go hang out and listen to them play music and get high while they’re practicing for gigs. But I think it’s possible my brother Patrick might have spread it through Phil Lesh. And me, too, because I was hanging out with Lesh and his band when they were doing a summer tour my brother was managing.”
In the fall of 1971, they decided to search out abandoned cannabis crops hiding somewhere in a Point Reyes, Calif., forest. They had learned of a Coast Guard
The band that Patrick managed was called Too Loose To Truck and featured not only Lesh but rock legend David Crosby and acclaimed guitarist Terry Haggerty.
those herb enthusiasts that observe this internationally recognized celebration, the name can indeed be traced back to a group of high school kids in San Rafael, Calif, that met afterschool to light up.
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With the Grateful Dead playing hundreds of shows around the world throughout the 1970s and 1980s and open access to Dead parties, term had spread throughout San Rafael and was cropping up elsewhere around the country. Once High Times got hip to it, the magazine helped take it global. Steven Hager, the creative director of High Times magazine, started using it for High Times’ events, such as the World Hemp Expo Extravaganza and the Cannabis Cup. Sometime in the early ‘90s, High Times wisely purchased the web domain 420.com Hager flew out to San Rafael, met the Waldos, examined their evidence and agreed that they deserved to be given the credit. “We never made a dime on the thing,” said Waldo Dave in another article. “I still have a lot of friends who tell their friends that they know one of the guys that started the 420 thing. So it’s kind of like a cult celebrity thing.” In the High Times October 1998 article, “Are You Stoner Smart or Stoner Stupid?” Hagar called for 4:20 p.m. to be the socially accepted hour of the day to consume cannabis. “It’s not so early to interfere with the most important working period of your day. And it’s late enough, that I
think it’s appropriate. It’s like tea time,” said Hager in a Toronto Sun article. The Waldos may not have intended for the term to spread worldwide, but pot smokers now celebrate each April 20 and every 4:20 p.m. for that matter as a result of their foray into the Point Reyes forest. Sources 1. The New York Times, “Marijuana Advocates Point to Signs of Change” http://www. nytimes.com/2009/04/20/ us/20marijuana.html?_r=1 2. The Huffington Post, “What 420 Means: The True Story Behind Stoners’ Favorite Number” http://www.huffingtonpost. com/2009/04/20/what-420means-the-true-s_n_188320. html 3. Canoe News, “Pot activists to light up on Hill” http:// cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/