New Drug War Follies column in Skunk magazine

My new column for Skunk magazine. You know, I was very lucky to be asked to contribute to Skunk about 10 years ago. And I've run my column, Drug War Follies, in all but a couple of issues--I think I was late with it twice and then in the hospital once or twice and didn't write one. Today, the latest issue came and I got to see what I wrote about 6 weeks ago and I was happy with it. I was reading it and thinking, Gosh, I wish I wrote that!--and then of course, realized I did write that. Silly, but still a good rush to be happy with work well done. So here it is, and the whole issue is great because it covers the Women of the Cannabis Movement. And when the editor, John V, announced who he was going to cover, lots of us in the movement longer than him--and he's a well-seasoned pro now--reminded him of names some people have forgotten that he then included. So while nobody asked me to tell you to go buy the current issue of Skunk, with the key cover line being Women of Weed, I'm still going to tell you to do it. It's a good time to tip our hats to hundreds of women who have worked ferociously to end the drug war, to lessen the pain of the drug war, to inform a lot of us of illnesses that cannabis can help treat in a body-friendly way. These are women who put their lives and freedom on the line and they are fantastically brave and if I was a soldier and had the right, I would salute them all. As I'm not, I can only say a very respectful, Thank you. Thank you very much for your work, your sacrifice, your hearts. 
    Here's my new column:
Drug War Follies #84

Those irascible Repubs! That incredible DEA! Hell, we almost got a flippin’ lovefest going on here. Not!


By Peter Gorman


Well, well, well. We sat on our asses while the gerrymandering went on. We sat on our asses during the last election cycle. And now we’re gonna pay the price here in the U.S.A. for that. You people up in Canada have your own problems with insane Conservatives, I know, but when it comes to outright idiocy, I think my Congressmen and Senators from Texas alone have all of the nutty Canadian politicos beat. Batty John Cornyn? Can-Tex Teddy Cruz? Little Louie Gohmert? That’s a Texas-sized six-gallon hatful of fucking crazy right there.
    So in case anyone is not keeping score--and I know I’m getting off the drug war tact here for a few minutes but this is important, so pay freaking attention!--the Republicans maintained control of the House of Representatives and took control of the Senate recently. And emboldened by what they see as the will of the people of the U.S. after that victory, they lost no time in pushing through several bills that would not just set us back 100 years, but would have us fighting the Civil War all over again while they ate popcorn and applauded the bloodshed.
    Yeah, okay, so what did they do?
    Well, first thing was pass a bill allowing the Keystone Pipeline to proceed full speed ahead. Why? Because they’re freaking stupid, that’s why. For years everyone with a brain in their general vicinity has been noting that the Alberta Tar Sands won’t produce jobs, will not provide any petroleum products to the U.S., and TransCanada won’t even have to pay taxes on moving it through the States because it’s being shipped out of the international free port of Port Arthur. Nonetheless, top of the agenda: Push the Keystone through, with Crazy John Cornyn still insisting it will produce 250,000 jobs. John, take off the tinfoil, John. Lay it down easy there, boy. Don’t hurt yourself.
   Okay, we knew they were gonna pull that shit because it will make Obama veto it and then the Repubs can claim the president is obstructing jobs. Yeah, all 35-40 of them, mostly going to TransCanada execs--unless you count the thousands of jobs we’ll create to clean up tar sands spills--which can’t really be cleaned up. 
   Then they went after the Affordable Care Act again, lodging the 57th lawsuit intended to overturn Obamacare. For those who forget, among the provisions of the ACA are 1) insurance companies must use 80 percent of the funds they bring in for actual medical care, not for administrative costs; 2) insurance companies cannot turn people down for a pre-existing condition; 3) insurance companies cannot set limits on the money they spend for a person’s treatment; 4) kids up to 26 are kept on their parent’s insurance policies. 
    Those four items alone make it a fantastic law. Which is why the Repubs want to repeal it so badly. Just an ornery, dumb bunch.
    Then they’re about to shut down the Department of Homeland Security because they’ve tied funding our border patrol to quashing President Obama’s immigration policies--so he ain’t gonna be signing that any time soon. By the way, those immigration policies simply say that the U.S. deport criminals here illegally before they deport illegal parents of legal kids who got citizenship based on having been born here. 
    Then they’ve introduced legislation to ban abortion after 20 weeks, regardless of circumstances.
    They’ve said they will call for states to receive block grants for education from the federal government which they can utilize for anything at all--they don’t want education funds earmarked for education. Isn’t that special? How to balance a state budget on little Timmy’s back, 101.
    They’re planning even more nonsense: after having used the Senate filibuster a record 315 times during the first six years of Obama’s presidency to prevent bills coming up for a vote, they’re now suggesting they change the rules to prevent any filibusters by the Democrats.
   They’ve introduced a bill that would make it illegal for the president to create new national parks or national monuments--the standard way in which those parks and monuments have been created for more than 100 years. Hell, yeah, who needs more protected green space when we can use that land to strip mine for coal and copper after we’ve clear-cut the trees?
   They’re about to introduce legislation that will allow employers to not provide full time employees with health care.
   Bills are being introduced to provide more corporate tax cuts. They want to privatize social security. They plan on allowing corporations to cut their contributions to worker’s pension funds. They’ve introduced legislation cutting worker disability payments and food stamps. They’ve introduced legislation to further gut restrictions on banks and investment firms so that greed can run unbridled into the night.
   See where this is going? Straight to hell in a hand basket. Every goddamned decent social cause and safety net, trampled on. Who are these people? I know they say “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” and all that, but a person cannot do that if they ain’t got boots. 
   I got issues with the president and the Democrats. They’re way too wishy-washy for me, way too centrist and not nearly bold enough or brave enough to push through real reforms that would transform the U.S. back into an innovative powerhouse. Hell, they can’t even get money to rebuild freaking infrastructure--which would not only save lives but produce millions of good jobs--so yeah, I got issues. But the guys on the other side of the fence--they really suck. They really like to inflict pain on the weak, the young, the old, the infirm, the powerless. Probably haven’t got a full-sized dick among them.
   Watch out below, because the U.S.A. is falling fast.

Ya know, I just can’t get over going to the DEA’s official website and going through their top stories now and then. I’ve said it before, but somehow I think their top stories are going to involve intercepting 10 tons of coke or a ton of heroin or 1 million oxycodone or something like that. I mean, we spend better than $3 billion a year on them and so I expect they’re going to do spectacular things. Now, personally, I want all drugs legalized, period. I do not want one more person losing freedom or property over drugs, drug dealing, for the rest of time. I want the private prisons closed, I want drug cops laid off, I want drug courts abolished. BUT, if you’re going to spend $3 billion on the DEA annually, you’d think their top stories would be pretty spectacular accounts of airplane chases, cigarette boat chases, warehouse busting, you know Miami Vice sort of stuff. But that’s just not how it is: On a recent Monday, the top national DEA stories, the ones they were touting to show what a great job they were doing included one story about two doctors in Detroit illegally prescribing oxycodone and Roxicodone to patients, then buying it back from them and selling it to street dealers. Another top story involved a deputy sheriff and her brother trying to sneak 36 pounds of weed across the Mexican border. A third involved an operation called Operation Safe Schools, which netted 19 small time dealers within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds in the South of Market district of San Francisco.
   Those are pretty small time busts. I mean, for $3 billion anyway. But at least there were no reports of wrong address killings or the like, so that’s good. But considering that tons and tons of cocaine are imported daily to the U.S. and Canada, and that probably a full ton of heroin comes in and tons of meth, well, either someone’s asleep at the wheel or the real dealers are very, very good at what they do. If we’d legalize, it would all go away. And the people who get in over their heads? We’ll we could give them maintenance drugs or offer them a free hospital bed with all the money we’d save. That’s the ticket and we all know it’s true. But embedded bureaucracy is tough to dislodge. One way to do it would have the President come out for ramping up the war on drugs 20 notches. The Repubs would immediately object and demand an end to the whole damned drug war.
It would all be funny if people weren’t dying and the prisons weren’t full.

Madeleina's 18th!

So yesterday, April 9, was my daughter Madeleina's 18th. Happy Birthday, baby! We made it! That was the promise, and I'll try to be around for another 10-20, but we got this far and that's fantastic. At the same time, she had a show last night, Leading Ladies, by Ludwig, a bawdy farce about people trying to get at a dying woman's money. Very well done. Madeleina was the old lady and she, like the rest of the cast, worked very well together and were splendid.
    After the show, Chepa, the babies Sierra and Alexa, and my grand daughter Taylor Rain came over for ice cream cake and birthday gifts and Italo, my oldest was here working on the bathroom and he stopped long enough to sing and at one point, when I thanked him for his work he stopped me in my tracks with: "Hey, Pops! You don't thank me. We're partners in this life and the next life!" And I rejoindered, "And probably in the last life too." I love my boys and nearly died when he said that. Can you imagine hearing it? Just beautiful.
    Of course, that didn't mean he swept up all the nails and bits of tile from the bathroom floor that my feet found at my 3 AM piss. No matter. Small price and a limited amount of blood to pay.
    So my daughter is 18. That's something. She's smart, beautiful, talented and can help me run a ceremony like a 300 year old shaman. I'm saying out loud that I'm very, very proud to be her dad this time around. I have not regretted one instant of being her dad, or dad to Italo and Marco--though there were times all three infuriated me. But I would not trade one moment of dadness for a billion bucks. And I feel the same about Sierra and Alexa, though they're not mine biologically. They're still part of the family and I love them beyond love.
    So in case you all were thinking that us Irish are cold as potatoes, I'm here to tell you, that's not always true.

The Mess, the Cleanup

I told you that my oldest, Italo, came over while I was food shopping--and the stuffed peppers turned out spectacularly, by the way--and tore my bathroom apart. Pulled the toilet, pulled the tub, tore up the tiled floor, pulled half the rotten flooring under the tile and half the wall on three sides of the tub/shower. Then he replaced the rotten flooring with new plywood. While he did that, Madeleina and I ate dinner. Italo didn't join: When he gets going, he's not stopping. Fortunately, I had a few beers someone brought over to keep him going.
    After dinner and a movie, I went to bed. He kept working and who knows when he went back home. All I know is there was a note on the bathroom door saying flush the toilet with the bucket--he'd replaced it for morning emergencies, thank you--and then added that he'd finish the job next year. Me? I got up at 5 AM knowing I had some calls to make but nothing on an emergency level, so I made coffee and settled in to read the newspapers on the internet. My jobs, other than cleaning up the kitchen from last night's dinner, and the living room where the two new dogs got into a couple of rolls of paper towel and left hundreds of bits of paper everywhere--along with a couple of ruined ping pong balls, one torn baseball and three ripped sox--was either to mow lawn or finish the back porch fence I've been redoing.
    The choice was overwhelming, so I went with the cleanup in the house, then sat back down at the computer. The lawn could wait because it looks like rain, I convinced myself.
    But then who shows up but Marco, my second, and he said Italo told him to come over to help with the bathroom. As Italo wasn't there, he said he'd start mowing some lawn. He did. I could not avoid joining the fray. So I raked and bagged the cuttings in the areas where the grass was really tall--under the bird feeder it was taller than two feet--then took over mowing. Marco got the direct front yard, so I hit on the side yard, a 40 X 40 stretch covered in fallen branches from the harsh winter winds. Then I hit the huge front lawn, about 40 X 110 and then here comes Marco with a second mower. He hit the fenced in part behind the house, a nice 50 X 80, then went after the huge space beyond the side lawn I'd done. Which meant I couldn't quit without looking like a sissy, so I hit a space between the creek behind the garage and office building.
    Thank god, he left for a while so I can relax, write and have a glass of wine. Next up, supermarket time, and then, I'm afraid, both Italo and Marco will be working on the bathroom, so I'm going to be forced to work on that back porch fence. I've got one section to put into place and another to rebuild--about 10 foot long, but I've got the wood all cut. After that, time to paint it all but that's almost fun.
   So things are a mess right now. There's crap and wood and tiles and old tubs everywhere. The lawn needs a serious raking and the fence needs finishing. But by the time we get it all built and cut and all that stuff, well, it's gonna look great. Only problem is: That's when the clean up starts. And as good and generous as my boys are, clean up is not in their vocabulary. Oh well, at least I won't have to worry about the tub falling through the floor when I'm showering. And the lawn looks absolutely fabulous, dahling.

Tuesday Night Dinner at the Gormans

Well, there I was, headed out of the house to go shopping for sides for dinner and to pick up some cat and dog food since our cat had kittens and a beautiful new dog has decided to join the three we have–he moved in a couple of weeks ago–probably because I serve the dogs fresh chicken legs. Anyway, I was thinking of the (probably) nuclear swordfish steaks that are in the fridge, or maybe the prime ribs someone brought over a couple of days ago. But I got to the store and whoa! There were gorgeous poblano peppers, just perfect for stuffing. So I changed course radically, picked up some good chuck, organic scallions, broccoli along with eight of the poblanos, just in case one or more of my grown kids shows up for dinner or my wife/ex-wife Chepa appears with her new babies Sierra and Alexa. It’s all perfect when they do, so I always make extra.
Now the way I make stuffed poblanos is this: In one pan cook the chopped meat, well seasoned with sea salt, cracked black pepper and chopped garlic (fresh!) in olive oil till it’s rendered half its fat. Transfer to a colander to eliminate the grease. At the same time I make good basmati rice–start with garlic in olive oil, add the water when the garlic is ready for it, add sea salt, bring to a boil, add the rice, bring to a boil, stir regularly, then cover with a plastic bag to seal it, put a lid on the pot and turn the heat to the very lowest possible. That can cook for 20-30 minutes but won’t be burned if you forget it for an hour, no sweat.
Then, in another pot, I boil salted water and put in small pieces of broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, yellow squash, whatever I’ve got. Par boil a minute, drain, cool. In the next saute pan, put garlic in olive oil. Add diced onions, diced scallions and cook. When they’re ready, add diced tomatoes, the cooked veggies, and then the meat. Season with achiote. some white vinegar, cilantro. Add rice when ready, then finish with some really good, really sharp cheddar to keep things moist.
Now, in your 6th pan/pot, you’ve got to par boil those poblanos. So cut them half an inch from the top, clean the seeds out entirely, wash in hot water and put the peppers and the tops into boiling, lightly salted water. Just for three, five minutes. Then drain and cool. Then stuff them with the meat/rice/cheese mix, put a top on each and put them in a glass baking dish at about 330 degrees for maybe half an hour, or until the peppers are nicely done and the food is melting out of them but not yet burned.
Now you are gonna serve that with a really good salad. Two peppers a person. For the little ones who won’t like the smokey flavor of the peppers, serve them just some of the remaining mix or some of the chicken you made for the dogs.
Okay, so I ran through all of that in my head and came home to find my oldest son, Italo, had taken it on himself to tear my bathroom to pieces. I mean, he took out the toilet and shower, tore up the tiled floor and half the tiled wall. “It was old, pops. Time to chance it…” was his explanation. I was stunned: I was gone from the house for an hour buying dinner stuff and he tore the bathroom apart. Plus, he used my name at Home Depot to drop nearly $500 on my credit card. Yikes!
I got a feeling he’ll be here a while. Glad I planned on extra stuffed peppers.

World Speeding Up...

A friend of mine, my former editor at High Times for about 15 years, wrote on Facebook that he was upset that the attention spans of the youth have been reduced to the seconds it takes to tweet. I agree, and here's how I responded...
The Warhol 15 minutes of fame, the instant gratification, the byte of information have allowed a lot of people of all ages to forget to slow down, to forget that reading the book a few pages a day is a savory experience, as opposed to skimming or going to summaries and missing the joy of the pace in favor of the race. It's the going there that is the purpose; the getting there is the excuse for the going. I agree with you. I watch journalists who look up wiki notes and think they've done an investigation, while old school me is saying "Ten more calls. Ten more interviews. Someone I'll connect with will have something to say that I have not considered yet", and for me, while that's a pain, it's paid off always--when I worked for you, Steve, and since. In my other work, in the Amazon of Peru, I watch people arrive, do six or 10 ayahuasca ceremonies in a week or three and decide to open an ayahuasca retreat and serve people and I want to scream. They don't realize that they have no idea what they're doing and shouldn't be doing it. But when I tell them, they laugh and call me an old man, tell me the world is different now. The world is not different. A tulip still takes an hour or two to open daily and is worth watching now and then, despite it taking you away from your phone or Ipad or whatever. We're in the speed-up times, and it is only going to get worse: LSD takes several hours to change your life. For a lot of people, that's just way too long.

Why I Wish I Was (Selfishly) Wealthy Sometimes

Okay, I admit it. Sometimes I wish I was wealthy. I've never taken one of those busses that bands use, or the huge RV's where you can pass the wheel to the next person and go take a leak and make a carrot juice. I would love to do that before I did. Just five days. Park where we want, watch the sunrise, sunset, have a couple of mopeds on the back and a canoe or two up top for getting around in the back country, and a larder full of good food.
   Can you imagine that this hippie, after 64 years, 50,000 miles hitchhiking, years in Peru's Amazon and India wants that? I don't want to own one. I just want the $2 grand it would cost to rent one for a week and stock it, plus gas.
   And another reason I feel like I wish I was wealthy sometimes is the yard. I love my yard. I love the acre and a quarter or acre and a half or whatever it is they left me after the eminent domain two years ago. But it's a lot of mowing. And the riding mower doesn't work, so I have to mow it with a regular mower. But it's electric and if you pull the bottom handle, it pushes itself. It's the raking that's a real pain.
   But now it's spring. I tried the mower yesterday, to no avail. Fresh oil and gasoline and a good talking-to and it started right up today. But the "drive" component wasn't working. So I started to tear that down to see why not. The problem is, the mowers with the "drive" function have much larger rear wheels than front wheels, so the weight is in the rear. Which means when the "drive" function isn't happening, you are simply not going to push it: The rear wheels, with the weight, just dig into the wet Spring earth and you're not going anywhere.
   So I was thinking: Imagine if I was wealthy, say, making $60 grand a year to support the five of us, I could call someone to get that fixed, instead of having to stop trying to mow and go and look for tools and start tearing the darned thing down.
   My idea of wealthy isn't really wealthy. I am just thinking of an extra $20 grand a year before taxes. To me, $60 grand is wealthy. To someone else, maybe $600,000 or $6,000,000 is wealthy. I'm just talking $60 grand. So that sometimes I could just call someone to fix shit instead of either living with it or figuring it out myself.
   Selfish, right? Yeah, probably. Sorry, Universe. If I get the extra $20 grand I'll try to remember to open a soup kitchen or put five beds in the big garage to house homeless/helpless, rather than getting the mower fixed. Shit, I'm a disgrace, given my tiny problems when other people have real ones. Sorry everyone.

Here's What Not Being 40 Feels Like

Okay, so after all my physical woes with my leg and whatever, today I woke to the idea that a story that was due on Monday has been put off until the 8th of April, and a story due on the 11th has been put off until the 25th. I've still got one Drug War Follies column to write for Skunk in the next ten days, and hopefully a freelance piece to earn a little gelt, but in other words, the pressure is off. So I woke thinking "Okay, my only jobs today are to get the lawn mower going after winter, get the measurements on the lumber I need--as well as the paint--to repair the back porch fence, sing for those in pain and do some walking.
    What a nice change from being chained to the comfuckingputer. BUTTTTT.....here's the rub: I took the measurements on the back porch, realized I needed a new couch to sleep on since the new border collie pups have torn mine apart, then went to buy the lumber, galvanized screws, paint and the couch.
    I ordered the couch from Pier One. Credit card all the way, a rarity for me. $899; I pushed for a 20 percent discount which I got, and in total, with tax, it's $775 so long as I pick it up from the store. It's a good one, will last five years. BUTTTTT, Madeleina is at district competition today with her acting group from high school for a one-act play: IF they do well, they advance to State--a big deal here in Texas. So I had no time to stop in and buy the lumber/paint and nails before getting home and getting her to school.
   I got that done and drove out to get a few things at the local HEB grocery store, then on to Home Depot for the weather-treated 2x4s I needed and the paint and the galvanized nails. Then I came home and unloaded, then went to get gas and oil for the mower that's not been used since early November, then came home and fed the cat/dogs and started food in case anyone comes over or if Madeleina is hungry when she returns at 10 PM.
   Then I got the electrical extention cord out, got my tools, got the electric saw and the ruler and the pencil and then went to the truck and carried the lumber to the back yard fence and tossed it over and by now it's 5:31 and I'm pooped and I have not started anything yet. I've got pieces in place for tomorrow, but I have not pulled the old fence apart or cut the lumber or painted it. And I'm still pooped. At 40, I'd keep going. At 64, I'm thinking "let's take a little break, have some wine, keep an eye on the chicken in the oven and get an early start tomorrow...".
    That's the difference.
    The hell with that. I'm gonna pull at least one section of the fence apart tonight. Maybe two. I'm getting old but I'm not going to admit to being a loser just yet.

Dinner at the Gorman's

Well, I've been asked to contribute to the Fort Worth Weekly Blog, called Blotch! I think the first thing I'll do is put a Gorman recipe up once a week. And you can be sure that I expect all 55,000 readers of the hard copy of the newspaper and the tens of thousands of readers of the internet version to be eating whatever recipes I post before I post the next. Got it? There will be tests. There might be unexpected visits to your homes to check on whether there are leftovers or not. Expect the Gormans.
    Okay, I finished a boatload of work yesterday after several days during which nearly 20 people came to the house in Joshua, most of whom I didn't know. That happens around here. So today I was pooped and not in the mood to shop or cook. Worse, there was FW Weekly staff meeting called for 3 PM. So I got up early, drank lots of good coffee--that's a regular and decaf blend for those keeping score--then read the New York papers via the net until I was forced out of my daze and into the real world. That meant filling my trusty 1998 Ford Ranger--extended cab and bed, of course, plus jacked up just a couple of inches to aid visibility--with bags of garbage to take to the dump. Here in Johnson County recycling doesn't exist. Did that, then got my truck's oil changed, then went to the post office to send off several copies of my new book, Sapo in My Soul, which deals with an obscure but very good jungle medicine from the indigenous Matses tribe, to people who sent me money.
    Then off to the meeting.
    On the way home I stopped for a decent bottle of Lockwood 2010 Cabernet--at $11,57 a treat for a journalist--and then at HEB for some chicken backs and necks to cook for Boots, the wonder dog, who loves crunching bones.
    Home, I wanted to open the wine and look at email. Enough work for a free day, right? No way. I'd washed the dishes from last night's meal, but had not cleaned the stove top, so I decided to do that one job before the wine. I still had no idea what I was going to cook for dinner. I looked in the fridge: Left over chopped chuck, a couple of zuccini, a couple of yellow squash, some broccoli and cauliflower, scallions, two onions, a couple of tomatoes, a bag of baby spinach. I got it. It was in front of me the whole time.
    Well, then I figured I might as well put Boots' chicken in the oven (hey, when you buy necks, stripped backs, and stripped breasts and bake them at home, it comes to $1.50 a day to feed an 85 pound watchdog, much cheaper than canned food). While I was attending those things, I figured I might as well get some rice ready, so I reached for my always-full cup of chopped garlic in olive oil. Damn, it was out of garlic. Which meant I had to chop three heads to fill it up so that I could make the rice, have left over for the dinner, and then more for salad dressing and left-over ready-to-go fantastic garlic for tomorrow.
    So I chopped the garlic, covered it in olive oil, put one tablespoon into the rice pot, seared that to brown, added water and sea salt, brought that to a boil and then added good Basmati rice. To the touch, not measured. While waiting for that to come to a second boil, I put on a small pot, cut some broccoli and cauliflower, small pieces, then a yellow squash and zuccini--cut in quarters, lengthwise, then sliced in roughly 3/16 inch pieces.
   Then I was waiting for two pots to boil, so I figured I might as well get some chopped meat going. Put a thick bottomed saute pan on high, put in a touch of oil, then a pound and a half of good ground meat. The idea for the dinner was starting to come together.
   When the meat was cooked to a rare, I drained it to eliminate the fat, then put the pan back on the stove. I added three tablespoons of garlic and olive oil--Ok, I'm lying, it was four--then added a diced red onion. When the onions were clear, I put the meat back in, cooked a few minutes.
    I put the chopped veggies in the boiling, salted water, covered the rice with a plastic bag from HEB and then a cover and dropped the heat to the minimum. By the time I did that the veggies were par boiled so I pulled them, drained them, and ran cold water over them to keep their color and consistency.
    Veggies and rice ready, I added maybe seven cleaned and diced scallions and three diced roma tomatoes to the meat. Then I added four tiny packages of Goya Sazon (achiote e culantro) to it to turn it red and give it a bite; to that I added maybe three ounces of good white vinegar to give it an extra bite, then coarse sea salt and cracked black pepper--you can never have too much of that--and a can of Goya organic black beans. Oh, I forgot to mention, most of the veggies were organic. When all the kids were living at home that was impossible, but now, with just Madeleina and the 20-odd guests for dinner, it's become affordable to eat without killing my daughter.
    Then I walked away to write this and enjoy a glass or two of that Cabernet. Which I'm doing now.
    Madeleina has rehearsal for a play and won't be home for another half hour. I have the meat and garlic and onion and scallions, tomatoes, and black beans on very low. The rice is on very very low. When she shows up I'll turn the heat up, add the veggies toss and then add rice to it. I'll add more red colorant--maybe achiote from Peru's jungle--and then a bit of organic vegetable stock. When it's all good and fantastic, I'll probably toss in three slices of really nice cheddar cheese and add that till the whole thing is a sort of wonderful muck. It's gonna be great. It's kind of like the kitchen sink of dinners. But how am I going to go wrong with all those veggies, good rice, good beans, good cheese, and good meat. And if you're a vegetarian, make the whole thing without the meat. It'll still be fantastic.
    Let's have a bit more of that wine, shall we?

Someone asked about Sapo/Kambo

Someone on a forum onto which I occasionally post asked the general readership if anyone knew of a reliable source of good quality sapo/kambo sticks. This is what I wrote in response:
  Having a reliable source is not always easy, because even if you know someone who really does know how to collect sapo/kambo, there are some months annually when the frog is difficult to collect. When the water is rising and the females are gestating, the frogs, both male and female tend to climb high up in trees that are too thin-trunked for humans, even indigenous, to reach. This past November, December, January and February were like that in northwest Amazonia. Few reachable frogs and many people who work with sapo/kambo ran low or out of their medicine. Now that the eggs are in their "nest" above the water, into which they will fall as tadpoles, the frogs have come down several meters in the trees and are easier to reach. So for the next few months they will be plentiful--so long as they are not over-milked and collected properly in a way that does not harm them and quickly releases them back onto their favorite trees once they've been milked for a few minutes.
   On the other hand, with the sudden and extreme rise in demand, lots and lots of people are collecting the P. bicolor who have no idea what they are doing and are therefore collecting poor sapo/kambo. Bad collecting begins with touching the frog for even a moment prior to milking it. In that moment of touching, or worse, people collecting them by physically grabbing them from their tree perch, they are frightened and will give off their most potent protective "venom". Which doesn't mean there won't be more juice to milk, but it will mean that the material collected will not be full strength--similarly to the way a venomous snake has more venom than it needs to kill its prey: but the venom it releases in the time immediately after a snake has used venom to kill its prey will not be nearly as strong as that initial burst. Which explains how people survive bites from snakes that would otherwise be deadly--they got bitten after the snake ate and while it's digesting and it's venom was not fully replenished and at full strength.
    So you've got two issues: the time of the year when frogs are difficult to get, and the new breed of collector who is out for the money and has no idea what they are really doing.

What an Amazing Weekend at the Gormans!

What an amazing weekend here at the Gormans. An old friend popped in Wednesday; two more showed up Friday. On Sunday morning a group of 10 appeared--three I knew, the others new--and later in the day another old friend came by along with someone I met once and then another new person. There was food galore, guitar, some bongo playing, a bit of harmonica, a touch of sapo and nu-nu for those who wanted--and which blew my lips up to the size of hips just from moistening the sapo sticks with spit!--and good talk and some wine and just WOW! Madeleina helped fantastically and I was in heaven! I love company. I love meeting new people here at home. Just couldn't have been better. Of course I'm jamming hard today to finish the stories that are due but I'll get 'em done. One's been sent in to the editor, the other is working but I needed a break to say THANK YOU, UNIVERSE! Thanks for letting me wake up this morning. Thanks for the great company. Thanks for giving me the super power of cooking (although I could still use flying or super speed or being Lightning Lad or whatever). Thanks for my friends. Thanks for my family. Thanks for everything!

Another Fine Mess You've Gotten Us Into, Ollie......

Somehow, Madeleina and I get ourselves into these fixes. I've got a story due tomorrow and another Monday AM. So I had a guest come in yesterday and she left today. She's a fantastic person and a medicine woman so she adds to the mix in a very positive way. 
Tomorrow I've got two old friends coming in at different times to stay a few days. Both are fantastic guests, great friends, an I will be enriched by them, as will Madeleina, Chepa, the babies, Italo, Sarah and Marco. Somewhere in there I'll finish the first story. Cross your fingers it's good cause I need the freelance gelt.
Saturday morning Madeleina has a 10 hour clinic, so she'll disappear at 7 AM, and then at 11 or so, six or eight people are showing up for a few hours. By the time they leave, Madeleina will be back with two friends for a sleepover.
Sunday I'll finish the draft of the second story, greet my guests, wake Madeleina, feed all the guests breakfast, then shop for food for the four guests who are coming Sunday afternoon. Might be five if Patrick will get off his ass and come here to play some guitar.
In the meanwhile, the two new border collie pups are pooping all over the living room and playing in the mud under the house, so we've had to rent a carpet cleaner for the deep clean. Madeleina is finishing up the big living room right now. My job was to get all blankets, pillows, pillow cases, throw pillows in the wash--just five huge loads--dried and all beds made, and while I was doing that, make a tomato sauce for the chicken parmesan we're having. While that was happening, I cleaned out the laundryroom: Threw out two huge bags of what I deemed garbage--I didn't touch the fireworks, don't worry--and got two bags of old clothes ready for the clothes collection bin and made that room shine.
We got the bird feeder full, the cat fed, the three dogs fed, and we've got the hummingbird to go.
REALITY CHECK: Madeleina is doing much more than I am. But I am putting new curtains up in the wash room and I did clean that and help a little with the laundry.
I don't think Madeleina and I would be happy if we didn't have some fantastically impossible chores to do in a minimal amount of time. And we will get it done. What's left? I didn't even talk about scrubbing the kitchen, my office, and the second guest bedroom and then the bathroom. Bring on the heat, Mr Universe. The gormans are armed with sponges, hot water, soap and paper towels and we ARE dangerous!

The Dinner Went Well, I Think...

So that dinner I said I was cooking for the copy editor for Sapo in My Soul, who also did the Index, that was yesterday. Now I bought so much stuff you would not have believed it. I mean, I walked in there with the idea of what I was cooking, but with enough ingredients to make 200 variations on any theme if it came up.
   I also walked into Margaret's house with a little anxiety: Several times a year, and sometimes, several times a month, I dream I am called in to cook in an emergency situation. The dream always starts off nicely: Someone calls to say they've got 300 people coming for a wedding and the chef is drunk and since I'm a pro can I step in and do it. Snap, right? I did that stuff for a couple of decades. Or someone calls to say someone important, someone I admire and who is also important, is showing up at their little restaurant and they don't feel comfortable allowing their own chef to do the cooking, so will I come and save the day.
   There are dozens and dozens of variations on that.
   Of course I show. I ask what's needed, get told, calculate quickly what needs to be done and in what order, and then ask where the kitchen is. I get shown. I check things out quickly because, as I noted, it is always an emergency, and often an extreme emergency to get these people fed. Now, in real life, the trick to dealing with a potentially angry wedding or funeral mob, or any big or medium sized group, is to get a drink into their hands and have a backup ready. Nobody complains about waiting a bit for the food if you've given them a couple of stiff scotches or whiskeys or champagnes.
   But in my dream, they're always past that point: The people tend to be on the ornery side of having been served a bit too much without any food having shown up.
   So I go to the kitchen--which is often downstairs and huge and sort of dungeon-like with poor lighting and lots of dark corners--and that's where the dreams go bad. Sometimes there is no food to cook and the people are getting crazier and crazier. Sometimes there is food and people to assist me and we get everything ready only to discover there are no ovens or stoves or anything else to cook on. Sometimes there are no pots. Sometimes no water. Sometimes the lights go out and I have to do it in the dark. Sometimes the food is rotten. Sometimes everything is good but there are no plates on which to serve the food, or no silverware to eat it. Sometimes there are no assistants. Sometimes I cannot cut with the knives I've been provided. Sometimes the floor gets too hot to walk on and my shoes melt and I cannot walk to do the work. Sometimes my arms fall off when I am almost done and I just stand there wondering how they've come up with a new way to make me fail.
   There are a hundred variations on that theme, all of which leave me utterly helpless and a failure.
   It is not like real PTSD, but it is a small cousin and it affects my life.
   So there I was, bringing in saute pans, pots, knives, fruit peelers, my cutting board, and lots and lots of food and I was sort of scared to death I would freeze and discover there was no water.
    Thank god, Madeleina came with me to help out.
    I unpacked the two boxes and one large bag and tried to lay things out in the way I'd need them. I tested the stove for heat--I still blew it with the salmon a bit--and, after a few minutes chat, I started working. First order of business was something to have on the patio, outside, so I could cook in peace. That was a great round of parmesan cheese bread that I warmed in a moist brown paper bag in the oven at 325 for 10 minutes. That was served with warm brie, a few types of olives I'd bought--yes, I cheated on the bread, brie and olives--and then some sun dried tomatoes I'd soaked in olive oil and garlic. It was a good opening salvo.
    We moved on to a caprese salad: Normally mozzarella topped with tomato slice topped with basil leaf, drizzled with olive oil. I made it with fresh, smoked mozzarella, really rich organic Campari tomatoes and organic basil, topped with my house balsamic vinaigrette--good balsamic vinegar, olive oil, minced garlic and shallots; sea salt and cracked black pepper. It was lovely and a good variation on a theme.
    Next up: Slender slices of salmon, seared, dressed with garlic, olive oil, a bit of teriyaki, a touch of sesame oil, some browned sesame seeds--skin almost candied--and served on a bed of organic, local grown Texas spinach, still holding some form when plated. Around the salmon were four very small Danish golden potatoes; served on the side was a melange of organic broccoli tips, cauliflower, zucchini and yellow squash with sliced baby bok choy, ginger, scallions, garlic. Very nice. Very good.
    Next up, a male duck breast, seared, cooked topside, sliced thin, served on a bed of 6 asparagus done just right, with anjou pear and apple slices slices  in a balsamic/red wine sauce.
    Then a scoop of very good strawberry gelato to clear the palate and allow the cook (moi) and my assistant, to clean up the kitchen and go outside where I had a glass of Cabernet and a smoke.
    Last major was sauteed sea scallops. They were sauteed in my trusty garlic and olive oil. When brown but still raw inside, I added thin, not quite julienned, slices of red, yellow and orange peppers with minced shallots. Near the end I added the 3-shrimp-per-portion I'd forgotten to add to the salmon, and then served that on a small mountain of spaghetti squash that had been in the oven for 80 minutes on fairly low 325. It was perfect.
    When the scallops and shrimp and peppers were done, I plated them, then added the juice of 4 limes to the pan, brought it quickly to a boil, then put in about an ounce of really good bleu cheese that quickly melted into the lime juice. That was served over everything. Made your mouth tighten up in 4-5 different spots.
   For dessert: Madeleina made whipped cream with organic sugar and Peruvian vanilla, then whisked into that organic blackberries, raspberries and blueberries. We topped that with a spoonful of great orange marmalade because I burned the chocolate sauce we were going to use.
   I think it was a good feast.
   Nobody got sick yet.
   That's a good sign.

Catering a Meal for an Editor

 Margaret, the copy editor/index maker of my new book, Sapo in My Soul--which is available via Amazon.com at the moment but will be available in some bookstores in the next few weeks and can also be bought with a signature from me at paypal to peterg9 At yahoo.com-- is a great copy editor. She finds mistakes I never would have known were mistakes. Fantastic. 

    Well, when it came time to settle up, she said didn't want to get paid this time out. She wanted instead, cloth from Peru and me and Madeleina to make her and a friend a good meal. I think that's coming up this Sunday and I've started preparing in my own way. Naturally, I'll be in alien territory, won't know her stove, how hot the water runs. I'll have to bring a collander, a couple of saute pans, knives, stirring spoons, and every thing for the meal. I already spent $40 just on mangos, limes, red/yellow/orange peppers, organic broccoli/cauliflower/scallions/zucchini/yellow squash, avocados. Veggies alone I need organic tomatoes, onion or two, spaghetti squash, spinach, asparagus and garlic, fingerling or new potatoes, basil and shallots. Then there is olive oil, sesame oil, teriyaki sauce, sesame seeds, butter, organic chicken stock...

   So: What I'm thinking is maybe a little of my jungle guacamole and a smoked cheese or two with dried rye bread crust on the table with a light wine.

   Then a light Caprese salad--fresh smoked mozzarella, those organic tomatoes and basil with good cracked black pepper. Can be served with my house vinagrette--the one we use for salads here--or olive oil if she prefers. 

    Then a small portion of the salmon that I make: Sort of Chinese style, with a few shrimp, with a little the sesame oil and sesame seeds--with the skin almost candied--on a bed of braised spinach. Side of veggie melange: small portion of thin sliced and quartered zucchini, yellow squash, tomato (again?) broccoli, cauliflower par boiled, then sauteed in  a bit of olive oil with bok choy onion and garlic.

     Then a nice prime rib or duck breast, seared/lightly baked, then thin sliced when black and almost raw. If prime rib, that gets seared with scallions, green beans (par boiled) (Both cut in 1/2 inch lengths), and thin sliced (par boiled) new potatoes, with skin on. Pull the meat, add a bit of balsamic vinegar. Serve the meat over a bed of asparagus in pan juice, with the veggies intermixed with the asparagus.

     If I go with duck breast, I'll substitute the beans, scallions and potato slices for pears and mango pieces, still in the balsamic vinegar.

    Then a couple of spoonfuls of peach gelato to clean the palate while they have some more wine.

    Then, since it's her favorite, sea scallops. I would go with the garlic and olive oil, probably with some minced shallots. When seared, bake with a bit of vegetable stock. When pulled from the oven, I'll set them aside, add lime and thin sliced--and halved--red, yellow, orange--peppers to the pan, then add juice of three limes. When that's bubbly, add good bleu cheese, crumbled or cut tiny. Serve the scallops over a tiny hill of spaghetti squash, pour the sauce, with peppers onto that.

    Finish with a small cup of organic blackberries, blueberries, raspberries in fresh cream with a bit of organic sugar and Peruvian vanilla.

    Tell you the truth, I'm exhausted just writing it out.

   Each dish would only be four or five bites, and she would have left overs for a day or two. 

   Sounds good, though, right? Nothing too heavy except the guacamole, but I can't resist getting my hands into the muck a bit. 

Why a Lot of People Don't Really Cook from Scratch at Home

Okay, I'm on a break from cooking. I've been cooking for nearly an hour and just got tired of the meditation when it occurred to me what I'd done and what still needs to be done to finish a pretty simple meal.
    Okay, first off, I had to earn some money. Then I had to go to the store. At the store I decided to make stuffed pork chops with gravy, and then make sauteed chicken livers with chicken backs and a little rice--left over--for Boots, the Wonderdog.
    So I first bought the livers. $1.60 for a pound. Wish I loved liver because at that price you feed 3 or four people with one pound. I had flour, salt and pepper and oil to make the livers, so I was cool.
    For the chops, I bought the thickest pork chops I could find and decided to stuff them with good swiss cheese, organic spinach, sea salt, black pepper, garlic in olive oil and onions.
    I had most of that stuff.
    But we are not going to have a starch, so we need veggies instead. I bought a zuccini, a yellow squash, a couple of roma tomatoes, an onion, and thought I'd add that to the organic broccoli and cauliflower I have.
     So I start by having to wash last night's dishes. Then chop two heads of garlic and add it, with new olive oil, to the chopped garlic in olive oil I already have.
     I get organic flour out and put it on a plate. Finely dice half an onion and saute both garlic in olive oil with onion. While that's happening, I flour the chicken livers, put them in the saute pan one by one, salt and pepper them, add a diced tomato.
     While that's cooking I chopped the zuccini, yellow squash, broccoli, cauliflower and put that all in a small stainless steel pot full of hot water that I didn't tell you about but which still existed.
     Once those things were in the pot I cut swiss cheese that I bought, put another saute pan on with minced garlic and onions and olive oil and, when ready, added a lot of washed spinach leaves. While that was cooking, I flipped the chicken livers--for Boots--and cut a slice into the back of the fat pork chops.
     When  the spinach and onions and garlic were ready, I strained them with my hand--very hot--then added the swiss cheese.
    I took off the chicken livers for Boots: I ate half of one: Fantastic, considering it was liver. I think I've got a mastery over that now and can do what I want with it. I've been working with it in restaurants in different forms for nearly 50 years, so it's about time, eh?
    Then I chop the spinach with the garlic and onion. Then i add the swiss to that. Then I cut the chops at the back. Then I stuff them with the tasty mix. Then I flour, egg and breadcrumb the stuffed chops. Then I put them in a hot pan, sear them and put them in the oven. While they're cooking, I finish the melange of veggies. I ask Madeleina to make salads. When the veggies are done I have a good burner on which to make gravy for the chops.
    Do you guys see how freaking long and tiresome this is compared to going to Mickey D's or Sonic or Chicken Express? I do, but I can't let my family eat that stuff. So I do what I do.
    But 40 minutes in the oven at 325 F and you take out the chops, plate them, pour gravy on them, serve them with the veggies and a good salad...and then it's time to say "worth the pain", because sometimes it's a real pain.

Killing Too Many Things

So I got back from Peru about Feb. 7. My legs were pretty bad. Went to the surgeon--whom I've written about as a fantastic doctor and a genius surgeon, Dr. Ford at Huguley Hospital in extreme South Fort Worth--and he had to put me on an antibiotic regimen. I don't know why but that had me loopy. He gave me some basic codeine for pain, but I wasn't using them much, so I wasn't loopy from those. If I took them at all it was just before sleeping. So I don't know why I was off-kilter: Maybe the infection? Maybe the pain? Maybe just remembering last year when the infection nearly took my leg with it. Don't know.
    What I do know is that I couldn't think. I could hardly do anything but stare at facebook, not something I generally spend more than 20 minutes a day doing. I got an assignment for a cover story and couldn't even imagine how to begin working on it: Who to call, how to start. I was all sorts of lost for a few weeks there.
    Well, the antibiotics ran out about 8 days ago and I'm clear-headed since then. Morgan got the new book out on Amazon.com (sapo in my soul; buy it please), I'm full steam ahead on the cover story--late already but shaping up to cover a couple of angles I've not seen on the subject, which is what I always want to do--did two short news pieces and a good column for Skunk Magazine in my regular Drug War Follies slot--and am working on an interesting freelance story due in two weeks.
    About the only thing I could do, the only real anchor I had, was my cooking. And I did cook up a storm: Since I've been back I've made a white clam sauce with shrimp over thin spaghetti, a couple of hot roast beef sandwiches on good sesame-seeded French bread with freshly roasted red peppers topped with pepper jack cheese melted just so perfectly (the couple is because I made it for Madeleina and me). I've made shrimp with red pepper, garlic, scallions over rice; I've made lamb tagine with couscous; I've made two barbeques for the whole family. I cooked whole red snapper with the head on, doused in lime and cilantro. We had fresh-cooked chicken wings with homemade sauces. We ate hummus I made with organic garbanzo beans, and roasted chicken with sliced new potatoes. Tonight I made Boots, the Wonder Dog, chicken livers--dusted in organic flour and seared in olive oil with garlic and tomatoes and onion. That was so good I even ate one myself! I also tossed in some left over steak and a small bowl of leftover chopped meat Peruvian style: seared with garlic onions and broccoli and cauliflower and zucchini and yellow squash and spinach and a lot of achiote and white vinegar. And we're having meatloaf made with  a mix of ground pork and beef into which I put ketchup, fresh parsley, 4 eggs, organic bread crumbs, sea salt and butcher ground black pepper, along with sauteed garlic, onion, scallions, celery, and tomatoes. I'm gonna make a topping of ketchup (cheating, I know) and cider vinegar with a bit of brown sugar. (Don't eat a lot, and never serve with a starch on the side.) We'll have that in an hour.
    Oh, and there was also some sword fish in a lemon caper sauce; scallops in the blue cheese/lime I've been dreaming about; salmon made in a sort of Chinese way, with ginger, garlic, scallions, sesame oil, a bit of teriyaki with the skin absolutely candied and the meat still pink. Served with stir fried bok choy, Chinese cabbage, daikon radish slices, red pepper rounds, sliced mushrooms and who knows what else I put in there?
    So I was in a daze. I'm out of it now. I cannot believe I could cook that way in the condition I was in. No cuts at all. No yelling, no nothing. Just being my own self as a chef and being patient, asking the food what I could do to eek out not just the flavor but the spirit of it all--which has a lot of extra flavor and general goodness.
    The only thing I'm not happy about is how many things died for me and mine. I mean, that's a lot of killing on my hands. And I don't just mean the meat and fish and shrimp. I mean the garlic, the onions the zucchini...they were all happy before my demand caused their demise. I'm sorry universe.

Why I tend to vote Democrat

Someone posted something on facebook today that I thought was all wet. I responded, nicely.

My response:

1) I vote democrat because I think the government should keep its nose out of people's love. 2) I voted democrat because the six largest oil companies made $52 billion dollars in the last quarter, despite falling prices, while they were being subsidized by American taxpayers for billions more. 3) I voted democrat because corporationes are looking to make money and cut corners to gain profit by privatizing public works and social safety nets--including social security which most of us have paid into for 50 years or more. 4) I voted democrat because I love freedom of speech and the right wing people want to take that away. 5) I voted democrat because while most people should be able to own guns, the gun show loophole allows murderers in the US and the cartels in Mexico to be armed and that's just plain irresponsible. 6) I voted democrat because climate change is real and we need to stop it as best we can; the loopy people who think it's false are wrong, according to nearly every climate scientist on the planet. 7) I vote democrat because no babies have ever been aborted--though lots of zygotes have--while there are hundreds of millions of real babies, living babies, that don't have enough to eat and will starve because of the views of anti-abortionists. 8) I vote democrat because while illegal aliens get no social security, don't get to vote, don't get welfare or food stamps, they are the only people who will pick our crops, wash our dishes, take care of our farms and lawns and build our roads in Texas summers, and they should get respect and have work permits to do that. 9) I vote democrat because I don't believe that businesses like Walmart should keep millions of their employees so underpaid that they depend on me to foot the bill for foodstamps and medicaid and welfare for those workers. I believe businesses should pay a living wage or get the heck out of business rather than suck on the public teat. 10) I vote democrat because I believe judges should make decisions based on case history and the constitution, rather than on their political agendas, as we've seen in recent decisions in the US Supreme Court. 11) I vote democrat because we need to wean ourselves from an oil based economy to one that is renewable. Given that we don't pay anyone in the middle east for oil that we use in cars--we only use that oil to make roads and computer plastics--we need to stop lying about oil from the middle east. 12) I vote democrat because I see the world clearly and understand that we are all in this together and know that if 7 bllion people were working together we'd get a lot more done than having 7 billion people working to destroy each other. 13) I vote democrat because I believe in helping my fellow man and don't mind paying taxes to keep the Red States afloat until they are able to take care of themselves. We are all brothers and sisters and we take care of you republicans. No need to thank us.

My new book, Sapo in My Soul, is out now. Finally!

Well, my new book, Sapo in My Soul, The Matses' Frog Medicine, is finally out. It's another product of the Gorman Bench Press and hopefully the second of at least five or six in the next year or two. It's available at the website that the designer, Morgan Maher, made for it:
http://sapoinmysoul.com/the-book/
   It's got lots of black and white photos of the frog, the medicine, the Matses, me when I was young and handsome, and then some words too. I did the words. I hope they're in the right order to keep everybody's attention.
   Now today it also came out on Amazon.com, and you can find it by looking at Peter Gorman under books there. (I AM NOT the photographer of nude women. He just has the same name as me and used to live across the street from me in New York.) So if any of you were waiting on it, well, it's here. And if any of you pre-ordered signed copies, I've ordered them and they'll be here in 10 days. When I get them I'll sign them and send them out post haste, no sweat.
   So I was telling Morgan Maher, who also took the cover photo and wrote the Forward, about it's appearance on Amazon.com today. And then I lurched to the left or right and wound up writing this:
    Morgan, we sold nine copies today via createspace. That's cool. I was hoping for 2174 or something--wouldn't it be great if $22,000 came in in a day??? Man, I'd pay you, toss in a free trip or two, finish paying the house and maybe even take my family out for Sushi. (I picked that number because it's about how many people Johan has in the Aya in my Blood site...Yikes!!!! Although, to keep me grounded, Madeleina says that at least 50 percent of them are there just to hate me; 25 percent join any group they see; 20 percent think they'll get free ayahuasca out of joining, and the other 5 percent are mostly losers I already know who have nothing better to do with their lives than be on facebook. Oh, that girl can sting!). You know what I would really like to do one day? My most middle-class thing? I'd like to rent a big ass camper for a week or so and go driving around with my family. Just like having the apartment around us, with everything in a perfectly ordered place, just for a week. I think somehow that that would be cool. Go to Santa Fe, the Texas coast; into Baja, Mexico--show them where I lived and worked in LA in another life. Show them places I've seen and a few I have not, then park at night at some pretty spot and roll out the tarp and pull out some chairs and listen to crickets. Funny, huh?

10 Years with Skunk Magazine

Well, some of you know, other's don't, that one of my regular gigs for the past 10 years or so has been writing a lengthy column for Skunk Magazine called Drug War Follies. It's been a joy: I get to put my two cents out there related to the failed war on drugs, to politics or whatever the hell else I want to write about. They actually let me do that and pay me for it! I find the days I'm working on that column--there is a lot of fact checking to do to make it seem like it's off the cuff--are some of the best days of each month. And just a moment ago, someone wrote something very nice about that column to me: She wrote something to the effect that when I make her throw the magazine down in disgust, she loves it even more when she picks it back up. That was cool. 
In any event, this was a recent column--it may still be on the stands.

Drug War Follies#82

Afghan poppy production at all time high, again; Gov pardon’s son; and why bother to report on the drug war anyway?

By Peter Gorman

Well, well, well….it’s probably obvious to all of you dear readers out there, but once again, the U.S. war on drugs strategy failed. What is that, about 10 million times in a row? What is it they say about being crazy? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? Well, there you have it, that’s U.S. drug policy. The failure in this discussion is Afghani poppy production--and no, not the .00001 percent that goes to making floral arrangements, but the other 99.99999 percent that goes into making heroin. It turns out that in 2014 poppy production in Afghanistan is higher than it’s ever been. Which is saying a lot, because in 2013 it was also higher than it had ever been. Ain’t that something? Give people $7.6 billion over the course of a decade or so to eradicate and replace the poppies and what do they do? The people who get the money keep it and the farmers keep growing poppies. Gosh, they’re beautiful flowers, a sea of white or purple or red flowers just brimming with joy juice to take your pain away. And here we go, the big WE, the U.S. foreign policy people, deciding we’re gonna get rid of those fields once and for all. And we fail. And we fail. And we pour more money into it and we fail again. Crazy? Hell, no! We just didn’t try hard enough. Let’s do that again and maybe it’ll be different this time. And if it isn’t, well, we’ll just have to try harder.

    And all that trying has led to stronger, cleaner, cheaper and much more abundant heroin all over the world. Heck, it’s almost like we’re just pretending we want to get rid of it when what we really want to do is make as many junkies as we can because junkies, while they might steal from their friends, won’t cause social unrest as a rule. And they won’t even steal from their friends if you make it cheap enough. Sounds like what the Bush family did in the old days when super grandpappy Bush controlled the opium trade out of China to keep the Chinese workers in the U.S. pleasantly stoned and subsequently pliant when they were brought over in droves to build our rail lines and such.

   So maybe the U.S. drug policy isn’t failing at all. Maybe it’s working just the way some people want it to work. Maybe what we have is just a failure to communicate what the actual goal of the drug policy really is. That’s probably it.

    I’m glad I was able to fix that up so you understand what’s really going on.

Small but significant: Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe, who is leaving office in January, 2015, has announced that he will be pardoning his son for a marijuana possession with intent to distribute felony before he’s gone. If he was my father and he had the power to do that I’d want him to do it. If I was the governor and had that power and one of my family could be pardoned with a wave of my magic pardoning-pen, I’d do it too. What seems odd here and is significant is that Governor Beebe has not said that he will do the same for everyone else in his state who is in jail or prison or has done time for the same crime. Why not? It’s a goddamned magic pardoning-pen, isn’t it? His son’s crime was youthful mistake. Those other fellas and gals, their crimes were youthful mistakes as well, I’ll bet. The mistake being the getting caught part.

    You got the pen, Governor, and you’re leaving office. You got nothing to lose. Why not wave it big and set hundreds or thousands doing time free? Release thousands more from the weight of parole, give them back their right to vote. Surely your son deserves it, but then all those other people are someone else’s son or daughter and they deserve it as well. So just grab your balls and do it!

My youngest son, Marco, came over the other day and saw me working on this column. He asked why I’d spent so many years at the other pot magazine and now nearly 10 years at Skunk writing about the war on drugs working hard to stop it when all the work wasn’t working.

    I told him there were obvious reasons--that kids/adults shouldn’t go to jail for non-violent drug offences; that nobody should be in jail for pot; that junkies should not go to jail for years when most junkies voluntarily quit their addiction in about two or three years; that crack cocaine should not get black people more jail time than white people get for powder cocaine.

    But beyond those obvious abuses of the war on drugs were subtle ones that most people didn't know about back in the old days and a lot of people still don’t. An awful lot of people, for instance, when they think of property forfeiture, picture it happening when a drug kingpin or big Mafioso gets caught with a million bucks worth of drugs or gambling receipts in a house he bought with the same dirty money. Unfortunately, that’s not true: Most property forfeiture occurs when people have a joint or two in their fully-paid-off homes, or two plants at the back end of their paid-off-farm, or get busted in a police prostitution sting when they’re lured by a cop posing as a prostitute and stop to negotiate and after a quick check that the car is paid off, lose their vehicle. The key is that the goods/property are paid off. No one wants to seize a house worth $300,000 if the owner, even if he has tens of thousands of dollars of heroin in it, owes nearly the whole $300,000. Why? Because the local police forces share in the profits from that seizure, and you can't give yourselves guaranteed overtime pay with a house that can't be sold for a profit.
    I told Marco that most people also don’t realize that half the police in the country--give or take, my number, not an official one--never bother to check an informant's story before getting a search warrant if their snitch says drug dealing is going on at a particular place. They just bust in and that’s led to lots of people being killed, thousands injured.
   Those are the sorts of things that are the underpinning of the drug war and they are some of what us drug war reporters were and are trying to get the public and other reporters to see and understand so that they can write about them and put them into the spotlight of awareness, which we know will kill them.
    An awful lot of people don’t know these and a hundred other things related to the drug war that are hidden in the dark. And if they know them, they refuse to believe them. Which is what the politicians depend on: blissful ignorance--until it hits someone you know, of course. It's like poor people saying they've been beaten and routinely abused by policing agencies around the country forever. Us white folk with an education have never seen that, so it sounds like poor whites, blacks, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans crying bull spit. And then comes the age of digital phone cameras and we are all routinely getting 5-10 instances of unbelievable police brutality on our Facebook pages weekly. We're watching people who have not been convicted of any crime, not been charged with a crime, get shot three or four or 20 times by rogue police. We're watching policemen kicking the heads of suspects who are on the ground on their stomachs in handcuffs. We're watching a system that is out of control and now we cannot deny what those poor whites, African-Americans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans--hell, all Latinos--have been saying for decades.
   It only stops when it's brought into the light.
   Bring it all, all the injustice, into the light. Let us look at it and see if it really is the reflection of ourselves that we want to see when we look into the mirror.

It would all be funny if people weren’t dying and the prisons weren’t full.

I hate tossing out good food...

Most of you probably know that cooking food is my meditation. It's the silence between the work day and the relaxation of the coming evening. I love shopping for food, I love planning a meal, I love improvising and I love cooking. In the restaurants it was a fantastic electrical charge to come up with interesting specials, from appetizers to entrees, to side dishes, daily. Once I stopped that work, I began to cook at home, and when I had Italo, Marco, Madeleina, Italo's girl Sarah and most of the time Chepa around for dinner, well, I could make a lot and know it would get finished sometime during the night or by next breakfast. When all but Madeleina got homes of their own, well, it took a while but I cut down on the amount I was preparing. So most of the time Madeleina and I can eat half of what we make, knowing that someone in the family is going to stop by the next day and grab the rest.
    But that doesn't always happen. And when it doesn't, I sometimes have to toss perfectly good food. And I hate that. But it's cooked, it's a couple of days old--refrigerated, of course, but still not the freshest--and no local church is going to take it to give to a hungry person.
    I just went through the fridge. I am tossing a few shrimp with veggies. No big deal, right? BUT, the veggies included garlic in olive oil, ginger, scallions, shallots, red and yellow Bell peppers, bok choy, Napa cabbage, spinach, and snow peas, all cooked in a bit of olive oil, a touch of sesame oil, some teriyaki sauce, freshly squeezed orange juice. Even draining the liquid to throw the food away it was fantastic. But we no longer have a pig or goats and the dogs and cats won't eat veggies or shrimp. So out it went.
   Then, two days ago, I made pastitsio and it was fantastic. I was going to have it again last night with Madeleina, but Italo's Sarah called to say she wanted me to make burgers for their baby Taylor Rain's birthday. So I made burgers, hot dogs, beef kielbasa, saurkraut (spelling???), potato and egg salad, cole slaw, asparagus in a vinagrette, broccoli and cauliflower, steamed. That was good. But it means that the pastitsio is now two days old and getting dry and I can't really serve it for dinner. So it's going to be part of Boots' dinner.
   I just feel awful watching beautiful foods grow old and useless and become something for the landfill. Darn it, we need more guests at dinner time. Where the hell are you all?

This is what the heck happens with dinner around here...

So this is what happens with dinner around here. I woke up a little pooped from all the meds I'm on and didn't feel like doing much. For dinner I was considering hot ham and cheese sandwiches on good sesame French bread with salad.
    So on the way back from my doctor appointment I stopped in a a good supermarket to buy some good ham and good cheese and good bread. As I entered the store, I thought maybe I should change that to vermicelli with a white clam sauce. After all, I have whole fresh clams, chopped clams, maybe 15 fresh shrimp, some clam juice and crab boil and onions and garlic in the house...so I sort of switched to that on the way to buy the ham and cheese.
     But then, while I was there, I wound up with a pint each of organic blackberries, blueberries and raspberries, plus a beautiful quarter of bright pink watermelon, then happened to glance at the meat section. Yeah, there were gorgeous grass fed, no hormone, no antibiotic ribs of lamb and so I switched my idea to couscous with lamb tajine: Just some potatoes, carrots, a turnip, organic garbanzos, some spices,  a few raisins....so I got all that stuff and was content with the idea of that. See, Madeleina asked me yesterday what a gyro was: She said she always loved that huge meat on the slowly spinning spit but never had one. Heck, I couldn't believe it! I'm certainly going to dad hell for having lived with her in New York City and never having introduced her to a gyro!
    So I'd already looked up "Gyros in Fort Worth" and written a food critic--fantastic writer of in-depth investigative pieces who also does some food reviews--and both the internet and he said there was a place called Paul's in Fort Worth that might have the gyro I was looking for. That being on my mind, that's probably why I peeked at the meat and grabbed the lamb ribs.
    But when I got home and responded to the email from my food critic friend, I said I couldn't believe I had never given Madeleina a gyro. I said I'd given her tajine, moussaka, raita, hummus, lentils, pastitsio and a number of other Mediterranean--Moroccan/Greek--dishes, but not the darned gyro.
    Which, of course, got me thinking of patstitsio: That divine blend of well seasoned ziti at the base of the baking dish, very well seasoned, almost sweet, chopped meat with garlic, onions, tomatoes, wine on top of the pasta, and then another layer of pasta--all covered in a Bechemel (white sauce with parmesan and nutmeg and eggs) sauce, then baked till golden brown.
   As it happened, I had 1 1/2 pounds of good chopped chuck in the house, lots of good parmesan, organic milk, organic nutmeg, fusilli, garlic, onions, tomatoes, tomato paste, red wine and butter and organic flour (I'm up to organic flour for goodness sake! Don't I get a boyscout badge for this sort of shopping?????).
   Right now, the pastitsio is in the oven. We somehow evolved from a hot ham and cheese sandwich on good sesame french bread--one of my favorites--to white shrimp and clam sauce on vermicelli, to lamb tajine on couscous to pastitsio.
   And that's how dinner gets made around here!
   

Another dumb leg post

Okay, another dumb leg post. Just went back to my leg surgeon and he debrided the rotten stuff from my infected legs in his office. With a scalpel, no pain killers. It hurt. I've got JimmyLegs right now from the pain. It will pass. Finally breaking down and having a couple of pain killers--been avoiding them, but not now--and bought a $13 bottle of Cabernet S. to help ease the pain. Never do that. Should have given the money to a poor person, but was selfishly thinking of myself. Yikes! This hurts!!!!!!!
Toughen up, Gorman, you darned sissy! Get over yourself!
Okay, boss. Will do that now, best I can.
PS: He's a freaking genius in my book. You need surgery in Fort Worth or Johnson County or Dallas, Dr. Ford is the man. Cannot speak highly enough of him--except for the occasionally cruel days, like today. Still, he's the best.

Damn these legs of mine!

Okay, back from the jungle. The legs started acting up down there: Lots of swelling, bacteria. Then the skin started coming off in pieces. Got onto antibiotics, came home, showed pics to my great doc, Gritter, in Alabama. He got me on different, stronger antibiotics. Was getting ugly again. Not as bad as last year, but after the wound and the skin graft, to see half of the grafted area suddenly open and weeping again was frightening. And when I say weeping: Lets say I took a shower--cold water buckets over my head in my room--then dressed and went for morning coffee at the Cafe Express, the old man's coffee place (with fantastic, cheap street food items). By the time I was done a single coffee, there was a puddle the size of a good-sized pee under and around my sneakers. The poison was in there and my body was making holes to get it out. But how the heck did I get it this time? I know last time how it happened. I know there was an element of jealousy/magic involved. And that was harrowing. But how the heck did it happen this time? The entire time I was in the jungle I had my leg slathered in triple antibiotic ointment and wrapped. And I wore military pants that tied at the ankle. (I could not wear them in Iquitos out of respect for the soldiers who earned the right to wear them. As I was never in the military--something I'm proud of as the Vietnam war was a brutal waste of life meant only to open up southeast Asia to Nike factories--I have not earned the right to wear them.)
     So where did this stuff come from?
     The first few days home I ignored the pain: I answered dozens of emails, did radio interviews, cleaned the house, did taxes, paid bills. But about three/four days ago I could no longer do anything because the constant pain was not allowing me to think straight.
     So I made an appointment with my fantastic, brilliant surgeon, Dr. Ronny Ford, chief of surgery at Huguley Memorial Hospital in Burleson, TX, and saw him yesterday. Turns out he decided to debride me in the office. That meant basically taking a tiny cup with a razor edge and skimming off all infected skin--of course to do that you have to hit the good skin, which is without epidermis. People probably heard me scream from Austin, Texas, 200 miles away. Man, it was like being back in the hospital 18 months ago when atrocities were performed on my body in the name of healing. Yes, they healed me. Yes, I let him do it again. Yes, the pain was just as bad.
     And now, having taken pain pills he gave me, and drinking a glass of wine, I can finally relate to you all. I'm sorry it's such a wimpy tale. I'd rather be talking about the beauty of the jungle, the magic of the trip and all that jazz. I just can't really get past the pain though, so I apologize.
    My office looks like a semi-hospital room again. Bags of leg wraps, silver leg linings, Ace bandages on the table next to the desk. The desk cluttered with the wraps I just changed. Medicines everywhere.
    I am not falling in love with my disease. I don't like this one freaking bit. And I will be a very, very happy person once the pain is gone and I can get back to work with a clear head.
    I hope that all of you are doing way better than I am. I ain't dying, but it sure isn't a place I'd want anyone else to visit.

Home Again, Alone Again

Well, hello everyone. just came in from Peru late yesterday, Feb. 3. Boy, to hear my family talk it when I occasionally called from Peru they were dying for me to get here. And Chepa, the wife/ex-wife, met me at the airport dressed to the nines. Brought my grandbaby Taylor Rain with her. Treated me like a king, insisting that she wanted to stop at the liquor store because I should have a bottle of wine. So we did. And later in the day Madeleina and Italo, with Taylor Rain in tow, came over and while I'd cooked some chicken breasts--sliced open, seared, garlicked with a bit of olive oil, cracked black pepper and coarse sea salt then baked--and made good Jasmine rice, to be had with salads--Taylor Rain insisted on pizza. So Italo and Madeleina went out for pizza and they all ate some of each while we watch the fabulous The Whole Nine Yards--a small but well made comedy. Italo and I laughed through it while Taylor Rain and Madeleina slept.
    Then this morning: Madeleina still has all of her stuff at Chepa's and Italo's, so she woke me at 5 AM to tell me I had to take her to Italo's to get showered. As she got out she let me know she'd made plans for after school and not to bother picking her up. Okay, she's 17, I get it.
     This afternoon Marco came over to talk about dark nights of the soul and that was deep and fantastic. Then he split.
     Just now, at about 6:30, Chepa's Sierra came over to say hello with Italo and Taylor Rain, bringing with her some great new drawings. Three minutes later, after Italo found some natural cold remedy I have, they split. Then Madeleina called to say that, by the way, she won't be coming home tonight. So forget the shrimp dinner I was gonna make, cause I ain't gonna eat alone. And Chepa, who asked for more than 40 pounds of Peruvian foods, said she won't be coming over to get any of it either.
    And now I'm just shaking my head. What the heck? I guess the IDEA of Peter Gorman is a lot better than the reality of me. So I think I'd better improve myself. Cause I'd rather that no one care about me when I am gone, but definitely care about me when I'm here. I think it's part of the problem of being the anchor for a family or a business or anything else: Everybody really does love you, but their real concern is that the anchor is there, alive and functioning and in control. Once that's in place, not everybody needs anything more from that anchor. They've all seen me, I'm alive, they're happy. But they ain't over here playing darts, or eating dinner, darn it!

Happy New Year!

Dear All: First off, HAPPY NEW YEAR! I wish each of you a very happy new year--one that's stable so that you can do the work you need to do, but one that's also full of wonderful surprises: Daybreaks that snap you spirit to attention; sunsets that calm your soul; fulfillment from whatever projects you attempt that keeps you going and then the satisfaction of having finished them. And maybe a stolen kiss that you both loved, a book that stretches your imagination, a meal that opens you up to a whole new way of appreciating food, a stranger whose smile sends a rotten mood running. There are million of wonderful surprises out there that bombard us daily. Our job is to be receptive to them, regardless of where our ego is in a given moment. Just let the love rain down on you. You don't need an umbrella: you need a funnel to catch it all and let it enrich your hearts and souls. 
    So have a great new year. I hope light illuminates your darkness and shows you the way out of every problem you encounter.