This sort of thing appeals to me on a variety of levels actually. For one, the band, in my humble opinion, has never sounded better. Having been to an almost inconceivable amount of shows in my day, this year I saw some of the best I have ever seen. Sets are packed with songs (no 45 minute Divided Sky jams here) and the songs they play are intense. Musically, I think they are at the top of their game.

Second, anyone who saw Avatar knows that this ain’t your daddy’s 3D a la thick, horn rimmed glasses seeing Michael Jackson “sparkle” in Captain EO. This is serious, in-your-face, no joke 3D that envelopes the audience. While I do tend to think that of all bands Phish does have a tendency to release a whole bunch of “special” sets as products, this one truly could be a gem.

I for one will likely be first in line for this sucker or, at the very least, and if possible, on pre-order. I am, to say the least, extremely psyched.

The jars are great actually. They are the perfect size for a modest amount of your medicine and come with convenient separators that come in very handy when creating separation between herbs and smoking devices. Again, these are modestly sized so you will not be seeing a unit to carry massive amounts.

Definitely a must-have if you are in this group.

One day while walking down the street in New York city I got a cup of coffee from a street vendor who literally could not pump them out fast enough. Across the street I saw a Starbucks with a line out the door, and not too far away there was a Dunkin Donuts with the same story. It got me thinking; that is a lot of coffee.

Not only is that a lot of coffee but it got me thinking, that is a lot of cups. Wow, is that a lot of cups. Since this fact is likely near, if not completely, impossible to get an accurate read on let’s try and get a high level probability view of the situation.

According to Wikipedia ” The city’s 2007 estimated population exceeds 8.3 million people” (they quote “Accepted Challenges to Vintage 2007 Population Estimates“. United States Census Bureau, Population Division. http://www.census.gov/popest/archives/2000s/vintage_2007/07s_challenges.html. Retrieved on 2009-04-09. as their source).

I have lived here for a decade and I know practically everyone I know drinks coffee at least once a day, most several. According to High Beam Research (http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-148279532.html) the average adult coffee consumption in 2007 rose from 53% to 56%. While I would tend to think this skews higher in an urban area such as Manhattan, we will go with their numbers, 56%.

Put the two together and we have approximately 4,648,000 people drinking at least ONE cup of coffee daily. I read dozens of coffee-aholics blogs for this article and the numbers were, even to a coffee kind of guy, somewhat astonishing describing daily consumption.

Another NCA study claimed that in 1998 (latest data I could find) approximately 47.2% of Americans drank 3 or more cups a day. While this is decade old data, let’s assume that of the 4,648,000 people drinking coffee in Manhattan today that 47.2%, or 2,193,856 people, will drink 3 cups today.

In terms of cups that comes to 4,648,000 drinking coffee daily + 2(2,193,856) drinking 3 cups or more a day = 9,035,712 cups of coffee sold. Geesh, that is a crazy amount of cups.

Moving on, my local deli’s large coffee cup, with a lid, weighs approximately .8oz according to my handy postage scale. If you multiply 9,035,712 cups of coffee sold by .8 you get a total of 7,228,569.6 ounces. For those of you who didn’t know this, one ounce is equal to 0.0625 pounds. That works out to roughly 451,785.6 pounds of trash created daily by New Yorkers ONLY, daily. That is every day. That is a lot of garbage for us to feed our addictions, relieve our hangovers, perk up, etc.

That got me thinking, what does one do with this information? Well, I started by writing this post. From here I am more than happy to switch to a re-useable cup or simply make and drink it at home. These are all easier options and far less destructive. But what else? Can I recycle these?

The answer is yes and no. I can recycle the cardboard cup, which we do almost daily. This is a step. The plastic lid though at my local deli and at least one other retailer was a plastic number 8. This means in my municipality there is no way of recycling this part. Bummer. While I have a host of commentary on municipalities not recycling all forms of plastic we will save that for another day.

Then there are places like Dunkin Donuts which should, in this writer’s humble opinion, be drug out to the town square and tarred and feathered. Having styrofoam cups in 2009 is grotesquely irresponsible and simply hard to believe. Needless to say I do not get coffee there. If I am forced to, they have a small coffee option that is cardboard and I opt for this. While smaller, I hate them a little less for at least giving me an option to not use styrofoam. I have also stopped buying coffee from delis and other restaurants who use styrofoam. I asked one owner why they use styrofoam and her reply was “this is the only way to keep coffee warm”. Really? You ever hear of a small coffee retailer named Starbucks? No styrofoam to be seen, and one on every block in Manhattan, and guess what? Their coffee stays plenty hot.

In the end this little information hunt has made me at the very least reconsider my daily habits. It made me realize that even something as small as my daily cup(s) of coffee can have a fairly significant impact on the world around me. Tomorrow, I bring a mug.

Let’s call it what it really is people, you want to get high and not fear going to jail. And why not? The arguments for are too many to cite in this article but in general, I can go to a bar to enjoy a beverage any time I choose. Let’s say it was a really good day and I have a few too many. Jump in the car, off I go. Nothing prevents me from doing that not even the countless commercials on anti-drunk driving, photos of a dead high school student wrapped around a phone pole, statistics on reflex times being less when drunk and behind the wheel, whining religious groups intent on telling me alcohol is an instrument of the devil, etc.

What prevents me from doing that is my own internal sense of responsibility. My internal meter that says, “STOP! Something is amiss”. I am perfectly capable of governing my own actions based on an inherent sense of what is right and wrong. To this end, why can’t I smoke a joint in lieu of that drink?

Recently I went to a outdoor concert. Not surprising there was no shortage of smoking pot. Funny enough though out of the thousands of people I saw enjoying the show, the only one who really irked me was the guy passed out in a small puddle of his lunch in the grass. Not only was it disgusting but we all know from an experience in the past that the behavior of someone in this current state of being is not enjoyable. Loud, clumsy, incoherent, the list goes on. Why not smoke instead?

While we won’t argue each point for and against in this post what I did want to mention was trends. As of 2006, there were 10 states who had already legalized medicinal marijuana. At the time of publishing this post, an additional 13 had bills in government to legalize it. That is nearly half of our country people. That is significant no matter how you phrase it. We appear to be trending towards making it legal for medicinal use. Keep in mind all of these states have been mostly since 1999 which means in 10 years we have gone from zero to where we are now. No small feat to be sure.

Let’s look at this a few new ways too…

Let’s assume that the 13 states with bills on the floor all pass. Add them to the 10 that already have legislature in place. First, as mentioned earlier, that is 23 out of 50 states. Not quite, but very close to half. Turn that around one more time and let’s say medicinal marijuana is running for president. The electoral votes in those 23 states add up to 269. While this would still be a loss, one short of the required 270, that would be an incredible race would it not? Again, while still a loss, if this topic measures that high on a scale we use to elect our president, it should be incredibly indicative of where we are as a nation on this topic. Or said one last way, we are all perfectly ok with people getting high for “medicinal” purposes.

Here is one more for you; what about kids? One huge argument has been that legalization at the medicinal level will make access easier for our teens. Take a look at this study:

http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/viewresource.asp?resourceID=001557

This was a graph made by ProCon.org which compared data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Household Surveys on Drug Abuse (NHSDA) on teen drug use in states with, and without, laws legalizing the practice. Guess what? In their own words…

“The lack of an increase in teen marijuana use in states that legalized medical marijuana appears to disprove the argument that legalizing medical marijuana would lead to increased teen use of marijuana for recreational purposes. The cause of the decrease in teen use, however, cannot be determined without additional information and statistical analysis. ”

I highly recommend reading it for yourself. The study concludes by citing a common argument to studies like this one:

“They point to the 1999 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA), which ‘reveals that those states which have passed medical marijuana laws have among the highest levels of past-month marijuana use, of past-month other drug use, of drug addiction, and of drug and alcohol addiction.’ [...] It is at least possible, however, that this analysis confuses cause with effect…It is logical to assume that the states with the highest prevalence of marijuana usage would be more likely to approve medical marijuana programs, because the populations of those states would be more knowledgeable of marijuana’s effects and more tolerant of its use.”

No kidding? While it does not take a theoretical physicist to come to this conclusion the argument should only further illustrate the overall point: we as a nation appear to be more and more ready to “tolerate” this. Fighting something based on old rationale and dated information is almost always a loosing proposition. This is a primary defect with many extremist groups; the inability to grow with the world around you. While it appears that we seem to be growing more and more each year with regards to this topic, we still have a lot of work to do. (we especially need that one last vote you know).

For the majority of my adult life I have been around wine, wine enthusists, and assorted wine accoutrements. In other words, wine has been somewhat of a non-issue for me. The regular joke is that “wine is a condiment around here”. Recently however I went to a wine festival in Maryland and stumbled across a sign that absolutely floored me, “Why is it a felony to ship wine to Maryland?”

A felony? Seriously?

I wrapped up my day shortly after and went home to investigate. As it turns out, it is in fact a felony to ship wine to Maryland. I have found a few reasons cited, some usual suspects such as “minors will get easier access to alcohol”, and “we cannot tax it”. Essentially however it would seem that the primary blockade is due to a three-tier distribution system that requires all people purchase through this system.

Remove outright greed, or rather, fear of loosing their free meal ticket, how about the obvious fact that the law makes no sense. Case in point, I can go to any one (or 10 for that matter) of the numerous wineries in the state of Maryland (there are over 300 wines in the state) and bring home all the wine my car can carry. Hell, I can strap it to the roof if I so chose. But that last one I just can’t fit unless I kick aunt Esther out of the car to make room, well ship that home and I can be slapped with a felony. Imagine for a moment answering that question on the next job interview questionnaire.

Interview question: Have you ever been convicted of a felony? If so, please explain

You: Yes. Well, you see, I purchased a bottle of wine and shipped it to my house. The end.

I write this fully understanding the complexities involved with keeping laws in line with the thinking of the modern times. Time after time you read of laws made in another era that simply do not apply currently culture or thinking yet remain on the books for any number of reasons. That being said, I am constantly struck by the sheer lack of validity when it comes to laws the prevent rational, law-abiding, tax-paying, responsible members of society from doing (or in this case purchasing) something based on another group’s interests. In this case, a network of in-state distributors who do not wish to relinquish their piece of the pie.

We live in an internet world. No longer do you have to leave your house to seek products you desire. This is a reality, not a futuristic view of what might be. This is the new truth so why not embrace it? The amount of money we spend as a nation on preventing such things that cannot be prevented instead of using that energy to captialize on it simply amazes me. In doing research for this it turns out that at least six states (Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Tennessee and Utah) do this.

While I could go on and on about why I disagree I will sum it up by stating that it is infuriating that as an adult I cannot ship wine to my home if I lived in one of six states that deemed it inappropriate to do so. Choice is a fundamental cornerstone of our country. For adults, wine is not illegal to buy or dink. So to make it illegal to choose to buy wine and ship it to my house seems a bit archaic and it should probably be thought about a bit more. I truly look forward to a day when we as a race finally come to our senses and realize that we have bigger fish to fry.

For more information on shipping laws in your state you can visit this site which does a great job of listing them out for you:

http://www.wineinstitute.org/initiatives/stateshippinglaws

For a slightly more succinct version you can go here:

http://www.winespectator.com/Wine/Features/0,1197,1059,00.html

If you want to do something about your state this organization is full steam ahead on getting these outdated laws off the books:

http://www.freethegrapes.org/

I have been to more Phish shows than I can even remember accurately. Been around and around and around that trip and had a blast every time. A show to me was, as they say, like sex, even a bad show was still a show. It was then no surprise that when they came somewhat near our house it was showtime without any question.

The venue was Camden NJ. I had downloaded the Hampton VA shows on MP3 as soon as they were available and was completely blown away by the shows; all of them. After such a hiatus the band appeared very tight and strangely almost better than before. While I thought this may be an over-romanticized sentiment based on their absence over the past few years, I was nonetheless excited to see first hand.

The show could not have been better. Songs I had only heard a handfull of times over the years were all played in the first set (namely Fee, Lizards, and Strange Design). With the exception of a few comically forgotten words by Trey the band was tighter than I had ever heard them and they put on one of the best shows I can remember.

What I found most interesting was the crowd. Some things never change; tickets for drugs, searching for their miracle, grilled cheeses in the parking lot. What was slightly different was that the beat up Hondas were traded up to brand new SUVs. People got there via their GPS systems and I even saw a Porche blasting Julius while they danced in front. The venue was an outdoor amphitheater so there were lawn seats. The back most row was almost a day care center with slightly older Phans with kids in tow just hanging on the grass. It was truly a shift in the norm for a Phish show. Belonging to a similar demographic, while I didn’t have my kid with me, I could certainly see why they did. It was very cool to see the crowd in a bit more grown up sense.

Similarly I spoke with nearly a dozen folks who this was their very first show. All these years they had been listening to their friend’s recordings and studio albums but never a show. No one had a bad time and the scene was as phriendly as ever.

I look forward to more shows to come as well I remind everyone that the fun loving, music listening, bring your kid to a great show and feel safe, vibe is the reason we all love this lifestyle. It is always good to know that I am not the only one.

My involvement with this movement came parallel with the “Parental Advisory” label. This lovely black label with white writing was earnest in its origins; warn unsuspecting parents that this band “Motley Crue” had a lyric “…kickin’ ass on the wild side”. This “protection” was deemed so important that any song with vulgarity was required to have one. The problem is that this label meant to protect me as a child actually became a bulls-eye for which albums to buy.

If left alone neither myself nor any of my cohorts would have really thought twice about it. Motley Crue was simply one of dozens of bands who featured an obscenity on their album. Left unchecked, this fact would have simply rolled off into oblivion as we enjoyed the album. Having a “warning” on it though was almost like having a musical version of Mr. Skin. We feverishly purchased the album and proceeded to speed through it looking for the bad words. Sort of defeated the point now didn’t it?

Today, nearly 20 years later, I found myself listening to a similar situation unfold on the Howard Stern show. It was mentioned that the Black Eyed Peas’ new song “Boom Boom” had a bleeped out word in it. As much as I think this is a ridiculous waste of tax payer dollars to actually employ someone to scout out these things for “safe” airplay, I listened on. As it turns out, the word bleeped out was “satellite”; as in “satellite radio”.

Huh? I was lost.

How in the world is this bleeped out? I mean surely this is a mistake. Nope. In fact, not only was it bleeped out on Clear Channel’s version for terrestrial radio broadcast but also on Sirius’ version as well. Someone is not paying attention to their distribution channels at all.

It is said that the radio station requested this be done to hide the word from their audience. Hmmm, effective? I think not. As when I was a child in the record store, this otherwise non-important fact now becomes a center point for attention. By doing this Clear Channel is simply standing on a soap box, pulling out their bullhorn, cranking that puppy up to 11, and screaming “we don’t like satellite!”. We know that already, no need to point it out.

This notion that a bleep somehow protects anyone is completely antiquated. No one, man, woman, or child, alive and breathing today cannot figure out what is actually being said in the first place. The school playground is as much alive with swear words and obsentities as is the local saloon for happy hour. This tactic does not work. Ignoring the word satellite is not going to make it go away either. This is insulting to our intelligence and a waste of resources. Can you believe they actually paid to have two versions of that song release for that reason alone?

At some point in my life I would love to see the human race mellow out and wake up to see the bigger picture. The old school is dead and it is time to get with the new program. As the universe expands and contracts so must we with our rules and enforcement thereof. This behavior helps no one and only draws attention to their short-sighted vision of what will never be the same again. Adapt or perish people, adapt or perish.

So it is that time of year again, April 20, where we all celebrate that which binds us. If you don’t know what I mean, please Google 4/20 and get back to us. Likely you are in the wrong spot.

With this “holiday” of sorts coming every year it is often quite easy to determine what happens today, and for most of our viewers, last year, the year before, etc. But what got us interested this year what what ELSE happened on this most momentous of days? I mean certainly SOMETHING else must have happened right? Today we examine a few of those things. Some are pretty important, others, well, your original plans were probably much more exciting

0295 - 8th recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet

1702 - Comet C/1702 H1 approaches within 0.0437 AUs of Earth

1792 - France declared war on Austria, marking the start of the French Revolutionary wars.

1836 - The Territory of Wisconsin was established by Congress.

1865 - Safety matches were first advertised this day.

1889 - Supreme Asshole Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau, Austria.

1902 - Scientists Marie and Pierre Curie isolated the radioactive element radium.

1931 - Louis Armstrong recorded the classic, When It’s Sleepy Time Down South, for Okeh Records. Satchmo would use the tune as his theme song for decades. The song was waxed in Chicago, IL.

1934 - One of America’s most beloved child stars made her debut. Shirley Temple debuted in Stand Up and Cheer, which opened in New York City. Moviegoers would rave about her song and dance routine, Baby, Take a Bow, for many years.

1940 - RCA publicly demonstrated its new electron microscope.

1945 - Allied forces took control of the German cities of Nuremberg and Stuttgart during World War II.

1947 - Comedian Fred Allen of Allen’s Alley fame didn’t find things so funny when censors cut him off the air during his radio broadcast. Allen was telling a joke about a mythical network vice-president when he was suddenly taken off the air.

1959 - Desilu Playhouse on CBS-TV presented a two-part show titled, The Untouchables starting this night. Robert Stack starred in the program and became a major television star when The Untouchables become a weekly network series in the fall of 1959.

1961 - The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gave approval for FM stereo broadcasting. It would be another five or six years before FM stations went ‘underground’ or ‘progressive’ to attract listeners who were tired of the lack of audio quality on AM stations. FM stations to that time had broadcast in glorious monaural sound.

1972 - The manned lunar module from Apollo 16 landed on the moon.

1980 - The first Cubans sailing to the United States as part of the massive Mariel boatlift reached Florida.

1985 - The British pop music group Wham!, featuring George Michael, became the first to release cassettes in the People’s Republic of China. Selections from two of the group’s albums were packaged and sold on the tape.

1987 - Starlight Express posted the largest week’s gross in Broadway history. The roller-skating musical earned $606,081 at the box office. The revival of The King and I starring Yul Brynner had been the previous leader (1985).

1999 - Two seriously disturbed students went on a shooting rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., killing 12 students and one teacher before taking their own lives.

2005 - President George W. Bush signed a bill making it harder for debt-ridden people to wipe clean their financial slates by declaring bankruptcy. (Figures that this guy would do that)

2008 - Super hottie Danica Patrick became the first female winner in IndyCar history, capturing the Indy Japan 300 in her 50th career start.