Archive for November, 2008

One Fifth of Amsterdam’s Coffeeshops to Close

This story in Yahoo! News caught my eye. One fifth of Amsterdam’s famous coffeeshops are being forced to close because of a new law that forbids them from being within 250 meters of a school. For those of you who aren’t hip to the jive, “coffeeshop” is a euphemism for the semi-legal businesses that sell marijuana and other soft drugs in Amsterdam and other cities in the Netherlands. The Dutch cultural is notoriously tolerant when it comes to soft drugs, but there is a growing perception that drug use, especially among tourists, is becoming a problem. Visitors from other nations come to Amsterdam with the express purpose of getting high and go around behaving rather boorishly. For me, the money quote is from Gerd Leers, the mayor of the Dutch city of Maastricht, who was quoted as saying “the problem is not the fact the Netherlands has coffee shops, the problem is that other countries don’t”. I tend to agree with his sentiment. If the troublemakers could get high legally or semi-legally at home, then they wouldn’t be getting off the plane in Holland with the intent to do it up as much as they can in a single weekend. In fact, a liberalization of cannabis laws in England might affect the unhealthy “yob culture” that has sprung up around alcohol in England. Instead of getting drunk and fighting, “the lads” would be doing the ol’ puff-puff-pass. Who knows? Anyway, I found the article interesting, and wanted to share. Enjoy!

R.I.P. Jimmy Carl Black, The Indian In The Group

Jimmy Carl Black, the original drummer for Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, died on November 1st. He actually brought Zappa into the band that became the Mothers, and played with the group until 1969, when Zappa disbanded the original Mothers. If you have it, dig out your old copy of “Freak Out!” and listen to the world’s first concept album again, in honor of one of the men who made it possible. If you don’t have it, go get it. You need an education.