Category: #blog

Boulder, CO. Where the Hip Meet to Trip.

jamie

That was title of the 1979 Time Magazine article about Boulder Colorado. Naturally, I decided to go to college there. Mostly to get as far away from home and my Goldwater Republican parents as possible. I stayed in Boulder over the summers, to avoid conflicts. It was a different city when the college wasn’t in session. I think we met Morris the first or second summer.

They called it Guyana Punch, and the Guyana Parties at Morris’s place on The Hill were legendary.
Everyone brought a bottle. Liquor, any kind was acceptable. Everclear, 151 rum and vodka were the foundation. Water, KoolAid and assorted juices and fruits were added, and the party was off and running.
Somewhere during the evening, sheets, tabs, and assorted microdots always found their way into the punch, and everything got colorful and weird.

Music. Usually Grateful Dead tapes from some show someplace that was “the best trip ever”. Great times. Great people. Great music always makes the scene.

When the punch eventually ran dry, and all the places to buy real beer were long closed, literally hundreds of people tripping their balls off wandered off into the Boulder night on their own psychedelic adventures.
I remember one night after Morris’, we ended up smoking weed with these girls at this witches coven house down the street. At least I thought they were witches.

At some point, my buddy Adam turned into The Devil during the Stones Sympathy, and I wandered off, caught up in one of those trips, where facing one’s own fears turns into battles with demons and dragons. My roommates spent hours looking for me. I spent hours looking for me, too. Eventually I wandered home I guess, because I woke up there the next afternoon. Nobody remembered and dragons or witches but me.

All things must end. Eventually, the Guyana Parties did too. Morris, the Cat who threw the parties (and probably always dosed the punch) moved on to who knows where. Times changed. We grew up.

The Boulder scene changed a lot when the cocaine started rolling into town. Coke and acid really don’t mix. It changed the party. The whole scene, and not for the better.
You don’t threaten to kill people to get more acid or mushrooms, but with meth and coke, lots of liquor…you never know.

Things melted down. People ended up in jail. Everyone was a narc. Nobody could be trusted. Eventually, I was glad to be out of the hip-meet-to-trip delusion. Every trip ends, I guess. Everyone I knew got out alive, so I figure it’s a win.

I’ve stumbled into a lot of crazy party scenes since, and sooner or later the mood always gets heavy. It’s all fun and games. Then they change the meds, some new people change the mood, and everything changes with it.

Not usually for the better.

If (Revisited for the 2020s, with no apologies to Kipling and Dr Seuss)

jamie

If you can keep your head
when you’re surrounded by idiots
who blindly believe

If you dream of a future
where no one goes hungry,
no one in need

If your head spins from lies,
corruption and greed,
from sources empowered,
trusted to read. us the news.

If you care about kindness
and feel pain when others,
are hurt due to ignorance
of assholes unkind.

If you respect all creation,
and don’t understand,
why people and creatures
suffer at the hands
of inhumane humans
who don’t have a plan
to make anything better
if they can’t make a buck,
I know they all mock us,
think we’re all dumb as fuck
keep telling us it’s just
a run of bad luck
while they reap giant profits
Did i say reap? I meant SUCK
till there’s nothing to suck
because they’ve sucked it all up

If you believe in equality
and justice for all,
while living in horror
or hiding or fear
at the hateful who profit
by war and division
and shameless abuse
of the poor and the meek

If everything around you
seems way too insane,
a fucked up new normal,
a pain in the brain,
each new profanity
a breath of insanity,
making the last one
seem comfortable, fuzzy and warm.

If this is a world
that ain’t one you prefer,
and the people in power
seem doomed to make things worse

If you keep falling and getting back up
when the world seems dead set
on knocking your ass
right back to the pavement
as soon as you do.

If making things better
still seems important,
even after all
we’ve all been through

Then remember one thing,
my friend most of all.
The bigger the asshole,
the louder they fall

For so many have eyes
but refuse to be able
to see through the lies
to the truth on the table
in Freedom’s last light
We fade into denial
with barely a fight,
Staring into the Void
of our future destroyed
Pretending the darkness
Is too fucking bright

time to wake up now
the nightmare won’t end until we do
If…

Jamie Gray is a songwriter from upstate NY

July Fourth, Two Thousand Twenty Five.

jamie

Fourth of July.

I gotta say…I may grill up some burgers today and smoke a little extra weed (if that’s even possible). But this is not a year to celebrate freedom and liberty, when we have lost them both, our Capitol and government in the hands of TRAITORS.

We are victims of a Treasonous Coup.
Powered by billionaires and unlimited money to buy the mass media manipulation of America they needed to ‘win’. Now they seek to destroy everything we’ve worked to build, all so a few thousand rich people can get even richer.



The people no longer have representation. Both parties have overwhelmingly served the elite for years, and people’s voice has been routinely ignored to favor corporate profits and political corruption. Now that corruption has grown into total control by the most corrupt party. The party willing to do ANYTHING to win.
And here we are. King Trump and his MAGA court of violent trolls and fools.
Predictable. If you know history.

249 years ago we said NO on July 4th, 1776.
We said FUCK YOU to a King who sought to exploit us. Control us. Who sent military troops into our streets, to scare us into submission.

Today, masked secret police are disappearing people to concentration camps without due process. Troops are in the streets again. To scare us into submission.



A self-proclaimed king sits in the Oval Office. In OUR Whitehouse.


The People will serve No King nor Corporate Overlord.
Not ever.
Not in America.
July 4th, 2025. This year, it’s not about burgers and beer, and waving the flag.
It’s about purpose.

“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…”

History repeats until you fucking learn it.

Occupied Amerika Day 163

jamie

Life in Occupied Amerika. S.N.A.F.U. Day 163.
Seems Normal. Except for the masked secret police in combat gear, snatching brown people off the streets without evidence or trial, and shipping them off to Alligator Auschwitz, Africa or Guatemala.
STILL some of you are acting like this is all perfectly normal. How?!
It’s all fine with you? Then FUCK YOU!


No. Nothing is fine here in America. If you aren’t raging against the propaganda machine, you ARE the problem.


This is a hostile takeover by the billionaire class. They are deploying military units against the American People, in attempt to teach us to behave. To fear them. To be quiet, while they bleed our nation dry. They are counting on you to be good little sheep. They should know better.


Ultimately, they will FAIL. Because, Americans don’t behave. And we don’t want fake morality shoved down our throats by these whores and thieves.
The oppressors are few, and weak, when their money can’t buy our silence. We will never bow to kings, of state nor industry.

We are many, and fiercely strong when we stand together. That’s why they try to split us up, red and blue. White and Brown. Left and right. Any way they can. But we all love freedom. And sooner or later, troops and tanks roll down the streets firing upon citizens, and then everyone knows the truth.


This is a disgusting breach of the Constitution, of law, and the rights of The People. We must stand against the billionaires and demand our government back. Stand Up For Our Rights. Plain and simple.


Fuck their Blue and Red bullshit. We’re pissed, and we’re coming for you. For our country back.

Patriots

jamie

I’m not a subversive
I’m a patriot.

Anyone can wave the flag
While denying the rights to others
Guaranteed by The Constitution.
They can call that patriotism,
but it’s obviously a lie.
Anyone can order troops into the streets
To terrorize the citizens of the
second largest city in the country.
It’s not patriotic to deny citizens their 1st amendment right to protest and object to an unjust government.
That is not American. It’s illegal here.


Patriotism isn’t fealty to one man
Patriots don’t give a FUCK about party lines
Patriots believe in the law
Patriots believe in the rights of citizens
And non citizens
To live without government oppression
True Americans believe in freedom
Freedom means we get to choose
How we live
Who we love
What we worship.

We get to decide where we live and where we go. Americans, and visitors here, get to live without fear of illegal police detainment, searches and worse.

THIS BULLSHIT is NOT AMERICA.
Masked secret police doing the bidding of their political masters is NOT AMERICAN. This is some Soviet Nazi type bullshit folks.

These people in charge are NOT patriots
They hug the flag while ignoring
The Highest Laws of the Land.
They celebrate cruelty, not justice

The insurrection has succeeded
Our Capitol has fallen into the hands
Of traitors and TREASONISTS
Religious bigots and billionaire bullies.
Privateers. Plundering the Treasury.

Thugs and thieves stealing our money and our private information. To be used against us if we speak out.
They are destroying our peaceful way of life, with lies of invasions and crime.
Just excuses to use military force
Against The American People.
Who dare to protest the abuses
By a corrupt and toxic regime.

The invaders are in power
The Crimes are happening
Right before our eyes
Committed upon The People
By a corrupt and invalid government.
Purchased by billionaires.
Operating of, by and for, absolute greed and the extortion of the American People.

The True Patriots are speaking out against this illegal hostile takeover.
True American Patriots are standing up to the treasonous fools, who are out to destroy everything we have, just so they can drain every ounce of value, from the planet and it’s occupants.

Extract. Exploit. Discard.
The rest of us pay for their excess
The rest of us pay for their egos
The rest of us pay for their lack of compassion.
We suffer their lack of empathy.
We pay with our lives.
With the lives of our children.

If you aren’t working AGAINST them, you are helping them. You are aiding and abetting the criminals, who are out to harm all of us. You are one of them.

Silence in the face of injustice is complicity