420

Today is National Pot Smoking Day. I had no idea until yesterday that that's what today was designated. Last night we watched Family Guy and there was a song and dance between Stewie (the baby) and Brian (the dog). They did a parody of the song "The Big Bamboo" from "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" called "Bag of Weed" calling for the legalization of marijuana. It sent me into gales of laughter. In fact, I hadn't laughed that hard in a long time. At the first commerical break, I run to youtube, and sure enough, someone already had posted it. I watched it and laughed some more and posted a link to it.

So, today, after I get home, all those videos have been taken down due to copyright enforcement by Fox. Now, let me say this: I am all for copyright protection. People should get paid for their work. But somehow, this one is frustrating. First, it's a clip. It's not a full episode. It's only 3:00 long. In many ways, it's a free advertisement for the show. Let it go, Fox. Or better yet, post it yourself. There are plenty of other segments from Family Guy posted. There are other videos of the song posted, but it's just stills; there's no action. Why did they pick on this one?

On a Related Note:


Today, downtown there was a MASSIVE turnout of people who were participating in toking up for pot day. If you looked at the Art Gallery lawn from across the street, you could clearly see the haze. I'm guessing there were 5,000 people there. I cut through the crowd at one point just to be able to write about the experience. I've never smoked pot, and don't plan to until it's legal, but I see no reason why it shouldn't be a controlled substance (in other words, don't get behind the wheel of a car). Most of the people I saw were relatively young; early to mid-twenties. There were also a fair amount of people in their 50's and 60's, but the crowd was predominantly young. I didn't see any police, but apparently they were there in a crowd control capacity. Everyone was well-behaved. The crowd was hard to navigate through (it took me about 15 minutes) but no one got nasty at getting pushed and shoved - and there wasn't a lot of room to slip between people. There was a party atmosphere. Loud music and people tossing joints into the crowd for others to catch them. It was very interesting for this little miss-goody-two shoes.