Why I miss California
Don't know what paper this was in (I got it off a private email list), but it's pretty funny. Maybe from "The Onion"? (I can't beleive it's real!)
FROM LOS ANGELES CITY BEAT
Germ Busted for Soap
Drummer Don Bolles is jailed after police say soap bottle in his car
contains illegal drug, GHB
~ By DEAN KUIPERS ~
It was just another average day in the flamboyantly messy life of Don Bolles, once the drummer for the legendarily messy, flamboyant Los Angeles punk band, the Germs. On April 4, Bolles had picked up his girlfriend, the 21-year-old drummer for a band called Civet who goes by the name Cat Scandal, from a Newport Beach rehab, where she had, as he put it, ?a day off.? They had just had coffee and were on their way to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
Cat Scandal was riding in the passenger seat of Bolles?s 1968 Dodge Van and they had just crossed out of Newport Beach into Costa Mesa when they were pulled over by police, who told Bolles that he allegedly had a broken brake light.
But what he really had was a crazy old van, a wild Russian fur cap, long hair, and a gorgeous young girlfriend. Bolles called it a classic case of profiling: driving while weird. And then they found the soap.
?It?s hilarious. A Germ arrested for soap,? says Bolles, 50, talking Monday via cell phone as he ran errands for a Friday court appearance. ?It?s just ridiculous. I?ve already been in jail almost four days over this, and it?s completely wrong. It?s soap. It?s peppermint Dr. Bronner?s soap.?
As Bolles fished his ID out of what he calls his ?man-purse,? policemen allegedly asked him why he was being so protective of his bag. Bolles explained there was nothing illegal in the bag. In it, police allegedly found a small amount of weed, but a legal amount for a medical marijuana user under state law. Bolles has a medical marijuana card, but did not have it on him.
?And then they found the fuckin? thing full of orange liquid that smelled like peppermint. And so they asked me what it was, and I said, ?Soap. It says so on the label; it?s in a Dr. Bronner?s bottle.??
In an e-mail to supporters sent last week, Bolles?s friend Nora Keyes wrote that he only uses Dr. Bronner?s soaps. Which would hardly be unusual, since they?re a popular brand available in stores across America. But police allegedly whipped out their drug-testing gear, a ODV 905 reagents test, and dropped some powder into the soap, and it turned color. Then they told Bolles he was under arrest for possessing a controlled substance: GHB.
?He was arrested for violating 11377(a) of the Health and Safety Code, and that was for the GHB,? says Sgt. Evan Sailor of the Newport Beach Police Department.
Bolles claims he?d heard of the drug but thought it was some kind of steroid, having never tried it. In actuality, gamma-hydroxybutyric acid is an anesthetic once popular with the rave culture for its mellow, friendly vibe as an intoxicant and also called a date-rape drug because, like Rohypnol, it can be undetectable when mixed with water. In any case, Bolles insists that the only thing in that bottle was soap.
Asked whether the police field test had any history of false positives, Sailor says, ?Not that I?m aware of. We do our preliminary testing of the substance, and then it?s sent up to the county crime lab for more testing.?
The Orange County Sheriff?s office, which administers county Forensic Science Services, was not able to verify that the case had come to their lab by press time.
Bolles was arrested and eventually ended up in Orange County Men?s Central Jail in Santa Ana on $25,000 bail, charged with felony Possession of a Controlled Substance, misdemeanor Contempt of Court for disobeying a court order, and misdemeanor Violation of a Protective/Stay Away Order. The felony drug possession charge carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. The latter two charges were brought by the Orange County D.A. and relate to an incident a year earlier when, after an altercation between Bolles and Cat Scandal, Bolles voluntarily signed a restraining order under which the two can see each other only under restricted conditions.
?It was an amicable restraining order after I got a Disturbing the Peace charge,? he explains. ?The only thing that brings this into play is the felony drug charge they?re bringing now.?
Cat Scandal, who also plays drums in the Don Bolles Disaster, was not charged in the latest incident.
?When I first got the call, I couldn?t tell if it was a joke,? laughs Michael Bronner, vice-president for international sales for Dr. Bronner?s Magic Soaps and grandson of soap creator Dr. E.H. Bronner, who died in 1997. ?I wish it would have been clearer, because we would have jumped into action sooner.?
Listening to the message on his machine, Michael Bronner thought the person was saying ?THC,? the active ingredient in marijuana. It is a common misconception that the hemp oil used in the soap is psychoactive, but in fact the drug is present in such a minute amount it is undetectable and hemp products have been declared legal to sell in the U.S. under a ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court. That case was also brought by Dr. Bronner?s Magic Soaps.
When Bronner figured out what was happening, he called Keyes and offered to pay the bail. By Saturday, however, enough small donations had poured into an online account that Bolles had already paid it. So Bronner has offered to pay the legal bills.
?First and foremost, we feel that we?re socially progressive activists, and we want to help this guy out. We want to send a message to the system that you can?t just make up reasons to incarcerate people,? says Bronner. Then he adds that there?s also the product?s reputation to consider, saying, ?As a business, we want to make sure that nobody can possibly think again that our soap contains GHB. I think it?s a little bit of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth; these ridiculous charges that everybody just laughs about, like, ?Yeah, whatever,? and all of a sudden people started believing them. We don?t want that.?
Bronner said he had never heard of any of his company?s soaps or other products testing positive for GHB or any other drug.
In a statement released Wednesday, David Bronner, Michael?s brother and president of Dr. Bronner?s Magic Soaps, said: ?We cannot imagine anyone putting GHB, or any other drug for that matter, into a rinse-off soap product that is lathered and rinsed off the body immediately. The Newport Beach police should see how much of a buzz putting beer in their shampoo gives them, and get a grip and apologize on their hands and knees to Mr. Bolles.?
Bolles, whose real name is Jimmy Michael Giorsetti, is due at a pre-trial hearing on Friday, April 13. He took his stage name from an investigative reporter at the Arizona Republic who was famously car-bombed in 1976 and died, but first blamed his death on the Mafia.
?I?m not angry at the cops. I?m angry about a system that would do this to an innocent person,? says Bolles. ?If I had been the real Don Bolles, who was a journalist, all I?d have to do is tell exactly what happened. In this case, the truth is so outrageously on my side that I don?t even need to be sensationalistic about it. It?s just a case people need to know about.?
04-12-07
FROM LOS ANGELES CITY BEAT
Germ Busted for Soap
Drummer Don Bolles is jailed after police say soap bottle in his car
contains illegal drug, GHB
~ By DEAN KUIPERS ~
It was just another average day in the flamboyantly messy life of Don Bolles, once the drummer for the legendarily messy, flamboyant Los Angeles punk band, the Germs. On April 4, Bolles had picked up his girlfriend, the 21-year-old drummer for a band called Civet who goes by the name Cat Scandal, from a Newport Beach rehab, where she had, as he put it, ?a day off.? They had just had coffee and were on their way to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
Cat Scandal was riding in the passenger seat of Bolles?s 1968 Dodge Van and they had just crossed out of Newport Beach into Costa Mesa when they were pulled over by police, who told Bolles that he allegedly had a broken brake light.
But what he really had was a crazy old van, a wild Russian fur cap, long hair, and a gorgeous young girlfriend. Bolles called it a classic case of profiling: driving while weird. And then they found the soap.
?It?s hilarious. A Germ arrested for soap,? says Bolles, 50, talking Monday via cell phone as he ran errands for a Friday court appearance. ?It?s just ridiculous. I?ve already been in jail almost four days over this, and it?s completely wrong. It?s soap. It?s peppermint Dr. Bronner?s soap.?
As Bolles fished his ID out of what he calls his ?man-purse,? policemen allegedly asked him why he was being so protective of his bag. Bolles explained there was nothing illegal in the bag. In it, police allegedly found a small amount of weed, but a legal amount for a medical marijuana user under state law. Bolles has a medical marijuana card, but did not have it on him.
?And then they found the fuckin? thing full of orange liquid that smelled like peppermint. And so they asked me what it was, and I said, ?Soap. It says so on the label; it?s in a Dr. Bronner?s bottle.??
In an e-mail to supporters sent last week, Bolles?s friend Nora Keyes wrote that he only uses Dr. Bronner?s soaps. Which would hardly be unusual, since they?re a popular brand available in stores across America. But police allegedly whipped out their drug-testing gear, a ODV 905 reagents test, and dropped some powder into the soap, and it turned color. Then they told Bolles he was under arrest for possessing a controlled substance: GHB.
?He was arrested for violating 11377(a) of the Health and Safety Code, and that was for the GHB,? says Sgt. Evan Sailor of the Newport Beach Police Department.
Bolles claims he?d heard of the drug but thought it was some kind of steroid, having never tried it. In actuality, gamma-hydroxybutyric acid is an anesthetic once popular with the rave culture for its mellow, friendly vibe as an intoxicant and also called a date-rape drug because, like Rohypnol, it can be undetectable when mixed with water. In any case, Bolles insists that the only thing in that bottle was soap.
Asked whether the police field test had any history of false positives, Sailor says, ?Not that I?m aware of. We do our preliminary testing of the substance, and then it?s sent up to the county crime lab for more testing.?
The Orange County Sheriff?s office, which administers county Forensic Science Services, was not able to verify that the case had come to their lab by press time.
Bolles was arrested and eventually ended up in Orange County Men?s Central Jail in Santa Ana on $25,000 bail, charged with felony Possession of a Controlled Substance, misdemeanor Contempt of Court for disobeying a court order, and misdemeanor Violation of a Protective/Stay Away Order. The felony drug possession charge carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. The latter two charges were brought by the Orange County D.A. and relate to an incident a year earlier when, after an altercation between Bolles and Cat Scandal, Bolles voluntarily signed a restraining order under which the two can see each other only under restricted conditions.
?It was an amicable restraining order after I got a Disturbing the Peace charge,? he explains. ?The only thing that brings this into play is the felony drug charge they?re bringing now.?
Cat Scandal, who also plays drums in the Don Bolles Disaster, was not charged in the latest incident.
?When I first got the call, I couldn?t tell if it was a joke,? laughs Michael Bronner, vice-president for international sales for Dr. Bronner?s Magic Soaps and grandson of soap creator Dr. E.H. Bronner, who died in 1997. ?I wish it would have been clearer, because we would have jumped into action sooner.?
Listening to the message on his machine, Michael Bronner thought the person was saying ?THC,? the active ingredient in marijuana. It is a common misconception that the hemp oil used in the soap is psychoactive, but in fact the drug is present in such a minute amount it is undetectable and hemp products have been declared legal to sell in the U.S. under a ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court. That case was also brought by Dr. Bronner?s Magic Soaps.
When Bronner figured out what was happening, he called Keyes and offered to pay the bail. By Saturday, however, enough small donations had poured into an online account that Bolles had already paid it. So Bronner has offered to pay the legal bills.
?First and foremost, we feel that we?re socially progressive activists, and we want to help this guy out. We want to send a message to the system that you can?t just make up reasons to incarcerate people,? says Bronner. Then he adds that there?s also the product?s reputation to consider, saying, ?As a business, we want to make sure that nobody can possibly think again that our soap contains GHB. I think it?s a little bit of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth; these ridiculous charges that everybody just laughs about, like, ?Yeah, whatever,? and all of a sudden people started believing them. We don?t want that.?
Bronner said he had never heard of any of his company?s soaps or other products testing positive for GHB or any other drug.
In a statement released Wednesday, David Bronner, Michael?s brother and president of Dr. Bronner?s Magic Soaps, said: ?We cannot imagine anyone putting GHB, or any other drug for that matter, into a rinse-off soap product that is lathered and rinsed off the body immediately. The Newport Beach police should see how much of a buzz putting beer in their shampoo gives them, and get a grip and apologize on their hands and knees to Mr. Bolles.?
Bolles, whose real name is Jimmy Michael Giorsetti, is due at a pre-trial hearing on Friday, April 13. He took his stage name from an investigative reporter at the Arizona Republic who was famously car-bombed in 1976 and died, but first blamed his death on the Mafia.
?I?m not angry at the cops. I?m angry about a system that would do this to an innocent person,? says Bolles. ?If I had been the real Don Bolles, who was a journalist, all I?d have to do is tell exactly what happened. In this case, the truth is so outrageously on my side that I don?t even need to be sensationalistic about it. It?s just a case people need to know about.?
04-12-07
Comments
When cops want to pull someone over who looks "suspicious" to them, they often pull them over for minor traffic violations, broken taillights, etc. that they would normally ignore. Then they ask if they can search bags, or the car itself, threatening to bring in drug-sniffing dogs if the car occupants don't consent.
At least it wasn't Isotope Soap...
/old school punk
Paul
PS Do you know who makes that soap? I'd like to buy some to use when I sing along to the video in the shower...
My friend didn't mention the pot part, he said that the Dr. Bronners also tested positive for hemp, which makes sense as it is made with hemp. He also said that Dr. Bronner hisself was getting involved. I would dearly love to see Dr. Bronner (if he is in fact still alive and it's not just the company) on the witness stand testifying for the defense of Don Bolles. It would be a quintessential California moment.
Dr. Bronners is made by, uh, Dr. Bronner. Known for its labels featuring a great deal of extremely small text describing some kind of quasi-religous motivation for soap, or something. Dilute! Dilute! Dilute! All-in-one-Godhead!
Available at your health oriented stores. I favor the Eucalyptus version.
Nick
It's not that I couldn't imagine these foods in China but rather that in the movie they seemed part of the a local subculture (fringy types like expats, artists, cops) that I didn't think could've existed fourteen years ago in the PRC. Also, they were eaten at local snack bars, rather than the big chains.
BTW, is there a Chinese equiavalent of a donut? (In NYC's Chinatown street vendors sell something similar to beignets--fried dough sprinkled with powder sugar)
LOL we've got Krispy Kreme in Hong Kong now
When I'm away from home, I miss the beauty:
I start the new job tomorrow, in Mountain View. I am living temporarily in Santa Clara for the next month, although I'm going to try to find an apartment somewhere that's a little more lively. SF to Mountain View is too long of a commute.
What I really miss about California is the way it feels. Then again, I lived there in the late 70s and 80s, and it's a different place now. Here's how NYC feels today: http://www.urban75.org/photos/newyork/new-york-001.html (like a concrete tumor on the planet, and this is a nice scene, for NY). Of course we do have some natural beauty: http://pic1.funtigo.com/urbanphotos/?g=17680025.
Seriously, if I wanted natural beauty, I'd go back to Switzerland or to the remote beaches of Palawan. Most of California's just far too dry (it's mostly desert, after all), developed and polluted.
When I lived in SF just walking out of the house gave me a high. True, it wasn't as spetacular as Switzerland, or even Seattle in the winter, but it was damned nice. Not just the hills, but the way the city has developed around the landscape. Ok, you did say natural beauty, but then I've never appreciated mountains and beaches without human stuff to give them scale and contrast.
What I really miss about California is the way it feels. Then again, I lived there in the late 70s and 80s, and it's a different place now. Here's how NYC feels today: http://www.urban75.org/photos/newyork/new-york-001.html (like a concrete tumor on the planet, and this is a nice scene, for NY). Of course we do have some natural beauty: http://pic1.funtigo.com/urbanphotos/?g=17680025.
It's true, crowding and development have taken a toll. But there are still certain times and places here-- dusk in the Marin headlands, the way the western light comes in under the fog canopy and lights everything up with a pearly incandescence, the view from Russian Hill out over the Bay when the air smells like a thousand miles of Pacific, a still evening under the southern anchorage of the Golden Gate, Sonoma in the spring when the mustard is in bloom, the rare hot night when the whole city comes out on the street to mark the occasion, riding the ferry through the fog, hiking the long band of East Bay park ridge-- when I remember that this is like no other place on earth and that people pay money to come do some of what I do every day just to get around.
And through it all awful socialist California has actually protected the better part of its coast (above LA, anyway) so these magnificent vistas remain, un-walled by condos and luxury homes.
When In-N-Out moved into the Bay Area, it was like crack hit town. Ditto when Krispy Kreme opened up an outlet. Lines 100 deep. Just not enough grease in our diets, apparently.
Anyone ever eat at the Maid-Right? Mmm... them's some tasty... sandwichy things. Oh, and they're in the mid-west (mostly)...
If not for Whole Foods (California and VanNess) I would have left after 6 months. I managed to stay from June 2000 through to Jan 2003.