about Get a Life
GET A LIFE shares my journey of engaging in subversive actions and taking chances to build a life of freedom and meaning. I trace my evolution from drug-dealing Grateful Deadhead with self-esteem issues to becoming a nonviolent activist confronting injustice and police over decades in many different facets of the peace movement.
In my early activist life, I became a self-proclaimed witch, embracing the Reclaiming Tradition. And eventually moved to a very different form of action, becoming co-founder of Harborside Health Center in 2006, one of the largest and most respected cannabis retailers in the world.
In 1983 I was arrested while wearing a wedding dress at an anti-nuclear action at Lawrence Livermore Labs in Berkeley, California. I’ve been wearing a dress since as my personal action against patriarchy, challenging people to think about what it means to “be a man” in our world. I write in depth about how this personal action has impacted others in my life, especially my children and their mother. Also its impact on my Harborside business partner as I helped transform the new world of medical cannabis. I offer a brief critique of the state of cannabis regulation, before outlining my hopes for a new venture providing legitimate payments to the industry.
Throughout the manuscript I note how imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy has benefitted me and those around me. I explore how depression has affected me as a male in a society that suppresses this possibility. My motivation has always been to improve the human condition and relieve suffering, and my hope here is to inspire others to join in this effort.
