Free Marc Emery

MP3 Players are coming, MP3 players are coming! It's official, on Monday, August 13, we can buy a prison issue MP3 player for $70, and on August 20, songs will be available for download on them at $1.20 and $1.60 a song. For me this is the best thing that could happen.

Currently I am practicing songs for our August 18 concert, it will be my band YAZOO's 9th concert, and yet oftentimes I am learning a song from sheet music and my instructor and good buddy Terry, without having heard the song in months or years. We are still able to recreate these songs pretty well identically to the recorded version, although our songs have two solos per song as compared to one solo in most of the originals.

With MP3 players, I can download all the songs we currently play (about 35), and more importantly, any song I'm learning or plan on learning, and play them endlessly to understand how the bass lines go, or the overall structure of the song is, or any aspect of its performance. That’s true for our drummer Sapp, who, though remarkable as he is in getting a song just right, has actually never heard most of the songs we perform. This will be a great help to him, to all of us in the band.

Here is my next concert’s set list, which has five new songs we've yet to perform live marked with an asterisk:

1st Set:
1) * Plush (Stone Temple Pilots)
2) Pride & Joy (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
3) * Cathedral/Eruption/You Really Got Me/Ain't Talkin Bout Love (Van Halen medley)
4) Crazy Train (Ozzy)
5) Whole Lotta Love (Zeppelin)
6) * Enter Sandman (Metallica)
7) * Heartbreaker/Living Loving Maid (Zeppelin)

2nd Set
8) * Much Too Young (to Feel This Old) Garth Brooks
9) Stormy Monday
10) Hotel California (Eagles)
11) Black Magic Woman (Santana)
12) Wind Cried Mary (Hendrix)
13) Little Wing (Stevie Ray Vaughan/Hendrix)
14) Voodoo Child (Hendrix)

Cathedral and Eruption are two solos by Eddie Van Halen that Terry, the band's lead guitarist, will perform, and then the band will come in with You Really Got Me, then segue into Ain't Talkin Bout Love then come back to You Really Got Me. Most commercial versions of the songs we play have one brief solo, most of ours have two solos, one by Terry, and one by Don. For the Garth Brooks song Terry and I have come up with a unique base line that follows the chords of the song, as we don't have any bass tab sheet music, nor have I ever heard the song, so we've come up with a very nice bass line for the verses and chorus.

I'm paying attention to the trial of the Russian female punk protest band PUSSY RIOT (a terrific name for a punk girl band, I must say) who have been jailed in Moscow for SEVERAL months after their protest with a song performed commando-style in church criticizing the close collaboration of the Russian Orthodox Church with Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin. (Just because people voted, doesn't mean they don't end up with dictators – see Hitler, Putin, Harper, et al). These three women face up to seven years if convicted and sentenced to the maximum; the charges are outrageous on the face of it. It’s an affront to civilized norms that these women have spent anytime in jail for these provocative but essentially victimless guerrilla protests.

As an aside, there is a cannabis culture in Russia, albeit intimidated by police; they even protested my arrest for extradition in Moscow and Saint Petersburg on September 10, 2005 in a worldwide day of protest.

I would urge any young musicians or concerned activists to spend a day with a picket and a sign "PROTEST RUSSIAN GOV'T TYRANNY OVER MUSIC & POLITICS: I SUPPORT PUSSY RIOT" at the Russian consulates in Vancouver, Toronto, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles (and other US cities) and at the Russian embassy in Ottawa and Washington.

The three women, Yekaterina, Nadezhda, and Maria, are charged with hooliganism and religious hatred. Below I’ll include some lyrics in the songs performed at Christ the Savior Cathedral in Red Square in Moscow, essentially calling on the Holy Mother, the Blessed Virgin, to expel Putin – thus offending church and state in one song. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, an ominously-named Patriarch Kirill, is a devoted follower of oligarch V. Putin, having labeled Putin's dictatorship as a "miracle of God."

The case is part of a broader Russian establishment crackdown on civil rights in what is a quasi-democracy where the people are trying to come out of 400 years of czarist autocracy, communism, and now the Putin oligarchy, facing resistance and repression from churches and state, and a criminal mafia that colludes with them both.

The members of Pussy Riot were arrested when much of the Russian people were protesting the inevitable presence of Putin as head of state (or defacto head of state) during so-called elections last March.

Now the Russian government under Putin's orders are restricting internet access, increasing fines for "illegal" demonstrations (sort of like the Charest government in Quebec), and "libeling" political officials in now a crime as of this month.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers voiced their support of Pussy Riot at their Moscow concert recently, and Anthony Keidis of the band wore a Pussy Riot t-shirt during the RHCP performance, as has Peter Gabriel in concerts recently.

You might say, "but Marc, do you condone trespass into a church to make sacrilegious statements as well as political dissent?" And I'd say, depends on the nature of the protest. If the church I was briefly usurping the altar for was one that had shielded or protected child abusing Priest molesters, then certainly yes. If that church had lent credibility to the dictator of that country, then yes. If that church advocated violence or hatred or hostility toward any minority (pot smokers, homosexuals, racial minorities, et al), then yes.

Churches are only buildings, that don't even pay taxes, and are not sacrosanct or free from public reaction. Religion and churches oppress and support oppression all the time, so they are fair game. Of course, when you take action, you have to defend your action, certainly in the court of public opinion, and possibly in court. Actions in defense of individual liberty, and to counter the oppression of the state or establishment institutions, trumps all other considerations.

These are the lyrics to the song Pussy Riot performed uninvited, in the church:

—–
Virgin Mary, Put Putin Away

(choir) – Virgin Mary, Mother of God, Put Putin Away, Put Putin Away, Put Putin Away

Verse:
Black Robe, Golden Epaulettes
All parishiners crawl to bow
The Phantom of Liberty is in Heaven
Gay Pride sent to Siberia in chains,

The head of KGB their chief saint,
Leads protesters to prison under escort.
In order not to offend his holiness
Women must give birth and love

Shit, shit, the Lord's shit!
Shit, shit, the Lord's shit!

(chorus)

The Church's praise of rotten dictators,
The cross bearer procession of black limousines,
A teacher-preacher will meet you at school
Go to class -bring him money
Patriarch Gundayeav believes in Putin,
Bitch, better believe in God instead.
The belt of the Virgin can't replace mass meetings
Mary, Mother of God is with us in protest

(chorus)

——
Two other Pussy Riot songs of note are translated below:

PUTIN GOT SCARED

A rebellious column moves through the Kremlin,
Windows explode inside FSB offices
Bitches piss behind red walls,
Riots call for the system's abortion

Attack at dawn? Am not against it
For our joint freedom, a whip to chastise with
Madonna to her glory will learn to fight
Feminist Magdalene Go Demonstrate

Revolt in Russia – The charisma of protest
Revolt in Russia – Pissed on by Putin
Revolt in Russia – We exist!
Revolt in Russia – Riot! Riot!

Take to the streets
Live on the Red
Set Free the Rage
of civil anger

Discontent with the culture of make hysteria
Wild male devours brains
The orthodox religion of a hard penis
Patients are asked to accept conformity

The Regime heads towards censorship of dreams,
The time has come for a subversive washing,
A pack of bitches from the sexist regime
Begs forgiveness of a feminist wedge

Revolt in Russia – The Charisma of Protest
Revolt in Russia – Pissed on by Putin
Revolt in Russia – We exist!
Revolt in Russia – Riot! Riot!

—–
DEATH TO PRISON, FREEDOM TO PROTEST

The joyful science of occupying squares
The will to everyone's power without damn leaders
Direct Action the future of mankind
LGBT & feminists defend the nation

Death to Prisons, Freedom to Protest!
Fill the city, all the squares and the streets
There are many in Russia, beat it,
Open all the doors, take off the shoulder straps,
Taste the smell of freedom together with us

Death to prisons, freedom to protest
Occupy the city with a kitchen frying pan,
Go out with a vacuum, get off on it,
Seduce battalions of police damsels
Naked cops rejoice in the new reforms

The fucking end to sexist Putinists!

Kropotkin- Vodka splashes in the bellies
You feel good, but those Kremlin bastards
Face the revolt of the toilets' fatal poisonings,
Flashing lights won't save you, Kennedy will meet you

The fucking end to informant bosses!

Caught some zzz's, time to oppress the day
The knuckle-dusters ready, feminism's sharpened
Take your soup away to eastern Siberia
So that riot will become rough enough

The fucking end to Sexist Putinists!
The fucking end to informant bosses!
Death to Prison, Freedom to Protest!

If I do get a Canadian transfer, I'll receive statutory release (parole until March 2015) in Canada anytime after July 2013. I was rejected for transfer by the US Department of Justice last year in April, and have to wait two years before an application is reconsidered.

Over a year ago, after getting the transfer application rejected, one of my lawyers put in a Freedom of Information request about me to the DEA, FBI, Department of State, Bureau of Prisons, and other U.S. federal agencies. The FBI claimed not to have any file on me, others sent minor paperwork, and the DEA stalled – claiming that with so many email accounts and servers to go through, they couldn't afford the time to do it! But finally, some the DEA files were handed over; heavily redacted too, of course.

Some of the most interesting information is that the DEA confirmed that I gave over $2,000,000 to activists, activist groups, political parties, rallies, events, court challenges, and verified that over $753,000 of it was sent by Western Union wire. (I actually gave just under $4,500,000 in cash, check, money order, credit card and western union to those causes and people from 1995 to 2005, but the DEA apparently could only ascertain $2,000,000 of it, from 1999 to 2004.)

Here are the excerpts from the DEA release:
[Click the images to view the full pages]

—-
PAGE 14:

In a recent Editor's Page piece, EMERY and assistant editor Giesz-Ramsay boast that "my [EMERY's] organizations (including CC) have contributed over $2,000,000 toward court battles, ballot initiatives, jailed individuals, rallies, conferences, marches and elections – all involving cannabis or the drug war."

It goes on to state, "There is virtually no drug reform group or organization in North America that has not received some assistance from us."

These sentiments are confirmed by the investigation conducted by the San Francisco FD into the numerous Western Union wire transfers initiated by Marc EMERY to many marijuana political activists around the world.
—-

—-
PAGE 18:

The San Francisco Field Division, in coordination with the Blaine Resident Office is investigating Marc EMERY. At the request of Blaine RO, SFFD has conducted an analysis of Western Union wire transfers sent by EMERY for the period 5 April 1999 until 5 April 2004.

In total, $753,712.14 was transferred by EMERY through Western Union Financial Services. The financial analysis revealed that EMERY distributed this money to candidates for elections in the United States, Canada, Australia and other countries.

This Report of Investigation details the significant websites and email accounts documented in cables DTG: 102055Z June 2005 and DTG: 102110Z June 2005.
—-

So there you have it. Although I have claimed all along to have donated millions of dollars (all my seed profits) to activist efforts in those ten years I was a seed seller – because that was the point of the seed business – it's still nice to have the DEA confirm this. And out of the San Francisco Field Office of DEA, at that.

Of course, this further buttresses my claim that my extradition and prosecution was entirely political in nature, considering what DEA head Karen Tandy said on the day of my arrest:

"Today's DEA arrest of Marc Scott Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture Magazine, and the founder of a marijuana legalization group — is a significant blow not only to the marijuana trafficking trade in the U.S. and Canada, but also to the marijuana legalization movement.

His marijuana trade and propagandist marijuana magazine have generated nearly $5 million a year in profits that bolstered his trafficking efforts, but those have gone up in smoke today.

Emery and his organization had been designated as one of the Attorney General's most wanted international drug trafficking organizational targets — one of only 46 in the world and the only one from Canada.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars of Emery's illicit profits are known to have been channeled to marijuana legalization groups active in the United States and Canada. Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on."

As always, that DEA press release can always be seen and downloaded from the front page of www.FreeMarc.ca (click HERE for the direct link).

My band YAZOO had its July 4th concert on Friday evening, June 29th. Terry, my lead guitarist, played a beautiful Jimi Hendrix version of Star Spangled Banner in the middle of our 17-song set, which we managed to get completed in 100 minutes. It was my 8th concert, and our best yet, with few mistakes, and a comfortable 93 degrees F (34 C) temperature from 6:15pm to 8pm when we played. Our song list was:

1) Hey Joe (Hendrix)
2) Jumpin Jack Flash (Rolling Stones)
3) Sweet Home Alabama (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
4) White Room (Cream)
5) Red House (Hendrix)
6) Little Wing (Hendrix)
7) Star Spangled Banner (Hendrix)
8) Pride And Joy (SR Vaughan)
9) Back in Black (AC/DC)
10) Sharp Dressed Man (ZZ Top)
11) Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen (Santana)
12) Sunshine of Your Love (Cream)
13) Crazy Train (Ozzy)
14) Whole Lotta Love (Zeppelin)
15) Come Together (Beatles)
16) Blue on Black (KW Shepherd)
17) Voodoo Child (Hendrix)

For the last three weeks I have been learning 'Heartbreaker/Living Loving Maid' by Led Zeppelin, and now have it down. We'll be adding that pair of songs to our Labor Day concert set list. I have just mastered 'Plush' by Stone Temple Pilots and am now intensely learning and practicing on 'Enter Sandman' (Metallica), with 'Bad to The Bone' (George Thorogood) and 'Running Down A Dream' (Tom Petty) to be learned next. We have over seven weeks until this next concert and we should have these songs mastered by then.

'Heartbreaker/Living Loving Maid' was perhaps my biggest challenge so far, although it took a lot of practice to get proficient on my two previous big challenges, 'Black Magic Woman' and 'Crazy Train'. I've also been working more enthusiastically on the minor and major scales, because I have realized that all songs are created within a scale and I can see that, when I go through the B minor scale, for example, I can hear how 'Lean On Me' by Bill Withers was created out of that scale. So musical light bulbs are going off in my head about song construction and how these songs sound so 'right', it's all in the scales!

We did get a 'special' July 4th meal: two hamburger patties instead of one, a slice of watermelon, and a pouch of Famous Amos raisin/oatmeal bite-size cookies. It could be worse – and usually is!

There is a charming poster of my band YAZOO by Gary Wintle posted on my Facebook fan page at www.Facebook.com/PrinceOfPot. I finally got some copies in the mail; numerous correspondents waxed enthusiastic about it, and my bandmates' families have seen it and enjoyed it too. I want YAZOO to become the most popular band no one in the free world has ever actually heard!

If anyone reproduces the poster in color from Facebook and sends it to me, I'll have each member of the band autograph it and send it back to you. (My mailing address is always on the front page of www.FreeMarc.ca) I'm hoping we can take that wonderful Gary Wintle illustration of the band, make some modifications to it, and put it on t-shirts and get them out there. If you would be interested in buying a YAZOO band color t-shirt for $15, let Jodie know. I'm hoping we can make 50 of each male and female t-shirts, give two to the families of my four band-mates, keep a couple for posterity, and sell the other 90. I promise to sign the t-shirt for anyone who has one when Jodie and I go on our 30-50 city cross-Canada speaking tour, from September to November 2014. Can't wait to travel Canada to see our people and fire 'em up for the May 2015 federal election! We'll have to make sure the NDP and Liberals fully intend to repeal the Harper mandatory minimums for marijuana as that election comes closer.

Canada's new mandatory minimum jail sentences for marijuana and all illegal drugs come into effect November 22nd, thanks to the Stephen Harper Conservative majority government. This will change Canada's cannabis culture significantly, and worryingly. There are numerous enhancements that make jail time longer, such as growing or selling in a rented property, in residential communities, second offenses, and more. Once Canadians start being charged under these new penalties, a chill will descend on Canada's cannabis culture, and prices will rise (making the black market even more lucrative, of course). Canadians are increasingly opposed to marijuana prohibition, but the Harper Conservative government is in office until an election in May 2015. There are dark days ahead, and a lot of work will need to be done to fix everything!

I have fallen behind on responding to letters sent me, so I have decided to make four different postcards that I can use to send to everyone who writes me a letter within a day of my receiving it. Most of my letters that I write are 6-10 page letters and take 90-120 minutes. I love writing such long missives, but I don't end up responding to most of the letters I get because I actually don't have the time! So this way, I'll be able to answer each letter with a postcard (the photos are of me and Jodie in the visitation room, or of me by myself in the prison photo room) and a personal message on each one that might only take me 10-15 minutes each. Most of the letters I write tend to repeat the same information (what I'm reading, the music I'm playing, etc.) and I cover that in these blog entries, so on the postcards I'll be able to be a bit more personal (albeit brief).

I'm reading voraciously, mostly still outside, but as every day is 96-100 degrees F (35-38 C) now, and will be for the rest of July and early August, I escape to the air-conditioned environs of our unit every now and then. Some books of note that I finished recently include:

– 'The Fish That Ate The Whale', the biography of the 'Banana Man' Sam ZeMurray
– 'Emperor of All Maladies', a 'biography' of cancer
– 'Armies of the Night', by Norman Mailer, of the march on the pentagon in October 1967 protesting the draft and the Vietnam War
– All seven books in the 'Joe Sandilands' murder mysteries by Barbara Cleverly
– 'The Omnivore's Dilemma', by Michael Pollan, following up his brilliant book 'The Botany of Desire'

I've been enjoying graphic novels by Grant Morrison, his 'The Doom Patrol' Vol. 1-4, 'The New X-Men' 1-3, 'WE3', a plethora of Carl Barks material, his Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge work from 1949-1960, a very bizarre and wonderful series called 'CHEW' about an investigator who is 'cibopathic', meaning he gets visions and information from eating anything (except beets). So to solve murders he (now this is strange) eats a sample of the flesh or blood of victims, or the murderer! I've also gotten larger hardcovers of the work of Steve Ditko and Bernie Kriegstein. Kriegstein did work for EC comics and others in the 1950's, and Ditko has a career spanning the 50's to the early 80's, and is most famous for the first 38 Spiderman comics. He was an Ayn Rand acolyte, and that shows up in work like 'Mr. A' and 'Avenging World'.

These and so many other graphic novels that I get (and lend around the prison extensively) come to me courtesy of my great friend Dana Larsen. And most of the books I'm reading, and music books I work from come from Dana too! Dana is organizing 'Sensible BC', which exists to get a referendum on the ballot in British Columbia in September 2014 to essentially decriminalize marijuana possession in BC. Dana is an incredible activist and person and I hope you will join his Facebook page (click HERE) and support his dispensaries, Sensible BC at www.SensibleBC.ca, and his many other extraordinary projects. Dana ran for leadership of the BC New Democratic Party from January to April 2011, and was very, very good in that campaign all the way to the leadership convention, and represented the cannabis community with great panache and honor.

Jodie visited me last weekend, and you can always see the latest photos of us on my Facebook page, where she recently posted the photos from our visit here on June 24th and 25th, and she shares them in her weekly videos at www.YouTube.com/PotTVNetwork (also always posted at www.Pot.tv and www.FreeMarc.ca). As you can see, there is a new photo background, a change from the fence by the seaside background that has been at Yazoo since May of last year.

For every anniversary or special occasion between Jodie and I, I make a special card relying heavily on the talents of one or two Mexican guys here. In prison there are many talented artists, particularly from Mexico, and they do great 3-D greeting cards. I help out in simple things like waxing the letters to make them shine and gleam, cutting out the paper or cardboard shapes, gluing pieces together, and choosing the text. I admit I don't do the really talented work! I started work on June 4th for the card for Jodie and my 6th anniversary (on July 23rd), and finished it June 24, sent it June 25 only to have Jodie get an empty envelope in the mail! These are exquisitely beautiful cards and Jodie proudly shows them on her Jodie Emery show every week at www.Pot.tv and www.FreeMarc.ca.

Despite the latest card going missing in the mail (maybe look for it on eBay sometime in the future as an authentic Marc Emery signed card – hah!) I still have time to get another card made, so I've started work on it with my brilliant Mexican artist and I'm hoping we have one ready by next week in time to send to Jodie, arriving before July 23rd. Look for it on the Jodie Emery show of July 26th! And thank you to those friends and fans who send donations to my commissary, so I can buy phone calls to talk to Jodie, and other prison essentials. Jodie and I both really appreciate it!