Dominic Holden

About a year ago, some friends planning their trip Burning Man were assembling their edgiest steampunk wardrobes. To me, it was as if they were trying to emulate that scene in Back to the Future III, where Doc returns wearing turn-of-the-century (18th-to-19th century) garb and driving a steam-powered locomotive that could fly! In other words, steampunk can survive only as long as that fantasy can entertain the imagination. The scene lasted about three minutes.

Steampunk’s death knell rang this morning as I opened the New York Times. Because, as everyone knows, the moment a look hits the Style section of the NYT, it’s dead. Or at least in hospice.

To some, “steampunk” is a catchall term, a concept in search of a visual identity. “To me, it’s essentially the intersection of technology and romance,” said Jake von Slatt, a designer in Boston and the proprietor of the Steampunk Workshop ([URL removed]), where he exhibits such curiosities as a computer furnished with a brass-frame monitor and vintage typewriter keys.

“Part of the reason it seems so popular is the very difficulty of pinning down what it is,” Mr. von Slatt added. “That’s a marketer’s dream.”

They build lumbering contraptions like the steampunk treehouse, a rusted-out 40-foot sculpture assembled last year at the Burning Man festival in Nevada and unveiled last month at the Coachella music festival in Southern California. They trawl eBay for saw-tooth cogs and watch parts to dress up their Macs and headsets, then show off their inventions to kindred spirits on the Web.

The very fact that Steampunk is being commodified for marketing purposes should repel the Burning Man crowd, but those Burners are hardly cultural trend-setters for the mainstream. Possible—it’s true—that steampunk fashions will become more prevalent before they wane, it will only ever be on life support. And here’s why.

Steampunk is no value beside irony and the muted hilarity of conflict between past and present. Har har.

Hipster fashion is another example of a trend that has jumped the shark. For what is hipster style but a stab at irony? And even there, the joke is on hipsters—for most of them are white Americans, raised in a consumer mainstream, who “co-opt” symbols of American consumerism. This is like Donald Trump wearing cheap clothes and lavishing himself in wealth to call it ironic.

In lieu of any cultural value among the hipsters, or among the steampunk fashions, they are stillborn. Feckless cultures cheering on the same materialistic aesthetic they purport to reject.

If we look, instead, to subcultures with strong fashion identities that have proven sustainable—not that the people are better people—we find punk, we find hippies. Those are cultures based on values. For their credo and action, those cultures have shaped modern America. Love hippies or hate ‘em, they will continue on strong and liberal America will keep living out their 1960’s dream. But steampunk and hipsters will only be a memory. Neat clothes, though–for steampunk. Not hipsters.

What the fuck is up with the PI’s jazzy promotional video of the streetcar? It’s embedded into an article that supposedly takes a critical look at the proposed expansion of the rarely used, traffic jammed SLUT line.

It’s a cute video, and a catchy little song—but is this the news or part of Nickels’ re-election campaign? Here’s the obvious inspiration.

This sign is in the window at Kurrent, that newish restaurant on East Pine Street.

Where to begin? With the sushi itself. Look at those big starchy rolls. They are grotesque. Then, enormous glossy signs—on par with a convenience store that is “Now Serving TERIYAKI!!!”—promoting shushi’s debut suggests to the would-be diner that raw fish is being shipped in from Kentucky and rolled up in hair curlers with instant rice by some minimum-wage hack. It does not say delicate artisan cuisine. But the real indication that this is not the real deal is the sponsor:

Stoli.

Vodka and sushi? That says we’re gonna get you so hammered you won’t even realized your sushi rolls look and taste like piroshki.

There’s been a demographic shift in the people selling crack engaged in commercial activity in front of our house at 21st and Union. The 20- and 30-something set of crusty guys is increasingly being replaced by young African-American women.

I asked my neighbor across the street if he’d noticed the same thing, fully expecting him to say no, but he had. “They seem to be high-school aged girls,” he said.

We’re not certain they’re selling crack, of course, but the young women wait around until a car drives up, the girl walks over, leans in, hands move… you know the scene. But now they actors are female.

Where did all the crusty men go? Where did the new girls come from? Is this trend occuring anywhere else?

Sister VixXxen’s shoes at the medical-marijuana rally today.

Canada’s conservative government has until June 30th to continue permitting a safe injection facility for intravenous drug users. The benefits of the program are plain as day—lowered rates of disease transmission, fewer overdoses, regular contact between addicts and medical services—but the evidence is taking a backseat to morality.

Scientific evidence alone will not determine the fate of Vancouver’s supervised injection site, an undersecretary to Health Minister Tony Clement said Friday.

Winnipeg MP Steven Fletcher said his Conservative government will make a “rational and thoughtful decision based on science” when it comes to extending or ending a federal exemption for Insite, North America’s only such program.

But Fletcher told The Canadian Press the science is conflicting, so Clement will have to assess what Fletcher calls the “realities of the situation.”

Peer-reviewed studies have suggested the program minimizes harm to addicts, reduces the spread of disease and directs addicts toward rehabilitation programs while reducing emergency health-care and law enforcement budgets.

But opponents say allowing people to inject illegal opiates under supervision promotes drug use by facilitating addiction.

The current exemption expires June 30, when Clement must decide whether to grant another exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act or amend legislation that prohibits it.

It goes without saying that Clement’s head is shoved up so far up his ass that his sphincter is clenching his windpipes. But, Clement’s shitty outlook aside, the very fact that good drug reforms can occur and the science can justify it, yet, still, asses like Clement can have a sway for “morality” is a discouraging reminder: Drug policy has nothing to do with logic, but an age-old battle over deciding what people can do with their bodies. Even if US drug policies shift completely, it will take vigilance to uphold them on the slippery shit-coated paternal slope. (This is like the vigilance to maintain civil liberties in a complex and free society, rather than the easy-to-understand government of law and order.) As long as the a moralistic argument can be made to simpletons that we are letting people sin, the laws will be in flux. Prohibition, rather, is the only stable drug policy. Like the state of depression, prohibition is a known variable—like a teenager wallowing in sadness and failure. It is the safety of feeling sorry for oneself. It is a mental state that deserves neither sympathy nor mercy.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was outside a house on north Capitol Hill last night.

The eyes look pensive and concerned.

Brooklyn Park police were looking for a meth lab, but they found a fish tank and the chemicals needed to maintain it.

And a few hours later, when the city sent a contractor to fix the door the police had smashed open Monday afternoon, it was obvious the city was trying to fix a mistake. It happened while Kathy Adams was sleeping. “And the next thing I know, a police officer is trying to get me out bed,” she said.

Adams, a 54-year-old former nurse who said she suffers from a bad back caused by a patient who attacked her a few years ago, was handcuffed. So was her 49-year-old husband. “They brought us here and said once we clear that area, you can sit down and you will not speak to each other,” she said.

Police were executing a search warrant signed by Hennepin County Judge Ivy Bernhardson, who believed there was probable cause the Adams’s home was a meth lab.

“From a cursory view, it doesn’t look like our officers did anything wrong,” said Capt. Greg Roehl. Roehl said the drug task force was acting on a tip from a subcontractor for CenterPoint Energy, who had been in the home Friday to install a hot water heater.

“He got hit with a chemical smell that he said made him light headed, feel kind of nauseous,” Roehl said. The smell was vinegar, and maybe pickling lime, which were clearly marked in a bathroom Mr. Adams uses to mix chemicals for his salt water fish tank.

This story has a happy ending—the city came and fixed the door! So what’s the problem? Adams could have easily heard the intruders and pulled a gun, not knowing they were cops. Then she or the cops could have shot, as happens often in these raids, and someone would end up dead. For a fish tank, or a maple tree, or even an actual pot plant or meth rock.

This ribbed child’s toy, intended for straddling, is located at Miller Playfield.

Now, I’m not saying kids shouldn’t ever, well, do what most kids do. But they ought to learn not to do it in the middle of the park. This could rub some people the wrong way, as it were. I guess that’s all I’m saying.

So I’m sitting down in front of my computer last week, editing a post for Slog, when my phone rings. It’s one of those automated voices asking me to confirm my name—is this a telemarketer, my phone company, the aliens?—but I comply and spit out my name. “Please state your address at the sound of the beep.” This is getting invasive but, what the hey, my address is no big secret. “No address by that listing can be found; please wait while we connect you with an operator.”

“Hello, this is Donnell, how can I help you?”

“I don’t know. You called me. How can you help me?”

“I’m very sorry, sir, I’m calling on behalf of Prevail Credit Union. We have some unusual activity on you account.”

“I went to Oregon last weekend.”

“Yes, sir, what is this charge on your account last night for $4.95?”

So, of course, for the first time in my life, I had spent five bucks to watch a movie on X-Tube—the most wonderful thing on all the Web—the previous night. Never spent a penny on porn before, despite all the pop-up ads, the blinking GIFs, the automatic reroutes to pay-as-you-blow sites, not once had I put a charge on my card for porn. But the one time I do, I’ve got Donnell on my ass about it. Of course.

“That was gay porn. I was downloading gay porn and watching it, Donnell. I’d never done it before, but, since you called me to ask, that’s what the charge is all about. Gay porn.”

A very uncomfortable silence.

“I like gay porn.”

“That’s all right, sir. And these charges at the Shell station?”

“I was buying gas on the trip to Oregon.”

“Have a good day.”

Seriously, did Donnell really have to ask me what the charges were for? He could have just asked me if I charged $4.95 to my account the previous night and if I’d been using my card in Oregon, right? Of course he could have. I think Prevail wanted to talk about gay porn.

My housemates and I have a symbiotic relationship—I like to cook and they like to eat. When I threw something together yesterday, they swooned and begged and passed the plate and said I should turn my culinary forays into blog posts, so here’s the first in a series:

Tamarind and Cumin Salmon

This is a fillet of coho, rubbed with tamarind concentrate, cumin powder, brown sugar, mustard, kosher salt and a dousing of spicy Tapatio; then it was tossed into a pan (with a few shredded onions) of smoking-hot veggie oil and olive oil. I lowered the temp for a minute then flipped it while the sugary rub crusted brown. It’s served over brown rice, a mix of garlic, oregano, green peas and black beans, finished with the seared onions and shredded Monterey jack cheese. The red stuff is salsa and the white stuff is a drizzle of crema Mexicana to cool it down. The salmon was tart and sweet from the tamarind, with a bitter bite of the carbon from the onion and cumin to give it some muscle.

Don’t look like you’re from the suburbs or from five-to-ten years ago.

The last two things my brother Michael and I did before arriving at the hot springs—populated by new-age folks on personal retreats—was stop at McDonald’s and WalMart.

I had to buy pajamas bottoms. The only kind for sale at WalMart in Woodburn, Oregon were pajamas with logos on them. There were Coca-Cola logos and Pepsi logos and a few others. But I was leaning toward the least offensive: AC/DC pajamas. I’d put them in the basket before another caught my eye. Miller Lite. In addition to the logo, they bore this message:

I did yoga in them. I went to the dining hall for brown rice in them. I stripped naked at the hot springs out of them. And the do-right hippies were mostly silent. Except a few older women, who stopped me on the path by the cabins to tell me that they liked my nice pants.

“They’re my sexist, anorexic, drunken, corporate, made-in-China pajamas,” I told them. “I got them at WalMart.” They smiled placidly and headed off to the lithium sauna, which looked like this.

I headed for the massage yurt, where I was consulted by Angela from Portland. I told her I’m not one of those super woo-woo folks, but I’m in my element at the hippie hot-springs place and was up for whatever. Hot stones? Absolutely. Essential oils? You bet. Not big woo—little woo, little irony.

One of the problems with stoners is that they spend all their time smoking pot and talking about what they’d be doing if they weren’t sitting around smoking pot… Politically like-minded progressives are no better—that is, folks who aren’t interested in getting high but think the drug war is a tragic farce. Those folks are often so resigned to the big federal drug war that they throw up their hands and focus on “real priorities.” Well, you’d have to have your head shoved so far up your pooper to think drug policy reform is a low political priority that you can’t see we’re being robbed blind of wallet and liberties. But browbeating well-wishers helps nothing, either. My apologies.

What’s an idealistic stoner or practical liberal to do?

This awesome graphic, via NORML, offers a suggestion: support the pie-in-the-sky marijuana decriminalization bill introduced in to Congress by Rep. Barney Frank last week. Whatever. A federal bill to decriminalize pot is nothing more than waving the flag to announce our presence. But that bill would never pass without localized pressure. What would actually nudge America toward better drug laws?

Several things. And they fall into two basic categorizes: The shit you can do and the shit you can’t. The shit you can’t do is litigate cases that will establish better law, draft legislation and lobby, run initiatives, conduct studies on the impact of bad drug laws and the benefits of reform, and make major media buys. The other, which you can do, is essential to the success of all that other stuff.

You need to normalize pot.

Here’s why: In repeated state initiative and opinion surveys, polls show that support for marijuana-law reform caps out at about 45 percent. That remaining 6 percent necessary to change the law—or support their lawmakers—holds back because they are afraid of pot. It’s unfamiliar and scary. So, back up. Who is that 45 percent? Most of them have smoked pot or have known a pot smoker. They’re not afraid of pot because it’s familiar. But looking at the raw numbers, about 100 million Americans have smoked marijuana, according to federal surveys, so nearly every American knows a pot smoker. They just don’t know they know any pot smokers. What’s your job? Fuck calling your representative. More importantly you have to let people know, in the most polite and upstanding way possible, that you smoke pot. And you have a job. You pay taxes. You have a family. You aren’t part of the cultist stoner-culture subset depicted in movies and High Times Magazine. There simply aren’t 100 million of those people in America. Pot smokers are everywhere and they’re ordinary people; the drug isn’t inherently scary and the users don’t deserve to go to jail. If you don’t smoke pot, but you used to—admit it. If you don’t smoke pot and never have and never will—then say you know pot smokers and you think it should be legal. Familiarity creates support at the polls–so we can decriminalize marijuana in your state. For real, dude.

So put down the bong and shoot straight with people about getting high. Or are you ashamed, faggot?