Bobbie Oliver - Comedy

Bobbie Oliver knew she wanted to do stand-up comedy from a very early age. “When I was 19 years old, I used to watch The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson,” she says. “I was so in love with Gary Shandling, The Smothers Brothers and other comics, but when I saw Roseanne Barr on television I realized I could do stand-up, too.”

Success was not easy for Bobbie, but she learned that comedy was a voyage, not a destination. “My goals were immature when I was new to the art form.”

Like most comics new to Los Angeles, The Tao of Comedy author and comedian wanted to be on television, but as she performed and eventually began to teach stand-up, she realized that within the art of the joke, there were essential truths about living life waiting to be discovered. “When I started to get into Buddhism and Taoism I didn’t make the connection to how it would affect my comedy until I started teaching and people started to ask me questions and I had to come up with answers for them,” she says. “That’s when I realized that I was dealing with something that was organic, similar to the principles of Buddhism and Taoism. I had taken comedy classes, but the books I had read didn’t seem to grasp that concept.”

One concept she had learned to appreciate both onstage and in her study of the Tao was mindfulness, the idea of being in the moment, totally aware. To Bobbie, part of the Tao is that we are all unique. A stand-up comic doesn’t need to craft a character, they are their persona. “People would say, what is your persona? I started young, and I’ve been doing comedy for 27 years now. There are things I’ve learned in just the last 10 years. When you search for your persona, you are searching your one true self,” she says. ”God turns himself into myriad things to see himself from that point of view. That is our job. You are doing a disservice to your true self if you adopt a persona. That’s why so many comedians go wrong; they try to do an impression of a person instead of being themselves.”

Bobbie teaches comedy and presents shows at her own place, The Tao Comedy Studio. Part of her training is the concept that a stand-up comic shouldn’t just be a hollow joke machine, but a force of justice for the oppressed in a world of prejudice. “I teach that comics should punch up, they shouldn’t punch down. Don’t make jokes about homeless people. Make fun of the system that put them there.” In a proper joke, homeless people aren’t the target . . . they are the ones pulling the trigger. “It used to be that the audience was only straight white dudes. They would tell jokes about Asians or black people. But now a lot of marginalized audiences are starting to be heard and comedy has changed,” she says. “Mean comedy is wrong. Stand-up comics should be using their powers for good, not evil.”

Bobbie has made it easier for women by presenting an open mic show, for women only. “I wanted to give women a place to where they could just share experiences with each other and bond. Since there are like 20 spots in a lineup and just one woman, other women won’t get a chance to perform,” she says. In addition to giving women greater opportunity, the event also serves as group therapy where female comics can bond. “If you put even one man in the room, women start to get competitive. I noticed that when no men were in the audience, it was a more positive, spiritual experience.”

Although she is not a canna-comic, Bobbie believes that cannabis cures a lot of ills that pharmaceuticals can’t, and she has tried many solutions during her long, turbulent career in the entertainment industry. “If it wasn’t for pot I’d be dead or in jail. I’d be in a totally different place right now if I couldn’t smoke it,” she says.

www.bobbieoliver.net

www.TheTaoOfComedy.com

Cannabis and the Military - The Weird

After World War II many experts in the CIA and the military agreed that fighting the Cold War against communism meant understanding, and engaging in, psychological warfare operations. This included studying the effects of psychedelic pharmaceuticals, including cannabis, on the human mind for the purposes of using the plant as a weapon.

In 1950 the CIA began project BLUEBIRD. Declassified documents relative to BLUEBIRD indicate that the government wanted to explore subjects as hypnotizing a person into betraying their moral principles, inducing an unwilling person into performing tasks against their will, mind controlling people into crashing planes or wrecking other vehicles while operating them, altering the personality of captured enemy spies and creating total amnesia in operatives for enhanced operations security.

Eventually the military began investigating ways of using cannabis to nullify an enemy without firing a shot. One scientist, Dr. Edward Domino, used a cannabis concentrate called “Red Oil,” which he developed by using it to get monkeys and dogs so stoned they couldn’t move. Since paralyzed solders can’t pull triggers, the military knew they were onto something, and BLUEBIRD evolved into project MKULTRA.

The CIA divided MKULTRA into three portions. One group studied ESP. Another studied how to control the mind of a person remotely. The final group studied hypnosis for the purposes of brainwashing subjects. They used a cornucopia of chemical concoctions to further this aim, including heroin, morphine, mescaline, magic mushrooms, alcohol, sodium pentothal and even cannabis. Interesting as it is, we’ll never know exactly what the CIA discovered since all documents pertaining to MKULTRA were annihilated by the director of the agency at the time, Richard Helm.

Meanwhile, Dr. James Ketchum, a scientist stationed at center for the U.S. Army Chemical Corps in Maryland, began experiments on soldiers in the 60’s that expanded upon large portions of Dr. Domino’s previous research. Soldiers were given massive doses of cannabis extracts and studied closely. Experiments revealed that when under the influence soldiers became confused, apathetic and eventually completely immobilized. Some had conversations with invisible entities lasting for days.

Dr. Ketchum eventually created a compound that could be sprayed upon enemy combatants to render them invalid. “Paradoxical as it may seem,” he said, “one can use chemical warfare to spare lives, rather than extinguish them.” By 1975 officials claim that both the CIA and the military had abandoned studying cannabis because it wasn’t predictable and powerful enough to suit their purposes, so they focused on LSD.

Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) afflicts many military veterans of armed conflicts, resulting in many negative debilitating psychological effects including insomnia, rage disorder, anxiety, avoidance, etc. One group, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, studies PTSD and possible treatments for it, including using cannabinoids, an active compound in cannabis.

According to one report written by Lee,  “Researchers found that people with PTSD had lower levels of anandamide, an endogenous cannabinoid compound, compared to those who did not show signs of PTSD…innate to all mammals, anandamide triggers the same receptors that are activated by THC and other components of the marijuana plant.”

In other words, veterans with PTSD are missing a compound that cannabis replenishes. Without this compound, mental issues result. If the body can’t produce it, thanks to PTSD, cannabis can help. This is great news for all military, especially since new legislation allows military veterans to use cannabis without risking their benefits. What began as a weapon is now a medicine, and the many medical cannabis patients who have been healed by the plant probably aren’t surprised.

REFERENCES

Weinburger, Sharon. “Army’s Hallucinogenic Weapons Unveiled.” Wired, www.wired.com/2007/04/the_secrets_of_/

Rahn, Bailey. “Cannabis and Post-Traumatic Stess Disorder (PTSD).” Leafly, www. leafly.com/news/health/cannabis-and-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/

Marks, John. The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control, Times Books, 1979.

Hidell, Tom A. “CIA’s Greatest Hits: Project MK-ULTRA.” Illuminatirex, CIA's Greatest Hits Project MK-ULTRA Illuminati Rex.html

"Edgewood Arsenal Chemical Agent Exposure Studies 1955–1975". United States Department of Defense, Force Health Protection & Readiness, Medical Countermeasures website. Retrieved 2013-06-19.

 Researchers tested pot, LSD on Army volunteers Richard Willing, USA TODAY, 4/6/2007

Lee, Martin A. “Synthetic Pot as a Military Weapon? Meet the Man Who Ran the Secret Program”. Alternet, Synthetic Pot as a Military Weapon_ Meet the Man Who Ran the Secret Program _ Alternet.html

Is Cannabis a Cure for AIDS? - Cannabis

Just recently the Journal of Leukocyte Biology published an abstract entitled, ”Attenuation of HIV-1 replication in macrophages by cannabinoid receptor 2 agonists,” which references a series of experiments conducted by scientists at the Temple University School of Medicine Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that indicates infection by the HIV-1 virus (responsible for AIDS) can be slowed down by the introduction of an agonist that hinders the disease by way of activating CB2 receptors. Cannabinoids, one of the active ingredients of cannabis, is one such agonist.

CB2 receptors work by stimulating immune system of the human body to heal itself from, among other things, cellular decay, reducing tissue inflammation and managing pain. While THC only stimulates CB1 receptors in such a way as to create a psychoactive sensation (also known as, “being high”), CB2 receptors can capture the therapeutic chemical properties of THC and use them for the good of the human body. This stimulating can also apparently help fight AIDS.

One of the ways HIV-1 does it deadly work is by infiltrating macrophages, a common type of cell found within most human tissues. After infecting tissues samples with HIV-1, scientists noted tissues samples with increased CB2 function were able to partially fight off the virus. Although the team remarked in their abstract that this doesn’t exactly mean that smoking cannabis can cure AIDS, the presence of cannabinoids is clearly a factor in preventing HIV-1 infection and increasing CB2 receptor function to the point of bolstering the immune system against the disease.

Dr. Patricia E. Molina, a scientist at the Louisiana State University, recently published a study within the pages of the scientific journal Aids Research and Human Retroviruses that described how for 17 months her research team administered high doses of THC (another active ingredient in cannabis) to rhesus monkeys infected by SIV, a disease similar to the HIV-1 virus dangerous to humans.

Their findings clearly indicated that monkeys with THC in their system not only fared better than their non-THC peers, but in some instances were beating the infection. As the HIV-1 virus in their bodies destroyed cells, the CB2 receptors responded by increasing cell growth, preventing the virus from infiltrating the blood stream and doing further damage.

Dr. Molina had not expected this result when she had originally began the experiment. “When we started the study, we thought [THC] was going to increase viral load [the amount of the HIV virus that is present in the gut],” Dr. Molina said in an interview with Leaf Science. Instead, THC did the opposite of her expectations. “It adds to the picture and it builds a little bit more information around the potential mechanisms that might be playing a role in the modulation of the infection.”

Despite this evidence and more, a serious scientific study cannot be conducted within the United States because our federal government still considers cannabis to be a Schedule I drug. It is impossible to test an illegal drug on humans, so whether or not cannabis truly does fight cancer is still largely theoretical until the law changes and further studies can be done in an effort to fight a disease that still kills thousands of Americans across the country every year.

www.ireadculture.com

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4470723/