Preface (go on, skip it if you must):
This isn't so much a re-writing of history, as a revealing of a hidden aspect of it. Indeed, the revelations in these blogs are unlikely to cause an uproar. No doubt the establishment will give them a cursory nod, after which they will, if possible, brush them under the carpet. But I for one hope that at the very least, the scrawlings on these webpages will become known to those who seek the truth.
At the very base of it all is the fact that a simple plant can turn what many sober people would describe as a mind-numbingly boring game in to something entire nations are transfixed by. That plant is marijuana, that game is tiddlywinks, and those nations are the very same ones whose governments have for years succumbed to the alcohol and pharmaceutical industry lobbyists, and perpetuated the farcical war on drugs.
It is encouraging that the subject of this blog has finally been given its fifteen minutes of fame in the mainstream media, however, we should certainly be prepared for the majority of people to have forgotten about it by no later than next Tuesday, considering the average attention span of today's public.
Indeed, once the glitter of the celebration parties has finished falling, it won't be long before the last tweet about it is sent, and those in power will be sure to move swiftly to distract us from the meaning of what has happened. Perhaps I am overly pessimistic. There are rumours of a sea change of opinion in the USA, and once America changes it's mind, other countries will certainly follow...
1:
The story must start, of course, with a brief sketch of our hero. A fragile little boy (un)known to his peers as Wheezy. His life was disappointingly similar to that of any other boy his age during the naughties in America. He over-slept when given the chance, washed only when forced to, and fumbled along in school. His only real hobby, much to the dismay of his ex-high school football star father, was watching internet pornography. Wheezy felt that he wasn't even much good at that, often accidentally spilling his load when a man's face filled the screen.
Compared to the endless parade of starving children's faces which charities thrust in to the public domain in between re-runs of Friends and Seinfeld, Wheezy knew he had it easy. Buthis life felt like something to put up with, and occasionally it all got too much. At these times he would think about ending it, giving up. However the thought of not having anyone to leave his belongings to in a will was so embarrassing that he couldn't bring himself to go through with it.
Being bad at and completely uninterested in sports made the relationship with his father excruciating. Ever since he could remember, he had been taken to watch hockey matches, wrestling events and of course football games. He couldn't remember whether there was a time at which he had enjoyed these spectacles. Perhaps before he realised he would never be able to enjoy playing these games himself? He knew there was a photo of him meeting Hulk Hogan in which he was smiling, but the memory wasn't there, just the memory of the photo, and he wasn't sure if the smile on his immature face was genuine or had been ordered there by whoever took the photo. It didn't really matter anyway; the days of any pretence of enjoyment, spontaneous or enforced, gained from sporting events had long gone.
The worst thing about being so lacking in physical ability was the fact that countless television shows had instilled in him the belief that being bad at sports would be compensated for by being intelligent. That the years of torment and bullying due to his clumsiness and physique would be repaid with straight A's... That in later life he would have a highly paid job with a tech firm, or perhaps go on to get a Nobel prize. He was therefore bitterly disappointed when it slowly dawned on him that he was below average in most academic areas. His short term memory was appalling, and he couldn't bring himself to commit anything to long term memory because, he explained to his teachers, "he had outsourced his knowledge to google". His vocabulary was miniscule and his handwriting illegible, making English his worst subject. He had shown some ability in physics, but because the sciences were all lumped together, he still only managed to scrape along at the bottom of his class.
His dad was a drunk who would bore anyone interested with scotch-soaked tails of his youth. It pained Wheezy to see the old man occasionally get his old high-school football jersey out of the closet and put it on, despite the fact that it didn't fit his now-obese frame.
What a thoroughly depressing little introduction. Please accept my apologies. We can move on with the story now. I'm sure a political biographer or PR consultant would have been able to spin the facts of Wheezy's early life in to a feel-good story about a small town boy. Well I'm sorry, but these are the facts as I know them, in my role as omnipresent, if not omniscient, narrator. This is Wheezy's story as observed by me. You're getting it straight from the hoarse horses old mouth. There might be a few details I forget along the way, others that my mind has taken a disliking to and changed without letting me know about it, but I'll do my best. You can ask for more than that, but you won't get it. I'll try to keep things a little cheerier if you like, but I'm afraid it doesn't start all that brightly...
PART 2 COMING SOON : )