IS HOOPER HEMET’S GREATEST BLUNTMAN*?

Temecula, CA – The story broke two days ago in the regional newspaper, the Press-Enterprise, about Fast Eddy, or to the non-scene world, Eddy Hooper, and the fight with the City of Hemet over his collective/dispensary. You can read the story here and finally see a photo of Fast Eddy; loving father, husband, home owner, and now Hemet business owner/employer. If you have read the PE story, you may be asking yourself just why is this ‘news’ here? That’s a fair question if you live anywhere outside of southern California, or you’re a tourist. The thing is, Eddy Hooper could just be the Trifecta joint needed to tip the scale in favor of the baggy.

The story thus far. After at least 2700 years of indigenous peoples worldwide smoking weed recreationally, medically, and sacredly,  the US Congress was in 1937 hoodwinked into outlawing ‘marijuana’, the new unfamiliar drug name given to hemp, by the special interest hoodwinkers. In 1961, under pressure from the DEA, the United Nations outlawed marijuana for all its member nations. In this country, after numerous activists and the money of outside agitators, a pastime available to those that are ‘cool’ since the jazz/art deco age is now serving to medicate people who are seriously fucked up from the side effects of ‘modern society’ with its additives, preservatives, wars, and pollutants being introduced into the human gene pool for profits’ sake.

Despite state laws and regulations set in place that fiscally smart city districts could use to generate much needed local funds, most city councils are either too afraid of implied guilt or too lockstep with the government sponsored status quo medical profit structure to take advantage of this ‘win-win’ potential situation. Even though the AMA and the Veterans Administration have recognized the medicinal effects of cannabis or pot, your local city council knows more. They may love to sponsor Memorial Day parades, fly a MIA flag, and pat teens on the back who are going off to ‘serve’ and kill in A-Stan, the fact is they, the city council members don’t have the heart or will power to really help those in need because they don’t think marijuana helps, and they’re gods.

On the federal level two cases are pending where the judge has allowed some sort of medical defense, the chink in the Feds armor. Cases on the state level have some OC cities trying to overturn a ban rejection, and on the city level, the THC clinic is battling the R-Side city council, with them both locked in a judicial stalemate at press time. Into this city level dogfight now comes a pit bull to stand beside the mild mannered mad men of marijuana reform. It might be noted that only Palm Springs, Mary Bono’s (sorry forgot her married last name, Ed.) home town, has a sensible working city ordinance in this neck ‘o the woods, drafted by people who didn’t support Prop 8 and aren’t mean spirited, just conservative, artistic, and flamboyant.

Having been in the trenches of civil rights, protest movements, and social change off and on during my life, the latest being

Invisible Children, I learned a long time ago on how you respond to ‘the Establishment’. With a name like Rothschild, I had to deal with my very Establishment family from my very non-Establishment viewpoint. Hence I wear the crown of being the ‘black sheep’, which is probably as much self-imposed as not, but the truth is I took the path less traveled. You could say the same thing for Fast Eddy in that Fast Eddy makes his own path.

Several years ago in conversation with Lanny Swerdlow, I offered a list of simple language plain direct political questions with follow up rebuttals to him for his broadcast interview with Jeff Stone, a pharmacist turned career politician with a penchant for pushing senior gentile citizen busybodies around, and who now has a public funded (?) office in the French Valley airport. Whether it was ego or whatever, Lanny left my questions in his other jacket and brought out the fluff PC Entertainment Tonight queries. Jeff Stone had Lanny at ‘hello’. Likewise to a point Steele Smith, who entered the MMJ arena as a business man with the attitude ‘if I operate with good intentions aka free wheelchairs, they, the city fathers will see that I’m a good citizen and like me’. Mindsets such as these are why you never saw the organizers of any protest out on the front lines. With any war, the front lines are cannon fodder but by the Grace of God.

I first met Fast Eddy over sports, not music, when he was still involved in his then career, selling used cars. That’s right Sports Fans. Eddy Hooper was dealing in one of the 3 most bottom feeder occupations – (blood-sucking) lawyers, tin men (I actually know two), and used car salesmen. These 3 rank below realtor, hit man, and grifter though not by much. But Eddy didn’t just sell used cars, he managed used car salesmen. You know the guy who your salesman keeps going to with counter offers, the guy who gives you the paperwork then explains your interests and payments while you sign, the guy with the shylock look and feel, THAT was Eddy, he was the ringmaster in the sharks.

One game Eddy turns to me, as he passes me a grape flavored blunt, his personal forte, and says, “I’m going to start throwing (music) shows, like your friend Ivan.” I warned him that it’s not as easy as it looks, but I would consult him. A few months and several thousand later, with the highlight being a dance party thrown for his teenage daughter’s school,

Eddy left the ‘scene’ a wiser man. As marijuana collectives/dispensaries started opening around the valley and talk of initiatives started to float in the air, a mutual non-scene friend informed me of Eddy’s plan to open a collective. As with the scene exposure, I offered my expertise and sources.

Over the next few weeks after a couple of well placed calls and with Eddy scouting locations to open, there came a turning point. The three of us went to attend the city council meeting at Menifee city hall. Eddy was going to present his case on why they should let him open a collective for MMJ patients. We got there a little late and the meeting had started. Eddy opened the chamber door and started to walk in, all prepared to make his point, then he looked around. He looked around at the council audience, older white pleasant but plain looking people. Then he looked at the sitting city council, and he had an epiphany. The full gravity of the political situation dawned on him and Eddy turned white. I’ve never seen a man more spooked by a non-paranormal activity. That day when we drove off into the Menifee sunset, it felt like the last reel of a movie, like at the end of Blazing Saddles (very apropos).

So you can imagine my surprise when a few months before the election Eddy called to say he was all set to open for business, IN HEMET. Hemet!?! For my old classmates, Hemet is a town sized ‘Portland area’. For everyone else, opening a pot shop in Hemet (I thought) would be like opening a liquor store in Compton or Tijuana, you’d be a target. I voiced my opinion to Fast Eddy and like me in the debate with my family over my civil rights involvement, Eddy had a rebuttal for every argument I put forth. Later when I was granted my review story at the collective, I saw the results of the Menifee experience. Eddy has a Simpsons’ gene. Whatever doesn’t kill him, only makes him stronger. Some of this has to also come from having to shoot insulin on a daily basis. Suffice to say, Fast Eddy is NO shrinking violet.

Shortly after the last Fast Eddy story posted on the Temecula Calendar and while the PE story was being compiled there was a knock on the front door of 951 Wellness. It was code enforcement and a local law officer. Fast Eddy stepped out to greet ‘the Man’. The city visitors explained that they were there to inspect his premises. Eddy asked exactly they needed to inspect. They said his business license and certificate of occupancy. Eddy produced those and they passed muster. When the officer he wanted to come inside 951 to inspect, Eddy informed him that unless he was doing the exact same procedure to every business in Hemet, or had a MMJ ID card, he would need a search warrant to enter the business. The officer retreated and called someone on his shoulder unit. Eddy gave him a car lot glower. “He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.”

I told Eddy, “You know they will be back.”

Eddy replied, “Let them. I’m ready for them. I’m a legitimate business man. I’m following the state mandate for operation as (the State of California) has defined it. Every day they close me down I will get (my lost business day’s receipts) back from the city, in full.” I listened to Eddy’s voice on the other end of the phone and laughed when I read the word ‘talkative’ in the print story. They have no idea, lol, unless you’ve ever been to a used car lot and haggled a day for a car. They have no idea, but there is an old saying that goes, ‘it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.’ Wrap that saying up in a big dog and you have Fast Eddy.

Like Tiger Woods, Jackie Robinson, and mini-skirts, Hemet may find 951 Wellness is an idea whose time has come and just have to adjust to the changing times. (*- Homage to Burt Reynolds’ film Hooper, Hollywood’s Greatest Stuntman)