Gender Talk 162- 7-15-98 - Terence

Good evening.

I'm Nancy Nangerone, and this is Gender Talk.

Hello again.

This is Gender Talk, Boston's worldwide radio show that talks about transgenderism in the first person.

Each week, we bring you news, information, and exciting new voices that challenge our traditional view of gender.

Tonight, we'll meet a different flavor of activist or representative of the United American Indians of New England.

We'll hear about a protest turned violent last Thanksgiving in Plymouth, and why this group of original Americans refers to that national holiday as a day of shame.

Then we'll meet the well-known author of several books on the subject of natural hallucinogens and altered states of consciousness, Terrence McKenna.

We'll ask about benefits, drawbacks, and safety issues in exploring altered states.

Plus, we'll check in with celebrity friend Candy Cain, who will fill us in on the summer scene in Provincetown.

And because this is a surprisingly decent show, we'll also have the twisted nasty news, happenings around town, and much more tonight on Gender Talk.

And the views and opinions presented on this program do not necessarily reflect those of the staff and management of WNBR, the Technology Broadcasting Corporation, RMIT.

Wow.

Hal, thank you so much for that.

Remind me not to do that one again.

You know, I think we should thank the show before us.

I think we should have the guys on radio with a view.

I think they should do Gender Talk.

I mean, they've got much better clips than we can.

Really.

Thanks, guys.

Mark and David.

Mark and David are those guys.

Yes.

All right.

That was a nice little intro.

Anyway, this is Gender Talk.

Our website is www.gendertalk.com.

I think it's surprisingly decent, considering how little effort we put into it.

The left-est radio show on the dial.

Hey!

It is that.

Yeah, we do put a little bit of effort into it.

And we have fun, and we hope you have fun with it, too.

You can email us.

Mr. Clean gets rid of dirt and grind.

Sorry.

Nancy at GenderTalk.com or Hal at GenderTalk.com or anybody else at GenderTalk.com.

Our side host is TG Forum, Transgender Forum.

Thanks, guys.

We appreciate you putting us out there on the web for everybody to hear.

Hey, you know what happened?

What happened?

I just got yesterday in the mail from Jamie Faye Fenton, the person who puts our show up

on the website.

Right.

Jamie made me a CD, CD-ROM, with all of our shows on it.

One CD-ROM.

One CD?

You're kidding.

With over a year's worth.

It's almost a year and a half.

I don't know how many shows it was.

So are we going to start selling this?

The whole thing or just the good part?

It was like 72 shows or something.

Are we going to sell this?

Is it going to be something we press?

Well, that's the idea, is that maybe IFGE can sell this.

So maybe IFGE will make this available to people.

We'll see.

More gender talk than you could possibly want, folks.

That's right.

More than you ever wanted.

Enough to totally cure you of the listening habit.

You mean people can do sampling on us now?

Well, it's in real audio format, so it's not quite as good as real audio.

Did we get mail this week?

Oh, yeah.

That's what we have.

I knew there was something I needed to do here.

Where?

All right.

First piece of mail.

This one's good.

I'm going to read this verbatim.

Dear Nancy, I was on Gender Talk about a year ago discussing my treatment at the hands

of some very inept therapists in Oklahoma.

I can't tell you how important that was in my efforts to legitimize my feelings to myself.

I think she's referring to being on the radio show.

I had a few phone calls in the months following the show from people who were very supportive

of my efforts.

With that and a few more months of therapy, with Roger Millen, of course, I began my real

life training in September, my real life test, excuse me, in November of last year.

That means real life test is like when you cross live, right?

Right.

So now the person is living full time.

Right.

I'm writing to let you know that I begin my first full time job in the field that I'm

trained in as the person that I choose to be.

That's pretty cool.

A small step for some, perhaps, but for me, the continuance of a momentous journey that

I've been so lucky to have participated in.

Needless to say, I have so much hope and joy to share with my experience that I can't contain

myself.

I just wanted to thank you guys for your part.

Love, Susan Gerringer.

Oh.

Isn't that sweet?

Thank you, Susan.

Yeah.

We're glad to hear that you got a job.

Yeah.

Exactly.

A job in her chosen, in her field, in her regular field.

Yeah.

She didn't have to like go flip burgers at McDonald's or something.

Now, is she out at this job or we don't know?

I don't know.

It's one way or the other, but, you know, who cares?

Okay.

Anyway, congratulations, Susan.

Right.

We also got a letter from, an email from someone here in Cambridge.

Apparently, there's a Cambridge transgender person, a male to female transgender person

who transitioned on the job with the consent of her supervisor.

A month after her transition, the supervisor resigned to move to another company.

Two days later, she was told she would be fired if she did not go back to wearing men's

clothing at work.

She complained to the, she filed a complaint with the Cambridge Human Rights Commission.

Now, we have laws against that in Cambridge, don't we?

Exactly.

Cambridge has a non-discrimination ordinance that says you can't be discriminated against

on the basis of gender expression or identity.

So, she cannot be, I mean, in law, it says that you can't be forced to wear men's or women's

clothes.

You get to choose which you wear.

Anyway, apparently, it says, finally, two months after transitioning, the employee is

still on the job.

The Human Rights Commission has set a hearing date and the company continues to hold fast

to the threat of firing the employee.

Is this the first test case that's been brought?

I believe so.

This is the first I've heard.

So, we'll be looking forward to getting more information on this.

We'll try to get an interview going.

Is this a private company or is this the city of Cambridge?

I have no idea.

No, I don't think it's the city.

The city of Cambridge has better sense than that.

Yeah, the city is much more reasonable.

To break their own laws, yes.

All right, so one more mail.

And finally, we got one letter, a very, a much longer letter, very nicely written.

And this is all about the interview that we did last week with the Executive Director

of Norm on the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Slow down?

Yeah.

AJ says slow down.

Okay.

I just want to cover a lot of ground real quick.

We were supportive of him.

Yeah, in fact, it says here, you seem to be in total agreement with this guest on all

his stated points.

Actually, I thought he was, he maybe exaggerated a little bit.

Right.

Like, he didn't say anything negative at all.

And of course, there's always negatives to anything.

So, perhaps we could have been a little bit more balanced.

This person says, I do agree that our government's policies on medical usage of marijuana are ill-advised.

So, in other words, he's saying that the extreme prohibitions are not a good idea.

And this person also says, I also do believe that drug education is essential, but in my

experience, marijuana can be an insidiously dangerous drug.

So, to hear she, it's a, she, I think, she goes on to say, while I know that this is not the

case for everyone that uses marijuana, it has proven true for me and many in my acquaintance.

I used drugs, if you count alcohol, for a total of 15 years.

For 13 of these years, I used marijuana.

During many of those years, it was my drug of choice, and I used it daily.

I had many enjoyable experiences using marijuana, especially at first.

However, I paid a huge price in the long run.

I experienced many of the difficulties that your guest dismissed as non-existent, including

paranoia and loss of motivation.

I also experienced a level of emotional dependence on marijuana that was no different than that

experienced when using other classes of addictive drugs.

She goes on to say, using marijuana itself did not cause me to use other drugs, but being

in the company of other drug users, being high on pot, and having my judgment affected

by such a situation, definitely encouraged me to use other drugs.

I think this is a great letter, because I think there are dangers in everything.

I think she's putting them out there very well.

Yeah.

She's done a really nice job.

I wish we had time to read the whole thing, because it really is a very, very nice letter.

Let's see.

Are there a couple more?

I believe that marijuana greatly retarded my emotional and social development.

It helped me to withdraw from the world.

She goes on to talk about trans people.

No, is this a trans person who's writing this?

This is a trans person.

For me, it seemed easier and felt safer to stay stoned than to deal with my feelings about

myself.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has felt this way.

She talks later about getting clean.

Prior to my getting clean, I lived in a lonely, isolated, drug-clouded half-life, where a significant

portion of my energy went into obtaining and using drugs.

If you'd told me back then that I had a problem with drugs, I would have denied it totally.

That's really interesting, because this really speaks to the issue of how do you use drugs?

I know that when I smoke, it's for a specific purpose, and that if I find myself...

What purpose is it?

Well, the first purpose that really came to me was when I was recovering from my motorcycle

accident.

You had a very serious motorcycle accident.

My leg was mangled, and it seemed only when I got high that I would relax enough and take

the time enough and pay enough attention to my leg to give it the kind of care it really

needed.

So it worked for me to get high and then to work on my leg with a massage and exercise

and those sorts of things.

So that really worked for me.

That was about 20 years ago?

Yeah.

1981.

So 17 years, something like that.

And then there are certain types of activities, physical activities, physical exercise.

Sometimes I like to get high before going rollerblading.

It loosens me up.

It relaxes me a little bit.

I find that I fall less.

I mean, I just compared it for a while, for a period of some months.

When I went out, I alternated between smoking and not smoking to see, and I found that I

fell...

Maybe just because you're more relaxed or something.

Yeah, more relaxed, less concerned with other things, more kind of present in some ways.

But at the same time, sometimes I find myself wanting to turn to marijuana because I'm feeling

bad.

I want to escape.

I don't want to deal with things at all.

And those are warning signs.

Those are reasons not to smoke.

Those are reasons not to do drugs.

So then when you feel that way, what do you do?

I find something else to do.

Take a nap, drink a glass of water, go for a walk, do something else, but don't smoke.

Not a good time to smoke.

If you start to depend on it as an escape, then it becomes a downward spiral.

Mm-hmm.

Which is what this person is talking about.

And she goes on to talk about the community.

While there are other issues dividing the community, it appeared, she's talking about

in the past, that drug abuse and addiction were causing problems for many of us, and this

is true.

There's a lot of...

Within the trans community?

Yeah.

There's a lot of recovering alcoholics, and there's a lot of people who have abused drugs.

She says, abusive drugs steals our energy, saps our spirit, and weakens our voice.

And this is signed, Bobby.

Bobby, I couldn't agree more.

This is an excellent letter.

It points out the other side of things, some of the dangers of dealing with drugs, which

are dangerous.

I mean, anything that you eat can be dangerous, just like getting in a car and driving is a dangerous

thing.

It kills a lot more people than marijuana ever has.

Likewise, marijuana is something that should be used with respect and should be used with a

bit of care.

In a well-informed manner.

And in a well-informed way.

So anyway, Bobby, thank you so much for this excellent letter.

We really appreciate you pointing out some of the cautions that people should take whenever

doing this stuff.

We can talk about this with our guest tonight.

Yeah.

And we'll be...

Yeah, when we talk about hallucinogens later tonight.

Mm-hmm.

So I'm looking forward to that.

Anyway, isn't that a great letter?

That was...

Yeah.

Anyway, okay.

Hal.

So, Hal, are you ready to do the Twisted Nasty thing?

Yeah.

I think he's always ready.

Good evening, this is Hal Fuller with the July the 15th edition of the Gender Talk Twisted

Nasty News.

Okay.

From Buenos Aires.

I did that already.

City authorities in Buenos Aires have decided to crack down on prostitution despite protests

by a crowd of transvestites in high heels and lipsticks.

Was that all they were wearing?

Quote...

That's what the article said.

We're simply fighting to be free like any man, woman, or creature, said Flavia, 23-year-old

transvestite prostitute.

A surge of prostitutes has embarrassed shock presidential contender Fernando de la Rua,

mayor of Buenos Aires.

Resident groups have lobbied to keep transvestite prostitutes off their doorsteps where they,

fight, shout, relieve themselves, take drugs, and perform sexual acts in full view of the

neighborhood.

Hell, in my neighborhood, those are spectator sports.

Well, good thing that they're organized and that they're protesting.

Yeah, this is interesting.

They repealed the police edicts, and now what's happening is the trans prostitution is flourishing,

apparently.

Uh-huh.

Things have gotten more visible.

And now they're trying to reinforce it again.

Yeah.

Selectively, it sounds.

Yeah, from the thrust of that article, that's sort of what I got.

That was from Reuters, I believe.

Time Magazine, the July the 20th edition on the newsstands as we speak, has a two-page wonderful

spread on transgenderism.

It starts out, watch out, Pat Robertson.

Ridiculed for years, transgender are emerging as the newest group to demand equality, quote

unquote.

In the past five years, several movies, plays, tabloid shows, and famous cross-dressers like

RuPaul have moved drag from the fringes of gay culture to prime time, even Teletubbies.

A show for toddlers features Tinky Winky, a boy who carries a red patent leather purse.

It also features a nice picture and some stuff about Shannon Ware, who is a male to female,

transsexual, approached legislators who dropped anti-T legislation that they were contemplating.

And Shannon Mentor, who is...

I think it's the same person, isn't it?

No, two different people.

Is that really?

Oh, okay.

There's a Shannon Ware and there's a Shannon Mentor.

I thought Shannon Mentor...

Okay.

Never mind.

...who is at the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

He's a lawyer.

Right.

Okay.

Well, it's very balanced, very knowledgeable, and very hip.

They knew what they were talking about.

Yeah, and Ricky Ann Wilchens was involved in that.

Surprise.

My guess is that Ricky and the two Shannons probably worked with Time Magazine on that.

Well, thank you, Time.

Good work, guys.

Good work, Ricky.

Again, it is on the newsstand now.

That's gender packet work there, too.

Right.

Of course, for the people out on the web, it probably won't be on the news times by the time

you hear it, but you can go to your library and look it up.

Anyway.

Thank you.

Let's do a really twisted, nasty one.

For instance, in Europe, condoms are getting larger.

The European Union's standardization committee has reportedly decided to increase the length

of its standard quote-unquote condom from 16 centimeters, approximately 6.3 inches, to 17 centimeters, 6.7 inches.

They're also increasing the diameter of the condoms from 54 millimeters to 56 millimeters.

Whether this represents a surprise rise among European men is still unclear, it said.

Isn't that pretty long?

They're only increasing it a little, actually, .4 inches in length.

6 inches sounds long in my experience.

Does it really?

Yeah, it does.

Not in mine.

Wow.

We should compare notes sometime when we're not on the radio station.

Let's feel that Viagra.

Yeah, there you go.

Oh, maybe that's right.

Maybe all the lesbians I was sleeping with.

There you go.

I'm not going to touch them.

Okay, on a serious note.

Last week, trans activist Joanna McNamara took her own life.

She was an attorney who co-founded It's Time Oregon and was instrumental in gaining protection

for transsexuals in Oregon disability laws.

She's recently suffered from depression and the after effects of earlier physical injuries.

Quote, I have run out of hope.

I am tired of hurting physically and emotionally.

I have fought and struggled to the best of my ability.

I can struggle no more.

Reports have shown that queer youth, gay and lesbian youth, and no specific statistics on transgender,

but that queer youth in general are three times more likely to suicide.

How many friends in the transgender community do you know that have tried or succeeded at suicide?

Maybe yourself.

This is obviously a health issue.

It's obviously a rights issue.

It has to be paid attention to.

And our condolences to the friends and family.

Yes.

Okay.

Here's some good news.

Our friend, Sexuality Doyin and grand opening owner, Kim Ayers, has a new position.

Wait a minute.

She already had 54.

She needed a new position.

I know.

She has been named apparently to the Brookline Chamber of Commerce.

Wow.

I love it.

That's pretty heavy.

That's great.

Congratulations, Kim.

And for those people out on the net, Kim Ayers runs a shop called Grand Opening, which

is an adult toy store.

She also runs many very sex-positive workshops and identity workshops.

She is one heavy, knowledgeable babe.

And she's trans-positive.

Oh, yes.

They have packing penises in their store.

Oh, yeah.

Well, they do.

Great stuff.

And on that note, the Improper Bostonian run its 100 best.

And for S&M supplies, the first one they list is Home Depot.

Thank you, Karen, for bringing that to my attention.

Ah!

For S&M supplies.

Well, you know, the bolts and the stuff you need for the rafters and all of that stuff.

Oh, I guess so.

And after that, they listed Hubba Hubba, which is a local-

And Cambridge.

And Cambridge shop.

So right after you go to Home Depot, folks, swing by Hubba Hubba, please.

Or don't.

In a Canada case where a young male child lost his penis due to a circumcision accident, he

was reassigned as a female, raised as a woman, and apparently accepted it more unlike the famous

John-John case.

And there was a case recently which was brought to attention where-

The John-John case where the person, there was a similar incident.

And the person was raised as a girl, and at age 12 rebelled and insisted on going back

to living as a boy.

Right.

And very upset.

Well, in this particular case, the young female apparently is accepting more that she

is a female, and they're trying to make the distinction that the one who accepted their

reassignment was done at seven months, and the one who didn't accept their reassignment

was done at 21 months, so apparently there is a window where gender hasn't set in heart.

All right.

Let me, I got to make a few comments on this one.

I figured you would.

This gets my goat.

First of all, first of all, how do you know this wasn't a trans person to start with?

This could have been a transgender person anyway.

You cannot draw any, any conclusion whatsoever from one case like this.

It's absolutely bonkers, and any person who calls himself a scientist will tell you

that a sample of one or a sample population of two with one going each way.

It's not sufficient data points, honey.

No.

Yeah, not even close.

So, whichever guy, whoever it was, some guy out there who said, you know, well, since

this one was seven months, the other was 21, means that gender identity takes hold in between

those two is a complete loony.

I'm sorry.

I'm usually more...

He didn't go to MIT like we did.

Well, yeah, just totally bogus.

Totally bogus.

God, I love it when she's on her soapbox.

I know.

Sorry.

Well, we don't even know what it means that this child allegedly accepts that she's a girl.

This child accepts the gender.

But how old is she, and what does that mean?

I don't have that information, I'm sorry.

Tell you what, if you know, drop us an email and let us know.

Well, there is one thing that this particular female who has accepted her lot does, in fact,

work blue-collar, quote-unquote, man's job.

She was very much a tomboy when she was growing up, and at last count, she was declaring herself

as bi and involved in a lesbian relationship.

Right.

So, tending towards a little bit of masculinity stuff going on there, no surprise.

But the question I have to ask is, why is it we feel a need to make pronouncements

about gender and when gender identity takes hold?

So, you know, I would investigate the motives of the people who feel a need to do so.

Once you get a doctorate, you are qualified, thereby, to make pronouncements.

Yeah.

Okay, here's a moment you've all been waiting for, the final story from New York City.

Wealthy, thrill-seeking couples from around the world are eagerly lining up to join what

they call, jokingly call, the Thousand Mile High Club by renting queues to make love in outer space.

And a New York company is selling bursts aboard the privately owned Love Rocket One for a

whopping $200,000 a piece.

And there's already a huge waiting list for the proposed first launch of December the

31st, 2003.

Right.

This is a very good scam.

We should get in on this.

You may be right about that, AJ.

Hmm.

So, save your pennies, folks.

That's one expensive roll in the hay.

Mm-hmm.

Well, there's also a woman who has developed a harness for free-fall lovemaking.

Free-fall lovemaking?

Free-fall lovemaking.

Like bungee jumping?

They're a problem with docking maneuvers, apparently.

You just wrap your legs around each other's legs, and you're there.

All right.

The hardware's coming in place, dear.

That's all I can say, and that's it for this edition of the Gender Talk Twisted Nasty

News.

Use only as directed.

Thank you.

Wow.

Thank goodness for that.

Don't we have a guest?

The guest is probably hung up by now.

I think our poor guest has been holding up by now.

Yeah.

If I were the guest, I would hang up.

I would.

Mattelie, are you there?

Can you hear us?

I am.

I'm still thinking about these people in New York paying good money to make love in outer

space.

I don't blame you.

That's, you know, $200,000.

Imagine what we could do with that money, huh?

If we just got five people, we'd have a million dollars.

There you go.

So welcome to Gender Talk.

Thank you, Nancy.

It's a pleasure to have you on.

Now, you are a member of the, in fact, you're one of the two people who's running.

Tell me.

Right.

What do you do?

I'm Joey, and I'm co-leader of United American Indians of New England.

Oh, okay.

And what, tell me, what is United American Indians of New England?

Sure.

Our organization has been in existence since 1970, and we have a number of different fronts

to defend the rights of Native people.

For instance, we're responsible since 1970 for the National Day of Mourning commemoration

in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

National Day of Mourning?

Yep.

Now that is Thanksgiving?

That's Thanksgiving.

I want to tell you, by the way, we do work on a lot of other things.

We work on the case of Native political prisoners, including Leonard Paltier.

We work to demand an end to racist teen names and mascots.

We work on a lot of other fronts, too.

But I think what we're best known for is National Day of Mourning.

That occurs on American Thanksgiving Day.

And it's a time when we as Native people and our supporters go to Plymouth, Massachusetts,

and we're on a hill there overlooking the sacred Plymouth Rock, which for those of you who've never been there is really, I don't know,

I think most people think it's this huge thing like the Rock of Gibraltar, and it's this little tiny thing.

And, in fact, the pilgrims didn't land there anyway.

It was about six feet long, I think.

It was in the center of town that they dragged down to the waterfront.

Right.

But it's symbolic.

And have a speak-out.

And what we talk about is why we as Native Americans have no reason to give thanks for the European invasion of our country,

why we have no reason to give thanks for the genocide of our people and the deaths of our lands.

You're not thankful for the massacre of your ancestors and your forebears?

Of course we're not.

It should be self-evident.

I can't understand that one.

But it's outrageous.

They have this whole pilgrim mythology that the pilgrims came over and they were such wonderful people,

and the Indians welcomed them and fed them, and everybody lived happily ever after.

And it couldn't be further from the truth about what really happened historically,

and in particular what has happened to Indigenous people.

So we go there to speak the truth.

We also have several times we've buried Plymouth Rock.

Ah!

You buried the rock?

...of the racism, you know, that it represents.

I love it.

What do you mean you buried the rock?

Well, you kind of take buckets of...

It's in this pit, and you kind of jump down into the pit.

I love it.

And we brought buckets of sand and dumped buckets of sand and covered it up.

How many years have you been doing this?

I mean, how many years?

1970.

Wow.

You know, let me tell people, because this is a gender talk, and I want to tell people

a little bit why we have you on here.

Good.

You're inspired by...

I mean, this interview is inspired by Leslie Feinberg, who spoke at Boston's Pride this

last Saturday, and talked about the Plymouth 25, which is 25 people who I guess were charged

at the...

Unbeaten, right?

I don't know, but I'm going to ask Matoa to tell us all about this, but 25 people who

have been charged, who were apparently assaulted by the police, and who have been charged by

the police based on last year's National Day of Shame in Plymouth, I believe.

And because Leslie and myself and other transgender activists are advocating for coalitional work

among all oppressed peoples, we here at Gender Talk feel that it's important to bring other

issues to light, especially issues that are so egregious as the continuing persecution of

the people who lived here before the Europeans came.

As if we could separate race and gender anyway.

Yeah, exactly.

So, Matoa, can you tell us about what happened in Plymouth?

I'd be happy to.

Great.

Let me say this also.

We don't separate the issues out, and in fact, you probably saw us marching at Boston

Pride.

All right.

We were there in June at the Rained Out Pride, and we're part of the Stonewall March, and

we were marching with United American Indians of New England banners at Pride that just

happened this past Saturday, the Rain Day.

And I think sometimes there's a tendency in the society to make it seem as though native

issues are separate, for instance, from lesbian, gay, bi, and trans issues or that type of thing.

And that's not true either.

I mean, certainly there are lesbian, gay, bi, and trans people, what we call two-spirited

people who are native.

Absolutely.

And, you know, we support the sisters and brothers within our own country community who

are two-spirited people.

And we support all the people from the two-spirited community.

That's why we march in Pride.

Four of the descendants from the Plymouth 25 are openly lesbian, gay, bi, or trans people.

Cool.

And I think that's important to know.

So we have...

The Plymouth 25...

Yeah, tell us about what happened, because we have an audience out here.

A lot of trans people and a bunch of other folks are listening.

A lot of queer-identified women.

Tell us what happened.

Last National Day of Mourning on November 27, 1997, so-called Thanksgiving Day, we went

to Plymouth as we've been going, as I said, since 1970.

And every year it's led by native people, by our organization, United American Indians

of New England, but many, many other non-native people come to show their support for it.

And we had a speak-out, and in the speak-out we talked about some of the history and also

issues of current concern to native people.

And then we attempted to have a peaceful march on the streets of Plymouth, Massachusetts,

which calls itself America's hometown.

And this march, at the front of the march, we had elders, and we had women, and we had

children, and we did that actually intentionally, because we thought, well, you couldn't...

How can we make it more clear that we don't want any kind of confrontation?

Right.

And we began to march, and it was very quiet, and someone was playing, had a conch shell,

and there was a drum beating, and that was all that you heard.

And we turned the corner, and we were ambushed by dozens upon dozens upon dozens of cops.

Wow.

The Plymouth, the town of Plymouth, their entire police force, beefed up, and the Plymouth County Sheriff's Department,

and the Massachusetts State Police, including state cops on horseback, had combined to come up with this whole ambush.

And people, we weren't given warning to get off the street.

We weren't...

We're on this tiny little side street in Plymouth, right?

Uh-huh.

And just got trapped there.

We weren't allowed to get off the street.

Nobody was allowed to do anything.

We sent people ahead to, you know, try to talk to the cops and say, listen, you know, try to negotiate with them.

The cops said, the order's been given, and they move forward.

And they began to arrest not only the leadership of our organization, but many, many other people.

And they also were very brutal to people.

They knocked people down on the pavement head first.

They would slam people down on the pavement and then put pepper spray in their eyes.

Oh.

And pepper spray is a...

Miserable.

...very vicious substance.

These cops pepper sprayed an eight-year-old child and a ten-year-old child.

These cops pepper sprayed elders.

They were just, they were like...

Couldn't have been more disrespectful.

Our feeling was they were like, you know, Custer and the Cavalry.

They were like, you know, they thought, oh, boy, they were going to be big cowboys today.

Yeah, because little 8-year-old kids are really threatening.

The worst of white culture.

Oh, it was terrible.

And, you know, people literally were just trying to evaporate and get out of the way and couldn't.

And they arrested 25 of us.

And those who were arrested, the newspapers locally always say the 25 Native Americans arrested at Plymouth.

Well, it wasn't 25 Native Americans.

It was 25 people who included Native Americans and African Americans.

And the Native people, by the way, are from both North and South America.

And African Americans and white people and Latino people and Asian people and old and young.

They arrested a 67-year-old man who is the spiritual advisor to our organization, a medicine person.

Wow.

It was...

Were you arrested?

Oh, yeah.

Wow.

And what's so absurd about it, first of all, the only criminals that were on the streets of Plymouth that day were the cops.

We certainly weren't doing anything criminal.

What did they charge you with?

Well, they've continued to prosecute this case.

I mean, it's a ridiculous case, and the charges should have been dropped a long time ago.

But they're actually playing really hard ball with us.

So charges range from unlawful assembly kind of charges to assault and battery on a police officer.

And that assault and battery is very serious.

I mean, people can potentially do time for that.

Oh, yeah.

William Palmer did two years.

You know, so instead of dropping these charges and getting realistic about it, they have engaged in a vindictive campaign against not only the 25 defendants,

but against our organization really trying to discredit us.

Wow.

You know, it's been a very bad situation.

On the other hand, we've gotten an incredible broad base of support.

We're getting letters of support from organizations and individuals all over the country and, in fact, all over the world.

Good.

Sounds like you deserve it.

Many people are aware of this, and those who aren't, when they become aware of it, they're immediately outraged and want to do something to help.

Okay.

We have to take a break now.

I'll be right back, okay?

For those of you who are wondering what this is, you're listening to Gender Talk on WMBR in Cambridge, 808.1 FM, first on your dial.

I'm your host, Nancy Nangeroni, here with A.J. Dirksen.

And we're talking with Mata Wee, who is the co-head of the United American Indians of New England.

We're talking about the Plymouth 25, 25 people who were arrested unjustly in Plymouth last year's Day of Shame,

which also celebrated as Thanksgiving by a lot of Americans.

Oh, Day of...

Morning.

No, Day of Shame.

Didn't she say Day of Morning?

Day of Morning.

Oh, you did say Day of Morning.

Yeah.

I got it wrong.

A.J., you were right.

Go ahead.

Thumb your nose at me.

Day of Shame must be a different thing, then.

What's that?

Day of Shame must be a different thing.

That's Columbus Day.

Where did I get...

Yeah, there you go.

Anyway, okay, so...

So now...

So, yeah, so what's with these...

Okay, what can people do to help?

And then let's talk about other things that your organization is doing.

Great.

Well, people can contact us.

Right now we're asking people to send letters of support and to send letters to the Plymouth County District Attorney,

Michael Sullivan, demanding that the charges be dropped.

But if it's okay, I'll give your listeners our phone number and they can contact us.

Absolutely.

Okay.

You can give anything you want.

Our phone number is area code 781-331-3690.

And we can also be reached via email.

Our email address is UAINE19 at IDT.net.

I'm doing my best to enunciate that.

You did fine with that.

So that's UAINE19, that is, at IDT.net.

That's right.

Or 781-331-3690.

We'll keep that number here.

If anybody calls us later at 253-8810, we'll have that information for you.

Okay.

So people can contact you, and what you really want is for people to write letters

so they can call you and get the address to write to, to write to Michael Sullivan,

the Plymouth District Attorney, is that what you said?

That's right.

It's the Plymouth County District Attorney.

We'll be happy to get folks that information.

We are going to be, all the Plymouth defendants will be back in Wareham District Court

on the morning of July 28th at 9 o'clock.

And every time we've come to court, we've asked that supporters come there.

In fact, when we were in court in June, I think there was about 100 supporters there,

and it was really incredible.

We just packed the courtroom.

That's great.

Anyone who's able to come down to Wareham District Court on the 28th, that would be great, too.

And that's a very effective thing to do, to let them know that the public is watching

and that we're interested.

What else is the United American Indians of New England doing,

or what's happening maybe on a national basis?

If you can just fill us in, because we're very sympathetic, especially in the trans community.

There's a lot of interest in our two-spirit heritage in a Native tradition.

And so we want to know what's going on.

So fill us in as much as you can in the next five or ten minutes.

Well, I guess the two things that I'd like to tell you about.

We do have tomorrow, on the 16th, we're going to be having a picket outside Fenway Park here in Boston.

No, why are you picketing Fenway?

Well, it's not because the Red Sox keep losing, although that might not be bad either.

It's because the Cleveland Indians baseball team is in town,

and when they come to town, we like to let them know that we're here.

We have very good friends in Cleveland, a Native organization called the Committee of 500 Years of Dignity and Resistance,

who have been protesting in Cleveland for years against the racist team name, the Indians,

and against the disgusting, hook-nosed, vile mascot that is everywhere in Cleveland

and that is used everywhere by that baseball team, which is called Chief Wahoo.

And, in fact, the sisters and brothers in Cleveland have been arrested more than once

simply for having a demonstration outside Jacob's Field there.

We go to Fenway Park to try to raise people's consciousness.

We're outside the park and we hand out leaflets,

but we try to raise people's consciousness about the issue of these racist mascots and team names.

Some people have never even thought about this.

Some people, it's never even occurred to them that we would find it offensive for a team to be called,

for instance, the Redskins.

You know what, it never occurred, I have to admit, it never occurred to me before I called you guys and heard what was going on.

I have to admit it, yeah.

It just never occurred to me.

It makes sense, though, especially Redskins.

Are people generally receptive to you when you're leaving?

I mean, could you have a team called the Blackskins?

Exactly.

Well, that's the whole point.

They don't take other racial groupings and name teams and mascots after them.

They don't.

Yeah, you wouldn't have the slanty eyes.

For instance, have some guy dress up as a pope dancing around on a football field handing out communion.

Right.

You know, they don't do that to other people's spirituality or other people's cultures, but it's somehow acceptable to do it to Native people.

And what's really frustrating is at schools and universities and, you know, with these big league sports teams,

Native people have been saying over and over again, please stop using this name.

And we're told, well, it's not offensive.

You know, you shouldn't be offended.

We're not going to stop using this.

We're not offended.

How can they determine whether it's offensive to us or not?

Only we can say whether that's offensive.

Right.

So I wanted to know about how you're received when you hand out leaflets.

Well, some people are responsive.

There's a number of Cleveland baseball fans that turn out for these games, too.

They tend to be really hostile.

Some of the, you know, I like baseball a lot myself, but some of the fans can be pretty redneck-y.

They've had a lot of beers and things like that.

So some of them are not very responsive.

We've been spat at.

We've been told to go back to our casinos.

We've had leaflets shoved back on our face, that kind of thing.

But other people take them and read them.

Hey, speaking of casinos, what's going on with the whole –

I can't hear you.

Speaking of casinos, is that better – what's going on with the sovereignty issues?

Is that being tested or is that acknowledged?

I know that that was –

What issues are those?

Sovereignty.

Yeah.

It's sort of – sovereignty is being exploited in order to bring in income via casinos,

and that's being done widespread on a national basis now.

Are there other issues of sovereignty that are coming forward?

Is there other ways that sovereignty is being challenged or –

Well, our sovereignty is not respected, actually.

All Native nations should have a right to have their own economy, however they determine that should be,

and to make their own laws and enforce those laws, and to educate their children in their own manner,

and to have social service programs that are culturally appropriate, and really to function in separate countries.

That's what sovereignty means.

It's the right of each Native nation to be able to do that because we were here first, and it is our land.

We are separate nations with our own land base.

The U.S. government has never respected that, though, and interferes in every possible way.

So really at the bottom of many, many of the Native struggles is our efforts to defend sovereignty

and efforts to regain land.

I have a question about the casinos.

Casinos, are they bringing money into Native American Indian hands, and is that money doing good things,

or is it a corrupting influence?

Well, our organization doesn't take a position on casinos except as follows,

which is that we believe it's the right of every Native nation to choose how it wants to conduct its own economy.

We will say this, however, which is it's a fact that there's this myth afloat now that Native people are all getting rich with casinos.

And, in fact, not even five Native nations have made significant earnings from casinos.

In general, most Native nations remain incredibly poor.

And when you look at reservations around the country, whether you're talking about Pine Ridge or Standing Rock

or in Navajo country, really all over the country, Native people are the poorest people in this country.

And are the casinos helping in that?

Is that changing as a result of the casinos?

Well, as I said, the casinos really aren't.

The casinos have had an impact on only a very few Native nations.

Most Native nations don't have casinos and even some of the ones that do.

I noticed a bunch when I was in New Mexico last month.

There were a bunch of casinos on various pueblos.

Yeah.

No, I'd just like to think, you know, it would be nice if the casinos were actually, you know,

returning some wealth into the hands of Native Americans.

Anyway, okay.

I was wondering if Matone wanted to give out their contact number again.

Yes.

Okay.

You want to do that again?

Our telephone number is 781-331-3690.

All right.

Because we just had a caller from somebody who was of, like, Swedish, Danish, that descent

and said, I'm a Viking.

You know, it's like they're doing the same thing.

Really?

Yes.

Oh, interesting.

Huh.

Matone, we're out of time.

We have to go now.

Is there anything that you wanted to say that you haven't had a chance to say yet?

Nope, this is fine.

But we really appreciate the opportunity to be on your program and to speak to the trans community.

Well, we'll be paying attention to what happens with the Plymouth 25.

I'll hope to see you.

And I'll hope to have an opportunity to come down to Plymouth and see you.

I'm starting to think about spending my next Thanksgiving Day down there.

So we'll see what happens.

Well, please come.

This Thanksgiving Day, we invite everyone to come stand with us in Plymouth.

Believe me, we're going to be there for the biggest day of mourning ever.

Yeah, I think this would be a good year for a bunch of people to turn out.

Yeah.

So thank you so much, Matone.

Okay, thanks.

There's a little tribute before we say goodbye to Matoi.

Okay.

Now that you're wondering how can it be real that the ones who've called colorful and proud

in your school propaganda, they starve in their splendor.

You've asked for my comment.

I simply will render my country, tis of thy people.

It was Buffy St. Marie, a very well-known song about American Indian plight.

Thanks, Hal.

All right.

Do we have a special message?

You know what?

Let's save the special message for after the announcements so that Karen can work on getting

our next guest on the phone while we do that.

All right.

That sounds good.

Yeah.

All right.

Are we ready to do the announcements?

We're ready.

All right.

Take it away.

So there's grand opening of the Athena Club, which is Boston's newest monthly party for women.

That'll be this Friday, July 17th, from 9 p.m. until 2 a.m.

Where's that?

At, I'm going to tell you.

Come on, hurry.

I can't wait.

At the Times on Broad Street.

Where's that?

For information, call 617-357-8463 for details.

Turntables, stylings, and giveaways all night, 21 plus.

And this is presumably a queer positive or queer thing?

Well, the newest monthly party for women, yeah.

Presumably it would be.

This is in Boston, Broad Street in Boston?

Right.

All right.

The Times.

Friday night.

Cape Cod Gay Pride.

Parade and Festival is this Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4.30 p.m.

That's on the Village Green in Hyannis.

For more information on that, call 508-743-9957.

Did you know that I went through Pride twice this year?

I did.

You knew that, didn't you?

How prideful of you.

Oh, that's shocking.

It was great.

You didn't know that, Hal.

How exciting.

I went through in the car once and then went back and walked through it.

She walked with the people.

We supported that.

And still couldn't score.

The annual brother-to-brother cookout, gay men and lesbians of color, family members and friends.

Sorry, there was a comment in there somewhere.

Sunday, July 19th, noon to 6.30 p.m. at Franklin Park in Boston.

If you would like to volunteer or for more information, call Andre Jones at 617-442-1622, extension 22-8.

The Fenway Community Health Center is sponsoring For the Love of Women, a celebration for and about women who love women, featuring poets, musicians, artists, and actors.

This is going to be on Friday, July 17th from 6.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. at the Fenway Community Health Center.

For more information, call Chantanette at 617-927-6300.

So you can go to the Fenway and then you can go to the new club over on Broad Street.

And you can protest the Cleveland Indians while you're over there.

Yay, and Artbeat, an art festival in Davis Square, Somerville, with lots of live music, dance, and children's activities will be Saturday, July 18th from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. in Davis Square in Somerville.

Now this you have to pay attention for, okay?

For information, I have a URL here.

It's www.SomervilleArtsCouncil, all one word, .org.

Cool, and Fenway Community Health Center is not near Fenway Park.

It's in Boston.

Well.

It's close.

No, it is close.

It's this side of the Mississippi.

It's a bit of a walk.

It's not that far.

All right.

If you are a bisexual who is looking for some help to come out or want to help someone else come out.

How about if I'm a bisexual who's looking for a date?

Yeah, well, maybe.

All right.

There's a coming out as a bisexual support group meeting on Tuesday in Boston, July 21st from 7 to 9 p.m.

That's at 29 Stanhope Street.

For more information, call 617-424-9595.

That's the Boston Living Center.

Isn't Mark just getting better and better at this announcement thing?

He's going to have his, like, sultry voice deal down pretty soon.

Wow.

Is that it?

So, yeah.

That's it.

That's it?

Concise.

Okay.

Yeah, and if you missed any part of these, call us and we'll give you the information.

Call us.

So go, hey, ass.

Right.

Exactly.

No, no, no.

You can dial.

That's 253-8810, folks.

You can remember that because it's, like, 88.1.

And that's area code 617-253-8810.

That's right.

All right.

And now we have something very special.

For those of you that think that gospel music has gone too far, you think we've gotten too radical with our message.

Well, I got news for you.

You ain't heard nothing yet.

And if you don't know, now you know.

For 25 years, the Good News Gospel Program has been providing the Boston area with the best in inspirational music.

We play contemporary gospel.

But we also feature classic and traditional gospel.

On Sunday, July 26, we'll be celebrating the 25th anniversary of Good News by broadcasting 12 hours of gospel music.

Tune in to WNBR Cambridge 88.1 FM from noon to midnight on July 26 and help us spread the good news.

Come on and help me.

Help me.

25 years.

So now I think the good news is that you just need one rule to live by, which is don't hurt others.

Well, if you think, and that rule is in, it works with, it works with this gospel rule, doesn't it?

It does.

I think it does, probably.

Anyway, cool.

Big deal on Sunday.

So now, have we got somebody on the phone?

The ever elusive.

Terrence, are you there?

Terrence McKenna.

Not hearing anything.

Terrence.

Terrence is probably sitting there going, I'm here, I'm here.

The phone just went out, says Karen.

I heard that all the way back here.

The phone is funky.

We apologize to everybody, including Terrence.

We'll get Terrence back.

He's having a bad weather thing there.

Another one?

Yes, so when I just got him on the phone, he said, let's do it, but we're having a rainstorm,

so I could go out at any time.

All right.

Just keep trying, please.

Okay.

Yep.

All right.

So we're trying to get Terrence McKenna on the phone, folks.

Terrence McKenna being an expert on psychedelic drugs.

Is that what it is?

Can you tell us all about it, AJ?

Altered states of consciousness?

Wait a minute.

Mark has something.

He's raising his hand.

Yeah.

Well, someone just called with a question about Matui and the rally that's happening tomorrow

down at Fenway Park.

Right.

What about it?

But exactly when and where is that happening?

Oh, we didn't get that information.

Well, around daytime.

The number to call is 781-331-3690.

Give that a call right now, 781-331-3690.

And then tell us.

And Matui should be able to give you a call.

Yeah, then you can call us.

But presumably it's around game time and probably by the entrance, right?

Yeah, I don't know if it's a day game or a night game.

This person was trying to find out what intersection near the park, if it was going to be a small

thing.

Well, the park's not that big.

You can probably walk all the way around it and find them.

I don't know.

Anyway.

I think I heard a click.

Did I hear a click?

Is Terrence there?

Terrence McKenna.

I heard a click.

Hello.

Terrence!

Welcome to Gender...

How are you?

Great.

How are you doing?

You don't know how excited we are to have you.

Well, you don't know how exciting it is to be had by you considering that this circuit

is dependent on the rain and could at any moment fail.

Which is the reason why we weren't able to raise you last week because you're on a radio

telephone.

Is that it?

It's more complicated than that.

I'm running through my computer which works by spread spectrum radio to go 30 miles through

the air and the telephone is piggybacking on the internet connection.

Do you live in Mars?

Where are you calling us from or where are we calling you?

I'm speaking to you from the slopes of the world's largest volcano on the big island of

Hawaii.

Really?

Wow.

Now, that must be a beautiful, beautiful area.

That must be...

Oh, it's beautiful.

It's a little gloomy and rainy today.

But, yes, we're in deep forest with lots of tree ferns and it's wonderful.

Is that a risky place?

If you could speak up a little bit.

Okay.

How can you give...

How's...

Yeah, we're struggling a little bit with the phone link, Terrence.

We'll do our best, okay?

Okay.

Well, if it gets too flaky, don't feel bad about throwing me out.

I understand the problems you may be having.

All right.

Well, while we have you, let's talk about your work.

Now, you've written a number of books.

I'm not familiar with your books.

Could you tell us, you know, what you've been doing from the standpoint of altered states

of consciousness and whatever hallucinogens?

I've written several books, Food of the Gods, Invisible Landscape, True Hallucinations,

and the theme of all these books has been consciousness-altering plants used by Aboriginal

people and the evolution of the human consciousness under the influence of these kinds of plants.

So, basically, I'm a scholar and an advocate of the psychedelic experience as mediated by

various plants that occur in ecosystems all over the world.

You bring up an interesting point, which is that these kinds of experiences have been used

in the past by other cultures, but are currently outlawed by the particular culture we live in.

Yes, well, the particular culture we live in has made alcohol and tobacco two of the most

destructive drugs ever discovered by man into their drugs of choice and then has proceeded

to demonize, legislate against, and stigmatize all the other botanical options and, since the

rise of modern science, pharmacological options that science has provided.

So, yes, our culture is particularly neurotic around this issue of drugs.

Okay, let's talk about and do whatever education we can.

We've got about 20 minutes now to talk about hallucinogens, naturally occurring hallucinogens.

I presume we're talking about, like, psilocybin mushrooms and I don't know what else, maybe peyote or whatever else.

Can you give us...

Yes, psilocybin mushrooms, peyote, these are excellent classic examples.

Okay, I want to talk about the benefits and the drawbacks and the cautions in using these drugs.

I want to do whatever good education we can do here.

So, let's talk about why would anybody want to take, say, let's talk about mushrooms, since that's one that I'm familiar with.

Why would anybody want to take hallucinogenic mushrooms?

Well, in the original aboriginal cultures that characterized humans a long time ago, it's well understood that

psilocybin increases at low doses, visual acuity, so it makes for better hunting skills, so you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see that that is going to be a very important thing for a culture.

At higher doses, these things which in primates like ourselves often mean sexual arousal, and then at still higher doses than that,

you get very complex states of hallucinations, very transformations of mental processes, that I think probably were the earliest form of media entertainment.

People found their minds to be an unexplored domain of nature that opened up to them under the influence of, for example, mushroom.

What do you mean that my mind would open up to me, or that a person's mind would open up under the influence of mushrooms?

Can you tell us a little bit more, give us more of a sense of what that's all about?

Some example of that, maybe?

Well, ordinary consciousness is pretty much characterized by mundane concerns and an ongoing analysis of the immediate perceived environment.

Most people's experience with altered states of consciousness begins with dreams, and indeed, psychedelic states have been compared to waking dreams.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Cool.

So, where were we going with that?

So, it's kind of like waking dreams then.

Yeah.

Why?

A waking dream is what?

That was the comparison?

No, I don't know what a waking dream is.

Oh.

Do you understand what the question is?

Well, a waking dream is when you think you're dreaming, but you're awake.

In other words, in normal physiological functioning, dreaming happens when we're in deep sleep.

But the psychedelics seem to recreate the chemistry of the dreaming brain without pushing aside the chemistry of the waking brain.

And so there is a simultaneous experience of being in the world of ordinary perception, but that shares the mental space, a kind of dream-like transformation of objects, ideas, and feelings.

So, in other words, in this state, you would experience yourself as being awake, being in the world, but at the same time, you would actually experience, say, objects or things that you see doing things that in reality they aren't doing, or that other people would say they aren't doing?

Well, that's one possibility.

A more dramatic possibility is that you would experience objects or feelings or perceptions for which ordinary experience offers no analogies.

And in a sense, that causes stimulation to the imagination.

You could almost argue that one of the things pushing the early evolution of language was people's efforts to explain to each other the completely non-ordinary experiences and perceptions that they were having in these plant-induced mental states.

And isn't that what Alice's Adventures in Wonderland are about, to some extent?

Well, it's perhaps not without implication that just a few hundred yards from where Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland, we find several species of psilocybin mushrooms growing near Trinity College in England.

I love it.

Now, in the limited experimentation that I've done with psilocybin and other hallucinogens, I notice a significant difference in my sense of time.

I notice that time seems to operate differently, that I become much more focused or present in the moment.

Is that something that's a consistent effect?

That's common.

Yeah.

Is that common?

And is there any way you can describe that better, maybe?

One of the very common motifs of the psychedelic experience, you see, what we call time is really the physiological time of the body, the unfolding of digestion, mentation, and metabolism.

And these things are altered, or the perception of them is altered under the influence of psychedelics.

And even the critics of psychedelics have agreed that these things do offer parallels to the classic states of mystical transcendence and enlightenment that many world religions talk about.

It's simply that the critics of psychedelics choose to claim that these experiences are somehow illegitimate if obtained by taking a plant, but are...

...

or somehow sanctioned if achieved through prayer, fasting, flagellation, and self-abandonment in the wilderness.

I think when we transcend all these cultural judgments,

what we have to admit is that the chemistry of the brain is the basis of consciousness.

It can be altered by ordeal, trial shifts,

but the easiest and most effective way of altering consciousness without doing it any great harm

is to chemically intervene at the level of the synapse,

and this is easily done with these psychoactive plants that we're discussing.

All right, let's talk about, again, going back a little bit to the why one would want to do this.

I know that some people advocate that by entering an altered state of consciousness

or transitioning through them or spending time in them,

that one can alter one's perspective on one's own brain's functioning or on one's life

and achieve some power that is not normally accessible

so that one can actually achieve some benefit in the real world

from spending some amount of time in an altered state of consciousness.

Can you talk to that a little bit?

Yes. Well, you see, there's a tension between culture,

which is a kind of shared hallucination,

sanctioned through a shared language and a shared history,

and the individual who always, I think, in all times and places

has felt somewhat confined by cultural definition.

And whether we approve or disapprove of psychedelic experiences,

I think we can all agree that what they do is they dissolve boundaries.

They dissolve boundaries between the conscious and unconscious mind,

between oneself and the people around them,

between past and future,

and they dissolve cultural boundaries

and return us to, I guess, what I would call

the authentic legacy of the human body,

unmodified by cultural assumptions of psychedelics,

is very complicated,

because every culture is interested in maintaining its notion of boundaries

and not having those boundaries breached

or even closely examined and discussed.

And psychedelics just simply expose those boundaries

for exactly what they are,

which is provisional boundaries put in place by culture and language,

not God-sent, not eternally part of the human experience,

but very fleeting and transitory.

So all cultures have been uneasy around psychedelic substances,

and some have chosen to prohibit them,

and others, I think, have chosen the path

of actually teaching people how to understand

and navigate these spaces rather than forbidding them

or stigmatizing them.

Which is the position that I take on this program,

and that's what we're trying to do here

is do a little bit of education around this.

Do you think, then, that the psychedelics

allow us to sort of get outside of the limitations

to our thought that are imposed by the fact

that we think in our language

and our thinking is constrained by the structure of our language?

Yes, our thinking is constrained by the structure of our language,

but it's even more constrained by our cultural values

and our mundane expectations.

So, in a way, a psychedelic experience

is a vacation from the very confining dimension

that we define as cultural adaptation.

Interesting.

Well, that can be troubling sometimes, can it not?

I mean, I've certainly taken psychedelic drugs

and had very, very scary experiences with them.

I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear you.

It can be, what did you say?

I said, in my experience,

that can sometimes be a scary and upsetting thing.

I mean...

Oh, absolutely, it can, yes.

I mean, two people taking exactly the same psychedelic substance,

one may experience ecstasy,

and another may experience extreme discomfort or fear,

and really this has to do with personality types.

Some people want to transcend the limitations of culture,

and some people believe that beyond the frontier of culture,

there is madness and darkness,

and when they find themselves in those places,

they completely come apart.

I think of taking these psychedelic substances

as a very demanding, quasi-athletic undertaking,

like ocean kayaking or rock climbing,

and you want to know your tools,

you want to know the territory,

you want to be confident of your partners,

and, you know, some people enjoy

these kinds of thrilling forays into unusual dimensions,

and other people are perfectly comfortable

putting their feet up and watching daytime TV.

So, it's not for everyone.

On the other hand,

no one should seek to deny other people

the opportunity of having this experience.

Just a quick...

I'm sorry.

...to our attitudes toward various expressions

of our sexuality.

You know, some people would rather not hear about

the varieties of the sexual experience,

and for other people,

they find that challenging and interesting.

So, it's just part of humanness,

a part of humanness that our particular culture,

rooted in Calvinism and European empiricism

and values like that,

has been very nervous about,

especially since the news of many of these plants

has come to us from Aboriginal cultures

that we have tended to devalue, exterminate,

and consider inferior.

Quick question.

You were speaking of using psychedelics

for the purpose of spiritual enlightenment,

and I certainly agree to that,

but most of the cultures where this is done,

there is a context,

there is a language,

there is guidance.

When people take peyote,

they expect to see visions,

but there's a range of visions

within the American Indians

that they expect to see.

It's not just,

they're not doing it blindly,

they're not doing it totally off the top of their head.

Am I making any sense?

And your question is?

My question is,

I fear the danger of not taking it seriously.

I mean, taking it for fun, yeah,

but you're dealing with very powerful substances,

and you're dealing with your own mind,

which you find out things about.

Well, yes, I am definitely not an advocate,

and in fact I abhor the concept of recreational drugs.

I think this is an effort on the part of our culture

to trivialize the experience.

People who think taking drugs is easy

haven't taken the drugs I'm talking about,

and you're quite right.

You need a context.

First of all,

you need to control

the immediate environment around you.

It should be comfortable,

it should be reassured, familiar,

and then you need to have

a certain sophistication about your own psyche

and what might lie within.

You know, it's only been within the confines

of the 20th century

that Freud and Jung introduced Western people

to the idea that there were repressed

and atavistic portions of the human psyche.

So I, and you're right,

that our culture gives us no context for this,

so I urge people who are contemplating this

to read a little anthropology,

read some of the literature that has been produced

about the ways tribal people approach these things,

the techniques that they have evolved,

and then to proceed with great caution

and a real sense

that you may not be leaving your living room,

but in no sense of the word

can you treat these dimensions

as trivial or as mere entertainment,

because they will challenge

the limits of your ability

to understand and to feel

and to integrate.

This is what makes it so exciting

and for some people so perilous.

Have you read the Carlos Castaneda books,

and what do you think about them?

I have read them.

I think the first one was brilliant.

I believe after that he succumbed to pressure

from his publisher and his agent

and ceased to write a reportage

about psychedelic plant experiences

and instead substituted a kind of New Age

spiritualism and mumbo-jumbo.

The first book,

The Teachings of Don Juan,

I can hardly think of a better introduction

to the world we're talking about

than that book.

Unless it would be one of my books.

There you go.

And we'll give you time

to tell us about that.

Because I had heard

that people were saying

that his books were made up,

there was no source of truth,

and I loved especially the first book,

and I would hate to think

that he somehow made them up.

I can't imagine

that he made them up.

Well, I don't know

what making them up means.

I mean, did Proust make up

a lot of research to Tim Perdue?

He recalled,

he adumbrated,

he embellished.

I think what Castaneda

was not completely straightforward about

in his later books

was most of these altered states

cannot be achieved any way

other than through the use

of psychoactive plants.

Yoga is a different thing.

Meditation is a different thing.

and to try to trade

one for the other

is really to confuse the issue.

Terrence, you mentioned

that when one takes psychedelics,

that things can come up

from the subconscious.

And the question I have then

is that can the experience

then be useful

for sort of peeling away

at those lasers,

for accessing things

that maybe one has difficulty

gaining access to normally?

Well, yes.

A lot of psychotherapists

have made this same connection.

And many of these psychedelics

reveal repressed memories,

child's sight

on one's personal dilemmas

and so forth.

That's very interesting

to clinicians.

I'm more interested

in what's going on

at slightly higher dosages

where you enter

what I would call

a transpersonal realm.

In other words,

the realm not defined

by your own life history

and experience.

And that is the realm

that has parallels

to shamanism

and the mystical experience

and spirits sought after

by some of the world's

great religion.

What about psychedelic drugs

that aren't natural?

Like what about LSD,

for example?

Do you mean,

do I think they're legitimate

and so forth?

Right.

They raise issues

and problems

that we don't have

with the plants.

Some of them are effective.

You know,

when you're looking

at a drug

that's been used

for thousands of years

by aboriginal people,

you already have

medical data in hand.

The fact that these people

are using this substance

means it does not cause

blindness,

birth defects,

abortions,

the Parkinson's

symptom,

syndrome.

If you have a drug,

a white powder drug

straight out of the laboratory,

you really don't know

what you have

on your hand.

You may have

a perfectly benign

and effective substance

or you may have

something that

under the influence

of bad chemistry

or greedy marketeers

has been badly

synthesized

or combined

with other materials

that make it dangerous

or ineffective.

So,

in principle,

I think there are

many interesting

synthetic psychedelic

substances,

but in practice,

I think

the richer

and safer

experiences

are delivered

by the

psychoactive plants

with a long history

of human usage.

Let's talk about

safety now.

We have just

a few minutes left,

Terrence,

and since we've

talked about

some of the

interesting

sides of using

hallucinogens,

let's talk about

safety

and hallucinogens.

Can you give us

a rundown

of the important

cautions

that people should

be aware of

and maybe

repeating the

ones that you've

already given us?

Well,

as I said,

I mean,

I think if you're

going to

experiment with

these things,

you should

inform your

nearest and

dearest of

what you

intend.

You should

inform yourself

of the

spectrum of

activity that

you might

expect.

You should

arrange

to do this

in a situation

that is not

likely to

produce anxiety

or sudden

surprises.

I don't

think crowded

social

environments

full of

loud music

and complex

social signals

are the

best environment

to do

these things.

I think

people should

do these

things

conscientiously

and in

an informed

way.

So,

very carefully

is what

you're saying.

Very carefully.

Yes,

and every

substance

or every

plant that

you can

imagine

has a

vast body

of literature,

scientific,

medical,

anecdotal

literature,

that can

prepare you

for whatever

the experience

is going

to be.

The Internet

is a

tremendous

resource

in this

way,

and hundreds

of people

have described

their reactions

to these

things under

optimum conditions

and under

terrible

conditions.

and by

looking into

it and

informing

yourself,

I mean,

you would

not go

ocean

kayaking

without a

thorough

knowledge

of the

weather

patterns,

the behavior

of the

sea,

your own

boat,

and so on.

In other words,

just good sense

and caution.

And I dare

say,

if all this

is in

place,

the rewards

from these

things can

be tremendous.

I believe

that to

go from

birth to

the grave

without ever

having a

psychedelic

experience is

for a person

to make

that same

journey without

ever having

a sexual

experience.

These things

are part of

the legacy

of what it

is to be

a human

being.

Aboriginal

societies have

used them

for millennia,

they are part

of the

natural

environment of

the earth,

and I'm

confident that

the exploration

of the last

and greatest

frontier,

which is

the human

mind,

cannot really

proceed to

any depth

without availing

itself of

these things.

Fascinating.

Terrence,

where can

people get

information about

your books?

Do you

want to

give out

any contact?

My books

are sold

at major

bookstores

throughout the

world.

People can

visit my

website by

simply

searching my

name,

Terrence has

one R,

let me

point out.

T-E-R-E-N-C-E.

I do have a

new book

out with

the British

biologist

Rupert

Sheldrake and

the mathematician

Ralph

Abraham,

a book

called

The

Evolutionary

Mind,

and they

can order

that from

their local

bookstore.

They will

find when

they look

into this,

that there

is a

very rich

literature

discussing

these matters

at the

level of

anthropology,

pharmacology,

clinical

medicine,

experientially,

their impact

on art,

on culture,

on politics.

This is a

very big

part of who

we are,

and it's a

tragedy that

the timidity

of science

and political

institutions

has not

only stigmatized

these things,

but made

them illegal,

and by

doing so

has distorted

and ruined

a lot of

people's lives,

not people

who were

ordinarily part

of a criminal

enterprise or

class,

but people

who were

simply,

sincerely

interested

in

understanding

themselves.

Okay,

on that

note,

Terrence,

thank you

so much

for being

with us.

It's been

a real

pleasure.

It's been

a pleasure

talking to

you.

I'm so

happy the

phone

cooperated,

and thanks

for having

me on.

All right,

take care,

and I look

forward to

talking with

you again.

All right,

nice talking

with you.

Okay,

bye now.

Bye-bye.

See,

we couldn't

do the

radio show

in Hawaii

because of

the weather.

That's why

we have to

move to

San Francisco.

Because of

the weather

that we want

to do it

in Hawaii.

I'm sorry.

All right.

What an

articulate guest.

Yes,

I really

enjoyed it.

We had a lot

of good things

to say.

Candy Cane.

Nancy,

I can barely

hear you.

Really?

How can you

do anything

about that?

Is that

any better?

No.

You're just

in a noisy

environment.

Can you

hear me?

We can

hear you

fine.

I'm backstage

at the

Antro

nightclub,

the luxurious

Antro

theater in

Provincetown

where I just

finished

doing a gig

and is a

comedian

on stage

right now.

So,

Candy,

for people

who don't

know you,

people who

haven't heard

you on the

show before,

you want to

introduce yourself

briefly?

Well,

I'm luscious,

lickable,

sweet enough

to eat

now available

in dietetic

form as

Candy Cane.

Wow.

Extraordinaire.

All right.

So,

what's happening

down in

Provincetown?

Take only

as directed.

We've been

working really

hard.

I'm doing a

play with

Ryan Landry.

We're doing

Johnny Guitar,

which is a

first ever

staged version of

the Joan

Crawford

classic movie.

We've turned

it into a

stage production.

Really?

There's sets

here at the

intro.

Oh,

that must be

fun.

That's a lot

of fun.

And then I'm

performing with

Where the Boys

Are five nights

a week,

two shows a

night.

And then I'm

doing a show

called Live

and Unstable,

the multiple

personalities of

Candy Cane and

a one-woman

tribute to

schizophrenia.

Wow,

you sound busy.

And I just,

let's see what

else is new.

I just got back

from New York.

I filmed another

episode of the

Sally Jesse

Raphael show.

You did Sally

Jesse?

How did that go?

My third episode

of the Sally

Jesse Raphael show.

I am officially

trailer park trash

now.

What do you do

on Sally Jesse

Samuel?

What do you

talk about?

Well,

she came to see

the show here

in Provincetown

last summer.

And she loved

it.

So she had us

on in the

fall,

basically just

doing our

show.

There was no

controversy.

And your show

is...

There was no

counterpoint.

No Southern

Baptist ministers

getting up and

saying,

you're all

abomination

into the eyes

of the Lord.

You're all

going to hell.

None of that.

No fist fights,

no Jerry Springer

style chair

throwing.

How dull.

I know,

but you know.

What show

were you doing?

What is your

show?

Can you tell

people about...

Tell us about

your show a little

bit?

Well,

Where the Boys

Are is a

musical comedy

drag review.

It's got live

vocals,

celebrity look-alikes,

stand-up comedy.

We're at the

Antro Theater

in Provincetown.

And what's

your part

in this?

What's my

part?

I'm the hostess

and emcee,

stand-up comic,

and I'm doing

a bunch of

different crazy

characters,

original characters

and parodies of

certain celebrities

like Judge Judy.

Is this at all

like the show

that you did

on the North

Shore here

a few years

back?

It's a lot

like Boy

Rageous

that we did

in August.

That was a

great show.

Thank you.

One of the best

drag shows.

It's more

queer.

That was

more mainstream.

Oh, because

you're in

Provincetown?

This is our

home turf

here in

Provincetown,

so we get

to be a

little bit,

you know

what I'm

saying,

a little bit

more free.

I take a poll

at the beginning

of the show.

I ask them

if they want

the G-rated

Southern Baptist

approved

Disney-fied

clean version

of the show

or the PG

sort of late

night up past

11 dirty mouth

comedy jam

version of the show

that's very

popular with

Shriners

and Sodality

or the X-rated

dirty, rotten,

foul-mouthed

Southern Baptist

trashing version

in which I

performed the

full Monty.

And I always

go for that

version.

It's the only

version of the

show I know.

I just want to

test and see

whether they're

perverse or not.

And so, yes,

that's what I'm

doing here in

V-Town.

Okay, cut to

the chase here.

How's your

Nancy Nangeroni

imitation?

My Nancy

Nangeroni

imitation, I

put on a pair

of rollerblades

and I go down

by the hat shell

and try to

pick up

straight boys

and the

occasional

lesbian.

Without any

underwear on.

Yes.

There you go.

And the

tranny chasers.

Have you been,

Nancy?

Oh, good,

thanks.

Did you miss

me?

Oh, yeah,

always, Candy.

Where was the

last time you

were in Boston?

Too long, hon.

I was on Prozac.

I was all

over the place.

The last time I

saw you, I think

I had been to

Cancun and

Madrid and

Barcelona and I

went back to

London and

Paris.

Were you

performing in all

these places?

I was, yeah.

Not, wait,

not in Madrid and

Barcelona, but in

Cancun and

London.

I'm going to be

going back to do

a television pilot

in London in

the fall.

Really?

Now, what kind

of a pilot is

it?

It is a pilot

for the

equivalent of

a sitcom,

basically.

Really?

Yeah, their

shows are a

little bit more

natural.

Now, does that

mean you're

going to consider

doing a

British sitcom?

Yes, that's

what it means.

So that means

you would have

to move to

England?

Well, the

thing is that

they don't do,

in the States we

do 18 weeks of

shows, like 18

episodes.

They do like

six and eight.

They don't do as

many.

And my boyfriend

lives there, so

he has a home

there.

He comes back

and forth for

six months out

of the year.

So it's just

dividing my

time.

Cool.

So what else

is going on?

That's not

enough.

Seven days a

week, they

have two

shows a

night.

You work

hard, don't

you?

Are there

any drag

king-type

people performing

in Provincetown?

No, last

year, some of

the drag kings

did come to

town, like

Dredd, and

some of the

other girls,

guys, young

men.

Carefully,

carefully.

You know, the

thing was, I

draw as

well.

They don't, I

think the thing

is, because

Yeah, but can

they do comedy

on stage?

I mean, who

cares about their

drawing skills?

I can't tell

jokes either.

They performed

at the Vixen,

and they only,

you know, they

had small

audiences.

I don't know

what it is, but

it's just not as

shocking, I

guess, for girls

to get dressed

up as guys as

it is for guys

to get dressed

up as girls

in alcohol.

I don't know.

It's weird, because

in the media, in

terms of newspaper

stories and

magazines and

stuff, FTM is

definitely where

it's at.

Right.

There's much more

interest.

Yeah, exactly, but

that's because it's

not nearly as

well hatched out.

Yeah, it's less

familiar.

Right, it's the

unfamiliarity, and

so it might maybe

make an interesting

story in the living

section of the

newspaper, but that

doesn't mean you're

going to go see

people.

You're not going

to go out to a

club to see

someone perform as

Tom Jones or

Julio Iglesias.

You'd rather see

some guy in

Fishness.

Sarah Diana

Ross.

What?

AJ's making

funny faces at

me.

That is not

necessarily true.

Is that true?

Well, the box

office proves it.

Maybe it's the

box office in

Provincetown that

proves it.

It might be.

Maybe in

Northampton, for

example.

I'm just saying,

the question was

whether they were

performing here in

P-Town, and

Dred, I love

Dred, I think she's

fabulous, but their

show just didn't

draw too well in

P-Town, regrettably.

I love her.

Did you see her on

the Esplanade this

year?

No.

She did the Hat

Show show with

me.

Really?

Which I hosted.

This was Pride?

Pride, yeah, I

heard you were

hosting that.

Pride, the first

time we tried to

go around with

it.

Are you doing

something for

Cape Cod Pride?

Excuse me?

Are you doing

something for

Cape Cod Pride?

I've been asked

to, but I don't

know if I'm

going to be able

to.

Oh, it's

Saturday, you

know.

This Saturday?

Yeah.

You better make

up your mind.

It sounds like

you're not going

on my website,

my email address,

IwantCandy at

AOL.

If anybody wants

to drop me a

line.

No, is that

candy with a

K?

K-A-N-D-I.

IwantCandy.

So, let's

see, what

else?

What can I

ask you?

We've got about

a minute left

here?

Yeah, we've got

a minute left.

I'll tell you

what's new and

exciting.

Ryan Landry is

going to be

doing a production

of Rosemary's

Baby in

Boston.

Oh, my

God.

Talk about

bringing Johnny

Guitar to

Boston in the

fall, but I

don't know if

that's going to

happen, but he

does have a

new theater, a

small theater in

the South End.

Is he playing

Rosemary or

the baby?

I'm really not

sure.

Is Ryan Landry

a well-known?

He might play,

you know Ryan, he

might add a new

part as the

baby's nanny and

he'll be Louise

Woodward.

You never

know with

Ryan.

Ryan's like a

local celeb, right?

Would you say?

I suppose he

could be

considered that.

He could be

considered other

things, crack

addict and

drug whore,

things like

that.

I see.

And Candy

Cain is a

person who

never says

anything bad

about others.

No, of

course not.

All right,

Candy, we're

down to the

end of our

program.

Well, thank

you for making

a few moments

in your very

busy calendar

to have a

word with me.

Oh, listen

to this.

God, you

disgust me.

You disgust

me.

Have a good

time down

there in

Provincetown.

Say hi to

the crowds.

We're at the

Antro Theater

right above

Ben and

Jerry's next

to Town

Hall.

Good time

guaranteed for

all?

It's a good

time for

all of your

money back.

All right.

And we know

you know a

good time when

you see one.

Absolutely.

Thank you,

Candy.

Bye,

Bye.

Bye,

Bye.

Bye,

Bye.

Bye,

Huh.

You know,

it was,

I'm gone.

Can you bring

me up a little

bit,

Hal?

Are you not there?

I can't hear

anything.

Oh,

there I am.

Yeah,

it was really

cool when I

first started

hanging out with

Candy,

getting to know

her a little

bit.

She's

very vivacious.

She is.

She's got so

much energy.

It's amazing.

Oh,

that's right.

You've never

met Candy,

have you?

No.

I'm around here

a lot more

and we're

hanging together

a little bit.

You know,

I got to see

kind of behind

the scenes,

like the work

that Charlie does

to make Candy

happen.

Oh.

Really impressed

me.

It just,

I mean,

just very,

very businesslike,

very focused,

extremely professional.

In fact,

Charlie has co-hosted

and hosted shows

before here.

Yeah.

And anyway,

it's his,

her success

is richly deserved.

It's a hardworking

person who cares

about the community

too.

It's done

some good things

for us.

So anyway,

that does it

for our program

for tonight,

I think.

Any other comments?

Anybody?

Nope.

Good.

I think we're good.

I'm commentless.

You're commentless,

Karen?

Wow, Karen.

All right.

Well,

let's see.

Our website,

once again,

www.gendertalk.com.

Pass a visit,

say hi.

And IFGE

International Foundation

for Gender Education.

If you have any

questions about

transgenderism,

if you're

trying to find

resources and

having trouble,

give IFGE a call,

781-899-2212

or check out

their website

at www.ifge.org.

And now,

on behalf of

Engineer Hal Fuller,

co-host A.J. Dirks,

producer Karen Larson

and editor Mark Semek,

and...

and myself. Thanks again for listening. And remember, no matter what the occasion, there's

always room. No, gender talk is always appropriate. Oh, good. Good, good. And the views and opinions

on the preceding program do not necessarily reflect those of the staff in management

of WNBR, the Technology Broadcasting Corporation, or MIT. Good night, Nancy. Good night, Hal.

Stay tuned now for Sinopop. Good night, everyone.