I am excited to announce that my book — Improbable Anecdotes: Surprisingly true nuggets from the life and adventures of Pete Guither — has been published.
This is a book of brief stories – some funny, some odd, some enlightening. The kind of stories I would tell to friends over scotch and cheese about my days as a lounge lizard, or in my theatre management classes about the wrong way to do things. 234 pages containing 160 stories (including color pictures). There is a full chapter devoted to my drug policy work, but the stories are from every part of my life. Each story (or chapter) can be simply read on its own, or, taken together, they form a sort of uncensored no-holds-barred autobiography.
“A life well lived and stories well told. I should know… I’m in a few of them.” –Roger Reitzel
“Pete encouraged the most risk, creativity, and fun from me during a pivotal moment in my growth as an artist. It was wonderful to read about his life and all the people who encouraged risk, creativity and fun from him.” –Keith Habersberger
“The Redbeard fan base has been itching for an origin story. This one absolutely demolishes what we thought was canon!” –L. Adams
“A fast read… unless you’re a slow reader.” –Rogina
“Where’s that damned piano player?” –Henny Youngman
well done Pete!
So… what does one have to do in order to get a signed copy? or a copy signed? Hopefully you bought a box full just for such an occasion!
I’ll be happy to send you a signed copy! Email me with your mailing address. The box of books I ordered will arrive in two weeks and I’ll be mailing them out then. I’ll email back with a Venmo link and my address in case you’d rather send me a check. The cost is the same — $16.46.
Pete, when I noticed the bicycle on the front cover of your book, I cringed in recollection of your nasty slow-speed accident and leg injury. How’s that leg doing? Most def I will be buying a copy. Congratulations.
Thanks! The leg will never be 100%, but I’m getting around without a cane. I’ve got a recumbent trike that I love to ride now (my knee won’t bend far enough for a regular bike, but the recumbent works great) – so I’m out on the trail most days. Walking is harder, but I do alright.
Pete, have you been working on these stories throughout your life or did you just start writing them down one day for the purpose of this book?
Many of these stories are ones that I have told friends over the years while sharing a joint or a scotch — tales about my times on the road as a musician or other adventures. And they would always say, “You should write a book.” And I would think that I should, but it wasn’t until November that I finally got the bug and started writing these stories down – churning out about 2,000 words a day in a sudden frenzy. And that’s how the book finally came about.
My experience too. At some point the stuff reaches the lip of the container, and starts bubbling out. It has to land somewhere, and for me that is on paper. Mostly it takes the form of an essay or a rant, never enough to publish. But the one I really need to write, I won’t have a chance to…at least until well after the other folks involved are dead. I am not kidding. Lol
Congrats on the book.
Speaking of publishing, Volkow has been at it again.
Couchmates, allow me to introduce you to what Volkow is calling “pre-addiction”: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/2793694
Profile future drug addicts, and then do what? Is this research the next propaganda war destined to justify a Minority Report State?
If the agenda is to categorize addicts or non-addicted drug users per se into a single group that can be used as an excuse to go tribal in order to eliminate them, then the government has the perfect weapon: the therapeutic state. No good can ever be found here. Under the rules of the therapeutic state, the “other” can include golf addicts and even football addicts. Categorical thinking is the scientific term used to describe racism and bigotry. Without categorization, it doesn’t happen.
The research mentions its approach to pop psychology’s latest standards referenced in their latest official bible, the DSM-5. BTW, the concept of co-dependence in addiction or anything else has been totally eliminated from recent editions.
Dr Nora Valkow is hoping that signing her name to random anti-drug research projects will result in random psychologists contributing to the preservation of the NIDA. It won’t.
In many ways, the situation is much like when Adolf Eichmann signed his name and/or rubberstamped the train scheduling documents that streamlined deportation of anti-fascist dissidents into Nazi death camps. In the future Dr Volkow might want to avoid anything that might disparage her birthright as Leon Trotsky’s granddaughter.
I finished Pete’s book. Here’s a very brief book report. We were both born in 1954. Both introduced to a life-long enjoyment of Tolkien in 6th grade, and we both graduated from high school in 1972.
Really enjoyed reading about Pete’s experiences playing music on the road in lounges. He looked sharp in his velvet tux sitting behind the keyboards and once had to install thumb tacks around his piano to keep the drunks from banging into it. Felt his pain and confusion after he snorted PCP thinking it was cocaine. If that wasn’t bad enough he had to be around family during a holiday celebration.
Pete encouraged art, artists, and risk-taking. One of my favorite stories involved an upset young lady and a bucket. Pete also had brushes with some famous celebs like Susan S. (gotta read the book). It was a fun read and any fan of Pete is likely to enjoy his autobiography. I found it amusing that one of Pete’s projects required him to climb ladders naked as part of the Living Canvas.
I also learned more about his bicycle accident and was surprised to learn that he broke his hip in the initial accident and they didn’t know about it until a year and a half later. So we also share the hip replacement experience. Thanks Pete for sharing your story.
I think you’ve nailed the notion of who is Pete, based on our digital and printed understandings. Had this website not been around, I doubt I’d have ever written to my politicians with such zeal or width in knowledge. Websites like this will probably be Federally protected as archives for quick data retrieval for studies of our time and the drug war for politicians, students, professors, judges, reporters, writers, lawyers, DAs, and businessmen doing history research on indebted societies drowning in expensive laws that don’t meet any objectives, if not, having more setbacks.
Where in life can one find a website that talks about the Savings and Loans Scandals to Bitcoin and 1961 U.N. Singles helped to fund future militaries (Sanctions Protected Securities), which enabled Combat Medic, Hank Paulson, to rescue Lockheed Martin in 1971 from Bankruptcy, just to become General Surgeon to the Bankers in later practices for 2008 . . . and they’ve been laundering over $2 Trillion every year in illicit money since 1999 accounting standards.
Thanks for sharing your delightful report! Nice to see the things we have in common. And I’m glad you found the book interesting.
So, speaking of books and not to take away from Pete’s book. Years ago, I did tell ya’ll I was working on one. As of July 21′ “Excelsior Overshot” is on Amazon and Kindel. Having no Acrobat writer on my computer, I just use Word and the book is the size of a coffee table decorative talking piece (8.5 inches by 11 inches) because it has no title on the front or author name (it is thickly observed on the spine), just the picture of a boy and girl, face to face in the dark, subtly illuminated by a glowing blue triangle, almost touching palms, hence the coffee table approach, which was more of an accident that I find I don’t think I’d ever take back. 255 pgs and the text won’t strain your eyes, though it is not ‘big font’ fount at nursing homes, just 12pt font from my computer screen. And not always having the hundreds of dollars for an editor, and I’ve read my stuff hundreds of times, sometimes, a “month” still turns out to be a “Moth” after all these years of rereading it and correcting mistakes before letting Jeff Bezos take it.
The book is only Subtly syfy because of an invention the main character creates and allows for a select few friends and family to share in, which sets up new ethics (like possibly listening to Abe Lincoln make love to his wife from your stereo–and possibly watching young Mr. Lincoln throw his best legal council into the misses in holographic form). It’s got some of the War on Terror with Afghanistan and Iraq (lots of drug war references to funding and CIA/DEA/Bush fuckups) . . . young romance and tragedy, hauntings of one’s own past, PTSD, a Cold War Russian scientist, the beautiful Oklahoma countryside with her tall cell-phone towers and idiot drunken cowhicks looking to fight over women and jealousy, stolen miniature nuclear reactors that Moscow has been looking for since the fall of the Soviet Union, drinking at the VFW, the Hadron Collider being built in reverse–or dismantled . . . drug cartels, Vietnam, Obama going to the grocry store, Alan Turring, the 2008 recession, Chicago mobsters, trainrobers from the late 1870s, loud gangster rap music shattering a small fortune of rare highly soughtout antiques, Children cooling themselves of in Iraqi rivers, computer-generated energy synthesis, kilos of heroin, children fighting for the Taliban at the start of the war, dark caves in the mountains, a manipulative scientist working for Al Qaeda just so they can become the most Dominant Tech-Billionaire, giving an ‘f’ about Jihad, just needing money, protection, and supplies and having no idea Kyle Brent would actually give a shit about science to the point that he’ll use anything just to make his machine work.
And Drug Warrant has been highly influential in my direction as a writer, which will be seen in my new book about Rodeos, Raves (how not to overdose and litter at the same time), wealth management/commodities, medical cannabis in Oklahoma, paranoid uncles who went to Vietnam, trapped spirts or ghosts from the KKK/Trail of Tears/The Civil War/French Fur traders/burnt up meth cooks etc, bucking bulls, broncs, and show horses, driving through the War in Ukraine, Wall Street looking for another gig–a brand new idea to sell to investors, Rock & Roll (not the music since this book has way more country music and gangster rap in it) . . .
It was released in July of 2021, I mean, not earlier this month (my desktop computer takes away the ‘edit’ button on the Drugwarrant website, though the Tablet and laptop allow it, hence so many posts).
Hey MC, very cool you put that active imagination and intelligence into a book. My phone shows the kindle version, but my computer doesn’t show anything at Amazon. I’m not a fan of ebooks but would buy a book.
Thanks NorCal. I hope it won’t disappointment
A very sobering reality. Some cannabis users have died from Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome aka CHS. My source is Ethan Russo, one of the top cannabis researchers in the world.
Ethan did a study last year where he recruited CHS patients. He spent his life savings on the study and also paid $3,200 so that it wouldn’t be behind a $35 paywall. He was looking for genetic variations (single nucleotide polymorphisms and single nucleotide variations) in CHS patients and offered a $99 genetic test to screen for genetic variations in the enzymes that break down THC and other cannabinoids.
Then shit got interesting mostly due to the energy of a CHS patient, former bud tender, and media “influencer” Alice Moon. Alice was active in the CHS community and was written up in magazines like Forbes. She was considered an expert due to her experience puking her guts out from using weed.
Alice turned weird when Ethan Russo wouldn’t allow her to edit or make changes to his study. Alice lacking in even a high-school education was trying to bend Ethan to her will. He rightly refused, and when she wasn’t chosen to participate in the study she went batshit crazy and the cute blond chick influencer “killed” Ethan’s study by instructing CHS patients to not participate. There were 99 patients preparing to have the genetic testing, and after Alice spewed her BS it went down to 25.
Sample size matters and with the reduced patient population Ethan’s conclusions don’t carry as much weight. Lifelong propaganda and distrust by weed users is understandable but I’ll go with the PhD, M.D. over the idiot without a high school education every freaking time. However, with that said, another well-known cannabis researcher in Spain (Manuel Guzman) laughed when he was told about Ethan’s study. He said, “He may know about cannabinoids but I don’t think he knows enough about genetics.” (From an article in MIT Technology Review)
Ethan had a cannabis-using control group as well as CHS patients. According to the study survey there was an average of 4-grams (mostly flower) per day reported by both groups. THC is “biphasic.” That is, at low doses it’s an anti-nausea medication, but at higher doses it can cause nausea. I smoke as much weed as I want (one hit at a time in a pipe) and I average about 2/3-grams per day, and have for decades. Four-grams per day is one-ounce per week or a 1/4 lb. per month. If your not a grower that’s a lot of money.
We’ve got some weed smokers here. Am I the only one who thinks 4-grams per day is excessive? The cure for CHS? Total cannabinoid abstinence.
I can do four grams a day, particularly if it is particularly good tasting weed. But not habitually. As far as I am concerned, CHS isn’t a real thing…I suspect there is something else going on with these folks. But I respect Ethan, and I know his qualifications beat those of this rando budtender. Even if CHS is a real thing, the number of people affected by it is negligible, and the treatment is to simply refrain from smoking. Alcohol at high doses is exceptionally toxic, and alcohol toxicity kills and order of magnitude more people, yet we don’t wring our hands and arrest ever spring breaker with a margarita in hand. And we don’t treat them to decades in jail when they do get caught. The prohibitionistas have seized on CHS as if it were actually a reason to maintain the illegal status of weed. It is not. And killed? I have not heard of anybody who has died of puking from weed smoking. NCN, could you link to a source for this?
Project CBD has a video of Ethan Russo being interviewed about this study. MIT Technology Review is where I got most of the info.
Nourbakhsh M, Miller A Gofton J, et al.
Cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome: reports of fatal cases. (Journal of Forensic Science) 2019;64:270-274.
PubMed or Google Scholar
Three. As in more than two…wait. Not even three, two. The other case they “appreciated” the use of cannabis, while noting it was not the cause of mortality.
That says to me they missed the real, actual cause of death there, and marked “cannabis” because it was convenient, and fit their agenda. Those deaths are so completely out of the ordinary and statistically meaningless that they should be looked at with deep suspicion and likely should have been marked as idiopathic. Freak occurrence, not worth bothering with. Thanks, NCN. I maintain there is no “there” there.
darkcycle, based on your comment I suspect you haven’t listened to the Ethan Russo interview at Project CBD. Project CBD/Resources/Video/Ethan Russo.
Here’s a bit of that interview:…”So CHS is a very dangerous condition. People often lose a lot of weight, they often can’t work. They will have many diagnostic tests done, end up in the emergency room, or hospitalized. We’ve seen estimates in the literature of cost expenditures attached to getting a diagnosis between $25,000 and $95,000 per patient. And this was borne out in the survey we did as well. There’s been at least two deaths attributed to complications of CHS. If someone vomits continually their body chemistry can become disturbed.”
“This is a very serious disorder. How prevalent? We really don’t know. But as you mentioned, we know very clearly that not everyone who uses high amounts of cannabis gets this. Well why would that be? There are genetic differences, which we’ll get into shortly. But how prevalent is this? Again, we don’t know, but I’ve seen estimates in the literature that vary on the low side from 350,000 Americans up to 2.75 million Americans. It’s hard to ascertain because a lot of the people who have this are not seeking medical help. And so we really don’t have reliable figures.”
dc, I’m in no position to claim with 100% certainty that Ethan’s right. I thought this should be on people’s radar. As a longtime toker and someone who knows the plant I appreciate your thoughts on this.
We have thousands of years experience….hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of users, worldwide…over that extended period of time…and Ethan found three…no….two? I also recognize there are ABUNDANT funds available for the study of any negative result of smoking weed…money, NCN. Lots of money available for that….Sorry, Ethan, if you’re reading this, but I am suspicious.
CBD is being used successfully in treating treatment-resistant anxiety in young people:
Women are using cannabis to treat adverse perimenopausal and postmenopausal symptoms: