Media
News
The Daring Magazine: The Ghost of Jimi Hendrix in Electric Ladyland
jason reuven kropsky for the daring magazine
Nov 16, 2021
The Miracle of Delight
Essays and meditations about sparking pleasureI take a hard turn into the shadowed parking lot and find my spot next to the mural of bluebirds painted against the House of Pot. I call the counter-woman over the phone. She picks out three flavors: cherry pie, citrus smoothie, and jungle juice. Although I’m new to town, she hooks me up with a frequent flyer discount.
The cannabis dispensary is open late-night for impromptu curbside and I’m hungry for new insights. Doctor Frenzy’s always a concern, so I ask the pharmacist for the best middle of the road trip, “Something Aristotelian,” I say. “More than just a once-a-month touch up on the first draft like Carlin liked to brag about.” What I really mean to say is: “I want to see the lines of the chessboard with greater clarity, the whole shebang of serious chitter-chatter by opinion makers, the gloss factory, etc.” Invigorating sativas, couch lock indicas, pine and lavender terpenes— terra incognita to the as-yet uninitiated.
I live on the outskirts of Rain City. Eyes drooping to the staccato of these rugged urban roads, I pass a series of low stakes apartments and greasy burger joints. Amazon and Bill Gates, Google and next-generation cybersecurity are now so synonymous with this wooded, rain slick city. The great California migration that pacific northwesterners remain steaming pissed about is certainly upon us!
With no income tax and California’s notorious anti-business culture (or at least that’s the gripe from the burgeoning tech brigade dotting the Puget Sound), Seattle plays home to low-tax libertarians moonlighting as social justice warriors. Much like Portland, there’s a lot of high minded talk about racial equality. But why, then, are most African Americans still remanded, almost exclusively, to the south side of Seattle? And why are BLM signs so popular in lily white neighborhoods? Strange birds.
Read On

Near the House of Pot, sandwiched between an electric power station and a direct path to the local airport, the neighborhood I live in is a mix of working-class Asian immigrants, mostly Cambodian and Vietnamese, and long-time African American denizens. The only prophet to ever come out of this northwestern hub, Jimi Hendrix, shuffled through these parts as a latchkey kid.
Thedaring.co