channeling chaucer

i'd said to myself that i was going to try to steer clear of using the people and situations i encounter at work as fodder for my blog but sometimes it's just too much to resist. *smiling incredulously and shaking head side to side*

you see, recently, i had the pleasure of meeting a former presidential candidate. while checking a park area in a local canyon, i saw a vehicle parked just ahead of me on the side of the road (in violation of park regulations). as i pulled in behind the vehicle, this is what i saw: (camera phone picture)

now i took psychology 101 in college so i'm pretty good at cluing in on classic attention-seeking behavior so i felt like it was the responsible thing to do to indulge this apparent holy man and see if there was perhaps some divine reason he was parked alone in a park at 2 in the morning. the encounter that ensued can only be described as deeply uplifting. *smiling incredulously and shaking head side to side again*

just so you get a full idea of what i observed, i searched the internet for others who have been blessed by a similar experience and here are some other angles of our reverend's political pot-mobile. (click the pictures for close-ups)

i politely informed our man of god...sorry...God...that he was in violation of park reg's and he apologized. i then gingerly asked him to tell me about the message he was trying to spread via his car/billboard. the good reverend told me that he'd been a write-in presidential candidate in 2004 and was encouraging people to help his campaign now in 2008. he also informed me that the election process is biased towards the rich and THAT was the reason his campaign had lost strength in 2004 and cost him the presidency. this becomes an infintely funnier concept when you watch his video. in the brief conversation we had, he told me that he didn't have any marijuana with him but said, "If one will look at the medical facts, one will find that there are many blessings associated with the plant." who can argue?

i wished our reverend well, sent him on his way, and promptly googled him to learn more. as it turns out, he was (at least partially) telling the truth. he apparently has a cult following, a website, a video, and, of course, a myspace page. go ahead, check them out....i'll wait....

if chaucer was writing his canterbury tales for 2008, i'm sure the parson's tale would be pretty much a verbatim transcription of this.

again...who can argue? *smiles and shakes head incredulously*

~thorns