Showing posts with label Bette Midler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bette Midler. Show all posts

Thursday, December 26, 2013

2013 Tokey Awards




Tokin Woman is proud to bestow 

the following “Tokey” Awards for 2013, 

in recognition of the achievement, 

courage and compassion of the awardees 

(and in a few cases, the lack of enlightenment).



TOKIN WOMAN OF THE YEAR AWARD
Oprah Winfrey


VOICE OF THE PEOPLE AWARD
Bill Maher

CULTURAL AWARENESS AWARD


BLUNT MOVE OF THE YEAR 


FLIP FLOPPER OF THE YEAR

"WHAT'S THE BIG WHOOP?" AWARD


JUSTICE FOR ALL AWARD

BEST OPINION PIECE
Melissa Etheridge

Sanjay Gupta

BEST REPORTING AWARD
David Downs, East Bay Express
Ryan Burns, North Coast Journal
Pot POWs


TOP TWEET
"I'm no fan of drug addicts, just thinking about them makes me so angry I need another Xanax."

WHAT WERE THEY SMOKING? AWARD


A FOND FAREWELL TO:

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Sue Mengers, Bette Midler and Marijuana

VIP Bette Midler won rave reviews in her one-woman show I'll Eat You Last playing the legendary Hollywood agent and marijuana lover Sue Mengers. The successful show had its final performance on June 30, and there is talk of bringing it to Los Angeles.
"Midler's Mengers passes the 90-minute show lounging on a couch, puffing on a joint, 'pumping out profane one-liners'" wrote The Week. The actress smoked herbal cigarettes throughout the show, and told the New York Times, "I was thrilled when I finally got the timing down to smoke two at once – a cigarette in one hand and a joint in the other. That was Sue."

Charles Isherwood of the New York Times wrote, "Ms. Midler... gives the most lusciously entertaining performance of the Broadway season... (She) cradles a spellbound audience in the palm of her hand from first joke to last toke."

The first "superagent," Mengers began as a secretary in 1955 at MCA and ended up representing, among others, Barbra Streisand, Candice Bergen, Peter Bogdanovich, Michael Caine, Dyan Cannon, Cher, Joan Collins, Brian De Palma, Faye Dunaway, Bob Fosse, Gene Hackman, Ali McGraw, Steve McQueen, Anthony Perkins, Burt Reynolds, Cybill Shepherd, Gore Vidal, Richard Benjamin, Paula Prentiss, and Tuesday Weld. She died in 2011.

"Her enemies dismissed her as loud, overbearing and vulgar. But to the stellar list of above-the-title clients in her heyday, Mengers was therapist, confessor, Jewish mother, best friend and unflagging chief advocate," wrote Nikki Finke at Deadline.com.

Finke writes:

"Mengers’ pot smoking at ICM was legendary. (The running joke there was that part of the test to getting a shot at working on the legendary agent’s desk was an ability to roll joints.) In the Morris mailroom, the trainees joked about the unmistakable acrid smell that wafted from inside Mengers’ offices seemingly daily. One day, the last mailroom run called for a pickup of a small package at a private residence that was to be delivered that evening to Mengers at her home. The trainees couldn’t help but peek inside the package. Inside a rolled newspaper was a plastic baggie containing an ounce of what they recognized at once was marijuana."

Forced out by the good old boys of William Morris, who hired her in 1987 "to bring the agency back from near-extinction" (Finke), Mengers bounced back by holding dinner parties in Beverly Hills that were legendary. She "became one of Beverly Hills’ top hostesses, with A-List stars crowding her dinner parties and Mengers (joint in hand) at the center of it all," wrote Josh Ferri at Broadway.com

More on Mengers:

“Sue loved her pot. That’s one thing Sue and I had in common. We all loved to smoke pot, lots of it. She always had the joints rolled, and kept them in a little box in the coffee table.” —Bill Maher

“Sue even had a friend blowing marijuana smoke into her face as she passed away. She was high until the bitter end.”  —Bette Midler

“She was one of a kind, acerbically funny, witty, brash, tough but cuddly, a powerful woman in a man's world.” —Barbra Streisand

“She was the modern-day Gertrude Stein. People would gather and exchange ideas and talk about things that were not talked about anywhere else in town.” —CBS President Leslie Moonves

“Sue was unlike anyone I’ve ever met – a true original. Her name became synonymous with women and what she helped us all to accomplish, but her legend is really the vitality with which she lived life, and her wit, which will be celebrated in stories throughout our community for years to come.” —fellow agent Boaty Boatwright

UPDATE on November 25, Midler appeared on the Jay Leno show and traded stories about the good old daze. "Of course I was smoking a lot of dope in those days," Midler said. Leno came back with a snarky, "Of course all that's changed." (No denial)

She speaks about Menger (and Harry Hamlin), adding that Virginia, Menger's housekeeper, was tasked with rolling her joints (as was Hamlin).



 I'll Eat You Last will play at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles from Dec. 5-22.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

VIPs Laura Nyro and Donovan Inducted Into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Sandwiched between Guns N’ Roses, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Beastie Boys as Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees yesterday were Very Important Potheads Laura Nyro (pictured right), the revered and "mercurial" songwriter of "Stoned Soul Picnic" and other hits, and Donovan, the first British rock star to be popped for pot.

At the ceremony, VIP Bette Midler wiped back tears as she inducted Nyro, who died of cancer in 1997.

“She was the very essence of New York City,” Midler said, “Not in a gritty, real sense, but in a passionate, romantic, ethereal way. She would take ordinary people in the most ordinary situations and spin them into heroic figures.” She called Nyro an artist for whom "love was the main thing."

Nyro is the only modern influence Joni Mitchell acknowledges, and she's inspired a host of others. The Fifth Dimension, Blood Sweat & Tears, Three Dog Night, and VIP Barbra Streisand all had hits with her songs. Elton John and Elvis Costello discussed Nyro's significant influence on both of them during the premiere episode of Costello's interview show Spectacle on the Sundance channel. Read more about Laura Nyro.

Donovan's early "Green" philosophy was taken from the "hallucinogenic shamanism of the Celts" for whom Mother Earth is a Goddess, according to The Autobiography of Donovan (2005, St. Martin's Press). By his account, the documentary "A Boy Called Donovan" which aired in January 1966 nationwide in Britain, showed his "beatnick" lifestyle and attracted the interest of the newly formed Drug Squad, who made the singer their first high-profile arrest for hashish. To this day, he is labeled a "criminal" on US Visas and needs a "waiver" to enter the US.

“I thank you for this bright green laurel resting now upon my brow,” Donovan said upon accepting his induction. “I thank you, goddess, and I thank you, muses, and I thank my fellow artists all.”

Of course, the Beastie Boys broke the reefer/radio sound barrier on "Licensed To Ill," with lyric, "I got friends in high places that are keeping me high." Countless rap tributes to the weed followed.

Billie Joe Armstrong of the pot-loving band Green Day introduced Guns N’ Roses, and Kid Rock (who sang of "Smoking funny things") was one of the musicians who played tribute to the inductees. It's a good bet there are more marijuana lovers among them.