Massachusetts has essentially adopted Amsterdam’s marijuana policy:  not exactly legal, but not prosecuted. (Add “and definitely taxed” and you’ll have the Amsterdam policy.)

Just three days ago at that Democratic conclave I was advocating legalizing — and taxing — marijuana. My thinking:  With a $42 billion (with a “b”) budget deficit in this state, we need the revenue. And I think I’d sooner take my chances with someone holding a joint, which is illegal, than someone holding an assault rifle (which, naturally, is legal).

Slate does us the service of providing the Top 25 Bushisms of All Time.  Number 3 is the one we kept on our refrigerator for many moons: “Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?” That one sums it all up.

Last week I embedded this video of a young lady with a forked tongue. All over town, I’ve gotten responses to that. Now I know exactly who among my friends and acquaintances reads my blog, because they greet me this way: “Oh my God, that video!” Tonight I found out that my teenage son’s entire class watched it today in school. I’m glad to shape the hearts and minds of our future leaders, but maybe not like this.

That video shows the young woman demonstrating her adroit facility with a forked tongue, which no doubt leaves lingering images in male minds. But everyone has speculated over what the surgery necessary for acquiring a forked tongue might be like. Well, speculate no longer: Here it is. Warning: I’m not embedding it because it’s not for the faint of heart, and not just because the soundtrack is by Nickleback. You’ve been warned.

And now I think I’d like to leave this topic for good. But not before adding that while I’m in favor of universal health care, this video reminds me that some things are better left out of the universe.

Yesterday I was re-elected to the California Assembly District 43 delegation to the state Democratic Party. Here’s the story from the Glendale News-Press (it’s also in the Burbank Leader).

I was also elected to the executive board, which means that in addition to attending the annual state convention as a delegate, I’ll be attending quarterly executive board meetings. Which means it’s my role in those meetings to represent the hopes and frustrations of Democrats in Burbank, Glendale, North Hollywood, Valley Village, Silver Lake, Valley Glen, and part of Van Nuys. It also means that for at least four weekends a year for two years I’ll be staying in hotels somewhere in the state while attending these meetings.

It was an honor to be elected and I’m looking forward to serving and I’m very grateful to all the people who voted for me. At the same time, I couldn’t help noting the comment of the outgoing executive board member I’m replacing: “Now you can spend between $3000 and $5000 a year doing this.”

I guess there is a price we pay for Democracy.

LA Weekly Theatre Editor Steven Leigh Morris has been removed from his position after 20 years. That’s because, now, there is no such position. The LA Weekly, which serves a town with 2000 stage premieres a year, now has no theatre editor.

This should not come as a shock, because the paper is owned by the same syndicate that owns the Village Voice, where it also recently limited the position of Theatre Editor. The Village Voice, it should be noted, is in that little theatre town known as New York City.

The loss of this position is a tragedy for everyone in LA who cares about the theatre. I haven’t always agreed with Steven’s tastes, but I have enormous regard for him as an intellect and a fiercely articulate champion of the notion that theatre is an essential endeavor that restores us to the root of the human experience.

There are theatre critics galore — we now call them bloggers — but almost all lack his wit and, importantly, the cachet of an important editorial perch. Once almost 15 years ago, I called Steven to politely say that I thought we had a great show at Moving Arts, and that his reviewer honestly had missed the point. I asked Steven if he would please come see for himself — and he did. Immediately after the performance he pulled me aside and said that his reviewer had indeed missed the point, and he followed this up by running a feature the following week about the play. A respected, well-informed theatre editor is capable of representing theatre in this way, and making judgment calls. Now, without an editor, whom would one turn to?

In my 20 years of theatre experience in this town, Steven has been our foremost ombudsman. Over time every time I made a request — to sit on a panel, or to please write a piece for LA Stage magazine, or to serve as a judge for the USC one-act festival I was producing — the answer was yes. That was just from me; imagine all the other invitations and solicitations he agreed to. He has been tireless in supporting the artform and helping to succor a community that desperately needed it. This is a devastating loss for all of us.

Now what?

Last year I attended a business seminar out of town. On the first day during lunch I found myself seated with five other guys roughly my age who come from worlds very different than my own. To wit:  When I said that I read between one to two books a week, they gasped. They couldn’t believe it. Some of their questions:

•  “When do you have time?”
• “What kind of books?”
• “How do you pick what books you’re going to read or not?”
• and, most penetratingly, “WHY?”

Because, you see, these guys didn’t just read fewer books than I do. They read NO books. Ever. Every one of them seemed smart and successful, but they read no books. Ever.

(In fairness, I watch no sports. Ever. Even in bars.)

Today on the LA Times’ site I came across this interview with someone who read 462 books last year. No, that’s not a typo. Four hundred and sixty-two last year. (So far this year, she’s above 10 books. And today is January 9th.) Reading this, my questions were remarkably familiar:

• “When do you have time?”
• “What kind of books?”
• “How do you pick what books you’re going to read or not?”
• “WHY?”

My immediate reaction was, “Well, certainly she isn’t retaining much.” But then I tried to remember the plot of the Brad Meltzer book I read two years ago and couldn’t. (What I could remember were the plot twists I saw coming from miles away — which says less about my cleverness than it does about my glee at the time about being right.) Is this Meltzer’s fault or mine? Probably both, but somewhat more Meltzer’s:  there wasn’t a memorable character in the book, and novels should be about people. Checking out Meltzer’s site also helped me feel better about this, because even after looking at the titles of his novels I couldn’t pick out the one I’d read, and even after reading the plot descriptions it was a toss-up until I remembered that the book involved brothers in a bank. Meltzer, who seems like a nice guy and who is a very successful writer with legions of fans, isn’t writing books for me. So I don’t find them memorable.

On the other end of the spectrum, I can remember large swatches of Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America” and “Everyman,” as well as Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road,” “No Country for Old Men” and “All the Pretty Horses,” all of which I read in the same timeframe. So I’m not slipping into dementia.

I have to wonder if it’s good to read 462 books in one year. This would certainly help me tidy up my nightstand, where the stack of “books in waiting” has seemingly through meiosis become the two stacks of books in waiting.  I’m almost finished with the biography of Brian Eno (invaluable, although written by a sycophant) and the Inhumans graphic novel “Silent War,” I’ve made a good start on Julian Barnes’ latest (a meditation on death), and I’ve got only two stories left to read in the T.C. Boyle collection “Tooth and Claw.” But that still leaves the histories of Germany under the Nazis, the history of the Roman Empire, and God knows what’s waiting at the bottom. (And, atop it all, is last week’s New Yorker with Barnes’ latest short story, which I’m halfway through.)

But if I could read all of this times 60 in the course of one year, would any of it prove to be notable? And what would be the rest of the price paid? In 1795, someone named J.G. Heinzmann listed the physical consequences of excessive reading: “susceptibility to colds, headaches, weakening of the eyes, heat rashes, gout, arthritis, hemorrhoids, asthma, apoplexy, pulmonary disease, indigestion, blocking of the bowels, nervous disorder, migraines, epilepsy, hypochondria, and melancholy.”

Ouch.

No, this isn’t Spider-Man’s newest arch-nemesis. This is actually a well-known long-time fan who finally made the cover. I can’t wait to see what Scott Shaw! has to say about this.

I truly must be the only Democrat not attending the inauguration, given that even fictional characters now seem to be going.

You’ll see why in just a moment. (Brace yourself.)