POT RALLY HAD HARDLY A WHIFF OF THE '60s

In the beginning, like our chief toker, Bill Clinton, Elvy Musikka did not
inhale. She ate -- homemade marijuana brownies.

Though Elvy's spiked brownies seemed to do the trick for her glaucoma,
there was this one problem. The more brownies she ate the fatter she got.

So, this single mother of two from Hollywood, Fla., had her "prescription"
changed. Now Elvy carries her daily supply of 10 government-sanctioned,
"medicinal" joints in the grubbiest looking over-sized pill vial you ever saw.

She says the glaucoma in her one good eye has stabilized. As for the
short-term memory loss, Elvy's learned to compensate, undoubtedly, by
talking a blue streak. Listening to her rave on about the wonders of
"joint" therapy, and how "medical marijuana" should be part of any national
health plan is a little like trying to sing along with Alvin & The Chipmunks.

Under a gorgeous fall sky, Elvy Musikka -- billed as one of eight people in
America legally certified to toke by the government -- made an appearance
on Boston Common at yesterday's hemp fest, pro-pot, high-school hootenanny
and slam dance.

To be honest, the youngsters in their hip-huggers and skateboarding garb
did not pay a whole lot of attention to Elvy up there on stage. They were
far too pre-occupied by either raging hormones, or as one desperate sign
put it: "Will do bleepy impersonations for free roaches."

It was hardly like Eva Peron returning to Argentina. Still, Elvy Musikka is
to the pro-cannabis movement what Elvira "Pixie" Palladino was to the
anti-busing movement. Except, Elvy sings . . . really.

As she tried to harmonize with a song off her CD, "Truth and Love Are One,"
I couldn't help but imagine Frank Sinatra grimmacing from some Jack
Daniels-soaked lair in the sky and wondering: "What's with the old biker
chick?"

Elvy was proud to point out that from the tips of her green sneakers to the
top of her black "High Times" cap, everything she wore was made of 100
percent hemp. Not a stitch of earth-polluting polyester on her.

Now, if you happened to be a Boston cop, maybe there were easier ways to
make $28 an hour. You could always do a detail over a manhole, or by the
check-out register at Stop & Shop.

But how much fun is that compared to, say, dressing up like a refugee out
of Starsky & Hutch -- in frayed jeans, hooded sweatshirt and red bandanas,
no less -- while Bill Downing, president of MassCann, follows you through
the crowd, wearing a pig nose and blowing your cover by shouting "OINK!
OINK!" everywhere you roam.

With or without a pig nose, most kids spotted the cops. Amid teeny-bopper
nation, they were the ones who looked like Gabby Hayes.

At one point, half the old homicide department was following pig-nosed Bill
Downing, as he shadowed a young undercover cop who looked like he just
might jam the rubber nose down Downing's throat.

Essentially, this was the tenor of the great First Amendment duel on the
Common, yesterday. Bill Downing in a pig nose yelling "OINK! OINK!." Sad,
truly. It makes this child of the '60s cringe to see how far down the
civil-disobedience food chain we have dribbled.

From "Stop The War" to "OINK! OINK!"

But, hey, the two guys in green Coca-Cola T-shirts manning a sausage cart
weren't complaining. Good position at a mass toke-in was a helluva lot
better than no position outside Fenway Park. The dopers were infinitely
better to the sausage guys than our heroes in Kenmore Square.

"Nice crowd," observed the sausage guy No. 1, who made change from a wad of
bills stuffed in his hand, thick enough to choke a horse.

"It seems to take a while for some of these kids to come up with the dough
for a sandwich," the sausage guy observed. "The bills are all crinkled and
stuck together. They make ya wait. But they're nice about it. Nice kids,
basically. I could use some different music, though."

The Libertarian Party was there, of course, with a 10-question pop quiz to
determine if you were actually a closet Libertarian. Problem was, after 4
in the afternoon, some folks were a little too zonked out to figure out
where they lived, let alone what political party they belonged to.

That short-term memory thing, man. Just like ol' Elvy was sayin', the
"medicine, it fills your mind with all these distractions."

Copyright 1998 Boston Herald, Inc.

Checked-by: Richard Lake