<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div>Courtesy of today's (October 7, 2014) Spokesman-Review.</div><div><br></div><div>--------------------------------------</div><div><h1 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; clear: both; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; line-height: 1.2; font-size: 28px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17);">Doug Clark: Musician squeezes out a paean to pot</h1><div><img src="cid:33858DF5-EEF6-4EE2-9752-E2C48B61B375" alt="image1.jpeg" id="33858DF5-EEF6-4EE2-9752-E2C48B61B375"></div><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Many people are worried about what effect legalizing marijuana in Washington might have on kids. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It’s a valid point. Although after what I watched on YouTube Monday morning, I’m actually more concerned by what the wacky weed is already doing to our seniors.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Well, one senior, anyway: Joe Jenkins, the accordion-squeezing 70-year-old Spokane man who calls himself Accordion Joe.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">He called the other day to plug “Weed Stoner Land,” the original pot polka he wrote and played live last Thursday on the popular Jay & Kevin Show on 99.9 FM radio.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Most songs just blow a lot of smoke,” boasted Accordion Joe. “But ‘Weed Stoner Land’ gets down to the nitty-gritty.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It definitely gets down to a grass-roots level.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Through the miracle of the Internet you can <a href="http://www.spokesman.com/video/2014/oct/06/accordion-joes-weed-song/" style="text-decoration: none; outline: invert none medium; font-weight: 700; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(38, 70, 93); overflow: visible !important;">experience Accordion Joe’s</a> 1 minute, 19 second triumph. As a free column bonus, here are the lyrics for singing along: </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><em style="overflow: visible !important; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Come on along, we’ll be singing our song. </em></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><em style="overflow: visible !important; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Tokin’ and munchin’ and puffin’ away.</em></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><em style="overflow: visible !important; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Feelin’ no pain, when we’re tokin’ again.</em></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><em style="overflow: visible !important; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Happy in Weed Stoner Land.</em></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><em style="overflow: visible !important; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">If you like fun, then go tell someone. </em></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><em style="overflow: visible !important; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">About the med that eases the pain.</em></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><em style="overflow: visible !important; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Better than booze, and it helps you to snooze.</em></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><em style="overflow: visible !important; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Happy in Weed Stoner Land.</em></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><em style="overflow: visible !important;"></em>(Repeat second verse. Accordion Joe was apparently too stoned to think up a third.) </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><em style="overflow: visible !important;"></em>OK. So “Bridge Over Troubled Water” it’s not. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It did make me laugh, however, which is apparently much of what Accordion Joe was aiming for. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“When you’re smoking pot it’s definitely not a downer,” said Accordion Joe, an unabashed bud man.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Not being a pothead, I’ll have to trust him on that.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I told Accordion Joe that his song makes him a “tokesman” for the geriatric ganja crowd, which is a long leap from where he was when we first met.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Flash back to the summer of 1988. Accordion Joe called me out of the blue one day to tell me about his big plan.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Which was to water ski on one leg while playing the accordion blindfolded, and would I be interested in writing a column about it?</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">When confronted with such freakish opportunities my response is nearly always the same.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“I’m in!”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">To my jaw-dropping, eye-popping surprise, Accordion Joe pulled off this death-defying feat of musical amazement just the way he said he would.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The only glitch came during his slow dismount into the river.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Sinking like the Titanic, the accordion quickly turned into a water-slogged ruin.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">AJ dumped it on the shore where a dog immediately ran over and started eating it like Alpo.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">You can’t make this stuff up.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Ah, the accordion. American musical tastes haven’t been kind to this once-popular instrument that was doomed by the guitar.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Encouraged to play by his grandparents, Accordion Joe said he had four years of private lessons under his belt when rock and roll burst onto the scene in the mid-1950s.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Smitten like everyone in his generation, Accordion Joe wondered what rock would sound like on a “Stomach Steinway.” </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">One problem.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“I had to play by myself. Nobody’d allow an accordion in a rock band.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Pity. Yet Accordion Joe kept squeezing. He developed professional chops playing on radio and public access TV shows, for parties and dinner cruises and nursing home audiences.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Not to mention Bloomsday.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">He always caused a stir by playing oldies while wearing a white jumpsuit with an Elvis wig topping his head.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Accordion Joe said he stopped doing performances a couple of years ago, but keeps practicing and writing songs. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">An advocate of the herb, both medicinal and recreational, Accordion Joe said he came up with “Weed Stoner Land” to show that “life is mo better” with weed.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“I treat pot just like I treat alcohol,” he said. “Don’t drink and drive. Don’t smoke and drive.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Accordion Joe said he lives a comfortable life in the house once owned by his grandparents – on Stone Street.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">You heard me right. Stone Street.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">When mailing a letter, Accordion Joe said he likes to turn Stone into “Stoned” Street on his return address.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Accordion Joe might have been better off on water skis.</span></p></div><div><br></div><div>--------------------------------------<br><br><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)</span></div><div><a href="http://www.moscowcares.com/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">http://www.MoscowCares.com</font></a></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></div><div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Tom Hansen</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Moscow, Idaho</span></div></div><div> </div></div></div></div></body></html>