In attending a hemp film showing, I got surprised.
I hadn’t read anything about the movie and didn’t even look up the title; you know, I thought I was just going to see a hemp film (and I’ve seen lots).
It was March, near Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood, and I knew it wouldn’t be a bunch of farmers; I knew it would be city folk in a collective space with walls of art and a view of Chicago.
Jack Herer was the surprise; he wasn’t there of course (1939-2010), yet the night was his. Bringing it Home: industrial hemp, healthy houses and a greener future for America (2013), a documentary by Linda Booker and Blaire Johnson, would have inspired an activist like Herer – also known as The Hemperor.
Herer authored The Emperor Wears No Clothes (1985), the best hemp book ever: it tells the political economic story of America’s hemp war and argues (shows really) that hemp can save our home – planet earth.
The Wicker Park crowd though was different than the one Herer wrote for; his audience didn’t know hemp was great. This group, about 25 people, all activists really, in one way or another, arrived already knowing hemp is great; most seemed to be there in support of hemp ~ you know, to show support and see a new show.
Then the movie started … sort of.
What began was a few seconds about a father discussing his ill daughter and her special health needs. The person monitoring said something like, “Oops ~ wrong spot.” I thought that meant we’d see the hemp film now …
The movie started and again it was about a father’s efforts to help his ill child, and it wasn’t about eating hemp: it was about living inside of hemp – in a hemp house – and the environmental (and economic) protection and benefits for individual and community.
Bringing It Home is not an individual health care story: the film is about the revolution that Herer talked about ~ the one with hemp saving the planet ~ and the documentary shows a Herer-like reality.
Here’s a Hemperor inspired Bringing it Home synopsis:
Seed ~
A father in search for the safest and cleanest building material for his environmentally sensitive child: he finds hemp.
Generation ~
No hemp in America to show so the movie goes to Europe. Here we find British farmers (not hippies mind you) working with the government to monitor the fields and the 16 types of industrial hemp that can be grown for seed and fiber.
Pollination ~
Hemp’s not just for breakfast anymore; the 21st century hempvolution is in housing: specifically, building materials.
Flower ~
Food, jobs, clothing, environmentally sound, and now eco-friendly housing … in Europe and the rest of the world. The movie notes the lack of American hemp and highlights the need to grow our own.
Harvest ~
Bringing It Home makes the point that hemp is too expensive to ship to America; not growing our own looks like an economic and environmental failure. From a business and government angle, the film shows America needs hemp investment for infrastructure; most notably, networks of fiber processing plants near the hemp fields in order to turn the green plant into the other green (cash).
Hemp and Earth Day go together, each one for the other one. Hemp offers us an earth gift: an economically environmental revolution that can help the earth get ready for what’s coming … and that’s the 22nd Century. So, like Bringing It Home teaches, let’s begin (and finish) the building with hemp.
Happy Earth Day 2014 Everyone!
Bonus Video:
HempCrete: Strongest & Greenest Building material in Nature
Posted by Bryan W. Brickner
I hadn’t read anything about the movie and didn’t even look up the title; you know, I thought I was just going to see a hemp film (and I’ve seen lots).
It was March, near Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood, and I knew it wouldn’t be a bunch of farmers; I knew it would be city folk in a collective space with walls of art and a view of Chicago.
Jack Herer was the surprise; he wasn’t there of course (1939-2010), yet the night was his. Bringing it Home: industrial hemp, healthy houses and a greener future for America (2013), a documentary by Linda Booker and Blaire Johnson, would have inspired an activist like Herer – also known as The Hemperor.
Herer authored The Emperor Wears No Clothes (1985), the best hemp book ever: it tells the political economic story of America’s hemp war and argues (shows really) that hemp can save our home – planet earth.
The Wicker Park crowd though was different than the one Herer wrote for; his audience didn’t know hemp was great. This group, about 25 people, all activists really, in one way or another, arrived already knowing hemp is great; most seemed to be there in support of hemp ~ you know, to show support and see a new show.
Then the movie started … sort of.
What began was a few seconds about a father discussing his ill daughter and her special health needs. The person monitoring said something like, “Oops ~ wrong spot.” I thought that meant we’d see the hemp film now …
The movie started and again it was about a father’s efforts to help his ill child, and it wasn’t about eating hemp: it was about living inside of hemp – in a hemp house – and the environmental (and economic) protection and benefits for individual and community.
Bringing It Home is not an individual health care story: the film is about the revolution that Herer talked about ~ the one with hemp saving the planet ~ and the documentary shows a Herer-like reality.
Here’s a Hemperor inspired Bringing it Home synopsis:
Seed ~
A father in search for the safest and cleanest building material for his environmentally sensitive child: he finds hemp.
Generation ~
No hemp in America to show so the movie goes to Europe. Here we find British farmers (not hippies mind you) working with the government to monitor the fields and the 16 types of industrial hemp that can be grown for seed and fiber.
Pollination ~
Hemp’s not just for breakfast anymore; the 21st century hempvolution is in housing: specifically, building materials.
Flower ~
Food, jobs, clothing, environmentally sound, and now eco-friendly housing … in Europe and the rest of the world. The movie notes the lack of American hemp and highlights the need to grow our own.
Harvest ~
Bringing It Home makes the point that hemp is too expensive to ship to America; not growing our own looks like an economic and environmental failure. From a business and government angle, the film shows America needs hemp investment for infrastructure; most notably, networks of fiber processing plants near the hemp fields in order to turn the green plant into the other green (cash).
Hemp and Earth Day go together, each one for the other one. Hemp offers us an earth gift: an economically environmental revolution that can help the earth get ready for what’s coming … and that’s the 22nd Century. So, like Bringing It Home teaches, let’s begin (and finish) the building with hemp.
Happy Earth Day 2014 Everyone!
Bonus Video:
HempCrete: Strongest & Greenest Building material in Nature
Posted by Bryan W. Brickner
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