Jerod Welker and Chief Wana Dubie at Harris-Stowe State University, courtesy of facebook.com/chief.w.dubie
America has a proud tradition of hippies lighting out for the boonies where they can light up in relative peace.
Joseph Bickell wanted more. The disobedient gent just could not wrap his mind around the idea that a civilized government would outlaw cannabis, so in 1993, he began a series of public protest activities that culminated in openly planting a field of dubage in front of his home in Cooper Hill, Mo. (about 45 minutes east of Jefferson City).
“Chief Wana Dubie,” as he had his name legally changed to, even received advance publicity in a local newspaper for his “Cooper Hill Pot Party.” Fifteen people came and helped the Chief plant wacky tobacky. Miraculously, the local sheriff ignored Dubie and his very public field of pot plants—for two months. But then, after the plants were getting tall, the feds came in with helicopters and all. Dubie made it easy for the copters to find his place—he’d painted a giant red target on his roof. In the words of Syd Barrett, “the madcap laughs.”
Dubie’s response to being carted off to jail was to begin performing a rain dance, as his form of protest. “It rained and rained and rained and rained and it caused the ’93 flood,” he said, with a touch of pride.
You just can’t make this stuff up.
Dubie was eventually sent to prison for five years, from ’97 to ‘02, where, he has said, he felt “like Jesus Christ—like I was being persecuted by my own people for talking common sense.” Amen, Chief.
In ’06 he ran for Missouri House. He lost, but he did receive 556 votes. He’s also mounted a campaign for governor, and is considering a run for the U.S. Senate in a few years.
Dubie’s wildly outspoken nature, his love for the herb, and his trickster stunts are the focus of a short 2011 documentary film, Wana Dubie’s War.
The film, which manages to convey the inspiration of earnest, brave civil disobedience as well as the quirky charm of eccentrics compelled to go against the grain, started out as a student film by Webster University students and producer/directors Andrew Sheeley and Jerod Welker. (It was originally titled Dubie vs. Blunt, a reference to former Mo. Governor Roy Blunt.)
They obtained and shot wild footage of the Chief, including a bit involving his public proclamation of secession from the nation to create “The Du-Bie Nation,” his compound for living free to grow and smoke pot. When an interviewer asks the Chief who the citizens of his nation are, he replies, “We are a race of people connected by a common urine type— dirty.”
The short doc is hilarious, and it’s tempting to dismiss Dubie as one of the public kooks that patrols the fringes of the area. The first time you watch interview footage of him, his addled demeanor and huge, garish tattoo of a pot leaf in the center of his forehead just make you think, “Oh boy, here we go.”
As nutty as he may seem, though, he touches on two vital points—America’s hypocritical and often pointless drug war, and the Constitutional provisions for individuals—with or without lawyers—to petition the government with grievances. The man comes across as an earnest naïf who served five years of hard time for no meaningful reason, and emerged with his winning sense of humor intact.
The movie, which has won awards from major film festivals, also offers insightful commentary from NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) attorney Dan Viets, and a score by local lights Folkin’ Bluegrass and Brian Curran.
We’re excited about Welker and Sheeley’s next one, too, a doc with similar themes called Shakedown, about the police bust that ended the Schwagstock jam-band festivals in Dubie’s area, Salem, Mo.
A trailer for Wana Dubie’s War will be shown at a new multimedia arts extravaganza, RAW:St. Louis presents MIXOLOGY on Thursday, July 12, from 8 p.m. to midnight, at the Koken Art Factory, 2500 Ohio Avenue. You can meet filmmaker Jerod Welker, and enjoy live music and dance, fashion shows, art, jewelry and furniture displays from 25 featured area artists. For more info, go to www.rawartists.org/stlouis/mixology.
