Typically I find it a noble thing when a person believes in something so much they spend their lives crusading to protect the thing, or make other people like the thing too. Look at Mother Theresa- an entire life spent coming to the aid of unfortunate people, because it is something she believed in.  Take Jack Hannah- a lover of the animal kingdom- so much so that his life work has been dedicated to training and feeding and protecting animals, and attempting to make other people understand animals. I think that’s very cool. If a person has nothing other than great personal conviction, I like that very much. There is however a place to draw the line. If a person’s personal lifelong crusade comes only at the demise and expense of other people’s quality of life than this takes them off the “good people” wagon. We have one such a person in this city and I for one am getting really tired of him and his good for nothing little junk store, commonly known as, “The Last Place on Earth.”

When I was a rotten teenager, out to do naughty things- I went in The Last Place on Earth. I remember even then- as young and un-shockable as I was, thinking “ish” upon entering. The smell of body odor hits you at the door.  It was unclean and stunk, and nothing was in order or very tempting to purchase. Then there’s the visual violation, maybe not considered violating if you are let’s say,  a fourteen year old boy. A fourteen year bold boy might enjoy the Last Place on earth. The porn is everywhere. Pictures and posters and magazines and videos, all over the place. I’m not a prude- I get it- the porn industry is huge in America, but I do think for a store so commonly pictured in the paper with little kids standing around with their parents (if you call that a parent) in and around the store, shame on you! Cover it up, or stop allowing minors even those accompanied by adults inside! This really seems like a no-brainer but like I said, its very common to see youth entering The Last Place.

The porn is not exactly what makes Last Place so popular.. It’s popular because it sells “legal weed.” Synthetic marijuana I’m not going to go into detail about what that is because if you haven’t heard about it or Jim Carlson’s fights with the City of Duluth, State of Minnesota, Country of America, and God himself over his supposed “freedom” to sell and use this shit, then you’ve been living under a rock.  But here’s what I believe. The people lining up outside of Jim’s shop to buy their, for now, legal drugs, are not “free people.” These people are slaves to their addiction. They spend all their money, time and effort just to line up outside the most disgusting store in town to feed their addiction day and night. That is not the definition of a free person.  And Jim Carlson? He just rakes in the cash with a smile on his face. He’s making millions off of other people’s demise and tries to cover it up with that simple little, over-used, and misunderstood word called “freedom.”

    I heard that now, the proprietor of The Last Place on Earth has now decided to waste time, money and paper, and run for president of the United States. His main platform? You’ll never guess- Legalizing marijuana. This guy’s entire life crusade, his purpose, has been for something as stupid as weed. That is anything but a noble cause. Going back to my fourteen year old boy theory, that’s exactly what this guy reminds me of. A young man in the throws of hormones and puberty. He wants to look at naked girls and get high all day. And god dammit he doesn’t want anyone to tell him he can’t. It’s actually kind of sad. I wouldn’t care and I mean that, really wouldn’t care what he does if he wasn’t involving so many other dumb people and capitalizing on them in vain.

During the last police raid at Last Place, I read a comment from a girl who was in the store with her boyfriend. The boyfriend was arrested in the process and the girl was terribly upset because her “two young children” had to witness the boyfriend being led out in handcuffs. Seriously?? Does anyone else see what’s wrong with this picture? Two young kids- inside The Last Place on Earth- and Jim Carlson allows that. He doesn’t care about the people he’s selling to. He doesn’t really care about anything. If he did, bullshit like that wouldn’t be allowed. Little kids wouldn’t be in his store, or what Jim? Would that be violating those kids freedoms too? Maybe you think they should be free to decide to shop there as well? Guess what? Kids are only kids for the blink of an eye, only allowed innocence for a short time. Obviously their mother doesn’t have enough sense to know that, but if he cared about his patrons- he’d have booted her ass out and told her to return when she found a good babysitter. Sickening.

Let’s also be honest about the synthetic weed craze. It’s going to end, and then it will be illegal and then the already addicted are going to fiend for it and buy it off the streets for even higher cost and so on and so forth. The Last Place on Earth has just become a stepping stone in the war on drugs and keeping this stupid cycle going. I understand people will do drugs- but that would be the day I could close my eyes and sleep well at night, knowing I was contributing to another person’s life altering addiction. But Jim Carlson? I think he’s sleeping just fine these days....dreaming of smoking a big fat joint in the oval office.......on his bed of blood money.