Who Cares?

 

I don’t care what your background or race, creed or gender is… I think there is one thing as Americans we can all agree on-Willie Nelson is truly an American hero. I really can’t think of anyone who runs the gamut of fans like Willie, from the bleachers and pits of NASCAR to the hills of Mendocino.

When I read that the stupid pot charges against Willie were nearly dropped to a tiny infraction, I just shook my head. Did anyone actually think Willie Nelson would have to go to jail? He could have been convicted up to five years and more under Texas law for the bust. But would America really let Willie Nelson go to jail? For Pot?

I think even the most zealous anti-pot crusader would give Willie a Pasadena when it comes to the Red-Headed Stranger and his walking stick. In a way, Willie and Pot is like Apple and Chevrolet, it is part of our fabric.

Like the War on Christmas, it is another thing we take in stride and laugh off, until it becomes serious.

Who doesn’t know Willie smokes Pot? And what does it matter?

I was thinking of Willie this morning reading about the passing of Don Meredith. I’m not a huge football fan but I watch Monday Night Football every so often. In their tribute last night during haft-time for Mr. Meredith, they recalled the antics between him, Frank Gifford and especially, Howard Cosell. It was very moving and reminded me why I liked Mr. Meredith, he was a cool jock. Just when you thought he was just a hick, he was incredibly funny and witty. He was a lot more than a football player. He was a TV personality before TV had personality. For an athlete, he was pretty radical.

I went to college in Dallas in the mid-seventies. Down in Austin, I caught Willie, Jerry Jeff, Guy, and many other troubadours that turned me onto the so-called outlaw scene. In those days, Willie still had rather short hair, if you know what I mean…But many of us knew he was cool.

One night while watching Monday Night Football, I forget which team was crushing the other, but when it was apparent that it was impossible for the other team to comeback, Don Meredith broke the tension with Willie’s song, “The Party’s Over.”

I remember thinking how cool it was to give Willie a shout-out. This was more than thirty years ago, before we could laugh at Willie getting busted for…what? Pot?

That would be like busting Dick Cheney for lying. Who knows he doesn’t?

Many years later I was with Willie in his bus after a show in Vegas. In Texas, he was busted for six ounces. You know he started with more…that’s all I’m saying…

So I’m in the tour bus with Willie with mucho producto burning, we’re talking about Austin and the early days and other stuff. I ask Willie about what it was like when Mr. Meredith did his song on Monday Night Football. Willie was modest at first reminding me he wrote for other people first before performing his own songs. He said he was thrilled and it was good for his pocketbook. We had a good laugh at that…

Over a huge blunt I wondered if Willie ever smoked with Mr. Meredith. I mean, he seem really cool for a jock.

Quote, unquote from Willie Nelson. “I can’t say personally that Don got high for every Monday Night game he did, except for the forty or fifty times we did before he headed to the booth.”

One day Pot will be legal and America will realize if Willie Nelson and Don Meredith got high…how bad can it be?

Rest in Peace Don Meredith.

You were cool before people knew what cool was…



Bob and the Baby_____Peace!!!

Pot Collectives- Road to the Future or Path to Frustration?

“It seemed so much easier when it was illegal; you basically had to hide what you were doing and find your own way to get your crop to market. Trying to do this legally with others and letting the government and the law in…? It’s a headache,” my knowledgeable friend told me candidly. 

I was speaking with a high-ranking member in Humboldt County who, along with others, has taken the steps to establish a farmer’s collective, primarily a way to come out of the shadows legally in an effort to develop safe and fair practices for the distribution of Marijuana.

How’s it going?

Not good,” my source replies with a tired laugh. “For everything we’ve done correctly, we’ve made a few mistakes that have virtually grounded us.

First of all, what is your definition of a collective and what are your goals?

A collective is a way for growers and patients to come together under the legal canopy and, by being transparent, are as legit as any other farmer’s cooperative. That way a grower can grow and a patient who is a member can obtain medicine legally without having to resort to black market practices. We thought it would be like the perfect circle. One would be able to sustain the other. But there have been a few problems…

Like what?

Some are so basic; we should have seen it coming. Other things, you have no idea of what you’re getting into until you’re there.

For example?

Our first mistake was not having a contract or some kind of deal with a dispensary for additional distribution.

That seems like a no-brainer. That would be the first piece of business I would establish before starting. I mean, you want a place to be able to distribute your medicine, right? 

You’re thinking like a person who lives in San Francisco. Because the dispensaries control the two greatest factors concerning the market, the price and the strains patients want. You’re under the belief that this is the way it’s always been. We’ve become dispensary-centric, if you will. Right now in winter of 2010, dispensaries, because they are the so-called legal market place, give the impression that they dominate and dictate the supply and demand of the Marijuana market. And that’s true for now…

For now?

Don’t forget, we’ve been trying to develop collectives and co-ops for almost fourteen years now.

I had no idea.

After the passage of 215 that allowed for the growing and small distribution of medicine, few of us, starting in 1997, tried to get a collective going.

What happened?

There were a lot of problems. We just couldn’t get it together. The farmers up here aren’t the most…collective type. And another thing that hasn’t changed since we first tried this…there are more distributors than there were patients here. Everyone grows. We don’t have the demand here for an eighths or even a quarter or half of an ounce like patients ask for in your average dispensary. The area caters to a majority of growers, not end-users. That’s south of here.

So what’s changed?

It’s not a question of what is changing, but what will the market allow. Because we’re talking pure capitalism here: Supply and Demand. Right now there is a glut of Marijuana. Some growers sat on their crop waiting for the outcome of Prop 19. You can see in the news how the Mexican cartels had tunnels built and tons and tons of product ready, if Marijuana had been legalized.

 Because there’s more supply than demand here, nobody is really getting their price. Maybe through a collective we can find distributors in Southern California or elsewhere for our crop, though…We wouldn’t be able to do that as individual farmers.

What about opening a dispensary in the Triangle? It’s kind of absurd that the number one spot for growing Marijuana in the world doesn’t have a local dispensary.

Oh, there’s a few that have tried, but think about it.

To me it would be like opening a fruit stand along the side of  Highway 101 with signs reading, ‘O.G. Kush, Fresh!!!’ or ‘Get Purple Urkel, Purple Urkel, the purplest!!!’

My source laughs.

Someone tried to open a dispensary up here some time back. Patients only bought edibles and Hash.

Huh?

Most of your patients up here are all set when it comes to green bud medicine.

Oh yeah. D’uh. Do see yourself trying to open a dispensary again?

 Oh yes, we have to. Patients like to see and touch the medicine. Most of us growers still have straight jobs working in town at banks, hardware stores and dress shops. I would say almost once a day, someone is asked by a visitor or a tourist, ‘Where can I purchase some Marijuana?’ People assume it is legal up here and available.

So what are you going to do? Delivery service to the Bay Area?

Yes, we need to have a presence there.

How do you get into this market without being here?

At the Hemp and Cannabis Expo in September of 2010 at the Cow Palace, we had a booth. We offered to deliver our organic, sun-raised medicine from Humboldt County to your doorstep in the Bay Area at a very good price ($300/ OZ). If you signed up with us to be a member of the collective, you were also given a small sample of the medicine.

How many memberships were you able to get?

Over five hundred new members.

Out of the five hundred or so who committed to the collective, how many patients ended up really utilizing the service?

Six.

Six patients? That’s all?

Yes. In retrospect, giving away samples of Pot is not a good indicator on the intent of new members; whether they will be dedicated to our cause or not.

Is part of the problem that this is such a new industry, that the path to come above ground is very hazy without a clear paradigm or cohesive strategy?

Some collectives are working. North Stone Collective comes to mind.

What did they do right that you guys aren’t doing?

I don’t know. We really don’t have that much communication with each other. Plus, Prop 19 was on everyone’s mind for the past year, so we’ve dropped the ball in that respect.  

What do you need to do in order to to get your collective off the ground?

Like I say, the basics. We have to figure out the tax situation and that means more lawyers and accountants. It looks like common wisdom says there’ll be a fifty dollar tax on the ounce that will be distributed for three hundred dollars. We have to keep notes of our meetings. Not only because we’re stoners and we forget, but because the government requires notes showing how we were formed and that we’ve met and held meetings. We could be asked to show minutes of meetings by the I.R.S.

There’s other small issues…Are we independent contractors or employees of the collective? Mostly bureaucratically monkey business.

The good thing about the government is they don’t ask what you’re growing, they just want their money. So the tax stuff and other government requirements can be easily met once we understand their rules. The hard part is us.

What do you mean?

To start the collective all members needed to contribute money and a pound of medicine. There hasn’t been any return on our investment… yet. Plus, some growers feel they aren’t getting their fair price within the collective. Some members whose medicine isn’t top-shelf are irked that others got more for their crop.

There’s different prices?

We have two different grades. Each grade has its own wholesale price. Everyone up here thinks their crop is better than yours. To separate it into two different grades was difficult enough, and there is a substantial difference in price.

How much?

Top shelf gets about 2500. The second grade, about half of that.

Ouch? The prices are still way down?

It gets very personal. Plus, there’s been stories, gossip really- of other collectives, that as soon as certain growers become part of the collective, gophers or some of other critters have snuck into their drying rooms and eaten their crop. And now they need help from the collective. That same grower who’s never had a problem when they were alone now needs the assistance of the collective for financial help. It gets weird.

Where are you going? What’s the solution?

We need a market place up here, that’s for sure. We need a place where tourists can stop and check out our buds. Just like a wine tasting tour of Napa Valley. We need to learn and get better at what we’re doing. And that is happening faster than you think. Political actions groups and Hemp-oriented lobbies are being formed up and down the coast.

We definitely need to be somewhere in the Bay Area. Our real main competition is indoor pot. The indoor grower doesn’t have our challenges on any level.

We all believe up here that if we could have a section in a dispensary in the Bay Area, just a small part that is distinctly apart from the indoor strains, we would rock. Patients want organic, sun-raised medicine that doesn’t mess with their system because of the added chemicals.

Another one of the problems we have up here is we’ve been in the business so long, our strains are almost obsolete. The dispensaries and patients want the modern hip strains like the O.G. this and Indicas that. Last year everything had to be purple. I’m sure Sativas will make a big comeback next year.

 We have too many heirloom strains that we’ve been unwilling to let go of. The kids today never heard of ‘Bliss’ or ‘Meadow Passion.’ We have to grow what the market wants or dictate and give them their Dope du jour. Y’know, go after the ‘Whole Foods Crowd.’ And most importantly, keep the price down.

It sounds like an almost impossible venture.

That’s why it is important to like what you do and smoke what you like.



Just Breathe

I called my friend, Tim this morning around 7:30am and the number was busy. I waited another fifteen minutes, called and the phone rang and rang until the machine picked up. Knowing that Tim’s business is across the street from his abode, I called his office. The phone rang twice and one of his co-workers picked up.

“Is Tim there?”

“He’s meditating,” the co-worker responded the way a secretary might say, “he’s in a meeting.” I guess that makes sense. I know that Tim meditates three times a day. But it was the nonchalance and matter-of-factly of the person on the phone that got me. It was like he was almost saying, “of course he’s meditating. How do you start your day?”

I live in the very hip and self-actualized city of San Francisco. I am a writer and my girlfriend of twenty-five years, is a consultant to non-profits. We are constantly changing our lives for what we describe as, ‘For the Better.’

The Girlfriend recently quit her full-time job downtown in the Financial Center for the perceived freedom of working out of the home, the way I do.

She does yoga when she can and tries to takes walks or go running with one of her girlfriends four to five times a week.

In the last four or five years, and especially after seeing ‘Food, Inc.’ we’ve changed our eating habits to reflect a more awareness to what we’re putting in our bodies and have a better understanding where our food comes from. We buy local. We’re trying to go more whole wheat with all grains with the dream of giving up all grains except the real old standbys and go gluten-free.

We eat vegetarian three times a week and limit red meat to a couple times a month.

All in the name of living better…

I have another friend named Andy. I actually can count a total of three friends in my life, but would rather save that friend for another column.

Andy and I have known each other since we were three. We’re in our mid-fifties now. While I have been on some artistic path for my career and dreams, Andrew first followed his passion as a white-water guide. He settled in Seattle in the early Eighties, hoping to nothing more than take little duckies down the river for thrills, chills and tips. But one day he answered an ad for a young, upstart company that was opening in nearby Redmond. That when his career started with Microsoft.

After many years in Tech trade, Andy retired in his forties with his beautiful wife in San Diego.

Andy became bored. He turned his latest passion, piano playing into his newest gig. He became a piano-tuner supreme.

Now some four years later, Andrew is once again successful at something.

I jumped and cut corners, giving an unfair account of Andrew’s rise. He worked very hard and all that stuff to get where he is.

Andy always has been one of my heroes and a great inspiration for me.

 Andy meditates at the piano for three hours a day.

The director David Lynch has a foundation whose goal is to turn the world on to meditation. His business plan is to hit every avenue as possible. The Blue Velvet helmer brings his message to schools, churches and into war-zones and foreign countries, with the hopes of bringing opposites together through control breathing, meditation.

This may seem a little incongruous from the fellow that introduced us to Dennis Hopper’s nasty oxygen mask for a different kind of breathing. What can I say? The Duality of Man?

And here’s my point…

I meditated for five years. I was guided and tutored by one of the smartest and most compassionate man I ever met name David.

David eventually put me on the path of lucid dreaming. A more controlled meditation where one is guided and helped through the recesses of one’s mind by a spirit helper, in my case, David.

I eventually stopped meditating. I still use it when I can’t sleep or if I accidently take a hit of speed by mistake. Because of the years I spent learning how to block out the outside world and peer internally, I can basically sleep anywhere.

I know… it’s a gift.

So I wonder why aren’t we as a people, as a society, as a way to get better, why don’t we include meditation with everything. It really does make the world go around.

You may or may not agree with me, but I think one of the reasons everything happens, is because of judgments made out of fear. Snap judgments if you will. What the Warren Commission would call a ‘Rush to Judgment.’ Those reactions and decisions made while under the control of fear.

Why are we in Afghanistan and Iraq again? Oh yeah, to protect the Muslim people from the bad guys. Try to remind people that. The reason we’re at war, was to protect the Muslim locals from Osama and his dudes. We’re NOT there because of a knee-jerk reaction to being attacked on September 11^th, 2001.

I think most voters, Republican and Teabags alike would agree that we fight our wars for others, not us. We are after all the World’s Policeman. Of course being the World’s baddest cop, gives us license to break protocol and history, attacking a country that posed no threat to our country. We broke the precedent of the unofficial rule of the block world that you can’t hit someone until they hit you first. Otherwise what you got? Those countries that are angry with each going around and giving the old surprise cold-cock right in the old delta or bomb the Casbah?

What happens if the World took a real big time out and we all meditated for five minutes? Just five minutes. Everyone!

Close your eyes and think about it. The whole wide world was in folded hands, breathing in, breathing out, trying to find the empty spaces. Imagine the ripple effect. Imagine if ten percent walked away as converts. Imagine enemies looking at each other differently after centuries of seeing the same image and fearful foe.

Imagine.

We can’t.

We’ve been in Afghanistan longer than the Russians were.

Sarah Palin could become President.

John Lennon would have been seventy now.

I should be meditating. We all should. But ironically, I fearful I don’t have the time.

Damn you phone guy for telling me Tim can’t be reached because he’s in Nirvana.



Welcome To Kali

I am getting so sick of America. Not my America, George Bush’s America, and all that it represents. I haven’t seen our Presidential Ex actually making the media rounds but it’s hard not to miss seeing the highlights in the news and covered by the talk shows and blogs. I really can’t tell if he is trying to set the record straight or sell books. Anyway you look at it; George appears like he still doesn’t have a clue. And then again, for our only Ex-Prez that looked more rested when leaving the White House than when he arrived, maybe he hasn’t changed. And if I was George, with a track record of bringing down countries, nations and baseball teams with extreme prejudice, and not have any retribution from its citizens, governments and fans, why should I change? After all, George was just being George.

Even when George the Forty-third was at his worst, lying and scheming, doing everything illegal and legal to advance his agenda, I argued with my friends not to demonize him. That George Bush isn’t a monster; it is the people who back him and the people who support him that are the root of all of his empirical problems.

But still, seeing clips of him being arrogant and still misleading in his answers and perspective, it does make me want to do something. Something drastic.

Then there’s Sarah Palin and her new book. Lies? Who to say? Let the new media fight not over content, but what side can garner the most ratings and audience over their manipulative strategy for domination of the American psyche and advertising support.

I’ve given up talking to a certain segment of America. It is a no-win situation. People are no longer for much. They mostly find out what their neighbor is for, and then they are against that.

We are divisive without an endgame in sight.

Right now the Republicans are not throwing down the gauntlet against our duly elected president like men and women with a point and a plan. No, they are opening up the lawn chairs and plan to sit this one out.

And here’s my problem. No one cares. I mean really. We talk like it matters, but really, c’mon, seriously, this is America. Sarah Palin is making racist comments about our President while her daughter shakes her booty for text and phony minions. And then there’s gossip that that competition is being fixed somehow by rabid, steeping Tea-Baggers. Jeeze, isn’t anything sacred?

My solution? It’s not going to popular, except in Texas.

If there is one thing maybe we can all agree is, we can’t talk to one another anymore. The art of civil discourse is gone and it ain’t coming back, to certain people.

It’s crazy but all Glen Beck has to do is open his month and say anything, and there will be a certain segment of the population that will believe him. Unconditionally. Who else in your life has that kind of power over your friends and family? I can’t control Glen and the people who believe him. The only person I can control is me. And maybe a new constitution.

Yep, if we can’t talk, maybe we should not even try. I’m thinking of seceding from the Union and taking California (Northern, of course, starting right south of Monterey and going north to Medford, Oregon) with me. And of course any other states nearby who want to join me and would live by my rules.

I would ask three simple questions.

1)  If it was legally possible, would you vote for George Bush again?

2)  Do you feel that you are entitled to have more rights than someone else?

3)    Do you think Ronald Reagan actually decreased the Federal Budget?

If you answered ‘Yes’ to those three questions, immigration test over. We don’t want you.

And that’s how it would be.

Right now, it is my belief that half of this country would vote George Bush back in because…basically they’ve woken up from an incredible malaise, a hypnotic stupor from being bitch slap by Cheney for eight years to realize they’ve voted for a Black Man into office in their haste.

Now we have change we can’t believe in.

Except I still believe and that is why I need my own country. I know there are people like me out there. I hang out with them. I go shopping with them. Granted, I don’t think San Francisco is smarter or more on track than other cities, but we are different and no one will deny that.

And that’s what scares people. The difference in our various looks and the way we try to include all beings and service animals into the discussion. And the worst? The way we as a city and people tolerate those differences on a daily level, even letting them have their own restaurants.

Right now, there are people who want to take this country back. I guess to the hallow days of 2009, right before the Change. Is that the time and place we want to go back to? When our jobs were being flushed down the drain, along with our houses, our pensions and people’s dreams. Or is it farther back?

Back when the Black Man and Women needed to ask before crossing the street or if they could vote.

I have no idea what one part of America wants or is looking for.

That’s why we need Pacifica. Kushlandia? The Real Greenland? Or just plain, Cali. Kali?

Whatever we call ourselves, we’re already ahead of the curve. California used to have the seventh largest economy in the world. Not bad. We have water, organic food and enough yoga studios for the next generation.

Europe, China and other major powers and corporations have headquarters, consulates or offices here in San Francisco, so the United Nations thing could be surpassed. A little dig at the One World people. But being an international city and the city that internationals love the most in United States, we’re golden.

In fact, that should be our motto. ‘Come to Kali, We’re Golden.’

I don’t think seceding would be much of problem if left up to a vote by the rest of the nation. San Francisco is where the Devil keeps a flat. Where family values are roasted on hibachis fueled by liberal gas. Where Gays and Lesbians teach small children in public schools to respect everyone and we all have something to offer. Where Nancy Pelosi gives social dollars to the Arts and the needy, whether they want it or not.

The way the country disparages San Francisco, I think they’d be happy to let us go. With our hospitals that study stem cells and law schools that argue what is torture? With our Tech companies and innovators in industry who plug in and play while the rest of the world is still in tubes. With the free thinkers who not only believe in change but see it before it happens. We’ll take what is ours and you can have the rest.

I’ve had it and I’m taking my new country and going home.