We’re the Haight, Where’s the Love?

 I was lucky enough that my love of the sea and the constant need for freedom morphed into a few years of bumming around the world as a commercial fisherman. I started my trade somewhat Biblical, launching off the shores of the Sea of Galilee fishing for sardines, then after a few drops of the seine in the Mediterranean and Alaska, I ended my career of long hours and doing my best to keep as many fingers as I could trolling and swaying in the soup in the choppy waters of San Francisco. I can actually say I fished out of Fisherman’s Wharf when there were still fishermen working the docks there.

          The reason I bring this up is…Who cares? I mean who really gives a flying fish whether there are real fishermen at Fisherman’s Wharf. If you go to Williamsburg, you’ll see the ersatz colonists thumbing their phones during their lunch breaks.  A break of reality? I don’t think so. Does that stop you from getting a group snap with the kids and the Blacksmith de jour?     

          No, of course not. It’s a tourist trap. We love to take historical places, erect a gift shop, put in alpha-numeric parking lots, and build gates and river walks, then charge out-of-towners for the privilege of seeing what once was. We will retain our personal history, as long as it is cost effective.

          I have lived in the Haight/Ashbury for half of my life. Growing up in the Middle West, I had a map of San Francisco on my wall. At fifteen, I collected Rolling Stone magazine not only because it spoke to me but I loved their address was on Brannan Street, San Francisco. I loved all things hippie and knew one day I would be living there.

          Well, that dream came true for me, but dreams sometime don’t last. That is, if you let someone else take them away from you…us.

          Last Christmas the Haight/Ashbury suffered financially, like many of the country’s merchants at the time. One of our crack columnists from one of the local daily papers wrote an attacking article about the Ruffians of the Haight/Ashbury. We have a huge homeless problem in the Haight. As you can imagine, every day of the year, there is some lost soul or some misguided Jack Kerouac-wanna-be who arrives in the Haight with a guitar, a dog, bed sores, fleas, and a small bong-hit of hope that things are going to change for this particular  urchin’s story.  

          They come because we are the Haight. There’s nothing more I can say about that. As far as I can tell, they wanted to be here as much as I did.

          Back to the Chicken Whittle columnist, in his article he basically scared the dollars out of your average I’m-afraid-of-the Haight San Franciscan from ever wanting to venture to the Haight again, because if you do, there will be hooligans with spiked collars and doped-out pit-bulls (might have that backwards, don’t think so though) there to shake you down for spare change and dog food.

          Oh, even our politically rising mayor got into the act. Taking his precious one-year old daughter on his tour of the spit-coated, dog-poop infested heroin-using concrete jungle that we affectionately call, Hippieland. It was written in the article, that the Mayor actually saw some vagrant smoking crack on the street.

          In twenty-six years, I’ve never seen a glass pipe being used on Haight Street. Off of Haight Street in the alleys, up Cole Street, and in the back of McDonalds’s, sure…I’ve seen tweakers and crackheads hitting the pipe. But have I ever seen anyone smoking the bad stuff on Haight Street in daylight, never.  But the Mayor did on his ONE walk through the Haight.  

          Between our Mayor’s foray into his neighborhood and the columnist, Chicken Whittle, clucking, the City was swept into a panic. And you know panic brings politicians to quell the uprising with their own agenda oriented rhetoric. Soon we’re voting on laws on whether it is legal to be homeless and if sitting on Haight Street or in the panhandle demands fines and jail time.

          More arguments pro and con about what to do with the Bad Kidz of the Haight produce meetings downtown in Government land and in the public libraries of the Haight.

          Oh My God, nobody knows what to do. Debates rage and mud is thrown. Our lameduck Mayor decides he’s leaving town on a political wave and no longer cares about getting wet in the swamps of the local issues. The columnists decides to actually move to San Francisco to see the effects of what he’s been writing all these years about from his East Bay outpost. All of a sudden his Caucasian fence that surrounded him out in the ‘Burbs is down and he’s quiet now about the Haight.

          The City voted down the law that could have required our police to arrest anyone sitting on the sidewalk or looking like they were ready to take a squat or a knee.

          The wave of fear is over, for now. But the damage is done. The Haight/Ashbury various merchant associations have complained about the loss of revenue and that the foot traffic is not there like in past years.

          Well that can all change folks.

          Tomorrow, June 13^th, 2010 is the world famous Haight/Ashbury Street Fair. This will be thirty-third time that the freakiest street in America is allow to be…itself. 

          From roughly 12 noon to 5pm, upwards of some seventy thousand people will take in the freak festival that we call the Haight. Parents with kids lounging in baby bjorns sucking on bottles of baby-chai formula will mix with Gogol Bordello crowd sucking on joints while the bands play on. Hippie chicks in twirling peasant dresses will cradle wicker baskets full of magic potions. Costumes will be worn but it is hard to tell the straights from the freaks, so never assume who is a costume wearer and who is just a Haight St. freak. For one day, it is safe for everyone to come to the Haight.

          And why is this Fair different than all other fairs? Because it is Haight Street. San Francisco has many street fairs, all with their own flavor and odors. But ours is still free. Ours keeps with the spirit of the street. We know, us keepers of the flame going on the eternal joint, that it is our job to keep the hippie spirit alive, or what else is the choice.

          Reenactment shows every two hours, showing the crafts of Hippietown to the tourist; how the kids used to tie-die their t-shirts and how they balled their women to the tunes of this band they called the Grateful Dead, now being replayed by the New Haight St. Singers. 

          There is no place like the Haight in the World. I lived on Portobello Road in London in the Seventies, close but without the Dead, Airplane, Janis, and Charlie Manson, sorry Brits, you don’t have the history. East Coast, c’mon, Boston, New Hampshire, yeah you got woods and forests, Phish, Jamaican weed, still, you can’t touch the West Coast laid-back vibe that we can’t shake, even if we wanted to. We are magic. We are golden. We are immaculate in jeans, blue work shirts and Red Dog Saloon vests that barely has ever been near Tide, the Euphrates, or a washing machine.

          No, we are the Haight for good or bad. The stories the media and the government try to spin, can’t stop us. We are freaks and freaks live for freedom. We have what most people search for their whole lives.

          The problems we have and what confuses the City is, we still believe in helping our fellow men and women. That’s why the kidz come, they know they can get a free meal somewhere and sometimes, the cops look the other way unlike in your small town where all that is different is frowned upon .  So they come, for good or bad, but like that bar in Boston, they feel someone out here might know their name. Or worse, they come because they all worship the same God, Jerry.

          I am a freak. I am a Hippie. I believe in Peace and Love. I want to get some WEED and do my thing. Where else in America does that happen?

Remind me again why it is a bad thing to have one town out of thousands and thousands that strives to be different, and in that difference prove that it is inclusiveness that makes a society strong, not the fear of another human because of their appearance and sometimes, their smell.

          No, it takes a lot to live in the Haight. You have to step over sleeping bodies and be spared changed from block to block by kids or sometimes elderly adults who feel they deserve your coins and paper. Sometimes walking on the street you receive a roaming lecture because you’re perceived as the Man because you happen to have a job and bus fare. Living here is very interactive. Many people can’t handle that. I can. I love my neighborhood.

          I’ve lived many places that were almost variables with the malls and the freeways and turn-off that lead to the usual spots. It’s not like that here. It is special here, rough, sometimes a little smelly, sometimes a little archaic, but all the time, the Haight. We’re definitely 24/7.

It’s not a show. We’re real people with real lives, it just so happens that we don’t believe in a dress code. We question everything. We’re a tiny band of freaks that keeps the message going.

          The sad thing, we never know what we have until it’s gone. And then sometimes, that doesn’t even matter. I dare you to go to Fisherman’s Wharf and find a real fisherman.

          Tomorrow is the Haight St. Fair, come see all the freaks in their natural habitat. See us with our illegal smiles and non-matching wardrobes. See us in our entire splendor.

          Do it before it gone. Tell your friends. Tweet it from the highest mountain top. Join us for one day of orange sunshine and good vibes. Stop by California Grow Mugs and say high.

More Later…

To All My Readers...

This past Saturday I experienced after Microsoft update what they are calling 'The BLACK Screen of Death.' It is exactly what it sounds like, your monitor goes to complete black yet you can see the white cursor. Then shortly after that, the Boot Manager in my stoopid Windows Vista hard drive became corrupted.

I lost everything.

The last back-up I did was in March. Still, writings, short stories, images, future columns, everything is gone. Music, pictures, movies, ect...

It may be a couple of weeks until you hear from me again.

Please stop by at my booth at the Haight St. Fair this upcoming Sunday and say high.

More Later...

Jack

Ten Reasons Dispensaries are Better than going to a Dealer

1)  No Shady Scenes.

We’ve all been there, a 7/11 parking lot late at night where every Slurpee-buying shopper looks like an undercover cop. You just parked your buddy’s car near an apartment downtown where all the neighbors know why you’re walking towards that particular door. Or worse, a friend of a friend who just got out of jail has some killer stuff that will make the whole-cross town drive worth it. You name it; we all have a variety of reasons why we will go the extra mile to procure the best stuff possible, sometimes even when the risks are higher than you are.

Now, my closest dispensary is eight blocks away, (a small industrial trailer where they may only have seven to twelve different varieties of WEED) but I go to the old reliable, my mainstay downtown on Geary (Funny story; I was coming home Tuesday with three clones in a odorless paper-bag. There were two other dudes on the bus who were also clutching paper grocery bags. They’re all-knowing nods and smiles made me feel like we were in the same book club together.)

Going to a Dispensary is incredibly safe compared to my almost forty years of scoring on the street.

2)  Choice.

At my mainstay (Yo, yo, yo... D-Tree boyz) they have about twenty to thirty varieties each of Indicas, Sativas and now, the very popular Hybrids, for all the baby bears out there that need something in the middle, stacked like good friends next to each other in five gallon mayonnaise jars in a glass cabinet/counter.

Some days the choices are overwhelming. I am more apt to ask one of my Bud-tenders what they like. If some of the guys I’ve got to know over the years are working behind the counter like Kimo or Mikey the Great, I just asked them to set me up with what they like and I’ve never gone wrong.

Going to a dealer, if you don’t like what they have or turn down their product, it hurts they’re feelings. At the Dispensary, they could care less. There’s another person behind you that will take the WEED you said ‘No’ to.

3)  No reason to stock up.

Before I had my card, if I my stash was getting low, below half ounce, I have to start to make calls to ensure I had product for the future. It was always a process of never running out. Many times I bought WEED when I didn’t need it or particularly needed to have it, but the idea of running out or worse- not being able to get any WEED because the town was dry or my Man was out of town, would be unacceptable for me.

 The whole deal about instant gratification is getting it when you want it.

With a Dispensary, I sometimes smoke less, really, because I know the pot store is going to be there tomorrow. There’s no rush, man. It’s all cool. One doesn’t need to maintain a bulging inventory unless one likes to have a lot of different shit around the crib to smoke.

Total transparency-Dispensaries are a lot like going to the grocery store. You go in with a budget, but if you’re stoned and have the munchies, you spend more than you’d planned to. Same thing with the Dispensaries- You go in for a Q.T. but the Trainwreck is off the rails and the Dragon’s Breath is out of this world. It’s easy to spend another hundo without trying. And, mark my words, you don’t want to go in there sober...You spend less when you’re already high. Sober, you feel like a Make-A-Wish kid walking into Disneyland. That first time walking into a Dispensary, there’s nothing like it.

4)  You don’t have to buy there.

After getting my MM card, I Googled the pot shop locations and made maps for day trips in an effort to explore all the Magic Kingdoms waiting for this new patient. After checking out the third or fourth place I went to, I slowly realized that I didn’t have to score from every place I entered. If a dispensary’s WEED wasn’t up to my standards or they was just something funky about the place that I didn’t like, (hello south of Market) I can leave.

The great thing about having a MM card, if you don’t like the customer service or any other thing that directs you to one enterprise over another- why someone prefers Whole Foods over Trader Joe’s for example, exist in the Pot world too. Competition makes for a buyer’s market. One of the Pot Shops here in town has coined the phrase of the ‘Home of the 4-gram eighths,’ as a marketing tool to compete with the other guys. For half a gram, I don’t know, but for some people...

Speaking of other guys—growing up., this one guy in the Middle-west I once bought from, sold what he called his exotics, the good stuff, in bags that weighed 5-grams, but he sold them as quarter-ouncers. Why, because he could.

5)  You can get exactly what you want.

I made the mistake for my first few months of getting the strongest WEED available. I’d walk in and ask one of the boys for their most potent strain of Indy. The real dick-in-the road, polio-inducing, Snoop-Dogg crippling WEED that was guaranteed to hurt. Then I’d spend the rest of the day on the floor.

Now if I need some speedy stuff to write with or some night time stuff that makes John Stewart funnier but still understandable, I know what to ask for, or as I said, I let my Bud-Tender make a recommendation. You don’t take antibiotics when you need a sleeping pill, do you? One shouldn’t take an Indica when a nice Sativa or Hybrid is what you actually need. Its 2010, it time for this stuff to make sense.

6)  Hash, edibles and Clones, Oh my!

Dispensaries have more than Marijuana. While I am not a fan of the modern hash I see, I prefer your old school surfboards of Afghani or Lebanese, oppose to this water-based bubble hash, it is great to have the choice.

I did go through an intense edible period at first though. A small little fun fact, pot brownies and the like are as fattening as their non-magic brothers and sisters. I started to put on some weight after getting my card and couldn’t figure it out until I realized I was doing my new faves, pot caramels and toffee almost daily. A word to the wise and over-weight out there, those little candies can sneak up on you a couple of different ways.

As I stated above, I planted some clones. I’ve gone country. I’ll let you know as the crop progresses.

7)  If you Love WEED...

It’s Friday, a big weekend is coming up. In fact, it is a holiday weekend with Monday being day-off for those that have to leave the house. You’re in line at your favorite Dispensary, and the line is long (seven deep). Everyone wants to score their shit and get on with their lives. Then that moment happens, a feeling of tranquility falls over the Dispensary as the patients realize the uniqueness of the local and what is transpiring in front of us. We’re all buying WEED legally in a place that is authorized to legally sell it. It just doesn’t get any better than this and we all know it.

8)  The WEED is so outrageously good.

Durbin Poison, GDP, those stoopid Kushes I complain about but still buy, Skunks, Diesels, and everyday there seems to be a new strain discovered or genetically altered, that really, the shit is too good to turn down. Some days, it is very hard to say no. Luckily I don’t have the cash to go nuts. Just enough to go crazy.

And there are thirty dispensaries in my town competing for potheads with the lure of great pot and all kinds of organically-grown WEED.  

I’ve actually had to ask for pot that isn’t so strong. What we call at home, ‘For the ladies...’

9)  There are a lot of them...

Like my friends who do tours of the Wine Country in Napa and Sonoma, I could also tour the dispensaries of Northern California, excuse me, did I say Northern California? I meant the Bay Area. With so many dispensaries in Berkeley, Oakland, and others throughout the East Bay, there is a world out there still undiscovered for the Cannabis explorer. But then I’d have to leave the house.

10)                       It just makes sense.

The difference in going to a Dispensary opposed to going over to strangers or friend’s house for pot is almost like the difference between shopping at an Airport kiosk or small corner market for groceries instead of going to Food World. The smaller the place, the less choice you have at, ironically, a higher price. With the advent of dispensaries, the price of WEED hasn’t dropped dramatically for the consumers on this side of the counter. (It is a different story for growers.)

One of the reasons WEED may become legal this November is because the world hasn’t fallen apart with the openings of dispensaries. Crime hasn’t taken over neighborhoods and life has gone on.

For adults to have the ability of going into a safe, secure environment to pursue their own form of happiness, makes perfect sense in a perfect libertarian sort of way.

For me, after risking my life more than once in order to get high, sad but true, Dispensaries only make sense. The time has come to grow up, tax us if you must, but give us access to what we’ve been buying in the dark of night from strangers for years on our own.

What is it, 43 million Americans smoke pot either regularly or just at parties or when they come over to my house. Let’s not play games anymore. Open your doors and let the Black Market in. We’ll all be the better for it.  

How and Why I became a Medical Marijuana Patient

It took me two years of dreaming and giving serious thought to becoming a Medical Marijuana patient in California before I applied for my MM card. During my tenure as care-giver working in the old Chief’s Home in Az., I threw my back out one day when Running Buffalo and Dodging Elk collided on the shuffle-board court during an Early Bird Dinner and Sweat Lodge event the home was putting on. From that day, my back was tweaked, physically and medically. I say medically, because I had proof so that doctors, who have never met each other, will one day concur on my medical condition. This proves to be important later.

So I had the x-rays and doctor’s records to prove I needed a card. This is how uneducated I first was to the Cali MM scene. I thought you needed something wrong with you in order to get a card...

So the serious guy I am, I gave it much thought whether it would be worth it to get a card and have access to legal WEED but then I would probably have to get posted on a federal list somewhere (don’t forget I did this during the G.W. Bush years, when there were enemies lists) or...or to score the way I always had, on the streets, not literally but close.

I’ve always abided by what the Great Sage had said, “To live outside the law, you have to be honest.”

When purchasing WEED through the underground or the black market, whatever you call it where non-card holders dwell, I tried to be cool. Minimize risk. Be smart. I don’t like to get busted or even have conversations with police unless we’re working together opposed to apart, when one of us could bust the other guy for just smoking some herb.

I feel I’ve had more than my fair share of police interaction during my time as a pot-smoking, street-buying illegal trafficker of Marijuana. Unless I’m standing in front of some court or judge promising this time, Your Honor, Sir... I am really sorry for sure...And I promise...I will never get busted again. (No convictions! Yeah! Lots of money spent to lawyers and therapists. Nay!)

That is the price you pay for not having a card. You can go to jail while someone else can smoke legally. That’s what it really gets down to if you’re not talking about real patients who really need WEED.

I’m borderline. Marijuana relaxes my back and takes away my back pain, always has, even before I had a card and I was smoking as a non-patient. This major difference now, I’m doing it legally.

Before I had my card, doctors were more than happy to experiment with my system as they tried to find the right drug to fight the daily back pain I was experiencing from morning to lights out. Most of the drugs made me feel drowsy or just put me to sleep at whatever hour. My HMO seemed like they had all the money in the world spinning the wheel and trying a drug de jour, fingers crossed that it will work.

I needed to do something and I’d been thinking about getting a Medical Marijuana for a while. I mean, I had a real reason to get a card, I just didn’t want on be on a list somewhere. I worried about flying and being strip-search with the new TSA H.C.F. (Human Cavity Finder, no colon or fold goes uncharted!)

I worried the local cops would have me on a list. I worried about a lot that has never happened.

I can’t believe how nervous I was when I went to the doctor’s office South of Market that one day four years ago, really wondering if I would qualify for MM card. Those were such innocent days.

After ten minutes of questions and the doctor perusing my x-rays and medical records- I actually brought documentation- I was able to receive a doctor’s recommendation. I know I’m a broken record on this but I want to remind everyone, we don’t get a prescription for Marijuana here, we get a recommendation from a doctor. We take that recommendation to the General Hospital (that’s way I did for a state card, you can get a local card that’s cheaper and less leg-work through other means.)

Six weeks later, I had a state ID with my picture on it, saying I am a patient and get this dude some WEED, stat.

This is by far the best decision I’ve ever made concerning WEED.

Next: Ten Things that is great about going to a dispensary instead of going to a dealer.

Next after that: Ten Things I miss about going to a dealer.

Be nice to your Bud-Tender

Legalization is going to explode over California like 4^th of July fireworks-I just have no idea where the sparks are going to land...and if they’ll catch fire...

Get ready to get to know your Bud-Tenders...

San Jose Local 5 has opened its union umbrella to Oakland’s rising Marijuana Dispensary Workers and the cottage industry growing from the possibility of having WEED become legal this November. Dig this, imagine working at a Pot shop, getting paid for your time, then having all the usual health bennys, and then...then...having a pension plan. All from selling Trainwreck, edibles and working all day in the bestest job in the happiest place in the Universe for all those that walk through your doors. Legalization is going to produce thousands of jobs like that crazy office staff required for paperwork and the usual bullshit. Growers need drivers, balers and trimmers. And there will always be the need for someone tough to stand in the doorways checking ID’s and the like.

This endorsement is a big step up on the ladder of outrageous possibilities of where support and backing may come from in the rise to Legalization. It seems politically you can’t do anything without a union’s backing, so we got that. It is these moves that are transforming the dream of Legalization into the reality that is happening right before our eyes. Exciting times...

I sent an email to Bob Katzman, major domo of the last Cannabis and Hemp Expo here in Frissy back in April, asking him about his feelings of signing up people at the Expo on the spot for their Medical Marijuana Card. There was a total turn-key operation out there. You could get your recommendation and card on site. Bob said this is too important of a question to give a short answer to and because he was on the phone that exact minute firming up the details for the next Expo coming at the end of September of this year, he’d have to get back to me. I didn’t get my answer but you heard it here, what second, third? The Cannabis and Hemp Expo is returning to SF.

Again for complete transparency, I sell a product that I believe is going to help usher in the Legalization movement. I sell the California Grow Mug. It started out as a lark and a fun idea but has turned into a real business. I kind of expected to have product that would allow me to see the Marijuana industry from the inside while doing something I really believe in.

Plus, we made the news...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uH4NCWjYSw

Plus, California Grow Mugs will be at the World Famous Haight Street Fair June 13^th...Stop by and say HIGH!

Plus...Plus, I’m meeting a lot of nice people.

Like the guys who had the booth next to me at the Expo in April, they were starting a collective know as ‘Union 13.’ That’s right, they want to unionize and organize the Marijuana industry, just like the guys downtown in Union 5. It is a group of men and women, growers, old dealers, people who hold down straight jobs generally know the WEED business and wanted to bring order to a somewhat disorganized industry. I guess when you’re in an illegal industry it is hard to post meeting notes and upcoming schedules. These men and women seemed very dedicated and hopeful with the upcoming vote in November. I hope Local 5 doesn’t take any wind out of their sales, sails.

Los Angeles is stoopid. Just a thought.

With all this talk of Legalization, taxation, and libation, would it be funny if the real victor turns out to be a new thriving hemp industry that really turns this country around?

Cali voters! The office of Attorney is going to be huge for us tokers. That person is going to be responsible for bringing in a new era in spite of a Federal government that has other desires. Before you vote, do you know how your candidate stands or sits on the WEED issue? Better find out if you want to stop off at the Vinnie’s Hash Den on your way home to see your own favorite Bud Tender.

Not trying to give a shout out but I like True Liberty Bags. They are makers of a high quality turkey bag, and as we all know, turkey baster bags are use in transportation of Marijuana because it cloaks the o-dar so well. Well, I like this Sonoma-based company because while they stress these bags could be used for all kinds of turkey cooking stuff, they stress how much thicker their bags are and how much aroma they mask. You gotta love that.

On the PBS website there is an article about how illegal growers (are there any other kind?) are polluting America’s river and streams with their elicit backwoods operations. Diesel fuel from generators is leaching into our waters to the tune of over a thousand gallons a year. Not to mention the hard-wiring to the electrical grid in your average suburban grow-house, illegally and unpaid for, to the shocking number of 90 million kilowatts a year. More than seventy times the output of all the solar panels in America.

Yet there’s another reason to shine a light into an industry that has been too underground for so long.

And finally, James Fogle, the author of ‘Drugstore Cowboy,’ has been busted for...wait for it...breaking into drugstores. When the man of letters was arrested leaving a Redmond Washington pharmacy by the police, the seventy-three year old was strapped with a bb gun and wearing a hoodie for a mask. Once apprehended, the Man liked Mr. Fogle for various unsolved pharmacy break-ins throughout the Washington state area.

Legalization won’t solve everything, but legal access is a start.

By the way, the last two paragraphs have nothing to do with each other.

More Later.