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 Jack Rikess, a former stand-up comedian, takes the edge off of the world and explains all those unexplained things in a way that will make you either laugh or cry.

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Wednesday
Mar032010

Your Kid on Drugs

I was on the phone the other day to Daddio Robbo talking about the rash of elementary school bake-outs popping up more and more here every day in the Bay Area. In the last two weeks, some misguided grade-schooled Timothy Leary wanna-bes, have brought either magic brownies to school or as Robbo pointed, the other day a kid brought Fruity Pebbles laced with some weed-like substance. I laughed about all the kids in the nurse’s office starring at their hands or having some Harry Potter freak out scene with wands and witches dancing while a concern teacher is probing, “Dylan, Dylan, can you tell us what you ingested?”. Yeah as I said, I laughed about this, Robbo didn’t.

Robbo has kids and I don’t.

I don’t know what it is about getting older but it’s like your friend’s kids never age. Point in fact...

Both of us started telling war stories of growing up and hiding our usage and Weed from our parents. My experience was a little different in that my parents allowed me to smoke Weed at home. From the time I was in high school until I moved out, I smoked Weed at my parent’s house. We had the original “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. They didn’t ask and I didn’t tell them what that funny smell was all about. When I absently left a baggie in my dirty jeans before me mom would wash the Levis, she’d save my stash instead of soaking it as a lesson. Uh-uh, I’d come home and fine a perfectly rolled up sandwich bag on my pillow like a gift from tokin’ Tooth Fairy.

Robbo related a similar story about his wife finding a bag of Weed belonging to their son while doing the wash.

I said, “What did you do?”

Robbo replied, “Dude, he’s in college. He was home for the weekend from Stanford. I did what any responsible father would do. I took a pinch to see what the quality of his Weed is like, and told him I’ll give this back to you after your Mother and I talk about what we should do about this.”

“What did he say to that?”

“I don’t think there was enough for him to worry about. Besides, I don’t think he smokes the way we did growing up. Plus he’s in college. As soon as he gets back to his place I’m sure his roommate has a stash or in the South Bay, I think you can get a little something to tide you over from the Guidance Counselor.”

“It sure is different from when we were kids,” I remarked shaking my head on my side of the phone. “What about your other son? Does he smoke?”

“He’s in the 10th grade...”

“Okay,” I asked again. “Does he inhale?”

Robbo thought for a second. “He doesn’t show any signs of getting high and the wife has never found a pipe or baggie like what has happen with the older one.”

“Have you ever had a drug talk with your kids?” I inquired.

“Not really, a little in conversations but not like the Birds and Bees-After-School Special kind of moment.”

“Would you tell your kids that you smoke?”

“No,” Robbo said without hesitation.

I really thought that was weird. Why lie? Why not tell the kids the truth and let them decide. Give them the power to decide and choose. The thoughts of kid power were snow-balling in my head. I was deducing and contriving every possible scenario of how life could be better if we were more honest with our kids. I was starting to think Daddio Robbo was just like the parents I grew up with. Punishing the kids for the same behavior they do behind closed doors. Just another hypocrite.

“For me this has always been the thing for me in terms of my kids and my drug usage,” Robbo cleared his throat like Robert Young getting ready to tell Kitten her connect called and she’s not getting any Brown tonight. “See Man...Drugs are illegal. Booze is not. And it’s that simple. However honest I want to be with my kids, I’m not just talking to them, but to their friends too.”

“Huh?”

“Okay. If I bring out bottle after bottle of wine with dinner, the kids think nothing of it and we talk about the weather, the Giants, whatever...But say I pull out the bong and hit on that bad boy while discussing Jerry Brown’s run for governor, you never know what could happen. One of my younger boy’s friend’s parents could call and ask if I really did smoke Marijuana in front of my child. Then rumors start and pretty soon my son is Carlos Medellin dealing pills to football players or other such garbage. As long as Weed is illegal, it’s a whole different ballgame.”

 I felt silly for doubting Robbo or thinking ill of him. I’m not a parent and sometimes it’s hard to remember that my free way of thinking has some major ramifications.

I thanked Robbo for the enlightenment and we hung up.

 

It’s all Changing...

It’s all Happening...

 

The Weed is stronger these days. You always heard stories of some bad boy spiking the punch at the school dance with vodka and then later LSD. Kids have always brought the outside to inside, to show off, to be cool. When I was in school, guys had huge bongs in the cars. Four foot high bongs! This Godzilla-like smoke machine shouldn’t have left the rumpus room. As much as things stay the same, we’re always evolving and growing. At least I hope so. But the Weed is stronger. We had magic brownies. Kids today have Kush crème brulee with a perfect Afgani Hash hard-shell frosting. It’s the same but in a nice, stronger package.

I have no idea what I would say to kids these days about Weed. Where do you start? Not to make the same mistakes you made? To enjoy your time and don’t feel guilty. Don’t get high if you really don’t want to?

I think this is what I would say...

There’s this thing called Marijuana. It is a weed that can be grown almost anywhere in the world. It was legal until 1937 of the last century. Here’s the deal kid...

Life is good but it isn’t fair. TV, books, and movies can take you to another place. The Grand Canyon is one of the most awesome, beautiful places in the world. All the above can be made to seem better when you smoke Marijuana. Marijuana gives you a false sense of euphoria, happiness. Even with sadness, you might break out into laughter. As real as the joint or pipe is in your hands, that feeling isn’t. That feeling of being high is going to last as long as the drug itself last inside of you. The problem is keeping that feeling going. What happens when you need to get high? Will you be honest with yourself and being able to stop if you don’t want to? Or will you be an addict and search out for something that you can’t find sober inside of yourself? See the really problem with Weed. It’s really good. It makes you feel really good. If Life is rough, it mellows it out. The secret is, knowing when you really want it and when you don’t. And the worst thing is when you’re really in pain. When Life is collapsing around you. There’s violence and outrageous behavior being flung at you and near you. You want to escape.

See the really problem with drugs is they make you feel good. They change your mood.

I think my problem growing up was I didn’t trust the moods of anyone around me to want bad enough what they had. My parents, my teachers, Society, all said that drugs were bad. But when I tried them they were good. Of course, everything in the beginning is usually okay for you. It’s only when it becomes excessive. By the time my drug use became excessive, there was no one I trusted to tell me there was another way. And most of my friends thought the same way. Drugs made us a band of merry men and women. It separated us from those who were uncool and harsh. When someone says something is bad for you but all the data says different, especially when it helps you to get laid, there is a language and behavior barrier that is hard to transgress. As a kid the only person I would believe is someone who was coming from a place close to mine.

And now we enter the World of Pot 2.0. Weed going to be legal soon and we’re going to have a new dialogue to start and learn from. Do I need to remind you? The Weed is a lot stronger these days...

More Later...    

 

 



Tuesday
Mar022010

No One's Getting Any Younger

My head is going to explode...I feel like I'm in that scene from “Sound of Music” when the Big Sistah Nun (representing The City) caunt decide what to do with Maria (The Haight), and her lost kidz in Vans-trapped sneakers walking Haight St. being sure to wear Edelweiss in their hair. The City shakes his/her head not sure what the right thing to do with it's spirited child. But the fix is coming down...

Yesterday, supposedly the Sit/Lie ordinance was presented to the Board of Supervisors, the people who do the thinking for The City. Now the Mayor is involved, the new Police Chief is gassed up; they’re all ready to roll down Haight Street rounding up every dirty desperado they see fit.

Now here’s the part I caunt believe. The law/ordinance that would make it illegal for street people to sit or lie near commercial property between the hours of 7a.m. to 11 p.m., also states that if said vagabond is sitting on a suitcase, then it is okay. Please check that out to see if that could possibly be real. Maybe in the new depression people will be living out of their Samsonite’s instead of their cars...

Good News...

 The 33rd Haight Street Fair is June 13th. The best street fair in America is running its annual Poster Contest. First prize is 500 bucks plus a hondo gift certificate from the good people at Mendel’s. By far the fair is a Sunday not to be missed. Don’t worry by June, all the crazies will be gone...No lie. No sit.

It seems drug use is up with teens and seniors, and I’m not talking high school seniors. Apparently, along with the teenage kids using everything that they can get their greedy little hands on from Ecstasy to Weed, Baby Boomers are still turning on to Weed, even in their sixties and seventies. Everyday there’s a new toker. In California they figure out of the 22 million pounds grown here PER YEAR, we keep about a couple of million for ourselves for personal use. And they say Stoners can’t count that high...It is never going to slow down. Two million pounds smoked in just California. I have a friend who works at a dispensary. He says in the back rooms there are two kinds of trash bags stacking up like Rapunzel’s golden locks. One full of Weed , the other full of Cash. These are heady times...

Still, the big money will be in stores that sell growing and lights equipment. These babies are going to be as huge and popular as racquetball courts were in the Seventies and video stores were in the Eighties. Soon we’ll all be farmers...

If you are reading this...And you two know who you are...please tell one person so that person can forget and not tell someone else...Well you know what I mean...

Big shout out to the Dragon’s Breath. At first I wasn’t impressed by this Green Cross Cannabis Cup winning strain, but the most recent delivery was sick. Very nice...

Speaking of old people...

My friend Mel lives next door and I help him with his garden from time to time. Just the basics, checking water levels and making sure all the nutrients are correct. Mel is 75. His arthritis precludes him from reattaching tubes that fall off and doing the down and dirty that one sometimes has to do in the tubs. I help out when he needs me. Melvin’s been dealing for some fifty years. Sometimes he lets his garden go to the seed. Mel knows the grandfathers of the dread-wearing growers in Mendo, not to mention all the old freaks that have come and gone in the Haight. He’s more connected than Jay-Z. Couple of years ago in the middle of the night I took Mel to the hospital because he couldn’t breathe. The years of Haight-loving living caught up with him. He can’t even vape these days. The most my buddy Melvin can do is the edibles. When I say edibles, I mean Mel eats his weed. Sure he has the odd cookie or weed-made product, but mostly Mel takes a bud and makes it go bye-bye. And he still deals...

One of my gigs is to be a taster for Mel. When he gets a new product in that he is unsure of, he’ll give me a call the night before so I don’t wake and bake and that I am sharp for a day of discernable testing.

We have a game that the old guy and I have played together for years. He says, “Do you know what a guinea pig sounds like?”

And I say, “Hi Mel.”

I gots to go. I’ve been double-giging while I wrote this column. Mel’s waiting for my report...

More Later...  

 

 

 

 

 



Saturday
Feb272010

My Haight Street

I knew I was in for something different when the first homeless person who spoke at the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council meeting I attended a couple of weeks ago said, “I’m sorry if you are having a hard time hearing me, I just had my tongue reattached.”  Not only catching my attention, she then had the floor but some next to me started to rearrange themselves busily in the small folding chair digging in for what could be a long night. That’s when the Moderator suggested we put our chairs in a circle opposed to the way it was, theater-style seating with mostly homeless on one side of the room, and merchants and those of us that had front doors to enter and roofs above our heads, on the other side.

After making the circle, the Moderator had a spokesperson for HANC read the manifesto that HANC wanted to submit to the police concerning how the police could be more effective in its policing of the Haight, and some ideas HANC had for the concerning Earthquake preparedness. I am paraphrasing and being brief. Also I am not being fair to the gentleman and the committee that went through a lot of hard work to draw out and produce the manifesto as a stepping stone to better relations with the cops and what to do with the Haight and the problems that are intrinsic that area. That kind of didn’t happen.  

The Moderator and the HANC members had an agenda  for the evening but the topic on everyone’s mind was the media’s coverage of the Haight and in particular, a Chronicle columnist who’s articles have set off this movement to introduce the ordinance, Sit/Lie, that will allow the police to arrest people (homeless??? People who look like their homeless???).

Soon the meeting turned into a small shouting match and the Moderator wisely addressed the concerns of people who were there, like me, because of the rising situation of perceived unrest in the Haight.

At issue is the notion that the Haight is full of thugs now. The once mellow street people are turning violent and aggressive. The question in the room that night was what to do? What can we do as citizens and concern individuals? Plus the five to ten homeless people where there to keep us honest in terms of what could we do in reality. More about reality later...

Since that night...

In yesterday’s Examiner on the cover page in big headlines, ‘Keeping an eye on the Haight.’ The story starts on page four. In some three to four hundred words, the staff writer informs us about the Haight Ashbury Improvement Association, “the driving force behind the Sit/Lie ordinance,” attempt to reach out the Haight’s merchants for the purchasing of cameras to be put up to help with the prevention of crime. The article went on citing merchant’s troubles and how a camera actually has worked once this year catching a killing in the Sunset district. All on film.

A homeless kid was asked what he thought of cameras in the Haight. He said they should be placed downtown, in the Tenderloin where all the trouble is.

Now today, this very day, that Chronicle columnist has written another article about the Haight. This one depicts our Mayor’s walk with his 5 ½ month-old daughter down Haight Street. In the article, our hip, heads-up Mayor is sure he sees a guy smoking crack on Haight Street. “As God is my Witness,” he said.

In my thirty years of living around Haight Street, I’ve never seen anyone smoke crack on the street, during daylight. I’ve seen pipes with reefer, joints and blunts, but never a crack pipe or a glass pipe being lit in the general vicinity of the street.

Now supposedly the Mayor, who it is my understanding, is a member of our little community now that he lives on Upper Terrace, is on board for the Sit/Lie ordinance because of his tour of the Haight.

What a bunch of bullshit.

Back to the HANC meeting...

With a police officer present, many ideas of what to do with the so-called problems in the Haight were discussed. The idea of Police foot patrols was being pushed heavy, as it is everywhere in the City when crime raises its ugly little head in our neighborhoods. The officer present brought up to points concerning foot patrols. Number One: The Police budget, they are cutting programs as we speak. They too...are under the gun to police effectively and cheaply. For example, with a foot patrol of two cops in the Haight, the officer explained that if that was to happen, like on this very night of the meeting. He would have two on patrol in the Haight, one in the station and as it happened that night, there was a beating of an elderly man by his care-giver. Two police people were checking out that assault. That meant if there was trouble somewhere else in the Haight or the area that Park Station is responsible for, with the work force he had that night, he had no one left to do anything else. Plus with foot patrols, it takes time to get to their cars when they have to roll out for action. So if you want foot patrols, give the cops more money. Seriously.

Now here is the Big Problem. If there was a Sit/Lie ordinance in place, who do you arrest? For you the outsider, probably all homeless looks alike to you. For us, Haightites, we know some by name, by location and by smell. We’re not immune to life’s fragrances while we live and work among our shelterless neighbors. We’ve seen some street people’s hair get grayer and whiter just like the rest of us. There are some of us who have adopted certain people, feeding them and giving them a few dollars when we can.

And then there are the kids off the bus with dogs and guitars who think they’re going to bump into Jerry somehow. There are the mental aluminum hat-wearing low talkers who push their ancient grocery carts up and down the Panhandle until they disappear into the darkness at the end of the day. I met a couple in their forties once near Hippie Hill chillin’ on stained quilt, wondering where to stay that night. They had been only recently homeless after her having cancer, him losing his job and their savings drying up faster than you can say, “Cameras can solve this problem.”

See, when you start arresting people for sitting down in public places, you just can’t pick and choose who’s to be taken away. We in the know can’t sneak up behind some stranger we don’t like and point like a third-grader that officer this one is fresh for the paddy wagon. No, you have to round them all up.

A hippie chick at the meeting who had a apartment on the street inquired if licenses could be given out to those who play guitar or make music on the street corners to allow them to perform. She said if we rounded up all those types of people, the Haight might lose its flavor. I don’t think she said flavor, my words.

But there were more points like that. How can we police the Haight and still be the Haight?

Here’s the problem the way I see it. Around Christmas, there were these punks getting very aggressive on the street. When they asked you for spare change and if you didn’t give it to them, these punks actually tried to shake you down. I heard tell that if you said you were going to call the police, the word was these punks would hunt you down and hurt you. I never see any evidence of the hunting down part. I did see the punk’s aggressiveness. But all that action died down after New Year’s.

Also, the Merchants of Haight Street had the worse Christmas ever. Because of the stoopid Chronicle’s articles and the like, locals stayed away and sales were down fifty percent along the street and for the headshops, it was worse because of that Wal-mart-like Goodfellows. This has stepped up the motions to clean up the street.

It has a lot to do with money and always will. From a poor holiday season where merchants typically make their nut for the year to an underfunded police department, money is the answer for a lot of the reasons things are the way they are.

The Haight has an ebb and flow. Some years ago there was a fear of skinheads taking over the Haight. Before that speed and heroin was going to bring down the Victorians. In the thirty years I‘ve lived around Haight Street, I’ve seen banks come and go. Great clubs where famous people played before they were famous are now gone. Things change and then something else happens.

At the end of the meeting in the Haight that night, one quiet guy who looked like he was wrestling with some inner demon on whether to speak or not, reluctantly raised his hand to talk. When called upon he stated that he didn’t know if this was important to say or if it was relevant to the meeting. Sheepishly he said, “The one thing that really gets to me is that the Chronicle columnist that has stirred up so much of this debate and has alerted the rest of the City to how unsafe the Haight is, lives in Walnut Creek. He lives in the middle of Republican territory.”This really stirred the audience up. There were shouts that the guy never actually came to the Haight but maybe once. I already wrote about a bunch of street kids that said they filled the columnist with a bunch of bullshit just to eff with him.

The meeting then reached a point of critical mass. We agree to publish the HANC manifesto and give that to the police to let them know we are on their side and this is our ideas on how to help. We agreed that foot patrols are the way to go. We couldn’t decide which street kids to arrest. We agreed one thing that could be done today, is to go after the kids drinking the 40’s in the Park and the Panhandle. A lot more was said at the meeting that I am leaving out. The homeless that attended made many a good points about what they needed and how the Street could treat them better if we wanted to. And then the two hours was up and the meeting was over.

It was weird leaving that night in the pouring rain after the meeting. To know that some seven or so people wouldn’t have shelter that night was sad. To walk away without looking back felt a little self-loathing with major guilt pangs. To know that there is only so much one can do is so limiting.

It breaks my heart that some people will get wet that night as they try to sleep and some us will throw back some covers because we’re too warm.

My solution later...

 

 

 



Wednesday
Feb242010

I Want A Gun

       Two things; I don’t do research other than read and watch TV and I don’t have clue how anyone else thinks or acts. I don’t know if I am falling out of touch because I don’t leave my apartment or because I’m getting older and unhip. This is the shit speeding down my mental avenues that I’m trying to sort out...

     I have this fantasy that there is a show called, “American Gun.” In this reality show, contestants would be dropped in a city other than their own and the contest would be to see who could procure a gun the quickest. Any kind of gun as long as it has major stopping power and can kill on command. The fastest time wins. As of last Monday, guns are now allowed in National Parks and in stow-away luggage on Amtrak. That means in can keep your Glock in the luggage rack above you in your Columbine Kids lunchbox. Virginia, leader so far in students killed in one setting in the shortest amount of time, allows guns in bars and restaurants. In Arizona where being not white is still a crime and you need to show a birth certificate to prove that you had human parents, one can carry a concealed weapon without a permit, anywhere. Drink up and don’t piss off that guy next to you with your stoopid Idol talk and sure I’d like to see four more years of a black president. Good luck making it to the car...

      There is a fear in America that someone’s going to take our guns away. It will never happen. There are only two differences between America’s two political parties, guns and abortion. That’s it. That’s the only two issues they disagree on. I don’t want to get into the abortion argument because that is complete bullshit, for this reason and this reason only.

      It has been my experience around the conservative and the very uptight, straight-laced segment of our population, that I’ve learned one hard fact; Wealthy Republicans of this great land tend to produce oppressive, controlling, dominating, commanding, disciplinarian for a parent. For every Mommy and Daddy who say, “Just this one time, don’t embarrass the family.”  There is a flaming gay son or a wild hellion of a  daughter who does love her dark meat. Sorry for the crude language, but there it is. And when said daughter gets the baby bump from H. Rap Negro, off goes Tiffany to Switzerland or to Jersey or Stockton, for that matter to see that special doctor that all of Park Avenue or Marin County knows of and loves and uses. It all Shite...

     As far as guns go...Right now, the Mexican Mafia and other gangs of organized crime are staking out plantations for growing Weed in our National Parks. It is going to get very violent in these coming years. Luckily now your average doofus who has no idea of what it takes to be in a firefight can carry a high-powered, repeating killing machine when taking in the Sequoias and other forms of natural beauty in our government woods. Remember to stay on the trails children.

    Who’ll take this bet...I bet there will be a shooting at...Hmmmm, I want to make this good...I bet there will be a shooting at junior college...no, a Vo-tech in the next week. Any takers? Do we really live in a world where you don’t bet against violence but for the tragic that might may happen? I’m just saying this should change. In complete transparent hypocrisy, I’m thinking of buying a gun illegally. More about that later...

     If you ask me, I think Dick Cheney dying of a broken heart. He is away from the things he loves. “More Wars! More Water for that Board!...Arghhh...Another thing that goes boom for the Real President...More dollars for my cronies. More ice and child’s blood for my cup...I’m alive I tell you...I’m alive!” I think the farther Dick is away from the oil and ill-gotten dollars that pumps from his life’s investments, the more he hurts.

Speaking of Addiction...

      I find this hysterical. Brit Hume is still asking Tiger to convert to Christianity. Why would Tiger go to the team of repression and ‘We’re against everything.’ (Except I would like to state again that I think Dana Perino would be just a little minky that wouldn’t stop until you put her collar back on, or off, as the case may be.)

     It is a fact that your Red States, not the Blue States which almost implies not getting any trim, pays for more Porn, Prosistutes and sex related Internet sites than your more liberal voting sky-colored states. Not to equate Christians to not getting any, there are many a priest and spiritual leader who are getting some major tang, but your average Republican is more likely to be addicted to porn. Hey, I just report what I hear from Fox News and MSNBC.

    I was in Show Business for six months back in ’58. During that period I learn the difference between working in the civilian life and being in the Limelight. In civilian life you rarely ever get the chance to say no to things like, “Hey would you like to do some drugs with us?” Or, “Could I watch you do my wife?” That hardly ever happened to me while I was working the Slurpee machine. When you’re famous, people like to share the light. It’s cool to shake the hand that shook the hand of that person who’s cooler than you. It’s much harder to say no than yes...

D’uh.

     Gary Busey, the poster child for Cracked Melons, is a father again. Weren’t we just getting used to his creepy look-alike offspring popping up here and there in some movies? Do we need another train-wreck of Hollywood progeny forty years in the future? What’s the deal with old guys having kids? They’re the vanity plates of our driven generation to always seem to be young. Vanity Babies...You heard it here first...It will be interesting to see if hip and progressive New York state or conservative Kansas will be the fifteenth state to adopt MM. The race is on...If Shaun White ever wanted to make some real big endorsement money, whatever stuff he’s taking so he doesn’t test positive, corporate American Tokers would love that shit by the gallons to beat their own denigrating drug tests.

       And to the Duo of Greatness, thanks for the constant readership. Your loyalty makes my other friends look unfaithful.

      Remember May 1st is Global Marijuana Day. I’m not sure what is happening but here’s a guess...People are going to meet somewhere and get high. More details as they develop...   



Monday
Feb222010

Q. Where Do Agoraphobics Go For Vacation? A. The Living Room

        To fifty percent of my readership who inquired where I, I who barely leaves my apartment for weeks at a time, go for vacation? To half of The Duo of Greatness I respond, just because I didn’t write and I was on vacation, doesn’t mean I actually collected Frequent Walker Miles...But what I did was this...

        I walked over to Dennis Peron’s house, for a reception celebrating his work for Medical Marijuana. (From this point on, I will be referring to Medical Marijuana as MM.) This is the third time I’ve been to the Peron Manse. It is both part Escher and part Carroll. You can descend and get high at the same time or go up and get low in one of the many landings and salons laid out in his massive backyard. And I believe there are talking kittys.

      The first good news was I was one of the younger people there. That hardly ever happens these days at the Weed functions I’ve attended throughout NorCal. In the hundred or so people I spied here, Old hippies from Mendo, Earth mommas and their old men passing joints or pipes hardly without words but knowing nods, a few stray young couples picking up the torch of the movement and lighting their outlandish glass pipes full of Blue Cheese, Blue Dream, and an aggressive case of White Widow. I mumble silently to myself like I do at any function I’ve either gone out of my way to attend where a certain sub-culture can be found or for some other reason like the time I walked to purely Bay Area esoteric conclave like the Alan Lomax Clogging and Marxist Memorial Rave. An all-nighter fueled by lovelies in Groucho Marx masks and scuffed-up tap-laden Doc Martins dropping ecstasy and slamming down Sunny Delight and Vodka. When I find myself in these venues surrounded by folks who for some reason just like myself made an effort, went out of their way to get off the couch and attend this place while other didn’t. In these moments all I can say is, “These are my people.”

    At Dennis’, the talk was mostly about the upcoming legalization and the changes that will bring. It’s amazing to think that this is the guy, along with other patriots, almost singularly started the MM movement. His house is museum of memorabilia praising his efforts from twenty year old articles depicting Dennis’ fights and struggles to champion letters from legislatures and congress people. Newspaper clippings and Internet pages reprints line the way up the stairs to the kitchen.

     On every level of this fantastic abode...castle??? There are conversations going on telling stories about Dennis from the old days, his crusades and of course, the passing of his lover. Somehow it all gets back to Dennis being a survivor and a pioneer in Weed World. The vibe is unbelievably peaceful. They ask for ten bucks at the door but if you don’t have it, I saw many who were allowed in no questions asked. Munchies on the table consisted of sandwiches and potato chips. A lot of potato chips.

     It’s funny going to these shin-digs for Weed. I wonder if I’m looking at myself. Stoners stumbling by with sandbags of flesh underneath their eyes trying not to draw attention to themselves as they reach for a chocolate covered cherry. Others stare at you when you go by, too numb to get a full sentence out but still there with a warm smile. It is refreshing to be with so many people who like nothing better to do than get high. I wish there was ever a place like this where people could go, get a joint or a bong-hit on their way out for the evening or simply to hang out and hear some music while they cough and laugh. A place I could go to chill on the way home before you face the kids and the missus. If there was a place where people knew my name...But I digress from the action in front of me.

      Being this is San Francisco, the conversations ran the gamut from, ‘Are we ready for legalization’ to a guy who kept rolling Lion of Judah papered spliffs who the most he could repeat from time to time was a hearty laughing, “Yeah right,” or the more explosive, “Holy Bananas.”

     A camera crew recorded the proceedings for something but I couldn’t tell for what. Now that the Bay Area has its first Marijuany TV show, ‘Cannabis Planet,’ you never know.

     I didn’t know many people were there, but once conversations were started and links and associations were made, especially if you’re an old timer like me and have been around the City as long as I have, even if I don’t go outside that much, one finds out that we have and so and so in-common as friends. People were really friendly and accepting of most everyone.

    There was a VIP room...shack that smoke billowed out of...I wasn’t allowed. Besides for that it was mostly Peace and Love on every floor.

    The topic that I heard most frequently was the debate that I’ve stated here many times; people my age and the generation right younger than me fear  that the Man is going to take over the Weed industry as we know it. That soon after legalization, the Evil Seed Diggers will come from Monsanto and take their patented seeds away from you. The guys in the black helicopters and black John Deere tractors will come over and rip out your garden and plants in the name of Big Business.

    That when Weed becomes legal, it will be lifted out of the tender hands of the Freaks and be given over to the Southern Republicans to capitalize and profit from at their will.

    This is the greatest fear I hear from everyone wearing a wool cap with the big green leaf on it.

    I wanted to talk to Dennis Peron about this and I had a gift for him. Much to my chagrin, Dennis wasn’t at his own party. He was working down south in LATown. Helping the unfortunates in Tinseltown get their act together. Maybe next time...

   I personally think the fear is greatly simplified but it does have substance. Everyone who is against Weed will do an about face when the numbers are really crunched on the secondary markets like rope, clothes, paper, medicine, sails, and all that old world shit that was once in place before the year 1937 reared its ugly head up.  

   There will be a new war on drugs in the future. This war will be about cutting up a potentially enormous profitable green pie of an empire that has been already been successfully mined by munchy driven hippies who for the past five decades have been shaping a successful  business plans that works, if you don’t count the police.

    I said it before, for every bottle of cheap wine of Weed to come out of the Big Business of Weed, there will be a boutique brand to be bought, if you have the cash. The worry will not be about the Man. It will be about us and how we handle ourselves in this new era.

More Later...