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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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Thursday
Jan282010

I Took a Walk in the Changin’ Fields of America

          I guess there are some thirty to forty dispensaries in my fair City, ironically, none in the Haight Ashbury. I have to walk over ten blocks to legally score. There’s another one north of me on the way out of town going to the Golden Gate Bridge. It looks like it used to be a bakery or something, fittingly, now a place to get baked while grooving with plasma screens playing ‘Half-Baked’ over and over. It is not a bad place; you can toke up there (one of the few in the City where that is allowed), but I don’t care for the selection of herb, and the Weedtenders have a small attitude.   

       But I am heading east downtown towards the City looking for the perfect strain for the day. The first stop right outside the Panhandle is at a single trailer posing as a dispensary behind a rib joint. This low-fi set-up reminds me of a whorehouse I saw outside of Hairy Paw, Alaska when I was delivering the Thunderfuck to the pipeline workers. The no overhead business has about fifteen to twenty strains plus edibles. Not bad for a pinch, but I’m on a quest for the best. I think I can do better Mr. Haney’s Pot Shack. As I walk away looking back at the non-descript trailer, I think I’m seeing the future of the Pot Liquor store that is soon to be springing up as soon as legalization hits and the flood doors open to every get rich herb speculator. Oh yeah, the young woman behind the bullet-proof glass was hot and I couldn’t be sure if the deep plunging V-neck she was wearing was at the owner’s suggestion.

       Next I went to Lower Haight Street. There’s about five or six places that have licenses to sell Weed. Again they smack of the unrighteous. Businessmen trying to jump on the Weed-wagon and makes some quick bucks from buds. Most of the businesses are glorified head shops with a back cage like in a casino where the few strains are stacked behind them in jars or in a binder displaying the wares du jour.  A rule of thumb I have is if the proprietors of these establishments don’t look like they get high, I don’t buy from them. Right now it feels cheap and dirty to frequent shops that are just into it for the money. Naïve, maybe. An old time hippie, definitely yes.

       There’s a place in the Lower Haight that perplexes me. It was the first dispensary I went to. That first day I walked in there I think I knew what Hef must have felt like when he first glimpsed the Mansion and the thoughts of all that it would entail. I felt like I had entered the happiest place in the world. But the second-year dorm-like behavior of the guys behind the bar turned me off. I had been going there for many months when one day after buying a beautiful OZ of Blue Mountain Sweet and Sour Diesel Violet Kush, the South Park T-shirted counter boy went gaga over a chick buying a half eighth of some Bakersfield Brown. He completely passed me over to another guy while he hits on this young woman. Again this place is one of the few places you’re allowed to vaporize your stuff on the premises. I can tell besides for the dorm-like immaturity, they cater to the real infirm and have a great compassion policy. There are many dispensaries that know the reason they are there is to dispense the medicine.  As the profit motive becomes clearer to the greed heads that think they can get rich selling Weed, I am thankful for places like this that don’t forget their roots. With that being said, I still don’t like the place. I feel too old when I’m in there.

       Like Yogi Berra said, “When you come to the fork in the road, take it.”  At the bottom of Haight Street I can go right towards the Mission and check out the shops out there. Sorry, I haven’t been impressed with what I’ve seen there, but truthfully I haven’t really explored the area closely. The few I experienced didn’t do much for me.

Veering left I head towards downtown. The Tenderloin has a few shops but they have some silly rules that I don’t like. In many places you have to fill out a card and your name goes on file. This is good and bad for you. Good if you have lost your card and want to cry your way in, which can never happen. No card, no entry. The negative angle is you never know how good these stores keep their records. I can’t imagine them selling the information or giving your email address to someone, but I’d rather not leave my name with stores that I’m not so sure are going to be around next year.

      This brings to my really happy place. Geary Street. Again, I’ve only been to about twenty places in the City and four to six in Oakland. When I first got my card, I went on a treasure hunt around the Bay looking for the best weed, mostly, because I could. I’ve calmed down from those days. I really only frequent two stores now. Oh yeah, I failed to mention the whore-house looking trailer near my house is open at the bright hour of eight am, and truth be told, I’ve scurried over there for an eighth until the Big Boys open at noon. But I does love my Geary St. shops. The two places I go to are in direct opposition to each other. My favorite is on Geary proper. It has the most strains I’ve seen in one place in the City. They have a large selection of treats, tinctures, hashes, and righteous deals for their coop members. The people behind the counter are great and knowledgeable. Some places push what they have a lot of and you get the feeling the boss says,”We got to move this stuff today boys, she’s drying up.” But not this place, they have top shelf of everything. In fact, I can’t believe I’m even saying this. Some of their stuff is too strong. No lie. They have some Indy’s that put you down like it was nap time in nursery school. Big shout out to M. for running such a tight, professional ship.

Drawback, you’re downtown and sometimes there are street people arguing about eleven dollars worth of herb, but for the most part, if I had to pick one place I could only go to, this would be it.

        But now on the flipside, the street parallel to the north has the second best dispensary in the City, if you ask me. It reminds me of the Long Branch Saloon from Gunsmoke. Sure enough, Marshall Dylan is playing over the sound system as I enter. There’s a runway of a bar with old time brass stools with the big buckets that swivel attached for perspective patients to hunker up to while they go over the menu. They have a great selection, with a full edible bar and clones for purchase. It’s one stop for everything. When I first encountered the shop, I thought it was the opposite of the dorm shop in the Lower Haight. I found the people to be snooty like cousins from out East who you didn’t really know but have to be nice to and them to you. It seemed really formal. But somewhere along the line they hired Kiwis and Aussies that helped to lighten up the atmosphere. Now I like the place but not as much as the one on Geary Street.

     But who’s complaining really?  This is the greatest time in the world to be a pothead. It’s all happening. Pot will be legal this year in San Francisco.

     But I have a little secret to tell. I’ve stopped smoking pot the way I used to like in the old days. When you had to secure your stash two weeks ahead of time, just to be sure you had weed. Now that it can be delivered or it’s a ten minute walk from the house, the urgency is gone. Now, I go days without it. That might not be a big thing for the straights out there who quit in high school but for me, a forty year smoker, it’s a big thing. It almost makes me think legalization may change things in ways we never expected.

 

More Later...



Tuesday
Jan262010

Renewing My Card

         I’m collecting my old Medical Marijuana cards the way I saved the few license plates from memorable cars: My first ride that got Andy and me to high school on most days, the plate I saved from my home state, with its pretty logo and motto, as a reminder of where I’ve come from, and the state I’m in now. Sitting in the state of bliss at doctor’s office waiting to get my card renewed, I pretend to read Smokestack El Ropo as I peer over the top of my book. I’m surrounded by newbies, scared that they might be turned down, and old pros like me who know it’s just a matter of not saying the wrong thing. The doctor’s office phone hasn’t stopped ringing. Kyle or Dylan, (I’m making the names up but I’m sure it’s close) has up to five lines on hold with while I wait to for my name be called. When I came here apprehensively four years ago with a legitimate aching bad back and blinding migraines, it was with a sense of quiet and queasy path of going into the unknown. I had debated for two years about getting my card. I wasn’t even sure I would get it, even though I qualified. Then I had to ask myself, if I can get one, do I want it? Did I want the Man to know my whereabouts after many years of living under the wire? Even now there’s small talk around the coffee table displaying West Coast Cannabis, SF Weekly Pot supplement, ‘The Rolling Paper,’ and other south of market newspapers, that the DMV is going to refuse ‘potheads’ that are on a list, not issuing said stoners their privileged right to drive on these mean streets. My jaded, douse-water-on-unfounded-fear-based response to the rumor mill around me is, “That’s why Green Cross delivers.”

         I was very excited to see my Doctor. She has pounded me for my last three visits about quitting smoking cigarettes. In order to get a card, you have to provide your medical history and fill out a questionnaire, just like any other doc’s visit. I didn’t lie. I told her I’ve been a pack and a half smoker for thirty years, and loved it. Dr. Barth, who reminds me of Tom Petty’s older sister, only smaller and more ferocious, never backed down. Initially I was worried the smoking thing was going to cloud her judgment about giving me my MMC. That never happened. She always gave me her recommendation but with a strong talking to about quitting the Virginny tobacky. Today I can tell her I’m ten months smoke-free and feel I’ve turned the corner. When I saw her after waiting for twenty minutes, which I didn’t mind as a writer, I like to watch, I entered her office. She had another physician that she was breaking in to help with the over load. The good Doctor didn’t remember me exactly but she knew her cause when it comes to the really evil weed. After telling me how proud she was for me that I had stopped, reminding me that it’s never really over. The first time you feel you’ve beaten the addiction, that’s when you’re most susceptible. Then to prove her point, she said she’s going to do something she rarely does, bring a patient into her backroom. Not really sure where we were going, the new guy came too, Dr. Barth showed me a stack of cigarette packs that people have left after the good doctor’s talking to and they’ve given their word that they’re going to try their best to quit. The cynic in means believes they did it to better their chances with the doctor to get their MMC, but at the same time, she is brutal when it comes to the ciggy butts.

We had a nice talk while she filled out this year’s recommendation. As we spoke about this and that, how the business is growing and the like, she’s gone from two offices to six, there’s more people working in her office now, I had to ask, “Do you ever turn anyone down for a card?”

“Of course! Not everyone can handle the responsibility and some...some come in here drunk, surly, and maybe psychotic. I help many people who are down and in need of psychological assistance. Don’t forget I had a practice in Mendocino for years where I guided those who needed help to the proper services and treatments,” The doc says with a toothy grin just this south of Cheshire.  

I think I might have embarrassed myself with the last question. Trying not to dig a deeper hole, I ask for my recommendation and prescription and I’d be on my way.

“I don’t do that,” Dr. Barth says.

Oh, boy, I think. I did piss her off.

“I can’t write a prescription, only a recommendation.”

“Really,” I save relieved.   

“A doctor can only write a recommendation. Look on the form I give you for you to get a state card or into the clubs. It only says, ‘Recommendation.’”

“But I’m a patient. I need a ‘script for my medicine.”

“Because Marijuana is illegal except by a doctor’s order, we can only write recommendations, not prescriptions,” the good doctor informed me.

“Really?”

“Yes, really. That’s the way it is for now.”

I said good-bye to Dr. Barth and the new guy. Went back to the inner office where I was receiving my Therapeutic Cannabis Recommendation with that all important state seal. While Madison or Chloe processed my paperwork, I asked her if people were ever really turned downed for their card. I mean a guy hears stories about drag queens getting a card because of bad ankles from wearing size fourteen heels and someone suffering from ‘Terminal Euphoria.’ Mia or Natalie almost scolds me that yes, of course, not everyone who can walks through the door gets a card. Emma or Isabella let’s it slips that not only does the doctor try to get everyone who needs help in the right treatment plan or the best social service available, the doctor is able to arrange from her small perch South of Market for people who have less than a few dollars in their pockets. Much to my chagrin to make me feel stupider and dumber, she quietly lets me know the doctor has a sliding scale that she doesn’t advertise for patients who come to see her who need other services besides a dopey MMC.

I left in the rain not feeling the downpour but singing in the streets that I live in the greatest city in the world. Yes, there is hypocrisy, but it’s the kind I can live with and relish in.

And bottom line, I have my card.

 

More Later...

Thursday
Jan212010

The White-Washing of America

Why don’t we change our national symbol of the free flying American Bald Eagle to a set of broken down washer and dryers gathering dust in front of the White House. Not since the time when the Klan ruled the South has America been thoroughly white-washed by the not so silent majority. From the lack of respect of “You lie,” to “Obama the Magic Negro,” for some reason we’re ready to take off our white sheets and say, “It a damn fine time to be Caucasian again.”

The idea that whites are under attack and that there is a movement afoot that the America we knew is slipping away, is evident as it resonates with Tea-baggers and others who feel their right to say, “We want our country back!” But back from what?

I think, when it gets down to it, what they’re saying is, “Could we turn the clock back just a year.”

I have theory. Half of this country wants George W. Bush back. Y’know the guy you could have a beer with and talk knowledgeably about how fucked up this country and who the real problem. And of course, when talking about the real problem, being a Bush supporter, we know who the enemy is. Everyone who isn’t us.

See, we feel more comfortable with someone who looks like us at the wheel. We like someone who does the thinking for us. If you’re going to start talking about personal responsibility and accountability, you can count me out. Unless you’re giving me slogans that are hard to oppose in the fear of looking un-American, I’m sorry, I can’t relate.

I really believe there are those people who harkens back to the days of Enron, World-Com and Corporations Gone Wild. They were a much simpler time. We never knew we were getting ripped off until it was too late.

Take health care. As Americans walk away from mortgages.  When our neighborhoods are dotted with empty houses and dreams, land value is decreased because of the economy and the way one tragedy can cause a family to lose everything, we still don’t get it. Then you have the Power of No. Seriously, how is it possible politicians can stand before their constitutes and tell them that they don’t need the kind of health care that they currently have. And they hammer that home. Over and over telling the frustrated and angry with big smiles, “Trust me, you don’t want what I have. You’re better without it.”  And because the face in front of them is vaguely familiar, it makes sense. Plus, Fox News and others are agreeing. I’m mean, it’s on the news. They don’t lie. I’m saying, the news I watch doesn’t lie. All the others do.

I said many years ago when the Oklahoma Federal building was attack, nothing will happen if the perpetrator was white. And specifically, if he was a part of a militia. See, we does love our militias. Because, it’s us. It’s our neighbors. Militias are made up with plumbers, cops, carpenters, and their wives and children. We don’t attack our own. Sure, the culprit who did it was sentenced to death, but that’s where it stopped. We went no further. Not into our hinterlands and the deep, scary woods.

There’s speculation that more Americans have perished in Haitian earthquake than on 9/11. But the blow of 9/11 was so great for all of us, we couldn’t sit idle. For some, violence is the only answer. We need to a good shoot ‘em up to feel good. Sometimes it doesn’t matter where we bomb. Face the facts, bombs are not about people on the ground, it’s for us. That release you get when someone else pays for your frustrations. It’s like a punchline to topical joke, it just feels good.

We are in era where good citizens are lending their help and guns to protect our borders. It doesn’t matter when these very same patriots are found guilty of drugs, rape, gun-running and illegal killings. They’re us and we are them. We’re not going to throw the book at these good people. They’re just trying to help.

We’ve become a nation of bullshit artist. We preach one thing but close our bridges to other Americans during crisis. We’ll say were all in this together, until it comes time to be counted. We blame the poor for our housing troubles. “Too many bad loans to people who didn’t deserve it.” It is always someone else besides ourselves who is to blame.

I have friends who bought investment properties who had no felt they would be stupid if they didn’t. Everyone was doing it. And now they feel the burden. When it gets down to it, it always about money. So now we find ourselves hurting. So who’s to blame? That is the question.

We need someone to blame. That’s the American way. If it’s not comic books or Rock and Roll, it’s that damn MTV and those Marilyn Manson videos that’s the problem. It’s Hollywood and those liberal agenda movies like ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and now that crazy Avatar with its unchristian theme of helping people and the planet while not mentioning God’s help once.

We need to fear what we don’t understand. And in that fear, all bets are off when it comes to our behavior. Anyone can tell you, when you feel your back is against the wall, you go into survivor mode. We will flail and strike at anyone who is seen as the enemy. And when the dust settles and the toes are tagged, that is when we make our excuses.

The one excuse that resonates the most, “We’re just trying to save this country and bring it back to where it was.”

I’d say, bring back George Bush. Or if we don’t want to amend the Constitution, he’s got a couple of brothers. The same guys who ran the White House for W., can do the same for the other siblings. At least it would be a familiar face.



Tuesday
Jan192010

Listen to America's Doctor if you Don't Believe Me

“I’m cautious about medical marijuana because I know that some people will abuse it, but I hate to penalize suffering people just because of a few jerks. For me, it’s more about helping people than breaking laws, and it’s hard to say no to a man who’s dying of cancer if marijuana makes him feel better, stimulates his appetite, reduces his nausea from chemo, who am I to take it away from him? Or better stated: Why should we let a couple of jerks who abuse marijuana confuse us about our broader need to help people?”

Dr. Oz

Esquire Magazine

February 2010

 

 

Even though the President’s cool, doesn’t mean he can change the mind-set of the Establishment. The Fed still is afraid to look into what Weed can do for you. To get a study done now isn’t any easier than the last partying Pres was in office. Professor Lyle E. Craker, of the University of Massachusetts, has been trying for nine years, NINE YEARS, to get permission to grow a small stash for studying purposes. The Man says no.

Marijuana is the only major drug for which the federal government controls the only legal research supply and for which the government requires a special scientific review.

So while the neighbor Ritalin kids are trying to focus on one thing, like trying to grow up, instead of the ADD syndrome they’ve been diagnosed by the family doctor who takes vacations with his favorite drug company and while Zoloft does make watching Sesame Street more colorful, we can’t get permission to grow pot. Because... well... because of the wonderful things it does.

If you’re of a certain age, you know someone who hated Weed. Maybe it was the jock in high school who beat you up for your long hair and your Spicoli-ways. Maybe it was the neighbor guy who sat on his steps drinking cheap beer wondering why the hippies were bringing down this great country with their smelly Marihoony. They hated it. That is until they or someone they know got cancer. Then people who I never thought would ever come out for Weed, nod in deflated recognition how it’s help them or someone they love. Once it hits home.

For some of us, it started about getting high in high school and later became about compassion. I know people who have been literally saved by Weed. Studies have shown convincingly that marijuana relieves nausea from Chemo, helps with the aching and numbness that H.I.V. and AIDS patients suffer from.

The most a person in American can get from the government is Marinol. These tiny little pills that I think comes from watered down THC is the only gig going. For many people, Marinol doesn’t do the trick. Smoking weed is more satisfying to patients than the Marinol. The results are better and more long lasting. But that doesn’t dissuade the Feds.

  Now the University of Mississippi has the nation’s only federally approved marijuana plantation. If you want to study weed, buddy up to them. But don’t hold your toke waiting. You’re going have to jump through some fiery hoops to make that happen. Because...they don’t want it to happen. They’re afraid of the abuses of Weed, not the benefits.

New Jersey passed Medical Marijuana last week, but for only cancer, AIDS, glaucoma and multiple sclerosis patients. So far it’s the strictest in the country. There will be few dispensaries. It’s going to be very tight for Vinnie and Frankie to get the access they need for their back pain, migraines and even bong arm. “Hey, Doc, I gotta pain right here. I’m gonna need a script for killer bud before I leave here. That is...if it’s okay with you...and if you still want your garbage picked-up.” I kid the state that’s going Republican and broke.

We’re going forward but still into the darkness until we realize what we don’t have to be afraid of. We know it helps people. We know people get the munchies after a nice Sativa. We know people who would waste away without magic brownies and the knowledge that there is a way out. But we don’t get it. We don’t understand it. Everyone says that once we learn how to tax it, the laws will change. I say, don’t let a few jerks in government bully a nation that could use the relief.

 

Peace Out.



Friday
Jan152010

Just Be Patient, Patients

Well kids, we have good news and bad news. The bad news is Assembly Bill 390 didn’t get out of committee to meet the January 15th deadline. Because of the nature of the bill, a two year bill. For it to have happen, it needed to get out of the committee today, and it didn’t. The good news, no Marijuana bill has got this far before. Never has a dialog been started with so many straights and your crest-test politicians in Sacmo. We owe so much to Assembly Man Tommy A. A great way to show support is with dollars. Let Tom know what a good job with a donation to his campaign. Mr. Ammiano needs our support as he leads the way to what only makes sense, the legalization of Weed.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1810089/bill_to_legalize_marijuana_is_up_in_smoke/index.html?source=r_health

Go Tommy A

    Another hero of the week is Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee. He was the only politician to attend the Marijuana Policy Project big hoop-de-do in D.C.  last Wednesday. Rep. Steve and Cheech and Chong, Larry Hagman (Who shoots up with J.R.?) and others for a $250 plate dinner for pro-legalization. Cheech and Chong received a trailblazer award. A good time was had by all. But my people are telling there was some hanky-panky going on behind the scenes, and not the good kind. There could be a scandal. More later...

          Just because you get high doesn’t stop anyone from being responsible for their own behavior.

          There isn’t a day that I don’t walk through my City without inhaling the sweet smell of blue smoke from businesses, flats, the parks, and sometimes, parked cars in front of cop shops.

          We are so close to the World knowing what we’ve all known for so long. Weed is fun. Weed is good. Now we just have to follow our president’s example. Be an Adult.

          Slick Willie had to brag to those around him how he evaded the question, did he ever smoke weed? “ Ah did, Ah just didn’t inhale. See how Ah got around it. I never did answer the question. Slick, huh?” But Obama said, “I inhaled. Isn’t that point.” ‘Nuff said.

 

          A study came out today in Sweden that states smoking Marijuana is unlikely to increase a person’s risk of killing themselves. The Swedes spent thirty years investigating deaths and their causes. You could have asked me and I would have saved them the trouble. The average head would rather fall asleep to “Grandma’s Boy” bummed out, than suck a gun. There always better bud around the corner.

          Many people want to know what it’s like to be able to go into a dispensary and have forty strains of weed available to you. It’s a lot like going to the Supermarket hungry. You go in for a loaf of bread, and end up buying ice cream sandwiches, tangerines, Mint Milano’s, and whatever else is shiny at the checkout line. My only warning, don’t go into the dispensary sober.

 

Peace Out