Republican Fool’s Day

Republicans aren’t stupid, they just don’t care. They don’t have to. Poll yesterday showed more and more Americans believe that our president wasn’t born here and that he is possibly a Muslim. The numbers are going up. Why you ask would otherwise sane people believe that our president really isn’t ‘Merican, even when Bill O’Reilly states he was born here and the “Birther” talk is nonsense? Because it works.

The smart money is still is betting on Obama for 2012. But the crazy money bett’n on Kenya, and I as pointed out above, being a believer of Birtherism right now is like hitting a fixed Vegas slot-machine.

As we saw this week when Donald Trump threw his rug into the ring on ‘Meet the Press’ ‘The View’, he opened with how unsure he was about Obama being born here and in the same breath literally mentioned that he wasn’t even sure that he was a Christian. This one-two punch is the modern form of filing fee for entry into contemporary politics.

Does Donald Trump really think he can be president? Hell, no. But The Donald can smell a revenue stream like an old man with a divining rod. “There’s money to be made in them ignorant hills.” So as soon as Mr. Trump is done firing a gaggle of B-listers, he says he’s ready to straighten his hair and take on the challenges of running one of the largest economies in the world. Then we get to watch a rich guy get richer.

Take a look at Mike “Aw Shucks Huck” Huckabee. Preacher/ bass player/talk show host. Before the Huckster entered politics he was a regular guy with some folksy down home wisdom that for a couple of seconds, even played on the Democratic side. He seemed to occupy some of that middle-ground that the late John McCain used to preside over before he became Uncle Cranky. But then he ran for president on the Republican ticket. Did he win? Yes!

He has that talk show. He’s part of the puppet show on Fux. He can pretend like he’s really interested in running again so much so that while his PAC takes in exploratory money, he can his campaign can pocket why he’s deciding. Big Mike is now worth like twelve times over from where he was just four years ago.

Why wouldn’t you run? What could be the downside?

The strong Republican contenders are staying away the political mine field of 2012 because they’d rather wait for better chances of success for themselves than to really care about where the country is headed. For Mitt Romney, that polished mannequin and others who are being molded and fitted with the Frank Luntz earpiece and the Kock Bros. back-hump transistor that W. had strapped on for his debates.  They wait their turn as the groomers and fluffers prepare the candidates for their eventual placement on a Republican ticket. But only when the overlord masters in the Rovian towers says so.

So the strong ponies are sitting this one out. They sit patiently in the owner’s booth waiting for a better day at the track, when the odds are more on their side.

That leaves an opening for the idealistic ones like Tim “I can’t find my own fuse” Pawlenty. That firecracker of a candidate, who because for the simple fact that he’s been married to the same women, plays hockey and has never been a member of the Klan, looks to be the golden child of the field.

 But back to my original point, it just doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter who is running to be the head of the Republican ticket, At this point in the game, it is not about winning; it’s about making money.

That trash-talker, maker of new words, Sarah Palin, you couldn’t shake her from her Facebook perch. Look at the Divine Sarah P. Saddled with all the trappings of present-day society, the reality show, lucky enough to be a commentator on Fux, being their word-can’t-find-it pundit; she’s pulling in around 12 mill a year now. That’ll put some gas in your snow machine.

Because the Republican base doesn’t care and doesn’t have a memory, at this point, they just want someone white. It could even be a woman.

The Republican base is the reason this country is where we are.

Apparently all the problems we are experiencing right now, all started election night in 2008. When Barak Obama was elected, the Christian god became angry. For some reason, half the population of this country believes that in three years, that soul Negro has uprooted the trees of Freedom and slid this economy into the shitter. It was all him. From the moment we elected him, it is his fault.

And the base believes this.

Haley Barbour’s proud as mud pie to be representing the state that’s fiftieth in health care. Mississippi is the forty-eighth dumbest in the nation. And Ol’ Miss is the fattest state, highest in poverty and third in the country in their porn watchin’, and Haley’s looking good.

Because it just doesn’t matter.

We’re getting ready to go back into another recession. For more than two years the Republicans on the Hill have done nothing but are against whatever Obama is for. Since our president assumed the office, their strategy has been to sit on their hands. And their base, the citizens who elected these politicians to office. They love it. The more they do nothing, the happier the base is.

Imagine going to work and half your co-workers decide to sit these next couple of years out, and still get paid and being able to collect their health insurance. You’re doing your job and they’re sitting down, checking out YouTube on the company’s computer. Every once in a while they stick their lumpy heads up to tell you what you’re doing wrong. They’re biggest complaint is that you should have more help and then they go back to watching a cat playing piano.   

I really don’t know who the Republicans are any more. The past Republican presidents have expanded government and have intruded into the American homes as much as their Democratic counterparts. The Republicans seem to be for something, but it is a secret. I know what they’re against, but they won’t say what they’re for.

And it just doesn’t matter.

In America today you quit your job halfway through it and still are seen as a contender for the highest position in the land. You can divorce your previous two wives, one while she’s in a coma and another through email. You can be in the Klan.

But what you can’t do…is to be black. Otherwise, what is it about this president that makes half the population think he’s different? That he’s not from here. What is it?

Tell me something the Republicans have done in the last five years that hasn’t involved reversing a policy or changing an existing law. What have they done for this country?

 Oh yeah, it just doesn’t matter.

It’s Obama fault.

 



Reefer Sadness

In a glaring misused of our legal system, Dr. Marion “Mollie” Fry and her husband, civil attorney Dale Schafer, after more than a half a decade of litigation and three years of appeals, the couple have been given the date of May 2, 2011, to turn themselves over to the State of California to serve five years in a federal prison.

It started when the police raided their Sacramento home in 2001, finding thirty-four plants. Well below the ninety plant limit established by the local city ordinance for medical card holders such as themselves.

Dr. Fry, having gone through a radical mastectomy, decided to grow her own cannabis to offset the many complications she was receiving from Chemo. Mr. Schafer suffers from hemophilia and wrenched back, and is under constant care, has also chosen to treat himself with Medical Marijuana.

Dr. Fry and Mr. Schafer also grew for patients of Dr. Fry who sought the relief provided by cannabis who were being otherwise ravaged by the effects of the drugs prescribe by their primary-care doctors. The couple never growing more than forty-four plants at one time.

Trying to be transparent during this time, they tried to enlist the aid of local officials, state Attorney Bill Lockyer, the Eldorado Sheriff’s department, in attempt to be forthright and find a collaboration with the local law enforcement community, in an effort to show the positive aspects of their endeavors and Medical Marijuana.

This was all well and good, but in the process, their staff was charging TEN WHOLE AMERICAN DOLLARS for the delivery fee.

The Couple was raided again. 

"We fired anyone who wasn't following the code of the law," Schafer said.

According to Schafer, the couple had never grown more than 44 plants in a given year.  But much to his astonishment, there’s a little known fact that under federal law more than 100 plants grown in a five year period, accumulatively, is cause for the mandatory five-year sentence, overriding state laws.

"We weren't selling the medical cannabis to my patients," Fry said. "We had staff and were charging $10 for delivery only, and that's a common practice today."

Then the absurdity of their trial kicked-in.

"The judge wouldn’t allow any medical evidence. They wouldn't let us tell the jury I was sick, or that I was a doctor," Fry said. "They wouldn’t allow that I was helping sick patients. Ironically, two years before the raid, local authorities asked me to tell them who of my patients were 'really' sick, and who wasn't." I told them it wasn't my job to police my patients, and "When I was in the thick of helping people, I knew it was the right thing to do," she said. "Cannabis helped me immensely when I was going through cancer."

Dr. Fry is a product of seven generations of doctors in her family tree. Her grandfather, Dr. Francis Marion Pottenger, played a part in curing tuberculosis in the early 1900’s and her grandmother studies under Carl Jung in the 50’s. Her mother was also a physician.

"Cannabis is proven medicine. Why would the state of California create laws based on what the people want, and then allow the federal Government to override them?" Fry asks. "I had cancer, we were growing medicine. I was helping people."

        Yesterday in California, Governor Jerry Brown in an effort to try to stop the state from financially bleeding to death, slashed somewhere between 7 and ten BILLION dollars. He still needs to find another 14 billion so California doesn’t have to send their kids to Arizona for an education.

Last year, around 6,500 prisoners were released due to over-crowding and not having the bucks for our rising correctional costs. Not to get too sensationalized in print, that creep, Phillip Garrido, who had kidnapped a young lady and was discovered in 2009 that he kept her hidden in his backyard for eighteen years, was let go under a similar release program. But the police didn’t follow his activities or scrutinize his movements because he wasn’t an apparent law-breaker like Dr. Fry and Mr. Schafer. 

The United States has the highest documented record of incarceration, in the world.

A governor doesn’t need the permission of the state’s governing boards to let out prisoners. He already has that power, it’s called a pardon. Like in the old time movies when the tension builds as warden waits for the call from the governor to commute Humphrey Bogart’s sentence. Jerry Brown could pardon this couple tomorrow if he wished. Our governor has made it clear that he is not jumping on the cannabis movement in any form or shape. Wouldn’t be prudent.

Howard Zinn says, “You can’t be neutral on a moving train.”

This isn’t an issue of Medical Marijuana or state budgets; it’s a matter of common sense. Dr. Fry and Mr. Schafer are not criminals but now are defined as such by the State of California. We have spent millions prosecuting a couple that if they lived fifty miles to their west, might not have the complications they are experiencing in the state’s capitol city.

No one’s ever going to hand you your freedoms, sometimes you just have to take it.

Call the governor, your state person, the people in Sacramento, wherever your voice or dollars can make a change.    

Dr. Fry's license to practice has been revoked for some time now, as has her husband's license to practice law. The couple's grown children with grandkids have moved back home to help with finances and save the family home. A Pay Pal account has been set up for donations. "Cool Madness," a book written about the trial by author Vanessa Williams is available online through StoptheDrugWar.org, Amazon.com or other online booksellers, or directly at the "Cool Madness" web site.  Donations and correspondence of support can also be sent to the family, P.O. Box 634, Cool, CA 95614.

Jerry Brown can be reached 916-445-2841.

This article was based in part on the writings and research of Sharon Letts.



Talking With A Mendo Pot Grower: Seeds of Dreams and Despair

"It's just not worth it for me," Argos said as he ground the pungent coffee beans.

"I put in around about a grand or so, per plant, not counting labor and love. Breaks my heart to have to let it go for anything less than $1,500 individually. Especially because I know the kids across the valley are picking up my medicine and bringing it to L.A., getting two grand and half for an elbow. Calling it whatever those Hollywood types are smoking these days."

I sat at his table listening the rain hammering his mountain cabin while Argos hand-cranked the beans into one of those old-fashioned meat grinders.

"It's getting bad and crazy at the same time," he told me. "Folks I've known who've grown for years, through the droughts and the DEAs, are pulling up stakes and leaving."

Argos stands near one of the huge windows that opens to the valley that is the backyard to his place wiping away some of the condensation on the glass with the back of his shirt

"You can't see a ranch over there about two miles to our south because of the trees, and the mist covering the hills, but that small dot over there... they're leaving. I don't even know if they've sold their place. They're like out of here. Pulling stakes, leaving the cow and the welcome mat behind."

Why?

"Who knows, couldn't sell last year's harvest. Mites, spiders, fungus might have destroyed their crop because they waited too log unsure of where the market's going., rip-offs, can't tell these days. I'm hearing more stories of partners ripping each other off. Here's the most common story of the day; Hey Man, I know I promised 25 per pound when I picked up the five-pack, but when I got to ______, the dude would only give me 21-5."

Huh?

Argos was pouring hot water into the filtered cones on top of our cracked, well-worn, big-boy mountain mugs spreading the aroma of Argos's world famous Joe throughout the redwood cabin.  

Photo: Tribune Weekly Chronicle

"Traditionally, you or somebody takes your medicine and plays broker, middleman for you. Unless you're distributing it yourself, which hardly anyone really does, I mean drive it over in your family truck, you have a person who does your deliveries.

"That's the way it's always been. There are other ways, but this is the way it's been done for decades. Most of are too busy to live the farm. It's just physics. So you have a bud that helps you in that direction. Now what happens is when your trusted friend returns with the compensation for your crop, more and more are returning with the story that once I was on the guy's doorstep, he said he'd only pay three-quarters of the price that we agreed upon yesterday. Take it or leave."

That is brutally harsh.

"That's the way it is now up here. Nobody's getting their price and then at the same time, I hear some that are making a killing in Mr. Nice, y'know the bud with the those tight small buds. Couldn't give that shit away two years ago, now with along with anything that has the name, Purple, Kush or Charlie Sheen, it's gonna move. Add Mr. Nice to the current rage. It's crazy what's selling.

Photo: Cafe Press

After taking a few sips of maybe some of the best coffee I've ever had -- it might have been the goat's milk creamer that added a certain country feel -- but I was smacking on some beans that Starbucks or Peet's wishes they could sell.

That's the thing of the Triangle; no matter how good the medicine is in the dispensaries or what the black market dealers are selling, still the best marijuana will always be in someone's hand-built cabin in Mendo or Humboldt. We get really good shit in the Bay Area, but the really, really good stuff-stays close to home.

It's called Pride. Whatever these guys up there are growing, primarily Numero Uno is selling your crop so you can grow again next year. Right up there with that, is showing your neighbor that your bud is better than theirs. The best stuff up there is sitting in glass jars that only few get to see.

Needless to say, after savoring a few cups of the best tasting brew that a mountain man can make, I sat on the a bench in front of the cabin's doorway watching the mist fade with the afternoon sun when Argos produced a jar with stalks poking out like a handshake to a stoner.

Yes...

Photo: The 4:20 Shack

"Why don't you help yourself to as much as that as you want. Then tell me what you think. I got to check my water levels and cut some wood to bring in. I'll be back in a few."

I went back inside to where the Raws were lying on the rolling tray and proceeded to do what I do best. Taste and record.

Just as I was wondering if Time can really shift, shouldn't it be able to bend like a rolled up piece of paper, turning the time-continuum into a cone, where going back into Time should be as easy as stepping onto a child's carousal when I heard a voice...

"What do you think of that stuff?"

What?

"Okay, I think I have my answer."

Yeah, Argos, it's good. The taste is there and it is definitely stony.

"Let me show you something."

Argos pulls a tiger balm container out and opens the lid to show me what's inside.

Photo: Plant Feed Shop

There's seeds. Marijuana seeds.

Nice.

"You know how much seeds go for now?"

Today's growers use clones.

"Not the old school types up here, we're raised on Burpee's,... we love our seeds." Argos laughs. "We're nothing but old farmers here. But seriously, with seeds you cut down on mold and other bad stuff. Seeds are better. Plus, you know how much they get for seeds in Amsterdam?"

A lot.

"Yeah, it's big money. Then when you buy ten for forty bucks, maybe only three grow and one of them turns out to be a guy. So out of ten seeds, you get two females. It happens."

That's a drag.

"What did you think of that smoke?" Argos says pointing to the stub of a cannon teetering on the ashtray.

It was good. Actually Arg, it was really good.

"You see those seeds in that jar? They came from that cannabis."

 

Photo: HempCity.net

Now if you are like me and being of a certain age, bigger than landing on the moon or when Dylan went electric, was the day someone invented sinsemilla. When we no longer needed a Rolling Stone magazine, record album or shoebox cover to roll with, our world had changed.

In addition, we found out that the pot that came without seeds was 20 times better than the swag that had seeds. So from then on, marijuana with seeds was always judged as being less than. 

Are you telling me that this highly creativity inducing medicine arrived with balls intact? And it's actually this good?

"Now my friend, imagine if you could buy some medicine with a THC count of say somewhere between 19 and 25 percent, and it has seeds. You could smoke the medicine and sell the seeds. The weed would pay for itself. And if you have any expertise...you could have a small garden in the backyard, no charge."

Argos stood looking down at me like he had found the Fountain of Youth.

Is this your stuff?

"No, this is from a guy who let his crop go to seed and was going to almost throw it out. I took it at very good rate."

I took another hit and let it expand for a while. 

Argos, this is very good. It makes my head hurt because I've always associated bad pot with seeds. I feel like worlds are colliding. Could this lead me to voting Republican?

"No, my friend, this is Mendo, 2011. Everyone's looking for a way out of the economic slump we're in. There's too much medicine and no one's buying. The ones who are, they are virtually ripping us off, taking advantage of a downed market. I'm too old to make Hash or some bullshit tincture or produce a line of some magic Debbie Drake's edibles.

"To survive up here for the next couple of years, you're choice is to either sit on your crop and wait for the market to let up. Or plant tomatoes instead of O.G. Purple Kush. Or worse yet, give up on dream and everything you've worked for in the last 20 years. Just walk away like you can move to Missouri and do this there. Good luck.

"For me, I'm looking into a brand new market. Imagine the ad, 'Get the best medicine there is, now with SEEDS!' "

I left Argos's place buzzed to the brim on coffee, clean green bud, and the old adage, "Everything that is old is new again."

Seeds in my weed. The more things change, the more they stay...

It's All Happening.



Should men be allowed to have Viagra?

While I’m against the government getting involved with a person’s intimate affairs and I believe in a limited power of the central branch, sometimes the powers that be need to interfere. Change happens when the course of actions of society detour from predetermine path or when we don’t agree about something.

 At that time, it is incumbent for a higher human force to step in and to set the individual, or society if needed, on a smarter course. This is done mostly for the good of the country and the individual themselves, for they know not what they do. Here lies another logical argument for the insertion of a prevailing objective body of elected strangers to preside over a person’s private choice, when it’s apparent for all those to see that most individuals are incapable of controlling their own actions.

This brings us directly to the male erect organ. Men in their masculine drive for conquering the world have inflicted their wishes upon the world since Abraham started seeing a few slaves on the sidein the O.T. While it is impossible to redirect the male impregnation of disasters that has occurred over the past centuries, there is one institution that still may be salvage, marriage.

As we all know, a steady and long lasting marriage is a wisp of the past. The tradition of staying together and working it out has been over taken by the concept of ‘I think I can do better.’

Right now, thrice-married Family Values candidate, Newton Gingrich, is full steam ahead in his launch for the presidency of 2012. Without even a second thought, our new concept of marriage is that- there’s nothing wrong with a few walks down the aisle before settling down with ‘Miss Really Right.’

What is the foundation for older, overweight, blotchy-skinned, reptilian- tongued, web-toed men to seek other arraignments? Is it because these vigorously supplemented men now process the ability to rise to the occasion when they are presented, with some preparation and a glass of water, to be prepared to meet the new…wife. What devil’s instrument is it that allows for ascend of a man’s ego to bulge and enlarge even when he doesn’t work out or take care of himself?

      Viagra.

Without that little blue pill, these men would be left to their devices, and I mean their own devices, (and still sometimes that doesn’t work). Without the additional support, the powerful man that deserves everything he can get, is undermine by the lack of proper shoring.

In the past, these men were regulated to more local accommodations, mostly their secretaries and limited talent pools. (See United States Presidents 35-42)  Now with the advent of various pills a man can take to raise his interest in outside possibilities, the modern Uber- enhancing multiple vitamins has allowed the contemporary man to almost pick and choose his prey. In the past, the lack of confidence found its way into the mix. Today, that’s ancient history. Just like Newt’s two previous wives.

In an effort to save marriage, to reign in the male wanderlust, for the future children, we must take the Viagra and their hoodlum chums, out of the sweaty hands of the males who are no longer in control of their facilities. Scientifically, men are plagued with a condition known as, Ceruleas Balis, which is defined as the inability to think while holding two swelling large objects. To keep the ball rolling, testimony is on file from reports concocted and supported by high-school students everywhere.   

Men shouldn’t be given the choice to use male enhancement drugs. They aren’t emotional capable of making adult decisions when their only thinking organ is already disposed. They tend to dress up in plumage-like costumes in an effort to stand out from the pack. This is where the Leisure Suit and Stone-wash jeans came from. Have you seen Newt or John McCain in Levis? Not pretty. But the sad fact is they’re looking for it. Whether they go out in packs or by themselves, these poor souls, they don’t know what they are in for. They get sexed up, probably of the mind that they can handle anything. These men need our help.

Right now, there are doctors who will prescribe the willy-wonker for anyone who make the stairs. These mad doctors, who run counter to the matrimonial path that America used to walk on, are allowed to write a prescription to end this country.

I ask you, without marriage, how can we have weddings? I say it’s impossible. Who is against marriage? Pill gobbling men. They’ve proven it with their many divorces. How do we stop them? By taking the choice out their grasp and have the wayward beings seek guidance first by their church or mosque, or a waiting period of two-weeks. That would mean that once a man has found his possible next wife, there would be a waiting period of two-weeks where the couple would have to spend time together. That way, Newt’s Number Four, can get to know the guy before being scientifically entered by a gentleman that is only collecting trophies.    

We need guidance counselors and thinking stations where men can pause and receive help and wisdom from people younger than them, who’ll tell you, the idea of the old guys having sex makes them ill. These men need to open their view and let others in to help them with a very volatile decision that shouldn’t be left in the hands of one individual.   

Men can’t think straight when it comes to sex. This has been proven time and time again. We don’t have a choice when it comes to men’s choice. We either corral our men or say good-bye to world as we know it.



Top Eleven Smoking Women

 

In honor of the hundredth anniversary of Women’s Day, I present the top eleven women I think who’ve made a difference, cannabis-speaking, in my life.

11. Queen Victoria. If you are of a certain age, she is the first famous pot smoker that we heard of in the Sixties. Because she used cannabis for her majestic cramps, she also was the first internationally known Medical Marijuana patient that made the papers. England may be getting a new king soon, but Queen Vicky will always be the royal ‘oui’ to me.

 

10. Alice B. Toklas. In 1954, this cultural icon released her memoirs/ cookbook, appropriately called, ‘The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook.’ In this radical book, Alice cooked up some magic brownies and cookies (actually a hashish fudge but nobody ever gets it right) introducing the world’s first commercial edibles. These tasty little treats would later get mixed up with Mom’s regular cookies, periodically sending some Northern Californian grade school kids to the nurse’s office for an afternoon of heavy meditation and wondering if their hands are going to stay attached.  

 

9. MaryAnn from Gilligan’s Island. For some of us, Ginger was too high maintenance (she had more baggage than the Howell’s) and MaryAnn seemed like the cool one. After Dawn Wells was busted for pot in 2007, America learned the girl-next-door on the island was more like the girl-next-door more than we thought. She was the one maintaining to get high.

8. Barbra Streisand. In 1970, when weed was a felony to even think about it, when Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack men drank and caroused from the stage nightly in Vegas, the Divine Ms. S was miffed. If they could party from the stage, why couldn’t she? During one of her shows, Babs lit up, smoked a joint right there in the main room, saying it and I’m paraphrasing, “it smoked like butter.” Later on rock and Motown groups would turn-on Barbra to the newest grass available forming a road-bond that few in the public ever knew about.

 

7. Hillary Clinton. On July 22, 2007, the Hills come out for Medical Marijuana, supporting America's second largest cancer charity, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. At the time, the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton called for an end to federal raids in states where medical use of marijuana is legal, while John McCain backtracked on an earlier promise to end the raids.

6. Margaret Mead. Like Carl Sagan, another very smart person who enjoyed banging the gong and was able to make it to work, whether in the lab or to the islands. The anthropologist who became an avid smoker after contracting a disease and use the boo medicinally, at first. She later testified before congress to legalize the stuff because of the relief she received from smoking the weed. Congress said no deal but gave her the Medal of Freedom after she passed on to her special isle in the sky in 1978.

5. Blues singer, Bessie Smith. The Queen of the Blues maybe a no-brainer but while others like Ella sang about pot and the vipers, Ms. Smith belted out hep tones and lived a life that only comes from hanging around the blue smoke.

4. The Hollywood Girlz. Cameron Diaz, Charlize Theron, Jennifer Aniston, Natalie Portman, etc… these confirmed Hollyweed A-listed hotties could probably change the course of the world if they announced they would only date potheads.

3. Valerie Corral. If you have a medical marijuana card in your purse or wallet, you should thank Valerie and Mike Corral. In 1973 in a car accident with a small plane, (you figure out whose fault it was,) Valerie was left in pain and suffering seizures and convulsions. The prescription drugs of the time left her daze and did nothing to treat her symptoms or give her any kind of relief that didn’t interfere with her quality of life. In other words, the drugs the doctors gave her left her a zombie without fixing anything. Valerie was an instrumental in writing Proposition 215 and her work has been published in medical journals across the U.S.

 

2. Lady Buttercup. Lady Buttercup is one of my original heroes and one of the first women to deal lids on the West Coast. She started dealing in 1971 in the Haight Ashbury when the bizness was pretty much male dominated. Now in her seventies, she still sees customers and has some regulars that are older than her. In San Francisco, we forget that there are still those stay-at-home dealers that continue to ply their trade. If it wasn’t for the pioneers like Lady Buttercup who has been providing righteous bud for the forty years, we’d still be drinking cheap red wine before concerts. When I asked the Lady why and how she got into dealing she responded, “At the end of the Sixties, women were becoming lawyers and doctors. So I thought, why not? Plus, I thought women were nicer than men. When I started there were no other women doing it.  A bunch of us [women] decided that the world needed our energy to balance out the guys who running things.”     

1. My friend, Deb. Not her real name, but don’t we all have a Deb, not a Debbie or Debra, but a Deb or even a Debbie-kins. Who at a party or funeral will come up to you and ask if you’re holding without apologies or a hint of “What?” That fun chick you’ve known since high school who doesn’t bust your balls even when you call her a chick because you’re buds- in all senses of the word. That sacred person over the years who is your smoking pal and bestest ganja buddy ever. The Gal Pal every guy should have that helps them with their wardrobe and then complains that your joints are pregnant. That person you can always count on to take a walk with you, no wink required. That person who reminds you that joint of Santa Marta Red that we smoked in ’75 before the Springsteen concert was maybe the best joint ever. Or maybe it was the Acapulco Gold before the Homecoming game in eleventh grade. Or maybe it was that doob in the parking lot in her Dad’s old Dodge before…

 

To all the women in my life, who have either got me high or made me, get higher in one form or another, I thank you.

Dinner’s on me tonight.