To the barracades!

Whoever came up with the “pussy hats” was brilliant. Looking at that sea of pink displayed on Saturday was heartening and powerful. All I know is that I want one. I wear hats all the time and really think it would be a dynamite addition to my collection.

But wearing the hat, a symbol of the Women’s March on Saturday, carries far more weight than just a fashion statement. It is a symbol of the uprising that covers more than just women’s rights and issues. It is about being pissed off about the new master in the White House. It is outrage against everything that he has said and represents. It is a call to arms, a wake-up call, Paul Revere ride through the night about the threats to our civil liberties, to our democracy, to our Republic, to the state’s rights we cherish that just might disappear under the new administration.

The cat-earred chapeau is more than a head warmer, it is a sign that we are not going to go quietly into that good night. We have struggled mightily for decades and will go to great lengths to preserve our freedoms.

On Saturday we rolled into town just as the parade was ending. Somehow I was living in a cave all week and missed out on attending one of the biggest events since the anti-war marches of the 60’s. Maybe it was just as well. If we had gotten there on time we would have been part of a historic day, we would have added to the numbers, not just in Denver but to the international scene. Instead we drove through the crowds still spilling off the parade route and made our way across town to Sushi Rama for lunch.

As I sat there with my family, picking off plate after plate of carousel sushi, baked to a nice finish thanks to a wee bit of homemade cannabis baklava, I thought of how lucky I was to be living in a state that allowed for such a thing to happen. That I could be out in public and not have to worry about the man coming down on our family outing. There was an overall sense of happiness that went along with the lack of paranoia that I totally loved that day. I didn’t have to fear cannabis any more than I had to fear arrest or being hassled for being high. I could get fueled up, lightly, as is my preference, and be able to go out to eat, navigate around town, go to a very busy museum, groove, and not be bothered by anybody.  As the song goes, ain’t nobodies business but my own if I wanted to be buffeted about by the wee winds of a cannabis high. But like the libertarian ethos that goes along with that, you get to have those freedoms by maintaining and respecting the lives of others as well.

In other words, be cool.

That’s what those million plus folks did on Saturday. There were out there, walking for our freedoms and being cool. Quiet, peaceful protest. But with a kicker: it is out there now that we are not going to take any outrage or bullshit against us lightly. Our new president woke up on Saturday with a parade right down the block that let him know that we had our eyes on him and we are going to watch his every step, from inauguration day on.

I love my cannabis freedoms. I wasn’t wearing a pussy hat on Saturday. Nor did I march in a parade. No, had my own little bit of civil disobedience that day. Instead of going along quietly with Federal law I immersed myself in a peaceful groovy kind of day. I stuck my finger in the eye of those folks out there who say that I am menace to society if I indulge in cannabis. On Saturday I showed the world that I was a peaceful citizen, a well composed and controlled cannabis aficionado and loving family man.  I ate a teaspoon of marijuana edibles and peacefully and respectfully comported myself around town and the region. The biggest threat I posed that day was to a chili cheeseburger at Der Wienerschnitzel. I savaged that thing.

Yes, I partake in cannabis. Yes, I am a voting man. Yes, I believe in personal liberties. And yes, we will vote the fuckers out if they don’t behave. If that doesn’t work, well, impeachment just might do the trick.

Salud!

Signs of the times!
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/The-most-clever-signs-from-the-San-Francisco-Women-10874428.php

The lure of the homemade!

What to do? Missed out the on the big Nature’s Herb birthday bash, went the make treats at home route instead. What’s a birthday without treats? This time I decided that instead of running down to the dispensary and taking advantage of their great deals that would just end up in my toy box anyway I would make a batch of cannabis infused olive oil and have a good time on the cheap. This time I feel my financial sense outweighed my cannabis jones and won.

I love how new hobbies have all these great new things to learn. Friday I blew off watching the inauguration and instead voiced my outrage by debarbing a bunch of old cannabis I brought along with me from NorCal. The process I used on Friday was fresh and interesting: instead of grinding down the mota and spreading it all over a baking pan I put the ground grass into half pint canning jars, screwed on the lids and popped them into a 220 oven for 60 minutes. The cannabis got brown but not overly toasted and the biggest plus was that the house did not reek of dope, always a good thing when you have a clause in the lease that forbids marijuana use on the premises!

The next part of the day’s inauguration festivities was heating some extra virgin olive oil I found on sale at King Soopers and pouring it over the cooled cannabis in the jars. After a slight sizzle the were loosely capped again and put into a bath of hot water where they rested on the stove and merrily simmered away for over 18 hours. The resulting slurry was drained over a cheesecloth covered mesh colander and rejarred for later use. All I have to say is thank goodness for gloves! The squeezing out of the oil infused dope would have sent me off to the moon. 4 oh zees of mota buds yielded just about 40 ounces of olive oil. Just touching a finger-tip of oil to my lips got me buzzed at work for three hours. Waa-hoo for home made!

That homemade thrill was also on hand on for the weekend, too. I made two batches of baklava for my birthday, something I had not made in a long while. My sweetie and I had been out and about shopping before the Christmas holiday and had haphazardly bought some supermarket baklava for the ride home. What a bust that store bought crap was! It was dry, crackly, stale and worst of all, made with corn syrup instead of honey. It was like biting into a strange dried out cereal bar instead of a sinfully lush, soggy middle eastern syrupy treat. So, with our hackles up we spent the morning of my birthday, New Year’s Eve, making baklava. One batch was the real deal, made for general consumption, the other was a cannabis butter soaked space shot of goodness. One we took with us up to Lyons for the big birthday celebration (went out to dinner, sipped some wine, crashed before midnight old fogey style), the other went untouched until this last weekend.

Wow. Layer after layer of butter soaked fila dough and nuts really does leave an impression on a guy. 

Before I got into it I passed along a couple of wedges of the treat to a friend of the family, with the somewhat sundry, underwhelming warning that it was “strong”. Freaking understatement. I was gifted an electronic kitchen scale for my birthday and decided to go all scientific with my dosage. I measured out a ten-gram bite and then measure that out: one tablespoon of baklava was ten grams. Broke that down in half and made that my dose for the day: one teaspoon. 5 grams of dessert. Just for science, just to see what that would get me.

Once again, wow. As I put it to my car load of family on the way into the city that afternoon: it was like seeing the smoke from an old coal burner ship way off on the horizon. Something was coming but what it was couldn’t be seen. It was there but it wasn’t. I was high but then again I wasn’t. A bit of THC slight of hand. This was at an hour. By the time the two-hour mark hit I was deep in the rushes and I still had four hours to go. That’s the thing about edibles. One must be patient. The nuance of the entourage effect of sipping flower from a vape pipe is gone. No terps to help guide you. In this case it was all about the bludgeoning power of high THC all on its own. No subtlety, no nuance, just the pure heart rush of a stone.

Treats, yes, wonderful. I had already made the investment on the mota, just couldn’t let it turn into dust, could I? And I couldn’t look at it as what I saved by not going to the dispensary that day because I had already laid in the herb and had to do something with it. Sort of like buying truffles. Can't let them go to waste, had to made something with that somewhat high priced cooking commodity. Boy, howdy, did I ever! Look forward to making another batch of butter, to making a Mexican chocolate coffee cheesecake. Usually those things are ridiculously rich and require only a slight wedge to be satisfied. I have a feeling that upcoming cheesecake will be a “one bite, I’m alright” kind of sweet.

Thank goodness I like to cook as much as I like to eat!

Salud!

Beating the winter time blues!

The sun is out and I want to be outside with it! Sigh, the plight of the working class. Or, as my old colleague in Fort Bragg would say, “whatever”.

It’s winter time along the Front Ranger here in Colorado and for the moment I really get why folks come to live here: the air is crisp, the sky is blue, there are no obnoxious scents lingering in the air and the temp is upwards around 50. We went from a full out freeze, snow and generally nasty weather just a week ago to something that makes me want to put on my baggie shorts and zoris and hit the beach. I know that this weather won’t last and I suppose that’s what makes this hard core jones to be outside so poignant: it’ll be cold again soon, it’ll be inside weather again soon and…and…. well, hell, I am whining. It’s winter on the edge of the Great Plains. What do I expect? Even in Florida I suspect folks get the winter time blues.

But it doesn’t have to be this way! We mota heads need to stand united and learn to do cool things to banish those funky winter blahs! Everywhere I’ve lived over the past 59 years I’ve found ways to adapt, to have fun, to groove out in the great outdoors or in the wonderfulness of the great indoors. No need to hunker down, let’s get down and have some good old fashioned winter time fun. One of the great pluses of being out and about in January is knowing that travel rates, fees, hotel prices and crowds are down this time of year! Here’s a short list of cool things to do where you live, with or without mota to enhance the good times!

SoCal: Go to Knotts, Disneyland, Six Flags, Legoland....ah, gosh, so many amusement parks to choose from!

Take a short trip on Amtrak! End up at the iconic and forever beautiful Union Station!

Learn to surf in Huntington or ride your bike along the boardwalk in Newport!

Take in art galleries in Laguna Beach!

Walk the streets where the Rose Parade trundles along in Pasadena!

LA: be a tourist in your own hometown! Do Olvera Street (taquitos!), grab some lunch at Clifton's Cafeteria, check out the Hollywood sign, go up to the Griffiths Observatory and take in the view, put your feet in the cement prints of famous stars at Grauman's Chinese Theater and end the day at the Original Tommy's!

Central Cali: take in the wine countries outside Santa Barbara or San Luis Obispo!
Drive Highway 1!

Check out San Simeon and see how real old fashioned big shots lived!

Drive on the beach in Pismo!

San Francisco: walk the Golden Gate Bridge, ride a cable car, rent a bike but no matter what, park the car and get around without it! 

Eat a meal in Chinatown! Take in an afternoon at a museum, hit up some local galleries in the Marina District!

Catch an opera and then pick up a copy of Howl at City Lights Bookstore!

NorCal: go sip quality vino in Wine Country!

Drive Highway from San Francisco to Eureka along the coast!

Walk among the redwoods and be awed by real live giants!

Get a med card, visit some dispensaries and indulge in some of the world’s finest organic, sun grown weed!

Eat some decent sourdough bread!

Watch real live hippies groove in their natural environment!

Southern Oregon and the Oregon Coast: see the caveman in Grants Pass!

Walk Ashland!

Groove on miles of endless empty beaches!

Hunt for Liberty Caps!

Portland: walk the river front!

Take a tram, ride a bike, do light rail but get around without your car!

Eat some conveyor belt sushi! Either Sushiville or Marineopolis Sushi Land will do just fine!

Go to Powell's City of Books and buy some graphic novels!

Seattle: Hit up Pike Place Market and see the sights!
Sip a hot cup of java at the original Starbucks!

Walk the Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle Art Museum's awesome outdoor museum!

Take the monorail! Ride a ferry! Ride the light rail from downtown to the airport!

Go to Archie McPhees!

The Puget Sound: Go on now, go find a brewery and relax awhile! Try Pike Brewing in Seattle or Chuck A Nut in Bellingham!

Get on your hiking boots and groove up in the Olympics!

Hit up the reservation casinos for a nice buffet, a show or some fireworks!

Boise: Grab some pie and some great brews at Flying Pie Pizza!
Watch a cheap movie at a second run movie house!

Walk the Greenbelt!

Saunter along in the Foothills!

Denver: do the zoo!

Cruise Colfax for great eats, cool entertainment and fantastic folk art!

Browse the Tattered Cover!

Buy some legal weed just about anywhere!

Hit the mountains and do some tubing!

The Front Range: Grab a coffee in Fort Collins! The Wild Boar or Mugs Coffee Lounge are both super and easy access to the university and Old Town!

Spend some time in the local Arc thrift stores and find some treasures!

Walk the Benson sculpture garden!

Eat some fiery green chili and whimper like a little girl!

Salud!

Richard

I first met Richard in the winter of 2013. I had seen him around town but I don’t think I would have ever gotten to know him had it not been for Barbara’s passing. I got a call from Madame Chinchilla that Barbara had had a heart attack and died in her sleep. After I got that phone call I went down to her apartment and it was there that I began to meet her inner circle, a small grouping of friends and hell raisers she pretty much kept secret from me, a group that included the gnomish Cal, his hardworking wife Mari, her long lost lover Richard and a number of other denizens of Fort Bragg. A day or so later Barbara’s daughter Frieda flew into town from Michigan, followed by the rest of her children. Over the six months or so that I got to know Barbara I never met any of her close confederates. We talked about artists she knew but the closest I ever got to meeting them was the art works I purchased from local second hand stores. But after she passed the doors of her life slowly opened, Only because she lived directly above  her I got to meet Madame Chinchilla and her husband Mr. G, both renowned tattoo artists, and through them Heather, the daughter of Larry Spring, curator of all sorts of wonderful and eccentric natural phenomena.

But it was meeting Richard that seemed to tie everything together. Richard had a big heart and was well known throughout the town and the region. He was an outdoorsman, a fisherman, a cannabis connoisseur, a motorcyclist, a regular stool warmer at the Tip Top Lounge, generally a very interesting man to know. Richard was one of those guys I would see around town and since he seemed to know everyone in Fort Bragg I got to meet many folks that I might not otherwise gotten to in the course of my librarian duties.

Barbara was still Richard’s die-hard flame at her passing. I never met a man take a woman’s death as hard as he took Barbara’s. At the time I felt it was important to not only help her friends clean out her house but to also bring together Richard and her family for supper at my place, a follow up to the throwing of her ashes on 10 Mile Beach. It was then that I found out what a mota head Richard was, as those world class bombers of his kept on rolling out of my living room that night well past the time that dinner was gone and the table was cleared, I smoked with him and his paramour’s kids that night till I was senseless. I am sure that if had had the time I would have smoked with them till I was straight again.

And while we launched our acquaintanceship just fine we never really got together the way I thought we would.. I ran into him once at a party at Cal's and asked him if he wanted to take some of Barbara’s artwork off my hands and he said sure. A few days later I dropped off the work, a large collection of collages and postcards she had culled from a collection of work she had for sale at a local gallery. He had, at that time, a sort of memorial going on in his apartment in her honor that I got a chance to see, and I must say that it awed, stunned and humbled me all at the same time. The funny thing was that he was living in an apartment that I thought of renting after I got into town. When I saw him in his digs I felt it was one of those cosmic things, that I passed up the place, as the apartment suited him just fine. It was never meant for me, apparently.

I saw Richard a couple times after that: once, while I was out grocery shopping with my boy at the local Safeway.. He had just gotten an additional face tattoo, one that continued to commemorate his late son’s passing. We talked awhile and made plans to get together again soon but somehow never made it happen. I think it was around that time we both met the women that we were destined to be with because not too long after the Safeway meet I ran into him again, well, saw him outside of the Tip Top, snogging with his gal. I saw a photo of them in the newspaper the other day and sure enough, there he was, with the love of his life, his now wife Sherie.

An tale of the tragedy in the Fort Bragg Advocate, a request for funds to help with funeral expenses in Go Fund Me. What a hell of way to run into you again, Richard. Noyo Harbor is a bitch to get in and out of, even in good weather. I can’t even begin to imagine what was in your mind when the three of you hit the water to swim back to shore that night. I know the waves must have been hitting you hard, and man, it must have been bitter cold, too. The Pacific in winter time is unforgiving, it will take a younger, heartier man down in minutes. Richard, you were 67. What the hell were you thinking? Ah, you must have been thinking "I have to help save my friends", that much I do know, because they survived. They had life jackets on. Were there enough to go around?

Did you sacrifice yourself for your friends? Knowing you and your big heart, you just might have that night.

Fort Bragg will be a different place without you, Richard, that's for sure. Seems that it's time for you to join your boy and Barbara. Smile down on us and while you’re doing that, go roll up a bomber of that wild weed of yours. When the clouds come rolling into Fort Bragg then I’ll know it’s you, blowing that great dope of yours into the wind.

Rest in peace.

Salud!

Hell of a way to end a year. Sorry to see you go, Richard!
http://www.advocate-news.com/general-news/20170101/two-saved-ocean-claims-one-after-boat-overturns

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/6505999-181/details-emerge-about-death-at?artslide=0

A well written story by Rex Gresset, eternal Fort Bragg City Council Candidate:
http://theava.com/archives/64222

Larry Spring's museum!
http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/larry-spring-school-common-sense-physics

The Triangle Tattoo!
http://www.triangletattoo.com/

Four finger baggie

It used to be a incredibly visceral thrill, laying that sandwich bag up against the palm of your hand, feeling the weight of the grass, holding the dope just so in your hand so that the edge of the bag lined up against your fingers, measuring the mota in a very unscientific sort of way that said, yes, this was a righteous four finger bag. Once the visual was ascertained it was time to open it, sniff it, toy with the colas a bit and then hand over your 40 bucks, the going rate for an ounce of Colombian back in the mid to late seventies.

I just came back from a visit to Natures Herb. I went over to use a coupon they had in this month’s circular but instead was waylaid by an even better deal: instead of an eighth of top shelf Hawaiian Express for 40 bucks I got a quarter oz of bottom shelf of the same strain for the same price! I know, there is a difference where that mota comes from on the plant but with that particular strain I think I can live with the difference in strength for that price break.

The great sadness of living here in a legal state is that the thrill of the baggie is long gone. Marijuana here is served up very professionally, bureaucratically and clinically. The ubiquitous plastic cylinders are not at all attractive or thrilling, not by any stretch of the imagination. They must be terrific landfill cloggers and their safety component...squeeze and "pop!.... is highly over-rated. But like we say here at the library, it is what it is. I have no idea how the black market serves up its dope these days. Do they give you a choice of baggie or canister? Are the bags zip locked for freshness? With all the choices out there built around convenience and ease of use does it matter what the mota comes in so long as it transports home safely and keeps the dope fresh before you get around to smoking it?

No matter, I am a happy man. I feel like I have been blowing an exorbitant amount of high dough on cannabis lately but at the same time know that somehow it will all be put to good use someday. One way or the other that flower will be fodder for the vape or a base for the butter. I know that at some point I will start to play with and fire up that grass in a microdose sort of fashion but for the time being I am super happy just be able to glean the strains I have heard so much about and stash them away in my mota "toybox".

When I went into The Bud Depot the other day and picked up that gram of Colombian Gold for my birthday I was thrilled, especially now that I know that the stock sold out almost right away. I feel the same way right now about that Hawaiian Express purchase. Before I know it that particular strain will be gone, but not in the same way that grass would be gone back in the day when looking for dealers was like playing whack a mole. I may not be getting my mota in sandwich bags by the ounce anymore but one thing I do know for certain is that once my favorite strain runs out there will be another “favorite” following it close behind.

Miss the baggies but love the convenience!

Salud!

Clay pipe!

I know, it’s not a meerschaum pipe, it’s a clay pipe. World of difference. One holds up, the other shatters in the hands of pals who just don’t know their own strength when stoned. Or just don’t know the difference between a table top and a thin air. Whatever. Fragile is the word. Cheap, too.

It’s the weather right now that reminded me of that damn pipe. Couldn’t been thoughts of my dad as I have precious few of those. But to his credit he was a pipe smoker back when it was cool to smoke from briars. I found a humidor and a fist full of old pipes in the attic just about the time I was getting to be a real pain-in-the-ass teenager. Didn’t venture too far with them at first but once I was able to buy honest to goodness pipe tobacco from the mall store I didn’t look back. Took that baggie of fine shredded tobacco goodness and fired up that pipe behind the garage. Didn’t get sick, not the way I did with my mom’s Tarentons. It was smooth, flavorful and aromatic, a far cry from the stinky Pall Malls or Kools that were blown around the kitchen table.

Smoking that briar changed things. I think I "got" my old man right then and there. Sure, I wasn’t going to run out and buy a bongo or start listening to Andy Williams or buy a cardigan (the cardigan kick was later on) but I got a touch of his sense of cool, or what it meant to be cool back in his day.

But that wasn’t the point. It was the weather outside. Right now I am feeling what we call back in Cali a Pineapple Express kind of moment. The weather is balmy, sweet, almost tropical. Practically springtime. A far cry from the sub zero degree weather we were having only but a few days ago, practically freaky. But this weather is soaring along ahead of all the wet weather that they are having on the coast. Record breaking stuff, flooding rivers, inches of rain, feet of snow. Reminds me all too much of the weather I normally experienced as a lad growing up in SoCal. No droughts back then, just big heavy rain every winter. Breech the LA river kind of rain. Stay in and read kind of weather.

Back when I was starting this mota stuff I was still sucking on those briars but felt that a “real” pipe of my own would be better. I had already gone through a glass pipe (shattered in the glove box by a friend of a friend) and a corn cob pipe (purchased for 99 cents at Alpha-Beta) but I wanted something that would go along with my tripped out, stoner sensibility. I have no idea why I ever thought it would hold up but the moment I saw that clay pipe in the pipe shop I knew I had to have it. It was a delight to look at and a wonder to hold. Light, airy, easy as a candy cane to break. I looked at the sizes they had for sale and being the macho kind of boy I was I decided that bigger, longer, was better. What made it even more special was the box in came in. I have no idea why but that box made it feel like it was the best thing since sliced bread.

The maiden voyage of that pipe was it’s last, a very Titanic sort of thing. I gathered together my stoner pals on a Saturday afternoon. The swap meet was always closed on rainy days and that day was wet. None of us even thought to dare to smoke around the house at that stage in the game so we drove across town to Santiago Park and rolled down into the parking lot, thinking shaded and out of sight was not a not bad thing for a car load of dope heads to be seeking out. The thing was, that parking lot was really the bed of Santiago Creek.. The lot was paved and lined with stone abutments which made it seem safe but it was also at that moment at the edge of being at flood stage. We didn’t notice any barricades up so we rolled down and parked and proceeded to get high.

Back in those days we had plenty of Scott’s Green on hand, a nice, big fluffy bag of shake that seemed to always keep on giving. We loaded up bowl after bowl in that clay pipe, looking like a bunch of sissy Catholic school boy Hobbits sucking away on that long and ridiculously narrow stem. The pipe went back and forth and back again. Uncle Max, Alex the lady killer, some barrio boys and me, getting almost too wasted to smoke, and probably way to wasted to drive. But the hour came around that Uncle Max had to be getting back home to get ready for his altar boy duty. We fired up the car and then, through our stoner googled eyes, noticed that the drive was one-way and that the only way out was to cross the stream.

These days I would just say the hell with it, turn around, back up, whatever. No way would I cross a fast rolling body of water. Back then I thought that my V-8 was going to take us through just fine. Well, we powered it up, hit the water around 40 mph, splashed through like a Higgins boat and just barely made it through the water to the other side of the parking lot. I am sure that we were slipping and sliding for a moment but all those boys in the car helped that ride of ours to gain purchase on the cobble stones. Somehow we were able to cruise up the ramp and out of harm’s way. I just like to think of it as stoners luck.

I am sure that when we hit the water we screamed like little girls, especially when we realized how deep that water really was. Somehow in the excitement we all lost track of that pipe. We hit the streets right outside the park and knew that we were not out of the woods yet because the brakes didn’t catch for the first half mile. It was crazy times but we all managed to make it home in one piece. Well, we did, but not the pipe. Later on I found it on the floor of the back seat, broken up into three or four pieces. I knew when I bought it that it was a bad deal but like anything else you jones for I just had to buy it. It lasted all of one smoking session. I think I got pissy at my pals for breaking it but later on laughed about when it came to me that it was a much better thing to have lost that pipe than our lives. 

Now that I am "older and wiser" I know how easy it is for a car to get washed away in a fast moving body of water. Back then I didn’t know jack and thought it was a lark. Boy, were we a bunch of stupid punks or what.

Looking out the window makes me want to be outside, grooving on the warm temps and the breeze. Reading the papers makes me want to go home and be one with the rain and the region. It sounds like I am just being a spoiled mess, aching for that old school pineapple express.

Sigh. I guess I will just have to go down to the dispensary and pick up a gram of Pineapple Express and console myself with that instead. If I can’t have one the other will just have to do!

Salud!

Legal schwag!

Well, you definitely get you what you pay for in the legal cannabis market, that’s for sure.

I have no idea what I was thinking. I didn’t have to be penny wise, pound foolish. It was pay day, I had a Friday morning in front of me and best of all, four dispensaries all within a short hop from one another. I took in the menu at Natures Herbs, bought a couple of grams (Outer Space, LA Confidential) at XG Platinum, walked in and walked out of Smokey’s (too much of the dirty hippy vibe for me, thanks) and then decided to take a look, once again, at the busiest house in town, LivWell.

I was decidedly turned on by the hip urban dispensary look a few weeks ago when the place was fresh and new, but somehow, after schlepping in on a snowy day, with folks all bundled up in the finest homey duds, sniffing all the dirty, cabin fever bodies, sitting, waiting, just another number in the stack, it just didn’t have the cool hip appeal that it did before.

It wasn’t as if I needed bulk of any kind. I am sitting on a bit of mota now, especially since I have been reading up and buying product as a form of “learnin’” in preparation for that illusory cannabis job I am dreaming about in my far off future. I had been fascinated by the idea of buying an ounce of shake lately but I didn’t feel like doing a cross county drive into Denver to secure it. No, an eighth was going to be fine by me that day. I had in my head that Flo was the answer to my work-a-day energy needs and I sought it out, found it and then, last minute, turned my nose up to it. Face it, I was feeling cheap. I wanted a bargain, quality be damned. Yeah, I could tell that I was going to be cheap ass bastard that day (as my brother would say) and well, I found out how cheap some places could be.

In my heartI  knew that I wanted something better, just by doing a sniff test on the jars. Limon was looking fine, smelling even better, but I had to ask, just had to see, what their pre-loaded 1/8ths looked like. 303 Kush, must have been sun grown down south, loose and fluffy and well, bulky. I turned up an opportunity for a fresh weighed gram of high terp dope and instead took away a wee jar of, well, who knows what.

Maybe I was feeling ghetto just being in that place. Maybe I was thinking I needed to play down where my homies play. Looking around I know that some folks were scraping by, that some were passing up paying for heat or food to have their mota fix. I know that mota is not addictive but a certain kind of lifestyle is and mota is just part of that lifestyle. Me, I don’t have one that says I need to buy cheap weed. Maybe for me it was more a Margaret Mead in the South Pacific thang. Maybe I just wanted to be one with the natives, be down with the homies.

In the end it just wasn’t necessary. I took that little jar home and emptied it out in the palm of my hand and took a deep whiff, a whiff that I couldn't really get at the store. It didn’t smell like any Kush I had ever smelled before, that’s for sure. It smelled like it was rushed through the drying process, and it was certainly not cured properly. Very green, almost like something old Trigger would be happy to munch on. Next I took a bud between my fingers and crushed it. Dry as the package of baklava I bought from Safeway the other day. Cracker dry. Crumbled to dust in my hand. Bummer. No flavor notes, no excitement there.I was going to be doobie practice material and not much more.

Well, I should have known better but I had to do it. I kept seeing those ads for 100 dollar ounces and thought how nice it would be to have a fat baggy of dope at that price. Well, this isn’t Mendo and this place has a different way of stocking their shelves, of dragging in the locals for deals. Hmm, deals. I know that when I used to buy bags of schwag in the day I knew what I was getting: seedy, flat, brown and stemmy dope. I knew it was going to take a bag full just to get high and well, when you are playing cat and mouse with the man any bag of dope would do. These days I know I can spend as much as I want, see and sniff and oogle over whatever a shop has in the jars behind the counter. It really is a buyer’s market as I found out the hard way the other day. With four shops to choose from I should always be able to walk away a happy man.

Shame on me.

Ok, so I got an eighth of legal schwag. No stems, no seed, sure, but wow, what a shitty bag of weed. Never again. Went down the next day to Natures and got an eighth of Spiritual Punk for 20 bucks. Just what I paid for that trash dope at the other place. Ah well, live and learn. And better yet, enjoy.

Salud!

Shake, schwag and roll

Shake.

Just read an article in Serious Eats that declared Shake Shack to be the best fast food burger in the land. I had a shake the other day at Smash Burger that give me brain freeze. Sang Shake My Sillies Out in my head while watching the kids play along with the song at story time. What is the big deal with shake?

I had to do my librarian best yesterday after that word came up in dispensary search. Found a shop in Denver, Ballpark Holistic Dispensary, that would sell me an ounce of shake at 69 bucks (with a coupon in hand, mind you). I had to wonder if it was any kind of a deal. Been a long time since I’ve held an ounce of shake in my hand. Was it worth the drive, was it worth the cash layout, but more importantly, was it worth the bother?

That’s where this study of shake comes in. Here I am, in the land of really great, knockout fresh, locally grown and completely legal bud, and I had to wonder, why would anyone out there want to be burn a doobie of shake anymore? My reporter’s mind was curious. I personally have no issue with shake, loved it as a lad, bought it when it was around but still, with all the other practices going on now, from vaping flowers to chewing up edibles to firing up chunks of concentrates in those cool looking sci-fi rigs, why would anyone want to go back in time and mess about with such a dubious, unknown factor? What, my squirrel wheel mind wants to know, truly lurks in those discount bags? Is it the leftovers from the bottom of a budtender’s jar or is it the sweepings off the trimming room floor?

One of the wonderful things about living here in Colorado are the weed advertisements scattered across the back pages of the local free newspapers. Looking at those ads you can be assured that everyone here along the Front Range has the best cannabis in town at the best prices. Some days I wish I had the time, the cash and the determination to find out who really has the best mota in the Denver region, just so I could quit salivating over the thought of trying out all that weed from all those shops. In the meantime, I know that with all the weed that's out there there has to be an abundance of leavings from the cutting room tables. Then again, what do I know? But what I want to know is what happens with all the scraps? Sure, there is a raging market out there for oils, butters, waxes, dabs, keif, hash and any number of assorted edibles. Like the foodie movement, there is not part of the plant that is wasted. And yes, this is a seed to plant to consumer kind of place, no speck of weed goes unseen. So where does the bulk of that shake end up? And who gets it? Does it go into a bulk mota warehouse where folks come in and buy it by the bag full? If so, where do I sign up as that kind of bargain shopping is right up my alley.

Count me in as a somewhat cheap bastard when it comes to dope. I know, I know, high quality, top shelf weed costs big bucks. Who wouldn't like to be able to lay out high dollars for high class weed every time? But what about those times when just a bag of shake around the house will do? To have around, not so much to get wasted on but to have handy for quick bowl loads or to practice rolling joints so that when we are called upon to roll a most delicious looking bomber in the universe for those big deal shindigs we can do it with ease and a decided lack of embarrassment? What I want to know, before I go out there in those mile high snow drifts and lay down my hard earned cash for a bag of shake, is it worth the bother? I think at 69 bucks I have little to lose but is it worth it, high wise?

I have to think, yes. If it's for daily use, not special events, why not? I am still the kind of man who seeks out his favorites and is willing to spend good money on things I want or hold dear. I still have my long burning jones for land race strains and get very excited when I stumble into a shop and they have something on the menu I have been seeking out for a while (hence my child like joy on New Year’s Eve when I fell upon a jar of Colombian Gold in the Bud Depot on a very cold night in Lyons, CO. What a thrill! Even if isn’t brown and golden and hairy as I remember it being way back when). Pardon me, I digress. I think there is room in a stoners’ heart, and stash box, for a big fat container of ground down fun, just like there is room in his mota pantry for a box of righteously delicious cannabis chocolates, a tube of non-BHO oil and a nice round ball of quality hashish. 

As for schwag, well, long time no see, stranger. I did a through search on line in Google Images just to see what's happening out there ins schwagland these days. What blew my mind was the incredible wealth of terminology that I was unfamiliar with. Good dope has changed all the rules, has radically changed the way we look at common, outdoor grown bulk weed. I know that there was a time I might has sold a kidney just to get a baggie worth of dirt weed, but back then we didn't call it dirt weed, we called it grass and were happy to be able to get ahold of it. Times have changed and so has the quality, color and consistency of our mota. I am pleased to be part of these new times.

I will not be out there in the hood, seeking out black market mota any time soon, but if I could, and if it was around, I would love to be able to lay my hands on some of that 70' era mota. Where are the Colombian Golds, the Panama Reds, the Oaxacan, the Thai, the Hawaiian sativas of my youth? I am not looking for brown dirt weed, but a baggie for 40 bucks filled with seedy, stem laden Colombian herby goodness wouldn't be a bad thing. No schwag there. I suppose it's what you would call "middie" these days.

I suppose a drive is in order, then, just for the sport of it. I love my buds but just can't see spending 16 to 20 bucks a gram on nice flower just to bust it up for joints. I think having that ounce of shake in my stash box is what this man needs around the house, if anything, just to build those lovely, old school fatties. Rough trim, nah, no leaves, please. Just the shake from the bottom of the bud jar will do.

Salud!

Great beginners guide to getting high!

http://alphadark.com/learn-how-to-smoke-marijuana-beginners-guide/