A Weekend of Decadent Decay - Hash
A short drive from Host’s house we come to Cannabis Cup (http://medcancup.com/los-angeles/schedule/) and even though we are well into the start of it (lunch in the sun was required before attending the festival) the line is literally around the block and its packed inside. We hopefully state that maybe that’s for people purchasing tickets?? But I can see them holding tickets in their hand and have resigned myself that that is indeed the line. We join the queue and prepare to wait. But really the sun is shining, our bellies are full, and we can see the shenanigans going on inside…so it’s not going to be that bad. I breathed deep (that always helps around stoners) and stopped looking at ways to increase efficiency of this cluster in front of me and embraced the relaxed attitude of the event. It was a good choice.
Start side note
In general, I really love hanging around stoners for finite periods of time. To me they are a lot like wine…they are all lumped together in one location but cannot, by any means, be classified as the same personality. When you move past the commonalities of general friendliness and pro-smoke attitude everything diverges. There are as many kinds of stoners as wines – endless and usually shaped by the land they’ve grown up in. There is no way I could list them all here. But here are a few classifications that were in strong showing at the festival. You’ve got your binge “box wine” stoners who are usually young, brash, blazed out of their minds and rebellious. The “sparkling wine” stoners who are usually female, beautiful, scantily clothed and everything is happy and easy in their life at all times. The “homemade wine” crowd of earthy intellectuals with an off-the-grid mentality. And then there are the “top shelf wine” stoners…elitist, knowledgeable, and will one-up you on everything regarding weed. They are looking for the finest herb and live in a constant state of buzz, but don’t ever get out of their minds. This crowd will judge the box wine stoners harshly. Though more rare to find in the wild, the top-shelf is here in FULL force because this is Cannabis Cup and they have come to represent and judge the strains to pronounce “best in show” for the LA weed scene. All of these groups interacting provides endless entertainment for me at this festival, much more than any other aspect.
End side note
The most notable moments of the festival occurred while waiting in line. Behind us was a young group of kids that would have looked quite comfortable in the emo-punk riddled streets surrounding UW’s Ave. They excitedly talked about how they had just scored VIP tickets for free from some people that were tired of waiting in line. They talked about this A LOT, as in to every person they saw, they were going for round two cause they were on their way out when they got the ticket! they were going to see the concert now! Harmless, enthusiastic, and loud. In front of the emo pack was a lone youth of typical stoner attire, a lot of cotton, ubiquitous knit cap with greasy blonde locks hanging out, hemp necklace, and a sweet gentle I’m stoned smile. It was about 20 minutes before we started chatting…you could feel him lurking just over our shoulders wanting to speak to someone, anyone, cause he’s a talker and his silence is killing him. He flashed some hash, to no one in particular, a couple of times like a fisherman casting his rod…any takers? Anyone interested? Given the number of lit joints I could see just from where I stood (on a public sidewalk), I think everyone was already pretty well supplied. Sorry sweet Hashboy…
Start side note
The Police presence. Negligible. In the hour+ that I was on the sidewalk, one patrol car drove by with its windows up and not even checking out the crowd. Its very clear that the police took the right attitude on this which was “we know this is illegal cause even if you have your card you can’t smoke in public, but we really don’t want to bother with you as long as you stay civil. We good? Good.”
End side note
Friend is a lovely woman with attention drawing curves and of course Hashboy behind us really wanted to chat her up…so we did the thing that girls do so well when faced with unwanted attention - being nice but not so nice that you get the wrong idea. Problem is, in a line, you can’t relocate. So we listened to his story (traveled all over, gypsy vagabond type, knows good hash, see hash!, unsubtle boob glances, see hash!, how you doin?, see hash!?), had a couple laughs and exchanges about what brought us to this spot, and then engaged in obvious body language that said we are done, you are becoming too much, oh look at that tree in front of us!! This of course is an exaggeration but not by much.
In turning our attention forward I found, what I considered, the most entertaining little group of people. What was clearly two distinct groups had merged into a delightful blend of L.A. chollos and white trash. I believe the ratio stayed at two joints for six people for most of the time. Add to this mental picture a skinny white boy (who looked like he had teleported from a Poison concert) who was also downing beers from his backpack and clearly drunk. Then on top of that add a totally sober Ron Paul supporter canvasing for voters. YES!! Ding. Ding. Ding. We have a shitshow!! Eeeeeentertain me bee-yawtches!! Here is a photo…cause well a photo is always good.
*Note beer bottle tucked in bag, joint in hand, and of course dude who couldn't be bothered to actually put on his shoes (in the background).
In case you didn’t know, Ron Paul is allll about the legalization of weed, so his supporters were heavily canvasing the area, passing out voter registration, pamphlets, etc. Without diverging too heavily into politics let me quickly say that I really like some of Ron Paul’s platforms. However, his rabid anti-choice stance (and we are talking about actively trying to roll back Row v. Wade) means that he will never get my vote. And his socialist leanings on other topics means that he will never pull the conservative female vote (which would back his anti-choice stance). Add that together and you have a candidate that has alienated ALL the female base and therefore will never be elected. It’s a shame…I think he might be a good president if he’d just stay out of my uterus. Apparently the activist know this because they are steering clear of ALL the women in line, they avoid eye contact and know it is a hopeless cause to try to get our vote. Watching these sober politicos interact with sky-high and drunk stoners is all sorts of funny because none of what politico is saying is sinking in…but the stoners are so eager for a pro-weed president they are desperately trying to understand. So they grasp onto the flyer (above) and tuck it into their packs to read later.
Eventually we get into the festival. I have to say it is a bit of a letdown. We opted not to spend some extra money and get our California cards that would allow us entry into the “smoke” side of the festival, so immediately the festival is chopped in half for us. The smoke side is tits to ass crowded but they appear to be having a good time. Perhaps there was stuff I wanted to see…but well a big gate and a red wristband stood between me and ever seeing what was over there. The half that is left to us has a smattering of vendors (vaporizers, weed storage, glassware, and some other odds and ends), a strange mix of food trucks doing brisk business (yay munchies!!), and that’s about it. We cover that in about 30 minutes. Inside there are only two things of note – the lecture hall and a freaky-deaky art studio upstairs. We check out the upstairs (cause I kept believing there had to be something MORE to this festival to account for the ticket price) and are smacked with patchouli and know that we have entered - Freaky. Hippy. Land. A place of rugs and pillows, of vacant eyed “welcome to our space” people floating around in scarves and doing communal paintings of I’m not sure what. Resisting the urge to go RIGHT back downstairs we looked at the art on the walls for a few moments, waited till no one was seeing if we wanted to join their cult, and bee lined it to the stairs. The last thing we did at the festival was attend a lecture on growing that was interesting but nothing so structured or informative that I couldn’t have found it on the internet. It was the basics of growing weed and the pros and cons of each decision point – seeds v. seedlings, outside v. inside, when to harvest, etc. I liked that it all felt very matter of fact and above board. During the lecture I found myself hoping that one day, very soon we would move from semi-legal status to legitimate legality. I envision a time in the near future when we may actually see something like a home listing that lists 2 bed, 1 den, 1 grow room on its MLS entry. Interesting thought, eh? Till then the weed culture exists in this hypocritical stage of acceptance but not protected status.
And that is all there was to Cannabis Cup. A fun adventure to try out, but not something I would recommend that people must go do.
More fun was had back at Host’s house that evening where we sat around, ordered in Chinese food, and basically hot boxed the entire living room. I slept like a baby that night even though I never took a direct hit/drag/etc…contact high in effect, I’m sure.
The most enjoyable day for me was actually our last day in LA and had nothing to do with weed. Just a hop, skip, and a jump from LA is Santa Monica and a lovely two mile boardwalk to Venice Beach. So I spent my last day there. I could spend many other days there. It was wonderful. Sand, surf, all kinds of people and pets, good food, interesting sights. My inner kid got to come out and play for the day and she loved it. I will definitely be back.
I grow weary of typing the rest of this story…so I’ve probably already lost you several paragraphs back. If you are still here, I will finish quickly. The road trip back up was a bit quieter than the one down, as is always the case. We left LA in the late afternoon and drove north through the darkness of night, over snowy mountain passes that slowed our return (but damned if I would stop) and returned safely as scheduled back home.
It was a great little weekend and I returned with a few goodies stashed in my bag and a lot of great moments stashed in my mind.
J Cheers all J
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