can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ), n. one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of Cannibis.




It is with sadness that we clicked on the website for the Alternative Patients Coop and learned they were closing their dispensary at The Mint Mall on Mission Street in San Francisco. The APC had been voted Best Club of 2009 and my few visits had always been most edifying.


In fact their final update on new strains on their website announced the return of Love Potion.

Having been a grateful consumer of this first-rate strain i made sure to get there early on Friday August 28, their next-to-last day. As usual security was tight. My question about their closing was met with a practiced "landlord dispute". Okay. However i was asked to fill out a form that entitles me to future home delivery. This blog and past writings allow me no illusion of anonymity concerning my beliefs so i filled out the damned form. Hopefully it will help continue APC's fine work as care-givers Their manager was most helpful and i walked out with an eighth of Love Potion ( 7/29/09) and a gram of Purple Dragon.

Purple Dragon is an Indica-Sativa hybrid and comes on a bit like a nuclear sub taking you deep beneath unknown waters on a mission from God. It glides with the undersea currents in majestic silence before depositing you on a tranquil atoll somewhere in the South Pacific of your mind.

Flashback

While recounting some tales from yesteryear i neglected to mention an incident that occurred circa fall '58. Young poet Ralph Pine was attending Rutgers and i was crashing at his apartment in New Brunswick N.J.. Our pal was a brilliant and fiery young lady named Barbara Long who was a prose writer with a few credits under her belt. The three of us had been the ones to discover the 7 Arts Coffee Shop and were faithful attendees at the weekly readings. As mentioned in past blogs the customers at the Hell's Kitchen venue were sparse but lo and behold one weekend we were reviewed by Show Business the newspaper. Your reporter received a front page four-star write-up but friend Ralph did not fare so well. Since i was used to getting panned from the age of six i wasn't really sensitive to Ralph's pain and was surprised when he later declined to read any more. However...we were going to start our own Literary Magazine! In those days self-published "little magazines" were prevalent. Most were one-shots, others like LeRoi Jones' Yugen had significant influence in underground circles. Our friend Barbara Long also had influence in literary/ jazz circles which in those days were artistically intertwined.

Barbara called Charles Mingus, the great bass player/composer who was then regularly gigging at a seminal jazz club called The Five Spot. And yes...Charles had an original poem for the launching of our yet unnamed Zine. So the three of us set out for New York one Friday. We would visit Charles Mingus, get the poem and after our Friday night visit to the 7 Arts ( our regular command center ) we would actually crash at his apartment. What could be cooler?

Charles Mingus was cordial and showed real affection for friend Barbara Long. He lived in a typical midtown New York walk-up apartment that entered through the kitchen. Charles had a lovely blond girlfriend who looked like Lana Turner and was far less cordial to these three young interlopers-especially Barbara. She declined to go along as we visited the 7 Arts then went to a bar to discuss our big project. Charles seemed very interested. He showed us his poem which was titled "Bosoms". The poem went in part;

Bosoms / big ones, small ones / I feel them / as I see them...

We of course, were thrilled to have any offering from the great Charles Mingus. Remember this was still pre-rock when Jazz artists ruled. We all went back to the pad to record Mingus reading the poem on a home tape machine ( mine ) about the size of an airline suitcase. But when we entered the apartment we were greeted by a bizarre sight. Charles' lady had written "I Want To Die" over and over on the white kitchen walls, the refrigerator, and the stove. Somewhat in shock and awe Barbara and i made ourselves comfortable on the floor of a small den, while Charlie tried to calm his lady down. Shortly after we retired there was a knock on the door. It was Mingus. After a muffled conversation Barbara came back with the news. Charlie wanted to watch us make it. i declined.

A week later we went back to pick up the tape machine i had left with Mingus to record his poem for posterity. We had called ahead but when we arrived, about ten that night, the doorbell did not respond. From the sidewalk we could see figures at the window of the second-floor apartment. What to do? We decided to go up the fire escape. Ralph and i climbed to the second floor. An elegant black dude was standing at the window. i tapped. He opened the window. It was Max Roach, the renowned drummer, then married to Abbe Lincoln. There were others there as well. A hip jazz party was in progress. i explained we were there to pick up the tape recorder. Max shut the window and went into the other room. He returned with the tape recorder which he passed through the window. We descended back to the sidewalk, aware we had not been invited inside to join the party. Maybe i should have let Charlie watch...

Next: Broadway and Beyond

can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ), n. one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of Cannibis.

Surfing on my last J of O. G. Kush, picked up at Grass Roots, i'm a tad contemplative. The bud is tight and contained like a fast-moving wave that will keep you in the curl for hours until you float back to the beach.
And here i sit drifting back to those halcyon days when we were about to inherit the world...


Hello Broadway

In late fall of '61 i married Joan in a Universalist ceremony that included a Miles Davis soundtrack and a gaggle of squealing college girls who drank too much wine at the party.
Joan continued to attend class while i worked on The Great American Novel. One day Joan returned from school with good news. A Broadway show doing a Boston tryout ( traditional in those days ) put out a casting call for extras. Joan was selected at the munificent sum of $8 a night ( *not bad when you consider apartments went for $60 a month. My pal, photographer and world-class Jewish wiseguy, Robert Gilman had a nifty place in the Italian North End for $25 a month )
On the second night of the play's run i went to pick Joan up after the performance. My deep summer tan and long, dark hair (long gone) obviously connected with the producers. As i walked down the aisle of the empty theatre one of them called out "You must be here for the part".
Being a quick-thinking youth i replied "yes i am". And so i joined the cast of A Passage To India by Santha Rama Rau based on the book by E. M. Forster.
The first week was fun. We were in a real production.The extras had been basically hired to populate a crowded courtroom scene. We all wore Indian costumes and mumbled. Then one day a telegram arrived at my door. It was from the producers asking me to be at the theatre early.
What happened was that one of the contract extras (note the pecking order ) had to leave the show due to a death in the family. Could i take the part and perhaps go to New York with the show?
Could i?
Before the curtain went up they showed me what to do. There were no lines but i did have a bit in the third act where i was tossed bodily out of the courtroom by mistake. If i did it right i could get a laugh.
We appeared in the show for two weeks and then were offered the much hoped-for invitation to go with the show to Broadway.
You may recall most of my possessions were lost in those fires (two-urban planning) and Joan was in school so we didn't have much to pack. Among my belongings was a hand-painted Hookah which Ralph Pine had given me as a wedding present and my leather pig.
We went to New York in two special rail cars reserved for the cast. Contract extras and featured players in one, Stars in the other. Most of the actors were either British or Indian and extremely gracious. We were shy but they went out of their way to make us feel comfortable.
The caste system is one side of show biz, the wonderful camaraderie another. We were all traveling players fretting our brief moments on stage...or in this case, brief months of employment.
So we returned to New York in tarnished glory. We got first-class passage and a had a job when we arrived. All we needed now was an apartment.
In those days the area to find a cheap place was the Lower East Side now the East Village. In those days the vestiges of the Eastern European immigrants were strongly in place. There was a Deli in my neighborhood that would cut you a pound of rich butter from a barrel. The Yiddish theatre was still active. On some blocks all you heard was Ukranian.
Since i was now a Broadway actor i decided to go top dollar and rented a studio on Ninth Street and Avenue C for $80 a month.
My next move was to call Ann, a lady i had met during a wild party on Symphony Road, and
score some boo. And did i score. For $20 i received an ounce of primo herb that i still recall as one of the best vintages ever.
And so began the Broadway Run....

Suggested Theatre: August: Osage County

Suggested Film: District 9

can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ), n. One competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannabis.

Some Historical Notes

The summer of '61 was the start of the groundswell.
There was a small army of folk singers on the road that went from Harvard Square to Ann Arbor Michigan to Berkeley CA and on to Vancouver, with stops at college towns along the way. Like later period punk bands, the folk performers would crash with their fans. All across the country college students were picking up guitars and listening to music that was not on the radio. Marijuana, once the weed of social deviants had been washed clean by the literary world and was being passed from hand to hand in dorms and coffee houses.
The LSD experiments at Harvard and books like Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley,
encouraged young people to try to expand their consciousness. This was the original quest.
Later people took acid just to get stoned and goof on the disco lights.
But back then young hipsters, we fasted the day before ingesting either mescaline, psylicibine or LSD. We got ourselves focused. Then we dropped. We had friends to guide us. We did it right.
As Allen Ginsberg once said, "Yoga is being neat while you're high".
Others of course were reading William Burroughs, like young Teddy Bernstein who showed me how to crush a Demerol pill between two spoons and snort it. Not my style. i wanted to get high, not stoned.
But it was chaotic. i wrote a poem about a strange night at Coffee Corner....

My father
wore spats
and so did i ( his in fact )
2am (zen) knifefight in
Back Bay Bickford's
sanctuary of speedheads, thieves, poets
whores, artists / children of the night / fashion
plates in seach of a tailor a
stich in
time a
stich in
time
and there was i
blue-striped spats ( and
matching vest)
diner chair shielding me
from a small angry blade
vogue(ing)
on a cosmic stage
who
knows why

Anyway that summer in Boston was teeming with action. Folk singers back from Berkeley with news of familiar names, people you had met at a party or who slept on your couch. Everyone was on some sort of Psychic Twitter in an age where a public phone cost a quarter. There was an emergence of the Living Room Star- people who played great guitar, or sang, or had drugs and stories, or who knew somebody-and would crash at your pad for indeterminate periods in return for their charisma. Everybody seemed to be on their way to somewhere else.
There were nubile girls, intrepid guys with longish hair, impromptu folk parties, the odd kilo of weed coming up from Mexico -- and psychedelic substances such as Peyote, mescaline, mushroom and LSD were legal.
Students were opting to drop out and go on the road long before Tim Leary told them to. But Tim was sure instrumental in helping that groundswell become the tsunami that changed America.
The old I Love Lucy sexual standards and practices were shifting. In those days in Boston, two unmarried people found in bed together (police would usually raid on Sunday morning) could be arrested for Lewd And Lascivious Living. Howl had busted the censors and Playboy Magazine was publishing Norman Mailer who previously had to write "fug" instead of "fuck" in his great WWII novel The Naked And The Dead.
So there you have the environment. So long Perry Como, hello Pete Seeger. Hasta la vista Doris Day buenas dias Joan Baez. Of course Miles, Bird and Monk were still strong in the burgeoning hippy consciousness.
And Vietnam had started to escalate.

Part Two: Let's Twist Again (Like We Did Last Summer )

There were many lovely young ladies that summer. Remember, we were coming out from under heavy repression. So towards September, when Sunni Finklestein, the Radcliffe Sex Queen invited me along to Provincetown for the weekend, i was totally cool. Sunni was going to visit her current interest Jim Strahlee, an actor doing stock at the Provincetown Playhouse. i was interested in the beach and it was understood i could crash with the actors.
During the long night drive i kept it at a distance, no leering. We arrive, everything's fine Sunni and Jim go off together and i crash in the barn. Since i love the beach, hanging with Jim and Sunni on Saturday was easy. Jim was an actor in the classic sense with a lot of fire, passion and self-aggrandizing bullshit. Okay with me, i was there for the sun.
That night, after a performance of Death of a Salesman we all had beer and burgers with the director, a strapping young man called Joe who was a charismatic dude with a sense of humor.

Still okay with me. i enjoyed the company then went off to sleep.

That night i woke up yelling, bad dream. Jim Strahlee was just coming in. "It's okay," he said. I went back to sleep.
In the morning it was clear everything was not okay.
Sunni and Jim had lost that lovin' feeling. Through the day the story came out. Sunni had gotten it on with Joe. Jim had discovered them on the beach.
Jim played it for all it was worth, the basic premise being "how could you be with that (married ) lowlife after you've been with me?"
I resolved to be more like Hef. i dug the split between old-school relationships and the new woman.

When i recieved my insurance check from my fire i rented a place on St Botolph Street. My old friend Ralph Pine had married a Garment Center heiress called Maddy Leob who walked around saying things like, "this dress cost four hundred dollars". We were obviously running with different crowds. My new pals were called Buster, Ronny Vile(well named) and Al the Arab. Buster was a supercool black dude who dealt pot and we would gather three or four times a week to get high and listen to jazz. When I say listen, i mean nobody spoke one word (Jazz Zen). Otherwise we smoked and played our version of The Dozens. For the very first time i had steady access to herb.

Another new associate was Rick Lloyd the first guy i ever knew to wear blond Beatle bangs and long, straight hair. Rick looked like Iggy Pop's pop. He was traveling with a red-haired Tennessee heiress named Estelle Norvelle ne' Fire and an entourage made up of well-born drop-outs. Rick always seemed to have drugs and he was the first to coin the term Freak Show ( he was an ex-carney after all).

One night I attended a performance of a play at Emerson College, directed by Ralph Pine. The Balcony by Jean Genet. While backstage i met a lovely nineteen year-old acting student named Joan. Two months later we eloped.

Next: Hello Broadway

can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ), n. one competetent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of Cannibis.


Curiosity brought us to Divinity Tree, 958 Geary Street, San Francisco having passed it many times on our way to Tommy's Joint. At that hour parking was available and the small downstairs club had an easy, intimate feel with a couch for those waiting and a wide range of herb behind the glass counter. Staff is knowledgeable and waited while i studied their varied menu. Although a Sativa man i chose an Indica called Sugar Daddy at $55 an eighth.
The strain is well named. Lush and sweet with sticky buds, it comes on boldly, billowing like a large, multi-colored parachute. An offshoot of Grandaddy it is energetic as well as contemplative with an arc that hits a rarefied altitude.
Divinity Tree is definitely worth a return visit.

It occurred to me that as herb becomes more accepted for its medicinal and spiritual value, the ritual sharing and traditional courtesies that evolved during its exile might fall by the wayside. No doubt some will. Still i have faith the herb has the power to clear minds and touch souls on our common journey through eternity.
(whew! Divinity Tree indeed )


Well now, still savoring Sugar Daddy's aftertaste, we'll try to sort out the events that led to

Bob Dylan Sleeps On My Floor

I was honorably ( if grudgingly ) discharged from the U.S. Army one day late, in October 1960.
After spending the requisite two weeks with my parents I packed up and headed for Boston, where my old pal Ralph Pine had a pad. He was attending Emerson College and the place was jumping with young actresses looking for drama.
The people on the scene were mildly impressed by my New York poet creds but the romantic heroes of the moment were now Folk Singers. Everything had changed while i was busy saving America.
Boston was quite a weird scene. The intersection of Emerson, Boston University, Harvard, Radcliffe, Brandeis, the Museum School of Art, Boston Latin, Beacon Hill Brahmins, Roxbury brothers and Mission Hill bangers made for a manic mix. Add the LSD, Peyote, Mescaline
and Methadrine seeping into the soup and things began to bubble. At the time speed was more readily available than marijuana.
After a couple of weeks of crashing at Ralph's I landed a job at Filenes department store and found a studio on Charles Street that had the feel of a Parisian garret. Most every night people would gather at various pads, drinking wine and singing folk songs.
I was laid off after the Christmas season and applied for unemployment. My reward for two years Army time. I moved into a large apartment on Symphony Road with new friends Jerry Cole and Don West. From the very first night we moved in, it became party central.
As i recall the records we played went from Ray Charles to Joan Baez. Don West was a good-looking black dude who played guitar. Jerry Cole was an acting student at Emerson who might have been a cowboy star (another friend David Potter actually did become a TV cowboy)
and myself, the poet. It was a glorious period.
Unlike today where College grads seek a good, secure job, students then wanted to go to Paris or Mexico or India. They sought to find themselves and you know what, many of them did.
And a big part of this seeking was sex, drugs and rock and roll.
Okay then, long story short, some months later our Symphony Road apartment was gutted by fire. I was left with the clothes on my back and a leather pig.
Now behind Symphony Road was a place we called Coffee Corner, namely a Bick's All Night Cafeteria that was headquarters to the strange and the insomniac. At three A.M. one might find a trio of professional wrestlers, Billy Barnum the clown, Lionel Phelps the Harvard pundit, snarling Bobby Neuwirth (later named the superstar's superstar by Esquire) the poet Dale Landers, Paul Shapiro the painter, Rick Lloyd, a bicoastel ex-carney turned Pied Piper to well-born rebels, Jim Strahlee a local actor who introduced me to BU student Faye Dunaway, Dino Valente, later of Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jim Kweskin and David Simon who formed the Jug Band, Dave Van Ronk, Robert Gilman, Sonny Daly...and a host of others, including the painter Arthur Yanoff who had a spare room i was able to rent.
It was an interesting summer. Everyone was talking about the LSD experiments conducted by Leary and Alpert ( later Baba Ram Dass ) at Harvard. i took my first trip on mescaline supplied by a Brandeis student. Days were spent on the banks of the the Charles River hanging, singing chilling.
One night in Harvard square I saw a local guitar player, Perry Lederman, sitting on a curb with another picker, both of them playing Freight Train as fast as they could, trying to outdo each other.
The picker was a guy called Bob Dylan.
Anyway another night a lady i met invited me to come along on a ride to the beach. In the car was Dylan, another cat, and two other girls. The cat was a folk buff as were the ladies and they all worshipped this guy Dylan who i had never heard of before.
I did know one thing. There was a heavy aura around him. It was real quiet in the car as if no one wanted to say something square. And in Dylan's world everybody was square.
We partied on the beach, Dylan played some standard folk songs, nothing brilliant. Afterwards he said he didn't know where he was staying that night. i invited him to sleep on the mattress in Arthur's painting studio. Which he did.
In the morning Arthur threw a hissy fit at finding a stranger in his studio ( which at the time featured a slab of rotting meat, Arthur being in his Soutine period ). Dylan left.
Shortly thereafter i drew my last unemployment check and went to Province town with a Radcliffe hottie called Sunni Finklestein who majored in Sanskrit and drove a Ford with the first retractable metal top (the name escapes me). We hooked up with actor Jim Strahlee at the Provincetown Playhouse where I crashed. The weekend was fraught with high drama and when i returned to Boston my fire insurance settlement check was waiting for me.
It was time for my next phase.

Suggested Listening: What I Say by Ray Charles

can * nois * seur * ( kan' us sur' ), n. one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of Cannabis.





Heads Up: Good quality Sativa Shake is available at Re-Leaf Herbal Clinic at $30 the eighth.


Grass Roots is featuring a number of strains at between $30 and $40 an eighth.
i can't attest to the quality of this new line but a high-end gram ( $18 ) of their Blackberry
Kush still goes a long way.

So now might be time to try to conjure some recollections of,

A Beat New Year's Eve

For my own memory's sake i'm going to set up a time line here.

At the very end of my Basic Training at Fort Dix ( i ended up platoon leader ) i contracted pneumonia because of a maniacal Second Lt who insisted i crawl through, rather than around, a large puddle of water. So instead of going to Tank School in Fort Knox Ky i went to the hospital. Upon my release i returned to my old platoon barracks which was empty, awaiting a fresh wave of trainees.
However every day we were sent to what essentially was an Army shape-up, where indigent bodies were assigned to various tasks, usually manual labor. That's where i met Frenchy LaBoy.

Somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas i got high with Jack Kerouac, smoking the boo Frenchy helped me score. i had also built some confidence as a poet appearing at a number of Village readings as well as the weekly show uptown at the Seven Arts which had built heavy momentum.

At the same time i was reassigned to the Personell Center where i met Jim Butler who was reading On The Road. We bonded. Jim had an apartment in NY. It was there Jack, Jim and myself wrote our free-form poem with a pencil.

Okay, so maybe a week later Barbara Moraff, the poet who scooped Jack in the first place, and whose Gothic charm made her a reigning social diva, grandly plugged her New Jersey gang-Ralph Pine, Margot Shnee and myself-into Leroi Jones New Year's Party.
At the time Jones, along with his lovely wife Letty, edited an influential Literary Magazine called Yugen. Later he reincarnated as Amiri Baraka, the teacher, activist, and controversial Poet Laureate of New Jersey.
During that period going to any New York party was heady stuff, much less a real Beat, Greenwich Village New Year's party.

A side note: Margot drove. We stopped in Jersey City to pick up my date Sarah who had asked me to pretend i was Jewish. Fine. i met Sarah's mother, chatted about her son's upcoming Bar Mitzvah, then Ralph, Margot, Sarah and me proceed to the party where Barbara was already holding court. We were early and things had yet to warm up.
Leroi was a bit dubious about his new guests until i mentioned i had a bit of pot. There were two joints left of Frenchy's boo. Leroi rolled. He gave me one and we smoked the other.
From then on everything was mellow. Leroi played some jazz, more guests arrived, and we drank some red wine. Gil Sorrentino was there as was Joel Oppenheimer and Gregory Corso. Jack Kerouac showed up, Allen Ginsberg wandered about before finally getting naked (he did it at every party ) "Allen's taking off his clothes again!" Barbara called out. Lots of colorful people flowed into the cramped railroad flat that night.
In the midst of it I was talking to Jack when Allen came by.
On our first meeting I had confided to Jack that I sometimes walked past Allen G's house in Paterson NJ. So when Allen came up to say hello Jack scolded him. "This kid walks past your house. You should kiss his stomache."
And Allen humbly did.
Shortly before midnight Ralph handed me a Dexadrine and i soared into 1959.
I recall early in the morning hearing the sound of snoring coming from a roll-top desk. Joel Oppenheimer had curled up, pulled the top down over himself and gone to sleep. I also recall dancing with Sarah to Way Out West by Sonny Rollins, the speed giving me new insights into jazz.
After the party Margot drove me, along with Sarah, back to my platoon at Fort Dix. At maybe 5a.m. i entered a bleak, deserted barracks and lay on a cot coming down hard from my first Dexadrine pill. The euphoria i experienced during the party gave way to the grim realization that i was stuck in the Army for the next two fucking years.
And i was out of pot.



Coming Soon: Bob Dylan Sleeps On My Floor

Suggested Viewing: Lush Life with Jeff Goldblum

can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ), n. one competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of Cannibis.


We have visited a fair share of clubs over this period (see previous posts for addresses) and it seems time to rate them.

**** Re-Leaf Herbal Clinic: Friendly atmosphere, excellent product, good discount policy,
in and out fairly quickly. (allows smoking)

****Alternative Patients Coop: Great web site allows you to pre-pick, primo product,
knowledgeable staff, okay discounts. ( no smoking )

**** Grass Roots: Friendly, clubby room, great menu with wide selection, knowledgeable
staff, good discount policy. ( no smoking )

***1/2 Hope Net: Friendly, some waiting, good selection, very good product, interesting
edibles, staff could be more patient with those trying to choose. ( allows smoking )

***1/2 Mr Nice Guy: Very hip menu, a bit lockdown but it is a dicey hood. Good staff,
good discount, quality product. ( no smoking)

**1/2?? The Good Fellows: This one may require a second visit to be fair. Our first was less
than we hoped for. Located in the Haight, the dispensary is at the rear of a head shop behind a
partition- patrons go into the sanctum one at a time. However the
outer store is public. We went in armed with a coupon clipped
from SF Weekly and were somewhat deflated to find it was
covered with caveats. Discounts were minimal as was the herb
selection. However they did have a wide and varied Hash
section. In the end, after some confusion as to the terms of the
coupon, we chose a safe Silver Kush. Alas on tasting we were
disappointed to find it was a coarse variation of the strain, lacking
the familiar optimistic updraft and creative bent of a classic SK.
We will visit this club again, if only to sample the tempting Hash,
( no smoking )


Alright then, there are still many clubs on our list, however there will also be stories along the way. Some of these are:
1) A Beat New Years Eve
2)Bob Dylan sleeps on my floor in Boston/ Jim Kweskin starts a Jug Band.
3) Hello Broadway, i do a show with James Coco
3) Chip Monk and the Dylan Basement Tapes/Village Gate/Greenwich Hotel
4) i set sail for Tangier and Beirut
5) i return from the Hippy Trail
6) my encounters with Jackie Wilson, Mitch Miller and Bob Crewe.
7) i leave The Tombs and enter publishing
8) Bantam publishes Doctor Orient/ i set sail for Tangier and Rome
9) My 2nd novel Raga Six becomes a bestseller
10) Paul Bowles in Tangier
11) William Burroughs in New York/ High Times magazine, the early days
12) Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithful and the Club Life
13) Doctor Orient becomes a comic book drawn by Marshall Rogers
14) The Tom Waits period
15) i become a rapper

Thanks for bearing with me this far.

Suggested Reading: Never Slow Dance With A Zombie by Ehrich Van Lowe

Suggested Viewing: Funny People

can * nois * seur ( kan' us sur' ), n. one who is competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of Cannibis.

On today's visit to the Re-Leaf Herbal Center, 1284 Mission Street @ 9th, in San Francisco we were introduced to Hawaiian Diesel, a fragrant Sativa. A discreet sampling yielded delightful results.

Lift off is smooth and light and as soon as the first-stage rockets fall away one ascends to clear weightlessness which carries for at least three hours. Fortified by this strain your humble critic hit three of four baskets in a game this very day. (Two 3-pointers)
Hawaiian Diesel is an extraordinary value at $50 the eighth and discounts are available for seniors and Vets.
Re-Leaf is a righteous vendor with a down-home atmosphere akin to a Brooklyn Social Club. The vibes are good and their herb is some of the best in town.

On the other hand Mr Nice Guy, 174 Valencia Street, SF, has a completely different vibe. The gatekeeper sits behind bullet-proof glass and you slip your card through the slot. ( He had to leave his post because my prescription didn't fit.) Inside is a cavernous room that might have been a disco a decade ago. Two lovely clerks work behind bullet-proof glass, something like a late-night gas station. There are colorful murals on either side and a sound engineer's stage in back.
Customers stand behind a line while waiting, where they can view the menu on an overhead airport-style flat-screen TV that flashes names and prices, rotating between Indica and Sativa. Part of the screen is devoted to edibles including Cannibis Tea.
To keep from going broke on this venture i selected a gram of White Rhino at $18 and a $7 bag of Blueberry Tea. I was given a friendly discount and was struck by the excellent packaging. My herb came pre-packed in a slickly decorated bag, with the name imprinted. The tea has a distinctive Art Nouveau Logo and should my skills improve perhaps we'll post a picture.
Upon tasting White Rhino showed remarkable character with more body than many high-bred Sativas and a distinct clarity of purpose.

Suggested Reading: The I Chong by Tommy Chong
Suggest Viewing: The Big Lebowski

can * nois * seur ( Kan' us sur'), n. one who is competent to render critical judgement on the qualities and merits of cannibis.





Today's quick visit to the Alternative Patients Cooperative @ 833 Mission Street proved fortuitous..
We were able to scoop the last dregs of Love Potion. ( see July 29, 09 )
Thus armed we will light up and try to go back in time.



Part Two: i get high with Jack Kerouac



Two weeks after my adventure in the South Bronx i hopped a weekend ride to New York for the regular Saturday night Poetry Reading at the 7 Arts Coffee Shop at 43rd and 9th, way off the downtown radar.

My New Jersey pals Barbara Moraff and Ralph Pine, both exciting young poets, were with me.

Regular guests included Jack Micheline and Ray Bremser ( an unrecognized virtuoso of the word). Another poet was Roberts Blossom who later gained fame as a film actor in Home Alone.

The place was run by John, a jovial, generous, true believer and his assistant Arnie, a painter who sometimes lived in the coffee house. We filed up the stairs every Saturday, feeling really underground and beat.
But that Saturday night was different. That night all the big guys came uptown, having heard there was a strong new scene. Right there were Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Jack Kerouac, LeRoi Jones ( later Amiri Baraka, New Jersey's controversial Poet Laureate) and a host of Greenwich Village luminaries.
Suddenly i was terrified of reading my stuff before this crowd. Ray Bremser kept passing me a wine bottle saying "have some Tokay, it's heartless" quoting from a Ginsberg line. i got a bit drunk, threw up. John, bless him, told me it was okay, just go out and read.
i was third up.
My poem started, "I am twenty three years old and my relatives keep asking me what I intend to do about it..."
There was nice applause and I went home to New Jersey, relieved i made it through.
On Sundays i usually had dinner with my parents then went back to NY to catch my ride to Fort Dix.
But that afternoon i got a phone call.
Barbara had hooked up with Jack Kerouac and taken him back to her house in Paterson NJ for a night of innocent debauchery. Her parents were away that weekend. Truth be told I was itching to meet Big Jack my own self.
So when the phone rang and Barbara whispered, "Thirty-Third Street now," i sailed out the door.
Sure enough, heavily hung over, was Jack Kerouac himself. Turns out Barbara's folks came home earlier than usual and she was passing him to me for safekeeping.
Jack wanted to get a drink but Paterson was buttoned up tight on Sundays. i told Jack there was plenty of wine at my house and few blocks away and he let me lead the way.
My mom was a great cook and would feed anyone within twenty yards of her kitchen so guests were never a problem. i got Jack a glass of wine and we sat in the living room chatting while my dad read the Sunday Times. Abruptly my father ( who always wore his tie in the house )
put down his paper and said, "You know you're a bum?"
Undaunted Jack, who knew how to hurt a guy, replied, "You come on like a bus driver. I made thirty-five thousand dollars last year."
Mom served dinner just in time and Jack ate a little, drank a lot and talked about his own mother. Mom told Jack he should "settle down, you don't find nice girls in coffee shops." a line i included in a later poem.
An entire gallon of Gallo was consumed by the time we headed back to New York.
While waiting for the bus it came to me. i was still holding the pot i scored two weeks back. And i had papers. Unfortunately my rolling skills were not yet there. Jack's were and he rolled and we smoked a J right on the corner.
When the bus arrived Jack showed me the proper technique for sleeping on a bus (you curl up and wedge your feet against the arm rest) and promptly fell out.
Upon arrival Jack immediately looked for a drink and found the Terminal Bar across the street from the Port Authority Terminal in the heart of sleaze city.
Over scotch Jack confided that my pot was very strong. In his words, "I came in my pants." As we drank an energized Jack kept pointing things out such as, "there's a pimp, look at that gold chain on his vest," or, "look at the way that girl smokes her cigarette, see the tracks on her wrist..."
It was part street tutorial and part lesson in observation for the young writer. In search of more booze we went to my friend Jim Butler's pad where
i was due to catch our ride back to base and the bleak reality of Army life.
Jim was napping. "I'm here with Jack Kerouac,' I whispered.
"Yeah sure," Jim said grumpily. He broke into a beaming grin when he saw the legendary Jack sitting in his living room. Alas Jim had only a modicum of wine and a single piece of paper in the house.
Jack drank the wine then decreed we should all write a poem together, each taking a stanza.
It was tough rounding up a pencil but finally we went to work.
Jim took the first stanza, me next and Jack anchored. This is the poem...

Late night strangers
(both only a little)
How better, awake!

Palms flip silver dollars
watching people with
wet coats

Pissing in the cold
tenement toilet
I smoke my cigarette

And that's the tale of the day i got high with Jack Kerouac.




Suggested reading: Poems of Holy Madness by Ray Bremser.