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


Heads Up: Hope Net at 223 Ninth Street off Howard has a version of White Widow, the Sativa Hybrid, at $13 a gram, that outguns many of the more expensive strains in the city. Hope Net has always been a user-friendly club with space to smoke, a wide variety of strains
and helpful budtenders. The Coop's prices are reasonable and their menu usually includes a low-cost shake or mix.

Act 2: The Screen Test Cometh

So there i was in Hollywood with a job, car and female companion named Barbara, a former New York model for the fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez Cepero. We found a tiny apartment that featured a large garden and view perched at the crest of a canyon stairway with at least 1000 steps. Above us the Hollywood Sign listed like an old drunk. Today the area is known as Beechwood Terrace and the sign has been to rehab.
i threw myself into Social Work, intending to heal lives and right injustice, until it became clear the system had other ideas. one of my jobs was to visit welfare clients, mainly single mothers, and make sure the father or husband wasn't on the premises. If he was, the mother didn't qualify for welfare payments. You tell me. Does this make for a stable home, or does it encourage a fractured family with no visible father figure?

Unlike New York there was no place where young actors would gather except for Barney's Beanery. There was a late night scene at a place called Ben Franks but it was more for Vegas hipsters than beat artists. The Purple Onion booked fine musicians including The Jazz Crusaders and The Loser's Club had a billboard out front naming the Loser Of The Week. That was about it. No cafes, hardly any sidewalks and nasty white cops who would stop your car for any reason and "roust you" ( check your ID for outstanding warrants ). If you looked weird your car would be searched, if you happened to be black you were in trouble. Rumour was, most of the cops were failed western actors and indeed many carried pearl handled Colts as sidearms. It was said some had notches.
On the other hand, driving in the balmy weather with the top down and the radio up, LA could be a groove.
Of course LA is the land of surreal illusion. Giant Stucco Hot Dogs dripping with mustard, Huge Top-Hatted Exterminators wielding mallets behind their tail coats, Big Pink Stores with yellow polka-dots; all adorned the landscape on the way to the Ghetto....
The first time i visited a welfare mother and approached the address my first thought was that LA's ghetto was far nicer than New York's slums. My client lived in a neat blue stucco house with a small garden. It looked like a sitcom set in the happy suburbs. As i neared however, it became clear that it was actually a pastel noir. Up close one could see the overgrown grass littered with refuse that seemed like a garden, and the rat holes in the grimy blue stucco walls. The moms were usually young, with more than one child. Oddly, my black co-workers from back east looked down on their western brethren, who had emigrated directly from the south to the cultural wasteland of LA, without benefit of the New York experience. Then again, all Easterners found the place unsophisticated at best.
My co-worker Shelby, a flouncy blond with a southern accent provided me with pot and regaled me with stories of her professional encounters with Cary Grant and David Niven. Shelby had a great flat above Sunset Boulevard and very near Lenny Bruce's home.

Side Story: The Twins had given me the number of a mutual friend, a black musician named Donny, who knew many of the working jazz players in the area. One night while we were out and about Donny took us to Lenny Bruce's Pad, where a friend of his was house-sitting. Sunken living room, grey walls, low lights, jazz...everything except Lenny himself.

About this time Barbara contacted a relative living in Thousand Oaks (at that time the posh new area) who had made a lot of money manufacturing rifles and other arms. His name was Manny and he had connections in the movie business. We visited his poolside home and partook of his gracious hospitality but with all the opulence it just wasn't the American Dream i dreamed about. Mine included a two-story townhouse in Greenwich Village where i could write. However there i was in Hollywood trying to be an actor. So who was i to judge anybody? Manny was a soulful host with a lovely wife and two daughters who enjoyed his success. Mozeltov baby. And, he actually did have a friend at Warner Brothers. A man named Solly Biano.
The word came. Yes, Mr Biano would grant us an audition. Problem was, neither Barbara nor i was prepared for the task. i had some raw talent but no idea of technique. And Lady B had long legs and the brains of most models. We decided to do a scene from Two For the Seesaw, a play totally inappropriate for our limited range. i wanted to do the kitchen scene from Franny and Zooey, not a play, but intense dialogue. But in truth, we could have done a scene from Love Boat and still would have stunk up the joint.
When the big day arrived Manny took us to meet Solly Biano, who was a wiry, handsome, older man, with a great tan, silver white hair and the energy of a youngster. He immediately became my role model. Unfortunately when i got on stage my limbs felt like mozzarella and my voice was full of ham. Inside of four minutes Solly had seen enough. The Warner Brothers movie career was a wrap.
Shelby was sympathetic. She shared my belief in social work and was always up for a good time.
Then, a few weeks later, fortune smiled from another direction. My brother Andrew, had submitted my poems to a literary contest and i had been awarded first prize ( and fourth ) by the Valley Writer's Conference in Cupertino Ca. . First prize for Song For Myself and fourth for Song For My Mother. First was a check for thirty dollars. Fourth was a certificate, which still hangs on my wall.

Suggested Reading: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
Suggested Viewing: Fanny by Marcel Pagnol