Second Novel Blues

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





"The most amazing property of cannabis is its ability to fog the minds of those who do not use it."

Heads Up: Taking my own advice, i phoned Oakland 420 Medical Evaluations and had zero trouble making an appointment. Just over the Bay Bridge from SF at 2633 Telegraph Avenue in Oakland, it was easy to find and parking was available. There were a smattering of patients on line but when i told the receptionist i had an appointment she handed me 3 pages of requisite paperwork, including endless legal disclaimers. From the number of people waiting i speculated the doctor would run overtime but to my surprise my name was called barely five minutes past my appointment. It was a renewal visit but the doctor informed himself of changes in my condition and fifteen minutes later i was standing in front of the camera while Marie, the lovely and intelligent receptionist snapped a picture for my Photo ID card. (Now i can vote in Alabama.)
All in all an efficient, highly professional experience. Best of all they honor all coupons.


Second Novel Blues: Tangier 1970

The Hotel Astoria was located off  Boulevard Pasteur, the main drag in town. A short walk took one to the Cafe de Paris, which served the best coffee in North Africa. Expats from all corners of life hung out there: a range of characters that included artists, writers, ex-spies, fugitives,, dealers of every persuasion,  smugglers, rich hedonists, poor
hedonists, male prostitutes, gay tourists, and a sprinkling of ex-Nazis on the lam. Most of the clientele was male and favored some variation of European dress, usually accessorized by a red Fez hat and the ubiquitous yellow pointed slippers. Formerly an international zone, without extradition and subject to its own laws, the aura of danger clung to Tangier like cheap perfume.
You could change money at the Cafe de Paris, or buy tax free cigarettes, or booze--but by tacit agreement the cannabis trade was relegated to the souks of the Kasbah. One rarely, if ever, saw a pipe being lit on Boulevard Pasteur.
The passersby however, were more traditional, most males wearing djelabas, while the veiled females sported straw hats from Tetouan  or red striped shawls that identified them as coming from the Rif mountains. As the tribal ladies shuffled past the Cafe on their way to market, their kohl blackened eyes stared above blue veils at the strange world lounging on the other side of the plate glass.
If one were to follow the ladies down to the Socco Chico the relative calm of the Euro section gave way to a blur of movement and color. It was there one could see the robed men gathered in cafes or hunched in their vending stalls, lighting endless pipes of kif and drinking sweet mint tea.
It still being the rainy season, the skies were overcast and the beaches empty, leaving the market as the main source of entertainment. And indeed it had circus-like elements with acrobats, jugglers and fortune tellers sharing the stage with hippies, foreign tourists, and bohemian ex-pats. Arab music wafted from invisible radios as the past and the future merged in the square.   
With all that i was having trouble gaining traction on the follow up to my first novel, due out in the fall. After an intense eleven days of wrtiting aboard the freighter, the urgency was gone. Nothing to do but dig the world  over a pipe and a glass of hot mint tea.
Now Tangier is a small town. After a few weeks the same hustlers and their bizarre acts becames routine. How many times can you go to the dancing boy cafe--where a young lad tarted up as an oriental lady, danced for a crowd of grizzled men in hooded robes in a room thick with smoke from  kif pipes? Or the Parrot bar where the proprietess was an ex carnival motorcycle stunt rider? Considering the fact that one saw the same faces in these venues every night, it soon grew constricting.
So after a month, it was decided to take the Marrakech Express.

Next: The Swords of the Desert