Back in the Bigs '72

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."

Cruisin' With Chem Dawg: Upon my return to SF after two weeks in Sonoma where the nearest dispensary is well over an hour's drive away, i repaired to Grass Roots on Post Street between Polk and Larkin in San Francisco, a mere ten minutes from home. It was there i found an outdoor Chem Dawg priced at 10 dollars a gram that celebrates the joy of cannabis. Bright, energetic, and a tonic to the body, it is an early sign of a good harvest. Speaking of harvest and Sonoma, the drive on highway 12 to Santa Rosa winds through miles and miles of well tended vineyards. The entire landscape devoted to alcohol while the cannabis farmers still must lurk in the wooded area beyond.  (Very soon we'll see strains labeled Sour Diesel '14 or
Jack Herer '09 as well as auctions of top crop years and men in tuxedos showing off their cannabis cellars in Vanity Fair.)
The absurd disconnect in our nation's attitude continues with the Supreme Court's refusal to hear a challenge by Americans for Safe Access to the federal government's (DEA) refusal to allow medical doctors to prescribe marijuana to cancer patients and victims of other maladies. See: Americans for Safe Access vs DEA 13-84
Is Michele Leonhart director of the DEA a physician, a nurse, a paramedic, a psychologist, a therapist, or even a PhD? Is she on the side of truth? Or is she just another political hack protecting an over inflated budget?

Back In The Bigs: '72
We stayed with my mother for a few months after my dad's death. Then i flew to New York alone on a reconnaissance trip, trying to find an apartment and a job. Also in my kick was a third Orient novel Lady Sativa, that i had written while living in Umbria with my Mom,  but Bantam wasn't interested in a third book at the moment, already invested in the first two. Which left me holding the literary bag. However i ran into old Boston pal Barry Hoernig then a student at various colleges, now a manager of several properties and married to an Italian princess.Barry had a two room duplex on east 72nd available at 300 a month and it was a done deal. Particularly since i had just accepted a job offer from Bruce Gilmour (HB's husband) as an account executive on a new magazine called Ms. It was good to be back.
However New York was different. Not so much changed but shifted gears into a faster, more hedonistic rhythm. Everyone was hip to the lick. And almost everyone had discovered cocaine. Fortunately i had discovered an old school tailor back in Rome and had some suits made since account executives are basically suits.Wunderman, Ricotta and Klein had prospered by making a science of selling stuff you don't really want by mail, using a technique known as negative response.
Basically, unless you make it known you don't want their featured item of the month, be it a book, magazine or cassette, it will be sent to you and billed to your account. They also specialized in magazine subscriptions, hence they were hired by Ms to launch them into contention. And as a representative of America's new youth culture i was there to deal with these female upstarts.
H.B's novel The Trade, which i had commissioned while at Paperback Library had enjoyed critical success and some notoriety. HB was never one to mince words.
Husband Bruce was a poet in the manner of Rod McKuen, an enormously popular paperback hero. McKuen's success was due in great part to the romantic photos of the bard in various poses of contemplation. Like an ad for a men's cologne. As it happened i had snapped a great shot of Bruce, backlit among the leaves. and his work was a lot fresher than Rod's. From experience i knew the picture and poems could be "packaged". So when i visited  Curtis Books, a new publisher on the scene,  to pitch Lady Sativa, i took Bruce's photo and manuscript with me as well as a novel by Joel S, a friend of the Gilmours. Pat O'Connor one of the last of the great editors took on all three projects.
Lady Sativa had found a home and i turned my attention to my next book. While in Tangier John Hohnsbeen had told me about a most intriguing
character-- a New Yorker of wealth and taste who was the world's foremost practitioner of SM...
Next: The Hucksters

Recommended Reading: Force of Nature by C. J. Box

Edited by Robert Gilman