The Battle for Sidewalk Neutrality in Garberville

 

The public spaces in Garberville have become a battleground, and every year at about this time, the war really heats up. However, the last two Friday evenings in a row I attended peaceful protest demonstrations at the corner of Redwood Drive and Church St in Garberville. These were well organized and disciplined actions, and the protester’s right to use the sidewalk was reaffirmed by law enforcement, and challenged by none. Protesters occupied that stretch of sidewalk from about 6-9pm both nights. Will this become a regular thing, like Paul Encimer’s Friday afternoon Peace Protests under the clock, or will the situation improve, making further protest unnecessary?

 

It’s funny how people seem to understand that when you stand on the corner with a political sign in your hand, you are exercising your 1^st Amendment Right to Free Speech, but if you stand there with a sign that says “Hungry” or “Anything Helps” you are considered a nuisance. We should be thankful that we don’t have street preachers here in Garberville.

That’s another, fully protected, 1^st Amendment activity. Think about that the next time you see a kid with a guitar and an open case, because he has every right to be there, and things could be worse.

And that’s exactly what these protest demonstrations were all about, the right to use the public sidewalk. Okra Dingle, a spokesperson for the protesters put it this way: “We want to change the tone of civility on our sidewalks.” Apparently the previous weekend, people were sprayed with a water hose, chased, and pushed into the street, by an irate building owner, just for playing music in front of his downtown storefront, after business hours. This according to several of the protesters who witnessed the event, one of whom gave a detailed account to a Sheriff’s Deputy, for the purpose of filing charges.

I think they proved, pretty conclusively, that if you show up in numbers, act with discipline, and have someone with a video camera recording everything, you can exercise your right to free speech in Garberville and change the tone of civility. At least they were able to do so on two consecutive Friday evenings in August.

Personally, I’d rather listen to someone play the guitar, or steel drum, or fiddle, than hear protesters chant slogans. I’d rather look over a collection of handmade jewelry, or albums or cookies as read one more protest sign, and I’d rather give someone five dollars so they can get something to eat, than get any more junk email from non-profit organizations begging for my money. People have the right to use the public commons, and they have the right to engage you. There are worse things in life.

I realize that a lot of you feel that anyone who engages you is “violating your space” but space is a place we share. It’s kind of like social media, but it’s more immediate, and you can’t “block” people. As people spend more time in “virtual” environments, the demands of the real world seem onerous, but engaging with people in your own town, on the sidewalk is a good way to stay in practice.

Let me try to put it in terms you might understand. The sidewalk is not tailored to your search history or media bias, nor does it monitor your behavior or collect personal information about you. The sidewalk does not require a high-speed connection or impose data limits. Whether you are shopping, searching for information, or looking for someone, the sidewalk remains a critical, irreplaceable tool, both for business and the private sector, precisely because of it’s inherent neutrality, and open access to everyone. That’s why it’s so important to protect the sidewalk, and to respect everyone’s right to use it.

There’s practically no public wifi, anywhere in Southern Humboldt, but we all use the sidewalk. We really shouldn’t be surprised to see lots of people talking, making connections, looking for connections, sharing stories, music, art, goods and services on the sidewalks of Garberville. It’s the only social network a lot of people have, and it’s the only truly neutral network in Humboldt County, but only if we can respect people’s right to use it.

Protecting sidewalk neutrality in Southern Humboldt demands that we respect everyone’s 1^st Amendment Right to Free Speech, whether they preach the gospel, play the guitar or beg for spare change. It might make you uncomfortable, if you’re unfamiliar with the interface, but the Garberville sidewalk remains the most active, and essential social network in Southern Humboldt. Let’s keep it open to everyone.

An Honest Value in Humboldt County

When I drank beer, the Eel River Brewing Company made my favorite. Their Organic IPA had everything I was looking for in a beer. It’s strong, satisfyingly hoppy and all organic. I love the fact that they make it right here in Humboldt County, but a big part of what I love about Eel River Organic IPA, is the price. I used to get Eel River Organic IPA at Eureka Natural Foods, or the Liquor Store in Redway for $28.88 a case. Just last week I saw that they still have it at ENF at that same price. That works out to about $1.20 per 12 oz bottle, which seems like a bargain to me.

I bought a lot Eel River Organic IPA over the years, amounting to thousands of individual beers, and I never got a bad one. Every single bottle tasted consistently crisp and refreshing. People take this for granted with beer, but unless you’ve paid good money for a badly skunked and undrinkable beer you probably don’t fully appreciate it. I thank the Whale Gulch Brewery for making me really appreciate the quality control at Eel River Brewery.

Of course, I could have drunk Budweiser, for about half as much money, and found it available in even more convenient locations, or I could have chosen Hamms for even less, but I chose Eel River IPA because I don’t mind paying a bit more for real quality. I don’t have extravagant tastes. I never bought their Imperial IPA at something approaching $10 a bottle. After all, I’m not made of money, and beer isn’t everything, but I like a good one, and I appreciate it when someone can make a good one at a good price, so I don’t mind giving them this entirely unsolicited publicity.

Look at what goes into an Eel River Organic IPA. First you need organic barley. The field has to be certified organic. The farmer has to plant it, water it, fertilize it, protect it from pests, harvest it, hull it and cure it, and make money at it. From there, the barley has to be sprouted, and roasted at a very specific temperature for a very specific amount of time. In addition to barley, you need hops, an aromatic flower, not unlike cannabis. The hops have to be grown in a certified organic field, watered, fertilized, protected from pests and picked at peak florescence. Hops also have to be cured and dried properly.

Besides the ag products, you need an abundant supply of clean water, and you need to deal with a lot of organic waste material properly. You need a specific strain of yeast. You need someplace to boil it all together, and you need the fuel to make the heat. You need a sterilized fermenter with an air-lock, big enough to hold it all, and you need to keep it within a narrow temperature range for a matter of weeks. Then you need to bottle it, with just a dash of sugar in each bottle, for sparkle, cap it, and let it age for a few more weeks, before you sell it to the distributor.

The distributor buys it, tacks on all of the taxes, then takes it to the store, and sells it to the store owner, at a profit. The store buys it, and marks it up again, before they sell it to me, at $28.88 a case. I’m happy, and everybody gets paid. Nobody makes too much, but everyone makes enough to keep doing it. That’s what makes Eel River Organic IPA a success. It’s quality, but it isn’t just quality. It’s quality, done efficiently. It’s honest value that makes Eel River Organic IPA such a great beer.

Now let’s compare this great local beer to our even more famous local product, marijuana. To make marijuana, you need to plant it, water it, fertilize it, harvest it, dry it and cure it. In the past, you also had to hide it. Time was, we had the best place in the country to hide marijuana, and there was so much of a premium on cannabis because of prohibition, that it was worth the expense of dragging everything else you needed to grow marijuana, including the topsoil, fertilizer and even the sunlight, in the form of generators and lights, out to the middle of the forest in Humboldt County to do it.

No one would dream of hauling soil up the side of a mountain to a hole in the forest to plant barley. If they did, that would be some expensive barley, and unless they could think of some kind of hype to convince people that the barley they grew was better than barley grown by competent farmers, working fertile soil, on flat land, in full sun, out in the open, they would soon go out of business. Unless they could lobby the legislature to create all kinds of strict licensing of barley. They could argue that since barley is used to produce beer, which is responsible for millions of deaths every year, of course we need to strictly limit where, and how much of it can be grown They could use their influence in government to create an artificial shortage of barley that would drive the price of beer through the roof, and allow them to sell their expensive barley at a profit.

Right now, the marijuana industry is conspiring with politicians to keep marijuana expensive and to stifle competition and prevent innovation. The cannabis industry has given more money to gubernatorial candidates than all other farmers in the state combined, and most of that money went to Gavin Newsom who has promised to keep the price of marijuana high, to protect drug dealer’s profits, while he screws cannabis consumers who are sick of high prices, and communities all over the state who will have to deal with black market crime for the foreseeable future.

‘Our business corrupt? What gives you that idea?’

That’s not a bargain; that’s a ripoff. There’s no honest value anywhere in the marijuana industry. Instead, it’s full of hype, greed, and government coercion. If you happen to get good pot out of it, that is more or less beside the point. You didn’t really have much of a choice. You paid through the nose to people who feel entitled to your money, and you settled for whatever you got. We deserve a better deal.

A better deal means open competition that rewards innovation. A better deal means licensing large-scale cannabis grows on agricultural land to stop people from hauling soil up the side of a mountain to a hole in the forest, by putting them out of business. A better deal means we have a choice of fine cannabis products, in every price range, that are safe, consistent and reliable. Until we have a better deal, we don’t even know what an honest bargain looks like in the marijuana industry.

Someday, if we ever get a better deal, some Humboldt cannabis entrepreneur may develop a profitable cannabis product that matches the honest value of Eel River Brewery’s Organic IPA, but I sure haven’t seen it yet.

It Ain’t Art

I picked up the latest issue of The Emerald because I saw that it was labeled, “The Art Issue.” I usually don’t bother with The Emerald, because there’s so little to it besides ads for weed, next to superfluous hype about the advertised weed. I love weed, but all by itself, it’s really boring. I don’t want to look at pictures of weed any more than I want to look at pictures of aspirin tablets when I have a headache, but hey, if they are covering our local art scene, even with a weedy theme, I’ll take a look.

I should have known better, just by looking at the cover. The antique cut glass vase-turned-bong barely rises to the level of craft. There’s no art there at all. The same goes for all of the cannabis products horribly mislabeled as “art” in the magazine. I don’t care how much pride you take in your product, a bud of cannabis or a blob of oil is not a work of art, no matter how many layers of excessive packaging you wrap around it.

Packaging an 8^th of an ounce of weed in a fancy jewelry box with the name of your company in gold letters and charging $55 dollars for it doesn’t make you an artist; it makes you a douchebag. I don’t pay that kind of bread for weed unless the grower and the distributor both face mandatory 5 year minimum prison sentences for the crime, because they fucking deserve it.

It’s just pot. It’s not an engagement ring. You will incinerate the product, in a matter of days, if not hours. You don’t need a fancy box to keep it for posterity. If you buy this thing, you’ll smoke the weed, but then you’ll have this stupid box that you didn’t want, with someone else’s name on it, which you will then feel responsible for. You’ll hesitate to throw it away, because it’s such a needless waste, so it will sit there, on your table, reminding you of the time you spent $55 for a nickle bag of weed. You’ll never find anything else to do with it, except put more weed into it, so congratulations, you just bought the cheesiest $50 nug-jug on the planet.

A joint does not count as a work of art either. Putting a joint inside of a plastic tube with a plastic stopper does not make it work of art, and putting three of them in a colorful box doesn’t make anything but a shameful pile of garbage that stands as a monument to the so-called “artist’s” complete lack of respect for the natural world.

“You know, I sure do like this marijuana stuff, but I just wish it came wrapped in a lot more useless non-biodegradable packaging.” said no marijuana consumer, ever.

If the pot in those joints doesn’t get you high enough that you become filled with regret for your role in trashing the planet with all of that packaging, it must not be very good pot. Then again, if you don’t already feel like a sucker for spending $20 for three joints, your brain might not function well enough to get that high. Either way, I stopped picking up The Emerald because of exactly this kind of stupidity.

Calling these insults to nature “art” demeans the term and insults artists everywhere. It reveals just how crass and myopic the drug dealers who make up this industry really are. There is no level of hyperbole that is off-limits to them in their ongoing quest to glorify themselves and their product while continuing to rip off cannabis consumers. Not to put too fine of a point on it, but the same magazine reviewed a strain of weed called “BC God Bud.” I love weed, but I don’t worship it.

I know that dope yuppies have a grossly inflated view of themselves and their product, just from living around here and talking to them, but seeing this kind of BS translated into ridiculous products with even more ridiculous advertising copy just nauseates me. Thankfully, I’ve got medicine for that.

The Generous Spirit of Cannabis

I live on the dark side of the hill, on dry land, here in SoHum. That’s why I can afford to live here. We don’t have enough sun or water to grow weed, and we’re off the grid, so no greenrushers are clamoring for our place, but we love it here. We enjoy the shade in the summertime and we’re protected from the worst of the storm winds in Winter. It’s a nice place to live, but not for growing weed, so I don’t bother.

Humboldt County is probably the easiest place in the whole US to find weed. Practically everyone else around here grows way more than they need. You can smell it everywhere, and hardly a hubcap falls off of a truck around here without revealing a secret garden or stash of weed hidden behind it. I nearly tripped over half-a-dozen recently harvested plants in grow-bags, just yesterday, on the sidewalk in front of Ray’s in Redway. God knows how they got there.

 

Around here, cannabis usually finds me before I have to go looking for it. I’ve been paid for work in cannabis, traded art for cannabis, received cannabis as a bonus for a job well done and I’ve been gifted cannabis, but on occasion, I have had to buy cannabis, for my own consumption, here in Humboldt County. I thought I was approaching one of those times recently, when I found myself in a conversation with a couple of local land owners.

 

If you read this column regularly, you know that I don’t give land owners much reason to like me, and they both admitted that they don’t agree with everything I say in this column. One of them was explaining to me why he thought the black market really isn’t so bad. “It’s just friends helping friends” he told me. “Besides,” he continued, “No one around here spends money to buy weed because everyone’s got so much.”

I had to differ with him on that point. I told him that I occasionally buy weed, and that I was looking to buy some weed right now. He looked at me with a look of genuine concern, “Really, you’re out of weed?” he asked.

“Just about.” I told him.

“I’ve got a jar of weed in the car I can let you have.” He said, adding, “No one around here should have to pay for medicine.”

I accepted his generous offer, and conceded the point. Both of these gentlemen seemed genuinely concerned that I, or anyone, should have to do without cannabis. I thanked him for the gift. It warmed the cockles of my heart, and got me nicely stoned. I really appreciate it. I don’t mean to diminish this magnanimous gesture in any way. After all, it was his compassion, his weed, and his idea to give it to me, despite the fact that I have probably offended him many times with this column, but there’s something about this sentiment that, I think, every cannabis enthusiast understands.

There is something about the spirit of cannabis that wants to be shared, freely. Once cannabis comes into your life, you begin to understand why it is so important to people, and she encourages you to share. Cannabis is everyone’s best friend, and it just seems cruel to deny her to anyone, or even to ask for money for her. That’s just how she makes you feel. Even when pot sold for $400 an ounce, people shared their weed. We started passing the bong around instead of joints, but we still shared. In my whole life, I’ve only been offered a line of cocaine, once, but thousands of people have shared cannabis with me.

Here’s another example: I have another friend, who I really enjoy talking to. He has no home, no car, no phone and barely gets enough to eat most days. He doesn’t read this column because he has no internet access. He also expressed concerned that I might run out of weed, and has given me weed many times. It’s always excellent weed. He never asks for money for it, and always gives it with the same look of genuine compassion and concern, and with the same words, “No one should have to go without medicine, especially around here.”

 

That’s real class. When someone can endure that level of poverty and yet maintain enough humanity to be sympathetic and generous to others. That’s real class. It’s also classy to be generous and compassionate to people you don’t necessarily agree with, or even know that well, as was the case with the land owners I spoke of earlier. It speaks well of people around here, and it speaks well of cannabis, so I think we should celebrate that spirit of generosity that cannabis exudes.

This generous, magnanimous spirit of cannabis, inspired me to start working for legalization back in the 80s. No one, anywhere, should have to go without medicine, and if it weren’t for prohibition, no one would. That’s the message I got from cannabis, along with a vision of a world where cannabis was freely available to everyone, and cheaper than alcohol. It looked like the kind of world I wanted to live in, and that vision motivated me to work to end prohibition. Even though we haven’t quite realized that goal, it’s great to see the generous spirit of cannabis in action, in my community, and to be the beneficiary of it.

On the other hand, that’s why I find it so offensive to see dispensaries that look like banks or high-end jewelry stores, or cannabis companies that rely on snob appeal to justify high prices. Every attempt to market cannabis as an expensive luxury for the well-to-do, flies in the face of the spirit of cannabis herself. Instead of making cannabis classy, they make her into a whore, to profit from the love she gives so freely. There’s nothing “classy” about that at all. It’s just ugly and shameful.