THC with Cream

THC with Cream

October of 1968 was a dry period for weed smokers in San Diego. Some say it was a terminal case of supply and demand. So many new potheads were created during the Summer of Love, it put a strain on the limited supply of the growing fields in Mexico, which failed to keep up with demand.

“Besides that, it’s the wrong time of the season right now,” they said, and we listened.

Kristina and I were going to see the super group Cream at the Sports Arena in a week and wanted to make sure we were “prepared” for the concert. She was busy sewing up the last side of an enormous beanbag chair we intended to use for furniture when tiny Styrofoam beads scattered themselves all over the rug.

“This isn’t as easy as the cat-nip bags we made for Tut.”

Tutankhamun was our new kitty, but nobody could pronounce his name, so we just called him Tut. We got him as a companion to our Afghan Hound, Mahmud. An Afghan name for dog born in the U.S, named after an Afghan hero, because his owner fell in love with Black Afghan Primo hash from the very first puff because it showed strength and blew him away.

“That’s because those mini-pillows were only four-inches square. This monster is more like three feet.”

“Then help me lift this up, will you?”

I packed in a few more handfuls of beads, pinching the edge so she could finish the seam. Now that we were done, we felt we deserved a reward, but like I said, there was no weed around, which prompted my next remark.

“You know. I just read a few days ago in a magazine they’ve finally synthesized Tetrahydrocannabinol.”

“What’s that?”

“It the chemical that gets you high in weed.”

She pulled the gigantic pillow from the sewing machine, sat down on the floor, placed an ashtray close at hand and sparked up one of her signature Marlboro Reds. After the first puff she grew more relaxed, and by the second, more contemplative.

“And why would “they” want to do that?”

I had to think about it. This was taking more time than normal. Without weed to oil it, my brain was getting rusty, I just knew it.

“Just to prove they can, I guess.”

To be continued…

©StevenHunley2022

The words had barely escaped my mouth, and within a week we thought we ran into the stuff. I knew a dude who knew a dude who knew a dude in possession of little, tiny, gelatin capsules filled with white powder. Not tablets, not colored capsules with letters and tiny numbers. It seems shaky now, especially when I look back on it. But remember, I was the dude who did LSD even before he copped his first buzz from a joint.

And that mindblower turned out to be Owsley and took the innocent form of a purple Pez candy. Remember Pez candies? This monster turned out to be about 500 mics. Lucky for me I only took a third the first time. Still turned your head around. But back to the THC caps.

Just put on the record with White Room to get ready for the concert. So I turned on the stereo, grabbed my brushes, squirted some black and white acrylic paint on a palette. Whipped out the old Zigzags to study the cover, reverse painting was that the idea? to make the canvas with the reverse image, a negative image of the Zig Zag man. It was all part of my role as the antiestablishment artist who's in rebellion against anything at the drop of a hat.

I'm afraid I'm gonna get paint on my Indian moccasins so I take off my moccasins. For me, I do nothing half-assed. Most people who have moccasins have ones like shoes or, you know, booties. My moccasins go all the way up to my knees like boots. They keep slipping down off my skinny legs so I have to crisscross them with leather ties like an Apache. If these knee-high Apache moccasins don't give me enough attention, there's even more under the fridge at the top, just above my skinny white-cracker-boy calves is the strap that keeps the leather stocking boots from tumbling down and on that hidden strap I have strung some brass bells the size of little fingers. Little brass bells from Cost Less Imports on Washington St. So, when I walk, folks, I jingle.

I can't believe I'm telling you this. But there’s even more. On the top of each moccasin, I've cut out a piece of black leather in the shape of the sun. Oh, my goodness. It's a black sun. It had to be black. I was so in rebellion. And Frank Zappa, remember, called us freaks. He only knew half the story.

So I'm painting this reverse zigzag man poster because I need something new and I need something on the wall downstairs, right in the middle of the room, and right when I'm in the middle of this the doorbell rings. And it's one of those sailors who's just moved in across the street.

Hey, he says. We finally got some weed.

Really? I say.

Just got it. You know, if you want a sample, come on by.

And he was gone.
Now I admit. I was getting this news from a sailor. A sailor. Sailors don't usually have connections because for the most part they're from out of town. Of course, I knew one personally, but not this one. Jimbo, a pharmacist’s mate, came into my dad’s service station, and after a while we became friends. He used to give me Ambar so I could push a broom around that entire lot every Sunday morning, like I had all the energy in the world. Right. It was up for grabs what these guys could really get ahold of.

I called up Kenny. The Load named him The Bird, probably because he was tall and skinny.

“There's guys right across the street that have samples.”

“I’ll roll over,” he said.

By the time The Bird gets here, my feet are tingling. We cross the street and walk up to the front door. The sailor opens the screen door, and we step in. Sitting on the Dock of the Bay is on the radio and two sailor-dudes are in the living room passing a joint.

Here, says one, reaching languorously over the arm of the over-stuffed chair to pass it to his shipmate.

Oh no, says the other one, motioning him away. I'm too ****ed-up already.

We follow Sailor Boy through the clouds of smoke, into the kitchen some other sailor- guy who's got a bottle of Boone’s Farm wine or something, and he's cooking something up in a cast iron frying pan and he's turning it with a fork.
I give The Bird a questioning look, and he shoots me one back.

Finally, we end up in the backroom. They roll us a sample joint on a TV tray, they roll up a fat one and they show us to the back door. When we get back to my house, we fire it up. After a few hits you had to notice some kind of taste, so it had taste, but no “effect”.

Nah, says The Bird. It's not doing it for me.

Me neither, I said. But I can't taste anything anyway. Maybe it's the THC, I can't tell.

The Bird says. I'm outta here.

That night, when THC had worn off and I could feel my body again and I could taste again, Tina came over and I told her the story.

I go,” Hey, there's what's left of the joint. It’s in the ashtray on the dining room table.”

It was still a fatty because 2/3 of it was still left. She looked at it, then walked over, ripped it open, shook out the leaves into the ashtray.

“There’s no stems, no seeds.”

“That's odd,” I said. “Cause I don't think anybody cleaned it.”

She looked at me seriously, furrowed her brow for a cosmic second, then from the edges of her mouth, a smile appeared. She walked back into the living room, took out her sewing box and started rummaging around inside.
She pulled out the bag from SAVON DRUGSTORE printed in bold red letters and inside that bag was another bag, the one filled with Catnip.

“Does this look familiar?”

The next day we each popped a gelatin capsule and took off for the concert.

To be continued…

©StevenHunley2023

https://youtu.be/ewIoMsEC69g White Room

https://youtu.be/_Ca5QoXSe18 Sittin on the Dock of the Bay

Had a good laugh, enjoyed specially the description of the moccasins.