“A lot of different strain developers make a lot of different claims. I’d like to see some of these guys prove it. You know? The claims of ‘I’ve got the Congolese Green from the Burunga range,’ you know? I don’t know. Prove it, pal. We’re going to start a project called ‘Who’s Your Daddy?’ And what it is, is just tracing mitochondrial DNA from plants to establish a true taxonomy. Because, really, there’s bullshit and then there’s more bullshit. I think there are a lot fewer chemovars out there, a lot fewer landraces were used to create, primarily, what we’ve got.”
“Like Northern Lights.”
He folded his arms across his chest and laughed.
“Northern Lights is like that ugly cat that made all the cats in your neighborhood. I mean, there’s a lot of Northern Lights in strains that people will never admit in a million years that it’s there. You hear about OG Kush, you know, the Chemdog story …”
It seems to me like almost every strain has some kind of origination myth behind it, and the popular Chemdog strain is no different. As legend has it, the weed was first smoked by a Deadhead at a Grateful Dead show in the midwest. Someone named “Joebrand” sold an ounce of super-good weed to a guy who went by the name “Chemdog.” Chemdog liked the weed and arranged for two more ounces to be shipped to him on the East Coast. One ounce was seedless but the other turned out to have thirteen seeds. I’m not a mystic, but there is apparently some kind of hippie voodoo significance to the Grateful Dead, the number thirteen, and these magic seeds.
Michael was skeptical.
“Now, maybe they found it at a Grateful Dead concert. Maybe. But you know, the guys who invented OG Kush invented it in Sylmar and they were breeding Mexican dirt weed and Northern Lights. That’s where OG Kush came from. What’s interesting is the chemovars that show up in OG Kush are Northern Lights, Thai, because only northern Thais smell like oranges, and Nepalese, because only Nepalese smell like fuel. So whatever junkyard dogs are in these strains, you know, somebody hit the jackpot and got the right phenotype.”
I wondered if Michael had a favorite strain. Was there some kind of holy grail of dankness that he was searching for with all this science?
“The chemotype I’m searching for—which is kind of gone now—is the classic Spruce Sativa Kona, the Big Island strain that we’re pretty sure is a cross between Highland Oaxaca and Thai genetics. It didn’t smell piney, it smelled sprucey; it really smelled like a Christmas tree. And an insanely clear effect. Just perfect. You had the high-functioning buzz that took the edge off everything and a lingering tickle of joy. It’s like a pre-psychedelic tickle. That’s what I’m looking for, and I’ll find it.”
“Is that why you started the collective?”
“I started Cornerstone because I was searching for the best. I mean, literally, I used to have to drive all over town looking for great meds, and they were really hard to find. I’d end up going to one shop for one thing and another shop for yet another thing to get my medicine chest and after a while I said ‘Screw this. I’m going to start my own.’ I thought I knew what I was doing, but I didn’t know anything. But what’s cool is that after four years of doing this I’ve learned a lot, but I realize that I’m only about twenty-five percent there. This game is in its infancy. Even though the plant has been around for five thousand years, the scientific breeding of cannabis as opposed to the informed farmer breeding of cannabis is in its infancy. It’s really going to get interesting and I want to ride that train.”
Chapter Fifteen
El Toro
Toronto reminds me of Shanghai. Not that I’ve been to Shanghai. Not that the streets of Toronto are festooned with signs in Mandarin. It’s just that there seems to be a lot of building going on in Toronto and whenever I’ve seen pictures of Shanghai, that pulsing metropolis on the Huangpu always seems to have hundreds of construction cranes perched atop sleek high-rise buildings. Toronto seems new and vibrant. It looks modern, too, a futuristic city rising up alongside a large body of water just like Shanghai. Of course, I could’ve said Dubai—it also has sparkling new architecture and construction cranes and a large body of water—but Toronto seemed more like Shanghai. Not that I’ve been to Dubai.
I was in Toronto to attend the Treating Yourself Medical Marijuana and Hemp Expo, which was being held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
Treating Yourself is a monthly magazine devoted to alternative medicine, including medical marijuana, published by Canadian activist Marco Renda. Canada has a well-established underground cannabis culture, but with legal medical marijuana beginning to take off there, it was suddenly a new and lucrative market that the major seed companies from Amsterdam couldn’t ignore.
Green House Seeds brought their A game, setting up an exhibition booth that was twice the size of any other booth on the trade show floor. The walls of the booth featured large flat-screen monitors playing endless loops of Arjan and Franco in their Strain Hunters costumes looking like rugged adventurers as they trudged through tropical landscapes. A large section was devoted to selling T-shirts and hoodies emblazoned with the Green House logo and other merch, and there was a VIP area that looked like a typical suburban living room.
Arjan and Franco hung around the booth, greeting people as they walked by, discussing their strains and offering advice to growers, while attractive young women—local actresses hired for the convention—handed out thousands of free plastic grinders, posters, and seed catalogs.
DNA Genetics was there as well. They had a booth about a quarter the size Green House’s, but cozier, with a trophy case displaying awards from the various cups and competitions they’ve won. They also had racks hung with various DNA logo wear and a cushy couch and chair set up behind the counter so guests could sit and chat with Don and Aaron.
Aaron waved to me as I approached the booth. He was in the middle of a scrum of about a dozen Canadian growers engaging in a stoner version of show and tell. The growers all had the same look—like your average fan at a rock show—wearing a uniform of T-shirts, jeans, and tattoos. They crowded around Don and Aaron jostling for position, pulling their best buds out of plastic baggies and presenting them for inspection. The buds were sniffed and eyeballed, snapped and squeezed, as Don and Aaron offered critiques and growing advice. It was like watching expert gemologists grade diamonds and rubies in a crowded airport terminal. One bag was “well grown,” while another was “really well grown.” Every now and again Don would sniff a bud and smile before tucking it away in his pocket. Those, I can only assume, were the super well grown.
As this mayhem was transpiring, the buds flashing fast and furious, Aaron’s wife, Kim, sat serenely in one of the overstuffed chairs breast-feeding their baby.
Because I’d been talking with Aaron, a grower mistook me for someone who knew something about growing weed and asked if I had any experience with the Chocolope strain. I joked that they were much smaller than Jackalopes—the mythical half rabbit, half antelope of the West Texas wastelands—and a hell of a lot harder to catch. He gave me a blank stare and said, “Somebody’s smoked too much.”
Aaron laughed. “And then you gotta milk ’em, bro. It’s not easy to milk a Chocolope.”
A grower from Quebec, a lean and muscular man whose name reminded me of a French vintner, pulled out a Tupperware container packed with hash he’d sifted himself. Aaron picked a clump up and rubbed it between his fingers.
“You should use a finer screen, bro. Get some of the debris out.”
The grower shrugged. “I don’t really like hash. So I don’t care.”
Aaron recoiled. He looked personally offended. “If you’re not going to care, don’t bother, bro. Don’t waste your time.”
It’s strange attending a convention for an underground and, in most cases, illegal industry. But I’ve been to a half dozen of these things. Large-scale trade shows like THC Expose in Los Angeles or Spannabis in Barcelona draw upward of thirty thousand attendees; other events are funkier, like the sparsely attended HempCo
n in L.A. where tattoo artists and T-shirt vendors outnumbered the cannabis companies.
It’s not just seed companies that exhibit at these conventions: Glass blowers and bong makers—including the world-famous RooR bong company from Germany—attend, too, as well as vaporizer manufacturers, rolling paper manufacturers, hemp clothing companies HoodLamb and Ha-Swësh and others, political action groups, medical marijuana dispensaries, and companies that manufacture grow lights, watering systems, grow boxes, hydroponic equipment, soils, and assorted fertilizers and nutrients. The conventions traditionally host speakers and panels on a variety of topics ranging from horticultural tips and cooking with cannabis to political activism and recent medical breakthroughs. They are a strange cross between farming expos, fashion shows, and counterculture conclaves.
The Treating Yourself Expo was on the small side, like the first High Times Medical Marijuana Cup in San Francisco, but I like these smaller expos; they’re low-key and friendly. The convention in Toronto also featured a film series, with documentaries celebrating the medicinal properties of cannabis, a biography of the late hemp activist Jack Herer, and the world premiere of Strain Hunters: India Expedition, featuring a Q&A session with Arjan and Franco after the screening.
Smoking reefer is forbidden at most of these conventions. Typically, there is no herb on display or seeds for sale, and the only way you can get high is to sneak outside and blaze at your own risk. But there are a few exceptions. The High Times Medical Marijuana Cup in San Francisco had a smoking patio where patients with valid doctor’s recommendations could smoke. If you didn’t have a doctor’s recommendation, they had a doctor standing by who could assess you. Somehow the event in Toronto had managed to get permission to build “the world’s largest vapor lounge” in the Metro Convention Centre. It was large: four thousand square feet of vaporizer central. There were a dozen Volcano vaporizers manned by volunteers who were eager to help anyone with a medical marijuana card medicate safely on the premises.
Aaron had given me a bud of Chocolope to take to the vapor lounge to sample. After my medical certificate was checked, my California recommendation passing muster in Canada, I was handed a personal vape bag and mouthpiece, a package that was neatly self-contained in a clear plastic pouch with a cord that let you hang it around your neck. A gracious vaporista cheerfully ground up the bud and cooked me a big bag of Chocolope mist.
Like Sleestak, Chocolope is one of my favorite DNA strains, and the quality of this bud, grown indoors by a Toronto grower, was excellent. The vaporizer allowed the flavors of the strain to come through, and I got a nice taste of the earthy cocoa-flavor from the Chocolate Thai parent.
I exhaled and looked around the vapor lounge. It wasn’t crowded—maybe twenty people were standing around talking and taking occasional hits off their vapor bags. The conversation was about strains and various flavors and effects. It was a convivial group of connoisseurs.
Ironically, this is the same convention center where less than a month earlier the G20, a group of first world countries united by economic and security interests, held its summit meeting while antiglobalism activists and anarchists rioted in the streets outside. I took another pull on the bag and suddenly wished I had access to a time machine. I’d love to send the entire vapor lounge back in time. What would the G20 summiteers make of this weed tasting? Would it be cool to suck down a vape bag of Super Lemon Haze with the Chinese premier Hu Jintao and French president Nicolas Sarkozy? Would German chancellor Angela Merkel think the Chocolope was dank? I imagine President Obama wouldn’t have minded too much, since he famously admitted to smoking weed while he was in college. Maybe we could cook up a bag of Sour Diesel and talk about economic justice with Cristina Kirchner of Argentina.
But I think that if I had to choose one world leader to get high with, it would have to be Silvio Berlusconi of Italy. He is apparently no stranger to weed, wine, and teenage hookers. I may not like his politics but, let’s face it, the dude knows how to party.
I finished the vape bag and realized I’d had maybe a little too much Chocolope, so I left the lounge only to discover that the universe has a wicked sense of humor. As I emerged from the haze of the vapor lounge, I ran into a large group of people waiting to audition for a reality TV show called Wipeout Canada. The premise of the show is to send contestants through a ridiculously difficult obstacle course designed to make them wipe out in the wettest, slimiest, most humiliating scrotum-smashing way possible for the amusement of the television viewing audience.
The Wipeout Canada aspirants were dressed up in a variety of costumes. I saw a woman dressed like a robot, a guy in a bee suit, someone wearing a dinosaur outfit, various spandex abominations designed to highlight the fitness, or lack thereof, of the wearers, and a long-haired dude wearing a checkered tablecloth as a cape.
Not far from this freak show was the lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel, which was hosting the pit crews and racing teams of the Honda IndyCar race that was happening that weekend.
I walked past the Wipeout wannabes into a crowded lobby full of earnest young gearheads wearing polo shirts designed to look like the logo-clotted racing suits of their respective teams. The gearheads didn’t mingle. They were divided into logo tribes, matching teams moving through the lobby in tight huddles, talking in solemn voices about time trials, tire treads, and the weather.
Between the costumed freaks and the chassis chatter, I had to make an immediate exit.
I hit the streets, heading out into the warm evening air.
Lake Ontario stretched out to the horizon, reflecting the sunset, as daylight faded and the electric lights of downtown Toronto blinked to life. Toronto is a surprisingly beautiful city.
I was walking up Blue Jays Way, past the sizzle and stench of the hot dog vendors, when I suddenly realized that something was wrong. Very wrong. I stopped and looked at the people on the street and realized that almost every one of them was wearing a Rush T-shirt. It was like that moment in a zombie movie when the hero recognizes that things have changed. Everywhere I looked there were clusters of dudes with mullets wearing shirts that said “Fly by Night” or “Rush 2112.” I had heard about the Canadian content laws that require a certain percentage of all TV and radio broadcasts to involve Canadian musicians and writers, but this seemed absurd. I tried to rationalize it, thinking that maybe the residents of Toronto were just really into Rush. I mean, somebody must like that music.
But then the number of people in Rush T-shirts began to grow exponentially, like some kind of malevolent magic trick, dividing and growing like the mops gone out of control in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. There were now thousands of them, bunching together like herd animals, an army of pale and acne-scarred teenagers, crossing the street toward me.
I was on the verge of a panic attack. What did these people want? Where were they going?
An affable black man walked up to me. He was not wearing a Rush T-shirt.
“You need tickets?”
“To what?” I asked.
He nodded, indicating the building behind me. I turned, followed his look, and, in that moment, realized that Rush was playing a concert that night and I was standing in front of the venue.
The hotel concierge had told me to walk up to King Street where I would find “all kinds of restaurants.” I walked up toward King Street, passing a number of nightclubs and bars. That’s not really surprising for a downtown street in a major metropolis, but I was baffled by the complete lack of imagination on display in the names of the clubs. There was Loft, Light, Reign, Marquis, Tryst, and Time. But the concierge was right about King Street: It was restaurant row. Completely by accident I ended up at a place called Lee. The menu claimed that they served “Chinese tapas.” I like tapas and I like Chinese food, but when I think of the two together I usually call it “dim sum.” But the menu looked interesting—not a shu, mai, or bao on it—and the restaurant was packed; always a good sign.
The hostess had room for one at the bar, and I didn�
��t hesitate. I didn’t know it at the time, but it turned out that Lee is run by Top Chef Master Susur Lee and is one of the most popular restaurants in Toronto. Getting a seat on a Friday night was, well, really lucky.
I was still in the midst of a Chocolope high, which made reading the menu problematic. It had nothing to do with my eyes; everything looked delicious. I decided to leave it up to the waiter (“Dazzle me!”) and sat back with a cold glass of white wine to take in the scene.
It was after the second bite of the crispy tofu rolls glazed with a honey-soya-chili sauce that the situational aspects really hit home. The Chocolope was dank, the crispy tofu rolls were dank, the music was groovy, the waiters friendly, the white wine was cold and delicious, and all of it together elevated the experience. It could be argued that the cannabis had heightened my senses—that my organoleptic experience of tasting the coconut-lime soup or listening to the music in the restaurant was enhanced. I would agree with that, but at the same time I think that the quality of the food—the complex flavor profiles combined with near perfect execution in cooking—worked in a similar way. If the Chocolope enhanced the experience of the food, the food enhanced the experience of the Chocolope.
I turned and watched as a plate of slow-braised beef was delivered to the couple at the bar next to me. The woman took a bite of it and groaned with pleasure. She looked at her husband and said, “Oh my God. I just had an orgasm. A real orgasm.”
I wondered what would’ve happened if I’d gone to the Rush concert.
The next afternoon Don and Aaron introduced me to a young Canadian who looked like an elven ranger from the World of Warcraft computer game. He was small and compensated for his lack of size by cloaking himself in a black leather jacket with chrome chains dangling from the epaulets. He smiled a lot, but his seemingly friendly demeanor was undercut by intense dark eyes and a black pinstripe beard that gave his face a demonic appearance.
Heart of Dankness Page 18