That, she said, “made it all worthwhile.”
This year the competition added a new seed company category: a Hash Cup. I couldn’t quite figure out the logic. What did strain developing and botany have to do with hashish making?
Mila Jansen, the “hash queen of Amsterdam” and inventor of the Pollinator and Ice-O-Lator hashish-producing machines, walked out to present the award. Unlike the majority of the presenters, who wore jeans matched with various logo T-shirts, Mila brought some European style and sophistication to the show by wearing a jacket that was somehow both elegant and psychedelic.
Unfortunately she had lost her voice and was able to make only some indecipherable croaking sounds, as if a frog had suddenly become an expert on the production of Nederhash and hopped on stage. Starbud Melt from HortiLab took first place while Don and Aaron took second and third with Sour Diesel from their Reserva Privada line and Blackberry Kush from DNA Genetics.
Again they sauntered out and tossed joints into the crowd.
A rapper by the name of Curren$y came out to announce the winner of the Indica Cup. He bumped and bumbled his way around the stage like he’d never been on one before, and it soon became apparent that Curren$y was completely baked. At one point he turned to the audience and said, “Yo, am I fuckin’ up? Haaaaaaa.”
He did, in fact, seem to be fucking up, and High Times staff writer Danny Danko came out on stage to try and move things along. The expedited awards were quickly announced. Third place went to White OG from Karma Genetics, second to Cold Creek Kush from T.H. Seeds, and the Indica Cup went to Reserva Privada’s Kosher Kush.
Don and Aaron came out and this time their joy was undisguised. They raised their hands in the air like Rocky after he knocked Apollo Creed to the mat. Curren$y looked at them, blinking, as if he’d just remembered he’d seen them somewhere before and said, “You guys are winning everything.”
Don grabbed the microphone and exulted. “What a night!”
Aaron stood next to him, holding the trophy, as Don continued his speech.
“This is really special to us. We last won a cup five years ago on this stage. We got our Indica Cup, so now we have one of each.”
He was referring to the Sativa Cup won by Martian Mean Green in 2005.
Don handed the microphone to Aaron, who appeared to be genuinely moved by the win. His eyes welled up as he thanked the judges and the fans. “We’re West Coast true to the heart and we bring the herb from the West Coast.”
Don and Aaron didn’t know it at the time, but they were on their way to a big year of kicking ass at cannabis competitions. A few months after their dominant performance in Amsterdam, they were once again walking offstage with more awards than any other seed company at Spannabis with wins for OG #18, Chocolope, and a Sour Diesel hash.
• • •
The coffeeshop awards followed and seemed somehow anticlimactic. The Nederhash Cup, which goes to coffeeshops selling hashish made in Holland, went one, two, three, to Green House, Barney’s, and Grey Area.
Jon Foster thanked the fans for his third-place finish and graciously encouraged them to “enjoy the Cup!”
Arjan and Franco took the stage and Arjan—I think sensing that it wasn’t going to be his night—made a speech that was heartfelt and generous and, at the same time, a bit of a fuck-you to the judges who’d snubbed Super Lemon Haze in the Sativa Cup category.
“After winning so many cups, I think this is thirty-six, we want to honor one person with this cup. She’s never won one and she’s the mother and the grandmother of all the ice and hash here in Holland. So we’re gonna donate this cup to Mila. She has been so important to our industry I think we should recognize her.”
Mila came out and hugged Franco and Arjan. She was obviously touched by the gesture.
Franco waved to the crowd. “This is special.”
The Import Hash Cup was the reverse of the Nederhash Cup with Green House second and Barney’s first. A young man with long straight hair accepted the cup for Barney’s. He looked strikingly like the hapless lentil-cooking hippie Neil on the old BBC sitcom The Young Ones as he meekly mumbled his thanks and wandered off.
That left the top prize to be awarded, the Cannabis Cup, the best overall strain as voted on by the fans/judges who managed to crawl from coffeeshop to coffeeshop and sample as many as they could. As the tension in the room increased, measured only by the thickness of ganja smoke, I found myself torn between the desperate need for another beer and the fact that if I went to the bar, I would lose my prime viewing position. A refreshing Heineken, it seemed, would just have to wait.
Amazingly, the crowd grew quiet, turning their attention away from whatever they were smoking or drinking and toward the stage.
Third place went to the Green Place coffeeshop for L.A. Cheese, a strain collaboration between DNA Genetics and Big Buddha Seeds. Once again, Don and Aaron walked out on the stage to claim a prize. This time they were joined by Big Buddha himself—not the Buddha, but a strain developer who goes by the name Big Buddha—and the owner of the Green Place coffeeshop. A quick tally gave Don and Aaron a first-place Indica Cup, second-place Sativa Cup, second and third in the Seed Company Hash category, and—although technically this award went to the coffeeshop—a third place in the big prize.
Second place went to Super Lemon Haze and Green House United coffeeshop. And the grand prize, the Cannabis Cup, was taken by Barney’s for Tangerine Dream.
If Arjan was disappointed that Super Lemon Haze didn’t make it three in a row, you couldn’t tell. He smiled and thanked the judges, before offering his heartfelt congratulations to Barney’s. Franco was equally gracious in defeat.
Derry, the owner of Barney’s and a man with a passable resemblance to Robert Plant, came to the stage to accept his award. He projected a measured, almost magisterial, air as if the cup was his birthright or, perhaps more accurately, he was the white knight who had crushed the dominance of Green House and wrested the grail from Arjan’s grubby hands. Derry held the cup up in the air and accepted the sustained applause of the audience. He bowed a few times and then took the microphone.
“This is an honor like nothing in my life, and I am honored and humbled before you.”
It only took a few hours for the haters to begin writing scathing comments about the results on the High Times website. Interestingly, the comments had a couple of recurring themes. Most notable was the belief that the Cup was rigged. One anonymous poster said, “Everyone knows the cup is a joke. HT, you’d be better off revamping the entire thing because otherwise you’ll soon be flogging a dead horse. Nobody believes anymore that Barneys and Greenhouse consistently do the best weed in Amsterdam. NOBODY!”
Another anonymous commenter agreed: “High Times Cannabis Cup is more like the Coin Toss Cup Greenhouse V. Barneys”
A lot of commenters thought that Tangerine Dream had been sprayed with some kind of flavor additive. A typical comment was from a writer named Tangerine Spray Dream who said, “spraying the cannabis (amnesia) white orange jus = Tangerine Dream.” I take this to mean he or she thought that the winning strain was just orange-flavored Amnesia Haze. Grower 420 agreed, stating, “The tangerine dream and super lemon haze have too mutch fruit juice in the buds to smell and taste like that!”
I’ve tasted California-grown Super Lemon Haze, and I can say, with certainty, it does taste like that.
A number of people thought that Casey Jones from Grey Area was the best cannabis in the competition, as a commenter called Honest judge made clear. “I guess first and second places are bought! Barney’s and the Greenhouse’s product this year were not the best weed in Amsterdam just the most freely distributed!! Well done Green Place and Grey Area—Nice weed ;-).”
The more direct response was reflected by this comment from HEKTIC 718: “CASEY JONES@greyAREA SHULDVA WON.” This, by the way, I don’t disagree with.
Some visitors to the Cup were disappointed by the vibe of the event, as another anonymous commente
r wrote. “Cannibas Cup was a major disappointment. Not a collection of like minded individuals sharing a common interest. Instead, simply a pretext to sell marijuana related wares (bongs, pipes, etc.). Didn’t expect nearly that level of commercializism.”
The commercialization and the lack of reggae were big topics for the grumblers, and then there were the critics who criticized the critics, as MR SKUNK FUNK did: “Why does every comment i read seem as though the person writing it is either retarded or fully stoned? typo much?”
While I think a lot of these posters raised interesting questions and made valid points—hey, I like reggae—I have to say that the Cup is still a unique event. It’s not perfect, and by allowing the people to judge the winners you will always have some level of voter manipulation. Even if you found a way to keep judges from being influenced, you’d still have dissension for the same reason that some people love indicas and some adore sativas: It’s almost impossible to come to a consensus. There will always be disagreements and debate because dankness is ephemeral and subjective.
Maybe that’s why the industry pros pay attention only to the seed company cups, the sativa and indica categories that are awarded through a traditional, and I would say unbiased, blind tasting.
As Don and Aaron celebrated on stage with their fans and fellow growers, I drifted out to the lobby where I met up with the crew from the Sierras. Slim and Natasha were there, glowing like newlyweds on a honeymoon. They were already making plans to return the following year. The Guru and Cletus appeared to have recovered from their smart shop experience, and Crockett was his usual self, relaxed and friendly, sipping a beer and soaking in the ambiance.
I had been saving a fat spliff of Martian Mean Green—DNA’s 2005 Cup winner and 2006 High Times Strain of the Year—that Jon at Grey Area had given me earlier that day. So we lit it up and passed it around.
It seemed like a perfect way to end the Cup.
Chapter Twenty-one
Heart of Dankness
The next morning I found myself at Schiphol, drinking a coffee in the terminal mezzanine and waiting for my flight. There was the usual throng of travelers, their expressions ranging from panic to boredom and back, the low rumble of Rollaboard luggage, and the ceaseless sound track of announcements in a smorgasbord of languages.
A British family, sunburned the color of freshly boiled lobsters, wandered through the cafeteria looking for something reassuringly fried to eat. A businessman from Africa sat at a nearby table and yammered into his cell phone. He wasn’t happy about something. I saw a couple of Cannabis Cup attendees stroll past. They were both wearing Barney’s T-shirts and reggae-striped knit caps and carrying a shopping bag that said “Museum of Hash, Marijuana and Hemp” in bold letters. They’ll have fun going through customs.
I was booked on the same flight as Crockett and his crew so I wasn’t surprised to see the Guru wandering around the cafeteria. He joined me at my table, flopping into the chair like he’d just run a marathon. It turned out he had run a kind of marathon. After the cups had been awarded, after we’d shared the Martian Mean Green, he and Cletus had returned to their rented apartment, dumped all the hash and weed they’d acquired during the past week into one big pile, and spent the night smoking it.
Now the Guru looked a little like a vampire with a hangover. He’d also picked up a nasty cough that’s sometimes called “Cup lung.” He shrugged.
“We didn’t want to waste it.”
He heaved a weary sigh, hacked a few times, and then looked at me.
“So? Did you figure out what ‘dank’ means?”
I once got a fortune cookie that said, “Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it,” which turned out to be a quote from the Chinese philosopher Confucius and a pretty good description of what I’d been trying to figure out. Is dankness the ultimate expression of a plant’s potential? Is it a situation? A political stance? A lifestyle? Or does it sometimes manifest as all of the above?
I had been in Amsterdam the previous spring, just in time for Liberation Day, a national holiday in Holland that celebrates the end of the Nazi occupation. The weather leading up to the holiday had been miserable: cold and drizzly and unrelentingly gray. But on May 5, Liberation Day, the skies broke, the sun beamed down, and Amsterdam came out to party.
I had visited Aaron at the DNA Genetics storefront, spending the afternoon chatting and sampling some dry-sift Sleestak resin, so I had one of those clear sativa highs going when I walked out into the streets of the city. I was shocked by the change. For days Amsterdam had seemed underpopulated; people had abandoned the streets for the warmth and dryness of their homes. Now thousands of people were out, riding bicycles, waving the tri-colored Dutch flag, and drinking beer in cafés that had moved nearly every table out onto the street. The canals were gridlocked with boats, and the boats were jammed with people drinking beer, eating cheese sandwiches, and waving flags.
At first I didn’t realize it was a holiday. I just thought that was what Amsterdammers did when the sun came out. They went nuts and frolicked in the streets. I suppose the flags flying everywhere should’ve been a tip-off.
But why not celebrate the weather? It was one of those glorious spring days; the sky was an intense blue; the light was golden and clear. The flower stands were electric with bundles of fresh-cut tulips and the wisteria vines that snaked up the fronts of people’s homes were exploding in lavender and purple like the best fireworks ever.
When I got to the little alley where I was staying, I noticed a commotion at the end of the block. Curious, or maybe just happy to stay outside longer, I went to check it out.
The block ended at the Amstel River, close to the Magere Brug, or “Skinny Bridge,” and when I got to the end of the street I saw that there were thousands of people packed up against the railing, looking out at the water. I shoved my way between a couple of dudes drinking bottles of Heineken, creating a gap so I could see what was happening.
Hundreds of boats, large and small, clogged the Amstel, and a floating platform bobbed in the middle of the river. A large stage had been set up directly across from us, near the Carré Theater. Two projection screens, the kind you find at baseball stadiums, showed an orchestra seated on the stage, then the camera switched and I could see Queen Beatrix and her family sitting in chairs on the floating platform.
Suddenly everyone was clapping. The conductor came out and took a bow and then ushered a couple of singers onto the stage.
The crowd quieted, almost like it was a moment of silence, and then the music started. Softly, almost a whisper, the orchestra began, allowing the sound to build and grow, slowly swelling until it was so beautiful that I gasped. The strings gently introduced the melody, and I felt like I knew this music. I was sure I did, even though I don’t know much about classical music. One of the opera singers, a woman, began singing in a heartbreakingly pure voice. “Just a perfect day, drink Sangria in the park …”
It was “Perfect Day” by Lou Reed. It’s one of my favorite songs, and I was swept up in the music. And then I was struck by the fact that the Royal Dutch Orchestra was playing a Lou Reed song for the queen of Holland. If that wasn’t bizarre enough, they were playing Lou Reed for the queen on their national holiday to celebrate their liberation from oppression.
The music expanded and the singer’s voice filled with emotion, conveying all the simplicity and love and sincerity expressed by the song. People around me were wiping tears from their eyes. I was wiping tears from my eyes.
I realized that the song itself could not have been more fitting for the day we were all experiencing.
And for a brief moment I fully understood the meaning of “dank.”
Acknowledgments
I’d like to give special thanks to David L. Ulin for his early reads, insights, and friendship.
I couldn’t have written this book without the people who generously gave me their time and answered my (sometimes stupid) questions
with kindness and good humor: Aaron and Don from DNA Genetics, Franco from Green House, Jon Foster, the crew of amazingly talented growers in the Sierras, Swerve, Joop Hazenberg, Michael Backes, and Debby Goldsberry.
The intelligence and enthusiasm of Mary Evans, Charles Conrad, Doug Pepper, and Brian Lipson made this a better book and made writing this book more fun than I’d ever expected. I’d like to thank Miriam Chotiner-Gardner, Jenna Ciongoli, Philip Rappaport, and Hallie Falquet for helping guide the manuscript through production, Jonathan Lazzara for marketing savvy, Min Lee for her legal eye, and an extra big thank-you goes to Michelle Daniel for a superlative copyedit.
Big ups to Tod Goldberg, Elizabeth Crane, Mary Otis, Carolyn Kellogg, David Liss, Charles Bock, Craig Caudle, David Suderman, and Matthew Zapruder for their encouragement and friendship, and MacKenzie Smith and Dr. Steven Wegmann for the mojitos and math.
And, finally, I’d like to thank my family, Diana Faust, Olivia Smith, and Jules Smith, for not thinking it all too ridiculous.
Further Reading
Booth, Martin. Cannabis: A History. New York: Picador, 2005.
Buruma, Ian. Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits of Tolerance. New York: Penguin, 2006.
Danko, Danny. The Official “High Times” Field Guide to Marijuana Strains. New York: High Times Books, 2011.
Donahue, Heather. Growgirl. New York: Gotham, 2012.
Herer, Jack. The Emperor Wears No Clothes. Van Nuys, Calif.: Ah Ha Publishing, 1985.
Holland, Julie, M.D. The Pot Book: A Complete Guide to Cannabis. Rochester, Vt.: Park Street Press, 2010.
King, Jason. The Cannabible Collection. Berkeley: 10 Speed Press, 2006.
Mak, Geert. Amsterdam: A Brief Life of the City. London: Vintage Digital, 2010.
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