When Did Weed Become Kush?

When did Weed become Kush?

by Rusty

I share this story as a cautionary tale for all of my rusted brethren to heed; and when I say “rusted”, I mean the old school, vintage crew of malcontents that I am honored to still creep, or rather creak, around with. Gentleman, because of some crazy, technical circumstances, I recently discovered that the weed kids are smoking today, is some powerful shit!

As with most stories involving drugs, this all begins very innocently… And as a caveat, to those readers who may not know me personally, I am very fond of Mother Earth’s wacky tobaccy. The truth is, that I have been inhaling since my buddy, Rocco the “Roach”, passed me a joint while sitting in a dank, swampy delta near the Cambodian border… It was only my third day in country and nothing could make that place any better, but it sure helped.

But that was 1968… And this bad trip happen last week, 2016.

Ok, so back to the innocent beginning of this story. My favorite of three wives recently bought me a new sound system. It’s what Barney at Best Buy called a, “A wireless home entertainment system.” I guess my wife got tired of my stereo and classic Hi-Fi speakers taking up half the space in our living room. Even though, I especially felt that the speakers nicely accentuated our shag carpeting and lava lamp, but she disagreed.

This new sound system has basically has two pieces, a speaker bar and sub-woofer, but no freaking wires to connect them. After a few hours of trial and error and a few beers, I finally figured out how to hook-up the speaker bar to our TV, avoiding a serious spousal crisis - She must never, ever miss her telenovelas!

Everything basically stayed the same for the next three weeks… speaker bar hooked up, woofer behind the couch, inoperative and next to a huge box of technical instructions.

That is, until one sunny afternoon, when I cut out of work early to slide a few Boneyard peelers. It was a classic sessh, logging at high tide with a bunch of the old crew. As always a few young interlopers, “Jetty-Rats”, crashed our geezer party; led in particular, by one kid, whom I have watched grow up for many seasons. He is the spawn of a great family that I have known forever. A respectful young man who rips Salt Creek on a shortie and oozes serious style on a log everywhere else.

For whatever reason I shared with him in the line-up my wireless dilemma and he gave me a few pointers to fix it. Then afterwards in the parking lot, while we were packing away our boards in the day’s last light, he offered to fallow me home and fix my technical headache.

We got to my place and Wham-Bam-Thank-You-Mam, the kid hooked up the sub-woofer, adjusted the sound and room settings; even hooked up my old turntable and showed me how to operate everything from my smartphone (now if I could only make the font bigger on that “smart” phone, I’d be stoked!)

The kid got everything working and did it all within ten minutes of walking through my casa’s door, barefoot!

Afterwards, while we were flipping through some of my old vinyl the kid spotted something I normally have tucked away... “Stella”… my favorite of many bongs, like wives, I have collected throughout the years. The kids eye’s were completely transfixed on that smoking apparatus! He reached for it and with the complete reverence of a Kung-Fu Grasshopper asked if he could spark that sucker up! I, being the good influence, I have always been in this young man’s life... Agreed.

Trust me, this is still all very innocent… This kid is actually in his early twenties, a graduate of a local university and works hard as some kind of app coder in the tech industry. I am not subverting some unknowing tween. In fact, it was I, who unknowingly was being introduced to elements by this kid that will forever color my world.

We took Stella out to the back patio and I loaded up the bowl up with my standard herb, buds that I still get from my buddy, Roach (He has been my lifelong friend and weed supplier. Actually, since his retirement, Rocco's product has gotten even smoother. I think much of it has to do with how he intermingles his home-grown weed amongst his award winning roses.)

We both shared a few hits that I really enjoyed, yet the kid seemed disappointed.

“Rusty, I need to bring you into the 21st century dude,” the kid mumble as he got up and walked out to his truck.

He came back to the patio with a zip lock baggy of buds and a what looked like an ID.

“Rusty, this is my Medical Marijuana card,” he slid across the table. “And this is what eases my ‘Anxiety’. Without it, I would have never graduated last year.”

The professional looking sticker on the side of the bag read,  “Cannatonic Granddaddy Purple Kush.”

Well, he opened that baggy and sprinkled just a little bit of it into Stella’s bowl and we began to hit that kush hard! Drawing in smooth, silky purple hits of medical grade marijuana. It was Goodddddd!

Then this old fart hit the Granddaddy wall… or most of that shameful wall crashed down upon me… brick by brick!

I don’t know what really happen, I Can’t Remember!!!

My favorite third wife informed me the next morning that she came home and found the kid and I on the back patio. I apparently was higher than all of the Merry Pranksters who partook in Ken Kesey’s Kool Acid Test. She and the kid carried me into the living room where I proceeded to blast my favorite Barry Manilow album on my new wireless home entertainment system.

The wife nicely got rid of the kid and things only got worse… my clothes came off as Barry began to croon about “Mandy”. She threaten to divorce me, and Stella, as I attempted to reignite it during “Copacabana”, which then caused me to bust into a chorus of “I Can’t Smile Without My Bong.”

My wife clearly had her hands full. She told me that somewhere around Manilow’s tune, “I Write The Songs”, she locked herself in our bedroom, with the bong, and called my previous wives for advice.

I guess the cannatonic portion of the purple kush kicked in as side two of Manilow Greatest Hits scratched the end. I pasted out, face down, nude, on the couch only to be awoken by a kiss on the cheek from my favorite wife. Her affection overwhelmed my aching head. Then she slapped my bare ass and screamed at me, “You are now officially forbidden to ever smoke dope with anyone more than 40 years your junior!”

To which I replied, “Oh, Mandy!”

Aloha.

Barry Manilow - Mandy

The Toyes - Smoke Two Joints