The Highs and Lows of Hempstalk

Bongs. Bowls. Pipes. Grinders. Guns. Guns? The first four items listed are all things one would expect to find at a festival celebrating marijuana. The fifth item—guns—is the last thing anyone wants to see at a festival celebrating marijuana. But yet, as we walk through the north entrance, past security, as a man rifles through Katelin’s backpack, I am absolutely taken aback by all of the guns.

We are at Hempstalk 2014, the 10^th annual festival that “advocates decriminalization of marijuana for medicinal, industrial, and recreational use.” Unlike the past few years, which saw the festival hidden far from public viewing at Kelley Point Park in North Portland, this year’s event is taking place right in the heart of the city, at Tom McCall Waterfront Park, smack dab between the Willamette River and the towering structures of downtown. The advertisement in the local rag promised a fashion show, a hemposium (whatever that is), crafts, food vendors, and music. Lots of music. With artists with names like Los Marijuanos, Herbivores, Mac & Dub and the Smokin’ Section, and the Cannabidroids. Yes, this festival seems to have everything a marijuana enthusiast could ask for. Except one thing—Marijuana!

Once security decides that Katelin isn’t hiding any drugs in her bag, we are allowed to enter the venue. On a stage to the right, a comedian is telling horrible jokes about what Christmas would be like if Jews celebrated it. No one is laughing. No one is laughing because no one is high. Also, because it’s not funny (perhaps it might be funny if you were high?). And also, because there are only a handful of people listening. The large grassy area in front of the stage is empty. The comedian is performing for no one. Because no one wants to go to a marijuana festival where marijuana is prohibited. It would be like going to a beer festival that had no beer. And, nobody wants to go to a marijuana festival where an army of security personal dressed like the cast of the Expendables 3 outnumber people with tie-dyed t-shirts and dread locks. It makes me wonder: What the hell were the organizers thinking?

Performing stand-up for nobody is hard...

This November, Oregonians get to vote on whether or not to make Marijuana legal. By putting Hempstalk front and center, in the public eye, the organizers probably thought it would help to promote their initiative. Unfortunately, I think their strategy may have backfired. When I think about Marijuana, I think about the underground—anti-government, anti-corporation, anti-“the man.” But as I walk around Hempstalk, the only thing I really see is consumerism at its worst. Everything is for sale. It’s like a Walmart for stoners—cannabis camouflage, Seattle Seahawks bongs, pipes that look like something Gandalf would smoke out of, crystals shaped like skulls, “FREE BONG With purchase of a grinder.” On their website, founder Paul Stanford claims that "Hempstalk is about the many uses of agricultural hemp fiber, oil, protein, fuel and medicine.” Yet, as far as I can tell, 99% of the vendors here are trying to make a quick buck from those who use the plant for purely recreational purposes. Can you even imagine what it’s going to be like when the big corporations get their hands in the cookie jar?

After walking around for about a half-hour, it becomes perfectly clear that Hempstalk is not for us--the atmosphere feels more like a trade show than a festival. I know for a fact that there is not a single thing in this entire venue that is necessary for the consumption of marijuana. In fact, the only thing absolutely needed for the consumption of marijuana is the one thing that you won’t find at the festival. Plus, nothing makes me more uncomfortable than a bunch of people walking around with guns. If this is any indication of what the world will be like with legalized weed, then I’m not so sure that legalization is the way to go. And with the threat of giant money-hungry corporations quickly putting them out of business, I wonder if that’s the reaction the organizers were really hoping for all along.  

The Ride to the Race

Wake up. Drink. Water, then coffee. Eat. Oatmeal, banana, honey, peanut butter, raisons. Mush. Mash. Paste. Pulp. Like something you would feed to an infant. Or livestock. Or the elderly. Clean your chain. Oil it. Clean the oil from the chain. Attach your saddlebag. Fill it with a repair kit. And sandals. And a change of clothes. Get dressed. Spandex, socks, shoes. A jersey with numbers pinned on the back. Numbers that hide your sponsors’ logos. Fill your water bottle. Finish your coffee. Clip on your helmet. Kiss your girlfriend goodbye. Out the door. On the road.

Pedal. Across Stark Street. Up 86^th. A right on Burnside. Across the Max tracks. Careful not to get your thin tires caught in the groove. On to the bike path. The one that follows the 205. Pedal. Pass the bums that lounge beneath the bridges. Pass the smokers who lollygag on the path. Pass the dog walkers and the Saturday strollers. Swing a left. Cross the big bridge. The Glenn Jackson. The one that opened the year you were born. 1982. The one that sees over 100,000 automobiles a day. The one that is two miles long. The one that saw three men die during its construction. The one with four lanes going both ways. The one with a bike path smack dab in the middle of those eight lanes. Pedal. As cars fly towards you on your left side. Pedal. As cars zip by on your right. Seventy miles per hour. Their taillights disappearing in the distance.

Enter Washington. Where pot is legal. Enter Vancouver. Named after George. The explorer. From British Royal Navy fame. The guy who gave Mount St. Helens its name. Along with Mount Hood. And Mount Rainier. All of which can be seen in the distance. All of which can be seen on this crystal-clear blue-sky day. Pedal. Uphill. Northeast. Right. Left. Right. Repeat. Right. Left. Right. Repeat. Think. About anything. But not about the race. Think. About life. About love. About death. No. Don’t think about death. Not while riding on these busy streets. Think. About society. About passion. About writing. About a new style. Call it scatter-shot. Scatter-shot writing. Here. There. Everywhere. Now. Then. Over again. Wow! Are people going to hate it…

Pedal. On country roads with no shoulders. Pedal. As cars whip by. Cars that are too close for comfort. Focus on the white line. Not on the ditch to your right. Not on the ditch that falls five feet deep. Focus. On the road. Not on the cars. The cars with bicycles on their roofs. Cars with bicycles on their trunks. Trucks with bicycles in their beds. At least you know you’re going the right way. Pedal. Up hills. Steep hills that test your chain. Steep hills that test your legs. Pedal. Into the wind. Twenty miles per hour. The wind speed. Not yours. Uphill. Into the wind. Singlespeed. 38 by 16. Five miles per hour. At best. Pedal.

Fly. Downhill. Finally. Fly. As fast as you can go. Beneath a canopy of trees. Shade that blocks the midday sun. The midday sun that’s scorching the Earth. 90 degrees and climbing. Fly. Down the winding road. Until it comes to a dead-end. Until you’re at the venue. Alderwood Park. Thirty miles from home. Find your team. Find your tent. Drop your bag. Refill your water. Study the course. Eat a gel. Use the bathroom. Line up for your race. Listen for your name. Hear it. Roll to the starting line. Listen to the official. “Single speeds ready.” Listen for the whistle. Go!

Adventures in Urban Hiking

I’m not exactly sure what’s in the pipe, but I can guarantee it has a funny name—something like L.A. Woman, or White Widow, or Blueberry Kush. We take long drags. We hold the smoke in our lungs. We fill the living room with clouds that smell faintly like skunk. And then we head outdoors, through the backyard, past the chickens, sunglasses hiding our bloodshot eyes. We stick to the back alleys, far from the traffic, hidden from the hustle and bustle. There is no designated route—no little blue circles with black silhouettes of a day hiker telling us where to go. No red diamonds. No signs saying “Stay on Trail.” We go where we want—right, left, straight, another right, up a staircase, down a dirt trail. We pass urban artifacts, abandoned tires, light pole art, million dollar homes, hundred dollar cars, directional signs telling us that we’re far from everywhere. We hit the main drag—Haight Ashbury for Trophy Kids. The weirdoes are out, with their fixed-gear bikes and their fluorescent hair and their punk rock t-shirts and their backpack hydration systems and their tiger-print sunglasses and their urban-hiking footwear. They sell garbage on the side of the road, masquerading it as hip décor and vintage wear. They sell garbage in trendy restaurants with clever names, charging rich prices for poor quality. Temporary bliss is all we achieve as we dump that garbage in our bodies.
We stop at a hole-in-the-wall, where I give a few quick billiards lessons. We stop at a parlor and have a slice. We stop at a tavern that has a Founding Fathers theme. On the wall, George Washington crosses the Delaware. Behind the bar, the tender entertains us with stories of her drug-filled exploits. Her hair is grey and we are taken aback, because when you think about hard drugs, you usually don’t think about middle-aged women. “Have fun on your walk-about,” she says as we shuffle out the door. In the heart of the city, we pass urban wildlife—goats, bums, automobile enthusiasts, garbage collectors, a possible werewolf. “That’s not a werewolf,” Katelin says. “Prove that it isn’t,” I demand. She can’t. We head into the tunnels, where drunken men used to be shanghaied. Now, drunken men sit at bars and just get drunker. As do we. It’s dark when we leave. The street-kids are out, taking up space on the sidewalks, hoping for change. “Make us famous!” They yell as I snap a photo of them.  We stumble on a parade. Or is it a protest? It’s hard to tell. The police are out in full force. We light up, in the middle of the city, cops all around us. We don’t care. Neither does anybody else. We’re drunk. We’re high. We’re tired. Six miles from where we started, so we hitch a ride home, feeding singles into electronic jaws, pulling a thin yellow strand at our stop. 

 

 

What I Talk About When I Talk About the Buffalo Bills

I never thought this day would come. I’m standing on the waterfront in downtown Buffalo, among a crowd of a hundred-thousand strong, watching the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the brand new Ralph Wilson Stadium, the NFL’s most advanced, state-of-the-art arena, complete with a retractable dome and the world’s largest scoreboard. Everyone who is anyone is here: Andre Reed, Steve Tasker, Marv Levy, Thurman Thomas, Bruce Smith, Fred Smerlas—all the greats—the list goes on and on. Buffalo Mayor Scott Norwood cuts a red, white, and blue ribbon with a pair of over-sized scissors as the Goo Goo Dolls perform a rendition of “Shout.” Speeches are given: three-time Super Bowl MVP Jim Kelly tells the story of what it felt like to watch now-Mayor Norwood split the uprights to end Super Bowl XXV, and how he never imagined that the team would go on to win six more in a row; Kelly’s replacement, two-time Super Bowl MVP Todd Collins, reminisces over his five Super Bowl victories; and our current quarterback, Russell Wilson (who we stole in the third round of 2012 draft), talks about the future of the team and how proud he is to reside in Buffalo, New York, or what is commonly referred to as “Football City, U.S.A.” When the current President of the United States, Mr. O.J. Simpson, unexpectedly shows up to unveil a fifty-foot tall portrait of the late Ralph Wilson, the crowd goes absolutely wild…and then I wake up.

It’s hard. Being a Bills’ fan, that is. Sure, I can dream—like I did in the above paragraph—but the truth is there are few other professional sports franchises that are as heartbreaking to root for. Everybody from Buffalo knows that Scott Norwood missed that 48-yard field goal to end Super Bowl XXV, and that the Bills went on to lose four in a row; Todd Collins turned out to be a bust, one among many lousy draft picks, which seem to have become a yearly tradition; and as for O.J. Simpson, well, let’s just say that he didn’t become president. The Bills haven’t even made the playoffs since 1999—the longest current drought in the NFL—making them the only team who hasn’t seen the postseason this century (I blame it on the “Doug Flutie Curse,” but that’s a different story for a different day). There is no new stadium, and with the passing of Ralph Wilson earlier this year, millionaires are currently targeting the team, many with hopes of a future relocation in mind (you weren’t fooling anyone, Bon Jovi). No, it’s not easy being a Bills’ fan.

I’ll be 32 years old this fall and I still sleep with a Buffalo Bills blanket. I don’t live in New York anymore, but like many of my generation who moved away in search of work, adventure, or better weather, I still hold a special spot in my heart for Western New York, and for the Buffalo Bills in particular. While others worship their gods on Sunday, I worship a mediocre football team that has become the laughing stock of the entire league. Even three-thousand miles away, I still hear the jokes, at the local bar, as I sit in the corner by myself and watch the games on the only television in the joint that isn’t a flat-screen. When I tell people which team I follow, they almost always reply with the same two words: “I’m sorry.” But that’s just the way things are when you choose to live so far away from something you’re truly passionate about. Regardless, I still get excited when I see anything that has to do with the Bills: a license plate holder, a baseball cap with the standing buffalo logo, a homeless man wearing a Bills jacket (for some reason unbeknownst to me, most of the Bills merchandise I see is being worn by the homeless, which might seem fitting). As I currently reside in the Pacific Northwest, it would be awfully convenient to convert to a Seahawks fan (everybody else here has), but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I just can’t get the Buffalo Bills out of my blood.

          

The preseason has just ended and again the Bills look absolutely awful, but still, I dream—that’s just what Bills fans do. What else can we do? Maybe we played bad on purpose, to trick the other teams into thinking we’re no good. After all, we did have a team in the early 90’s that lost all of their preseason games, yet still made it to the Super Bowl. Maybe the signing of Kyle Orton over the weekend will light a fire under the young E J Manuel; or, maybe, Kyle Orton will win the starting job and become the next Kurt Warner, leading a young Bills team to their first championship. Maybe we don’t need a good offense. Maybe our defense will be strong enough to carry the team all the way, like the Ravens in 2000. Or maybe we’ll just be mediocre, like last year, and the year before, and the twelve seasons before that. But I don’t think so. I think this is the year we break out. The year people around the nation start talking about the Buffalo Bills again. The year dreams become reality. No, it’s not easy being a Bills’ fan, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. My 2014 prediction: 10-6 with a wildcard playoff berth. Go Bills!