WEBVTT - The Ballad of High Times Magazine 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:07.720 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.080 --> 0:00:13.480 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:16.440 Chuck and Jerry's here too, and we're just hanging out 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:19.040 feeling irie. You're in Stuff you should Know? 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:25.639 Did you ever I mean, I'm gonna ask you two questions. 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:28.479 Did you ever read High Times much? And did you 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:30.240 ever subscribe? 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:32.760 I never subscribed. I was way too paranoid to do 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:35.440 something like that. But yes, I read it. I looked 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:36.640 at the pictures. 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:40.560 Yeah, I think for one year in college I actually 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:44.040 subscribed because and this is High Times magazine. We're talking 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:48.199 about everybody the I was gonna say notorious, but not 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:53.160 really notorious, the infamous weed magazine. Sure, but I subscribed 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:55.320 for I think a year because it just seemed like, 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:57.880 you know, I wanted to have that house, so that 0:00:58.000 --> 0:00:59.840 like that had that on the coffee table with our 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:02.880 dress on it. I just thought it was like the 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:03.960 cool thing to do, you know. 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:08.080 Yeah, Oh, I mean it was legitimately cool during a 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:12.000 certain period of life. Yeah, Like, if you were fifty 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:14.120 doing that, it's kind of sad. But if you're like 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:17.800 twenty or nineteen or twenty one or twenty and a half. 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:20.800 Let's say, then, yeah, I get it. 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:23.520 Watch what you say. Though, I've learned from recent emails 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:25.120 there may be a fifty year old out there that 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:27.199 think Sidetime is cool. That's gonna be very upset. 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:30.280 Yeah, it's true, But I mean, do they have it 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:31.319 on their coffee table? 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:32.120 I don't know. 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:33.679 I think that's the thing that's kidding me. 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:36.560 Even when I did read it occasionally, I even at 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:39.840 the time was like, this is the articles, the way 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:42.240 they're written. There were so many puns, so kind of corny. 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:46.600 Yeah uh, and so it never felt like as good 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:48.880 as I think they might have thought it was. Does 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:49.480 that make sense? 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:53.720 Yeah. And also one of the other things too, I 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:55.520 was going to say you could sense it, but no, 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:58.560 it was just really overt was they had an agenda 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:00.480 in every single one of their articles. There was a 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:03.480 way they wanted you to think, which is their position 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:07.280 on it, and they would like mock the other position 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:11.200 on it, typically the government's position on like legalization or 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:11.960 something like that. 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:13.560 Yeah. Good point. 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:18.799 Over time, though, I mean, it became it's an iconic magazine, like, yeah, 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:21.400 pretty much everybody's heard of High Times. If you've never 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:24.079 even picked one up, there's a good chance you've heard 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:26.800 of High Times or somebody referencing High Times. It's like 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:31.720 it insinuated itself into American pop culture. And the reason 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:35.600 why it became iconic is it survived all sorts of 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:41.639 drug culture transitions. Yeah, like, throughout all these different ways 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:43.839 of thinking and looking at drugs and different drugs people 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:47.360 were doing, High Times managed to just keep plodding along 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:50.639 and stay relevant, I guess, is the best way to 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:52.200 put it. I didn't think I was going to say 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:53.799 that out loud, but here we are. 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:58.160 Yeah, for sure from the Yeah, let's just get into 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:01.120 it then, Okay, no more needs to be I agree. 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:05.359 I agree. So High Times was founded by a guy 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:09.520 named Thomas King for sad, and I just realized I 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:12.760 didn't look up any videos of people pronouncing his name, 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:15.040 but I'm pretty sure that's how it's spelled. 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:17.079 Because I was so ray to roll with four kade. 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:21.880 Well, I've seen the little French version of the umlaut 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:23.919 the little devil's tail coming off of the bottom of 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:28.360 the sea. Oh okay, and that indicates a sound if 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:30.760 my high school French doesn't fail me. So I think 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:32.520 his name was Thomas King for sad. 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:36.200 All right, great, he looks like if you look up 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:37.800 this guy, and you know, when I went to look up, 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.320 I'd never seen a picture of him. I expected. I 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:43.920 didn't expect to see someone so cool looking. I mean, 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:45.640 he looks like he stepped right out of the Almond 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:46.560 Brothers band or something. 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:48.640 I was gonna say, it looks like the Almond Brothers 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:50.160 Satanic advisor. 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:53.200 Yeah, for sure. And if you're thinking, like, what do 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:54.920 you mean it was like a pot magazine? Why do 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:57.920 you think it'd be cool? It's because I usually expect 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:01.960 them to look sort of like a wavy any like 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:05.520 weed activists, to be just decked out in tied eye 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:08.640 and kind of just wearing some sort of wacky handmade hat. 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:11.960 And this guy like he looked like he could jump 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:14.960 off of a chopper and like hit the stage or something. 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:15.200 You know. 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:17.840 Yeah, and you know that same fifty year old who's 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:20.400 upset because I said something about high times on his 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:24.119 coffee table, it's pretty much a wavy gravy lookalike too. 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:27.800 Yeah, he's wearing own handmade knit hat. 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:32.480 Right. So this guy Thomas King for SAD. It's a 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:35.200 pretty cool name. And if it sounds made up, it 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:39.080 is made up. His real name was Gary Goodson, and 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:41.680 it's not because his name was Gary Goodson that he 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:44.839 ditched that name in favor of Thomas King. For sad uh. 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:51.760 He was actually a big, big time pot dealer. Like, 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:55.400 not only did he sell literal tons of pot in 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:58.320 like the I think, starting in the late sixties and 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:03.000 going well in the past the time he was had 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:09.200 started publishing high times, he smuggled it himself. He flew 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:11.600 planes and he went to Mexico, he went to Jamaica, 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:14.840 and he smuggled pot tons of pot at a time 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:19.080 into the United States. There was a quote I found 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:21.839 of his that he said, there's two types of pot dealers, 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:24.520 those who need a forklift and those who don't. I 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:28.400 need a forklift, And like he wasn't joking, like he 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:30.400 really don't that much pot. 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:33.679 Yeah, So, I mean, regardless of how you feel about 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:37.240 that or him or any of it, he wasn't just 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:39.400 some guy saying, like, hey, let's try and make a 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:42.919 little dough off of this marijuana people are smoking. Like 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:46.279 he was knee deep in the business right. This was 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:50.839 after coming out of seemingly to avoid the Vietnam Draft, 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:54.640 a short stint in the Air Guard where he was 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:59.360 discharged after convincing them that he had schizophrenia. And at 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:02.400 that point he went back to Arizona and Phoenix changed 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.240 that name, which was his mother's I'm sorry, grandmother's maiden name, 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:11.000 and you know, got into the underground zine scene. You know, 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:13.040 that was a big thing back in the late sixties 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:15.600 because of the ubiquity of like being able to print 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:18.040 her own stuff in an office or a I don't 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:20.520 know if they had Kinkos back then, but he got 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:25.240 into those and founded his own first underground magazine called Orpheus, 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:28.279 which had some politics to it, but it was kind 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:30.560 of just a little groovy psychedelic thing that covered like 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:32.159 music and pot and stuff. 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:34.960 Tell them about the issue with the peace sign in 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:35.680 the bullet hole. 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:40.719 Yeah, there was a peace sign on the cover that 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:43.680 actually had a real bullet hole. So instead of just 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:46.440 drawing a bullet hole, he shot them up. 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:50.200 Yeah, he himself shot bundles the stacks wrapped together with 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:53.720 a Colt forty five handgun to really kind of drive 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:54.400 the point home. 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:55.839 I mean, it's creative. 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:58.520 That is an underground zine right there. If it has 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:00.960 a bullet hole in it, that the publisher put there, 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:01.840 that's really. 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:03.640 Something with real blood. 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:06.479 Right, you said something that I think is really worth 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:10.240 pointing out because there's a whole camp of people who 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:13.400 tell this origin story of High Times, and Thomas King 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:17.000 farsade that it was like just some money making scheme 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:20.080 or just a lark or something like that. This guy, 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:25.400 in actuality was a dedicated First Amendment warrior, like dedicated. 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:29.800 And also he was very committed to the counterculture, not 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:33.320 just because he sold tons of weed, but he genuinely 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:37.920 believed in legalizing marijuana, that that was a crucial thing 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:42.120 to do in the United States. And he put his 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:44.120 money where his mouth is. And like you said, he 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:46.800 started with underground zines and then he took up I 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:50.680 saw that he joined or he founded. I couldn't tell 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:54.880 which one was correct. What it's basically like an associated 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:59.120 press for underground magazines. It was called the Underground Press Syndicate, 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:02.120 and I think it changed its name to something else, right, 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:04.440 I'm not sure. 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:06.360 I always saw it called UPS. 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:08.720 Well, we'll just call it that. But it was, like 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:11.200 I said, the ap where you could you could like 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:14.320 get all sorts of news about drug busts or about 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:18.200 you know, some spectacular pot harvest or something to do 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:21.800 with underground culture, and you could just print it in 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:25.840 your your local mag and the people in Phoenix are 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:27.720 reading the same thing as the people in Denver, but 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:29.720 they don't know that. They just think it's like part 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:30.600 of your magazine. 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:34.520 Yeah, And he eventually worked his way up to national 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:38.560 coordinator for the Underground Press Syndicate, and that's where he 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:41.199 learned how to run a magazine basically, as how he 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:47.320 learned about ad deals, distribution, printing like efficient printing, real 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:51.040 printing for a little while, and I figured we should 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:53.440 probably do something on Abby Hoffman and the yippies at 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:58.960 some point. All right, as you know, want to highlight boomers. 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:01.000 Do you know it's That's not that I just think 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:04.280 that guy's gotten more than enough of his spotlight. But yes, 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:07.600 it's all right, you know what, then forget it? Okay, Wow, 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:09.000 I didn't think I was going to talk you out 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:09.520 on that one. 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:11.679 Hey, if you want to learn about Abby Hoffman, you're 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:13.800 not going to learn about it here. Everybody go steal 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:18.440 his book, yeah, or read very nice. I got that one. 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:21.240 Uh So he did join up with Hoffman though and 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:23.319 his yippies. Again, if you want to read about them. 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:25.880 They were a group that did a lot of like 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:31.480 kind of social pranks and media grab you know, activist 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:37.319 stuff for their radical causes. In nineteen seventy, for said 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:38.040 for sad. 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:41.400 He said, yeah, because if you take out the oh 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:45.280 and change or no, if you change the O to 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:47.600 and A and take out the R, you've got facade 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:50.680 like the reund of a building. H So I'm making 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:51.920 an educated guess here. 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:54.000 I think you're probably right, but I'm just I've been 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:55.800 saying it wrong all day so in my head, so 0:09:56.080 --> 0:09:56.920 it's going to take a minute. 0:09:56.960 --> 0:09:59.280 It's okay. I was reading the High Times archives and 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:02.600 I guess they had some like sixth grade trained ai 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:07.480 scan and altar or turn all of their magazine photos 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:10.880 into text, and boy, it came up with some creative 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:12.280 ways of spelling that guy's name. 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:15.800 Well, you also sent me a lot of fun ads 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:18.840 for cocaine paraphernalia. Dude, that was crazy. 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:22.000 There is few things that are funner but also more 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:27.240 shocking then looking at vintage cocaine paraphernalia ads that appeared 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.000 in the likes of High Times and other magazines. Yeah, 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:31.920 and there was one that I pointed out to you 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:36.079 that was just like this thing should be in the Smithsonian. 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:40.760 It was a metal probably like a gold plated coke tube. 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:42.920 So you put one end in the coke and you 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:44.760 put the other end up your nose and you sniff, 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:47.720 right just in case you didn't know how to jest cocaine. 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:48.520 How that worked. 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:53.240 It shaped like an old school vacuum cleaner, and so 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:55.400 the coke goes into the bottom of the vacuum cleaner 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:57.439 and comes out the handle, which is up in your nose. 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:00.440 They call it the finger instead of the hoover. Like, 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:04.520 whoever came up with this is just that's dedication right there, 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:06.959 because that's the kind of idea you'd just be like, man, 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:09.559 we should totally make this. But then the person actually 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:11.080 went and made it and sold it. 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:14.000 Yeah, and then McDonald tired them to develop their happy 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:17.320 Meil prices. Right, they're like, this guy's really good at 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:19.080 these tiny little bubbles. 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:20.880 Exactly, And if you knew what you were doing, you 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:23.000 could clip the ends off of all those prizes and 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:23.640 then as. 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:28.320 Cooks charge all right, So in nineteen seventy that's where 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:34.840 we were. Four Sad testified before Nixon's Presidential Commission on 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:39.280 obscenity and pornography. And this is when he got a 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:42.360 real chance to you know, take the national stage and 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:46.400 talked about well, he the quote was the only obscenity 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:49.800 is censorship, and it's the first and I feel like 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:51.440 we talked about this in our pie in the face 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:55.440 episode it had, But it's the first incident that we 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:59.240 know of where a protest pie in the face happened. 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:04.079 When he pulled out a cream pie and face pied 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:07.640 doctor doctor Larson, doctor Otto Larson. 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:11.000 Yeah, who was the chairman of that committee on Obscenity 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:12.000 in Pornography? 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:15.160 Right, Yeah, and that must be the first one. I 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:17.240 mean it's cited as the first time. Yeah, you know, 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:19.360 not in a Marx Brothers movie. Somebody's like, let me 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:20.120 make a point with this. 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:22.240 Yeah. It was a form of protest that picked up 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:24.400 really quick. I mean, there's few things you can do 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:28.760 to somebody publicly that is more disrespectful and humiliating but 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:33.640 also non injurious than the face. But he did that. 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:34.680 He didn't happen anymore. 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:37.840 He was called to testify, and not only did he 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:42.880 say that censorship is the true obscenity, he said he 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:46.439 said f censorship and f you, and then he pied 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:49.600 the guy in the face and a congressional hearing this 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:51.560 is what he did. This is just the kind of 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:54.760 person he was, like. He wasn't somebody who just talked 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:57.440 a big game like this guy followed through on the 0:12:57.480 --> 0:12:59.360 stuff that he really believed in. 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:02.599 Yeah, and he also let that pie sit out the 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:04.679 day before in Phoenix. So it was Ryan green. 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:06.480 Yick. 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:12.120 Should we take a break? Sure? All right, let's take 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:14.480 a break and we'll talk about the beginnings of the 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:15.800 magazine right after this. 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:28.080 Stuff you should know, Josh and shock stuff you should know. 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:43.280 All right, So we've introduced our protagonist. I guess in 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:46.840 the in the first act we we can't And you know, 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:50.120 Dave helped us put together this article and he he 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:51.720 points out that if you tried to get I mean, 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:53.840 you could do a whole article on this guy and 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:56.319 talk about all the all the wacky things he did 0:13:56.320 --> 0:14:01.760 over the years, like concert festival promotion. He snuck allegedly 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:04.600 pipe bombs into the seventy two Republican Convention. 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:08.199 Later on, he followed the sex pistols around and co 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:11.319 produced a documentary on them called doa Yeah. 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:14.439 So he was a busy guy. Doing a lot of stuff, 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:17.520 but this is about High Time. So the origin story 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:20.520 officially for High Times magazine is that he thought of 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:25.480 it with his friends while he was huffing nitrous oxide. 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:28.240 Other people say it might have been an acid trip, 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:33.600 but either way, the early idea was, hey, how about 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:37.440 how about a magazine like a marijuana theme magazine. They've 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:41.040 got Playboy, and some people say, like the initial idea 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:42.840 was just a one off kind of spoof of Playboy, 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:45.680 but everyone that worked there said, no, no, no. The idea 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:48.800 was always to have like a real magazine that was 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:53.240 cheeky and fun but also like real journalism and tackled 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:56.480 real topics about activism and marijuana and growing it and 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:57.360 all that stuff. 0:14:57.120 --> 0:15:02.160 Right exactly. Michael Kennedy, who for Sad's personal attorney and 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:05.120 then came on as High Times legal counsel from like 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:08.520 the beginning until I think twenty sixteen when he died, 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:13.080 he explained it that High Times was meant to be 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:18.520 a way to use free speech to teach people how 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:21.880 to grow pot, and that like they basically had found 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:26.280 a loophole thanks to the First Amendment that they could 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:29.120 disseminate all of this information as far and as wide 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:31.600 as they possibly could, and in teaching people to grow 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:36.520 their own pot, that would eventually change attitudes about pot 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:40.640 and potentially lead to legalization. And as we'll see that 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:43.840 they were successful in that quest that they started back 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:44.920 in nineteen seventy four. 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:48.080 Yeah, that's right, and I think, I mean, I think 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:52.920 it absolutely did that. I think one of the missions was, hey, 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:58.200 let's really convince people. Not convinced, but let's really show 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:00.000 people what the truth is, which is that this is 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:04.120 a plant that can be grown like plant versus you know, 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:07.200 illicit drug, you know. 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:11.600 Right, or illicit drug versus illicit drug. Like at the time, 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:15.280 the Controlled Substances Act of nineteen seventy had just been 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:20.240 passed thanks to Richard Nixon and marijuana, which, by the way, 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:22.920 I read is not at all racist. There was a 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:27.120 Latino i think historian who researched it and he's like, yeah, 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:32.720 it's actually myth, so good for him. That it was 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:37.560 a schedule one, which I think it still was until 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:41.680 like this year, which means that it has, according to 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:46.960 the government, no medicinal value whatsoever, and the high potential 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:50.120 for abuse, and both of those are just absolute lies. 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:52.800 They're just not correct, they're not true. They knew this 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:57.040 back in nineteen seventy and that this Controlled Substances Act 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:01.480 kicked off the War on Drugs, which in retrospect most 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:04.520 people now agree was misguided in a huge waste of 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:08.240 money and killed a lot of people. And this was 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:11.640 the era that they incarcerated, Yes, incarcerated. It's a big 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:15.440 one too. But it was in this era, the beginning 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:18.159 of this era, that High Times started to kind of 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:23.560 become not just an idea but an actuality. So they 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:25.760 wanted to fight that, which was part of the reason 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:29.240 they were willing to like use mockery or just all 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:31.160 of their articles had a slant to it because they 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:35.159 felt like they were taking on liars, and that's a 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:37.840 legitimate way to respond to liars is through mockery or 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:41.280 really kind of pushing your agenda against them. But that 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:45.760 was a huge, I think, impetus for creating High Times 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:46.240 for sure. 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:50.480 Yeah, absolutely so. That very first issue came out summer 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:54.000 of seventy fours when it debuted, had a ten thousand 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:57.920 copy print run, and it didn't really light the world 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:00.800 on fire. I guess no pun intended. First it was 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:04.399 it had like an excerpt from a Timothy Leary novel. 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:08.679 Of course, articles about hempen marijuana and how great they 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:13.160 thought it was. There were some interviews, and very importantly 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:16.119 they had a something that would, you know, stay in 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:18.600 the magazine, which was a feature called the trans high 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:24.560 market market Quotation, which is a listing of like, hey, 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:26.760 in Chicago, this is how much a dimebag costs. This 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:28.440 is how much it costs in New York. This is 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:31.479 what announced we'd cost in Phoenix. You know what they 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:33.320 I guess they still call it street value, which I 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:36.760 always thought was really funny. Yeah, but that's that's what 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:38.920 it was. And it stayed in there for a long time, 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:40.600 even though, as we'll talk about later, it changed a 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:43.439 little bit over the years. But this first issue, like 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:46.080 I said, was not I mean, they did eventually sell 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:50.040 out of that ten thousand, but it wasn't through It 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:52.480 was through a lot of hustling. It wasn't like, hey, 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:55.720 it's on your news stand for sad said here, let 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:58.199 me get it into headshops, let me send them to 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:01.479 record stores. Apparently drug dealers bought copies and gave them 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:05.280 away to people. So it eventually did sell out the 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:09.080 two printings, but it was The second issue is when 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:11.679 it really really took off because of their you know, 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:13.040 kind of ingenious promotion. 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:16.280 Well, yeah, they threw a launch party at the Grammercy 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:18.680 Park Hotel in New York and invited like a bunch 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:24.080 of media and just got them messed up, like straight 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:29.840 button down media types, journalists, some like TV news people 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:32.720 showed up and we're like giving brownies and like here 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:36.000 trying nitrous oxide and have you ever had cocaine? And 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:39.080 I read a quote from Michael Kennedy, the legal council 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:42.159 for High Times. He said that he remembers three or 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:45.840 four lawsuits being brought against High Times from people who 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:48.639 got so wasted for the first time in their lives 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:51.840 that they decided to sue the magazine for it. 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:55.800 I could see that. Apparently. It was also, if not 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:59.639 the first, one of the first times like live television 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:02.760 showed people doing drugs. That was one of the local 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:06.840 news stations, according to Rolling Stone, showed people on camera 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:10.399 on the news snorting cocaine. And I'm sure people at 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:12.320 home are watching this just going on, like what is 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:17.120 going on? But it was huge publicity and they sold 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:19.840 out their fifty this time fifty thousand copy run in 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:24.000 four weeks and it became like a genuine sensation. That's 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:27.280 when also the second issues when they started also as 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:30.119 an homage to Playboy magazine their centerfold ye, but of 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:34.800 course their centerfold was always these these big, beautifully photographed 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:37.480 pictures of buds marijuana Budd. 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:40.800 The first one. I would take issue with the idea 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:43.040 that it was beautiful. It was a twenty pound brick 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:48.359 of schwag, just brown and compressed and ugly bit. But 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:52.040 at the time it was like their premier weed, Colombian 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:57.120 and just another aside. I'm sorry about this, but I 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:00.640 so I've always wondered in Hey nineteen, the Steely Dan 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:04.000 song when he says the Cuervo gold and the fine Colombian, 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:07.360 is he talking about cocaine or is he talking about pot? 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:09.720 And I went and researched this and I stumbled into 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:11.280 like a long standing argument. 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:12.680 Oh really, yeah. 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:16.240 I read an explanation from one person and it sounded 0:21:16.240 --> 0:21:19.520 pretty legit. They said, it's one hundred percent pot that 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:22.000 they were talking about. That's what you called really good 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:26.639 pot back in the seventies. It was Colombian and it 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:29.080 wouldn't have referred to cocaine in the first place, because 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:31.919 at that time most of the cocaine came from Peru. 0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:36.520 Colombian farmers hadn't really taken up coca production, and so 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:40.600 most people, if you were aware of cocaine, you were like, 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:43.080 this is some fine Peruvian. You wouldn't say this is 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:45.960 some fine Colombian. So it seems like that guy settled it, 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:47.080 at least in my mind. 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:50.080 Hey, that could have been the original lyric. You never 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:51.120 know what. It depends on the day. 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:52.240 Probably, I guess it does. 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:56.159 Sure, have you seen the yacht Rock documentary yet? On Max? 0:21:57.040 --> 0:22:00.520 No? It's pretty good, Like about the people who came 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:01.320 up with yacht rock. 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:04.960 Well, I mean, the people who came up with the 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:07.800 term yacht rock are featured in it, But it's about 0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:08.919 the genre of music. 0:22:09.080 --> 0:22:12.160 Oh okay, Like it goes back to the seventies and eighties. 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:14.600 Well yeah, what else would it be about. 0:22:15.760 --> 0:22:18.359 Well, there's a there's a band called yacht rock that 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:20.959 kicked it all off, and I don't know, Oh, oh. 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:24.280 You mean like the yacht rock review? Yes, no, no, 0:22:24.280 --> 0:22:28.960 no, no could with them. The term yacht rock was came 0:22:29.000 --> 0:22:32.600 about in early two thousands from a web comedy series Okay, 0:22:32.880 --> 0:22:35.320 which I never knew until I saw this documentary. But no, 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:38.120 it's about just you know, Christopher Cross and Michael McDonald 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:42.760 and Seals and Croft, all the great people. You'd enjoy it. 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:46.080 I think have you seen the limited series Black Doves 0:22:46.640 --> 0:22:47.359 with No? 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:47.800 I have not. 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:53.520 It's a British spy thriller like Theater ten episode. 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:54.160 Say No More, Sho. 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:55.240 It's really good. 0:22:56.080 --> 0:22:57.479 I mean you can say more, but I just mean 0:22:57.520 --> 0:22:58.560 I'm into that kind of thing. 0:22:58.760 --> 0:23:01.639 No, I'm with you. Just go watch it. I recommend it. 0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:04.359 Elsee. I always say these things in we're recording and 0:23:04.359 --> 0:23:05.640 then I don't remember afterwards. 0:23:06.280 --> 0:23:07.760 Just text me and be like, what was the thing 0:23:07.840 --> 0:23:08.320 with the thing? 0:23:09.600 --> 0:23:09.840 Once? 0:23:09.880 --> 0:23:12.320 You text me? Right now while I talk Black does. 0:23:12.320 --> 0:23:14.280 I don't have my phone on me. It's in the charger. 0:23:15.720 --> 0:23:17.440 I'm sorry, that's right. 0:23:17.840 --> 0:23:22.160 So mid seventies when High Times rolls out, those very 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:26.040 first years, the magazine was doing really well, but as 0:23:26.080 --> 0:23:27.800 a as a you know, sort of a new magazine. 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:32.840 But Forsad was not. He was on the FBI surveillance list. 0:23:33.359 --> 0:23:35.960 He was very paranoid because of the massive amounts of 0:23:36.000 --> 0:23:37.000 drugs that he was taking. 0:23:37.200 --> 0:23:40.080 Well but also rightfully so, the FBI impossibly even the 0:23:40.119 --> 0:23:44.840 CIA was infiltrating the counterculture and playing informants. And there 0:23:44.920 --> 0:23:46.680 was a time where he was like, there's an informant 0:23:46.680 --> 0:23:48.240 here of the High Time staff, and I don't know 0:23:48.280 --> 0:23:49.400 which one of you it is. 0:23:49.520 --> 0:23:50.240 There may have been. 0:23:50.560 --> 0:23:53.119 Yeah, it's possible, like he had reason to be paranoid 0:23:53.240 --> 0:23:56.480 at the very least, but it was definitely fueled to 0:23:56.680 --> 0:23:58.840 extremes through his drug use, for sure. 0:23:59.080 --> 0:24:02.800 Yeah. Absolutely, the magazine itself was doing well. Like I 0:24:02.840 --> 0:24:05.159 said that, the staff, I mean, it was just I mean, 0:24:05.200 --> 0:24:07.320 if you think that, like the Lampoon and Mad magazine 0:24:07.400 --> 0:24:09.960 was kind of crazy in their office, Like everybody in 0:24:10.000 --> 0:24:13.160 the High Times office was huffing nitrous and smoking weed 0:24:13.400 --> 0:24:18.080 and snorting blow like as they were working. But it was, 0:24:18.119 --> 0:24:20.679 you know, it was creating like some really relevant journalism. 0:24:20.720 --> 0:24:24.720 They were exposing, you know, government activities as far as 0:24:24.800 --> 0:24:30.000 the drug war goes. Like when putting paraquat, which I 0:24:30.000 --> 0:24:33.320 cannot help but think of Big Lebowski when I hear 0:24:33.359 --> 0:24:33.720 that word. 0:24:34.280 --> 0:24:35.480 Remember that part. 0:24:35.680 --> 0:24:40.320 It's when Jeff when the dude called the real Lebowski 0:24:40.560 --> 0:24:45.240 a human paraquat when he was mad. I think you 0:24:45.280 --> 0:24:49.080 said human even human paraquat. Yeah, but paraquat was the 0:24:49.119 --> 0:24:53.399 pesticide that was in marijuana fields under orders from the 0:24:53.520 --> 0:24:58.600 US and that this article helped promote a congressional investigation. 0:24:59.840 --> 0:25:02.840 The interviewed the Dalai Lama about drugs. That was Hunter S. 0:25:02.880 --> 0:25:06.240 Thompson and of course William S. Burrows doing writing. That 0:25:06.440 --> 0:25:10.200 was Truman Capoti, did a guest interview with Andy Warhol. 0:25:10.320 --> 0:25:12.639 Bob Marley was in it. Like it was really the 0:25:13.080 --> 0:25:16.080 heyday of that magazine as far as being like a 0:25:16.160 --> 0:25:19.240 real like they achieved what they wanted to achieve in 0:25:19.280 --> 0:25:20.440 the first few years. 0:25:20.720 --> 0:25:24.840 Yeah, I mean that's like some heavyweight underground stuff right 0:25:24.840 --> 0:25:28.120 there that they got into their pages for sure. And yeah, 0:25:28.160 --> 0:25:31.320 I think the latest thing you mentioned was nineteen seventy 0:25:31.400 --> 0:25:34.040 eight with Truman Capodi and Andy Warhol. So this is 0:25:34.040 --> 0:25:36.040 all in like the first four years that they're cramming 0:25:36.080 --> 0:25:39.080 all this stuff in there. So yeah, right out of 0:25:39.080 --> 0:25:42.800 the gate, it was. It was very successful in part, Chuck, 0:25:43.400 --> 0:25:49.640 because there was nothing like this in existence before, I mean, 0:25:49.640 --> 0:25:53.200 aside from some underground zines that fifty people read before 0:25:53.320 --> 0:25:57.520 High Times. It became a national magazine, a national magazine 0:25:57.520 --> 0:26:00.000 about pot and people who love pot and loved drugs. 0:26:00.040 --> 0:26:02.399 And want to see them legalized, and here's how you 0:26:02.440 --> 0:26:04.919 do it, and here's how you grow this stuff. And 0:26:05.000 --> 0:26:07.360 today it seems like it's not a really big thing 0:26:07.400 --> 0:26:10.119 to talk about pod or to find an article about 0:26:10.240 --> 0:26:13.840 people smoking pot and Newsweek or whatever, right, And that 0:26:14.000 --> 0:26:17.639 is because High Times existed and laid the groundwork for it. 0:26:18.520 --> 0:26:20.560 Yeah, I mean they by year four they had a 0:26:20.640 --> 0:26:24.000 subscribership that was about the same as Rolling Stone magazine. 0:26:24.400 --> 0:26:27.679 Yeah that's crazy, which is yeah, it's just nuts. In 0:26:27.800 --> 0:26:34.359 nineteen seventy eight, Forsyde had previous attempts at suicide, but 0:26:34.480 --> 0:26:37.360 he succeeded in November of nineteen seventy eight, very sadly, 0:26:37.880 --> 0:26:40.880 when he was just thirty three years old. I saw 0:26:41.280 --> 0:26:43.840 different things that he know. It was after the death 0:26:43.840 --> 0:26:46.760 of a friend that had him really upset. And like 0:26:46.800 --> 0:26:48.800 I said, there were previous attempts, so he was a 0:26:48.800 --> 0:26:53.360 troubled guy to say the least. But they held his 0:26:53.440 --> 0:26:56.439 memorial atop the World Trade Center at the windows of 0:26:56.480 --> 0:27:02.320 the World Restaurant, and as legend has it, smoked. I 0:27:02.320 --> 0:27:05.720 think Keith Richards snorted his dad's ashes supposedly, but they 0:27:06.359 --> 0:27:10.040 rolled up some of Forsade's ashes in joints and smoked 0:27:10.040 --> 0:27:10.840 them as a staff. 0:27:11.119 --> 0:27:13.440 That always reminds me of that episode from Six Feet 0:27:13.520 --> 0:27:17.679 Under where the daughter finds some actors who are snorting 0:27:17.720 --> 0:27:24.000 like their co Their co stars ashes jodita like cocaine 0:27:24.080 --> 0:27:26.280 or something like that and died. And I can't remember 0:27:26.320 --> 0:27:28.240 the daughter's name from Six Feet Under, but she finds 0:27:28.280 --> 0:27:32.160 them doing this and just Claire, she just goes bonkers 0:27:32.200 --> 0:27:35.680 on them, like what is wrong with you? It's really good, 0:27:35.720 --> 0:27:36.760 it's very satisfying. 0:27:37.480 --> 0:27:39.159 That's weird for Claire to be judging like that. 0:27:39.840 --> 0:27:44.840 She was so morally offended by what she was seeing 0:27:44.880 --> 0:27:47.959 that she just unleashed on them. It was weird for her, 0:27:48.000 --> 0:27:49.760 but it fit, yeah the moment. 0:27:51.160 --> 0:27:52.920 I wonder if she was upset about her art class 0:27:52.920 --> 0:27:53.399 at the time. 0:27:53.760 --> 0:27:55.479 I don't think she was there yet. I think she 0:27:55.560 --> 0:27:56.080 was younger. 0:27:56.480 --> 0:28:01.840 Yeah, so High Times. This is before as far as 0:28:01.840 --> 0:28:04.600 the magazine itself, before Foresad died, they did start to 0:28:04.640 --> 0:28:07.880 sort of stray from their mission statement a little bit. 0:28:07.920 --> 0:28:11.439 As far as coverage of harder drugs, they started writing 0:28:11.440 --> 0:28:15.400 a lot about cocaine, like in a big, big way. 0:28:15.440 --> 0:28:19.879 They even started including cocaine and meth and LSD in 0:28:19.920 --> 0:28:23.480 that trans high market quotation as far as how much 0:28:23.480 --> 0:28:26.400 it should cost in different cities, and it was sort 0:28:26.400 --> 0:28:30.320 of like, I think the adherence of the magazine even 0:28:30.320 --> 0:28:32.679 were a little bit like, hey, this is not what 0:28:32.760 --> 0:28:35.160 I signed up for, Like this was a weed magazine. 0:28:35.520 --> 0:28:37.960 So they kind of got back to the weed thing more. 0:28:38.080 --> 0:28:41.760 In the eighties, cocaine, you know, the reputation started to 0:28:41.760 --> 0:28:43.400 get a little bit more like hey, wait a minute, 0:28:43.520 --> 0:28:45.360 this stuff is like really dangerous and there's a lot 0:28:45.400 --> 0:28:49.160 of violence attached to it, yea, and the trade, and 0:28:49.240 --> 0:28:52.520 so they really got back to the pot thing again 0:28:52.600 --> 0:28:55.480 in a big way, and they were just getting going 0:28:55.520 --> 0:28:58.280 again in the eighties back to their mission statement, when 0:28:58.800 --> 0:29:03.120 the DEA launched something called Operation Green Merchant, in which 0:29:03.160 --> 0:29:08.280 they really wanted to target marijuana growth and not the 0:29:08.320 --> 0:29:12.880 growth of marijuana, like growing marijuana plants and advertisements for 0:29:12.920 --> 0:29:15.800 this equipment that was sort of thinly veiled as like 0:29:16.120 --> 0:29:18.760 oh no, this these lights just help you grow your 0:29:19.120 --> 0:29:22.680 letting your regano at home or whatever, garryer lettuce. And 0:29:22.720 --> 0:29:26.640 so Operation Green Merchant was to target those ads and 0:29:26.680 --> 0:29:30.360 the publications that sort of taught you step by step 0:29:30.360 --> 0:29:31.480 how to do this right. 0:29:31.560 --> 0:29:34.360 And so that. I mean, the DEA had tried to 0:29:34.400 --> 0:29:37.680 take down High Times many times. This is the one 0:29:37.760 --> 0:29:42.560 they almost got them with because it took out their advertisers. 0:29:42.560 --> 0:29:46.480 Their advertisers went to jail or were run out of business, 0:29:46.960 --> 0:29:49.400 and all of a sudden, a huge amount of High 0:29:49.440 --> 0:29:54.240 Times regular advertising dollars just vanished, like overnight because of 0:29:54.280 --> 0:29:59.360 Operation Green Merchant. It went up and smoked this right, sorry, 0:29:59.720 --> 0:30:03.360 no worth it for sure. And they I read a 0:30:03.440 --> 0:30:06.040 quote there they were saying like, at this point, High 0:30:06.040 --> 0:30:09.880 Times was the verge of bankruptcy. The DA almost got them, 0:30:10.080 --> 0:30:12.160 but they managed to just kind of slowly climb their 0:30:12.160 --> 0:30:15.520 way back and get back into it in the nineties. 0:30:16.080 --> 0:30:19.680 This is when I started reading High Times. It was 0:30:19.760 --> 0:30:24.600 saved by hip hop. Yeah. Before Doctor Dre's The Chronic 0:30:24.880 --> 0:30:28.520 album came out, Pot was just viewed as like, you know, 0:30:29.080 --> 0:30:32.680 people who listening to like hippies or burnouts like Judas 0:30:32.760 --> 0:30:37.440 Priest fans stuff like that. Yeah, that wo smoked pot 0:30:37.840 --> 0:30:40.400 and they were just as likely to sniff glue at 0:30:40.440 --> 0:30:43.920 the same time. Right then the Chronic came along and 0:30:44.160 --> 0:30:48.960 it was it just exploded, like overnight, pot was totally 0:30:48.960 --> 0:30:53.040 in fashion again and a whole new generation just got 0:30:53.080 --> 0:30:54.720 into it, like really quickly. 0:30:55.880 --> 0:30:58.320 Yeah, and High Times magazine, I mean they rolled right 0:30:58.320 --> 0:31:00.160 with it, I mean right into the nineties. All of 0:31:00.200 --> 0:31:02.240 a sudden, it's like, oh, well, now we can put 0:31:02.280 --> 0:31:05.800 ice cube on the cover, and you know, right about 0:31:05.800 --> 0:31:08.959 this other sort of I mean, I guess you call 0:31:09.000 --> 0:31:11.440 it a subculture that you know, we hadn't been highlighting 0:31:11.480 --> 0:31:15.160 in the past, and you know, beyond making it relevant again, 0:31:15.200 --> 0:31:17.640 I think they they found out they were missing out 0:31:17.720 --> 0:31:21.520 on an entire like readership that they had never targeted. 0:31:21.120 --> 0:31:25.760 Before, right for sure. And the one other impact that 0:31:25.800 --> 0:31:29.720 it had too is they helped instruct people how to 0:31:29.800 --> 0:31:33.640 set up your home grow system. So as like hydroponic 0:31:33.720 --> 0:31:37.400 systems started kind of going from a thing you had 0:31:37.440 --> 0:31:41.320 to put together by going to fifty different stores right too, 0:31:41.360 --> 0:31:45.640 Like you can buy this entire hydroponic system through the 0:31:45.640 --> 0:31:48.400 pages of High Times. They helped people learn how to 0:31:48.440 --> 0:31:51.880 do that along the way, and as a result, POTT 0:31:52.080 --> 0:31:55.240 just started. At the same time, when it became fashionable 0:31:55.280 --> 0:31:59.800 again in the early nineties, it got exponentially better than 0:31:59.840 --> 0:32:03.360 it had been leading up to that. It was like 0:32:03.400 --> 0:32:05.840 somebody threw a switch and all of a sudden, pot 0:32:05.880 --> 0:32:07.760 was what you see or think of it now, like 0:32:07.840 --> 0:32:11.680 just sticky buds and gorgeous like beautiful flowers and all 0:32:11.720 --> 0:32:15.440 that stuff like that really was much more potent. Like 0:32:15.640 --> 0:32:19.640 that happened at about the exact same time as as 0:32:19.680 --> 0:32:22.440 like the Chronic and Snoop Dogg coming out and all that, 0:32:22.520 --> 0:32:25.040 Like ninety two ninety three is when it really changed. 0:32:25.640 --> 0:32:28.440 I was talking to my friend Clay the other day 0:32:28.880 --> 0:32:31.640 because he is who introduced us to the Chronic. When 0:32:31.640 --> 0:32:34.240 we would I think I've said this before, but we 0:32:34.280 --> 0:32:36.600 went over to his house and play like the Nintendo 0:32:37.760 --> 0:32:39.680 whatever the system was. What was the one back then? 0:32:40.080 --> 0:32:43.040 It wasn't the sixty four. Was it super nice? 0:32:43.080 --> 0:32:43.840 Yeah? The sixty four? 0:32:43.960 --> 0:32:44.640 Was it sixty four? 0:32:45.080 --> 0:32:46.800 Yeah? So we go over there and play Street Fighter 0:32:46.840 --> 0:32:49.600 and Mortal Kombat, and Clay one day was like, dude, 0:32:49.760 --> 0:32:53.560 listen to this. Yeah, puts on the Chronic and Snoop 0:32:53.560 --> 0:32:55.360 Dogg's voice came out of the speaker and we were 0:32:55.400 --> 0:32:57.200 all into hip hop at the time, but Snoop Dogg, 0:32:57.480 --> 0:33:00.040 he didn't sound like anybody else at the time, but 0:33:00.160 --> 0:33:02.239 when his voice came out, we were like, who is 0:33:02.400 --> 0:33:06.000 this guy? It's like, oh my god, and like how funny. 0:33:06.040 --> 0:33:07.080 And I was talking to him the other day. I 0:33:07.080 --> 0:33:09.280 was like, how funny and back then, like, would you 0:33:09.320 --> 0:33:13.080 ever think that? Now Snoop Dogg is like this. I 0:33:13.120 --> 0:33:15.479 mean one of the most famous people in the world. 0:33:16.160 --> 0:33:18.240 I know, the mascot of USA Olympics. 0:33:18.560 --> 0:33:21.480 Yeah, I mean working with Martha Stewart. It's like, I 0:33:21.720 --> 0:33:23.080 don't think anybody saw that coming. 0:33:23.280 --> 0:33:25.280 Oh that was a good documentary too, by the way. 0:33:25.720 --> 0:33:26.840 Oh, I haven't seen that one yet. 0:33:26.840 --> 0:33:27.160 It's good. 0:33:27.240 --> 0:33:30.040 Is it good? Hey? I don't know if everyone knows this. 0:33:30.480 --> 0:33:32.040 Jerry's been to Martha Stewart's house. 0:33:32.760 --> 0:33:33.960 I didn't know that, did I. 0:33:34.560 --> 0:33:36.800 Yeah, she told us a while ago. At one point 0:33:36.840 --> 0:33:40.640 she was doing something with the company. I don't know 0:33:40.640 --> 0:33:43.360 if whatever happened with that, but Jerry like went to 0:33:43.400 --> 0:33:45.840 her house. She said it was a real mess. 0:33:46.560 --> 0:33:49.680 That's crazy. I believe it though. It's probably like felt 0:33:49.680 --> 0:33:53.840 scraps everywhere, and yeah, half half bone chicken and things 0:33:53.880 --> 0:33:54.880 like that, just sitting around. 0:33:55.000 --> 0:33:58.360 Hodge Podge bottles just spilled all over the place. No, 0:33:58.680 --> 0:34:02.440 it's perfect. So High Times back to High Times from 0:34:02.480 --> 0:34:04.680 eighty eight to twenty thirteen. That was an editor in 0:34:04.760 --> 0:34:09.000 chief named Stephen Hager that ran the Joint and he 0:34:09.120 --> 0:34:12.760 was God, man, I'm not even meaning to I swear 0:34:12.760 --> 0:34:17.080 I'm not. He ran High Times magazine. This is when 0:34:17.120 --> 0:34:20.319 they I mean, they had always talked about legalization, but 0:34:20.440 --> 0:34:23.360 this is when they really really got into writing and 0:34:23.440 --> 0:34:29.120 beating that drum about not decriminalizing but like legalizing weed 0:34:29.360 --> 0:34:30.480 for everybody. 0:34:31.000 --> 0:34:35.360 Yeah, Like they moved that overton window and made just 0:34:35.480 --> 0:34:41.040 the concept of legal weed something. They took it from 0:34:41.040 --> 0:34:44.560 something like a dorm room conversation to this is how 0:34:44.600 --> 0:34:47.400 you would do it. Here's a path to legalization, right states, 0:34:47.480 --> 0:34:50.480 you know. Yeah, Yeah, And they just made it like 0:34:50.560 --> 0:34:55.520 a potential thing, like a real concept. They brought it 0:34:55.560 --> 0:34:58.200 into existence and helped push it along. I should say 0:34:58.200 --> 0:35:00.680 they covered the people who were out there, like yeah, 0:35:00.719 --> 0:35:03.760 coming into or bringing it into existence or really thinking 0:35:03.760 --> 0:35:06.200 about it. But through covering them and exposing them to 0:35:06.239 --> 0:35:09.440 millions of people every month, that kind of got the 0:35:09.480 --> 0:35:10.880 whole idea out there. 0:35:11.480 --> 0:35:14.319 Yeah, the normal n r m L. 0:35:14.840 --> 0:35:18.120 That was it, right, Yeah. Thomas Farsad helped bankroll them 0:35:18.200 --> 0:35:23.800 in their early days, the National Organization for the Rethinking 0:35:23.840 --> 0:35:29.000 of Marijuana Legislation, Reform of Marijuana. 0:35:28.600 --> 0:35:32.400 Realization Reform, Yeah, reform. I went to one of the 0:35:33.040 --> 0:35:35.680 norm the Atlanta Pimont Park used to have in the nineties, 0:35:35.680 --> 0:35:39.680 the normal pot rally concerts you went to that. I 0:35:39.719 --> 0:35:41.319 went to one of them one year when the Black 0:35:41.360 --> 0:35:44.680 Crows played, and it was a lot of fun. It 0:35:44.719 --> 0:35:46.279 was a great show. I liked them for a little 0:35:46.280 --> 0:35:47.759 while back then, and it was really good. 0:35:48.200 --> 0:35:51.040 You were sitting amid a sea of brass bowls with 0:35:51.120 --> 0:35:53.520 like the Tai Die little plastic middles that you would 0:35:53.520 --> 0:35:54.040 hold onto. 0:35:54.440 --> 0:35:56.439 Yeah, well, nobody was smoking weed. It was really weird. 0:35:56.920 --> 0:35:58.640 That's a little weird. That's so Atlanta. 0:35:59.040 --> 0:36:01.239 So yeah, they were advocate it such that there was 0:36:01.280 --> 0:36:04.000 an article in twenty thirteen and the Nation that said 0:36:04.280 --> 0:36:07.319 High Times magazine may be the most influential publication of 0:36:07.360 --> 0:36:12.799 our era. So it wasn't just you know, cheeky articles 0:36:12.880 --> 0:36:15.520 and pictures of beautiful buds. It was like they were 0:36:15.560 --> 0:36:18.880 doing real, real work toward sea change. 0:36:19.000 --> 0:36:22.520 And it worked, yes, And yet at the same time, 0:36:22.640 --> 0:36:25.760 especially in like the magazine industry, they're just dismissed as 0:36:26.239 --> 0:36:29.879 you know, they're just stoners. They're potheads, right, and they 0:36:29.880 --> 0:36:33.400 don't care. They don't seem to. They don't go after awards, 0:36:33.640 --> 0:36:36.880 they don't like submit their their writer's work for awards 0:36:36.880 --> 0:36:39.080 and stuff like that. They genuinely don't seem to care 0:36:39.080 --> 0:36:42.120 about that kind of stuff because they're off doing like 0:36:42.160 --> 0:36:44.360 their own thing and they're actually doing it. But I 0:36:44.400 --> 0:36:47.719 saw a citation of how popular culture thinks of High 0:36:47.800 --> 0:36:52.400 Times from They cited a Sarait Live skit featuring Jack Black, 0:36:52.960 --> 0:36:56.960 and he played High Times top reporter and he was like, 0:36:57.320 --> 0:36:59.840 I think at a press conference or whatever, and he 0:37:00.040 --> 0:37:01.800 would stand up to ask a question and then he 0:37:01.840 --> 0:37:05.839 would forget what he was gonna say every time. Yeah, 0:37:05.880 --> 0:37:08.120 of course, Oh, I thought it was hilarious. I didn't 0:37:08.120 --> 0:37:08.320 even know. 0:37:08.360 --> 0:37:10.680 No, no, no, it's funny. I'm not saying it wasn't. I'm 0:37:10.719 --> 0:37:13.280 just saying like, yeah, that's got to be the sketches 0:37:13.360 --> 0:37:15.279 that he has no memory. 0:37:15.400 --> 0:37:19.200 Right, But I could not find it anywhere, And it's uh, 0:37:19.640 --> 0:37:21.640 I just read about it, like all the other stuff 0:37:21.640 --> 0:37:24.399 I'm talking about. I didn't experience a first hand. I've 0:37:24.440 --> 0:37:25.440 just read about it. 0:37:25.880 --> 0:37:27.520 I feel like I saw it back then. But I 0:37:27.560 --> 0:37:30.040 do remember that one of the issues I had, and 0:37:30.120 --> 0:37:32.880 this had to be from the two thousands, was Tenacious 0:37:32.920 --> 0:37:33.719 D was on the cover. 0:37:34.400 --> 0:37:37.399 Yeah, and I think Jack Black himself was as well. 0:37:38.360 --> 0:37:40.520 Well, I mean he is one half of Tenacious D, 0:37:40.719 --> 0:37:42.680 but I mean just without Kyle. He's like, let me 0:37:42.719 --> 0:37:47.680 do one without that guy. Yes, all right, we have 0:37:47.760 --> 0:37:50.600 been remiss and not taking a second break. So we're 0:37:50.600 --> 0:37:52.640 gonna do that now, and we're going to talk about 0:37:52.640 --> 0:37:56.319 what has happened over the last decade or twenty years 0:37:56.440 --> 0:37:57.320 or so right after. 0:37:57.120 --> 0:38:09.640 This stuff you should know, Yash and shock stuff you 0:38:09.680 --> 0:38:10.080 should know. 0:38:22.239 --> 0:38:26.480 Okay, Chuck. So we were talking about how Stephen Hager 0:38:26.719 --> 0:38:30.359 guided High Times through like a really prolific era. This 0:38:30.440 --> 0:38:32.600 is like in the nineties. I feel like, and I 0:38:32.600 --> 0:38:35.239 don't Maybe I'm just talking because that was the time 0:38:35.280 --> 0:38:37.319 I came in contact with it. It feels like that's when 0:38:37.360 --> 0:38:40.600 it really transitioned into like an iconic thing that was 0:38:40.680 --> 0:38:43.640 never really gonna go away, even if it went away, 0:38:43.680 --> 0:38:44.359 you know what I'm saying. 0:38:44.800 --> 0:38:45.440 Yeah, agreed. 0:38:45.960 --> 0:38:49.160 So in two thousand and four, as I understand it, 0:38:49.200 --> 0:38:52.960 I believe Hager retired in two thousand and three, and 0:38:53.000 --> 0:38:55.640 so the replacement they brought in for editor in chief. 0:38:56.640 --> 0:38:58.520 As far as I know, I think we've both seen 0:38:58.560 --> 0:38:59.719 conflicting stuff, right. 0:39:00.400 --> 0:39:02.399 Yeah, I might have said twenty thirteen to two, which 0:39:02.480 --> 0:39:03.879 was it was probably two thousand and three. 0:39:04.040 --> 0:39:07.480 Oh, gotcha. Okay, So Richard Stratton came in as the 0:39:07.600 --> 0:39:09.800 editor in chief and he had bona fides. He served 0:39:09.800 --> 0:39:12.360 eight years in federal prison for dealing pot. 0:39:13.040 --> 0:39:17.640 Oh I thought you get talking about editor in chief bonafides. 0:39:19.920 --> 0:39:21.640 No, he didn't have those. That was the other thing. 0:39:21.640 --> 0:39:24.400 He was a journalist. He'd reinvented himself as a journalist. 0:39:24.880 --> 0:39:27.840 I think he had some books under his belt. He 0:39:27.920 --> 0:39:31.920 wasn't like a bad pick. He made a bad pick. Yeah, 0:39:31.960 --> 0:39:34.600 he was very good friends with Norman Mayler, and in fact, 0:39:34.840 --> 0:39:36.480 one of the reasons he went to prison is he 0:39:36.560 --> 0:39:40.279 refused to implicate Norman Mahler in his pot dealing activities. 0:39:41.000 --> 0:39:44.160 And when he became editor in chief of High Times, 0:39:44.400 --> 0:39:48.000 he hired Norman Mahler's son, John Buffalo Mailer, who's twenty 0:39:48.040 --> 0:39:51.240 five at the time. Yeah, hired him as executive editor. 0:39:51.600 --> 0:39:56.319 And yeah, I like his name. John Buffalo Mailer had 0:39:56.480 --> 0:40:00.560 zero publishing experience whatsoever. And the whole thing it was 0:40:00.680 --> 0:40:03.359 just this is a bad time for High Times. 0:40:03.600 --> 0:40:06.840 Yeah. It was ill conceived. I think they didn't quite 0:40:06.920 --> 0:40:10.440 know where to go after the sort of it's not 0:40:10.480 --> 0:40:13.399 like the hip hop era ended any you know, mention 0:40:13.520 --> 0:40:16.640 of weed or anything like that, but it was sort 0:40:16.680 --> 0:40:19.160 of past that. You know, everything changes from decade to 0:40:19.200 --> 0:40:21.120 decade culturally, and they didn't quite know what to do, 0:40:21.160 --> 0:40:25.120 I think, so they said, hey, why don't we do this, 0:40:25.280 --> 0:40:27.440 Why don't we try and sort of change the image 0:40:27.440 --> 0:40:29.960 of the magazine and become just more of a sort 0:40:30.000 --> 0:40:36.160 of a cultural magazine, like essentially, let's stop writing about 0:40:36.200 --> 0:40:40.480 weed exclusively and let's really stop writing about weed almost 0:40:40.480 --> 0:40:44.160 all together. And that lasted for about a year. They 0:40:44.560 --> 0:40:47.359 did not like that. The readership was like, what are 0:40:47.360 --> 0:40:49.920 you doing. The whole point of this magazine is that 0:40:49.960 --> 0:40:53.720 it's high times and it's not, you know, about freedom, 0:40:53.840 --> 0:40:58.080 it's about freedom to smoke weed specifically and grow it specifically. 0:40:58.680 --> 0:41:01.600 And like I said, about a year later, in fact 0:41:01.640 --> 0:41:03.279 it was one year later. I think they were like, 0:41:03.360 --> 0:41:05.879 we really screwed up here. And so they went back 0:41:05.920 --> 0:41:08.960 in two thousand and five with a big cover that 0:41:09.000 --> 0:41:13.279 said the Buds are back and thirty pages of pot 0:41:13.320 --> 0:41:16.480 picks on the inside, and everyone was like, oh, thank god, 0:41:16.560 --> 0:41:18.440 and it was one of their best selling issues of 0:41:18.480 --> 0:41:18.879 all time. 0:41:19.120 --> 0:41:22.040 Yeah, and they brought Steve Hager back in to kind 0:41:22.040 --> 0:41:25.080 of right the ship again. Ah okay, and he did. 0:41:25.840 --> 0:41:29.960 Like this, High Times started the idea that we should 0:41:30.040 --> 0:41:35.200 legalize marijuana, worked at it ceaselessly for decades, and finally 0:41:35.360 --> 0:41:41.840 was still around when that change started happening. States started 0:41:41.880 --> 0:41:48.320 talking about actually legalizing pot, not decriminalizing, but legalizing pot. 0:41:48.400 --> 0:41:50.959 Like you said, not just for medicinal purposes, but hey, 0:41:51.040 --> 0:41:52.560 if you're an adult and you want to smoke pot, 0:41:52.560 --> 0:41:54.080 go ahead and smoke pot. You're not going to get 0:41:54.120 --> 0:41:56.640 in trouble because we don't have any laws against it anymore. 0:41:57.040 --> 0:41:59.759 Like this was starting to happen, and High Times was 0:42:00.040 --> 0:42:04.120 right there, totally poised to just just step up and 0:42:04.200 --> 0:42:09.120 accept its kudos and it's huge, like rise to prominence. 0:42:09.200 --> 0:42:13.160 As this new changed culture around pot was about to 0:42:13.200 --> 0:42:17.920 just explode. And around this time private equity got involved 0:42:18.080 --> 0:42:19.760 and everything went down the toilet. 0:42:20.480 --> 0:42:22.520 Yeah, I mean, that's the irony of this whole thing, 0:42:22.600 --> 0:42:24.520 is right when they achieved all that is when they 0:42:25.320 --> 0:42:29.239 tanked because of what's called the green gold rush Wall Street. 0:42:29.320 --> 0:42:31.880 Of course, anytime they're like, oh wait a minute, somebody's 0:42:31.880 --> 0:42:34.799 making money over they're doing something a lot of money. Well, 0:42:34.800 --> 0:42:37.360 how can we get involved? And that's exactly what happened. 0:42:37.360 --> 0:42:40.760 They started investors started throwing money money at every cannabis 0:42:40.800 --> 0:42:43.759 startup you could think of, as states were rolling out 0:42:44.040 --> 0:42:47.960 legalization and making tons and tons of money, and so 0:42:48.680 --> 0:42:52.120 they realize, hey, this High Times magazine is just sitting there. 0:42:52.480 --> 0:42:56.960 It's a very recognizable brand. The magazine's okay, their website's 0:42:56.960 --> 0:42:59.359 all right, but they make like eighty percent of their 0:42:59.400 --> 0:43:02.000 dough from what's called the Cannabis Cup, which is I 0:43:02.040 --> 0:43:04.799 think it started out as a smaller thing in Amsterdam 0:43:04.840 --> 0:43:08.080 but then became like the official High Times Cannabis Cup 0:43:08.120 --> 0:43:10.920 in the United States in twenty ten, which is a 0:43:11.680 --> 0:43:14.040 you know, a weed growing competition. So like bring in 0:43:14.080 --> 0:43:18.279 your new strains of like exotic cross breeds and like 0:43:18.480 --> 0:43:23.080 high potency buds and you can win the Cannabis Cup 0:43:23.120 --> 0:43:24.680 and it's a big deal. It received a lot of 0:43:24.719 --> 0:43:28.279 coverage there were they did concerts, they did festivals, they 0:43:28.280 --> 0:43:30.960 did trade shows, and it was, you know, a big 0:43:31.000 --> 0:43:33.200 money maker. So I think they were like, hey, we 0:43:33.280 --> 0:43:37.040 can invest in High Times. We can open up a 0:43:37.160 --> 0:43:41.080 casino in Vegas. Maybe they bought up a dozen dispensaries 0:43:41.120 --> 0:43:44.479 and made them High Times smoke shops, they talked about 0:43:44.480 --> 0:43:48.600 delivery services and all they talked about an IPO for 0:43:48.640 --> 0:43:51.920 a while, which never happened. But all of this stuff, 0:43:53.480 --> 0:43:55.560 a lot of these big deals never came to fruition, 0:43:55.840 --> 0:44:00.480 and so they found themselves eventually one hundred million in 0:44:00.560 --> 0:44:03.600 debt as these deals fell apart after going through just 0:44:03.640 --> 0:44:06.719 a string of CEOs, which is never it's always a 0:44:06.719 --> 0:44:08.520 bad sign for a company, you know, when you have 0:44:08.560 --> 0:44:12.120 that kind of CEO turnover. Yeah, and a lot of 0:44:12.120 --> 0:44:15.920 those dispensaries closed, and in the in the middle of 0:44:16.040 --> 0:44:19.920 the boom of the real marijuana industry, High Times was 0:44:20.560 --> 0:44:22.200 struggling and basically dead. 0:44:22.400 --> 0:44:24.880 Again because private equity got involved. 0:44:25.280 --> 0:44:26.000 That's right. 0:44:26.160 --> 0:44:29.000 There's a really good political article called The Long Fall 0:44:29.040 --> 0:44:32.680 of High Times by Ben Schrekinger. Yeah, and it's really 0:44:32.719 --> 0:44:35.680 worth three It's very long, but it's good. And that 0:44:35.840 --> 0:44:41.719 article puts the blame on Adam Levin, who ran Oreva Capital. 0:44:42.280 --> 0:44:44.440 He's the one who came in as the private equity 0:44:44.480 --> 0:44:48.040 guy and made all of these terrible decisions, did shady 0:44:48.120 --> 0:44:51.839 stuff like the announcements for you know, some of these 0:44:51.880 --> 0:44:55.759 business ventures, like they would announce them publicly and then 0:44:55.800 --> 0:44:58.640 the other company involved would have to come out publicly 0:44:58.680 --> 0:45:00.799 and be like, they haven't even a just about this. 0:45:00.960 --> 0:45:03.680 What they just said is not true, So that's not 0:45:03.960 --> 0:45:07.080 a good thing to do. That IPO was a big 0:45:07.120 --> 0:45:10.799 deal too, because if you have investors, they want you 0:45:10.880 --> 0:45:12.919 to go public and then they can really start making 0:45:12.960 --> 0:45:16.000 money off the company. He just couldn't get it together 0:45:16.120 --> 0:45:19.640 to get the IPO out the door. Yet that didn't 0:45:19.719 --> 0:45:23.400 keep them from selling pre sale shares at eleven dollars 0:45:23.480 --> 0:45:26.359 a piece to High Times readers, promising them they were 0:45:26.360 --> 0:45:29.840 getting in on the bottom floor before the IPO even happened. 0:45:30.239 --> 0:45:33.520 Just shady stuff, and so this lasted for just a 0:45:33.560 --> 0:45:38.200 couple of years before the magazine. The whole brand went 0:45:38.200 --> 0:45:41.840 into receivership, meaning that there was a corner pointed person 0:45:41.840 --> 0:45:43.680 who was in charge of their assets who would try 0:45:43.680 --> 0:45:45.480 to figure out how to help them get out of 0:45:45.480 --> 0:45:47.319 bankruptcy or how to help them get out of a 0:45:47.360 --> 0:45:50.200 hole without going into bankruptcy while at the same time 0:45:50.239 --> 0:45:53.399 paying off their creditors. And I guess it didn't really 0:45:53.440 --> 0:45:57.000 work because in I guess May of last year, the 0:45:57.120 --> 0:45:59.960 receiver said, Hey, we're going to have a fire sale. 0:46:00.040 --> 0:46:02.520 Everybody step up, get out your check books. Let's do 0:46:02.640 --> 0:46:03.040 this thing. 0:46:03.840 --> 0:46:06.719 Yeah, seven million bucks will get you the magazine, the 0:46:06.719 --> 0:46:12.239 cannabis cup, the dispensaries that we still have open. Nobody 0:46:12.280 --> 0:46:17.480 came forward, which is shocking. I think the most shocking 0:46:17.560 --> 0:46:19.520 thing to me that I'm going to say this publicly. 0:46:19.880 --> 0:46:23.920 I'm going to call out publicly even why hasn't Snoop 0:46:23.960 --> 0:46:29.839 Dogg and freaking Martha Stewart they would miss seven million dollars. 0:46:29.880 --> 0:46:32.120 They wouldn't even know it's gone. Why have they not 0:46:32.200 --> 0:46:36.040 bought this brand? Because that sort of public like purchase 0:46:36.239 --> 0:46:38.239 with those two names, or even if it's just a 0:46:38.239 --> 0:46:40.560 Snoop Dogg, but Martha Stewart would add a funny sort 0:46:40.560 --> 0:46:43.160 of cachet to it. Yeah, like it would all of 0:46:43.200 --> 0:46:46.120 a sudden be a relevant thing again. And I don't know, 0:46:46.200 --> 0:46:49.200 it's just it's shocking that nobody came forward to buy it. 0:46:49.640 --> 0:46:52.879 I hope that that ends up being like your Sharknado thing, 0:46:53.239 --> 0:46:55.799 or like good Jared from Subway thing, or like your 0:46:55.880 --> 0:46:59.800 Hugh Jackman Greatest Showman thing. I hope that to you. 0:47:00.000 --> 0:47:03.600 Oh, maybe somebody who knows Snoop hears this and they're like, hey, Snoop, 0:47:04.000 --> 0:47:05.319 he may not even know it's for sale. 0:47:05.360 --> 0:47:08.480 You know, it's possible he's been on the cover a bunch, 0:47:08.560 --> 0:47:10.840 but he might not be paying attention, you know. 0:47:11.440 --> 0:47:13.399 Yeah, they could say snoop, High Times is for sale, 0:47:13.400 --> 0:47:15.320 you should buy it, and he would say for snizzle. 0:47:16.320 --> 0:47:23.759 Right. So I read a great quote from pot Culture magazine, 0:47:24.719 --> 0:47:27.680 So High Times has just stopped. They put out their 0:47:27.760 --> 0:47:31.600 last published issue in twenty twenty four, and the fact 0:47:31.600 --> 0:47:33.880 that they were still putting out a print magazine actually 0:47:33.880 --> 0:47:36.920 says how strong the brand was at Oneman, Yeah, because 0:47:37.320 --> 0:47:39.920 they went right through that time where magazines were just 0:47:39.960 --> 0:47:42.960 folding print, anything was just folding left and right. And 0:47:43.040 --> 0:47:45.600 yet they still had the print magazine and they had 0:47:45.640 --> 0:47:51.560 a pretty heavyweight website too. High Times dot com their 0:47:51.560 --> 0:47:55.080 whole archive, all the magazines on it, and yet the 0:47:55.160 --> 0:47:58.600 website hasn't been updated since June twenty twenty four. The 0:47:58.680 --> 0:48:01.400 last issue was September two, twenty twenty four. If you 0:48:01.480 --> 0:48:04.080 go on to the site, none of the images work. 0:48:04.080 --> 0:48:10.040 They're all great, Yeah, rectangle disappointing. And pot Culture magazine 0:48:10.080 --> 0:48:13.080 put it that the once mighty High Times dot com 0:48:13.160 --> 0:48:16.520 is gone, reduced to an error message that is reminiscent 0:48:16.800 --> 0:48:19.120 of finding your favorite uncle dead on the floor. 0:48:20.440 --> 0:48:21.520 I saw that quote. 0:48:21.600 --> 0:48:23.680 I don't think anybody could have put it better than that. 0:48:24.480 --> 0:48:28.920 Yeah, for sure. I also just realize as the ultimate 0:48:29.000 --> 0:48:31.160 fifty something year old white guy, I think it would 0:48:31.160 --> 0:48:34.600 probably be for shizzle and not for shnizzle, because for 0:48:34.719 --> 0:48:36.280 sure would be for shizzle, right. 0:48:36.880 --> 0:48:39.799 Sure, it would be for sure. But I think that 0:48:39.840 --> 0:48:44.600 the things have evolved so much that that you're fine, Okay, okay, good, 0:48:45.560 --> 0:48:49.080 so yeah, snoop, Martha, please do buy High Times because 0:48:49.120 --> 0:48:52.560 the it's such an ignominious and is that the right 0:48:52.560 --> 0:48:56.360 word or was I just deletrious to my own vocabulary? 0:48:56.440 --> 0:48:59.959 Ignominious, ignominious, ignoramus, I think is what you meant. 0:49:00.160 --> 0:49:06.000 No, such an unclassy end. Yeah, it's just like that 0:49:06.120 --> 0:49:07.560 magazine deserves better than that. 0:49:08.520 --> 0:49:10.480 Yeah, maybe Jack Black, you're not going to miss seven 0:49:10.480 --> 0:49:11.680 million bucks. 0:49:11.719 --> 0:49:13.399 Maybe maybe, I. 0:49:13.320 --> 0:49:15.399 Mean he might miss it for the afternoon, but then 0:49:15.440 --> 0:49:17.279 he would say, but I've got this magazine now. 0:49:17.560 --> 0:49:19.680 No, I'm with you. I think Martha Stewart has that 0:49:19.760 --> 0:49:22.600 much laying under her and piles under her hodge Podge 0:49:22.640 --> 0:49:23.960 bottles as you were talking. 0:49:23.680 --> 0:49:25.879 About, you know, yeah, you're probably right. 0:49:26.680 --> 0:49:29.319 Okay, Well that's it. About high Times. If you want 0:49:29.360 --> 0:49:32.200 to know more about there's tons of tribute articles all 0:49:32.239 --> 0:49:34.640 over the web to read. They're kind of fun. And 0:49:34.680 --> 0:49:37.239 while you're doing that, it's time for listener mail. 0:49:39.960 --> 0:49:42.520 Yeah. This is from Rosa Lee and it's just a 0:49:42.600 --> 0:49:45.560 very kind, sort of gentle reminder, which is always nice 0:49:45.560 --> 0:49:48.040 to hear. Hey, guys, just taking me a while to 0:49:48.040 --> 0:49:50.160 get this into words, and I hope it comes across 0:49:50.160 --> 0:49:51.239 with care. It does. 0:49:51.640 --> 0:49:53.200 But why do you suck so much? 0:49:54.080 --> 0:49:57.640 Yeah? Exactly. As a woman in science who does science 0:49:57.640 --> 0:49:59.640 every day, I just want to point out that technicians 0:50:00.080 --> 0:50:02.360 are still scientists. In your episode on chemistry sets, you 0:50:02.440 --> 0:50:04.960 rightly pointed out all the sexism in the past and 0:50:05.880 --> 0:50:08.360 present and how science has presented to girls versus boys, 0:50:08.800 --> 0:50:10.399 But you also feed into it a little bit when 0:50:10.440 --> 0:50:13.400 you said that girls were funneled into technician jobs instead 0:50:13.400 --> 0:50:15.359 of being the scientist. There are a lot of ways 0:50:15.360 --> 0:50:17.640 to be a scientist, and technician is definitely one of them. 0:50:18.000 --> 0:50:21.359 That's like saying that nurses aren't healers like doctors are. 0:50:21.360 --> 0:50:23.839 A more accurate description is that women were and are 0:50:23.880 --> 0:50:27.440 funneled into technician and now communication jobs and the sciences 0:50:27.480 --> 0:50:31.840 and men to the professors and principal investigators. It is 0:50:31.880 --> 0:50:33.560 better than it has ever been, I have to say, 0:50:33.560 --> 0:50:37.440 but academia still hasn't figured it out, among other things. 0:50:37.480 --> 0:50:40.080 And I'm glad to know that, Rosalie. And that's from 0:50:40.160 --> 0:50:41.280 Rosalie Maltip. 0:50:41.800 --> 0:50:44.239 That was a great reminder. We love love love being 0:50:44.280 --> 0:50:47.279 reminded when it's pointed out to us that yes, we 0:50:47.400 --> 0:50:49.960 fed into something that we were just totally unaware of, 0:50:50.239 --> 0:50:51.680 especially if it's unjust. 0:50:51.800 --> 0:50:55.160 You know, yeah, technicians are scientists. Of course they are. 0:50:55.280 --> 0:50:58.640 That's right. That should be a teachhert Maybe it will 0:50:58.640 --> 0:51:01.359 be well. Thanks a lot, Rosie. We appreciate that big time. 0:51:01.360 --> 0:51:03.000 And if you want to be like Rosalie and send 0:51:03.080 --> 0:51:05.239 us an email like that, you can send it off 0:51:05.239 --> 0:51:07.920 to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio. 0:51:07.280 --> 0:51:13.080 Dot Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:51:13.560 --> 0:51:17.920 For more podcasts myheart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:51:18.040 --> 0:51:19.880 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.