Almanac

First off, this isn’t a list of songs to listen to while high. That would be a much different list. I always found the idea of pot songs kind of cheesy. It’s like 4-20, I don’t like doing anything because people say it’s what you’re supposed to do. But these songs transcend the cheesy.

Songs about dope in the seventies were notable for their variety. They ran the gamut from pop ditties, to metal, to country. In fact, there’s a higher than usual, no pun intended, number of country and acoustic songs on this list. 

The big benefit of that is it made marijuana mainstream. While the government was pushing the evils of potheads, on variety shows you had Jim Stafford slyly pushing an innocent narrative, of down home good times. That wasn’t lost on the viewing public, who stopped buying the narrative the Nixon and Ford administrations were pushing. The first step was making potheads something you could laugh at. And eventually, laugh with.

The trick was keeping it subtle, without mentioning the drug by name. Which was a trick done all the way back in some of the earliest phono records, when songs about reefers and marijuana were fairly popular. 

Anyway, this is my wholly unscientific list, gleaned from my own music library. You might have other favorites, and you’re welcome to leave those in the comments.

10. Wildwood Weed, Jim Stafford

https://youtu.be/qUc3X0-nMhw

Back in 1974, Jim Stafford was riding high with four top 40 singles from his debut album. The fourth was Wildwood Weed based on the old country standard Wildwood Flower, an instrumental by the Carter Family. It’s a storytelling song, spoken rather than sung. 

Two brothers who are farmers happen to chew on a weed growing wild, discover its intoxicating properties and begin to grow it intentionally. All goes well till the feds show up and burn the crop. The farmers sit there, only a bit melancholy as they’re sitting on a bag of seeds. 

Despite being banned on many radio stations, it still hit number seven on the pop charts. Though portraying a bumpkin, Stafford is a consummate professional, and one of the best guitarists around, though often overlooked.  In high school he played in a band with Gram Parsons, who went to fame with the Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, and who had a massive influence on Keith Richards and other British and American musicians, before dying of an overdose in 1973.

9. Smokin’ by Boston

I have to admit, I can only handle hearing this song about once a decade. It gets its spot on the list by being the only song about pot on an album that almost everyone seemed to have in the seventies.

Boston’s first album, released in 1976 was chocked full o’ hits, and in the process changed the sound of rock and roll. They were debatably the first band to capture the sound of a live concert in the studio, thanks to the genius and perseverance of its founder, Tom Sholtz. 

Smokin’ is a blast of boogie which sounds like it’s being played in outer space. Smokin’ refers to the band being hot, but it’s also a cover for several marijuana references. 

It’s a feel good anthem for the partiers. Candy for the mind and body. 

8. Going to California, Led Zeppelin

Perhaps the mellowest song in the Led Zep canon, Going to California makes no secret of its inspiration, though the references are subtle and fly by. Listen closely in the instrumental introduction and you’ll hear the unmistakable sound of what is believed to be someone taking a pull off a joint.

Aside from that, there’s only one reference to weed, as the song is about California, earthquakes, Joni Mitchell and the other musicians growing out of the Laurel Canyon scene. As Robert Plant was to say onstage in 1971, it was dedicated to “the days when things were really nice and simple, and everything was far out all the time”

Written in front of the hearth at Bron-Yr-Aur, a cottage in Wales where the band decamped to write, and recorded at Headley Grange, a house in Britain which was used for many sessions during the seventies by such groups as Bad Company, Fleetwood Mac and Genesis, among others. 

This was the epitome of a band fleeing to the country for idyllic settings, lots of chirping birds and no prying eyes to watch what was going on. And from that same hearth, later was to come Stairway to Heaven.

7. One Toke Over The Line, Brewer and Shipley

Not many songs get singled out by a sitting vice-president of the United States as “blatant drug-culture propaganda” that “threatens to sap our national strength” In fact, Spiro Agnew, VP under Richard Nixon pressured the FCC to ban the song. 

He was effective in several regions of the U.S., but it still managed to reach #10 on the charts in 1971.

Mike Brewer related the genesis of the song, “One day we were pretty much stoned and all and Tom says, “Man, I’m one toke over the line tonight.” I liked the way that sounded and so I wrote a song around it.”

In fact, when he wrote it he intended the song to be a joke, but it took off. 

It got an unexpected boost when a couple of regulars on the Lawrence Welk show performed it, with Welk obviously clueless about the song’s meaning. As Michael Brewer later said, “The Vice President of the United States, Spiro Agnew, named us personally as a subversive to American youth, but at exactly the same time Lawrence Welk performed the crazy thing and introduced it as a gospel song. That shows how absurd it really is. Of course, we got more publicity than we could have paid for.”

6. Willin’, Little Feat

Lowell George was a confusing character. He sang about truckers, but was born in Hollywood. He was on the Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour at the age of six, was playing flute and guitar by eleven, and later learned sax, shakuhachi and sitar. By high school he was immersed in jazz. 

Then he graduated and got a job in a gas station, pumping gas. That’s where he got his stories.

He was vocalist and guitarist of the Mother’s of Invention in the sixties, and when Zappa heard a demo of the song Willin’, he suggested he start a band. That became Little Feet. 

With it’s refrain of “give me weed, white and wine,” it’s as close as you can come to a stoner’s singalong anthem. Go ahead, give it a listen and try not to sing. I dare you. 

5. Illegal Smile, John Prine

The only song on this list to be made redundant by legal cannabis, Illegal Smile appeared on John Prine’s debut album in 1971. It was the opening track, and despite a seemingly obvious reference, Price assured us that it’s “not about smokin’ dope. It was more about how, ever since I was a child, I had this view of the world where I can find myself smiling at stuff nobody else was smiling at. But it was such a good anthem for dope smokers that I didn’t want to stop every time I played it and make a disclaimer.”

Regardless of Prine’s intent, it does in fact make a good anthem for dope smokers. And though it might be legal now, we can still light up and find ourselves smiling at things nobody else does. 

4. Makin’ It Natural, Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show

In 1971, Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show secured a meeting with the head of CBS records, Clive Davis. The drummer bashed away at a trash can, the others played acoustic and sang, while the keyboard player danced on the stunned Davis’ desk. They got the contract. 

Their first album’s songs were written by Shel Silverstein, including Makin’ It Natural. Silverstein had worked with Dr. Hook on a film score, and was already known as an author/illustrator. 

Makin’ It Natural talks about giving up all the vices for love, a common sentiment. Though by the second verse, he’s backing off on the idea a bit … “I’m going to throw it out the window, someday.”

I’m gonna throw my grass out the window
 Crumple up my papers too
 Give away my speed, Cause all I'm gonna need
 Is just a little bit of love from you
 And we'll be makin' it natural
 Ain't it just about time
 That old stuff I was so keen on
 I no longer have to lean on
 Cause your love's enough to keep me high
 
 Now if any you heads want some Panama red
 All you gotta do is to reach out your hand
 I'll trade my stash for just a little bit of cash
 To buy a simple golden wedding band
 And we'll be makin' it natural
 But don't you ask me how
 It's been the cause of all my sorrow
 But I think I'll start tomorrow
 'Cause I sure could use a hit right now
 
 I'm gonna throw it out the window, some day
 Give away my cocaine
 Bust my spikes and flush a million mikes
 Of acid right down the drain
 And we'll be makin' it natural
 Don’t you ask me how, but baby we can do it if we try, 
 It just takes a little willpower, that’s all, just a little willpower
 So let’s get together and build me up a little willpower
 Roll me up another one

3. Roll Another Number (For The Road), Neil Young

Tonight’s The Night might be the most stoned album of all time. Rocked by the deaths of his guitarist Danny Whitten and roadie Bruce Berry, Young wrote songs full of heartbreak and anger, and it’s not particularly easy listening, unless it’s late at night, you’re ripped to the tits and in a down mood. 

Then it’s the perfect album. 

Some would argue of Young’s songs, Homegrown should be on this list. I’d make the same argument, as it helped fuel a movement which moved pot back to nature. But unlike Homegrown, and most of the songs on this list, this one actually sounds like it was recorded while stoned. 

According to Young, it’s “the first horror record” recorded in all night sessions while mainlining tequila and burgers, in a dark makeshift studio with a sympathetic band. 

Young was disillusioned with fame and all that came with it. “Heart of Gold put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride but I saw more interesting people there.” 

“The album ‘Tonight’s the Night’ is the best I have ever made. It’s recorded live. On one side there are four songs recorded in one take without stopping.” Speaking more recently, Young said “We played starting at midnight, through the night, and drove home just before dawn to our hotel every night for a month. Visitors came by late at night. One of these nights we practically nailed the whole album, and that is what we wanted to do…keep it real. We drank tequila and smoked weed. Teenagers, don’t do what we did. We didn’t fix the mistakes. The whole album and why we made it and I wrote those songs was all a mistake. It won’t be repeated again. Some say it’s the best thing we ever did.”

Think I’ll Roll Another Number (For The Road) is about exactly what it says, and doesn’t go much deeper than that. With an inebriated chorus and steel guitar, it’s a perfect road anthem, for dark winding roads none of us enjoy, but from time to time find ourselves on. 

2. Passage to Bangkok, Rush

Rush set a good example for stoner rockers. Together for forty years, they never compromised artistic integrity for sales. Set their musical standards high. And still managed to smoke a lot of dope, without becoming burnouts in the process.

One of the few songs they wrote that directly touched on pot was Passage To Bangkok, a song from their 1976 album 2112. Neil Peart, the drummer and lyricist took the title from E.M. Forster’s novel, A Passage To India. Guitarist Alex Lifeson tells the story,  ‘This piece is about a fun little journey to all the good places you could go to have a puff. We thought it would be kind of fun to write a song about that, and Neil did it in a very eloquent way, I think. That song was probably written in a farmhouse, on an acoustic guitar, in front of a little cassette player of some sort. We would record like that and then go down in the basement and rehearse it.”

He went on to state the music was inspired by Led Zeppelin’s Kasmir, also based on travel in an exotic location. 

When asked about how much dope they were smoking then, Lifeson told High Times “Probably not as much as now [laughs]. We were average, maybe slightly above average smokers. Ged less so; he was never a heavy smoker. But Neil and I and a few guys in the crew were. We just thought that the whole idea of traveling the world to find the best [weed] that you can would be such a fun thing to do. It was a fantasy journey for all of us. But as Neil was putting it together, the lyrics were so great. It had a little exotic, kind of Eastern feel to it. Now you don’t have to go very far.”

Indeed not. Now it’s very common to find all the strains they talk about in the song at your local dispensary. 

1. Sweet Leaf, Black Sabbath

From the echoed cough that kick off song, to the leaden riff that carries it through, no pot song from the seventies flows like lead up your spine like Black Sabbath’s Sweet Leaf. 

It’s guitarist Tony Iommi’s cough, taken from a recording of him and Ozzy Osbourne smoking dope back when they were making the album, Master of Reality in 1971. The title itself comes from a packet of Irish cigarettes which made the claim to having “the sweet leaf.”

The whole band lays claim to writing it, and it’s obvious it was done out of a spirit of stoned fun. It’s not particularly original, the riff is stolen from a relatively obscure Zappa song. The lyrics aren’t what you’d call high brow …

My life was empty, forever on a down
 Until you took me, showed me around
 My life is free now, my life is clear
 I love you sweet leaf, though you can't hear
 Oh, yeah baby!
 Come on now, try it out!
 

 Straight people don't know what you're about
 They put you down and shut you out
 You gave to me a new belief
 And soon the world will love you sweet leaf
 Oh, yeah baby!

Poetry it’s not. But it all works, and became a go to song for people firing up a joint in a car for the better part of the seventies. And beyond. 

Go ahead, give it a listen you’ll find your eyelids are dropping stoned before the vocals even come in. 

It gets its place at the top of my list for being there loud and proud for all these years, and for having the balls to explicitly deal with the subject matter when most bands were content to keep their references hidden. 

Pooh had his thoughtful spot, and it’s been my experience that most people have a favorite spot for smoking dope. It’s it used to be near, or directly above where the tray was slid beneath the couch. Or the bong behind the chair. If you’re lucky, you get a room of your own. I’m lucky. 

Just don’t call it a man cave. 

Oddly enough, it’s the bedroom I grew up in, although that was almost fifty years ago. When I moved back in the house, I found my parents had painted the room a nasty yellowish beige color, with pink carpeting. And a lovely, country floral border at the top. 

The kind of room I’d never be able to get an erection in. 

With just the wife and I in the house now, we’ve looked at what we could do with various rooms. It’s next to my office, and I thought it a good idea to get recreation out of my work space. And get me up from in front a computer. 

When I moved back in the house, I found my parents had painted the room a nasty yellowish beige color, with pink carpeting. And a lovely, country floral border at the top … The kind of room I’d never be able to get an erection in. 

The roots of my decorating style

When I was a little boy, I was a Beatles freak. Starting when I was five and they came out with Revolver. Over there by the door is where I had my first stereo, which was actually a mono record player, and where I wore out my sister’s copy of Sgt. Pepper. The wall above the radiator had the poster from the White Album. 

Music was always a decorating element, whether posters, album covers, or my first drum set. 

In the late sixties or early seventies, a nearby head shop went out of business. Mom and dad took my two sisters and myself to the sale, as my sisters who were older wanted black light posters. I remember my sister got one of two people hugging, and it read “all you need is love.” When we got home and turned on the blacklight, it became two people fucking. Dad nearly had a coronary. 

My poster had a longer lasting influence I think. It was the classic War Isn’t Healthy For Children And Other Living Things. My mom and dad bled red, white and blue. Very pro military. And why they bought that for me I have no clue. But it helped to make me a dedicated pacifist. 

I also remember having a John Lennon poster, a drawing of him as a knight, which scared the hell out of me. The eyes followed you, especially when you lay in bed trying to sleep. I found a bad copy of it on Ebay for $60, but it would likely still scare me. 

“So I set out to create the best hippie bedroom I can muster, on a very limited budget.”

As a teenager I moved into the room where my office is now. By then I was into Tolkien and hobbits, and I’ve managed to track down a Lord of the Rings poster I had as a teenager. 

By the time we were teenagers, myself and my friends were strangely obsessed with our rooms. We were forever “redoing” them. Organizing our records. Oh hell, we were fucking nerds. There’s no getting around that. 

So I asked myself, if this was going to become the lounge, what style should I, could I afford to decorate in?

Teenage hippie bedroom of course. I need to keep the bed for visitors, and furniture is too heavy to haul down the stairs. So I set out to create the best hippie bedroom I can muster, the ideal environment for getting high, on a very limited budget.

I decided for now, the carpet has to stay. There’s a wood floor under that, but there are a few projects ahead of it. So lighting needs to be dim. 

I always wanted a black light room

I love the way they feel, with the colors vibrating off the wall. Watching purple people smile with green teeth and eyes. 

For a blacklight room to work you need black walls. I didn’t want to paint, and I have a large collection of black sheets which I’d used when we had a recording studio in the garage. I also have a couple large tapestries, which filled one wall and part of another. Add to that, tall furniture and I had two walls left to cover. 

The ceiling in the corner is a bit fucked up, but hanging black mosquito netting over the bed from that spot covers it nicely. And it blocks part of the wall, meaning I’d need one less poster and light.

It took four sheets to cover the space, which might run $30. It’s more economical to paint, but you may not always want black walls. And if you’re renting, it’s a great option. 

That left room for five posters, none of which cost more than $12. For each one I bought a blacklight tube, hung them from hooks placed near the ceiling and ran the cords behind the sheets. 

I also have a couple lights coming up from the bottom, to help fill out the color. I think those ran about $10 each.

Of course you have to block out the light, but that was easy. The large tapestry covered the double door to the bathroom, and there are no windows in the hallway. Mom had a surprisingly tasteful set of curtains on the remaining window, thick enough to block most of the light. And it matches the bed spread. 

The problem with sheets on the walls is they don’t make a nice even line. It looks sloppy. But mother had a bunch of red, white and blue bunting, and one strip covered where the sheets met the ceiling nicely. 

And the American flag was a hippie decorating tradition. In fifth grade, I had a drawing teacher, a high school student. He was a freak. He gave me three posters. One was Candice Bergen in a bikini. The other was Keith Moon of the Who, and Vivian Stanshall of The Bonzo Dog Band, dressed as Hitler and Eva Braun. 

The third was from Easy Rider. Peter Fonda’s gas tank was painted like an American Flag, and he had one on the back of his jacket. It’s a testament to my dad that he let me keep it up. 

There was never any question about Candice Bergen.

The essential bit of furniture for the lounge

I turned on the black lights and turned off the overhead light and the room came to life. I looked to the other side of the room, thinking I might do the same there, and saw the lights and posters reflected in the mirror on the long dresser and had an epiphany. 

It looked exactly like the view of a tavern from the mirror behind the bar. The dresser is about seven feet long, about the right height for sitting at in a chair. And it’s good solid wood, like a good bar. 

I grabbed a chair and slid it in front of the newly christened bar, and it fit like a glove.

You need a flat surface to get high. It certainly helps with dab rigs, a place for your drinks and your weed. And to sit the bong on so you’re not constantly kicking it over. I anticipated, rightly, a fair amount of drinking taking place here as well. 

Had to have a bar. But I only needed one side, the side you sit at. There’s no bartender, so all I need on that side is a mirror. 

I’ve spent countless hours watching myself in the mirror of one bar or another. It’s a handy thing to have, to visually check for clues that it’s time to stop. Now I get to do it with a purple face and green teeth. 

Another essential … tunes

My first record player was a Zenith. It had been my parents. It had a tiny speaker, a turntable, volume and tone control. Then I got their next reject, also a Zenith. An Allegro system, and graduated to separate bass and treble controls. Along with an eight track.

For the moment I have a computer hooked up, but the operating system is old so Apple Music doesn’t work on there. But YouTube does and I have Bose speakers hooked up to that. Plus a portable Bluetooth speaker so I can send tunes from the phone. 

I’ll soon be getting an Apple TV and screen from downstairs in here. With that I’ll have access to all my music, videos and whatever else I need. I miss the big speakers … bass heavy enough to make your guts rumble. But I’ve learned to live with bookshelf speakers and a subwoofer. 

Accessories

A typical teenage bedroom was decorated in large part by record albums. Even if not consciously on display, they were usually scattered around. I only have a handful of albums left, after having jettisoned the collection when I moved to New York twenty years ago. The ones I do have are essential though … Aqualung, Dark Side of the Moon, The White Album. 

My friend Rango had my copy of Abbey Road from when I was a kid. Worn out, but an original. And my copy of Ringo, his best solo album. They now sit where they sat fifty years ago. 

A hippie bedroom needs a lava lamp, which I already had. And there’s a plasma ball as well. The overhead lights are black light bulbs and red bulbs. The only white light in the room is a tiny camping lantern from Bare Bones, which I carry outside as well. There’s also a black light tube on the bar.

We picked up a cut glass lantern from Pier One last year, which was likely designed to hold a candle. A long strand of Christmas lights work better though. 

I always keep an eye out after Halloween for these little revolving lights. It’s a colored light inside a many faceted shade, and makes a molten light show on the ceiling. I still have three from years ago, and could use a couple more. The effect, particularly the blue ones, is of being underwater. With the reds, it’s kind of like being under water when a volcano is erupting. 

And of course, you need incense and incense burner. But that’s an article by itself. 

Does it work?

The bed is a popular destination when people visit the lounge. It’s a great place to lay and stare at the revolving lights on the ceiling, and let your mind wander. And because cannabis seems to hit you harder in here.

Weed goes right to your head, because you’re in a time capsule. It’s the room you always wanted back in high school, when you got your first bag of weed. I like to think that part of us lives on, down inside us. And when we get old enough, or get a chance to do it, why not dig your freak flag out of the closet and fly it. Even if it’s behind closed doors. 

Speaking of which, I do need love beads for the doorway. 

I have my own memories in this room, so I’m biased. It’s an over all healthy development. I use to try to do too many things. I don’t think I stopped from 1990 till 2020. Then one night I sat down and didn’t do anything. And it felt amazing. Now I have a place to sit and not do anything. We need that. 

And from that, memories opened up. It’s how I remembered where the stereo was. Where my shelves were that my models sat on. Scale models of the Beatles of course. 

And how it felt to be ten years old again. All in all, I spent a little over a hundred bucks. And I got memories returned to me from it, and you can’t buy for any amount of money. 

“What kind of stupid shit are they going to come up with next?” Rango snarled as I finished my hit. “Making fucking rules for how you can and can’t smoke pot.”

“Actually,” I said, exhaling and feeling the buzz creeping over me, “it works. Look! No cough!”

It’s not like someone who knows teaches us how to smoke pot. There is no manual given out when you start. Coughing is part of learning, and the sayings … “cough to get off” or “if you’re not choking you’re not toking” do more harm than good. It makes it seem like coughing is a part of the process. 

Actually it’s a sign you’re doing it wrong. And that you’re damaging your lungs and throat, as well as giving yourself a headache if you’re not careful. 

A little science to go with your bong hit

My question was if you even needed to take it into your lungs to get high. So I finally looked it up. Turns out you do, but not for as long as you think. Or as much. 

The goal is to get the smoke against the insides of your lungs, where it can be absorbed. Packing your lungs with as much smoke as possible doesn’t do what you think. There is only so much surface area to the inside of your lungs. Once that’s filled, the rest goes to waste when you exhale. 

In the process, if you hold it in your lungs too long, that gives the tars and other nefarious substances time to settle through the haze and into your lungs. The trick is to get it in there and out of there as quickly as possible, but keeping it in long enough for your lungs to absorb it. 

How long do you need to hold it in? About two seconds. 

Think of it as the same effect of adding whiskey to coke, only you’re doing it in your body, rather than the glass. Throwing up whiskey and coke is a lot better than throwing up straight whiskey. Particularly if you’re passing it through your nose. 

Once you got it, dilute it

When you’ve got the hit in your lungs, taking a breath does two things, both beneficial. First, it pushed the smoke deeper into your lungs, which gets you higher, but also takes some of the harshness away from your throat and the upper part of your lungs. That’s where you’re most likely to find a cough springing from. 

Second, it dilutes the smoke with oxygen, so it’s smoother on the exhale. 

For a disgusting but fair comparison, think of it as the same effect of adding whiskey to coke, only you’re doing it in your body, rather than the glass. Throwing up whiskey and coke is a lot better than throwing up straight whiskey. Particularly if you’re passing it through your nose. 

Cannabis smoke, or vapor even works the same way. Diluted smoke or vapor comes back up much easier than a blast of the straight shit. 

Do a little more often for the same buzz without the cough

Those of us who came of age when weed wasn’t so strong and only cost $30 an ounce learned to take huge hits. With the right bong, you could get and hold the equivalent of a joint in a single bong hit. Several times throughout the course of an evening. 

With the above science in mind I can see why. We never got the effect of most of the weed we smoked. 

Here’s something to try. Fire up and inhale for two seconds. If you’re smoking a bong or dab rig, light it, fill the chamber, take a quick breath then inhale for two seconds. 

Then inhale a bit of fresh air. The fresher the better, ideally close to someone you love. 

Hold the hit for two seconds, then slowly release it. 

If you coughed, you either got too much, or held it in for too long. Adjust the recipe to find your sweet spot

Fire up and inhale for two seconds. If you’re smoking a bong or dab rig, light it, fill the chamber, take a quick breath then inhale for two seconds. Then inhale a bit of fresh air. The fresher the better, ideally close to someone you love. Hold the hit for two seconds, then slowly release it. If you coughed, you either got too much, or held it in for too long

But it’s not the same buzz!

Correct. We learn to equate the head rush, or even the pounding in the head that comes with a big hit or coughing spell with being higher. 

When that happens, the level of oxygen in your blood is likely going down temporarily. That’s not high, that’s hyperventilating. And once your oxygen level evens out a few seconds later, you’re no more higher than you were before. 

It’s an illusion, albeit an effective one. But do you really need an illusion to make you high, especially when the process that causes the illusion is bad for your lungs?

If you want that effect, as soon as you’ve exhaled stand up real fast. That often provokes the same thing, without the dangers. Except of course, hitting your head on the coffee table if you do it too quick and topple over.

When that happens, the level of oxygen in your blood is likely going down temporarily. That’s not high, that’s hyperventilating. And once your oxygen level evens out a few seconds later, you’re no more higher than you were before. 

“We’ll fuck me it works!’

Rango begrudgingly tried it. Then tried it again. He’s coughed on damned near even hit for the past five years. He’s even taken to doing that percussive, through the nose closed mouth cough people do while holding a hit. I’m not much better. 

And suddenly we’re getting high without coughing. He’s still getting high enough he has to lay down on occasion. And my buzz isn’t suffering either. 

And after forty something years, for the first time, I don”t have to cough to get off. 

You seldom get to meet your heroes. If you do, it would just be a quick handshake, a smile for the camera, a few blubbered words which they’ve probably heard a million times before. They already have the joke to come back with for you to tell your friends later. 

That seems awkward to me, so I always pass up the opportunity. I watched Donovan sign autographs after a show once, stood about ten feet away and just watched him. When the line would thin out he’d catch me, smile and go on to the next person. When he was done he looked over at me, smiled and waved and was off. That was fucking Donovan. He knew what I was doing and was cool with it. I got more from that encounter than if I’d stood in the line and got the autograph. 

I was late coming to the Kinks. But when I did, I was all in. They were the first to go psychedelic. The first band to burst out of the speakers with a truly heavy guitar.  The first to delve into alternative sexualities, years before they figured out how to live up to their name with Lola. 

The British bands were different. They wrote songs. Americans jammed. Songs take craftsmanship. It’s hard to write lyrics that capture a bit of the universal psyche, is catchy and makes you wanna shake your butt. 

They were the first to go psychedelic. The first band to burst out of the speakers with a truly heavy guitar.  The first to delve into alternative sexualities, years before they figured out how to live up to their name with Lola. 

Banned from America, Ray Davies wrote himself into a breakdown, as barred from the biggest market in the world, to survive you had to have hits. So they became exquisitely British. Waterloo Sunset, from 1967 has even frequently been tossed around as the most beautiful lyrics in the English language.

It was in a video from that era, the very early seventies … he was wearing a velvet jacket in a performance, and I thought that was about the coolest thing ever. Years later, I saw a velvet jacket in a JPeterman catalog. Black. I coveted it, but I couldn’t afford it. Then after Christmas came the half price sale. 

It’s my lucky jacket. There’s something about it. I had a guy come up to me in a restaurant once and asked if he knew me. I didn’t. He asked where I was from, I told him, he thought I was being cagey, but was polite and fucked off. A few minutes later he was back. “By know you, I mean, are you famous or something?”

It was the jacket. I’ve had other variations on that theme. A velvet jacket draws peculiar glances. 

A few years later I’m walking through the square in front of the Abbey in Bath, England. I look ahead, there’s a couple strolling towards me. The guy is wearing a fur cap. He’s looking at me, at the jacket and smiling. He might have been remembering having one like that once upon a time. It’s Ray Davies. 

We keep walking towards each other, and I’m tempted to say something, but his eyes go from the jacket to mine, and he smiles, the gap toothed smile. I smile back and we walk on. 

Genius is a word that’s overused when people write about him. But he found a way to rhyme consortium in a song. And he wrote and recorded this song, then held onto it for fifty years, before finally releasing it. When he, and his audience was old enough to get it. 

That’s patience, and that’s genius. 

Amongst my friends in high school, there was a great debate. What was the best way to smoke pot? There was the joint of course, ubiquitous. At times we all rolled one, those of us who could. I barely could. It was a pain in the ass, and you always had the feeling, watching all that smoke go off into the air from the lit tip, that there had to be a more efficient way. 

There were hash pipes, and I still have one of mine from back then. That’s what I graduated to after joints. You could even put a bit in the center chamber and smoke through it, in theory making it stronger. 

Then came the steamroller, a bowl on top of a glass cylinder. It was potent, but harsh. And easy to break, thank god. 

I was an early adapter for bongs. The first time I smoked out of one, it was made from a deodorant container. I made one from a radiator hose, attached to a bay food bottle. A couple fittings from the hardware store created a stem and bowl. It worked pretty well, but I was almost busted when my mother notice a black ring around my mouth one night when I came home. 

So I went to the nearest head shop to buy a real bong. If you lived in Carmi, that meant going to Evansville to either Folz City Boutique or Karma Records. Folz City was funkier and had a longer pedigree, back when places that sold things like this, as well as black light posters was almost underground. They carried everything from the underground magazines, to essentially counter culture books, plus albums, posters, incense, clothes and god only knows what else.

They mainly carried ceramic bongs, in a dizzying array of designs, and a few acrylic models. 

Ceramic bongs could be made into any kind of style … you could smoke from a smiling Buddha. Or you could go for the technological marvels from Toke International, with a built in tray. Decades later I’d find myself in possession of one with a tray, and in the shape of a dragon. It wasn’t mine, I was just custodian for a short time, but it had its charms. 

It worked pretty well, but I was almost busted when my mother notice a black ring around my mouth one night when I came home. 

Things like that seem cheesy now, but let’s face it. The whole hippie movement and those that came after were flakey as hell. That’s what made it so great. When you look down at the dragon, encircled in smoke, you have to laugh, because it’s a stereotype, yes. But because it still looks fucking cool. 

I had one of the acrylic models. They were oddly shaped, a single chamber with thicker rings near the bottom – bulbous – and it had tubes. Two that came out from the water to the top of the chamber. It didn’t work all that well, and shortly leaked like a motherfucker. 

Then came U.S. Bongs which solved the bong problem for me. Thick acrylic, sturdy tubing and the wooden bowl which came off, rather than using a carburetor. That was an innovation at the time and is now standard. 

They showed that you could mass produce bongs, and market them at scale. Apogee followed, with a bowl that you pulled out using a wire handle. Good bongs, simpler than U.S. Bongs. 

Then came the backlash and the IRS drove U.S. Bongs out of business. By then I’d downscaled, and couldn’t even tell you what kind of bong I had for a decade or two. And then none, as I dabbled in having a straight mind. 

Now it’s glass. It’s everywhere, and it tastes the best. By virtue of tasting the least of all. And I keep it clean. No more having to fumigate the house because the bong tipped over. 

I still have a hash pipe. Had it for so long I can’t begin to remember where it came from. And there is a non descript acrylic bong around here someplace, that saw use for over a decade. 

I eventually learned to roll. From rolling tobacco. But I haven’t rolled an actual joint in years. Though I do on occasion buy the pre rolls. 

I still prefer a bong. Because it’s smoother, easier on the throat, and I love the ritual involved in it.

Smoking pot when you’re sixty years old is bound to have its dangers. There’s likely no way you can justify to yourself, at least on a regular basis, as not having a harmful effect on you. 

But chances are, if you’re reading this, you’re going to do it anyway. 

I had a heart attack last summer. A pretty good one. Doctor thought it was brought on by smoking. That’s a good way to quit by the way. It could be when the nurse shaved my pubes just before they made incision brought the issue clearly into focus. 

The result of that, in addition to not smoking, is eating right. I’d flirted with it for years, but this is the first time I’ve actually done it right. For an extended period, with the occasional binge. I’m not a puritan. 

I tend to have one or two drinks a day. Which can be considered healthy. 

And I have been exercising. Not enough, but it was a strange winter. 

In short, I’m doing about everything I should. It feels good. But my soul craves vices. 

Or at least, a vice.

Choosing is easy. I’ll take weed over sugar, salt, grease, alcohol … even Reese’s products. Which for me used to be the fifth food group. 

So how to do it safely? If that option exists, it would be edibles. 

But I’m old fashioned. It’s not just THC. Part of the Mediterranean diet is finding the joy in the egg, not seeing it as a simple source of protein. Ditto for cannabis. Sure, the buzz is important. But so it the ritual. 

The good news is, if you’re like me, you don’t have a lot of tolerance built up. Legal cannabis in Illinois is stronger than what we remember. And usually stronger than the commercial weed on the black market. So you can smoke less. 

Concentrates are even more potent. Which means you can smoke even less. Unlike with flower, concentrates are turned into vapor, rather than smoke, which is supposed to be easier on the lungs. There isn’t a lot of research on the subject, but that’s the early conclusions. 

In short, a lesser of two evils. Less damage and less inhaling. 

People can, and often do, point to how marijuana relaxes them and lowers their blood pressure. It could be true. I don’t think about it a lot. It’s worth a bit of risk, but not worth dying for. Keep it in moderation, smoke as little as you can. 

And enjoy every day that you do, so it’s all worth it in the end anyway.