On Cannabis Culture Vs Toronto's Wild West!

This Friday in Toronto began with a new twist to Mayor John Tory's self inflicted "Wild West" -another confusing shootout in our cities Not-So-OK Pot Coral! Yup! Tory's B-grade western crackdown on Toronto's pot dispensaries kicked back into high gear, with some more nefarious OD knock 'em, sock' em reefer madness! The target this time? Sadly, Cannabis Culture, a new Church St. marijuana medical/ recreational indie boutique specifically catering to Toronto's LGBTQ community! 

To Wit: by 10 am Metro's finest arrived outside the shop accompanying some seemingly very suspicious and shady characters! Leading the charge were landlord's 600 Church St Limited along with their reps from Sud Group a big, well known realtor, and property management firm!

Hopefully, any scumbags present among the curious entourage have finally met their match! Thinking quick Cannabis Culture's well know Canuck marijuana activist Marc Emery immediately broadcast the highly suspicious raid live on Pot TV [HERE!]. Toronto TV news channel CP 24 [LINK!] quickly jumped on the story then breaking it live across the city for the rest of the day. 

By high noon, the Toronto police officers had left. The situation was just too absurd. Is it a police job to enforce civil actions? In this case a very dubious eviction notice? Of course not! So why put "Metro's Finest" between such a disgraceful rock and hard place?!?

In solidarity, I quickly made my way downtown to Cannabis Culture's Church Street dispensary to find out more. Arriving at noon, the doors were back open again. Business booming. The dispensary packed with well wishers from Toronto's gay village and across our city arriving in mass to show their support!

Marc was quick to explain that Toronto police were always very polite, cordial and professional throughout the mysterious raid/ non raid. Certainly they weren't the problem. 

Highly perplexed, Marc showed me Cannabis Culture's rental agreement. It's specifically for a marijuana dispensary! 

Marc pointed out that the 600 Church St location is formerly the home of CALM, another pot dispensary who'd rented the same storefront property from the 600 Church St Limited/ Sud Group. How ironic! CALM has now advised him that they were also evicted for selling weed! So why rent to another marijuana dispensary? Then kick them too?

Get this -no refund or compensation was offered prior to or with the eviction notice! However, as we spoke, reps from the landlord/ property management firm phoned Marc hoping to make a deal. Of course, he encouraged them to go talk to Cannabis Culture's lawyers instead, to seek a way out of the highly suspicious legal mess they now find themselves in!

Cannabis Culture is certainly not in any position to abandon their new Church St outlet anytime soon. On Friday, it had only been open 8 days after a major makeover of the store front property, including some new Toronto digs upstairs for Marc, who's moved there dedicating himself round the clock to make it work. 

Unfortunately for Mayor Tory, 600 Church St Limited and the Sud Group, Cannabis Cultures believes in the "power of activism". It's clearly stated in their mission statement! The Toronto gay village dispensary initiative is certainly a refreshingly progressive, counterculture approach from a social, political and economic perspective! One that often seems missing from the good fight, as we move towards legalization next year. 

As Marc explained, Cannabis Culture wants to provide a comfortable, compassionate place within Toronto's gay village for their LGBTQ customers to meet and safely buy weed without the all too familiar harassment and bad vibes still often experienced outside their own business and lifestyle community. Indeed, Marc estimates that 90% of his male and 75% of his female clients are LGBTQ consumers. 

Perhaps 600 Church Street Limited and the Sud Group missed the subtle rainbow freshly painted across Cannabis Culture's new store front? Poised to wipe the gay smile off everybody's faces, the eviction seems highly questionable, mean spirited and exploitative at best. 

Think about it! Cannabis Culture signed a rental agreement to specifically open a marijuana dispensary. Now it turns out that another dispensary was also evicted from the same location for selling weed! What give$?!?

If neither Sud Group or Church St. Unlimited have been in close contact with the mayor's office, then Canada's big boy sellers Tweed and Tilray certainly have. There's been some pretty heavy lobbying going on! Tilray has visited the mayor's office at least three times to lobby Tory over the contentious dispensary issue. Tweed Weed at least 12 times. Oh to know what's really going on backstage in Mayor John Tory's Toronto Wild West Show! To be a fly on the wall as that ugly shit goes down at Toronto City Hall!

Currently, there aren't any municipal laws or regulations for or against Toronto dispensaries as we await legalization in 2017. Our federal and provincial court system will eventually need to try those being charged in city hall's ill advised "Whac-A- Mole"" dispensary raids somewhere long down the road. 

Cody @ Cannabis Culture: "No gangsta shit or bad vibes!" Joint Roller/ Artist -Instagram # roll_with_codyvangogh

Since weed is scheduled to be legalized in Canada next year, why create a big, legal mess now? Who is really protecting who? And why? 

Moreover, why is John Tory cavorting with these such seemingly very questionable landlord and property management types? To perhaps find a back door route to unduly bully, harass and shut out Cannabis Culture and Toronto's other boutique dispensaries from serving our medical and recreational marijuana wants and needs? Even more troubling: Why in this case, smack dab in the centre of our susceptible, often bullied gay community?

Cannabis Culture, like most of the Toronto dispensary movement are hardly some reckless fly by night hop head's trying to sell the devil's lettuce for quick gain. On the other hand, what is the mayor's real agenda? Or 600 Church St Limited? The Sud Group? Alas, Snoop Dogg's Tweed?

Toronto reefer madness vis a vis John Tory's 2016 Summer of Busts is certainly a call to activism for all our cities progressives and recreational/ medical pot consumers! Also perhaps the tip of some very nefarious bullying of Toronto's boutique dispensaries from the backrooms at Toronto City Hall!

LINKS

Here are more Toronto news reports:

Cops show up @ Sun 

Marijuana Activist faces eviction @ City

More on the landlord eviction @ Star

Canuck licensed weed producers, including Snoop Dogg's Tweed are lobbying to have our boutique dispensaries shut down @ Globe and @ Vice

MORE LINKS

Marc Emery @ Facebook and @ Twitter

Cannabis Culture @ Facebook and @ Twitter

Pot TV @ Pot TV!

MY RELATED BLOGS

Towards Legalization: the Canadian government discussion paper @ Here!


Ontario Wynne government's crackdown on pot @ On Bill 45!

Reefer Madness Canada: The Harper Era @ Bummerz!

A Visit to Bob Marley birthplace in Nine Miles Jamaica @ Hi! Hi! Hi!

Also, read my monthly Teacher Free Speech News y Views blogs! Lot's more progressive links and updates on developments in the legalization of weed in Canada can be found there! 

COMMENTS:

Bill 45: Ontario Reefer Madness!

Oh Cannabis! The "True North" strong and free! We stand on guard for thee .... or do we? Maybe the only real stand about to take place in Ontario, Canada is once again for somebody or anybody else?! Just not the average pleb like you and me? Go ask the provincial Wynne Liberal government and it's corporate, neo con, big business masters, if you are at all in doubt!

To Wit: On April 20th, Prime Minster Justin Trudeau preempted "420" protests across Canada. You might imagine our surprise when he suddenly announced out of the blue that marijuana would finally be legalized next year! Undaunted, Toronto Ontario's 420 marchers proceeded down Yonge Street with our victory flags held high. A happy, harmless cloud of pot smoke soon engulfed jam packed Dundas Square. As it spread across the downtown core, Toronto's huge lunchtime office and campus crowds soon emptied out into the all ready crowded streets full of pot smokers to spontaneously join in the festive celebrations. Endless lines of tour buses pulled up adding to the joyful bustle and buzz! 

420 Toronto 2016: Sampling the wares at Yonge + Dundas Square!

It was like nothing I have ever quite seen before in "Toronto the Good"! Finally, there seemed to be light at the end of the long, dark reefer madness tunnel of marijuana bummers, burns, ripoffs and despair. Torontonians of all backgrounds, colour, and age were briefly joined together in one big huge sigh of relief and joy! Perhaps our big payoff after years of suffering under the austerity measures of big business, banks and the Harper Conservative government had finally arrived?

Maybe not! Since Trudeau was elected last year on a platform to "legalize it", grass root Cannabis shops and lounges have been sprouting up and prospering all across our city. Toronto is quickly becoming Canada's Cannabis capital, providing a safe, friendly and very comfortable place to live and visit for medical and recreational marijuana users alike. Despite the worldwide economic turmoil, our great city seemed poised like never before to become Canada's #1 Summer Tourist hot spot. Along with it's many other attractions, Toronto is now also rich with plenty of new, small grass root businesses, cheap, friendly reefer and an 79 cent [US] dollar to boot! 

Justin: Ummm ... OK! OK! Smoke 'em if ya got 'em, eh! Like this ....

Pardon us small, inconsequential Canucks if we hope that the decades long, nasty, prohibition against "weed" might finally be over. So to the past excuses from which it was hatched, based upon class, race and political warfare! Steeped in deep prejudice and steered through parliament and courts by our nation's ruthless, self serving big business interests! Together, they still march in step to the beat of their US corporate counterparts, in the long since failed and discredited, so called "War Against Drugs"! [History Lesson] Forgive us if a proper way to regulate quality, remove the criminal element, and better keep it out of the hands of minors seems at hand! [Trudeau] For a brief moment anyway, as April drew to a close, it seemed our ignoble past had finally gone up in smoke! Had the 21st Century finally arrived?

Not if big business has it's way! Alas! The province's pharmacy and tobacco and other corporate interests have also been watching very carefully too. It should come as no surprise that they aren't impressed at all! Hardly! How else to explain that on April 28th Premier Kathleen Wynne's Liberal government suddenly passed the ill advised and nefarious Bill 45: Smoke Free Ontario and E-Cigarette Act 2016? [Read!] 

No matter that Premier Wynne, with thorough legal briefs from the law firm of Bennet Jones, was ready to throw Ontario's doors open for small business marijuana users and operators at the local level! [Legal Brief] Bill 45, once it takes effect on July 1st,  again threatens to again plunge us small folk back into the deep, dark, bottomless hole of corporate greed and naked self interest!

Wynne: No! No pot 4 you! My corporate pals know wot to do!

In case you are in doubt, let's briefly examine some of Bill 45's little known implications for our province's pot consumers + small business owners alike! Under the Wynne Liberal's Strengthening Ontario's Smoking + Vaping Laws [2016] ammendments to the Smoke Free Ontario and E-Cigarette Act [2015]:

Medical Cannabis is lumped together with recreational pot + E-Cigarettes! Medical marijuana patients will no longer be able to safely and comfortably buy and consume their weed and other paraphernalia in our province's mom and pop small biz dispensaries, shops and vapour lounges. Ditto, casual or quiting smokers who prefer the slow but easier and much more health conscious alternative of buying or using an E-cigarette instead of stopping "Cold Turkey". Or of wrecking their teeth on nicotine gums!Or sending their heart beat racing with a notorious nicotine patch!

No vaping or smoking cannabis will be allowed anywhere that tobacco is publicly banned! Both pot entrepreneurs and medical patients alike, along with the new crowds of recreational marijuana users come 2017, will once again be forced back into hiding! Their combustibles subject to arrest and seizure! How ironic! There isn't any clear medical proof that second hand vapour is dangerous like tobacco! [Medical] [Smoke] But medical users will be forced back into hiding! Vapour lounges and clubs won't any longer be allowed. Nor a medical stroll in the park either! Matter of fact, if you live in Ontario Public Housing, it will even be illegal to toke at home too! Thank you, Kathleen! Must be good news indeed for the criminal elements lurking in the dark forbidden places where they so easily find their prey!

Toronto Indie Pot Biz Threatened!

No Retailing of Vapourizers Allowed! Vaping unlike smoking does not release toxins into ones lungs or the air that others must breathe -but no matter! [Vapour] [Lungs] Medicated edibles? They remain an alternative, but they might very well not be agreeable to many users! Medical patients in particular, will again be forced into seeking unhealthy alternatives for their condition instead of being able to safely vape their weed!

No Retail Display of Other Goods Allowed Either! Merchants won't be able to display, answer questions, nor allow consumers to test the different strains and strengths of weed like they would any other product. Ditto the sampling of edibles, vapourizers or any other paraphernalia. Also included are the horticultural "grow your own" supplies otherwise allowed by law for medical marijuana patients!

No more safe, comfortable Cannabis Lounges Are Allowed! If the new law isn't challenged, big business can move in later to grab the entertainment and retail trade for themselves. Watch for the big tobacco companies to take over the E-Cigarette trade! Watch the LCBO and Shoppers Drug take over marijuana marketing and sales for themselves instead. Let's face it, it's too much of a cash cow! They don't want the very small time entrepreneurs and users who suffered under our oppressive and exploitive marijuana laws to now finally prosper and flourish instead. As for marijuana's naturopathic uses? Without doubt, the huge pharmaceutical companies will want to protect their huge monopoly on profits from that too!

420 Protester expresses her opinion on Bill 45 to Wynne! 

As a medical marijuana patient, I enjoy my weed! It's a safe alternative to Oxycontin and the other horrible chemical prescription drugs that I have been prescribed since my workplace injury teaching Special Ed. [School Daze] I don't drink booze either. Blech! So whatever happens, I will continue in my own merry way to toke at home in Toronto and the countryside with my own tunes, recreational activities, family and friends. 

Let me be frank [or David]; like many old school political activists, my days of going out on the town to party, protest and riot on the spur of the moment are now often infrequent at best. However, by and large, my experience with our local marijuana scene has been that most indie marijuana users and sellers, both medical and recreational, are politically null and void today. Still, it is they who will now need to arise and carry the torch across the finish line with Kathleen Wynne standing in the way!

Tourism Toronto sez: "Do lunch here!"

Fortunately, the CFBA [Cannabis Friendly Business Association] is helping organize the good fight across Ontario to hopefully give it some political direction. They are currently involved in providing PDF info flyer's, cards, letters and petitions explaining all that is at stake in much more detail @ [Here!] [There!] Please help! They've got some good stuff! For example, as their "Petition to Premier of Ontario Kathleen Wynne to have the Ontario Liberals reconsider having medical marijuana in the Smoke-Free Ontario Act" states:

We the undersigned agree that if the Ontario Liberals include medical marijuana in the amendments to the Smoke-Free Ontario Act ... they would be infringing on the basic human rights of the approximately 30,000 medical users ...

Denying the patients the ability to utilize their medication when and where needed purely based on the type of medication is preposterous. One wouldn't question someone taking an asthma inhaler in public, why outlaw another medication by amending the Act?

If this change is allowed to happen a person could be charged for medicating anywhere but in their own home. In addition it would make vapour lounges, businesses that have operated efficiently with little to no community complaint some for over a decade, illegal and would force their owners out of their livelihoods.

These establishments operate in the same respect as bars do, with the major difference being that patrons supply their own marijuana/extracts versus acquiring alcohol at the establishment, where adult patrons enter with knowledge of potential health risks involved with partaking. With scientific evidence proving that both tobacco and alcohol are significantly more harmful than marijuana, we the undersigned wonder what is the basis for this addition to the Act?

Please note that the CFBA are also currently attempting to raise the necessary funds for their lobbying and legal expenses and fees. One of their first tasks is to seek a court injunction for the protection of medical marijuana patients. It's the patients basic constitutional rights that are most immediately and obviously at stake as a result of the Wynne governments ill conceived Neo Lib exercise in Corporate butt kissing! 

As Canuck as ....

CFBA plans also include a municipal campaign for the fair and proper licensing of the provinces cannabis shops and lounges to resist the corporate takeover of our provinces all ready existing small business marijuana community. They also plan to lobby the financial sector to remove the "Anti Cannabis Clause" in their merchant underwriting process.

Enough is enough! My Ontario does not include Bill 45 and the Wynne government's corporate marijuana agenda! Let's share these links and get involved in whatever ways we can! We've come so close! Yet we are still so far away! Let's fight for a truly legal, local grass roots business and consumer weed community all of our own. Stop the BS now, before it's too late!

In solidarity!

David C

Pax + Solidarity with all my good budz!

MORE LINKS

Spliff Magazine: Toronto Pot News y Views @ Online!

Toronto Now Magazine's 420 "Weed Issue" is @ Now

Article on Bill 45 and Your Vaping Rights in Ontario @ IdealVapes

Media Awareness Project: Latest Pot News Links from Across Canada @ Archive

Harper: Canadian Reefer Madness with Lots of Entertaining Links @ Blog!

Bob Marley + The Wailer Reviews! Part 1 @ Here Part 2 @ Here! Part 3 @ Here! Part 4 @ There!

Hi! Hi! Hi! My Visit to Bob Marley's Home in Jamaica @ Smile Jamaica!

Stoned: On The Beach in Jamaica @ Special Report!

Reefer Madness [1937]: The Original Movie! @ Youtube

Reefer Madness [2005]: The Showtime Remake @ Youtube

Sweet Marijuana [1934] Excerpt @ Youtube

Cheech y Chong's Dave's Not Here [Animated Short] @ Youtube

COMMENTS:

Smile Jamaica: Bob Marley!

It was a hard trip to resist as a Reggae fan. It also appealed to the adventurer in me: A ride on an old battered red, green and yellow Jamaican “Zion bus” with music blasting. Riding high, high, high up Mount Diablo [aka Mystic Mountain]. Off to visit Reggae legend Bob Marley’s birthplace in the small St. Anne’s parish town of “Nine Miles”. Afterwards, it was promised, we would fly all the way home. Hmmm. Let’s go…

Early morning found us loosely ensconced in the Zion bus. Seemed very Jamaican! Our DJ got the party started by playing his favourite Marley tunes and telling us the story behind each song. The bass was waaay too loud as it pumped full blast out of the bus speakers. Our guide laughed loudly at his own jokes, mostly about getting stoned. Janet, my cousin and I watched wondering; was it an act, for real, or a little bit of both? Quite crazy but fun!

Look down ... waaaaaaaay down!

Our bus winded its way up the mountains along a very narrow hillside road. I use the term “narrow” lightly. I stared out my window way down to the steep valleys and tiny villages below. The hillside was covered with thick green jungle; towering palm trees, sprawling ferns, and God knows what else. Simple wood, stone and sheet metal shacks peeked out from here, there and everywhere they could be possibly built. Yes! We were getting pretty high!

I was fascinated more than horrified, as our driver continued to pump the gas and air brakes while leaning on his horn, warning everyone on the road to get out of the way. He looked like he knew what he was doing. Still,  I gazed outside my window again, at the sheer drop to certain death. What a way to go! Yup, one wrong turn, bad bump or someone who doesn’t pull and we go flying off into oblivion. I sat awestruck glued to my seat. What else could you do as we climbed higher and higher up the mountain side for a good hour or so on the Zion bus?

The view of Nine Miles from Bob's place.

As we passed through the villages children raced outside the bus windows pointing their index finger in the air. It wasn’t for “One Love”, as the Bob Marley song goes. They wanted a dollar. We later bought a Bob Marley fund raising Cd instead, the money to be used at the local school. It seemed like a good idea to me.

Bob Marley is long gone. He died from cancer in 1981 at age 36. The family owned Marley Foundation now controls his estate. Bob often quietly helped those in financial need without asking for anything in return. The school CD was in the same humanitarian spirit. A sad footnote: only the handful of teachers on our bus made any contribution, for a cd or handout, let alone a tip throughout our trip. Very unkind considering the extreme gulf between the two worlds, ours and theirs as was quite obvious throughout the trip.

Our bus pulled up outside the gate at Bob’s house. The tiny mountainside town of Nine Miles is really just a few shacks surrounded by jungle. A crowd swarmed the Zion bus holding up handfuls of Ganga outside our windows, for sale by the bag or by the spliff. Our guide explained that smoking weed is common inside the Marley grounds, but you can’t buy any there.

He held the gate open, keeping the crowd at bay while we walked back outside into an alley way bazaar. A wide variety of herbs and herbal concoctions were spread out on display. Thick buds of golden green sensimilla cost $40 US for a quarter ounce, rolling papers included. Big grass cookies and huge thick hash brownies were $20 each if you preferred not to smoke. There were also small black turds of hashish for sale, but I didn’t catch the price. Apparently there were cups of grass tea too but I didn’t see it myself.

Jamaica is famous for it's herbal remedies to cure whatever ails you.

It’s pretty common for a lot of baby boomers to still smoke marijuana. I am no stranger to it. I also grew up in the sixties and seventies when marijuana seemed to be everywhere even though it was illegal; a federal offence. I didn’t liked how that attracted a criminal element. Still, I also recall that whenever there was a fight or any bad vibes, be it at a party or a concert, it invariably involved the drinkers, and not the pot heads. As the saying went, “Make love not war!” After a few tokes the tunes sounded great. The conversation quite hilarious. We’d get the munchies because everything tasted so great. Marijuana certainly had its moments!

I haven’t in bided in either vice for a very long time. As a teacher I made a life choice not to smoke or drink.  I never missed booze or cigarettes, still don’t. Bleech! However, I felt nostalgic at the novelty of seeing some weed again.

To paraphrase an old Bob Dylan sixties song, "the times certainly are a changin’". Marijuana is now gradually being legalized in  the US. Also, federal party leader Justin Trudeau is promising to legalize it if he is elected as our Canadian Prime Minister next year. My guess would be it’s only a fairly short matter of time now.

What’s the story in Jamaica?  Our tour guide explained its being decriminalized. It’s hoped it will provide a good cash crop to help create jobs and stimulate the economy. What else have they got? Well, there’s bauxite and tourism. All is not well. It hasn’t been for a very long time. Bob Marley and the Wailers’ protest anthems and spiritual pleas make that perfectly clear. We’ll examine their music more closely in my next Jamaica blog. For now, suffice to say that back inside the Marley gate I munched on a brownie and shared a thick doobie with my cousin, which neither of us could finish. As far as safe, friendly service with a smile goes, the Jamaican sensimilla scene at Nine Miles definitely earns two big thumbs up! I wish them well!

The mausoleum + house.

Looking about the Bob Marley homestead one only sees a few small buildings. Basically, there are just two rather simple mausoleums and a small house. At first brush the grounds might seem like an unspectacular shrine for such a great man. However, everything has been painted over in bright Jamaican colours. Also decorated with flags, handmade Rastafari murals and signs. Gold records, concert posters, and photographs hang on the walls of a one room museum of sorts. Stalls offer crafts, and Bob Marley memorabilia including t-shirts, coffee cups, pipes, papers and cds for sale. Nice but very pricey. There’s also a small open air drink and snack bar.

Bob Marley left behind at least 11 children, from wife Rita Marley and his various girlfriends. Since a deal was struck with Island Records in 1992, they are all a part of the Bob Marley Foundational which owns, controls and profits from his estate. Rita has enjoyed a successful musical career. A few of his children have followed in their father musical footsteps. Ziggy and Damien Marley come immediately to mind. I’m glad the proceeds from our trip are being kept within the family, rather than being exploited by Babylon. You can spend your money here confident it isn’t going to a big impersonal corporation!

By high noon, Nine Miles was as hot as a blast furnace. There was hardly a breeze. The yard was tightly packed. We had to wait a bit just looking around, as each group of visitors took turns moving among the crowded buildings and rooms. I was pretty kazooed and felt like I was just floating along through Bob’s home with the crowd, feeling no pain. It was easy to become totally immersed in the experience. I haven’t any complaints, far from it, everything seemed fitting and in tune. In the courtyard, we were also entertained by a ragtag band of dread locked reggae musicians playing Bob Marley songs, spreading good vibrations and getting us into the spirit of things.

We were escorted around the grounds by our dread locked guide who explained the site in detail. We saw the stone mausoleum were Bob’s mother is buried. Then we visited Bob’s bedroom in the house. It pretty much looked like I’d expect; a Tough Gong poster and a small bed. Not much else. Finally we ended up in the mausoleum that is Bob’s burial place.

According to his mother’s wishes Bob Marley is buried in the mausoleum with his half brother. Apparently Bob’s guitar was also buried with him though nobody seems quite sure which one. I lit a candle and walked around the tomb past the personal mementos that others had left behind on their visit; plants, joints, rolling papers, lighters, photos, flags and the like. Then after coming full circle, as is the tradition, I respectfully placed my candle on the front pedestal where I left it to burn.  I felt very calm and peaceful. Also quite honoured to be in the presence of such greatness here among the most simplest and humble of places.

Bob's bed!

No, there really isn’t much to see. But Nine Miles is a very spiritual experience. Mr. Bob Marley has returned from the heights of greatness in our often big, bad world. He has come back to his humble beginnings having delivered a timeless message of love, peace and hope in the struggle for political and social justice. It only seems right to me that his final resting place is here, in his very simple village birthplace, now reunited with his people, family and friends.

 As promised we truly did fly back down the mountains on our breathtaking trip home aboard the Zion bus. I was still flying high a good 12 hours later, caught up in the magic of our visit. I can’t say that smoking weed again was any big deal in and of itself. It was fun but I suppose I could take it or leave it. Maybe it will be more enjoyable after it is legalized in Canada? Hmmm. Half the time I’d forget what I was going to say, leaving me quiet, listening and watching more. Maybe that’s not an altogether bad thing? Other times, I’d be jabbering away a mile a minute! Still it was quite part and parcel of the greater overall trip to pay homage to Bob. As such I thoroughly enjoyed myself!

Lots to think about!

I’m retired and feeling pretty de-stressed these days. I’m quite high on life as it is. I find myself listening to Bob Marley and the Wailers again almost nonstop since my trip. It will forever continue to be a part of the soundtrack to my life. Bob Marley, his music and message always make me feel high in the natural sense. You don’t need to smoke the herb to appreciate that, though one might also argue it doesn’t hurt much either!

More Reading:

In my next Jamaica blogs we will examine Bob’s musical legacy through his albums, singles and cds:

Bob Marley + The Wailer Album + Singles Reviews! Part 1 @ Here Part 2 @ Here! Part 3 @ Here! Part 4 @ There!

On The Beach: Everyone knows the rastaman's got the best ganga @ Yah/ Jah!

Jamaica: On The Beach!

"Soon come!" It's a Jamaican expression. Simply means what it says. The summer heat is like a furnace blast. Laying on the white sand beach in Runaway Bay under a swaying palm tree, I gaze lazily out at the tempting, turqoise sea. Everybody and everything is moving in slow motion. Under the hot sun it cannot be any other way. 

A pleasant breeze ruffles my hair. A brief much welcome respite. But to really cool down I usually swim out to the coral reef. It's about 100 feet off the beach and runs along the entire coastline at our resort, stretching beyond view out to sea. I would be way out there now but for the choppy waters keeping me closer to shore. I still manage a good two or three hours in the water exploring the nearby reef every day. 

Ship ahoy mon!

Half way out a rasta raft waits outside the roped in main beach. Its black HS pirate flags flap tauntingly in the sea breeze. Its a homemade affair. Bamboo logs tied together with rope. Two long poles to push it along the coast to wherever the tourists are. There is a warning sign posted on the beach gate. They "warn" that the vendors "in the water" are in no way connected with the resort. Ha. How true: Good vibes! Homemade and grown wares! Nothing made in China. I enjoy the lively chatter, often a heavy patois, Jah mon! Everytink is Irie!

Unable to land the crew wile away the long hot summer, bartering, trading and selling their wares to the curious guests who swim out; huge conch shells, handmade jewellery, bamboo cups, a wide variety of herbs to treat whatever ails. The smokey smell of fresh barbecued lobster wafers from a metal barrel stove. It's to the aft of the raft where the chief rastaman sits back with his long dreads hanging out below his cap, on a wooden chair, pondering the infinite. Dinner awaits. Fresh and still alive. Today's catch is in a net sack beneath the raft. Pull it up. Take your pick.

Walking into the hotel upon my arrival, the first smell that hit me was a deep earthy ganja one. Marijuana is everywhere in Jamaica. Hell, it grows on trees. A gaggle of laughing guests blow a reefer with the security guard on the beach. But everyone knows the rastamen have the best weed.

Swimming out past the raft I reach the coral reef. An explosion of colour! Patches of deep green sea grass. Rocks. Huge green brain coral. Yellow leghorns. Schools of brightly coloured tropical fish. Lobsters under the rocks. A barracuda cruises past. Blow fish puff up. I swim by, up, under, down and around them. Then float lazily on my back buoyed by the salt water as I catch my breath for a bit. I touch nothing. I take nothing, but pictures. It's very hot, quiet and very peaceful. Everything is in balance.

JAMAICA IN THE NEWS:

Jamaica will decriminalize marijuana by end of 2014. Rather after the fact @ Sensimilla

The new law allows for possession of up to 2 ounces of marijuana. It can also be legally used for religious, medicinal and scientific purposes. Legislatures argue it will create jobs + stimulate the economy. The only other big export is bauxite [Zzz] @ Jah Bob Land

More Reading:

-On the Road to Bob Marley's Jamaica @ Here!

-More assorted musings and information for your erudition etc:

Bob Marley + The Wailer Album + Singles Reviews! Part 1 @ Here Part 2 @ Here! Part 3 @ Here! Part 4 @ There!