1/13/23
Newsletter 218
The Crack of Dawn
I heard on the news last night that there is a spike in older people – Baby Boomers – who are coming into emergency rooms freaking out on marijuana. The explanation given is that pot is so much better now than it used to be. As a former pot dealer from the early 1970s, I’d like to clear up this falsehood. Yes, most weed was shitty back then, and cheap. This bottom-end pot was known as Mexican (and probably was from there), or more euphemistically, “Mexican Shit Weed.” It was crap and we all knew that it was crap – it was loaded with seeds – but it was cheap and reasonably plentiful. And if that was all you smoked back in the ‘70s then yes, today’s weed probably will blow your mind. Being a former pot dealer – my career lasted two years: 9th and 10th grade – I was generally able to avoid smoking Mexican Shit Weed, although I sold a lot of it.
But if you were willing to spend at least five or ten more dollars, and depending on availability, you had a myriad of choices. Mid-range weed was Jamaican (and having been to Jamaica since then, it really was Jamaican), and it’s tasty, unique, dark brown, strong, and wonderful; Thai Sticks, which were long green buds with red hairs tied to a stick that was great; there were at least two kinds of awesome Hawaiian, Kona Gold and Maui Wowie; there was Columbian Gold, which was blonde, strong, very fragrant, and basically gorgeous; on rare occasions there was Vietnamese, which was exotic, sticky and powerful; and there was Panama Red, which was stronger than anything on the market right now. It blew my fucking mind, and nothing out there now blows my mind. So, the Baby Boomers showing up in emergency rooms freaking out are either the former squares who just didn’t smoke weed back then; or they’re the cheapskates who wouldn’t cough up for decent weed. But good marijuana is not a new invention.
Musso & Frank Grill on Hollywood Boulevard is, as it says on the sign, “The oldest restaurant in Hollywood,” and opened in 1914. In 1914 Hollywood Boulevard was a dirt road lined with Pepper trees. Many people I know love this restaurant, but it’s always had a vague aroma of barf to me and I avoid it. In any case, many years ago it occurred to me and a buddy – probably while we were stoned – that lacking an apostrophe and an S, the restaurant must have been started by the Grill brothers.
When I first moved to L.A. in 1976, Schwab’s Drugstore on Sunset Blvd. was still open. It had a beautiful, black and white, mid-1930s, Art Deco façade. And for the younger folks, Schwab’s Drugstore was where you might get spotted at the soda fountain, cast in a movie, then become a movie star. The reason that myth began was because it really happened.
In 1937 director Mervyn LeRoy (whom I met briefly in 1977) was about to make a very “important message picture” called They Won’t Forget. A pretty high school girl is murdered at school, after hours, and the crime is automatically pinned on the innocent black custodian. Spoiler alert: crusading lawyer Claude Rains ultimately gets him off. Still, that’s a powerful, important story for 1937.
The film begins with a long tracking shot of a beautiful high school girl walking up the sidewalk to the high school and going in, past the unawares black custodian. Everything is set up in that first shot. Mervyn LeRoy (who was Jewish, but LeRoy doesn’t sound Jewish) was a sharp director who made a lot of hit movies, from Little Caesar (1931) to Gypsy (1962), and produced The Wizard of Oz (1939) in between. LeRoy knew that his whole movie depended on could he get you to give a shit about this high school girl in a single tracking shot without dialogue. So the word was out that Mervyn LeRoy was looking for the cutest girl in town.
A reporter from the Hollywood Reporter was at Schwab’s Drugstore and who should seat herself at the soda fountain but 17-year-old Lana Turner (real name, Julia Jean Mildred Frances Turner). Tight sweaters for high school girls were the fashion at the time. So, young Lana Turner marches up the sidewalk for an entire block in her tight sweater, with bouncy, gravity-defying breasts, looking proud as hell, and a star was born.
To infinity, and beyond!