Pubdate: Wed, 09 Apr 2014
Source: Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Copyright: 2014 C.E.G.W./Times-Shamrock
Contact:  http://www.metrotimes.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1381
Author: Larry Gabriel

THOUGHTS FROM THE 43RD ANN ARBOR HASH BASH

High spirits.

"I like smoking weed," said the guy wearing a bright, multicolored
jacket with Batman's nemesis "The Joker" on it. "Is that a bad thing?"

Not at the 43rd Ann Arbor Hash Bash, where marijuana was inhaled
freely by the crowd estimated to be 8,000 strong under the sunny skies
of a spring day. Guitarist Laith Al-Saadi opened up proceedings with a
solo Jimi Hendrix-inspired version of the "Star Spangled Banner."

That opened up the official proceedings. Unofficially, folks had been
toking, vaporizing, and consuming brownies, cookies and other edibles
for quite some time. Toward the back and the edges of the crowd,
getting high was the main activity. That's pretty much what they were
doing up front too, except those folks were paying attention to what
was being said from the steps of the library. The folks in back didn't
have a chance. The drum circle, which had been banging away since
before I showed up early, never even flinched in recognition of the
program.

I approached a guy off to the side wearing a T-shirt that read "Grow
Your Own." When I requested a little interview he agreed, but said,
"Let me finish chewing my brownie here."

His reason for being at the Hash Bash: "To support the cause of
trying to get this plant and this medicine legalized. To
revolutionize how people think about it nowadays and maybe erase some
of the lies that have been told in society and to support my mother
and Don, they're both medical patients."

Mom and Don were at his side. Mom said, "There are very, very healing
properties to it."

Don, who wore a hat that read "Kush Keeps Us So High," said, "I agree
with whatever they said."

Regarding growing his own pot, the grow-your-own guy said, "It hasn't
been very easy. I'm still tweaking it, and it's taken over a year to
almost get it where I have it right."

Some folks were setting large soap bubbles afloat in the air. One guy
carried a sign that read, "Marijuana is safer than peanuts." Two
people dressed in costumes resembling marijuana plants didn't want to
talk to me. A couple of uniformed campus police observed the crowd
from the edge. Three young women took a selfie with the crowd as a
backdrop.

A woman wearing sunglasses was sitting on a guy's shoulders. She was
hollering that she loved rock 'n' roll as she gave a double thumbs-up
to the crowd. I walked up and pressed my thumbs against her thumbs.

"Wow, that's the first time anyone ever gave my thumbs a high
five."

"More like a high thumbs," I said. "How you doing?"

"I'm doing really great."

"Why are you doing great?" I asked.

"Because I'm here for the Canada festival. I'm color-blind. I just
walked in and noticed the Canadian flag was up here, and I think
Montreal is really pretty."

She was referring to the green flag with a green marijuana leaf where
the red maple leaf would be on the Canadian flag.

"Are you high up there?" I inquired.

"I'm so high up here. I've never been this high up before. Usually,
I'm 4-11, but now I'm feeling like 8-foot-5."

"Why do you come to the hash bash?"

"Wait, this is the hash bash? Does Canada make really good hash
browns?"

"They probably do," I answered. Hey, I thought I was asking the
questions.

"Oh, yeah, they do have a lot of potatoes there, and a lot of
tomatoes. You can make a lot of ketchup for your Hash Bash from
Canada. Thumbs up for Canada, everybody, and rock 'n' roll!"

Get a crowd together and there's bound to be a Canada booster in it. I
spotted a guy with a T-shirt that read "Keep Calm, Smoke Weed."

This was a pretty calm crowd. I sat down next to a guy who was selling
locally produced organic vegetable seeds. He was so busy selling seeds
I gave up waiting to have a word with him. I saw a couple of folks
wandering around barefoot. It was a relatively warm day but not even
close enough for me to consider going without shoes. Several people
had dogs on leashes. There was one Great Dane that looked big enough
to throw a saddle on.

When Chuck Ream spoke, he noted that he had been smoking marijuana for
47 years, stating that, "If there were something wrong with it I would
have noticed."

Then there was a Twitter moment when folks in the crowd were asked to
take a photo of the event and tweet it to  Maybe Twitter
copped a buzz at that moment.

I approached a guy wearing a long khaki-colored military looking coat.
He said this was his third Hash Bash and that he liked getting high.
On those occasions he liked "to sit down and watch movies, mostly
comedies, and order some greasy pizzas."

There was another woman sitting on a guy's shoulders. I spoke to her.
I guess I can't resist a woman sitting on a guy's shoulders. She
actually volunteered her name, but - why start identifying folks now?

"I'm here currently looking for my friends," she said. "I miss Ann
Arbor and this is a pretty nice way to see it, on top of someone's
head."

"What brought you back?"

"The people, the art, the condensed and consolidated clouds taking
over this entire city."

Al-Saadi came out with his guitar to close the proceedings with a Joe
Cocker-inflected version of "A Little Help From My Friends" -
emphasizing the line, "I get high with a little help from my friends."
He was scheduled to play later for a Hash Bash afterparty at the Blind
Pig.

I spoke to him as things were breaking up and many folks headed over
to the Monroe Street Fair. He shared a Hash Bash memory with me:

"The first time that I came down here - 23 years ago - was one of the
best experiences of my teenage years. I had just started to play
guitar and I came down here, having grown up in Ann Arbor. This is
when I was about 13. And I got to go around and play music with people
all day on the Diag and meet some great like-minded people that I have
maintained relationships with over the years."

It was good enough to keep him coming back.

Serious business: One thing the serious folks on the program talked
about was that there will be 12, maybe more, petition initiatives to
decriminalize marijuana across Michigan this year: the cities of
Saginaw, Port Huron, Utica, East Lansing, Mount Pleasant, Oak Park,
Hazel Park, Onaway, Harrison, Clare and Marquette, and in Benzie
County. The last time these folks ran multiple initiatives, they won
in all five cities. Something close to that would be awesome for Michigan.  
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D