LIKE ANY ROCK AND ROLL FABLE – IT’S OVER BEFORE IT’S BEGUN
Golden Gate Park, Haight at Stanyan Streets – The new, illicit rite of Spring known as 420 died on Wednesday, April 20, 2016, when perhaps a hundred thousand stoned-out people congested traffic in this city by the bay – right at quitting time – just by showing up and toking out at exactly 4:20 p.m.
Next year, the cops and city dads vowed, there will be a permitted, controlled and well-planned event.
And so, another Hippie Legend, “born in the magic and the dust of history,” bites the dirt.
Crystal, an Earth Mother in Steam Punk goggles, teaches a message from the Earth Goddess about healing and LSD…
Like any flowering rite of the Vernal Equinox, it was doomed in the evolution of the planetary year, by any means. In this case, the means are that the state’s largest cash crop in terms of cash flow is on the verge of going mainstream, commercialized, taxed, controlled and, “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,” a part of the greater culture.
The new Halloween, St. Patrick’s Day, Thanksgiving – all rolled into one – is an opportunity for folks to gather together after a hard and lonely season in the woods controlling the pollination of a precious and potent herbal crop brought to market through illicit means to cheat the tax man and King’s Men of their due.
A great tradition evolves.
Naturally, Bay Area broadcasters reported in their five o’clock news broadcast that there were “shots fired” shortly after the magical hour of 4:20 because, like the fella in the movie “Hard Times” said, “Sooner or later, somebody always shows up with a gun.”
By the time the 6 p.m. broadcast rolled around, it turned out that a pit bull – a breed considered de rigeur for dealers, runners, and other posse members – lunged, and the crowd reacted by running away. No blood. No foul.
Why 4:20?
Because the Legend says a bunch of stoners from an area high school used to gather daily at that hour to pay homage to the police 4-code for “marijuana smoking in progress, 420, and light up at exactly that moment.
The civilly disobedient act caught on when the Grateful Dead began to carry its Legend from parking lot to parking lot, and the rest is history. A folk holiday is born, legitimized, inculcated and placed in the mainstream, just like that.
The barbecue, water salesmen, blunt purveyors and bud peddlers left behind 10,000 pounds of garbage, and an area Medical Marijuana Dispensary jumped in with a pledge to clean up the mess, a fact duly noted by ad-revenue hungry broadcasters in their “happy news” reports, live at five.
And to think it all started because of a phrase from MartianSpeak spoken and broadcast – flung into the electronic village – from the cop shop.
The philologists will have a field day. Everyone else is expecting rain.
So mote it be.
Exeunt.
– The Legendary
HIPPIE HILL, CROSSROADS OF THE UNIVERSE