Program Notes

Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com


Date this lecture was recorded: April 12, 2021
Guest speaker:
Jimi Fritz

https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Ethical-Drug-Dealer-psychedelic/dp/0968572111/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=confessions+of+an+ethical+drug+dealer&qid=1619373405&s=books&sr=1-1
Today’s program features an audio recording of a recent Live Salon. Our guest was Jimi Fritz who told us about his 50-years of buying, selling, and experimenting with psychedelic drugs while also traveling the world. Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, home of the legendary BC Bud, Jimi also was a rave promoter. He has written two books about his adventures and shares some of his stories with us in this podcast.

Confessions of an Ethical Drug Dealer by Jimi Fritz

Rave Culture; an Insider’s Overview Kindle Edition by Jimi Fritz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1GW7q1xEDI

Download free copies of Lorenzo’s latest books

Previous Episode

668 - Nature Loves Courage

Next Episode

670 - War on Drugs Recent Legal Updates

Similar Episodes

Transcript

00:00:00

Greetings from cyberdelic space.

00:00:20

This is Lorenzo, and I’m your host here in the Psychedelic Salon.

00:00:23

This is Lorenzo, and I’m your host here in the Psychedelic Salon.

00:00:31

And I’m finally getting around to podcasting a conversation that several of us had a few weeks ago in a live salon.

00:00:43

Our guest was Jimmy Fritz, who regaled us with some stories about his 50-plus years of buying, selling, and experimenting with psychedelic drugs while also traveling the world.

00:00:46

Jimmy is based in Vancouver, British Columbia,

00:00:49

home of the famous B.C. Bud, by the way.

00:00:54

I first learned about his exploits from a recently published book that he wrote,

00:00:57

and it’s titled Confessions of an Ethical Drug Dealer.

00:01:01

Now, how could I resist reading a book with a title like that?

00:01:06

After all, on the homepage at psychedelicsalon.com is an interview with me that’s titled Confessions of an Ecstasy Advocate. Well, Jimmy has also been a rave promoter

00:01:13

and some of his insights about scripting the music for an all-night rave I found very fascinating.

00:01:20

And back in 1999, Jimmy also wrote a book titled Rave Culture, an Insider’s Overview.

00:01:27

I’m only about a quarter of the way through that right now, but it’s also a very fascinating read.

00:01:32

So now let’s join Jimmy Fritz and some of our fellow Saloners for an evening of interesting conversation.

00:01:40

And there we are. Hey, Jimmy, how are you?

00:01:43

Hello. Can you hear me?

00:01:45

Oh, yeah. I got you loud and clear. Good to see you.

00:01:47

Loud and clear. Good, good.

00:01:48

Good, good.

00:01:49

Excellent. Nice to meet you.

00:01:51

Same here. Even though our physical paths have been kind of different, our intellectual insides have been very much the same.

00:02:02

A lot of our feelings and reactions have been similar.

00:02:06

Yeah, yeah.

00:02:09

We’ll wait a little bit here and get a few more people in before we actually.

00:02:12

Okay, sure.

00:02:13

What I’m going to do is I’ll edit out any long pauses or stuff like that.

00:02:19

And then by next Monday, I’ll produce this as a podcast and put links to your book and stuff like that

00:02:26

or to both books actually

00:02:27

so we’ll get all that done

00:02:30

about a week from now

00:02:31

I run a little slow on some of these things

00:02:34

I’ve lost some of my

00:02:35

right

00:02:36

can you send me a copy of the podcast when it’s done

00:02:40

oh yeah for sure

00:02:41

I’ll send you links to that and to the program

00:02:44

notes and to the whole

00:02:45

thing. So hopefully it’ll get you some, a little more exposure. Some of our, some of the regular

00:02:55

suspects are here and we’ve been, we’ve been doing this actually since 2018. And then when the pandemic began, we started doing two a week where on Thursdays,

00:03:09

I do it in the morning out here in the West Coast,

00:03:12

which is 7.30 at night London time.

00:03:15

And we bring in people from Russia and Morocco and England and stuff like

00:03:19

that.

00:03:19

So, you know, it’s been a lot of fun.

00:03:23

And in fact, Thursday, when our guys from England come in,

00:03:27

we’ll be sure to be talking about you,

00:03:29

that you finally made it back there after all those years, huh?

00:03:33

Uh-huh.

00:03:35

I moved back to England.

00:03:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:03:37

I hadn’t been back in 25 years and never thought I would go back

00:03:41

until, you know, I made contact through Facebook.

00:03:45

Right. You never say never, I made contact through Facebook. Right.

00:03:46

You never say never, right?

00:03:47

Yeah, that’s right.

00:03:49

But, you know, we’ve got several people here, most of whom are readers.

00:03:54

Some of us have been around as friends for a long time, even though most of us have really never met in person, except for a few of us.

00:04:02

Right.

00:04:02

But the pandemic’s worked out interestingly for us,

00:04:06

because some of us are kind of isolated and it gives us a chance to get together.

00:04:09

And then I podcast these, and we get a little wider audience,

00:04:13

and that helps too.

00:04:15

So let’s start out.

00:04:17

You’re in Vancouver right now, right?

00:04:19

Yeah, that’s right.

00:04:20

And you’ve been there for a long time.

00:04:23

Yeah, I’ve been here for about 30 years now

00:04:25

and it wasn’t easy getting there i you know i’ve read your book so i i know the stories and let

00:04:32

let me say this and i know that you know it might be awkward for you but i’ve got to say this

00:04:37

this is you is really a good writer it’s a well-written book. The first one-third of it is essentially a travelogue.

00:04:48

The only part about drugs is how to smuggle and stuff back in the 70s, which is kind of outdated

00:04:53

now. But the book is very well written. And I get a laugh every few pages because you have that

00:05:02

irony and sarcasm of Hunter S Thompson and you

00:05:06

know it slips in there you know so uh I I don’t know if you’re a fan of his that I am so that’s

00:05:11

a compliment yeah oh I am but um I’m not sure that my style is quite like his he’s a bit no it’s not

00:05:18

it’s not your style it’s just a one that yeah it’s a comment here or there yeah yeah yeah maybe the irreverent the irreverent attitude

00:05:27

perhaps that’s that’s what i was trying to get at right the non-reverent attitude now now uh

00:05:35

what we’ll get to you know your book is confessions of an ethical drug dealer but

00:05:40

uh i’m i’m about to to get your first book, your earlier book now. And what was the title of that, please?

00:05:46

Rave Culture.

00:05:48

And while everybody here knows that I’m interviewing somebody that wrote a book about being an ethical drug dealer for 50 years,

00:05:56

they may be surprised that you’ve also been a big rave promoter.

00:06:00

So let’s kind of back into the rave promotion part first, and then we’ll get back into the book.

00:06:05

So how did you get into, I assume, producing raves in Vancouver area primarily?

00:06:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:06:12

Yeah, I just got into it through a friend’s son, actually.

00:06:17

This was a kid that I used to babysit when he was one year old.

00:06:22

I was his babysitter where he grew up and 20 years later, he showed up because his

00:06:27

father had visited me off and on in Vancouver. And his son, Wayne, had showed up and said,

00:06:34

hey, there’s this new thing called rave and, you know, this new drug called MDMA and you should

00:06:40

try it. And I said, well, okay. I was 40 at the time and um sounded like it sounded like a

00:06:49

good idea so i said okay i’ll check it out so he got me a nice big hit of good clean mdma and

00:06:55

we went to this rave and really did change my life it was an incredibly eye-opening experience well i i can totally relate to that because

00:07:07

i was 42 years old uh i had never even smoked pot at that time i’m that straight and narrow

00:07:14

lawyer in texas you know and a friend of mine uh took me to the start club in dallas and you

00:07:20

mentioned that the dance clubs in dallas with theMA on the bars and that was actually before raves

00:07:27

that was in 1984

00:07:29

and it changed my whole

00:07:31

life too so I can really relate to how

00:07:33

one evening walking in like that

00:07:35

and dropping a little ecstasy is

00:07:37

a life changing experience

00:07:39

over the course of about 5

00:07:41

years I produced probably

00:07:43

30 or 40 events and during the course of about five years, I produced probably 30 or 40 events.

00:07:46

And during the course of those events,

00:07:49

I saw literally hundreds of people’s lives change.

00:07:53

People that were connecting with themselves and connecting with other people on a,

00:07:57

on a meaningful level,

00:07:59

sometimes for the first time ever.

00:08:01

So I was amazed at the effect that it was having on people’s lives, the positive

00:08:06

effects. But that was my interest in it. And tell us a little bit how you controlled the

00:08:13

quality of the crowd so that you didn’t get regularly busted like most ravers do.

00:08:20

Yeah, well, we wanted to have a really tight crowd, so

00:08:25

it was hand-picked. It was basically members only.

00:08:28

So we had a membership card,

00:08:31

and everybody had their

00:08:32

membership card with their name on it,

00:08:34

and it said that they were certified 100%

00:08:36

cool and groovy.

00:08:38

So they were certified

00:08:39

by me, and if they were 100% cool and groovy,

00:08:42

and we know who those people are,

00:08:44

then they were in. And and groovy and we know who those people are, then they

00:08:45

were in.

00:08:46

And because of that, we never had any problems with anybody.

00:08:49

We never had any problems with security, never had any problems with, you know, issues or

00:08:55

people going off the tracks because everybody was there for the same reason.

00:08:59

Everybody was responsible adults and everybody knew.

00:09:02

And I had everybody on one email list a group email list

00:09:05

with 300 people so i would you know coach them through the emails tell them what we were doing

00:09:10

and why we were doing it and what the point was and they all got on board with that program and

00:09:16

we had some really transcendental group mind experiences and did you did you uh do it like

00:09:24

a lot of the ravers are doing back in the 90s where you didn’t announce the location

00:09:28

until the last few minutes or whenever you could? Yeah. I used to

00:09:32

announce it the day before because

00:09:36

we were on a closed loop, so to speak,

00:09:40

because we had this email list. I didn’t have to be quite as careful. We didn’t have to go to pick up

00:09:44

points or anything like that.

00:09:46

Evasive actions, because everybody knew what to do.

00:09:49

And I’d tell people where to park and how to come in.

00:09:52

And we’d have a way of getting in and out so that people were coming in in twos and threes and discreetly so we could disguise the locations.

00:10:00

And it worked really well.

00:10:01

It worked fantastic.

00:10:03

That’s really really really great and and

00:10:05

one of the other things uh i i uh you you first of all even uh i haven’t read your first book but

00:10:12

in in your confessions book uh there’s a great deal of information about raves organizing raves

00:10:17

and in particular the music organizing the music for an for an evening why don’t you talk to us

00:10:22

about how that worked and how you had some rogue

00:10:25

DJs that you had to deal with?

00:10:27

Yeah, yeah.

00:10:28

Well, music is really critical.

00:10:30

And a lot of people kind of underestimate that.

00:10:32

They think they can just have a party and invite a bunch of DJs

00:10:36

and have a wonderful rave.

00:10:38

It doesn’t really work like that.

00:10:40

You’ve got to plan that musical journey because it creates a journey,

00:10:45

a motif in your mind, and it creates that psychological journey

00:10:49

that you go on, and everybody clicks into that same journey.

00:10:54

So to do that, you have to have consistent music.

00:10:58

You can’t suddenly be playing progressive house and then switch it up

00:11:02

to drum and bass because you just lose everybody completely at that point and you’ve got to have you got to edit out all the dead dead stuff and

00:11:09

just keep the build going keep this long slow build all the way through the night so i used to

00:11:15

coach the djs quite carefully and they’d start off on certain beats per minute you know start off

00:11:20

with some uh you know tribal house and then we work into some deeper house, and then some harder house, and then progressive house, and then trance, and then maybe some side trance at the end.

00:11:31

So it was a complete progression from start to finish. That was the idea, is to create this

00:11:36

eight-hour musical journey. You just got on, and you couldn’t get off.

00:11:41

But, you know, I should point out that you’re not an amateur when it comes to music.

00:11:47

You’ve made a significant part of your living playing music, isn’t that right? Yeah, my whole

00:11:52

life really. I started playing guitar when I was 16 and used it as a form of income while I traveled

00:12:00

around Europe for many, many years. And it was my main source of income.

00:12:10

I’d travel around the Mediterranean to all the bars and cafes and play in the street, basically.

00:12:12

I was a street musician for 10 years.

00:12:16

And when I came to North America, I was playing in bars and cafes and stuff.

00:12:20

And I did some concerts, made five albums.

00:12:24

And, yes, music has always been a big part of my life. And that’s why when I first heard

00:12:27

electronic dance music for the first time when I was 40, I’d never heard anything like it.

00:12:32

And I was really intrigued as to how it was made and where it came from and started looking into

00:12:38

it and getting very interested in it. And that took me into the whole history of rave culture.

00:12:43

And that’s what inspired my first book, Rave Culture, an Insider’s Overview.

00:12:53

You’re playing on the street corners and sidewalks throughout Europe and North America.

00:13:00

I’ve been so many places and put money in the boxes and all.

00:13:04

I always wondered about the musicians, you know.

00:13:07

And, you know, so I’m happy to hear that you actually could make a living doing it.

00:13:13

Yeah, yeah.

00:13:13

But some of the adventures that that led to were awesome.

00:13:18

For example, the adventure where you were going through that checkpoint where just two weeks earlier,

00:13:25

the Marrakesh Express had been where they’ve been all killed.

00:13:29

So can you tell us about that one?

00:13:31

How did you get to that point?

00:13:33

And what were you doing to wind up there?

00:13:37

Well, that was the magic bus, actually.

00:13:38

I was on the Marrakesh Express, too, in Morocco one time.

00:13:41

And that was just the bus that took people from the north to the south down to Marrakesh

00:13:45

so I was on the Marrakesh Express and we did

00:13:48

all sing the song on the bus

00:13:49

and I think

00:13:52

what you’re talking about is the magic bus

00:13:53

which was a service that took people

00:13:56

from Istanbul to

00:13:57

Pakistan and India

00:13:59

it went through Turkey

00:14:01

and Iran and

00:14:03

Afghanistan, Pakistan and into India, that was the route it would go Turkey and Iran and Afghanistan Pakistan and into India

00:14:06

that was the route

00:14:07

it would go backwards and forwards

00:14:09

and for about 100 bucks

00:14:11

you could get all the way

00:14:12

but we got to the point where we

00:14:15

I didn’t take the magic bus

00:14:17

but we were on a double decker bus

00:14:18

that we picked up in Istanbul

00:14:21

and we went through the same route

00:14:24

but we were stopped just before the Iranian border

00:14:27

and we were told that it was too dangerous to pass and we heard that then that the magic bus

00:14:33

had you know made its last trip and it was stopped by the Kurdish rebels and there were people were

00:14:40

dragged out and shot on the side of the road and And so that was the end of the magic bus.

00:14:46

That was the last voyage.

00:14:50

So we waited a few days and we got a police escort and we finally went through that area and came out to the other side and then went straight to

00:14:54

Pakistan.

00:14:56

Let me, let me ask you, Jimmy, that, you know,

00:15:00

there’s a lot of young people that will hear this.

00:15:02

And, you know, even with the pandemic, kids are still starting to move around the world.

00:15:08

And there’s going to be a lot more of that.

00:15:10

What was going through your minds right then?

00:15:12

Because you heard about this massacre, but you didn’t turn around.

00:15:17

You went ahead.

00:15:18

What was your thinking?

00:15:20

There was a lot of those points in those trips where you’d be in obvious danger you know like and now if i was in those situations i probably would

00:15:30

you know think a lot more carefully and a lot more you know sane and soberly and probably you

00:15:36

know do something else instead at the time i think i was 19 years old when i did that

00:15:41

so i really didn’t have you know know, any, any awareness of being afraid

00:15:47

of these things. I thought it was a big adventure. So I would be fine. You know, I just didn’t,

00:15:51

I don’t ever remember being, being worried about it. And what was greeting, what was there to

00:15:57

greet you in Tehran when you finally got through? Exactly. Yeah. So then we get to, we get to Tehran and they’re three weeks into the hostage crisis.

00:16:08

We had three people, you know, screaming at us in the double-decker bus because we stuck out like a sore thumb.

00:16:16

You could see us for miles. We drove past the American embassy to have a look.

00:16:20

We went, oh, they got the hostages. Let’s go take a look. So we went over there.

00:16:22

a look. We went, oh, they got the hostages.

00:16:23

Let’s go take a look. So we went over there. We had a

00:16:26

crowd of about a hundred people around

00:16:27

the bus and they were throwing rocks.

00:16:30

They smashed the front window, the

00:16:31

side window, and

00:16:33

they wanted to

00:16:35

fight the men and fuck the women.

00:16:38

They wanted to buy our jeans.

00:16:40

They wanted to, you know,

00:16:42

wreak havoc. And they put a

00:16:43

comic book in our gas tank.

00:16:47

And the comic book finally went through the fuel system

00:16:50

and decapitated the bus.

00:16:51

It was completely, you know, kaput.

00:16:55

And we had to get that fixed.

00:16:57

So then there was this situation with all these militant Islamists

00:17:00

and some loyalists or whatever,

00:17:04

and they all were kind of very threatening.

00:17:08

And again, it was, you know, right now, today,

00:17:11

it would have been a really frightening experience.

00:17:14

At the time, I don’t remember being afraid at all.

00:17:18

I’m just too young and stupid to be afraid.

00:17:21

So there is the advice,. Go while you’re young.

00:17:26

Exactly.

00:17:28

I did similar things.

00:17:30

Yeah. And you know, there’s

00:17:31

a couple people here that I know dying to ask

00:17:34

the question, do you know what the comic book was

00:17:36

that they stuffed in your tank? No, I don’t.

00:17:38

We pulled it out and we

00:17:39

were trying to, it was all in bits.

00:17:42

So we didn’t actually figure

00:17:44

out what the comic book was.

00:17:46

Okay.

00:17:49

Well, what other adventures during that period of your life really stand out as some of the things that really kind of shaped you for the future as far as where you’ve gone, how you’ve resisted regular authorities and made a wonderful life for yourself.

00:18:06

Well, I was more or less on the road for about, you know, 10 or 15 years.

00:18:12

Because it’s constantly moving.

00:18:14

And I would just go, you know, wherever the wind took me.

00:18:18

So I’d meet somebody and they’d say, oh, we’re going to this place and this place is cool.

00:18:21

Let’s go there.

00:18:22

And I’d just go and survive on the way and survive however I could when I got there.

00:18:28

I never really planned anything out.

00:18:30

It was just kind of, you know, a rolling stone.

00:18:33

And you left home when you were quite young, right?

00:18:36

15, yeah.

00:18:37

Yeah.

00:18:37

So from 15 to 25, you were really the rolling stone.

00:18:43

Pretty much, yeah.

00:18:44

Mostly around Europe and North Africa and Asia.

00:18:49

And then later on, you know, Central America and North America.

00:18:54

Now, here’s something that I think everybody’s going to be very pleasantly surprised about.

00:18:59

You’ve been married for a long time.

00:19:01

Tell us about how you met your wife.

00:19:03

Yeah.

00:19:04

We met her in Vancouver.

00:19:06

I hitchhiked into town with, you know, $20 and a broken camera and a subway token.

00:19:14

And I got recognized in the street.

00:19:18

I went to an address which I thought I had and there was nobody there.

00:19:22

So that fell through.

00:19:24

So I said, OK, I’ll go sleep in the park

00:19:25

I’ll go sleep in Stanley Park in a big park in the middle of the city I was walking down the road and

00:19:30

I met some people that were playing frisbee and they recognized me from playing in the street in

00:19:36

Toronto so they said hey we remember you you know playing at Young and Blur in Toronto and so they

00:19:43

invited me in and gave me a place to stay in the basement.

00:19:47

And I stayed there for a few days and I’d go out on the porch.

00:19:50

And on the opposite porch on the other side of the road was Veronica,

00:19:56

my future wife.

00:19:57

So she just showed up and we had a little wave.

00:20:00

And she waved back and she came over for coffee.

00:20:03

And then she started to come over with nectarines

00:20:06

and then she’d come and see me play at the zoo. I was busking at the zoo and she’d come by and

00:20:13

give me snacks and stuff and we struck up a friendship and then we did LSD together one night

00:20:19

and walked around Stanley Park all night and in the the morning, we came back. And instead of going to cross the road, I went into her place and never left.

00:20:29

That was 42 years ago.

00:20:33

That’s a wonderful story.

00:20:34

But as you’re telling it, the one thing that just had to jump into my Irish mind is that

00:20:39

didn’t you ever learn about women giving you fruit, the danger in that?

00:20:44

Oh, yeah, right.

00:20:45

It’s a classic.

00:20:46

It was a nectarine, though, not an apple.

00:20:49

Oh, okay, okay.

00:20:51

I figured I might be safe.

00:20:55

Didn’t you spend a little time, not while you’re young, but in your later years, in your more recent years, living in Amsterdam?

00:21:06

Yeah. young but uh in your later years in your more recent years living in amsterdam yeah i went to amsterdam a few times because it was kind of the gateway to europe and you leave england

00:21:10

kind of hitchhike across and go over to uh calais usually in france and then you hitchhike to

00:21:17

amsterdam that’s all usually the starting point so i’ve been there three or four times but uh we

00:21:23

did we did live there for a few months, like four, I think four, somewhere between like five months maybe, one time.

00:21:31

And we stayed there and had an apartment.

00:21:35

And Veronica worked for a psychiatrist.

00:21:40

And yeah, it’s a great town.

00:21:42

I love Amsterdam.

00:21:43

It was one of my favorite European towns.

00:21:46

Veronica’s also an artist, correct?

00:21:48

That’s right.

00:21:49

Very talented one.

00:21:50

Yeah.

00:21:51

How has Amsterdam changed over the years?

00:21:56

Well, it’s gotten bigger, you know.

00:22:00

It used to be a bit more smaller town feeling,

00:22:03

but it’s gotten to be a bigger city.

00:22:06

But as far as the ethos goes there and the people, it’s pretty similar.

00:22:10

You know, I was there, I guess, the last time just, you know,

00:22:13

maybe five years ago.

00:22:15

And it was, you know, it’s not that much difference, actually.

00:22:20

The people are very libertarian attitudes, very progressive society.

00:22:26

So that hasn’t changed really.

00:22:29

Although I’ve heard recently that they’re talking about tightening up on the coffee shops again.

00:22:33

They do this every few years.

00:22:35

They say we’re going to shut the coffee shops and then they try it and it doesn’t work and people keep doing it.

00:22:41

And then now they’re saying that they’re going to ban tourists from going to the coffee shops.

00:22:46

So, you know, they go through that every, you know, every five, six years or something like that.

00:22:50

They have cut down the number of them.

00:22:52

And I see recently they’re now talking about moving the red light district out of the area it’s in too.

00:22:57

Yeah.

00:22:57

And they’ve been talking about that for 20 years too.

00:23:01

And it didn’t happen yet.

00:23:04

You know, one of the greatest compliments i ever had in my life i

00:23:07

was in in amsterdam i think it was for a cannabis cup and and i was walking on the street and an

00:23:13

american tourist came up and started talking to me as if i was a native uh dutch person and started

00:23:19

talking to me in broken english asking if i could give directions. They took me for a native. I thought,

00:23:25

wow, you know, I’ve really got it made now. Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah, they’re super friendly.

00:23:31

I mean, the locals there are still, you know, they’re not jaded yet with all the tourism and

00:23:37

stuff and all the people passing through. They’re still super friendly and very centered and very

00:23:43

sort of sane and rational.

00:23:50

They’ve been in an international, cosmopolitan city for hundreds of years, too.

00:23:51

Yeah, yeah.

00:23:51

That’s right.

00:23:53

In their genes.

00:23:57

Before I ask any more questions and dominate this whole conversation,

00:24:02

let me open it up and see if anybody else here has a question,

00:24:03

something they’d like to ask.

00:24:04

Anybody here? Don’t all speak up at

00:24:07

once no well let me ask you one question how did you successfully be a very successful drug dealer

00:24:15

for over 50 years and not get arrested at all i think it’s because i wasn’t, you know, open. I wasn’t a drug dealer for everybody.

00:24:26

I was only a drug dealer for people that I only dealt drugs to people that I knew

00:24:30

and people that I trusted.

00:24:33

So it was all very much a tight circle.

00:24:36

I kept my circle very, very tight at all times.

00:24:39

And it’s mostly professionals, you know.

00:24:41

I’ve got a lot of doctors and dentists and lawyers and you know the the

00:24:46

pillars of society kind of thing so i’m not you know i’m not dealing to to sketchy people

00:24:52

or to anybody that’s uses drugs irresponsibly so i have uh high standards you know you got to be a

00:25:00

responsible drug user you got to know exactly what you’re doing you got to be doing it for the right

00:25:04

reasons you got to be a smart person doing smart drugs instead of a dumb

00:25:08

person doing dumb drugs you know yeah i did very go ahead i’m sorry go ahead no i mean i’ve only

00:25:15

and that’s the other point that i would make about being a dealer is that i’ve only ever dealt drugs

00:25:20

which i thought were good for people which I thought increased your perception and awareness

00:25:25

rather than drugs that don’t

00:25:27

there’s a huge

00:25:30

difference between psychedelics

00:25:31

and a lot of other street drugs and I’ve never

00:25:34

dealt any addictive street

00:25:36

drugs, only

00:25:37

psychedelics basically

00:25:39

when I was

00:25:42

reading your book I was taken with the fact that

00:25:44

back in the 80’s when I was in Dallas and I was selling MDMA, it was the same thing.

00:25:50

I was only selling to people that I either knew or that I had given them literature ahead of time and asked them to read it.

00:25:56

And then I’d ask them some questions, what they were thinking.

00:25:58

Yeah, yeah.

00:25:59

I was like that.

00:26:01

And, you know, I had a pretty good practice and I sold to a few clubs that my dealer gave to me.

00:26:07

But everybody that I was dealing with I felt very comfortable with,

00:26:11

and I wanted to make sure that they did the same thing.

00:26:14

And that’s one way to stay very careful, you know.

00:26:18

The shady people, like you say in your book,

00:26:20

are the ones that are going to do shady things.

00:26:23

Right, right, right.

00:26:24

Yeah, so, you know, I always chose my customers very carefully. book are the ones that are going to do shady things and get right right right yeah so uh yeah

00:26:25

now i always chose my customers very carefully and i didn’t just sell to anybody you know i had a lot

00:26:32

of people people would come up to me in clubs and want to buy something and i’d say no i don’t you

00:26:37

know i don’t have anything if i didn’t know them if i didn’t feel really good about them

00:26:40

if they came to a trusted friend i’d i’d talk to him but that’s about it so yeah

00:26:46

very very go ahead somebody’s i was gonna say i i i got to the point where i i i no no longer would

00:26:56

sell to anybody that i didn’t do drugs with you know and so i really really knew him like you in

00:27:02

in your uh when you had your your rave uh sessions going uh it really makes him. Like you, when you had your rave sessions going,

00:27:06

it really makes a difference if you have a crowd that is all in the same vibe.

00:27:12

They’re not all for different reasons.

00:27:14

You said when you were sending out emails leading up to a rave,

00:27:18

you were setting the expectations for that particular party.

00:27:22

Is that right?

00:27:23

Absolutely, yeah.

00:27:25

Everybody was really on the same page.

00:27:28

They weren’t coming to just get out of it

00:27:30

and have a big crazy party.

00:27:32

It was all very intentional.

00:27:33

It was like, okay, we’re going to go on this inner journey.

00:27:37

We’re going to connect.

00:27:38

We’re going to have a group mind experience

00:27:40

and we’re going to just go on the journey together

00:27:42

and see where it takes us and get connected.

00:27:44

And that was the intention. And so that’s what happened right you know there

00:27:50

was a group out of seattle in in the late 90s called the oracle gatherings and uh i i attended

00:27:56

a few of those and what they they created a tarot deck of i think 20 some cards that were unique for

00:28:02

them and each gathering was one of the cards.

00:28:06

And at the gathering, at the end of the gathering,

00:28:09

the cards that were left, they would pick one,

00:28:11

and that would be the intention for the next one,

00:28:13

which would be three or four months away or something like that.

00:28:16

Yeah.

00:28:17

And they did the same thing.

00:28:18

The whole theme, though, the whole rave then, they had, you know,

00:28:21

a lot of them were done outdoors,

00:28:23

so it’s sort of like many Burning Man theme camps. Right theme camp right right yeah it’s good to have a focus it’s good to have an intention

00:28:30

even when doing psychedelics if you’re going to do lsd or mushrooms or whatever it’s good to

00:28:35

it’s good to have an intention and and have a focus and and be aware of what you’re doing

00:28:41

and not just i mean i know people that do like five hits of acid and go to a horror movie.

00:28:47

I wouldn’t recommend that.

00:28:51

I wouldn’t either.

00:28:52

About the wrong setting.

00:28:54

I have a friend in LA who goes by the name Cinnamon Twist,

00:28:58

and he spent a couple of months in England living with Fraser Clark years ago

00:29:04

when Fraser was around.

00:29:05

Fraser was really instrumental in the early rave scene over there in the London area.

00:29:11

And Cinnamon Twist came back over here in L.A.

00:29:15

and he started a series of raves called The Learning Party.

00:29:18

And on a couple of them, myself and Mateo would go.

00:29:22

From like 11 till 12, they would have this lecture we’d talk

00:29:26

about ayahuasca or microdosing or something like that and then the music would start around midnight

00:29:31

and and uh then it wasn’t just us they had all kinds of different people come talk about yoga

00:29:36

and things like that but it was it was actually a learning party they did a little learning and

00:29:41

then a party and it was really an interesting mix of people that would show up for that because they weren’t just the candy ravers you know the people right

00:29:48

to get something out of it yeah yeah we were we were quite a you know a mature focused crowd

00:29:56

so it was quite a different scene than um you know than the younger parties where everybody

00:30:01

was you know like you say the candy ra. And they were all just freaking out.

00:30:06

We were a bit more focused than that.

00:30:08

It was an incredible time.

00:30:10

It was an amazing time.

00:30:11

Yeah.

00:30:12

I watched a lot of people’s lives, you know, change for the better.

00:30:16

So it was very satisfying.

00:30:18

And then I got exhausted.

00:30:22

It’s exhausting.

00:30:23

You’re right.

00:30:24

It’s for the younger people. you know about eight o’clock in

00:30:27

the morning and i didn’t start doing this till i was 40 so i get up at eight o’clock in the morning

00:30:31

get the thing going get the sound there get the equipment there make sure it was all set up get

00:30:37

the decorating crew on set up the whole thing and then i’d come back and eat, go back to the party, open the doors at 10

00:30:45

and then I’d be on the door until midnight or 1 o’clock

00:30:50

and then we’d shut the doors and that was it.

00:30:53

And then from that point on, I’d be doing E and dancing the night away.

00:30:59

And then in the morning, the lights went up, we’d have to pack it up,

00:31:03

we’d have to clean it up, We’d have to ship it out.

00:31:05

Then we’d go to the after party.

00:31:07

And then we’d do some acid at the after party and go all that day

00:31:11

and then go to sleep the next night.

00:31:14

There’s no way to turn off.

00:31:15

There’s no way to turn off.

00:31:17

Every weekend for almost 10 years.

00:31:21

And I look back on it now, and I don’t know how I did it.

00:31:24

I can’t do that now

00:31:25

you know for a 30 year old man you you you look quite well

00:31:29

charles has a question here yeah thanks lorenzo so jimmy lorenzo asked uh how you were able to

00:31:42

be a drug dealer for 50 years without getting busted. And my question is, what was the impetus to write the book now?

00:31:48

And what is the impact you’re hoping it’ll make putting it out there at this time?

00:31:55

I don’t know about impact.

00:31:56

I mean, I just wrote it because I wanted to tell my story because I have a lot of friends.

00:32:01

I mean, I have a circle of probably about 150 friends.

00:32:06

And a lot of them don’t know my whole story.

00:32:09

They know bits of it.

00:32:10

And I’ve told the odd story here and there.

00:32:14

But I just felt the need, because I’d been doing this for so long,

00:32:18

and because I knew so much about it, and I had something to say about it.

00:32:22

And I used a lot of the stories as springboards to

00:32:25

talk about you know to talk about philosophy or talk about you know things are important to me so

00:32:31

it was kind of a philosophical travelogue memoir and I just wanted to just wanted to get a personal

00:32:38

record really I don’t expect it to be a bestseller or anything. And I’m, you know, like I’m not even,

00:32:50

I’m not even advertising it in Canada just to be on the safe side.

00:32:54

But I am promoting it a little bit in the States.

00:32:59

And it’s just nice to have so that I can turn people on to it that I want to,

00:33:02

you know, that I’m happy to do that with.

00:33:05

But no, I’m not, I don’t have any great hopes for it.

00:33:07

I’m writing another book right now.

00:33:12

And I think that will be more widely read.

00:33:15

Less specialized anyways.

00:33:19

What’s the topic of your new book?

00:33:21

It’s a novel called The End of Everything.

00:33:28

And it’s about a character called Fritz, coincidentally,

00:33:36

who’s in sort of a nondescript mental asylum institution of some kind.

00:33:39

Not stated, understated.

00:33:43

Sort of like a Kafkaesque situation where you don’t really know what’s going on,

00:33:44

but you get what’s going on.

00:33:48

And he’s plotting to kill himself.

00:33:52

So basically he’s dissatisfied with, you know,

00:33:54

he can’t get out of this place.

00:33:56

So he’s decided he’s going to kill himself. So the whole thing is basically a suicide note and a rant on what’s wrong

00:34:00

and why it’s, you know, not worth living.

00:34:04

It’s a really, really uplifting tale.

00:34:08

It’s going to be hilarious.

00:34:10

Very timely and topical, that’s for sure.

00:34:12

I saw in the chat that Pat had a question.

00:34:15

Yeah.

00:34:17

Pat, I don’t know if you want to unmute.

00:34:19

Yeah, I was just curious if you had any unique or especially memorable stories of gifting whatever kind of drug away, whether it was a crazy setting or amount or a specific person.

00:34:36

Do you have any stories like that?

00:34:39

Well, in the early days of partying, I used to sell.

00:34:43

I used to sell E and make quite good money.

00:34:47

But after I’d made money and there was a tight circle of friends and stuff,

00:34:51

and I’d do private events for like 60 people or 70 people or whatever,

00:34:56

then I’d generally give out free E.

00:34:59

So I’d get a silver platter and I’d fill it with about a hundred hits of E on one side

00:35:05

and then a hundred little chunks of mushroom on the other side then I’d go

00:35:09

around with this silver tray and go around the party and offer it to people

00:35:15

and people used to love that so yeah I do I do enjoy giving uh and mostly these days i don’t i don’t sell uh any i just

00:35:28

give it away so i do still buy it but i don’t sell it i just uh i go i mean if i go to events

00:35:34

or people come to my house and i like to just give it away but people love that well i i i

00:35:43

don’t want to give any of this away because if they want to learn the details, they should go buy your book.

00:35:48

But you have some excellent example, excellent tips on how to bring substance to Burning Man.

00:35:55

I’m sorry that we didn’t cross paths there because you were a gifter supremo, I’ll tell you that.

00:36:02

Yes, that’s right.

00:36:03

Well, that was my gift.

00:36:05

It’s a gifting society,

00:36:07

so I wanted to bring something to gift,

00:36:08

and what better than E.N. Acid?

00:36:13

If people,

00:36:14

when Burning Man starts up again,

00:36:16

people want to know a surefire way to get stuff

00:36:18

there, they should buy your book, and they’ll

00:36:20

find some good stuff.

00:36:22

You’ll know how to do it. Well, our theme

00:36:24

camp, the first time we went to

00:36:26

burning man we went with another theme camp uh from vancouver the second time we took our own

00:36:32

theme camp which was basically my rave collective which was called the society for the perpetuation

00:36:37

of the pathogenic celebrations or spec so the events were called SPEC projects. So we took that name, and that was the name of our camp in Burning Man.

00:36:49

We called it the SPEC camp.

00:36:52

And we offered a gin and tonic LSD chill-out lounge.

00:36:57

So we had a bar with gin and tonics.

00:37:00

We’d give people an LSD, and then we’d have a little party at our camp

00:37:04

every night, and then we have a little party at our camp every night and then

00:37:06

we’d set off to the playa after the uh after the uh you know happy hour or whatever also very popular

00:37:14

what what year was that first year you were there you know i think it was maybe 2005

00:37:22

it was 2005 or 6 because you talked

00:37:26

about crude awakening the big oil

00:37:28

Derek that blew up

00:37:29

I think that was

00:37:31

2006 I think

00:37:33

and I think the year before

00:37:36

that was it the green man

00:37:37

yes I think

00:37:40

no wait maybe 6 was

00:37:42

no 6 wasn’t the green man was

00:37:43

I don’t remember when the Green Man was, Taylor.

00:37:47

Yeah, I can’t remember.

00:37:47

I think it was the year before.

00:37:50

Because we went two years in a row, and then we skipped a year or two,

00:37:53

and then we went back again.

00:37:55

And the last six is, 2006 year, we had the big tent with the Shulgens there,

00:38:00

and had some speakers.

00:38:02

I saw the Shulgens.

00:38:04

I went to meet, I saw the Sholgens. I went to meet.

00:38:05

I saw the Sholgens there.

00:38:07

I went to meet Sasha

00:38:10

and I gave him a copy

00:38:12

of my Rage Culture book.

00:38:14

And I met Rick Doblin there.

00:38:17

We’re like ships that pass in the night

00:38:19

because I organized that lecture

00:38:20

and I was the emcee that introduced him.

00:38:22

So we were within a few feet of one another.

00:38:26

Yeah, absolutely.

00:38:27

Yeah, yeah.

00:38:28

Yeah, that was good.

00:38:29

I enjoyed that.

00:38:30

No, I, that was my main event there.

00:38:34

I wanted to see, I wanted to see Alexander Shulgin and Anna and meet Rick Doblin.

00:38:39

So I did that and I gave them all a book.

00:38:42

And we had 32 speakers that year for Blanque Norte,

00:38:45

and the Shoguns were by far the largest one.

00:38:49

Yeah, yeah.

00:38:49

Best attended.

00:38:50

It was really amazing.

00:38:51

It was quite a day, actually.

00:38:53

Yes, yeah.

00:38:54

It was quite an event, really.

00:38:57

Do you think they’ll have another one?

00:39:00

I don’t know.

00:39:01

What do you guys think?

00:39:02

We were talking about that the other day.

00:39:04

I was kind of pessimistic, but I thought there was some optimism here for it.

00:39:08

I’ve heard some talk that there was some talk of moving to regionals.

00:39:13

Anyway, that was the general plan to move to regional events.

00:39:16

We have a very good one here in B.C.

00:39:19

But, yeah, I wondered if they survive, you know, two years survive two years of cancellations.

00:39:26

That’s a big hit.

00:39:28

Yeah, San Diego has a big regional event, too, that’s really well attended and quite good.

00:39:34

Nobody goes all out for the regionals because they’ve already burned out the main event and the playa.

00:39:40

So maybe the regionals will become a lot more interesting if that’s the way it goes.

00:39:44

I think that’s what way it goes i think

00:39:45

that’s what would happen if it did go down but uh they’ve got a lot of resistance now from the park

00:39:51

the park board and stuff the land management they’ve got a lot more restrictions and uh police

00:39:57

presence and uh you know all that stuff so it might they might just make it too difficult for

00:40:04

them to do it they might uh go to

00:40:05

regionals instead they’ll do something smaller at the land that they bought because they bought some

00:40:10

land right next to the main site i think right and in fact i remember now is i think it’s just

00:40:16

last thursday morning we were talking because uh uh one of one of the people there two of the

00:40:21

people there have been over to over 15 burns. One of them started in 1995

00:40:26

and the last

00:40:27

burn was in 2019. So they covered

00:40:30

the whole range of it. And we

00:40:32

did a lot of talking about how it has changed

00:40:34

and gotten big and all like that. So

00:40:35

personally, I don’t

00:40:38

know how it’s going to be, but

00:40:40

the first time I went, it was only like

00:40:42

20,000 people. And

00:40:43

that was really a lot more fun from the standpoint of you could see almost everything that was being talked about.

00:40:51

You get around to see right now.

00:40:53

That’s really not possible.

00:40:54

So, you know, I think, you know, Burning Man is an evolution in society and culture.

00:41:00

And so it’s going to be interesting.

00:41:02

It’s a state of mind, you know.

00:41:04

Yeah, exactly. So it will carry on as a state of mind for sure you’ll carry on in other events

00:41:10

like it does here with the regionals and with other events too there’s like there’s people

00:41:16

now that do burning man style events they’re not you know they’re not sanctioned by burning man or

00:41:21

anything they’re not regionals but they’re certainly inspired by

00:41:25

so that doesn’t change though the ideas the ideas and the ethos will continue

00:41:30

and and take other forms i think in the future how do you see the the uh let’s just say the

00:41:39

cannabis community in in uh the vancouver area evolving now that they’ve essentially legalized,

00:41:45

sort of like we have here in California.

00:41:47

How is the culture evolving, not necessarily the business?

00:41:52

It was a bit lumpy there for a while because they had all these different systems going.

00:41:57

They had like three different systems going at one point.

00:42:00

And then everything was supposed to be replaced by the cannabis,

00:42:06

the National Cannabis Act. point and then everything was supposed to be replaced by the cannabis the national cannabis act so they were going to be you know legalized on a national level for recreational and medical use

00:42:12

so at that point that was supposed to supersede everything else but then people complained about

00:42:18

that so they sort of grandfathered in a lot of these other programs that predated legalization.

00:42:26

So now we’ve got kind of a bit of a confusing mess.

00:42:29

And there isn’t really a clear licenses for everybody.

00:42:33

There’s boutique growers now.

00:42:35

I know some growers that are, you know, they’re still growing

00:42:37

and they’re still, they know that they’re growing, they’re tolerated,

00:42:41

but they’re not technically legal because they don’t have a production license.

00:42:50

And production licenses are very difficult to get you know they cost a lot of money and uh you have to um you have to pay all this money in advance they’re heavily taxed it’s a very very

00:42:56

tightly controlled system and a lot of people are just walking away from it and saying no it’s it’s

00:43:01

too restrictive and it damages the product like a lot of people that

00:43:05

are buying from the legal stores now they’re not they don’t like the pot it’s so dry it’s old

00:43:11

it’s been sitting around for too long uh they don’t get to see it or touch it or smell it

00:43:17

they’ve got it in plastic boxes with a sniffing tube so you have to sniff it through i mean it’s not it’s not you know it’s not the

00:43:27

same thing as having a look and you know taste it maybe taste having a taste or whatever so

00:43:32

there’s still a very big thriving underground here so far and it’s the part on the underground

00:43:39

is cheaper and it’s better so i imagine i imagine eventually it will move to a completely legal

00:43:47

system i mean it has to really i mean it is legal so but there’s these bugs to work out you know

00:43:55

they need to up their quality and move it through the system faster or something because there’s a

00:44:00

lot of complaints about quality you know there’s a very similar thing here in California,

00:44:05

and we found that we look at packaging,

00:44:09

and you see the film canister packaging is still your best bud

00:44:13

because it’s your local grower, you know.

00:44:15

It doesn’t have all the taxes, and it’s got a good organic bud.

00:44:19

You know that.

00:44:20

So we’ve had the same thing going on down here, the same evolution. I don’t think it’s

00:44:27

going to go away for a while. It seems like everybody that’s legalizing so-called are

00:44:33

really just adding all kinds of bureaucratic regulations to it.

00:44:36

Yeah, and people aren’t used to that. We’ve had a perfectly good pot system in this area

00:44:42

for the last 40 years with no problems.

00:44:46

Good quality, good selection, good prices.

00:44:49

The sellers are happy.

00:44:50

The buyers are happy.

00:44:51

The whole system worked very, very well.

00:44:54

And now, some of it’s not working very well.

00:44:59

So it hasn’t been an improvement so far.

00:45:01

Until it is, I think there’ll still be a healthy underground

00:45:05

you know once a month i join this live podcast with my friend uh the dope fiend over in london

00:45:12

and uh he he does his podcast we have people from from france england canada uh australia

00:45:19

and us on the line and a couple months ago they did a survey or he did a survey and we all chipped in and,

00:45:27

and Ted said,

00:45:28

what kind of bud was our favorite bud?

00:45:30

And by a long shot,

00:45:32

it was BC bud.

00:45:33

Your reputation in Vancouver area,

00:45:36

BC area is just.

00:45:39

That’s right.

00:45:40

The standards are very high.

00:45:42

People are very,

00:45:43

very fussy.

00:45:43

Like if it’s not,

00:45:44

you know,

00:45:48

quadruple a park, they don’t want to know.

00:45:48

It’s big range.

00:45:49

It’s like, forget it.

00:45:52

So we have very high standards.

00:45:53

We’re very fussy.

00:45:56

I think these are the cannabis cup.

00:46:00

Like, I don’t know how many years in a row, but it’s always way up there.

00:46:02

It’s always, it’s always wins all the prizes.

00:46:03

I don’t know why that.

00:46:05

The quality is very high. no pun intended, right?

00:46:07

Exactly.

00:46:11

So, somebody else here, do you want to

00:46:13

chime in?

00:46:17

I’ll jump in to build on Pat’s question.

00:46:21

Apart from just

00:46:21

being a really popular guy by

00:46:23

giving away and gifting medicine.

00:46:26

What is the,

00:46:27

the spiritual or personal benefit that you accrue from having that ethic?

00:46:32

What have you learned?

00:46:33

What do you,

00:46:33

how does this help your development?

00:46:36

I don’t know.

00:46:37

I enjoy being generous and I,

00:46:39

you know,

00:46:40

I’ve always sort of enjoyed that.

00:46:42

I just get a,

00:46:43

I just get a kick out of it because it makes people happy.

00:46:46

And I like people to be happy.

00:46:49

So if I can do something and they’re happy, then that makes me happy.

00:46:52

And it goes around and around.

00:46:54

So there’s a sort of a selfish motivation there in a way.

00:46:58

I mean, I take a lot of people on vacation.

00:47:04

So if I’m going somewhere and, you know, a lot of my friends,

00:47:09

I have lots of friends that don’t have as much money as I do.

00:47:11

So, you know, it’s more fun for me if I can take them as well.

00:47:16

So I pay the shot and we all go and we have a fantastic time.

00:47:20

But it’s more fun if you can take your friends with you when you go places.

00:47:24

We do vacation rentals in this area,

00:47:27

and there’s places where you can rent for like 12 or 16 people.

00:47:32

We’ll get together crews, you know, hand-picked crews,

00:47:34

and we’ll go and we’ll have a party one night and an LSD hike the next day

00:47:39

and do these big, crazy dinner parties, and it’s fantastic.

00:47:43

And so I just pay for the whole thing and, and invite people along.

00:47:48

And I can do it. So I feel good about that.

00:47:51

And everybody is very happy about it.

00:47:56

You know, I was just thinking if you were a wall street robber baron and,

00:48:01

and people, you were taking people on vacation, they would probably resent you, but the fact

00:48:06

that you made your money

00:48:08

in an honest profession, making

00:48:10

people happy, you can share the

00:48:12

wealth, I think that’s a wonderful

00:48:13

way to do it. Great karma.

00:48:16

Yeah, yeah.

00:48:17

It works for me anyway.

00:48:21

I like

00:48:22

to be, it’s fun for me

00:48:24

to be generous. I enjoy it. I get as much out like to be, you know, it’s fun for me to be generous.

00:48:27

I enjoy it. So I get, I get as much out of it as,

00:48:29

as people that benefit from it.

00:48:34

You know, you, you sort of mentioned in passing that there, there’s a,

00:48:36

there’s a lot of philosophy in your book and,

00:48:41

and I have dozens of pages with yellow underline where I did.

00:48:43

You have a lot of things that, of course,

00:48:46

I underline the things I agree with, you know, right.

00:48:50

There’s also a lot of other references, things I’d forgotten about, like, like what’s that name? That movie, Fitz, Fitz,

00:48:55

Fitzcarraldo. Fitzcarraldo. You mentioned that movie. I hadn’t,

00:48:59

I’d seen it years ago. And so this weekend I watched it again.

00:49:03

It’s just a terrific movie. I’d forgotten all about it.

00:49:06

And then I watched a bunch of videos about the making of it and all.

00:49:09

So that just spun off of your book.

00:49:12

And another thing that you got me spinning in an old direction where I was

00:49:18

having a lot of fun is, as people should know, and I’ll put a link to it,

00:49:23

you’ve got a couple dozen music videos up on YouTube.

00:49:26

Yeah, yeah.

00:49:27

So I started watching them.

00:49:29

And the ones you have with your band, it’s a cool, funky little band

00:49:34

because it’s got you on the guitar, the drums, a horn,

00:49:38

I think it’s a cornet or a trumpet, and an accordion.

00:49:42

And the accordion, it’s an unusual combination so cool and what

00:49:46

that reminded me of is a band i used to love in the 90s called morphine and it was a three-piece

00:49:52

group out of boston and they’re just fantastic with another really unusual sound so uh i i i

00:50:00

you still you still get together with your band uh? I don’t have a regular band. I just put together those groups specifically for the videos.

00:50:09

So for those of you that don’t know,

00:50:12

my YouTube channel is just under my name, Jimmy Fritz.

00:50:16

And I made 26 music videos in the last couple of years.

00:50:22

And I wanted to kind of document my original songs.

00:50:25

So I’d take a song and some of them are ballads.

00:50:29

So some of them are solos, some of them are duos,

00:50:32

some of them are trios.

00:50:34

And then, you know, I’d find musicians for each song.

00:50:37

We find a location and we’d shoot maybe two videos

00:50:41

in each location.

00:50:42

And then just put together the bands ad hoc.

00:50:46

The accordion player was just a friend of the drummer’s,

00:50:48

and he was coming to the rehearsal.

00:50:50

So we’d do one rehearsal, play the song and get the idea,

00:50:54

and then we’d go and do the shoot, and we’d do it three times,

00:50:58

and then we’d pick the best take.

00:50:59

So this Argentinian accordion player showed up,

00:51:05

and he just like clicked in and did his thing and got groovy.

00:51:09

It was fantastic.

00:51:11

So, yeah, it was just a chance meeting, really.

00:51:14

So all those bands were just temporary just for the video.

00:51:17

I didn’t perform with any of those bands.

00:51:20

Now, who is James Fry?

00:51:23

Oh, he’s a publisher.

00:51:25

Okay. He’s a publisher of my books

00:51:29

okay

00:51:30

because you give him credit for all the songs

00:51:33

oh that’s right

00:51:34

I couldn’t find a songwriter

00:51:41

named James Fry

00:51:42

he might be an alter ego.

00:51:50

He’s another one of my many names.

00:51:55

You know, I have a plan for my last podcast,

00:51:57

which I hope is many, many years from now.

00:51:58

But on my last podcast,

00:52:01

originally I was going to play Jim Morrison’s This is the End at the last.

00:52:03

And then I started thinking about Woody

00:52:06

Guthrie’s

00:52:07

song, So Long

00:52:10

It’s Been Good to Know You. But now I’m

00:52:12

going to check with you when I get close to the end.

00:52:14

Time to Say Goodbye is my

00:52:16

local latest favorite

00:52:18

for that because it’s also by somebody that

00:52:20

I know now.

00:52:21

Well, you’re more than welcome to use it for

00:52:23

whatever you want.

00:52:25

Hey, listen, I got this. I’m a lawyer too. I’ve got a public record now. Well, you’re more than welcome to use it for whatever you want. Hey, listen, I got this. I’m a lawyer, too.

00:52:28

I’ve got a public record now.

00:52:30

You got it.

00:52:32

You got my permission.

00:52:33

I will not abuse it, I’ll tell you that.

00:52:36

Yeah, yeah. Good.

00:52:38

No, I’d be happy for you to use it for whatever

00:52:39

you want. I like that song.

00:52:41

It worked out very well.

00:52:43

It’s a good song. It is.

00:52:45

So,

00:52:47

we have a little bit of time left here. Anybody else

00:52:50

have something they’d like to chime in

00:52:52

or ask any questions or

00:52:53

comments?

00:52:57

Anyone?

00:52:57

Looks very nice, it says.

00:53:01

Ed Z.

00:53:02

This is Ed

00:53:03

over here.

00:53:05

I’m wondering what the deal is with mushrooms in Canada now.

00:53:10

I think I’ve seen online people selling, it looks like dried cubensis and stuff like that.

00:53:20

Well, mushrooms are still technically illegal in Canada.

00:53:23

Well, mushrooms are still technically illegal in Canada,

00:53:27

but there was an exception recently for,

00:53:31

there’s a company in Vancouver called Theracil,

00:53:35

and they’re a therapeutic psilocybin organization.

00:53:40

They want to do therapy with psilocybin for end-of-life patients,

00:53:43

and that’s the first study that they’re doing,

00:53:45

and they were recently licensed by the canadian government to do these um trials uh with uh with psilocybin so it’s the first time

00:53:53

that psilocybin has been legal to use in probably 40 or 50 years i think so it’s a major breakthrough

00:54:02

so they’ve licensed the people that are taking it and they’ve licensed

00:54:05

the therapists that are going to give it to the patients and they’re going to do this study and

00:54:11

do it with an end-of-life patients anxiety with end-of-life so that’s happening right now

00:54:17

and vancouver city council has just voted on a motion to decriminalize the possession of all

00:54:25

drugs.

00:54:27

So that’s another new development,

00:54:30

but as of now,

00:54:31

generally mushrooms are technically illegal still.

00:54:34

Okay.

00:54:35

So somehow the people doing it on the web or just in a gray area or just,

00:54:41

well,

00:54:41

it’s very tolerant here.

00:54:44

You know,

00:54:44

even before marijuana was legalized we had

00:54:48

pot stores in every corner and the police just didn’t bother with them oh really you know it

00:54:56

was considered to be a gray area i don’t know what the gray area was they were technically illegal but

00:55:00

they just tolerated it i mean the the police chief in Vancouver said about it

00:55:06

must have been three or four years ago he said you know we’re not we’re not

00:55:09

concerned with small amounts of drugs anymore it’s a waste of that time it’s a

00:55:14

waste of money and we’re not going to enforce these laws anymore and they

00:55:18

stopped enforcing marijuana laws and small amounts of drugs you know quite a

00:55:23

while ago but they’re just in the

00:55:25

process now of making it formal and making it making it legal yeah he’s gonna look at it as

00:55:32

a medical issue rather than a criminal one yeah yeah especially all these people they’re picking

00:55:38

up off the street for you know meth heads and crack addicts and stuff it’s pointless to be

00:55:43

criminalizing these people and putting them in jail.

00:55:46

It doesn’t do anybody any good.

00:55:48

So if they can decriminalize it,

00:55:51

then they just go straight into the medical system,

00:55:53

which is where they belong, right?

00:55:56

Yeah.

00:55:57

Seems like we’re moving that way here in Portland,

00:55:59

but our healthcare system is so messed up,

00:56:02

it’s hard to see how it’ll really connect

00:56:04

in a meaningful way with anything like that.

00:56:07

Everything’s going that way. You can see the dominoes falling one by one and it’s easy to see where it’s going to end up, you know, eventually.

00:56:16

But we are, things happen so slowly. It’s very, very slow process to change laws and to change the establishment’s mind.

00:56:24

to change laws and to change the establishment’s mind.

00:56:26

And it’s always been a very slow process.

00:56:30

But we’ve seen some incredible progress around the world.

00:56:33

Around the world are places where they’re legalizing it.

00:56:37

Uruguay, there’s legal recreational marijuana now.

00:56:39

It was legalized, all drugs.

00:56:43

There’s lots of cities and local municipalities,

00:56:46

which are now like Vancouver.

00:56:48

That’s what happened with marijuana.

00:56:52

It was the municipalities and the small like it was called, what was it,

00:56:54

Sensible Colorado.

00:56:58

It was an early movement and they said, no, we’re just going to legalize it in our town because we don’t want to enforce these laws.

00:57:01

And that spread to provincial and state levels and then eventually

00:57:06

to national levels so it starts starts small and grows but no i think we’ve seen some good progress

00:57:13

especially in the last with psychedelic research especially like there’s been an avalanche of

00:57:18

of psychedelic psychotherapy going on all around the world right now. There are dozens and dozens of studies in MDA and Ibogaine, DMT,

00:57:28

mushroom psilocybin.

00:57:29

It’s really booming right now.

00:57:32

It’s a huge, and I was hoping that my book might ride that wave a little bit

00:57:38

because there’s a lot of interest in these things right now.

00:57:42

And I think there’s a lot of pretty good, solid, sane information about psychedelics in my book.

00:57:48

So hopefully somebody will get some benefit from that.

00:57:53

There’s a great deal of good information about psychedelics in that book about setting and, you know, how to balance your life, things like that.

00:58:00

How to deal with children.

00:58:04

Confessions of of drug dealer folks

00:58:06

it’s very nice

00:58:09

2D

00:58:10

you know it’s interesting what you’re saying about

00:58:16

the way it’s going

00:58:17

about legalization at the

00:58:19

community level because

00:58:21

I think really the culture has

00:58:23

already changed much you know the laws are way behind the culture has already changed much.

00:58:25

You know, the laws are way behind the culture.

00:58:28

And a few weeks ago here in the Lifesalon,

00:58:30

we had a couple of the people who are leading the charge in Massachusetts,

00:58:34

and they’ve been doing the same thing, going around to city councils,

00:58:39

you know, smaller bodies.

00:58:41

And they’ve had success in several cities that are fairly large cities in

00:58:44

Massachusetts that have decided

00:58:47

to decriminalize their drugs.

00:58:50

They’ve put it in the lowest category.

00:58:52

And their strategy is the same.

00:58:54

They go around all these local communities and eventually build up

00:58:57

to get to the state level.

00:58:58

Yeah, yeah.

00:58:59

Yeah, it’s a model that’s been used over and over now,

00:59:03

and it seems to be used more often and in more places and more frequently.

00:59:07

So we’re seeing a real acceleration right now in the acceptance of psychedelics

00:59:13

in particular and the benefits, you know,

00:59:16

because they’ve been illegal for so long we haven’t been able to study them.

00:59:19

We haven’t been able to figure out what they’re really good for.

00:59:22

You know, I mean, the people that have been using them all their lives

00:59:25

know what they’re good for, but not the general public, doesn’t.

00:59:28

And society in general has not, you know, learned how to use them.

00:59:32

So hopefully with more legalization, there’ll be more studies.

00:59:36

Something that’s happening in Canada right now with marijuana,

00:59:39

because it’s legal, anybody can do a study now.

00:59:42

You know, you can use it can you can use it and you can

00:59:46

study it and you can find out what it does and what it doesn’t do and what it’s good for and

00:59:50

what it’s not good for so we’ll finally find out well one other thing i’d like to give you a chance

00:59:56

to to say a little bit about is you’re a vegetarian right yeah and you said your your two sons are in their 40s and they never eat have never eaten meat

01:00:06

never no still yeah yeah it’s quite peaceful because i thought they probably i didn’t know

01:00:13

whether they would you know stick with it or not but they were brought up as vegetarians

01:00:17

and so they never you know really knew about meat until they were old enough to think about it and

01:00:23

then by then i guess they guess they were lifelong vegetarians,

01:00:27

but neither one of them was eating meat.

01:00:31

So, yeah, and they’re 36 and 38.

01:00:35

Well, you know, like most Americans from the Midwest,

01:00:39

I grew up, you know, meat and potatoes was our diet,

01:00:41

and so it’s been really difficult.

01:00:43

I’ve spent, you know, one year eating

01:00:45

raw food only, so I had no meat then, and I’ve spent a couple years vegetarian, but the older I

01:00:50

got, the more I was really kind of craving it, going back and eating protein, so lately, though,

01:00:54

I’ve taken up cooking as a hobby, and I’m finding all kinds of recipes to make things taste like

01:01:00

meat, you know, eggplant. I’m making some good eggplant bacon these days and so uh it’s

01:01:06

that flavor that i’m so craving because i grew up with it but your son’s never having had that

01:01:10

flavor oh have an advantage i think no they’ve never missed it because they’ve never had it

01:01:15

there’s a lot of really good meat substitutes out there now there’s a lot of really awful ones too

01:01:20

but there’s some very very good ones and uh you know i’ve poured through those and found some

01:01:26

found some really good sausages and some really good there’s a thing called pepper steak it’s

01:01:31

really chewy and nice and you can do what you want with it you know chop it up put it in anything

01:01:36

there’s some good substitute chickens and there’s all kinds of uh there’s all kinds of food there’s

01:01:42

an avalanche of that happening right now too and then soon we’ll have the uh you know the the uh biological meats the lab grown lab grown meats

01:01:51

where they’re growing it with cells and you’ll have a steak which is a real steak but it never

01:01:56

came from an animal so that will satisfy the hardcore meat eaters I’ll be honest with you. I would prefer one of my vegetables

01:02:05

made to taste like meat to a

01:02:07

vat-grown piece of meat.

01:02:09

I don’t know why, but I would.

01:02:12

Go ahead, Ed.

01:02:13

Ed, you were saying something?

01:02:15

I was just wondering,

01:02:17

Jimmy, why are you a vegetarian?

01:02:20

It sounds like a principled

01:02:21

long-time practice.

01:02:23

For me, it’s more… There are a lot of good reasons to be a vegetarian.

01:02:28

You know, it’s ecological, it’s more economical, it’s better for the environment.

01:02:32

If there’s one thing you can do for the environment, it’s become a vegetarian.

01:02:37

It’s the best thing you can do because there’s so many different reasons.

01:02:41

But for me, it’s mainly a moral issue.

01:02:41

different reasons.

01:02:43

But for me, it’s mainly a moral issue.

01:02:51

I do think that, you know, it’s unethical or immoral to torture and slaughter billions of sentient beings for my culinary pressure.

01:02:57

It seems like it’s not a good enough reason.

01:03:00

And I ask people, you know, why they eat meat,

01:03:02

and they always say the same thing, because it tastes good.

01:03:05

But there has to be a better moral reasoning than it tastes good.

01:03:11

For me, that’s not.

01:03:13

And if, you know, if you wanted to, if people saw more about the processing

01:03:18

of meat or slaughterhouses, you know, they’re really horrific places.

01:03:24

Anybody that’s ever had a relationship with a cat

01:03:26

or a dog or a pet you know that these animals have feelings you know that they have an emotional life

01:03:34

they’re not robots they’re you know they’re beings they’re not as conscious as we are they’re not as

01:03:41

smart as we are but they are they are beings and they feel pain and they

01:03:45

get pissed off and they get angry and they get you know there’s a lot of similarities so once

01:03:50

you recognize that to me there’s no difference between a cat and a dog and a sheep and a pig

01:03:54

and a cow they’re almost identical animals they’re just slightly different sizes so you know if you’re

01:04:03

okay with that with animals then you’ve got to be okay with factory farming

01:04:06

dogs factory farming labradors or you know cats but people love their cats meat eaters love their

01:04:14

cats i never could never figure it out explanation for that i don’t

01:04:27

explanation for that i don’t well you don’t often hear i don’t often hear people um

01:04:35

address their vegetarianism from the moral side and or the ethical side rather than the you know more sort of benign environmental or health issues yeah and there are a lot of good

01:04:41

i used to i used to distribute a pamphlet. It’s called 101 Reasons to be a Vegetarian.

01:04:46

It’s been around for a long time and I, you know,

01:04:48

buy a big stack of them and I leave them in people’s bathrooms.

01:04:53

There’s 101 and any one of these reasons would be a good enough reason.

01:04:58

But the fact that there’s so many is food for thought.

01:05:06

Charles?

01:05:08

Like Ed, I’m here in Portland, Oregon,

01:05:11

and now that there’s a path to being a legal therapist,

01:05:15

every 10th person that has a good mushroom experience

01:05:18

decides they’re going to become a shaman.

01:05:19

But you actually have curated mass medicine experiences for people, which gives you more right to the claim than most of, you know, holding shamanic or psychedelic space.

01:05:32

So what is, two-part question, what are some of the pitfalls people should have in mind?

01:05:37

And two, what is the most memorable experience that you’ve created for people in your experience of curating medicine realms?

01:05:45

Well, I think the most memorable experience were the spec projects.

01:05:51

And that was, you know, watching 200 people really connect,

01:05:55

like a click in, like a web.

01:05:57

You know, you get to a point where you build and build and build

01:06:00

and the energy and then people would take that.

01:06:03

And I try to get people to take their E at the same time or around the same time so that the whole wave would come up at the same

01:06:10

at the same rate and then you see people start to click in they start to intensify and then the

01:06:16

atmosphere and the atmosphere gets you know heavier and heavier and then there’s a point where everybody

01:06:21

clicks in and they’re all in the same place. This is group mind connection.

01:06:27

And when you see that and then you look around and you,

01:06:29

and people catch each other’s eyes and they know exactly where you’re at and

01:06:33

you know exactly where they’re at. That’s a, you know,

01:06:36

it’s a very powerful experience. Most people, most people have lost.

01:06:40

I mean, most, most people have lost personal connection with,

01:06:44

with other people

01:06:45

they don’t have this close meaningful you know uh unconditional connection with people there’s

01:06:51

always some bullshit going on between them so they’re always trying to get past that well this

01:06:56

just blew the doors off and that was all gone so it was just people raw naked connected and that

01:07:04

was that was the most powerful psychedelic experience

01:07:07

as I ever had, because it was also involving 150 or 200

01:07:12

or 250 people.

01:07:14

So that sort of intensified the whole experience.

01:07:17

What was the drug?

01:07:19

MDMA.

01:07:22

This was at parties, spec parties.

01:07:26

The Society for the Perpetuation of Empathogenic Celebrations.

01:07:31

Empathogenic is something that engenders a feeling of empathy.

01:07:35

So that’s what MDMA does, you know.

01:07:37

It gives you an empathetic feeling, not just towards other people,

01:07:41

but also an empathetic connection with yourself.

01:07:46

And for a lot of people, they had that experience for the first time they’d be you know whether they were

01:07:51

25 or 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 years old you’d see them have that experience for the first time in

01:07:58

their lives and they and people used to tell me this all the time they said for the first time in my life i felt absolutely

01:08:05

unguarded absolutely wide open connected positive and felt really good about my connection with

01:08:12

everybody in the room and myself have you ever seen that with uh classic psychedelics in a big

01:08:22

group setting yeah well more or less smaller.

01:08:26

I mean, if you’re doing psilocybin or acid, for instance,

01:08:30

it’s more of a smaller group works well.

01:08:33

Acid gets a bit weird if there’s 200 people.

01:08:37

200 people peaking on acid is a bit much.

01:08:43

But smaller groups, I mean, I’ve had incredibly powerful experiences with small groups of,

01:08:48

you know, five or ten people in a beautiful setting in a, you know, a forest or a lake

01:08:54

or an ocean or whatever, you know, like outdoors in nature.

01:08:58

Had some very, very powerful experiences and powerful connections.

01:09:02

And again, you’re all on the same page.

01:09:04

You’re all in the same frame of mind. You all you know presumably friends at that point so yeah that can be very

01:09:10

powerful as well but definitely smaller groups with lsd or psilocybin mike something that that

01:09:16

jimmy makes really clear and and i totally agree and it’s not made clear enough by enough people

01:09:21

is the rave movement really wouldn’t have happened without mdma

01:09:25

mushrooms acid all those things can be used and sometimes are but mdma and raves are synchronistic

01:09:31

uh for sure yeah yeah it was just never a drug i’ve had the opportunity to to uh take even though

01:09:40

i live down here in texas where it was fairly prolific from what I understand.

01:09:47

Yeah. Well, the Texas thing was happening in the clubs, right?

01:09:51

Yeah.

01:09:52

That was a slightly different scene.

01:09:54

It wasn’t until it married in the mid eighties when it married with the,

01:09:58

it was at the end of the free party scene in England.

01:10:02

And these were parties that were happening just before,

01:10:01

It was like the free party scene in England.

01:10:07

And these were parties that were happening just before ecstasy hit.

01:10:10

And they were, you know, in fields at night,

01:10:11

and they were impromptu parties.

01:10:14

They were with psychedelic rock bands and stuff,

01:10:16

and people would just get together in fields.

01:10:18

And it was called the free party movement.

01:10:20

Well, that sort of went down to Ibiza,

01:10:27

and then that married with house music and ecstasy, and it all came back to england together and that was the start of the rave music but it was that synthesis of the uh of the music

01:10:32

and the e that’s what really brought it together i’m not sure it wouldn’t have happened in the

01:10:38

same way previous to that there were acid house parties where people were doing lsd

01:10:42

that was a that was a fun scene too but it didn’t like catch on like fire because it was something that people really needed and

01:10:50

something that people really wanted they wanted that connection they wanted to feel that connection

01:10:55

to other human beings i think that’s what we all need we all want to you know we all want to love

01:10:59

and be loved that’s a fundamental drive as human beings. And what he and the

01:11:05

abandoned, you know,

01:11:07

the climate of freedom

01:11:09

that was created at the raves

01:11:11

gave people, you know, this

01:11:14

incredible connection, this interconnected

01:11:16

interpersonal

01:11:17

journey.

01:11:20

And it was really, really powerful for

01:11:22

a lot of people. Changed a lot of people’s lives,

01:11:24

including mine.

01:11:27

Mike, I look forward to maybe some night dancing all night on E to a rave with you.

01:11:36

I think that would be incredible.

01:11:38

I intend to do it again in my life, and I’ve still got time to go.

01:11:42

So we should be able to hook that up and do it sometime, Mike.

01:11:45

Well, we’re in touch.

01:11:46

Let me know when you’re coming up this area.

01:11:50

What a great thing to say, Lorenzo.

01:11:52

I’m looking forward to expanding my experiences since I’ve been a bit

01:11:58

unexperienced for 30 or 40 years or so, but things are moving along well.

01:12:04

So I’m very, I’m very hopeful for these.

01:12:07

I tell you what, on my wishlist,

01:12:09

my big time dream,

01:12:10

I have one travel dream left

01:12:12

is I want to take the train route

01:12:15

that it leaves from Vancouver

01:12:16

and it goes up through the Rockies

01:12:18

and up to Banff and back,

01:12:21

you take a bus and all.

01:12:22

Anyhow, the starting off

01:12:24

and return point is Vancouver. So when I do that, you take a bus and all. Anyhow, starting off and return point is Vancouver.

01:12:26

So when I do that, you could meet me in Vancouver.

01:12:29

We’ll hook up with Jimmy and we’ll make it happen.

01:12:31

We’ll dance all night on E.

01:12:33

You got it.

01:12:34

I’ll do a party for you.

01:12:38

I think a bunch of us want to come up for that.

01:12:40

Okay, listen.

01:12:42

For the end of the pandemic, the end of the pandemic rave in vancouver put it on

01:12:46

your calendars everybody okay well you know what that actually will be the most healing thing at

01:12:51

the end of the pandemic is if folks can actually connect on some empathogenic level that’s uh

01:12:57

that’s a good thing out into the universe that’s right we need it more than ever now right because

01:13:02

we’ll be so disconnected for so long that it’s going to be,

01:13:05

it’s going to be nice to get back on the dance floor.

01:13:09

You know, I live in Portland where, you know, before the pandemic,

01:13:12

you would have the Proud Boys and Antifa come out to yell at each other about

01:13:16

every two or three months.

01:13:18

And I always realized that these folks don’t need to yell at each other.

01:13:21

What they need is some Ian, Brian, Eno,

01:13:23

until they figure out that they’re the same.

01:13:26

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

01:13:29

I agree.

01:13:34

I think we’ve had a successful conversation because we have a plan now for the end of the pandemic party.

01:13:36

And I think that as long as we have something to look forward to and smile,

01:13:40

that’s as good as we can get for now. But Jimmy,

01:13:43

I hope to have you back sometime and

01:13:45

we’ll talk. I’m going to get your other book and read it. We’ll have you come back and talk about

01:13:49

that. OK, we’ll be in touch. Nice to meet you. Same here. Listen, everybody. Until next time,

01:13:55

keep the old faith and stay. OK. Peace and love. Peace and love. Thank you. Same here. Bye bye.

01:14:02

Bye. And for now, this is Lorenzo signing off from cyberdelic space namaste my friends