Boulder Weekly 4.14.2022

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The cannabis culture issue

Social equity in cannabis is more of the same, p. 8

Up your cannabis grow game, p. 12

Colorado’s CBD sippers, p. 25

2022

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news:

Licensees in Colorado’s cannabis-industry social equity program say the playing field is far from level

by Caitlin Rockett

film:

Anticipating Sight & Sound’s once-a-decade best of poll

by Michael J. Casey

boulderganic:

Master grower Chris Baca shares tips, tricks and hacks for taking cannabis home grows to the next level

by Will Brendza

8 11 12 14

buzz:

Meet the local glass artists blowing Boulder’s pipe scene to new heights photos by Susan France

nibbles:

Functional meets festive in the fruity new CBD sippers canned in Boulder

by John Lehndorff

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departments 4 6 7 21 22 23 29 30

The Anderson Files: Amazon workers’ win and fragile promise of union revival Opinion: Presidential selection transparency issues at the University of Colorado Letters: Signed, sealed, delivered, your views Events: What to do when there’s nothing to do Astrology: By Rob Brezsny Savage Love: Clap back Cuisine: Boychik and Lost City Coffee Weed Between the Lines: What does April 20 even mean and why is it associated with cannabis at all?

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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APRIL 14, 2022

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Publisher, Fran Zankowski Circulation Manager, Cal Winn EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief, Caitlin Rockett Senior Editor, Emma Athena News Editor, Will Brendza Food Editor, John Lehndorff Contributing Writers: Peter Alexander, Dave Anderson, Rob Brezsny, Michael J. Casey, Shay Castle, Angela K. Evans, Mark Fearer, Jodi Hausen, Karlie Huckels, Dave Kirby, Matt Maenpaa, Sara McCrea, Rico Moore, Adam Perry, Katie Rhodes, Dan Savage, Alan Sculley, Tom Winter SALES AND MARKETING Market Development Manager, Kellie Robinson Account Executives, Matthew Fischer, Carter Ferryman Mrs. Boulder Weekly, Mari Nevar PRODUCTION Art Director, Susan France Senior Graphic Designer, Mark Goodman CIRCULATION TEAM Sue Butcher, Ken Rott, Chris Bauer BUSINESS OFFICE Bookkeeper, Regina Campanella Founder/CEO, Stewart Sallo Editor-at-Large, Joel Dyer April 14, 2022 Volume XXIX, Number 32

As Boulder County's only independently owned newspaper, Boulder Weekly is dedicated to illuminating truth, advancing justice and protecting the First Amendment through ethical, no-holds-barred journalism, and thought-provoking opinion writing.

Free every Thursday since 1993, the Weekly also offers the county's most comprehensive arts and entertainment coverage. Read the print version, or visit boulderweekly.com. Boulder Weekly does not accept unsolicited editorial submissions. If you're interested in writing for the paper, please send queries to: editorial@boulderweekly.com. Any materials sent to Boulder Weekly become the property of the newspaper.

690 South Lashley Lane, Boulder, CO, 80305 p 303.494.5511 f 303.494.2585 editorial@boulderweekly.com www.boulderweekly.com Boulder Weekly is published every Thursday. No portion may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. © 2022 Boulder Weekly, Inc., all rights reserved.

Boulder Weekly welcomes your correspondence via email (letters@ boulderweekly.com) or the comments section of our website at www.boulderweekly.com. Preference will be given to short letters (under 300 words) that deal with recent stories or local issues, and letters may be edited for style, length and libel. Letters should include your name, address and telephone number for verification. We do not publish anonymous letters or those signed with pseudonyms. Letters become the property of Boulder Weekly and will be published on our website.

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Amazon workers’ win and fragile promise of union revival

by Dave Anderson

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his April Fools’ Day, David beat Goliath. It wasn’t a joke. Workers at Amazon’s huge warehouse on Staten Island voted to form a union by a wide margin. Amazon is this nation’s second largest employer, and PBS Frontline said it’s “one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world.”

The New York Times reported, “No union victory is bigger than the first win in the United States at Amazon, which many union leaders regard as an existential threat to labor standards across the economy because it touches so many industries and frequently dominates them.”

Last November, a group of more than 200 public health experts sent a letter to Amazon calling on the company to improve its working conditions.

An investigation by the group found that Amazon workers had: “Nearly double the national average rate of warehouse workplace injury;” “Chronic stress from the workload and work quota system;” “Risk of contracting APRIL 14, 2022

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chronic and infectious disease due to lack of restroom access and inadequate COVID-19 protections.”

There are many discontented Amazon workers across the country. Turnover is 150% which means that a typical worker stays for less than a year. Nevertheless, many have decided to stick around, organize and fight back. At Amazon’s Bessemer, Alabama facility, a union drive led by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) was crushed by a two-to-one margin in an election in April 2021. In November, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ordered a second election this March after it determined that Amazon’s intense intimidation tactics were illegal “flagrant unfair labor practices.”

The union lost again but by a small margin. There are enough contested ballots that the outcome might be reversed.

There’s an important difference between Bessemer and Staten Island. More workers in New York state are union members (20%) than in Alabama (6%). Higher union “density” creates a positive “word of mouth” message among working people.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, union members in Colorado accounted for 6.5% of wage

see ANDERSON FILES Page 5

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

ANDERSON FILES from Page 4

and salary workers. Since 1989, when state data became available, union membership rates in Colorado have been below the U.S. average every year except 2018.

Nevertheless, Geof Cahoon, president of Boulder Area Labor Council (BALC), has reason to be optimistic. BALC is the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizing) alliance of unions in Boulder, Broomfield, Clear Creek, Summit, Lake and Gilpin counties. He says, “I have been involved with the labor council for almost a dozen years now. I don’t recall as many simultaneous labor actions going on as is happening today” in BALC’s six counties.

Cahoon notes that when the King Soopers workers went on strike recently, many people refused to cross the picket line—so much so that other grocery stores were running out of food.

Unite Here! (the hotel and restaurant workers union) recently organized the 90 bakery and kitchen workers at Boulder’s Google complex. He says 75 of them signed up to join the union in three days. They instantly got a $3 raise.

In 2020, more than 30,000 state government workers got collective bargaining rights. They are represented by Colorado WINS (Workers for Innovative and New Solutions). Last November, these historically underpaid workers signed a contract with across-theboard raises, a minimum wage hike and more paid time off.

United Campus Workers Colorado is stirring up what civil rights leader John Lewis called “good trouble.”They are organizing the entire University of Colorado system workforce including part-time and full-time university staff, faculty, and graduate and undergraduate laborers.

Boulder County government employees have an “organizing committee,” Cahoon says. They plan to affiliate with a national union after they are organized. In the meantime, the AFL-CIO is providing a data base, legal counsel and training.

The nurses at Longmont United Hospital won their election to establish a union recently. It took the local National Nurses United union eight months and a change in administration of the hospital.

“It was a very close vote, “ he says. “Six

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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ballots were challenged. The battle was fought locally, regionally, nationally.”

Nothing comes easy for the labor movement. But something big is happening. Victories at Starbucks, John Deere, Nabisco, Kellogg’s. According to Gallup, public support for unions is its highest since 1965.

The AFL-CIO commissioned the progressive pollster Data for Progress to conduct an online survey of 1,300 voters asking them if they “approve

APRIL 14, 2022

or disapprove of employees going on strike in support of better wages, benefits, and working conditions.”

Not surprisingly, 87% of Democrats approved of the walkouts. But 72% of independents and 60% of Republicans were also supportive.

This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.

Send op-ed submissions to editorial@boulderweekly.com.

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Presidential selection transparency issues at the University of Colorado

by Aaron Harber

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ith the selection of current interim President Todd Saliman as the sole finalist for the presidency of the University of Colorado system, CU’s governing Board of Regents still have the opportunity to keep their promise of transparency to the citizens of the State of Colorado—including those who elected them.

As someone who benefited from the resources provided by the University, including learning how to program while I was at Fairview High School, and who has had multiple roles related to CU as a parent of a CU student and as a CU fundraiser, I have great affection for the University.

And, as a former member of the Princeton University governing Board of Trustees and as a current member of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, appointed by Gov. Jared Polis and confirmed by the Colorado Senate, I know the single most important responsibility of the Board of Regents is the selection of a president to lead an institution with a +$5 billion budget covering 70,000 students and 37,000 employees at the CU Boulder, UC Denver, UC Colorado Springs and Anschutz campuses.

The Regents had promised the community a transparent process but, once again, have named a single “finalist” to avoid disclosing the names of other applicants.

Until a year ago, the literal reading of the Colorado Open Meetings Law and the Colorado Open Records Act required public institutions to disclose who finalists were. However, last year a law was passed, which allows the naming of only a single “finalist.”

In the previous presidential search, the Board’s Democratic and Republican members had unanimously advanced only one candidate—Mark Kennedy—and described him as the sole “finalist,” despite others who clearly were finalists.

Kennedy ultimately was hired on a partisan 5-4 vote (Republicans, 5; Democrats, 4). Today, Democrats have a 5-to-4 majority.

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By denying CU community members and all other Coloradans (including the voters who elected the Regents) the list of applicants for the position—or at least the list of finalists—the 2019 Regents made it impossible for anyone outside their circle to assess the quality of their decision-making.

The key point is that disclosure of those who applied for the job gives the public the ability to evaluate the quality of the Regents’ single most important decision. Without the ability to assess the list of candidates, the public has no way of knowing how well the Regents performed.

When one of the 2019 Regents or a related party leaked the list of its 30 candidates, the public got the opportunity to evaluate the job the Board did, and most then graded the Regents with an “F.” This didn’t mean Kennedy could not have been a good president. It simply meant the Regents made a poor, clearly politically-motivated decision. Coloradans hope this egregious approach is not repeated in the current search process.

The Regents, and their peers at other public institutions and agencies, validly argue that disclosing the names of applicants or even just the finalists is likely to discourage some of the most attractive, highest-quality candidates from applying.

They posit that many potentially exceptional candidates would be loath to have it known publicly they were interested in leaving their positions.

This is a strong argument in favor of not disclosing the names of many, if any, candidates, especially if an institution wants to maximize the number of exceptional applicants.

However, there is an equally strong argument that, even with the possibility of applicants’ names being made public, the applicant pool still would include exceptional candidates.

This was proven when the previous list of 30 candidates was unofficially disclosed publicly (contrary to the University’s position), because many of the candidates were unconcerned about that revelation.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

NOTICE TO CREDITORS

OPINION from Page 6

The 2019 list proved that, even if half the candidates had not applied, the Regents still could have made a better choice.

It also is fallacious to assume disclosure of an applicant’s name is deleterious to every candidate.

In some cases, having one’s name announced as someone who is being considered for such a prestigious position is an asset and actually increases that person’s chance of eventually securing such a position.

The presumption that disclosure of someone’s interest in a superior position is always seen in a negative light is false, especially in higher education.

The best leaders of institutions surround themselves with the highest quality people they can find. They assume these people will eventually seek other positions and top leaders actually support the efforts of those serving on their team.

The ultimate question is: Does the public’s interest in being able to evaluate the performance of their elected representatives supersede the desire to maximize the number of applicants?

The nomination of Todd Saliman as CU’s next president certainly is

a safe choice, especially given his experience with the University, his leadership in key state and CU positions, and the success of his service to date. There’s no question Saliman is a good choice and certainly could be by far the best candidate compared to his 38 competitors.

But, unless some or all of those competitors are named, the public will have no way of knowing whether the Regents made the best choice for CU and for the State of Colorado.

The Regents have the legal right to name only a single finalist. Hopefully, for the benefit of Colorado’s citizenry, before their final vote, the Regents will decide to disclose multiple names so everyone can more accurately determine how good a job they did performing their most important duty.

Aaron Harber hosts “The Aaron Harber Show” (harbertv.com/info, email aaron@harbertv.com). This opinion does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.

IN SUPPORT OF THE LIBRARY DISTRICT My name is Jennifer Yee and I am a resident of unincorporated Boulder County. A quick maps search tells me that I live 305 feet inside the northern boundary of the proposed library district. I’m also a small business owner and investor, along with my husband I own a personal care and waxing studio in downtown Boulder.

I strongly support the creation of a Boulder library district. I only recently came to understand that I am a library card holder that benefits from a source of funding to which I do not contribute. As a corporate citizen and member of the community, it is both my duty and my desire to contribute to the sustainability and growth of the public library and its services.

I have two young children, 7 and 4, who have both spent their whole lives in Boulder. The public library has been a central part of our family’s experience of Boulder, including the welcoming children’s section and story times; public

programs on race and climate change; and the respite the library provides on the rare few days the weather isn’t perfect in Boulder.

I’m most excited about the prospect of library branches closer to my home, including the new promised branch in North Boulder and satellite branches in Gunbarrel and Niwot; of expanded and equitable access to library services for all Boulder residents; and of library jobs being restored to pre-pandemic levels.

I am disappointed the County Commissioners have again delayed this process. The library needs sustainable funding, not any cobbled together mix of funding that is subject to the whims of sales taxes or who holds political office in the city council. I urge county and city leaders to continue this work without delay to create a library district, so we can vote on sustainable funding this fall.

Jenn Yee/Longmont

Estate of Jan F. Kreider, aka Jan Frederick Kreider, aka Jan Kreider, aka Dr. Jan Kreider, Deceased.

Case Number 2022PR30120.

All persons having claims against the above named estate are required to present them to the personal representative or to the District Court of Boulder County, Colorado on or before August 15, 2022, or the claims may be forever barred.

Macon Cowles, Esq., Attorney for the Personal Representative, 1726 Mapleton Avenue, Boulder, CO 80304

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The cannabis culture issue Greenlining

Restrictive zoning policies, overly broad qualifying criteria and ‘flat-out greed’: Licensees in Colorado’s cannabis industry social equity program say, one year in, the playing field is far from level

by Caitlin Rockett

A

ri Cohen qualified because he was once busted with more than 40 pounds of pot. Aja Palomino was stopped in Wyoming with an eighth of weed in her car. Sarah Woodson’s husband had a pound of marijuana on him. For Chris Chiari, it was a sibling’s multiple marijuana arrests that qualified him for Colorado’s cannabis-industry social equity license.

Colorado has approved 69 social equity licensees since launching the program in April 2021, an attempt at “fostering an inclusive and equitable cannabis industry ... that acknowledges the effects of decades of criminal enforcement of marijuana laws on communities of color,” according to the Marijuana Enforcement Division (MED).

Even today, eight years into recreational legalization in Colorado, Black residents are still more than twice as likely to be arrested for cannabis as white residents, despite usage rates being similar. Ownership in the cannabis industry is equally lopsided: The MED reports that those who disclosed themselves as Caucasian held 82.3% of owner licenses, compared to 3.1% of those who disclosed themselves as Black and 8.2% for Hispanic/Latino.

Simply put, the social equity program was created to give those negatively impacted by the war on drugs—predominantly Black and Brown folks—a path into the cannabis industry. But a year in, interviews with five qualifying licensees (plus another half dozen industry folks) reveal shared frustrations with the program—from restrictive zoning policies to overly broad qualifying criteria, a lack of collaboration and “flat-out greed”—and a general consensus that it’s not leveling the playing field the way it was intended to.

“All the big (cannabis) companies have found ways—all of the rich white people have found ways—to wiggle their way into the front of the line on the equity programs—it’s happening everywhere,” says Wanda James, owner of Pure Genesis, the first Black-owned dispensary in the U.S., with locations in Denver and Edgewater. James is not a social equity licensee, but with lobbyist Samantha Walsh, James has

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been a vocal proponent at the state Capitol for creating legislation and policy that open the cannabis industry up to communities of color. “[The cannabis] industry was built on the backs of Black and Brown people; Black and Brown communities were destroyed [by the war on drugs]. Mass incarceration is directly linked to cannabis,” James says. “So this is why ownership and equity, the opportunity to be on boards, to be directors, to be in the C suites, to be in the management offices, all of these things should be taking place in this industry right now, because none of these [multi-state operators] would be making $1.3 billion if it wasn’t for Black and Brown people.”

Hemp was crucial to colonial America— clothes, canvas for ship sails, etc.—and enslaved African people worked the hemp fields for white colonists.

In his book Marijuana: A Short History, John Hudak explores how politicians across the political divide spent most of the 20th century using marijuana to create laws playing “on some of America’s worst tendencies around race, ethnicity, civil disobedience and otherness.”

James expresses frustration at who has received some of Colorado’s first social equity licenses, pointing to white applicants Ari Cohen, co-founder of doobba delivery service, and Chris Chiari, owner of Patterson Inn, where Chiari plans to open a marijuana lounge.

“Equality really is just giving people the equal opportunity to the same resources, but equity, I think, [takes] different circumstances of different people into consideration,” Cohen says.

“I personally don’t feel that there’s a race aspect attached to it.”

Where the exact language of the qualifying criteria for the social equity application is concerned, Cohen is right. Applicants must fall into just one of three parameters to qualify: 1) residing for at least 15 years between 1980 and 2010 in an economically distressed area, often called an Opportunity Zone; 2) having themselves or a parent, legal guardian,

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sibling, spouse, child, or minor in their guardianship been arrested for a marijuana offense, convicted of a marijuana offense, or been subject to civil asset forfeiture related to a marijuana investigation; or 3) have a household income that did not exceed 50% of the state median income.

But Cohen, arrested with more than 40 pounds of cannabis in his position nearly 30 years ago while in college, also doesn’t think the social equity program is helping the right people the right way.

“If two of the three [qualifying criteria] have to do with economic reasons, then how can somebody [who] qualifies under [either of ] those two circumstances be able to afford the licensing at the state or local level? It almost seems impossible,” Cohen says.

For a retail marijuana store in Colorado, it costs $5,000 for the application and another $2,400 for the license, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of dollars it takes to secure a location, hardware and software for sales transactions, products, employees, marketing and more. Cohen says he and his wife have been advocating for the state to either waive or credit back licensing fees for social equity applicants.

“There were no reductions in fees” for social equity applicants says Chiari, who was among the first in Denver to submit a cannabis hospitality license (the first hospitality license went to Tetra Lounge in Denver—also a white owner). “Those carrying costs become burdens that in no way have been relieved through this new licensing.”

As for being “a white face in the social equity application,” Chiari says, “I don’t feel like I’ve taken advantage of anything.” While declining to go into details about his sibling’s marijuana-related arrests, Chiari says there’s “trauma related to that narrative.”

Hermine Ngnomire, a social equity licensee based in Longmont, doesn’t take issue with people like Chiari—someone capable of purchasing a hotel in Denver’s Cap Hill—parBOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

ticipating in the social equity program, nor does she begrudge the way he qualified for the program through a family member’s marijuana arrest.

“My issue is not that he’s been successful in life—kudos, we should want people to be successful,” says Ngnomire. But she does believe the qualifying criteria for social equity licenses are overly broad. Her solution would be to add another criteria for public housing, and require applicants to meet two out of four criteria, rather than just one of three. “That’s the way to get around some of these shenanigans,” she says.

In Denver, dispensaries must be 1,000 feet away from schools, childcare facilities, drug treatment facilities and other dispensaries.

Many say such set-back rules are particularly detrimental to social equity applicants. Denver’s Baker, Five Points, Northeast Park Hill, Overland and Valverde neighborhoods—all predominantly Black and Brown—are unavailable due to regulations that aim to prevent an “undue concentration” of dispensaries like what resulted in Denver’s “Green Mile” on South Broadway.

“Many people, myself included, are calling [this] the new version of redlining,” Ngnomire says. “Call it redlining, weedlining, greenlining—they’re screwing over Black and Brown people by saying any new entrants into the [cannabis] space will not be afforded the same opportunity to put up their dispensaries in markets, on streets, that actually can make them profitable. ... The most appropriate place to put the next dispensary is within two feet of another dispensary. So it needs to be allowed across the board for social equity.”

Regarding social equity delivery licenses, Ngnomire joins all other social equity applicants interviewed for this story in a chorus of displeasure. While the state has placed exclusivity on social equity delivery licenses through 2024 (meaning only social equity applicants can obtain delivery licenses between 2021 and 2024), municipalities decide for themselves whether they allow delivery services, with only a handful of Colorado cities choosing to do so. The state also codified no requirement that dispensaries pair with social equity delivery services.

“Delivery companies are seemingly sitting in limbo,” Chiari says—dispensaries could fortify another layer of the industry by using the delivery companies that’ve recently begun operating, and “yet there seems to be a reluctance to embrace.” As a hotel, the Patterson Inn wouldn’t be eligible to contract a delivery service (regulations prevent delivery to anywhere other than a private residence). “Everyone’s just waiting for their bite at the apple,” he adds. “[Dispensaries are] almost waiting out those three years, and then they’ll bring it all in-house. That frustrates me.”

Sarah Woodson, whose grassroots organization The Color of Cannabis was deeply involved with social equity policy creation at the Capitol, says her delivery business, High Demand Delivery, only has one client in Aurora: Terrapin Care Station.

“In Denver there’s 209 [dispensaries], and maybe about eight of them deliver,” Woodson says. “And the one social equity person that happens to be a white guy has the majority of all the contracts. … The elephant in the room is always the race thing, because [dispensaries will] work with a white social equity person that applied from a criminal background, but [they] won’t give a Black or Brown person that same opportunity.”

Woodson’s biggest gripe, however, is with a lack of fidelity between Black cannabis-business owners.

“It’s not the Ari Cohens of the world” who are the problem in social equity, says Woodson. “The question is, really: Wanda [ James], why don’t you do delivery?”

She also points to other Black-owned cannabis businesses in the Denver area. “What are [they] doing to help?” Woodson asks. see GREENLINING Page 10

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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GREENLINING from Page 9

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“The conversation isn’t going to be about race. They’re going to say the exact same thing that any other industry person will say to you: [delivery] doesn’t work. It doesn’t make any money. But I personally know that they are going to do it themselves. So, you’re going to do the same thing the white guy is doing before you hire a person of color to do your delivery?

“You guys have access, you have power, you have experience, but you’re doing the exact same thing. And why? Because you don’t want to share your money,” she adds. “It’s flat-out greed.

Nothing more, nothing less.”

When asked via email why Pure Genesis didn’t pair with a social equity delivery service, Wanda James replied: “Because of the cost, we don’t see an upside to making that business model work.”

The city of Boulder currently only allows delivery of medical marijuana, according to licensing manager Mishawn Cook. And unlike Denver, which has prioritized social equity licenses until 2027, Boulder has placed no focus on social equity applications, nor has the city opted into recreational delivery or hospitality.

“The reason you haven’t seen anything happening in Boulder around social equity is because you need new licenses to attach social equity to,” says Peter Marcus, communications director for Terrapin Care Station. “Boulder is more or less saturated in terms of dispensaries at this point. So we’ve been talking with the Cannabis Licensing and Advisory Board (CLAB) for years now about delivery, and about cannabis hospitality, lounges and stuff like that. It’s a broken board. It doesn’t move anything forward, really, just a lot of talking. So we’ve been encouraging the board to create new delivery and hospitality licenses, so that you can create new opportunities for Black and Brown entrepreneurs to get in.”

CLAB board member Ashley Rhinegold is director of compliance for Terrapin Care Station. She connected Boulder Weekly with Marcus, but by press time had not responded to questions around why the board hasn’t moved forward with recommending new licenses and social-equity focused programming to City Council.

Despite all of the frustrations, all social equity applicants expressed hope that the program could be improved. In March 2021, Gov. Polis signed a measure securing $4 million for loans, grants and technical assistance to social equity marijuana licensees. Applications for the first round of funding closed on April 11.

“I put my blood sweat and tears into [helping craft] the social equity program, so I know that it is an ongoing process,” Woodson says. “People don’t understand: Change is incremental. When Amendment 64 first passed there was legislation on the state and local level every year, every month to get to the point where we’re at, where the existing industry has their stake.

We’ve only been working at [social equity] for two years. The work doesn’t stop at year two.”

Cohen says he sees how hard people like Woodson and James are working to bring equity to fruition, “lobbying and pushing for the legislation.”

“Now it really requires officials at the state level and at the local level to look at the program,” Cohen says. “We’re telling them what needs to happen for it to be improved, to honor all the work that people like Sarah have done. If you’re saying that you want the program to be successful, you have the social equity community telling you things that we think are wrong with the program that can be improved. You’re hearing the same things. Just can you do it now? Can you do something?”

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

The Natural Funeral transforms first Coloradoans into compost soil.

On March 20th, 2022, Seth and Chris of The Natural Funeral returned the first transformed human remains to the Colorado earth at a historic ceremony at The Colorado Burial Preserve in Florence, CO.

Top ten territory

Anticipating Sight & Sound’s once-a-decade best of poll

by Michael J. Casey

W

hat does it take to make a masterpiece?

Not something merely good, but among the greatest of all time.

Meaningful not just to the time and place it was produced, but to the time and place with which it is seen. A work of art to be saved and shared, something that says: “We are here, and look what we can do.”

Last week at the Conference on World Affairs at CU-Boulder, a few hundred movie lovers gathered in the dark of Macky Auditorium for a shot-by-shot dissection and discussion of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. The program: Ebert Interrupts, named in honor of the late, great film critic who started the annual panel in 1975.

This year’s host: critic and author Josh Larsen, who subsequently invited Denver film writer Walter Chaw and National Geographic explorer Asher Jay to add further views of a movie familiar to many. The details the speakers and audience pulled out of the film were as numerous as the questions left unanswered.

Paul Schrader—who’s had a hand in more than one masterpiece in his day—says the best movies start when the credits roll. They make you think about your relationship to the world within the frame. Directed by a lesser filmmaker, Jaws might’ve had a couple of scares and a satisfying ending. But in Spielberg’s hands, Jaws gnaws at the back of your mind. Ask anyone about the movie, and you’re likely to hear a personal story about how terrified they were of the water after seeing it. Then again, consider the endless interest in shark-themed programs that have bubbled up in the wake of Spielberg’s blockbuster.

Jaws isn’t the only masterpiece on my mind these days. Later this year, the British film magazine Sight & Sound will conduct its once-a-decade world poll. The question: What are the 10 greatest films of all time? How voters define “greatest” is up to them— Essential? Favorite? Groundbreaking? Political?—but the results create an interesting consensus of film culture. You might quibble with a title or two, maybe the ranking of fourth place over fifth, but rare is the film lover who dismisses the top ten out of hand.

The films featured in past Sight & Sound polls are canon. But canons are exclusionary. Go through the seven decades of Sight & Sound’s polls: The titles are consistent.

It’s the placements that fluctuate.

That’s bound to change this year—and not just the ranking, but there’s a good chance the whole 20th-century canon gets tossed out. One of the more fascinating developments of movie appreciation in the last decade is not just the rejection of the ivory tower but a rising interest in marginalized movies and movie-makers. Viewers today are seemingly more cued into who is telling the story and from what place of privilege (or not) the movie comes.

The announcement of Sight & Sound’s world poll is always an exciting moment in the cinema sphere. Those ten titles will launch a thousand think pieces and rebuttals.

They’ll also become guiding lights for future film lovers while indicating what today’s cineastes hold dear. After going through Jaws a shot at a time, it’s easy for me to include it among the ten best. That may sound like high praise for a blockbuster about a killer shark, but as Roger Ebert liked to point out: Movies are not what they’re about. They’re how they’re about what they’re about. And the how of Jaws is damn near perfect.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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(TNF’s Seth and Chris with Chrysalis composting vessels.)

Call or email Karen, or chat with any of our staff about Body Composting or our other green and holistic services: Water cremation (eco cremation) Green burial and Reverent Body Care® (an honoring of the physical body using pure essential oils). Flame cremation is also available.

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The cannabis culture issue

Up your home grow game

Master grower Chris Baca shares tips, tricks and hacks for taking cannabis home grows to the next level

by Will Brendza

T

hese days, it’s so simple to go into a dispensary and buy high-quality, trichrome-frosted cannabis that it’s easy to forget that you can grow your own weed at home. Sure, it takes far more care and patience, but with a simple setup and the right kind of green thumb, growing cannabis at home can be a very rewarding project.

There’s a lot of nuance that goes into growing pot, though. You can’t just jam a few seeds into a pot of dirt and expect a fruitful cannabis plant to sprout up (well, you can— but you’ll probably end up with some malnourished schwag, instead). Home grows take planning and precisely controlled environments to pull off successfully.

Chris Baca is intimately familiar with all that. Before becoming the cultivation operations manager for The Clinic’s flagship grow in Denver, he was a home-grower himself. (And not necessarily just as a hobbyist, he says.)

Baca was the obvious expert to consult for a guide on how to up-level your home grow. So we called him to talk about the craft he’s spent his career perfecting.

Where to start?

When beginning a home grow, there is a choice that every cultivator must make: To start with seeds? Or to start with clones?

“I've seen a lot of people struggle with seeds,” Baca says. “Just getting them to fully germinate and actually get some good roots

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on them [can be difficult].”

Baca suggests planting the seeds and creating a “dome-system” using a dixie cup with holes punched in its bottom, turned upside down over the seed. That creates a greenhouse effect that will help the seeds put deeper roots down and sprout faster and healthier, Baca says.

By contrast, clones cut those first few steps out entirely.

“Clones are already a living plant, so it's easier to work with from the start,” Baca says.

He mentions a few brands of machines like Oasis, EZ Clone and Turbo Clone—devices that allow cultivators to grow clones in small square slots without soil. “And they’re actually good for tomatoes and other plants, too,” Baca adds.

Putting down roots

The flower of a cannabis plant is only as good as the soil it grows in. That’s why Baca recommends mixing your own soil and avoiding the commercial premixed bags.

“One of the best ways you're going to be able to [grow good cannabis] is organically composting soil. You can mix some basic soil with a cocoa medium or any kind of medium, and that'll give you a good live soil. Then add some worm castings in there, a little bit of fish and kelp and other little additives … that will build a better environment for your plants” he says. “That would be better than doing it with actual store-bought soil.”

Either way, Baca says, when you’re finished harvesting your plants (we’ll get there) don’t immediately throw that soil away.

“If you had no pests and everything was in control, you can reuse that soil again,” he

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says. “I would do it at least once, sometimes twice, depending on the situation.”

Setting up a set-up

An enclosed space is better than growing in the open air. Not just because it better protects the plants from pests and infections, but because it’s far easier to control the environment, and it contains a lot of the mess, according to Baca.

“Just the overall fact of having an enclosed area is beneficial,” Baca says. “It's all easily closed, so there's no worry about lights and timing.”

It’s also very discreet, he adds. Which matters less now that cannabis is legal in Colorado, but still makes a difference when you have guests over. Most modern homegrow tents are unobtrusive enough to fit inside a small closet, behind a couch, or even in the corner of a living room.

Lights

Baca says LED light systems are the only way to go, for any home-grower paying their own electric bill. Not only do LEDs use less energy, they last longer than metal halide bulbs (reducing waste), and they also produce less heat, making vertical gardening a possibility for those with high ceilings, and reducing the need for powerful fans or HVAC systems.

Most LED gardening lights also include dimmers that can be adjusted throughout the life of the plant to mimic different phases of natural light. Baca says he usually starts his baby plants off with low light and slowly ramps it up as the plants get bigger.

“Just like a small child. You don't want to

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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Growing Up

Dry salts are commonly used for soil nutrients because they are the cheapest form of plant fertilizer. But organic fertilizers and water-soluble fertilizers are better for the plant and better for the environment, Baca says.

Really though, it all comes down to building your soil’s “NPKs” (aka nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium). Those elements are what you’re trying to boost in the soil to feed your plants—but be careful not to go overboard. Cultivators need to “follow good feed charts and keep those [NPKs] in control,” Baca says.

Keeping a close eye on the Ph and EC (electrical conductivity) of the plants’ soil is also essential. Good feed charts will provide guidance on this as well, but Baca usually aims for a Ph of 6 and an EC of anywhere from 1.2-2.0 depending on the stage of the plants’ growth. Ph and EC meters are available on Amazon or in your local garden store.

Between six and seven weeks into growth, the plants have to be “moved” from the vegetative phase into flowering phase.

At The Clinic’s commercial grow, that means physically picking up the plants and putting them in a different room.

At home it just entails switching the light schedule from 18-hours on and six-hours off for veg, to 12-hours on and 12-hours off for flower.

“You have to deal with how big your plants are getting, too," Baca says. "If it's a strain that grows relatively quickly, you typically don't want to let it grow too much in the veg phase because then at the flower phase, depending on the strain, it could grow another foot in size. I've seen some plants almost double in size."

And of course, he adds, double and triple check your light timers (because technology fails) and consistently monitor the humidity and other environmentals of your grow space.

Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, & Boulder Book Store

Harvest/dry/trim

Between three and five months (depending on the strain and environmental factors), you’ll have fully grown plants, with big healthy stalks, fat green leaves and glorious nugs flowering at the top.

Watch closely for the leaves to start turning yellow and curling in. When the nugs look plump and delicious and don’t seem to be growing any more, harvest time has arrived, Baca says.

Cut the plant at its base and trim the big leaves first (to promote airflow for drying) and then trim away the smaller leaf matter either before drying or during. Once the stalks are trimmed, they’re ready for curing; hang them upside down in a temperate, dry, preferably dark room using strings like laundry wires and let them hang out for five to seven days, until the buds' humidity is down to 60-65% (which you can check using a humidity meter). Then, Baca says, it’s ready.

Cut the stalks away from the bud, fill your home jars with your homegrown, pack a fresh bowl of the good stuff and light up. You’ve earned it.

“Just be patient,” Baca says. “Just have fun and appreciate the plant.”

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The cannabis culture issue Meet the local glass artists blowing Boulder’s pipe scene to new heights, photos by Susan France Henry Grindrod Insta: @thewiscokid_glass

How long have you blown glass?

Since 2010.

What—or who—drew you to the art form? I started right out of high school when a buddy bought a torch and glass on Craigslist, and we set it up in my garage. I’ve always loved science, fire and art, so I was immediately drawn to the process. Shortly after trying, I got my own equipment and started talking to as many people as possible, reading online tutorials, and learning through trial and error, as I supported the hobby as a pizza boy in those initial years.

How do you develop concepts for pieces/ what inspires you?

I develop concepts by talking to anybody who will listen and bouncing ideas around, plus lots of trial and error and prototyping work that I end up keeping. I’m also inspired by traveling, and actually spent five years living on the road in a van—I managed to visit and make glass in all 50 states.

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What are some of your favorite techniques to include in pieces? I love working with vibrant, opaque colors and doing chaotic, bright-line patterns. I also enjoy layering and blending multiple transparent colors to create new, unique multi-tone transparent colors. One of my favorite themes to explore are spacey ray guns and sci-fi blasters, which contain functional pipes hidden within.

What compels you to create pipes?

Pipemaking brings me the challenge of balancing form with function—a much more intimate form of art. Collectors will get a new piece, and invite all of their friends over to use it, sitting in a circle, passing it around so every person gets to physically hold and interact with the piece on a much more personal level then, say, a painting or sculpture.

Who are some glass blowers—locally or globally—you admire? Anybody who’s been sticking with it, working hard, and producing unique and beautiful products.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

How long have you blown glass? Since 2008.

Hillary Cooper (aka Hilltree Glass) Insta: @Chillerybogart

What—or who—drew you to the art form? I’ve loved art since I was little, but my learning about art history and glass art started when I was in high school. I attended a fine-arts academy and played with many mediums in different classes, but ultimately I wanted to pursue a glassblowing apprenticeship, which I started at 16 years old.

How do you develop concepts for pieces/what inspires you? I’m drawn to nature, music, femininity and art in all forms. Most everything I make is freehanded off the top of my head or comes from my sketchbook.

What are some of your favorite techniques to include in pieces? I like drawing images on clear hollow bubbles with thin stringers of colored glass, a technique called a disc flip. I also love sculpting and carving glass into shapes with limited tools, like a knife, dental picks and torch flame.

What compels you to create pipes? Glassblowing is all I’ve ever done as a career-artist—I’m very passionate about what I do. There’s so much creative freedom in being able to transfer my love for art and glass into an everyday product that most people use in their daily routine or display in their home. My pipes will outlive me, and I hope there will be people in the world collecting my pipes because they love my art.

Who are some glass blowers—locally or globally—you admire? Having grown up in Austin, Texas and Colorado, I look up to Laceface, x, Dellene Peralta, Renee Patula, Spiller Woods, Gina Gaffner (@glassbyboots) and so many other women.

see GLASSBLOWERS Page 16

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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The cannabis culture issue GLASSBLOWERS from Page 15

Marissa Manderfield Insta: @marsglassworks

How long have you blown glass? Since 2013.

COURTESY OF MARISSA MANDERFIELD

What—or who—drew you to the art form? I was lucky as a teenager to work at a public art studio where I fell in love with glass fusing, ceramics, painting and mosaics. When I was freshly free of school, trying to figure out “what to do with my life,” a documentary called Degenerate Art (Netflix) was released, showing the underground pipe art scene, and I instantly knew I wanted to be a part of it. With few resources in my home state of Wisconsin, I found a Craigslist ad that someone had posted in Denver, looking to teach pipe-making, so I relocated. I’ve been between Colorado and Wisconsin ever since, self-teaching and learning from watching, collaborating or talking to other glass artists.

How do you develop concepts for pieces/what inspires you? I’m inspired by natural organic forms, mostly plants, as well as femininity and my inner child. I am especially focused on making work that fills gaps in the pipe scene—especially regarding feminine themes and color schemes, as there are so few women working with glass.

What are some of your favorite techniques to include in pieces? My favorite techniques to use in glass are ones that are relatively uncommon—like working with kinetic spinning parts and including cubic zirconia and sparkles.

What compels you to create pipes? I’ve always been drawn to underground, countercultural, rebellious things—and to any craft that’s DIY or not conventionally taught in schools.

Most of my life I’ve also been an avid cannabis user for its creative benefits and relief from depression and anxiety.

Who are some glass blowers—locally or globally—you admire? I admire women in glass because it’s challenging to exist and elevate yourself in a male-dominated scene. @ LaceFaceGlass was the first female glass artist I knew of, and if she hadn’t been in Degenerate Art, I don’t know if I would’ve thought I could do it myself.

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

Ryan Beck (aka Swank) Insta: @swankglass How long have you blown glass? Since 2015.

What—or who—drew you to the art form?

As a young kid, I was mesmerized the first time I saw glass get molten and stretched, and I was always drawn to glass-made goods. Then one day, a buddy introduced me to lampworking (a type of glasswork in which a torch or lamp is used to melt the glass) and I fell in love.

How do you develop concepts for pieces/ what inspires you? What intrigues me nowadays is figuring out the chemistry behind what I do.

What are some of your favorite techniques to include in pieces? My go-to is the “fume” technique: I vaporize gold and silver in the flame onto tubing, then encase and manipulate it. I develop what I do via trial and error, which pairs with my evolving understanding of chemistry through experimentation and research. Ultimately I try to figure out the hows and whys to better control the color of my fume.

What compels you to create pipes? I got drawn to making pipes because it was the only way I knew how to make a living wage and not work for someone else. My connection with the pipe has grown much deeper, because I’m making a meditation tool in addition to a utilitarian art form. I like to make pieces that allow one to get lost in gazing at it.

How do you develop concepts for pieces/ what inspires you? I gain inspiration through my love of digging and collecting gems and minerals. I try to achieve this gem-like quality through the faceting and gem tone colors of my fume.

Who are some glass blowers—locally or globally—you admire? Maka B (@makabillion), the best fume glass artist I know; Adam Driver (@theghostofchristmas) taught my first pipemaking lesson and continues to push me to better my fundamentals; and Whit Vardaman (@whitv.glass) works hard and taught me to more deeply understand the process that is pipe making. see GLASSBLOWERS Page 18

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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The cannabis culture issue WWW.FOXTHEATRE.COM

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How long have you blown glass? Since 2015.

SUN. MAY 15

What—or who—drew you to the art form? My first heady dry pipe (Voorhees x Slinger) in 2013 opened me up to the world of functional glass art and the possibilities of the medium. The film Degenerate Art

by Marble Slinger further solidified my goal to create smokeable art for the rest of my life.

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How do you develop concepts for pieces/what inspires you?

I’m inspired partially by what I see in the world around me, and partially by my growth as an artist who focuses on line work. I’m interested in combining aesthetically appealing patterns to form cohesive designs.

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What are some of your favorite techniques to include in pieces? One of my favorite aspects of blowing glass is focusing on sculptural techniques. It’s particularly satisfying to sculpt forms with faces and see my creations come to life. As a carver, I enjoy laying down repetitive patterns that make people question if the work is hand- or machine-made.

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What compels you to create pipes? Cannabis has been an integral part of my life since a young age. I’ve always considered myself an advocate of the plant prior to its legalization, so it feels

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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right to create artistic pipes which facilitate the experiences of others. For many of us, smoking cannabis is a meaningful act, and it’s been a part of culture since the early days of human history. I enjoy putting my energy into objects that facilitate this tradition.

Who are some glass blowers—locally or globally—you admire? Locally, I always enjoy seeing what Calm and Scotty Mickle (@ calmbo and @scottymickle) put out. Hoobs (@ hoobsglass) and Buck (@buckglass) really push the fold of what can be done with glass in an architectural sense. Internationally, Aquarius from Japan has to be one of my favorite sculptors of all time.

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

E VENTS

■ Underwater Easter Egg Hunt

EVENTS

Saturday, April 16, 5:30-6:30 p.m.

Longmont Recreation Center, 310 Quail Road, Longmont. Tickets: Free for rec center members, or general admission fee ($4.50-$5.75), longmontcolorado.gov Search for Easter Eggs in the Leisure Pool at the Longmont Recreation Center during the annual Underwater Easter Egg Hunt. Space is limited and registration is required. An adult (16+) must be in the water to support youth ages 5 and under. All ages and abilities are welcome, but no walk-ins. For questions or to register by phone, call 303-774-4700.

If your organization is planning an event, please email the editor at crockett@boulderweekly.com

■ ‘Two Spirit Lakota’ Photographs by Magdalena Wosinska

April 15-July 28, east window, 4949 Broadway St., Unit 102-B, Boulder.

Tickets: Free, eastwindow.org/current Magdalena Wosinska was invited to spend several weeks in Pine Ridge Indian reservation, photographing her series Two Spirit Lakota. Twelve images excerpted from this series will be on view at east window from April 5-July 28. Wosinska’s series shows an essential humanity, beauty and complexity of the Two-Spirit community in Pine Ridge, which is often subject to harsh or sensationalized headlines. The photographer states, “I wanted to show the pride, the freedom to be who you are, their confidence and empowerment.”

■ Motown Dance Party

Saturday, April 16, 6:30-10 p.m., Roots Music Project, 4747 Pearl St., Suite V3A, Boulder. Tickets: $20 (includes dance lesson), rootsmusicproject.org This is a live Motown dance party!

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough (A Motown Stax Revue) is a seven-piece band based out of Boulder that only plays songs by Motown and Stax Records; they take you back to the memories and feel-good vibes of everyone from the Supremes, Isley Brothers, Four Tops, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave and many more. It’s an undeniable good time with songs that have stood the test of time. A Lindy Hop lesson by Boulder Swing Dance included in the ticket price.

■ Family Class: All About Goats

Saturday, April 16, 9-11 a.m., Growing Gardens, 1630 Hawthorn Ave., Boulder. Tickets: $30, growinggardens.org This class will cover a bit of general goat education with a hands-on focus where participants meet the herd, gain an understanding of their job on the farm, bottle feed goat kids, and even learn how to milk a goat. Maximum of two ticketed children per ticketed adult. All ticketed children must be at least 5 years of age and accompanied by a ticketed adult; this is not a drop-off program.

■ Boulder Bicycle Film Festival

Friday, April 22 at 5, 7 and 9 p.m., Kiln, 2101 Pearl St., Boulder. Tickets: $30, communitycycles.org Community Cycles is excited to host the inaugural Bicycle Film Festival on Friday, April 22, showing at 5, 7 and 9 p.m. Thanks to sponsors The Pro’s Closet and Cherry Creek Mortgage, the viewing will be held at Kiln on Pearl Street. An all-new international selection of short films features a diverse curation of filmmaking styles: narratives, documentaries, international award-winning filmmakers, and emerging directors all sharing their passion for bikes and cinematography. With Community Cycles’ mission of access to bicycles, it seems natural to partner with BFF, which has promoted bicycle sustainability and diversity in their films for 20 years. Along with the short film series, participants will also be treated to Bicycle Topic Talks between screenings with local groups on topics like ebikes, Diagonal Bikeway, and CAN (Core Arterial Network). Funds raised at this event will be used to support programs at Community Cycles, like its DIY bike shop, bike repair workshops and getting bikes in the hands of those who need them. Ticket includes films, apps, beverages, forums and six-week Community Cycles’ membership.

■ Poetry As The Means We Need: A Bilingual Poetry Workshop and Reading

Monday, April 18, 6-8 p.m., Civic Center, 350 Kimbark St., Longmont, longmontcolorado.gov Alejandro Jimenez, 2021 National Mexican Poetry Slam Champion, will be conducting a 45-minute bilingual poetry workshop (6-6:45 p.m.) followed by a 45-minute bilingual poetry reading (7:15-8 p.m.) You may sign up for one or both.

Alejandro Jimenez is a formerly-undocumented immigrant, poet, writer, educator and avid distance runner from Colima, Mexico, living in New Mexico. He is the 2021 Mexican National Poetry Slam Champion, a two-time National Poetry Slam Semi-Finalist (U.S.), multiple-time TEDx Speaker/Performer, and a Emmy-nominated poet whose work centers around cultural identity, immigrant narratives, masculinity, memory and the intersections of them all. His self-published book, Moreno. Prieto. Brown. (2017), has sold more than 2,000 copies and has been incorporated in curricula across various school districts.

For more event listings, go online at boulderweekly.com/events

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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BY ROB BREZSNY ARIES

LIBRA

people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart, who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience, who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward, who do what has to be done, again and again.” According to my analysis of the astrological factors, you’ll be wise to be like a person Piercy describes. You’re entering a phase of your cycle when diligent work and impeccable self-discipline are most necessary and most likely to yield stellar rewards.

was born under the sign of Libra. He was a brilliant and unconventional strategist whose leadership brought many naval victories for his country. Yet he was blind in one eye, was missing most of his right arm from a battle wound, and was in constant discomfort from chronic seasickness. I propose we make him one of your patron saints for the coming weeks. May he inspire you to do your best and surpass your previous accomplishments even if you’re not feeling perfect. (But also keep in mind: The problems you have to deal with will be far milder than Nelson’s.)

MARCH 21-APRIL 19: Aries author Marge Piercy writes, “I love

TAURUS

APRIL 20-MAY 20: In 1879, Taurus-born Williamina Fleming was working as a maid for astronomer Edward Charles Pickering, director of the Harvard Observatory. Impressed with her intelligence, Pickering hired Fleming to do scientific work. By 1893, she had become a prominent, award-winning astronomer. Ultimately, she discovered the Horsehead Nebula, helped develop a system for identifying stars, and cataloged thousands of astronomical phenomena. I propose that we make her your role model for the duration of 2022. If there has ever been a year when you might achieve progress like Fleming’s, it’s this one.

GEMINI

MAY 21-JUNE 20: For 2500 years, Egypt was a conquered

SAGITTARIUS

CANCER

CAPRICORN

best lessons you can study and learn will come to you while you’re socializing and communicating. Even more than is usually the case, your friends and allies will offer you crucial information that has the power to catalyze dynamic decisions. Lucky encounters with Very Interesting People may open up possibilities worth investigating. And here’s a fun X-factor: The sometimes surprising words that fly out of your mouth during lively conversations will provide clues about what your deep self has been half-consciously dreaming of.

Cherokee people is at least 3,000 years old. But it never had a written component until the 1820s. Then a Cherokee polymath named Sequoyah formulated a syllabary, making it possible for the first time to read and write the language. It was a herculean accomplishment with few precedents in history. I propose we name him your inspirational role model for the rest of 2022. In my astrological understanding, you are poised to make dramatic breakthroughs in self-expression and communication that will serve you and others for a long time.

DEC. 22-JAN. 19: The language spoken by the indigenous

LEO

AQUARIUS

was nothing for me to hold on to.” A character in one of Haruki Murakami’s novels says that. In contrast to that poor soul, Leo, I’m happy to tell you that there will indeed be a reliable and sturdy source for you to hold onto in the coming weeks—maybe more than one. I’m glad! In my astrological opinion, now is a time when you’ll be smart to get thoroughly anchored. It’s not that I think you will be in jeopardy. Rather, you’re in a phase when it’s more important than usual to identify what makes you feel stable and secure. It’s time to bolster your foundations and strengthen your roots.

a good way to enhance your willpower: For a given time, say one week, use your non-dominant hand to brush your teeth, wield your computer mouse, open your front door with your key, or perform other habitual activities. Doing so boosts your ability to overcome regular patterns that tend to keep you mired in inertia. You’re more likely to summon the resolution and drive necessary to initiate new approaches in all areas of your life—and stick with them.

The coming weeks will be an especially favorable time to try this experiment. (For more info, read this: tinyurl.com/ BoostWillpower)

JAN. 20-FEB. 18: A study by psychologists concludes there is

VIRGO

PISCES

U.S. government collaborated with professional hunters to kill millions of bison living in America’s Great Plains. Why? It was an effort to subjugate the indigenous people who lived there by eliminating the animals that were their source of food, clothing, shelter, bedding, ropes, shields and ornaments. The beloved and useful creatures might have gone extinct altogether if it had not been for the intervention of a Virgo rancher named Mary Ann “Molly” Goodnight. She single-handedly rebuilt the bison herds from a few remaining survivors. I propose that we make Goodnight your inspirational role model for the rest of 2022. What dwindling resources or at-risk assets could you restore to health?

philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way and the only way, it does not exist.” According to my reading of the astrological omens, you will be justified to say something like that in the near future. Now is a favorable time to honestly acknowledge differences between you and others—and accept those differences just as they are.

The important point is to do what you need to do without decreeing that other people are wrong or misguided.

AUG. 23-SEPT. 22: In the latter half of the 19th century, the

APRIL 14, 2022

OCT. 23-NOV. 21: Anti-apartheid activist Bantu Stephen Biko (1946–1977) was profoundly committed to authenticity.

The repressive South African government hated that about him. Biko said, “I’m going to be me as I am, and you can beat me or jail me or even kill me, but I’m not going to be what you want me to be.” Fortunately for you, Scorpio, you’re in far less danger as you become more and more of your genuine self. That’s not to say the task of learning how to be true to your deep soul is entirely risk-free.

There are people out there, even allies, who may be afraid of or resistant to your efforts. Don’t let their pressure influence you to dilute your holy quest.

NOV. 22-DEC. 21: “The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul,” said Sagittarian painter Wassily Kandinsky.

Inspired by his observation, I’m telling you, “The practical dreamer should train not only her reasoning abilities but also her primal intuition, creative imagination, non-rational perceptivity, animal instincts, and rowdy wisdom.” I especially urge you to embody my advice in the coming weeks, Sagittarius. Now is a favorable time to make abundant use of the other modes of intelligence that help you understand life as it really is—and not merely as the logical, analytical mind conceives it to be.

JULY 23-AUG. 22: “Hold on tight, I would tell myself, but there

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territory ruled by non-Egyptians. Persians took control in 525 BCE. Greeks replaced them. In succeeding centuries, Egypt had to submit to the authority of the Roman Empire, the Persians again, the Byzantine Empire, the Arab Islamic Caliphate, the Mamluk Sultanate, the Ottomans and the British. When British troops withdrew from their occupation in 1956, Egypt was finally an independent nation self-ruled

by Egyptians. If there are any elements of your own life story that even partially resemble Egypt’s history, I have good news: 2022 is the year you can achieve a more complete version of sovereignty than you have ever enjoyed.

And the next phase of your freedom work begins now.

JUNE 21-JULY 22: During the next four weeks, some of the

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SEPT. 23-OCT. 22: British Admiral Horatio Nelson (1758–1805)

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FEB. 19-MARCH 20: In his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra,

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

BY DAN SAVAGE Dear Dan: Bisexual female in an open/monogamish relationship with a heterosexual male. My partner and I have some friends in the swinging lifestyle that invite us to parties and group sex events. They recently picked up gonorrhea at a hotel takeover and did not find out until after hosting 20 people at a sex party. So, the group is now dealing with a gonorrhea outbreak—mostly oral infections, as we are all very diligent about condom usage for PIV. We are being treated, but I am pretty upset. The thing that bothers me most is how nonchalant they are being about the situation! One person even called this an “inconvenience” and compared it to “the common cold.” (WTF?) They don’t plan to retest after getting their shots and are already planning group sex events in the next few weeks, which I find concerning. I don’t think I’m comfortable engaging with their group if they are not going to take things like an STI outbreak more seriously. So, my questions are: 1. My test came back negative (my partner was positive) but shouldn’t they ALL retest after treatment? Especially if it is an STI known to be antibiotic resistant?

2. Am I overreacting or being unfair to our friends? Is this just part of the swinging lifestyle territory that we all have to accept?

3. If we decide to not engage with the group because of their attitude towards STIs, how do we get back into the lifestyle?

We are afraid we will lose access to events and people in the scene, as these friends have introduced us to everyone we know in the scene and have gotten us access to all the events we’ve been to before.

—Completely Lost About Panicking Dear CLAP 1. “Gonorrhea in the throat is the most difficult to treat,” said Dr. Ina Park. “So, folks that have oral sex and end up with gonorrhea of the throat should get a repeat test in two weeks and abstain from oral sex in the meantime. For rectal and genital infections, the cure rates for gonorrhea are still so high that routine retesting after treatment isn’t recommended.”

Dr. Park is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Community Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, CLAP, and also serves as a Medical Consultant for the Division of STD Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And while she thinks your sex friends who aren’t getting a follow-up test after being treated for oral gonorrhea are making a mistake, she explained that you’re wrong about gonorrhea.

“Gonorrhea can still be easily treated

with a single injection of an antibiotic called ceftriaxone, and there is almost no resistance to that drug in North America,” said Dr. Park. Which is not to say gonorrhea is no big deal or that things couldn’t get worse. “We currently only have one antibiotic in the U.S. that can reliably treat gonorrhea. But there is one new antibiotic in late-stage clinical trials, although nothing is immediately available if standard treatment fails.” Which it hasn’t, CLAP, at least not yet. So, that means you and partner and all your sex friends—if you get treated and tested again in two weeks—can emerge from this experience gonorrhea-free.

2. Your friends are underreacting— gonorrhea shouldn’t be compared to the common cold—but you’re overreacting.

While contracting an STI isn’t anyone’s goal at a sex party, whenever you’re having sex outside the bounds of a committed and sexually exclusive relationship, CLAP, you’re running the risk of contracting or spreading an STI. And since people in monogamous relationships cheat, there’s no guarantee you won’t contract an STI in a committed and sexually-exclusive-in-theory-but-not-in-practice relationship either. The only way to eliminate your risk of contracting an STI is to never have sex with anyone ever again, CLAP, including your partner.

3. Swapping hosts—going to sex parties and swinger events organized by people who haven’t already given you gonorrhea—isn’t the magic amulet you seem to think it is. Anyone who regularly goes to sex parties to fuck 20 other people is going to be exposed to HPV on a regular basis and is essentially volunteering to be exposed to and very likely contract herpes. If you’re using condoms religiously and correctly, and there’s no man-on-man action at these parties (and there usually isn’t at events organized by and for opposite-sex couples), your risk of contracting HIV is very, very low. You can reduce your risk of contracting gonorrhea, syphilis, and chlamydia orally by using condoms and latex barriers for cunnilingus and anilingus, but STIs that are passed through skin-to-skin contact are almost unavoidable when 20 people pile into a living room with a dozen mattresses spread out on the floor.

If you can’t live with those risks or you’re going to fall to pieces if or when you contract another STI, CLAP, sex parties aren’t for you. Follow Dr. Ina Park on Twitter @InaParkMD. And, hey, it’s STI Awareness Week!

Email questions@savagelove.net Follow Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage.

Find columns, podcasts, books, merch and more at savage.love.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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www.tantricsacredjourneys.com APRIL 14, 2022

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Hello Boulder!

We can’t wait to welcome you through every season ahead. Opt for a cozy indoor dining experience with enhanced cleaning protocols and our air filtration system or enjoy all of your Japango favorites on one of our four heated patios. Prefer to indulge in the comfort of your home? We can do that too with curbside pick up.

Hope to see you soon!

Daily 11am-10pm | 303 938 0330 | BoulderJapango.com JapangoRestaurant

JapangoBoulder

Thursday, April 28 • 5:30pm The Flavor Wheel of Whiskey

with Boulder Spirits & Paired Bites from Cafe Aion, Moksha Chocolate and Ku Cha House of Tea

Saturday, April 30 • 1:30pm Cocktail Dynamics & the Art of the Sensory Experience with Japango

Saturday, April 30 • 7:30pm Rediscovering the Wines of Tuscany with Opening a Bottle (virtual)

Get Tickets to First Sip Special Events

Sunday, May 1 • 3:00pm European Bier Tasting with Bohemian Biergarten

firstsipboulder.com 24

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

The cannabis culture issue COURTESY WELLER

A sip of CBD

Functional meets festive in the fruity new CBD sippers canned in Boulder

by John Lehndorff

F

or John Simmons, co-founder of Boulder’s Weller drink company with Matt Oscamou, one moment on Pearl Street captured the changing CBD reality. “We were walking on the Downtown mall, and there was a mom strolling hand-in-hand with a four-year-old, and mom’s sipping a can of Weller CBD,” Simmons recalls.

That was the moment the duo realized the public impression of hemp is being transformed from questionable cousin of weed to a wonder substance used by ex-athletes and a population plagued by aches and stress.

Introduced in 2018, Weller’s CBD Sparkling Water varieties (flavors: black cherry, tangerine and watermelon) each contain 25mg of CBD per can, with no calories or carbs.

CBD is “cannabidiol,” the non-psychoactive cousin of THC—it doesn’t get you high. The FDA warns companies making CBD products not to claim to “mitigate, prevent, treat, diagnose or cure” a disease or health condition.

However, from Boulder to Durango, companies are canning functional beverages featuring CBD, vitamins, herbs, and terpenes (chemical compounds that give plants, like cannabis, their smell) to enhance energy, immunity, calm, and recovery from exercise.

“The first time I tried CBD, I could feel the effects relatively quickly—stress relieving and feeling harmonious. We felt CBD was something that would affect a lot of people in a positive way,” says Matt Oscamou.

He and Simmons, two veterans of Boulder’s natural foods industry, launched Weller in 2017, a year before debuting their three CBD-infused drinks.

“We wanted to put out flavors that are going to be approachable to folks in Middle-American towns, not just in natural[-food forward] places like Boulder,”

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

Oscamou says.

Weller beverages are available at Sprouts, Lucky’s Market, many coffee shops, and more than 2,500 retail stores nationally. Other Colorado CBD beverages include Boulder’s Sati Soda, Durango’s Oh Hi CBD Seltzer, and the Denver-based Colorado’s Best Drinks’ Sparkling CBD beverages and Suntown Sparkling CBD. Salida’s Dram Apothecary has a decade-long reputation for crafting artisan bitters, syrups and switchels used in cocktails at bars and at home. It took some convincing for Brady Becker and Shae Whitney—the Dram co-founding couple—to launch Dram’s Adaptogenic Sparkling Water with CBD. “I was wary. There was been a fair amount of fraud in CBD drinks. Some contained none at all, so you really need to know the source of the CBD being used,” Whitney says—but once she tried it, she was convinced.

“I’m someone who has a lot of anxiety. I don’t want to make huge claims, but I found that CBD really helps me. It’s almost as effective as a Valium, much safer and you can use it every day,” she says. “Right now, people really like to buy CBD products to treat something specific, whether it’s supporting energy or turning down stress.”

Fortified with collagen, CBD and skin-supporting ingredients (like Coenzyme Q10, silver ear

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mushroom and moringa), WELLER CBD Dram’s Beauty Bubbles is BEVERAGES also part of trend toward offer a tasty edible and drinkable beauty option for products. post-workout And don’t assume this recovery or rose-scented beverage is an alcohol used primarily by women. substitute.

“You would be surprised.

We get a lot of bodybuilders and guys who are into [the] keto[genic diet]. People who exercise hard use our drink as a recovery beverage,” she says.

Dram’s Lemongrass Sparkling Water is made with eleuthero (a type of ginseng) and schisandra (a medicinal berry) that can boost energy and concentration. The Sweetgrass variety is made to calm nervous systems with its infusion of mint, ashwagandha and skullcap flowers. Dram also offers a sparkling tart switchel made with apple cider vinegar and CBD. Dram’s great-tasting Gingergrass won a 2021 Good Food Award (the Oscars of the American artisan food and beverage world), creating a cause for the history books, as Dram became the first-ever awardee for a CBD-infused food. With ginger, amla, see NIBBLES Page 26

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NIBBLES from Page 25

GROW YOUR FUTURE WITH ESCOFFIER www.escoffier.edu

rhodiola and chaga mushroom, Gingergrass may reduce inflammation, defuse stress and also settle queasy stomachs.

“Some people feel like they were leaning on alcohol a little too much the past few years, and they’re looking for an alternative,” Whitney says. “They don’t want to feel left COURTESY DRAM APOTHECARY out. With CBD drinks, it still feels like I’m having a substance, but it’s not going to leave me hungover.”

These aren’t quite considered “mocktails,” which are tasty, refreshing and missing something. “Many people are having ‘dry’ months, but still want a beverage to relax with,” adds Weller’s Simons.

For Weller’s Oscamou, he’s looking forward to how hemp becoming mainstream continues to expand the universe of CBD users: “Now our consumers range widely in ages. There is a nice elderly woman in Kansas City who calls me every time she wants to place an order for her Weller CBD drinks,” he laughs.

After the Fire, Growing Again

Boulder’s Altan Alma Farm on South Boulder Road (established in 1997) was wiped out by the Marshall Fire. If you enjoyed the farm’s products—including its Szechuan Button Salve and the 32 varieties of micro-greens and bedding plants that were also sold at the now-closed In Season Local Market on North Broadway—Karim Amirfathi has moved his family farm business to 5555 Highway 66, Units 2 and 3, in Longmont. Call 303-437-1288 or email altanalmaseed@gmail.com before you stop by.

Local Food News

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The rustic Gold Hill Inn, poised in the hills west of Boulder, opens for its 60th season on April 29. … Coming soon: Avant Garden, a high-end vegan eatery from New York City, located in a portion of the former Mediterranean Restaurant (The Med) space on Walnut Street.

Hopefully, it won’t get confused with Avanti or Amante Coffee, both located nearby. Other coming attractions: Efrain’s of Boulder Mexican Restaurant, 2480 Canyon Blvd., in the former Shine Restaurant location; The Daily Donut, Estes Park; North Public Market, a proposed food hall at Arapahoe Avenue and North Public Road in Lafayette

Words to Chew On

“Maybe a person’s time would be as well spent raising food as raising money to buy food.” —Frank Clark

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John Lehndorff hosts Boulder’s only food radio program, Radio Nibbles, on KGNU. Listen to podcasts at: news.kgnu.org

www.EldoradoSprings.com • 303.604.3000

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

LONGMONT’S NEWEST STEAKHOUSE featuring NoCo’s Best Beef and Freshest Seafood in town

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OPEN FOR DINNER! 4 - 8ish Wednesday - Saturday

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S AT & SU N 9 AM - 2 PM

LUNCH

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DINNER

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S U N D AY 4:30PM-9PM

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

by JOHN LEHNDORFF

Boychik and Lost City Coffee

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or a good time, try a plate of Boychik’s falafel while taking in the view of the Flatirons from the roof of downtown Boulder’s Avanti Food & Beverage.

Located in the first-floor food hall, Boychik focuses on scratch-made Mediterranean fare. I appreciated the fresh-from-the-fryer falafel: large scoops that were soft and hot inside of a crunchy shell, dotted with herbaceous zhoug, a spicy green puree of cilantro, chilies and spices similar to Argentinian chimichurri.

My bowl also included super-creamy tahini hummus; cucumber, tomato and parsley salad; sumac-pickled onion; and soft pita bread. Add a few shakes of Middle Eastern hot sauce, and you have a pretty exciting lunch.

Other Boychik menu items include chicken shawarma, fried cauliflower (with ras el hanout [a blend of earthy spices], dates and mint) lamb kebab, fries dusted with za’atar spice, and a vegan tahini date smoothie.

Leaving Avanti in a hurry, I was stopped in my tracks by the sight of beautiful sticky toffee pudding, mango coconut cake pudding, cake “sundae,” biscotti, muffins and more in the pastry cases at the food hall’s resident coffee and pastry slinger, Lost City.

Open only two weeks, chef Jennifer says her approach in the sweets department is to apply European pastry techniques to familiar American desserts. The banana cream pie with pastry cream and whipped cream is top notch. Lost City also offers Denver’s Little Man Ice Cream.

Culinary Calendar: First Sip

T

MATT MAENPAA

he folks at Boulder’s First Bite have launched First Sip, April 28-May 1, a weekend of adult beverage experiences at 33 restaurants, including a whiskey tasting at Boulder Spirits, cocktail creation at Japango, and beer sampling at Bohemian Biergarten.

Tickets: firstsipboulder. com … The Big Stir Festival, April 23 in Denver, honors women leaders in the culinary industry with food and beverage sampling and seminars. Proceeds fund scholarships from Les Dames d’Escoffier Colorado. Tickets: tinyurl.com/2zse6ar7 … Plan ahead: Boulder Creek Beer Festival is May 28-29. … Whistling Boar’s summer Farmhouse Supper Club features a dinner series starting June 30 at Longmont’s Metacarbon Organic Farm. whistlingboar.com … Send food event information to: nibbles@boulderweekly.com

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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Boulder Recipe Flashback: Flagstaff House Apple Tart Desserts beginning with a plate of sweets plus whipped cream and coffee have been a hallmark of epic dinners since the Flagstaff House Restaurant started serving from the side of the mountain half-a-century ago.

Back in the late 1990s, a reader requested the Flagstaff House’s recipe for a much-enjoyed crisp apple tart with cinnamon ice cream and caramel sauce.

Mark Monette, the eatery’s legendary executive chef, kindly rewrote the recipe in a home-kitchen-friendly form.

Flagstaff House Crisp Apple Tart 4 squares frozen puff pastry dough, thawed 4 Golden Delicious apples, peeled, cored and sliced very thinly 1/2 cup sugar combine with 1 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon 1/2 cup brown sugar Cinnamon ice cream (see note) Caramel sauce (your favorite) Roll out pastry dough into four thin circles, each four inches wide. Sprinkle the pastry with brown sugar. Spread the apple slices over the entire surface and dust with cinnamon sugar. Bake at 325 degrees for about 30 to 45 minutes or until golden brown. Cool and serve with cinnamon ice cream and warm caramel sauce.

Note: To make cinnamon ice cream, barely soften a pint of vanilla bean ice cream or gelato and stir in one tablespoon of cinnamon. Refreeze if needed, or serve as is.

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The cannabis culture issue The 4/20 Special

What does April 20 even mean and why is it associated with cannabis at all?

by Will Brendza

N

orlin Quad was hot boxxed. I sat in a circle, surrounded on all sides by thousands of people burning bowls, smoking out of watermelons and handing out edibles.

Someone passed me a joint and I puffed it, making direct eye contact with an irritable looking campus police officer—a first for me. At the time, cannabis was still illegal in Colorado and that day, April 20, was the only day of the year I could have gotten away with such an act.

That was my freshman year at the University of Colorado. As it happened, that was also the last year that the university would tolerate 4/20 antics on such a scale. It wasn’t the kind of image that CU-Boulder wanted to be attached to, and besides that, the event had started to draw as many non-students as students, compromising campus safety, school officials argued. The next year, Norlin Quad was doused in rotten-smelling fish fertilizer to deter any would-be tokers. Police barricades blocked campus entry points, demanding identification from anyone attempting to enter.

CU’s 4/20 event faded fast after that. And especially once Colorado legalized recreational cannabis, the novelty quickly evaporated.

4/20 events still happen around the state, throughout the country and even across the globe.

Even in a post-prohibition state like Colorado, the hype surrounding “marijuana day” hasn’t entirely worn off (and like any good American holiday, it’s been thoroughly commercialized by both cannabis and non-cannabis businesses.)

But what does 420 even mean? Where did this holiday start? And why is cannabis associated with

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it at all? Some claimed it was Bob Marley’s birthday (or death day?), or that it was the California penal code (or police code?) for marijuana, or that it came from the Bob Dylan song “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” (because 12 x 35 = 420, of course). But the truth remained elusive...

Before getting to the bottom of all that, let’s dispel some rumors. While there’s no way to prove that the 420 association didn’t come from a Bob Dylan song; it’s a fact that 420 was never used by California police in association with cannabis crimes or code for them.

And Bob Marley? He was born on February 6 and died on May 11.

No, the origin story of 420’s association with cannabis goes back to 1971, to San Raphael, California, to a statue of Louis Pasteur and five high school students who referred to themselves as “the Waldos.”

According to legend, the Waldos were in possession of a hand-drawn treasure-map given to them by a sage pot-grower, illustrating exactly where they’d find an abandoned pot farm, still full of all the marijuana they could possibly smoke.

Naturally, the Waldos went searching. They at least tried a number of times, meeting up at the same time and place every day: 4:20 p.m. by the Louis Pasteur statue, from whence they would smoke a joint and embark on their stoned adventure, following their map, seeking their lost treasure.

The Waldos never found it. But the ritual of gathering at 4:20 to smoke weed stuck. And it proliferated. After High Times published a story on the Waldos, their 4:20 sacrament spread like wildfire among the cannabis community, and before anyone

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really knew how or even why, everyone was getting stoned at 4:20 all across America.

From there it morphed, it evolved, it swelled in size and scope to eventually become a rallying cry for cannabis activism. April 20 became the pot holiday, and the day when American citizens would gather in public to smoke cannabis in protest of its prohibition and status as a Schedule I substance. That day came to symbolize the movement—the point—the goal of cannabis legalization: free and open consumption. Just like that scene on Norlin Quad.

So on April 20, at 4:20 p.m. people all around the world spark up together, just like the Waldos of yore.

In light of state legalization, though, 4/20 has taken on a notably different meaning. Now, people in states like Colorado can legally smoke weed whenever and kind of wherever we want (it’s still prohibited in public spaces). Now, instead of a day to gather in protest, it’s become a celebration of victory. While the federal government still classifies cannabis as a Schedule I drug, 18 states have fully legalized it and more are currently working on legalization policies. The cannabis people are winning.

And at this point, we’re all just waiting for the game to be called by referees in Washington.

From a stoned group of high school friends on a treasure hunt, to a form of civil disobedience and protest, to an international holiday celebrating the end of cannabis prohibition, 4/20 has come a long way from its humble origins. And while it may not have anything to do with Dylan or Marley, people have found (or created) meaning in this holiday all on their own.

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