The sun's out. Totally wizarded afternoon...

Anyway, it's nice outside. Mid-50s, clear sky. No barking from the dog, no smog, mama fixed a breakfast with turkey bacon instead of regular bacon, etc.

I'm currently at El Heladero's house, letting his dogs out and helping myself to his pantry. It's a ten-minute drive down the freeway to his neighborhood, and on the way, I put on a album I'd downloaded last month but not had a good moment to absorb. It's the Tangerine Dream-composed soundtrack to Sorcerer a 1977 action movie about a truck crossing a rope bridge, directed by the guy who directed The Exorcist. As you may have guessed, I've never seen this movie, so raving about the soundtrack might get me labeled a phony. I'm sorry. I haven't seen every cool movie you have--instead of choosing Renting John Woo Movies and Talking About Them at Bars as a field of study, I foolishly picked Political Science. In any case, I'll bet most of the RTVF majors I went to school with have never heard of this movie either.

Anyhow, I stumbled upon this album while browsing iTunes for Giorgio Moroder. It's a bunch of ominous, analog synth textures, and if you turn it up loud enough, you can effectively mute the world outside. I drove through an uninteresting part of Fort Wizard on my way to the freeway, but even then, it was still pretty cinematic*.

When I have a soundtrack and a drive like that, it gives me a lot of room to think. I normally have my best ideas in such moments, and today was no different. As the thoughts took off and branched out, I came up with a great idea for a story: what does it take to become a judge at the annual Cannabis Cup?

Now, prior to looking into this, I knew exactly two things about the Cannabis Cup, and both of them led me to believe that I was really onto something. My first certainty about the Cannabis Cup was that it involved weed, and the second was that it involved a trophy. With those in mind, I made some assumptions. Given how marijuana is now fastidiously cultivated and crossbred to produce a multitude of strains that in turn a produce a variety of preferred psychological and physiological effects,** I figured a judge of the best marijuana in the world (or whatever the field is) would have to be experienced, level-headed and probably wise. Or at least old.

In fact, it wouldn't have surprised me to find that a couple judges*** were noted, wizened biochemists from Germany or wherever, amid the jovial, ponytailed Deadhead and a couple of High Times editors who had long-since been grandfathered onto the panel. And I thought, man, this would be really funny! I'm sure High Times probably interviews these guys, but no one else does. Surely they wouldn't mind talking to someone like me. So I thought up questions about their criteria and evaluation process. Do you test each type of weed according to a particular album or DVD? Do you test in sub-genres--are their categories such as "Best Weed for Waiting Tables" or "Best Weed for Driving to Plano?" How do you go about clearing your "mental palate"--is there some kind of culinary or chemical equivalent to eating a cracker at a wine-tasting event? In other words, I got a little excited. It seemed like such a great idea.

And after I'd let the dogs out and watched them run around, I started looking shit up. To my disappointment, I discovered that a Cannabis Cup Judiciary panel is not necessarily composed of diligently selected, pot-friendly scientists who looks like Gandalf. Instead, it's open to any old dickweed who buys a fucking pass.

How in the hell can you award a prize when you allow a potentially maximum number of Highway 80 shitheads participate in evaluating the competition? The champ needs to be decided by people who can at least read and write and think, not a bunch of dudes in huge shirts who wander around Six Flags dribbling shitty basketballs and hitting on 8th graders. I don't care if I'm being elitist. If the official worldwide plan is to make it so no one can ever get in trouble for pot, you need to elevate the dialogue. Patton Oswalt does a mostly funny bit about the need for a Sideways-type movie for marijuana. I couldn't agree more. I don't necessarily want to buy hard-packs of Marleyboro Lights**** at 7-11, but it would be nice to know that the joint in my jacket pocket is not going to get me arrested when I'm hitting it in the parking lot. To get to that point, you have to convince every person who's afraid of marijuana that it's no longer strictly the realm of stinkhippies, dangerous rappers and kids who jump off buildings. I hate quoting reggae songs, but Peter Tosh was right on when he talked about lawyers and doctors getting high. Last year, I ran across a story about so-called stiletto stoners, professional women who unwind with a bowl after a hard day of turning the tables on office politics. While I probably wouldn't want to hang out with any of these ladies, I'd like for the people who vote for the people who keep weed criminalized to see that while a lot of potheads are losers, there are just as many who aren't. This is why the Cannabis Cup needs an official council. Then I can write that cool interview.

*An aside: when Darth Vato went on its last tour in July of '08, we drove along I-8 to San Diego. It was right as dusk turned to dark, and the sun was orange and bleeding into the horizon. We were listening to Mezzanine by Massive Attack. Out the driver's side windows, we could see Mexico. From that vantage point, Mexico was a series of dunes and low, dark hills held in check by wire. No one said a word until we neared the California border. "Real creepy," Jordan said. I suspect that if used in a similar circumstance, the Sorcerer soundtrack would produce a similar effect.

**And like, different tastes and shit.

***who, in my imagination, sat at a table of a kind of wizard council in a secret club hidden high in the mountains of Amsterdam. Never mind that the Netherlands don't have mountains and are always one kid who chooses instead not to give a shit away from being flooded.

****And if pot is ever legalized, you can expect to see it sold under names as bad and probably way worse than that one.