[Friend]

awesome thread, keep it going!

Love the captivating story!

[Madjag]

Originally Posted by OlibanumBreath

Love the captivating story!

If you haven't yet seen this resin website, you might find this article interesting:

Frankincense v.s. Olibanum:

https://www.somaluna.com/cat/category_frankincense.asp

[waveguide]

nice to read.

as an outsider i was lucky to get a quarter ounce seedy brick most of the time. a tiny ball of resin scraped out of a pipe was like a diamond. last time i got brick in az was c. 2009.. not bad at all, still all stems and seeds, grew out with nice thin leaves but lost it before i could try it.

thank god seedbanks don't judge people by their culture (i can't blame people.. i'm from a culture that people generally consider oppressive, so they naturally assume i'm some kind of judgemental asshole because i have a judgemental asshole accent).

[azez]

great thread
i was here for the entire deal
and growing since 92 lol
peace
ez

[waveguide]

scuse me for coopting this thread.. i thought there was another one somewhere but can't find it.

AZ outdoors spring 2012

someone posted in february that you can flower in the spring before may. i check day lengths and the 'official' 12/12 from sunrise to sunset was somewhere around march 15th, so i'm estimating you would want to have started flowering around march 1st in order to bud outdoors this spring.


i have a plant in my cab from mislabeled freebie seed. it's supposed to be a moroccan indica but has grown out like a pure sativa. smells a bit like haze, and about the thinnest leaves i've seen from dutch breeders on anything.

she's not handling my microcab well. had a bad start, then grew like a rocket up to the lights and got her tip fried.

she should be around 4 weeks into flowering, but given her predicament she's not much more than a stick with a few bracts of calyxes here and there.

do you think i can stick her outside and get her a fair flower period, or are the lengthening days going to revert her to veg? days are nice and warm here now, so only concerned about the photoperiod.

[paper thorn]

not sure waveguide, you might as well find out with the wimpy one. no big loss if it reveges.

[Madjag]

In 1978 I made friends with a few Rastas from Gold Street in Kingston. Most of the time that I spent in Jamaica back then was on the beach side at Ozzie’s Shack in Negril, up in the hills above Lucea, or backwoods in Gold Hill between Sav La Mar and Negril. Somehow one of my contacts in Negril hooked me up with Kingston friends who in turn told me about their relative in Brooklyn. The NY guy was a mid-level Ganjaman who had been in that area since the early 1970’s.

I had always wanted to expand to the Big Apple because the higher prices for higher quality back East would make it worth the trouble of getting it across the US…and then some. This concept held true for awhile until a few years later when the highway checkpoints set up in New Mexico and the increased profiling by Arizona Highway Patrol proved otherwise. We finally had a reliable Tucson connection for high-end Mexican sinsemilla who also liked the sound of going East and was willing to front decent-sized loads in the 150-250 pound range. Our Arizona homegrown under the Madjag label was in limited supply and sold out quickly right here at home shortly after harvest. It wasn’t greed as much as it was necessity that lead us to fine sensi from south of our border and we soon branched into Mexican imports carefully once this crazy Tucson connection fell into our laps via a close, close friend.

The Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn is home to a large Caribbean immigrant culture that includes Trinidadians, Haitians, Bahamians, and especially Jamaicans. It was once a quaint Dutch ethnic neighborhood full of fine Brownstone apartments and flats that over decades, like many other the traditional borough neighborhoods, mutated into something entirely different. In1980 the bustling NY herb business was king and the looming epidemic of crack cocaine for commoners was still on the horizon, left to Manhattanites and high-end borough boys in the know.



After a fairly long getting-to-know-you period, my new Bed Stuy friends started buying up every bud of Mexican Sinse we could get their hands on. This smoke was as good if not better than their legendary Lamb’s Bread that never quite lived up to its name, at least the commercial quantities that hit NY streets. A nice load of spicy Oaxacan or some potent Guerrero Gold held them captive and put them at the top of their marketplace. People beat down their doors for more. We were modest in our goals and kept small and reasonable in our deliveries. Let’s just say we had cross-country shipping for our modest business level down to a fine science. Our cover never failed even when challenged closely a few times by the man. No method is bulletproof, they only seem that way until the first failure, yet we never hit that failure and our Rasta pipeline continued for 4 or 5 years.

An interesting aspect of working in Bed Stuy was that white boys stuck out like a sore thumb. Even more obvious was seeing a tall Dreadlock walking together with a white guy. Can you say “Business”? We worked at night as much as possible, connecting at a little basement flat that served as the shop for small deals up to ½ pound. It was in this stash flat not far from Nostrand Boulevard that I spent a lot of time watching customers come and go, mumbling that beautiful Jamaican patois through a crack in the door and then stepping in when cleared for action. My Rasta friends didn’t do business with American blacks who they called Yankee Boys. Some barrier there just kept the two apart. I believe it was concerned with ethnic loyalty and the concept that if a man went down and he was a Jamaican he wouldn’t spill on the rest of the JA crew. Just as well I suppose. In all the moments I witnessed of buyers coming and going I saw only Caribbean men spending dollars with my Rasta crew. The meetings were brief, quiet, and peaceful. Shots rang out on rare occasions some nights, however they were always from down the street. Packing heavy hardware was essential for working in the shop, but using it onsite was never an option unless it was in response to an all out attack or rip-off attempt. Would that be likely with a dreadie opening the door with a Mac 9 in his hand?

It was a warm evening when I stopped by Satta’s flat. The shop near Nostrand was extra busy and Mr. S wanted me to stop a different flat with Ricky to discuss the homegrown I had been telling him about. He was aware of the reputation of domestic super herb, however he personally had never tested any. Curiosity was flying high this night after my repeated mentions of homegrown and Mr. S just had to find out. Even his Lieutenant Ricky laughed when I pulled out a skinny pin joint made from a paper torn lengthwise…a ½ paper filled with tiny broken bud pieces lined up and crammed into a straight line. I, too, was laughing for a different reason knowing full well what laid ahead. I was sure he would be devastated like so many other experienced smoke fiends had been before upon trying this new and truly powerful herb from the expanded genetics of Haze, Skunk, and Afghani strains.

Mr. S took the second long pull after my startup toke. He saw how long and intensely I was pulling on the pinner and did the same perfectly. I reached for the joint before he could finish laughing and take his second hit. I wanted him to truly take the tour and evaluate firsthand what one toke could do. It was probably only seconds, but it seemed like a minute or two later that he got a bit strange and was mumbling to Ricky in that enchanting Kingston patois. Suddenly we were going. I barely grabbed my coat and boomed out the door with Rick. We had been banished.

The next day Mr. S called and made it known that we had to come over immediately. Right now, seen. Once inside his tidy, St. James Place brownstone flat with plastic-covered furniture and Jamaican wood art, I began an uncomfortable exchange with him about how and why I had spiked him. He knew that the pin needle had LSD in it and that he had been tripping. After he had quickly sent us out and locked the doors, he had to run in place for 20 minutes, maybe longer, merely to regain his equilibrium and focus. Everything had gone wacky and he just didn’t see a way back. Luckily his body took over and saved the day (night).

I can speak very plainly and neutrally when needed. I adopt a “science guy” persona and can peacefully describe a situation in a way that will reach most people, I just have to be patient and methodical: say the truth in metered chunks that make sense. I did this for Mr. S and he knew that I was right on. I felt him release as I continued my explanation. He was a real devil when it came to testing people. For instance, he once paid us an extra 2 grand for a load and did so intentionally just to see if we’d report his “mistake”. Slowly his brain cramps came down enough for him to smile, laugh, and start jabbering a mile a minute about how fucking incredible this weed was and how nobody, nobody! in his posse had any idea how powerful it was gonna be. Customers would be in his hand and at his command, yes I. Oh what a wonderful land Brooklyn was. And praise be to the Arizona guys for, in this case, the venerable Sam S and RCC Afghani #1. That good herb was Jah Mighty.

The most top shelf we would bring along with our primary Mexi Sensi load was perhaps 3-5 pounds of local stash weed. Mr. S would have bought 50 pounds on the spot each time we visited had his customers been experienced with this level of quality herb. They needed some time to adjust and eventually lust for it because they had never toked anything like it. OK, maybe a few close calls with some Colombo, but otherwise this herb wiped everyone out on their first smoke or two unlike any other smoke. Fortunately it became a speedy journey as friends turned on friends and the whole scene was Irey within a few months. He had created a loyal market, a hungry market. When our stock of Afghani#1 or Skunk#1 was exhausted we switched to a friend’s friend’s Arivaca brand. Even buying another grower’s yield our AZ cost was quite reasonable actually and we could double our money back east with no complaints. We had dreamed this dream into existence and loved every minute. I’m sure you who have been in a similar situation remember the satisfaction. Not big ego, but righteous rewards.

We were growers at heart who had reached out and found a new audience. Nothing like being well-paid for your risks and still being able to remember what mattered most in your heart. Money came and went just like the seasons. We’d grow beneath the hot cliffs and under the intense sun of our canyon. Looking up now and then we’d realize that eventually even the years rolled by. Still, money or not, we had the life and it shared a special rhythm and beauty with us. We learned and never forgot.

[Friend]

thanks for another entertaining chapter in your story madjag.

[motaco]

So how did your Mad Jag herb end up in High Times back in the day? What is the story behind that?