Celebrating stoner new year in So-Cal style.
Of all the numerous 4/20 celebrations that go on around the country, none has become more notorious around the High Times office than the Seedless party in San Diego. I’d always wanted to go, but had usually been too busy doing press in New York and thus forced to celebrate stoner new year with just a small group of friends. When checking out the flyer for this year’s party—their eighth annual—I noticed they were conducting a “High Times model search” and fired off an e-mail to Seedless marketing director Rezwan to find out what it was all about. Minutes later, the phone rang.
“Dude, you must be psychic—I was just about to call you when I got your message,” he said. “Everyone, I talk to about the party keeps saying, ‘Is Bobby Black coming? Man, you gotta get Bobby out here for this!’” Rez explained to me that they were planning a contest to choose a Miss Seedless, who they’d be flying to the Cannabis Cup in November. He was hoping that the winner might also be considered as a finalist for the Miss High Times Pageant, and asked if I’d be one of their celebrity judges. So I cashed in some frequent-flier miles, booked a room at the Mission Bay Motel, and I was off.
The party started Saturday afternoon at a private ocean view bungalow in Ocean Beach, where I was to be a judge at Seedless’ private 420 Cup. There I met up with my HT co-worker Notorious THC and the rest of the judges, including a couple of Kottonmouth Kweens, our Miss June 2008, Tanisha; and my new buddy John Redcorn from King of the Hill. Each of us was given a 420 Cup T-shirt and seven incestuous strains to judge: L.A. Kush, Godzookie, Sour Godzookie, G-Wreck, Space Queen, Sour Diesel and Sour OG.
Notorious immediately commandeered the chillest seat in the room and started grinding and rolling. After about five hours of solid blazing I could barely function, but managed to cast my vote for the Space Queen. Around 6:30 p.m., the votes were tallied and the results were announced: Third place went to Sour OG, second place to L.A. Kush, and the winner of first place (and a beautifully blown glass cup) was the G-Wreck.
Later that night, the public festivities began over at Canes Bar and Grill in Pacific Beach with a concert featuring hardcore/metal groups Age Ov Reason and In Perfect Agony, surf/reggae rockers Diego Roots, and a 4/20 countdown at midnight. Still jetlagged and zombified from a long day of judging, I took off early and headed back to the cut to catch some Z’s.
The next day, I strolled up the beach to Notorious’ suite at the swank Pacific Terrace Hotel, where we celebrated 4:20 on 4/20 with a monster smoke session on his balcony. Then it was off to our friend Bobby Creek’s place for a killer BBQ, where we beat our munchies into submission with dry-aged rib-eye steak, salad and pasta. Our meal was followed by—you guessed it—another smoke session, starring a gigantic, 50-gram lump of Sour Diesel bubble hash that I nicknamed the Bubbleturd….