TICK TALK. Johns tale.
If I could transfer my Credit record over from my weed dealers to my bank, I’m telling you man! They would lend me a million pounds just like that! I’m telling you! I don’t even dare calculate the amount of money that I’ve owed and paid back! But it’s definitely thousands, 50-60-100's who knows. So when it comes to ‘Tick’ I’d definitely say that I’m an expert.
‘No no no, you got it wrong;’ Explained my dealer to me one day. It’s not about the money, it’s about the ‘Principle’ of the Money.... …You see, look here, money is about trust, it says it on the money that its an IOU promising to pay the bearer on demand whatever’s printed on it’.
‘Exactly!' I laughed. 'It’s a promise! And I promise to give you the money on Friday!’
‘Alright but make sure its Friday. ..So you sure you don’t want a quarter?’
…You see! My dealers love me. Even though when I say my dealers, I mean it more like I am their punter.Now! Is it really unsophisticated to say to your dealer? “Look man. I’ll check you tomorrow morning when I get my Dole, and if that’s late, my girlfriends getting her child support in later, and she owes me twenty quid anyway.” I don’t think so, completely natural. Or how about? “Oh shit I just rushed out and I think I left my money in my other trousers/jacket/skirt etc.” ...Or even? ‘Maaaaaan... I’ve just had a really bad day! The bus broke down! A car splashed me! My Telephone, gas, electricity bill just come and I had to pay it. …So… …Can you do me an eighth till Thursday when I’m supposed to get some more money yeah? …What?’
‘Supposed? Supposed to get some money?’
‘No no I mean I’m definitely gonna give you the money then, I’m talking about some other money that I got coming in as well, but I’ll have money anyway, I promise. Even if I have to borrow it off someone!’
I’ve always liked this one; ‘I got money right now, but I need it to buy something tomorrow morning, but I'm getting more money in the evening so I'll check you then, Yeah?’
Some dealers want collateral, such as Jewellery, Electrical equipment, your coat! Anything of value to you usually. Some just like to argue with you for a half an hour or so, apparently Means testing you, even though their first intention was to give you on tick anyway.
Some people bring fruit etc. to their dealers, trying to sweeten them up. (Beware of punters bearing gifts!) And it works, yes it works man. Guilt works, it goes together with drugs like... Well, guilt and drugs! And works. Not all the time though cos the impression I get off some dealers is that they cant give me credit because of something to do with their mum or something, …Something to do with their mum and their brother not paying them back for dope. ..But seriously. It’s not that hard to get credit off a bloke who says that he’s not prepared to give credit to his brother and his mum. You’d think that you’d be the last person on earth to get it. But it’s quite easy if your phone doesn’t stop ringing all the time you’re there, and if you’re wearing loads of ‘Tom’, honestly it hardly ever fails. Vanity is a good look when it comes to the relationship between you and your dealer, they’ll give you more than they would have if they really knew how broke you were. It's a Dealer instinct. Even after they've read this, they still won’t be able to stop reacting to the Jewellery/Mobile phone/materialism thing. For like Bank managers, they only really want to give credit to those who need it least! Thus ensuring a safer return on what effectively is an interest free loan, according to them. …But in reality is Sales on credit.
‘How do you ask?' it seems every time you ask for ‘Tick’ you have to make up a plan first, some kind of strategy. Do you hang around and beat around the bush waiting for the best time to ask, all the time knowing that the dealer knows exactly what you’re doing, and he can outwait you. After all it’s his house. And it’s not as if he's going to do you any favours when you go to ask him. He'll suddenly find lots of things to do that’s more important than talking to you, or even worse! He might get too attentive, too personal and probing! Now all you want is the weed, but you’re vulnerable. He’s got the weed, so he’s got the power, so now it feels like a bit of a test and you’ve got to give the right answers. It might be only 20 quid, but its more money than you’ve got in the world, otherwise you wouldn’t be putting yourself through this innit?..Alright it might not be more than all the money you have in the world, but it probably is! Ready Cash that is! So how about, the straight demand? Risky. 50-50 at the least, it either works or it doesn’t. It depends on how the dealer feels.Do you have enough Humility, honesty, respect or Cool for this particular dealer? Should you make jokes first? Compliments? Flattery? ...Maybe not. But! If it works, it works. Gwaan Ladies. Cause this is something I've seen work for women loads of times on men dealers. It doesn’t seem to work the same way for me on women dealers though. To tell you the truth, it can backfire, so you either have to back it up with some real action, which wasn’t the intention in the first place because all you wanted was some weed to smoke! Or you end up looking really Creepy. Then you’ll never get any anything again off them, ever. …Yeah, you kind of learn not to do that stupid shit.
Now, why do Dealers always come out with the same sad story when they want collateral? It’s always. `Look man! When you come back with the dosh I'll give you back your ring.’ And. `Y'See.... Its not that I don’t trust you to bring it back on the date you say, or that I think that you wouldn’t come back or anything, but Just say if you got knocked down by a bus or a car or something, Just say? Where would my money be then?
And even though I keep quiet, in my heart I say 'Hey! if i get knocked over by a car, what you gonna do with my coat? you gonna put it in a frame and exhibit it as a trophy coat, a warning to your punters or sumfing?
This next one's really common, I think all dealers use this one at one time or another and its one that can be used time and time again. The old classic and number 1 on the dealers rebuff chart, the: `I cant give any more gear out on tick now cos I’ve already ticked out most of the money that I was to buy the gear with to people and they still haven’t brought back the money yet, I have to sell off every bit of this gear before I can buy any more, I can hardly smoke any of it myself! Even my mum couldn’t get tick off me today!’ The dealer says with shock. Long, but very effective and quite possibly true. There’s just no way to tell.And it’s horrible when you get to a dealers house and see someone being refused credit, to their embarrassment and yours. Because you know you'll be refused credit too. Two choices then, either sit down and wait till the other guys gone and take the chance to be refused in private, or ask straight away so that if the refusal comes you won’t be alone in your embarrassment and might even make the other guy feel better. But then you might get embarrassed in a different way, because if the dealer thinks that your credit rating was worthy tonight and serves you a draw, the poor guy he refused is going to feel like shit, and that makes you feel the same as him so then you've got to offer him some out of guilt, until you realise that it's some kind of cheap low down scam he's running, and he's always up there being refused a draw whenever anyone walks in. He's got some connection to the dealer, or he would have been thrown out already from long time, it seems he's the dealers’ brother, or his best friend or something. But this is nothing compared to that if it was you who was refused credit while someone else got it. Or tragically, like if you're hanging around in the dealers house flicking through his books or something, making small talk, trying quickly to build up a relationship, re-establish a relationship, or just waiting till you've built up enough courage to ask for credit, when someone else walks in and pips you at the post and collects your winnings by buying up the last of the gear! Or even worse, by getting the last of the gear on tick! Some people have more dignity than others, more pride. It makes it hard for them to ask. While some people have no dignity at all, none! They can just bug the dealer till they give in, worn down. And argued out. For example I’ve got this friend who can cry at will, big guy. His whole body shakes when he cries and he’s got big sad eyes and tears rolling down his face man! It’s a terrible terrible thing to see a grown man cry, especially a man with a beard. It’s disgusting. But I’ve seen him cry to get weed. Let me explain something about him, I remember when we were kids at school! Lester was always crying about something or another and there was always a bunch of kids protecting him from another bunch of kids who wanted to beat him up. One day while playing truant from school I met him in the library next to my Estate. For some reason whenever I skipped school I would at one point in the day inadvertently find myself in the local library with the other truantees, ..Its not that we were guilt tripping ourselves into bettering our minds, it was just a good place to hang out and chill and plan stuff, and you could always pretend to be doing something for a project while you recovered from your latest bout of made up illnesses until the rain stopped. After a little bit of research in the medical section I had settled on Laryngitis for the day in case any of the staff asked, Lester was already known to the staff as an epileptic, and it was he who suggested that we go and do some hoisting. Everyone used to do a bit of hoisting sometimes in those days, but this time we got caught by one of the big stores in the west end.
Security had us in the back room, they’d just taken a load of stuff from us and was gonna call the police and our parents, in that order. That’s when Lester turned on the waterworks. I mean, he was a big guy even then. There was clearly something else wrong.
‘What’s up with him?’ The security guards backed away.
Desperate times make you say desperate things I suppose. That day a great but short lasting partnership was born.
“Umsmay idesday Umsmay idesday”. Lester sobbed in ‘Backslang’ the language of the london thief.
Now as his fellow thief I had to talk off his Cue, hoping that they hadn’t heard or understood his insane suggestion. ‘His Mum died …2 days ago’. I could hardly believe I said that, it was the worst thing I had ever said in my life! But then again this was the worst situation I’d ever been in, in my life! And now they were staring at me waiting to hear more, it was obvious I had to explain.
‘She was murdered.’ “This was never going to work”. I thought and burst into tears. ‘We only wanted to get something for his dad!’
‘Those Waterman fountain pens! Lester sobbed. ‘Last week me and my mum came up here and she was going to buy them for daddy, and those Parker pens, they’re dads favourite pens, and she wanted to get me those trousers as well..’
‘Stop! Are you telling me that your mum died 2 days ago?’
‘She did she did!’ I blurted out.
‘Shut up you!’
‘She was killed, it wasn’t my dad though if that’s what you were thinking because he was in prison, they were supposed to let him out next week anyway but they let him out this morning early, he’s going to kill me! Please don’t tell the police! And please don’t tell my dad.’
‘Look, we’re not going to tell anyone.’ The guards looked at each other then looked at me.
‘I swear to God, I swear on my mum’s life my dad’s life on all my brothers and sisters’ lives, my cousins lives my friend’s lives…’
‘John! I reckon we should help him. Say if you was a kid and your mum got killed?’‘I reckon I’d do worst things than a little shoplifting. You boys can go home but you mustn’t do this again! It’s a bad thing!’
‘Can I keep them?’ Lester pointed at the pile.
The guards looked at each other and shrugged. ‘Yeah, don’t see why not, what you think John?’‘But if they go out there they haven’t got any receipts or anything, and look at them! They’ll get stopped again. I’ll have to escort them out the back way.’
‘But but.. I...I haven’t got got! Got! All the things that I needed to get!’ The fuckin fuckin fucker wailed.
“Fuckin cunt fuckin wanker cunt arsehole cunt fuckin arsehole cunt cunt cunt”. I thought.
John the Guard took a pen from his top pocket, unfolded a sheet of paper from his back pocket and handed it to me. ‘Find out what your friend wants and write it down’.
Now you have to remember that I was only a kid. The tears that I was blowing then was real. I couldn’t do anymore. I wasn’t even sure if his mum was dead or alive now. My nose was running and all I wanted to do was leave. …What I didn’t want to do was write something down. Lying is one thing. But lying on paper! That’s a complete different thing. I just wanted to get out without getting nicked! ‘Thank you.’ I whimpered, taking the pen and paper.
On the bus on the way back Lester explained to me that ‘Crying’ is the only universal language in the world.
‘What about laughter?’ I asked him.
Well… You can laugh in all different ways. You can even laugh at someone when you hate them! so thats not included.'
‘What about when you laugh till you cry?’
‘Its still laughing, Crying is pure. Thing is though children forget how to communicate by crying when they learn how to talk’. He tapped his temple. ‘But I never forgot’
The conductor came up to us for the fare. ‘What’s up with him?’ he asked me.
‘Oh! His mum’s died, we just heard the news, she was murdered, we’re going home right now, I’m really sorry we haven’t got any bus fare…’ I knew the cue.
‘Stop please, it’s alright, you don’t have to pay anything it’s alright.’ He backed away. ‘Don’t worry lads, I’ll make sure you’re all right’. He yanked the route master bell cord 3 times in the code that told the bus driver to stop. ‘I’m going to get you some sweets, and some pop, I’ll make sure that you’re alright’.
‘Can he get me some cigarettes as well please?’ Blubbered Lester to me. ‘I need them to calm me down’. In those days people used to smoke on buses.‘And a Twix!’ I shouted down the stairs after him.
I looked Lester in his eyes. ‘Are you on some type of drugs?’
'What? You mean like glue?
Not glue! Glue isn’t drugs, glue is just glue. I mean Drugs!
That night he introduced me to cannabis.
SWISS NATURAL. WILL ROGERS
WILL: What kind of weed is this man?
ROY: Swiss.
WILL: I love swiss weed its always natural.
ROY: Not this one.
WILL: Hydroponics?
ROY: Not according to my mate the Professor.
WILL: Professor? What kind of chemicals they put in this?
ROY: He hasn’t used any chemicals he said. He says its grown in completely organic soil using all natural fertilisers.
WILL: Water?
ROY: And all the water comes from mineral rich alpine streams.
WILL: Look. You said its not natural now youre saying that’s it’s the most natural weed in the world?
ROY: It’s the actual light he used. The professor grew this using spectrums of light that hasn’t even been seen in this universe yet!
WILL: What!?
ROY: When I say that he’s a professor. I mean the guys a real professor! The real thing man! And hes just got back from Switzerland where he’s been working on this matter-antimatter hadron collider shit a mile under the alps. He brought it back as research material, I just got back from the university where he’s got it stashed.
WILL: Smart bloke.
ROY: Fuck off hes smart! He doesn’t even know the proper prices I think he thinks that its still 1983.
WILL: Wikkid, so hows it bun?
ROY: Mmmm, not bad.
WILL: Not bad? I thought you was going to say that its wicked or something. That’s it’s the best weed that you’ve…
ROY: He cut it down too early!
WILL: What a waste.
ROY: I know! I explained it to him in detail.
WILL: What a wanker. Lets have a spliff anyway.
So we sat down and took out the bag and had a look at the weed. Straight away I could tell that it was an ingrown weed, genetically and climatically. Bright green.
ROY: You see what its like?
WILL: Yeah, kinda green. Lots of resin though, and it smells nice. Looks wikkid actually.
ROY: Yeah that’s what I thought, but he says its young.
WILL: So whats the coup on this one then?
ROY: Well I got for a bit cheaper because as I told him, that it’s a bit
like a new product, and it has to be introduced to the market in the appropriate way, I have to find the right name for it… and navigate the right market. Find the right sales strategy. Police avoidance tactics. …it takes a lot of research you know?
WILL: Whats the matter with you man? Are you mad? You gone all corporate on me! I only want a quarter!
Then I lit the spliff.
WILL: …I could go for an ounce of it though. If the price reduces exponentially.
ROY: Yeah I can do that.
WILL: Actually the price should also decrease logarithmically too. Imean we’ve known each other for about ten years now and I’ve always been a loyal punter to you, you going so far as to do home visits.
ROY: I’m your friend!
WILL: I know. …But friendship goes both ways my brethren and surely my loyalty is worth at least 2 or 3 percent a year to you.
ROY: Well maybe 1 percent when I look at it that way.
WILL: 1.8
ROY: More like 1.2.
WILL: 1.5. come on!
ROY: Alright 1.5.
WILL: So over ten years that’s 15 percent.
ROY: 15 percent starting from now that is.
WILL: Yeah but looking at it retroactively, last years 13.5 percent, I’ll never be able to collect on it will I?
ROY: But you have, that’s why I let you make a spliff out of my stash sometimes. And even figuring in compounded interest I reckon that youre still ahead.
I took another puff. And realised that we had both just been speaking out of our arses.
WILL: I think this weeds a bit dangerous.
ROY: Not really dangerous, but its kind of irritating.
WILL: How did he grow this weed though? What exactly did he tell
you?
ROY: He said him and about ten other scientists down there in charge of the magnets that hold the particle beams in place had been firing up the collider and had made a mini sun down there. Now its only a few atoms across but its enough to generate enough light and heat to grow a few thousand plants.
I took another puff. And understood.
WILL: So youre saying its unfiltered sunlight, all the cosmic rays and gamma rays.
ROY: That’s what I said to him! He said ‘Naaah, its just bright and hot.’ So six weeks in one of the scientists decide to sneak down there with a few bottles of beer and snip off a few of the buds and have a quick smoke in the corridor. But he gets stoned and forgets his empties. Which messes up the calibration of the whole thing, and everything comes on top. So they have to shut down not only the grow operation, but the whole shebang, everything! The whole scientific experiment stops for 6 weeks costing hundreds of millions of euros. Until some repairman finds the beer bottles. No one owned up to it. And it was considered to be an innocent though costly mistake.
Then I said a word that I had never said before, and I hope never to say again. I said “Capital!”
ROY: What? What did you just say?…
WILL: Don’t say it man I never meant it, it just came out!
ROY: You said “Capital”.
WILL: I know! It’s the weed. We’re gonna have to get rid of it or something. You can’t sell people this weed, its fuckries! Youknow that man.
ROY: I got to, I’ve already bought it all. That’s what I come to ask you, if you wanna buy some.
WILL: How much for four?
ROY: 4 what?
WILL: Ounces.
I'm tellin ya man! The things people'll say to sell you some weed, and I'm a sucker for it, I love a good story, I reckon that if you have a good enough story , you can sell almost anything!
END.
Will B Rogers.
The Ganja Frequency. Carlos Tale.
Growers are always looking for ways to improve their crop. Chemicals in the feed, changing the spectrums of the lights, playing about with the air, well a friend of mine likes to play his plants sounds. It started out with classical music, he’d read something in the newspaper, that claimed that playing classical music to plants improved their growth. He explained it to me while we smoked some of the wildest looking stripy weed I’d ever seen. (Cannabis Variegata)
‘Thing is Will, all these right wing newspapers are always claiming that classical music can make you more intelligent’. He counted off on his fingers. ‘A better athlete, make cows produce more milk, induce rain, cure cancer. It’s as if there’s a whole organisation out there dedicated to promoting classical music!’ He licked the papers and wound his Spliff shut. ‘Now as you know, I don’t listen to that shit. But one day I bought a newspaper that had a free classical music cd with it, so I thought I’d check it out and really see if it’d work on the plants. So I dug out this 5.1 computer surround system, set it up in there and put the cd on a continuous loop. Two days later, no difference, just as I thought. But during that time I had been thinking about it, I mean… what would it sound like to the plant? Classical music that is. It’s got lots of high frequencies like violins, the mosquito range, midranges in the cellos and horns, a bit goaty. Basses in the kettle drums, a bit ‘cow’y’. Cacaphonous really, why would they like classical music anyway? Why not Reggae music or drum and bass, or punk?
‘Yeah man!’ I answered. ‘Definitely! I think weed trees like reggae music the most, I feel that they like the bass because a lot of the people who smoke it like bass too’. I calculated in front of him. ‘I reckon they like Bob Marley actually because someone told me that if you go anywhere in the world and you want to get some weed, Go to somewhere that’s playing Bob Marley, that’s the rule.
‘That’s what I thought. …at first, I played them bob’.
‘Old stuff and new stuff?’
‘Old and new’.
‘Peter Tosh?’
‘Yup,
‘You played them everything you could think of didn’t you?’
‘Yup! Whale sounds, ..white noise’. You know that!’
‘So what did you settle on?’
‘The problem was, was that I was anthromorphising you see getting anthromorphic on the plants’.
‘What?’
‘Putting human qualities and attributes on the plants, thinking that they think like how we think. I realised I had to think like a plant. Come and take a listen.’ He led me down to his basement. '
But before we go in I’m going to turn the system off. I don’t want it to turn us deaf!’ He laughed.
When we went into the basement the first thing I noticed was his huge plants, now I’ve seen huge plants before, but theyre not usually as lush as these.
‘So what sounds have you been playing to them?’ I asked. That’s when he explained to me about his and apparently other peoples theory;
‘Its about getting the right frequency of jungle sounds, in the Ganja environment and any environment there is a harmonic soundscape that is beneficial to everything, just like how a ecosystem has every bit of land exploited by flora and fauna, the available sound frequencies will always be taken on by new species to make the harmonic whole of the region. You get that?’
‘Yep! What you mean is that you reproduce the sound of their environment?’
‘Exactly!’ I’m gonna turn it on now. You ready?’
The only thing that I could say it sounded like was a fax machine, a really loud fax machine! An awful sound, but as he explained to me, it was the distilled frequencies of the Kashmir regions of northern India, isolated individual frequencies amplified for the best effect. The place that he really wants to go to though is the foothills of Afghanistan, close to the Pakistan border, the birthplace of Ganja. (But he has to wait for a few years as its under Taliban control and they might kill him.) …massive plants though, and a good smoke too.
