Some 15 years ago I had a very brief gig writing a column called, “The High Guy,” for the short-lived University Reporter out of Boulder, under the nom de plume, Guy Budd. Clever, right?
I can’t remember if I got paid or not, but I do recall that it was fun and exciting to be writing about weed in the late ’90s as a not-so-inside joke. Once, as a bonus, I scored a press pass to a reggae fest where if it weren’t for an overly zealous PR flak, Ziggy Marley and I would have shared a blunt.
To cover the show, I also got paired with a hippie photographer named Basil who, as soon as we arrived, ate a handful of mushrooms and started shooting the stage while holding an aspen leaf at the edge of his lens. Later that night, he locked me out of my house and took a candlelight plunge in my tub. When my wife got home, she demanded I scrub the entire bathroom with Ajax, twice.
These days, weed’s so out front in Colorado that Cheech and Chong seem like a vaudeville act. The Denver Post even has a daily section devoted to marijuana, with readership lagging only slightly behind the news of what Peyton Manning had for breakfast. Pot has become so mainstream that all those old insider “420,” and “safety meeting,” let’s get buzzed words have become colloquialisms—and it’s become easier than ever to caricature who in the Mile High city is hitting the pipe:
Munchie Guy
Honestly, I don’t think this guy likes weed as much as he just likes to eat. He’s on the phone with the pizza man five minutes after he takes a hit, or drooling over memories of Efrain’s II’s super hot green chile baby back ribs (costillas) or online surfing the menu at Steuben’s, reading out loud about the “meatloaf with mushroom gravy” like it was erotic art. Bottomline: homeboy smokes to get his appetite way, way up.
The Biggest Pot Smoker in the World
The world’s biggest pot smoker proclaims his pipe-packing prowess by wearing hats, shirts, jackets and jewelry adorned with a marijuana leaf. If white, he may even crown his superior stoniness with dreadlocks. “What is up with white guys with dreadlocks?” I was thinking when the world’s biggest pot smoker got on my plane in Salt Lake. When he sat next me, my second thought was, “this sucks.” After another passenger, then the flight attendant, informed him he was in the wrong seat, he snapped, “It’s your damn fault everybody got 10B. I’m sitting right here until we get to Idaho Falls.” “Yeah, this is the plane to Albuquerque,” the flight attendant said. The whole plane clapped as he left.
The Afici-Hash-Onado
The Hashonado collects weed the way some people collect LPs, baseball cards, or comic books. He has a veritable Indian restaurant spice rack of preserve jars filled with buds all painstakingly labeled as “Buddha’s Daughter,” “Elf Leaf Tree Service,” or “Purple Trainwreck.” And as he savors each puff with lip-smacking satisfaction, he offers up an anecdote like, “I thought I was a Smurf the last time I smoked this stuff.”
The Hashlete
I think it was in Rolling Stone that I read how former Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon was, “from that first generation of athletes who got high and kicked ass.” Former Broncos star punt returner Rick Upchurch apparently sprinted and smoked the grass. While Colorado University Heisman Trophy winner—and NFL bust—Rashaan Salaam, blamed the green wax for his lack of professional production on the turf. These days, though, there’s a new school of long distance uber-aerobicisers going long and far on THC-enhanced gummy bears and mints. Rather than eat an exotic brownie and watch 10 hours of Walking Dead reruns, the Hashlete runs wild trails and sprints up peaks. Talk about taking two trips at once.
Your Mom
You think it takes just a couple glasses of wine for Mom to put up with all your shit? Sometimes your little meltdowns or mess-ups entail something more enlightening—and potent—from the herbal medicine cabinet. Like, according to a friend whose mother I still imagine as the modern equivalent of June Cleaver, a super strong but sweet all-forgiving sativa with a get-it-done moniker like “AK-47.” Think tu madre no fuma? How else could she smile at the late-breaking news that you’re moving back in again, as she looks ridiculously stylish whipping up a perfect turkey sandwich in her peach pantsuit?
Movie Guy
Hollywood super stoner Seth Rogen once said, “I have never been to a movie and wished I was less high.” Judging from all the red-eye specials at any given showing of Transformers, Hercules or Dawn of the Planet of the Apes this summer, and you’d think movies were created just as an excuse for people to get baked. As a kid I remember going to see Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and wondering why the large person behind me kept saying, “In-dy,” as he cleaned out a whole XL tub of popcorn and sucked back two giant Cokes. Now I get it.
Colorado High Guy
Of course, some people just smoke to get stoked. Whether it’s whitewater rafting, skiing deep powder, climbing a 14’er or just taking in a particularly beautiful Rocky Mountain sunset, getting high in and on nature is one of this state’s most popular pastimes. Not that you need weed to enjoy the great outdoors—or really anything if pot isn’t your dime bag—but for Colorado High Guy smoking and smiling about all the pleasures of living in Elwayville go together like peas and carrots. I would imagine if you ask anybody who migrated here or decided to attend college in CO in the past six months, it was certainly a factor in helping them decide to come here in the first place.
Did we miss anybody from your own “Stoner watchers of Colorado” guidebook, besides Red Rocks Guy and Frisbee Guy of course? Let us know at elevationoutdoors.com and we’ll add them to the next list.
—Peter Kray is Elevation Outdoors’ editor-at-large and a co-founder of The Gear Institute (gearinstitute.com) and the author of The God of Skiing.
