WCS 94: Weed across town, at the state fair
w/: Hate's proving ground + Seattle's famous striker + The new MAGA imperialism
Hours ago, over at Cal Expo the California State Fair opened. The increasingly popular 16-day event’s Cannabis Experience—a 50,000-square-foot set-up unlike anything in America’s state fairdom—is entering its fourth year.
In 2024, the all-important consumption lounge was added, and the Experience became a legit stoner hang. Have you ever spent Saturday night at the state fair… on weed?
Through the midway lights coming down on the Sunday night after next, the celebration will feature an Embarc-brand dispensary and a shaded consumption area. They are where you go once you’ve gotten all you can of the Cannabis Experience’s historical and scientific displays and panels and contests.
There was no on-site smoking back when I signed books with Weed author Ellen Holland, at Fair-y Jane’s 2022 debut. Never mind The Experience being smack-dab in the middle of Cal Expo.
Holland and I had been in an enclosed exhibit hall, off the midway and surrounded by curious and proud Californians. The sense of cannabis legitimization was all-but tangible. We were repping weed at the state fair.
Still, it would have been a lot better if we’d been able to smoke. The more serious Fair-y Jane problem was the state’s refususal to let human beings judge those first weed contests. Laboratory testing was the litmus test.
For reals.
Someday an author will will examine this initial fair weed decision and from there unwind the entire history of cannabis marginalization.
“I’m glad to see that the fair has gone beyond awarding medals through lab testing and put some expert smokers on the job,” Holland said to me in a Thursday text.
(Ellen reminds us that, concurrently, it is Hash Week, over in The City. Oh, if only every week were a celebration of hashish. I just texted my college boy a reminder. )
Tomorrow night is the California Cannabis Awards. Because this fair has evolved, the Pinene category winner—say, Outdoor Division—is going to have a bit more certitude in their status as California’s best than Farmer & the Felon’s Grape Ape did when it took the Outdoor Pinene category in 2023.
What’s not to like about that?
Not today, bitch!
This week’s newsletter may contain more ICE content than usual. But I haven’t written the thing yet, so that’s mere speculation.
Roughly 10 percent of all WCS subscribers know that Nos. 3, 2, and 1 tend to end up the week’s choicest items. Follow the rabbit hole, and decide for yourself.
10 ICE rains chaos down on Glass House farms
In the same week that the Secretary of Agriculture floated that “able-bodied” Medicaid recipients taking the place of deported farm workers—the math for which is not credible—we saw the feds raid a grow belonging to one of California’s premier brands.
Thursday morning, National Guard troops were with ICE when they arrived at the Camarillo property.
Reuters / KTLA
One protester was killed. Some Glass House workers have not been accounted for. Reportedly, ICE had visited both of Glass House’s nurseries in June.
Dozens of good humans came out to Ventura County after word of the ICE raid leaked on social media.
The protestors faced off with the Gestapo until the feds used tear gas. Someone shot a gun at ICE, and I could give a fuck.
Lil Hit
Stockton Rush was the CEO and founder of Everett, Washington’s OceanGate Expeditions. He is also the hubristic villain of an insightful documentary that came out last month. To simply say that the Titan implosion need not have happened, leaves out so much.
Netflix
It nearly goes without saying that ICE should be fought everywhere those kidnappers operate, but Los Angeles is presently hate’s proving ground.
9 Seattle’s Reign now has cops what America needs: New power at striker
Get it? Almost certainly you do, as I’m not trying to be clever. A general strike, that’s my point. Only as always, these days.
Having made this point, it really is significant that two-time women’s Women’s Super League champion Mia Fishel has signed to join the Seattle Reign. The US Women’s National Team forward—or, as some prefer striker—will reunite Fishel and Reign head coach Laurie Harvey.
Sounder at Heart / Seattle Times
In 2020, Harvey coached the US under-20 women’s national squad.
Fishel’s four-and-a-half-year contract is worth as much $2.5 million and could be the largest deal in NWSL history.
Lil Hit
“I would love to just call a general strike,” said a fuming Kingsburg grower named Vernon, who stood among his acres of plum trees on a recent sweltering morning. He won’t though. We’re all just going to passively sink into authoritarianism.
New York Times
8 Two dozen places to volunteer for LA’s fight against ICE
It nearly goes without saying that ICE should be fought everywhere those kidnappers operate, but Los Angeles is presently hate’s proving ground. Here is where you can volunteer to help an organization and fight Immigration Customs and Inforcement.
LA Taco
All of the organizations appear worthy. If you cannot give your time, throw some money their way.
More LA Taco content is set to come. Support them, too, while you’re at it.
Lil Hit
Did you know that California—the poster state for America’s housing crisis—only now has a housing agency up and running? How did that shortcoming bypass our attention?
Santa Cruz Outlook
Caen 1
There’s unlikely to be internal revolution against MAGA. We needed the American elites to show up, and they wimped out…
How awesome would it be if our political leaders thought in terms of what they’ll tell the miserable future generations, regarding what they did in this demanding moment…
A compelling Reddit thread from this week discusses Oregon events that are worthy of becoming movies…
The story behind 1914 martial law in Baker County—and the woman who made it happen—is probably my top production candidate…
People say, Ya gotta love Shaq, but.. do we?
7 The PDX ‘Opening Day’ fantasy gets a little more real
On Tuesday, the Oregon Assembly passed a bill approving $800 toward the building of a Major League Baseball stadium in Seidel Park. At publication time, the bill was sitting “on Governor’s Kotek’s desk.”
KOIN / MSN
“As Oregon’s anti-business climate continues to drive away valuable companies, an MLB stadium would create an opportunity to boost statewide revenue, and also hold Portland leaders accountable for improving safety and quality of life,” Rep. Christine Drazan said in a statement.
On so-and-so’s desk is such a silly journalism convention.
Lil Hit
I’ve been up there, outside screaming at PDX ICE HQ, and completely understand why this low-income Portland neighbor is suing to get the noise level down. Living near all that racket must be gnarly af.
Willamette Week
Venmo a tip my way and I’ll treasure that a gesture of gratitude.
6 Remember me writing you from MacArthur Park?
Last spring. I was sitting with a bunch of tutors at MacArthur Park Elementary School when our phones got the message that Donald Trump had been convicted on 34 felony charges. Those kids were utterly unfazed. I insisted the convictions mattered, and was deadass wrong.
Thirteen months later, The Orange Shitbag has federal troops stomping through the park that was two floors below us.
Associated Press
“I thought this was like a war,” said park regular Hector Velasquez, who told the AP that he was reminded of his El Salvador. “Only in war do you see the tanks.”
A WCS excerpt from last June: My May had been spent bussing it up and down from Echo Park to MacArthur Park and teaching math and English to elementary school kids. The Trump verdict was far from the stuff of fireworks among these young Americans. Who can blame them for being incredulous? Their adult lives have been thoroughly dominated by this man whose political obit has been written more times than there are Fast & Furious sequels. This generation grew up on Teflon Don.
The following excerpt from that post has little to do with this particular entry, but I have to indulge myself: My gut still says Trump vs. Biden won’t be the Nov. 5 matchup.
Lil Hit
All 17 Rite-Aids in the greater Fresno area are closing. Here they are, by name.
The Fresno Bee
This hour left me happy
May it do the same for you.
5 Is America’s going ‘California Sober’?
A recent federal report—for some reason not cited here directly—suggests that last Dry January catapulted the nation into curiosity about a certain sort of sobriety.
Worth
“[A] survey from CivicScience found that 21 percent of participants were replacing alcohol with cannabis—and the biggest demographic to do so? Gen Z, with 21-24-year-olds making up 34 percent of that group, followed by 25-34-year-olds at 24 percent.
Lil Hit
On Friday, NFL legend Ricky Williams gained entrance to the Whites House, presumably exempted because he gave his body to the game. The running back-turned entrepreneur talked to the main piece of shit about getting weed sorted at the federal level.
Marijuana Moment
Caen, by Jean Toomer
Anyone who says they were surprised by Grok’s White supremacy is a liar and an enabler. Willfully ignorant doesn’t cut it…
Same corporate hacks who won’t let you focus on 2026 election protection, the only avenue of heading off the never-ending shit sandwich that’s on the planetary menu…
I’ve stopped wearing my Dodgers cap and I’ll be damned if I watch any of their games. You should stop supporting them. Please ridicule the franchise more than you already do…
By the time you read this, Amazon Prime Video may have already announced the hiring of Dell Curry as part of its NBA coverage team…
All of the yes-anding on podcasts gets to me, but the A24 conversation between Ari Aster and Bill Hader threatened to become actual fellatio, which would have been interesting…
Hoops, not litigation with Adam Davis
Through the start of next season, this conversation with the executive director of Oregon Humanities is the last protracted bit of basketball talk that you'll see on this Substack.
WCS's print pro football coverage will be strictly as war metaphor. The NFL is going to be heavily covered here, and as the normalization of militaristic thinking that it is. Tell a fuckin' friend.
4 The prison investments of Mark Walters and sports escapism’s end
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