Look Out for the Sactown OGs

International High Flyer Ngaio Bealum Has Jokes that Belie Wisdom

This week I write from the lovely Tower District in Fresno, California. My conversation partner is just up the road in Sacramento. We laughed so much this week that I regret not making our talk happen in person.

More than the most celebrated human in my fantasy football league, Ngaio Bealum is arguably the most famous cannabis-focused comedian on the planet. He owes much of his recognition to the International Cannabis Business Conference, with whom he has joked and hosted weed events from Vancouver to Slovenia. You more likely have consumed Bealum’s albums, his journalistic columns, or caught him on the Netflix series Cooking On High.

Bealum, 55, is a San Francisco native, an excellent juggler, and a foremost weed advocate. He’s a product of the same abundantly blessed 90s scene that brought last week’s Sojourn Conversation partner, John McCrea of CAKE. In our Zoom chat—recorded on Tuesday morning—we talked a bit about fellow creator Keith Knight, whose rap duo Marginal Prophets appeared in the background of a McCrea anecdote from last week. Knight is recently best known for the Hulu series Woke, which while entertaining is most notable for being the first TV series in which the author is better looking than the actor who plays him. 

In retrospect, what was most remarkable about San Francisco at the end of the 20th century might have been how we just thought the dopeness would remain in endless supply. We didn’t know that The City’s incredible essence was perishable. 

Anyway, what follows is a 95 percent accurate representation of my conversation with future Cannabis Hall of Famer Ngaio Bealum.

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You just got in? From Istanbul?

I just got in from Slovenia and Istanbul. 

I was engaged to a woman from Istanbul. 

No shit? 

I love the culture. I got Turkished out. It was great.

Oh, I can imagine. I was only there for like eight hours, and I spent maybe three or four hours in Istanbul—in the middle of the night. My plane got in at like midnight, and I got into town. It was 1:30-2:00 o’clock, but it was still crackin’ on a Saturday night! It was still kinda packed, I saw a bunch of shit. It was a good time, made me really want to go back, like spend three, four, five, six days and like really get into it.

Let’s do that then, because I’ve always wanted to go there. They have this big festival in Orange County, all of the Turks from Southern California come. The food’s incredible. They do a lot of fish.

Lot of fish. They were casting off the bridge and the street vendors were selling these mussels, but stuffed with a rice mixture. You just stand there and eat as many as you want, give the guy a few lira. It’s a good time.

So, we’ve already established that you’re an international man of leisure. But we haven’t really told people who you are. And I know that’s hard, because you’ve got a lot of history.

I’m an Aquarius…

There ya go.

…born in the Year of the Monkey… Maaannn, I’ve been a stand-up comedian for a long time. I’ve been a cannabis advocate for a long time. I’ve been a writer for a medium amount of time. When I say writer I mean published writer, not just write jokes and travel around.

I feel you.

San Francisco native, now I live in Sacramento. I’m kind to children and small animals. Chronically single.

You’re chronically single, but you’re a parent. I was just listening to you on your podcast from like a year ago with Keith Knight.

Yeah, that was a good one!

That was very funny, but it was also very apt. The first one of these conversations I did was with John McCrea from CAKE, and I told this little anecdote in the conversation about the Bay Guardian Demo Tape of the Week show. I had reviewed CAKE’s demo. But another band on the bill was Marginal Prophets. [Ed: I promise we’ll get you back to that Keith Knight part.]

Oh, deep. Marginal Prophets, CAKE, Most Chill Slack Mob. We were all in there.

It’s that San Francisco-Sacramento nexus. And we’re kind of all over the place, but Keith is the guy behind The K Chronicles and Woke, which I really enjoyed. Well, I saw Season One of it, didn’t see Season Two.

I saw Season One and Season Two. It was a great show. The soundtrack is incredible. They brought up some good things. Everything was funny, all of the acting was great. I’m a big fan of Keith, man. I met him right when he moved to San Francisco. I was a young street performer at like the Clement Street Pumpkin Festival or something and he was doing street cartoons. So I had him draw a caricature of me. I still have it, and that’s thirtysomething years ago.

We’re going to come back to juggling. I’ve got some juggling questions for you. I haven’t hung out much with you. I intended to have an interview with you on the WeedWeek podcast. You remember when I came out to the house with my girlfriend.

I remember that. You forgot your microphone.

Ooohh, that’s right.

I think I still have it.

That belongs to Alex Halperin. I feel really bad.

I have your mic somewhere in this house. You’re welcome to come over, help me straighten up, and look for it.

[Laughing] We’ll put that on the list of things to do one day. But we have all of these people in common, I’ve wanted to ask if you knew this guy: Do you remember The Crack Emcee?

[Pauses] I can’t say that I remember The Crack Emcee.

Keith used to hang around with him. We used to hang out at his place.

An MC who did crack?

Yeah, he had done crack, but he was a weed dealer. He had an apartment at Haight and Central. He was up on like the eighth floor. Lot of people used to come through there. Shock G used to come through, back in the day.

I used to live on Central and McAllister. But I’ve never actually done any crack. I’m mostly a weed head.

We weren’t doing crack. Just to be clear: Keith Knight was not doing crack. That would be an episode of Woke. That’s not what happened, man… do you have a fondness for those times? You seem like someone who’s always looking forward.

I’m always looking forward, but I gotta say that San Francisco in the nineties was a great time to be young and alive and doing what you want. It wasn’t too expensive, still, right? So you could be a comedian, be an artist, and have a decent place to live and still go out and create and do your thing. Get your poetry on, get your rap music on, and get comedy on. Get your vibe. Now it’s so hard you have to work three or four jobs.

It used to be… not cheap, but not overly expensive. Now, it’s worse than New York. Sacramento’s becoming that way too. When I first moved to Sac in 2008 and 2009, you could get a two-bedroom spot in midtown for a thousand bucks, $1,200. Now it’s $2,800 for a studio. That’s crazy for Sacramento.

Yes, but cities are changing around the world.

You go to all of these places to emcee cannabis events. Can you show us that world. Lay people don’t go. What’s it like?

I work with the International Cannabis Business Conference series. We started in Oregon as the Oregon Medical Marijuana Business Conference series. Shout out Alex Rogers, an old-school activist from way back in the nineties. Now he lives in Slovenia. He had a vision: We’re going to take this worldwide. We did Vancouver. We did San Francisco. Then, all of a sudden he decided to do Berlin. Everybody thought it was crazy. Two months before our conference Berlin was all, Hey we’re going to legalize weed; we’re going to start talking about it now. I think that was 2017-2019 when they were starting to get the plans together.

Then we blew up from it. Now we do Berlin, Barcelona. We’ve done Zurich. We just did a science and technology forum in Slovenia. Eastern Europe is really starting to get into it. It’s like dominoes, one thing starts to go and then everything starts to tumble.

Cannabis is one of the most favored drugs in the world. You can go almost anywhere in the world and find weed. I’m not gonna front: I was in Turkey—you don’t bring any weed to Turkey. Everybody’s seen Midnight Express. But I managed to find a guy who had like half a gram of Lemon Haze from Spain. And it was delicious.

—Ngaio Bealum

One of the first dudes I met was like, “Are you from California?” I said yeah and he said, “weed’s legal there. You got any?” I said, “We just met. I don’t know you!” It was like being in Utah.

Can you point out some of the differences, country to country, culturally?

Barcelona has my heart at all times. I love San Francisco. If you’re from the West Coast, if you rep San Francisco as soon as you get to Barcelona you’ll catch the wave immediately. The vibe is super pleasant. They have weed clubs. It’s not legal, but it’s super decriminalized. They won’t really sweat you unless you forget that you have three grams of weed. They’ll pull it out of your bag, give you shit, threaten to call the cops, but not really. The security guard will look at you and say La lechuga del diablo— the lettuce of the devil.

I’m guessing that if you’re going there for a conference that the place is already hospitable to weed. You can’t really generalize based on your experiences.

You can’t really throw a conference at a place that’s not at least weed tolerant. I mean, Slovenia’s kind of decriminalized. If it’s for personal use they’re not going to sweat you. But we’re not going to be throwing any conferences in Istanbul soon. We were in Vancouver and it was already legal up there. San Francisco has been decriminalized forever… but I’ve been to Utah.

I have to ask… you’ve been traveling… it’s Tuesday morning. That means you found out the results from your first fantasy week of the year. Were you checking en route?

I’m not gonna lie, I totally forgot to put my numbers in. So, I’m sure I’m in last place.

My excuse is that I was in Slovenia and Istanbul.

[Ed: Favored to beat Alex Halperin’s squad this weekend, Bealum’s squad is very much in the mix after winning his season opener.]

Everybody says don’t blame weed for your problems. It’s not because I’m a stoner, it’s because I’m irresponsible.

I gotcha. What’s funny though is you’re in the league. We got the head of the cannabis studies program at Humboldt Poly in the league. We’ve got an author in there. Alex Halperin’s in there. A lot of people wouldn’t necessarily associate weed people with sports or fantasy football specifically. People who smoke weed do like sports. It’s not a mutually exclusive thing.

If it wasn’t for weed, the NBA wouldn’t be what it is now. Kareem smokes weed. Robert Parish got caught. Somebody sent him a pound in the mail. Damon Stoudemire tried to wrap some weed in some foil when he got busted at the airport, which is one of the dumbest things anyone ever did in life. It’s called a metal detector. It’s not called a weed detector.

I think it’s interesting that you only mentioned basketball players. You’re flirting with a cultural stereotype. You can’t forget Jared Weaver. Timmy? Timmy Lincecum?

Let Timmy Smoke, man! That was the thing, right? Yeah, maybe it is a little stereotypical when you say all these Black people smoke weed, but they’re a little more open about it. The NFL is starting to come around. Ricky Watters had a lot to do with helping out with that. But a lot of guys talk about how weed helps them, especially after a game, for pain relief, relaxation. Studies actually show that it helps with concussions and brain injuries. If the NFL were paying more attention they would be doing more to support it.

You said Ricky Watters when you meant Ricky Williams, but we don’t really know about Ricky Watters.

Former 49ers running back Ricky Watters. Williams played for the Miami Dolphins. [Whispers] They all get high!

Bake McBride just popped into my head. I’d never actually made that association.

I don’t remember Bake McBride, but if your nickname is “Bake”…

He was outfielder from the seventies. Huge Afro. I bet he was, indeed, Baked.

You’re a cannabis comedian. How is that different from being a comedian who uses cannabis?

Don’t even get me started. I always thought I was just a comedian who talked about weed a little bit. Then all of a sudden everybody’s like, Well all you do is talk about weed. Weed at a comedy show is like anchovies, apparently. You put too much on your pizza, you’re going to change the whole flavor. I don’t really understand it. I’ve got jokes about quantum physics, about being a Black man in Waco, Texas and doing all kinds of other stuff. As soon as you mention weed you’re a weed comedian.

I kinda pushed against that for years and years and years. Then weed started getting more and more mainstream and I was like, “All right, fuck it. I am a weed comedian.” I started leaning into it and started doing all of the weed events. We do the Seattle Hempfest, we do the Portland Hemp Fest. We do as many High Times events as we can, Emerald Cup. It’s going pretty well.

I’m going to be in Oklahoma Thursday, for the Comedy and Candor Celebration, which is a comedy and weed thing. And I’m going to Kansas City, Missouri for the Missouri Growers Cup, and that’s in two weeks. Between that I’ll be in Toronto for the Hall of Flowers Cannabis Convention. I’ll just be hanging out there and I’ll be in Chicago after that for the Benzinga Cannabis Convention, representing the ICBC.

What’s a funny story about being a Black Man in Waco, Texas?

It’s a whole story about how we decided to go to a strip club and the doorman was wearing a white power t-shirt.

Oh shit.

And I thought it was the funniest thing I’d seen in two weeks: If the doorman at the bring-your-own-beer titty bar in Waco, Texas is wearing a white power t-shirt, he’s clearly not white power’s best mascot. I wasn’t afraid at all. I thought he was being ironic.

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Nineteen ninety-four People’s Choice Award winner at the International Juggler’s Association Festival. What was that and what did it get you?

As jugglers go, I’m very very funny. I just turned up the riz, as the kids say. Turned up the riz at the convention for a week and had a great time. It got me a trophy that I should have turned into a bong. It’s in my house somewhere. That’s about it. You don’t get much from being the people’s choice, except the love of the people… which I’m all about. I’m a people person. I’m a lifetime member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Other People. We’re all here to hang out and kick it. We forget that.

We got the people’s choice award for Dock Ellis and the LSD No-No back in the day at the L.A. Film Festival. I couldn’t have been more proud.

It feels better when it’s from the people. Know what I mean?

Unless it’s populism from the right. You don’t want that.

Ah, those guys. Don’t even start. We don’t have the time.

Is Cooking on High the best show you’ve been on?

It was the most popular show I’ve ever been on. I was on the Sarah Silverman show. I did all of the back in the day Evening at the Improv, Half Hour Comedy Hour, all that sort of stuff. I think we could have been better. I wish we could have gotten a second season because I think we could have made it even better than it was. And it was pretty good to begin with.

I’ve been on TV and I know the power of television, but I didn’t understand the reach of Netflix. They told me it was just going to be a web series. It sat on a shelf for a year and a half, and all of a sudden it showed up on Netflix. My social media blew up. It was crazy. I really appreciate it for that. I got recognized in Zurich, just weirdly… walking around and somebody would be like, “Hey, you’re the guy on that weed show. What are you doing in Zurich?” “Smokin’ weed.” That’s what I usually do.

You talked to Keith about being a parent with weed and how he talked about it with his kids. [Ed: See? Told ya we’d make it back!] He’s definitely conservative about discussing it with his kids. And I know that you have a grown kid.

I have two adults now. I used to have children.

I think that’s what’s happened to me, but I just can’t bring myself to say it that way.

“How are my kids?” Do you mean my adults? My adults are great. They’re awesome. I couldn’t be more proud my young adults.”

And I feel the same way about mine. But I’m curious about strategy and how you talked to them. Not just your career in weed but your usage. I know that you were open and clear from very early on. But can you explain it for the folks who maybe don’t have that background.

I’m fortunate enough to live in California, where weed’s been decriminalized since the time they were born. I did not have to worry about Child Protective Services or people ratting me out to the authorities or whatever.

It’s always been my belief—no weed for children or pets. On pets people go back and forth, but no weed for kids. I was honest with them: Daddy smokes weed, but this is for adults. It’s like drinking wine, it’s like driving a car. When you get older you might want to try it for yourself, but until then lay off of it. I was always very strict: No drugs until college. We’d just talk about it: This is what drugs do. This is what it’s like. This what alcohol is, the good and the bad. These are the effects. You come from a long line of alcoholics on daddy’s side of the family, so you really need to be careful about that. And just be cool.

I can’t hide it, because when my kids were in high school and junior high Dad was on TV, talking about weed. Dad’s Instagram is full of weed stories. You just have to be honest about it. Daddy likes to smoke weed. It helps him take you to any animated film you want to go to. And we can go kick it in the park. It makes him long-winded, but you also won’t get a spanking.

I always called it daddy’s vegetables. My only guilt was that I might have turned my children off of vegetables.

Daddy’s medicine.

I listen to Eric Andre’s podcast Bombing. There are only a few episodes, but I thought I’d ask you. You must have bombed. Is it different bombing when you’re doing a weed thing?

You mean like bombing on stage and not doing well in a show?

Hell yeah.

That hasn’t happened in a long, long time.

But you have bombed. You don’t have one standout bombing that you want to share.

I tend to repress all of those memories. Like a cornerback, I’m just on to the next play. I got burnt for a 58-yard touchdown doesn’t mean I can’t get an interception next time.

One time in Florida I was doing a show. It was just bad. It was 20 minutes of me sweating and not getting just one single joke off. A lot of that is was a confidence deal. I wasn’t really confident in my approach with this particular crowd and they could tell. If the crowd thinks you’re scared, they will attack. I didn’t get heckled, nobody threatened to fight me or nothin, but it just wasn’t a good set!

I bombed at Litquake, the San Francisco literary festival.

How can you bomb at a literary festival? They’re all supposed to sit there politely.

I went on before Marc Maron, and it was one of those stories where you’re supposed to, um… I bombed. Let’s just leave at that. [Ngaio guffaws] There was no excuse for it. I will tell you though that at that first [storytelling] I had been smoking a lot of weed as a lifestyle. This was like 2010 or 2011. That’s one of the last times I was smoking a lot of weed. I took a whisky shot before going on stage, and I killed it.

This was a follow-up, a deconstruction of the first one. And I thought I’d do that drinking thing where I took a shot. Instead I drank all day in the Mission with friends and when I got onstage I made some decisions that weren’t good and I lost my confidence. Once you lose your confidence it’s over.

Once you lose your confidence it’s over. Listen, even if a joke bombs there’s another coming in 30 seconds. I read an interview with Bob Hope once and he was like, I know the joke is funny. If it’s not getting the response that I want, sometimes I will stand there and let them get into it. You just gotta hold you’re ground, understand You’re the shepherd. You’re the goat herder.

Okay.

You have to let them know. You have to have expectations.

What do you want people to know, something I should have asked, before we go?

Buy my album. Listen to me on Spotify.

Which one?

I have two albums. One is called Weed and Sex. The other is Weedier and Sexier. Weedier and Sexier is probably the best one, because I did it for real.

The second one has better sound quality.

Much better sound quality, because it wasn’t recorded from my flip phone while I was in Berkeley one time. [Laughs]

I’m glad you agreed to do this with me.

Anytime, brother. Us O.G.s gotta stick together.

Sacramento O.G.s have to stick together.