Deadhead Cannabis Show

Phish's Character Zero Red Rocks 2009 and Grateful Dead's Ithaca 1977

Episode Summary

Was this the all-time best Grateful Dead show? Jim Marty reports that even with the pandemic, cannabis year over year sales in most states and Canada are up. Larry Mishkin talks about how cannabis is bringing political adversaries on both sides of the aisles together. They review Phish's performance of Character Zero at Red Rocks in 2009 and The Grateful Dead's 1977 performance at Cornell University. Produced by PodCONX https://podconx.com/guests/larry-mishkin https://podconx.com/guests/jim-marty https://podconx.com/guests/rob-hunt Photo Courtesy of Jay Blakesberg

Episode Notes

Was this the all-time best Grateful Dead show?

Jim Marty reports that even with the pandemic, cannabis year over year sales in most states and Canada are up.   Larry Mishkin   talks about how cannabis is bringing political adversaries on both sides of the aisles together. They review Phish's performance of Character Zero at Red Rocks in 2009 and The Grateful Dead's 1977 performance at Cornell University.

Produced by PodCONX

https://podconx.com/guests/larry-mishkin

https://podconx.com/guests/jim-marty

https://podconx.com/guests/rob-hunt

Photo Courtesy of Jay Blakesberg

 

Episode Transcription

Dh0053.mp3

 

Jim Marty: [00:00:00] So it looks like.

 

Jim Marty: [00:00:35] Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Deadhead Cannabis show. This is Jim Marty reporting from sunny and warm Longmont, Colorado, mountain, my barn.

 

Jim Marty: [00:00:44] And it's a blue sky day in the mid 80s. Beautiful day here. Are things in Chicago, Larry.

 

Larry Mishkin: [00:00:50] Jim, everything is nice here as well. It's a beautiful, sunny day. We're heading into the summer and very excited about it. As of today, we are officially entering phase three in Illinois, which means that he shelter at home. Order is expiring. We can start congregating outside in groups of 10 or less. And I'm taking that as a good sign that we're well on our way to recovery. And, you know, I'm just going to be optimistic and hope that that means maybe by the fall we could still get a couple of shows in while it's nice outside.

 

Jim Marty: [00:01:21] Wishful thinking maybe. I certainly hope so. I had lunch at my favorite restaurant yesterday and it was their opening day. And lots of social distancing. Very limited menu. But I knew what I wanted it. I didn't need a menu and I had a wonderful lunch. So, yeah, things are getting back to normal here in Colorado, too. Yeah. That big question is when can we get together and in groups of five or ten thousand or go to see a ballgame, I'm dying to see Iraqis game. Yeah. Baseball.

 

Larry Mishkin: [00:01:50] Everything. I agree. It's it's kind of weird because I was talking about it with some of my friends and you know where it's the time of year now where I, you know, quite frankly, baseball would really be starting to get interesting two months into the season. Right. You know, now all of a sudden, the teams that are gonna play good ball are kind of asserting themselves. And this is right around the time when, you know, everybody is going to under concert tours. Memorial Day weekend really kicks off a lot for a lot of people. We had tickets to go to lock in in June this year. So, you know, we're we're we're heading full steam into that period of time when we would be out doing things that we don't get to do. And, you know, you can hope to by the end of the summer, maybe we'll see what happens. And certainly by this time next year, I'd like to think that we're back to normal. And, you know, all the things that are traditionally happening now are, in fact, happening.

 

Jim Marty: [00:02:39] Yes. Some of the things that I've been listening to and learning about is, you know, once you're in a baseball stadium or an outdoor arena like Red Rocks, it's not a problem. The social distance, if they sell half the tickets. The issue is, you know, that you have the funnels of people coming in and leaving the show. And when five or ten thousand people leave at once, then there's a lot of you don't really social distance when you're in the tunnels and exits and entrances to the venues that you and I love so much.

 

Larry Mishkin: [00:03:13] It's a great idea, Jim. If we could get people to follow some of the basic rules we learned in elementary school when we'd have the big school conferences and at the end they have a tag that, OK, everybody on the left hand side, row one, you can exit row two, you can exit row. You know, if people would follow those instructions, that would be great.

 

Jim Marty: [00:03:34] Right. And I don't think it's going to be an issue selling half as many tickets, because there's a lot of people out there who are very concerned about their immune systems. They're not ready to get on an airplane or go to a restaurant, go to a baseball game or a rock concert. So it'll be interesting to see how the tickets sell. Now, here in Colorado, the ski area that I work at, volunteer at Arapahoe Basin, opened this week and they sold out immediately. They have limited access, limited number of lift tickets. And you have to go on the Web site, preregister. That's our golf courses are working as well. I've been playing golf the last couple Sundays and you have to preregister and social distance. But if you're in the same family, like me and my son, we can ride in a golf cart together. So, you know, we're learning how to deal with this covered by race. We're learning more and more every day. I think they fall. We'll have it figured out. And fortunately, the hospitalizations and deaths, especially here in Colorado, on a very steep downtrend.

 

Jim Marty: [00:04:38] And I think that's true nationally.

 

Larry Mishkin: [00:04:39] I think you're absolutely right. But you'll have to forgive me because you had me out there living in a city where you can go skiing one weekend and play golf the same weekend. And I just love that about it.

 

Jim Marty: [00:04:50] Yeah, that's what we call springtime in Colorado. May is my favorite month here. I usually ski every Saturday and then after.

 

Larry Mishkin: [00:04:59] Well, I wish I had more than that. What's going on right now? We still now at the end of May, still do not have a take from the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation as to when we will hear about final results for the adult youth dispensary application licenses, which. Those announcements were supposed to have been made as of May 1st. They've been pushed off with no due date. We still don't have a date. What the attorneys are doing is we're conversing with one another and trying to figure out if anyone has a client who's received a deficiency notice, because if there's a deficiency notice out there, we know that they can't have an announcement until the deadline for responding to the deficiency notice expires. But that's kind of a rough way to have to do it now in a sign that maybe they're getting close. Last week at the end of the week, the governor issued some new emergency rules for the program and the centerpiece of those new rules talking about what happens in case there's a tie. Right. So they have if you're in the same district and they have three licenses and we have four people that all tie with the same score. How is that going to be resolved in. That would be solved by the review of different parts of the work and effort that we put in. We were disappointed to find out that, in fact, that tie is going to be resolved by nothing more fancy than pulling names out of a hat. Basically, a lot of lotto system. And, you know, you get that far and then it comes down to pulling a name out of a hat. And while I realize at some point there has to be a tie breaker. It seems a little frustrating to me to have to say to a client. Well, we did a lot of work, cost a lot of money. We put out a great product. You clearly had one of the top applications in your group. Sorry that didn't put your name on that hat.

 

Jim Marty: [00:07:00] That's amazing. And like you said, by that point, they probably had a quarter to a half a million dollars invested in their life license application.

 

Larry Mishkin: [00:07:08] Well, that's true. And I've had clients say to me now because I've gone out and started advising my clients of this, and some of them have said, hey, what? You know, that would have just been a lot better if on day one they said, OK, everyone who has two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and doesn't have a bad conviction on their record. Sign up here and we'll put all your names in a hat. We'll just draw the winner right there.

 

Larry Mishkin: [00:07:28] That. Would save a lot of trouble. Said that a little humorous.

 

Jim Marty: [00:07:33] Well, outside of the applications for the people who actually are open. And this is true apparently across the nation and in Canada that the marijuana sales have been very strong during the pandemic. Colorado for April reported higher sales in 2020 than in 2019, and that is without our national holiday of 420. I also saw a ticker today come across my computer that the Canadian public companies are having good sales and their stock prices ticking up a little bit over the course of this pandemic.

 

Larry Mishkin: [00:08:10] I have not heard negative Cannabis business news from anywhere. All the news that we've heard has been positive. You and I talked about the numbers in Colorado being off the charts, the numbers in Illinois being off the charts, which isn't that news since it's all brand new, but nevertheless launching at least in this part of the world. And we don't use industry that within a month or two became the. We all went down and each month we sell more than the month before. With a limited number of dispensaries available in a limited amount of product, we will soon have 75 new dispensaries out there and shortly after that, we'll have another 40 cultivations cultivation centers. So hopefully we'll get some of those issues worked out.

 

Jim Marty: [00:08:50] Yeah, Illinois certainly needs more cultivation. Another interesting article I saw this week is what a powerful political force the Cannabis industry has. The industry has become because we're really not a partizan political group, but we are very strong, pretty much a one issue constituency of legal Cannabis and safe banking and normal deductions. And so, you know, both sides of the aisle are very interested in having the support of the Cannabis industry. And this article went on to say that, you know, we can actually sway elections and close elections. So you're seeing Republicans as well as Democrats reaching out and reaching out to the Cannabis industry. The new bill. That concludes the Safe Banking Act, as well as normalization for IRS deductions. So we'll see if those provisions of the new things they're calling it the heroes bill. It's the fourth pandemic related bill that's winding its way through Congress. Set the House over to the Senate where it's getting a lot of attention, especially the Cannabis provisions. Certainly, sir, some people against the Cannabis provisions. But they're there. And we've got people like Corey Gardner and Elizabeth Warren, two extreme polar opposites politically pushing hard to get the safe banking as part of the heroes bill that's being considered right now.

 

Larry Mishkin: [00:10:31] Well, Jim, you know, you and I are the constant theme we've brought to this show over time is the amazing this of how Cannabis is a bipartisan issue and a safe banking bill passed the House. That's right, Grong bipartisan support. And you know it when it gets put to a vote in the Senate, I have no doubt that it will once again show strong bipartisan support. This is an issue that defies red and blue, conservative, liberal, Republican, Democrat. It cuts across all lines. And that's because we're dealing with something that's basic. That's a sense not essential in that respect. So some people it isn't. And the basic thing that we all like, that we all want to take a part of, it's like we'd be like saying, do we have a political decision over sugar?

 

Jim Marty: [00:11:18] And the Trump administration has been I wouldn't say they're very pro Cannabis, but they have not an anti Cannabis. And our Treasury secretary is Steve Manoogian has said some very favorable things about the Cannabis industry.

 

Larry Mishkin: [00:11:33] Look what I found out. Who for some of these people are who lined up going to Grateful Dead shows. Right, guys. People who are very strong commentators on the right and took very strong positions on the right. And yet, at the end of the day, they like to smoke marijuana. They like to go to Grateful Dead shows. And I love listening to Bill Ma because Bill Murray will find people who he disagrees with politically but who agree with him on marijuana. They will have fascinating conversations. It's wonderful to listen to them.

 

Jim Marty: [00:12:03] Right. There's the whole personal liberty, personal freedom side of the Republican side. There's the whole social justice argument that comes from the left. Yeah, I think I've said before on this show that politics make strange bedfellows.

 

Larry Mishkin: [00:12:19] That's true. And especially when you throw in marijuana because everybody just likes to get high. That's a great thing. And I really do believe that a lot of problems could be solved to people to sit down and smoke the joint together. Remember when Obama was president and they had a beer game between them and these these cops in Boston and everybody talked about that. We're just about ready for doing that with a couple of joints and letting everybody just chill out for a little bit. And he was I take this as a society.

 

Jim Marty: [00:12:46] Yes. Yeah. It's been a rough week with the riots up in Minneapolis, where my parent company headquarters, the terrible, tragic. Some people call a colony of death. Other people calling it a murder of the black man at the hands of the Minneapolis police. So it's been a rough week for social justice.

 

Larry Mishkin: [00:13:07] Yes. You know, and as a society, we need to try to find ways to there. And again, this always proves to be a great unifier for people. And hopefully people will cooler heads will prevail and people will get their message out without harming others or harming property. And then everyone, you know, we'll be able to find some common ground on which they can coexist. And if this helps people get there, then I'm all for it.

 

Dan Humiston: [00:13:36] I want to take a quick break to thank you for listening to today's show and to invite you to listen to all the other great MJ MJBulls Cannabis podcast like Raising Cannabis Capital, the show, which features Cannabis entrepreneurs that are raising money to expand their organization. Tune in each week and Thursdays and Sundays to hear founders of awesome Cannabis companies talking about their business and their fundraising plants. Who knows, maybe you'll discover the future Amazon or Apple of Cannabis and the Raising Cannabis Capital podcast.

 

Jim Marty: [00:14:08] Well, enough politics and business. Let's talk some music. I understand that you were able to find a clip of the Red Rocks 2009 show of character zero finfish.

 

Larry Mishkin: [00:14:21] I did. And I was I told you and I hope our listeners and listeners will understand I'm somewhat technologically adept when it comes to these things. So I just go to YouTube and whatever shows up on YouTube is what I find. And YouTube had a very grainy clip of that character hero. It only ran for just under two minutes, but. Within those two minutes, even on a grainy clip, here's what I surmised from it. For me, Character Zero is one of those signs that it seems like anytime I go to see fish, they play character zero. I'm the guy if you want to see it done three shows in a row. Shall I go to the show? They're going to play it. So I have a little bit of a lovely relationship with the sign. But overall, I love it because it's a great tune and it's a wonderful percussion tune and it's a great tune for Billy to sit in on. And I love the fact that they've got the two drum kit sitting right there next to each other. They're both playing. And every time they get to that part about boom, boom, boom, boom. The two of them were having a ball back there. You can see. So here's my question for you, Jim. The future. Did they have both drum kit set up? Did he sit in for the whole said or did he just come on for that one song?

 

Jim Marty: [00:15:30] No, he said it for the whole second set. I think they set it up there and separate.

 

Larry Mishkin: [00:15:34] Ok. So he came in for the whole second set with them. That's amazing. That's just that's fantastic. And what it says to me, you know, on the one hand, some people might say, oh, well, look, any drummer could sit in. But I don't think it's like that because, you know, Billy wasn't just sitting in. You know, if you're a drummer, you're out of sync with the beat of the song. It's going to stand out like a sore thumb. And Billy was grooving with that right from the beginning. And Frishman was clearly having a ball with it. And Trey looked over his shoulder thumb a few times. And that's the part that I love. Right. Well, you can see the guys on stage were having so much fun.

 

Jim Marty: [00:16:09] Yes. When the set ended. Fishman stood up and he said, I love my extra drama or something like that. And he gave us a barrel and we gave him a big roar of approval. So that was a really fun show. And of course, those were special shows because that was the first time fisherman back at Red Rocks since, I believe, nineteen ninety seven or ninety six. So it was very nice that they got to come back to Red Rocks in 2009 postpaid as they did four shows. And I think I made it all for very fun stuff. So, you know, speaking of great live performances, so I'm writing a book on how I helped make marijuana legal. And I'm up to 2002, the first Bonnaroo. And I brought back my memory of one of the best widespread panic sets I've ever seen. Without it by far. And the during the song Tallboy, which has a big verse about the Father Son and the Holy Ghost, Dottie Peoples and the People's Choice to out and just did a full gospel rendition right in the middle of that song of the Father Son, Holy Ghost. Part of that song, Dirty Peoples is gone. Can I get a witness? Can I get a witness? Just raise the hair as the back your back. So fabulous. I encourage our listeners to check out the Bonnaroo 2002 and widespread panic tallboy when Daddy Peeples sits in. So that's one musical story I wanted to tell. And then I've continue to enjoy May 77, having listened to several of the shows are all very good and. Yeah. That Ithica Show. Very, very good. Some people say it's the best Grateful Dead show ever. And I'm listening to it as a yeah. Pretty good. I'm not really getting why it's the best show ever. And then I got to listen to the morning dew and the morning dew is its most fabulous morning. Do I think I've ever heard Jerry gets at least two, possibly three extended solos and he's just soaring. Just sorry.

 

Larry Mishkin: [00:18:28] You know, Jim, we've been talking for a long time about the Barton Hall Show. We're doing a deep dove into it. And I went back and I listened to it again, compliments of this wonderful pricing for the May 1977 box that they put out. And the minute I read the opening notes, my first thought was, oh, yeah, this is EPICA. My dad had career when we all ran around with a box full of cassette tapes. One of my favorite shows was the dad is a kid made 77, and I never really had called it part and. Got it in terms of part hall. But of course, that's what it is. And the show it was was the background music of my college career. And going back and listening to it again, I understand why it is just to control what you're right about the morning. Do I think that this show needs to be graded in two sections, the entire concert and then the morning dew, which stands alone and tacked on to the end of any show, would make that show a top 10 for most people. But this is one of those shows where it was just interesting for me because they played the set, which is not outstanding by any means. It's a solid setlist and it's got great, great tunes, but not like they pulled something special out or led somewhere that they had never gone before.

 

Larry Mishkin: [00:19:47] It was just the way they played it. And they opened up with new mingle with blues.

 

Larry Mishkin: [00:19:52] And I know it's a great version. It's like one of those versions where you say, well, this might be an interesting show tonight just because they take a fairly ordinary tuit and they give it a lot of, um. And the entire first set, which is fairly standard dead stuff. Nothing exciting, you know, out of the ordinary, but just played so well. But it's the second set. Right. And they have everybody take a step back and you can tell the crowd is all up at the front of the stage and they're all excited and ready to go. And then they blow into the scarlet fire that people talked about the morning. Do I think it's a tremendous scarlet fire, one of the best I've ever heard, a great estimated prophet. And then they get to my favorite part of the show, which is the Saints to even not Sadoway St. Stephen's sandwich, which is for me, you know, breaks up these tunes, makes them a lot of fun and always took them off on some great jams. And in fact, a couple of nights later on the same tour in New York City, in the middle of that, they did a fake diva not fade away. Friend of the double that fade away, Saint Stephen. They took it one more layer deep, which we always love to listen to as well. But this was just great. But then, of course, you get to the morning dew and. You know, for Deadhead, too, who has listened to Jerry do a morning do comes in one of two ways. Either it's kind of a perfunctory one that he throws to the end of a show and even a perfunctory one is still a great one. But when he's into it, he really feels that the whole crowd just can tell. And you're absolutely right in this version of it. He's playing it. You're like, OK, well, it's morning two. That's great. But then you get the.

 

Larry Mishkin: [00:21:30] He takes it from one level to the.

 

Jim Marty: [00:21:33] Yep. Well, I certainly enjoyed it very much. And the previous show to Africa was the Connecticut show Hartford. And then after Ithica, they are at the Boston Garden. So I haven't gone through the whole box set. I'm enjoying it all very much. But check me out on this and see if I listen to it. Right. In essence, his show on The Scarlet Fire, I think, Jerry, this is a verse. He misses the verse that says this is a business. I wish for you. So anyway, I think we're coming to the end of our timeslot. So it's been a very good show. I enjoyed it very much. I always enjoy talking to Larry up in Chicago. Larry Mishkin, great Cannabis attorney. This is Jim Marty saying goodbye from beautiful, warm Colorado.

 

Jim Marty: [00:22:33] And we look forward to having you all back here next time.

 

Joy Beckerman: [00:23:08] Im Joy Beckerman, and I'd like to invite you to join me. My Hemp industry leading guests on Hemp Barons during my over quarter century at the forefront of the Hemp movement and emerging Hemp economies. I've had the privilege of working with many of the world's most dynamic, innovative, trailblazing, Hemp pioneer. And now every week I have the honor of speaking with them and sharing their stories with you. On Hemp Barons, you can download the latest episode every Wednesday at NJ Blue Dot Com or from wherever you listen to podcast.

 

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