NIGHT CRAWLER By Silke Tudor
Copyright (c) 1997, New Times Inc.

On Sunday, with the feds busy planning their raid on
Flower Therapy a distributor of medicinal marijuana
thousands of happy tokers find themselves able to gather
worryfree at the 4:20 Festival, a shameless celebration of
the wacky weed in its many forms. It's a beautiful thing.
Outside the Maritime Hall, a daunting gunbarrelgray
building belonging to the Sailors Union of the Pacific,
dozens of skate punks lean against the railing that
encircles the concrete courtyard. They laugh with typical
gregarious juvenescence, cutting each other up and passing
Camel Lights back and forth before entering the
cigarettefree inner environs. A few feet away, a handsome
middleaged man wraps a brightly woven coat around his
small daughter. Like the building, the day is gray.

Three women, whitehaired and clad in billowing tiedye
dresses, enter the building in a flutter of
patchouliscented cloth and plop down $15 each for
admission. Behind them, a wispybearded teen approaches the
doorman.

"Can kids come in?" he asks, completely unabashed. There
is a nod. Until entering the festival, I cannot possibly
grasp the implication of this exchange that "kids" means
not only the small girl clinging to her father's hip, but
also hundreds of 13yearold potheads.

In the Hemp Bazaar, the first room on the ground
floor, people stroll among a dozen or so hempcentric tables
and booths. Hemp purses, twine, hacky sacks, hanging
chairs, hammocks, belts, backpacks, waterbottle bags, and
clothing are offered by Xochi Hemp and other such
companies. In one corner, free 10minute massages are doled
out to kids too young to know the meaning of tension. The
Libertarian Party of California passes out pamphlets on
sensible drug policies and jury duty. At the Cannabis
Action Network table, a heavily tattooed, longhaired
beauty wearing a garland of phony marijuana leaves stands
over a sign reading " Marijuana users tend to be more open
to experience, more esthetically oriented, and more
interested in creativity or spontaneity than non marijuana
smokers." The feeling in the room is jubilant, but
relaxed, assisted, in part, by a thick cloud of
sweetsmelling smoke issuing from folks trying out their
new multicolored bongs and handcarved pipes.

"Please don't take my picture," begs a chubby,
greasyhaired girl as her lips curl over her braces in a
pout. "My mother would just kill me." Her friends seated on
the floor nearby peer at me with bleary eyes. "Hey, how ya
doin'?" asks a pale, skinnynecked kid from under an
illfitting baseball cap. He doesn't wait for an answer. A
distant, quiet smile spreads across his face as he focuses
his eyes on a spot on the floor two feet away. For nearly
five minutes, nothing not even a crazy man draped in
wooden bongs doing a clattering jig close by distracts
him from the fascination of the tile floor.

"You know, they're just experimenting," says a
cleancutlooking gent with a cell phone. He tries on a
Headcase hat with the everpopular 420 logo (urban myth has
it that 420 was a police code used to denote illegal
marijuana use and/or juvenile disturbances, depending on
who you ask; it is also the name of the label founded by
Oaklandbased punkfunk, stoner band Puzzlefish; and the
time at which today's festivities began). "I think weed is
the first step most teens take at selfdelineation. It's
one of the first choices we make completely independent of
our parents. You remember that feeling, don't you?" The man
smiles and takes the hand of his willowy lady friend and
picks his way through the entrance hall, which is clogged
with giggling skaters, ravers, and Deadheads.

Upstairs, the main dance hall is cool and dark, aside
from the foggy light seeping in through the Maritime's
windows. Hundreds of kids sit or lie on the floor in small
groups surrounded by bottles of water and munchies
purchased downstairs at the Hemp Seed Cafe hemp seed
chili, hemp seed pizza, hemp seed cookies, etc., all
prepared with loving care by chef Evan Rotman. Because the
bands are between sets, the more energetic in the crowd
make their way past a large table manned by the beefy Long
Beach punks from Skunk Records (the punkfunksurfabilly
label founded by Sublime) and slip down into the basement.

In one pitchblack room sprinkled with thousands of
tiny, spinning lights, the Gathering has planned a rave.
The kids sit, waiting in the dark as the sound system is
set up.

"It's still daylight out," says a young woman as she
studies a fluorescent flier under black light. "I usually
don't drop in daylight." She shrugs, passing me the flier
which announces the arrival of galactic culture on Earth
and cruises out into the labyrinth of halls that make up
the lower levels of the Maritime. At one end, warm, herbal
smells waft out from the spacious, brightly lit,
subterranean cafe. A line of hungry critters stretches down
the hall, past the dimly lit circular bar where most of the
older set has slumped into deep burgundy booths to sip from
highball glasses. Mahogany and brass gleam from every
surface. Small portholes with nautical scenes painted in
them glow above the drinkers' heads.

"Hey dude, look," says a heavyeyed man to his pal.
"It's like being underwater." He chuckles and slugs his
friend's shoulder.

Aboveground, three girls sprint down a hallway as if
they've just been released from an eighthgrade algebra
class. On their way, they bump into a grayhaired woman,
who is studying photos pinned up on the Prisoners of the
Drug War Wall.

"It's such a shame," she says referring to a mother of
two serving 25 years. "I mean it's not like it's cocaine,
you know." How true. It's unlikely that there would be a
Cocaine Festival.

By Silke Tudor