Bong Street in Santa Cruz

So after handling my biz in the town of San Luis Obispo, I moved along up the coast into Santa Cruz. Pretty chill place. I did my thing promoting locally and showing product to the few shops in town. I can definitely see Bong Street doing business in Santa Cruz soon.

I almost went surfing but, I talked myself out of it since northern California is known for great whites. I know. Pretty sad. I used to live in Florida too. Home of the half-blind and extremely aggressive bull shark. Next time I will. I promise. I spent that night in Santa Cruz.

The next day I worked my way up the coast into San Jose. I dropped off some catalogues at a few shops, got some stickers out, and worked out a deal with Paramount Imports. Awesome shop. I definitely recommend it to anyone in the San Jose area. Not just cause they bought from me, but they do have a lot of really cool items and a huge variety. I got a sweet picture taken with a local reindeer that escaped from Santa’s fascist regime. She’s definitely down with Bong Street.

Reindeer Homosapiens seen walking around San Jose...This one's a hot one!

After that it was onto the San Francisco and the Bay area, where I accidentally spent the night in what they call the Tenderloin. I should of got a hint that it was not a good place to stay when I was walking down the street and some dude blew a hit of crack out walking by. I thought it was ok since I was sleeping behind a government building. I figured it was somewhat safe.

So around 5:00 in the morning, I heard a knock on the outside of my van. At first, I thought it was a security guard or parking lot guy trying to give me the boot. I noticed there were 2 guys standing outside my van waiting for a response. So I said, “What!”, in a very loud voice. They both scampered off like a couple of startled crackheads. Next time, I am going to think a bit before I park. I talked to my buddy about it and he reminded my about a skit that Dave Chapelle did about the TL. I think that is the right link to the video. Not sure though. Yayaaa,,,I survived a night in the TL!!! That’s enough for me.

Strange characters seen in the Bay Area...Be afraid. Be very afraid...

After staying in the Tenderloin, I decided to make my way into the Haight/Ashbury section of San Francisco since it is a must stop and not to mention there are a buttload of head shops. I decided to take a morning stroll to the top of Buena Vista park. Sweet fuckin views man!!! I also met a cool cat that I smoked my spleef with at the top. He hooked me up with this nutty shot of me. Came out a bit dark, so I had to tweek it a bit in photoshop.

I made my way from one side of Haight to the other. And then back again. A few times. What can I say? It’s just so addicting. So I got out all my catalogues and met some cool owners of head shops. I spent about 15 minutes eyeballing and thinking of how I was going to get the money shot of the Bong Street van with the Haight/Ashbury corner sign in the background. Especially when you are not allowed to park their legally.

I finally found someone who was taking their picture of the money shot. She looked like a trustworthy character so I asked her to help me get the shot. She hooked it up and signed up for the STREET TEAM. Check out the shot below.

Bong Street Van on the corner of Haight/Ashbury...gotcha bitch!

After the Haight/Ashbury section of town, I made my way into Oaksterdam and Berkeley. I hit up a few of the dispensaries in Oaksterdam. Not all of them, but of the ones I seen, I wasn’t that impressed so I didn’t get anything. I got spoiled after the one I hit up in Woodland Hills. It is still a very cool thing that the City of Oakland has done with the Measure Z thing.

I made my way around the City of Berkeley next, hitting up local headshops and clothing stores. I wrapped up in Berkeley yesterday and have made my way back to the LA area. I am now just in the process of following up with all the shops that I spoke with on the way up.

I appreciate those of you that have been following my adventures with Bong Street and your support with the movement. I am pretty much closing up this chapter for this trip anyway. I will try to keep you updated with other fun and exciting stories as I continue to push forward with the Bong Street movement…

Until next time, keep the movement movin’ and stay good and blazed…

So the journey continued on after Venice Beach, onward up the coast on the 101. Beautiful drive. I probably should of stopped at one of the scenic beach overlooks but I was trying to make up for lost time. I did get a cool shot while I was driving on the 101. See below. Most of my day that day was spent driving since their really isn’t too many stops in between Venice and Santa Cruz. I did stop in Santa Barbara, however and got out a few catalogue’s and did some promo.

View from the 101 Highway

While in the Santa Barbara area, I spent most of my time getting out catalogues and promoting my company. I met a few cool heads while in the area and we blazed some good herbs. Other than that I spent a lot of my time getting stickers around and skateboarding around Santa Barbara. Sorry blog readers, no crazy stories while in Santa Barbara. I did however get a pretty cool shot of the van at night.

Ever dance with Bong Street on a pale moonlight?

Next day I got started making my way up to San Luis Obispo. A pretty chill town. Not a whole lot going on in SLO but I did meet some cool heads and found a pretty sweet street. See below. Classic.

Bong Street on HIGH STREET!

Welcome to the City of Angels

After Whittier, it was OFF to LOS ANGELES for a taste of traffic, smog, parking meters, and fake breasts. I caught a pretty cool shot of this bridge though coming into the L.A. area. Probably the best thing I got out of my LA experience. Sorry, LA heads, San Diego is just way more chill.

I made my way thru Hollywood. I survived. Just barely. It was a fun ordeal of trying to hurry up and pitch product to store owners and handing out catalogs quickly to avoid having to pay a mandatory $2.00 parking fee everytime you park your car down the strip. Even if its for 5 minutes.

Bong Street in HOLLYWOOD

I did find a sweet dispensary up in the Woodland Hills area. I got dragged up their thinking it was close to Hollywood. Because when you call of course they make out like its just a few exits up. Of course, they want business. I can understand. But I was quite happy with my service I received. I felt like a kid in a candy store.

I did the best I could to hit up what I could find in Hollywood. I got to a point where I just couldn’t take anymore and I had to head west to the beaches of Santa Monica and Venice. Ahhhhh….the beach….much more chill. My kind of people.

Bong Street in Santa Monica

I first ended up in the Santa Monica area. I didn’t really do too much in Santa Monica. Met a couple cool heads. I figured Venice seemed more my type of crowd. But here is a cool pic I took in Santa Monica.

Once I got into Venice Beach, I dropped off a catalogue at a local shop. I blazed out with a cool cat hanging out there. I then went down to the beach area and skated around Venice Beach for about an hour or so. When I parked, I met a few cool peeps that were from Missouri. One of the peeps had some good kush nugs he grows. He hooked up a free good size nug of it. I decided to hook him up with a freebie since he was so generous.

I didn’t spend too much time in Venice as I was eager to get rolling up towards the Bay area.

I am now in Ventura and will work my way up the coast shortly…Thanks for reading the crazy tales of my wandering ass once again….

More to come…I promise!!!

So I survived Huntington Beach and made my way across the rest of the OC. Good times, good peeps, good herbs. No immediate sales at this point but definitely some good contacts to follow up with. Since I pretty much had hit up everywhere in the HB/Newport Beach/Costa Mesa area, I decided it was time to hit the road. So I hit up the local “Star-shmucks” and planned my trip out of HB.

Next on the list was Anaheim, so I made my way east. I hit up a few cool shops along the way that I can see us doing business together. I kicked off the day by working out a deal with Music Revolution. The guy that owned the shop was a cool guy. I think that the clothing will sell well in his shop.

I then worked my way around between Fullerton and Anaheim several times not really knowing where I was going. I dropped off a few catalogs and met some cool heads. I rolled up into a parking lot full of skaters and hooked them all up with stickers.

By nighttime, I was getting restless from driving so much around Anaheim and Fullerton, I started heading east on Chapman because some dudes told me their were some bars down that way in Fullerton that might be a good place to promote.

I somehow got sucked into the city of Orange in the middle of their “Tree Lighting Ceremony”. It was a pretty chill town though. I hung out at a local Irish pub that night and had a pitcher to myself. I ended up meeting some local OC heads and we blazed some herbs in the back of the pub. So that was pretty much it for the OC…EXCEPT

In the morning I finished off with the OC by hitting up J’s Paradise who I worked out a deal with. Awesome people. Sweet shop. I then made my way out of Anaheim and back on the highway.

When I got to Whittier, I headed aways down the main blvd to the first shop on my list, Da Spot. I ended up working out a deal with the owner to try out my product in his store. I also met some cool heads outside his shop that bought a TEE.

I ended up taking a little side excursion on my trip in Whittier to blaze with the dudes I met at the shop. We rolled down a pretty crazy little sideroad and walked this path to a pretty chill smokespot. They blazed some blunts with me and I smoked some bongs with them.

Sorry no pics on this post…I was smokin too much…forgot…oops…I got you for LA though!!!

My long awaited adventure has started and I am having a blast so far and turning some heads with the Bong Street van as usual. I have started the trip in Huntington Beach and will be working my way thru Orange County and then onto Los Angeles this week, and then forward onto Bay Area.

Before I took off I made sure to have the rest of my decals put on the van as there were 2 missing from the first time it was done. The core message of the company. “LEGALIZE IT”. See below. I think it looks pretty sweet.

Legalize it Baby!!!

So I took off on Friday the 5th of December and rolled up to Huntington Beach. I had one small encounter with the law on the way up. Luckily, the cop was a cool guy. He was a military cop in Oceanside. I was trying to find a diesel station and was driving like I was lost. He let me go on my way.

Once near Huntington Beach, I met up with a buddy I met in San Diego thru my old neighbor. Friday night I mobbed the town with him and a few of his friends. I got a few stickers out that night but not too many cause I forgot to grab more before we left the house. Its OK though, I made up for it on Saturday.

The next morning I kicked it off to an early start. I had to find a place to plugin my labtop. As much as I try to stay away from the corporate claws of Starbucks, they somehow got me back here. FUCK!!! Damn Wi-Fi service being so hard to find a free connection. “Come on local coffee shops, step it up a notch. Hook the modern man up with some internet.” Its ok. I suppose I will heal with time.

Once I got my game plan together for the day, I took off down Beach blvd. towards the 405 and then worked my way west. Once I hit up most of Beach blvd, I made my way to Costa Mesa/Newport Beach area and then went back to downtown HB. Once back in Huntington Beach, I hit up the last few shops in the area and called it a day. No big sales for the day as most of the buyers were out for the stores but I met a lot of potential clients and got a lot of catalogs out. I was able to get this sweet shot of the sunset with the van. Check it out.

Sunset on Bong Street in Huntington Beach

I had to give Wahoo’s Fish Tacos a try. Damn travel channel embedding their marketing in my head. Pretty damn good though, I must say. After that, I kicked it in a few different spots to blaze some bowls. I also met some cool heads.

Kind of a crazy little story, but I met this guy named Justin who called me out when I was walking back to the van downtown. He’s like, “Hey, Bong Street, you wanna smoke a joint.” So I’m like, “Fuck it, whatever’s clever.” So I proceed to drive the guy around town for about 15-20 minutes while he tries to find his car. He was a bit drunk and couldn’t remember where he had parked. He ended up getting out to try to find his car and he said he would call me once he finds it and we’ll blaze.

So maybe 5 minutes had passed since I dropped him off and he called back. He’s like, “Hey come back, I found my car.” I said “cool, i’ll roll back.” I get their and he decides that he now does not know where his wallet or his keys are. He was very hastey and frantic wondering what to do at this point. Although it wasn’t my problem, I felt obligated to help the guy out as I would want someone to do for me. I rolled him back to the bar where his friends were so he could try to trace his stuff down. I proceeded to skate around town getting stickers out and around.

Huntington Beach downtown is a small little area so it is easy to run into the same person a few times. He walked over near me when I was chilling at Three Dice Coffee & Surfboards talking to the workers. I just had got done telling the story to the lady at the shop when Justin walked over. He was not able to locate his wallet and keys. He was contemplating breaking his window to get his weed out. I told him to not worry about it and I would smoke him out. We had a sesh and spit some flows to some my beats and then we split up again and I went skating again.

We ran into eachother one more time for the night, this time he said that his girl had dumped him. Rough luck he was having that night. His friends met up with us and they took off for the night and I rolled out of downtown HB for the night.

It was a funny situation, he had kept apologizing for not being able to smoke me out that night. It didn’t bother me a bit. It’s just what I do. Funny part was he actually came thru for me as I was trying to have a little night cap before I went to bed and my lighter died. He had accidentally left his lighter in my van. So homeboy didn’t know it, but he hooked me up at the end of the night so I could blaze…

The universe has a very funny way of bringing people together sometimes…

More to come as I make my way up the state of California…

Until then stay good and blazed and LIVE AND THINK FREELY!!!