Bong Appetit’s Toasted Touchdown

One of my favorite things about the fall are the football Sunday events I do with my family.  I love hanging out with my family to watch the Patriots while snacking on wings, chips, potato skins, and other tasty game day snacks.  Nothing like spending your day off watching your favorite football team in action!

After seeing the Patriots win against the Saints, it occurred to me that I haven’t checked out the season premiere of Bong Appetit!  With that in mind, I clicked right onto the On-Demand section for the episode titled ‘Ganja Game Day’.  I sat through the season premiere and…WOW.  What a ‘ganja game day’ indeed!

This special episode featured typical game day appetizers infused with the finest cannabis products.  The menu featured Gochujang-whiskey glazed chicken wings, sweet potato skins, and peanut-butter chocolate footballs (all infused with cannabis, of course!).  Definitely a great way to kick-off another baked meal during the beginning of football season!

The guests included NFL pros Todd Herremans (Philadelphia Eagles), Eugene Monroe (Jacksonville Jaguars & Baltimore Ravens), and Eben Britton (Jacksonville Jaguars & Chicago Bears).  All players are currently retired and are now playing their part in the expanding cannabis industry.  Does the name ‘Eugene Monroe’ sound familiar to any Viceland fans?  It should, because Monroe appeared in season 2 episode 2 of Weediquette titled ‘Gridiron Ganja’!  Monroe returns to the silver screen advocating for cannabis use yet again, but this time he joins other NFL players as they munch through cannabis-infused appetizers.

What made the episode so intriguing (other than the delicious appetizers!) was the strong advocacy for medical cannabis.  Three former NFL players from various teams joined together in one house to discuss medical cannabis use among other players.  Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, also known as CTE, is the controversial topic flying around the sports community.  With more retirees being diagnosed with CTE every year, there is a growing amount of scrutiny behind the disease.  There are no final results written up about how to combat this illness, but cannabis advocates like Todd or Eugene are out to prove that cannabis provides better treatment.

Who knew it took three retired NFL players to come together under the Bong Appetit house to discuss CTE?  Whatever the case may be, it’s something that needs to be talked about more as the years go on.

After enjoying some cannabis-infused game day appetizers, the boys lit up a ‘super bowl’ for some after-dinner entertainment (the NFL pros deserve the SUPER BOWL for working so hard to try to make it to the Super Bowl!).  It was quite a ‘super bowl’ that lit up, with tons of cannabis packed onto the pipe.  The ‘Super Bowl’ was the perfect ending to a special football-themed episode of Bong Appetit.

That was just only the first episode of the newest season.  Check back each Thursday night at 10:30 PM to see what the Bong Appetit crew has in stores next.

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HIGH Quality Sign Advertising

Before I get into this topic, I’d like to start with a story (STORY TIME!).  After a long day of work, I stopped by the dispensary to grab some medicine.  While heading close, I drove RIGHT past the turn I was supposed to go.  “Damn it!”, I thought.  I was too excited about checking out the new place that I didn’t make the right turn.  It wasn’t until heading back the right way that I noticed these two small signs dug into the ground.

These signs were decorative in their colorful advertising, but they barely caught my eye at all.  I’ve passed by millions of billboards and sign advertisements in my life because of their magnificent size and intriguing messages.  Signs need to have some important message plus a decorative background if they ever want to capture the audience’s attention (Drivers BARELY have a minute to even look at your sign let alone understand the message!).

This was something I had to ask about.  After finishing up my purchase, I casually asked if they thought about creating bigger signs for their store.  Their response?  The sign can’t increase in size due to town/state regulations for advertising cannabis.

Let’s take a minute to process this answer – town/state regulations, not due to lack of creativity or productivity, are what preventing audience’s awareness of the medical dispensary.  We can provide lots of billboards or sign advertising for alcohol, yet cannabis still gets shooed away from the spotlight.  Looks like Rudolph can’t be joining any reindeer games (too early for Christmas, I KNOW!).

But seriously folks, this poses a serious problem for the advertising community.  All the Don Drapers and Peggy Olsons won’t be able to create the best signs and billboards for the cannabis industry.  I’m not saying we need a huge billboard sign over the highway, but it has to attract the most attention in the best way possible.  Here’s some recommendations that other signs should follow:

10 Feet Per Inch Rule

A good rule of thumb for letters in signs is 10 feet per inch of letter height.  One letter that is 9 inches would be readable for drivers seeing it at 90 feet.  The higher the letter inch, the more distance it will tap into within its designated area.  More distance means more foot traffic will become aware of your billboard or sign.  How else can you expect potential customers to check out your so-called “strain of the week” if they don’t see the sign while driving?

Color the Sign

Signs need to be COLORFUL and utilizing the right colors will attract drivers’ attention.  Whether it’s a basic white and black combo or a combination of primary colors, presenting the message with a nice background will make it much more appealing.  Put in the wrong color mix for your messages and your audience will be completely turned off because they can’t even read it.  Coloring that white space of nothing the right way determines whether your sign or billboard advertisement was successful.

HIGH Height

Patients are looking for where the HIGH-quality medicine is, so the sign needs to be HIGH enough for them to find (get it? Signs HIGH enough to find HIGH quality cannabis?).  If they don’t see the sign or billboard, then no attention has been caught and they will keep driving.  Driving requires a lot of hand-eye coordination and attention, so audiences barely even have time to even see your sign let alone actually stop and read it.  Rather than having it dug onto the cold cemented ground, your sign has to spring HIGH enough so that the driver sees it through their window (I can’t stop with these weed puns today!).

So there you have it — correct letter size, colorful backgrounds, and a tall height are some tips for creating a great sign or billboard advertising.  Attracting driving audiences can be very tricky since they are too busy driving to their next destination.  Capturing potential audiences during their daily errands is a clever advertising tactic that works IF you create the right sign! With these helpful tips, I’m sure you’ll create your own magnificent sign/billboard for your cannabis dispensary or whatever role you play in this booming industry.

 

Cannabis Strain Cheat Sheet

If you’ve been consuming a lot of cannabis, you would notice that each new strain contains a different flavor and smell within the product.  Some flowers give off a pungent aroma while others taste similar to a grapefruit.  You’ve probably had a joint containing Lemon Skunk and noticed the jolts of energy rushing up and down your body.  With more strains being discovered every year, new flowers are popping up in dispensaries for customers to try out.

This is actually not a coincidence – some cannabis strains actually DO smell/taste like a grapefruit.  With that being the case, does this affect cannabis’s usability as a healing product?  If yes, then how so?  Is there a simpler way to browse through over hundreds of cannabis strains to choose from?

To start off this interesting point, I’d like to say this right now – this post will NOT get complicated!  You don’t have to become a world-class cannabis connoisseur to understand the workings of terpenes within cannabis.  This is will be getting down to the basics, not be a lesson in Advanced Cannabis Chemistry III.

Back to the questions — these myriads of flavors definitely affect cannabis’s usability.  Each strain’s effect will be based on its terpene content.  Remember my post back in April when we took a tour of the terpenes found within cannabis?  If you haven’t, then you’ll probably want to start the journey here.

Various terpenes (Caryophyllene, Limonene, Linalool) contain differentiated effects.  Limonene provides a mood-elevating effect while Myrcene has a sedating effect that will have you glued to the couch.  Not only are these terpenes featured within cannabis strains, but they are also found in other edible items.

Here’s a perfect example of terpene flavors overlapping among various edibles.  Let’s suppose we have an orange in the morning.  We either drink orange juice or eat an orange with our meal.  Consuming oranges has a lot of amazing health benefits, with one of them being that it gives us lots of energy in the morning.  Ever wonder why soccer moms/dads packed oranges for the team each game?  Eating those orange slices is PERFECT for that jolt to start running around the soccer field.

Now let’s move on to our strain of California Orange.  California Orange is a 50/50 indica/sativa hybrid strain that produces a sweet citrus aroma.  Consuming some California Orange will produce an upbeat, clear-headed effect that will leave you energized for the day.  It’s the citrus, orange aroma from the terpene profile that will induce the energizing effects of the California Orange.  Other than loading your body up with some THC, you’re also ingesting some healthy terpenes that come with amazing benefits.

Just like the orange juice you have in the morning, California Orange will produce the same energizing effects.  The same goes for other strains and their various terpenes.  Vanilla Kush has some sedating effects because of its vanilla-like taste.

If you’re ever confused about what cannabis strain is right for you, then think about what edible items produce similar effects.  Drinking coffee will keep you going and focused, so a strain with a coffee flavor would be right for you (like Chocolate Thai or LA Chocolat!).  Most berries will leave you relaxed, so consuming Blueberry Kush or Grape OX would be good for the night.  Your search for the right cannabis strain is based on the right terpene profile that is in other edible items (see how simple this can be?).

So that’s the ‘cheat sheet’ of discovering the right cannabis strains for you.  Lemon-scented strains will keep you energized while scents of grape will leave you glued to the couch for a while.  Just remember what terpenes are good for a certain situation and you are just one step closer to finding the right cannabis for you.

That’s all for today.  Hope you enjoyed this simplified process of discovering the right cannabis strains!

Baked Binge-Watch Session with Disjointed!

Happy summer everyone (or what’s still left of it!).  We’re creeping into September and the cool, crisp air is blowing over to Massachusetts.  Summer may be ending soon, but the silver lining is all of the new TV series airing in the fall.

While I’m pumped for the newest seasons to hit next month (mostly excited for AHS: Cult to start!), Netflix is still releasing some television gold these days.  I got to learn about lady wrestlers with GLOW, dived deep into the gloomy money pit of Ozark, watched old friends get together with Friends From College, and encountered a vicious battle happening in Castlevania.  This month’s binge-watching adventure took me to a new stoner-sitcom series that is Disjointed.

Disjointed released August 25^th with Kathy Bates starring as Ruth Whitefeather Feldman, owner of a medical dispensary in Los Angeles.  Feldman employs her son Travis and a team of young budtenders to help run her dispensary.  The stoner-sitcom series was created by David Javerbaum and Chuck Lorre (Dharma & Greg, Cybill, Two & a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, Mom!).  Ten episodes were released with ten others slated to be released later on.

I haven’t been the biggest fan of the latest sitcom series that have aired these days, but Disjointed was surprisingly good!  It’s a sitcom comedy series that takes place in a medical cannabis dispensary.  The characters are really wacky (especially Ruth!) and they fit the stereotypical stoners that people usually think of.

What’s ironic is that the whole plot is a tongue in cheek scenario aimed at the cannabis culture (and it works too!).  From the trippy animated segments to the 4/20 smoke seshes, Disjointed has everything a stoner-sitcom needs to be successful.  Seeing Cheech & Chong drop by at episode ten was one of few guest spots I enjoyed as well.  It was definitely a go-to sitcom series after consuming some Blue Kush.

Besides the series itself, Netflix created a genius marketing strategy along with the show’s release.  To promote the 4/20-friendly sitcom series, Netflix released 12 new cannabis strains the past weekend known as the “Netflix Collection”.  These 12 strains mirrored off of Netflix’s newest series and three of them are based off of Disjointed (which were Eve’s Bush, the Omega Strain, and Rutherford B. Haze).  Some of the notable strains that dropped were from highly-acclaimed series such as Orange is the New Black (Poussey Riot), BoJack Horseman (the Prickly Muffin), and even Arrested Development (Banana Stand Kush).  These Netflix-branded strains were sold at a temporary pop-up store over at Alternative Health Herbal Services in West Hollywood, California.  The sales may be over now, but it still made for an intriguing marketing strategy for promoting Disjointed.

Overall, Disjointed ended up being a great series even though it went to pot (LITERALLY!).  The kooky hippy characters and far-out psychedelic animated segments really brought the show to HIGHER standards.  Most of the content pokes fun at the cannabis community with the stereotypical stoner characters and it ends up working well.  Their brilliant PR stunt promoted both the series as well as the cannabis industry.

Cannabis-consuming audiences that are scouting for a new sitcom series should definitely start binge-watching Disjointed.  Chuck Lorre helped create some of the most timeless sitcom series and Disjointed is one for the new generation of sitcom-lovers.  Disjointed is definitely something to binge-watch after a nice joint!

Nipton’s Green Rush!

 

Deep near the border of Las Vegas lies Nipton, a small town in San Bernardino County.  This California desert town sits within 120 acres of land featuring a general store, hotel, and school house.  It’s one of those ghost towns within the Mojave Desert area with a small population (even smaller than Ipswich!).  Even in this 21^st century, we still have ghost towns lying around the wild wild west.

Instead of dribbling on about the picturesque landscape of Nipton, this PR topic is on the golden opportunity that lies within desert towns (pay close attention to the term ‘golden opportunity’ throughout this story!).  Since these towns have a very low population rate, tourism is the key strategy for keeping these unique towns going.  There are still customers that would enjoy taking a trip to deserted towns to get away for a while.  Deserted towns have that nostalgic western feel, taking people back to simpler times.

But with a ghost town like Nipton competing with big-time cities like Los Angeles or San Francisco, tourism competition can be heated around California.  And with many more Americans taking less vacations these days, the strategies to attract tourists become much more complex.  Businesses are testing out new tricks to attract the new and younger tourists (i.e. unique hotel bars with assorted craft beers, food tours, and even flavored water!).  Nipton is revolutionizing their tourism strategy by changing from being a ghost town to being a pot town.

It’s official, folks – this California ghost town is going to pot…LITERALLY!  Cannabis-focused technology and growing firm American Green Inc. purchased the town for about $5 million.  The new strategy is to transform Nipton into what will be known as, “an energy-independent, cannabis-friendly hospitality destination”.

Other than going to pot (again, LITERALLY!), Nipton will also be producing bottled water infused with cannabis.  These cannabis-infused water bottles will come from Nipton’s aquifer.  Looks as though the water is springing back up into this desert town!

Think about this for a moment – a small deserted ghost town that found this golden opportunity to flourish their tourism business.  Not only that, but there will be a river of cannabis-infused water floating around the desert.  ‘Golden opportunity’, water appearing around the desert creating an oasis…history, my friends, is repeating itself!

California was a huge gold town during the 19^th century and Nipton was one of the popular destinations.  Pioneers traveled thousands of miles to the new lands in search for the gold.  It wasn’t so much ‘the’ gold they were looking to collect, but rather the idea concept of gold itself.

Christopher Columbus once said that someone who had gold were in possession of something with such great value of earth.  People sought after the amazing value the gold had to offer.  This amazing value would help souls reach this paradise they yearn for.  Paradise is reflected not within the piece of gold itself, but the value gold would bring to the individual.  The mere idea of discovering gold would strike a sense of shock, adventure, excitement and even opportunity (a GOLDEN opportunity would be more like it!).

How does this philosophical concept of gold apply to this PR case?  Cannabis itself presents great value on this earth.  It is the number one booming cash crop in the country, with people planting their own seeds to grow strains of their own.  With cannabis becoming much more popular within the social norms, the demands for cannabis start increasing.  The ever-increasing demand presents a myriad of opportunities for the communities.  Ghost towns like Nipton, California see cannabis as this ‘green gold’ that would cause tourists to come rushing in (hence the term ‘Green Gold Rush’).  In a sense, the ‘ghost’ you’ll be hearing about in this ghost town is the shipment of Ghost Train Haze being sold!

We are presented with an intriguing, yet nostalgic strategy happening in California.  Legalizing recreational cannabis means the green gold has finally been unlocked and people are rushing to collect from the treasure chest.  This green gold provides many opportunities for the industry itself and the people who help it grow.  Some opportunities include increased profits, buzzing publicity, an ever-growing community of cannabis users; but the most important opportunity of all is the discovery of a new way of living.  It’s these golden opportunities that make the West so amazing.

With that in mind, we continue to be in the midst of the 21^st century green rush happening in the western region.  The cannabis community continues to spread and new opportunities arise on the horizon.  Pioneers from the 19^th century aren’t so different from the pioneers heading out west these days.  Both groups set out west in search for gold, a new home, friends, family;  but most importantly, these pioneers went forth to search for their new lives.