What is legal?

My mother left a message on my phone today wondering how she is supposed to keep track of me if I hadn't updated my blog, but I reminded her of our adventurous family's old saying, "No news means good news."
After a somewhat uneventful time in South Lake Tahoe where I stayed in "Little TJ", I took a lovely commuter train from Sacramento to Richmond, CA. I immediately became familiar with the BART, the Bay Area's metro train, as I headed to meet up with Rob, a friend of a good friend in Seattle, whose name I have changed here to protect his privacy.
The information I had about Rob was certainly intriguing and I was excited to meet him. My friend told me that Rob is part of a legal marijuana growing collective that extends throughout the Bay Area and depends upon individual growers and mini-collectives alike to sell them weed. While I was uncertain at first as to whether or not I really wanted to stay in a house containing mass amounts of drugs that are illegal in other parts of the state, and in terms of quantity, even other parts of the city, but my trustworthy friend back in Seattle assured me that his friend was "legit" and I would have the opportunity to learn about a part of society that I would otherwise never know.
Rob and his friend picked me up at the BART station and informed me that I was being trusted for only one reason: I came highly recommended by my friend in Seattle. Almost nobody else would be taken to the sites, and very few learn the extent to which the collective works.
Our first stop was the house that Rob occupies, the place where I would spend the next 4 nights. The history of the house spans back at least 5 years, when a different member of the collective started growing in the back room. The front room is living space and another room serves as storage for the approximately 15 members of this mini-collective who come and go as they please. They have a set formula that works for any room of about the same size that provides a guideline as to how to build the platforms (including a sound-proof floor to prevent bothering the neighbors), ventilation, and the tubs of water that make quality hydroponics. While their energy bill is huge, the entire collective manages to make money on the endeavor. Most of the members have a financial goal they shoot for, and when they reach it, they claim they will drop out of the loop. The work done in several locations all over the Bay Area is shared between all members and the financial division is done through verbal agreements.
Only two female members run in the group, and according to Rob, that is because girls have big mouths (ugh, I hate stereotypes). Even though what the collective does is legal in the city, if federal agents felt like investigating and cracking down on them, they certainly could. They keep things straight by selling to the Cannabis Club, the bigger collective that redistributes marijuana from many sources to people with medical marijuana cards, but Rob doesn't even talk to his friends outside of the collective about his work. What luck I had to see into this otherwise hidden world.
But we didn't just do work. Rob showed me around different parts of the city and I crossed all the major bridges. We spent some time in Berkeley with his friends and I appreciated the history of struggle that has happened, and continues to happen, on those streets. There is certainly tension where so many different kinds of people come together in one spot, but Berkeley is off the hook. From graffiti, to drugs, to street sports like skateboarding and cycling, everything was bursting with delinquency and no one seemed to care until some bums started fighting over a spilled can of "Jooze" and the N-word got thrown by a white guy. The cops slapped on their purple gloves and insisted they had chased after the black guy instead of the white guy because they had seen his knife. Woah, Berkeley.
The youth on the streets all know each other and congregate without cellphones. Within moments of posting up at a couple of designated spots around the Cal campus, anywhere between 5 and 30 young people just show up and kick it. At one point Rob and I went to get some food, but his friends didn't have any money. Instead of ditching them, we bought big sandwiches to pass all around the group that had flocked around us like ducks around old people. Later, when we went to see a show, Rob's other friend "with money" paid for his friend and I paid for Rob. It was like a street pact that when your friends don't have money and you do, you gotta cover your friends. It is kind of like karma in the sense that when you put out, you will eventually receive.
The group we kicked it with that day had a fascinating game called teams, much like the one I play in Seattle with my friends, but this one is based on "races" instead of individual captains. The crew hangs out and designates different people from the group to be on the black, white, or Mexican teams. They barter, trade and change their minds based on various actions by the players, not their actual race. Even as a white guy Rob plays on the black team as the hip hop DJ and many of the black dudes get put on the white team for skateboarding. It seems stereotypical, but it is a comical way of unifying the races that are running together regardless. They laugh about how they share certain interests and talents regardless of race or skin tone. I got put on the Mexican team because I was wearing my "Corazón de Fuego" hoodie that Angela gave me... qué sorpresa.
After a whirlwind of parks, bridges, cityscapes, music and guys on skateboards, I bid farewell to the Bay and headed for Santa Monica, CA. I am currently staying at Trisha Roth's house (the grandmother of the kids I nannied in Seattle) right next to Venice Beach! I chilled on the beach today, but I will certainly be checking out some other parts of the city soon. Until there is more to report... asd