I didn’t know much about the Waldo’s before I found the 420waldos website. So this conversation kind of came to me by surprise, but learning that these group of five friends coined the term "420" was compelling enough for me to ask the questions of how, what and why they became known for this term.
There have been many misconceptions, fallacies, falsehoods, and media inaccuracies about the beginnings of '420', and even about The Waldos. Although the Waldos are still friends and still together as a group today, the backstory of The Waldos and ‘420’ beginnings is a golden era we will never see the likes of again—the 1970’s in Marin County, CA— San Francisco Bay Area.
Check out our interview with Steve Capper + Dave Reddix
Website: https://420waldos.com
https://twitter.com/420Waldos
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ronjini Joshua (00:11):
I didn't know much about the waldos. Before I
found the 420 Waldo site. I'veheard about the waldos, but
didn't really know who they wereDid you know I had all of the
misconceptions about what 420was, and I did not know there
were people behind it or not. Sothe conversation kind of came to
a surprise for me. But learningabout this guy, this, like this
(00:31):
group of guys, it's five guysthat coined the term for 20 was
compelling enough for me to justask, like, all the questions,
all the questions, all thequestions, I've got some
stories. Well, they probablycould have kept going on the
story. Oh, yeah. You know, SteveCapper and Dave Reddix are the
founding, managing members ofthe Waldos. And they kind of do
(00:55):
all the media stuff, so we gotto talk to them in this podcast.
Let's get back to the waldos andget into the green room with
Steve capper and Dave.
Hello, thanks for joining ustoday in the green room. Today
we have the managing members ofthe waldos known for coining the
(01:18):
term 420 Steve Capper and DaveReddix Hello guys, how are you?
Hey, we're good. How are you?
Okay, that's actually my that'slike my signature move is the
peace sign. Sowe're already connected. I'm so
excited to have you guys ontoday. And I think it's a
different perspective.
Typically, you know, the in thegreenroom, where we're talking
(01:42):
about the journey of thecannabis industry, and I think
there's no conversation thatdoesn't have the idea of for 20,
and how that came about. So I'msure you've answered this
question tons of times. Andwe'll get into some other
questions later, but I'd love tokind of start with you know, how
did that whole for 20 happened?
And why are you guys called thewild waldos? Well, we're called
to begin with, we're called thewaldos. Because we used to hang
(02:05):
out on a wall in the middle ofcampus there at Centerville High
School. Wow, it all goes
Unknown (02:13):
there, and we'd sit up there and during class breaks
and people would go by and we'ddo impressions of people and
crack jokes, just to make eachother laugh and have a good
time. So that's how we becameknown as the waldos.
Ronjini Joshua (02:28):
Wow, okay. Okay.
I thought it was like maybepeople can tell you guys apart
or something like that. Right?
And, and for 20, like, tell us alittle bit about the background
of like, you know, how that thatcame with how that became so
big.
Unknown (02:44):
One day, we're hanging out on our wall, and a buddy of
mine, Bill McNulty comes up tome and he goes hey, my brother's
in the US Coast Guard and someguys in the US Coast Guard are
growing marijuana they have aplot that they've started
growing and for some reason theythink that their commanding
officer is gonna bust him wefound out years later what that
(03:05):
was about Okay, and they suspectthat because somebody did get
busted even earlier some CoastGuardsmen for growing part so
they go well we think we'regoing to give us too We don't
want to get busted so we'vedecided to the Coast Guard guy
so we've decided to abandon theproject and we decided bill
let's just found out his brotherin law and I was ready you got
(03:26):
you and your buddies can pick itthey do a map of where it was
and said you guys can go aheadand pick this it's yours. Okay,
I treasure map it started outwith a treasure map
it was a no brainer you knowSteve rod is this mad is a she
would you go check this out raw,no brainer. Let's go. You know,
you're 16 years old. You have nomoney. You have no weed, right?
(03:48):
You're gonna get some free weed.
We're going forward.
Ronjini Joshua (03:50):
All right. And so where do the numbers come
from?
Unknown (03:54):
So, you know, we weren't spicoli from Fast Times
at ridgemont High. We weren'tCheech and Chong. We, you know,
we were intelligence donors, andactive stoners. I mean, what I
was day was getting awards foranimation videos. I was getting
awards for accounting classes.
We were all into sports. I mean,we weren't the best or the worst
(04:18):
at sports. We were kind ofmedium range. I was a swimmer
Larry, it was a was football.
While though Jeff he was theteam manager. Dave, what do you
do? I think he did football fora while and then
I did quit ball for one year anddecided I'd rather chase girls
and smoke pot. Yeah. Okay. So soone of the things was we decided
(04:41):
we're going to smoke this potbut Larry and Jeff had football
practice for an hour we got outof school around three 315 they
had this flexible schedule thingthey started some kids got out
of three some got out 310 and wegot out of 320 so you get out or
approximately three crackfootball practice lasted about
one hour approximately, and itwas just enough time to get back
(05:02):
to the gym, get your clothes onor get back to the locker room,
get your clothes on and get overto where we decided to meet,
Ronjini Joshua (05:11):
right?
Unknown (05:11):
Yeah, I decided to meet it. The statue of Louis this
past year on the campus right inthe middle of the campus.
They're actually in the front ofthe campus. And we decided we'd
meet there at 4 (05:21):
20pm after school after everybody had
finished their activities orwhatever. Yeah, and we met there
that first day we smoked the bigfatty and then we hopped in
Steve 66 Impala and we drove outto point rays on our search
Ronjini Joshua (05:36):
Oh for your treasure hunt. Yeah, gotcha.
Okay, wait wait wait
Unknown (05:40):
smoke all the way out and take well depend upon
traffic it'd be 1440 minutes toan hour I didn't put the pencil
on traffic but listening to thatall that great 70s music all the
way out. I mean, incrediblemusic during those times
especially in the San FranciscoBay area so much and Steve
had a killer eight track stereoCraig eight track stereo so we
(06:01):
listened to that. This boomingmusic all the way out there
smoking weed. The car would beyou know, clouded with smoke.
Giddy you know, what was theword what was gonna happen?
It was a 66 Chevy Impala, fourdoors, kind of embarrassing.
It's not an any car that you'dget chicks with. But handpan me
down, you know. And being thatwas had such a big trunk, these
(06:24):
big speakers that would baffleand give you a great sound. So
you pile a bunch of waldos. Andyou're smoking out there and
listening to music and headedout to look for the weed. And we
did every week.
We look for weeks. But you know,in the ensuing weeks, you know,
we'd see each other in thehallways, and we say for 20.
Louis, that was the originalsaying for 20. Louis
(06:46):
can remind you chat to eachother where we were going to
meet at what time so nobodyhad to go for 20. Louis Oh, yes.
And you go Yes, for 20. Louis,that meant we were going to
search that day, which we didfor several weeks. And we kept
searching, but we never foundthe patch. What we we realized
that, hey, we could use this asa secret code that we could use
around in front of our teachers,our parents, cops, nobody knew
(07:09):
what we're talking about. So wejust dropped the Louis part, and
used for 20 as our own secretlittle code. It was a you know,
a private little joke. That'sall it was. That's
Ronjini Joshua (07:21):
crazy. And now, like we
Unknown (07:23):
had about 100 other private jokes that we had.
Ronjini Joshua (07:27):
Well, I imagine I imagine but nobody, that
nobody cared about those ones.
Unknown (07:32):
It's just the tip of the iceberg. Not all our jokes
made it into national andinternational consciousness. We
had about we put about maybe 35of those jokes and what they're
about onto our website, which is420 waldos. com. They're all
funny as hell yeah. They're alljokes.
Ronjini Joshua (07:49):
That's so funny.
Bullock. It's crazy. Howsomething so simple and your
personal story. I mean, you guysare, were you guys connected to
the entertainment industry whereyou connect it to the media in
any way. Like how did thathappen? Like how did how did it
get so like now internationallyrecognized? It's such a big
deal, and it really carries somuch weight. I can't imagine you
guys would have ever thoughtthat happened? Well, what
(08:12):
happened?
Unknown (08:14):
We didn't realize we were creating history at the
time. Yeah, it's having fun.
That's all we were doing withour little secret code. And the
way it's spread, you know, ouryounger brothers and lower
classmates they you know, heardit from us. They carried it on
for many years. As well as youcan tell him about mark.
(08:39):
Of course, we went off tocollege. I went up to Southern
California and people from allover the state all over the
country were there so theypicked up on it and took took
it. took it home with them. Wehave this I'll get into that
later. We have this big 420artpiece a flag in my dorm room
and other people like once thatthey picked up on it. We had a
(09:01):
bunch of connections to theGrateful Dead. We were always
around them and the dead thedead communities worldwide.
Yeah, they picked up on it fromus. While though mark and his
dad handled real estate needsfor the dead. The dead were
centered in Centerville,California. That's where we live
inside of Ohio. That was thecenter of their organization.
And they all lived in MarionCounty. So while though Mark's
(09:23):
father, lots of real estateneeds, you have an organization
that big you need office space,you need places to store
equipment, you need places torehearse, everybody in the whole
debt that band members nobody inthe organization was making
money they buying homes in theMarine county hills. So Mark,
Mark's dad would find them intheir homes and then when you
find them their homes, they goout on tour, they need people to
(09:46):
babysit their animals and theirhouses. So Mark and us would get
jobs babysit in their houses andhis dad always had us he take us
we always on the guest listbackstage so we go to winter
Your land this place in SanFrancisco.
It was an old skating rink, ahuge old skating rink and we
(10:07):
were backstage hanging with, youknow, the Grateful Dead. But the
other connection came in 1975.
The Grateful Dead took a hiatusfrom touring for about nine
months and my brother Patrickhas was good friends with Phil
last for like 50 years. And in75 Phil said, Hey Pat, I want to
(10:27):
have a couple bands Can youmanage them and the two bands
were called to lose to truck Itake on too loosely track and
another band called C stones andpat hired me to be a roadie in
the band. And Pat and I wereusing for 20 backstage at these
shows with with Phil gettinghigh with Phil and guys like
(10:51):
David Crosby and Terry Haggertyand many other musicians. And
the, you know, the dead headset, you know, the roadies, and
the groupies caught on to thisas it spread. Those guys thought
it was kind of funny as webrought it up, and it spread
through the dead community. Andyears later, in 19. I think it
was 91. Steve Blum from HighTimes Magazine. He was the
(11:17):
editor. I think he was theeditor at that time, or I think
it was anyway is he was at aGrateful Dead concert over at
Oakland Coliseum in 91. And hesaw a flyer that says come join
us for a 420 celebration on thetop of Mount Tam on April 20.
Okay, so so they publish thatstory and i times really glommed
(11:39):
on to that, and they startedusing for 20 a lot. And then
there was the other connectionwas with Larry Steve, go ahead
and tell them about Larry.
Larry, which which good LarrySchwartz what connection?
Well, how he? Well, Larry sawOh, okay, okay.
(11:59):
All right. All right. All right.
Sorry, Jay. Well, one day,Steve. Yeah, one day and it was
about 9798. Larry called me upone day, I'm I'm in my car, he
goes, Hey, this 420 thing. It'staken off. It's all over the
place. There's hats, there'sshirts, there's, there's all
this starting to see all thiscommercial usage of it. And
people still think that for 20is a police go that's the most
(12:23):
you know, common commonmisconception. Yeah, and I know
it's not a police code. I mean,there is no police code in the
California Penal Code system oranywhere else, even related to
420. It's all if it'stransporting weed, if it's
selling weed note possessingthat, whatever it is, that's
always like five, six digitcodes, separated by a decimal
point has none and none of themare for 20. So we already knew
(12:46):
that. And then there's the otherweird thing to or there's 420
chemical constituents. today.
There's just so many theory BobDylan's up for Tony song or
something about 420 had nothingto do with our bottle.
Yeah, Bob Dylan said his songhad nothing. Oh, rainy day
(13:07):
women. 80 women. Yeah, that thatwas a multiplying numbers, and
it comes out for everything. Butso I had written a letter, I
worked up a letter to HighTimes. And he said, it's not a
police code. It's not the time,whatever, Jerry Garcia whatever
(13:28):
it was, yeah. theories. I said,we started back in 1971 in high
school. And here's the wholestory. And the editor in chief
Steve hogger at the time said,Hey, this looks like somebody
said you guys have physicalproof. I go Yeah, we have lots
of physical evidence proof thatwe were using for 20 before case
(13:49):
before anybody who knew what itwas. So he flew out to San
Francisco we spent a weekend weshowed him all our several
pieces of physical evidenceproof and that was kind of the
start of it. And then he wentimmediately on ABC News and
like, Hey, I found the realbeginnings
Ronjini Joshua (14:04):
that's it I mean, that is like I'm a PR
person. So from my perspective,I feel like that's like such an
amazing guerilla marketingcampaign even though you guys
weren't marketing anything itjust like that's the first like
thing I've heard that's beenlike, like a truly viral if you
want to talk about you know,YouTube, YouTube virality or
social media morality. This islike a really cool experiment of
(14:25):
social morality of like just howyou kind of penetrated the
market and then it becamesomething that now is owned by
anybody who loves cannabis. Soit's really interesting. I like
it's such a cool it's such acool testament to kind of social
marketing. It's so
Unknown (14:43):
great that we had so many all these different pieces
of physical evidence. Yeah,
Ronjini Joshua (14:48):
yeah. What what is what is that evidently
Unknown (14:50):
a letter down at San Diego State.
It was I wrote him a letter andtold him about me being a roadie
for Phyllis bands, and I Youknow, I told him I said, Hey,
I'm getting high with DavidCrosby and Phil and, and, and I
made 20 bucks last night man isa doorman, you know? And, and I
(15:13):
rolled Steve a joint up, and Istamped it down and I put it in
the letter. And at the end ofthe letter, I said, here's a
little for 20 for your weekend.
Ronjini Joshua (15:23):
Night. Oh,
Unknown (15:24):
so we have the letter.
It's, it's it's, you know, datedearly 70s. Yeah. And, and every
it has referenced before 20decades before anybody knew what
it was. Then I have a friend whowent to Israel to live in a
kibbutz and he was not happy.
There's no way there. So he'swriting me letters with
international post stamps,saying, I'm upset. There's no
(15:45):
for 20 here. Gotcha. And thenand then one of our which we
have again, we keep all thisevidence in a big giant vault.
Thatis where the vault is located.
It's it more 20 MontgomeryStreet.
And then there's this this galPatty, we call her the Betsy
Ross of the waldos. She heardabout all our adventures and all
(16:09):
our air for 20. And all ourother cliches and sayings and
stuff we made up and she had todo an art project for art class,
she decided to make this reallycool batik like for 20 flag, or
20, which is on our website andfind on the web as a picture of
a marijuana leaf behind it andstuff like that. And we still
have that flag. And then shewrote me a letter with a 17th
(16:32):
postmark. How's the for 20 flag?
Ronjini Joshua (16:36):
There's so many times that those letters
probably could have gone intothe trash. So
Unknown (16:41):
yeah, we've got them in the hall, and then the flags in
the vault. That's it. That'sgonna be in like the Smithsonian
someday. Yeah.
There's so many times we couldhave thrown away. It's not that
we wanted to save things. Wewere just too lazy to throw them
away.
Ronjini Joshua (16:57):
Yeah, no, I mean, that's what I'm saying.
It's like such a, this is a veryserendipitous thing where you
guys were able to prove allthese things. So it's very, very
cool. Have
Unknown (17:07):
one of our buddies, the school newspaper, you know, they
always have a question, man.
Yeah, so question, man, schoolnewspaper, went to one of our
buddies and said, Hey, if youcould say anything to the
graduating class, say, and ourbuddy said for 20. And of
course, we have the originalnewspaper with 1970s that's
sitting in the wall to Wow,multiple pieces of evidence.
Ronjini Joshua (17:30):
Well, I mean, I think this is such a good segue,
we're gonna we're gonna segueinto the journey here. And I
this is kind of the reason Iwanted to talk to you guys in
particular is obviously your,your connection to deep roots to
like, something that's become aninternational phenomenon. But
also, like, you know, a lot ofthe stuff that we talk about in
this podcast are how people haveaffected the cannabis industry,
(17:55):
how it's affected them, and howit affects business and how also
just like, you know, theimportance and impact of it in
people's lives as we're movinginto, like a federal legal
situation. So I think one of thethings I wanted to ask you guys
is really like, you know,becoming known for this. And
this is a stigma problem that alot of people have or are
(18:17):
worried about as, like, they getinto cannabis. We've I talked to
someone the other day, and she'slike, Well, I didn't want to do
anything in cannabis because Iwas worried that nobody else
would hire me after so this isthis is a big challenge. Stigma
is a huge challenge for us. AndI want to know, like, you know,
how has it affected you guys inyour personal life as you've
been getting jobs? Like, at somepoint, you were known for this
(18:39):
420 thing? And how did you Howhas it affected your
professional life? And, youknow, it wasn't legal when you
guys were when you guys weredoing this? So Well,
Unknown (18:51):
to begin with, you know, the other three guys
besides Steven Steven, I cameout with this, you know, back,
you know, the articles in 98.
But the other guys didn't wanttheir names published because
they family man, and they'reparanoid, you know, with the
stigma of being associated withmarijuana. But they, we all came
out, they came out in 2012. Whenwe we had another article in I
(19:16):
think it was the Huffington PostSteve.
I don't remember which one ofthe Yeah, anyway, they
came out and they, you know,since then, we've all been out,
you know, even the originalswith our full names, and the
other three guys came out backthen,
(19:37):
a lot of times we used to haveour faces blurred, or they
change our voices.
Ronjini Joshua (19:43):
Like, like you guys are some some mischievous,
like,
Unknown (19:46):
witness protection program.
It's predicted Yeah,you know, one of the main
changes in my entire life when Ijust saw just a phenomenal
shift. I have that As aspecialty finance company, we
finance businesses with specialniche lenders and business. For
years, my my earlier businesspartner would say, don't talk
(20:11):
about it. It's bad for business.
Yes, anything we don't wantpeople to know it's bad for
business. And we were doing aninterview here, interviewing
there. And then all of a sudden,I remember what year it was.
Look it up, because I have thearticle posted on our website,
one year, the Wall StreetJournal, call me up. And they
said, there are so manybusinesses that are using the
(20:33):
420 thing in marketing, I thenames of the business and
marketing. It's just a hugething now. And we'd like to show
how big it is. And that peoplein the normal business world,
normal kind of straight,seemingly straight business,
people are using this map. Sothey interviewed me. And I was
(20:54):
at a conference, kind of in thelending industry, down in
Southern California. And it thearticle came out on the front
page of The Wall Street Journal.
Of course, they had to have apicture of me in a tie. Because
they wanted that. So it cameout. I was on the front page,
and they put it on the doorstepof every room at the hotel.
Ronjini Joshua (21:14):
Oh my god. Yeah, I've seen that before. Yeah,
okay, yeah.
Unknown (21:17):
And then I go down to the conference hall. And all of
a sudden, just out of the blue.
Every bank president was my newbest friend. And I had no no
idea how many people were in thecloset about it. They were
telling me like their theirwives or elementary school
teachers they used to everynight to get to sleep and all
this stuff. That just changedeverything dramatically. And all
of a sudden, everybody in theindustry is cool to have to know
(21:38):
me with that association. I'vehad customers stay with me
because they just think that'scool.
Ronjini Joshua (21:45):
Yeah. Yeah. So something you thought might like
or even that your partnerthought might be such a
detriment ended up being like,oh, everyone's kind of doing
this quietly.
Unknown (21:56):
Yeah, right. I just kind of snowballed from there
and there and we just did a hugeinterview for this for 20. Yeah,
what do you what are you waitingfor with Forbes? You know, they
did a whole thing. They theyliked the interview so much.
They did a little video andstuff. So no, it's it's
mushrooms.
Ronjini Joshua (22:15):
Good. Yeah. No, that I mean, that's good to
hear. I mean, it's good to hearthat you're a I mean, you're
able to kind of give people alittle bit more confidence in in
that in that sex that area,because they probably were
pretty quiet about it beforethat people are so quiet about
it today. I mean, let's let's behonest.
Sheldon (22:34):
How did you guys avoid the scrutiny of the police being
like the center of attention atthis point?
Unknown (22:42):
Amen. Recently, or before before? Oh, we we there
were so many times that wealmost got busted, and we wiggle
out of every one of them back inthe early 70s. You know, smoking
weed was a crime. Yeah, youcould go to jail for 10 years
for having a join in somestates. Yeah. So we're always
(23:03):
you know, looking over ourshoulders. We were like
underground Desperado. Dope,smoking, hippies, you know,
level of paranoia.
How much adrenaline? We wentthrough our systems, you know,
every every week of the year,avoiding and hiding and
everything right. You have noidea what people have no idea
(23:24):
what it was. Yeah.
I mean, there was one time whenwe were we decided we're going
to go down to the tonight showin 1974. Right. So we hop in
Steve's car, and we brought ahigh school friend, this young
woman. What was your name again,Steve. Laura, Laura. So we're
driving down, heading towards LAand we're down in San Luis
(23:48):
Obispo. And we're smoking somejoints and listening to the
stereo. And all of a suddenSteve says, put it out. The cops
are behind this. So there's amotorcycle cop following us and
then and then we're throwing thedoobies out the windows with the
rubies. The windows were allrolled up so they're bouncing
back with smoke,
Ronjini Joshua (24:08):
oh shit.
Unknown (24:09):
another minute later, we notice a cop car in our left
and then a minute later there'sone on the right and then
there's one in front of us andthey're pulling us all over to
the side of the road.
Ronjini Joshua (24:18):
Oh no.
Unknown (24:19):
sitting there in a cloud of smoke with like five
cop cars and a motorcycle copand they come up to the window
with their guns drawn. And we'refreaking out. Steve rolls down
the window and the cop says I'dlike to see your driver's
license all of you so we willOkay Here they are. The captains
(24:39):
anything about the smoker theweek. He takes the licenses he
goes back to his car. He sitsthere for about 20 minutes and
runs checks on all of us andwe're just freaking out. Yeah,
yeah. And he comes back to thecars is okay you can go and it
was so why did you stop us tailsince the SLA. The Symbionese
liberation You know army andthis young woman was Patty
(25:02):
Hearst with you. Wow. So wemissed it we're gonna miss our
time tonight your windows sowhat did you tell the cops need
was Johnny Carson was the bigguy at that time. I just want to
say I just said cop. You knowyou deleted you goof now we're
gonna miss Johnny Carson. I wasperturbed
Ronjini Joshua (25:22):
Yeah, you were mad. He's like, Okay. Yeah, that
is crazy. Wow. So like the thescariest? Well, maybe not as
scary as but one of theencounters that wasn't even
about you was you got soparanoid about it all the time.
(25:43):
Well, tell us a little bit moreabout I mean, what have you guys
been doing? I mean, obviously,this for 20 kind of social thing
is more of like a PSA. I imagineit's more of a side thing.
Unless you guys are buildingsomething more out of it. But
you know, as far as like whatyou guys ended up doing in your
careers in your lives, like howdid that affect the direction
(26:06):
that your life has taken? Yeah.
Unknown (26:10):
Well, all of us have different careers. Larry Waldo
Larry Schwartz is a in printingand he does design and market is
a photographer's assistant forhigh school. years. commercial
photography, commercialphotography, Jeff works in the
wine industry. I worked as acameraman field producer for CNN
(26:33):
for 20 years. And one funnystory I have is a reporter. I
work I never told anybody at CNNabout this, right? So I kept the
the Siri as a secret for solong. On Facebook a couple years
ago, a reporter I used to workwith for 20 days saw the article
and stories about us and hesays, you know, you never know
(26:55):
who you're going to you've beenworking with or who they really
are until you really discoverwho they are like, like the guy
that carried the flag up EvoJima or the guy who smoked a
joint in sandersville HighSchool.
Ronjini Joshua (27:08):
You're like, Huh,
Unknown (27:11):
Dave would tell me stories about being in the field
like down in LA. Like, you know,your earthquakes. I don't
remember what's the story tothat he'd be there with the
camera, CNN. They'd be likeConnie Chung on his left side.
And somebody's like, you know,the statue of Tom broke on his
right side. And David be stonedout of his mind with the camera.
Ronjini Joshua (27:31):
Wow, that's so funny. That's so funny. I mean,
I feel like yeah, you don'tknow. Maybe they were stoned to
I mean, they probably weren't.
But not on camera. But But yeah,you know,
Unknown (27:42):
I didn't make it a regular prak practice of getting
stoned.
Ronjini Joshua (27:45):
Right? No, but i think i think that's that's such
a interesting testament to justlike society in general. What
that what you're that guy saidis that you never know who
you're around or what they'redoing. Like you don't know what
people's private lives lives arelike, and I think people have
been in the closet for so long,you know, smoking or doing
(28:08):
anything with cannabis, thatright now as we talk about it
more it's like always been sucha secret that people are so
afraid to even explore ideas oflike a legal job in the
industry. It's a big deal forpeople. That's why I'm so
interested in seeing like, youknow, how it's impacted you
negatively or how it's impactedyou positively and what maybe
(28:30):
you would you guys would say tosomeone that is wanting to
explore a career in this area.
Obviously, Things are differentnow than it was when you guys
were growing up what I do
Unknown (28:43):
in the realm of commercial lending, a lot of
what we do has to do with law.
Yeah, I spend 50% of my timewith attorneys and contracts and
stuff like that, as all thesedifferent things come at us as
the waldos separate LLC, andthings coming out as whether
it's movie producers or beer, orbeer producers are these things
(29:04):
that come at us, you start goingback and forth. Because I have
the training from commerciallending. Yeah, we start going
back and forth with people I'malready trained, nobody's gonna
pull anything over. We, weourselves, we go through these
contracts and negotiationsourselves, word by word by word.
(29:25):
Or even I have become experts atreviewing proposals and
contracts.
And the gods everybody'sfighting for every single atom,
of course. So that's what whatwe have done in the real world
has come very become very usefulin animals. Same thing with
date, where we've done hundredsand hundreds of interviews.
(29:45):
Yeah. And Dave's been aroundthat. So we're a student media,
student content, contracts astudent and business and it's
all come in useful.
Ronjini Joshua (29:55):
What about I mean, you guys were mentioning
you guys are kind of like themanaging partners. What about
The other guys have they feltlike they had a negative impact
from their involvement in this?
Obviously they kind of wanted tobe a little bit more private
about it, which is totallyunderstandable. This is like
entertainment industry one onone like having a private life.
But do you think they've shiedaway with format from it to kind
of detach themselves from thatstigma?
Unknown (30:21):
No, I think they're in the last few years. They're all
very proud to be associated withfor 20 years, their kids, the
kids are in high school. Yeah,our kids are in high school. And
they're, they're proud of us.
And you know, their friends areproud of it. They're really
excited to to talk about it.
Yeah.
(30:41):
You know, we're basically or thekids know, we're kind of
extended family. Yeah, you haveto understand the waldos. We
we've been friends. Well, I knowMark since I was in second
grade. Wow. They Waldo mark andwhen? Dale, Larry went in
junior high school, yeah, juniorhigh school.
(31:02):
So we go back, you know, 5560years, and crazy. We all live
near each other. We see eachother all the time we talk on
the phone every day. Yeah, we'rethere for every single family
family event, whether it'sweddings, bar, mitzvah
mitzvahs, divorces, memorialservices, everything. We've been
(31:24):
kind of family and our kids knowthat there's kind of extended
from the wives. You can imaginehow wives can get that they've
accepted. They knew what theygot into when they were marrying
waldos. Yeah,
Ronjini Joshua (31:36):
yeah, that's so funny. You guys are like a
little collective. So I mean, itsounds like I mean, that's also
really cool. I've you've kind oflike a testament to friendship
to you guys still being in touchand being so close and using it
as a as a positive thing. Whatwould you say to people who are
(31:57):
like, you know, like, I thinkpeople are still trying to
figure out how to norm make itnormal? And I don't know, do you
guys talk about it? You know,how do you practice? You know,
for 28 years? I don't know, Idon't know how to word it. But
like, how? How do you normalizeit with like, you having kids
and having families and stufflike that?
Unknown (32:18):
Well, first of all, you know, we don't advocate smoking
marijuana for children.
Ronjini Joshua (32:24):
Of course, of course. No, no. And
Unknown (32:27):
second of all, you know, it's worked for us,
Ronjini Joshua (32:30):
right?
Unknown (32:32):
Oh, wait, we've been able to wait all responsible, I
have jobs and houses and pay themortgage. I've been able to do
everything in life successfully.
I mean, I know some people can'thandle it. They get carried away
with it. But we've been able todo, you know, live normal,
responsible life.
And we're still you know, westill go on safaris is we came
(32:56):
up with safaris before we youknow, even got into this 420
thing. We were the guysunderneath the football stands
on Friday night. Going What thehell are we doing here? While
we're smoking? Jimmy? Yeah. So,you know, we wanted to do
something more interesting thanjust going to parties and
(33:16):
hanging out on a Friday night ata football game. So, you know,
one year, Steve was reading aRolling Stone magazine. I'll let
him tell you about that.
Well, there was just a very,very first holograms were being
developed. This is like 1971back then. Okay. I mean, you you
grew up with all one rat. That'sall I've ever known. But back
(33:38):
then, it was just total sciencefiction, a three dimensional
image made I like lepa hell. Sothere's these scientists down in
Silicon Valley are down thatway. Working on a 24 seven, I
like well go visit thescientists if they're working on
it. 24 seven, and I did and itwas a lot of fun. And we got
(33:58):
stoned. And when I got thewaldos Next week, we got stoned,
went back to visit them. Andeach week we figured out some
weird adventure to go on. Wecall them safaris. That's what
day
Sheldon (34:08):
we we saw them on the website. Yeah. We
Unknown (34:11):
challenge each other each week to come up with a new
Safari. We were you know we areout there we are seeker is
looking for new, weird,interesting places to go and
weird people to meet. So thatwas our challenge every every
week to weird adventuresand weird catchphrases.
Ronjini Joshua (34:28):
Yeah, that's really cool. I imagine you guys
have run across especially now.
A ton of really cool people.
What has been like one incidentthat was a surprising incident
that you kind of met someonethat blew your mind.
Unknown (34:46):
I met Tommy Chong over the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam
about 14 years ago. But I didn'teven mention that about who you
said hello to him in theelevator him and his wife and a
very nice Got he was at theCannabis Cup as a speaker there.
Ronjini Joshua (35:03):
Sure, of course, of course. What about what about
you, Steve?
Unknown (35:10):
I know something weird about me. I ran into people all
the time celebrities by myself.
I don't know why they run intome or I run into them. It's
like, I don't know what thething is. God one day I ran into
an I go story after story. Oneday, I'm driving by this little
airport, a little privateairport, like to watch planes.
(35:31):
And I'm sitting there and I lookover and Steve Perry from
journey is sitting there in afield. Dave, what are you doing
here? And he goes, I'm takinghelicopter lessons and the
instructor just took thehelicopter and he flew off and
he's gonna come back in a while.
I'm sitting here. So I mean, Ijust started talking. Is there
for half an hour talking withthem. One time I was at a
(35:54):
memory, you know, Andy Kaufman,the comedian. Yeah, yeah, that
is, one day, Andy Kaufman andthis guy, magician, Doug
Henning. They're just they wantto do a concert to raise money
to teach TranscendentalMeditation to prisoners in San
Quentin. So I went to that showafterwards there was this party
and I met this party up in thisroom there's like 30 people and
(36:16):
all of a sudden like, every likepeople saw ghosts everybody in
the room runs out and there'stwo people if you're a me and
Andy Kaufman I'm there withthem. Half an hour talking about
this and egg story one day ohyou know David Crosby from
Crosby Stills Yeah, sure. I'm ata hotel on a in on Friday stay
over because had a businessappointment on Monday. I get
(36:37):
wake up the parking lots emptybit the far corner of the
parking lot there's a car wherethe garbage can and I go I get
my car I go to throw somethingaway. It's David Crosby from
Crosby Stills Nash like DavidWhat are you doing here? He goes
the tabloids they look throughmy garbage they find out
everything about me so I comedown here to throw my garbage
away. Wow.
Ronjini Joshua (36:58):
That's your that's your tagline. It's so and
so. What are you doing
Unknown (37:02):
here? I was just there first name like I'm buddies.
Yeah, my name is a nice storyand they just go on and
on and on. There was anothertime I went to a show down in
Calaveras County in 1987. It wasthe mountain air festival with a
Grateful Dead and Santana. Itwas a three day concert and we
(37:23):
went to the show the firstcouple days and Saturday after
the show a friend of mineinvited us up to a place called
the Avery ranch up in Twain areup on the top of this mountain
so you drive up this bumpy dirtroad we got up there and we're
hanging with the crew andpartying a little bit and this
is like a couple of hours afterthe show and all of a sudden
(37:43):
this huge banana type helicopterlands in this huge meadow and
the Grateful Dead all cometromping out so a little bit
later on john my buddy john andi are walking around and we
there there was a bunch oflittle cabins dotted all over
this Meadow this huge flat metalon the top of the mountain we
(38:05):
see Jerry Garcia sitting on theporch of one of these little
cabins by himself on a rockingchair and we say hey Jerry How
you doing? Would you like tosmoke a joint he says yeah come
on up. So we go up and we hangwith Jerry we got high with him
for like an hour it you know Itold him hey if you guys were
good Santana was really good anyany jokingly started laughing He
(38:28):
told us a story about how CarlosSantana used to sneak into the
Fillmore all the time to learnhow to play guitar from Jerry
himself Jesus about that but sowe hung with him we got a high
smoked a few doobies and he justwas totally cool with us and
very nice and accepting and youknow we walked away with a solid
(38:51):
gold memory
Ronjini Joshua (38:52):
Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, like I think I
think that's really cool to beable to have these opportunities
but I don't know it sounds likeyou guys were just in a good
place a great place at the righttime for a lot of these. I don't
know if it had a lot to do withbeing the the wall though the
420 waldos
Unknown (39:09):
know what kind of, well, just kind of explorer
seekers I as Danny said, just tokind of individuals that like I
said, we weren't spicoli and wejust smoked weed and sat on a
couch or something like that orjust did idiotic thing. We
weren't stupid stoners.
Ronjini Joshua (39:25):
Yeah. Well, what what kind of opportunities are
you guys taking advantage ofnow, as as the group that kind
of put this together? I imagineyou have some really cool
things. As you know, theindustry is kind of moving
forward and you have thislegacy. Do you have any plans
for what you guys are going tobe doing next?
Unknown (39:43):
Well, you know, you say you're in a big company, studio
there. Yes. Two years. Threeyears ago, we had a vape pen
with a company called chemistryover and Oakland which was a
very good success. And what wedid is we donated all The
profits 100% to the Drug PolicyAlliance.
Ronjini Joshua (40:06):
Okay, great.
Unknown (40:07):
So and presently we just signed a deal we've, we've
been renewed. What's it werenewed our deal we renewed our
deal with lagunitas Brewery theymake they've been making our our
beer called Waldo special alefor the last 10 years.
Ronjini Joshua (40:27):
Oh, okay.
Sheldon (40:28):
I'm gonna I'm I tried I tried it a couple weeks ago on a
friend's house. Yeah.
Ronjini Joshua (40:31):
Oh, is it okay, is it hoppy? I like hops.
Unknown (40:35):
Okay, very strong. It's a 11.7% alcohol. So it's almost
like a barley wine. But
Ronjini Joshua (40:42):
I'm going to pick it up on the way home
today.
Unknown (40:46):
They only produce it about a month or two before
April 20. And from the storynot be on the shelves, but you
can get it in March and Aprilnext year. But they approached
us after you know, they hadsuccess with other they had
beers that they promoted withrock stars like Frank Zappa and
in shamli process and asked usif we'd like to make a beer with
(41:08):
them. And we said, Sure, likehell yeah. They invited us up to
their brewery in Petaluma. Andwe picked out all the hops
ourselves, getting these hopsthat smelled like marijuana, and
you rub them together and smellthem. And we picked the hops,
and they've been making the beerfor 10 years now. And we just
renewed our contract with themanother three year deal going
(41:32):
forward. So making the beard thenext three years and many more
years to come. Andfor the first seven years, they
said it cost them too much tomake and promote, they couldn't
pay us anything. And it was goodjust to be lol or whatever. It's
good just to have a company ofthat size. Do a brand around
this now and
Ronjini Joshua (41:53):
then it's nice for you guys to have it at your
house. Do you know like, this isour beer
Unknown (41:59):
that would look good to any other potential people want
to do any kind of branding roundso we let it go for about seven
years, but by the seventh yearwe said like we can't do this
anymore.
Ronjini Joshua (42:08):
You gotta be making some money. Yeah, you got
the money.
Unknown (42:11):
It just had a consent a legal precedent. Again, people
can use our name and likenesswithout having to Okay, they
started paying to some nominalamount for a couple years. We
just came around for renewal andwe said hey, we're still
mentioned the media were a lotbigger now just for 20 thing
growing from state to state in amillion different ways. Yeah, we
just renewed actually we got theapproval yesterday. Did Yeah,
(42:33):
it's a much better deal than inthe past.
Ronjini Joshua (42:35):
Did you guys do anything around trademarking or
anything like that?
Unknown (42:40):
People don't understand people come to us all the time.
Did you trademark for 20 yearsshould it create I don't think
you can write I don't know ifany have to explain to people
you just can't trademarkanything and everything around
trademarks. You have to do itfor a specific category like for
20 sunglasses. And then you haveto use it in interstate trade
(43:00):
and prove that you used it ininterstate trade and there's a
whole process so you have to doit for specific categories. And
we well we did it for you knowfor 20 waldos for shirts and
hats and stuff on our website.
Dave, I can just all of a suddendo Hey, you guys had to do some
for 20 snowblowers or one timeutensils or Yeah, some gender
neutral soup crackers. Ooh, andwho knows these days with what
(43:22):
you can do but no, we it'slimited and there's a lot of
process and procedure where we Iwas somebody sent me a phony
thing. You get these all thetime, but they want to get money
for renewing your trademark.
right but they they changed thedate. So then I'm like, is my
trademark really expiring? I'vehad to spend hours the other
(43:43):
night figuring this stuff out.
Yeah, we kind of kind of have abesides the fun of for 20 you
kind of have a business to runhere.
Ronjini Joshua (43:50):
Yeah, yeah, that's Yeah, I mean, I imagine.
I mean, I think everybody shouldbe cognizant of those types of
things. You can't You can'ttrademark everything, but you
can kind of form a plan aroundit. I guess. You can't just
Unknown (44:02):
trademark a number. So say I want everything for 20
that number
Ronjini Joshua (44:08):
belongs to all of us. Well, do you guys I mean,
this is Laguna lagunitas. Oh myGod. That lagunitas is a really
cool i like opportunity. And itsounds like you guys have done
some things. Do you haveanything coming up that you're
working on? Yeah. Now
Unknown (44:27):
people are coming at us with the NF T's and not
everybody knows what NF yes arethese called non fungible
non fungible tokens
Ronjini Joshua (44:36):
not tokens
Unknown (44:38):
and for you know, people listening this don't know
what it is. It's kind of like ona on a Bitcoin like format, they
trade. You have a piece of art,if a piece of physical art it
can be even a soundbite, it canbe an offer a piece of art with
that, backed by an experience,and people can I guess, bid
basically and they own thedigital form of it. That art so
(45:01):
people want us to do these NFT's and we're working on that.
Ronjini Joshua (45:04):
That's a really cool idea. I think you should
definitely look into that. Any,any brands in the future?
Unknown (45:14):
You come to us and we'll talk about I
know, there's a bunch of peoplewho have, you know, loosely and
we're just so busy with ourregular life. No, yeah, he's
everything else. There's peoplewho said they'd like to do you
know, we'd brand but we justdon't want we want to do
(45:34):
everything right with quality.
We just don't want to put ournames on. Absolutely. We're at
the stage of life. It's notgoing to change anything. We're
already in our 60s Yeah, we'renot like super gradient, we're
going to jump over we wantthings to be quality if we're
going to do them. So there'ssome things brewing out there
with with marijuana, andcannabis. I think every
celebrity in the world that gotthe idea like Oh, me, too, yes,
(45:56):
everybody wanted to be calmerand everybody's gonna have a
weed. I was saying the otherday, I was surprised and all of
a sudden, you can hear TomSelleck is gonna have his brand
to induce people to do isreverse mortgages or something
like that. Oh, wow. Getting thatcrepe. No, that's not true. No,
no, no, but it'll be funny.
(46:18):
Yeah, that crazy that everybodyevery celebrity the world thinks
they can have a week so it'sgetting I don't know that any
celebrities weed has dominated.
You know, Marley who was doingthe brand I don't know they
WillieNelson's got a brand. Jerry
Garciahas a weird I don't know, guys
that, you know, nobody'sdominated it's kind of spread
out.
Ronjini Joshua (46:40):
Yeah. And it's more of like, hey, like people
know that I smoked so I shouldhave something it's I don't
think it I don't think it's awell thought out like business
plan. I mean, I'm sure it is.
But you know, it's not. It's nota central focus for a lot of
those guys. And it's just a kindof something they could put
their name on. Right.
Unknown (46:56):
I agree. Well, Seth Rogen. He's getting a lot of
shows every time pushing his newbrand, but I don't know that
that's in every store inAmerica. I don't know.
Ronjini Joshua (47:05):
Yeah, no, Seth Rogan's brown houseplant that's
been around for I think andsince 2017 because he's Canadian
You know, he got to he got onthat market quite early. I think
I think that is kind of the wayto do it. He's done a really
good job of putting togetherbrand specialists to create
something that he loves and he'svery passionate about it I feel
(47:25):
like that's a little bitdifferent than like you know,
when you have another likeentertainer or celebrity that
just kind of puts their name onsomething too It's like they're
he's they're creating somethingI think from the ground up
Unknown (47:38):
Yeah, right. We're thinking about coming out with a
pizza marijuana infusion
Sheldon (47:45):
that sounds that would be
Ronjini Joshua (47:47):
nice just kidding Yeah. Well I can see I
can see it in the frozen alreadysauce It's out there the frozen
food depart with a free frozenfood section with your faces on
it.
Sheldon (47:58):
And it's red and white so it fits the Waldo theme
Ronjini Joshua (48:00):
Yes, perfect.
Well, is there anything that wehaven't really I know you guys
have so many stories and thestories that you probably told
him stories you haven't told um,is there anything else that we
kind of like Miss today?
Unknown (48:13):
Well, you know, our website Yeah, yeah, please
there's hundreds of pages thereof our stories and our
background and our and ourphrases and hundreds of
interviews that we've done inmedia not only print but there
there's there's podcasts andradio shows, I mean, all over
the world even you know, aCanadian Broadcasting System in
(48:37):
the book, we'vedone interviews with Italian
magazines, Colombian magazine,Israeli magazines, crazy. So our
website has a lot of not onlyjust factual a lot of
entertaining things we put a lotof funny videos that we found
like there was listening to thatshow on they did a whole you
know, movie studio 420 thing ofpeople dancing around
(49:00):
celebrating for 20 day I'mtrying remember the name though
is a trailer that Yeah, all thatstuff's on our site. There's a
lot of funny stuff to like outthere.
Sheldon (49:10):
And for our viewers, that is for 20 Waldo,
Unknown (49:13):
Waldo, those four to zero Debbie AL do s comm that
that's our site, we have tocorrect a lot of things. There's
a lot of things that gettwisted, like we had an
interviewer twit, interviewing,so we're telling about Mark's
father, providing you know, realestate needs for the Grateful
Dead. Uh huh. We do theinterview. And then we look at
(49:35):
the thing gets printed up andall of a sudden, it's like,
Mark's father was a gardener forJerry Garcia.
We got a marijuana.
I think a lot of interviewersand stuff, they do the interview
straight but then they go homeand they get the thing up and
all of a sudden their mindstarts wandering so we got to
(49:57):
keep a grip on this media thing.
Make sure everything's accurateso that's our definitive
accurate sight of everythingthat's out
Ronjini Joshua (50:05):
yes some people tend to get creative and and
with your guys with your storyit's it's easy to kind of go in
the wrong direction and startcoming up with some fun facts of
their own I'm sure
Unknown (50:18):
the wall those are if you got together with all five
waldos in person all prettyfunny constantly joking the wall
those humors are common commonground between us I can get on
the phone anytime morning I cancall up Mark three in the
morning and instantly humor andcomedy out of him. He'll walk up
(50:38):
to anybody and everybody in theworld and start joking with him
I don't care even the scariestlooking people he just
immediately disarms people withhumor. So that's our really our
common bond all those crack eachother up all the time.
Ronjini Joshua (50:52):
Yeah, I think this is so nice. And I mean,
it's been a pleasure to get toknow your story a little bit
more and, and talk to you. Sothank you guys so much for the
time you gave us today. I hopethis helps people understand
like they you know, I think whatI got out of it was, you know,
well, especially now. Stigma isjust, it's just kind of like a
(51:13):
passing phase. I think like yousaid, you know, people notice
that you were on the cover ofthat article, and they actually
appreciated it. So I thinkhonesty, authenticity is kind of
the best thing here. That's whatyou've taught me here.
Unknown (51:28):
It's a totally different changed world. It's
mind boggling. Driving throughOakland. There'll be a big huge
billboard from ease you know,420 right on there. It's a huge
I mean, it's amazing to see thisthing break open the way it has.
Ronjini Joshua (51:44):
Yeah, I imagine you guys like have a little
sense of beaming pride inside asyou're as you're driving through
these things.
Unknown (51:52):
We think it's funny your joke here we created
Ronjini Joshua (51:55):
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.
Unknown (51:58):
They don't wait. Don't get caught up in self
importance. We think it's funnywe do we laugh about it every
day.
Ronjini Joshua (52:04):
Well, it's been incredible. Thank you so much.
Thanks for your time. And thishas been awesome. I appreciate
the stories.
Unknown (52:12):
You're welcome. And happy 420
Ronjini Joshua (52:16):
Thank you. Thank you. The Green Room podcast is
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Don't forget to subscribe andshare the greenroom podcast with
(52:37):
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That way you'll never miss anepisode and we can keep the
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Awesome. Submit your guests atGreen cpr.com slash the hyphen
(53:00):
green hyphen group. Thanks forlistening and be well
I didn't know much about the waldos. Before I
found the 420 Waldo site. I'veheard about the waldos, but
didn't really know who they wereDid you know I had all of the
misconceptions about what 420was, and I did not know there
were people behind it or not. Sothe conversation kind of came to
a surprise for me. But learningabout this guy, this, like this
(00:31):
group of guys, it's five guysthat coined the term for 20 was
compelling enough for me to justask, like, all the questions,
all the questions, all thequestions, I've got some
stories. Well, they probablycould have kept going on the
story. Oh, yeah. You know, SteveCapper and Dave Reddix are the
founding, managing members ofthe Waldos. And they kind of do
(00:55):
all the media stuff, so we gotto talk to them in this podcast.
Let's get back to the waldos andget into the green room with
Steve capper and Dave.
Hello, thanks for joining ustoday in the green room. Today
we have the managing members ofthe waldos known for coining the
(01:18):
term 420 Steve Capper and DaveReddix Hello guys, how are you?
Hey, we're good. How are you?
Okay, that's actually my that'slike my signature move is the
peace sign. Sowe're already connected. I'm so
excited to have you guys ontoday. And I think it's a
different perspective.
Typically, you know, the in thegreenroom, where we're talking
(01:42):
about the journey of thecannabis industry, and I think
there's no conversation thatdoesn't have the idea of for 20,
and how that came about. So I'msure you've answered this
question tons of times. Andwe'll get into some other
questions later, but I'd love tokind of start with you know, how
did that whole for 20 happened?
And why are you guys called thewild waldos? Well, we're called
to begin with, we're called thewaldos. Because we used to hang
(02:05):
out on a wall in the middle ofcampus there at Centerville High
School. Wow, it all goes
Unknown (02:13):
there, and we'd sit up there and during class breaks
and people would go by and we'ddo impressions of people and
crack jokes, just to make eachother laugh and have a good
time. So that's how we becameknown as the waldos.
Ronjini Joshua (02:28):
Wow, okay. Okay.
I thought it was like maybepeople can tell you guys apart
or something like that. Right?
And, and for 20, like, tell us alittle bit about the background
of like, you know, how that thatcame with how that became so
big.
Unknown (02:44):
One day, we're hanging out on our wall, and a buddy of
mine, Bill McNulty comes up tome and he goes hey, my brother's
in the US Coast Guard and someguys in the US Coast Guard are
growing marijuana they have aplot that they've started
growing and for some reason theythink that their commanding
officer is gonna bust him wefound out years later what that
(03:05):
was about Okay, and they suspectthat because somebody did get
busted even earlier some CoastGuardsmen for growing part so
they go well we think we'regoing to give us too We don't
want to get busted so we'vedecided to the Coast Guard guy
so we've decided to abandon theproject and we decided bill
let's just found out his brotherin law and I was ready you got
(03:26):
you and your buddies can pick itthey do a map of where it was
and said you guys can go aheadand pick this it's yours. Okay,
I treasure map it started outwith a treasure map
it was a no brainer you knowSteve rod is this mad is a she
would you go check this out raw,no brainer. Let's go. You know,
you're 16 years old. You have nomoney. You have no weed, right?
(03:48):
You're gonna get some free weed.
We're going forward.
Ronjini Joshua (03:50):
All right. And so where do the numbers come
from?
Unknown (03:54):
So, you know, we weren't spicoli from Fast Times
at ridgemont High. We weren'tCheech and Chong. We, you know,
we were intelligence donors, andactive stoners. I mean, what I
was day was getting awards foranimation videos. I was getting
awards for accounting classes.
We were all into sports. I mean,we weren't the best or the worst
(04:18):
at sports. We were kind ofmedium range. I was a swimmer
Larry, it was a was football.
While though Jeff he was theteam manager. Dave, what do you
do? I think he did football fora while and then
I did quit ball for one year anddecided I'd rather chase girls
and smoke pot. Yeah. Okay. So soone of the things was we decided
(04:41):
we're going to smoke this potbut Larry and Jeff had football
practice for an hour we got outof school around three 315 they
had this flexible schedule thingthey started some kids got out
of three some got out 310 and wegot out of 320 so you get out or
approximately three crackfootball practice lasted about
one hour approximately, and itwas just enough time to get back
(05:02):
to the gym, get your clothes onor get back to the locker room,
get your clothes on and get overto where we decided to meet,
Ronjini Joshua (05:11):
right?
Unknown (05:11):
Yeah, I decided to meet it. The statue of Louis this
past year on the campus right inthe middle of the campus.
They're actually in the front ofthe campus. And we decided we'd
meet there at 4 (05:21):
20pm after school after everybody had
finished their activities orwhatever. Yeah, and we met there
that first day we smoked the bigfatty and then we hopped in
Steve 66 Impala and we drove outto point rays on our search
Ronjini Joshua (05:36):
Oh for your treasure hunt. Yeah, gotcha.
Okay, wait wait wait
Unknown (05:40):
smoke all the way out and take well depend upon
traffic it'd be 1440 minutes toan hour I didn't put the pencil
on traffic but listening to thatall that great 70s music all the
way out. I mean, incrediblemusic during those times
especially in the San FranciscoBay area so much and Steve
had a killer eight track stereoCraig eight track stereo so we
(06:01):
listened to that. This boomingmusic all the way out there
smoking weed. The car would beyou know, clouded with smoke.
Giddy you know, what was theword what was gonna happen?
It was a 66 Chevy Impala, fourdoors, kind of embarrassing.
It's not an any car that you'dget chicks with. But handpan me
down, you know. And being thatwas had such a big trunk, these
(06:24):
big speakers that would baffleand give you a great sound. So
you pile a bunch of waldos. Andyou're smoking out there and
listening to music and headedout to look for the weed. And we
did every week.
We look for weeks. But you know,in the ensuing weeks, you know,
we'd see each other in thehallways, and we say for 20.
Louis, that was the originalsaying for 20. Louis
(06:46):
can remind you chat to eachother where we were going to
meet at what time so nobodyhad to go for 20. Louis Oh, yes.
And you go Yes, for 20. Louis,that meant we were going to
search that day, which we didfor several weeks. And we kept
searching, but we never foundthe patch. What we we realized
that, hey, we could use this asa secret code that we could use
around in front of our teachers,our parents, cops, nobody knew
(07:09):
what we're talking about. So wejust dropped the Louis part, and
used for 20 as our own secretlittle code. It was a you know,
a private little joke. That'sall it was. That's
Ronjini Joshua (07:21):
crazy. And now, like we
Unknown (07:23):
had about 100 other private jokes that we had.
Ronjini Joshua (07:27):
Well, I imagine I imagine but nobody, that
nobody cared about those ones.
Unknown (07:32):
It's just the tip of the iceberg. Not all our jokes
made it into national andinternational consciousness. We
had about we put about maybe 35of those jokes and what they're
about onto our website, which is420 waldos. com. They're all
funny as hell yeah. They're alljokes.
Ronjini Joshua (07:49):
That's so funny.
Bullock. It's crazy. Howsomething so simple and your
personal story. I mean, you guysare, were you guys connected to
the entertainment industry whereyou connect it to the media in
any way. Like how did thathappen? Like how did how did it
get so like now internationallyrecognized? It's such a big
deal, and it really carries somuch weight. I can't imagine you
guys would have ever thoughtthat happened? Well, what
(08:12):
happened?
Unknown (08:14):
We didn't realize we were creating history at the
time. Yeah, it's having fun.
That's all we were doing withour little secret code. And the
way it's spread, you know, ouryounger brothers and lower
classmates they you know, heardit from us. They carried it on
for many years. As well as youcan tell him about mark.
(08:39):
Of course, we went off tocollege. I went up to Southern
California and people from allover the state all over the
country were there so theypicked up on it and took took
it. took it home with them. Wehave this I'll get into that
later. We have this big 420artpiece a flag in my dorm room
and other people like once thatthey picked up on it. We had a
(09:01):
bunch of connections to theGrateful Dead. We were always
around them and the dead thedead communities worldwide.
Yeah, they picked up on it fromus. While though mark and his
dad handled real estate needsfor the dead. The dead were
centered in Centerville,California. That's where we live
inside of Ohio. That was thecenter of their organization.
And they all lived in MarionCounty. So while though Mark's
(09:23):
father, lots of real estateneeds, you have an organization
that big you need office space,you need places to store
equipment, you need places torehearse, everybody in the whole
debt that band members nobody inthe organization was making
money they buying homes in theMarine county hills. So Mark,
Mark's dad would find them intheir homes and then when you
find them their homes, they goout on tour, they need people to
(09:46):
babysit their animals and theirhouses. So Mark and us would get
jobs babysit in their houses andhis dad always had us he take us
we always on the guest listbackstage so we go to winter
Your land this place in SanFrancisco.
It was an old skating rink, ahuge old skating rink and we
(10:07):
were backstage hanging with, youknow, the Grateful Dead. But the
other connection came in 1975.
The Grateful Dead took a hiatusfrom touring for about nine
months and my brother Patrickhas was good friends with Phil
last for like 50 years. And in75 Phil said, Hey Pat, I want to
(10:27):
have a couple bands Can youmanage them and the two bands
were called to lose to truck Itake on too loosely track and
another band called C stones andpat hired me to be a roadie in
the band. And Pat and I wereusing for 20 backstage at these
shows with with Phil gettinghigh with Phil and guys like
(10:51):
David Crosby and Terry Haggertyand many other musicians. And
the, you know, the dead headset, you know, the roadies, and
the groupies caught on to thisas it spread. Those guys thought
it was kind of funny as webrought it up, and it spread
through the dead community. Andyears later, in 19. I think it
was 91. Steve Blum from HighTimes Magazine. He was the
(11:17):
editor. I think he was theeditor at that time, or I think
it was anyway is he was at aGrateful Dead concert over at
Oakland Coliseum in 91. And hesaw a flyer that says come join
us for a 420 celebration on thetop of Mount Tam on April 20.
Okay, so so they publish thatstory and i times really glommed
(11:39):
on to that, and they startedusing for 20 a lot. And then
there was the other connectionwas with Larry Steve, go ahead
and tell them about Larry.
Larry, which which good LarrySchwartz what connection?
Well, how he? Well, Larry sawOh, okay, okay.
(11:59):
All right. All right. All right.
Sorry, Jay. Well, one day,Steve. Yeah, one day and it was
about 9798. Larry called me upone day, I'm I'm in my car, he
goes, Hey, this 420 thing. It'staken off. It's all over the
place. There's hats, there'sshirts, there's, there's all
this starting to see all thiscommercial usage of it. And
people still think that for 20is a police go that's the most
(12:23):
you know, common commonmisconception. Yeah, and I know
it's not a police code. I mean,there is no police code in the
California Penal Code system oranywhere else, even related to
420. It's all if it'stransporting weed, if it's
selling weed note possessingthat, whatever it is, that's
always like five, six digitcodes, separated by a decimal
point has none and none of themare for 20. So we already knew
(12:46):
that. And then there's the otherweird thing to or there's 420
chemical constituents. today.
There's just so many theory BobDylan's up for Tony song or
something about 420 had nothingto do with our bottle.
Yeah, Bob Dylan said his songhad nothing. Oh, rainy day
(13:07):
women. 80 women. Yeah, that thatwas a multiplying numbers, and
it comes out for everything. Butso I had written a letter, I
worked up a letter to HighTimes. And he said, it's not a
police code. It's not the time,whatever, Jerry Garcia whatever
(13:28):
it was, yeah. theories. I said,we started back in 1971 in high
school. And here's the wholestory. And the editor in chief
Steve hogger at the time said,Hey, this looks like somebody
said you guys have physicalproof. I go Yeah, we have lots
of physical evidence proof thatwe were using for 20 before case
(13:49):
before anybody who knew what itwas. So he flew out to San
Francisco we spent a weekend weshowed him all our several
pieces of physical evidenceproof and that was kind of the
start of it. And then he wentimmediately on ABC News and
like, Hey, I found the realbeginnings
Ronjini Joshua (14:04):
that's it I mean, that is like I'm a PR
person. So from my perspective,I feel like that's like such an
amazing guerilla marketingcampaign even though you guys
weren't marketing anything itjust like that's the first like
thing I've heard that's beenlike, like a truly viral if you
want to talk about you know,YouTube, YouTube virality or
social media morality. This islike a really cool experiment of
(14:25):
social morality of like just howyou kind of penetrated the
market and then it becamesomething that now is owned by
anybody who loves cannabis. Soit's really interesting. I like
it's such a cool it's such acool testament to kind of social
marketing. It's so
Unknown (14:43):
great that we had so many all these different pieces
of physical evidence. Yeah,
Ronjini Joshua (14:48):
yeah. What what is what is that evidently
Unknown (14:50):
a letter down at San Diego State.
It was I wrote him a letter andtold him about me being a roadie
for Phyllis bands, and I Youknow, I told him I said, Hey,
I'm getting high with DavidCrosby and Phil and, and, and I
made 20 bucks last night man isa doorman, you know? And, and I
(15:13):
rolled Steve a joint up, and Istamped it down and I put it in
the letter. And at the end ofthe letter, I said, here's a
little for 20 for your weekend.
Ronjini Joshua (15:23):
Night. Oh,
Unknown (15:24):
so we have the letter.
It's, it's it's, you know, datedearly 70s. Yeah. And, and every
it has referenced before 20decades before anybody knew what
it was. Then I have a friend whowent to Israel to live in a
kibbutz and he was not happy.
There's no way there. So he'swriting me letters with
international post stamps,saying, I'm upset. There's no
(15:45):
for 20 here. Gotcha. And thenand then one of our which we
have again, we keep all thisevidence in a big giant vault.
Thatis where the vault is located.
It's it more 20 MontgomeryStreet.
And then there's this this galPatty, we call her the Betsy
Ross of the waldos. She heardabout all our adventures and all
(16:09):
our air for 20. And all ourother cliches and sayings and
stuff we made up and she had todo an art project for art class,
she decided to make this reallycool batik like for 20 flag, or
20, which is on our website andfind on the web as a picture of
a marijuana leaf behind it andstuff like that. And we still
have that flag. And then shewrote me a letter with a 17th
(16:32):
postmark. How's the for 20 flag?
Ronjini Joshua (16:36):
There's so many times that those letters
probably could have gone intothe trash. So
Unknown (16:41):
yeah, we've got them in the hall, and then the flags in
the vault. That's it. That'sgonna be in like the Smithsonian
someday. Yeah.
There's so many times we couldhave thrown away. It's not that
we wanted to save things. Wewere just too lazy to throw them
away.
Ronjini Joshua (16:57):
Yeah, no, I mean, that's what I'm saying.
It's like such a, this is a veryserendipitous thing where you
guys were able to prove allthese things. So it's very, very
cool. Have
Unknown (17:07):
one of our buddies, the school newspaper, you know, they
always have a question, man.
Yeah, so question, man, schoolnewspaper, went to one of our
buddies and said, Hey, if youcould say anything to the
graduating class, say, and ourbuddy said for 20. And of
course, we have the originalnewspaper with 1970s that's
sitting in the wall to Wow,multiple pieces of evidence.
Ronjini Joshua (17:30):
Well, I mean, I think this is such a good segue,
we're gonna we're gonna segueinto the journey here. And I
this is kind of the reason Iwanted to talk to you guys in
particular is obviously your,your connection to deep roots to
like, something that's become aninternational phenomenon. But
also, like, you know, a lot ofthe stuff that we talk about in
this podcast are how people haveaffected the cannabis industry,
(17:55):
how it's affected them, and howit affects business and how also
just like, you know, theimportance and impact of it in
people's lives as we're movinginto, like a federal legal
situation. So I think one of thethings I wanted to ask you guys
is really like, you know,becoming known for this. And
this is a stigma problem that alot of people have or are
(18:17):
worried about as, like, they getinto cannabis. We've I talked to
someone the other day, and she'slike, Well, I didn't want to do
anything in cannabis because Iwas worried that nobody else
would hire me after so this isthis is a big challenge. Stigma
is a huge challenge for us. AndI want to know, like, you know,
how has it affected you guys inyour personal life as you've
been getting jobs? Like, at somepoint, you were known for this
(18:39):
420 thing? And how did you Howhas it affected your
professional life? And, youknow, it wasn't legal when you
guys were when you guys weredoing this? So Well,
Unknown (18:51):
to begin with, you know, the other three guys
besides Steven Steven, I cameout with this, you know, back,
you know, the articles in 98.
But the other guys didn't wanttheir names published because
they family man, and they'reparanoid, you know, with the
stigma of being associated withmarijuana. But they, we all came
out, they came out in 2012. Whenwe we had another article in I
(19:16):
think it was the Huffington PostSteve.
I don't remember which one ofthe Yeah, anyway, they
came out and they, you know,since then, we've all been out,
you know, even the originalswith our full names, and the
other three guys came out backthen,
(19:37):
a lot of times we used to haveour faces blurred, or they
change our voices.
Ronjini Joshua (19:43):
Like, like you guys are some some mischievous,
like,
Unknown (19:46):
witness protection program.
It's predicted Yeah,you know, one of the main
changes in my entire life when Ijust saw just a phenomenal
shift. I have that As aspecialty finance company, we
finance businesses with specialniche lenders and business. For
years, my my earlier businesspartner would say, don't talk
(20:11):
about it. It's bad for business.
Yes, anything we don't wantpeople to know it's bad for
business. And we were doing aninterview here, interviewing
there. And then all of a sudden,I remember what year it was.
Look it up, because I have thearticle posted on our website,
one year, the Wall StreetJournal, call me up. And they
said, there are so manybusinesses that are using the
(20:33):
420 thing in marketing, I thenames of the business and
marketing. It's just a hugething now. And we'd like to show
how big it is. And that peoplein the normal business world,
normal kind of straight,seemingly straight business,
people are using this map. Sothey interviewed me. And I was
(20:54):
at a conference, kind of in thelending industry, down in
Southern California. And it thearticle came out on the front
page of The Wall Street Journal.
Of course, they had to have apicture of me in a tie. Because
they wanted that. So it cameout. I was on the front page,
and they put it on the doorstepof every room at the hotel.
Ronjini Joshua (21:14):
Oh my god. Yeah, I've seen that before. Yeah,
okay, yeah.
Unknown (21:17):
And then I go down to the conference hall. And all of
a sudden, just out of the blue.
Every bank president was my newbest friend. And I had no no
idea how many people were in thecloset about it. They were
telling me like their theirwives or elementary school
teachers they used to everynight to get to sleep and all
this stuff. That just changedeverything dramatically. And all
of a sudden, everybody in theindustry is cool to have to know
(21:38):
me with that association. I'vehad customers stay with me
because they just think that'scool.
Ronjini Joshua (21:45):
Yeah. Yeah. So something you thought might like
or even that your partnerthought might be such a
detriment ended up being like,oh, everyone's kind of doing
this quietly.
Unknown (21:56):
Yeah, right. I just kind of snowballed from there
and there and we just did a hugeinterview for this for 20. Yeah,
what do you what are you waitingfor with Forbes? You know, they
did a whole thing. They theyliked the interview so much.
They did a little video andstuff. So no, it's it's
mushrooms.
Ronjini Joshua (22:15):
Good. Yeah. No, that I mean, that's good to
hear. I mean, it's good to hearthat you're a I mean, you're
able to kind of give people alittle bit more confidence in in
that in that sex that area,because they probably were
pretty quiet about it beforethat people are so quiet about
it today. I mean, let's let's behonest.
Sheldon (22:34):
How did you guys avoid the scrutiny of the police being
like the center of attention atthis point?
Unknown (22:42):
Amen. Recently, or before before? Oh, we we there
were so many times that wealmost got busted, and we wiggle
out of every one of them back inthe early 70s. You know, smoking
weed was a crime. Yeah, youcould go to jail for 10 years
for having a join in somestates. Yeah. So we're always
(23:03):
you know, looking over ourshoulders. We were like
underground Desperado. Dope,smoking, hippies, you know,
level of paranoia.
How much adrenaline? We wentthrough our systems, you know,
every every week of the year,avoiding and hiding and
everything right. You have noidea what people have no idea
(23:24):
what it was. Yeah.
I mean, there was one time whenwe were we decided we're going
to go down to the tonight showin 1974. Right. So we hop in
Steve's car, and we brought ahigh school friend, this young
woman. What was your name again,Steve. Laura, Laura. So we're
driving down, heading towards LAand we're down in San Luis
(23:48):
Obispo. And we're smoking somejoints and listening to the
stereo. And all of a suddenSteve says, put it out. The cops
are behind this. So there's amotorcycle cop following us and
then and then we're throwing thedoobies out the windows with the
rubies. The windows were allrolled up so they're bouncing
back with smoke,
Ronjini Joshua (24:08):
oh shit.
Unknown (24:09):
another minute later, we notice a cop car in our left
and then a minute later there'sone on the right and then
there's one in front of us andthey're pulling us all over to
the side of the road.
Ronjini Joshua (24:18):
Oh no.
Unknown (24:19):
sitting there in a cloud of smoke with like five
cop cars and a motorcycle copand they come up to the window
with their guns drawn. And we'refreaking out. Steve rolls down
the window and the cop says I'dlike to see your driver's
license all of you so we willOkay Here they are. The captains
(24:39):
anything about the smoker theweek. He takes the licenses he
goes back to his car. He sitsthere for about 20 minutes and
runs checks on all of us andwe're just freaking out. Yeah,
yeah. And he comes back to thecars is okay you can go and it
was so why did you stop us tailsince the SLA. The Symbionese
liberation You know army andthis young woman was Patty
(25:02):
Hearst with you. Wow. So wemissed it we're gonna miss our
time tonight your windows sowhat did you tell the cops need
was Johnny Carson was the bigguy at that time. I just want to
say I just said cop. You knowyou deleted you goof now we're
gonna miss Johnny Carson. I wasperturbed
Ronjini Joshua (25:22):
Yeah, you were mad. He's like, Okay. Yeah, that
is crazy. Wow. So like the thescariest? Well, maybe not as
scary as but one of theencounters that wasn't even
about you was you got soparanoid about it all the time.
(25:43):
Well, tell us a little bit moreabout I mean, what have you guys
been doing? I mean, obviously,this for 20 kind of social thing
is more of like a PSA. I imagineit's more of a side thing.
Unless you guys are buildingsomething more out of it. But
you know, as far as like whatyou guys ended up doing in your
careers in your lives, like howdid that affect the direction
(26:06):
that your life has taken? Yeah.
Unknown (26:10):
Well, all of us have different careers. Larry Waldo
Larry Schwartz is a in printingand he does design and market is
a photographer's assistant forhigh school. years. commercial
photography, commercialphotography, Jeff works in the
wine industry. I worked as acameraman field producer for CNN
(26:33):
for 20 years. And one funnystory I have is a reporter. I
work I never told anybody at CNNabout this, right? So I kept the
the Siri as a secret for solong. On Facebook a couple years
ago, a reporter I used to workwith for 20 days saw the article
and stories about us and hesays, you know, you never know
(26:55):
who you're going to you've beenworking with or who they really
are until you really discoverwho they are like, like the guy
that carried the flag up EvoJima or the guy who smoked a
joint in sandersville HighSchool.
Ronjini Joshua (27:08):
You're like, Huh,
Unknown (27:11):
Dave would tell me stories about being in the field
like down in LA. Like, you know,your earthquakes. I don't
remember what's the story tothat he'd be there with the
camera, CNN. They'd be likeConnie Chung on his left side.
And somebody's like, you know,the statue of Tom broke on his
right side. And David be stonedout of his mind with the camera.
Ronjini Joshua (27:31):
Wow, that's so funny. That's so funny. I mean,
I feel like yeah, you don'tknow. Maybe they were stoned to
I mean, they probably weren't.
But not on camera. But But yeah,you know,
Unknown (27:42):
I didn't make it a regular prak practice of getting
stoned.
Ronjini Joshua (27:45):
Right? No, but i think i think that's that's such
a interesting testament to justlike society in general. What
that what you're that guy saidis that you never know who
you're around or what they'redoing. Like you don't know what
people's private lives lives arelike, and I think people have
been in the closet for so long,you know, smoking or doing
(28:08):
anything with cannabis, thatright now as we talk about it
more it's like always been sucha secret that people are so
afraid to even explore ideas oflike a legal job in the
industry. It's a big deal forpeople. That's why I'm so
interested in seeing like, youknow, how it's impacted you
negatively or how it's impactedyou positively and what maybe
(28:30):
you would you guys would say tosomeone that is wanting to
explore a career in this area.
Obviously, Things are differentnow than it was when you guys
were growing up what I do
Unknown (28:43):
in the realm of commercial lending, a lot of
what we do has to do with law.
Yeah, I spend 50% of my timewith attorneys and contracts and
stuff like that, as all thesedifferent things come at us as
the waldos separate LLC, andthings coming out as whether
it's movie producers or beer, orbeer producers are these things
(29:04):
that come at us, you start goingback and forth. Because I have
the training from commerciallending. Yeah, we start going
back and forth with people I'malready trained, nobody's gonna
pull anything over. We, weourselves, we go through these
contracts and negotiationsourselves, word by word by word.
(29:25):
Or even I have become experts atreviewing proposals and
contracts.
And the gods everybody'sfighting for every single atom,
of course. So that's what whatwe have done in the real world
has come very become very usefulin animals. Same thing with
date, where we've done hundredsand hundreds of interviews.
(29:45):
Yeah. And Dave's been aroundthat. So we're a student media,
student content, contracts astudent and business and it's
all come in useful.
Ronjini Joshua (29:55):
What about I mean, you guys were mentioning
you guys are kind of like themanaging partners. What about
The other guys have they feltlike they had a negative impact
from their involvement in this?
Obviously they kind of wanted tobe a little bit more private
about it, which is totallyunderstandable. This is like
entertainment industry one onone like having a private life.
But do you think they've shiedaway with format from it to kind
of detach themselves from thatstigma?
Unknown (30:21):
No, I think they're in the last few years. They're all
very proud to be associated withfor 20 years, their kids, the
kids are in high school. Yeah,our kids are in high school. And
they're, they're proud of us.
And you know, their friends areproud of it. They're really
excited to to talk about it.
Yeah.
(30:41):
You know, we're basically or thekids know, we're kind of
extended family. Yeah, you haveto understand the waldos. We
we've been friends. Well, I knowMark since I was in second
grade. Wow. They Waldo mark andwhen? Dale, Larry went in
junior high school, yeah, juniorhigh school.
(31:02):
So we go back, you know, 5560years, and crazy. We all live
near each other. We see eachother all the time we talk on
the phone every day. Yeah, we'rethere for every single family
family event, whether it'sweddings, bar, mitzvah
mitzvahs, divorces, memorialservices, everything. We've been
(31:24):
kind of family and our kids knowthat there's kind of extended
from the wives. You can imaginehow wives can get that they've
accepted. They knew what theygot into when they were marrying
waldos. Yeah,
Ronjini Joshua (31:36):
yeah, that's so funny. You guys are like a
little collective. So I mean, itsounds like I mean, that's also
really cool. I've you've kind oflike a testament to friendship
to you guys still being in touchand being so close and using it
as a as a positive thing. Whatwould you say to people who are
(31:57):
like, you know, like, I thinkpeople are still trying to
figure out how to norm make itnormal? And I don't know, do you
guys talk about it? You know,how do you practice? You know,
for 28 years? I don't know, Idon't know how to word it. But
like, how? How do you normalizeit with like, you having kids
and having families and stufflike that?
Unknown (32:18):
Well, first of all, you know, we don't advocate smoking
marijuana for children.
Ronjini Joshua (32:24):
Of course, of course. No, no. And
Unknown (32:27):
second of all, you know, it's worked for us,
Ronjini Joshua (32:30):
right?
Unknown (32:32):
Oh, wait, we've been able to wait all responsible, I
have jobs and houses and pay themortgage. I've been able to do
everything in life successfully.
I mean, I know some people can'thandle it. They get carried away
with it. But we've been able todo, you know, live normal,
responsible life.
And we're still you know, westill go on safaris is we came
(32:56):
up with safaris before we youknow, even got into this 420
thing. We were the guysunderneath the football stands
on Friday night. Going What thehell are we doing here? While
we're smoking? Jimmy? Yeah. So,you know, we wanted to do
something more interesting thanjust going to parties and
(33:16):
hanging out on a Friday night ata football game. So, you know,
one year, Steve was reading aRolling Stone magazine. I'll let
him tell you about that.
Well, there was just a very,very first holograms were being
developed. This is like 1971back then. Okay. I mean, you you
grew up with all one rat. That'sall I've ever known. But back
(33:38):
then, it was just total sciencefiction, a three dimensional
image made I like lepa hell. Sothere's these scientists down in
Silicon Valley are down thatway. Working on a 24 seven, I
like well go visit thescientists if they're working on
it. 24 seven, and I did and itwas a lot of fun. And we got
(33:58):
stoned. And when I got thewaldos Next week, we got stoned,
went back to visit them. Andeach week we figured out some
weird adventure to go on. Wecall them safaris. That's what
day
Sheldon (34:08):
we we saw them on the website. Yeah. We
Unknown (34:11):
challenge each other each week to come up with a new
Safari. We were you know we areout there we are seeker is
looking for new, weird,interesting places to go and
weird people to meet. So thatwas our challenge every every
week to weird adventuresand weird catchphrases.
Ronjini Joshua (34:28):
Yeah, that's really cool. I imagine you guys
have run across especially now.
A ton of really cool people.
What has been like one incidentthat was a surprising incident
that you kind of met someonethat blew your mind.
Unknown (34:46):
I met Tommy Chong over the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam
about 14 years ago. But I didn'teven mention that about who you
said hello to him in theelevator him and his wife and a
very nice Got he was at theCannabis Cup as a speaker there.
Ronjini Joshua (35:03):
Sure, of course, of course. What about what about
you, Steve?
Unknown (35:10):
I know something weird about me. I ran into people all
the time celebrities by myself.
I don't know why they run intome or I run into them. It's
like, I don't know what thething is. God one day I ran into
an I go story after story. Oneday, I'm driving by this little
airport, a little privateairport, like to watch planes.
(35:31):
And I'm sitting there and I lookover and Steve Perry from
journey is sitting there in afield. Dave, what are you doing
here? And he goes, I'm takinghelicopter lessons and the
instructor just took thehelicopter and he flew off and
he's gonna come back in a while.
I'm sitting here. So I mean, Ijust started talking. Is there
for half an hour talking withthem. One time I was at a
(35:54):
memory, you know, Andy Kaufman,the comedian. Yeah, yeah, that
is, one day, Andy Kaufman andthis guy, magician, Doug
Henning. They're just they wantto do a concert to raise money
to teach TranscendentalMeditation to prisoners in San
Quentin. So I went to that showafterwards there was this party
and I met this party up in thisroom there's like 30 people and
(36:16):
all of a sudden like, every likepeople saw ghosts everybody in
the room runs out and there'stwo people if you're a me and
Andy Kaufman I'm there withthem. Half an hour talking about
this and egg story one day ohyou know David Crosby from
Crosby Stills Yeah, sure. I'm ata hotel on a in on Friday stay
over because had a businessappointment on Monday. I get
(36:37):
wake up the parking lots emptybit the far corner of the
parking lot there's a car wherethe garbage can and I go I get
my car I go to throw somethingaway. It's David Crosby from
Crosby Stills Nash like DavidWhat are you doing here? He goes
the tabloids they look throughmy garbage they find out
everything about me so I comedown here to throw my garbage
away. Wow.
Ronjini Joshua (36:58):
That's your that's your tagline. It's so and
so. What are you doing
Unknown (37:02):
here? I was just there first name like I'm buddies.
Yeah, my name is a nice storyand they just go on and
on and on. There was anothertime I went to a show down in
Calaveras County in 1987. It wasthe mountain air festival with a
Grateful Dead and Santana. Itwas a three day concert and we
(37:23):
went to the show the firstcouple days and Saturday after
the show a friend of mineinvited us up to a place called
the Avery ranch up in Twain areup on the top of this mountain
so you drive up this bumpy dirtroad we got up there and we're
hanging with the crew andpartying a little bit and this
is like a couple of hours afterthe show and all of a sudden
(37:43):
this huge banana type helicopterlands in this huge meadow and
the Grateful Dead all cometromping out so a little bit
later on john my buddy john andi are walking around and we
there there was a bunch oflittle cabins dotted all over
this Meadow this huge flat metalon the top of the mountain we
(38:05):
see Jerry Garcia sitting on theporch of one of these little
cabins by himself on a rockingchair and we say hey Jerry How
you doing? Would you like tosmoke a joint he says yeah come
on up. So we go up and we hangwith Jerry we got high with him
for like an hour it you know Itold him hey if you guys were
good Santana was really good anyany jokingly started laughing He
(38:28):
told us a story about how CarlosSantana used to sneak into the
Fillmore all the time to learnhow to play guitar from Jerry
himself Jesus about that but sowe hung with him we got a high
smoked a few doobies and he justwas totally cool with us and
very nice and accepting and youknow we walked away with a solid
(38:51):
gold memory
Ronjini Joshua (38:52):
Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, like I think I
think that's really cool to beable to have these opportunities
but I don't know it sounds likeyou guys were just in a good
place a great place at the righttime for a lot of these. I don't
know if it had a lot to do withbeing the the wall though the
420 waldos
Unknown (39:09):
know what kind of, well, just kind of explorer
seekers I as Danny said, just tokind of individuals that like I
said, we weren't spicoli and wejust smoked weed and sat on a
couch or something like that orjust did idiotic thing. We
weren't stupid stoners.
Ronjini Joshua (39:25):
Yeah. Well, what what kind of opportunities are
you guys taking advantage ofnow, as as the group that kind
of put this together? I imagineyou have some really cool
things. As you know, theindustry is kind of moving
forward and you have thislegacy. Do you have any plans
for what you guys are going tobe doing next?
Unknown (39:43):
Well, you know, you say you're in a big company, studio
there. Yes. Two years. Threeyears ago, we had a vape pen
with a company called chemistryover and Oakland which was a
very good success. And what wedid is we donated all The
profits 100% to the Drug PolicyAlliance.
Ronjini Joshua (40:06):
Okay, great.
Unknown (40:07):
So and presently we just signed a deal we've, we've
been renewed. What's it werenewed our deal we renewed our
deal with lagunitas Brewery theymake they've been making our our
beer called Waldo special alefor the last 10 years.
Ronjini Joshua (40:27):
Oh, okay.
Sheldon (40:28):
I'm gonna I'm I tried I tried it a couple weeks ago on a
friend's house. Yeah.
Ronjini Joshua (40:31):
Oh, is it okay, is it hoppy? I like hops.
Unknown (40:35):
Okay, very strong. It's a 11.7% alcohol. So it's almost
like a barley wine. But
Ronjini Joshua (40:42):
I'm going to pick it up on the way home
today.
Unknown (40:46):
They only produce it about a month or two before
April 20. And from the storynot be on the shelves, but you
can get it in March and Aprilnext year. But they approached
us after you know, they hadsuccess with other they had
beers that they promoted withrock stars like Frank Zappa and
in shamli process and asked usif we'd like to make a beer with
(41:08):
them. And we said, Sure, likehell yeah. They invited us up to
their brewery in Petaluma. Andwe picked out all the hops
ourselves, getting these hopsthat smelled like marijuana, and
you rub them together and smellthem. And we picked the hops,
and they've been making the beerfor 10 years now. And we just
renewed our contract with themanother three year deal going
(41:32):
forward. So making the beard thenext three years and many more
years to come. Andfor the first seven years, they
said it cost them too much tomake and promote, they couldn't
pay us anything. And it was goodjust to be lol or whatever. It's
good just to have a company ofthat size. Do a brand around
this now and
Ronjini Joshua (41:53):
then it's nice for you guys to have it at your
house. Do you know like, this isour beer
Unknown (41:59):
that would look good to any other potential people want
to do any kind of branding roundso we let it go for about seven
years, but by the seventh yearwe said like we can't do this
anymore.
Ronjini Joshua (42:08):
You gotta be making some money. Yeah, you got
the money.
Unknown (42:11):
It just had a consent a legal precedent. Again, people
can use our name and likenesswithout having to Okay, they
started paying to some nominalamount for a couple years. We
just came around for renewal andwe said hey, we're still
mentioned the media were a lotbigger now just for 20 thing
growing from state to state in amillion different ways. Yeah, we
just renewed actually we got theapproval yesterday. Did Yeah,
(42:33):
it's a much better deal than inthe past.
Ronjini Joshua (42:35):
Did you guys do anything around trademarking or
anything like that?
Unknown (42:40):
People don't understand people come to us all the time.
Did you trademark for 20 yearsshould it create I don't think
you can write I don't know ifany have to explain to people
you just can't trademarkanything and everything around
trademarks. You have to do itfor a specific category like for
20 sunglasses. And then you haveto use it in interstate trade
(43:00):
and prove that you used it ininterstate trade and there's a
whole process so you have to doit for specific categories. And
we well we did it for you knowfor 20 waldos for shirts and
hats and stuff on our website.
Dave, I can just all of a suddendo Hey, you guys had to do some
for 20 snowblowers or one timeutensils or Yeah, some gender
neutral soup crackers. Ooh, andwho knows these days with what
(43:22):
you can do but no, we it'slimited and there's a lot of
process and procedure where we Iwas somebody sent me a phony
thing. You get these all thetime, but they want to get money
for renewing your trademark.
right but they they changed thedate. So then I'm like, is my
trademark really expiring? I'vehad to spend hours the other
(43:43):
night figuring this stuff out.
Yeah, we kind of kind of have abesides the fun of for 20 you
kind of have a business to runhere.
Ronjini Joshua (43:50):
Yeah, yeah, that's Yeah, I mean, I imagine.
I mean, I think everybody shouldbe cognizant of those types of
things. You can't You can'ttrademark everything, but you
can kind of form a plan aroundit. I guess. You can't just
Unknown (44:02):
trademark a number. So say I want everything for 20
that number
Ronjini Joshua (44:08):
belongs to all of us. Well, do you guys I mean,
this is Laguna lagunitas. Oh myGod. That lagunitas is a really
cool i like opportunity. And itsounds like you guys have done
some things. Do you haveanything coming up that you're
working on? Yeah. Now
Unknown (44:27):
people are coming at us with the NF T's and not
everybody knows what NF yes arethese called non fungible
non fungible tokens
Ronjini Joshua (44:36):
not tokens
Unknown (44:38):
and for you know, people listening this don't know
what it is. It's kind of like ona on a Bitcoin like format, they
trade. You have a piece of art,if a piece of physical art it
can be even a soundbite, it canbe an offer a piece of art with
that, backed by an experience,and people can I guess, bid
basically and they own thedigital form of it. That art so
(45:01):
people want us to do these NFT's and we're working on that.
Ronjini Joshua (45:04):
That's a really cool idea. I think you should
definitely look into that. Any,any brands in the future?
Unknown (45:14):
You come to us and we'll talk about I
know, there's a bunch of peoplewho have, you know, loosely and
we're just so busy with ourregular life. No, yeah, he's
everything else. There's peoplewho said they'd like to do you
know, we'd brand but we justdon't want we want to do
(45:34):
everything right with quality.
We just don't want to put ournames on. Absolutely. We're at
the stage of life. It's notgoing to change anything. We're
already in our 60s Yeah, we'renot like super gradient, we're
going to jump over we wantthings to be quality if we're
going to do them. So there'ssome things brewing out there
with with marijuana, andcannabis. I think every
celebrity in the world that gotthe idea like Oh, me, too, yes,
(45:56):
everybody wanted to be calmerand everybody's gonna have a
weed. I was saying the otherday, I was surprised and all of
a sudden, you can hear TomSelleck is gonna have his brand
to induce people to do isreverse mortgages or something
like that. Oh, wow. Getting thatcrepe. No, that's not true. No,
no, no, but it'll be funny.
(46:18):
Yeah, that crazy that everybodyevery celebrity the world thinks
they can have a week so it'sgetting I don't know that any
celebrities weed has dominated.
You know, Marley who was doingthe brand I don't know they
WillieNelson's got a brand. Jerry
Garciahas a weird I don't know, guys
that, you know, nobody'sdominated it's kind of spread
out.
Ronjini Joshua (46:40):
Yeah. And it's more of like, hey, like people
know that I smoked so I shouldhave something it's I don't
think it I don't think it's awell thought out like business
plan. I mean, I'm sure it is.
But you know, it's not. It's nota central focus for a lot of
those guys. And it's just a kindof something they could put
their name on. Right.
Unknown (46:56):
I agree. Well, Seth Rogen. He's getting a lot of
shows every time pushing his newbrand, but I don't know that
that's in every store inAmerica. I don't know.
Ronjini Joshua (47:05):
Yeah, no, Seth Rogan's brown houseplant that's
been around for I think andsince 2017 because he's Canadian
You know, he got to he got onthat market quite early. I think
I think that is kind of the wayto do it. He's done a really
good job of putting togetherbrand specialists to create
something that he loves and he'svery passionate about it I feel
(47:25):
like that's a little bitdifferent than like you know,
when you have another likeentertainer or celebrity that
just kind of puts their name onsomething too It's like they're
he's they're creating somethingI think from the ground up
Unknown (47:38):
Yeah, right. We're thinking about coming out with a
pizza marijuana infusion
Sheldon (47:45):
that sounds that would be
Ronjini Joshua (47:47):
nice just kidding Yeah. Well I can see I
can see it in the frozen alreadysauce It's out there the frozen
food depart with a free frozenfood section with your faces on
it.
Sheldon (47:58):
And it's red and white so it fits the Waldo theme
Ronjini Joshua (48:00):
Yes, perfect.
Well, is there anything that wehaven't really I know you guys
have so many stories and thestories that you probably told
him stories you haven't told um,is there anything else that we
kind of like Miss today?
Unknown (48:13):
Well, you know, our website Yeah, yeah, please
there's hundreds of pages thereof our stories and our
background and our and ourphrases and hundreds of
interviews that we've done inmedia not only print but there
there's there's podcasts andradio shows, I mean, all over
the world even you know, aCanadian Broadcasting System in
(48:37):
the book, we'vedone interviews with Italian
magazines, Colombian magazine,Israeli magazines, crazy. So our
website has a lot of not onlyjust factual a lot of
entertaining things we put a lotof funny videos that we found
like there was listening to thatshow on they did a whole you
know, movie studio 420 thing ofpeople dancing around
(49:00):
celebrating for 20 day I'mtrying remember the name though
is a trailer that Yeah, all thatstuff's on our site. There's a
lot of funny stuff to like outthere.
Sheldon (49:10):
And for our viewers, that is for 20 Waldo,
Unknown (49:13):
Waldo, those four to zero Debbie AL do s comm that
that's our site, we have tocorrect a lot of things. There's
a lot of things that gettwisted, like we had an
interviewer twit, interviewing,so we're telling about Mark's
father, providing you know, realestate needs for the Grateful
Dead. Uh huh. We do theinterview. And then we look at
(49:35):
the thing gets printed up andall of a sudden, it's like,
Mark's father was a gardener forJerry Garcia.
We got a marijuana.
I think a lot of interviewersand stuff, they do the interview
straight but then they go homeand they get the thing up and
all of a sudden their mindstarts wandering so we got to
(49:57):
keep a grip on this media thing.
Make sure everything's accurateso that's our definitive
accurate sight of everythingthat's out
Ronjini Joshua (50:05):
yes some people tend to get creative and and
with your guys with your storyit's it's easy to kind of go in
the wrong direction and startcoming up with some fun facts of
their own I'm sure
Unknown (50:18):
the wall those are if you got together with all five
waldos in person all prettyfunny constantly joking the wall
those humors are common commonground between us I can get on
the phone anytime morning I cancall up Mark three in the
morning and instantly humor andcomedy out of him. He'll walk up
(50:38):
to anybody and everybody in theworld and start joking with him
I don't care even the scariestlooking people he just
immediately disarms people withhumor. So that's our really our
common bond all those crack eachother up all the time.
Ronjini Joshua (50:52):
Yeah, I think this is so nice. And I mean,
it's been a pleasure to get toknow your story a little bit
more and, and talk to you. Sothank you guys so much for the
time you gave us today. I hopethis helps people understand
like they you know, I think whatI got out of it was, you know,
well, especially now. Stigma isjust, it's just kind of like a
(51:13):
passing phase. I think like yousaid, you know, people notice
that you were on the cover ofthat article, and they actually
appreciated it. So I thinkhonesty, authenticity is kind of
the best thing here. That's whatyou've taught me here.
Unknown (51:28):
It's a totally different changed world. It's
mind boggling. Driving throughOakland. There'll be a big huge
billboard from ease you know,420 right on there. It's a huge
I mean, it's amazing to see thisthing break open the way it has.
Ronjini Joshua (51:44):
Yeah, I imagine you guys like have a little
sense of beaming pride inside asyou're as you're driving through
these things.
Unknown (51:52):
We think it's funny your joke here we created
Ronjini Joshua (51:55):
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.
Unknown (51:58):
They don't wait. Don't get caught up in self
importance. We think it's funnywe do we laugh about it every
day.
Ronjini Joshua (52:04):
Well, it's been incredible. Thank you so much.
Thanks for your time. And thishas been awesome. I appreciate
the stories.
Unknown (52:12):
You're welcome. And happy 420
Ronjini Joshua (52:16):
Thank you. Thank you. The Green Room podcast is
brought to life by green seedPR, a cannabis green tech
focused PR agency and adedicated production team of
editors mixers and showBooker's. A huge thank you to
the vessel team for providingtheir studio for our recording.
Don't forget to subscribe andshare the greenroom podcast with
(52:37):
friends, colleagues and family.
That way you'll never miss anepisode and we can keep the
lights on. If you're feelingextra generous, please leave us
review on your favorite podcastlistening platform. You can also
find us on Instagram at Greenseed PR and to the live video
versions of all of our podcastson YouTube. Would you like to be
on the guests on the show or doyou have a great guest referral.
Awesome. Submit your guests atGreen cpr.com slash the hyphen
(53:00):
green hyphen group. Thanks forlistening and be well
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