 Welcome to Breeder's Syndicate, where we explore the history of a clandestine scene through the eyes of the folks who lived it. I'm Matthew, owner of Riot Seeds. I'll occasionally be joined by my co-host, NotsoDog, breeder and grower from Mendocina. Welcome to the Underground. And yeah, then you try these Californian stuff, and I remember specifically it was said that it was Granddaddy Purple, but looking back with what I know now, it definitely was not Granddaddy Purple. It was very green and it had a very generic sweet smell, not that sort of irkly smell, you'd expect. But it was nonetheless a light bulb moment. And then the next batch I got, there was a few things like there was like some Jack Hara, which wasn't Jack Hara. There was some Girl Scout cookies that wasn't Girl Scout cookies, but there was Purple Cush. And I think it is the Purple Cush that sort of goes around a bit, and that one made a very lasting impact on me. And I think the ball got rolling from there. And I had done a grow before that, but I got mediocre results and it was my first grows. You know, it's going to be a bit dog shit anyway. And you end up growing out, you know, like DNA or whatever. Always. Yeah, like it's a given your first grow. You don't know who's a good breeder, so you're just going to get lost in the marketing. So, yeah, so I came back to it and I just started getting interested in it. And at the time I was applying for graduate school and part of the entry requirement was there was like this essay component and I wasn't good at writing. So I started writing these largely speaking sort of opinion pieces on cannabis and sort of the state of the scene in Australia. And I would talk about how I was sort of a bit let down. I would talk about how sort of a bit let down by the Australian scene because from my perspective, the penalties for growing cannabis were far less than the states. And so there was a huge incentive to get at it like why not the penalties are pretty minimal. And yet no one had really done it. And so I sort of wrote this opinion piece saying, you know, I think the Australian scene is pretty apathetic compared to the American scene. You know, like during the Reagan administration, like people go into jail for just incredible periods of time. And I just don't think the same legalities were at play in Australia for a long time. And so, yeah, I was just writing these opinion pieces and saying like, you know, if you want to help get things legal in Australia, we need to be more open. Because at the time I knew a bunch of like white collar professional guys who grew, but they were totally in the closet. They wouldn't tell anyone about it. And I sort of tried to encourage people. And I was like, the more you put this out there, the more people accept that you can be like, you know, a family man with a job and and still grow on the side, you know. Yeah, you don't have to be a criminal. Like in a criminal organization, you can you can have a normal family life and grow. Unlike the way I look right now. But but yeah, so so I think that was sort of how I got my my feet wet was I was writing these opinion pieces. And I got to admit it was all sort of guys. There's just an experiment for me to get better at writing and it was just subject matter that I was somewhat familiar with. And then I guess that and this is probably the part that I haven't really spoken to people much about. I then got the idea of like, well, let's do a podcast. And what you find is if you're like a no name person, like I was at the time. And you ask people, hey, would you like to come on this podcast? The first thing they'll say is, can you like send me something to listen to? So like, I have an idea of like what it's going to be. And if you're then like, oh, you know, you're actually the first person. People stop people stop replying very quickly. So I remember specifically I at the time Brothers Grimm was like just announced they were reinventing themselves. I didn't know who Duke was yet. I just knew Mr. Soul from like reading online and stuff. And so I reached out to him and I was like, do you want to come on? And he was like, yeah, we'll do it. Send me some questions. I sent him some questions. And then like after a few replies, he's like, what like organization do you work for? And I was like, oh, it's like, it's just sort of me. And he abruptly stopped replying. Sounds about right. Yeah, anyone who's met Mr. Soul will know that's pretty par for the course. So then again, being a bit of a newbie, I reached out to Swerve of CaliCon and a very similar thing. He expressed interest and then after one or two replies just completely ghosted me. So at that point, I was sort of a bit like, I don't know if this is going to actually happen. And I just started following Duke because I'd seen on the Brothers Grimm website that he was pairing up with Mr. Soul. And I had just asked a few questions in the comments. I think he had posted about some 88G13 crosses he had done. And I just sort of said, oh, you know, I read this line's pretty old and it's a bit inbred. Do you find like it dominates the crosses? Yeah. And I think just a few questions like that. He was sort of like, oh, you know, you seem to be interested in the genetics. Yeah. And so, yeah, I just I floated the idea by him. And I think I even linked him some of those opinion pieces. And I think that might have been what sort of got him over the line a bit thinking like, oh, this guy seems to, you know, it's not just like haphazard. Do you want to do it? He seems to be sort of passionate. Yeah. So yeah, then we did that. And that went really well. And I ended up, we chatted for a couple of hours. And then we actually ended up probably staying on the chat for probably an equal amount of time. I think we chatted for like three hours on the episodes. Then we probably spent another three hours just chatting afterwards about general stuff. Yeah. And, you know, we sort of developed a rapport. And at the end of it, he was like, I'm going to do you a favor. And I didn't really know what he meant. I thought coming on the episode was the favor. I was very grateful. But so I just went to bed thinking that was great. You know, what a once in a lifetime experience to talk to like a professional because like at the time, like, you know, I was just a nobody. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah. So I was really grateful. And then the next morning I woke up and I had an inbox from Skunk VA. And I'd never spoken to him at the time. And in my mind, you know, he's this mythological figure in the chemistry very inex, and he was also very inaccessible at the time. He wasn't online. He wasn't talking. And he just basically said, hey, you know, Duke said I should message you. And that was all it said. Yeah. And so then we ended up lining up the episode. But 100% without a doubt, those two things happening was definitely the momentum which allowed the show to continue in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah. There was a big get to get a skunk VA on for sure. And yeah. Yeah. And, you know, he, he turned, he's a good, he's a pretty good storyteller. And he also told the truth about a, about a, you know, a lot of aspects of chem that were that people didn't want to know. So it probably sort of launched it a bit, I would imagine. Yeah. Yeah. Hugely. Not so dog. You said this in one of the breeder syndicate episodes, not so long ago, but you said listening to that episode. He was, he was pretty honest about a lot of things. And as the years have gone by and I've learned more about, you know, the behind the scenes of the various incidents he maybe spoke about. Yeah. I did sort of start to gain a bit of an appreciation that like, yeah, it did sound like he gave a pretty honest recount. You know, like there's a lot of funny things, not funny, but how can I put it? Like people and, you know, not so you probably deal with this a lot too. People still constantly ask me, you know, who's the Staten Island guy? Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. And what's, what's, what's a bummer about that for me is that because he shunned the spotlight on the forums and anywhere else. He's probably the single biggest person responsible for keeping the Kems alive. Right. At least for that period of time until he spread them out a little bit to his friend group. And he doesn't, and he brought the Super Skunk West. And he doesn't really get talked about and he doesn't want us to say his name. So I asked if Staten Island was like an acceptable, you know, Diplume. Yeah. You know, and he was like, okay, you can call me that, you know. So that's funny. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. And as, and as I learned more about the story and sort of the interplay between, you know, Skunk BA, not so dog, some of the other characters in the scene, the Staten Island guy, I started to like realize the story a bit more on the back end. And I was like, oh, okay, this is actually like really interesting. And I can understand the Staten Island guy's perspective. And he's, he always, like, you know, obviously I've never met him or spoke to him and whatnot. And I know not so dog, you're very close with him. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. But I just, I just sort of understood that he was from that older guard, which was like, you know, I keep to the shadows. I do my thing. So yeah, that, that was definitely really interesting. But I think that was largely speaking how I got into it all. And then, you know, it all sort of just started to gain a bit of momentum from there. And we just sort of branched out a bit really. Yeah. That was pretty awesome. I remember, I don't remember how far in I was with the episodes, but how many years has it been? Do you think since we did our first episode? Good question. I think, I think your first episode was, it was actually earlier than I thought. I want to say it was either episode eight or episode 10. Yeah. Pretty early. Yeah. 2017 or 18 or. Yeah. Yeah. Probably. And I think that those, everyone, you know, I owe a huge amount of, you know, appreciation and gratitude to, to everyone in the first 10, because as much as, you know, the first two I referenced gave me some momentum. I think I have to be honest. I think there was a bit of a lull between episodes sort of four to seven, where I had some people that I was interested in, but maybe weren't super, super big. That's the hard part, right? Yeah. Definitely. Interesting people aren't who, who like necessarily everybody wants to hear about that moment, but it's who we want to talk to. Yeah. I feel you. Yeah. But yeah, definitely people like yourself. Mean Jean and Bodie and, you know, some of the big name guys in the first sort of 10 to 12 episodes, which is hugely impactful. And I honestly all the time think about how different it would have been if like I didn't have those people, including yourself, you know, I imagine I look at a lot of other podcasts and I see it takes a long time to get a big following. And I just think I was very lucky to get that sort of push initially. You got some people that the community likes a lot and some people that were interesting and stories that they wanted to hear. And I think that that probably had a lot to do with it too. I've always been super interested to be frank in that the fact that you like because our world is so underground, right? There's like layers of what people know about each other, you know, from like insider information that I'm sure like as you've been in the scene now a while, you've heard a lot. But when you're first getting involved, you typically only know like legends or public personas, right? Yeah. And so even figuring out like who's who can be, you know, I always looked at that because it's like it happened for me like organically or Matt just being around the forums, being in the scene, living in California for so many years. Like I knew a lot of these people in real life. Yeah. You know, but you're on the other side of the planet, you know, and you're trying to determine who to talk to. And, you know, we're a quirky bunch. Yeah. How did that work for you? Like, like trying to slowly figure out like maybe not necessarily who is full of shit, but who is more whose whose perspective aligned most with how you see the history going? How did you start figuring that out? What were some of the steps in stepping stones in that process? Yeah. What a great question. I have to be honest. I'm probably, I haven't actually super thought about that. So I'm just going to give you the ideas that are coming to my head right now and maybe some of them. Get it wrong. Yeah. But basically I think that I'll be honest. It probably wasn't until like episode 40 or so that I actually was able to stop viewing every episode as like this real fan boy thing. In a sense, like I feel like before every episode I would get nervous and it was like, fuck, I'm about to deal with this big name dude. And you know what I mean? Yeah. So I think I just want to put that out there that. Yeah. That definitely was the case. I was a bit starstruck initially because, you know, as you guys said, you know, these really infamous figures online who you just get little tidbits about here and there, I think largely speaking, I didn't have too many people messaging me saying, hey, stay away from this guy. There actually wasn't too much of that. Except, except for my name. I believe that was one of them you got a lot about. No, not at all. Not at all. I mean, like maybe, but like fuck those guys. Like I always view it as like, I've always said, you know, consistently that your episodes are some of my favorite because I think that a lot of guests are very diplomatic when they come on the show. And I liked the fact that it didn't feel like that with you. It always felt very free flowing. But to jump back to the question quickly for a second. I think generally speaking, I just picked a few people in the scene who I thought were really stand out. And then I thought, if, if the guest I'm thinking about is sort of friends or cool with these people, then they must be okay. So I think that probably would have been the guiding sort of feature. But also I have to reference, I was lucky enough to come visit the States probably within the first six months of starting the show. So I got to hang out with a lot of people in person. And I think that helped guide the guest selection a little more. But like, I'll be the first to admit, you know, there are, there are some episodes that I think haven't aged as well as others. And there is a number of episodes that are just not available anymore. And that's for a variety of reasons. And sometimes the guest has requested it to be taken down. Other times we just viewed it as inappropriate to keep it up. So yeah, I think that the selection has gotten better over time, I hope. And I certainly also think that I like to chat to people a little bit before I get them on the show. And the other guiding principle I have is that I don't really take requests so much like people will message me and say, hey, can I get on the show? And they might be like a decent size following. But I have always said, you know, in order to get a good episode, I think I have to genuinely be curious about you. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And if you're not, it's just like a stale conversation, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's really hard when it comes to, to guess, like, I mean, even with just doing the live streams for a long time, there are so many of those that I look back on that did not age well in my brain. Like, I'm like, wow, I was really friendly with that person. And later on I'm like, wow, I don't really like how that went looking back. But you can't, you know, I mean, you can only do what you do at the time and how it goes at the time and how you're feeling at the time. And, and I think like over years and years and years, you, it's easier to go easier on yourself about the fuck comes when it comes to stuff like that, because it's just so it's able to control other people's actions. And then. I think, I think my opinion on it actually has dramatically changed in the last few years. I used to think about it where like, to be honest, there was some people that you, you've had on does, I don't need to name names or anything like that. That's irrelevant where I was like, oh, that person. Oh no. But then. Over time, I think I've thought about it and like, I actually think to let people really judge someone. It's really hard to bullshit for two or three hours. Yeah. Like your interviews are pretty long and like you give pretty open ended questions and you let people talk. You know, and when you talk that gives the public a chance to see, do I vibe with this person? Do I like what they have to say? Do I get a sense of who they are? And in some cases, people can't talk the talk. Yeah. I remember it. Yeah. And so that, and so that allows, and I'm not, you know, good or bad or whatever. And so it just, it just allows like, because our, our, our, our scene is full of characters. You know, there's definitely reasons why people like to be isolated and growing weed and not dealing with humans. Yeah. And you have to have a certain risk profile and the cannabis for all kinds of reasons. Sure. You know. And so yeah, like you give nice long interviews and you let people speak, you know. I'll say this. I was one of the people that gave you, I think this is the first time we butted heads was during, and I'll say it, the sub cool interview. I was super pissed at the time. And I've told you recently like looking back on that because Monty's no longer with us. Like I am so glad you didn't listen to any of us. I'm, I'm, I'm because, because regardless of whether me and him got along or what happened, none of that matters because he did work. It was, it was important. It was in a lot of people's gardens and those, those stories need to be there. We need to, whether they're accurate or not, or whether, you know, he was right or not. It doesn't really matter. We need to have those stories regardless. And he was a major part of the scene for a long time. So I, Yeah. He did. And I was pissed at the time. But I mean, because there's, there's your shit. Yeah. I just wanted to, you know, I like now it's like, even if, even if it's not somebody I prefer, like I like to hear what they have to say. Sure. You know, because I'm always curious about people's perspectives. You know, and, you know, and then there's an also thing where like there's this huge, there's this huge gig to like, you know, when you were saying before it's like, there's a lot of people that come on to be diplomatic. You know, there's a lot of people that are coming on that are trying to project an image. And so it's probably really relaxing for you sometimes when you get somebody on and you just get a sense, Oh, this person's just being themselves. Yeah. Hugely. And it's, I don't want to say it's rare, but I can understand like I do it myself, you know, sometimes you've got your own personal thoughts and then you've got more public thoughts you're happy to put out there, but it is super refreshing when someone's very upfront and to sort of reference the, the, the Monty interview you talked about Matt, that was actually a very interesting moment for me because I didn't actually, I knew there'd be some people unhappy with it, but I didn't anticipate it would be to that level. And I remember old CSI left a comment and it's not like over a hundred likes. I think our whole crew probably said something. Yeah. It was, it was, yeah, I'd never seen anything like that. Like to the effect of like this ain't it buddy. And yeah, I guess, you know, sort of a related point I've been thinking about recently is that, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's kind of scary to think that three of the people I've had on the show have passed away now. Yeah. You know, being Monty Bogg and Jaime Chiba. Oh, right. I forgot about, I forgot about Bob too. Yeah. So sometimes you lose sight of the fact that like, yeah, some of these guys are a bit older and like, you know, as you said, for better or worse, it is good to get their perspective on some things. And sometimes it's tough if you're feeling like some of the things they're saying might not be a hundred percent true. Sure. But if nothing else, you know, it's, I am grateful that I got to speak to sub. And interestingly, you know, I never put this out there, but like from a technical level, it was a very interesting interview. You know, sub, sub got a bit mad at me throughout it and actually hung up the call at one point. And then I think his friend told him that that probably wasn't a good PR move and he pulled me back and said that there was internet issues. But, but like, it was, it was good to get his take. And, you know, I obviously, you know, don't want to speak negative because, you know, I think we all can sort of look at the last few years of sub's life and draw our own conclusions. But sure sub cool definitely was the person who got me into growing organically with super soil. I don't think super soil is the best nowadays, but it was a great stepping stone for someone who just never done organics. Yeah. So, so yeah, for that reason, I had a bit of a personal like thing with sub because I was like, you're the dude who got me into him. And actually, you know, it was the Rev, him and the Rev. So I listened to your episode the other day and I tried TLO and I had pretty decent success with it. And then I tried super soil and I had pretty good success with that. And then I ultimately just moved on to sort of the more general no till, you know, it's such a mindful these days. But like, yeah, I felt an obligation to sub for that reason because he, yeah, he showed me the organics. You know, anybody who came in during my era, like 2006 to, you know, all the way up to the 2013, like even me, like some of the people that I entered in seeing it was DNA. But once you got past like the DNA greenhouse, like, you know, Spanish bait and switchers, you get into the Americans. Sub was at the top of the game then, you know, like all of us got into that. Even I was inspired by him young. I have his first book bank, you know, like I still have it. So it was, it was an odd fall. It was an odd fall out when we, when we had our fall out because I did respect him and I did look up to him at the time. And it was just like, I was, I was his antithesis, I guess, you know, sometimes what I've learned is I've gotten older, sometimes just do people's energies just don't match. It doesn't have to be a hate person or I hate that dude or anything. It's just sometimes energy just don't jive, you know, and that's definitely what it was. A slight digression, but connected. When I first started going over to Amsterdam in the mid nineties and buying seeds, right. And after I'd been there a number of times, I started getting introduced to people. Okay. And what I realized was that everyone had their own version of history. Some of these old timers didn't like each other and there was significant beefs. And it was really illuminating compared to today because, you know, Matt and I talk about all the time how you can pick any hero from Neville to Shanti to art to all these different folks and you can kind of tear them apart if you want. Right. And so people have their favorites or whatever, but there's a difference between like lasting contributions to the scene. And, and, and, you know, and being a good person and someone you get along with and someone who you agree with their decisions. Yeah. You know, those two things are totally different. You could make lasting contributions to the cannabis seed game and to clones and to the gene pool and to the knowledge. And you could kind of have a variety of, of, you know, personality quirks that aren't that cool. Yeah. Those things exist. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hugely. And I think it's only as I get more deep into knowing people. Do you realize how deep some of those divides actually run and something that's always lasted with me is sort of this quote, which was, you know, I can't tell you who said it, but it was like, you know, considering we all smoke this plant that chills you out, there's a lot of aggressive unhappy people in our community. Yeah. I always thought that was interesting, you know, because it's, you know, maybe it's like that with every ultra, you know, maybe in like the 0.01% of the craft brewing community, maybe it's like that too. I don't know, but like it is an interesting point. I think, you know, some of it is because we come from a subculture of like the cowboy attitude of just like, fuck it. We're here. Bring what you wrong. Like it's different now. There's obviously a big culture clash going on. We have the dudes who are isolated, like to stick to themselves, move weight. We don't want to deal with tax stuff or anything like that. We don't want to deal with the normal business shit. It's why we're doing what we're doing. So we don't have to do that kind of work. We're not merging with the, the realistic climate of legalization and it is a hard clash of personalities. Plus we have two different generations, maybe even three or four in some cases, apart trying to work together or not work together, but it coexist in the same sphere and it's, it's definitely going to cause some strife. I'd love to know how you've navigated that when you're doing a lot of these interviews. When you hear, when you hear something that maybe loves so much and you, and you want to push back, but like, what, what, what, what is that dividing line for you? Yeah. Great question and brings us to something I definitely wanted to touch on with the audience. If it's okay with you, maybe I could chat a little bit about our falling out and how that sort of guided my view on sort of the question you just asked. Yeah. It goes with what we were talking about the heavy beefs, everything. Yeah. Of course, you know, and I can completely appreciate that there may be some people listening to this right now going, why is this guy on here? I'm not a fan of him. And I can understand why you would have that view. So I guess the first thing I would just say is like, I didn't like, so, you know, we had a falling out probably about two years ago and I want to take 100% responsibility for that. And the first thing I would say is that I never wanted to really discuss this publicly until I was able to do it with you because I just didn't feel it was appropriate. And so I just sort of wanted to do it with your permission, so to speak. Sure. Yeah. I think historically I always viewed the interviews as like my goal is to get the guests comfortable enough that they share their inner monologue and then you listen to it and then you decide. So what that would mean is sometimes people would say things that I didn't agree with or that I didn't like, but if I push back in the past, they would get cagey. They would close up and I sort of didn't know how to handle that at the time. And as a result, I just felt like it was better to just try to keep them comfortable, keep them happy, let them express their inner monologue. If they say something that's really weird, hopefully the listener picks up on that. That was really weird. Oh, sure. Yeah. And we sort of go from there. So sometime about two years ago, I had gauge green on the show and I asked them specifically in one of our prior episodes, we had spoken about the Colombian black from Jojo Rizzo. And I had said, oh, I know that you and Matt both had those seeds. He has said something to the effect of you guys put them out cheap just to sort of get it out there so it wasn't valuable. What's your take on that? And they initially started out by giving this sort of long-winded answer about how largely they try not to focus on the negatives in their life. And it was sort of a diplomatic answer at first. And I was sort of thinking, okay, this isn't too bad. And then at the end, he just went off really left of field and essentially made an extremely inappropriate comment relating to you and your childhood. And honestly, in the moment, I was taken back and I thought to myself, this guy's a scumbag and it's crazy. He just said that. And in the moment, I tried to voice some opposition to that and looking back, I wish I'd given a much stronger rebuttal. I believe I said something to the effect of I can agree with most of what you just said. Yeah, yeah. But I want to acknowledge that it actually it wasn't a strong enough response on my part to what he said. And more importantly, I just I didn't I thought that people would listen to that moment and basically go, this guy's a scumbag. You know what I mean? And I also thought that largely speaking, you and him had had, you know, conflicts in the past and it was sort of just two people flinging insults at each other. However, as time went by, I realized I had made not only a grave mistake, but one that I was deeply apologetic and sorry about. And I think the reality is the simple truth is that there's no place for comments like that on a cannabis podcast. It's just it's just not appropriate. And so I definitely want to take responsibility for that going to air. I think that, you know, as the editor of the show, the buck stops with me. So even if I didn't say the comments myself, I have a responsibility because they went to air and that's under my sort of leadership, so to speak. And I was actually really grateful because it was actually not so dog who messaged me and he let me know some info that allowed me to sort of reflect on the situation and realize just how inappropriate it was that those comments had gone to air. And I specifically wanted to say, you know, thanks not so dog because I always have felt grateful in the manner in which you approached me. It was very humanistic. It wasn't like coming in hardcore like you're a fuckhead. It was like, hey, just want you to know it would be cool, you know. And I've always been very grateful for that response and I thought it was very telling of you as a person that even though, you know, I'd essentially say to your body, you are still, you know, kind enough to come in and give me the sort of that gentle influence. So that I was very grateful for. So since that time, I have been applying a much more active level of moderation to the show and this is sort of getting to the crux of your original question. Which is that I realize that there just is some things that get said that you have to give pushback to because the reality is there's going to be some listeners who just don't find what the guest has said to be acceptable or like maybe it's like insulting to them and so you need to provide some amount of feedback. So these days I tried to I try to provide some degree of feedback so if someone says something I don't like I'll try to come in and say, yeah, but like what about this angle? It doesn't seem like you're considering that. And I try to give some degree of feedback but I also apply like a sort of more active level of moderation in that in the past I literally would not take anything out the guest said unless they asked for it to be taken out. Whereas nowadays there may be some things I'm like, you know what we're just we're a bit off topic here maybe not appropriate or relevant and so you get rid of it. So I think overall it's definitely a continual learning process and you know again I sincerely apologize for any or distress that that caused and I take full responsibility and I view it as a very big learning experience in my life one that I'm not proud of but I'm glad that I hopefully have you know grown as a person and can recognize that that wasn't right and I'm not going to make that mistake again. I'm not going to let you eat grow totally because you did try to reach out to me and I just totally blew it off and I think you know it took me a long time over over because I can hold the grudge and people that know me and have known me over years know that I can hold the grudge like no one's business but there were certain things about that that I took very personal but it wasn't necessarily from you it was from it was because the dude knew me personally and had personal info about me and the thing was that not everybody listening knew because it could have just sounded like a like a mean slander at the time you know but yeah so it took me a long time but when we finally spoke we had because it was it you know that was heavy on me we were friends like I had you out to our Cannaluminati party because I liked you you know so I'm stoked that we moved past it but I was mainly asking you because I am learning that process now myself you know like you had the podcast I we started this way after and I'm slowly learning like okay there's going to be people that like I might have to edit what they say like I don't know where to draw this line and I don't know like is it different between each person like do you just try to draw a line based on that person and how accepting they are certain it's hard man it's hard and I've come to appreciate what you've put together a lot more a lot more being on the other side and and so you know I appreciate the apology but I apologize as well because you know you were reaching out you were trying to communicate and I didn't communicate back and really that's all it took so it was always the shining star trying to like be cool with everyone and I I appreciate that I do think it was very effective for a lot of people it's showing them exactly the kind of person that Gage Green was yeah you know I never asked you to take it down too so there's that I mean it obviously sucks you know in that regard but I mean it you know as far as like me reaching out to you or whatever like I mean Matt knows this very well like one of the reasons why I'm even public is I'm trying to build community and culture you know as sort of like a bulwark against all the changes that are coming and so like I try to like in on IG and all that like you know when you mentioned about like not just like flaming you or something like that like there's a lot of there's a lot of that kind of like like snippy back and forth thing that goes on in public and I don't think that's like particularly you know conducive to anything positive so you know I always try like you know to reach out and see if there's like common ground or to like show someone your point of view and maybe you can bring them along and I always try to be open to that as well you know because to me like being a good person doesn't mean you don't make mistakes or fuck up it just means that you try to learn from it and you try to you know make amends when you do and you like being a good person is a work in progress and you know and that kind of and and so it's not like you never make mistakes so you never look back and be like oh man I wish I would have handled that differently because that's asking for perfection which is far different you know yeah and I don't think you ever did anything out of viciousness that was a whole another thing to it was like there's never anything mean like you didn't do it to be mean to me ever and I always appreciated that even when I was fucking mean you're not fucking mean back so I appreciate that dude because pretty goddamn mean in all honesty I think during that time period where we weren't chatting I just tried to appreciate that anything you said the feelings were essentially warranted and I couldn't deny you know that this person is understandably probably not happy with me and I think that was part of the learning process and to speak to not so dogs point I definitely am a big advocate and I try to tell everyone that you know that like before you go and rip someone's head off drop them a line and and because one thing I know for sure having had a bit of experience in like sort of the mental health field I've realized that there's a very common saying you hear in that which is like always assume ignorance before like maliciousness which is like chances are when someone does something to piss you off they probably didn't think about it hard enough to you know what I mean it probably wasn't like any and and I've certainly learnt a lot from that and that's not trying to you know take any onus of what happened I definitely can resonate with that that sentiment that you know I think our community would be a much more hospitable and friendly place if everyone just sort of tried to yeah exactly what not so dogs said you know just message someone in private you know chances are they'll respond positively and say hey thanks for letting me know I'm sorry about that how can we make it better you know what I mean like I'm always speaking I've had that response from people yeah you know and I hadn't I had just completely blacked it out you know after that I was just like I'm not going to deal with it not going to deal with it and then Tom Hill episode happened and I was like wow this is a good episode just knocked it out of the park so you know I mean I finally got to hear how much you've grown and have listened to several other episodes since and I'm really proud of you man how far you've come to it's pretty exceptional and the Tom Hill one was a massive get and a huge I think a huge achievement for the whole community because nobody really ever talked to him for a long time and had him put all that down on record and you asked him some of the most amazing questions that anybody could have asked him so mad props on that if anybody hasn't listened to it yet go check it out you're too kind honestly if any episode is strikes you as particularly good it's because of the guests not me so you know all props to Tom for everything he's done in the scene and for being willing to share that knowledge and more importantly I've been very adamant about this from the start I wholeheartedly believe that you know you guys will be able to coax a whole different library of information out because you can probably relate to this right when you're doing an interview often you know they say something and you're like oh that's interesting let's follow that trail of thought and like you forget to ask something else so like I think that there's so much stuff that we didn't get out of Tom that we do need to get out and I think that it's going to come out when you guys go and visit him oh lord oh lord I will disagree with you a little bit there in the sense that I think you're being too humble and that interviewing people I think and talking publicly is a skill yeah and I definitely think that you know you do something more and more you probably learn what questions to ask you know you probably got better at researching your subjects and trying to think of good questions that your listeners might want to know you know I mean I personally when we started doing the podcast I started listening for all the weird verbal ticks that I had that I didn't realize because you don't realize you have them in normal conversation and you listen to yourself and you're like oh man I need to get rid of that and so talking in public is hard even if it's pre-recorded or whatever else it's definitely a skill and being entertaining it's not even that like with cannabis there's so much like especially I mean you can interview a lot of people in cannabis that make seeds and it's even if you have no knowledge about breeding it doesn't really matter because odds are well going to interview someone like Tom Hill a whole nother a whole nother aspect because he's going to tell you you're fucking stupid if you ask him a stupid question that makes no sense so yeah no I mean there is you know guests are great and all that but there is a big part of it if you don't know shit and you get the wrong guess that can be really catastrophic and that's one of those guests that could have gone really catastrophic if you didn't know your shit because he will call you ass out so I'm proud of you for that one dude and you remember to ask about the chemist and stuff like that thank you in all honesty yeah Tom's a great guy who let you know when you're wrong which is a good trait I enjoyed our chats with him and you know he's a cool guy I'm glad that we're able to get some of that info out from him and hopefully at some point someone can touch base with the chemist that would be really cool I actually thought you did a good enough job on a lot of the genetic stuff I was like man maybe we'll just talk about life in Mendo and growing up in a subculture because I live in a bubble but where he lives that's like a bubble within a bubble within a bubble it really is people don't know how much that area that he lives in and what kind of world he comes out so the chemist is supposedly his neighbor so maybe if I end up going up there and chatting with him in person which he says he prefers like who knows but there are a lot of old time breeders up here and that's one of the interesting things is because you have a tendency which is very obvious like to interview people that are currently selling seeds like to be like a commercial seed seller those are the people that get their name out there but a lot of those people got their start from people that have never been commercial seed sellers right? they took a bunch of that work even when you talk to Tom he was like most of Tom's most famous stuff is the stuff that he liked the best from the chemist stash he just improved with the exception of the Hayes but the rest of it was pretty much just stuff that he got from older people in the neighborhood and I think that's a big thing that a lot of people miss where a lot of people think current breeders kind of come out of nowhere and they created all this stuff from themselves but they all had a starting material as well and a lot of times we all stand on the shoulders of those who came before us and we just popularized certain things I was just going to say I certainly learned which resonates with that is that as time goes by you realize a lot of the people with the big reps it may have been just because they were particularly vocal or loud you know what I mean like a lot of the people you're referencing they just they weren't putting it out there you know? I mean I will say that the skill set required to survive in cannabis during the prohibition era was very different like the show my face you know burner, publicity this is who I am putting your name on a strain you know? was crazy people to know who you were and that you were responsible or associated with this in America a lot of people that didn't actually create the strain just became associated with it because they were the first people to become famous around it you know? and a lot of people got scared and like you know hide in the shadows you know? for a variety of reasons unlike the king of cannabis we saw Matt hold up too long ago where's our guy? did you see that they put out the like you know cookies is opening their own seed bank you see greenhouse seeds in the tag? I did what's he going to add? like I genuinely want to know what's going to be on the menu that's his contribution well you know I think like Arjan is the prototype burner in the Netherlands so I'm sure burner could learn a lot from him when it comes to seed banking and seeds I mean for one thing he's opened up a smoking lounge I believe in one of greenhouses coffee shops in Amsterdam oh boy and so the collab if you will started early and you know Arjan for all of you could there was a it's going on in America now there was two camps in Amsterdam and one of them was sort of like the weed history and the other camp was like straight businessmen who were looking to market and make a lot of money and Arjan was extremely successful at the second he is an extremely successful businessman he's probably the wealthiest dude in cannabis that's what I mean I mean he can teach burner how to go get Spanish seeds everyone to introduce him to you no longer have to use these front men like you know whoever they're using for the smaller companies that are wrapping cookie stuff you can just buy direct from the Spaniards and here's the I'm sure they have a beautiful business I bet Arjan's angle is that for 25 years his town was the center of the cannabis seed universe and it's shifted to California so probably green house getting promoted by cookie in California will probably drive sales and I'm sure their sales are far far down from what they used to be when they were the primary place you went to get seeds green house probably green house coffee shop is probably the prototype cookie yeah you know yeah in reality in the sense that they were the biggest name you know they were the biggest they you know they were the biggest name and and the white widow and all that stuff that they started winning with in the mid 90s was kind of like cookie was the most photogenic weed of the time translated really well to pictures