 Welcome to Breeders Syndicate, the only cannabis show breaking down the myths and history in cannabis. I'm Matthew, seed maker for over a decade and a half, and this is my journey into finding my truth in this wild world of cannabis. I invite you to join me and the Canaluminati by strapping into the passenger seat. But be warned, it's not always pretty. With the invasion of corporate culture into cannabis, it's getting even more muddy. Which is why I've made it my mission to have a permanent record before all of the history is lost and buried under a pile of cookies. We're the traditional market. The Syndicate is a collection of seed makers that want to push back against all of the smoking mirrors. In doing so, we will continue to ruffle the feathers of those who oppose. And my personal mission has become much bigger than myself. Welcome to the cannabis underground. This is the Revolution. Welcome to Breeders Syndicate. I'm Matthew, here with my co-host, Thousand Fold, and today we're going to be joined by Michael and Hamlet of C2 Custom Creations, someone we've been working closely with lately, and I really enjoy their glass. But they both have a lot of history in the scene, a lot more than just glass. So we wanted to take the time to speak with them and bring them to you. Thousand, take it. Yeah, thank you both so much for coming on. Man, this is definitely the first episode where we actually talk to people who work with glass, right? It is. It is. And something I've been wanting to do really, really bad because it's an art form I'm super interested in. Yeah, and I'll just say for myself as well, like being in New Zealand, you know, I'm pretty sure all we get to see is like cheap Chinese stuff or like, you know, Gatorade bottles with pipes shoved into them. Yeah, that's sweet. We actually have really, really enjoyed learning a little bit more about where the glass tech has gone and a little bit about the history. And I'll say as well that, you know, C2 Custom Creations, you all are based in Eugene, technically right? Is that correct? No. No. We're in California. I did know that. I did know that. But Michael, did you spend time in Eugene earlier on yourself? Yeah, born and raised in Eugene. So you're the one. Okay, gotcha, gotcha. All right. Well, I think we started at the start and I want to ask you both. And I'm aware that the two of you have had maybe quite different journeys initially. So maybe you all can take turns. But the first question is, how did you get into either cannabis or glass, you know, depending on which one came first? Okay, so cannabis, pretty normal. I come from a, you know, a small town in Eugene, Oregon. It's, herb is super prevalent there, grew up. My family itself was real conservative. I'd never saw my parents drink alcohol. It was just never around. But about 1988, I'm sure the dead had visited before, but they started a tour that came to Austin Stadium. And that was the first time that I had seen like that many hippies and just like counterculture people in the city ever. And I remember my parents had told me, do not go near the stadium for this weekend. And so the first thing I did was I jumped on my bike, my pass went straight to the stadium. Got, got off my bike, walked around through shakedown street. I looked up and down the booths. I saw the crazy plastic bongs. I had no idea what they were for. You know, I knew it's definitely smelled different than anything I had ever seen before, you know. And I think that's really how old were you? Oh man, I was probably in between 11 and 12 years old. And that's when I definitely at least started my interest of what was going on, something that I had never seen before. Fast forward a few years and I was in high school. A few of my friends had been smoking weed and I hadn't. And I made a deal with one of them to where they could give me just a little bit and I'd bring it home and me and one of my little brothers would try it. And we tried to figure out how to get the coke can to work and get our best to smoke it. I have no idea if it worked or not, but that's pretty much my first experience with cannabis. Did you just throw the chunk on the, just a chunk of it on the can? I did. I tried it but I did. It had been snowing the night before. There was a little bit of snow on the ground. I remember we maybe got one or two hits before that thing fell in the snow and we were on our knees trying to find it and couldn't. I bet. The rest of it. As far as getting into glass, after that first time of smoking, I definitely, I was interested in it. I continued to smoke. I was in Eugene so we were real fortunate. We would go down to 13th Street, which was close to the university and there'd always be hippies down there. And you'd walk by them and they'd whisper, you know, nugs or this or that. And if you had 40 bucks, you can get a really nice sack of weed. Even as a little kid, a high school kid. You know, so I was real fortunate in that it was easy to get. So after high school, I went to the University of Oregon and I had ran into a friend from high school that had started working at a glass shop. And he invited me over to the glass shop to kind of see what was going on. And at that point, I had made some pretty good connections with with weed and I was getting good weed regularly. And I guess the owner of that glass shop was from California. And what he had done is moved to Eugene and started a small shop. I went in there, I showed him some of the weed I had. He was real interested in it. And I made an agreement with him where, hey, I'd be willing to hook you up with this weed when I get it regularly. But I want to learn how to make those pipes because the pipes, you know, they were about the coolest thing other than the weed itself that I'd ever seen. And so I made a deal with him and I got into the shop that way. And they basically just started me out as an apprentice on an apprentice program. And I took it from there. That's what I just within a year I dropped out of the University of Oregon. Yeah, you're not a real trade. Yeah, went on my merry way with weed and cannabis. But that's like how you broker your way into a trade, though, right? Like you have to find ways to get yourself into different trades as a young man during that era. Not everything was just laid out for you as a not super rich kid, you know? Yeah, absolutely not. You had to have something to offer to even get in the door there. And that was one of the coolest things about that shop because looking back, most of the kids in that shop were under 25 years old. I think I was either 19 or 20. And every one of them brought something different to the table as far as weed goes. And I could tell they all got their jobs the same exact way I did. Yeah, makes sense, dude. The reason why I mentioned Eugene, obviously in the introduction for those of you who may not know is that it's recognized as one of the places for glass. Am I correct in saying that? Yeah, Harold did like an era. Yeah, that's where Bob Snogwrath kind of laid his flag. And he's really like the first fumed glass pipe maker that was well known. You know, I think he had been slinging pipes on the debt tours of the 70s. Maybe earlier, I'm not even sure, but he's a great guy. He was the one that basically started the glass pipes. And if you wanted to learn how to make a glass pipe in Oregon, you needed to know someone that had either learned from him or one of his apprentices. And I think that's kind of, we all, you know, grow from the roots of that tree. It's interesting. That's great. That's some really cool historical, yeah, signposting there. Okay, what about you, Hamlet? Well, me, it was a little different. I mean, I remember I was 14 and I had a really stressful day and my circle of friends were older than me growing up. So one of my friends saw what I was going through and it just passed me a joint and I've never smoked before. I mean, I've seen people smoking stuff and I wasn't about it. But that day I was like, you know what, I'm going to give this a try. And when I did, it changed my life really. Like, I was like, oh, I can feel like this instead of being, you know, all fucked up and stressed out of my mind. This is perfect. So, you know, in that token, I don't know what kind of weed it was or what strain or anything when I smoked it felt great. And I started looking more into it and I realized that there's a whole scene with like graphics and glass pieces being made because of it and this and that. And I was like, wait a minute, my dad's been a glass floor for all his life, even before I was born. Oh, wow. Yeah. He was an internationally known glass floor. He worked in all kinds of different projects. Nothing to it. Nothing to it weed. Yeah, yeah. Scientific stuff, a lot of aerospace stuff, satellite this, this. Wow. Yeah. And I just kind of grew up around that and I never really looked at it that way until that kind of week when I started looking more into smoking and this. I was like, wait a minute, this is something here, you know. So growing up, I showed more and more interest in the glass. And when I was about 17 years old, he used to work at a company called site tech glass out of more part. I think at the time they were actually in a different city, but yeah, either way. And and he I got a summer job there one time, you know, during break. Cool. And I learned a few things and and it was a short time job. No, it was a short period and I got out and started talking my dad. I was like, well, listen, you know, we could we can do this. We can make pipes and like I'm learning and you can teach me more. And he was a little hesitant, but he wanted to, you know, he was tired of working for somebody else for, you know, most of his life. Yeah. He made a good living, but then again, working for somebody else is not the same. So we opened 1994. I remember like yesterday, January 5th, I was 17 years old. We opened up a shop, but one laid in there, one torch, small shop. And he still kept his job for about a year after that, going back and forth. He was working at night. I was learning how to do prep on glass during the day. And he would teach me things along the way. And this is how kind of started going glass and we kind of like more and more into it. You know, before that, I was just getting high, you know, enjoying it. And it's a, it's a funny story actually. Wait, Hamlet, before you go on, can I just ask, were you already, did you already know how to work with glass before the program? I watched most of my childhood. I've seen it and I didn't know until that summer job I had at the company that my father used to work at. And that's kind of when I picked up some things. And my dad saw that I was picking up pretty quick and it's, and you can kind of feel it if you're going to like this or you're going to hate it. You know, like you pick it up a day or two, you're going to know, you're going to continue or you're just going to be done with it. So, and I liked it. I enjoyed it. You know, I want to learn more. I want to learn more techniques and how to do things. And he saw that. So we went forward with that for that reason. And it just was your dad like stoked that you were getting into it. Yeah, he was. He was really happy about it. And he was excited that I was doing pretty good with it. And I was like, he would show me something. And then the next day in the daytime, I would make it, prep it for him. He would come from after the job, this new business we have. And he would see all the parts that I made, all the prep work. He was excited about it. He was like, oh my God, this is great. Like I can use this. I don't have to mess with it. I don't have to change it. You know, it's great. So I'm picking up pretty quick. And you know, a couple of times he got a little upset because I was doing other shit trying to make my own pipe. And he's like, no, you're not ready for that. You know, you got to do the steps. Yeah. And of course, you know, like everybody else, I'm trying to jump ahead and do what I can do and make a pipe for myself. I can take away before he even gets there, you know. Yeah, right. He didn't like me smoking weed. Like he was like, oh, you know, you shouldn't, you're young, this, that, you shouldn't do it. And your mom doesn't like it. And later on in life, I realized it was mainly because my mom didn't like it. He would eat weed on his own, but we kept it from each other. Yeah, of course. Of course, right. Like, you know, he would smoke blunts and come home and tell me, I can't smoke weed. Like, what the fuck is wrong? Well, but that's, I was, and that's mainly to my mom and to keep the house sane. And like, we don't want her pissed at me or him. Right. Yeah. So that's how that went with that. But yeah. And then we just did more and more with the class. There was times along the years where I did my own thing on the side, but I always left my foot in there, like help them with the business and did other things and try to progress and give new ideas and like pressure. He was older, you know, with all the crowd. To him, it was basically like splits really just tobacco and weed mixed together and, you know, with papers. But yeah, I showed him like the glass scene and what's available. A lot of the scientific stuff is coming out. Like things are getting involved and it's getting more intricate and nicer. And we kind of built on that together. You know, there was a lot of hard times along the way, but it grew faster than we thought. And like a little bit short of a year, he quit the other job, we're full time into this. And now we're working side by side. So I was learning more because when I made a mistake, he was right there on top of me. He was right there next to me, telling me, oh, do this like this or you could do this like that. And from that, putting it together from what I'm learning and putting my input into it. And we kind of just went with the scientific line with it, you know, just progressed with that class. And this funny story from where the old shop was actually, there was a, this kind of a side story, but there was a whole race scene, like import car racing that was going on. And we would work late nights because it was just cooler and temperatures were better. And we were always here, these cars racing right outside of the shop on the street. And I guess one day cops pulled up and all these race cars just flooded our parking lot. You know, and my dad, the crazy ass that he was, he jumped out there with his rifle, like a big ass military rifle stood out there. He was like, I don't know who these fuckers are, but they're not fucking with me. You know, yeah, no idea. And one of these guys was actually fucking Oregon kid, Ken. Oh, Ken? Yeah. You know, that's the first Adam and he just kind of drove by and then reversed. And he was almost getting shot because he was trying to reverse in close to the shop. I like glass. He's like putting his pipe out the window and I'm friendly with all this shit going on. Yeah. And my dad's like, wait a minute, like, you know, maybe he's we'll talk to him for a second. We'll give him a chance to see what he's got to say before fucking kills him. Yeah. Yeah. And then, yeah. So he's like, no, I like weed. I like pipes. Like, I want to see what you guys have. Like, I know you guys are going awesome there. I saw the porches driving by and this and he was pretty ballsy for doing that. But it worked out and then we became really close friends, you know, like really close friends of the family with him with us. And he actually introduced me to kush and which I've never smoked before. O.G. kush. Yeah. Yeah. When I smoked that, I was like, what the fuck is it? Like, holy shit. This is a life changing weed the first time. Yeah. I remember that. I got the O.G. kush from him first time. Bubba kush from him. Banana kush. Probably Blackberry kush too. I don't recall that. It was a memorable. Yeah. It is definitely not memorable. No. The question is what stuck in my head because when I smoked that and inhaled it in Excel and I felt that flavor in the eye, I was like, what? I've been smoking bullshit mids all this time. Yeah. Yeah. That's the best fucking weed I've ever tasted. So I had to become really close friends with him. I mean, it was cool. You know, we were cool. Yeah. We went to a couple of festivals together. Like, we had some parties at his house at my house. We hung out. What year was this roughly? Well, I'm sorry. What year was this roughly? Oh, my God. 95, 96, something like that. And it went on from there. So I remember the OG kush was the first one. And then later on, there was more of the flavors I got from him. And he actually pushed a lot of our line and the features on our pipes because it would come up like, oh, you know, you should do this or we should do that. Or you should make a pipe that is this way. Maybe it'll give more flavor. Sure. You know, he had a lot of input with him. He was very much involved in the whole thing. And we would like, you know, hook him up with pieces. He would come by seconds from us all the time. And it was a good relationship with him, you know, like he and he would give me the, I mean, he would give me the best weed. I got to help trade for glasses. Perfect for me. Oh yeah, dude. Pay money for it, you know. Yeah, that was a good time with that. But yeah, kind of lost my chain of thought with that. Yeah, you're good. And I think I think he was calling it. Oh, G Kush back then. But in reality, I'm pretty sure it was his Bubba. Possibly. It was possible. Yeah. But everyone was trying to call any good Kush in the 90s. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That particular one was his Bubba. Yeah. That was like, it was the best weed I smoked. And it's got me more into it, more interested with it, trying to do more different perks, different ideas, different ways we can cut the glass. And this was all with like fuming and clear, this is before all these colors and array of palette that we have now that's available now. We didn't have that back then. We don't have colors, you know, silver, gold, and then a blue came out randomly. Yeah. That was it for a good long time. So we didn't have much variations. But, you know, like taking the techniques that my dad had with the lab industry and incorporating it with the scientific line, the glass picked up and we did well with it, I think, you know. I mean, next January, next year, January, it'll be 30 years that we started. Wow. It used to be called a opaque glass back then. It wasn't custom creations. Oh, this is what I want to say. This is how custom creations came to be. During this time, I had a smoke shop right next to UCLA. At the same time I was doing this. And this was actually in the early 2000s, I want to say. It was called C2 Smoke Shop. And the C2 was, I had a partner at the time. And my friend, we were like trying to see if it was going to be the cottonmouth corner or chronic corner smoke shop. And that's where the C2 came from. It was actually C squared thinking it was right next to UCLA. People would get it, but everybody was calling it C2. But it was a big C with a little two on the corner. Yeah, yeah. But even the college kids, there's C2, C2, C2, you know. And that was about a four year crazy ass run at the only, only smoke shop between the only bar and the sorority run. So I was open from 3pm to 3am. Damn. Meaning hours. That was some wild times in that smoke shop. I bet, dude. You can imagine. All the drunk kids and everyone coming through. But that was about a four year run. And then when I closed that off, I was like, sorry to backtrack a little bit when we're a high tech glass. We didn't really sell direct to stores. And it was kind of like shady back then selling. It wasn't like it is now open. But we had to be low key with it. Real, real calm, like relaxed with it. Can't be too much advertising, too much of this. So we were working with distributors. So we would make other people's lines for them. This is what we're called high tech. And it's not the high tech you might have heard of where we sell, like the COVID bottle looking one. And we decided, I was like, I stopped the smoke shop. I had more hours and more time. I was like, let's just have our own line and sell direct. That was like, OK. I already had the C2 corporation name. I was like, how can we incorporate this with this and change it? So we changed high tech to custom creations. Because it fit the C squared. Yeah, C squared. And that's where the name came from. So yeah. What was Ashcroft? You're jumping the pipe dreams. Oh, yeah. I'm just going down there. I forget what year it was. 2002. Because that was the time we had to stop making pipes and we started making anything that we can out of glass. Why is that? Well, because Ashcroft and pipe dreams came down. That's right. And they just came down and scared the shit out of everyone. Yeah. And we would just complete these, all our distributors, all our accounts, they stopped carrying glass. So what do we do? I just want to interrupt and make this really clear. Yeah, yeah. Operation pipe dreams was an FBI operation, a crackdown. Correct? US Marshals. US Marshals. Certain attorney generals from certain states, Pennsylvania, Iowa. I can't remember the third. It might have been Indiana. It was one of the Bush administration. Right after the fields got busted too. Yeah. But it was basically a few attorney generals from the United States were able to bring charges for people out of state for shipping something illegal into their state. Illegal meaning glass pipes. Yeah. Mainly. And I imagine this was also a time when the glass scene was like burgeoning, right? Like it was starting to get big. Yeah. Like we were starting to have big trade shows. Exactly. It was getting too big for their comfort, you know. Yeah. Drone baker was really big. Oh, they hit them hard. Yeah. Yeah. We got a big company's got hit hard. Art distributor got hit. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. And so we're like, what do we do? What do we do? You know, jewelry, like some mugs, cups. That's not paying the bills, you know? Like, well, shit. How about pildos? Glass, you know, sex toys. Yeah. All right. Cool. What's up? And then the company working with, they had some stuff going on. They came to this organization. They contacted us. Like, yeah, sure. We can make those no problem. Whatever you want. What color you want. Dick was the model. It's like an imaginary dick, I'm thinking. Oh, OK. That's fair. Idealized dick. But we did have some specific ones that came with specific sizing and shapes. Well, that's cool. Extra, you know, extra large ones. Yeah. You got to fit every one. We made this for Belladonna that was huge. I mean, it's like a tabletop thing. Yeah. It was fucking incredible. People paid for these though. Like the big, big monster ones. People are like, yeah, I need that one in my life. That was a special order from her porn company. Yeah. That was mainly for the porn industry, you know what I mean? Wow. And we actually made a fucking chandelier for Hugh Hefner that has like fucking glass dicks lined up on top of the light bulbs. That's sick. That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, we had a few different... I did not see you taking this interview into the phallic states. I'm so glad you did that. I'm glad you did. It's great. We had to do something to keep the company going, you know? Yeah. Hell yeah. You got to pay the bills. Right? That was the name of the interview with phallics. They were in Playboy and Hustler and everything. Yeah. Playboy TV. There was another company too that was buying them from us. Yeah. Now, this episode is already like iconic. Yeah. Cool. When you got into this stage, like obviously there was a point when you're like, okay, pipe dreams kind of is cooling down. Maybe we can get back into Bronx. Exactly. Did you drop the dicks after that? Or did you just be like, well, let's keep rolling with the dicks. This is good money. We had to let that go because China got involved and India and imports and all this. It was just like no money in it left, you know? Yeah. Chinese were in the dicks. Yeah. It was a short thing. I mean... I think it was quite a few years. Two? No. We got back into... Gaspard and Jack were making those for like... Oh, so like three years. So half the shop was still doing it for a little bit. Yeah. And then we trickled back into pipes and like tested the grounds on that to make sure it's still safe and it's okay. You know, like that's how that went. Three years, I think it was gone after that. What was funny is we'd be at a party with like all of his dad's friends and he'd make it real clear to us. You can mention that we make pipes. Don't tell anyone we're making those sex toys. One thing I don't want anyone knowing we're making those. That was probably morph though. We had pipes that looked like, you know, that looked like dicks and tits and all that. Like it was turning into a whole part of the thing. But that's funny. So wait, hold on. I just wanted to double check on one thing which is... Yeah, sure. When did you two actually meet? When did you two actually meet and how did you meet? Okay. So I actually met his father way before I met him. We had the same distributor that would sell our glass pipes. And when I first met his dad, he was pretty early with his English. It wasn't great back then. Yeah. So wait, this is pre-Dildo? Yes, this is pre-Dildo. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is pre-Dildo. And I would always see him and to be honest, coming from a small town, I had no idea what an Armenian was. I'd never heard that term before and I'd never seen that country on a map. So like when I would call my mom and talk to her and tell her about people I'm meeting and different things I'm seeing, I'd be like, man, you know, there's a lot of these Russian guys down here in Los Angeles. And what it ended up came to be is that there is a pretty healthy Armenian population here. And his father was an Armenian. And so we ran into each other at our distributor one day and he's trying to talk to me and I don't understand he's got a real thick accent. You know, and I'm having a hard time understanding what he's trying to say. So he pulls someone over, one of his friends, the next time we were going to drop off product because we did our drops on the same days, he had a friend come over that spoke a little more English. And what he was trying to explain was, hey, I'm a professional at this. You know a lot of people and have taught a lot of people how to decorate the glass, but you're not a professional glassblower. You don't know anything outside of the few things you know how to do, which was entirely true. And he was explaining that let's team up so that you can communicate for us. I'll make sure we're making the coolest, like best stuff that you can find. And we can be partners. And he actually, he worked on me for a good six months to a year with that idea before I finally was like, you know what, let's just give it a try. Like I want to know how the lathes work, all my experiences in hand blown glass. And let's just, let's give it a try. And that's how I met you at my grandfather's house. I was come stopping by and I saw him with his wife at the time. And I was like, oh, who's this? And they introduced him this and that. And I was at the time I was having a little tiff with my dad, like everyone else, you know, like working, it's not easy working with your father. Yeah, especially your father. I can imagine. He was a tough guy to work with. And so we're having back and forth and this and that. And I was really sure. And I was kind of a dick to him actually. I saw him, I met him. I was like, I'm out by you guys have fun, whatever. You know, but he did not be a great friend and a great guy like that. But that was the first time I met him at my father's house through him and realized that they're trying to start a venture together with the business and incorporate things. And that's when I step back in. I was like, okay, we can do clear. We can do scientific. We can do this. We can do different perks. We can do different sizes and shaping all the stuff and kind of like put basically all three of our minds together and progressed it with the class. Nice. Excellent. Okay. So we come back to that. Sorry. I keep referring to it as this, but we come back to the post dildo. Post dildo eras. I guess that's great. So we're getting, you know, you guys are getting back into the pipes at this point. And, you know, what happens from that point between that point and where we are now. In what way, as far as how our glasses grown, how the industry has changed, like what. Maybe a bit of, yeah, I don't know. It could be both. Maybe like what stands out to you from that period on? Because what year would that have been now? I would say probably 2005 to 2006 is when you really saw a transition in water pipes from just being a beaker or colored work bubble at the end of a straight tube with rubber grommets to be having like the percolation and the function of the pieces be the most important thing and not so much just the colors of the artwork. Yeah. Yeah. I do want to, okay. I do want to say this here because in my mind, before I, you know, looked a bit deeper into it. Yeah. And exactly what you're saying. In my mind in 2023, a bong is something with a chamber. It's got a bowl and a mouthpiece and that's all I knew. And so kind of finding out about perks, ratchets, recyclers, like all these things kind of blew my mind. Honestly. So, yeah, sorry, but please, yeah, please continue. Yeah. I think at that point there was enough people that had left the scientific industry or had been trained in scientific glass blowing that they could add to what, I'd say the minimal knowledge of like the art glass community had as far as function and seals and some of that sort of thing. Is that the division between scientific and, because I remember when that started popping up on websites where you could buy glass, you know, like I remember, oh, there's a second, it says scientific and I never, to this day, probably until this conversation, I never even could grasp what that meant. Why is this one scientific versus this one recycler? Well, throughout the glass history, like scientific glass was kind of stayed away from the pipe scene. Like they acted like they're too good or whatever, you know, they want to mess with the pipes. But that whole science industry got turned upside down when everything started being imported, being outsourced and, you know, these guys that have all these factories and equipment and, you know, materials and they can't use it because they can't sell it to anyone. They can't compete. So all of a sudden, you know, okay, like we'll get into the pipe industry. They were like, okay, you know, it's kind of like that with my father too, kind of talk them into it more. We even, when we first opened up a shop, he was trying to pick up the science market. But that was like a dying market in America because again, everything was being imported, being outsourced. So with that, they kind of merged like all these science guys and these high technical glass floors got into the scene with all these other artists that they're doing the art aspect of it and the colors and the working of it of making it pretty and aesthetically pleasing. But, you know, the science guys came in and were like, okay, we can make it look pretty aesthetically pleasing and we can add our thing to it and make it more percolation, double chamber, triple chamber. Yeah, functionality. Having different perks, different ideas and then bring, and then that's kind of how the quartz thing came into it too. We started talking about quartz and making quartz nails. People didn't even know what the fuck that was. We even got knocked off a couple times and it was made out of borosilicate glass which explodes if you try to forge it. Oh my God. Well yeah, because it's not made for those extreme temperature differences and it was titanium changing to quartz and all the scientific guys were pushing quartz because they worked with quartz before and they've done a lot of quartz things. I mean, hell, we used to, they used to make big like four foot, five foot table size. They were called quartz boats and wafer holders and they had the satellite like the reflective wafers that would cook inside of these things in a quartz lineup where it doesn't give off anything and it's clean and it would heat to a point. So that knowledge was brought in mainly due to economics really because people had to make money. People had to keep working. They kind of forced themselves, they had forced themselves to jump into this and mold into the weed industry and try to progress the pipes. Makes sense. I'm so glad that we mentioned this because I watched a little documentary called Degenerent Art on the glass pipe scene and one thing that I was wondering about because most of the work that was featured in that was very, very sculptural. I imagine that's what you were referring to on the glass, Michael. And so I was particularly interested in this turning point so I'm really glad that you guys have expanded on that. Yeah. I'm trying to remember back to the first companies that were really pushing the new scientific stuff before we did. That was Toro. Well, Roar started using the glass on glass stuff but I remember Toro being the first place I saw the tree print. No, there was a couple of ones before. Was it? Yeah. Yeah, there was a couple of ones before. We even, we used to, oh, I forgot about this. We used to make the liquid chamber glass before like Illadel for any other companies that are doing it back in the day. And we would mix food coloring and not glycerin at the time, alcohol to keep it from freezing when we're shipping it over to states that are cold. And I remember actually making one of the first hand pipes and it made it onto Michael Douglas's The Game. I don't know if you guys have ever seen that movie. Yeah, for sure. We've never seen where they're trying to frame him and they show the bathroom that there's like a teal-looking pipe there and some crack and some other shit or whatever. And I made that pipe and I saw it. I was like, oh my God, this is fucking great. That's awesome. That's a great movie. That thing, I just, you know, it's there. It's right there in the movie. I never got credit for it or anything but, you know, it was all the piece. I made that from nothing. I made it the first liquid filled hand pipe which was that little piece and we used to cork it and seal it with epoxy and it lasted for a good while, you know, until we got knocked off and everybody else started making it. That's a crazy story too because I used to go to smoke shops to get business and then that was one of the worst things I did, walking into a smoke shop that I didn't know is affiliated with a bunch of glass blowers and they're like, oh yeah, we like these pieces, took one of everything and then next, you know, they're trying to make their version of it, you know. Oh man. Oh yeah, you know. But that scientific and artistic kind of merged there but also when you say art class, there is also a soft glass form. I don't know if you guys are aware of this or not. No, no, what's that? Yeah, that's so like... Chaboulis. Yeah, like really artistic, colorful, you know, bigger pieces like bases and like, if you've been, was it the win, the chandelier? I think it's a Belagio. Belagio has a giant like chandelier on top, I don't know if you guys have ever been to Vegas and there's a few well-known artists that have been doing that for years stemming from Italy, like doing that old smoke factory where they take the stick and they dip it in the glass, pull it out and form it where our glass, everything starts with like a tube. We get a scientific tube and we form from that. So it's a different type of glass. That one is soft glass, this is borosilicate. So the art industry is kind of like merged between that and the borosilicate. It just, everything kind of stacked up and the timing was right for everything to go that direction, you know, to get all those types and pieces and the company's popping out. I did want to also signpost here for people like me who didn't really know about some of this tick previously just to kind of like generalize a bit on the engineering side. I imagine most of these advancements had to do with how the flow of smoke and air was being mediated in the glass. Research and development, friend, research and development. Yes, every single one of them, fuckers. You know, that's the thing. I think each one of the companies that have been able to survive that make this kind of, what I call is like a scientific art glass, have their own way of doing things. I think for C2, we have been really on top of fast flow, easy function with coming up with percolators that don't cost hundreds upon hundreds of dollars to produce. And that's kind of where we've been. Yeah, I always had like the end user in mind too, like we don't want to overcharge because we made something new and nobody has this. We could have went the different route and charged so much more and sold one or two pieces. Where me, I was like, I want everyone to experience this piece and everyone to feel what it's like to smoke out of a piece that percolates better, that filters better, and easy to clean, easy to, you know, it's just, it's more functional, it's better. And I was like, let's just try to get it to everyone instead of having a very small niche market where only a few people can afford it. And that's kind of how our pipes work. It's getting the smoke from point A to point B as quick as possible. Yeah. Getting the pipes to, you know, person to person as quick as possible. There's been many, there's been many, many designs where we discontinued. We just like, oh, this isn't working out. You know, we try to change it up a little bit, this, that. Too much drag. Exactly, very hard to clean or too much drag or too flowy or splash or any kind of things that are not, you know, positive and they don't work out the right way. So we just kind of get rid of it or just change up the whole thing. One thing I observed when I was looking at your catalogue and gallery that I thought was really interesting was that it seems like, you know, the overall structure of your pieces are, you know, again, like fairly scientific, but it's kind of within the chamber that you guys kind of let some of that more like creative juice like flow of it or like the art pops a bit more pieces and they're like in pieces. Are you talking about the more like the sculpted pieces? The sculpted pieces that are sculpted inside? That's right. Okay. Yeah, I mean, that's just taking our normal perks and letting, you know, letting us kind of run with whatever we can possibly do in that small space that can add. Is that? Yeah. Go ahead. Oh, I was just wondering like, is that like an interesting set of constraints to work with when you, you know, that tiny space that you have to work with? Yeah, especially when you introduce so many different colors because it would glass a lot of different colors work and cooperate differently with each other, like some are not compatible with the others and, you know, the temperature differences you have to do minor adjustments. We have a lot more breaking and cracking issues when it comes to having sculpted pieces and having a finalized piece that's okay to go versus clear where it's all the same type of glass so it all works closer and it's easier to use. So, yes, it does complicate a lot and it changes the dynamics of like what temperatures we have to kiln it at, how many times we can kiln it, the color variations we can get from the different temperatures we use and that affects the outside shape too. So it's like a good balance we have to come up with to get those completed and done right. Right. And then, but for the finished piece we have an idea of what the end diameter and circumference is going to be inside the tube so we kind of know how much room we have to work with and so it's just about whether or not we can fit what we want to within those parameters and it's glass. And sometimes we have bigger pieces because of it because it didn't fit. So we're like, okay, let's go to the next size. So here we go from a 65 millimeter to 80 millimeter or 110 millimeter now. It's okay, we made a part for 110, it doesn't fit right, we're going to figure out what we're going to put it in. So we'll blow out the 110 and make it a little bit bubbly shape so it has more circumference and room in it to put the art piece that we want inside. So it all kind of, it's like, you kind of do it and then just judge it by then and try to plan it as much as you can but things change, you know. I think what I like about it, I mean of course the whole thing is a piece of art but the other way I can see it is that the clear part is like the frame almost or a stage and then there's the more sculpted bit kind of like foregrounded or centered. Yeah, I call those like our captured series because it's like capturing the art in a dome kind of like old school. Like those, you know, creatures or a hand or whatever in the jar kind of the idea, you know, frozen. Yeah, it's cool. It reminds me of like a snow globe as well in a way. Absolutely. I definitely kind of like that. For sure. Yeah, it must be interesting to try to balance this kind of like aesthetic and function at the same time. Like always trying to find that balance. Well, I will say one thing. Most of the custom pieces work great but if it's pure function for me personally, I will always go with the clear pieces because I think they... Well, the lines of it having like straight smooth lines. It makes the smoke travel easier and faster and you can control the chamber size better versus having that sculpted head where it takes up a lot of the space and you're not exactly sure how much room you have in there for smoke where it's clear and it's straight. You can have this size on the inside and the other size on the outside, you know exact volume of smoke and air is coming through. So you can really dial in it that way but most of our like artistic pieces are integrated the art part into it to make sure it works and functions and then introduce the art and the other way around will be a lot harder. I think. Yeah, this is great. This is what I wanted to hear out of this conversation. Like these are all the things that like I just had no idea about. Yeah, I didn't either. I've shopped for glass free gears and had no like... I just looked at color, shape that looks cool. Yeah, more this color, this color. I had no clue about any of this stuff. It's fascinating from the art aspect. Yeah, because I think I was saying this to you Spindle and Private. Being outside of the US, obviously like any other part of the world we get a lot of American culture but this is definitely not a part of American culture that most of the world has access to or has much insight into. So I think this episode is actually going to be really cool for a lot of people who are even people in America who may not know. I think a lot of people are really missing out because there has been in the last 20 years some absolutely incredible artwork made by pipe makers. And I'm not saying it's either of us, absolutely not. But there is some really impressive stuff that I mean, I've seen a lot of artwork as well and it doesn't get me as excited as some of the glass pieces I've seen. And I think it didn't get traction because it's part of the weed community and that's still round upon in a lot of public places unfortunately. And in the art community as well. The first person I met in the glass community, I was at some random festival in San Diego, like weed festival. Real random was Lacy, Laceface. She had her pieces there. I was mind blown that this person right here had just made this beautiful glass like human, beautiful female form sculpture. It was all the parts. It was insane. It was really cool to see in person. She was a real cool chick too. She's an amazing artist for sure. That's what I was saying. If she was let's say part of the art scene and had nothing to do with cannabis, weed or smoking, I think she would have been more world-known and more famous for what she does. Yeah, I would guess so. Which is unfortunate but that's how it is. It's slowly going in the right direction but it's very slow and it's been many, many years. Okay, well if we take a little break from this deep dive into the glass, which fuck I loved. What if we come back to the timeline? What's happened for you both in the last, I think where were we last talking like mid 2000s, like 2005, 2006, what's happened in the last 15 years? Oh wow. Well after there was a period in there where his father and I were business partners and then we split and I moved out of state and about that same time Hamlet sold or closed his head shop and came back to work with dad. And then a few years after that well it wasn't too long but I moved back to California to be with my family and we decided, well basically Hamlet invited me back to so that we could all start working together again. And that was when we really started I think going crazy on new designs really pulling it hard doing the door seals and changing our line and this happened to kind of coexist with the time when a lot of the glass floors were starting to like double, triple quadruple the prices on the water pipes to where they were getting like, I don't want to say ridiculous, but they were really expensive even for clear glass it was getting really, really expensive. And I think we I remember us button heads a little bit about whether they go the color direction, the art direction or to focus on scientific obviously I was saying scientific, he was saying color and we were going back and forth until all of that kind of like merged in and both of us did what we could. But since then we've just kind of really been hustling glass and pushing it and trying to do shows and events and venues and anything we can to coexist coexist in the height of the import craze where if we design something or someone famous designs something it's going to be knocked off overseas within six months if you're lucky. Yeah. Oh, there's a time where they knocked off our entire logo and they were putting it on shitty ass pipes. So sudden downtown has all these C2 pipes that we never fucking seen before and they don't even function. They couldn't even understand the process of smoking like the perks didn't work. You couldn't even draw air through it. It would just suck water straight up. It was like it would work as a straw a lot of it. You know, like the unusable pieces and it has our fucking name on it. And that part can you give us an insight into like what was their process like to make this really cheaply you know in comparison. Like how would they doing this? Well I think they used a lot of child labor. Child labor. No safety at all of any kind. Cheap glass you know and not actually worrying about the function just because they would I'm assuming they would look at a picture or video and like okay I need to make this but they don't even know what the fuck it was for a lot of times you know or the person has parts and the other person that's finishing off the piece they don't know what's what or what is it used for or how even it's used. And that's why a lot of those pieces weren't functioning. Yeah they didn't have a lot of big smokers in China. Their fingers cut off or something like that. Exactly yeah right. So at this point I was just going to say I think that's kind of one of the ways that we really were able to say well open for business when a lot of people closed was the fact that we kept progressing creating new designs and we've also done a good job of creating stuff at the cheapest possible price point that it could be made in this country. Yeah well yeah because we're all hands on we make everything ourselves we fucking sweat and tears into it you know it's not like oh yeah just tell this guy to do it he'll take care of it all but no it's like oh we're involved in the whole thing. Yeah. You know from start to finish to when the box leaves the fucking warehouse after it's packed we're throughout the whole process we're involved. There's no owner at the top collecting a paycheck and not coming to work like that's not a thing we have so we were able to definitely avoid that as well and that cuts a lot of the cost and puts the you know labor fact down in the labor cost down because we're doing it ourselves so we don't live like kings. Yeah we live like regular it's like what it takes to have a small business in America today is stuff like that like you can't just you can't have a bunch of employees anymore you can't you have to do everything yourself and cut every cut everything down and be doing yourself essentially because it's so hard. There's no money in this industry anymore. I don't know the cool thing about it is us being like involved in the art and involved in the industry when we do have employees working they can't I mean not that they try to but they can't really get one over on us like other companies have where they're just a boss running things they have no idea how the glass works or how it's made you know if my guy is working and he's only making one of these pieces where I'd be like dude I could sit there and make three or four and you're only making one you're fucking me like you're wasting my time you know and that helped too with all the having the prices down and having it affordable for everyone and and smoke shops across the country love this you know they love the fact that they can get American made stuff that's made well that functions great and and the price points is realistic to most of their customers and that helped out a lot and and staying in business and and keep doing what we do and realistically like I know we've been to a lot trade shows where people think we're like a big factory company it is literally Hamlet I and we try really hard to make it look that way but you know you know we've had people call us a big shop one of the big production shops before and I'm always like it's literally three of us like we're you know we're good at what we do you know and so maybe it seems that way but we work our asses off you know yeah every single one of the every single one of the pieces was designed or made by us you know like we had to we had to narrow it down perfected before it goes on to production and production meaning we're still a part of it you know yeah but it was a big front trying to like you know stand up there with the big guys and be like oh yeah it's our company you know this is what we're doing so yeah that's cool okay so we have this so we have a point at which like you know is the rise of import glass what's the next kind of thing that you all saw as being like a big thing like it's been Michael I know that we mentioned Instagram at some point emerging and how that affected your scene as well was there anything else in between the import glass and Instagram that you would consider significant no I really think I think Instagram really changed everything put it in front of people y'all can dive into that tell us about that you know I think the whole Instagram era of glass has been really really interesting and it definitely it can mimic in some ways the seed business also because I think originally when I got into glass boiling and in the Oregon scene it was a somewhat of a small it was still a small scene like theheadies.com guys were super famous for making beautiful nice stuff and being at the top of their game and with Instagram you started seeing guys that I'd maybe never heard of or had never seen at a show really getting on the scene and taking off and you start seeing these guys that you know they're on Instagram and they look very like the baller type thing going on like the compound guys you know and their jet setting and flying all over the world and they must make all this money and their glass blowers you know and so I'd never seen that before I'd never you know as far as glass blowers I was like I know some of us make some money but I don't think anyone's in ridge off of it you know and so Instagram kind of changed that to where you know people are like oh these glass blowers make so much money and you know some of the really talented guys would fall off a little and you wouldn't see them as much and you'd see these guys that maybe weren't making the greatest glass in the world just rising like crazy and that was definitely a change in the industry for sure yeah social media did it for sure yeah I mean Facebook just kicked this all out you know didn't want to do with it oh pipes all out you can't have that that's not I mean Instagram is starting too they're deleting accounts right and left yeah glass and seeds rode the same way that way I think like like when growing up we knew like there were some Dutch breeders that were pretty rich but the idea of an American breeder making serious money was a joke like right it was funny and then Instagram came around and you got to see like guys like flash and Rolexes and stuff and everybody assumed that all of us made a bunch of money and no no rent farmers at best I think the majority of the glass blowers that play that game too it probably has more to do with the family they come from than the circle of friends are yeah there's a lot there you're only going to sell so many $15,000 pipes a year and you can really only make so many a year yeah you know I think that's one of the big things that Instagram changed with the industry for sure and Instagram really introduced me more in detail into dabbing and what we can do with dabbing tools and concentrates and making pieces specifically for concentrates and just condense them down to smaller more effective little pieces that are more like for flavor and not so much for a volume of smoke or you know the size of the piece that could be so big and so many percolaries we're having one little perk that works perfect with the enough of a chamber where it saves all the flavor of your concentrate and that was another part of the line we introduced to and started having these variety of pieces that are smaller and more compact and just function ideally for concentrates and that was kind of an Instagram thing for me too because I started seeing more and more people getting into it and all the like the PHO stuff came and you know the rosin and all the stuff were coming out I remember the first time we went to Vegas what was that little show was the age the smaller one at the hotel yeah age and it was the first time I had seen dab rigs because I just it never been in my circle before and I remember we walked into the smoking room and these guys were smoking on those dab rigs and I looked at him and I was like oh my god dude I think there's people free-base seeing in the corner over there I was like no dude I just dabbing you know like I swear like it tripped me out it'll do that it looks it looks really weird at first when you first see it like especially you've you've been around other worlds and stuff and you see that you're like what what's that I mean this is this would be a weird tangent I sort of asked you a little bit about it but I thought maybe y'all could actually do a bit of like glass taken to 2023 one-on-one like what is a percolator what does it do it's going to break the smoke up in the water so that I guess there's more surface area of smoke hitting water would you say yeah that's why different perks work differently I think because when you have a smaller more concentrated perk you'll get small little tiny bubbles of smoke going through the water so essentially less smoke hits more water than having the big chuggy like boat-boat-boat action where like big bubbles come through and a lot of the smoke doesn't even touch the surface of the water because of the bubbles going through our larger so that makes sense yeah I mean was this piece of tech something that just like sort of came out of nowhere it emerged slowly over time or I'd say it happened well using it just using it you realize that when you get a smoother hit or you get a smoother smoke it's not choking you off it's not you know you don't get that crazy cough afterwards or you just by using it how did the idea even come about I guess well how did it come about you know I'd say there's research and development this is a really competitive industry like I'm sure all industries are but if you're not constantly coming out with something slightly different or new you're going to lose sales so we have we have two trade shows a year sometimes a few more than six well yeah I'd like to not remember those but let's say we have trade shows every year you need to have something new to get people excited about your product every time you go and if you don't your company is going to get stale and people are going to get bored so it's more a fact of hey how can we improve on designs that we already have how can we get this pipe to hit better how can we make the people that want a larger volume of smoke happier how do we get the people that want small volumes of smoke happier you know that's very true because we have pieces that have the same item code that they did ten years ago but I don't want to say it looks completely different but it has progressed and has grown into the piece that is today but where it started and put them next to each other and you'll see that you know this is yeah not the same thing but it just kind of like grew into that yeah I mean like you know like Michael was saying it's an extremely competitive environment so everyone's forced to evolve really fast right slowly okay what's a ratchet okay what ratchet is the perk that is like a disc what cuts at the end think about like a a ratcheting tool that has the sprocket in it when you know it clicks when you try to tighten the bolt or nut and that's the inner part of it and that's what we called it a ratchet because it was the actual the perk in the piece kind of reminded me of the gear that's inside the ratchet I have this site up on here and I'm trying to find where on the site I could show a ratchet oh you just asked lunch where was it at the color pieces in the beginning you show even the artwork ones that have ratchet perks those all the whole top line well except the one on the right is ratchet perks when you go down you'll see the cuts right there when you look at it from the bottom or the top it looks like a gear right yeah so it's a specific kind of perk yes yeah that's right that one's really really sick I like that one yeah y'all I think y'all have no idea how many people are like will be learning encountering this for the very first time yeah like which is more predominant in a lot of different companies ratchet perks they came up with it it's our thing and there's a few different companies that make it now and but yeah it was our thing and we're kings of ratchet the ratchet kings yeah I mean yeah like as a strain person and like when I got into weed I really narrowly focused my experience and view on what I really really really wanted to learn about and glass has always been something I'm interested in but never really jumped into one it is so expensive and when I go into collecting anything I go all in and I never wanted to go all in there you can spend upwards of $100,000 on one piece easy so all this is still new to me too and I think there's going to be a lot of people that have been around for a long time that use pieces they don't know much about the actual industry the form what's gone into it the history and any of it so this is really really cool if you go back to the top of the page there's a gallery section if you hit that see which one is it yeah or actually the catalog well yeah you can see one of the ratchets being made here that's the base being blown out and you can see the ratchets inside but if you go to catalog a lot of the clear pieces are in there as well and you'll be able to see our production line from simple beakers to simple ratchets which gets bigger and crazier and crazier and those you're going to see the parts in those pieces because they are clear let me see if I can get mine up here double ratchet double ratchet yeah Michael will be too I had one last question on these terms and I don't know if mine is as relevant that is Matt's custom logo whoo whoo one of the best places to get affordable American glass is right through the Breeder Syndicate Patreon right there look at that that's it I'm sorry I didn't catch what you said that's okay what's a recycler is that something that's relevant to what you guys make it's in there I think there's one right there you passed it right there no that's not a recycler no you gotta scroll more but it recycles the water so essentially the water that the smoke bubbles through it'll pull the bubbles and it'll pull the smoke and the water in a certain chamber and it will separate the smoke to go up to the mouthpiece and the water will go back down into the bottom of the piece so essentially the water keeps circulating around the piece over and over we introduced a recycler back in the day it was an internal recycler that the fuck was going on it just didn't take off because of that because people didn't understand it we didn't explain it very well we just made it through it out there and a few people were so fucking stoked about it and most people were like what's going on I don't understand what the thing is but now recycles are huge and every company has recyclers it doesn't always pay to be first in the industry it doesn't sometimes recyclers are one of the most overrated things I think in glass as far as glass water pipes I have no idea if you're a carn assure and you get really into it it's like the way you hit a recycler is different you kind of start hitting it before you put your concentrate on it you got to get the water circulating and doing its thing before you introduce your concentrate so yeah it's very you know like recyclers are mainly for concentrating okay that makes a lot more sense I don't smoke concentrate okay I was one of the people that used recyclers for weed because I thought they hit smoother but you did kind of have to hit it like yeah there's a certain way you got to smoke it and it's like very unfortunate but it's great it does what it needs to do it does cool it a little bit better you can use more water with the recycles tend to have more water and this is why we only kept one recycler in our line which is the mini one and I can't show it but it's small but because of the recycling action we're able to put a lot more water into it otherwise if you didn't have the recycling chamber it would suck up the water through the mouthpiece just like a straw so the recycling chamber kind of lets you put more water and it separates the water and the smoke so you don't get that splash of water in your mouth and the water shoots back down I was a big fan of recyclers for herb I got this ratchet double ratchet one I was done but we have ratchet recyclers oh my god but the thing is these are easy to clean too and that was another big part of it because I like to have mine always clean and all this is very easy to clean even the ash catcher that's one of the things we keep in mind both of us fucking hate dirty pieces so making it easy to clean is part of the functionality for us I'm so jealous Matt I pray that one day I will get magic to one of those no through the magic of TV oh it didn't work there was a really really cool dive into the tech and if we I don't know I was just wondering if we want to come back to the timeline what have you all been doing in the last few years like what was Covid like what have the last few years been like for you guys well it's been kind of crazy my father passed away seven years ago he was diagnosed with lung cancer and unfortunately he didn't beat it and the dynamics of the shop changed the whole vibe of the place changed because he was a very big presence in both of our lives really and then well the original spot we were at we moved in on a handshake didn't even really have information on it until that landlord passed away because so many years are going by and people are getting older and now a new company took it over they wanted more rent they didn't want us using propane I can't have fire if I can't have fire I can't make anything so you're kicking me out basically so we had to worry about moving to a different place and dealing with all kinds of things and the dynamics of the company changing and then Covid hit and it was crazy it was good for a little while where everybody had the stimulus money and they were spending it on this and that the business was good but then that all changed and died out and we had to actually stay relevant because we were essential we were essential because there was a splitter that was used for a ventilator thing for the hospital that we never actually got into I tried but the logistics for that was fucking ridiculous but because of that one thing we were able to stay working when it was only essential workers only so you know that kind of helped us stay in business because otherwise we couldn't really go back and forth from work it was a crazy time man like a lot of things changed and we just kind of took it as a cane as far as living in Los Angeles and this is for me personally I'm not speaking for Hamlet but Covid had to be one of the best times of my life because all of a sudden there was no traffic I was living in Eugene again I didn't have to see anyone it was quiet our business complex was empty it was me of living in the country again it was a beautiful time we had more orders than you could possibly imagine we were still working with the same people that we work with and get to hang out with every day I'm a somewhat antisocial same basically I didn't have to deal with all the crazy people and all the traffic and everything about LA that I didn't like we're both kind of like hermit crabs we don't really like to do much I don't blame you LA does that to people though too I mean it's a very fast-paced city and everybody's so around each other making very antisocial real fast from where I am sitting it just looks like exhausting to be out in an environment like that it can be it really can be you kind of have to like find your piece you know and weed helps a lot yeah sorry man what were you going to say about Bakersfield I don't know we were one of the few places where COVID just didn't change anything because nobody like everybody here was like so nothing changed everybody was just out shopping if you wear a mask it was weird in LA everyone would be masked up and hardly anyone's leaving their house and then we drove to Idaho for a trip and maybe an hour and a half out of LA we stopped at a store and it's like COVID never was happening and I was like wow none of these people are wearing masks when I went out to Alaska it doesn't exist over here it's a whole different world we were like a little island in California of that it was weird it was like Twilight Zone yeah crazy did you wear a mask when you went out you got a lot of dirty looks yeah yeah it was a weird time for everyone yeah it did affect some things like delivery of liquid oxygen and propane and regular deliveries of glass coming in our glass comes from Germany it's broker to a different company that supplies us there was a lot of issues with the shipping and the backlog of ships so there was a lot of issues with trying to get everything because luckily we had enough of a back stock to just work through it and change up some designs and things to meet the sizing and tubings that we have instead of what we can get you know and they did cancel those shows so that was really nice too we had like a whole year almost of no trade shows it was amazing trade shows are brutal people don't understand we're a certain kind of person we hate them we don't like doing the trade shows we have to and we do do them but I can't stand them as a small business owner you have to sell in order to make money you have to be a salesman for me and I know you guys probably are the same where it's just like you have to force yourself to do things like that I can't sell shit and then eight hours a day of it I would die so the trade shows we don't fit in I know that feeling I know that feeling it must be a really strange performance it is, sometimes customers come and if they're cool hey let's smoke a bowl let's talk a little bit but when it's all business sales and just putting up a front that's annoying okay well anything else that you all wanted to highlight about your overall journey especially recently because otherwise we can actually segue into more open chat I know Michael you had a few other stories anecdotes about strains that you encountered maybe but yeah, is there anything else you all wanted to say about recent years I don't know since you guys probably don't know a lot about well it seems like it would be apparent to me but the early glass point scene in Eugene, I can talk a little bit about that and where I was fortunate maybe where I wasn't that first glass shop that I worked at was called Advanced Glassworks it turned into Cascade Glassworks and then turned into Cornerstone Glassworks DFO and all that stuff takes place you know so there were a lot of glass floors coming through I had left I think I only worked at that shop for maybe about seven months before I basically figured out I had basically my best friend little Chris that grew up with me there in Eugene we were both working there and we looked at it and we were like hey you know we could buy these torches on our own and just do this in our garage and that's pretty much what we did we went out on our own we had very limited knowledge at the time we got really lucky though because we ran into a handful of people there was a guy named Maddie that was friends with through a couple other glass floors from that shop that would teach us really cool different techniques we went to Hempfest at Bill Conde's place which is in Oregon it used to be like a yearly gathering and that's where I met Marcel and I asked him about teaching me techniques and he was very generous with information and it kind of leapfrogged me to being able to support myself without having to work for other people and I feel like I was really fortunate because back then people really held the information tight they didn't want to share any techniques they didn't want anyone stealing their thunder and I've got real fortunate that those two groups of people kind of taught me techniques that carried me all the way to California and being able to start a small company on my own most of the guys that have stalled out quit because we didn't have the education that Hamlet was able to get through his dad and his dad where he wanted to teach me everything instead of trying to keep them when you go to class or you take glass pouring studies or anything like that there's a lot of information they don't pass along because they don't want to pass like you said they don't want to get through in other people's hands they don't want to leave them but with me it was the other way around he wanted to teach me everything he knew you know and I was fortunate in that aspect of it oh my god it's like people with clones in the weed world like how in certain groups you don't pass the clones to some but don't pass it to that guy that makes sense there'd be like trade-baiting type of things going on I'd run into someone that would tell you how to incorrectly do a technique so that they could blow you off that path similar to hey this is ChemD wow this ain't ChemD it's so dirty it'd be a simple little tips and tricks that are part of the trade unless they tell you you might not even catch it because it's a split second of what can happen that you didn't see because very minute things in glass pouring make a big difference so it's just like that like you said people kept things to themselves you know and thousand I know this maybe a little less to do with the glass but I wouldn't mind talking about some of the herb that I saw go through those shops between casting Baker designs I think we're ready for that because obviously I've heard not so talk about some of them and some of that information he gets from guys that I blew glass with and they were real close friends of mine in Eugene you know there's so many strange from Eugene bro there was a lot of good three of these glass blowing circles in Eugene exactly you know before the Bubba Cushes and the OG Cushes I'd never seen those in Oregon at least at that point but I do remember very early on I'd say 96-97 we started seeing a lot of blueberries not DJ I know Matt might disagree with this but they weren't DJ short blueberries in Oregon it's very possible no I don't disagree with that it seems to be their stories of stuff I've seen so many seeds popped from DJ and I just never saw the blueberry we were getting past it had a really really distinct nose on it a spicy pure blueberry fruit jam taste to it it had real crimson hairs and they were just little round nuts they were amazing you know the Trinity I remember the first time that came through super early that's one of the ones I wanted to hear about absolutely amazing I know not so and I have different descriptions of what we get from it but I think some of that has to do with what we think a skunk is I know he's mentioned the Trinity being really skunky to me that wasn't really skunky that had more of like a soft pillowy sour skunk to it whereas we used to get a strain in Eugene called the mudbud or the Afghani tie and it was long spears it was really really dark green with orange hairs and it smelled like dead skunk for a long ways away and it was the skunkiest thing we ever seen you know I don't know if it's the same kind of super skunk the guys that had it in Oregon were bikers but it was the skunkiest weed we had ever seen I mean if it's an Afghani tie if they got that right it wouldn't be a super skunk it sounds awesome though it sounds like you know what I mean like I think there's skunky weed way outside of super skunk I just think what super skunk has is some of the best and most accessible versions of it that we have but there's got to be like a lot more out there this pure Afghanis and different things and different hybrids from different eras that are like that and it's so hard if you haven't experienced what you know for 100% is super skunk it's hard how would you know? yeah because from where I'm sitting maybe I'd see super skunk and be like oh my god that's even skunkier than that Afghan but from my experience that was the skunkiest thing I had seen we used to get amazing AK-47 at that shop just big pillowy pretty buds what was that do you remember the scent on the AK-47 you guys saw? I thought it smelled like sandalwood okay so you guys got the sandal woody type I've heard of that one there's a really lovely spicy woody yeah you know I've never seen the cherry yeah and um and fucking white widow coming through randomly back in the days I don't know where it came from who had it but it just ended up at the shop how was it? how did you like it? I loved it the fucking white widow that I experienced back then it was frosty it's like just snow covered looking buds I've ever seen in my life and it tasted amazing I don't know where it originated or who had it but like I said it ended up at the shop and the chocolate tie too that was random that was from an old veteran buddy of mine that had he just randomly came up with some chocolate ties like I know you never smoked this before check this out you know wow he just busted out like tie stick and then I looked into it more and I was more and more amazed by it yeah that's awesome the Trinity I have to agree with you but there is questions about whether the Trinity cut that we have now is the same as the old Trinity cut but the one that we have now that people say and they smell skunky to me it doesn't smell skunky it smells musty that's about the best I can get it's musty it's not sweet I'd agree with you and then I just leave it there my nose can't develop it much more but it's not skunky as I would qualify it the one I remember wasn't either I remember when the snow first came into Eugene about that same time that the Trinity did that one was excellent we used to get a Korean skunk there in Eugene and I can't remember if that was from Amos it's gotta be I don't remember if it was I think it probably was he's the only person I've ever seen have a Korean skunk yeah it made its way through Eugene it was a really spicy purple-haired nice little frosty buds I would have loved to experience that that was great it's like a backbone of a lot of his lines my favorite out of all of them was that Quimby when that Quimby came into the shop the first time it was one of the most impressive strains I had ever seen the nose was just so unique and it smelled so strong and it wasn't skunk strong I don't know like some kind of candy candy dank I don't know how to describe it some of those old school stuff that I can remember to this when I get something today and it's like oh it's this or that I'm like I don't remember it this way I don't remember and it smelled different to me it was you know and I can never almost I can never find it again yeah that's it's pretty common because like a lot of people didn't keep those same old cuts and you know they stay popular and sometimes they get a second wind and people just try to capitalize on a name and don't have access to those groups with those cuts they kept them so few people do yeah I feel like I just repeated a whole not so statement right there I could have just inserted him you know we used to get some really nice northern lights that's not I mean we would get northern lights number five too also that was super boring we would get like a dank dark green northern lights that was really really nice those are the strains that I really remember like circulating heavily in those shops like we would always have access to one of those and they were always good there's a few others I just can't remember the name of anymore there was a couple hash plants that had special names that was when I came to California yeah so what was your you said you said Amos and I just realized most people have no idea who you're talking about or who we're talking about you're referring to Soma Amos Washington yeah Soma and what you're talking about is the backbone I think to lavender and stuff like that did you have a lot of experience with him there did you ever have run-ins with him there or any of that you got to remember we were pretty young I'm trying to think first time I ran into him I was probably 15 years old and he was well known for dry sifting his bag but you got him so you could go and get weed from Amos and you'd look at it and it was still good weed we didn't really know any better to be honest with you but what you could be guaranteed is that Amos would you a bong hit of about the best sift you could ever imagine that you just paid for yeah for the reason his buds were always a very uniform roundness to them in the same size that's funny dude they look like bags of like little marbles yeah but he did it I've heard that story before yeah he had great weed Eugene had a lot of those weird things in it that every once in a while would take advantage of younger kids in one way or another I remember there was this guy I got introduced to named Michael Golden and he swore up and down that Eagle Bill stole his design for the vaporizer at the I Times Cannabis Cup and would just get so angry about it you know and he was the first one I saw with that he was a real vaporizer but what he had that really impressed me Matt was he had about 20 packs of seeds and this was okay I was probably 17 at the time so this had to be like 94 maybe 95 94 and he had these packs of seeds that were from Corvallis, Oregon with this really cool logo on them and he would tell me like each one of these varieties and they were created early 80s and he's been holding on to them forever and that was like the first time I ever really saw packaged seeds that were American and not Canadian Wow and who was this guy? His name was Michael Golden the guys from God it's not what's the elephant logo um Honeysuckle Lotus those guys they're from Mendocino well they're from Oregon but they live in Mendocino they introduced me to him um I don't know if we were selling him weed or we were buying weed from him I can't remember but he was the guy that swore up and down that Eagle Bill stole his design for the vaporizer and Eagle Bill had won a cannabis cup with his design man do you know a guy named Petrie? Joe Petrie? Joe Petrie that's familiar he had a book I think called The King and the Paul I can't recall the name sounds like a very similar character I was just wondering it's a very similar character it's been fun but unfortunately I have to go it's been great having you dude I really appreciate you being on thank you so much Hamlet you guys have a good one you guys get the full Michael now good luck don't screw that Michael there were a couple of points Michael that you wanted to touch on that we discussed yesterday one was your first year in California and the other one was Josh D we always do that it was not necessarily just Josh D it was my experience with getting introduced to California weed because what a lot of my friends nowadays have a hard time believing is that this is kind of off topic I'm sorry but every once in a while during harvest season in Oregon guys would bring up weed from Humboldt that was outdoor and it was so fucking good and everyone always had this thing where oh outdoor is it's not that great indoor is like the holy ground I remember getting outdoor weed that was so good from some of those kids that it rivaled any indoor I've ever had and even Hamlet I've had this argue with him a million times where he's like I've never seen good outdoor weed and I'm telling him it just doesn't get here we don't know the right people here it exists do you disagree man I don't know I don't have much experience with it so I can't speak on it I want to say I haven't seen it because I haven't but I also didn't live in an epicenter where a bunch of outdoor was shipped we had shitty brick weed growing up and then we had everything else I never saw a brick of weed until I moved to California we had that growing up and that's all we had so trying to call outdoor compared to that is kind of hard yeah I can see that I just I remember some of the outdoor weed so good so right before Y2K I got moved from Eugene, Oregon down to Los Angeles I had been in a situation in Eugene where my glass shop was in my house and I had I don't remember I might have been into girlfriends or out hiking with my dogs but I pulled up to my house and there was three undercover cars and a bunch of cops in my house and I pulled up and I asked one of the officers I said what's going on this is my house and they tried to tell me that they had chased a suspect he had jumped over the fence and they thought he went into my house so I walked in my house they're all in my living room they're in my little glass shop and I'm like so I'm assuming the guys are here and they start asking me all sorts of questions like what's going in the glass shop you know what's all what are these gases for this isn't for cooking meth right and I'm like no no no I don't know anything about that and at the end they basically find there's nothing there for them other than some glass pipes which in Eugene isn't a big deal and they leave and I call the police department and I start asking questions and they tell me that they never had any officers in my area that night so the next day I go down to the Fifth Street market and I talk to a lawyer that was always at the hemp vests and I ask him to look into it and he makes some calls I gave him like $200 retainer and he told me at this point they're telling him that this never happened that I'm imagining that they never had any officers in the area and his personal recommendation to me would be to move somewhere else you know I told him I don't really have too much illegal involvement other than the glass blowing you know, for my own safety maybe it would be better if I did move I started talking to my distributor down in California and they offered to move me down there to start a glass blowing company they would give me the money and a place to live and set me up the guys that did that own a chain of stores in Los Angeles called Dementia and at the time they owned Roar and later that became Heavy Glass and Sheldon Black so they moved me down and the guy that is kind of coordinating all this is the manager for all the head shops and he's lived in the San Fernando Valley his whole life he's real real connected so I was fortunate in that way because I was worried about coming down to LA and not being able to get her this is before they had stores so I moved down to LA and the first thing he does is he introduces me to a guy named Joel OG Glass who had grown up and received us so he was real connected to and he was probably one of maybe 10 glass blowers that were known down here and so what was really cool about that was he was real connected with Oregon Kid with Josh D with all these guys so within the first few months of me living in LA I was able to buy my first bag from Oregon Kid which was Baba Kush for $450 amazing I hadn't seen anything with that particular smell and taste in Oregon and I was really expecting to come down to California and think especially in Los Angeles and think they didn't have anything to offer me because I had already lived in the pinnacle of marijuana that was without knowing I had grown up in the pinnacle of very marijuana few weeks maybe after that Baba Kush I got to go over to Josh D's house with Joel handed over $500 for my first Mason Jar of OG Jesus I got that Jar of OG with him I think at the time he was a photographer and it was one of the most amazing things I'd ever smelled I was just like holy shit now I definitely haven't ever smelled any weed like this before it had a golden color it wasn't like a dark green or anything it was like a nice cured brownish gold and it was just fucking fantastic I have a hard time recalling being OG grown or looking and smelling that great because I did from Josh that first month I also got introduced to a couple guys in Hollywood and that's where I first saw the Tangerine and their Big Bud what they called the NorCal Big Bud was not like the Amsterdam Big Bud this was like a pure sweet skunk Big Bud I'm interesting it was really nice the buds weren't big they weren't like huge colas like I'd expect just another misnomer yielded huge he said that was the pull of that Big Bud but his Tangerine was again one of the most unique things I'd ever smelled in weed what was that Tangerine like pure tangerine juice it's not what tangy it's tangy has nothing to do with that tangy's gross in my opinion I think it's gross that tangerine was gifted to Oregon Kid right after my friend got busted and we basically all closed down shop and didn't want to lose it my favorite weed I've ever had has been that Tangerine and he got it and changed the name to Skunk Tangerine Skunk Tangerine I'm trying to think of what I have with that in it now you can find it on certain unreputable clone dealers menus I'm sure both Oregon Kid shared it with him with the promise that it wouldn't be let out which of course this guy who you've had running now sells it but it's a 12 to 13 week sativa that doesn't get too tall but it yields great and it grows bats like just huge arm length colas of some of the most smelliest beautiful fruit you know it puts tangy to shame yeah I like a good orange I like a good sweet orange myself like it smells like some kissed orange juice I like that I do not like tangy because it's never smelled like that to me it's like an orange rind it's super muted yeah so it's almost like maybe a descendant or a bag seed from that original Tangerine or something like that but it's not the same I think I've seen Min Jean comment about him seeing it before and it having huge bats but I know the name was changed it was never skunked Tangerine yeah as a little bit of a tangent but also just to add some context what do you like smoking these days and I wonder if you could actually answer that for Hamlet as well if you knew Hamlet loves Quimby Quimby Quimby is an old Oregon strain you know what's in it no idea no idea when I lived in Eugene when the dead tour ended there was like an influx of people that left the tour and moved to Eugene and Quimby came around that same time that all those hippies the heroine and all that stuff came to Eugene when the tour ended there was positive and negatives when the tour ended a lot more drugs but a lot of new strains Quimby was one of them and it was just real unique I don't know how else to describe it interesting I know not so it has experience with it yeah I think JD or one of them used it there you go there you go that's why it's in my memory bank yeah absolutely does he still smoke that today he doesn't yeah it's not the pure Quimby something that was I think DJ had a vanilla Kush okay so a male from that was used to pollinate the Quimby and then Athena was found that's real close to that original in Hamlet that's as best as I can get for you how about you yourself what do you like smoking these days I really like not so sour I was really surprised it didn't give me as I get older having panic attacks smoking potent weed has gone through the roof there's certain things that I joke about it but if I smoke certain things I'm going to be in the bathtub with my wife assuring me I'm going to be okay for an hour just the reality of my situation now I wish more males our age in our age group would talk about it because I think it's way more common than anybody realizes to have these like fucking major panic attacks even like because I dab all day long and I smoke flower interchangeably but there's times when flower will just set me off in a totally different direction and spin me out and just give me a panic attack and I don't know it didn't happen when I was young but I don't know hormonally as we get older some of us it just affects us much more different I'm almost 100% I don't know what to worry about it's hormonal we do more things to worry about as adults do I think it's hormonal there are some strains like if I smoke I'm in the bathtub same to me dude even if it's just a little bit I'll be in the bathtub not so sour definitely relax me made me feel a lot better the pineapple fields from dynasty has a real nice put me in a happy place um affect for me I guess I got some riot berry I'm getting ready to try I'm hoping that that does it too me too I feel real real good I'm hoping that it's been so long since I've had blueberry I'm hoping it can do the same for me again I hope because this mind descends from DJ's blueberry so I hope that just having the same scent expression brings back some of those same however they combine the cannabinoids combine because I know that anything that typically has DJ's blueberry in it whether it's a hybrid or full whether it's blueberry scented or not usually it's cool but usually if it has a blueberry scent it's totally anti-anxiety for me it sounds like you have a very similar body chemistry or brain chemistry to me when it comes to strains it's weird some people look at me really weird when I talk about it you know but it's for real and I liked your one suggestion I heard you say on one of the shows where you were like I just smoke so much so that my tolerance doesn't get low enough to where it affects me that way as much yeah that's the only thing I can do I had a little more free time where I could experiment with that you know what really helped me was when I learned about like dabbing and shit because dabbing just doesn't hit me that way ever because it's just for me it's always the same effect it's real boring but it raised my tolerance for THC up so high that usually I don't get that but still even you know dabbing diamonds all day it'll happen it'll happen and it's not it's real weird I used to think it was all THC related if I'm flooding myself with THC and it still happens only with flour on odd occasions I just don't know what causes it it sucks yeah and to be honest Urkel and Bubba are the two biggest and it's funny because I hear people say that shit is not potent it doesn't get them high as low highs and then if I smoke Urkel or Bubba Bubba I'm running for the hills yeah and I don't know why I don't think it's necessarily potent I just think that this is such a strange way and it's not about potency it's just about what the fuck you know the fear is there so but I think I'll definitely be getting to try a lot more things this year you know now that we're lucky enough to be able to have such great freedoms in California where we can have six whole plants yeah I know right experiment with trying some of the stuff some of the old stuff you know like right like to remind what are you interested in for yeah like what do you think you might be interested in running that you haven't run before you know thousand what I'm most interested in and excited for is popping beans that are made by people that I can feel good about supporting hell yeah I think enough people in this industry at this point that can get lucky or pick a male to pollinate a bunch of clones with that there's a ton of good seeds and like at this point it'd probably be hard to find bad seeds unless you're buying from one of the big companies I agree I do get excited about is being able to participate in people that I really know have a valid story and a valid love of the plant and are breeding for specific reasons you know like I love trace dog so I'm gonna cross it with this other thing that I really love and hopefully it passes on this instead of just guys that say I've got great gas I'm just gonna S1 it on to every single be stable you know and I'm sure all those things they could have marvelous plants in them but I want to support guys that are breeding and on a mission you know and kind of be able to follow those I don't know if I'd call them stories or not but I want to follow their theoretical ideas and see if they match up and see if I can experience those same things that they experience you know yeah I think I go ahead I think I just think that like one important aspect of this is connection and feeling like in growing someone's work you are connected to them their projects you know a wider community my aspect that's right got you with an aspect you know I think that's one of the really cool things it's one of the really cool things about Reader Syndicate is I can feel really good about throwing my support towards certain people you know because like back in the day Gypsy Nirvana I don't want to throw my money at guys that go overseas to have sex with little girls like stuff like that is gross I don't want my money going there my first project I ever bought were from Dark Enemy you know I grew some great NL Skunk Mighty Might it was amazing the smells unique I was happy but you know what I don't need my money going into the pocket of some fucking crazy right wing person yeah you know like why am I going to support that I don't want to support guys that jet set all over the world in where big gold necklaces and play these games when I know back in Oregon the people that actually know them know they've never grown any fucking plants you can text the plants it's very common and then I meet people down here and I'm like they have these facilities down here I'm like wow what are you doing in here oh we're making a ton of seeds I was like what's your seed company oh no we make it for this guy I'm like whoa that guy I was like does he make the choices yeah this is my experience of a lot of the industry especially before I came to the breed of syndicate like everything's really like a faceless lifeless soulless alienated isolated it's just like nothing seemed nothing felt real until I found you know some of some of these guys here yeah you know like I want to be excited about genuine people that care about the things that I care about okay even if my garden is only six plants it's what brings me happiness at the end of the day you know it's not a freedom it's just what they're allowing us basically but it's what brings me back to a time in my life when I was super free and I was more concerned with myself yeah right more concerned with just happiness so if I can get in with guys like H&L and PAC and Matt and God I hope not at some point you know and follow their journeys of what they experience and what their favorite things are I get to share a little piece of their life and we can share it with each other yeah I feel that too even being all the way out here it's been a real joy we're gonna have to drag him out one day all the way from whatever he's from Australia somewhere I don't know where the accent is from so yeah to be more specific I look forward to popping some H&L this year I just got done popping some Matt I'm gonna pop some some goat some goat farm H&L's got a a new green craft BX coming out real soon too I saw that I'm gonna go with the stone dape I don't see anyone else pop it let's get some feedback on that puppy yeah I became to see that for sure yeah generally I'm real narrow in my seat by at this point in my life isn't going towards Matt or CSI high and lonesome dynasty's the only one that I've really messed with outside of that and I've been happy with he's got good stuff too he's got a good eye for male sativas he's got a beautiful have you ever seen his pictures? oh my god he's always been that way dude he's a photographer I remember what subcool used to rip it up of all the photographers subcool he was one of the best when it came to taking pictures of beautiful plants that no one did it better but I remember dynasty got on his site he was taking pictures and him and this dude oak cannabis level after level he's made a good name for himself he's been around a long time and he's kept his strains unique and his own identity and I appreciate that a lot and you know what Matt out of everything I've popped from him it's looked like those pictures yeah that's another thing that's important right? that you know you're getting what he tells you you're going to get absolutely it's not a part of the art of it I would say you know like when you can deliver on something and say this thing that I haven't popped myself I've worked with this enough that I can predict how this is going to be outcome of this and I can show you these pictures but I can ensure you it's going to look like this that's something special and a lot of that's been missing for a long time especially when it's not just you know cush mints by whatever clone what's going to look like cush mints you know I like the unique stuff I was doing like I've been doing strain reviews lately and looking at the new strains because I don't know shit about new strains and I probably should because of the show so I was looking up these different ones like blue sushi and stuff and I didn't realize this because of their names and obviously I should be it shouldn't shock me or anything there's no blueberry in it there's nothing called sushi it was like a cush mints yeah it was a cush mints like what that cush mints has been done for years they're still pushing this but just getting a new name again yeah bro that's reader of the year magic magic magic magic magic how they do it every time reader of the year apples and bananas they're all super unique yeah you know what's funny is that there's a dude named dirt farmer genetics that had just released in apples and bananas that year too but yeah it got run over by compounds well not even his release I think I know who made that but I don't want to say because they probably don't want people to know they made it for him so yeah no but he'll happily take credit and if you have an extra necklace he'll take that too yeah he will he likes them Rolexes yeah I could go on for hours an hour well I mean we are coming up on the two hour mark so you know are there any other things that you too wanted to touch on before we wrap this up is there anything specific you had thousand or me you no I think I got a lot of that out there I wish I had more for you guys are you guys still in touch with Ken today working kid he came down last Christmas I think it was last Christmas and hung out for a few hours in the shop other than that I haven't talked to him except for a few messages on Instagram yeah asking you know we hook back up trade or whatever he's just a fascinating part of the OG story you know it's always interesting when people meet him early on and have their impressions and all that you know he was a real sweet he still is he hasn't changed he's a sweet guy he's one of those guys that was real early on yeah and in my eyes got taken advantage of yeah like he had some physical limitations but he should still he's pretty talented with cannabis I don't know if you know this but he's bred some really cool shit and he should still be you know in everybody's mouth like doing cool shit like a lot of these guys do and he's not for whatever reason and I don't know if that's personal choices he's made or just the fact that people are gonna take advantage of you if you put yourself in situations to get taken advantage taken advantage I've attributed most of my like early career to him and kept him going like that because I thought like because I did so much with the banana OG like he was such an important part of what people attributed to me and even Bubba because he played such a major part with that you know and yeah I think he deserves a lot more credit than he gets and it's a shame because he was an important part of all that for a lot of us and banana OG is still being used out the wazoo could you imagine if he hadn't paid that money for the OG Kush clone from Josh what would have happened with OG Kush I can't imagine it would have been locked down so much further for longer absolutely you know like that thing was hard to get he made that accessible for everybody the Kems yeah they were made accessible forever but they were and we were fortunate to have them yeah yeah we are we are whether we like the guys that had them or not that doesn't quite matter it doesn't matter the fact that they're still available in the yeah even that Bubba Kush bro that thing was fucking amazing real amazing I never got the coffee stuff from it mine was always more lime but it was beautiful there's a lot of different ways you can grow Bubba and it's one of those plants where like I can get it earthy coffee I can get it almost chocolatey I can get it soapy cushy you know you can get lime out of it definitely there's a lot in Bubba depending on how you grow it and the S1s there's a lot of variation too there's all lemon phenos in the S1s that show up I'm looking forward to someday popping a bunch yeah I think CSI just popped another 100 or two just a run through to see what's in there again yeah CSI yeah I wish I had that much space man you know these guys are living our dream yeah he really is every once in a while I get hit up by a younger guy and they're just like oh bro last thing is so awesome you know and it's like I got in the glass because I love weed I roll a coaster so that I continue on into weed you know because I've never been great at being social I could do the glass blowing and get in the circles I wanted to you know but I'd rather live a Caleb's dream than this dream you know I'm so fascinated by different art like and I've done the seed stuff for so long I'd be more into the glass thing now I'd be like wow just to learn a whole new trade as opposed to more seeds more seeds but then again if I if I was doing it at a CSI level it would be a different story though because like that much space you can really really have options run through some fantasies yeah dude to be able to see things in that large of options always and and I shouldn't say to be able to he has been out of all out of everyone he's been the most inclusive of anyone in those big projects with me like it's I just don't take it for granted it's one of those things where like a mentor is showing you like how it's done like it's crazy to be able to see that and to get insight into each one of those and then he spends time with that it's really cool though and it's hard yeah I hope we'll share it again soon on the on the Bubba stuff he does another episode here soon so yeah when Matt jeez we need to start beating on his door hey dude everyone yeah yeah everyone um I just want to say that this has been such a cool conversation like we got such a such a neat overview as well on like the glass scene yeah from like Bob's not grass Eugene operation pipe dream science glass import glass like we basically got all these lovely milestones from you two and I think anyone from anywhere wanting to learn about at least you know get an idea of the history of glass pipes like this has been such a great conversation um yeah I think we could probably take it you know if you ever wanted to because we barely touched on each one of those things in brief segments so if there's anything you want to expand on and if anybody has any questions about anything they heard in this episode let us know give us feedback and we'd love to have them back it's been a really fun one and I mean I just sat here and learned I kind of stayed shut up was it just like you know because this is yeah formative for me I love it I suspect that this is not the last time we will see Michael okay spindle yeah hopefully not any anytime there's anything you guys want to ask feel free if there's anything you feel like I didn't cover well enough and you have more questions thousand please I don't know if I covered covered this well enough uh this is some of the glass and realistically like when we we met up and I tried it like I know bullshit these became my only pieces not because like this had this didn't even been talked about or exist became my favorite pieces because of function and that's why we even started talking you start talking to me because you love fucking strains and weed and we just kind of dorked out together and it's been really amazing and like I said there's only a few times in life when you get leveled up on on something that you love and I felt like I got leveled up in in smoking functionality with you guys and and I appreciate that so thank you very much quickest from point A to B that's right man so it takes you avoid burying off into that bullshit sea yeah you know I love it dude so um I think if if you're trying to wrap it up thousand there's a couple things I wanted to go over for anybody that might be younger in the audience I know we still have have some go number one do do not this older generation of seed makers these guys in their late 30s to 40s to 50s don't build them up into something they're not they're just guys don't follow people blindly and fight for them if you don't know what they're about they're just guys making seeds enjoy what they do enjoy their seeds but don't build people up because you're gonna be constantly constantly torn down it's gonna bum you out yeah two one is one of the last American handmade industries you know there's not a lot of things that you can buy in America anymore that is made by Americans and glass is one of them it doesn't have to be C2 support American glass there's not a big enough price difference to throw your money at some sweatshop that's not taking care of its people yeah and three for the younger generation I know a lot of people are hurting they're not gonna have money to travel around the world I was very fortunate young I got to go to Europe there's a thing I found in France called a bidet younger generation it's not that it's not manly spray water on your ass it's the fact that no one wants to shake hands with someone whose only a small hand was only a small tissue between shit and your handshake get yourself a bidet I love a bidet it's gonna say that if someone walked to you and smeared shit on your arm would you be comfortable using a handful of paper towels and just wiping that clean and then going about your business I don't think you would I've been lucky enough to go to Japan a couple of times and I got to say I do love the bidet now absolutely it's a small upgrade for your house you don't have to it's like 30 bucks 30 bucks on Amazon you'll be clean the rest of your life do it for everybody let's stop it's pandemic something shit related it could be and it could be because you're not using bidets absolutely it feels much better when you walk around absolutely you want a itchy asshole nobody likes that stinky fingers suck this is definitely how I envisioned us concluding this episode well I want to leave something for the younger guys I want to be able to share some of my experiences hygiene grooming tips it was life changing I feel like it was for being on that lion don't idolize don't pedestal and also clean your butt properly and buy American buy American for gloss alrighty that's it man I really appreciate you guys we love you man thank you so much dude and thank you to Hamlet as well yeah so I guess that's it from Breeders Syndicate be sure to check out our Patreon we have our discord where we all hang out and chat and talk about strains whatever daily life stuff sometimes but it's a nice community of great people and yeah check that out and I'll add one little thing here which is that people who have been asking about not so you could join the discord and you get to talk to not so he's actually really responsive on discord and he hangs out quite a lot right right not so so if you're missing him at the moment and we're not a 10,000 subscribers yet you can jump on the discord and talk to him and just for anyone that hasn't before these guys make themselves so accessible on that discord I can't believe it you can message not so almost any time of the day and within an hour he will answer your question same way high and lonesome goat farm pack they all make themselves accessible for everyone and it's fucking awesome it really is we'd be doing this anyway you just be doing this anyway so why not I think it's the greatest deal in the industry you get to really get details about the seeds you're buying from people that bred them and tested them you can get a 40% discount on American made glass that's right and you get to basically commune with a bunch of people that have the same exact interest as you yeah and there's not trolls it's a really weird community it's not like instagram or twitter just people sniping at each other it doesn't happen so I've never had anyone be fucking to me and if it happened it would just be it's self-policed people take care of themselves yeah so get in there before I convince Matt to raise the monthly subscription fee shit alright oh yeah right at seeds.com for your spray and seed needs and glassbyc2.com is that correct for all your glassware and that's it thank you from everyone at breeder syndicate you want to sit at the table with the syndicate check out our patreon and our link tree or description below our merch site is officially live we have all sorts of shirts hoodies and goodies to sort you out and shipping is super fast and most importantly the quality is top notch I've been saving old designs for years for this purpose so please check it out syndicategear.com we also have an underground syndicate discord where we get together all old strain history together daily it's an amazing community of learning away from IG and it's an amazing resource for old catalogs and knowledge we hope you join our union of breeders and growers come check it out