Nipped in the Bud
My goodness, someone’s feeling chatty!
Massive Attack has removed their music from Spotify in protest. While multiple musicians have recently left the jukebox platform, MA are apparently the first artists from a major label to do so reportedly due to Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s investment in AI military firm Helsing.
On a whim in 2010, I flew to London to catch Massive Attack in concert for the first time – an unforgettable experience during which I was let into the afterparty and met the band. I got into them late only to become obsessed; the beat-and-bass heaviness of their art spoke to my soulsearchingly sensitive early 30s. The last time I saw them perform was maybe 6 or 7 years ago in San Francisco during their tour marking the 20th anniversary of Mezzanine, one of my favorite albums of all time. Attend an MA show and you are reminded of how many things can be true at once: music born from hip hop that completely defies genre; high tech visual effects that dazzle while also exposing the dystopian realities of living in a hyperconnected, heavily surveilled world; being a ticketholding fan and consumer of their music in full awareness of their anticapitalist energy. Despite Spotify paying artists pennies on the dollar every time a song is streamed, Massive Attack’s willingness to walk away from passive income is bold, courageous, and cool as fuck.
Continuing the season of Nope that began with purging Target and Amazon from my life, I stopped paying for Spotify in May. And after binging multiple seasons of “Girlfriends”, I also ended my decade-old Netflix subscription this month and made Kanopy my streaming go-to. I cancelled the Google One account I completely forgot that I had, keeping that $20 annual fee in my coffers and forcing me to delete many megabytes of years-old marketing emails, documents, and files I’d been hoarding. What a concept, believing I needed email “storage”.
We do what we can, right?
Freedom Isn’t Free
I’ve also made some big decisions. The first: accepting reality.
I didn’t work for the federal government and I wasn’t laid-off, so I don’t know if I’m counted among the over 300,000 Black women who left the U.S. work the first quarter of the year. I am, however, among those who do not feel safe in this climate. And applying for work has been futile despite my having a degree and 30 years of active work experience, including 5 years running a growing freelance copywriting business. I’ve never been fired, and though I had been laid off once years ago, it wasn’t due to poor performance but a company reorganization. I resigned from my last role just as things had gotten toxic, and I wasn’t willing to risk my mental health for a paycheck. This was in January, before the DOGE hammer came down on federal workers, so I naively thought my skills, reputation, and network would save me. They didn’t. And applying for jobs knowing that my age, race, and employment history in a sector that is federally illegal would only work against me, well…I needed to find a new path.
Here’s the deal: Berkeley, Oakland, and San Jose – the three cities I’ve called home over the course of my life in the Bay Area – have never been left off a list of most expensive cities to rent. Yet I’ve consistently been underpaid despite having a college degree and real talent. Even as a freelancer, it wasn’t unusual for someone to hit me up, love my portfolio, and still challenge my rates. And that’s not to mention the microaggressive, rude, even hostile behavior I’ve encountered over the years in various workplaces and situations throughout my career, cannabis included.
A significant part of my healing work has been learning not to internalize it all, and the payoff is recognizing that I can do something else. After spending a month overseas last Spring getting training to teach English as a foreign language, I now have a global certification that never expires. Travelling around the world has always been a dream of mine but it always felt financially out of reach. I’m nowhere near able to retire and my savings is pretty much gone, so I must continue to work, but at least I can go somewhere that considers my being a native English-speaker an asset.
Plus as I get older, having an affordable living is crucial. Even with the “reasonable” (less than $2k) rent I was paying, unemployment benefits totalling $450 a week in California weren’t enough to cover the balance of my expenses. All this adds up to a different kind of American Dream for me: finding a forever home somewhere else in the world where I can age…and simply BE.
So in the last 4 months I sold my car, much of my dad’s old vinyl, and a few things at a yard sale and online only to pay to ultimately have like 80% of my stuff picked up as junk. As the sole caregiver to Bruce and Chuck, the two 11-year-old cats my ex-husband and I adopted when they were 5 weeks old, I surrendered my furbabies to a wonderful senior cat resuce after multiple failed attempts to rehome them. I left the 2-bedroom house with a glorious backyard that I’ve been renting the last 3 years and reduced everything I own down to 2 suitcases, 1 duffel bag, a backpack, and 5 boxes of winter clothes/momentos now stored at my mom’s place. I’ve also spent sumptuous quality time with my family and friends, have no keys, no job, and no desire to be anywhere other than where I am right now: sitting solo in a quiet hotel lobby in southeast Asia typing this post.
I’m Out
This will be my final post on the High & Writey Substack.
I don’t enjoy writing online anymore; too much misinformation, too much censorship, and too many Nazis. And in full understanding that we are in the age of AI with content as commodity, one of the greatest joys of putting pen to paper for me is the process of slogging through, enduring the torture to find the right words, and eventually tapping into the magical, meditative flow that comes from creating. I write because I love it, I always have. So I’m going to keep doing it offline…for now, anyway.
As for cannabis, I still have a relationship with the plant but it’s evolving: I’ve removed the stresses that I let justify a daily habit, am living my life in ways that engage and excite my brain leading to less anxiety and better sleep, and am no longer immersed in a world where regular weed events and free samples are the norm. I still believe in its theraputic potential to help so many people; prohibition has caused an incredible amount of needless suffering and I want that to end. The weed education business I share with my dear friend Penny will go on, but it’s evolving too. Perhaps I’ll tap into the global market someday as a writer or consultant, but as far as I’m concerned capitalism has cannabis now. I’m just gonna be over here doing something else.
But a couple nuggets to share before I go…
Governor Newsom has put the kibosh (temporarily) on the cannabis tax hike originally set to kick in on October 1, much to the relief of businessowners trying to make it in the regulated industry. For patients and consumers who buy from dispensaries, this means the excise tax will stay at 15% instead of increasing to 19%. For those who buy from the far more popular underground, ain’t nothing changed. On the flip side, this KQED article is a great educational read on the impact this will have on youth and environmental groups that rely on weed taxes, shedding additional light on the complex concessions made when adult-use was legalized in the Golden State in 2016.
In their latest issue, Cannabis & Tech Today invited folks to submit pieces celebrating industry advocates, and I was proud to be one of them. I chose to give flowers to Amber Senter, co-founder of Supernova Women – an organization that advocates for the inclusion of Black and brown women having a seat at the table in cannabis, and to whom I am forever grateful for granting me free entry to a costly industry conference when I was just breaking into the industry – and CEO of MAKR House, a brand that gives the people what they want by serving up both exceptional weed and sophisticated events for folks that exist outside the white Millennial stoner bro paradigm. Turns out giving back and making money can co-exist. Also, extra special shout out to Minorities for Medical Marijuana’s Roz McCarthy, who’s also written about in this piece.
Recommended Rabbit Holes
I’d be remiss not to share a few of the incredible resources that have kept me going through my recent life transition:
Chrishan Wright’s Blaxit Global Podcast exposed me to the stories of many Black people who found the lives of their dreams by leaving the U.S. I’m not really a podcast person but when I stumbled upon this one, right after last year’s election, I listened to it every day for 3 weeks straight.
Courtney Bowden’s Beauty in the Blaxit Substack is another platform sharing how Black folks are disovering their freedom by moving elsewhere.
For anyone who loves sports and hates fascism, Donnell Alexander is an epic writer who really meets the moment with his Substack, West Coast Sojourn.
That’s all I can think of at the moment, and maybe that’s enough. Thank you to everyone who subscribed and found resonance in something I wrote, it means a lot to me. Take care out there.
Kaisha, out ✌🏿
