Before His Celebrity

Just because I found out the Paradise I was promised became a true lie, doesn’t actually mean I have any regrets of trying to at least experience it. I’ve been called “stupid” for quitting a good job before, but I was also called the same for taking the supposed “heavenly” one for a marijuana dispensary in Santa Barbara, California in October of 2010. Well, I actually started in November, but I left my hometown in the San Francisco Bay Area for the bright coastal city in Southern California right before Halloween.

It is true the culture of Northern California differs from that of the Southern, but in my eyes, even though people closer to Los Angeles use a different vernacular, I can’t really tell the difference — just more white people with tans, and a lot more people wearing tank tops, and walking around in flip-flops. One of the funniest things a Southern Californian asked me was, “What’s the quantum behind the word ‘Hella'?”

I replied, “A lot.”

I don’t know how much detail I can describe about the legal marijuana business I worked for in those months between October 2010 through early May 2011, but I will politely tread softly by simply saying this: My boss still owes me a thousand dollars. I’ll admit, in the decade since I quit that job, I haven’t really tried hard to get the money; there were definitely good reasons why my former boss did not find paying the employees his highest priority. One of the reasons was the fact he served as a “botany” consultant for a big Hollywood crime film. The other reasons… well, karma has a funny way of disciplining those with good intentions, but at the same time have a tendency to make bad, deluded choices in the practice of hypocrisy.

I’d rather talk about my friendly coworkers I had the pleasure of trimming bud alongside. Of course I should speak briefly of the best friend who got me connected with the job in the first place. I won’t mention his name — I think his current wife would rather have me keep him anonymous. He’s an individual I first met in the third grade when he first moved to America with his family from Mexico. In class he sat across from me. He did not speak a word of English at the time, so I really could not communicate with him. Though half my heritage is Mexican, the Spanish language was not passed down to my Mexican-American mother due to the prejudice of speaking the language during the upbringing of my grandparents. My friend was only in my third grade class for one day, then moved to another because a white teacher could translate for him in broken Spanish.

I did not meet him again until the seventh grade, where we became fast friends, and have been since. He claims I made fun of him for not being able to speak English back in the third grade.

“I never even talked to you,” I’ve said to him on many occasions when we’re drunk. “How could I?”

“Fine, it was the other kids,” he admitted — on the many occasions when we’d reminisce of the past, drunkenly. “I sometimes feel I have to accuse you, because all the kids who were making fun of me were American Mexicans. I have to blame a white boy sometimes.”

We laugh off the past as the joke it is every time.

This other coworker I trimmed bud with was the usual white boy hippie type, who once was a punk-rocker, but had found Rastafari and turned to Reggae music. He was a bassist, I think.

“Hey, man, don’t do acid when you have a cold,” he told me one evening, as we trimmed bud in the weed house in Santa Barbara, just the two of us.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because, I seriously thought I was going to die,” he claimed. “Like for six hours straight I laid on the ground, believing my heart had stopped the day before.”

He was a bit strange. I totally forgot his name. He claimed to have been the cousin of the first person to have been inappropriately touched by that one famous guy who invented the moonwalk while performing live on Earth. Of course, I did not believe him. And I have no idea whether or not he even was a good musician.

The coolest group I got to work with were the roadies for Damian Marley. Hell, they worked for all the Marley’s who did music, but during the time I trimmed bud with them in the weed house, they were between tour dates for both American Rap Artist Nas, and Damian “Jr. Gong” who actually made an album together — Distant Relatives (2010). I must have heard that album five hundred times when all the reggae stoners were in the house trimming. It’s a great album, of course, but when I had the house to myself, it was Danzig, System of a Down, or The Doors on blast. When my boss came in on the rare occasions he’d pay me, he’d state my choice of music was evil and satanic. For a spiritualist who loved to reference the Zodiac, he sure sounded like a devoted Catholic.

I won’t get into the reason why I never went back to that cool job in Santa Barbara; it’s a story for another time. I want to talk about nine years later, during the lockdown of 2020, having a phone conversation with my friend, the very one who got me the job for the marijuana dispensary. All of a sudden we began to reminisce about our time living and working in the weed house, and going out into the night to a club called Sharkeez. Good times. The last era of my life I was free to chill, relax, sit back, and watch the world go by, because I was completely content. Before my luck ran out once again, but that’s a story for another time.

As my mind was stuck in reverie of good memories, I heard my friend ask, “Did you know Andy’s son Pat is famous now?”

“Who’s Andy’s son?” I inquired. “I don’t remember anyone named ‘Andy’ back then.”

“No, stupid, not ‘Andy,’ Anderson,” he corrected.

“I don’t remember anyone named Anderson back then,” I said. “You must be speaking of someone who worked there after I left. You were there for like another year.”

“No, he was there when you were, for sure,” he assured me. “You should’ve heard of him. He did a song with Mac Miller.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of Miller before,” I said. “Unfortunately only when he died. I’m not up to date on today’s pop culture. Remember, I had no idea who Katy Perry was until the first day I showed up to Santa Barbara, when Liz mentioned the chic was from there. Hell, I didn’t even know who Justin Bieber was until he got a DUI. So, who’s this Andy Pat you mentioned?”

“Anderson Paak,” he corrected. “Come on, man, you met him. You told me you hung out with him at the house that one day, when I went to Vegas for a few days. He told you about how his father stabbed his mom when he was like seven, or something.”

“You mean Brandon?” I said. “The dude whose wife was pregnant. And he was part Korean. Said his middle name was Paak.”

“The black guy who I told you stole hella weed. Like pounds of it when [The Boss] wouldn’t show up to pay us,” my friend added.

“Dude, we all took weed from that a**hole,” I informed my friend. “I sold like three ounces of the man’s stuff here at home, but got tired of all the phone calls asking me for an eighth. I just smoked the rest. Those were the days.”

“You should start again,” my friend suggested. “Anyways, the dude’s hella famous now. I think he even got a Grammy.”

The next day I looked up on YouTube whether my friend was screwing with me. Lo and behold, damn, he is famous. I didn’t believe it at first, of course. My friend had been mistaken about certain things before — smoking weed does cause many users to have moments in delusions of grandeur where what they want most in life is granted to them by fate alone. But, nope, not this time.

For me, it was that smile Brandon Anderson has which did it for me; it’s really God’s gift for the man. It emotes the kind of happiness, and vibe which is positively infectious for those in his presence who are lucky enough to witness it.

Yes, I once knew Anderson .Paak in the year 2011, and through my friend, I learned of his fame in the year 2020. At the moment, he has succeeded in earning himself eight Grammys. And I believe he will win more.

During my 20’s — back when I still smoked marijuana — I always wanted to hang out with a celebrity, and puff-pass a blunt between the two of us. So, years later, in the stressful year of 2020, my friend basically informed me I already had.

I won’t say what Anderson .Paak and I conversed about while trimming bud alone in the weed house that one day. Though, when I learned about the fact he wasn’t at the Grammys when he won his first trophy for the song “Bubblin” due to bringing his son — who had a cold — to the hospital instead, I was not surprised, for he told me that his main goal in life was to be a positive presence for his son. Unlike his own father. He impressed me back then with that kind of priority in a world full of fathers who leave their own children alone with the mother, and not supporting either of them.

So, the next time Anderson .Paak performs near where I live, I’ll buy meet-and-greet tickets, wait patiently backstage, and when it’s my turn, walk right past Bruno Mars to Anderson .Paak, extent my hand, and say, “Good to see you again, Brandon. Do you remember me?”