#28. Big Time Sensual Survivalism: On Environmentally-Friendly Food Drugs & Introducing FAQxFAQ
Plus: Why you should care about mushroom and CBD coffees, and other problematic adaptogenic favs // A recipe for Honey Hi's Dandy Chaga Latte
Vol. 28
Astromotional Update: Elegant Gravity Bongs, Jupiter and Saturn, Sitting in a Leo-Guarded Tree
FAQxFAQ: Sex, Food Drugs & Modern Country PopRock-Rap
Happenings & Reads
Mushrooms, CBD Coffee and Other Food Drugs
Chaga Dandy
Witchcast
Hey everyone,
High, how are you? Here’s what’s new: Seth Rogen’s weed company Houseplant has a gravity bong that looks like something ripped out of That ‘70s Show. He also sells very cute flip top lighters that are almost as cute as the ones I am selling right now over at The Butterfly Club general store on 9th Avenue.
Either way, it’s time for a little autumn dreaming for your perfect stoner life when we go back into hibernation again. After all, cuffing season is approaching, even if it doesn’t feel like it. NOT AGAIN.
To that point, between the Olympics, The Fucking Pandemic, and new Lil Nas X music video as Jupiter re-enters Aquarius and Mars is in Virgo, there is some intense energy for getting your shit together and being weird about it. Saturn, ever the disciplinarian, reminds us to stay on-task as there is a ton of distracting AF bold-as-fuck Leo energy in the room with a new moon coming August 8 offering a fresh start. Which is great, because I’ve missed pretty much every recent documentary out, including the Bourdain and Stephen Satterfield ones.
So, where to start? Well, I feel like maybe we need a new festival since SXSW is too old and Friezing Woman never happened. The festival should be called Freaks and Queers By Freaks and Queers (FAQxFAQ) with panels addressing frequently asked questions answered by frequently asked questions from freaks and queers from around the world. There will be no answers or adverts. Everyone should be pleased by this exciting and highly existential event that will be sponsored by all the weed companies. Just the FAQs, ma’am! Eat your heart out, Spannabis!
Hopefully Lil Nas X and Jack Harlow will be there because I’m obsessed with this video. There is absolutely nothing chill or meditative about INDUSTRY BABY. Except…maybe all of it, if you get past the shock value. Also: great cameo of the book of chakras as the tool used to help him escape prison of his miiiind. What a metaphor!
Getting a lot of Lady Gaga x Beyonce “Telephone” vibes off this video with lots of Big Time Sensuality (as a vibe). Except I can’t get over the glaring Virgin Mobile and Beats by Dre product placement at the four-and-a-half minute mark.
One thing to note about Lil Nas X I recently learned is that he doesn’t really partake in the Weed, and I respect that. He wants to keep his head clear after recalling a “scary period of self-medicating” while coping with grief and coming out. Somehow he manages to be both sexy, vulnerable, fierce, and wholesome at the same time. Love it. I have the biggest crush.
Gagayonce will also be at FAQxFAQ, requiring the level of extreme manifestation like Wayne’s World II. Jim Morrison will come to me in a dream, except it will be Val Kilmer dressed as Doc Holliday, making me cry as he laments how the Batman franchise ruined his chances of becoming a serious artist and that why he’s obsessed with Mark Twain. Ideally, Satterfield can make it for a panel with Kacie Musgraves about rewriting the history of black cowboys and psychedelic cosmic cowgirls.
Honestly, I kind of miss the Queer Gaga era because watching her do riffs with Tony Bennett whenever she’s in New York feels like some family apology to the Academy for having the gall to want to be a subversive performance artist. Her entire persona is a series of pop culture references, but I guess she is Ze Fame Monster.
If you are a dream maker like Richard Branson, please get at me. Virgin Galactic seems like the right fleet for this, as Space X now has Grimes hanging out with Alanis Morissette and Nick Lachey, and Blue Origin looks like the Spirit Airlines of space travel, so I feel like it’s just going to launch from Canada soon. Canada needs something to feel good about because they’re not so happy about the whole borders reopening to wild non-vaccinated Americans.
Ideally, we save Earth before going full Fifth Element Operetta. By the way, I am v much into the idea of dressing like LeeLoo as we enter the year of Soylent Green. In the end, someone I dated in the past will try to save me* from getting married to someone else like The Graduate (*that never happens). Then I decide I’m too good for that shit and Gagayonce, Lil Nas X and I break into a choreographed dance routine, then sit in our depression ice tubs discussing it all over a chagaccino to figure out exactly when the joke died many moons before. Fin.
Snapping back to reality where there are so many Xs and not enough OOOs (that’s “Out Of the Office” in case you never worked in one, by the way—a not-so discreet Bunuel-style charm tactic of the bourgeois: to feign ignorance as a power play to the foreign affairs of the plebes, as to say, “Tell me about your world. What is this novel Microsoft Clip Art? I am so fascinated!”). We’re going on vacation! Hence, Discrete Time: the collection of lighters. It’s our time! Where we download on each others’ memories and get off on the fantasy of living, laughing and loving and get back to the Real World. Because the ‘90s are hot!
We are halfway through summer, which means trying to get more beach time in. Maybe plotting which of the 29 habitable alien planets will be the coolest without the reminder that yes, we’re still living in a global pandemic.
Speaking of, my book Easy Weekend Getaways in the Hudson Valley and Catskills makes it oh-so easy for you to find cool off-the-beaten path destinations. It was such a challenging project that I had a full Britney breakdown before the pandemic and that was nearly two years ago. And we’re still living through history!
While the world is melting, there are still reasons to have edibles melt in your mouth, not in your hand. Preferably at the beach or the comfort of your home. Not sure if I’d recommend Disneyland, where I spent a very long time getting heat exhaustion and having a different kind of meltdown with Lou Morton, who contributed a dope playlist this week and who I split a Kiva with before having panic attacks on the Pirates of the Caribbean and thinking that the monorail to the parking lot was a ride. It was also a very terrible time for both the Winnie The Pooh ride and Finding Nemo.
This was less exclusive to Disney than common for the Kiva, whose infused chocolate-covered espresso beans also did a number on me at the Madonna in at San Luis Obispo, where I became overwhelmed at the Liberace acid trip themed dining room and overwhelmed/irate about the show Friends. But that’s a story for another time. I digress.
If you’re wondering what’s going on with Weed that could be more important than this, it’s nothing. And everything. More importantly: what are you doing with the Weed?
Feel Good Environmentalism to Give You Hope For Humanity
There’s an environmentalism drag queen named Pattie Gonia whose name also sounds like a VD. Perfect.
10 badass sustainable cannabis flowers, joints, hash, and more.
Cannabis industry group pushes 'green seal' and tax credits (here is the whitepaper on KEY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR AN ENERGY RESPONSIBLE CANNABIS MARKET).
The food industry is putting metrics and data for tangible sustainability efforts.
One woman in Germany is trying to merge the sustainability and medical markets.
“Carly, why can’t you just start a newsletter like normal?”
BECAUSE THAT’S NOT WHY YOU’RE HERE.
If you wanted a whitepaper report on cannabusiness, that is a different newsletter than this one. This is the one that requires mental gymnastics and a Make-A-Wish foundation plea to pay for a paid subscription.
A girl in the free community pile of the West Village bestowed me with podcast equipment. But there are so many cords! How does this soundboard work? The universe is saying: “Use thy voice, dear Carly!” Fine.
I don’t know about you but online and offline dating is depressing the shit out of me. The time is now to go live, laugh, and love in new places with new people, knowing I have understandably high expectations. Presently, I am finishing a guide to survivalism and barely making it out alive. If the book is a success, it should require less pleading and rejection, but I feel like that’s just normal.
DO, SEE & READ
DO: The McKittrick Hotel is back. I’ve done this three times pre-Pandemic. Highly recommend.
DO: Simone Biles quitting and starting a mental health journey. Can’t wait to see that trip.
SEE: Ending August 1, Alice Neel: People Come First is the first museum retrospective in New York of American artist Alice Neel (1900–1984) in twenty years.
SEE: Art Omi presents Just the three of us, a solo exhibition by Shona McAndrew. Just the three of us will be on view in the Newmark Gallery from May 29 until August 29, 2021.
SEE: Julie Mehretu’s mid-career survey is on display at The Whitney until August 8. “She plays with the parameters of abstraction, architecture, landscape, scale, and, most recently, figuration of lived experiences, and examines how forces such as migration, capitalism, and climate change impact human populations—and possibilities.”
READS: Alia Volz’s Home Baked and Danielle Simone Brand’s Weed Mom, are both giving me life, as well as The Tale of Genji and a few other books. I’ll be checking in with both of these weed witches soon for a tête-a-tête.
In other news, trying to figure out how to turn this newsletter into an NFT and podcasting several days and dollars short, so please be patient. Or help me expedite. But let’s invest! Investing in free trade and fair trade policies. Free the Weed witches! They’re in the weeds!
In the meantime, consider upgrading to a paid subscription for yourself and a friend. Give the gift of Carly in your inbox to a friend. Why not 10 of them. Sell subscriptions like a Girl Scout sells cookies then grows up to become a budtender slinging Girl Scout Cookies, then dies while DIY planning life insurance and funeral costs because this is America! Thank you for coming to my FAQxFAQ CarlyxTalk.
Many people are running on pipe dreams right now. I’m running on iced tea and cookies. Tummy Tea with peppermint, fennel, linden flower and elderflower. Lemon balm and dandelion tea to keep my liver functionality high. The pitcher of jasmine tea that tastes like Simon Lévelt in Amsterdam. Frozen Oreos and handfuls of cherries, spitting the pits in the trash. It’s not a perfect routine, but there as worse ways to live. The elimination diet I did made me realize veganism does feel and look better. I just still love cheese and butter. It’s hard.
Been thinking a lot about Nathan Apodaca skateboarding to Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams before landing that Ocean Spray deal during the early days of the pandemic. Being a spokesperson for Newman’s Own might be an altruistic way to go viral to achieve the American dream of a corporate sponsorship and going viral, but the rest is DIY, my friends! Build it, and they will come! So many questions.
What are your pipe dreams?
It’s a glorious afternoon in the Year of Our Pandemic (YOP) and I am killing time by canonizing myself early as a saint because I want to be Pandemica, Our Lady of the Corona. She is a wrestling warrior, but also a feminist performance artist. A real “Wonder Woman” of the times! She is here to fight depression and systematic oppression. However, it should be noted that to canonize oneself is in vain. Sometimes the best way through the dark place is through it, for friends in low places usually benefit from having friends in high places.
“Carly, drinking alcohol is bad! Why not try these functional wellness beverage?”
Indeed. Caffeine, psilocybin, adaptogens and cannabis edibles. All designed to change how you think, taste, see and feel. These are all food drugs! The sensory world for outliers who question if functional is even the right word. Why is it that we fetishize Hunter S. Thompson knowing far too well that he may have documented his adventures stoned, drunk, pharma’ed up, but maintained consistency as a predictable drug-addled character immortalized by Johnny Depp and a fat Benicio Del Toro with a lot of trippy theatrics?
As a functioning, coffee-drinking stoner who appreciates the finer things in life, I don’t think luxury has to be expensive, but appreciate those who invest in fine details. Being a nature and craft snob is an investment in yourself and the world around you. Heirloom veg. Single origin and estate fair trade labor chocolate. Biodynamics. Hydroponics for some, sun grown in a world where we aren’t constantly putting out fires and choking on the flames.
This is also why I’m talking about craft food drugs this issue. Mushroom coffee isn’t some new novelty, and yet it is. When I met up for a coffee with my dear old friend and candlestick artist Janie Korn at a cafe where the server knew more about brown mascara than coffee, my instinct was to confirm, “Wait, mushroom coffee isn’t ‘new’ but it isn’t ‘a thing’ here like the maitake mochas of L.A. Right?” And just like that, Gael Garcia Bernal walked by with a bleach blond half-shaven mullet that looked very 2006.
A poorly pulled espresso shot always feels like a waste of money, time, labor, calories and a lot of acidity on my system for nothing. If you don’t dial in the espresso at the right grind and pull for the right amount of time, it will taste inedibly sour; not sweet like an espresso should. Some people just see coffee as coffee, but I think about the cascara seeds that a farmer had to tend to, harvest, ship, and deliver. For $5, you might as well get an education with your coffee, as I can tell it was quality beans that delivered the kick, but missed the mark.
Most baristas don’t want to sound like an asshole, so when I was being trained for the umpteenth time, I appreciated that the girl suggested I watch videos from baristas who moonlight as occupational therapists about the perils of carpal tunnel to avoid a similar fate. I type for a living between a computer and my phone, so I think we’re all a bit doomed.
Essential Existential NYC Update
The East and West Villages are alive with humans and ghosts. The aliens come out at night, with neon nail polish and ‘90s chokers. They party with the goths that are nearly ghosts and almost always emotional vampires in nightclubs in Ridgewood where they have assume they’ll die together on the dance floor of The Great Delta Variant.
Last night, I couldn’t sleep because my leg is very itchy because of summer mosquito bites! Ahh! That’s because New York is an island and this is a really magical time to be here being eaten alive by the flora, fauna, and star fuckers. Everyone wants an easy weekend getaway in the Hudson Valley and Catskills—myself included! Jupiter is transiting Saturn natal Square so expect it will be big and weird.
Should you find yourself in NYC, head to Hudson Valley favorite Lagusta’s Luscious’s sister spot, The Confectionary, an “anti-fascist, militantly vegan” sweet shop with a “furious vulva” truffle. I took a photo of their ice cream sandwich featuring oat milk ice cream and two bitchy women rolled by as I took the photo and asked if I “got a good shot.” I did. (I am also over the taste of oat even though it tasted good? Just being honest). How are you?
There is a Village voice and it is not mine. HOoOOOoWL 👋 to anarchistic free Village zine, The Shadow. It is a blast from the past from 2018 to 2019 when they first looked into weed greed. I found it in a newspaper time capsule in 2021 in the East Village. In SoHo, I’ve been buying up old zines from Bluestockings Cooperative and making fun of basics. That said, I have also become one of those insufferable people who doesn’t want to waste my time on bad coffee. Kind of like David Lynch, but without my own brand at Whole Foods. More on that in a minute.
This week I’m diving into the world of mushroom and CBD coffee because it’s queer. There’s nothing normal about mushroom or CBD coffee, even though it’s normalized, so I’m crowning it as gay weed. Mushroom coffee is about as queer as a rainbow on a Coca-Cola ad as far as deviant nature, but holistically and historically relevant. That makes it a problematic fav, just like gay Coca-Cola and gay Citibank.
I realized I’m a huge coffee snob now just as I always was. It’s New York. Can you believe there’s nowhere to sit in New York except the millions of disgusting benches in Central Park and all that grass? Just so green and ready to be sat and smoked on.
Mushroom and CBD Coffee Are Old AF Food Drugs
That’s why you should be drinking them
Seems like everyone is doing ‘shrooms right now—no, not that kind. Actually, that kind, too. But specifically, this is a post about mushroom coffee, a.k.a. mushroom tonics, Dirty Chaga, Brain Dust lattes, and a host of other monikers that became a thing in Los Angeles—because L.A.—where holistic disciples downed these beverages as part of their morning ritual at places like Cafe Gratitude where you must declare “I am” before ordering the Cosmic antioxidant blue spirulina hempseed milk latté with reishi, chaga, and raw honey. Or “I AM IMMORTAL (KOMBAT)” for their ayurvedic latté with chaga, shilajit, reishi, he shou wu, and raw honey. Or “I am Restored’ for their earthy adrenal latté with ashwaganda, pine pollen, cordyceps, maca, and raw honey. RAW.
When Lady Gaga isn’t doing duets with Tony Bennett over baked ziti, she’s actually quite depressed. Celebs truly are just like us. And as she battles with mental health that so many of us struggle with as well, she’s credited the holistic health movement as part of her compassionate care routine to shake her from “not wanting to be herself.” And why would she? Who is she if she is not herself? A caricature of a persona brimming with exceptional talent and tremendous loneliness. Very relatable.
So, is mushroom coffee for normies? Well, anything is for sale, but obviously not. The best part of waking up is dehydrated Ayurvedic mushrooms in your cup.
As someone who lives in the center of the universe—a.k.a. New York City, a city that never used to sleep and now demands detoxing—I try to imagine any of this working outside a place called Cafe Gratitude in Los Angeles. Even here. It has to taste good and not piss off legions of people who consider this shit pretentious because it makes them feel stupid for not getting it or liking it. That’s why it’s being shoved into coffee and watered down for white ladies who think being fat, stubborn and ignorant is an act of resistance, including learning about holistic nutrition. It is what it is. You can be fat and drink mushroom coffee. I do it every other day while chasing it with a slice of pie.
It’s a tall order to convince someone to get on board with Earth Mother cafes outside crunchy college campuses, extreme medical patients, and back-to-the-land hippies. It’s just the way of the health foods movement and access to medicinal mushrooms rather than a knock on our privileged cities. Can only lead a horse to water, then remind them the well is drying up and they should probably take a drink before getting back on the road.
People in the health foods movement have touted the importance of medicinal mushrooms long before I was born. Coffees and teas are just a familiar way of getting it into people’s systems on regular basis. Growing mushrooms isn’t even that challenging, as tweakers in random suburbs can do this, as well as many New Yorkers tight on space. AOC has touted the scientifically proven benefits of psilocybin. Mainly, the interest in mind expansion is about the enjoyment of the planet and how to coexist outside of Costco.
Pulling ancient Ayurvedic and Chinese medicinal holistic practices that use mushrooms as adaptogens (immune and nervous system regulators), trend-forward cafes are serving up coffees laced with instant mushroom powder blends to enhance the morning routine with a good-for-you bonus. Mushrooms like chaga, reishi, cordyceps and lion’s mane are the most common culprits, but powder blends often feature numerous herbs and up to a dozen strains, including turkey tail, maitake and shiitake.
Most of this is available at Whole Foods, but even Sephora started carrying Four Sigmatic products—a brand I really dig because it’s so natural you can consume it. (Would you want to eat your toxins eaten up by a face mask after wearing it? Probably not, but you can!). But the coffee one was interesting because it’s bitter. Cacao is a smarter way to mask the flavor, but the earthiness of coffee while consuming a packet of Om that has the flavor profile or instant coffee: kind of stale in its bitterness. This is why nut milks and non-dairy alternatives are adding flavor to sweeten up the holistic benefits.
Scanning unfamiliar holistic terminology can make these drinks seem pretty hokey, even scary. But erase all the fancy language and it’s just mushroom powder mixed with coffee. And just like your morning pick-me-up, it’s served either black or as a nut milk latte, doctored up with cacao, raw honey or spices to augment the flavor. It’s basically the coffee world’s version of protein powders smoothies and cold-pressed superfood juices.
As for the health benefits? These coffees won’t get you high, but they’ll at least add an extra skip to your step. “[Medicinal mushrooms] are nutritionally dense, packed with proteins, minerals, vitamins (including B and D), and powerful antioxidants and phytonutrients that work synergistically with your body to neutralize free radicals, boost immunity and reduce inflammation,” said Kacie Carter*, co-owner of Honey Hi in Los Angeles and a holistic nutritionist who I interviewed a few years back for this story on mushroom coffee that got the axe.
Along with helping to regulate environmental toxins, it can also balance out the adverse effects of coffee. “Adding mushrooms to coffee can actually help reduce the jitters and crashes from caffeine, negating some of the downfalls for those of us who get a little spazzed out from it.”
That’s fine and well, but let’s be real: how does it taste? Depends on who’s serving it.
Carter’s Chaga Dandy latte at Honey Hi balances its instant chaga powder with brewed coffee laced, ground roasted dandelion root, cinnamon, and vanilla powder, with add-ins like ghee, coconut nectar or coconut milk. “Mushrooms have an naturally earthy, bitter taste—kind of like coffee or raw cocoa beans. Depending on how they are prepared and which brand you are using, most of them that have been dual-extracted and ground into powder form easily dissolve in hot water or coffee, you probably won’t even notice they’re there. They can add body and depth to an already stellar cup of coffee.”
Even Amanda Bacon Chantal’s Moon Juice mini-empire in Los Angeles that has become topically ubiquitous as part of the goop world of holistic hacks uses its own proprietary blend of “Moon Dusts” to spike cold brew coffee “Moon Milks” with alkaline water, sprouted almond milk, and pink salt. When I spoke with Chantal, she said the taste depends on the Dust used: “Brain [Dust] has notes of smokiness from the shilajit, nuttiness from the astragalus [medicinal Chinese root] and a touch of umami from the lion's mane, whereas Spirit [Dust] lends a brighter, sweeter note from the goji berries, but is balanced by the earthiness of the reishi.”
The medicine is ancient, but the intake is the modern point of differentiation through coffee culture. The idea being if you’re not prone to using medicinals, this is something to enhance your routine. Arguably, this is where criticism emerges of “white washing” plant medicine. At the same time, mushroom coffee might also be its own gateway drug into health.
For those of us who don’t live in L.A. (it barely broke the Brooklyn threshold), it’s pretty easy to make at home using instant powder packets stirred into coffee. Honey Hi taps Four Sigmatic’s instant mushroom powders for its Chaga Dandy.
At Matthew Kenney’s Make Out in Los Angeles, their latte uses four to five mushrooms—Anandamide, chaga, reishi, cordyceps—using powders from Sun Potion and MCT oil (commonly found in Bulletproof coffee). And Cafe Gratitude eschews the coffee entirely for their drinks using powders from Essential Medicina with hot water, almond milk or coconut milk, and a couple teaspoons of raw honey.
If this still reeks of a niche trend, think beyond the branding. Ancient medicinals have always been around, they’re just finally receiving a little more attention.
“I just think it’s an awesome, nutritious thing most people don’t know about yet that we would like to see become another normal drink rather than a fringe-y health food flash in the pan,” Carter says. “It’s so delicious and also happens to be good for you (much like coffee!).”
Recipe: Honey Hi’s Dandy Chaga Latte
1 cup brewed coffee
1 packet Four Sigma Instant Chaga
1 tsp finely ground roasted dandelion root
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch of vanilla powder
Optional: 1 teaspoon grass fed ghee, coconut oil or a splash of coconut milk
Blend all ingredients in a high powered blender for 30 seconds until frothy. To sweeten, add raw honey.
WitchCast
This weeks’ Weed Witch playlist brought to you by my pal, Louis Morton, an award-winning animator out in L.A. with chill tunes in case Lil Nas X is too spicy for ya. Please enjoy this video he did for Airbnb based on an actual review.
ASK A WEED WITCH
Have a question about cannabis, witch life, existentialism or nihilism, bath tubs, or whether reality is a construct? Send all your need-to-know questions to itstheweedwitch@gmail.com.