(***The operator of the Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives wishes those reading to know that we do not endorse, encourage or engage in illegal activity. These writings are in spirit with anti-authoritarian subcultures and are meant solely for informational and or educational purposes only. Edutaiment isn’t illegal….yet***)

Greetings,

Everyone knows about the 12 Days of Christmas. But what about the 20 Days of Cannabis? 420 that is. Anyone who has listened to Smile Jamaica over the, well, decades now knows that April is pretty much in bloom with the Seven Leaf  Saturday Afternoons on Community Radio Station KRCL..

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For going on twenty years – on air between 4 and 7 PM Saturdays – every 4:20 is given over to what I euphemistically call “herbtunes”. I call it the Cannabis Service Announcement. A spin on non-profit radio and its promotion of *Public* Service Announcements. These Reggae and Dub boomshots sing praises to the Wisdom Weed.

The closest Saturday to the 20th day is devoted to an entire show of herbal meditations on all formats and styles: vinyl, singles: 7″, 10″ & 12″, cds and digital*; Roots Reggae, Mutant Dub and Rockers doing Reggae. 180 minutes celebrating free speech and diverse lifestyles. Selah!

*I even have Bob Marley’s Kaya (with the title  track and “Easy Skanking” spliff tales) on 8-Track. No player to hear it on, alas.

Because of my job as Audio Engineer in the Marriott Library, I have a slick ProTools digital recorder. So my job pretty much requires me to be a whiz at editing digital files (a skill I originally honed at KRCL on 1/4 inch tape). So I edit a whole heap of sound clips to enhance the mood elevated listening experience. Clips from Cheech and Chong, George Carlin and Steve Martin. Movie dialog from Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown and Saturday Night Live.

I taught myself the DVD audio-track ripper Handbrake just so I could chop a soundbyte out of the Reggae documentary “Land of Look Behind”. From crowd footage at Bob Marley’s funeral, a youth steps forward and shouts “Bob Marley smoked 100 splits a day! A 100 splits a day mon”.

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Saturday, April 19th. 4-7 PM Mountain Time on krcl.org or 90.9FM in Salt Lake City region.

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My annual April Cannabis Service Show. Yeah. It’s silly and obnoxious and totally rude. It’s my favorite show of the year. A lot of my Reggae deejay fraternity are disallowed by their Program Directors to play even a single marijuana ditty. Praise Jah for anything goes KRCL. “Your station that rules the nation!”

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Here is the story behind why I decided to livicate (not dead-icate) a potent blast of pot propaganda 20 minutes into each and every Smile Jamaica. And then some.

This could have been about 20 years ago. I was chatting up one of KRCL’s Drive Time deejays in a record store. His show was on one of the Week Days between and 3 and 6 PM. He got the clever notion to bust out a little weed set during his show that he called 4:20 Funk

Alas, someone at the station put the clampdown on his little exercise in musical free speech. 4:20 Funk was banned. Of course, when he told me his tale of woe I made sure the very next Saturday to debut my own Spliff Tales that I christened Cannabis Service Announcements. You have to be fearless and not back down because freedom of expression is under assault.

So in the Spirit of the Season on this Smile Jamaica blog, I will post 20 Cannabis related posts. I’m behind obviously so I’ll do two a day till I catch up.

Studio kinda cloudy!

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bless – robt