Frank on thirty years at Purple Haze and the art of glass.

0:00Just building the community and going, you know? Oh, well, that’s perfect. I tweeted community first last night. Let’s go. Nice, dude. So, what’s up, man? What’s your name? My name is Frank. And I work here at Purple Haze, George’s Local Head Shop. We’ve been in business for 30 years. And right now we’re running an event called Final Friday. And it’s basically just a bunch of local vendors, like homies and stuff, pulling up just to come hang out and vend their goods. You know, we do it every last Friday of the month, and the idea is just to have people come out and have a good time and

0:30show off what they do. Hell yeah. And so, what’s the history of Purple Haze? Just a long-standing head shop in the Denver city city area. Okay, second. How did you start working here? Uh just through some homies. I collected glass for a long time, and my love of glass and like knowing glass artists got me the opportunity to start working here, and through that, like I’ve been here 8 years, and just built a role for myself in creating these events and Hell yeah. bringing more people to the stores and stuff. And you mentioned community. Why’s Why’s community important to you? Neighborhood, like working here for so long, I know like

1:07everybody in the hood, you know? It’s like sick to connect with people just over a vape or papers or a bong or whatever and like building that like relationship just off of glass or weed, you know? And that’s why I love this, like, you know, doing that. And I’m also eating a hot dog from Mister Sausage’s damn good dogs in there. Yeah, they’re good.

1:30yeah, like I had I had to shout that out cuz they’re fire. No, I did have one. I had one. I had one. I’m I’m I’m a fan. I’m like sometimes afraid of eating hot stuff, but I was like, I’m a man today.

1:40Today, we’re doing it. It’s just chilly enough out. It’s great. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I’m diving into the abyss, doing all the scary things like making the videos, right?

1:47Hell yeah, dude. How you doing? Do you do any kind of creative stuff? I I blow glass. Uh it’s not I don’t so much see it as creative as just a hobby. I’m not a creative person, but I like to just, you know, do things.

2:00been blowing glass? Mhm, like 4 or 5 years now. Okay, sick, sick, sick. You even making money? like so Yeah, I do. I saw a pipes here. I make butt plugs, pendants, marbles, and like small little spoons. And Purple Haze is, you know, I’m lucky enough that they scoop my stuff for me, and then I’m able to sell it to customers over the counter. You know, it’s a great relationship I’ve got. And what would you say is something that you’ve learned through kind of facilitating this community here? Just getting uh uh getting back what you put in, you know, like this started because I wanted to sell my

2:36stuff, you know, like I do the vintage thing. I sell clothes and, you know, toys and stuff like that, and I just wanted a space that I could do it, and it turned into this now. I’m like I don’t even have space. Like my racks got pushed outside, which is fine with me cuz it’s a beautiful night, you know. Yeah, but which rack is yours? Where’s your

2:50I’ve got clothing there and right here. Okay, so talk to us about it. That’s sick. Perfect timing, huh? Yeah, yeah, that’s why I came out here. Um I like animal prints and stuff. I’ve got like some sick ones. Like these mountain shirts are sick. Okay. Oh! Yeah, and then like this one I’m wearing, it’s like a vintage Marv Rag shirt, like the brand. Okay. And then like just crazy stuff. More obscure stuff. How’d you get into clothes? I like clothes. I like T-shirts, yeah. Always? Yep. Yep, I’ve always had a crazy collection of anything I find I, you know, like get into I collect a lot of, you know. So

3:27since I was a kid I’ve had a lot of T-shirts. I’ve had a lot of glass marbles and stuff, and it’s just led me here. Are you originally from here in Denver? Nope, I’m from central New York. Oh, really? Like where? Uh Rome is the city. It’s like near Syracuse area. Okay, okay, that’s sick, that’s sick. I did New Year’s in Ithaca this year. Why Why Ithaca, if I may ask? Yeah, why? Uh just like some friends I know like have people over at their house. Oh, nice, sick. Yeah, Ithaca is gorgeous, man. That is definitely beautiful.

3:51Yeah, it’s a dope place. We went up and looked at all the snow around uh Cornell and [bleeped] Oh yeah, yeah. It was beautiful. Fire. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I’m I’m based in Philly. So I’ve only been out here about maybe four or five weeks.

4:01Nice, yeah. And like that’s yeah, like we’re doing these every month. We do a lot of other events, too. Like one of my coworkers, Suzanne, she started doing these events called high tea. Okay, what’s that? That’s where we basically just like brew tea and like get stoned, you know? Like we get some hash companies to come sponsor the event. They bring some samples. They like we try it all and like you know, just drink tea and smoke hash. [bleeped] yeah. How is it like like creating partnerships with like the the the big cannabis here in Denver?

4:33I don’t I don’t. Like I don’t have any desire to like mess with big cannabis, you know? Like everybody that I’ve partnered up with has is a homie, you know? And that’s I really would rather just deal with homies and like, you know, the guy that’s growing the weed, washing the hash, like doing the whole thing, you know? It’s just to me that’s where the love is and like I see that in the product and when they bring their product to just to show off and people are amazed by it, that’s, you know, the proof I need right there. So you think that’s a big opportunity right now is

5:00like more of a grassroots cannabis industry as opposed to like big tobacco? I I think it’ll always be, yeah. It always has and always will be, yeah. Like people always want the smaller batch, more cared for, you know, product. And yeah, like big cannabis will be a thing because, you know, cigarettes and Walmart, whatever, it’s all a thing, capitalism. But there’s always going to be places like this where we support, you know, quote-unquote the underground and the the gray area communities and stuff like that because that’s what we thrive on, you know? Like those are our homies, those are the who support us, so we’re

5:31going to support back. Okay, sick. And then my my last question, right? So I’m doing this like weekly contest where we we put up $100 bounty each week and people around the world can submit and we ask them to go out and ask a question. And it’s like my project, We Them Media. So I have to go out and ask people the question. And the question this week is what’s the most important global issue today? I would say global issue, I would say probably like the war with Israel. Like cuz it’s affecting everybody. Maybe us trying to take over [bleeped] Venezuela and Denmark or whatever. Like,

6:04you know, [bleeped] that we’re causing. Yeah, literally, right? Yeah. So, I saw an Instagram post today and it was like, “Realizing we’re the fire nation.” Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s like, “What are we doing?” You know, I And I’m not the greatest person to ask about this because I don’t pay too much attention because it’s it’s just too much and it’s just like

6:25I mean, where do you even look? Yeah, exactly. And it’s just, you know, getting propaganda thrown at you and like, you know, my favorite thing is just to at these events is talk to people about what’s bothering them and, you know, hearing from them and like hearing the different sources and their different opinions on things and being like, “Okay, this is where we should be leading, you know?” Mhm, absolutely. And I mean, that’s the value of community, right? Is having those spaces. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, where you can feel open and like accepted to talk about what you’re like, you know, what’s going on in your life and what you’re afraid

6:52of or what you’re worried about, you know? Yeah, yeah, and feel supported and feel seen and really get to make sense of it with people’s perspectives, too.

6:58Yeah, exactly. And if somebody doesn’t have the same perspective, like it’s a, you know, you don’t have to feel like you’re going to be shot down or, you know, disrespected because of that, you know? We’re all very much on the same page and like just want a better world. You know, that’s why we’re doing these, you know? Smoke weed and chill. Hell yeah. I’m curious, if you could ask people around the world any question, what would you ask them? Why aren’t you more neighborly? Why aren’t more people talking to their neighbors and creating more of a community? Like, you know, why has it got to be online on

7:35Facebook keyboard warrior [bleeped] Like, be out there. Be at these events talking to people, you know, like spreading the word, not just, you know, hiding or shying away or whatever it is. Oh, yeah. You want to shout out your Instagram or anything like that or this place? Uh just Purple Haze, yeah. I’d love to shout out Purple Haze. We’re shop Purple Haze on Instagram. And yeah, like follow us. We’re always doing events. Like everybody’s always welcome. You know, like reach out to me on that Instagram. I run it, so I’ll, you know, I’ll be the one you’re talking to and, you know, go from there. [bleeped]

8:10yeah.