In the late sixties, we spent a lot of time with smoke in our eyes. On
summer evenings, squinting at the sun setting over the thimble islands
in Stony Creek (aka Stoned Crik), Connecticut – we used to sit on the
deck and share ideas.

Artists, writers, philosophers, architects and shrinks – all in
conversation about what was going down. Vietnam, Nixon, feminism, love
and the groove of the sixties soundtrack. My thing was “caustic
merriment” – art that made people happy, and a bit scared by the
prospect of being totally free.


One day, I got a call from Bert Summer. His songs in the musical “Hair”
totally capture the spirit back then, and he asked if I would do a
portrait. I had been tinkering with layers of plywood and textiles in my
studio on Shell Beach and decide to make him into “People Furniture.”


The People Furniture gig played out for a while, I did pieces of Henry
Kissinger and President Ford – that was before leaders were from reality
TV. I was always ahead of the trend. I was a hippie in the fifties, and
by the seventies, I started thinking I should be in business. Everyone
wanted to get rich in the eighties, but my money moment was in the
seventies – I tried inventing toys, launched a children’s furniture line
and finally games like Grass.  Fact is, I was good at ideas, but crap at
business.  We were rich and poor so many times, that I started wondering
if it would ever work out. And so did my wife, Kathy. She got fed up and
tossed me out.


I lived in my studio for a while, and then hit the road in my VW thing.
I met the most incredible people. Visited ghost towns, old friends and
the London Bridge in the dessert. I started writing stories. Living out
of roadside motels, I put my rambles to paper, and started feeling
better through the generosity of clandestine encounters.


Life bubbled along, and brought new love stories, new ideas and a new
life – this time in Nashville. Nashville was just weird enough to accept
a Northern hippy artist like me in their fold. And I had been fooling
around here for twenty years, when I got the most surprising letter.
Mostly, I only get announcements from Clearinghouse Sweepstakes – but
this was legit – an actual check in the mail. Royalties from the Grass
game! I had moved house so many times and I had half-forgot about the
game, and fell off my chair when I got ten grand from some dudes in
Australia who had been selling it behind my back.


I was watching the news and saw pot getting legal in Colorado and
California. Medical Marajuana was going everywhere, and I thought about
the old days and the game. I told my son about it and he laughed,
remembering how confusing the rules of the old game were. But as he was
a bit better at converting ideas into products than me, we decided to
re-launch the Grass. The old distributer had shut down, and the old
manufacturer had passed hands to Carolyn, the daughter of the boss at
Totalwell. So the son and daughter got together, updated the look,
rewrote the instructions and re-created the Grass, so fine folks like
you could have an intoxicating good time.