WHAT IS “BUBBLEMANS WORLD?”
Well about 18 years ago, in 1999 , I started a company called Freshheadies and our main product was going to be a water extraction bag kit. ie BUBBLEBAGS. I was not the first water extraction bag company to hit the market, but I surely was one to make a larger splash. Helping popularize the process for the last almost 20 years, using water and ice to extract glandular trichome heads, I began down the road of educating myself about this plant.
In 2007-08 I purchased a macro lens called the MPE Canon 65mm lens. This was going to help create what we would later become know as “Bubbleman’s World,” allowing me to get into the plant deeper than I had ever gone before. Before I picked up this lens, Joop Dumas was a huge inspiration with his electron scan microscope shots out of Amsterdam in the mid-nineties. These were the cleanest and clearest shots I had ever seen of cannabis gland heads, and I will admit I wanted in. It took me almost 10 years before I actually picked up the MPE lens and began my journey into the world of macro.
The learning I did was incredible, and of course once you can start seeing these different things, you want to learn the correct terminology of them. So this is how I learned about the three different types of trichomes , ie capitate stalked glandular, capitate sessile glandular, and bulbous. I also learned about the purple color that climbs up the stalk of certain cultivars. This purple color is called anthocyanin, and is an anti-oxydant that is found in flower petals as well as blueberry skin.
Perhaps though one of my most interesting discoveries was that of the seed. I had no idea there was a membrane between the seed and husk and the embryo inside. This thin material seems to make it so the embryo can slide out of the husk without damaging itself. Also as you can see once the cotyledon ( first set of leaves , rounded ones) comes out and releases the epicotyl ( first set of true leaves ie serrated) there are already bulbous gland heads growing on them. This is why when juicing cannabis leaves you can get the effects of cannabinoids.
From everything I’ve learned via science journals etc, the cannabinoids are synsthesized inside the glandular trichome head via phenolic and terpenolic compounds acting as the building blocks. This is where all of the medicinal, preventative, recreational, euphoric properties are, ie cannabinoids and terpenes, until science can show me otherwise.
Because I didn’t have the expensive scientific testing devices available to me, I was forced to another route to learn and educate myself about all things cannabis. Bio assay and macro photography were two my of my greatest facilitators to that. From there i started a youtube channel and called it what else, “Bubblemans World.” It was through this platform that one of my greatest successes came to life. “Hash Church.”
My channel was growing well, but on a whim one day I went live for a stream , as I had just hit the milestone and was offered the ability by youtube. It was Sunday morning and having to go to church as a young lad, I thought it could be church, but no longer Christian church, let’s make it “Hash Church,” not thinking I would do over a hundred in a row eventually. To those of you unfamiliar, “Hash Church” is a live gathering via google hangouts, where 10 panelists meet up and discuss all things cannabis.
The people who have been on are amazing activists, growers, doctors, chemists, business owners, glass blowers, hash makers, oil makers, hemp processors, genomic experts, and just countless amazing folks from the industry. The Show covers all things cannabis, from the local weekly world news on cannabis, as well as specialized shows where wonderful people come in and give presentations.
Having Dr. Lester Grinspoon on the show was one of my personal highlights–thanks to Todd Mccormick for inviting him and some other incredible people over the past two years . We have managed to never miss a single Sunday yet. Because of this, I have streamed from Jamaica, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Toronto, Vancouver, Whistler, and many other spots over the last 118 Sundays.
I am very happy to have extended “Bubblemans World” over to Grow Magazine, where I will be sharing with you the best of all things Bubbleman over the course of the upcoming year. From our project in Jamaica with the Rasta’s and the University of West Indies collobarting with cannabinoid research and development, to projects around the U.S. and Canada. I will be sharing with you the lovely Macro world as well. So pull up a chair, and grab your pipe, things are about to get interesting.