It’s official. The Nectarball Collection and its collector, “Wiz” (Mark Schulze) have officially been “outed” in the April edition of San Diego Magazine.
Jackie Bryant aka “The Plant Lady” arrived along with photographer, Erica Joan, to photograph Mark with a portion of his collection spread out on the carpet as he exhales a big puff of cannabis smoke.
Jackie and Erica both got right to work, determining the best angle for the photo you see above in the back-page spread, and the best way to display Mark’s favorite buds comprising his Nectarball Collection.
As iconic photographer Ansel Adams once revealed in regards to his famous “Moon Over Half Dome” photograph, he lifted himself by standing on his car so the shot would be that much better.
In this case, Erica mounted a step stool and hovered above Mark as he filled the room with a haze of Nectarball, the name he gave to the buds he has home-grown since the 1970s.
It’s both exhilarating and scary to finally step out of “The Green Closet” and reveal who we are to the world: a fun-loving couple who own and operate San Diego’s longest-serving video production company, Crystal Pyramid Productions (est. 1981) and San Diego’s first and only stock-footage library, New & Unique Videos (est. 1985). Our latest work, a documentary called “Nectarball: The Story of Cannabis” has directed a light at us, filmmakers more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it.
Thanks to the esteemed 75-year-old publication, San Diego Magazine and its helmspersons, power couple Claire and Troy Johnson, for opening minds and pages to cannabis as medicine as well as social lubricant. Thanks to The Plant Lady also known here on Substack as a self-proclaimed Cannabitch (which makes me giggle) for encouraging us to pry Mark and me all the way out of the stultifying Green Closet. It validates my feeling that Mark and I (Patty) were born 50 years ahead of our time. Just saying.
Our mission statement for our companies has always been “To have fun in our work, and to make work fun for our clients, crew and us.” Cannabis has been a friend to us, sharing a puff after long production days (12-hour days on set are common), never before or during. Now, as Mark and I approach our “sunset years” which frankly involve more mountain biking, more hikes into Nature, more travel to intriguing locations, and more deep-diving into personal passion projects, cannabis emerges as the way to keep ourselves healthy without addiction to hard-core farma drugs which tend to have side effects that call for even MORE farma drugs that we simply don’t want.
Speaking of cannabis as medicine, one more bit of good news:
My cousin, Gary, who is an octogenarian, told me several weeks ago that he was suffering from lung cancer. Mark and I encouraged him to seek guidance from a Cannabis nurse and start taking cannabis tinctures. He called us this past weekend to report that he had been taking tinctures and gummies since our conversation. He said that he had just visited the oncologist who seemed baffled that his cancerous tumor had shrunk. Gary said he is going to reject the radiation therapy and continue with cannabis tinctures and gummies.
We told Gary how happy we are for him. Health is so very precious.
So cheers to good health, and stay elevated!
Love,
Patty & Mark