Devin the Dude is dropping some of his own supply at the Granada Theater on Friday. No stranger to Dallas hip-hop fans, the Houston-based wordsmith makes frequent trips to our fair city and hopefully you have been able to count yourself in the crowd. It's always a fun night, and Devin's love of women and weed bring a friendly if distracted crowd. I'm not here to sell you on his rap game, though his tag line, "best rapper you've never heard," carries a certain amount of truth with its humor. If you need a starting point, "What A Job" isn't a terrible one.
Past Devin shows have taught me there is a little less oxygen in the room than at other artists' shows. If you feel a little woozy, go ahead and get some fresh air. Also, it's going to take a long time for things to get started, and when it's over, it's going to take a long time for everyone to file out. Things are just going to generally take a long time, you know, because you are high.
Here are some of our helpful tips to go unnoticed in the Devin-inspired sea of green.
1) WHAT WOULD DEVIN DO? Here you are in the venue, grass, grass city. But what can you MacGyver a pipe out of? Your wristband? Totally, just sculpt it into a bowl and .... actually, that seems dangerous. The Granada does sell those giant cookies, are food pipes a thing? They should be, that one would make an excellent snack in about a half hour.
2) E-Cigs Oh, you fancy, huh? You have an electronic cigarette that lights up that you are technically allowed to smoke from indoors? I appreciate those things are useful if you are actually tying to quit smoking and I guess you could take it apart, put your weed in there and vaporize your minty chocolate electronic whatever, but my advice is just to smoke however you smoke and then pull that e-cig out when you get a side-eye from a security guard or some judgmental Betty. Look, e-cigs are uncool and distracting and as soon as that thing is out and available as a topic of discussion, most humans will just say, "Oh, so that's an e-cig, huh?" Take the bait.
3) A green-cheeked gibbon This endangered breed of monkey is a hunter. Once he or she's nabbed a bud or two from your neighboring concertgoers, the monkey will return and you can load that in your pipe and smoke it. Or better yet, load it into some other stoner's pipe and share it, so you and your monkey can walk about freely sans paraphernalia. I am not totally clear on what the Granada pet policy is because I didn't inquire. I feel like if you were really confident about the monkey being on the list you could probably get away with it. In all things, confidence is key.
4) Make a difference Volunteer to man the Dallas chapter's NORML table at the show. You will appear to be a cannabis sympathizer at first glance, but, armed with boring brochures and your sturdy soapbox, even the cops will back far, far away from your boring, boring table. Once everyone has established they don't want to talk to you, blaze up! No one is paying attention.
5) Get invited! Devin the Dude always has a posse of epic proportions on stage with him. His last stop in Dallas, I counted more than 30 people behind him, not doing anything to contribute to the show. But, they do look cool and seem to be allowed to smoke up there. At one hazy but (sort of) memorable Fun Fun Fun Fest, I spied one such posse member pulling a table-sized bong out of his back pack and smoking onstage like it was some measly one-hitter. In the posse, you will certainly be noticed but you will be in some onstage other-world where Devin the Dude calls the shots. I don't know who all those people are, or how they got there, but I want to be there.
In fact, Dev, maybe your friends could get with my friends? If you are crew-recruiting, you can find me in the VIP section I just snuck into with a green scarf around my neck. In fact, being one of the 30-plus people onstage just made it to my bucket list. So help a Deb out, won't ya?
Devin the Dude plays Friday, May 11, at the Granada Theater, with Leon The Professional, The Coughee Brothaz and Picnictyme.