I think that one of the things that my dad was grappling with towards the end was how that shift had happened now and he would go on a book tour and do his shows and it would be you know fulfilling and good, but he wouldn't have the same impact that he used to and it wasn't because people were less interested. It's just because people are distracted by the million different sources of entertainment and information in front of them at any given time.

I think about the college graduating classes and high school classes that are coming up now they're in a unique position. I mean they're entering one of the toughest economies of all time. At the same time if they're willing to work really hard the ability they have to learn something much faster than we ever did before is there and it's really a question of are you willing to put in the effort and go that extra mile. Because if you are I think there's actually more opportunities out there.

I was about 20 when my mom got sick with cancer and it was bad. It was very scary and at the time I was doing my first screenplay and I was on deadline and was alone with my father in Massachusetts. I said, "Pop, you know, I don't how I'm going to work. I don't know how I can get this done. You know, I got to hand this script in and I can't think about anything but Mom." He said, "Well, you know, now is the time when you're going to learn what it means to compartmentalize." And those words really had an impact on me.

I think that you know you have experts in fields who spend their life studying one thing. When an event goes on that chances are they're going to want that specific expert who has done it to be on the show talking about it, not a writer or an artist of any sort, which I think is a mistake because you know we don't have... I mean we have them, but there is certainly not you know in strong force public philosophers anymore.

There's a lot of forces opposed to legalization marijuana, so I don't want to put the cart before the horse. It's looking like it's going the legalization route, which, you know, a lot of people thought it needs to for a long time outside of recreational and medicinal use, just for crime reasons. We're pumping our prisons full of petty weed offenses and it's partially to feed that industry, but it's not good. It's not good for society, people go in there as a minor criminal and come out as a real criminal.

Whatever the reasons, 2008 it felt as though the combination of distribution models starting to tighten and the publishing and film and music industries having to revolutionize themselves to catch up, and understand how this is going to work in the new millennium has made it a lot easier to pursue multi-platform careers. It's much easier to hire one person who can do three or four different things than one specialist in that field.

It was something that hopefully sparked a few people to do similar things down the road and will keep a certain flavor of magazine publishing alive. I have to say at the end of the day I am glad not to be spending all day, every day in the High Times office, you know, covering this particular angle of life.