Los Angeles, California

When Entertainment Weekly Senior Writer Shirley Halperin and Celebstoner.com publisher Steve Bloom first met it was after a freshly smoked joint at Elecktra Records in New York City back in 1993.
           
“I was working for my school paper at Rutgers University and I traveled into New York to interview Phish.  I walked into this conference room at Elecktra and it was smoky, smelly, and there were magazines everywhere.  All I could think to myself was, ‘O my God, they just did an interview with High Times!’  I went and introduced myself to the writer,” recalls Shirley Halperin from her Los Angeles apartment.  “It was their Editor Steve Bloom, and from that meeting I started interning for the magazine.”
           
Both Bloom and Halperin both spent stints as High Times Editors since then, and fifteen years after their chance meeting across a boardroom table the duo decided to co-author a book on the lifestyle surrounding the pot culture.  Published by Harry N. Abrams the historical and commutative piece is entitled, Pot Culture: The A-Z Guide to Stoner Language and Life. 

The 224-page modern cultural coffee table reader contains celebrity contributions from Rob Thomas, Redman, Maroon 5’s Adam Levine, Steve-O, and America’s Next Top Adrianne Curry.  In addition to celebrity pieces on “How to Roll a Blunt,” the guide explores the historical perspective of marijuana use in American culture. 

“I always wanted to do this book,” says Halperin, “I came up with the idea when I was in college sitting around one night.  I finally got a book agent when I was working at US Weekly and Rolling Stone. When I came up with some ideas, this was the one she liked the least,” as laughter follows. 

“I knew this was the one that was going to sell the fastest, and that is exactly what happened.”

           

_________________________________ "..me coming from magazines for so many years, I learned how to package things.  I learned how to write short.  People have very short attention spans these days.  Because of that we took a magazine philosophy and applied it to a book.  The point of it was for it to be fun. - Shirley Halperin _________________________________

Halperin admits marijuana has always been a creative stimulus in her life and when she moved out to California to shack up with husband and music producer Thom Monahan she joined the cultural network that is responsible for some of the single most uncompromised faces in American music.  The list includes Devendra Banhart, Andy Cabic (Vetiver), Chris Robinson (Black Crowes), Jonathan Wilson, Ethan Miller (Howlin’ Rain/Comets on Fire), and Gary Louris (Jayhawks). 

“The older I got the more I realized it wasn’t such a bad thing.  I am a smart person, and I didn’t see it holding me back.  I view it only as a positive thing.  It has opened peoples’ minds.”
           
“Now I feel it is starting to become very accepted again.  There are stoner lead characters in movies, you can have pot on TV like with the show Weeds, and it has just become embraced.  I don’t really know why, but I think the decriminalization movement had a lot to do with it.  Medicinally you can have weed, and that sort of opened the door.”
           
Though Stoner Language is a historical look at the influence and relevance of cannabis it is not told in the form of a chronological narrative.  It is laid out in the form of an eye-catching attention-driven quick read that audiences can turn to any page and be entertained.
           
“That is me coming from magazines for so many years,” she says.  “I learned how to package things.  I learned how to write short.  People have very short attention spans these days.  Because of that we took a magazine philosophy and applied it to a book.  That point of it was for it to be fun.”           

 “Another important thing I was going for was to span the generational gap of pot smokes,” as Halperin prepares to conclude.  “I wanted it to be multi-generational.  Steve was brought in to specifically handle the older stoners.  The baby boomers, and then I took on the younger generation.  I think it came together really well,” concludes Halperin.