targeting everyone who passed with the free tickets. This only resulted in us having to explain to people our parents’ age what 420 meant. For any of you naïve readers, namely my parents, 420 is a police code for pot use that since become a celebrated time and date for stoners to do what they do best — continue to smoke.
We had to start profiling. We targeted anyone wearing the tell tale signs of chronic use: dreadlocks, tie-dye, or a fine layer of Cheeto dust in their facial hair. We also hit up anyone wearing sandals, any gathering of scruffy looking guys playing with the zippers on their hoodies, and any dudes whose pot bellies stretched out t-shirts featuring Batman or Harry Potter (Potheads are predisposed to believe they have special powers, like the ability to make bongs out of household items and develop revolutionary political strategies based on the legalization of pot).
I was skeptical that the kind of people interested in a 420 show would remember the correct time and day of the comedy show, or they’d get lost somewhere between their apartments (undoubtedly cluttered with fast food wrappers and black-light posters of Bob Marley) and the fuzzy neon lights of Ybor City. Many of the patrons seemed to be that other kind of stoner: the one freshly out of college with a job (perhaps even a good job), but who still had the freedom to let loose after a long day at work. A surprising majority didn’t even know that Theo Von was headlining. They just knew that if the Improv was sponsoring a 420 show, it would be at least as entertaining as a night watching these same comics on Comedy Central while contemplating foreign policy and packing a bong with the shake at the bottom of a Doritos bag, just to see what happens. Perhaps these pro-weed comics were cleverer than I was giving them credit for. Based on the marketing appeal of 420, they packed a theater with people who could be entertained for hours by children’s cartoons and a bowl of Frosted Flakes.
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