MIDZOTICS

WE’RE TEARING down the two-lane highway that carves through the wetland stretch between Vallejo and Sebastopol, slicing through the dark, sticky night like scissors trimming sugar leaves. The engine whines at a high pitch as we fly past blackened silhouetted landscapes, reclining in bucket seats mere inches above the ground. How fast are we going? It feels like 1,000,000.

I glance over at the driver, who’s talking at breakneck pace without diverting his gaze from the unfurling blacktop, gripping the wheel tightly in his Wonder Bread NASCAR uniform.

“Dude, I like how you drive,” I say. “You push it to the limit.”

I peer through the dark at the dash, squinting to make out the odometer reading. We must be breaking multiple traffic laws at this pace. My eyes find the correct dial. We’re only going 65 miles per hour.

I suddenly remember we’re in a Geo Metro.

“Its full street name is the Lambo Metro Geo Ghini,” said Matt Shotwell, legendary trapper and owner of Midzotics, one of the most memorable flower brands in California Cannabis. Shotwell feels immense pride in the trusty steel steed carrying us through the night. “Its government name is the Chevy Geo Metro, the most midz car in America. That’s why I chose to make it my brand car. At least that’s the marketing pitch. But really, I’ve had five of these cars. ‘I made a million in a Metro’ is what I like to say.”

The fact that Shotwell took a Geo Metro, with its 55-horsepower inline 3-cylinder engine, and decked it out with bucket seats, a sweet paint job and Lamborghini-style scissor doors, tells you everything you need to know about his approach to life. Well, almost everything.

Before The Midzness

Shotwell opened his first dispensary back in 2010 in the waning heyday of the Prop 215 era after a couple of years slanging weed via Craigslist in a different Geo Metro