Rico“Phone Homie” Valderrama

In 45 years, Rico accomplished more with his brand than many dream of accomplishing in a lifetime. Born Rico Valderrama, he was often known to his friends and fans as “Phone Homie.” He traveled the world meeting and sharing his love for the plant and this industry.

AT A 2012 CONCERT in Amsterdam, Ghostface Killah was performing with the Wu Tang Clan. Rico was in the crowd and was offered a chance to get on stage. He pushed forward, enamored with excitement. Once on stage, Ghostface asked him his name, to which he quickly replied “Phone Homie.” It was the birth of his brand and soon, became a lifestyle that will live on as his legacy.

The mainstream media’s anti-Cannabis spin in regard to Rico’s cause of death felt typical. But friends and family who were present at the hospital said that his condition was complicated due to side effects of Covid-19 and over a year with ECMO treatments – a form of life support used only in critical situations involving the lungs and heart.

“I remember visiting him in the hospital and there were 21 IV drugs hooked together running into him at the same time and it was like that for months,” explained Brian Schottenham, a close friend and New York local who spoke with us about his late friend. “The meds and treatments are what truly burned out his liver, not the Cannabis use,” he added.

But before his illness, Valderrama had the presence to change the energy of entire halls holding thousands of people and he brought that home with him. That’s because his biggest accomplishment was not his brand, but his children. “He was the greatest dad, and everyone around him could feel the love he gave his kids,” shared Franco, a close friend of Rico’s.

Rico had the power to push the positivity of any room and replaced any pessimism present with new opportunities and a comedic change of subject. At every turn, he was a booming voice of fun and comedy with a dab cough that echoed through canyons. He will be forever missed and remembered for his passion and presence in the community. @phonehomie

WE ARE PREOCCUPIED WITH SEX. Since each of us first exited the womb, the genitalia has drawn our fascination by the irreversible magnetism that’s built into our DNA.

But as the system of indoctrination has been designed to control our natural urges through guilt and shame, there is still no proven method of turning off the salacious thoughts that occupy much of our attention – no matter how hard we try. Because like any animal with the propensity to propagate its lineage, the compulsion to unveil the object of our reproductive options hiding behind those undergarments is undeniable. And make no mistake about it, were we armed with the intensity of a dog or a bear’s ability to determine the signals of varying bodily scents, we would probably be sniffing each other’s backsides, too.

Thank God for perfume and cologne.

But then again, those are a creation for the modern age, as our innate senses seek to gauge one’s virility by taking stock of the current state of natural bacteria that we foolishly wash away and subsequently mask with these pheromones of other mammals.

They call this evolution.

Hence, the mind and body will negotiate, often subliminally, to direct our senses to determine what we favor the most based on our biological needs. Just as the nose knows when it dips into a jar of finely-cured Cannabis bud or a saucer of freshly-pressed rosin, the subconscious directs our senses to the favored terpenes to best stimulate the body’s endocannabinoid receptors. They are females, the givers of life, and their sensuous allure is only a different manifestation of what instinctively draws us to the loins…

We want to see the flowers in full blossom. It satisfies our voyeurism.

Because we are naughty.