No city would be complete without its local head shop and Cedar City has Gunjah: The Bead Forest. Despite all the Googling and asking of hippies I could manage[1], I could not find the origins of the term “head shop.” Although it may lead you to believe otherwise, they do not sell heads there; mannequin, taxidermy, or otherwise. A head shop is in fact a store that sells anything from walking sticks and jewelry to comic books and tabletop games. But all the hobbies and oddities in the front of the store are more or less a cover for what goes on in the back of the store.
Show the cashier at the front desk your I.D. to prove that you’re of legal age[2] and you’ll be taken to a back room where the more illicit products are being sold. There you can buy cigars, cigarettes, cigarillos, pipes, bongs, rolling papers, grinders, vaporizers, hookahs, and for some reason, sex toys[3]. How is any of this legal you might ask? Many of those things I just listed are in fact considered drug paraphernalia and are quite illegal. But you can’t claim that stoners aren’t crafty. You see bongs, pipes, and vaporizers are only illegal when being used with illegal substances[4]. But at any head shop you go to you’ll see signs all over the place that say “For Tobacco Use Only.” I would be willing to bet that no one in the history of smoking has ever used a bong to smoke tobacco but apparently the legality of this strategy is rock solid.
But paraphernalia legislature is not the only thing I wanted to write about[5]. It’s something I referenced a couple paragraphs higher; the tabletop games and other assorted “hobby” items. Some people, including myself, would classify me as a “nerd.” As such, I have visited Gunjah for their tabletop games, action figures, and comic books on numerous occasions[6]. Each day of the week they host different games in the back corner of the building where they have set up several tables and chairs. There’s Dungeons & Dragons on Wednesdays, Warhammer on Mondays, and Yu-Gi-Oh on Thursdays. But then on Tuesdays and Saturdays they host Magic the Gathering tournaments.
As I tend to gravitate toward fellow nerds, I have met a lot of people who play Dungeons and Dragons and they’re some of the friendliest and most accepting people out there. I don’t know as many who play Warhammer or Yu-Gi-Oh, but I’ve never heard anyone use the words “pretentious douche” when describing them. However the same cannot always be said for people who play Magic the Gathering on a “competitive” level. One of my best friends is a huge fan of the game. He has hundreds of cards[7], has carefully crafted a multitude of decks each with their own tricks and complicated attack setups, would probably be considered an “elite” player if such a thing exists in fantasy-based card games, and even he is terrified to go into Gunjah alone to fraternize with the other “elites.” Believe it or not, nerds can be just as cruel as bullies.[8]
But whether you’re there for the comic books, the card games, or the hand blown glass paraphernalia[9], the owners/managers will watch you in such a way that suggests they resent the very idea of customers. It’s as if they were tricked by some crossroads demon into running a store in a small town because they weren’t specific enough when they said they wanted to own a business. I used to think they reserved their glare for young frat boys who only came to their store for pipes and blunt[10] wraps rather than their beads or various nerdities[11], but even if you’re there to buy a game you’ve been waiting months for them to have in stock, or if you’re thumbing through a stack of the newest Deadpool[12] comic books, you can feel their burning indifference to your existence on the back of your head, despite the fact that they look enough like hippies with their beards[13] and ponytails that you’d think they were in heaven. But much like them, I have also spent a significant amount of time among nerds. It can get exhausting to say the least. So after a decade or so of putting up with ridiculously specific questions about a comic book that you would have to ask Stan Lee himself to get the answer to, or just the general nerd smell that tends to build up whenever they gather in large numbers, I guess I could see resenting the customers too.
But a town like Cedar City needs a store like Gunjah, surly owners or not, although a significant portion of the population would probably disagree with me. Being a small Utah town, there’s a looming conservative presence[14] that’s hard to avoid sometimes and Gunjah can offer an environment, that may not always be the friendliest, but is still a sort of haven for those of us[15] who consider ourselves outcasts in this small college town. It’s not just a head shop; it’s a safe harbor for nerds, a head sanctuary.
[1] And I can manage very little discourse with hippies.
[2] Which is 19 in Utah for some dumbass reason.
[3] Turn slightly to the left when you enter the door and you will find posters of naked women, pink furry handcuffs, and all manner of items meant to be inserted into various orifices.
[4] Mostly just marijuana.
[5] But I do love saying “Paraphernalia.”
[6] And I will admit to having spent some time in the back room.
[7] Possibly even thousands, have you ever tried to count cards? What was I supposed to do? Go over to his apartment and count every single one? And would I count the mana cards too? Oh right, you probably don’t know this but mana cards are like resources you need in order to summon your monsters or cast spells. I’m already getting way too deep into this. But in all honesty it is a fun game, dicks or no dicks.
[8] If not more so because they’re smart enough to come up with more intelligent and hurtful insults.
[9] This is of course only to be used with tobacco.
[10] Like a joint, but bigger and uses cigar wrap. So you can get, like, ten times way more stoned maaaan.
[11] This is a word of my own invention combining “nerd” and “oddities”.
[12] Everyone’s favorite merc with a mouth! Thank you Marvel Comics for his creation and his breaking of the fourth wall to make jokes directly at the reader.
[13] The female owner does not have a beard and she usually has her hair down, but she still has sort of a hippie air about her.
[14] You and I both know I’m referring to the Mormons.
[15] Nerds and deviants.
