Bobby Black (journalist)

In 2004, Black convinced the magazine's editors to give him a monthly column in which to tell some of the many misadventures he'd had while working at the magazine. He called it Almost Infamous—a play on the film title Almost Famous, in which an average young rock and roll fan who aspires to be a journalist ends up befriending and traveling with a famous band and ends up becoming famous in his own right. The first installment, about the time he got to meet and smoke pot with Ozzy Osbourne, ran in the final issue of Grow America magazine—all subsequent installments appeared in High Times. The column ran for 12 years, with the final installment appearing in the February 2016 issue. In the last few years, Black also released video accompaniments to many of his columns on his YouTube channel.[19]

The High Times Doobie Awards for music (a.k.a. The Doobies) were originally created by editor Steve Bloom and held in New York City each fall. After Bloom's departure from the magazine in 2006, production of the awards show was turned over to Black, who relocated it to Austin and incorporate it into High Times' long-running annual party at the SXSW music festival (which was also founded and formerly run by Bloom). Black produced and hosted the concert/show from 2006 until High Times discontinued it in 2013.[20]

For many years, Black held the honor of being the staff member who had attended the most number of Cannabis Cup events. His first Cannabis Cup was in 1994 in Amsterdam—the first year it was fully opened to the public. Black ran judge registration at the Cup for several years, as well as serving as a member of the video crew who shot the various concerts each night at the Melkweg club, which over the years included performances by such artists as Jefferson Starship, Patti Smith, Fishbone, Steel Pulse, and Rita Marley. After High Times began hosting Cannabis Cups in the United States in 2010, Black became the event's lead reporter—hosting the video coverage of the events and interviewing numerous celebrities and sponsors. He also acted as a cannabis judge for numerous competitions, and even served as one of the Cup's two competition coordinators from 2012–2014.

In 2004, Black pitched the concept of creating an ongoing contest/segment in the magazine called Miss High Times. The inspiration came from Maxim magazine's Hometown Hottie feature, as well as Penthouse Magazine's Pet of the Month/Year contest. The idea was that regular girls who loved weed would send in their photos to be featured in them magazine each month, and become finalists to eventually be chosen as the magazine's "smokesmodel" for that year. The contest was immediately popular, with thousands of young women sending in photos for consideration. In 2006, with the support of then editor-in-chief Steven Hager, the contest was turned into an actual pageant that was held in Negril, Jamaica[21] for two years before being moved to New York[22] and eventually being incorporated into the annual US Cannabis Cup awards in Denver each April. Black ran the contest for 10 years, until it was discontinued in 2015.

In 2004, Black partnered with High Times Records' president Michael Esterson to produce a rock and roll compilation album entitled High Volume: The Stoner Rock Collection. The album featured original songs from some of the top artists in the stoner rock genre at the time, many of whom Black had relationships with through his coverage of the scene in High Times and his Sirius radio show Contact High. Featured artists included Clutch, Corrosion of Conformity, High on Fire, and Orange Goblin, as well as members of Monster Magnet, Kyuss and Eyehategod among others. In addition to handling all of the A&R, Black also wrote the liner notes and designed the promotional materials and cd packaging, which featured photos of Fuse metal VJ Mistress Juliya.

From 2004–2008, Black hosted a weekly music show on Sirius Satellite Radio's Hard Attack channel called Contact High. He was offered the show by program director Jose Mangin after being invited on as a guest for a 4/20 special Mangin that hosted. The show spotlighted a variety of heavy and psychedelic rock bands that fell under the umbrella term "stoner rock", as well as news about cannabis and brief highlights from some of Black's High Times articles. The show also featured occasional in-studio interviews and performances by some of the bands played on the show, including Monster Magnet, Corrosion of Conformity, Clutch, The Sword,[23] Wino, and Seventh Void (featuring members of Type O Negative). Despite its popularity, the show was canceled in 2008 due to the illicit nature of its cannabis theme during Sirius' merger with XM in 2008.

Shortly after leaving High Times in November 2015, Black was approached by a representative of the Revolver Podcast network about hosting his own weekly podcast. Titled Blazin' With Bobby Black, the "potcast" first aired in January 2016 and featured interviews with numerous prominent figures in cannabis culture and entertainment, including NORML's Allen St. Pierre, former High Times editors Steven Hager and Steve Bloom, and comedians Doug Benson and Tommy Chong. In spring of 2017, after his contract with Revolver was up, Bobby transferred the show to Cannabis Radio where it remains to this day.[24] After a year-long hiatus starting in the fall of 2017, Black began releasing some new episodes sporadically in summer 2018—including the 50th episode featuring award-winning actor and counterculture icon Peter Fonda.

Presented by the World of Cannabis Museum Project, Cannthropology is a podcast that explores the history of cannabis culture one artifact and interview at a time. The podcast was launched in April 2020 and is available on all major podcast providers, as well as Cannabis Radio, Haze Radio, and on the World of Cannabis Museum website.