What Is
UHH DIRT??!!
In the words of Reggie Noble – let’s start diggin’
But first - an editor’s note: all writing on UHH DIRT is gonna be done Acapulco off-the-domo because in true Sum Ish I Wrote, Dave Ellis fashion - fuck an edit.
UHH DIRT was a short-lived, demeaningly-crass middle-school comic written and drawn by members of the Grovers’ Ill collective - aka, Dave Ellis (aka The Big D), Steven Ellis, Matt Franklin (aka Frankie Nux) and Pete Wolff circa 1997-1998.
Generally, the issues were based around the adventures of our lovable crew aka my childhood friends and classmates, as we cruised around West Windsoropolis (aka West Windsor, NJ - our hometown) accentuated by various figures such as myself (aka COUGH COUGH, aka the Defchild), Bootlegzani, the Schultzinator, Little Head and Big Head, and a menagerie of other crudely-sketched motherfuckers who probably grew up to be cool, mature contributors to society and beacons of the overarching radiant frequency of kindness that we all aspire to resonate with.
Except for some fools featured in the books - they got older, but are still shitty. Perhaps even shittier. And they’ll remain more nameless than those with aliases, because fuck giving space to rude peoples.
But this site isn’t about reprinting immature and crappy comics we drew when we were kids. It’s about interrogating the past, reflecting on memory and its lingering lesions, honoring my departed close friend Dave Ellis and his enduring impact on us all and naturally, it’s about growing weed. Duh.
As a general rule - government names won’t be named other than my own and Dave Ellis, who’s simultaneously smiling from up above that this obscure thing got resurrected but also cussing me out for not getting my own style and merely jocking his.
But also - I got a journalism degree and need to honor all that ethical shit duh (shouts to NYU - kind of). Plus, another bigger reason for omitting names persists: stories are things you should be able to project yourself into on some level, and while this is personal to me, I don’t want that specificity to overshadow it (possibly) feeling personal and relatable to you.
“But hold up P - Why is the weed relevant?” I hear you. Great fucking question.
Well, this little metafictional essay writing project is both a knowing nod of irony and an underscoring of the passage of time being undefeated: by growing a (formerly illicit) drug that I was a total dickhead about and bitched out my friends for doing until I hit that shit at 18, I’m spitting out my mea culpa: my bad folks. Even if this stupid plant is/was 100% the reason a lot of the people referenced in the content got arrested/their lives ruined/etc, I can’t deny - shit is fire.
And also, as of now, it’s a conduit to an entrance to a memory palace for me to root around in.
But don’t get it twisted: I’ll take you through the weed growing part with complete transparency.
I’ve built a grow app that gives you a live look into how our grow journey is going for my newbie ass. I actually want to get good at this. I don’t really half-ass shit that I care about and I love being the dumbest person in a room. This is purely a personal nostalgia project - nothing is for sale, no profits being counted. So bathe within my electrical bill and art-creating costs. My insanity is your clarity or whatever El-P said on that Co-Flow jawn.
Aight, word. So that’s the gist. Y’all ready for the details? (I’m a longwinded motherfucker, deal with it).
The details lie in the initial inspiration: our beloved and most sadly departed Dave Ellis, who 20 years ago died in a wack-ass accident and left behind a trove of random shit that didn’t burn up in the fire that took his life.
Because fire being fire, flame met all the records, sneakers, clothes - including the Chairman Mao hat he copped in China and wore religiously thereafter til the end, posters, hand drawings, gear, old school smut and all other physical objects - them shits got taken.
What remains? The ineffable and ephemeral aka subjective and shared memories, and archived bits and bytes - all just as much “Dave Ellis” as the physical things we lost because D Ellis was seemingly not capable of leaving anything - a crudely told joke, a radio show, a blog post - without making it distinctly his.
“Sure, Paul … Hip Hop Reviewz was a great website. The rare audio tirelessly recorded off Future Flavaz, Stretch Armstrong and the Wake Up Show posts were gold. Ellis on a heater during an ECW PPV (shouts to Heatwave ’98) talking hilariously spicy about not getting laid? Duh. That shit is classic, no doubt. Tell us something we don’t know about.”
OK, boom: what about the real detritus?
I’m talking about the scraps of scraps, of ideas that found expression but were oblong, strange or worse yet (and often) crude, bad faith. Jokes that punched down. Stories about real people, thinly veiled, that reduced those folks (myself included) to nothing more than crass caricatures.
The pinnacle of this is none other than Ellis’ (and broader Grovers’ Ill crew) comic “UHH DIRT!!!!” - a thing that, like a plant with a limited harvest window or zooming way out - each of our lives, slowly hurtling towards the end at every moment - made me want to figure out how to commemorate and memorialize.
So duh: bust it, we’re gonna flip this whole shit on the remix tip, taking 1997 to 2026 and beyond: every so often, our UHH DIRT main page will unlock a new “issue”.
It may be named after a person or character from the UHH DIRT universe, it may be indebted to a concept or idea that only 25+ years of reflection could yield, it may be something I haven’t even thought of yet that gets my fingers moving and talented artists like Sarah Grillo ideating and drawing dope shit inspired by 1997 MS Paint shit that Dave and Co. made.
The first public facing expression of UHH DIRT will be the release of ISSUE 001 - “He No Here”. It will be accompanied by the first packaged jar of flower to come out the Pimp Palace West garden (aka my spare bedroom closet).
“He No Here” will be dedicated to one of my/Dave’s/our closest childhood friends - Little Head.
It will reflect and focus on the ways people drift over the course of their lives, and how the past informs the future in strikingly prescient ways. Who is the “he” in this supposed utterance? Was this shit even said? What are you even talking about Paul?
I’ll dive into it in a forthcoming essay to accompany the release.
Each release will include an essay by me. It will be jarred in a limited edition Miron jar, featuring unique art for each release or “issue” of the relaunched UHH DIRT.
UHH DIRT artwork will be based on the original drawings by Dave Ellis, and augmented with the artistry of Sarah Grillo, a beloved honorary Grovers Ill representative who’s nice as fuck with the pen and pixels.
Wrapping this intro post up, let’s call out the obvious - this whole thing may be a little clumsy, we’ll see, but it’s been enriching and creatively inspiring to do a little diaristic writing along with the cannabis cultivation and packaging.
//until more - may love and light illuminate your way,
Paul.
A little more about Issue 001 “He No Here”:
“He No Here”, like most of UHH DIRT’s releases, strives to use cannabis/physical product to evoke emotions and thoughts. In the case of UD001 - thoughts around loss and absence.
It looks at the seemingly trivial and downright speculative / possibly false events we inflated with importance growing up and offers a lens on a dense and knotty subject in a personal way that I hope people can relate to.
The strain will be Soureen #18 sourced from a West Windsor alumnus. True story: the alumnus in question was my inspiration for this whole weed shit, namely because he’s talented as hell and a great teacher - but moreover, because it offered me an opportunity to connect more deeply more regularly with a great guy I’ve known since I was 14 years old. Sometimes it’s that simple - you do things to show people you care about them. Strangely, this was my avenue - and the man knows who he is, and now knows what it signifies to me.
Soureen is a cross of Sour Diesel and Irene OG. It’s potent, gassy and dislocative in a way that felt evocative of the title.
This is my 2nd time ever harvesting flower, so – it’s a work in progress. I’ll share more in a dedicated release post including the essay and thoughts on the end result - what went right, what went wrong and how I intend to improve in the next run.
All product from the UHH DIRT project is grown organically in living soil, under one 330w LED light. Our grow set up is tiny - 2x4x6 – so we will do what we can.
As for the product itself - nothing is for sale. You wanna see the art and give me feedback? Pull up to the crib.
Until then - chuckle loudly because I know for a fact that the idea of “free” weed to Grovers’ Ill cats who used to scrounge together $10 to buy some schwag (allegedly) is preposterous.
Well, bathe within our unbelievable-ness.
Ellis wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Peace.