An Interview with Shari Mueller

It was Christmas Eve, 1974, and a girlfriend of mine was supposed to visit from L.A. but she canceled at the last minute. I felt a little upset, so I decided to go for a walk. Everything was closed for the holiday. I lived right off Union Street and I was amazed how quiet San Francisco could be. I was crossing a totally deserted street when, out of nowhere, a white Porsche came zooming and barely missed me and caused me to fall down. The guy pulled over and got out and he was real apologetic— and just gorgeous! He said, “Well the least I can do after knocking you off your feet is take you out to dinner.”

His name was Jeremy Stein and I think he was involved in producing an album Bob Dylan was on. Over dinner, he told me he had just read a really cool article in The Chronicle about a commune in Scotland called Findhorn. Just hearing that name, something resonated deep in my soul, and I found myself telling him, “I don’t know what this place is about, but I know I’m going to go there by the end of next year.”

Jeremy and I dated for a while after that. Around summer of ‘75, he reminded me of my commitment to go to Findhorn. I didn’t have much money, but I decided to just act as if I did, and I bought a ticket I really couldn’t afford.

About two weeks before I was going to leave for my trip, I went to a party where I hardly knew anybody. I was talking to a woman I’d never met before and telling her all about Findhorn and how I was trusting the universe to provide, since I didn’t have money. She just whipped out her checkbook and wrote me a check for $600, and said, “Good luck in Scotland.” She insisted I take it, so I told her I’d pay her back and eventually I did.

Findhorn1 turned out to be just an incredible, magical place. The earth around there vibrated with this amazing energy and I fell in love with Dorothy and the Caddy’s and everybody. It was where I needed to be. But they just had so many people coming over, because of all the attention they were getting in the press. It was going to be a problem sustaining that many people. So they made an announcement that you had to be able to support yourself financially, or you couldn’t stay long-term. I went home, but I was determined to come back with enough money to stay.

I set my intention with the universe at earning $10,000. Once you set an intention, you’re supposed to just let it go, but keep your eyes open for what comes along.

One day, a friend of mine told me, “I have a business where I bake breads and individually wrap slices and sell them at the flea market in Sausalito.” So that’s what I started doing, but in San Francisco. Breads, muffins, peanut butter balls—just a basket full of things I’d walk around and sell down at Fisherman’s Wharf.

It was a fun time. There was a lot of laughter and happiness. But I was just clearing maybe $25 a day and I could see that it was not going to get me $10,000 anytime soon. Then one day, one of the street artists down there called me over and said, “You know, we have a lady that makes magic cookies for us and she’s leaving town. We were wondering if you’d consider taking her place.”

“Oh wow,” I said, “I gave up drugs years ago. I don’t really use any right now. I don’t even know where to get it.”

He said, “Hey, don’t worry about that. We’ll buy it for you. There’s no dark, back alley kind of stuff to go through here.”

So I went home and I said to the universe, “Look, I’m working with this concept of getting $10,000 as quickly as possible to go back to Findhorn and I really need some advice here. What do you think? If you want this to happen—if you want me to make marijuana brownies—let all the doors open. And if I’m not supposed to do this, just whup me upside the head and make it real clear.”

Then I just kind of sat back and waited for something to happen. Well, those people didn’t even wait for me to say yes. Next time they saw me, they gave me a substantial amount of marijuana and said, “This is a gift. You can start messing around with it in your kitchen. If you decide you don’t want to do it, just give it back to us.”

So I started working up a recipe and I found one that seemed pretty good. To differentiate between my regular brownies and the magic brownies,
I put a single cashew nut on top of the magic brownies and individually wrapped them in cellophane. I kept them in a pouch on my shoulder, rather than in the basket with everything else. So you pretty much needed to know I had them. I wasn’t just pushing magic brownies on unsuspecting people.

Although, one afternoon, I’d left some brownies cooling on a plate in the apartment I shared with three other women. Two of them knew what I was doing, but the third one had no idea. Oh God, she was the straightestlaced person you’d ever want to meet! When I came home and saw a few of the brownies gone—and she was just laughing her head off and doing all these crazy, ridiculous, fun things—I knew what had happened. I had to tell her. She thought it was so hysterical…while she was stoned, that is.

Then, afterwards, she kind of started using marijuana. I guess she liked the way it felt.
I sold the regular brownies for a quarter apiece and I sold the magic brownies for a dollar. And then, as I started getting higher quality pot to mix in, I made some of my brownies five dollars apiece. I increased my income from about $100 a day to between $300 and $500 a day. You know, that was really nice money back then.

I developed the persona of the Rainbow Lady. I had two long, cotton gauze dresses. One was purple and one was a really beautiful Kelly Green.

I’d wear a big rainbow pin right over my heart area and if it was cold, I’d wear a rainbow wool scarf that I had crocheted myself. Plus, I always wore one of two capes, a red-orange wool cape or an Indigo Blue velvet cape with a big hood. And I’d wear some kind of hat with a feather or flower or something. I loved being able to dress up and be someone else, then come home and be me. Of course, being so visible was risky, but I almost always felt safe.

One day, I was down by the Wharf and a policeman came up and asked me for a brownie. I said, “Oh sure,” and handed him one from the basket. “That’s twenty-five cents.”

And he said, “Don’t you have some with nuts in them?”

He was in uniform and everything. I thought, “Okay, this is a test.”

And I really quickly asked the universe, “What am I supposed to do?” And I sensed, “It’s okay. Just give him the brownie. Don’t talk about it. Just sell him the magic brownie.”

So I reached in the pouch over my shoulder and pulled one out with a cashew on top and I said, “That’ll be a dollar.”

He said, “Thanks a lot,” and walked away. I was so happy he didn’t arrest me! I guess he just wanted to make his job more fun. That was the first cop, but there were others who would stop me, too. The cops actually started asking for a dozen at a time. I think they were front-men for their own kind, you know. Like, one guy bought for several others, so they didn’t all have to put themselves in jeopardy.

Right about that time, I had a blue Volkswagen Beetle that I was driving around. I turned where I shouldn’t have, somewhere downtown, and a streetcar rolled right into me. It didn’t hurt me, just slowly crunched my poor little car. From then on, I had to take taxis to get to work. I would always tip them with a magic brownie. I’d place my call and have like six taxi drivers at my door wanting to take me off to the Wharf. They had to fight it out amongst themselves.

I guess I met Meridy [later known as ‘The Brownie Lady’] around June of 1976. I remember she was doing a colon cleanse when we met and she convinced me to try one. She taught me to use eye shadow to make my eyes look really neat and exotic. She was just a really fun person to hang around with.

One night, Meridy called me kind of late and said she was having trouble coming up with rent. It was due in two weeks and she didn’t know how she was going to pay it.

“Any thoughts?”

I said, “Let me call you back.” I got off the phone and I went into a meditative state. I asked the universe, “How is Meridy going to pay her rent?” The next thing I knew, I saw a giant hand coming out of a big, puffy, white cloud, holding a cup of coffee.

I was perplexed. I have to admit, I was a bit befuddled. But I called Meridy back and said, “A cup of coffee.”

“Huh?”

“Yep, a cup of coffee.” And then, all of a sudden, it hit me. I said, “Oh, you can follow me around while I sell baked goodies and you can sell people coffee!”

She thought it was a really cool idea and she immediately knew where she could get all the stuff she needed. She even had a little red wagon that she decorated and used to pull her coffee supplies along. Mornings on the Wharf could be freezing, so my customers loved the hot coffee, and Meridy paid her rent on time. From then on, she came with me.

Things were going really well. I’d started the magic brownies in May, and by July, I had reached my goal: I had my $10,000.

Now I was at a crossroads. The brownies were so lucrative and I was just loving it. I had never made that kind of money in my life. I was toying with the idea of staying.

But then a voice in my head told me, “No. You made a commitment to yourself and to the universe. You said $10,000, and when you reached that goal, you were going to Findhorn. Now you want to go back on your word? Things are not going to work out for you if you do that.”

I reconciled myself to leaving. I wanted to give the business to somebody.

I didn’t want to sell it or go into corporate America or any of that crap. I just wanted to make a really nice energy transition. It felt so good, you know, to just give—and not make it about money. So I passed it on to Meridy. Then I went off to Findhorn and didn’t give a backward glance to anything I left behind.

Excerpted from the upcoming book, Eat It, Baby! Stony Times with the Sticky Fingers Brownie Company, the true tale of a high profile, high-volume marijuana brownie business Volz’s family owned and operated during the 1970s. This excerpt is from an interview with Shari Mueller, The Rainbow Lady, who unwittingly founded “the biz.” By the time Sticky Fingers Brownies closed, several years later, they were producing over 10,000 marijuana brownies per month and distributing them in neighborhoods throughout San Francisco.

Alia Volz is a writer, Spanish interpreter and literary translator. Her short fiction has appeared in Instant City, Glyph and The First Line. She is currently breaking her head over a history of S.F. drug culture, a fragment of which you can read in this issue. Despite delusions of badassness,she has recently gone goopy for wiggle-nose, fluff-butt, bouncing baby bunny rabbits. Have mercy.

Photo by Thomas Hawk, of a depiction of “Brownie Mary,” a San Francisco advocate for medical marijuana legalization.

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