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Features
10 Minutes
Nicole Hanratty, M.S.
Editorish @ smish.
VP Marketing, MWG Holdings Group, Inc.
Jim Belushi Keeps Things Juicy
Jim Belushi
Jim Belushi sits down to chat with Nicole Hanratty while on a "reboot" in So Cal for the inaugural issue of smish. magazine.
Jim Belushi is on a reboot with Taro, his dog, the inspiration for Jim’s K9ine Pet CBD tincture. The beautiful German Shepard squeezes a toy not far from Jim’s feet as we chat on a Zoom call. The two are sitting outdoors in the sun, and Jim lights up a cigar.
Jim proceeds to tell me that Taro ran too much on the farm, chasing rangers and ATVs. “His legs start to hurt. And so I came up with a little concoction, and it really worked. I mean, it changed his physical health. So it was like, well, I’ll make some more and just put it up on the website.”
Jim is puffing on his cigar now and smiling. “I am actually, at a health spa down in Southern California,” he tells me. “Kind of doing a little reboot, little startup, you know, and I’ve got my dog with me.”
“So, is the spa reset for the dog or for you?” I ask. “He needs a reset,” Jim laughs. “He needs an emotional reset. He's so codependent with me right now. I mean, codependency is making a comeback.” We both laugh. “I think it's hip again,” he says.
“Post-covid, codependency has made a comeback,” I proffer. Jim replies, “The love involved with codependency is so deep, brutal, volatile, and juicy. You know, I mean, it suffocates each other, but otherwise, before the suffocation, it was really quite, you know, endearing.” Having had a Jack Russell Terrier that for 14 years never left my side either, I relate to the codependent dog relationship Jim has with Taro, and laugh with him.
“As long as it's just you and the dog, it's fine,” I say. Jim’s smile is nothing short of contagious. He has a way of making you feel comfortable quickly in a conversation. His easy banter removes any fear one might have of any awkward silences filling the space.
“Yeah. I had a few codependent marriages that were very intense. Beautiful, beautiful messes, but, you know, they all blow up,” he puffs his cigar. “You learned something from each one though, right?” I ask. “Yeah. By the third one, you really learned that maybe it's me.” We both laugh. His sense of self-deprecating humor reveals an endearing humble side.
Belushi's Farm - Jim Belushi with his dog Taro - Photo Credit: Tyler Maddox
I thank him for sitting down with me to chat for our inaugural issue of smish. And I explain how we got the name. “The urban dictionary defines smish as like a big bear hug, or pulling many things together into one.” Jim wittily replies, “That's very codependent. That's a codependent term.” I can’t help but smile and say, “You can see why I thought of you for the cover.” “Yeah, right,” he answers, “Gotta find a codependent for the cover.” I laugh and he takes another puff of his cigar. It’s a small moment but it illustrates why Jim Belushi is widely hailed as a king of comedy. He finds an opening, drops a line, and lets his audience enjoy it.
We move on to meatier topics. “What's your secret to successfully pulling so many different projects together to build your cohesive brand?”
His response is on point. “I don't think it's a secret, but it's being really clear on purpose, on the why, why you're doing it, and staying connected to that always. And trying not to get off track, because there are so many distractions that can pull you one way or another. So holding onto that vision, which is, for me, it's the medicine. I've seen so many people that it's changed their lives. And it's overwhelmingly emotional and humbling to see lives change. So it's about having an impact in a way, you know?”
“My purpose was always as an actor, a writer, and a musician, and all the different things that I do,” he continues, “it was always about making people feel good through laughter, through drama. The reflection of watching the drama, the introspection that comes, through music, which is as close to gospel and God as you can get,” Jim says. Together with Dan Aykroyd, Jim tours the globe as Brother Zee of the iconic Blues Brothers. He also headlines his own music group The Sacred Hearts, which is the official house band for the House of Blues brand of venues.
“And moving into cannabis,” he shares, “I realized I was still on purpose. And that purpose is to make people feel good. Whether they can't sleep, or they’ve got backaches, or they give a candy bar to their parents who have dementia, it calms them down so they don’t go into those fits, and mainly to veterans who suffer from PTSD, many different things. I’ve seen many veterans get off hard drugs onto cannabis and save their lives. So that's the first thing is seeing clear, and purpose, maintaining it, having or trying to keep the discipline and maintain it.”
Then he says something that changes the way I think about working relationships. “And the second is, you gotta have a…” he interrupts his own sentence to explain. “You know, my training as an actor is ensemble acting, which is six people on stage trying to make everybody else look good, and they try to make you look good. Therefore, the scene looks good and the show looks good. So in cannabis, it's the same thing. You have to be with a group of people that are there to make the purpose look good, you look good, they look good. It's simply down to hiring. You’ve gotta hire really good people.”
“I like that comparison to ensemble acting,” I say as I feel the conviction in what he is saying. “Team,” I reflect. But Jim explains that team is not quite the right word. “Yeah. I mean, you hear team, the team, the team. I hear team a lot. But ensemble takes another layer. I think it's because team to me is like working together. Ensemble is, I got your back. I got your back on this. It's just a deeper level of investment in people. That's what's so enjoyable about this industry, it’s the people, right?”
This begs the obvious question, so I ask, “Who would you say has your back in your life? Who are your key people?”
“Well, Greg Steinberg, my CEO is like, he's a monster. He is so beautiful of a man. He is wicked smart and tells you like it is. You always know you're getting the truth. And Chris, my cousin, was on the TV show with me. And then there's Amanda who manages the farm and she's managing the Illinois grow too. And then Anthony, who's the grower. Like, I mean, these guys are so committed and they just love it. And they got my back and I got their back.”
Jim is known for having other people’s backs as well. He is a large supporter of Veteran charities and the Last Prisoner Project. But when I ask Jim if there is a project closest to his heart, he replies, “My heart's in all of them. But, yeah, come on, it's all about the impact, right? So you get to. I get to. I get to spread some of the…” his eyes dart away and his voice softens, “some of the love to all of them.”
We move on to talk about how much Belushi’s Farm has grown in both size and scope since he purchased it in 2015. “The property is stunning. I've made a lot of improvements. I've built a house on it, I built a farm, greenhouses, asphalt… I love doing the asphalt!” Laying asphalt might not seem an obvious source of enjoyment for a man who is a seasoned Second City and Saturday Night Live alumni, has starred in critically acclaimed movies including Trading Places, and worked with famed directors like Oliver Stone, Roman Polanski, David Lynch and Michael Mann. His television show, According to Jim, aired for 182 episodes during eight seasons and enjoys off-network syndication. But sitting here today, on his reset in Southern California, you can see that Jim genuinely lights up when he talks about the simple things in life.
“The farm really seems to pull the community together,” I say. “Oh yeah, we have events there for the community. We just had a great event for the Butte Creek Mill. We raised like $300,000 for this mill that burnt down.” In Eagle Point, Jim is assisting with the reconstruction of The Butte Creek Mill, destroyed in a 2016 electrical fire, to preserve its heritage, build community, and improve the environment. “It's like the star, the gem of Eagle Point we built in like 1879, and it burned down to the ground one Christmas Eve. Do you believe it? Christmas Eve,” he says with emphasis.
“So yeah, we host benefits there. We do things for Veterans. We do things for that terrible fire we had that went through Talent and Phoenix.” The fire Jim is referring to happened in Oregon in September 2020. He adds, “We've tried to raise money for rebuilding a local theater there.” In Medford, Jim is helping reconstruct the historic Holly Theater to bring the 1930s Spanish Colonial movie palace back to life as Southern Oregon's largest indoor concert venue. “There's all kinds of great stuff that goes on in that country. That's a Southern Oregon thing. Yeah. I participate in all that. I love the community. They're great people.”
Jim Belushi and Family at Belushi's Farm
"It’s all about the impact." - Jim Belushi
Jim recently appeared on, “A History of the World in Six Glasses” with Dan Aykroyd, Jon Lovitz, Kevin Nealon and George Wendt. So I asked him, “Is there anyone who you haven't met yet today that you would want to sit down and have a drink with?” “Oh, God. I've been very fortunate to have met a lot of people. I mean, I danced with James Brown. I mean, come on, I jammed with Joe Walsh, Steve Miller! I met the Rolling Stones, we opened for the Rolling Stones. I have to think about that. I don't know. I'm pretty happy with all the people I've met. I've got a new kind of philosophy right now, and it's called freeform. I'm in freeform mode right now. …You know, [one] day, you got all the plans. And then the next day's freeform, freeform. We're gonna just go with the day and see, be free and open to what's coming our way, and go for it. Find new things. Freeform, f*ck off. It's like f*cking off, right? It's like freeform. Let's see what rolls, baby. Let's roll with it.”
“A less stressful way to live your life,” I observe. “Yeah. The other night I ended up in a little blues club and all of a sudden I was on stage playing and singing. It was freeform. Just happened,” he shares. And you can tell by the way he says it that this sort of thing is a normal occurrence. In fact, I witnessed this same sort of spontaneous performance by Jim happen at the House of Blues in Chicago a few years back after he shared the Belushi’s Farm brand story at a cannabis industry conference.
“Do you have any advice for anyone who wants to get their brand story out, especially in the cannabis industry?” I ask. “Started with my band many years ago when I went and saw Tony Bennett and went backstage and hung out with Tony, and I go, oh, I just started with this band with Blues Brothers and Danny wants me to do this Blues Brothers thing, and I don't really know. I don't know if I have the singing right. I mean, I could sing on Broadway, but the Blues thing is… And he said, ‘Jim, you're an actor. You're a storyteller. Singing is just telling a story with notes.’ And it's like [that] starting off with brands. You gotta have a good story. You know, that's why great writers write beautiful songs. These are beautiful stories or movies or television, and brands should have a story. That was the whole point of Growing Belushi, was to build the farm story. It's gotta be authentic, you know?”
The authenticity of Jim Belushi’s story is what resonates with so many people. “I mean, you gotta love it. You gotta love it or don't do it,” he says.
“When you freeform,” Jim adds, “you find new things, so tell all those guys starting brands to freeform and find a story. And that codependency is trending.” Like the professional comedian he is, Jim calls back to the top of the conversation about his relationship with his dog Taro. “Let's get meshed again. Let's get dirty, let's go freeform.” He smiles. “Smish,” I say. “Yeah,” Jim says, “smish it all together,” and he takes a last puff of his cigar before we say goodbye.
