Retarded Glass

Retarded is now defunct. Karl has gone solo and started Termini Tubes. I contacted Karl Termini seeking to get some SNOB Glass on Kulture's shelves. I found out SNOB was on indefinite holiday. SNOB was a one of very few brands of glass you could find in Amsterdam that was actually made there. Karl did most of the color work and his partner Hans Meijer primarily worked the lathe and did the scientific stuff. The project halted due to the slack in tourism in Amsterdam coupled with high material and fuel costs. Karl returned to the United States and spend a number of months traveling, stopping by various studios and blowing glass with various friends along the way. After the homecoming tour, Karl got back to the grind with scientific glassblower Mike Pensa of Primo Glass. The two of them spent some time getting the hang of each other's work style and came up with a few prototypes in the process. They named their brand Retarded. This is part genius and part lunatic. Which is exactly what the industry needs. While we've all been busy legitimizing the glass pipe industry, have we become too PC, too serious? Have we forgotten to have a laugh? Not that Retarded makes laughable glass pipes, they're just guys having fun while making sick pipes and these bubblers are unlike anything I've come across. Almost all of the prototypes we picked up are double carbed, this means they have a carb to first clear the bowl and tree section then a thumb carb on a snorkel to clear the jacket. They're easily operated with one hand, and improves the flush of smoke a lot from a straight snorkel carb setup. This remedies the issue of stale smoke being left in the trees with snorkel carbs. It's a lot more fun to smoke too because they have an interactive feel to them, like driving a car with manual tranny, more control. They come with a choice of push bowl or glass on glass pull slide. There are a few different perc choices too. Some come with six arm tree percs, some come with three arms, others with disc diffusers, and some even have three armed percs and a disc diffuser. I'd also like to mention three special bubs. An experimental perc, the flower bub, the praying/Catholic hands. The experimental is double tree'd and really has to bee seen in person to appreciate. The flower bub looks as if Dale Chihuly made a pipe! This is one that has everyone going nuts over. It's got 8 flowers, a recessed female gong fitting and a snorkel carb. Stick this one on the mantel... next to the Catholic bubbler. This one has a single flower and Catholic praying hands are etched on the side. It is topped with a slide reminiscent of a chalice one might see at mass. Hope it's future owner has many “religious experiences” with it! My favorites are the Retarded Glass bubs with the joint on the side. These are going to be in the official Retarded production line. They're available with either a tree perc or a circ down stem. They come with some crazy double chamber ash catchers too, wild! There will be a plasma line and a beaker style front mount that pulls apart with a heavy ass hand tooled gong setup.