Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Legally Sanctioned Drug Dealers

Willie Nelson has his own line of doobie coming out soon, because of course he does, and GQ has an article in which Willie gently and pleasantly ignores the interviewer for a few thousand words, but the real point of the piece is the quote. It’s from the CEO of Willie’s new weed company:

“For fifty years he’s been such an icon in this space that [for] everybody taking part in the artistic development of this plant over the last thirty, forty years, it’s kind of their bucket list to get product to Willie. And so Willie’s experienced the best cornucopia that has been grown over the decades and, you know, he really developed a legendary stash. And he’s developed a point of view about how he feels about the category and how he feels about the product and how he feels about consumers. So it’s taking that and distilling that vision and those values, translating that into the marketplace.”

And just like that: weed stopped being cool. Just another widget with a verified Twitter account. One more jungle for the monkeys of snobbery to hurl themselves through. Pedigree and genetics and terroir and lungfeel and optics and narrative and vision. Always with the fucking vision and the point-of-view: everything has a story, now. And values: brands have values, as if they were Methodists or something.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll return to it: white people are–as we speak–ruining marijuana in the same way they ruined coffee, wine, tea, movies, and clothing: by deliberately over-complicating a staple in order to rig a status game in favor of the wealthy and bored.

Is fortified wine still free of this meaningless corporate bullshit? Maybe the air is still clear out by Boone’s Farm.

13 Comments

  1. maggiemay

    The other day somebody posted a Willie Nelson death hoax from like 2014 on my mom’s FB feed and my mom called out to me, “OH MY GOD MAGGIE, WILLIE NELSON DIED!!!” and I was like “mom it’s probably fake lol chill”

  2. spencer

    I overheard a gentleman using the word “terroir” to describe his doobage. ……uhhhh

    • thoughtsonthedead

      Get used to it

      • spencer

        Free range loons

  3. Robin Russell

    This nonsense has been around fortified wine for a long time, just not the kind we buy in jugs. Using the jug kind, there is the legendary Carrington Street breakfast:

    Take one jug of muscat, one tin of sardines (pref double layer)

    Have a solid swig out of the jug

    Open the sardines, drain the surplus oil and put the sardines into the jug

    Screw the top back on the jug and shake vigorously

    Enjoy your high protein Carrington Street breakfast

  4. JoanieLovesChachi

    Agree on principle but invoke the Nelson rule: anything Willie does is cool.

    • dj5000000

      Second

      • thoughtsonthedead

        You guys read the quote?

      • Morning Deuce

        True, but all it seems Willie has done here is smoke a gangload of weed. And that is fine, because Willie gonna Willie.

        The bummer is that some stoner with the MBA has transmogrified Willie’s Willie-ness into a marketing tool and is “translating that into the marketplace.”

  5. Smoke

    Up in Oregon we stopped at Willie’s gas station. Pot plants on the end of the gas island.

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