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Two Redheaded Strangers -- Willie Nelson Feels Maureen Dowd’s Pain
New York Times ^ | September 20, 2014 | Maureen Dowd

Posted on 09/21/2014 9:45:17 AM PDT by Second Amendment First

WHEN Willie Nelson invites you to get high with him on his bus, you go.

The man is the patron saint of pot, after all, and I’m the poster girl for bad pot trips.

It seemed like a match made in hash heaven.

When Nelson sang at the 9:30 club in D.C. one recent night, I ventured onto the Honeysuckle Rose, as his tour bus and home-away-from-home is called.

I was feeling pretty shy about meeting him. The 81-year-old Redheaded Stranger is an icon, one of America’s top songwriters and, as Rolling Stone said, “a hippie’s hippie and a redneck’s redneck.” The Smithsonian wants his guitar, “Trigger.”

I needed a marijuana Miyagi, and who better than Nelson, who has a second-degree black belt in taekwondo and a first-degree black belt in helping Norml push for pot legalization?

In a Rolling Stone cover piece last month on “America’s Most Beloved Outlaw,” Nelson told writer Patrick Doyle that he had read my column on having a bad reaction to a marijuana-infused candy bar while I was in Denver covering the pot revolution in Colorado.

“Maybe she’ll read the label now!” he said, laughing, adding that I was welcome to get high on his bus “anytime.”

So that’s how I found myself, before Nelson’s show here, sitting opposite him in a booth on the bus as he drank black coffee out of a pottery cup, beneath a bulletin board filled with family photos.

His eyes were brass-colored, to use Loretta Lynn’s description. His long pigtails were graying. His green T-shirt bore the logo of his son’s band, Promise of the Real.

So, Sensei, if I ever decide to give legal pot a whirl again, what do I need to know?

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: dopersrights; hollywoodreds; whytheycallitdope; willienelson
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To: Cen-Tejas

Dowd never looked close to that good. That would be Catherine Zeta Jones.


41 posted on 09/21/2014 12:19:11 PM PDT by EEGator
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To: Second Amendment First

Trying to picture a high-on-pot 81 year old willie in heat makes a mind picture I would rather not dwell upon.. YUCK... I imagine at 81 willie would need a 2x4 and a whole roll of duct tape to perform anything other than music...


42 posted on 09/21/2014 12:40:46 PM PDT by contrarian (blush)
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To: Cen-Tejas

Haha! I probably do sound a bit harsh! But I can’t deny I find Willie Nelson grating for a wild variety of reasons. As I’m from a family with a long history in rural Texas, and intensely versed in redneck culture, I’ve always found Willie Nelson about as representative of that redneck culture as John Travolta in “Urban Cowboy.” There’s a sort of phony, faux-populism with him which I tend to particularly loathe (along with the dope-pothead angle). Tends to remind me somewhat of Bruce Springsteen putting on that whole fake ‘blue-collar’ guise for the crowds, while he wines and dines with cultural and political lefties. I think that’s why Willie Nelson seems to get under my skin so much.

But it’s also true I just don’t like the ‘sound’ of his singing voice. I go for smooth-sounding vocalists. Heck, for similar reasons, I don’t even like Billie Holiday’s voice, either. Same sort of thing. Anyway, enjoy your Willie get-togethers, and don’t mind me!


43 posted on 09/21/2014 1:33:50 PM PDT by greene66
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To: EEGator

That’s what I thought!

Thanks for clearing that up for me!


44 posted on 09/21/2014 4:05:14 PM PDT by Cen-Tejas (it's the debt bomb stupid!)
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To: greene66

I have similar attitudes towards Kris Kristofferson. He plays up and makes a lot of money with that “I’m a long tall Texan” routine when in truth he’s a liberals liberal and proud of it.

Ofcourse he and Willie are big buds!

U need to understand that I’m a “willie tolerator” and perhaps an apologist, up to 3-4 beers them I become a fan!

After 6-8, I love him!


45 posted on 09/21/2014 4:12:32 PM PDT by Cen-Tejas (it's the debt bomb stupid!)
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To: mrsmel

True dat. Johnny Cash was a drug addict, but he didn’t brag about it.


46 posted on 09/21/2014 5:42:50 PM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
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