CASTING ROLLING STONE(D)

I literally found the stoners eviscerated in this article from Rolling Stone. In it, the stoner couple portrayed and the UC Santa Cruz campus culture depicted (a culture slowly diminishing in my memory) gets bent over and roughly fucked by some writer, this admittedly good-at-her-job writer. But she treats her subject so cruelly. All these people who populate her story, she turns a blind eye to. She sat and had coffee with me and we talked about media and Gonzo Journalism and I gave her the heads up that her subjects were kind of sketched out about the whole thing. I ran interference for her not believing that there would be any motivation for a smear piece on Santa Cruz’s stoner culture. I was wrong.

At the time I was the editor for UC Santa Cruz’s alternative campus paper, The Fish Rap Live! (exclamation included). We were satirical and snarky and ambiguous (big surprise). I was in the press center one random afternoon when our beat up old phone rings. Our phone never rings. And it’s Vanessa Grigoriadis from Rolling Stone calling seeing if I can help her find the consummate stoner. I didn’t qualify and neither did any of my friends even though many of us smoked every day. She wasn’t interested in the functional pot smoking set, those who got straight As and actually accomplished something during their college careers. No… she had a type in mind. I should have known then that this assignment came with a built in angle, that those editors in New York, based on hearsay and received ideas, wanted to poke fun at some kids with bongs in their hands and red eyes.

So I sought out the perfect stoner for her and came up with this couple. I felt, as a “journalist,” it was my duty to help her. Of course when Rolling Stone drops its name, seduction comes easy. I would have fucked a donkey lovingly if she asked me to.

And I’m not about to apologize for my involvement in my Alma Mater’s national fucking over. I worked for two years, albeit from the inside, doing the same damned thing. And that school never showed me any appreciation for the shit I did. So fuck you. I feel a little bad for the couple bashed, but shit, they got pseudonyms. Take a bong rip kids, all will be well. The joke of course is that Vanessa’s story isn’t that far from the truth. Objective, outside eyes swoop on Santa Cruz and reveal what goes on. The problem is the preconceived angle. The story could have been more interesting if people like the people I know were the subjects: ample stoners who aren’t wholly losers, who DO things, who have something to say. But, no no, she wanted pure lifestyle stoners and that’s what she got. I’m just glad I was spared depiction. Though she’d be hard pressed to find a grotesque element in my persona to hyperbolize and tease out for maximum snarky entertainment value. Because I’m perfect.