Snoop Dogg’s Wine

Day after Thanksgiving, a slow-motion Friday afternoon, I’m doing my wine sample gig at the Mill Valley Safeway, right next door to the office. Very slow traffic. I’m pouring 19 Crimes Wine with Snoop Dogg on the label.

10.99 a bottle with a club card. This is inexpensive wine. Is it good? I don’t know. I’m not sipping it. I’m serving it. Ask my buddy, Turlock Degenerate, one of my regulars. He tries it. He has an opinion.

“This shit is shit,” he says.

“You don’t like it, then.”

“I got no time for bad wine.” He says. He flings the sample cup in my trash bag, glares at me, like it’s my fault the wine displeases his palette. “Say,” he says. “I heard you’re a writer.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“What’s it to you who I heard it from? You’re a writer or you’re not.”

“I’m currently a Blogger.”

“Sounds like Pussy work.”

“Blogging is what I do. I talk about stuff. Like a diary. Maybe I’ll put you in my Blog.”

“Put me in your Blog and I’ll Kill you.”

“Thanks for the head’s up.”

Degenerate is not his real name.

I get a sense that he is a Degenerate, however.

Turlock moves off.

I’m thinking about Degenerates. Snoop Dog is not a degenerate. At least I don’t think he is. He’s a highly successful business man who used to be a Rapper. Maybe he’s still a Rapper. I kind of admire him because he came up from the streets. He made it big time and he did it his way. But does he own 19 Crimes Wine?

Who Owns 19 Crimes Wine? The company, which features wines honoring Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart, is owned by a large global wine company. Although Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg aren’t owners, they do have wines named after them. The larger wine company that owns 19 Crimes is Treasury Wine Estates. TWE is one of the largest wine companies globally and it’s even listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. The company has a portfolio of over 70 wine brands, sold in more than 70 countries around the world. Some of TWE’s brands, besides 19 Crimes, are Sterling Vineyards, Squealing Pig, Beringer, Samuel Wynn, and Penfolds.

Market Realist

This is kind of depressing news. I was hoping Snoop Dogg owned his wine brand. But like everything in the world these days, Big Fat Corporations own Snoop’s label. Which means they own a tiny bit of Snoop Dogg. I know what you’re thinking. Snoop comes out on top. He gets his own wine. They pay him the big digits. They do all the work. He’s laughing.

So I guess it all works out in the end…

As for Martha Stewart. She did a stretch in Prison. That makes her a bass-ass.

A Kid

This kid sidles up to my stand. I card him. Kid’s just turned twenty one. He knows the wine. Kid knows all wines. He’s been cultivated by the better people. In fact, he knows Snoop Dogg.

“Snoop’s a friend,” he says.

“Really. You hang in the hood?”

He laughs. “He owns a home near us.”

“Where do you live?”

“Ross.”

Ah Ross. Ross and Kentfield. Where the better people live….

Ross Key Takeaways…Typical Home Values: Two bedroom 1500 square feet. $3,838,437 Zillow

Kid lives in a way bigger house in the hills of Ross, near Snoop Dogg’s house, and near, according to the Kid, Shawn Penn, and Andre Agassi, among others….

“It must be nice being part of the ONE PERCENT.”

He sips the wine. “Oh, this is good.”

“Buy a bottle.”

“Oh, we have his wine. My Dad works with Snoop.”

“You’re Dad’s a pimp?”

“Ha…that’s funny. No, he’s a Hedge Fund Manager.”

“Nice!”

I pour him a triple.

A real sweet young lady

I asked for her picture and she said cool. I took her picture officially because she bought a bottle of Snoop Dogg’s wine. She loves Snoop.

“Oh, I so love Snoop,” she says.

Turns out she lives near Snoop, too. But not in a fancy neighborhood.

“I’m from Long Beach. Snoop grew up right down the street from us.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“I know his cousin.”

“What’s his cousin do?”

“I think he’s a pimp.”

Actually, she’s from L.A. but she reminds me of Portland. You know, Portland people. People trying to do good and preserve the planet. People that live like Hippies. Like we used to do when I was this young lady’s age.

“I’ve never been to Portland,” she says.

“Speaking of Long Beach…I spent some time down in L.A.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, back when I was a punk.”

She doesn’t get it.

“I was real young. Eighteen. A punk.”

“You were in Long Beach?”

“No. I’ve been to Long Beach since. But this time I was down there, I stayed in Hollywood. God, that was more than fifty years ago.“

“Oh, wow,” she says. “Hollywood’s changed a lot since then.”

The street where I stayed…it comes to me in a flash. “I stayed on Argyle Boulevard,” I tell her.

“Oooh,” she says, “That part hasn’t changed.”

Memories of Argyle Boulevard

It was a road trip Jellyroll and I took. I’d jumped my ship a couple months before and was hanging out in the Pink Pubical when the Roll turned up with plans to visit his bro Rodger down in L.A.. He planned to Hitch Hike. I had nothing better to do so I drove him down there in my 67 dodge dart. We stopped every thirty or forty miles along the way to top off the leaky radiator. Once there we hooked up with Rodger at his seedy bungalow on Argyle Boulevard. All I remember of the place was the color Brown. Brown wood. My memory may be wrong. I think the seedy part was real.

Other characters besides Rodger. These two slick dudes: Mitch and another guy, I forget his name. Two punks that knew the score. They were stealing Porsches and soon Rodger joined in. He also had a job REPOSESSING furniture. T.V.s and Stereo’s mainly. A legitimate job more dangerous than stealing Porsches.

The week I spent down there was a deranged alcohol fueled rampage up and down Hollywood Boulevard with side trips to Newport Beach where we hooked up with a pair of homeboys on a Surfari. Otherwise we cruised the Sunset Strip. Our vintage of choice was a rotgut called Tyrolia White Wine we bought by the gallon jug. Rodger chugged a liter of the shit in one gulp…on a bet. I wasn’t there for the bet. It was a kind of personal legend that gained Rodger a reputation with the L.A. homeboys. Or maybe not.

The madness concluded with a wild Neon glittery race down Hollywood boulevard. Rodger steering and me riding shotgun in his baloon-tired volkswagon bug. Jellyroll bringing up the rear in my dodge dart. We were winning until we merged onto Sunset Boulevard. I think Rodger took a pull on the jug of Tyrolian. That’s what caused the wreak. We hit the curb doing fifty. Sailed thirty feet or more. Flipped. Landed upsidedown in a Porsche car lot below a billboard displaying the band Humble Pie smoking album with phony smoke emitting from a hole. We were smoking genuine smoke.

This was what I call a crazy dude’s miracle. Like a drunk slipping from an airplane, falling two thousand feet to land on a snow blanketed haystack. Crawling out with no more than a sprained ankle. It can’t happen but it happened. There’s no way I could’ve crawled unscathed from Rodger’s Volkswagen bug but I did. And so did Rodger. Not a scratch on either of us. The Bug was a wad of twisted metal. Two parked Porsche’s were totaled.

We escaped.

The rest of the time down there is a blur. I made it almost all the way back to Santa Cruz before the Dodge Dart’s engine conked out. I abandoned it on the side of the freeway. Not long after I returned to the Navy. But that’s a whole other story.

To be honest. My memories of Argyle Boulevard are dim.

In fact, I have no memories left of Argyle Boulevard.

Hazy images fading into the memory mists…

I’m checking out Snoop Dogg

So far I’ve sold one bottle of the Dogg’s wine.

Safeway’s clearing out.

Soon I’ll be clearing out. But not for an hour. I usually quit early. I can’t quit too early. I still need this job. So I gotta hang here for at least another forty five minutes. I could read People Magazine. All about Patrick Dempsey as the world’s sexiest man. He’s smiling at me on the cover. I’m thinking I don’t give a good god damn about Patrick Dempsey. I don’t know shit about him only that he was a brat pack kid. So to hell with him. Instead, I Wikipedia Snoop Dogg. Pass my time reading about him.

A Wikipedia photo of Snoop Dogg. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s a portrayal of Marvin Gaye on the wall behind Snoop. Marvin is a singer from my era. I know a little about Marvin. I know almost nothing about Gansta Rap music….

I’m reading about Snoop Dogg, birth name Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr. (born October 20, 1971). Snoop Dogg has a long list of accomplishments. I’m actually liking what I read:

Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr. was born on October 20, 1971, in Long Beach, California, to Vernell Varnado and Beverly Tate.^[9][10] Vernell, who was a Vietnam War veteran, singer, and mail carrier, left the family only three months after his birth, and thus he was named after his stepfather, Calvin Cordozar Broadus Sr. (1948–1984).^[11] His father remained largely absent from his life. As a boy, his mother nicknamed him “Snoopy” due to his love and likeness of the cartoon character from Peanuts.^[12] He was the second of his mother’s three sons. His mother and stepfather divorced in 1975.^[9] When Broadus was very young, he began singing and playing piano at the Golgotha Trinity Baptist Church. In sixth grade, he began rapping.^[13][14] As a child, Broadus sold candy, delivered newspapers, and bagged groceries to help his family make ends meet. He was described as having been a dedicated student and enthusiastic churchgoer, active in choir and football. Broadus said in 1993 that he began engaging in unlawful activities and joining gangs in his teenage years, despite his mother’s preventative efforts.^[15]

Wikipedia

I’m thinking Calvin was a good kid, helping his family make ends meet.

I’m reading on. Lots of accomplishments. Musically and in Business. Snoop is one of the most successful of all Rappers. At fifty two he’s worth 200 million. Not as much as Dr. Dre who’s worth 500 million. Or, to be glib, Taylor Swift, who’s worth a Billion dollars. But she’s not a rap singer. I don’t think she is. She’s not black, either. Well, enough of Taylor Swift. I only mention her because of the new Blogger Rule that says you must mention Taylor Swift at least once in each Blog or you’ll be banished to Palookaville.

No, I’m serious.

I keep reading Snoop’s Wikipedia post and I must confess, the man has evolved from a stereotypical black gang thug into a paragon of a white man’s vision of making-it-big-time-respectable.

It’s kind of disappointing.

Until I stumble onto this:

Snoop claimed in a 2006 interview with Rolling Stone magazine that unlike other hip hop artists who had superficially adopted the pimp persona, he was an actual professional pimp in 2003 and 2004, saying, “That shit was my natural calling and once I got involved with it, it became fun. It was like shootin’ layups for me. I was makin’ ’em every time.”

Wikipedia

Okay, so I guess that clears the air.

My final Sampler

I’m about ready to cut out. Pack it up. Stash my bottles that’re almost full. I can’t wait to sample the Dogg’s wine. I’m just about ready to pack it up when this old man appears.

He insists on sampling the Dogg’s Red Blend. His daughter stands impatiently beside him, cradling her own granddaughter. The old dude is really really old. But kind of savy. I dig the old dude.

“Here. Have another sample”

“No, no,” he says. “That was plenty bad.”

“Come on, Dad, we need to pick up the detergent.”

His daughter is not keen on the old dodger sampling wine.

“How about trying some of the Sauvignon Blanc,” I say, holding up Dogg’s other varietal. “This is not that bad,” I insist.

“You wanna try it?” I’m holding up the bottle.

He glares at Snoop’s image.

“Who’s that on the label?”

“Don’t you know? That’s Snoop Dogg. It’s his wine.”

“Who?”

“Snoop Dogg. The Rap Singer. He’s famous. You never heard of Snoop Dogg?”

The old man’s just staring at me.

“Come on, Dad. We need to get the detergent.”

“He’s also my son.”

The Daughter stares at me. She knows Snoop Dogg…

“What did you say?”

“That’s right. Snoop Dog is my son. I don’t usually tell people that. Unless they ask, of course.”

She moves off with the kid, leaving the old man standing there, holding his sample cup in the air like a figure at communion.

“His mother and I met when I was very young. Seventeen, actually. We fell in love and she got pregnant. She wouldn’t marry me. Her folks disapproved.”

The old man drops his cup in my trash and moves off.

“I’m proud of Snoop,” I call after the old man. “You hear me? He’s my son! I’m proud of him! I’m a proud father! You hear me!”

A gansta rap song

I like to end my posts with a song. Like a Coda. But I have a really hard time listening to Rap Music. It’s like Keith Richards said. “I like musicians that play instruments.” He doesn’t care for Rap music, either. He says if he wants to hear people yelling at him he can listen to people yelling at him at home. I’m afraid I have to agree.

But I need to leave you with a song.

How about a song by a man I grew up listening to: