Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Wille Nelson Nuggets of Wisdom

Wisdom of Willie Nelson -

December 14, 2012

Willie Nelson, the Silver-Headed Stranger

In your new book, “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die,” you write about enjoying bumblebee fights in Texas as a child. What is that exactly?
Abbott, where I grew up, is a small farm town, and you knew all the farmers. They would come in on weekends to do their shopping and talk about bumblebees’ nests that they had run into while they were out plowing their fields. They would tell us kids where the bumblebees were, and we’d go out on Sunday afternoons and fight bumblebees.
You would get stung so many times that your eyes would swell shut. This was fun?
That shows how bored you can get in Abbott.
You’ve been given a lot of credit for uniting two sworn enemies, hippies and rednecks. How did you do it?
I threw the first Fourth of July picnic down in Dripping Springs, Tex., which brought together the longhaired cowboys and the short-haired cowboys and the no-haired cowboys. They all sat around and drank beer and smoked some dope and listened to some good music and found out that there wasn’t a lot they had to be afraid of.
You’ve told people that the reason you smoke pot is “it calms the rage.” You have rage?
You’ve heard that people with red hair have high tempers? It’s true in this case. My temper has always been something I’ve had to guard against. To smoke a little pot, it might be a little easier to control.
I have a hard time imagining your getting really angry.
The people around me can imagine it real easy, I think.
Between your three divorces and your tax troubles, you seem to have a life tailor-made for country music. Did you ever get yourself into scrapes just to have material?
I won’t mention any names, but I do know of one famous country singer, who is not with us today, whose manager would intentionally get him in trouble with girlfriends and wives just to make him get drunk and start writing songs about it. I thought that was pretty coldblooded, but it seems to have worked.
And what about you?
I seem to be capable of doing it myself.
Your first wife, Martha, once sewed you up in a bedsheet while you were asleep and beat you with a broomstick. Was she a particularly crafty woman, or were you just a really bad husband?
Oh, it was a combination of both. She was a very classy, ingenious, brilliant lady, and I was a problem at times.
In 1984, Frank Sinatra opened for you in Las Vegas. I find it hard to imagine Sinatra opening for anyone.
It was no secret to Sinatra that he was my favorite singer, and he had said before that I was one of his favorite singers. That’s as good as it gets for a singer, for Frank Sinatra to say that. He could have said, Hey, Willie, let me close, and I would have said, You got it.
He dropped out after one night, citing throat issues. But it was speculated that he couldn’t stand opening for somebody.
I wouldn’t have blamed him. I did think he had some throat problems. But I remember opening for Ray Price, and there’s always somebody in the audience shouting “Where’s Ray?” all the time I’m doing my show.
You started Farm Aid to benefit farmers who were “forced off their land to make room for subdivisions and golf courses.” But you are an avid golfer.
There’s a lot of times where the farmers who sold come out and say hello. I’ve played golf with ’em. You have mixed emotions. People are glad they were able to sell it and hated that they had to.
Mickey Raphael, your harmonica player, told Texas Monthly that weed doesn’t affect you, except that a few times late in shows, you’ve forgotten where you are and launch into the opening medley again.
I’m capable of forgetting anything, anytime. But I challenge anybody to follow me around 24 hours and then go out and do an hour-and-a-half show. I don’t care who you are or what you’re drinking or smoking, just follow me around and you might not make it through the day.

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