Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings From the Road (16 page)

Death is a friend to love and I

’Cause now you’ll never say goodbye

There was a guy in the Junction Bar in San Antonio who loved that song. He would come walking toward the bandstand choking himself, with his hands around his throat, which is how I knew that he wanted me to sing that song.

T
UESDAY
, A
PRIL
17

We play St. Louis tonight, then on to Austin. I’m ready to see my ponies.

I’m back in the cabin, and there’s another great sunset. When Waylon Jennings, Larry Trader, and I first came up here, I knew I had found a spot. This is it, and it don’t get no better than this, end of story.

There is still a little chill in the air. I thought I’d hit the pool . . . wrong. I’m real wimpy about cold water. Hot water, that’s okay. I like hot water. I get myself in it all the time.

A
GUY
WENT
TO
THE
DOCTOR
FOR
A
CHECKUP
. T
HE
DOCTOR
SAID
, “Well, first of all, sir, you’ll have to stop masturbating.” The guy said, “Why?” The doctor said, “So I can examine you!”

This is a good time for a hit and a hot coffee. I call it hillbilly heroin.

A
PRIL
18

Dick Clark passed away today from a heart attack. He was really one of the good guys and brought a lot of great music together. He was just eighty-two years old. He did
American Bandstand
starting back around 1956. He created the show, and they called him America’s oldest teenager.

When I was six years old, maybe before, I was writing poems about things like good love, bad love, and broken hearts before I was old enough to know about those things. I do believe in reincarnation and that I came back to write things down—I just started early. I wrote poems until I learned to play guitar; then I started writing songs, and I have never stopped. I had some times when I wrote more. But like Roger Miller said, sometimes the well goes dry and you have to wait till the well fills up again. Roger was great. Mel Tillis said, “Roger could rhyme shit and claw hammer,” and I think he could.

Where were we? Oh yes, we are going to Lufkin, Texas.

T
HURSDAY
, A
PRIL
19

Lufkin went great, and we had a really great crowd. We had good weather, and it was an outside show, so perfect.

4/20, A
USTIN
, T
EXAS

Today is my statue day, at the corner of Lavaca Street and Willie Nelson Boulevard, and Johnny Cash’s birthday bash in Austin at the W Hotel, in Austin City Limits Live at the Moody Theater. Did I mention the sculpture is on Willie Nelson Boulevard? The sculptor is a man named Clete Shields from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are presenting the statue today on 4/20 at 4:20. It will be a good day. My son Micah is with me. He will play with me at the Cash birthday show and at the statue presentation. Then maybe he will paint a picture of it all. He is such a great artist, and I can’t draw a circle. It just don’t figure. But I can draw a crowd, I guess, and so hopefully they will be there for me today.

CHRIS ETHRIDGE

C
hris Ethridge died today, April 23, 2012, from complications with cancer. Chris played bass in my band. He was a great musician and a good friend. Chris played bass with me when Bee took a job with Waylon. Then Bee came back and we had two bass players, and at one time we had two bass players and two drummers. Everything was great until we all got on different drugs; then it sounded a lot like a cluster fuck and a catfight going on at the same time, but we had fun. Anyway, Chris was sixty-five years old. He will be missed.

ONE STEP BEYOND

I’m just one step before losing you

and I’m just one step ahead of the blues

and I know that there’s been pain and misery

long before this old world ever heard of me

It will hurt me so much to see you go

But we’ll just add one more heartache to the score

And though I still love you as before

I’m just one step beyond caring anymore

I guess that you’re surprised that I could feel this way

after staying home and waiting night and day

for someone who cared so much for me

you’d come home just long enough to laugh at me

I don’t know just when my feelings changed

I just know I could never feel the same

and though I still love you as before

I’m just one step beyond caring anymore

W
E
HAD
A
GOOD
LAUGH
TODAY
TALKING
ABOUT
MY
STATUE
WITH
Michael Hall from
Texas Monthly.
He was here today doing a piece on me and Trigger. Trigger loved it.

I
AM
THINKING
I
WANT
TO
PUT
“Y
ESTERDAY
’
S
W
INE
”
BACK
IN
MY
show. I just heard it on my SiriusXM channel, performed by George Jones and Waylon Jennings. Pretty cool.

T
HERE
’
S
A
NEW
MOVIE
I’
M
IN
,
CALLED
W
HEN
A
NGELS
S
ING
. A
LL
THE
actors did a great job, I thought. It will be coming out . . . duh, around Christmas! I like it because it’s a real family movie. I think we need more family movies. I may need to work on scoring the music for it, and that will be easy, but I guess I’m looking old. Did I mention that I was in it? Oh well.

T
HERE
SEEMS
TO
BE
A
WAR
ON
WOMEN
,
AT
LEAST
IN
THE
MEDIA
. W
E
won’t win that one . . . period. We can’t let our mockingbird mouths overload our hummingbird asses.

THE ART OF FARTING

M
AY
2012

We are on a break and flying back to Maui. It looks like the ocean and the clouds are getting closer. I hope we’re landing. They say landing an airplane is like a controlled crash. I wish they wouldn’t say shit like that.

We are about three hours out now. Annie has her face covered because there’s a little kid coughing openly, really bad, and spreading her germs everywhere. So I just farted and sent it her way. That should kill all the germs on the plane. My farts have been known to kill johnsongrass six feet high. My grandmother slapped a fart out of me one time that whistled like a freight train. It scared both of us really bad. She never hit me again.

That little girl doesn’t even know to say thank you, but I hope someday she might be able to do the same for somebody else. It’s okay, little girl, I’m a pretty nice guy once you get to know me, and if you ever need any more emergency medical help just send me your home address, and I will fart in your general direction. You’re welcome.

M
AY
6

I’m on the bus drinking buttermilk—well, actually, it’s an organic, lactose-free kefir that Annie gets for me to drink, because it’s healthier. I have plenty of lactose and I don’t know if I need what I got, so it’s probably good. I’ve never lacked in lactose as far as I know. Lactose could be one of those things that you don’t know you have too much of until you die. It happens I’m sure. Oh well, here goes nothing. It’s really good, but I tried to get Steve Gilchrist, another poker buddy, to taste it. He almost threw it up. Apparently he’s not a kefir guy.

We played poker two days straight after my show at the Backyard, which was great if I do say so myself. It was a sold-out crowd. Jamey Johnson, Paula Nelson, and Amy Nelson played too. Mudslide has been here for a few days helping out. My seventy-ninth birthday is coming up. I hope to get all the kids over for a little party. Annie loves it when all the family is there and she can feed them all, so I’m guessing it will happen.

W
HAT
DO
YOU
GET
WHEN
YOU
CROSS
A
ROOSTER
WITH
ANOTHER
rooster? A very cross rooster!

Speaking of chickens . . . one time I went over to Bee Spears’s house after he had just gotten back from the feed store with some corn for the chickens in his backyard. He dropped the corn and it spilled all over the bedroom floor. We decided that the best way to clean it up was to bring the chickens into the bedroom.

We did and they ate all the corn. It was a brilliant idea. Then we noticed that one chicken would take a bite of corn and then raise her right leg. She did it every time. So when Bee’s wife came home, she wanted to know what was going on.

Bee told her we had been training chickens. He pointed at the one hen and said, “Watch this.” She said, “Okay,” so he waited till the one chicken ate a kernel of corn. Then Bee said, “Okay, honey, raise your right leg,” and of course the chicken did! We laughed a lot.

I
WANT
TO
BRING
UP
MY
FAVORITE
GUITAR
PLAYER
AGAIN
. D
JANGO
Reinhardt is the best, period. I play “Nuages” and a couple more Django songs every show. I heard one of the Little Willies—Norah Jones’s band—said I played “like Django with one finger.” That’s about the nicest thing anyone has ever said about my playing, because as we all know Django only had two fingers because of the fire and was still the best guitar player that ever lived. Just to think for a minute that I might be half as good as Django makes my head a little bigger, so thank you.

Django

Norah is a sweetheart and a great musician; I love singing with her. Her band the Little Willies is really great. How do you think that makes me feel? I was and always will be floored. Thanks, Norah. I love you.

A
GUY
WAS
IN
A
COMA
FOR
YEARS
. H
E
WOKE
UP
ONE
DAY
AND
smelled his favorite food, chocolate cookies. He crawled out of bed and all the way down the hall to the kitchen. When he got there, sure enough, there they were. He put his hand up to reach one, and his wife slapped him on the hand and said, “No, honey, those are for the funeral!”

PERMANENTLY LONELY

Don’t be concerned it’s time I learned

That those who play with fire get burned

But I’ll be all right in a little while

But you’ll be permanently lonely

Don’t be too quick to pity me

Don’t salve my heart with sympathy

’Cause I’ll be all right in a little while

But you’ll be permanently lonely

The world looks on with wonder and pity at your kind

’Cause it knows that the future is not very pretty for your kind

For your kind will always be running and wondering

What’s happened to hearts that you’ve broken and left all alone

But we’ll be all right in a little while

But you’ll be permanently lonely

Running . . . Lonely . . .