Read Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings From the Road Online

Authors: Willie Nelson,Kinky Friedman

Tags: #Entertainment & Performing Arts, #Personal Memoirs, #Musicians, #Music, #Nonfiction, #Biography & Autobiography

Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings From the Road (17 page)

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F
REDDY
P
OWERS
WILL
BE
COMING
OUT
TO
SEE
ME
TOMORROW
. H
E
has been a little under the weather. He is a good friend and one of the best rhythm players there ever was. He played the Django stuff, and jazz, as good as anybody, and it will be good to see him. He is also a great songwriter. He wrote songs like “A Friend in California” and “I Always Get Lucky with You.” He traveled with Merle Haggard’s band a lot, and Merle sang many Freddy Powers songs.

I can’t see

I can’t pee

I can’t chew

I can’t screw

If the golden years are here at last

Then the golden years can kiss my ass

—W
ORDS
OF
WISDOM
FROM
R
AY
P
RICE

P
OODIE
USED
TO
SAY
, “I
T
’
S
OKAY
TO
STEP
ON
YOUR
DICK
,
JUST
DON
’
T
stand on it,” and “A farting horse never tires.”

O
KAY
,
WHERE
WERE
WE
? O
H
YES
,
HERE
WE
ARE
. A
LWAYS
BE
WHERE
you are, I say, and it’s always now, and that’s about it. The full significance of the moment is being realized now, thank you, let’s move on.

I
THINK
WE
ARE
GETTING
CLOSER
TO
THE
END
OF
MAJOR
WARS
BECAUSE
they cost too much. I think it will get broken into several small wars all over the world and the reason will be
for survival
. Food and water will become hard to get. If they—“they” being anybody—run out of food and water they will come after yours out of desperation. Think about it: if your kids are hungry, thirsty, and sick, you will do anything to save them, anything.

That’s when the shit will hit the fan and it will be everybody for themselves, like a dog-eat-dog, only-the-strong-survive scenario. It won’t be pretty. We will be our brother’s keeper, and we will try to keep some sense of sanity alive and care for whomever. If they need it and we got it, we share as long as it lasts. More will be provided, and we will need to take a lot of lemons and make a shitload of lemonade. More will be provided, and we will eventually work our way back to prosperity. All races and religions will come together, knowing it’s the only way to survive. We all eat, sleep, laugh, cry, live, and die the same. We will find that it will be much easier and cheaper to stick together, and it will be God’s way of bringing peace on earth. When they throw a war and no one shows up, it will serve as a new beginning of peace on earth. Amen.

M
Y
SON
M
ICAH
HAS
BEEN
BUSY
WITH
HIS
ART
AND
MUSIC
FOR
A
while now. He does something called Cymatics, where he makes art with music, water, and vibration, and then he projects it all on a wall or screen. It’s way beyond me, but he seems to have a pretty strong following. I like that he is so diverse in his art, and that he and Lukas like all kinds of music. Micah just made a live painting during one of Lukas’s performances, which Annie and I bought. It came out beautiful. We have learned now that in order to actually get to keep what he creates, we have to claim it before he paints it, or someone else will outbid us for it!

I’m learning to play with some of the online media stuff like YouTube so that I can see his work—and the rest of the kids’ stuff too.

Lukas is in Canada right now on tour. He is getting to be a chip off the old block, as they say, working even more dates than me every year. He just got back from Haiti, where he had a guitar camp for kids that Sean Penn had set up. Sean’s another good guy who puts his money where his mouth is. Anyway, it was a really great experience for him, and he wrote a song about Haiti while he was there, so I guess you’ll be hearing that soon, too.

ANNIE NELSON

Both of our boys started at the Montessori School of Maui at the age of two. I loved the idea that they would have the opportunity to “learn how to learn” instead of learning the answers to tests. We were lucky that we could afford to give them a good education, because that was something I felt no one could ever take from them. They thrived in the Montessori setting, so I made sure we had a good school in Austin as well, mostly because the Montessori pedagogy was clear that lessons and life could happen anywhere, so travel wasn’t a big deal, and travel was our “normal.” I have a magnet on my refrigerator that says
THE
ONLY
NORMAL
PEOPLE
ARE
THE
ONES
YOU
DON
’
T
REALLY
KNOW
. When the boys were little, they would hear comments that our life wasn’t “normal,” and the lesson that there really is no normal was the most important one to teach them.

Lukas was five weeks old before anyone outside of our family got a peek at him. It was at the Grammy Awards show, and my husband was receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy. I remember pulling up in the bus, and just before we were ready to step out of the bus Mark Rothbaum (Willie’s manager) started teasing me by bringing up all the money we were offered, and turned down, for photos of Lukas. We had refused, so when we stepped out, with Lukas in his onesie tuxedo, Willie and me dressed to the nines, and the cameras clicking away, Mark started going on about how I had just blown Lukas’s college fund. Mark has to have a good sense of humor to keep up, and he really is one of the funniest. In any case, we walked down the red carpet (yuck!) and got to the end, where Rick Dees was to interview Willie. Rick asked Willie a few questions, which I cannot remember because the red carpet is terrifying to me, but then he put the microphone in Lukas’s face and said, “Lukas, what do you think about your daddy getting this award?” And as if on cue, Lukas yawned like he was bored as could be, which cracked everyone up and made the papers. Maybe Lukas just knew what was coming and that his life would be so similar to his father’s (ergo the yawn) . . . who knows?

Then came Micah . . . way too quickly! Our boys are exactly sixteen months apart in age, to the day! Lukas was born December 25, and Micah was born April 25, a few days before his father’s birthday on the thirtieth. Our boys are each other’s yin and yang, and therefore balance each other’s personalities well. They grew up like twins and are best friends to this day. Micah too is an amazing musician. He hears music in ways that are just as abstract as the ways he sees life when he paints or draws. I love all kinds of music, and both boys heard every type of music we could find from my collection as well as their father’s. Micah can take music and mix it with art, projection, water, and vibration to create even more art. It’s amazing if I do say so myself. My father nicknamed Micah “MicahAngelo” because before he could walk, he was scribbling on anything he could find. He is an amazing artist, as witnessed by some of his paintings in this book, and I know I’m his mother, but I’m not the only one who thinks so, so I’m not just “being a mom” when I say it.

You know how your little child will draw pictures and you put them on your fridge? Well, the ones I got from Micah went in my “Mom book.” I remember one Christmas when Micah was four years old and gave me a little drawing. It wasn’t just a normal drawing; I got a perfect Santa in a sleigh, circling in the sky while presents, in perfect perspective, fell from the bag in the sleigh into the perfectly proportioned chimney of a perfectly proportioned home covered in snow. That’s when I started my Mom book.

I highly recommend, if you have children, that you start your book as soon as your child is able to create. I have a lifetime of memorable gifts in my Mom book and wouldn’t trade it for the world. We didn’t spoil the boys with things. They spent their lives outside in nature, surfing, playing soccer, playing baseball, and discovering the world. They were never given cars or any kind of material junk, but they were spoiled with experiences that helped to create the citizens of the world that they are to this day, and their dad and I are very proud of the people they have become. I am proud of everyone in my family, on both my side and Willie’s. But I am especially proud of how we have managed to blend three lovely families of amazing people (how could they not be with him as a father, right?), and how loving, kind, and sharing all of our kids are. You probably feel it when you see them all together onstage, but it is with the help of the ones not onstage too, and they all get it. We are all very blessed.

For all of their lives our boys were not allowed to buy us gifts. If they wanted to give us something they made it. They took a great deal of joy in creating things, and it was always encouraged. Those are the things that fill my Mom book.

Both Lukas and Micah are very gifted with intellect, compassion, and a sense of art and music . . . and I’m sure they get it all from my side . . . just kidding . . . kind of.

I
HEARD
THAT
L
UKAS
, M
ICAH
,
AND
A
MY
ARE
ALL
GOING
TO
PLAY
some shows together soon. Really love it when my family all makes music together.

S
ISTER
B
OBBIE
IS
MY
ROCK
. S
HE
HAS
BEEN
WITH
ME
SINCE
,
WELL
, since I first started breathing on this planet. We both learned the language of music from our grandparents, who taught music. Bobbie can read and write music, and can decipher anything I throw at her. I love her attitude about life. She always sees the good in people, and that’s what people see back in her. She is the best piano player for me. She rolls with whatever I throw at her, and it doesn’t matter where I run off to in music, she is always there when I get back. She is beautiful. No one ever would guess her age; she just looks timeless, which is probably why she has all the boys, young and old, in her pocket whenever she hangs out.

She thinks I hung the moon; did I mention that?

Bobbie is also a great cook, and she loves to do it. She cooks for me all the time on the bus, and whenever I’m in Austin and Annie’s not, my sister Bobbie feeds me and I love it. She makes the best biscuits, gravy, and eggs you will ever eat, and it’s not just my opinion. Even when Annie is there, Bobbie’s is our first choice whenever we can go there for breakfast.