Meeting Willie Nelson

Willie enjoying a cup of coffee

Despite a crushing lack of sleep, I was dragged out of my shelter last night to the House of Blues in Dallas. I’d received an email early in the evening asking me if I wanted to “meet Willie Nelson.” I wrestled with the competing desires buzzing in my head. On the one hand, it was Willie Freaking Nelson, a 79 year old American icon who currently plays his guitar like an impatient monkey with limited muscle control. Correction: An iconic spastic monkey for which I have much sentimentality. You see, my mother fed her children a steady diet of Red Headed Stranger on 8-track as we squirreled down southern highways fighting over who got to sit on the armrest. One the other hand, I haven’t truly slept in three weeks due to cocaine usage. Finally I grabbed my keys and darted over to the House of Blues to meet Willie. I even took a camera.

After being corralled through the back of venue by higher ups, I boarded Willie’s luxury grow lab that doubles as his bus and there he was, standing like a stolid cigar store Indian in the aisle.  He had a blank look on his face and I knew exactly why. He had done this 50 million times and I was about to make it 50 million and one. Oh, and the place absolutely reeked of pot. It was overwhelming. It smelled like the devil’s ass in there. On the little table beside Willie was an opened Macbook, a coffee cup half filled with black coffee, and a little saucer with what look like seeds and stems. I went up and shook his hand and put my arm around him.

“I was hoping to meet Trigger,” I said referring to his famous Martin nylon string guitar.

“Oh, yeah. That’s right,” he said through a smile staring at the photographer taking our picture.

“I wanted to see that prismatone pickup on it. Jerry Reed used them on those old Baldwin guitars too,” I said, clearly going way off the rails. I was talking into the top of his head. He was grandmotherly small. His hair below my chin and in gray braids.

“Yeah. Yeah,” he said with a smile.

“Have a good show,” I said.

“Thank you. Sure. Yeah,” he trailed.

I stepped off the bus in a daze from the stardom and cannabis. Then I looked at my video camera. It wasn’t rolling. Damn. So I made a quick Patton-like battlefield decision. I climbed back on board the bus. After the owner of Raising Cane’s had finished getting his pic with Willie, some guy shouted out “last one!” as I moved forward. I walked back up to Willie and shook his hand again. He didn’t even recognize me from our previous award winning Jerry Reed discussion. As you will see on the video I said something so generic at our second meeting that Willie almost passed out from boredom.  Enjoy the pics and the footage, and pray that I don’t ever generic you to death some day.

I love you, mom.

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