'You Can't Make A Record If You Ain't Got Nothing To Say'

This is my latest tshirt find. I have this deep seated hope that Willie will one day be recognized for the renegade genius that he is, in my opinion much more so than Johnny Cash ever was. He was alt-country before there was alt-country, he was covering old standards and making them uniquely his own long before Rick Rubin jumped all over that twenty years later, he was making New Balance sneakers the sneaker of choice for hipsters before hipsters were even born. In short, a veritable bad ass. What does any of this have to do with anything? Well,
I'll tell you.

When I went home last month, I took a trip to the holy trinity of South Texas culture: The best little brewery ever, one of the best good eatin' places known to man and then stopped by the original mecca of Texas honkey tonk. It was one of the best days of my life. I was surrounded by a culture I know and love, with my family who I never get to see, and got to see the beauty that truly is the Texas hill country, which I haven't for quite sometime. I felt at home. At ease with myself in a way I hadn't in the last year or so. I felt like for the first time in forever, I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

Driving home after a long day of out and aboutedness, the old man started singing to himself 'John T. Floores sits around in his underwear.' He then chuckled wildly and got to talking about the history of the honkey tonk we had just visited, as opposed to the Floores country store, another great bastion of live music in South Texas. He meant to be singing "Shotgun Willie sits around in his underwear." No matter. The old man had unwittingly brought up one of my favorite Willie songs, the title track from his 1973 record, 'Shotgun Willie.' It's a silly little song that sticks with you forever, and shows just how *effing* cool ole' Willie really is. Big Stax sounding horns, the sound of a needle popping on viyl, this half time guitar strumming, it's an indelible song that sticks with you forever. Listening the old man cackle, taking in the majesty of the South Texas hill country, sated on BBQ and beer, I was so. fucking. happy. It had been so long since I felt that way.

I get so bent out of shape at the state of my life lately, because I feel this way or that, feel like I'v been overlooked, feel like directors keep making the wrong choice by not casting me, I feel like it's some sort of karmic overload for all the 'bad' shit I've ever done, and it's too, too draining. I chose this riduculous path, I chose to try and make friends with people who are never going to have time for me, I choose to keep working for a company I hate because it's easier than actually finding a new job. In short, I have probably made a lot of my own bad luck. No one else did this to me. I did. Fuck those directors if they can't see how fucking good I am, but fuck me even more if I can't try and do something about it. Fuck me for being as old as I am and not being farther along and still having a job no one over 25 should have and all this debt and nothing to show for it. No one did this to me but myself.

Willie Nelson felt the same way. Tired of constantly being given the runaround by the powers that be in Nahsville, he instead chose to quit playing their game and picked up and moved to...Austin, TX, set up his own studio and did shit the way he wanted. And guess what? People followed his sound. He could have just stuck it out in Nashville, maybe become some middling songwriter for a hit factory, but instead he grew his hair out, traded the slick look for the real look, pulled out his trusty guitar Trigger and wrote some of the best albums of the '70's.

I'm thinking it's time for me to do that. My default mode is sort of defeatist, my emotional state can be a bit 'victimy', I like to wax poetic about all the times I have literally been the other guy in the 'it came down to me and the other guy' scenario. No more. Fuck that and fuck my friends who can't respond to texts or emails or facebook request to get in touch. I don't need it. If I'm not worth your time, than you're not worth mine. It's your loss. I'm tired of always being nice and trampled on. I've got more alpha dog in me than that. I think?

Anyhow, thanks Willie. I'm taking a page from your lyric sheet. Just can't let that whiskey river take my mind...her memory's gonna have to torture me, for the time being.

Terminating.