Winter, Willie and War and Peace

Hello everybody, everybody meaning the 4 0r 5 people that read this. You are a very important small group, and I love everyone of you. Is anyone else ready for the warm weather to come on back? I am. This has been one brutal winter. Steamboat was 20 below this year, never been in that kind of cold before, hope I never have to again. Sometimes on the road I protest winter by not wearing enough heavy clothing, hoping maybe the weather will see me and have sympathy. One thing I have noticed lately is that Mother Nature does not deal in sympathy. On to the fun stuff though...had the pleasure of working alongside Willie Nelson and Family for 2 days and it was a blast. We opened for those guys in Corpus and Mission, TX. Corpus went great, it was warm enough to break out the longboards and do some skating before load in. I'll have some pics of the various boards we have on the road with us, and maybe even some video as the summer progresses. I have to say that Willie's crew is top notch. These guys have been with Willie for a long time, and they offered nothing but respect and easy going attitudes both days. "Tunin' Tommy" is the guy that tunes Bobbie's piano, "Trigger", and Bee's bass. I watched Tommy tune the Steinway piano one day, he said it usually takes about an hour to tune all 220 or so strings. That is a ton of tuning. this is also the guy that is in charge of Willie's guitar "Trigger." That's one of those things that is kind of hard to understand unless you've been in charge of caring for, and protecting(along with not losing) something that is not yours and is priceless. Pretty big responsibility. John, who took over Poodie's spot, was super cool to us. I wish we could do shows with those guys every day. The band got to hang with Willie for a while, and all was good. He's one of those people that seems to rejuvenate whoever he comes in contact with. I got to see up close the amps he plays through which is two Baldwin solid state piano amps, a '70 and '73. I think you can see them in one of the pics. Micky Raphael is the guy that has played harp with Willie for maybe 30 years, he got up and jammed on a song with us in Mission. Can't say enough good things about that whole organization, good times, good stories and good people. Got some good eats in Mission too, one pic is the tacos we got that were awesome! One of them had a fried jalapeno with cheese inside of it, kind of a chili relleno taco with a jalapeno instead of chili pepper.

Right now I am in Memphis, TN starting a run through the 14th of this month. We will be doing most of these dates with a great band Reckless Kelly. We have had a prank war with these guys for a few years now...we'll see what happens. As far as the readings go, still chipping away at War and Peace. I love it so far. I can already tell I will probably read this one again sometime in the future. Here's some pics from the Willie run, the good ones are by our FOH guy Mccoy...and I'll try to keep this thing updated on this run. Peace