Read Online Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings From the Road by Kinky Friedman, Willie Nelson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Kinky Friedman, Willie Nelson
Tags: nonfiction, Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, music, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Musicians
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to advise Tom on the artists who should perform, I jumped at the chance.
Willie was my first choice, and Willie’s daughter Lana was my first call. She worked in her dad’s office, booking and helping Paul English, Willie’s drummer. She’s now my big sister and best friend.
Tickets were $7 each and included all the beer and soda you could consume. They sold out instantly. We built the stage on top of the parking lot entrance, and that night two topless girls climbed onto two other cowboys’ shoulders to see Willie up close and personal. Willie enjoyed the view until the blonde fell and grabbed on to Willie’s strap. It was an eighteen-foot fall and no titties were worth the drop.
Fate continued to guide me as I opted out of a consulting fee and salary, and I asked Tom to rent me a suite at the Ramada Inn next door with a banquet room for the artists to come to and relax and party instead. Much better, I thought, than a hundred-dollar bill. Willie, Paul, and the rest of the band came up for food and to smoke a quick joint, and of course to get paid, before hitting the road. We did, they did, and it was done.
Later on, while Paul was producing the 1975 picnic in Liberty Hill, he stayed in Dallas to promote and buy ads, although it turned out to be a retreat from exhaustion more than anything. We met each night after my job at Bill Stokes’s studio and talked about the picnic, exchanging ideas on how to make it work easier than in the past.
It was their fourth year and most motor-home rental agencies had seen the wrath of a picnic taken out on their equipment, and they had all refused to rent to them, a conundrum Paul placed on my shoulders. With the arrogance of naïveté, I jumped at the chance. I didn’t even know what a dressing room was, much less where to rent one.
The next Sunday I was driving by a construction site and fifty blueprint office trailers were scattered around a field. I called the number on the billboard and ordered them all delivered to Austin for $50 each. Before I knew it, I was in Austin at another picnic, only this time not as a spectator, but as a worker helping “the Devil” himself.
It rained that year, as it seems to at most picnics, and the roof began filling with water and had nowhere to go, so Paul pulled out his forty-five and unloaded his pistol into it to drain the weight of the water. Like the rest of the audience I cheered on in happy disbelief. I’d never seen a gun before.
I guess he was enthused over my eagerness, because Paul hired me as his assistant. Willie’s enthusiasm, however, was short-lived. I was getting on his nerves, trying to treat him like the star I thought he was.
Soon Willie called me into his office. Paul was there too, and in true Willie fashion, rather than hurt my feelings, he said he couldn’t afford to pay me. I knew that wasn’t the case, as I had worked the last nine months for only $100.
He did say, however, that I could continue to promote shows for him, so I did just that. Wichita Falls was my first true dive into the world of concert promotion, and with Willie as the headliner it was an easy sell. The show sold out with massive profits for the time, $12,500; I had about $6,500 in cash sales, with the other $6,000 at the box office.
Fate decided to take me on a drive out west to deliver the money. Paul and Willie were at a show promoted by a longtime scoundrel, Geno McCoslin. Geno had not paid them, yet again, and to their surprise and my good fortune, I showed up with a brown paper bag with $6,500 cash. Willie told Paul, “Hire him back.”
It’s been the best and worst times of my life. I couldn’t imagine a better person with whom to have experienced almost four decades of the most fascinating life anyone could ever imagine. He taught me all about love and how to love others. Just as Joe Jamail wrote on Trigger years ago, he’s “a gentle man.” I will always love him.
T HE F RANKS BROTHERS HANDLE THE MERCHANDISE ON THE ROAD
Willie was my first choice, and Willie’s daughter Lana was my first call. She worked in her dad’s office, booking and helping Paul English, Willie’s drummer. She’s now my big sister and best friend.
Tickets were $7 each and included all the beer and soda you could consume. They sold out instantly. We built the stage on top of the parking lot entrance, and that night two topless girls climbed onto two other cowboys’ shoulders to see Willie up close and personal. Willie enjoyed the view until the blonde fell and grabbed on to Willie’s strap. It was an eighteen-foot fall and no titties were worth the drop.
Fate continued to guide me as I opted out of a consulting fee and salary, and I asked Tom to rent me a suite at the Ramada Inn next door with a banquet room for the artists to come to and relax and party instead. Much better, I thought, than a hundred-dollar bill. Willie, Paul, and the rest of the band came up for food and to smoke a quick joint, and of course to get paid, before hitting the road. We did, they did, and it was done.
Later on, while Paul was producing the 1975 picnic in Liberty Hill, he stayed in Dallas to promote and buy ads, although it turned out to be a retreat from exhaustion more than anything. We met each night after my job at Bill Stokes’s studio and talked about the picnic, exchanging ideas on how to make it work easier than in the past.
It was their fourth year and most motor-home rental agencies had seen the wrath of a picnic taken out on their equipment, and they had all refused to rent to them, a conundrum Paul placed on my shoulders. With the arrogance of naïveté, I jumped at the chance. I didn’t even know what a dressing room was, much less where to rent one.
The next Sunday I was driving by a construction site and fifty blueprint office trailers were scattered around a field. I called the number on the billboard and ordered them all delivered to Austin for $50 each. Before I knew it, I was in Austin at another picnic, only this time not as a spectator, but as a worker helping “the Devil” himself.
It rained that year, as it seems to at most picnics, and the roof began filling with water and had nowhere to go, so Paul pulled out his forty-five and unloaded his pistol into it to drain the weight of the water. Like the rest of the audience I cheered on in happy disbelief. I’d never seen a gun before.
I guess he was enthused over my eagerness, because Paul hired me as his assistant. Willie’s enthusiasm, however, was short-lived. I was getting on his nerves, trying to treat him like the star I thought he was.
Soon Willie called me into his office. Paul was there too, and in true Willie fashion, rather than hurt my feelings, he said he couldn’t afford to pay me. I knew that wasn’t the case, as I had worked the last nine months for only $100.
He did say, however, that I could continue to promote shows for him, so I did just that. Wichita Falls was my first true dive into the world of concert promotion, and with Willie as the headliner it was an easy sell. The show sold out with massive profits for the time, $12,500; I had about $6,500 in cash sales, with the other $6,000 at the box office.
Fate decided to take me on a drive out west to deliver the money. Paul and Willie were at a show promoted by a longtime scoundrel, Geno McCoslin. Geno had not paid them, yet again, and to their surprise and my good fortune, I showed up with a brown paper bag with $6,500 cash. Willie told Paul, “Hire him back.”
It’s been the best and worst times of my life. I couldn’t imagine a better person with whom to have experienced almost four decades of the most fascinating life anyone could ever imagine. He taught me all about love and how to love others. Just as Joe Jamail wrote on Trigger years ago, he’s “a gentle man.” I will always love him.
T HE F RANKS BROTHERS HANDLE THE MERCHANDISE ON THE ROAD
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