“I woke up still not dead again today.” In a recent interview, 84 year-old Willie Nelson shared the hook line from a new song and some carefully worded views on the times. Libby Casey, a reporter for the Washington Post asked him several loaded questions about the current administration which he deflected. Willie is a savvy political animal when it comes to biting the hand that feeds him so he danced around issues saying, simply, “Something ain’t right.” Obviously his views on marijuana are at odds with the Attorney General and he made a few good natured jabs in that direction. Printed in small type, under her paper’s header, she showed him their motto for the year: “Democracy Dies In Darkness.” You could see the gears turning but it didn’t take long for him to grin and concur. It doesn’t take a journalist to make the point: a free press is the critical, active agent against tyranny. Every President in my memory has complained about negative press coverage but that in itself is proof of its worth.
As much as I like his music and warm to his charm, Willie is neither a solution nor a fix. He might not answer your question at all but I don’t think he’s a liar and if he was paid to perform, he will deliver. As tarnished as he may be, his integrity sparkles. I take him for what he has always been, a transparent, self serving hedonist with a good heart and a soft spot for the underdog. I liked it when he reflected on the importance of living in the present. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow never comes: do something important with the "Right Now." I think that reality is unavoidable as you near your destination.
Today is Bike-Crash plus 21: three weeks of painfully slow healing but healing none the less. I can’t do anything very well but most things, I can, within reason, still do. I still love my bicycle: we crashed because I failed. Someday I’ll appreciate the lesson I’m supposed to learn from it: and I woke up still not dead again today.
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