I'm A Big Fan Of Willie Nelson

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I'm now watching Willie Nelson on TV. The man is my hero. He's my hero because he plays a nylon string guitar, and that old man can play the hell outta that guitar. One of the more interesting things for me about this program is how the pianist is featured occasionally, and my recent efforts to play the piano has me astounded by how a professional can make it seem easy.

Willie's stage is filled with really accomplished professional musicians. That's more interesting to me because I've seen three groups on PBS today where the star was surrounded by very competent, highly polished professionals on every instrument, and these people were having fun showing off for each other. I'm a big fan of these and any other talented and dedicated musicians who take their music to the limit.

At times I think I must be satisfied enough with my own playing to be able recognize real talent. I'm absolutely sure that's why I've been playing the scales on the piano. It's basically just to get a better sense of the instrument for myself. When I was a sad and lonely kid in the Navy I took great solace in going to piano bars in San Diego to listen to solo piano players putting on their show. Listening to a good jazz pianist made me feel emotionally met.

I think I'm right about what playing the scales on the piano will lead to. I don't practice playing any particular song much, but what I do play, I can play in any key. I know exactly why that's a big deal to me. It's because it don't mean nothing to a real musician. By that I mean that a person that's really dedicated to playing music at the professional level has to be able to do that, and much more than I'll get around to.

The first instrument I owned was a brass cornet my parents bought for me when I was twelve years old. I begged for it with complete abandon. I've always been a beggar. There have been many, many times I've been completely ashamed of myself, and I don't always get what I want by the doing of it.

It seems like it's been my real life's work to get mo' bettah at mendicating. That's the most amazing thing I can observe about myself. That is, that practically every skill I've ever took the time to get good at, had as it's ground of being a desperate need to get over.

I designed a poem to get me where I wanted to be attitude-wise. I was satisfied with the verses I come up with to enchant my own self into be-co-me-ing whatever I wanted to be with only a few seconds notice that I was on next.

I don't know if I deliberately set about to get the results I finally obtained by the doing of it. How could I? I didn't know what I wanted. I only knew what i lusted for in my heart, and I made that up, usually, in the heat of the moment on an as-needed basis.

Toward the end of it, however, I knew what I was doing, and I learned more and more how to go about it as I went along. My purpose became clear after years of trying to make it happen without gnowing what it was that I was actually reaching for.

To me it was simple. I wanted to recite this poem I wrote all the way through it without my audience realized I was reciting a poem. It is a fairly short poem. Most of my poems are only a few verses long. I take a lotta pride in saying what I see with as few words as possible. I'm a miser with woids (woes-to-the-id, words). I'm a miser about a lotta things.

I think it may have something to do with the Sun in my natal chart residing in 0°02" Taurus in the Sixth house, the home of Virgo. According to the Enneagrams my chief feature is Avarice. Greed. The bane of my existence. I guess I'm somewhat of a closet miser, because it takes certain conditions for it to emerge from behind closed doors.

I'm only seriously stingy and miserly about what I physically need to get away by myself to contemplate my life. If giving is better than receiving, then it's lost on me if what I'm expected to give means I can't isolate myself from the world often enough. Other than that you can just take what you need as long as you don't mess with my bottom-line stash.

That's threatened presently, and as I get older it might get worse, and then critical, and then deadly, to myself that is. I don't think it's all that particular to me by any means. It happens with a lot of old men who have taken a lotta pride in their independence. C'est la morte.

I can't say exactly how long it took me to be able to recite that poem to a group of total strangers without them realizing I was saying poetry until I got all the way through it to the end. That was the criteria I created for myself as the proviso for proving to myself my familiarity with the poem had made me contemptuous of it's intent. Only then did it take a life of it's own in my psyche to do what I designed it to do without supervision.
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