Some thoughts from merle haggard

I do love the Hag.

My take on the Merle words:

I've lived at the very end of what must have been a wonderful country.
- Only if we keep voting for things that we should work for, and allow invaders in that don't want to live as Americans.

They've left the redwoods up alongside the highway so we'll think they're all there. But go up in an airplane and you'll see that they've clear-cut everything behind.
- BS. Just plain old BS. There are more trees now than in 1492, and that includes redwoods. Seen 'em, walk amongst 'em. Still can get lost in 'em if I don't carry my GPS (or them dang green things block my satelite reception).

The kids just don't know how big the tear on the rip-off was. If they had any idea, I believe they could do something about it. But it may be too late. We'll see. They're smarter. They can talk to one another. I don't look for a politician to bullsh** his way in this time.
- Uh, been hangin' with Willie a lot lately? Not sure what he was trying to say here.

When I was nine years old, right after my dad died, my mother got me some violin lessons with this big heavyset lady. It took nine lessons before this lady said to my mother, "You're wasting your money. He's got too good an ear. He's not going to fool with learning to read when he can play something that he hears on the radio." When I heard her say that, I knew I had something.
- Totally agree. But I can't play music (or sing without coyotes complainin'), and Haggard is a grreat musician.

We weren't thieves by nature. Pranksters. Practical jokers. We were without a car one time, Dean Holloway and I. We just went out and started borrowing cars. Sometimes we'd bring 'em back. Put gas in 'em. Clean 'em up. Leave a little note: THANKS FOR THE CAR. Like the Phantom.
- Must have been real fun for the folks missing there cars cuz some jackazz decided he wanted what wasn't his. Good thing he did time.

I'm in a very small percentage of people ever in the joint who beat it. It's like 2 percent of 2 percent. If you've ever been to the joint, you're going back.
- OK. 'Course, a whole bunch of people manage not to get caught being that stupid, greedy or selfish in the first place.

I'll tell you why it's different when somebody else is singing "Mama Tried": They're reading the words. I'm telling the story.
- Again, totally agree. I always like a song sung by the writer or a singer that has been through the same situation than some pretty pop-tart that hasn't worked a day in his or her life.

I got out something like nine that morning. February 3, 1960. There's a big metal security device at the main door coming out of San Quentin. When they open that door, it comes up and you have to step over it. Just as I was stepping over that device, a Hank Snow record came on. "The Last Ride." My foot just stopped in midair. The song was coming from a radio near this guard who was standing there with his gun. He said, "What, did you change your mind?" I said, "No, that's a really great song." I stayed there and listened to the rest of the song.
- Can relate. After getting back from long missions or deployments it was possible that a delay on the quarterdeck or tarmac to take in some unrelated beauty, such as a song or the sight of an animal running free would abate my flight back to the peace and comfort of home.

Couldn't have done the music without it. Wouldn't have thought of it. Wouldn't have been part of me.
- Yep, might have done different music. Might have been less poignant, might have been better.

Willie Nelson is an idol for me. The music is sort of immaterial. Willie is seventy-four. A lot of people don't realize how healthy he is. He doesn't eat any strict diet. But he doesn't eat very much of anything. He understands the value of water.
- Willie Nelson is mostly an addle-brained fool. Who also has musical talent. Was rolling in dough but wouldn't pay his taxes? Typical celebrity "I'm too special to bother" BS. But I do agree with his diet plan. Eat whatever ya want, just don't eat much of it. Works for me.

Seventy is a big mark. I'm feeling good. But Bing Crosby felt good, too, and he came off the eighteenth hole, just kind of laid down in the grass, and that was that.
- Nothing bad about dying right after doing what ya love to do. We all die, just make sure you live first.

Freedom is what prohibition ain't.
- Yep. Don't ever think for a minute that ANY new law expands freedom. Laws can only restrict freedom, that is their purpose. Many laws are needed, but too many more aren't.

I probably had as bad a sex urge as anybody when I was younger. I remember an old guitar player, Eldon Shamblin, told me, "When you get sex off your mind, you can go ahead and learn something." Isn't that great?
- Yep, and when you're confined to the company of men for long time as I've been (and are a straight man, as I am) you realize how much more you can accomplish. That is the single best argument for keeping women away from combat, as men think better with their big heads and do more when they aren't in a hormone-muddled mess.

Willie Nelson's the one who told me the reason it costs so much to get divorced is because it's worth it.
- Wille isn't always wrong!

I remember going to a dance when I was a kid — my older brother took me in. Roy Nichols was playing. My brother said, "Hey, there's a little guy in there playing guitar. He don't have to pick cotton or go to school." Roy Nichols became my idol on the guitar. Many years later, he went on to play for me for half price. But he and I could never look directly at each other. I never knew why. At first, I thought it was because I admired him too much. But it was Roy, too. Anyway, late in his life, Roy had a stroke. Paralyzed him on one side. Right down the middle. Half of his nose he could blow, the other half was dead. After his stroke, I went over to Roy's house. He looked me right in the eye and said, "Look here: I love you." I got chills. He said, "That old sh** went down the hole with this stroke."
- So don't wait 'til the Reaper is knocking at your door to tell it like it is.

They got laws for the white man and laws for the black man — we all know that.
- Nowadays, they are the same laws. We all need to get over that and take responsibility for our own screw-ups.

Lefty Frizzell said you don't have to experience everything to sing about it. But you've got to believe it.
- Yep, to do it right.

I think what we're lacking in music today is it seems like all the good stories have been already taken. "Stardust" has already been written. "Your Cheatin' Heart." "Imagine." God almighty, lightning may never strike again like that.
- There are still songs to be written and songwriters that can write great ones, but they don't get the airplay with the music businesses' controlling the airwaves. Try this link if you want to hear a good one:

MySpace.com - Chris Cook - North Carolina - Country / Blues / R&B - www.myspace.com/chriscookmusic

If only somebody could come up with something different — start a new trend. Real music. If only somebody could sing a song, had something to say, had a good melody, and could do it in person, without help from any electronics. I think the people would go nuts. It's bound to happen. There's got to be a guy out there somewhere. A natural.
- I refer you again to Chris Cook, the link above. But not as the sole answer to this, just an example that there are fine musicians you've probably never heard of putting out great work.
:cheers: :rocket_bike:

Hey Red, It's a known fact that only 10% of the original Big Trees (Redwoods and Sequioa's) remain from the original range. Merle is definitely right on that one...

Known fact? BS. Funny how these "known facts" crop up. Spend a lot of time in the Sierra foothills, do ya? I do when killing defenseless animals (which is FUN!). Or did Al Gore tell ya that, between inventing the internet and establishing peace on Earth?

I just wish the state of California would reintroduce the grizzly throughout it's original range. Would take care of the homeless and illegal alien problems quicker than spit would dry on my pipes at 90mph!:roflmao:

Ok, I must be wrong considering you are a californian... Guess the dendrology course and professor that taught it is full o' hooey then. Well I was taught this some 13 years ago. I guess with the amount of energy that the Redwoods and Sequoias allocate for reproduction (which is next to none), they could have exploded all over California in 13 years. Guess I am wrong!!!

Gee, a professor full of it? Most are. Too afraid to make it in the real world.
But really, you actually bought that "only 10% of the original Big Trees (Redwoods and Sequioa's) remain from the original range" stuff? Guess you thought "An Inconvient Truth" was a documentary. And "The Population Bomb" wasn't alarmist tripe.

The biggest threat to redwoods in CA is that they NEED forest fires, and the fires just aren't allowed to go crazy like they did in the prehistoric times. Timber companies do what they can to populate them - after all, it is a popular and fire-resistant wood. But they are fussy trees, and without the fires burning through the forests' faster growing conifer and deciduous stock they are less likely to make the cut. Or live long enough to be cut.

My Master's wasn't in botany - its in education. That's how I know how full of BS academia is. Far too much of real truth is inconvenient there, and dissent from "consensus" was more tolerated amongst Adolph's National Socialist Party than most places of "higher learning" today. So sad.