Willie Nelson: Singer of songs, picker of guitars, author of books and an in-your-face milk drinker, what's it to ya?

JD's quotes:

In the book ''The Facts of Life: And other dirty jokes'' by Willie Nelson, Willie treats us to an unusual compilation of country music tales, just plain country tales, priceless pictures, adult jokes and his own song lyrics wrapped up in a weird ''I'm telling you what's going on while I tell you what happened real time'' style. Often he just starts out a section by saying something like ''Pooky wants me to tell you this one'' or '' We just got done with dinner'' or ''Did I tell you the editors liked the book?''.

Willie's writing style is so casual that if you just threw in a ton of abbreviations, it might as well be your wife text messaging to tell you your mother came to visit and she wants to know if you want her to pick up the no fly boxers or the regulars at Walmart.

Willie shows off that he is probably the richest source of country music stories alive and frequently veers into references of legends like they were his neighbors or relatives...of course sometimes they actually are but you know what I mean.

A fragment of one of Willie's stories:

''Hank kept singing, Chubby kept fiddling, and someone went home with Hank Snow's hair.''

Willie on the origins of his eventually famous hobby and pure skill at it:

''Me and sister Bobbie and some of the rest of the kids around Abbott, the Harwells and the Rajecks, we'd smoke anything that burned. We tried corn silks, cedar bark, coffee grounds, and grapevines before graduating to Bull Durham roll-your-own tobacco, and we did. That's where I learned to roll and why I can roll a joint faster than any living person.''

Willie has always put a down home spin on spirituality...unless he's putting an outer space spin on it...he puts a spin on it either way. One of Willie's allusions to his individual spiritual beliefs in this book includes:

''Of course, I believe in reincarnation. I believe you keep coming back until you get wise. Then if you want to come back again to show off a little, that's OK too. It's all right to come back a few times just to be wise, just so other people can see you and say, ''Damn, he's wise.'' ''




Willie is an intellectual sort but he always takes the shine off of it in his own rare way. A good example of that is when he mentioned how he'd prefer to remain on his legendarily pimped out tour bus instead of in a motel.

''We have just pulled into somewhere. Maybe a truck stop. Maybe the motel. This is exciting. I can't wait to see which one it is. If it's a truck stop, I'll stay on the bus. If it's a motel, I'll stay on the bus. Don't get me wrong. I don't mind. I was just being factitious, I think. I'll look that up. If factitious doesn't apply, I'll have another big word in there before a cat can lick its ass.''

Also, Willie raises interesting questions to specific individuals like:

''Why do you care whether or not I drink milk? As long as I drink milk responsibly, why is it any of your business?''

Willie is still the most quote-worthy country singer I can get away with quoting...David Allen Coe's quote's get you thrown in jail or sued.

Check out Willie's 70th birthday celebration while Toby Keith and Scott Emerik sing ''I'll never smoke weed with Willie again'', a song they wrote and performed in front of Willie himself.