The WELL: inkwell.vue.329: Joe Nick Patoski: Willie Nelson, an Epic Life

#163: "The Best for Your Health!" (rik) Thu 21 Aug 08 06:48

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 06:48:00 PDT

The hell with road stories. This is a guy who was sleeping with Ali McGraw. I'm sure he has some tales. [Read entire topic]

#162: Ed Ward (captward) Thu 21 Aug 08 01:48

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 01:48:00 PDT

For those of you in San Francisco:

Texas writer Joe Nick Patoski talks (in a drawl) and signs copies of his critically-acclaimed biography "Willie Nelson: An Epic Life" at The Booksmith 1644 Haight Street in San Francisco Tuesday, September 2 at 7:30 pm

He*ll be joined by Mickey Raphael from Willie Nelson*s Family Band who will discuss the harmonica and life on the road.

Tell Joe Nick you're from the Well: he wants to put faces to these folks he's been talking with! [Read entire topic]

#161: Joe Nick Patoski (joenickpatoski) Mon 7 Jul 08 21:18

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:18:00 PDT

Some of the service was corny and even cheesy, but yeah, Willie hit the note, all right. I was glad I was there to witness. [Read entire topic]

#160: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Mon 7 Jul 08 19:45

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:45:00 PDT

I like this sentence: "'Family Bible' is a gospel classic and Willie sung the song with inspiration, power, and with the soaring range of an Irish tenor." That makes me wish I'd been there to be lifted up. [Read entire topic]

#159: My free and simple demeanor set everybody at ease. (pdl) Mon 7 Jul 08 06:39

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:39:00 PDT

somehow i missed that there was a blog separate from the other website. nice photos, man! [Read entire topic]

#158: Ed Ward (captward) Mon 7 Jul 08 03:41

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 03:41:00 PDT

Man, you should have noted that you have a report -- with pictures! -- on your blog!

<http://joenickp.blogspot.com/> [Read entire topic]

#157: Joe Nick Patoski (joenickpatoski) Sun 6 Jul 08 13:56

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 13:56:00 PDT

Willie Report: I went up to Carl's Corner for the free 3d of July bash inaugurating Willie's Place, a performance theatre, bar, restaurant, Willie's Place XM radio studio headquarters, and state of the art truck stop.

I got to hear snippets of Johnny Bush, Darrell McCall, Justin Trevino, David Allan Coe, and Ray Price before the crowd in the theatre started overflowing and jamming up, and listened to Willie's set on his XM radio channel while I was driving home.

Today, Sunday, I drove up to Abbott to the Methodist Church that Willie and his sister Bobbie bought and have kept open with volunteer help. Willie and Bobbie and Willie's wife Annie and Willie's daughter Lana all came up from Houston where they did the Fifth of July Picnic, and a nice service was staged. Some of the volunteers sang accompanied by a musical tape but towards the end, Bobbie sat at the piano and Willie sang "Family Bible."

Maybe it was because he didn't have his band behind him. Maybe it was because Bobbie was playing. Maybe it was because they were bringing it all back home, but his singing on "Family Bible," the sprititual song he wrote and sold to Paul Buskirk and Claude Gray that punched his ticket to Nashville, was nothing short of great. He sang strong and confident with the range of an Irish tenor. I dig his shows, but seeing him and his sister in the church they grew up in was beyond cool. [Read entire topic]

#156: Joe Nick Patoski (joenickpatoski) Sun 6 Jul 08 13:47

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 13:47:00 PDT

The Sand County Foundation landowner project is indeed a coffee table book rich with pictures. It better be since I'm writing a mere 20,000 words of text. Fixin' to meet with the first family tomorrow.

I'm not as plugged into Austin's sustainability community as I should be. I am pushing to have it part of the dialogue about regional growth and government. As far as the Legislature goes (which is where the power is in Texas), sustainability is a foreign concept. Austin, per usual, is light years ahead of the rest of Texas, and almost as up to par with cities in California, Oregon, and elsewhere. The city has a great rebate deal to encourage folks to buy solar panels at less than half the usual price. Meanwhile, although Hays County, where I live, just rejected an agreement from a new development to put treated sewage in a seasonal creek, the best incentive is a $100 tax break if you install rainwater catchment, which costs aboout $10,000 minimum. I've got a rainwater system but there's been so little rain in the last nine months, I'm back on well water. [Read entire topic]

#155: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Sat 5 Jul 08 12:41

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 12:41:00 PDT

That's a very cool project. As a coffee table book, will it be rich with photos?

There's a vibrant and growing sustainability community in Austin. Are you plugged into that scene at all? [Read entire topic]

#154: Joe Nick Patoski (joenickpatoski) Thu 3 Jul 08 21:02

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:02:00 PDT

No that's not goofy at all. The whole hardback deal is, it's new. Trade paper not so much, although more affordable and easier to take on the airplane.

But yeah the more I've talked with other authors, the bidness is way goofy with the old guard still running the show while the indies and self-published are bubbling under on the streets. Publishing technology allows anyone to make a cool looking book. Some friends of mine who recently married had a book of their photos that really looked profession that was published on an iMac. Jim Franklin JFLKN is putting out a book of his art via Lulu. So DIY actually can be competitive. But like the music bidness, it all boils down to distribution, with Amazon in the role of ITunes. It's all shifting rapidly and I'm not sure where it's going, but I want to hanging on for the ride.

The Sand County Foundation is an organization based on the writings and work of Aldo Leopold, an early 20th century Thoreau who wrote the Sand County Almanac, and emphasized individual stewardship, land ethics, and sustainability. The foundation awards Leopold Conservation Awards annually. I'm going to visit and profile ten families they've designated, including the Coleman Natural Beef folks in Colorado, a family in western Wisconsin that does sustainable forestry, and an uncle and nephew in Texas restoring land that their forefathers wore out by overgrazing sheep. All that's being rolled into a big ol' coffeetable book that Texas A&M Press will publish. [Read entire topic]