Kiss my Willie.

What a cute Willie, huh. Actually one of the cutest Willies around.

Come to think of it find your own Willie to kiss, this one’s all mine. I met this Willie in Chicago last week at the Farm Aid 20^th anniversary concert. Willie even gave me his autograph and a big smile. I took this photograph too.

I hadn’t been back to Chicago (where I grew up) for almost five years and I had a great time. I reconnected with old high school friends, drank copious amounts of beer, smoked pot for the first time in ages and got to hear some great music. Oh and a lot of bad music too.

On Sunday at the concert I also managed to scam a media pass, by pretending to be a journalist for a small publication called Organic Nibbles. Have you heard of it? Probably not cause I made it up. I got to go backstage and eat yummy food (and spare myself from the nasty concert fare) as well as catch admiring glances all afternoon from young journalism students who were obviously impressed with my slick plastic tag. I even lied to the woman at the beer tent when she asked what publication I was with. “I am an independent journalist,” I replied. “Oh you mean a freelancer.” She said.

“Uh yeah a freelancer, that’s what I am.”

Been a long time since I had the opportunity to pay $7.50 for a small cup of lukewarm Miller Lite. But hey I had already filed my story and it was time to have some Midwestern fun.

On to farm stuff now.

So lady Autumn has cast her slight shadow on the farm and winter is fast approaching. The days are getting shorter which means Mr. lazy bones gets to sleep longer as we start work at eight now. This week is also the start of the dental floss harvest. The dental floss vines have died back and the farm crew is now going through the fields to harvest the threads. After the threads are gathered we dry them in a tobacco barn for three weeks. This process gets rid of about 90% of their moisture and stops them from spoiling. Then onto waxing. The floss strands are dipped, hundreds at a time, into huge vats of cinnamon and mint flavored wax. The waxed floss is then hung once again to dry before being picked up by the regional floss distributor. Most of our floss is sent overseas to Bangladesh to be spooled and packaged by five year olds. Their nimble fingers are perfectly suited for the task.

Here’s another list. I think it’s great to have strong opinions about insignificant things like music. Here are my ratings out of ten for some of the bands that played at the Farm Aid concert. Please note that John Cougar and Dave Matthews got three points added to their scores because although they suck musically, I really respect the work they are doing to save family farms.

Kenny Chesney 1/10 (only because you’re so dreamy do you get one point)

Wilco 10/10 (best performance of the show)

Dave Matthews 5/10

John Cougar 6/10

Neil Young 9/10 (Played the most amazing version of southern man with a horn section)

Willie Nelson 8/10 (awesome except for a bit of nepotism going on in the band)

Widespread Panic 3/10 (this music is so boring)

Los Lonely Boys 3/10 (this music is even more boring)

Emmylou Harris 6/10 (all of her songs sound the same but she was a great back up singer for neil)

Here’s another picture of Willie. Hope it’s not too rude for blogspot.

Farmer Simon

Now I'd like to kiss that Willie.