Did Willie Nelson Kiss Charley Pride on the Lips and Other Questions?

Answer a series of forehead-slapping anecdotal factoids. It's up to you to weigh each fact in each anecdotal factoid. They're tricky. One might seem like total B.S. until it's revealed to be strangely and disturbingly "True." Another anecdotal factoid might seem to contain all solid and verifiable facts until it's revealed to be yet one more big fat garden variety "Bald-Faced Lie." And here's the trickiest part: an anecdotal factoid might even be "Half-True"; in other words, a mishmosh of truths and bald-faced lies, where you don't know where one ends and the other begins, much like the usual slop served by Madison Avenue, Washington D.C., and the Internet in its entirety.

Category: A Smokin' Willie Nelson Quiz

Decide for yourself, and mark "T" for "Truth", "F" for "Bald-Faced Lie" or "TF" for "Half-Truth" in the blank slot next to each factoid.

The answers will be revealed on the next page.

1) __ Willie Nelson recorded his album "The IRS Tapes: Who Will Buy My Memories?" to help pay off the $16.7 million that he owed the government in back taxes and penalties.

2) __ Ben and Jerry recently named an ice cream flavor after Willie Nelson. It's called "Willie Nelson's Ultimate Chocoholic Cow Pie." Unfortunately, the flavor failed and wound up in Ben and Jerry's "graveyard" for failed or discontinued ice cream flavors.

3) __ In 2005, Texas Highway 130 was renamed the Willie Nelson Highway.

4) __ Willie once kissed African-American country music star Charley Pride on the lips while onstage at the Longhorn Ballroom, a notoriously tough Dallas bar where no black performer had ever played.

5) __ In 2006, shortly after the controversial gay cowboy film "Brokeback Mountain" was released, Willie Nelson released his own gay cowboy song, "Cowboys are Secretly, Frequently (Fond of Each Other)."

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Here are the answers for A Smokin' Willie Nelson Quiz

Answers:

A reminder: "T" is for "Truth", "F" is for "Bald-Faced Lie" or "TF" is for "Half-Truth".

1) T: It's true that Willie Nelson recorded his album "The IRS Tapes: Who Will Buy My Memories?" to help pay off the $16.7 million that he owed the government in back taxes and penalties. By 1993, he had paid off all of his debts.

In 2003, he poked fun at his former tax debacle in a 30-second Super Bowl ad for tax preparation company H & R Block Inc.

2) TF: This anecdote is both true and false. It's true that Ben and Jerry named an ice cream flavor after Willie Nelson. It's false that it was a failed flavor called "Willie Nelson's Ultimate Chocoholic Cow Pie." Willie's flavor is actually the popular "Willie Nelson's Country Peach Cobbler" made with peach ice cream and cinnamon sugar shortbread cookie pieces.

3) F: It's false that the proposal in the Texas state Senate to rename a long stretch of Texas Highway 130 "the Willie Nelson Highway" passed. The proposal faced strong opposition because of Willie's pro-marijuana politics and past difficulties with the IRS.

4) T: It's true that Willie once kissed Charley Pride on the lips while onstage at a notoriously tough Dallas bar where no black performer had ever played. The audience was so stunned by the kiss that it gave Charley time to sing and win them over.

5) T: It's true that, shortly after the controversial gay cowboy film "Brokeback Mountain" was released, Willie Nelson released "Cowboys are Secretly, Frequently (Fond of Each Other)." He originally wrote the song in 1981, but kept it "in the closet" for over twenty years, waiting for the right time to record it. He first introduced the song on Howard Stern's radio show.

SOURCES:

http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2007/03/16/peachy-keen-willie-nelson-and-a-brief-history-of-ben-jerrys-ice-cream/

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2003/01/20/daily54.html

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/legislature/entries/2005/04/27/no_highway_for_willie.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4715822.stm