One Can Make a Difference (22 page)

In the end, I did answer a newspaper reporter's question. I told him that I was bisexual (the way we put it back then) but asked him please not to write anything at that time until after the Monte Carlo exhibition, as I didn't want to hurt the tour. The next day, despite his assurance that he would not write the story, it was out. The reporter said that his editor had pressured him. Back then, it was a huge scandal, and it was touch and go for the tour's main sponsor. Now, when people ask me, I advise them to always try at least to come out to their friends and family.Your friends are your chosen family, so they should support you, even if others don't. And, although each situation is different, by coming out you can help others around you feel more comfortable and supported if they're struggling in that way. As for youngsters, I advise to always have an escape hatch if you decide to come out to your parents, because they might throw you out of the house for being gay. You had better have a relative's or good friend's place where you can stay, just in case.

I have never felt ashamed of being gay, even when people have tried hard to make me feel that way. I know how I feel isn't wrong. There can be nothing wrong with loving another human being, regardless of their gender.What is wrong is to be prejudiced against those you don't understand or who don't feel exactly like you. Occasionally, someone will throw the Bible at me and I say, “Are you saying that God had us evolve in every way over the last two thousand years but the Bible has not?” I ask them to look at the Bible. It justified human slavery, genocide, the sacrifice of animals. We've evolved beyond those things! The Bible has evolved in those things, why not in human sexuality? Then they might say, “Well, it's not normal.” I think of Naomi Judd's words. She said, “Normal? Normal is just a cycle in a washing machine.” You can have a normal temperature, a normal water level, but what is a normal human being when we are so full of emotion, love, and sexuality?

Being visible has helped give gay people strength, but I think what matters is not whether I'm gay or straight, but that I stand up for who I am and what I believe. I'm not outspoken, but I say what I think and often say what others think, too, but are afraid to say. Apparently this makes me “outspoken” and even controversial! So, while what I say may be completely “normal” or at least acceptable ten or twenty years from now, it does not help me now when it comes to being marketable. I was recycling batteries decades ago and I bought stock in Whole Foods ten years ago.

My fans seem to come from all corners of the world as well as all corners of society. Anyone oppressed likes me for sticking up for the underdog, but there are many other pockets of fandom: Straight housewives go crazy. They say, “Oh, Martina, we love you!” and I think “Whoa there!” Kids tell me they love the way I play and they think it's super cool that I'm older than their moms and I'm beating a woman half my age. There's an old conservative man from Utah who has watched me play for years and has become my pen pal! Diversity is the great and wonderful thing about life.

I try to be a good role model by being a consummate athlete setting an example in that way. I advocate eating nutritious food (I'm a vegetarian), working out, being in top form mentally and physically, and by cultivating a team of positive people around me. One of my strengths is in listening to advice from people I trust. For example, if my coach told me to change my stroke, I would put that change to work that very day, not in a week or a month. I'd make it start working for me then and there. I also have a knack for selecting what bit of advice, perhaps one piece out of ten, is relevant for me in the moment. Years later, a light bulb might go off and I will think “Ah, that other advice can work for me now,” because everything has its time. W. Somerset Maugham once said, “Only average people are at their best every day.” I love that! Never hang back and play it safe because you fear that you'll fail. To me, the only failure is the failure to try. Most people can do more than they think they can, so go ahead, push that envelope. It's like they say,“nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

WILLIE NELSON

Greasing the Wheels to
American Self-Reliance

“Hi, it's Willie,” he says when he calls, and from among the billions of people
on the planet, you know there is only the one. His voice is unmistakable, and
like Willie himself, it seems to smile down the line at you. I have loved the
man since I first heard him sing “Good Times” in 1968.You can just tell he's
fun, he's irreverent, and, well, he's just plain decent. His big heart includes a
mile-wide soft spot for the state of Texas and for people everywhere who are
like those he grew up around—hardworking and hard playing and looking out
for each other.

Willie could have left those good ole country values behind when he hit the
big time or later when he settled in Hawaii, but he never did. He campaigns for
the little guy—and for the horses, too, helping close down U.S. slaughterhouses
that cater to the horsemeat market overseas. His story is about the power of one
person to keep on remembering what's important in life, no matter how high up
the ladder you climb, a value a whole lot of “rich folk” sadly forget. That's why
I am happy to include Willie in this book.

I
was born in Abbot,Texas, just twenty miles away from where my old friend Carl Cornelius runs a truck stop. Abbot, like most Texas towns, is a small and special place. It's a farming community, and when I was a boy it consisted of about 300 people, and I think it still does! We all knew each other; we kids went to school together, we worked the fields together, and played ball together, all that kind of thing. I grew up thinking everyone in the world was like me, because everyone around me sure was. It wasn't unusual to care about everything going on with everyone, and because of that I'm particularly not inclined to sit back and watch what's going on around me. I participate. As a born troublemaker, you might say that I have been dumb enough, nervy enough, and nosey enough to be into everything!

Carl and I go way back. Some forty or so years ago, I met him through another of my friends, Zeke Varnon. Zeke has been a huge bad influence on me; we used to run around, gambling, drinking, and having a high old time. Then I kind of lost touch with him until, one day, I was driving along the highway from Dallas to Waco and what did I see but a billboard with a picture on it of Zeke, Carl, and . . . me! It was advertising Carl's Corner Truck Stop. I knew Zeke and I knew Zeke's tricks, but I didn't know Carl until that day. I stopped and went in the place and met Carl and we had a lot of fun. I found out that he had started the truck stop just so that there'd be somewhere a person could get a drink in this dry county, a hangout where truckers coming up and down the highway could get something to eat, play some cards, and have a good time. Ever since then, I've been fond of that place, and I've watched it go up and down, from good times to bad and back again.

Let me explain how this is tied to my bio-fuels idea. It was actually my wife, Annie, who started this. She asked me what I thought about her buying a Volkswagen Jetta that ran on bio-diesel. I asked “What's that?” I was a bit leery at first, but as soon as I heard that this stuff came from 100 percent vegetable oil my mind started to race. I instantly thought of the family farmers who are going under, who can't make ends meet, the very reason I started Farm Aid back in 1985. There are fields full of cotton in Texas, and here was enormous potential for a new use for the cottonseed, as well as a reason to grow more soy or corn, because all that can become bio-fuel. Here was a way to boost the farmers' income, to shine a light at the end of the tunnel for those farmers. For them, times get harder and harder, but with bio-fuel they could make money again.

I got together with these two great people, Bob and Kelly King, man and wife from Maui, real pioneers in bio-fuels who had started Pacific Bio-diesel, and I learned a whole lot. They actually go around and collect used vegetable grease from restaurants all over Hawaii, where I have a house, and they recycle it into fuel. I learned how good bio-fuel is for the environment, how it costs less, gives better mileage, your engine runs smooth, it can go in anything that has a diesel engine, and it's biodegradable. The other thing that resonates with me is that if Americans can produce it from homegrown crops, we can stop depending on foreign oil. Everyone knows that we went to war with Iraq for the oil; it has the second largest oil holdings in the world, but there's no excuse for killing people over oil. There's no need to start wars over oil when we can grow our own. I put a 300-gallon tank up at my house and we run the vehicles on bio-fuel, including my Mercedes. Every household can put a tank by the garage. When you run your car, the exhaust will smell like peanuts or cracked corn! The potential is huge, and the surface hasn't even been scratched yet.

Carl was going through a bad personal patch right about the time I was learning all about bio-fuels, and he was thinking of closing the truck stop down. I got hold of him and said we could do something. How would he like Carl's Corner to be the first place in the United States to sell “Bio-Willie” at the pumps? We started with just a bit of it, hoping it would sell, but it took off like a rocket. I was on XM Satellite radio with another old friend, Bill Mack, who hosts the
Open Road
show, and we started talking to truckers about bio-diesel.Word spread up and down the highway and soon everyone was pulling into Carl's to try it. Now we are building a bio-diesel plant right next to the truck stop. It'll be run by all local-based people from the community, so people who were thinking of quitting the area can stay and make some money.

Change is all about thinking positively. What you think is what you'll be, so I try to be positive, and that's what I tell all the kids. By concentrating on the possibilities, you attract good things. Bio-fuel is one of those good things.

PETRA NEMCOVA

Put a Little Love in Your Heart

Petra Nemcova always wanted to be a model, and after being spotted in a
national talent contest, her dream came true. Her beautiful countenance (and
body) has since appeared on the covers of, among others,
Bazaar
,
Sports Illustrated
, and
Cosmopolitan
; she has starred in videos for
Vogue
; writes editorials
for
Elle
; hosts the TV show
A Model Life
; and was hand-chosen by
designers including Valentino and Armani to work the catwalk in their favorite
creations. In 2005, her world was turned upside down. She was vacationing
on the Thai coast with her fiancé, Simon Atlee, when the tsunami struck. Her
beloved Simon was washed away and drowned, and although Petra survived,
she was badly injured. It took great resolve for her not to succumb to her emotional
and physical injuries, but she succeeded. Her professional comeback was
celebrated as complete when, in 2006, she was featured again in the
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit issue. Her long-standing personal determination to help
others, particularly children, was only strengthened by her experience.
Love
has become a Hallmark card word, bandied about casually and often without a
grain of sincerity, but in Petra's case
love
is the word that guides her conduct.
In 2005, she launched the Happy Heart Foundation to help youngsters who
suffer loss or hardship in disasters all over the world.

M
y childhood was a happy one. Although we weren't rich financially, it left me with many rich memories, memories that I rely on to get me through rough times. For instance, I remember that my grandfather used to bake delicious cakes. There was one in particular that was fabulous: a flat cake full of fruit with a sugary crust. My sister and I couldn't resist eating it while it was still hot, and so my grandfather would make us whistle tunes because if we were whistling, we couldn't be eating! When I have especially down moments, when something in my life gets too oppressive or stress attacks me, there's one treasured scene I return to in my mind. It's of me when I was eight or nine years old, sitting on a hill in high grass, looking down into a beautiful valley. I used to pick mushrooms in that area by myself, and I'd roll down that hill for the sheer joy of it. The scene is so peaceful and comforting that it calms me.

I have always wanted to bring happiness to people, to help them, especially children. I'm so appreciative of what I have in my life. I knew what I wanted to do from the time I cut apart my mother's skirts and stitched them into clothes I'd want to wear, and my career has been a steady rise. Some girls become only runway girls, but I have succeeded in commercials, catalogues, and editorials, in all sorts of ways as well as on the runway. That gives me a good balance, and I'm grateful for being so lucky. I know that any of us can help others no matter what we have, but it's wonderful for me to have so much good fortune that I can share.

My ordeal in Thailand when the tsunami struck was a true test of my belief in the power of love and positivity. It was a terribly hard experience, for me certainly, but also for millions of people who were affected in so many countries. When the waves hit our beach at Khao Luk, the love of my life, my fiancé, Simon Atlee, and I were in our bungalow. The water came in and we were swept away in seconds. There was instantly debris everywhere: bits of broken building, wood, trees, objects. I was dragged down and under and debris was hitting me, causing internal injuries and breaking my pelvis. I tried kicking my way out, but the water was black and I was going down, not up. I thought, “This is it, I'm meant to go.” I accepted my fate, trusted that whatever would happen would happen and stopped struggling. I can't explain it, but I felt suddenly peaceful. In fact, it was the most peaceful moment of my life. When someone says “go with the flow,” I know now what they mean, exactly!