For those that don’t know much about me, I was an equipment manager for the basketball team during my college years. It was real cool, because I got to travel the country on the school’s dime. Let me just say, you haven’t truly lived till you’ve been to Ames Iowa in January. I visited the lovely town 4 times, once we had to fly into Nebraska because of a blizzard. Got to stay at the truck stop in Atlantic Iowa on that trip. They had carpets that looked like hard wood floors. Swanky. Once our charter plane had problems with the landing gear. So what did they do, landed and took off twice to see if it would “work itself out.” That makes you feel safe, trouble with the LANDING GEAR, so we try it out one more time, just to see if it’s really broke. I mean, it’s not like a sprained ankle that’ll “work itself out,” and if doesn’t, you don’t have that far to fall. Caught the last commercial flight out of OKC to KC and got to stay at the airport hotel in KC. They had water that didn’t give you the hot poops. Swanky. Had an early wake-up call, made it to Hilton Coliseum about 30 minutes before tip-off. Lost in OT, otherwise lousy trip. Another time it was the coldest I’ve ever seen it. This time when we landed, our plane started to fish tail because of the ice on the runway. Doing doughnuts on Bay Street in Greensburg is fun, doughnuts on Ames runway in an airplane, not so much. It was so cold that when we left, the planes engines froze up. So we bussed to Des Moines to stay at a motel there before flying out the next day. They had heated rooms and free HBO. Swanky. Fond memories, to be sure. Now this was before the Big 12, but we did get to go to Waco and Austin to play Baylor and UT. I was disappointed in the Waco trip because they didn’t let us go tour the Branch Dividian Compound. Oh well, maybe next time. But the Austin trip was cool, cause we went out to some of the bars there, we won in OT, and I got to see the most beautiful girl ever. How did I get to see her? We’ll I was walking out to the arena floor from our locker room, and the UT cheerleaders were stretching there. As I rounded the corner this one gal was stretching and was looking so hot that my knees buckled. Literally buckled, honest to God. To this day I’m not sure how I kept from falling down right in front of her. Of course if I had, I could’ve used the ever-popular line, “I’ve fallen for you.” (I’ll let you know if it ever works) It’s a good night when you get to see something so beautiful and get to run off the Erwin Center floor flashing the broken horn sign. Just had a thought like Cody Canada had in “The Boys from OK,” when he said we might have to redo this because they might want to sell a CD in Norman. I might have to redo this because we want more fans in Austin, but this is a review, so we can get away with this stuff. Now, if you’ve read my Chris Isaak review, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “I thought the most beautiful girl in the world was in Heath’s ECON class?” Well, self, I guess you’re right, let’s say this girl is the second best looking girl, giving the ever so slight edge to the Okie, but the cheerleader is the best thing to ever happen in Austin. What’s the second best thing to ever happen in Austin? Austin City Limits on PBS of course.
City Limits has kinda gone down hill here lately, but Willie was the first performer ever on the show. This DVD was from his 1990 show, a time before I had met the ECON girl or the UT cheerleader or even been to Ames Iowa. Willie makes it kinda tough to review a DVD like this, because he plays all of his usual hits. Everyone already knows the songs, so there’s not too much new I can add. (I assume, if you’re reading this review, you have heard of Willie and probably have several of his works in your collection, if you haven’t heard of him, for shame I tell you, FOR SHAME) So I’ll try to add a few new thoughts to the process, if I can. He plays “Bloody Mary Morning” from his Phases & Stages album. In my book, this is still his best work, if you have all of his works but don’t have this album; your collection is not complete. This is the work that puts Willie in “genius” status. It is the most brilliant work ever. Willie stated that “Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I Ever had to Do)” was his favorite Kris Kristofferson song. Personally, I don’t think anything will beat “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” but this is a great song, nonetheless, and as usual, Willie does a great job with it. He plays “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” which is my personal favorite song of his. He ends the set singing a duet with Shelby Lynne. The song, “Milk Cow Blues.” Now if you’ve read my Willie Nelson – You Don’t Know Me review, you’ve heard the Milk Cow Blues story. Basically, a man was requesting the song and since Van and Cage didn’t know the song, they invited him on stage to sing it. Wow, I’m not very far into my music review career and I’m already starting to repeat stories. This one referencing my earlier Willie review, the hot girl debate from the first paragraph and the Chris Isaak review and the Colfax bar wars from the Bottle Rockets and Scott Miller reviews. I’m going to need to hire a secretary to keep all of my stories straight. Like Todd Snider says, “sometimes I come back and tell a story and it’s not the same story I told the last time.” I’ll be taking applications here very shortly. If you have taken an ECON class at OU, an ex-UT cheerleader or an otherwise hot co-ed from any university, your application will be moved to the top of the list.
If you don’t have a lot of Willies stuff, this is a great addition to your collection. If you have some stuff, there will be some duplication of other CD’s, but it’s still a good DVD.
So what have we learned today:
- Ames Iowa is not the perfect honeymoon sight
- I’m starting to repeat myself
- I’m starting to repeat myself
- Phases and Stages rocks
- And I’m taking applications for a personal assistant
I’ll give this DVD 3 out of 5 swanky hotel rooms.