September 13, 2004
Dear Uncle Bob,
I know, I know. Long time, no postcard.
What a pleasure to return this weekend to the friendly confines of
Palo Duro Canyon out there south of Amarillo for show #4907.
Especially after a week of touting Honda motorcycles at
ear-splitting volume at their big dealers' convention on the Grand
Ole Opry stage. Smoke, lasers, click tracks, bikes leaping onto the
stage out of the audience, a drummer for God's sake, thunder,
spectacle at every turn. And us, holding the show together and
wondering at the RPMs of the Solemn Old Judge as he no doubt spun in
his grave like a Honda flywheel. If they still have flywheels which
I bet they don't. I bet these days flywheels are digital.
Anyway, on to Palo Duro Canyon, a wonder of nature and a perfect
place to play cowboy music. You cruise along the flat Texas plains
and it just falls away under your feet with no warning. A little
Grand Canyon with a great outdoor stage against one of the canyon
walls. Big Texas stars overhead, big Texas bugs flying around our
instruments, big Texas steaks before the show. Twelve hundred folks
gathered to hear us and Dan Roberts and Curt the Texas Storyteller.
And then, fireworks! Not the biggest fireworks show of the season
but the most acoustically splendid, thanks to the rolling echoes off
the canyon walls which particularly entranced Woody and I.
My favorite line of the week, and the reason for this postcard, came
as we met folks for autographs when the smoke cleared. Talked to a
nice couple who said their son had enlisted in the Army and had
shipped out last week to Fort Benning, GA. They said he was bummed
at the timing because it meant he'd miss two concerts: one,
Metallica in Lubbock, and two, Riders In The Sky in Palo Duro
Canyon.
Could a seismic demographic shift be imminent? Are those dogs
barking in the distance?
Love to you and Aunt Allie,
Too Slim
P.S. How's Sand Lake 2004's vintage shaping up?
October 15, 2003
Dear Uncle Bob,
Greetings from seat 44A. Your beloved nephew is squished against the
window of this giant 747 heading for Japan.
We left Nashville this morning along with BR5-49, Brad Paisley,
Ricochet, and the Stevens Sisters for the big Country Gold concert
near Mt. Aso and Kumamoto. A paltry 14 hour flight will put us in
Osaka, then some immigration and customs queues and paperwork and a
brisk two hour flight to Fukuoka. A zippy two hour bus ride to
Kumamoto and our hotel at which point we'll no doubt be at the top
of our game. Good thing I have the fourth Harry Potter for company.
You'll be pleased to hear that dinner seemed to come from the
chicken family and that just before sundown we had a spectacular
view of Denali off to starboard.
Ranger Doug is slumbering up in business class with his little Lone
Ranger sleeping mask on. Woody gave up his aisle seat so an aged
Japanese mother and daughter could sit together. Joey is crammed
somewhere back there with a polite seatmate and Billy Maxwell is
sitting next to a guy who speaks zero English.
Oops, gotta go. The sanitized version of "The Italian Job" is about
to commence.
Expect a postcard from each day in the Land of the Rising Sun, soon
to be known as "the Land of the Jet-Lagged Cowboys."
How are the leaves in Cedar Springs?
Love to you and Aunt Allie,
Too Slim
September 29, 2003 Ashland City, TN
Show #4744
Dear Uncle Bob,
If you're like me you spend literally
minutes each day pondering the Disneyfication of America, at least the
minutes you have left after pondering the Las Vegasization of America.
These minutes have a new poignancy for me after last night when I
observed at first hand the Disneyfication of me.
My little bunkhouse brood and I
witnessed a spectacle called "Toy Story II on Ice," a stylized retelling
of the beloved "Toy Story II" movie. Big lights, big sound, big smoke,
big props, big colors, attractive, fit cast racing around pantomiming
to movie dialogue.
We were enthralled, at least those of
us under five were enthralled. The rest of us were happy to be there,
crunching snow cones presented in Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl's head.
These things are always better when
they perform your songs and sure enough our interest zipped up a notch
when Ranger Doug's "Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl" song came on. Then when
Buzz Lightyear and the other Buzz Lightyear performed their dramatic
pas-de-deux to my "To Infinity and Beyond," well, something that could
pass for delirium was going on in section 102, seats 1-4.
But nothing prepared us for the
Woody's Roundup sequence. The stage was set, the cues were right on the
money, and there they were...Riders In The Sky! But they were girls!
Cute twenty-five year old girls in cute Fifties cowgirl getups and wigs,
kind of a modest, family-fare Vargas look.
Sure enough, there's Too Slim with a
giant cardboard bass fiddle. There's Woody with his fiddle, Joey with a
concertina, and irony of ironies, Ranger Doug with a banjo. A banjo! I
nearly peed my trousers.
They danced, they cavorted, they
showed some rock n roll moves, they sang in cute girl voices. They had
drums and electric guitars and I don't know what all. They backed up the
next revue number and then they were gone.
Holy moly. What is left to say? Disney
has apparently found my essence, or at least the part of my essence
which will translate to a crowd of snowcone crunching ticket buyers in a
huge, dark, hockey arena. And that essence is a 25 year old woman who
can really jump around on ice skates. Love to you and Aunt Allie, Your
nephew, the 55 year old man who skates on his ankles,
Too Slim
NASHVILLE, TN. April 5, 2002.
Howdy Uncle Bob,
Greetings from crisp, cool, spring-like Tennessee, where the tulips, the lilacs, and the commemorative stamps are blooming in wild profusion.
Yesterday we played appearance #4464 at the Tennessee State Capitol at the big unveiling of the new "Greetings from Tennessee" commemorative stamp. Great looking stamp, reminiscent of our "Great Big Western Howdy" CD
cover. Steal from the best, you know. It was a thrill to mingle with postal employees, tourism board members, and legislators, seeing our tax dollars put in an honest day's work in that glorious, historic edifice.
Before the deal started we were sheparded down to the green room to receive our plaques and this white-haired guy in a suit comes in and starts chatting me
up and I'm all "Howdy pardner, how's it goin'?" and he starts doing an impression of the guy in the Bud Lite ad, "Ah jest flew in and my brother-in-law picked me up at the airport, people here sure are friendly..."
and I'm chuckling and then the guy moves on and everybody makes a fuss over him
and I realize it's the governor. The dang governor. I had zero clue.
Ranger Doug and Joey appeared to enjoy my ignorance and they're entitled to it, but I
believe this is incontrovertible evidence that it's time for name tags for everyone. I mean everyone, Great and small. Think of how history might have
changed if he'd had a name tag that said "Hi, I'm Don Sundquist, have a nice
day."
The First Lady of Tennessee, the formidable Martha, proved charming and it's always nice to speak to the Mayor of Nashville, who we know from many a beer sodden night at Wind in the Willows back in the misty Seventies,
and yes, I knew him WITHOUT a name tag.
Then we sang "Cody of the Pony Express," and "The Tennesse Waltz," and "Cool
Water" which the governor claimed was his favorite song growing up listening to
the Sons of the Pioneers, back when it was "country AND western music." After
Tammy Cochran's full-throated "Star Spangled Banner" and some well-chosen words
by several civil servants the stamp was unveiled, applause rang out, we played some exit music, posed for photos with former governor Winfield Dunn and the
charming Betty and their neighbor Alexandra, cracked wise for CMT, and that was
it.
Check out the stamp on this postcard. Neat huh? Nashville skyline, guitar, Smoky Mountains.
Has the snow melted around the barn yet? Is Brady's Hills still open for skiing or have you started the golf season yet?
Love to Aunt Allie and kick Elmer for me.
Your nephew,
Too Slim
(You'll know me. I'll have a name tag.)
Laughlin, NV, January 28, 2002
Dear Uncle Bob,
Here's my new poem:
"Just when you think you've seen it all
Along comes a thirsty Woody Paul."
It happened after show #4428. Finding blessed sleep elusive, Woodrow, the King of the Cowboy Fiddlers, ambled down to the Riders' conestoga at around 4 a.m. in search of "my medicine."
There, in the semi-darkness the restless fiddler scarfed his usual complement of four good-sized pills. Wishing to wash them down, he reached for the half gallon water jug which frequently sits on the counter. He took a big gulp. "I knew something was
weird because it didn't taste right," reported His Highness later. Undeterred, the King quaffed yet another sip before noticing that instead of good old H2O, "I was drinking windshield washer fluid." Yes, he'd grabbed the wrong jug, the blue one with
the skull and crossbones all over it.
The quick-thinking musical potentate relayed news of his gaffe to the Front Desk and an ambulance was summoned. After its dramatic arrival, siren wailing, horn honking, the King entered negotiations with the paramedics. "They wanted four hundred
dollars to take me to the hospital," recalled Woody. "I told them I'd go to sleep and see how I felt in the morning. I had to sign a paper saying I'd refused treatment."
Woody's lifelong friend, confidant, and Boswell Billy Maxwell entered the proceedings, placing a call to the Poison Hotline number just below the skull and crossbones. "They said 'You need to be in the hospital NOW!'," said Mr. Maxwell. "So I said
'Woodrow, you're goin' to the hospital' and I carried him over there."
There His Royal Majesty strolled into Emergency looking dashing in a huge purple GoreTex hat built by his friend Alan the Barber and toting a half gallon of blue windshield washer fluid and his fiddle. "I spent seven hours lying on a table in there,"
said Woody. "They didn't give me anything. They just took stuff out."
Blood tests and close communication with national poison control experts confirmed that the King "probably didn't quite get a toxic dose." Lucky for his kidneys, brain, and eyesight.
About 1 p.m. Nurse Allison called me to retrieve the fortunate fiddler. They unhooked his I. V. and sent him sheepishly out into the world, still carrying his jug of washer fluid and his fiddle, in plenty of time for Show #4429.
"My insides kinda hurt," joked Woody, "but I can see really good."
I myself had trouble believing that just the day before Woodrow had argued strenuously against Stephen Hawking's model of black hole radiation, given me a a short history of classical thermodynamics, and then drunk windshield washer fluid by mistake.
Talk about your "Beautiful Mind."
Is that International pick-up still for sale?
Love to you and Aunt Allie,
Too Doggone Slim
March 3,
2001
Flight 1164
High Over Texas
Dear
Uncle Bob,
Want to see
my Al Jolson? Okay then. I'm down on one knee, arms spread wide, grinnin' that grin,
rollin' dem eyes..."Grammy!"
Yep, that's
what we won. "Grammy!" For Best Musical Album for Children. Are we thrilled? Are
we excited? Is this the best? Yes, yes, and yes again. "Grammy!"
It happened
in Los Angeles last week. Three days of wining, dining, and steaming out the tuxedo
wrinkles.
First off,
the Nominee Party, the night before the awards show. Talk about your StarCrossed Trails.
There I was trading quips with Dr. Demento, talking tailoring with Al Jardine and his
mother Virginia, shaking Les Paul's hand. I asked him if he remembered you from your
Chicago radio days. He gave it a good fifteen seconds thought and said "No, I don't
remember him." Sixty seven years is a long time I guess, even for a sharp guy like
old Rhubarb Red.
Our
entourage rated the sushi okay, the cheese display great, and the crab out of this world.
They gave us little medals to wear on ribbons around our necks and free drinks at every
turn, two amenities I recommend for any party.
Then
Wednesday. The big day. Up early. Nervous. Much rustling of gowns and final tuxedo
touches. I must say our families were stunning in their beauty and handsomeness, and
clearly the class of the bash. My own red tuxedo caused some comment, climaxed by one
music business vice-president asking me if I could please park her car.
Then, the
pre-telecast awards at the Staple Center, a basketball arena. We watched as Asleep at the
Wheel knocked us off for Country Group Performance. Then three categories later, the
lovely Olga Tanon announced in a perfect Puerto Rican inflection, "Woody's Roundup
featuring Riders In The Sky."
We jumped,
we screamed, we hugged, we high-fived, we ran up to the stage. You don't get cowboy
singers any more excited. Your great niece Alice said later she could see sparks flying
out of me.
In
accepting, Ranger Doug paraphrased Gene Autry's joke by saying "Some people might say
I don't deserve this. But then again, I have tendonitis and I don't deserve that
either."
I thanked
Walt Disney Records, Joey for producing the disc, Brent Truitt for engineering, and lastly
John Lasseter, director of the Toy Story movies for "bringing cowboys back to
kids."
Then it was
backstage where the Wheel was rooting us on. Ray Benson and I hugged each other, jumping
up and down in a weird celebratory dance, short on style but long as a Texas trail in
heart and soul.
We
interviewed, we mugged, we cracked wise, we went to Irving Azoff's suite. Then back into
the hall for the TV show, basking, vibrating, calling folks on cell phones.
"Grammy!"
After Elton
and Eminem wrapped it up, after Fred Durst said "Hey man," to Ranger Doug, after
I bumped into Paul Simon's arm and didn't know it, we eased past Hugh Hefner and his
startling band of music lovers and back to the hotel to party, shake hands, and soak in
the moment. A swing orchestra, Edgar Winter, Tower of Power, sushi from heaven above, free
drinks, a gimcrack bag full of souvenirs, a last midnight dance with Alice in her blue
gown and animal print slippers, and then, redundantly, to dreamland, a place we'd explored
all day.
Did I
mention we won a "Grammy!?"
Nope, I
don't have the statue yet. They don't let you keep it. They mail one to you. When mine
gets here I'll bring it by the farm to show you. You'll recognize me. I'll be the one with
the sparks shooting out of him.
Your
Nephew,
Too Slim