July 3, 2011
Willie Nelson at the Austin Opry House 1983
I’m watching a concert of Willie Nelson at the Austin Opry House, 1983, on the local PBS affiliate. You should see the looks on the women’s faces.
Update: Shit, this must be way older than ’83. I watched the footage from ’83 at the Opry House I was going to post, but he’s typical Willie by that point. (Which is a national treasure, by the way.)
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Cindy, Daryl, if y’all ain’t watching this, turn it on.
Also, the looks on Dolly’s and Willie’s faces in this televised duet.
On it. Damn that’s good. Thank you.
Look at that face.
Yes. Time’s dimension has to kill a lot before it can be seen.
I remember a time (and I bet you do too, Deron) when you could walk through neighborhoods in Austin and see several people playing guitars on a porch with lots of dogs ranging about in the yard. And the music would be good, and they would be intent on its making, but would nod as you walked by, and only later would you see them performing on Austin City Limits.
Look at that pant suit!
I feel like I was there after that had passed. But I can see the possibility for that city in my memory of the place.
It’s funny–I’ve been talking about Willie Nelson for days. To Phil. To my mother. To Daryl. Now here. I love that man. The purity of his voice. The way he plucks the guitar. And the face. I prefer his current, lined face to the younger one. I think of Willie Nelson’s face as a topographical map of all that is good about Texas.
Amen, Sister Cindy. (Amanda’s taken to calling me Brother Deron, which pleases me no end.)
I’ve just never seen this face, or remembered that I had, and I’m gobsmacked.
Deron–Ah, yes. Time’s flow. I’m thinking of 1971-72 when I was AWOL in Austin. Jesus. But it’s just a past–remarkable things happen in every decade for those who can see them, and you are a person who misses nothing.
I would love the direct experience of that city each of us has had. To see and feel the patterns of our meandering times there.
My Willie Nelson-Kenneth Threadgill close degrees-of-separation connections shred my soul if I think too much. Tell y’all next time we meet. So sad. Wasted days. Wasted nights. Wasted lives.
But it wasn’t all a waste.
Ars longa, vita brevis.
By way of saying I knew and loved people who knew and loved people who were loved, I think, by Willie Nelson and Kenneth Threadgill.
So I guess maybe we don’t vanish altogether the instant we die. At least not instantly.
It’s a slow pattern of unravelling.
I wonder if he ever got laid.
Don’t you love ancient audiences? So intent and unseen; so hopeful of being seen, in that way that says fuck-all to odds. Later, dropping the keys at the door, alone, with an arm full of grocery sacks.
Yes. Only that moment, and our impressions of what must have come after.
Damn, that was good.
Deron! We should start a kind of open letter about Austin–the Austin Prose Poem sequence.
And about getting laid: analog.
Or not (getting laid) as the case may be.
Daryl, that’s great. ‘Cause I was just thinking about my non-anecdotes of non-existence in Austin. Moving there in 1972 and leaving after three days. But all my many and varied but ghostly connections. Truly. Mostly with people who are now either dead or might as well be.
Count on me for a cheerful addition to any gathering.
Ain’t it funny, how time, slips away.
I guess I always thought he smoked a few doobies and went to sleep in something new whenever he hadn’t made a promise otherwise. But I don’t really know shit about him except for his music. Thanks for sending us to the show–it was great.
Also, this is some weird kind of voodoo, ’cause a week and a half ago ago, I sent a few friends the Willie Nelson-Dolly Parton video I mentioned up a-while back. There is some Willie Nelson hoodoo going on, y’all.