John Kelso is my favorite Austin humorist, especially when the Lege isn't in session. However, he went way over the line this week. Amarillo made international news. An old, wheezy song from 1972 went to the top of the pop charts in Great Britain. The Brits are bonkers over a new release of Tony Christie's "(Is This the Way to) Amarillo?" Tony Christie is a Brit equivalent our crooners of yore. Like Tony Bennett and all of his wannabees, Tony Christie is probably on the far side of 80. [Correction: Tony Bennett will be 80 in 2006; Tony Christie is a mere lad of 62. Sapper's (Fair & Balanced) Rants & Raves regrets the error.] Not only was Tony Christie trying to be one of the Tonys (or a Frankie), his song made the playlist on Lubbock radio when I heard it. Real departure for Amarillo from Lubbock was about 6 weeks off for my ex-spouse who was great with child, our two-year-old son, and me. The song was imitative of other 70s hits in this country that featured town names. Tony Bennett left his vital organs in San Francisco. Frank Sinatra was singing "Chicago is my kinda town, Chicago is." Glen Campbell was arriving in Phoenix. The best Tony Christie could do was immortalize Amarillo. George Strait — the great Agro-American singer — topped Tony Christie with "Amarillo By Mornin'" in terms of musical quality. Tony Christie sings "(Is This The Way to) Amarillo? I go to bed huggin' my pillow." Amarillo-Pillow? Tony Bennett had nothing to worry about from across the Pond. Kelso uses the Christie song's recent craze among the Brits to springboard into one of his rambles about the weirdness of Amarillo. Kelso talked with Stanley Marsh 3, the village eccentric, and credited Stanley with the Cadillac Ranch on I-40 west of town. However, Kelso betrayed his ignorance of things Amarillo. Stanley always refers to himself as Marsh 3, not Marsh III, and not plain ol' Marsh. Then Kelso takes off on Arnold Burgers a few blocks down Washington Avenue from the Collegium Excellens. Arnold Burgers is a hole-in-the-wall joint. I ate there once back in the mid-1970s after Tony Christie had gone off to well-deserved obscurity. I never went back because I didn't want to push my luck. The grill was easily visible from the front of the place. I wouldn't want to eat off that floor. Or any other part of that joint. Arnold Burgers is popular with assistant football coaches who inhale the burgers. The place usually has a table full of big-gutted males wearing double-knit shorts and polo shirts or t-shirts bearing a mascot logo. Most have a ring of keys attached to a belt that is straining to stay buckled. Now, Kelso is off to the races on weird restaurants in Amarillo. He predictably goes after the 72-ounce steak-eating contest at the Big Texan Steak Ranch on the opposite end of I-40 from the Cadillac Ranch. No one I know refers to the mammoth piece of beef at the Big Texan as the "4 1/2-pound steak." It's the 72-ounce steak, Kelso, and don't you forget it. Oh, well, Kelso knows the words (most of the time), but he doesn't know the tune. If this is a (fair & balanced) defense of my home of 32 years (1972-2004), so be it.
[x Austin Fishwrap]
A British invasion of Amarillo?
by John Kelso
I like Amarillo, and not just because it's the gateway to Groom, a town to the east.
I like the way the cowboys defend the aroma drifting in off the feedlot by calling it "the smell of money." I admire a place that brags about having a monument to helium.
I like the way they raise money up there each year for the Make-a-Wish Foundation by having a calf fries cookoff called Homer's Backyard Ball.
Most people don't realize there's a whole 'nother world to see in Amarillo. So I was pleasantly surprised to read that the British have discovered Amarillo as a tourist destination.
The British have also discovered that if you boil meat to smithereens, you can still eat it.
A story said the Brits are calling their travel agents to book trips to Amarillo. What's prompting this bizarre behavior? It's a song called "(Is This the Way to) Amarillo," which made it to the top of the charts in England.
Huh. Isn't there a song called "Highway to Hell?"
Either way, I'm beginning to wonder if the British really are overrunning Amarillo on holiday.
"I haven't seen one British person come to Amarillo, except for the media," said Stanley Marsh, Amarillo's most unusual rich guy and the man responsible for the Cadillac Ranch, the collection of 10 Caddys buried in the dirt west of town.
Marsh says a photographer from a British tabloid, The Daily Star, brought a couple of local girls from Hooters to his house (known as Toad Hall) about three weeks ago to take a picture of them for an article about Amarillo. At first he thought the Hooters girls were English models, until they opened their mouths and "y'all" hopped out. But he says he hasn't seen any Brits.
"I imagine the occasional person will decide to drive through Amarillo instead of Lubbock, but I don't know if that's three a year or 500," he said.
"We see more German tourists than British," said Gayla Arnold, owner of Amarillo's Arnold Burgers. Apparently the British travel agents aren't telling their clients about Arnold Burgers' 20-pound burger for $40.77.
"It's two foot by two foot — it won't fit in the back seat of my truck," Gayla said.
Some Europeans are visiting Amarillo's Big Texan Steak Ranch, where you can get a free 4 1/2-pound steak if you can finish it and all the trimmings in an hour. But there's a fee to have your stomach pumped at the Osage Medical Center.
The Brits don't take the big steak challenge.
"The big thing that we're seeing with the European traveler is they order it, and then everybody in the group gets to sit behind it and get their picture made," said Bobby Lee, one of the Big Texan's owners. "So they're not eating what they kill."
I think Lee should invite the queen to give it a shot. And Prince Harry could judge the calf fry deal.
John Kelso's column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Contact him at 512-445-3606 or jkelso@statesman.com.
Copyright © 2005 The Austin American-Statesman
