Place: Winstar Casino, Thackerville, OK
Mission: Walk, Bird, and Oak Tree with Morris Day and The Time
Accepting this mission was no hard decision for Guirrel and me, and upon arrival in theatre, we quickly parked, procured entrance papers ($20 apiece), hit our respective port-a-potties (ewww), and staked out a base in General Admission behind all the attendees who had brought their own lawn chairs (this was pretty well everyone but us), but who needs to sit down when Morris is on stage? Nobody, that’s who.
But it turns out that after 30 minutes of a karaoke warm-up act that includes some guy who sounds like Biz Markie singing Easy Like Sunday Morning, apparently you need to sit down so badly that some event staff guy walks up and offers you free passes into the VIP area where there are chairs, because that’s when some event staff guy walked up and offered us free passes into the VIP area where there were chairs. Sweet, now instead of being back by the control board guys, we were 6 rows from the center of the stage just in time for Morris Day and The Time to take the stage…
There are few performers as cool as Morris Day, and none cooler. The man is, in fact, so cool that he even has a song titled, um, “Cool”, and this is how the show opened. During the song, to emphasize how utterly and devastatingly cool not only Morris, but the whole freaking situation is, the audience spells “cool” in sign language. What could be cooler than that?
What could be cooler than that?
Next up, the mandatory couple of songs from the new album… but they weren’t too long. They weren’t that bad. And then they were over so that the real stuff could be gotten to. Stuff like:
The Oak Tree - this song’s corresponding dance involves sticking your hands out like you are yourself an oak tree. Not a fir, not an ash. You are a god damned oak tree, motherfucker.
777-9311 - the title of the song is a phone number. I believe this predates Tommy Tutone, and if it doesn’t… fuck Tommy Tutone.
The Walk - the dance for this song is kind of hard to do in the crowd, because as you may have guessed, it involves walking (hard to do in a sea of people). Also this is the song that inspired me to get into wearing Stacy Adams shoes, and I couldn’t be more appreciative.
My Drawers - A personal favorite of mine, also one of the Jay and Silent Bob movies features Jay singing the bit that goes “Whose drawers? MY drawers!”
Gigalos Get Lonely Too - The only slow song of the set, it is a sobering look at the loneliness level of giggalos. Not to be confused with Juggalos, who are bound to be several, several times more lonely than that.
The Bird - Easily more outrageous than the Oak Tree or The Walk, this dance demands the spreading of the arms to full length and flapping them up and down like a condor, and, as I personally learned, if you are the only honkey doing this in a sea of black folks, those black folks will buckle over and laugh mightily as they grab their neighbors and point at you.
Yes, for a few magical moments, I was more entertaining than Morris.
Of course, the last song in a Morris Day And The Time show is always Jungle Love, and buildup involves getting the whole crowd chanting “O EE O EE O” over and over for quite some time before the song begins, and if you are my friend Seeth, that’s what’s going on in that voicemail I left you. Of course the song is nailed, and everyone goes wild…
As the show ended, I was left with even more admiration for Morris and the band… these guys did a live show and danced all around for an hour and a half on what had been a 100 degree day, in zoot suits! I was pretty hot just being there in a t-shirt, and these guys were wearing zoot suits!
They are probably full of freezer packs or something.
