Branson! A mystery in itself as to why it even exists or when it started to climb from the pond in an obvious case of Darwinian evolution transforming into a creature of neon nights and rhinestone cowboys. Dinosaurs are extinct and the wooly mammoth left the auditorium after the Ice Age receded like a Republicans hair line. Not only is anyone sure where or how it began, no one knows exactly when it will end like a super nova that has fizzled out like a bad hair day. Even the Mayans aren't going out on a end of the Branson World limb on this one.
There's an old joke, ok, maybe two or three, but, one goes like this. What has 200 legs and only one tooth? The front row of the Grand Old Opry! Today, the Ryman Auditorium, the Mother Church of Country Music in Nashville is still iconic. Branson, well, it's about as fashionable as Minnie Pearls $1.98 hat and not worth more than a handful of cheap rhinestones from Porter Waggoners flamboyant jacket.
Highway 76 runs the gamut through a vortex of venues that house the talents of the has beens. Andy Williams has a theater here, Ann Margaret does too (Ann Margaret? Country music? Go figure) It's pretty much an elephant burial ground for artists and musicians whose day has come and gone like a wet dream under the sheets. Johnny Cash tried his own venue here years back and it bombed. See, the great Cash couldn't even cash in at Branson. Proof positive that you have to die to make your country music bones to be appreciated. Look at Hank Williams, Senior, senor! Pills and booze sent him packing from the apex of the moutain beck to Shreveport, Louisiana and then he dies in the backseat of a Caddy and enters into myth and legend.Willie Nelson also tried his hand at rolling the dice or a joint on opening a successful joint, but it too bombed out like a bad bowl of weed and he was left with a legacy of seeds and stems in Branson. Branson also has a vast array of venues that highlight the shows of what I call Why-the-fuck-are-these-people-here-anyway.
Andy Williams crooning Moon River ad naseum and Ann Margaret in fishnets so you can't tell where the vericose veins begin or end and enough facelifts to make her look more like the Bride of Chucky than a teenage ingenue from the celluloid cellulite past. There is a venue dedicated to the stringed talents of Shoji Tabuchi! Sounds more like the name of a disabled Japanese reactor than a guy who likes to fiddle around like a crazed Asian Cajun!
Then there are the impersonators. Don't get excited, these are not Female Impersonators of San Francisco lore can sometimes give even the manliest of he men an erection at times. These are like Elvis Impersonators, except they are Rat Pack knock offs, Frank, Sammy and Dean at one club vie for attention from the Patsy Cline and Hank Williams, Sr. impersonators down the strip. O,k so I spent too much time in San Francisco in North Beach enjoying the peep shows and the drag shows, so to me Branson had better "get it up!"
The gift shops are laoded with enough Hillbilly junkie juice to float a double wide trailer converted into a houseboat down the River of No Return. Corn cob pipes, perfect for the kids or the doper in the family if you care to imitate Huckleberry Finn stoned while escaping to Cairo (not Joel!) with Jim the Negro who sold him the shit in the first place and now not just outrunning the slavers who are trying to recapture him, but the DEA as well. One shop has parked in the lot in front the actual car used in the Blues Brothers and another car, a Caddy is festooned with sea horses, computer chips, poker chips, phones, and anything else that completely cover the cars finish and is a wonder to behold.
The Wax Museum waxes nostalgic and there is a Titantic Museum shaped like the bow of the ship and there is a giant two story ice berg that it is crashing into at the entrance way! The Titantic in Branson? I know it makes about as much sense as Ann Margaret as an aging carhop at Sonic.
The Roy Rogers museum closed in Victorville, California years ago and re-opened in Branson..the parking lot had a giant replica of Trigger on hind legs rearing up and ready to go. The back forty was exposed and plaster genital exposed proving that Trigger could inded get it up if a good looking filley came along. Trigger and Bullet the Wonder Dog were inside the museum, not stuffed but mounted in macabre sort of way and it housed Nellie Belle the Jeep and even Roy's Caddy with six gun pistols for door handles and steer horns on the grill..what? Yep..it's true. Roy has since packed it in and the museum has packed it up. Happy Trails dude!
What is exciting in Branson is that there are now a few "50's venues and restaurants, a three story tall go cart track to test your roadhead skills in a hill billy version of a demolition derby. There is also a sky coaster for the adrenalin junkies and miniature golf for the older generation not far from the edge of the grave.
Lazer tag to annihilate your enemies is available as is a drag racing simulator and full arcade. Water sports anyone? I know what you're thinking but no, it's not that kind of water sports. Get your mind out of the gutter and into water blaster equipped bumper boats that are primed for attack and destruction of all your water born enemies.
If you like coconut bra's and grass shaking skirts, head on over to Hula Hula Bay, twelve acres of tropical fun in the sun and one of the largest outdoor water parks in the midwest where can take a pipeline plunge on a speed slide where you race down at a speed faster than a bullet from the Grassy Knoll! Duck boats are a WWII machine and they have been drafted in Branson to give duck boat rides and 70 minute cruises on the river where each ride is akin to the Normandy invasion and the Nazi's run like hell at your approach! The Auto Museum has an extensive collection of Motowns best Mosheens and there is appropriately..a Dinosaur Museum..and no, I don't mean the Ann Margaret Nightclub!
All in all..Branson is changing from the age of old timey music to a new age of roller coasters, water blasters, dodge 'em cars and rock and roll! But what the hell..Ann Margaret in fishnets? Standing room only, and so what if it's not Ru Paul!
