Long Live Whimsy: American Sunrise

As it did 10 years ago, the sun rose today on America. The sun also rose on small people with small minds consumed with nothing but hate, destruction and disillusion that a society like the U.S. could not only persist, but prosper. It's been the same since the first day of an American sunrise and will carry on as long as American sunrises continue. Though the dialects, rhetoric and geography changes, the fact remains-- haters gonna hate. 

They hate because they don't understand that filling yourself with destruction leaves no room for whimsy and absurdity-- a heart's space to beat and soul's space to breathe-- space that is absolutely necessary for creation. Because at our best, we're a people consumed with elegant creation-- moving forward and doing better. Destruction, at its core, is clumsy and backwards. Once destruction becomes your primary motive, you've already lost. 

Today is a day to remember what's been lost and celebrate everything that carries on. And that includes the absurdity of sports fandom. The goofy, gloves-on hatred of Big 10 football. The one-foot-on-the-floor passion of fantasy teams. The insanity of the Hat and the ineptness of the Reverend. It's important precisely because it doesn't really matter. It's the essence of a heart's space to beat. 

And a decade from now, we'll once again take a moment to enjoy another American sunrise and dismiss those who spend their entire futile existence trying to shout down the dawn. 

Long live whimsy. Long live sports. Long live all of us. Hallelujah in the present tense.

Glossary song "The Flood" from their upcoming record Long Live All of Us. from This Is American Music on Vimeo.

Ole Miss Baseball: This Is How Revolutions Die, On Terraced Outfield Boxes

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." - President Josiah Bartlett (maybe Margaret Meade)

Substitute "functional alcoholics" for "citizens" and you've still got a useful maxim without losing much truth. And so it was, on cold, rainy February afternoons that a small band of students hauled sofas to the hillside, covered them with tarps and staked claim for a season in Right Field at Oxford University Stadium, cheering on an Ole Miss baseball team that hadn't won a conference championship since 1977. 

A few cracks in the vinyl just helps you find the groove.

Grills and coolers were brought out for what is the closest many will ever come to owning a luxury box for a sporting event. And when the sun finally arrived, those noble sooners were able to hold court around their hard-fought outfield homestead. 

Now that Ole Miss Baseball has missed out on postseason play for just the third time since Mike Bianco was hired in 2000, it's time for another brief session of fond remembrance; some reaffirmation of why we do this and how far we come. If you were lucky enough to have spent time on the Swayze hilltop between 2000 and 2006, you shouldn't have to look too far.

"Start turning the girl into the ground, roll a new love over." You think you're grown. You think you're a man. I'm 20 years old, for christsakes. I'm a Sophomore. I've seen some shit. There aren't a lot of surprises left. Got a slick fake ID and figured out the places that will take it. There's some cold Beast Light in a rolling ice chest and some meat burning on a grill. A little sun, a little baseball...holy shiiiit. 

Beer drops to the ground, splashing and hissing against the coals below. Mouth slacks and eyes come to a squint. Through the brightness of the solar flare, she walks up the hillside in a jean skirt and a skin-tight black Allman Brothers Band t-shirt, sunlight reverently breaking in front of her; leaving a heat wave wake. There were soft curves and stretched black cotton all joined together into a gentle, rhythmic sway.

With pupils fighting to process through the bright at full dilation, screaming to look away or go blind, in the moments just before permanent optical damage set in, I think I saw Jesus smiling over her left shoulder. 

It was probably on a similar March day in 1969 when two brothers and their wandering collection of major-label musical rejects decided to stay together. "We can't give up guys," I imagine Duane saying. "In 40 years, a kid in Oxford, Mississippi is going to find religion when some girl wears one of our t-shirts to a baseball game. If we break up, that might never happen." 

As with all Ole Miss athletic events...and perhaps life in general, the key is to attract the casual follower into a sport is to create something that is more cocktail than competition. That finally took hold during these formative years. It was the debters, ramblers and second sons of the Grove empire exiled to fight out their own space in the wilderness. Right Field at Swayze was the Australia to the Grove's Great Britain-- a rough penal colony imitation of the establishment.  

Once the dingos were fought off, the Indian attacks died down and some basic supply lines were established, the pioneer women arrive. Without the pretensions and pearls of settled society, frontier women are little more rough and tumble-- and lot more practical. Gone are the cocktail dresses and heels of football weekends. Mom and Dad probably aren't in town, and Sorority initiation is long over. Baseball was all flip-flops, short shorts and the occasional bikini top.

God bless them all, but especially those of the jean skirts and rock shirts. And of course, God bless Duane Allman.

God bless you, Duane.

"In the middle of the day, there's a young man rolling around in the earth and rain." What are now carefully terraced, pea-gravel flats with clearly marked edges were once little more than a slightly flat spot on a hillside. You dug the front legs of your folding chair into the dirt and rocked your weight to your heels to keep upright. 

Of course this wasn't always successful, especially into later innings. And when it rained, the whole slope turned into a rolling avalanche of bodies sliding into the trough at the base of the right field fence. 

Once you find yourself in the puddle, you might as well roll around in it for a second. 

What were earlier seen as embarrassments began to look like good fun. Given time and encouragement, people begin purposefully flinging themselves, belly first, onto the muddy slick, splashing through the catchment at the bottom and occasionally thumping into the backside of the wall. 

There's something amazing about tearing down a really good, winding dirt road. The slip, drift, dust and bare illusion of control is everything that makes fossil fuel consumption emotionally worthwhile. Today, they're being paved over and straightened. Sure, it's a more efficient, safer way to travel, but it's also a bit mindless and cold. Dirt is warm. The old right field was a dirt road paved over-- and that's probably for the best-- but it's just not the same. 

"Keep turning the wool across the wire." Heckles. Heckles, I Say. Baseball fandom was built on the very special relationship between the outfielder and the over-served outfield attendee. But like any relationship, the discourse is helped by taking the time to really get to know the person with whom you're discoursing. And so, a plucky local weekly paper began doing some light internet research and putting together quick profiles of each weekend's visiting Right Fielder. 

Just simple things. His full name, hometown...perhaps the name of a female relative or any interesting bits that might be pulled from a hokey media guide profile-- favorite meal, favorite movie, maybe a quote of inspiration. And unlike a football game where you can only be heard as part of the deafening throng-- either as just noise within noise or part of simple chants-- the small collective of spectators directly overlooking an outfield provides the intimacy for a real, substantive conversation; To really dig deep into the individual's persona, hopes, dreams and shortcomings-- like a Festivus airing of grievances shouted from 10 yards away. 

And sometimes, the baseball gods just toss out a piece of bloody red meat to the Coliseum lions. 

It was a great day when that opposing squad took the field. You didn't need to pull up the profile from the paper. His entire being was printed cleanly across the blades of the Right Fielder's back. His last name was "Glasscock." 

I don't remember if Ole Miss won or loss. I don't even clearly remember what team young Glasscock played for. I just remember that was a good day on the hillside. 

The section was also directly overlooking the opposing team's bullpen. The outfield was the first to know when a pitching change was coming and greeted the incoming hurlers as they readied to take the field. It came to its peak on a cold, rainy afternoon in an early season game against a small school from New Jersey. One of the remaining few fans, driven mad to match the conditions, climbed the walls of the bullpen like a steel cage wrestler, screaming derisive comments to a shaken relief pitcher probably on his first (and likely only) trip to the state of Mississippi. The bullpen has since been moved.

"Get right to the heart of matters, it's the heart that matters more." For the first few years, the only way to sit in the outfield and follow a game was to break out an old-fashioned hand-written scorecard. The only visible part of the scoreboard was the back, and even after a small, rear-facing display was added, it only gave the bare minimum-- score and inning. The official announcer was barely heard and scarcely understood through the struggling lone megaphone spliced to the back of the main scoreboard.

It created discussion-- what's the count? Who's up? Who's that warming up in the bullpen? It was the original crowdsourced, shared experience sporting event. 

The regulars, the keepers of the sofas, the holders of the grill flames, became the community elders-- setting the tone for those in attendance, forming them into a functioning whole with just simple rules of basic decorum. 

When to chant "Dirt." Keep your beer in a cup. When to start a Hotty Toddy. After the between-inning outfield warm-ups, the Ole Miss outfield's warm-up ball was tossed to the right field stands for safe keeping. The elders made sure it was secured and returned when the outfielders returned to the field. Most importantly, they made sure any girls in attendance had a seat and a beer.

Concessions were non-existant. Parking was free and first-come-first-serve. Admission was free. For the first few years, there wasn't even a security guard. The closest thing to an "official" University presence was the Port-O-Johns that were placed, and even occasionally emptied, at the entrance. It was a laissez-fare, free form, student driven experience that has largely disappeared from American universities and college athletics in particular. 

Gradually, it was chipped away. You had to pay for parking. A private security guard was sent to patrol the stands. Later, it was uniformed UPD patrols, complete with cooler searches and admonishments for illicit language. It wasn't a "family environment," but it wasn't supposed to be. Anyone who wandered into Right Field with children was obviously lost and kindly directed elsewhere.

"If you're gonna walk on water, could you drop a line my way?" 2001 was when the dreams of winning more than the party really started to fester. After each victory, fans filed out to the tune of the Counting Crows' "Omaha" struggling through the aged megaphone. 

It was a hopeful thing. The logistics of a road trip to Nebraska became a common topic of conversation among the couches. The team finished 2nd in the West and was invited to an NCAA regional. It stumbled in 2002 with a baffling collapse in conference play, but rebounded for Regionals and Super Regionals from 2003-2010.

But as postseason efforts fell short, often in heartbreaking fashion against superpowers like Texas, Miami and Arizona State, the post game "Omaha" chorus turned from hopeful anthem to a crushing taunt. And in this way, Ole Miss baseball fell into the sad "not ready for primetime" malaise of the rest of the athletic structure. Perhaps it was even more bitter because the team had shown such consistent success. You couldn't ever be justifiably angry or distraught...just disappointed, and that eats at you even more than outright ineptitude.

"Think you better turn your ticket in, get your money back at the door." One day, the hard scrabble homesteader wakes up to the sound of sirens and horns. He looks out his door and the scrap of land nobody wanted is now full of conveniences and costs. The neighboring families that were there at the beginning are long gone, replaced by a thousand strangers with security fences, car alarms and children tethered to leashes. There's no place for old couches and open flames and the "security" for your own good would never allow you to roll down a hill into the mud. It's been whitewashed and institutionalized.

Not that it's not still good. At its core, it's still college kids sitting in the sun and watching baseball, and that's pretty hard to frown on. From 2000 to 2009, overall attendance at Ole Miss baseball went from a season total of 40,130 fans to 273,111, and the resources granted to the previously neglected baseball team have ballooned to set a national standard for facilities, atmosphere and revenue-- no small feat for a school like Ole Miss. Of course, a lot of that has to do with the success of the team itself-- the talent of the players and the work of Bianco. It also had to do with fundraising and leadership from the boosters and administration of the university. 

But somewhere, lost in the shuffle, is the impact of those dedicated few who showed up, game after game, with cheap beer on tattered sofas and pioneered something unique and organic. Institutions pay untold millions to far away consultants in an effort to officially cultivate atmosphere and tradition that ultimately feels like lunch at the Madison Applebees. The Swayze Right Field was something honest and uncontrived. And in college sports, certainly more than pro, talented players are attracted to fan enthusiasm and today's beer swilling outfield bums become tomorrow's high-dollar luxury box donors. 

Modern Ole Miss baseball, a nationally-relevant program that generates revenue for the school, could not have happened if it were not for those who braved the cold February days on the hillside. And for those of us who saw it happen, it'll be hard to ever completely cut yourself off from the school, the sport and the program that were at the heart of it.

Frozen Decay: Your Guide to the Specialty Drinks of the French Quarter

There is going to be a point this weekend when you’re feeling weak. Off your game. Looking to bide some time until you can break through the weariness and get your fastball back. It's time to throw some junk. And that means frozen drinks.

Thankfully, the French Quarter has got ‘em. And not just your standard strawberry daiquiris and margaritas. The classics are tasty, but there’s a bigger frozen frontier to be explored or avoided at all risks. This is a brief guide to what’s out there waiting for you.

Frozen Irish Coffee

Molly’s At The Market

1107 Decatur Street

Rise and shine, kiddos.

Ingredients: Ice cream, coffee, Jameson, Kahula and the tears of fallen Irish angels.

It’s the only Christian way to start the day, sprinkled with a dusting of coffee grounds. And at $4.50, the Frozen Irish Coffee is one of the more affordable frozen cocktails, served 24/7. Because down here. it's entirely possible your body clock might become askew, and you never know when the craving is going to hit. It's the perfect salve for dousing the fires after a night of Flaming Dr. Peppers from the Gold Mine. The Sub-Zero to Gold Mine's Scorpion. 

Musical Accompaniment: When you order this, The Pogues's classic "Fairy Tale of New York (Christmas in the Drunk Tank" will probably be playing...either in reality or just within the last blinking gasps of sensory function you've got left. 

 Voodoo

Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop (not to be confused with Lafitte's in Exile)

Go until the men dance on bars. And then keep going a little further

It's dark, cold, dangerous and delicious. 

 Ingredients: Purple, alcohol and drank...then frozen. 

It tastes like purple. Not to be confused with grape. There's nothing grape about it. Made from the fermented juice pressed out of purple skittles, mixed with grain alcohol and frozen in a pirate's forge.

Music: "Beat It" wheezed by the last honest bar matron piano busker in the city.

Hand Grenade 

Tropical Isle 

Several locations along Bourbon

Ingredients: Grain alcohol and off-brand lemon-lime Gatorade...either frozen or on the rocks. No need to shout. Just take a look and you know what he's holdin. And you know what you need. We got that WMD. Just take a taste. Oh no, he don't handle no money or product. But he'll point you in the right direction. Just tell 'em you know the green pineapple.

On the rocks, it tastes like everything good about white trash. Frozen, it tastes like yellow snow from a Polar Bear with a diet of nothing but key limes and Eskimo virgins. 

Music: "Fortunate Son" covered by a live band fronted by an overweight, shoeless, 50 year old man. A snake skin strap desperately clutching a Squire Stratocaster close to the protruding beer belly.

Oh, he sees you. He knows what you need. It'll make the pain go away.

Don't. Sleep.

The Jester

Jester’s Drinks and Pizza

At Bourbon's beginning and again at the end.

Ingredients: Off-brand Everclear, Off-brand 151, kiwi strawberry mix and Freddie Kruger's backwash.

Boldly, it claims to be the strongest drink on Bourbon Street. They will get no dispute from me. Famously, after tasting The Jester for the first time, it was noted that by a hardcore Louisiana deviant that this frozen drink "Tastes like Night Terrors." Again, no disagreement here.

It's the Baked Alaska of the French Quarter sidewalks. You wouldn't think something frozen could also be flammable, but this is a place that's all about pushing the boundaries of science and sense.

The Jester always has the last laugh, and it's a laugh of pure, hateful evil. 

Music: Black Eyed Peas from wall-to-wall. All day. Every day. It's the soundtrack to Night Terrors and flaming ice.

190 Octane

Mango Mango Mango

Outposts of a dying empire. 

Tried to paint with all the colors of the wind and got blown over by the breeze.

Ingredients: "Diesel" is the off-brand grain alcohol used by many of the illustrious frozen-drink mongers. Here, it's mixed with Sunny D and other flavored beverages of the inner city.

The empire is dying. It was once proud and strong, overseen by the legendary Pochontas. But Pochontas spent the night under a small pox blanket, and it's been downhill since. Half the automated mixers were still and barren. The upstairs balcony was deserted, with only mis-matched executive furniture and an empty bar sitting in the corner, like the office of a small-time 1980s hedge fund after an SEC raid. 

The drinks are still decent, however. The 190 Octane (Sunny D and Diesel) is probably the closest any of the New Orleans stunt drinks (drinks that only exist for someone at peace with the possibility that they might not make it all the way over Snake River Canyon) come to being enjoyable. 

Music: Silence. The silence of desertion and decay. Like Chernobyl or Detroit. Somewhere, you hear the sad song of a woman's voice breaking the air...but then it disappears. You wonder if it was ever really there.

Honorable Mention

(DQ'd for unfair use of actual, naturally-grown food substances)

Dirty Banana

French Market

Ingredients: Whole bananas, ice cream, amaretto, dark rum and nutmeg, blended freshly before your eyes. It'd be blasphemy if it weren't so damned tasty. 

Your Friendly Neighborhood Pharmacists

For a quick side note, let's discuss the highly trained class of individuals who will be serving you the above-mentioned poisons and remedies. There is no doubt you will find yourself conflicted on several levels throughout your journey of drinking in the Quarter.

For a true New Orleans dining and drinking experience, you should be both aroused and intimidated by your server. It's a Praying Mantis mating instinct-- attraction mixed with impending doom. Tattoos will almost always be involved. Just be prepared. 

And whatever you do, never, ever, ever, buy anything sold to you in a vial. No matter how colorful it may be.

And Finally, A Word About Liquidity, The Gold Standard and Cash Reserves

 

New Orleans is a cash only town. Nothing personal. It’s just, you never know what tomorrow’s going to bring, so

it’s best for everyone involved to keep outstanding accounts to a minimum. The condemned aren’t good candidates for giving or receiving credit. New Orleans sees both itself and its customers as potential flight risks. Even for the places that will grudgingly accept a credit card, do you really want to commit yourself to a relationship here?

So, you need to carry cash. Knowing this, your friendly money lenders have conveniently placed ATMs throughout the greater French Quarter area with fees anywhere from $4 to $10 per transaction. There is one, and only one, honest man on Bourbon Street. Hidden behind the faux Mardi Gras masks and just below the “I got bourbon faced on shit street” t-shirt, is an ATM with a 99 cent fee. Find the Traders Emporium and use it often. It's the only upright usurer on the pilgrim's highway.

Bound for Glory, This Train: Where The Rails Meet The River

The tracks run straight to the riverside in New Orleans. The crossing lights flashed red, the warning bells began to ring and an Amtrak engine slowly pulls into sight hauling behind it 17 vintage rail cars. Style from the 30s dragged behind the technology of the 50s into a rivertown that's still struggling with its place in the current. Slow, creaking wheels came to a stop, a whistle blew and a hoard of riders burst from the streamlined silver doors carrying every sort of noise making device ever produced over the last century. Digital sound boards, electric pedals, mandolins, keyboards, organs, slides, accordions, stand-up bass, banjos, guitars of all eras and functions and brass came streaming out like a disturbed multi-instrumentalist ant bed. The train was late, you see. Romance comes on an unreliable schedule, such are the realities of train travel. But at least they got a good parking space.

From fan pics on www.railroadrevivaltour.com

On April 21st, Old Crow Medicine Show, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and Mumford and Sons played a show in Oakland, California, then jumped a train headed east. They played cities along the way, including Marfa, Texas, whose population doubled when Edward Sharpe's 55-piece musical collective crossed the town line. They had bar cars, dining cars, cars for equipment, cars for crew, cars rigged for recording and an open air "jam" car. It was Woody Guthrie's wet dream at a leisurely 45 mph. 

New Orleans was the final stop on the 8 day Railroad Revival Tour, and OCMS was up first.

"You can spend your whole life racing down dusty old railroad lines, but it's that setting sun you're chasing in a dark and rolling sky." - That Evening Sun, OCMS


Old Crow Medicine Show. They seem absolutely pleased with themselves. I know that's a comment that can cut at different angles, but I mean it as a complement. Every time they hit the stage, they do it with a dirty childhood smirk of a boy about to bring the ruckus.

I saw them for the first time from the balcony of the 930 club, and it wasn't until about 45 minutes in that I realized they didn't have a drummer. The percussion comes from boots on boards, palms slapped on the face of acoustic guitars or the vibrations along the skin of a banjo, creating a percussive harmony that organically springs from every song. We danced to beats we could only guess at and sang songs we didn't know, drank a hip flask of cheap rum and fell over into the hedges. Old Crow has a presence that makes you want to sing along even if you don't know the words, and that's nothing short of magic.

They've been doing it for over a decade. And even though I'm sure they have frustrations and feel the grind of the repetition, I have never seen them be anything but joyous on the stage. They're the locker room guys. They know what they do and how to do it right. They know they're lucky to be where they are, but have also watched those less deserving go further. They know there is somewhere worse than here. And it's that attitude that you need on a steel railed asylum that's got to roll for a week.

There's no warm-up, no build up. Just a short introduction, a brief high-pitched cry from front man fiddle player Ketch Secor and we're off. They're not coming off an acclaimed Grammy performance and you're not going to catch their songs backing up major advertising campaigns. But, OCMS knows they're about to kick your ass and make you like it. And, as always, it's nothing but joy. It's not a bad way to see the sun sink down over the city.

Alex Ebert doing...something. 

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes.  In the best traditions of Hootie and the Blowfish, there is no one named Edward Sharpe in this band. Theirs was a more measured method of taking the stage, which is only necessary in a production this big. Like most Americans, I know Edward Sharpe as the guys who sing the song from the NFL commercial, so I was curious. I'd heard good things and was with people who were genuinely excited about seeing this buzzed-up band.

It's not the look. At least it's not all the look. White boy, vaguely Eastern cultural bullshit like the shallow end of the unproductive corner of George Harrison's soul, dancing around on stage. Honestly, it wouldn't be a problem if there was something to back it up. But when you put on a show this empty, I'm going to fill it up with my skin-deep biases. They looked tired. They looked over it. It was like watching a hundred gears turning for no other purpose but to turn more gears. It was not bad, just flat. For the performance of the song that had gotten them here, Ebert half-ass hummed through the whistle intro and then finished by leaning against the piano and staring into the distance. What they did bring to the party was a red-headed girl sawing down hard on my favorite instrument, the rock accordion. More on that later.

I get it. I don't blame them. But they should take a page out of Crazy Heart's Bad Blake book of philosophy-- when a song's been good to you, you've got to treat it with some respect. Never complain that people want to hear something you've created, because the alternative is crushing. They limped off stage.

Mumford and Sons. Nothing short of phenomenal. I was expecting quiet, moody, Iron and Wine cry into your sherry kind of music. I'm not sure why, it was just what I understood Mumford and Sons to be. I was wrong. Very, very wrong.

They were melancholy soaked in gasoline. Moonshine with a Xanax chaser. It you ever slowed down enough to think about what was actually being said, you'd probably be pretty depressed...but that's all the more reason not to slow down. They tell you the sad truth of life with a smile on their face as they skip on down the road, and that's something you need when riding a rail car through southwestern America, watching above ground pools pass in trailerpark yards.

There's only one album, and from what I can tell, they faithfully rolled through it with a racing heart-- essential for bringing this style of songs to the stage. It's this thing they did, are obviously proud of and utterly amazed that they're able to put it out there in front of this many people.

Don't Carry No Hustlers, This Train. Then the flood gates opened. People poured onto the stage, trying to fit in somewhere along the line for the grand finale, a group jam of Woody Guthrie classic "This Train Is Bound For Glory." It was a mess. A big, noisy, glorious mess. Some spontaneous house party jam that never really exists anywhere else. Drums and horns, and British infantry hats, flat on the on the floor accordion duels. Even the random douchebag with the tambourine and the nightshirt seems to have a somewhat productive place in the ecosystem.

All the while, the train sat patiently smoking on the tracks, the right lights and dull bells of the crossing warning still ringing. 

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7th Ward Roosters, Flightless Angels of Death

"Run, chicken, run. Don't you lose your breath. Chickens don't get no life after death."

The New Orleans Times Picayune was covering a murder and a news story broke out. Apparently, there is a substantial population of feral chickens across several New Orleans wards that has grown post-Katrina. Blown out of their coups during the storm, and then afforded plenty of places to hide and squat amongst some still un-recovered parts of the city, they apparently have thrived.

From the Times Picayune, Michale DeMocker

Here's a short chicken lesson, brought to good residents of New Orleans by the wise musings of one Frank Costanza: 

"You got the hen, the chicken and the rooster. The rooster goes with the chicken. So, who's having sex with the hen?"

"They're all chickens the rooster has sex with all of them."

"That's perverse."

Hens are largely docile creatures. They cluck, but generally don't crow. They lay delicious eggs for omelets and, once captured, they can be fried, smoked, baked, stewed or broiled into delicious bits and pieces. 

Roosters are the tweaked-out redneck boyfriends of the fowl world. They're over-caffeinated 7 year old boys with razors strapped to their wrists, and they will put a blade in you for even the mildest of perceived offenses. If they are captured and cooked, they taste a bit like a well-oiled softball mitt. What they lack in size, taste or intelligence, they make up for in wily, fluttering, kamikaze spastic fury. They take no notice of friends nor foes or hands that feed them versus those that wring their necks (though, historically, these hands have been pretty interchangeable).

Given the opportunity, the uptown coyote may eat your baby. The rooster will cut him just to watch him bleed. 

There's this urbanite perception of the noble cock climbing triumphantly to the top of the hen house, puffing out his brilliant chest and issuing a single proud reveille to start the day, silhouetted by the rising sun. Then, clearing his throat, hopping down and going about his business of makin' the love (and more tasty chickens). 

This is a lie. Roosters are sick sadists who engage in a U.S. Panamanian campaign against the unjust oppressors of their brood. From the earliest cracks of morning light till well into the brunching hour and even then sporadically through the day, they let loose with this psychological warfare. You've never known true pain until you've had a hungover morning begin pre-sunrise with incessant, unstoppable crowing. Every shrieking syllable finds its way into the parched cracks of your abused brain and then explodes and reverberates against the membranes...that should go over well in a place like New Orleans.

Between the coyotes, foxes, feral chickens and wild parrots, New Orleans is turning into the model for the modern urban ecosystem. The greatest menace, without a doubt, the rooster.

There Ain't No God In Mexico, Ain't No Comfort In The Cane

I generally believe something needs moving parts to have a soul. That would explain why my iPod still has a clickwheel. But sometimes, these electronical devices do something that makes me step back and rethink that theory...because Pandora smacked me in the face this morning with a sweaty, bearded Waylon Jennings belting out some Billy Joe Shaver lyrics in "There Ain't No God In Mexico."

I don't have an extensive record collection and despite my general luddite tendencies, I've never fully bought into the "it sounds better on vinyl" belief. I really don't believe it for music that was recorded on modern, digital equipment. But, I do lend some credence to the idea that things should be heard in the context of their own time. Music of the 50s, 60s, 70s was recorded with the intention of putting it on vinyl, with all its crackling imperfections. Listening to these albums this way is the reason to have a working turntable. To be able to hear the thing in all its non-remastered, non-digitized glory, the same way people heard it when it was first created, generates a connection to the era from which it came.

All this and more is why I own "Waylon Live" on vinyl. I mean look at the cover art. That's how babies are made, right there-- hairy-chested, mustachioed indestructible redneck babies whose piss smells like straight Dickel for the first three weeks of life. Just touching this album cover is not recommended for pre-teen girls, as it might accelerate them into premature womanhood and virgin pregnancies. I haven't listened to it in probably three years. But yes, Pandora, it's time to break it back out. I need some Waylon.

"Down the road a-ways I've heard said there's a new day comin'. Where the womenfolk are friendly and the law leaves you alone. Well, I'll believe it when I see it and I ain't seen it yet. Don't mind me, just keep on talkin'. I'm just looking for my hat."

It's Rush Hour in Cumberland County, But They Ain't Heard The News (Travelogue Part 2)

I spent rush hour in Cumberland County, Tennessee, somewhere between Nashville and Knoxville. Rush hour arrives in Cumberland with about as much fanfare as the Muslim Hajj. Maybe sometime, someone heard something about a bunch of people moving around at the same time for some unknown purpose. But nobody really understood why or believed that such a thing went on in the world. It passes unnoticed. Needless to say, this was good timing on my part.

Loosely translated, this sign reads "Next Exit, Cool Springs Mall."

Look at this Pho-to-Graph! While I did not have time to explore and experience the important historical sites passed along the way, I'm certainly not above pulling over to the side of any road in any vehicle for unexpected photo opportunities that present themselves on the side of the road. Traffic, pride, parking accommodations be damned. 

Unfortunately, in what was a major oversight, my camera was packed somewhere in the madness of the back of the Uhaul. Given the questionable structural integrity of my packing at the beginning of the trip and the possibility of contents shifting during flight, I thought it best not to attempt to recover it. 

Along the Interstates, everything basically looks the same. But once I pulled off south of Nashville onto highway 45...there's stuff. As part of the as-yet-unplanned return trip where I will take in the wonders of the Natural Bridge and Rock City, a ready camera will be a necessity. Somewhere outside of Jackson, Tennessee, I passed by a burned-out shell of a house with a swimming pool slide still standing behind it. With the right angle, it could've looked like a slide that let out directly into the doorway of the house. It was almost enough to get me to tempt unleashing the chaos of the truck cargo bay to get to the camera.

Green and White Jesus. They started appearing somewhere around Nashville, gained strength outside Jackson, but persisted throughout most of midwestern Tennessee. Green yard signs that just said "JESUS" in white block lettering. No context, no further information. Just "JESUS." There's some political campaign yard sign company that has come up with a brilliant gimmick for keeping up business in the off season. It'd be like a a heart-shaped candy maker replacing "Be Mine" with "Get Saved" in an effort to keep the factory running all year. 

During the mid-90s in Mississippi, there was a fad of PVC signs with mini-marquee letter slots. People would put them in their yards with excerpts from scripture. It was the early predecessor to Tim Tebow's eye black (which never made use of the darker side of the Bible. For Tennessee weekend or an away game into Death Valley, you gotta break out the Revelations). But at least that made sense as a statement of faith. You had to actually crack a Bible and pick out a verse and a passage. "This is something that means something to me, go check it out." The JESUS signs are just lazy tokens that come dangerously close to using the Lord's name in vain. It's just blunt, meaningless space-filler put into the world for lack of anything else to say; the yard decoration equivalent of hitting your thumb with a hammer and muttering "Christ" under your breath as you grab your hand. 


Green and White Houses. At the opposite end of the green and white yard sign blasphemies are the green and white houses. And they are also all along this stretch of road. Green roof, white trim, double chimney houses. The white brick or wood or stucco show age, but not in a cheap way. It's a classic deterioration, like silver hair behind the ears. It's more establishment than neglect. It's that aging that sets apart the true estates from the cheap vinyl siding imitations, which just end up looking like unbrushed teeth after 2 years. 


Green and White Vegetation. If there hasn't been a country song to use the phrase "like a dogwood in the pines," it's for sale for a low, low royalty. In rows and rows of green roadside pine trees, the sparse blooming white dogwoods are brilliantly conspicuous. 


"I saw her there at the 7th grade dance like a dogwood among the pines." It's got Tim McGraw megahit written all over it. Perhaps "Evergreen Love" could be the title. It's the next "Don't Take The Girl." This  isn't meant derisively. I have a sad, soft spot for bad country. I just want to contribute to the genre.

Or, if you could even go Southern gothic edgy, "The line of blow laid upon the piles of cash like a dogwood in the pines and his ears filled with the roar of an I-20 log truck."


In Twitter literature, there's no need to put in the work of doing complete novels. Just catchlines, similes and metaphors sold separately to fill out whatever existing framework you already have in place. 99 cents per phrase. 


Holly Springs Swamp Land. Speaking of bad country lyrics, I've got some good swamp land for sale in Holly Springs. There it was, a "For Sale" sign on the roadside from ReMax claiming an investment opportunity. It wasn't just mildly moist land or some seasonal flooding. This was swamp. Probably at least hip deep, cypress knee dotted swamp. I assume you'd buy it to hunt ducks or farm crawfish or dispose of bodies, but I couldn't think of anything but Monty Python's Holy Grail, because I'm a British teenager from 1975.

Betty Davis, Whore of the Free Market. Bette Davis had eyes that were song worthy and is a symbol of early Hollywood beauty. Betty Davis is a shack right on the Marshall County line, marking the course to Oxford like the edge of the Holy Land. It's a monument to the fact that people will drive for cold beer and warmed-over ribs. In Oxford, where cold beer is illegal and no beer is legal on Sunday, Betty Davis, slut that she is, has made a comfortable living picking up the needs that can't be filled in proper incorporated society. 

The debate stretches across generations, disciplines and social strata of Ole Miss attendees and still remains unsolved. Hotly and passionately debated among scholars and slackers, everyone with a strong, unrelenting dogmatic belief one way or the other-- If one group of foresight-lacking college kids buys a case of warm beer in Oxford and puts it in ice and another group of kids drives out to Betty Davis to purchase a cold case, which one will get to the baseball outfield with the coldest beverages before first pitch? Like the enigma of the Tootsie Pop, we may never know.


Take Me Back, To Oxford Mississippi. I see her. I know she's there. She probably doesn't really remember me. Probably doesn't care or wouldn't notice, if I just zipped by without a second glance. She's moved on. I, sadly, haven't. 


And so, I have no choice but to swerve a little out of the way to stop in and gawk for a while at the sundress in the breeze that is the Oxford Square. I meet up with an old friend who still is lucky enough to maintain an honest and productive existence in Oxford and we head to lunch. There are some who don't believe in the legend of the fat vegetarian. It's understandable. I mean, not everybody's been to Ajax Diner. 


The meatloaf is good. The catfish, better than average. All manner of sandwiches and chicken fried steak and burgers and they're all solid, classic comfort food selections. But the star is the veggies. Fried eggplant, fried okra, cheese fries (veggie? sure), squash casserole, hash brown casserole, cornbread dressing, butter beans, turnip greens, mac and cheese, fresh tomatoes with homemade mayonaise (sadly, not in season at the time of this visit)...oh man. It's food coma-inducing vegetation and starch and clearly outshines the proteins. Fewer animals would need to die if more places did vegetables like Ajax. We have sweet tea and catfish with extra tartar sauce and talk about times just far away enough to sound like lies. And then, it's time to load back up into the Uhaul. 


New Orleans is the end of the road. There's still a little way to go, but the rest is familiar and could be done on autopilot. Treebeard had it right. I like going South. Somehow, it feels like going downhill.

Pray to God I See Headlights... Traveloge Part 1

The late night commercials were wrong.

Despite a love for the freedom of the open road. Despite a desire to be my own boss, set my own hours and earn a good wage. After two days and 1300 miles in the cab of a truck, I now know that those commercials and my woozy, pre-dawn delusions of diesel-fueled grandeur were wrong.

My future is not in the exciting industry of long haul trucking.

I thought I was well prepared. After all, I had at one time owned a C.W. McCall cassette tape. I brought sleeveless shirts, loose-fitting canvass pants. An iPod loaded with new music, as well as podcasts. A sturdy soul, BP powder, three bags of pop rocks and a box of Girl Scout cookies (It's just you and me, Shortbread. One of us isn't going to make it across the Mississippi). It wasn't enough.

What I lacked was a spring-loaded spine and an ass like a bean bag chair. Short of that, the only salvation would've been a bottle of muscle relaxers waiting at my destination like the quaaludes-packed carrot on the end of the proverbial stick (as used in the filming of "The Lost Boys"). 

Historical Markers. Despite all the pain and persistent audible creaking every time I rotate my neck, I would like to do this drive again. With a loser schedule and a more comfortable conveyance, I've discovered something I kind of already knew-- they got stuff in this plucky stretch of America. Stuff that tickles the little ironic snark-happy hipster traveler who nonchalantly squats on the couch of everybody's brain. But also stuff of actual historical significance that reaffirms a connection with our country's past. And there are more than a few sites that artfully straddle the fence between the two.

The Davy Crockett Tavern, Davy Crockett Birthplace. The Davy Crockett Travel Center-- where there are six different flavors of Cappuccino, including Rabid Coon (extra foam), the Bear Grinner (with a dusting of ground Yellow Jacket), Alamojo (chicory and horny goat weed) and Wintergreen. 

Casey Jones Museum, National Bird Dog Museum, Rusty's Historic TV and Movie Car Museum, The Natural Bridge (Damn you, Natural Bridge, haunting my travels. I can't tell you how many times I've passed by this place and, despite my curiosity, never been able to stop), Luray Caverns, the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, the Stonewall Jackson House and the George C. Marshall Museum (which share a highway exit...possibly more?).

These are things that need to be seen and can only be truly appreciated by someone without anywhere else in particular to be. 

Gasoline. I contributed heavily to the Jugheadistan country coffers. There were initially plans to drive at a constant, conservative speed throughout the trip in an effort to maximize fuel efficiency. That went out the window about 10 miles into open interstate when I encountered my first '89 Lincoln Continental doing 72 mph where I wanted to do 73. Three gallons of rapid acceleration later, and I'm scanning the truck stop signs pricing unleaded.

The variation is staggering. In one 30-mile stretch of highway I passed 10 different gas stations with prices ranging anywhere from $3.16 to $3.69 a gallon. And there was no rhyme or reason to any of it, turning the entire experience into a rolling version of Deal or No Deal. Do you want to take the $3.29 a gallon at the Exxon at exit 18B or would you like to play on? I've got the banker on the line right now...and he's offering an additional hot rollers-cooked meat product and a free bottle of water with a 10 gallon purchase.

Surely the app already exists where your GPS/iPhone scans the road ahead and displays the gas prices for your shopping convenience. And once that becomes standard equipment, things seem like they'd have to even out. Until then, it's just Howie Mandel in my head tempting with cheeseburger rollers and the fear of things unseen.

iPod Kills The Radio Star. This shit is going to happen. Instead of blindly scanning the Eastern Tennessee airwaves, I chose my own destiny of podcasts. No Taylor Swift. No local drive-time political rabble. No "Today's Hits" or "Yesterday's Favorites." No commercials. I ran through hours of podcasts and caught up on everything from the air gun assaults of English Premier League soccer players to a brief history of the fall of the French Bourbons. I listened to my favorite wrestler (The Heartbreak Kid) talk about his religious rebirth and how that meshed with his work in a generally crude profession. And Real World Star "The Miz"proclaim that he had ended the city of Cleveland's title drought by winning the WWE Championship Belt. He then more or less challenged LeBron James to a fight. Finally, I took in Oscar recaps from a variety of sources, including the screenwriter of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" proclaiming Will Smith to be the only true movie star of the current film industry.

And then...at 9:38 pm 21 miles outside of Nashville, the iPod battery died. I was tossed back, scared and screaming, into the unmerciful abyss of the airwaves. Like Adam and Eve tossed out of Eden and into Bob's Country Bunker. I found a local ESPN affiliate that sustained me with Brian McKinney inanely taking calls from a national audience on the value of drafting defensive or offensive players. Because I care what some lonely trucker in Peoria thinks about NFL draft strategy.  But, by boiling it down to a meaningless 50-50 coin flip of offense vs. defense, you enable the lowest dominator to engage. I whist-fully daydreamed about the halcyon minutes prior when I was able to listen to an Oscar-winning screenwriter discuss a subject on which he had interesting ideas and thoughts and tried once again for any last scrap of juice in my iPod. Unless you're claiming responsibility for an act of arbotoreal terrorism on a rival school, I really could not be less interested in what's coming off the radio phone lines.  At least it wasn't pre-teen romance from a persistently slack-jawed 20 year old relationship masochist who clearly made a deal with some unholy entity for tunes that stick on your brain like Alzheimer's plaque.

Satellite Tether. It's honestly not hard. You hit the interstate and go until you see a sign telling you to go somewhere else. When in doubt, just head south and west. But still, there's this doubt. Did I miss a sign? Where EXACTLY am I and how does that relate to where I need to go?

I haven't had a car, much less a GPS, in four years. But the cars I've ridden in, and occasionally driven, in that time almost all had either a GPS unit or smart phone constantly updating, reaffirming your place on the planet.

Being without it creates a constant, nagging anxiety. There aren't a lot of landmarks and what landmarks there are don't mean much without some kind of further reference. It's a loss of instinctual swagger that's a little troubling. I'm going this way because I know it's the way I need to go. I've seen the maps. I've been watching the road signs. I don't need this constant affirmation that every step along the way is correct, some metallic matronly voice behind an LED screen constantly providing positive reinforcement. And this is from someone who's only used these devices in the periphery. I can only imagine what it would feel like to an every day owner-operator.

TBC...