Moomfuss
Memphis is my new favorite city.
I spent the whole weekend wandering around inside of it. Beale Street and Main Street and Madison Avenue and Peabody Place.
Those are the names of roads.
Plenty of time spent at BB King's Blues Club, and the Flying Saucer Draught Emporium. There was a girl on Friday night at BB King's, but she wasn't just any plain girl. She was the bartender, and she was slim and tall, rocking the girlnextdoor thing that I adore, and she wore a handkerchief on her head, and she helped me make fun of my co-worker from Alabama and his Budweisers, while she and I touted Newcastles everywhere, and even after it was long over I tried to give her smiles whenever she passed by, waiting on customers, but it seemed like I was just being humored. And I felt like I was a pathetic twelveyearold. Nobodysexyforme!
My co-worker friend from Alabama could have used a razorblade slash to his eyelids after six beers, a la Rocky. His eyes were drooping that much from the drunkenness.
Fucking lightweight. I was well into my sixth Newcastle. Streuth! Bright-eyed and lacy-tailed.
So he and the woman he was cheating on his wife with for the night went back to their hotel, and I wandered around Beale Street some more. Tried to go back and see the handkerchief girl, but she would not even humor my twelveyearold smiles anymore, at that point. She was too busy.
The band was tearing it up on stage, though. Spot-on versions of Al Green classics, and Ike & Tina stuff. Killer. Everybody dancing. Soul & blues. Mmhmm. Right-on.
No white people no black people, just the blues. These cats was swinging, my friend.
I should have called myself a cab, but I did not. I walked around for awhile, and then back to the parking garage, and I turned my car on, and I cranked the heater, because it was damnedcold. And then I fell asleep.
I woke up at about 3:30AM, sweating my ass off.
I was not drunk anymore. I was just feeling like trash.
That was my Friday. If I could do it all again, I'd use my seventeenyearold smile, this time.
Saturday was the day I went record shopping, and I saw the Motorcycle Diaries, and I connected with Che, and I returned to the psychology of pointlessness, and I chanted internally about how ruined and stupid I was, how I should be doing Anything Except What I'm Doing Now, how quickly nothing feels lovely, and plenty of other negativity. Ying. Yang. I suppose.
What it boils down to is, Saturday isn't any of our business.
Still, Memphis is my new favorite city. Small, happening, walkable downtown area. And then another little area for Indian restaurants, cool record shoppes and a theatre for independent flicks. You dig?
OOps. The Alabama co-worker just called and wants me to come over to the Ramada for barbeque. I am a slut for free food.
Incidentally, though. Now that the weekend is over, I am back in Batesville. And Batesville is the shittiest little town I have ever had the mispleasure of attending. Take that, red state.
posted by tim @ 11/14/2004 07:47:00 PM
19 comments
19 Comments:
I adore Memphis. You must get down to the Rum Boogie Cafe! Ribs are to die for! Plus Killigan's Red. Oooh.
hey tim. i'm kevin's friend sara, we met in chicago. i stumbled on your blog and thought i'd say hey. seems like an interesting tidbit of life to me. hope you are well.
doh. the rum boogie was about the only one i didn't circumvent. or go in to. maybe i will have another chance.
hi sara. you remember me! that's completely amazing, and an affirmation of my individuality! yes.!
i hope you've been doing good too. i hope you enjoyed the rest of your time in chicaog, at least!
Hi Tim, I am an old friend, but it would be accurate to say you wouldn't remember me.
But hi anyways.
Hi Tim, I am an old friend, but it would be accurate to say you wouldn't remember me.
But hi anyways.
Hello, old friend.
I'm willing to wager that I would remember you. I mean, I have a selective memory, it's true. But on the other hand, there hasn't been a whole whole lot for me to have to remember.
Have faith in my big dumb brain.
my trip to chicago was wonderful. it was the beginning of a still ongoing very good period in my life. you seem to travel constantly, don't you get tired of it? how can you maintain relationships with people if you're always gone? and what do you do anyway? by the way, i not only remember you, but i have a picture of you!
i'm listening to rhinestone cowboy, eating some broccoli cheddar soup, drinking orange juice, typing, and getting ready to go back to work. what are you doing?
well you'd have to go back a good 6 or 7 years to fish me out. But really in all honesty, I am such a forgettable person, I even forget myself sometimes (which I'd say is a good thing more often than not!)
yes, i do seem to travel constantly. i've noticed that, also.
my solution, as far as human relationships go, is to not have any.
the jury is still out.
there's a few people that seem to care, though. i guess those are the ones that matter.
i am a "road-whore". i think that's what they call us.
or else i am a field service engineer. i'm like the director for a movie, except, instead of a movie, it is a cast that fixes power generation equipment. i dictate how everything happens. i will fail at insinuating that i am a puppeteer.
the nice thing is that my workplace changes fairly often.
but i think that there are irreversible psychological repurcussions that i am as yet unaware of, but nonetheless no one should waste time in getting around to pitying me.
as for the question you did not ask: if i weren't doing this, then i would be the pinch-singer in death cab for cutie. i would come out to sing the anthemic ones.
right now i am listening to the postal service (fancy that!) and admiring my new green longsleeves. it's almost trying to be made out of corduroy, but it is not.
i am also eating dinner. which tonight is a bowl of wendy's chili.
i suppose that's enough, for a goshdarn comment. in my own blog.
how are you doing, now? still good? i hope i didn't ruin anything. moods or whatever.
1997? 1998? those were golden years, i think. any friend of 1997 or 1998 is still a friend of mine in 2004. there was RIT, Pfaudler, RG&E, a state called Vermont, Rockchester. and that tragic Dynamics final. where i was getting an A all semester, and then completely bombed the exam. oh, i shudder. and the VAX. Listessa and June. my first apartment on my own. eating macaroni and cheese all of the time. getting lazy and not pulling the bed out anymore, just sleeping on the couch. coaching AYSO and not being too terrible with kids. wow. i've never had a full appreciation for all the stuff i did back then. thanks for that.
now who'd you say you were? :)
Listessa, that's it!
hmm..
billy?
what's with the post-MCIS delusions of grandeur, man? i'm sorry, but someone needed to say so.
or..
karl? eric? josh? josh? andrew? eric? wendy? shannon? nicole? bridgett? manda? moush? kevin? chris? jason? catfish? badger? badger? badger? badger? uh oh? uh oh?
lily? starla? so low so noone else can do for you like you no one else fails like me in my eyes i burn alive fly like a bird no more worries just you and i high in the sky? woah, i did that from memory?
starlalilly, yes i believe that's me. wow your memory is right on!
you guys are taking me back hardcore...listessa was where it all started. thanks for the nice memories.
phew! do i win a prize? :)
more shocking is that anyone from listessa would remember me..
i am even typing smilies, just like the old days...
smiley, where have you been?
starlalilly, how have you been?
oh i have been fine now that i'm all growned up and a civilised member of society. lets see i dropped out of university, went to design school for 2 years, couldn't find employment in my chosen field, accepted a job at a book publisher of all things (which i loathe) returned to university part-time and i am almost finished. In the mean time pissing it up on the side and still trying to keep laughing.
Actually the spirit crushing boredom of my job and heaps of free time forces me to become creative with my google searches. so i thought of looking up all my old ICQ buddies for a laugh and so far I only found you!
if you can only find one person, i am the one to find, i think.
are you still in sydney? i remember thinking, if i ever travel to the other side of the world someday, i will have to ask starlalilly for a piece of floor to shleep on.
i may get to the other side of the world yet...
yes I am still living large in Sydney-town,
and my floor is always open to travellers, and dustmites alike.
Don't worry I travel little and I'm finding it hard to leave my local area really, my life is a 5km radius. Quite sad but oh so comforting.
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