Sequestered In Memphis: Part 1

Last weekend was a celebration of Adams's waning bachelorhood. We journeyed to Memphis, Tennessee -- a river town with a history that is both glorious and grim all at once. In the coming days, I will detail our trip, with a post devoted to each day.

Adam, Tony, JD, and Jones arrived via motorcar Thursday evening. Greg and I flew down via puddle jumper, arriving a little before 11 Thursday night. Another carload, comprised of two Riesenbecks and Dave, arrived a couple hours later. Butch Rifle arrived Friday afternoon, presumably by horseback.

I haven't been to Memphis since I was a kid, and I sure as hell didn't go to Beale Street then (thanks for nothing, Mom). If you've never been to Memphis, it's an odd place. In the downtown area, you can have one block that is vibrant and full of restaurants and stores, and then you turn the corner and the next block looks like a bombed-out Detroit street that hasn't seen life in thirty years. I've never been in a place where the hotel workers almost automatically told you to "be safe" or "be careful" every time you left the hotel. When we would ask bartenders or locals about certain places we were thinking about going, the response usually involved something along the lines of "it's safer than [insert name of another bar/place]" or "well, there's ten of you, so you guys should probably be fine as long as all of you go." This isn't to say that we were ever in any real danger, but it definitely colored the weekend with an air of instability and bloodlust.

Also, in Memphis, dogs drive the horse carriages around town. That's fucked up.
Our hotel was about two blocks from Beale Street, shown here courtesy of Butch Rifle's daguerreotype.
You've probably heard of Beale Street. If not, it's a bar-lined street in Memphis where there is no open container law. You can't walk ten feet on Beale Street without getting hassled by a bum or a Southerner. The street is barricaded off for the main two-block span, so that you can just walk down the street or, in the case of some kids, do back flips down the street for money. On the same block, you can buy a "Big Ass Beer" for $7 and battle axe for $94, all while listening to live blues.
Last weekend, it was hot as balls, although I assume that's just what it's like in early August in Memphis. Given how mild this summer has been in Chicago, I forgot what real summer feels like. I got more mosquito bites in three days than I usually get in a year. I don't particularly like mosquito bites.

Anyway, let's get on with the story.

About fifteen minutes before Greg and I landed Thursday night, the pilot decided it would be a good idea to do a very quick quarter barrel roll, before snapping the plane back into regular position. While I was able to get a better, albeit brief, view of the Tennessee landscape below me, I was not amused. When we landed, I yelled, "Now I know what Marc Cohn felt like," and then proceeded to vomit a combination of Diet Coke and Jim Beam onto the head of a Serbian woman sitting in front of me. "You've seen worse," I explained, as I walked past her to de-board.

We paid a company affiliated with Texas history to provide us with transportation for the weekend. Apparently cars these days don't require you to put a key into the ignition in order to start them. It took us several minutes to figure that out.

We raced to the hotel, parked, checked in, and then headed to Beale Street to meet Adam, Tony, JD, and Jones, who were eating BBQ nachos at this place called Rum Boogie. When we arrived, there was a band playing, which is always cool. Memphis-related music memorabilia and guitars used by artists from all locales cover the walls and hang from the ceiling, including, but not limited to, a Winger guitar. More importantly, on one of the walls is the cape -- yes, cape -- that Isaac Hayes wore when he accepted the 1971 Best Original Song Oscar he won for "Theme from Shaft." Not only is the cape giant, but it also has an airbrushed drawing of Hayes's trademark bald head, with a lion head on either side. He wore this to the Academy Awards. I'm still confused as to why I didn't take a picture of it.

After Rum Boogie, we headed down the block to Superior, which was having karaoke night. What we walked in on was a scene I imagine going on at a juke joint back in the day, after everyone had the fill of devil water. People were going crazy, dancing in front of the stage like people dance during Mary Anne's forest orgies in True Blood. Granted, no one had those huge black eyeballs, but we weren't about to stick around to see who got sacrificed.

We headed across the street to Club 152, and headed to the upstairs part, which reminded me of a cross between a strip club and Stu's, the dance club at Eastern Illinois. But they had $2 Crowns and $2 Coronas, so we stuck around for a while, careful not to touch anything.

Word soon arrived that Sean, Ryan, and Dave had gotten into town, so we headed out to meet them at a late-night bar a block away called the Red Rooster, which housed an 8-foot rooster that I hope was named Tiny. We were the only people in the bar, which was odd, considering it was about 2 a.m. While there, Greg pretended to be a gay (as in happy) communist cowboy.
The rest of us just drank beers. Then we all headed back to the hotel. A nice man named James, who was wearing a Grizzlies Pau Gasol jersey, walked us home an perhaps prevented us from being on the ass end of a drive-by.

Several people (not including me) went to the Denny's across the street from our hotel. Greg returned to our room with a Lumberjack -- the meal at Denny's, not an actual lumberjack -- and devoured it in relative silence while I slept several feet away.

That night, this image haunted my dreams.

In the next installment: Arkansas, lizards, and concussions.