Red Wine Express

On Tuesday we travelled out of Louisiana all of the way through Mississippi. We hadn’t seen a hill since Denver by the time we got through the Louisiana swamp and this continued all through Mississippi. Almost as soon as we crossed the border into Tennessee things started to look up, including the front of the bus, as the topography began to change.

While rolling through Mississippi we were driving over some of the best farmland on earth. Of course this part of the world was conducive to sugar cane and cotton plantations with all of the slavery connotations that implies. So what better way to eradicate these memories than by covering this excellent soil with solar panels and wind mills. We might starve to death but all of that renewable energy will ensure we’ll be able to keep warm when the sun’s out and cool when it’s windy. Oh, hang on…. Fortunately my usual disquiet on seeing these monstrosities was becalmed by a visit to the BB King museum and burial place in Indianola. I’m inspired to buy a black Gibson guitar like his and forget every chord I’ve ever learnt so i can learn to play like him.

So we’ve travelled on Highway 61 of Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited fame and where 61 crosses Highway 49 near Clarksdale Mississippi is the famous Robert Johnson crossroads where he sold his soul to the devil in return for devilishly good guitar talent (apparently) and a location made famous in many other songs. There are many claims on this famous crossroads as there are many claims on Robert’s actual burial site. What we are pretty sure of is that he made it into the 27 Club courtesy of a cuckolded husband who supposedly poisoned him (on my birthday but 17 years before my actual birth). That was in the fine print of his contract with the devil. Always read the fine print. Otis Redding, another member of the Memphis blues and soul royalty was even less lucky than Robert Johnson, only making it to 26 thanks to a plane crash.

So New Orleans is primarily jazz (Louis Armstrong is the Elvis of New Orleans) and blues but Memphis is blues and rock and roll courtesy of one Elvis Presley. There are others who claim to have “invented” the various genres and those like WC Handy who was the first to write down blues music he was listening to over a hundred years ago in the Mississippi delta. But Memphis is blues and Elvis which means visits to Beale Street and Graceland respectively.

Beale Street is to Memphis what Bourbon Street is to New Orleans  but Beale is wider and significantly cleaner. They’re like a teenager’s bedroom, before and after Mum’s been in there to hose it out. But the music’s just as good in both. The CB and I were in Slinky O’Sullivan’s Irish bar and the music was being provided by a pianist who could play and sing anything. Two songs into his set he asked for requests and played them for the rest of the night. These guys and bands play for hours. None of this two hour, 16 song set kindergarten, namby tamby, Rolling Stones stuff for these marathoners. Anyway, our pianist mentioned he was asked to play a Metallica song the previous night. Not one to miss an opportunity, I asked him to play Metallica’s version of Whiskey In the Jar. An Irish drinking song in an Irish pub – what could be more appropriate. He did an admirable job but it was difficult to hear the two guitar parts over his piano and vocals.

The second night in Memphis we attended the Blues City Cafe and saw another excellent blues band fronted by a blind three piece suited black guy. What was additionally unusual about this guy is that he played the harmonica but like the Eagles who switch guitars every song because apparently one song puts them out of tune (they need to talk to Status Quo), he switched harmonicas almost every song. He had what appeared to be a customised bag of them – at least 7. I have never seen that. It could have been different harmonicas in different keys – I don’t know, but there you go.

Then it was on to Graceland. Of course those of you who have been there will know that the Graceland experience doesn’t just involve a house but also a combination mall/theme park/museum (with 8, count them, 8 gift shops) and a huge hotel, cutely called the Graceland Guesthouse. On first encountering this tourist behemoth which straddles Elvis Presley Boulevarde (obviously), the first word that springs to mind is “tacky”. The first complete thought that springs to mind once the full experience has been rationalised is that it’s a holy roller, evangelical, convention shrine, not to God but to Elvis, populated by slavish devotees who still worship him despite his dying 47 years ago on my birthday like Robert Johnson (86 years ago). I don’t know what it is about August 16th but it doesn’t like musicians. It didn’t spoil my birthday party because even though I can’t remember what music we were listening to, it certainly wasn’t Elvis.

The house, sorry, mansion is a bachelor’s paradise. There are man-caves everywhere, both inside and out. It’s a pity he had to share it with his grandmother, parents, wife and daughter. He did have an entourage however so I’m sure the expected shenanigans were got up to periodically.

Onward to Nashville.

Move over Budapest. Sorry Pokhara. On your bike Marrakech. New Orleans has stormed into first place on my favourite city list. I have to admit though, I’m a slut for a town with countless bars in which excellent music is being played excellently all day every day and the beers are icy and huge as in Huge Ass Beers. There are other things in life that are more important but I can’t think of any right now.

I thought #3 in this series was going to be the Big Easy wrap-up, but I keep thinking of more Cultural Learnings of America aka Borat. For example, the only place in Australia where you can guarantee the presence of an ATM is in a casino. Here every bar has one. They don’t want you to gamble but they certainly want you to drink. And cash is obviously king. Speaking of gambling, it’s illegal in Louisiana. Which explains the humongous Ceasars casino in the down town area – not. You have to give it to the locals – gambling is banned so they call it “gaming”. And the powers-that-be allowed that rather obvious loophole to ride. You have to ask yourself why. We’re now leaving Louisiana heading for Mississippi then Memphis so no more f…s will be given in this regard.

We’re now looking forward to seeing a hill. We haven’t seen one since Denver a week ago. I used to visit Calcutta regularly and was convinced that one day it would disappear into the swamp on which it appeared to be built. New Orleans is below swamp-level so the odds are that it will achieve oblivion before Calcutta. And as far as the landscape is concerned, “land” is a misnomer. It’s mostly water. Driving north past (through?) Lake Pontchartrain and we appear to have been on a bridge for the last half hour and that’s not the actual bridge over the lake which is apparently the longest continuous bridge over water in the world.

So now we’re heading for a change of scenery as the water seems to be receding and we’re back on dryish land. However there’s a lot to be said for sitting with a cold beer in a hot climate watching the world go by with good music all around. However spare me the appalling short pyjama fashion that some men appear to have adopted and I don’t want to ever see one of Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls” violently twerking, again, ever.

Where to start. Now I think I know how Borat felt when he had a chance to catch his breath after hitting these shores. The cultural overload down here makes New York seem like The Truman Show. Sorry for the references to two American films. If you’ve seen them, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If not….so be it. Anyway, I’m feeling inspired. I’ve been around this big old world (is that a song lyric?) and seen a thing or two but I ain’t seen nothing like this place with its bars and music and restaurants and it’s human zoo.

Speaking of a human zoo, I’m going to be a bit (factually) nasty here. I’m not referencing anything that isn’t widely known (that’s enough caveats) but if the bald eagle is the national bird of this country then type 2 diabetes is the national disease. We did the hop on hop off bus yesterday and at one stop 10 people got off and the bus’s tyres rose about two inches. And love, you really shouldn’t be wearing those tight short shorts. But feel free to express yourself, both figuratively and literally. Look, i could do with losing a few kilos but in this country i feel positively svelte  and the child bride could be a super model. All of those sweaty, squeaking, shaking thighs and cheeks must result in Curash being sold by the wheelbarrow. When you see the size of the meals they put in front of you, you understand why. I’m reminded of a roast beef sandwich I had in Times Square many years back. There were horns sticking out of one end and a tail from the other. And directly across Bourbon Street from our hotel is Huge Ass Beers. Says it all really.

While on the subject of food (and drink), the child bride and I had a very nice meal in a restaurant called Antoine’s (around since 1840). We were advised they have a dress code – jackets for blokes. It wasn’t policed to the extent that one bloke was wearing shorts and there were a few groups of very casually dressed young men dining and, I might add, behaving impeccably. Contrast that with the female groups (two bridal parties and four birthday groups) we encountered in various bars, both seedy and seedless. They were mostly “fine dining” shots and enjoying themselves at volume 11. Bit of roll reversal going on here.

If you don’t like drinking, there’s weed everywhere – the smell is unavoidable and after a few days, it’s in your clothes. The French Quarter is not the drug induced dystopian zombie world of some cities but I suspect in most places that attract large numbers of tourists, that is only tolerated in the less attractive parts of town. But weed doesn’t turn people into motionless, twisted lamp stands the way fentanyl does. And I suspect all of those competing sounds and masses of people frequenting numerous bars and clubs are incompatible with a slow, quiet crack-induced demise.

So you come to a place expecting to be on alert the whole time, and I guess to some extent you should be, but it’s been pretty cruisy so far. We finished up in Frenchmen Street last night which ironically is outside the French Quarter (hard to believe, I know) and where the locals go to party. It’s quite a walk back to our hotel, the Royal Sonesta in Bourbon Street but we did it and still had enough energy to visit a bar (called the Drinkery – got to love it) where a very loud rock band was playing our 60’s and 70’s music – Cream, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix – plus a lot of driving blues, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Rory Gallagher style. That was a perfect way to finish stage 1 of this trip. Next comes the first organised tour part of this trip. We’re not quite finished with NOLA but in a couple of days we start our sojourn into the musical heartland as we make our way up through Memphis to Nashville.

The first time I flew United was in the early 1990’s, around about the time United planes used to lose parts of their fuselage mid-flight, like luggage hold doors and wing flaps. We used to joke that you could get to Australia from the Us without auto pilot – just follow the debris trail across the Pacific. But now, as then, all went smoothly and acceptably if you count hurricanes as acts of God. So we are here.

I’ve decided after about three hours, that New Orleans is my spiritual home. That three hours comprised 1 hour to get our (unlost, thankfully) luggage at the airport and drive into town to our hotel on Bourbon Street. Then get into the hotel and get out of the clothes we’ve been in for the last couple of days (1 hour) and get into the street and check the place out. So late afternoon/early evening there are numerous bands playing a wide variety of music in numerous bars and clubs they tend to go from mid afternoon to about 6.00pm then someone else takes over. The early shift comprise a lot of children of the sixties and seventies (Iike me) and grey ponytails are ubiquitous. Hence the spiritual home reference. I could retire and do that for the rest of my days no worries. Of course, that’s in another life in a parallel universe because other commitments tend to mitigate against this. But one can dream.

Wandering down Bourbon Street was an experience. We had been told that crime is rife here (we were told the same about Capetown) and there were plenty of layabouts making pretty pathetic attempts to get their scams going but they mostly left us alone. Even I could see that there were eminently more muggable people wandering the streets than us. I had left my glasses in the room as I only had two pockets (wallet and phone) and it was sunny so the sunglasses won. So even staring at a street menu like Mr Magoo trying to distinguish letters from numbers, didn’t attract unsavoury attention.

The souvenir shops here are insane. Our driver, coming in from the airport, told us there are pretty much no rules in this place. If you have to act a certain way elsewhere, reverse it here. So the souvenir shop had plastic models of a girl blowing a crocodile and the crocodile doing unmentionable things to her from behind. Someone I know is getting one of these. And I have only seen similar messages to the ones here on t-shirts in Korea but the artwork here is infinitely more ornate.

This place is a critical cultural observer’s (that’s what I call myself) paradise. So plenty more to come.

It’s Wednesday morning and the child bride and I have much to look forward to. Friday, September 13th is the 50th anniversary of our first (blind) date. It was a Friday the 13th back then also. We’ve always considered it our lucky day since, having twice in that 50 year interim, won meat tray raffles in pubs on a Friday the 13th. Put a circle round that date. I can’t remember which pubs or when however. This Friday the 13th has Hurricane Francine blocking our way as we all head towards Louisiana for what I anticipate to be a rather uncomfortable likely flight-cancelling juxtaposition. I suspect we’ll be pretty familiar with San Francisco airport by the time we get our connecting flight to New Orleans.
…..

Got that right. Our San Fran to New Orleans flight has just been cancelled and we haven’t even left Brisbane yet. Looks like a night in San Fran then a flight to Denver and hopefully a connection to New Orleans. We get there on the 12th instead of the 11th so will still make our date on the 13th. It’s times like this you realise the value in booking through an agent (not something I normally do) and lashing out occasionally to sit at the front of the plane. By the time we heard our flight to New Orleans had been cancelled we were minutes away from boarding – just enough time to ring the agent to get our hotel booking changed and our lift from the airport rearranged, not something I could have done myself. I’m assuming United will put us up in a hotel in San Fran although it’s been an hour since I ordered that red wine so the jury’s still out.

This airline also seems to leave the seatbelt sign on for an inordinate amount of time, even when it’s so calm it feels like we’re standing still. There maybe a reason for this – see previous paragraph – regarding giving the flight attendants hours of time for necessary gossip. Or it could be because Boeing planes have been rather inconveniently losing doors and wheels recently. This plane’s a 787 Dreamliner which leads nicely into this. Already the lights are off, the shades are down and people are pretending it’s night time. It’s the middle of the bloody afternoon and I’m going to chase that glass of red, seatbelt sign or no seatbelt sign.
…..

We’re now in a hotel in San Francisco (with flowers in our hair). Haven’t encountered any homeless or drug addicts (or both) or been mugged yet, but we’ve only been here a couple of hours most of which was spent wandering aimlessly round the deserted airport like the Walking Dead trying to find someone to talk to. Here was me thinking someone from United would meet us off the plane with a hotel voucher and new boarding passes. How naive. How old-school. Those passes and vouchers do exist because we eventually located them but not without a bit of Poirot and a very helpful United lady who I’m sure wasn’t expecting to be problem solving for idiot foreign tourists at that hour.

Very early start tomorrow. Our New Orleans flight via Denver is confirmed and will arrive hopefully, after the worst of the hurricane has passed through and hopefully leaving some of the bars intact and unflooded. For now we are in our hotel in south San Fran. Not quite Silicon Valley, which is a bit further down the road, but with pretensions – lots of shiny office buildings and no houses. Maybe that’s why the bar and restaurant in our hotel are permanently closed – the nerd community doesn’t drink.

This was going to be a prologue but we’ve sort of stumbled into the holiday proper, albeit in entirely the wrong location. Hopefully have something more interesting to write about in the coming days.