Blues, pelicans and Super Bowl ads

I was driving to the beach yesterday and about to reach my favorite spot when a song came on the radio that stopped me in my tracks. It had a jungle beat and a powerful, yet sweet, female vocal lamenting that she was “drowning in her own tears.” I was completely captivated. I parked but left the radio on until she’d finished telling her story. The DJ identified her as Robin Rogers – a name I knew.

Last fall both my regular blues podcasts (Roadhouse and Murphy’s Saloon -- see links to right) told how the recently discovered Rogers had just been diagnosed with liver cancer, that her husband and musical partner Tony Rogers had quit playing to take care of her full time and that she had no medical insurance. I sent a check – not enough to get into heaven – but I wanted to be a part of the blues community that was being asked to help out. She died in December just after learning that her last release, “Back in the Fire” had been nominated for a Blues Music Award. The whole album is great but you can try “Ocean of Tears,” the song that snagged me, for only 99 cents. Robin had a hard life, found success late, and then died at 55, but she left something beautiful behind.

Then I watched the pelicans feed for an hour or so. They found a mother-load of fish about 50 yards off shore which attracted more than 100 of the big birds, which look to me like a Disney version of a pterodactyl. The squadron of birds circled a school yard of fish covering about a half an acre, at an altitude of maybe 30 feet. It looked like flying a merry-go-round with every bird tethered to a central axes; but one-by-one the birds paused for a portion of a second, tucked their articulated wings into their bodies, pointed their prehistoric heads and beaks towards the water and dove straight down into the teaming buffet. Bird after bird – 5 or 6 in a matter of 2 or 3 seconds; then a pause for a few seconds and then 3-4 more. Tschoooo. Tschoooo. Tschooo. Then back up into the elevated raceway to spot another fish. There are worse ways to waste an afternoon.

So the Super Bowl was OK -- a pretty good game. The commercials were, as always in my view, overrated. I did like the VW/Darth Vader ad, which was a top pick for lots of people. The Chevy-Camaro-turns-into-a-robot ad was great and the Chevy Cruze/Facebook app ad was very sweet. I loathed the #3 best recall ad for Doritos – “Man licks cheese crumbs.” Haven’t we seen this ad like 5000 times with some other embarrassingly dweeby white dude doing something disgusting and demeaning that shows how much he worships the product? Enough. It had a great recall score but so what? I love the Windell Middlebrooks ads for Miller Beer, but no matter how many times I watch him take the Highlife away from some low-life, it won’t be enough to get me to drink one of their 12 once urine samples in a beer bottle.

******

I’ve been very curious to know how the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in Cairo knew the logistics of their protests in advance and how those plans were made. The media has mostly credited Facebook and Twitter, which is like given credit to the telephone for the planning of D-Day, but there is an excellent article in the Times today that provides a deeper look into the planning.

Road notes

It took me seven days to drive from Central Florida to New York last week, and it’s a good thing because I needed a whole week to mentally prepare myself for the final leg of the journey – the Cross Bronx Expressway – America’s worst road and anything but an expressway.

I played a few rounds of golf in South Carolina, and visited a couple of friends in North Carolina along the way. I made at least 50% of the trip on non-interstate highways, which added a little time but still made the trip go faster. This included most of the 105 mile stretch of the Skyline Highway through Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. I think it looks like the photo above, but when I got on at the southern entry point it was drizzling and I couldn’t see much out in the distance. There are only a few exit points along the way. I skipped the first one and shortly thereafter the drizzle turned to a steady, hard rain, accompanied by a dense fog that made even the 35 mile per hour speed limit impossible to reach. But I saw a lot of pretty trees and stopped at a couple of lodges operated by the National Park Service, which look to be worth a visit some other time. You can still actually see some local character in America if you get off the I-roads.

Road music was, as usual, heavily focused on the blues. I listened to several recent Roadhouse podcasts for the second and third time, as well as “Soul Monster” by Rod Piazza. The blues comes in so many styles I’m sometimes not sure how to characterize a group. Rob in a harp player in the Chicago style, but also plays a little jump blues and does a great cover of the old Sunny and the Sunglow’s song, “Talk to Me.”And I’ve probably heard half of the new album by the Mannish Boys and have to get the whole thing. They really rock. Woody recently gave me a couple CDs by Guitar Gabriel, a real-deal old-time Delta bluesman who was once a patient of his, but who has since gone to his reward. (I’m certain these last two facts are not related in any way.) He is well worth a listen.

Tom and Ray Magliozzi are surely the funniest guys on the radio. I download “Car Talk” episodes and listen to them on my i-pod while driving. You don’t have to be a car nut to love Tom and Ray; you just have to enjoy laughing. They crack each other up with cornball jokes and old stories about the cars they owned, their families, crooked mechanics and anything else that pops into their heads. Both are MIT-trained engineers and have run an auto repair business in Cambridge, Mass for many years.

If you’ve never heard them try the April 17, 2010 episode in which we hear a very funny story about how Ray was sick and got left behind when the crew went to South Beach for a little R&R this winter. Then a wealthy grandma calls in to complain that her grandson doesn’t want to drive the Mini Cooper she offered to buy him because it is a “chick car,” which leads to an interesting sociological debate. Finally, a nebbishy Washington bureaucrat suffering from DMLC (delayed mid-life crises) calls in with a question about preserving the top on his Miata convertible. This leads to the funniest bit of all when Tommy tells him about his 1974 Chevy Caprice Classic convertible, and weaves a philosophy of life into his insistence on putting the top down in May and never raising it again until October – rain or shine. It was raining as I listened to it, but it didn’t stop me from laughing.

Porkchop

Saturday night, Clarksdale.

Having already absorbed our minimum daily requirement of pork, Rocket, Buzzard and I were dining at Hicks Hot Tamales, laying on a base of catfish and beef tamales as we strategized our plan for the evening. There is far more music than there is time to hear it all on Saturday night, so an efficient travel pattern is essential to hearing the as many of our favorites as possible.

We had our programs open as we doused the catfish in hot sauce and unwrapped the steaming tamales. There were some obvious mandatory stops among the 17 venues scattered around Clarksdale. We were going to catch Terry Bean at Sarah’s Kitchen for sure, and Big George Brock at Hopson’s Plantation. Hopson’s had to be early since it was a few miles out into the Delta and we didn’t want to be driving out there after we got seriously into the Bushmills. (We’d finished the CR Black the night before.) Annie Belle’s is always the last stop of the night and Bilbo Walker and Big A were scheduled for this evening. The bars close at 1:00, so that left us with a couple hours to fill in with both new and old talent.

“Pass the hot stuff. Damn these hush puppies are good. What about “Mule Man” Massaey? He’s at the Bluesberry Café?”

“Reverend Payton’s Big Damn Band? They’re at Ground Zero.”

“That place will be packed with all the college kids tonight. We won’t be able to buy a beer.”

“Excuse me gentlemen – are you going to the festival this evening?” The stranger who approached our booth stood out for several reasons. He was a big white man in a nice gray suit and an open-collar, white dress shirt. The uniform in Clarkdale ranges from bib overalls, through a wide range of tee shirts, to a variety of hipster attire. This was the first suit any of us had seen. He was in his late thirties and moved with confidence.

“It’s not on the official program, but stop by the New Roxie tonight and check out Mark “Porkchop” Holder.

Me: “The New Roxie? We looked in there today. There’s no roof on it.”

“It’s going to be a nice night. Makes it all the more interesting,” the stranger replied.

Buzzard: “Where’s he from?”

“He’s been playing on the streets in Nashville the last couple of years, but his health is better now and he’s starting to play more clubs. Plus he just cut a new CD?”

Rocket: “Was he in a group before?”

“Yeah, but he had compatibility issues. Just come by. You won’t be disappointed I promise you.”

Rocket: “Yeah sure. Thanks for the tip,” as the stranger left Hicks.

Buzzard: “We could stop by if we catch T. Model Ford at Club 2000. It’s right next door.”

The stranger returned and placed a copy of Porkchop’s new CD on the table and said, “With my complements. Hope to see you at the Roxie,” and left again on quick feet.

Porkchop’s face was printed on the disk. His thick black plastic glasses over slits for eyes and a slash of a mouth made him look like a slasher movie version of a jack-o-lantern. Rocket read the titles aloud: “Long Green Cadillac,” “Me and the Devil,” “Market Street Bridge.” Interesting. Kind of a scary looking dude.”

Without saying so we’d all decided to stop by the New Roxie, but we lost control of the evening and the next thing we knew it was growing late. I feared we might a missed him as we strolled up to the building that had once been the local cinema. Probably built in the ‘30’s the New Roxie was in serious disrepair, although that isn’t totally clear from the street. (see photo on right below.)

We walked inside to a scene upon which a Hollywood set director would have a hard time improving. The walls were bare brick, except where small patches of colorless plaster still clung to them. What would once have been the lobby had been turned into an intimate club; there was a small bar in the far right corner, covered with a canopy. Strings of light criss-crossed the room. An eclectic mix of plants were randomly placed atop the odd patches of carpet, brick and tile. Rocket and I sat down on what had once been the front seat of an old Buick, over on the left. Buzzard selected a lawn chair tour right.

And above us was heaven. It was nearly midnight but the sky was almost as blue as it was black. Stars shown through the grid of the steel beams that were the only remaining memory of the New Roxie’s roof.

The wall was missing from the place where the lobby once gave way to stairs that lead to the rear of the theater proper. That elevated platform was now a stage, and on it, between two planted palms, sat a man who looked like Drew Carey’s evil twin. In his hands was a steel bodied acoustic guitar. At his feet a porch board. Around his neck a harp-rack. Behind him was the vacant expanse where thousands of Delta citizens had once sat, enthralled, watching Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, Astaire and Rogers, Gable and Leigh. Its massive emptiness lent scale and drama to the set. It felt like a cross between Greek theater and a Williamsburg club.

The dramatic setting was not wasted on the man on the stage. Mark “Porkchop” Holder had a body like what you’d expect on a man called Porkchop. He didn’t waste it. His whole mass attacked the guitar and board with ferocity. His huge lungs infused every vocal, and each harp note, with big emotions. The lyrics were tough and unsentimental. He was on a mission to get his story out now. This minute. This place. This audience.

It was intimate. Urgent. Primal. The blues.

You can see a video of Porkchop playing here, or visit his MySpace site.

Delta notes

Well, it was another successful trip to Clarksdale for the Juke Joint Festival, which is to say, we all survived despite little sleep, Crown and Bushmills for hydration, and barbequed ribs for breakfast.

We ate two meals at Wop’s after closing Annie Belle’s Friday and Saturday. If there is a better burger in this ol’ world I have not tasted it as yet. We did not see the devil woman while dining on the hood of our rental car, which frankly, was fine with me.

It wasn’t all ribs and burgers. We had an awesome dinner at Hick's Hot Tamales where Bill Clinton once ate.

Musically we saw many of our favorites from last year including Big Jack Johnson, Big George Brock, Terry “Harmonica” Bean, KM Williams (with Washboard Jackson), Cedric Burnsides and Lightnin’ Malcolm. And lots more of course. We were immersed in music from 10 a.m. until 1 a.m. every day. We also saw the venerable T. Model Ford and Honey Boy Edwards. It’s always fun to see these links to the past. Honey Boy learned to play guitar from Robert Johnson, but they are both around 90 and their playing is not what I’m sure it once was.

A big pleasant surprise was the appearance of Watermelon Slim (above), an Okie who mostly writes truck driver songs, who recently moved to the Delta. There was a flat board set on sawhorses on the stage. First he got out a mojo bag filled with various talisman – a feather, a little stone figure, some glass pieces – it was mostly too small to make out; then he laid out his steel acoustic guitar and played it horizontally with a slide in a style all his own. Slim’s voice is also something you’re not likely to confuse for anyone else. Plus I had a chance to chat him up for a couple minutes before his set. Great. I gotta get me a mojo bag.

Biggest surprise: Mark “Porkchop” Holder, a singer, guitar and harp player. You can watch him play here for now, but I plan to tell a little story about seeing him at the New Roxie in a later post.
Man in audience: “You awesome ‘chop!”
Porkchop: “You should talk to my old lady. (pause) Hell, I should talk to my old lady.”

Second biggest surprise: that we could stay in a motel that made the Uptown look like the Clarksdale Ritz Carlton. We stayed at the Budget Motel this year. Buzzard had to brush a cockroach from my hat at breakfast yesterday. But during the festival you have to take what you can get. Big Jack’s entourage stayed there Saturday night – or at least his mini-bus did. There were some new shacks at Hopson’s Plantation, but it’s too far out of town.

Clarksdale is home of “The Bigs.” Big Jack, Big George, and now two Big Reds: the owner of the juke joint of the same name, plus a big lady singer with a wild mane of red hair and a voice like Sapphire. She was really good.

There were a lot more people there this year. Oxford is just 45 minutes down the road and a couple hundred Ol’ Miss kids came over on Saturday. They added a little energy and eye candy to the festivities, but made it tough to get into the most popular venues, so Buzz, Rocket* and I worked the smaller joints as much as possible.

A young, white, wannabe bluesman, in a hat, shirt and soul patch supplied by central casting was in line ahead of us for breakfast at Big Red’s rib wagon Sunday morning. He got the rib platter.
Red: “$11”
YWWB: (disbelief in his voice) “$11!?”
Red: “Where you from?”
YWWB: “Memphis. Atlanta. Denver. Miami.”
Red: “See, that’s your problem. You from too many places.”

We spent a lot of time in Tricia’s this year. They have a high tolerance for flasks. Last year it was an empty shell with sheetrock walls. Now it’s an Italian restaurant with plastic grapes hanging from the ceiling. I think I liked it better last year, but Action Jackson and her band were great, especially the big ol’ farm boy on harp who could move like a man half his size.

We had perfect weather. The beverages of choice were Crown Royal Black (who knew), Bushmills and $2 Buds, but you can only drink so much beer.

They are building condos on the top floor of the old Woolworth’s Five & Dime downtown. I’ll try to get a price point for those of you interested in having a second home in the Delta.

Our record is intact: we are still the only white people we’ve seen in Annie Belles. While waiting in the Memphis airport yesterday we stopped in the Blue Note Café for an eye-opener. Our waitress grew up in Clarksdale so we had a fun time relating the event of the weekend. She couldn’t believe we visited Annie Belles: “You mighta danced with my mama!”

We couldn’t get Rocket’s cousin’s Imperial this year but we rented the ultimate bluesmobile – a Ford Flex. That’s how we roll baby.

It takes a while to learn to speak Delta.
Lady on the street to us: “Hey how yall?”
Buzzard: “We’re good. How yall?”
Lady: “Ain’t nobody but me but I’m good.”

Well, that's the news from Clarksdale where all the music is great and the ribs are all above average.
There picture on the right are still good. Clarksdale doesn't change much year-to-year.


* The artist formerly known as McRik. I had to further disguise him so as not to totally cripple his square life.

Goin' to Missip

I’m leaving for Mississippi tomorrow and I’m just too excited and focused on that to think about much else. Thank you all for your kind words and encouraging comments on “Taxi driver.” I’m spending a lot more time trying to write that sort of thing these days. Plus, Coach Lou and I have our weekly Life 3.0 post for What’s Next. Once those are done I find the DB competing more and more with my loafing time, and loafing is going to win that one every time. I’ll try to do better when I get back from Clarksdale. Maybe the trip will provide a good story or two. Perhaps I’ll even see the Devil-woman again – although I hope not.

You may recall that I was wishing I had a demographic picture of the Tea Party (not the tea-baggers which I recently discovered is something completely different!). Well, just this morning the New York Times obliged with a New York Times/CBS News poll that shows that they are older, wealthier, and better educated than the average American, and they really don’t like President Obama. It’s pretty interesting reading.

By the way, the Indians have been officially eliminated from the American League playoff picture, the first time this has happened prior to May 1st.

What’s going on?

I recently discovered that I always put my left leg into my pants first, and find it nearly impossible to put my right leg in first. I nearly fell over trying this morning. This is the kind of thing that one only has the time to discover in retirement.

The Republicans are taking their donors to lesbian bondage/strip clubs, the president of Afghanistan is threatening to join the Taliban, Tiger Woods is allowing Nike to use his dead father’s voice in an ad in a counter-productive attempt to rehabilitate his public image, John McCain has declared he is not, in fact, a maverick after all, people are threatening to kill their Congressmen, Butler’s last second shot did not go in…and yet, I have nothing to say right now. I think I’m paralyzed with sensory overload.

Here’s another example. I just read a terrific new book, “The Age of the Unthinkable” by Josh Ramo, only to discover that Glenn Beck thinks it’s the most important book of the year. Now what am I supposed to think?

Mostly I’m now in training for a return to Clarksdale, Mississippi and the Juke Joint Blues Festival, which starts April 16^th. It’s like training for anything else; it this case that means I need to be drinking more liquor in the coming days, because if I go straight from my rather ascetic Florida lifestyle to drinking corn likker, in quantity, from old Pepsi bottles, it could get ugly early. McRik and Buzzard will be there too.

I left last year’s festival hat (purchased from the Super Soul Shop in Clarksdale) in New York, but have purchased something new for this year’s event from Gus’ Clothing & Collectables here in DeLand. I hope to have pictures soon.

Of course I’ve been listening to a lot of blues. “Champaign and Reefer,“ by the Mannish Boys, is my new party anthem. “Treat Me Right” by Peter Karp and Sue Foley is another good one. Ruth Greenwood singing “Happy on Top” will make your blood boil. I’m lovin’ Nick Moss, Watermelon Slim, and the new Joe Lois Walker CD, “Between a Rock and the Blues.”

Can somebody tell me why the blues make me feel so good?

Thanks to the Schu for introducing me to P.D. James, a middle aged Englishwoman you might call the thinking man’s mystery writer. I recommend “Devices and Desires.” Here’s a quote I can’t get out of my head: “We need, all of us, to be in control of our lives, and we shrink them until they are small and mean enough so that we can feel in control.” Not something you’d expect from this genre.

Thanks also to Birdman who lent me “My Losing Season” by Pat Conroy. I’ve loved his books and really enjoyed this one as well; it’s an account of his senior year basketball season at the Citadel, but that’s just the framework for a deeper exploration of his coming of age.

It’s funny how generations flow one to another. Conroy is only four years older than me, and while I recognize the world he describes it made me realize (not for the first time) that someone my age probably has much more in common with someone tem years younger more than he does with someone three or four years older. (Except in the case of certain socially precocious older readers of this blog – of course.)

I would really like to offer you something more relevant today, but not nearly as much as I would like to finish this quickly and go to the beach.

Adios.

Three things I like

I recommend “Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival,” by Norman Ollestad. It was a father’s day gift from my son, which coincidentally turned out to be a fascinating look at four generations of fathers and sons from one family, although the book is primarily about the author and his father, also named Norman.

Norman the elder was an extreme sports guy before the term existed. For Norman the younger’s first birthday in 1969, big Norm strapped the kid onto his back and took him out surfing off the Malibu beach where they lived.

The focal point of the story was a February 1979 airplane ride over the San Gabriel Mountains that went badly. The pilot, Big Norm, and his girlfriend were killed. Little Norm, then aged 11, had to hike down from over 8000 feet, in the dead of winter, to survive. It is an amazing tale, very well told, although I agree with the Times review, which found the cross-cutting format a bit annoying. Never-the-less, the cross-cutting to some of father and son’s adventures before the crash, especially their trip to Mexico, were almost as thrilling as the crash. This is a terrific, and very fast, read.

As popular as the blues are, it is difficult to hear new blues music. You won’t see the latest blues stars hosting SNL, or playing on the Plaza for the Today Show. So I was really happy to discover Murphy’s Saloon, a podcast available both online and via i-Tunes.

The host is Murphy. I don’t know much about him except that he is Chicago-based, and kind of a goofily, earnest, blues-nerd, who gets all the releases from labels like Alligator and Blind Pig early, and pulls together great cuts for the show. He intersperses them with artist info, a lame-joke-of-the-week, and shout-outs to fans around the globe. Any more talking would be too much, but Murphy grows on you and there is nothing at all wrong with his taste in music.

Finally, I really like David Brooks. He is smart, funny, well-informed, and opinionated without being partisan. These are all the things I wanted to be when I was writing about politics, but reading Brooks twice a week guaranteed me two days of feeling inadequate out of every seven.
Read what he had to say today about leaving health care reform to the Senate. I guarantee you that you will feel smarter after reading it, which is how I almost always feel after reading anything by him.

Fear & Loathing in Mississippi (part 6)

Sunday

My first terrifying thought is that it is Sunday morning in Mississippi, and we have failed to plan appropriately. There is one more day of blues, the Crown is gone and the liquor stores are closed. Beer is plentiful, but at this point in the journey it might as well be hops-flavored Kool-Aid.

Technically the festival is over, but we’ll still have a full day of music. We start with the blues brunch at Ground Zero, Morgan Freeman’s club (above). It’s the nicest joint in town. They have several comfortable, well-used, mismatched couches on the broad front porch, facing the train station, where we sit in the morning sun waiting for the doors to open.

We’re among the first to be seated as the Reverend KM Williams, a Texas hills country bluesman sets up. The Reverend is dressed in a very sharp black suit, white shirt, black tie, black hat with a white band, and black and white wing tips. He tunes his mirror-finish, stainless steel guitar and wears a harmonica rack around his neck. An amplified porch board rests at his feet for rhythm. His drummer is a white man named Washboard Jackson. “Wash” wears a sleeveless white dress shirt, a skinny black tie, and cut off dress pants. He has little metal pieces taped to his fingers with which he plays his drum kit and cymbals – he does not use sticks or brushes. They are one of the best acts we hear all weekend. Turns out the Rev spent 17 years working at the Twinsburg Chrysler plant outside Cleveland before taking a package and returning to the south to play his music and preach.

We take McRik to the Greyhound Station after the show. He has to return to Hong Kong – something about his collateralize rice futures swaps being upside down. I don’t understand, but we convinced him last night to ride the dog back to the Memphis airport so we could keep the Imperial for the remainder of our trip. He tells us that if he can unload his rice swaps on the Saudis we can keep the car for good. Sweet.

Buzzard and I slide over to Cathead Records for the afternoon mini blues fest. Cathead is a very funky retailer of blues music, memorabilia, Mississippi folk art, and is a general cultural clearing house for Clarksdale and environs. It was started by an ad guy from St. Louis and his wife who visited Clarksdale ten years ago and decided to move there. The wife is gone but Cathead endures.

There’s a couple hundred people hanging around under the marquee that extends from the storefront into the street. At this point in the weekend we recognize half the crowd. The other half move away as we move in. Big Red has his double smoker out front firing ribs. We ask Red, and everyone else we talk to, if they know where we can get some corn liquor, but we have no luck. There are several interesting looking women walking around taking pictures and shooting video.

It’s another great show. Bilbo Walker, a Chuck Berry look-alike, duck walks through his set. Honeyboy Edwards plays. I have no idea how old he is but he learned to play guitar from Robert Johnson, and his skin looks like black parchment.

The best set is Big George Brock. Red hat and a suit of vertical, shiny and matt-finish, red stripes, finished off with red shoes and red silk stocking. He blows the horn with the energy of a man half his age, and his voice has the soul of someone older than God himself. His sideman on guitar is Lightnin’ Malcolm, and Big George’s much younger wife contributes some powerful vocals. Add the bass and drums and this is the biggest band we’ve heard since Jack Johnson Friday night, and they rocked.

All these people and yet no one could tell us where to find some corn.

It was a full afternoon of blues and we are hungry, so we fuel up at the no name Mexican restaurant where our waiter, fresh from Jalisco, tells us how much he loves the blues – especially Los Lonely Boys.

Sunday night and the only game in town is Red’s, where it is open mike night. The joint is mobbed. I can’t deal with the congestion but Buzzard plows in while I join the scene out front, which is plenty active and offers lots of amusing drunks even at this early hour, including our friend Ho-Fo-Sho.

I strike up a conversation with Jackie and her pals, a group of locals who are content to party in the warm spring evening out on Sunflower Avenue. Jackie tells me how she hopes to join her daughter in Atlanta soon, as there is just no work in Clarksdale. She’s drinking something from a clear plastic Coke bottle that is clearly not Atlanta’s home town brew. I inquire, and am delighted to discover, it is the longed for corn liquor. Jackie offers me a pull, but warns me that she has “sweetened” it. “With what?” I ask. “Gin” she replies. Wow. Well, nothing ventured…so I take a pull and am pleasantly surprised at how smooth it is.

Turns out she got it from Dale, the 300 pound drummer from Jack Johnson’s band, for whom I had bought a beer on Friday night. Amazingly, he remembers, and promptly fetches me my own 12 ounce “Coke” from the back of his Ram van, which he has driven down from his home in Scranton, PA. He comes to Clarksdale about once a month to gig with Jack, and always brings some his finest, which he distills in his basement.

Unfortunately his gift comes unsweetened and goes down like turpentine laced with ground glass. It does, however, do the job. The key is to take a pull from your beer both before and after the corn.

I meet a man who offers to wash my car for $5. He tells me how he can’t work since his wife stabbed him in the back with a fillet knife. He lifts his shirt to show me a 15 inch scar, which runs mysteriously from his left nipple horizontally down to, and beneath, his beltline. I tell him I don’t have a car but give him the five.

Buzzard returns, drags me inside, and plops me onto a barstool he has saved for my lazy carcass. The music is good, but I’d have preferred the pros. Harmonica Bean MCs and does yeoman’s work managing all the wannabees, and keep the band, more-or-less, on some kind of track, all the while performing crowd control, as the human mass is constantly spilling onto the stage – which is an imaginary line to begin with.

Bean turns away head-butt boy, who wants to play his harp tonight, but inevitably the music deteriorates anyway as the night progresses. It’s OK – we need to be eased down a little somehow if we are ever to return to polite society. We decide to try Anniebelle’s but we are too late. And just like that, it is over.

Buzzard and I head over to the train station, find a comfortable bench, and light cigars. He a Rocky Patel maduro, and me a Montechristo white label. We replay the weekend and make plans for the rest of the trip. There is more of Mississippi to see – Holly Springs, Oxford, Natchez, Biloxi – and then on to New Orleans. But that is another story.

For now we are content. We have been purified in corn and Crown. We have accepted the sacrament of pork. We have transversed the Crossroads from four directions and kept our souls. We have harvested our ids from the Delta loam and African rhythms. We are blues infused.

Fear & Loathing in Mississippi (part 5)

Late Saturday night

On to Tricia’s Italian Restaurant, the name being more of a goal than a reality. At the moment it’s a gutted storefront with bright overhead lighting, a few card tables, and some folding chairs. Tricia is selling home made pies up front and hoping to get the full restaurant open soon.

Somehow it’s the perfect venue to hear L.C. Ulmer, who is nearly 80, and gets more sound out of a guitar than most trios. He is fast and wild. We can’t tell if the music is from the earliest days of the Delta, or avant guard and innovative -- we’re lost in an acoustic tornado. I love it. We share a piece of “jess pie” on the way out. McRik says his first wife made jess pie. Buzzard said his second wife made hash brownies until the sheriff raided his apartment in Pittsburgh.

The momentum of the Crown-soaked evening and the Devil’s music inevitably drives us back across the Sunflower River to the black side of town. We are in no mood to be around the suburbanites at this point, and most of them stay on the white side of the river, especially at night. We hit Messenger’s Pool Hall and catch a little of Big T. and the Family, then RL Boyce at the Club 2000, where I am transfixed by a dancing woman I think is about 30, but could be 50. Her 90 pound body and complete lack of teeth make it hard to tell, but she is a perpetual motion machine. She wears out one partner after another. I am tempted, but I think she might be a friend of the Devil, and I am too afraid of her to get that close.

It’s getting late. There’s just one place left to go -- back to Annie Bell’s, where Junebug Jefferson plays a unique style of blues suited perfectly for this crowd; kind of Muddy Waters meets James Brown. I cant explain it, but I can dance to it. Some of our new friends from last night are there. Again, we are the only whities in the joint. It’s fun, festive, and friendly; like a good wedding reception between two families that don’t really know each other, but aren’t going to let that get in the way of a good time.

And to make a good wedding reception, the food has to be right. Tacked on to the side of Annie Bell’s is a small room big enough for a grill, a counter and maybe three customers. A hand-painted sign out front identifies it as “WOP’s” – home of the WOP burger. (above on left end)Open from 5 pm to 5 am. daily. We get three and take them across the highway. We stand next to the Imperial, using the hood for a table. The WOP most closely mimics a Big Mac, but the meat is broiled, the bread is fresher, and WOP’s secret super soul sauce is unique.

This may be the most delicious thing I ever ate. We are tired, drunk, excited, hungry. The night is perfect, warm, breezy, clear, fragrant. The setting is lean, stripped of all hype, a parking lot, a highway, a car, some pals. We eat in silence for a while, savoring the best meal of the trip. And then we see her. She isn’t exactly dancing, but it is more than a walk. Her gaunt body and toothless, sunken mouth are unmistakable from a 100 yards. It is the Devil’s mistress from Club 2000 -- and she is headed our way.

She dips and sways in time to some unheard rhythm. Is it emotional expressionism, or just corn liquor messing with her nervous system? We stand and stare. I can’t resume chewing until she passes us by, 10 feet away without so much as looking up, down State Street toward the crossroads. Relief rolls over me. Are we lucky, or do you have to engage the Devil and suggest a wager before he speaks to you?

Fear & Loathing in Mississippi (part 4)

Saturday night

Saturday night requires more planning, and the first priority is upgrading the liquor. “I can’t drink anymore of this shit,” Buzzard declares as I pass the Kentucky Tavern. If McRik’s feelings are hurt he hides it well.

A mess of ribs are cooking in the Uptown parking lot. Buzzard tosses half of the last bottle of KT into the fire, which nearly immolates a Chicago biker dude who’s staying next to us in the motel. (The Uptown doesn’t really attract the Dockers crowd.) Biker dude laughs and says, “dump the rest in the sauce, man.” Buzzard complies. Instant Ribs Sunoco.

We replace the KT with a quart of Crown Royal. It’s Saturday night after all. You need the right beverage and you gotta dress sharp. I go with my magic shirt -- a gift from Buzzard that he picked up at the Super Soul Shop last year. It’s royal blue with gold sparkly appliqués representing a Crown Royal logo, some brass knuckles, a Cadillac logo, a Hummer grill and a few other lifestyle-appropriate images, and my new lid. I look superfly.

Buzz and McRik elect to dress like two guys hanging out at the sports book at Caesars Palace, but hey – I don’t judge.

We also need an itinerary. During the day it’s easy to just wander around outside from act to act, but tonight there are indoor venues – mostly juke joints – where the headliners will perform at set times, and we had people we definitely wanted to see. Fortunately Buzzard has been to the fest a couple times before and knows his way around.

We make a plan and set off for Hopson’s Plantation where Muddy Waters drove a tractor until he split for Chicago. They have three music rooms and we head in to hear Terry “Harmonica” Bean. He plays a great set in which he gives little 30 second blues history lessons between songs, and plays the same harmonica riffs the way James Cotton, Little Walter and then Sonny Boy Williamson would have done. Terry has mucho charisma.

Next comes Cedric Burnsides, grandson of R.L., playing drums, with Lightnin’ Malcolm on guitar. Cedric looks like Dwight Howard, only blacker. He’s wearing a white wife-beater and punishing the toms with a furry. Malcolm, a big white, farm boy is more Hendricks than Hooker. This is the younger generation of bluesmen and they are whipping the crowd into a frenzy. It’s Malcolm’s little sister’s birthday. She jumps up on stage and dances like no one is watching. Nobody is having more fun than her.

We go back into town to My Brother’s Sport’s Bar to hear 84-year-old T. Model Ford (above). T. did time at Parchman for murder as a younger man, and was a big player in the resurgence of blues the past ten years. He can still bring it, although he let’s his partner “Stud” control most of the set.

We keep moving. The Crown goes down easier than the KT would have if we’d mixed it with Bosco. We are vibrating to the beat, in synch with the crowd. It’s a happening. We’re like lemmings at a party, but with no cliff in sight. I contemplate why I love this music so. I read once that the foundation of the blues are rhythms that come from a specific West African tribe with no tradition of signing; they instead used drumming to express emotions. I don’t know if that’s true, but it sure makes sense. You can’t listen to the blues and not move it.

The blues also make you feel good because no matter how bad things are for you, you probably have it better than whoever is signing. He ether just shot his old lady, got shot by his old lady, had his boss cheat him out of his money, caught his old lady cheating on him with his best friend, is running from the police, hiding from his landlady, drinking too much to ease his pain, or gambling to win money to feed his babies.

On the other hand, he is almost certainly getting laid more than you, so there is a chance you might learn something useful. In the end, it’s just as John Lee Hooker said: “I got it in me and I gots to get it out!” But it's only midnight.

Fear and Loathing in Mississippi (part 3)

Day 2: Saturday

The first thing I hear on Saturday morning is a rolling thunderous, piano-playing, one-man band, Theo D., who is set up in front of Wade’s Barber Shop – right across the street from the pig races.

I walk past a double-smoker in front of Delta Furniture and think, “I want 'em but I just can’t eat a plate of ribs at 9:15 in the morning,” so I keep walking to hear Theo D., Wolfman Belfour, Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band, Bloodshot Eyes, Gearshifter Youngblood and more – all before noon.

The music is raw, primal, and real. It is truly the Devil’s music, and adults are required to have an open container of alcohol at all times on the streets of Clarksdale, and we -- Buzzard, McRik and I are nothing if not good citizens.

I reconnect with McRik and Buzzard late that morning and I am a little surprised to learn they’d made a final stop at Ground Zero (Morgan Freeman’s club) after dumping me at the Uptown last night, and that McRik is now engaged to the 17-year-old bass player for Super Chikan and the Fighting Cocks. (Unfortunately she leaves town shortly after the gig and takes Mic’s watch and ring with her.)

So the music – there’s nothing like it. Here are some sample lyrics from Pat Thomas, son of Son Thomas, as he plays this morning at Sarah’s Kitchen:

I’m goin’ uptown
Gonna buy me a new plow lead
Gonna beat that woman with it
‘til she agrees with me.

Not all of it is that poetic but it all comes from the heart -- you know?

As the sun rises high I regret leaving my new Panama behind in New York, so I hoof over to Yazoo Street and into the Super Soul Shop. As the brother next to me at the front counter selects appropriate socks for the three primal-colored suites he is buying, I search through stacks of hats until I find the little beauty you see pictured above – a black straw fedora with a multi-striped band. El es muy bonito, no? I need it badly because all the music is outdoors Saturday, and 9 beers and a pint of KT will only keep you so cool in the Mississippi noonday sun.

So back to the music: Loose Bruce, Blue Mother Tupelo, Daddy Rich, Mr. Tater the Music Maker, Tullie Brae, Hambone, and lots more. It’s all good, and if it isn’t you just move on to the next corner, backyard, storefront, vacant lot, or flat spot in the street where someone else is pouring out their soul the way the first African inhabitants of the Delta did a couple hundred years ago.

No breakfast. Liquid lunch. A long night ahead. We’re in the Blue’s Café backyard listening to David Coen. Buzz and Mic get a huge pile of Cajun crawfish served on a cardboard box tray, but it actually requires more calories to peel them than is gained in the eating of them, so I go searching for an alternative.

The Lord provides. I turn a corner and there is Delta Furniture, and the ribs I’d passed on this morning. Just as I get my platter the sky opens and it starts to rain hard. Inside, a 40ish white man sits on one of the 200 crashed velvet couches the building holds. He has his leg in a huge brace, propped on a matching ottoman. He waves to me: “Come on in here boy and sit you down. You can eat your ribs in here,” he says pointing to a new settee, upholstered in beige ultra suede. I lick the sticky, sweet, red sauce from my fingers and park it.

Jimmy Littlejohn’s granddaddy opened the store in the ‘50s. It can’t have changed much. Jimmy, the four black men who work for him who are selling the ribs, and I, sit there watching the rain, talking NFL. One of the black men is a Stillers fan – but I like him anyway? Buzzard and McRik run in looking for cover. They enter the conversation with ease. We pass the ribs, and the flask, and talk about the blues. It is nearly Saturday night.

Fear and Loathing in Mississippi (part 2)

Friday night

Big Jack works the crowd like a snake charmer. He boogies us up. He mellows us down. He swings us sideways and back up again in little steps you hardly notice until you feel your backbone vibrating. We drink with the rhythm. The Kentucky Tavern tastes like gasoline – but with oaky undertones and a just a hint of carbona at the finish. My cough is gone by midnight.

I want to dance, but the women are wearing mom jeans and there is no room to move. Some big old white man takes exception to Buzzard laughing at his wife. Buzzard head butts him. Ho-Fo-Sho, a 300 pound, gap-toothed, Refrigerator Perry look-alike we met earlier in the evening, takes the opportunity to dump approximately 3 liters of beer from the world’s largest fishbowl down the front of the dude’s Tommy Bahama, and into the crotch of his Dockers. It’s time to go. McRik pulls the Imperial up front, we jump in and roll to the promised land.

Annie Bell’s, (above) situated on the edge of town, evokes a more modern vibe than the rest of Clarksdale – it's a near-urban, funkadelic, 1975 disco kindda thang. I think there was even a disco ball hanging from the ceiling, but it could have been the KT playing tricks on me.

As we walked from the Imperial, Shawnté (like enchanté) -- a very tall, very drunk, young lady, asks me if I’d like to buy her a drink of corn. I say “sure, I’d like to try some myself.” I assume she means inside Annie Bell’s, but she steers me toward her car for “a short ride” to get some. I decline, and she asks “what do you think is going to happen to you?”

My mind reels as I consider the possible answers to that question, but I decline anyway. She needs $7.50 for the corn. I give her a ten and catch up to Buzz and Mic inside. Ours are the only three pale faces in the joint. Annie Bell’s is a local hangout and not on the blues tour, but they have a good sound system and a hyped up DJ. Annie Bell’s is for dancing.

I take the stage first, joining about eight women and one other dude, while Buzz and McRik get some beers and chat up the bartender and a couple patrons. I wasn’t aware I could line dance, but apparently I can if properly fueled. Soon two of the brothers at the bar insist that my boys dance with their dates. Incredibly, they do. It’s a kind of an “Animal House,” with a reverse-role racial thing goin’ on. Soon all three of our fat white asses are shaking in approximate time to some music we’ve heard that night – if not the current offering. We made many new friends. Shawnté does not return with the corn.

The next thing I remember I’m in my room at the Uptown. I know that’s where I am by the absence of hangers, and the 13” TV. Soon it will be Saturday morning and the festival will begin.

Fear and Loathing in Mississippi (part 1)

Day 1: Friday

We arrive in Memphis. Buzzard rode the dog – 4 days over the mountains from Oakland and across the plains with a ¼ pound of Mendocino county home-grown taped to his thigh – just below his new hip. McRik flew in from Hong Kong with a case of Kentucky Tavern in the trunk of his cousin’s red ’62 Imperial convertible, which he had picked up in Little Rock. I flew in with a nasty cough, my Wayfarers, and golf clubs. It was going to be a long, difficult trip.

We met in the parking lot of Soulsville and took a quick tour. They have the invoice for the charter flight that was Otis Redding’s last trip, the Hammond M3 that Booker T. played when he recorded “Green Onions,” and Isaac Hayes’ gold-plated ’72 Eldorado. Graceland is for pussies.

We loaded the Imperial and headed south on Highway 61. (cue music.) We quickly drop to sea level as we track along the big muddy and enter the Delta. I’d always thought Kansas was flat but the sunken loam of the Delta seems to flatten even the tree and buildings that rest on it. It is sucking us in.

The Imperial braked from 80 as 61 crossed Highway 49 entering Clarksdale. Robert Johnson sold his soul on this spot. We hoped to get through three days still in possession of ours – if, indeed, we still had them.

We checked into the Uptown Motor Inn; your basic 1960, one-over-one, motel. The clerk was behind Plexiglas and all rooms face the parking lot, which was already a tailgate blues party at six. McRik broke out the KT. I filled my sterling hip flask. It was going to be a long night and I would need plenty of whiskey for my cough.

Clarksdale is not another place. It is another time. I’d say 1962 -- perfect for the Imperial and perfect for our mood, which is old school verging on primal. We needs us some blues, so we go to Red’s.

Red’s is on the edge of town in a low slung red brick building that looks like an abandoned feed store. (above) There are ribs cooking out front in the double smoker and only a hand-lettered bed sheet tacked at the end of the wall to tip its identity.

Inside, Big Jack Johnson and the Cornlickers are pounding a beat. Tearin’ it up in a room that is smaller than the average CEO’s office. A couple of old couches, a few tables, some miss-matched chairs, and a half dozen bar stools hold the crowd – a mix of black locals and middle aged white folks in town for the Juke Joint Festival that has drawn us to the Delta. The festival starts tomorrow, but tonight we belong to Red. Beers are $2. The only liquor is what you bring with you, and we are well armed.