Ghost Riding Mississippi

A drive through Marks, Mississippi. It’s getting hot again.

The Pleasant Pitcher

Today’s completion drawing could have went a few ways (I suppose that is the point) including a big brick-wall-busting entry of the Kool Aid Kid., but I think you will find my interpretation a little more craft-table-y, a little more whimsical. It is Tuesday after all.

Original:

And my interpretation:

For sale Easter 2012

Where The Grown Folks Play

B and I went to Greenwood, Mississippi this weekend. I call it The Grown Folks Playground because they have clubs like Wispers and their local radio station plays lots of R&B music that mentions Hennessey in the lyrics a minimum of five times per song.

We visited the Cottonlandia museum and they had a nice swamp room, a special Robert Johnson exhibit, and the worlds largest (or something like that) collection of trade beads.

There was a friendly couple working the desk at the museum and they gave us a map of RJ- related sites and a map of places where the new movie “The Help” was filmed. I asked them if they had seen the movie and they said they hadn’t but they were going that very night. I also learned that there are no movie theaters in Greenwood but Greneda (home of my favorite pint-sized preacher) and Greenville have them.

You don’t really need a movie theater though – you can make your own entertainment by doing things like looking for gravesites.

Robert Johnson is supposedly buried here:

Our friends recommended dinner at Lusco’s and it did not disappoint. All of the tables are in small stalls sectioned off by floral curtains so you kind of get the feeling that someone is going to come in and either serve you an appetizer or wack you using a gun they found taped to the back of a toilet. The baked potatoes are served in aluminum foil and you have to bring your own wine. The light is greenish inside because it is the most flattering to the curtains and stuffed deer heads, and of course the whole place smells like meat.

 

The courtyard at our hotel:

The Tallahatchie River and the Yalobusha River meet at Greenwood to form the Yazoo River (I’m not sure which one this bridge is covering):

Two rivers become one in The Grown Folks Playground. Go visit Greenwood and enjoy your baked potato.

The Tire That Broke The Toyota's Back

Always stuff in the road on Airways Blvd.

I believe this man to be in the middle of a performance piece representing the frustrations of the modern workweek - or more to the point, my workweek this week.

The truck represents my mind: full of potential, mobile/agile, seasoned and most of all; handy. The crap in the back is just a bunch of shit people have been piling on me: dirty tires, random toxic liquids, poles, funnels, trash bags..whatever other useless items (except the funnel – those are very useful) that don’t do anything but rough up a ride you can think of.

I would like to go back to the scene and give him a tarp. Nobody likes seeing such a mess made of nothing.

What is that Racket?

I can’t remember where I heard it but I know someone or some radio show or some essay told me that one of the most overused story/scene-setting devices in modern literary fiction (or at least the modern literary fiction that gets rejected from writing contests and such) is the mention of the buzzing sounds of cicadas.

Supposedly that means the author is lazy and can’t think of any other sound of the south. I think it says more about the northerners that get to live in peaceful silence.  I can’t walk outside without feeling like a gang of bloodthirsty vampires are flying toward me (pick any murder scene from The Lost Boys). I’m not just coming up with the vampire thing out of nowhere, some of these buggers have red googley eyes.

I also heard the other day a tale about how the clicks can tell you how hot it is going to be so that would explain why the bugs around here are clicking at cacophonous 150 times a second, because it is that hot.

And now that I am done complaining about the heat and the noise around here, I am going to retreat until I can come up with another topic. 

It won’t be too long, school is back in session and my first class is tonight. I’m looking at the class list and the middle names alone have more buzz than six trees full of cicadas.

The Driver

I saw preview for the new Goss’ movie, Driver. It reminded me that I have another completion photo for y’all.

Here is my psychological interpretation:

A Couple Cards Short of a Deck

Completion picture four in the head-shrinker handbook.

My interpretation:

The drawing of someone still not recovered from a bout of Deadwood addiction.

Placeholders

Yep. Still busy. But look at this giant moth that was on our door Friday night:

AND check out this vanity plate I saw on my way to work:

At first I thought it said second nun, but then I really got it: 2ND2NUN

Second to NONE! Number one bumper-banged Lexus.

Don’t Talk to The One-Armed Frog

I didn’t like this completion drawing and I have to admit that my first instinct was to draw a crown on his head, but then I saw my true vision:

The one-shoe sportsfan frog.

Backing In, Backing Out

I’ve been working on some other writing-and-thought-heavy (hey, thinking takes time – and whey protein) things and this blog has been suffering a bit. I will continue to bring you photos and special drawings at least a couple times a week until I can get back full force.

This week my photos are of cars that have been backed in to take up one and a quarter parking spaces.  Enjoy:

Serving Up Another Psychological Insight

It is time for the second “completion picture”. Above you have the original and below is my interpretation:

I believe that this means I feel as if I could perform better with a net and that I have a deep resentment towards my BF that we don’t have any pets.

This is NOT a Craft Blog

However, this is kind of an American Restoration tale, right? A thrift find turned home art masterpiece?  I found this at the Elvis Presley Blvd AmVets and had to have it because I love vacations. It’s just my thing.

The instructions were easy:  you remove the photos of the thin white people frolicking on the beach and “Use with your own photographs to create the look.”  Notice they don’t say much about what the look means. You are supposed to know what that is code for, you are supposed to know that VACATION means BEACH and BEACHBODIES.

When I took the frame apart I found out why it was only a dollar – it was cracked out in one corner. But I used wood glue and medical tape to fix that right up. (it’s waterproof)

I got to work and one-by-one, replaced all those beach scenes with my own look. A look I call Southern Megafauna Explorer.

 

Waaa-Lah! Here you have my interpretation of The Look. You can’t see it all but that is because I am protecting the privacy of the first A.  Notice the second “A” is a picture of the original badass American flag we saw at Fort Sumter.

American Vacation.

This is NOT a Food Blog

However, I feel the need to preach about Makeda’s butter cookies – the Airways Blvd location near my work.  The big sign outside actually says Makeda’s “Butter” Cookies which makes me think that maybe they aren’t really butter or that maybe Makeda is giving me the wink that there is a crapload of butter in these cookies, or maybe quotation marks mean something different here on Airways Blvd. Who knows.

I get the peanut butter cookies because they are thin, chewy, and buttery (surprise) and a really good peanut butter cookie is a very hard thing to make yourself so you should leave it to the professionals, even better - leave it to Makeda.

The cookies come wrapped in plastic and then put in a little paper sleeve that barely fits the cookie so it takes a long time for the lady to actually hand over the cookie. It is part of the theatrics of cookie service so instead of saying “oh I don’t need a sleeve…” I just let it happen. You should let these cookies happen to you. As the little white sleeves says, they are “The Best Cookies You Ever Ate.”

At Abe’s BBQ In Clarksdale, MS

Who would have thought to pair the Steelers frame with the Yosemite Sam airbrushed - not a print - T-Shirt? Only Abe.

Deelicious.