Ta Ta For Now

The other day B said, “I don’t get the point of slippers.”

That is a ridiculous thing to say.

Back Down South

Back from the windy and gray Midwest. I’m glad to be home in the south, the kind of place where cashiers at grocery stores are properly alarmed if your check-out total is $6.66 – where they ask you “don’t you want to add a piece of candy" (a praline perhaps)?” That is a true second hand story via Schnucks and Facebook.

Observations on the homefront: We have a controversial microwave, it creates intense arguments about microwave popcorn cooking techniques. I would like to keep the microwave since I accidently caught an episode of Wife Swap today featuring an Iowa family that eats only raw food. I’m not talking about the Demi Moore anti-youth organic veggie diet, I’m talking about raw meats. Raw meats slaughtered at home in the privacy of your own Iowa farm. I am forever scarred by seeing a bald man eat a “salad’ of raw chicken pieces and spinach leaves while talking about how much hair he has grown back since he started the diet a few years ago. His wife mentions that the family drinks no water because their bodies are trained to store fat for survival should the reckoning come. I prefer to train my body eating half-burnt popcorn should our microwave be the last electronic device available after the reckoning.

Reality shows are too easy to rant about, they really are. What is not easy is to come up with a truly unique idea for a reality show that matters. My idea?  Outlet Shoppers: A thoughtful combo of Hoarders and Girls Gone Wild.

The idea is inspired by our recent stay in Livingston County. Our hotel (one of the three in the whole area) was right next to the outlet mall  that just happened to be hosting a Thanksgiving Midnight Madness sale – on Thanksgiving night at midnight the stores (yes, including the GAP and Hanes/Leggs outlets) open and stay open until nine pm the next day. Traffic was backed up for three miles on I-96 just so people could bail on dishwashing duties and line up outside of the Coach store!

 

I think my reality show would also include Sweepers and other deal-obsessed Coupon Clippers…

And after a couple seasons I will start another reality show called “Time Savers” about people that are obsessed with wasting time.

That show would not feature any bloggers of course.

Birds

We were at my folks house doing what people do in the country, lookin’ out windows and talking about the weather, when B started to make a fuss about the birds in the backyard.

So I said, “Whatever, you cityslicker!”

(This amount of birds is not actually normal and I was totally stoked to see them.)

Food, Dude.

Spotted in Michigan this week:

Drive-by Turkey Meditation

I wasn’t the only one headed north last week, I passed a couple trucks full of turkeys driving to their death:

Enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving!

The Mental(ity) Crowds

As part of my family visit I suggested that we attend the Silver Bells in the City Festival in Lansing, the capitol of the great state of Michigan.  We really had a good time exercising our imaginations (since we couldn’t see much):

120,000 people. Most of them trying to light a cigarette or hoist their children up on their shoulders in front of my face. There is nothing that bonds a family together like parade warfare.

Roadside Prophets

I received this message in Arkansas:

And I was blocked in by Palin in Noblesville:

They sold cupcakes in the name of Rogue:

 

I bought one:

 

Nothing special happened after I ate it. I just felt like getting back on the (rogue?) road and wondered, when did Indianapolis get all this traffic?

Indiana

Ladies Restroom Stall. PETRO2 Gas Stop and Restaurant

My Kind of Gatherings

Found here in Memphis:

Crafting out the Flu Demons

I'm making a wreath – I hope when i am finished that I will have kicked this headcold. Unlike my illness, I am making it all up as I go along. These color choices are influenced by blue Nyquil and I hereby declare that alterna-colored poinsettias look a lot like Hawaiian print somethings so the theme this year will be Christmas in Hawaii.

I am also going to finish this little needlepoint kit I picked up at a Little Rock thrift store:

 

The cashier said, “Taking on a big project, huh? Sure you can handle it?”

“Well sir, I need the extra free time to sew your big mouth shut.” And then I promptly opened the kit, took out the needle and yarn and sewed his mouth shut with two daisies and chain stitch. He spent the rest of the day ringing customers up without comment.

(The above is an example of the great partial fiction for which I am known )

Get Lost (if you can)

My story starts with a freckled-faced eight year old and ends in a domestic dispute.

See, freckles weren’t the only thing on little Sally’s face (named changed to protect the selfish parent that sent a sick child to school  - the day I was called in to substitute - in lieu of staying home with them), her nose was dripping with vibrant green boogers that seemed to change consistency throughout the day. One minute it would look like a slim scene from Nickelodeon TV and the next, a fifties B-movie Swamp thing type coagulation. “May I go blow my nose?” she would ask and I’d say “Oh child! please do! With haste!” And I would run and dunk my head, hands, and elbows in a bucket of Purell.

But it didn’t help, and I know I can’t entirely blame Sally Snot Face, but I can blame the entire second grade because I contracted some kind of disease in the germ incubator they call elementary school. I’ve been suffering all week, the week where I happened to get a few job interviews.

My wits were not about me during the last interview, an hour long phone panel complete with awkward pauses and verbal missteps. I failed to answer questions like, “Tell me about a time you have used written communication to convey an important message.” Mucinex made me think this was a trick question, I wanted clarification on what would be considered an “Important Message” and I could only think of scenes from the new John Cusack movie, messages about an impending violent apocalyptic situation, or just messages about  donuts now available in the break room? I was not of right mind.

After the exhausting phone interview, B came home with a broken cell phone and bad attitude and I just wasn’t having it so I left in an abrupt dramatic fashion (in a way I thought would best punctuate a domestic dispute) and started to drive around to look for a place to get lost (and blow my nose). During this journey I became painfully aware of the limitations of my new home town. There is no place to hide, unless you want to be hidden forever if you know what I am saying. I caught a movie about Coco before she was Chanel at the Ridgeway but that was over by 9:30 and nothing else was playing after that. I drove up and down Poplar and examined my options for burning up some time – gas stations, Krystal Burger, and Kinko’s  - not a whole lot of options since even the Chili’s bar starts to wind down around ten.

I debated looking through my car to find something to photocopy and bind at Kinko’s, but thought against it. I would have probably contracted more germs. So instead I went home, longing for the days of Los Angeles where you can shop for decent lip gloss past ten pm, where you can be invisible everyplace, and drink alone without interruption or judgment within a block of your overpriced apartment. Or the days of small towning in the Michigan country where a contemplative corn field or gravel pit is only a half-can-of-beer’s drive away. I will someday find comfort in a city that forces me to go home, but not until this snot goes away.

A Photo Essay Explaining Why My Posts Have Been Fewer These Past Weeks

 

If you must know the rest of the story: I’ve been getting up insanely early, painting my own nails, suffering from the embarrassment of ordering decaf Americanos, falling behind in a word count race, prepping for interviews, researching my next big thing, replacing the word project with the word thing, ignoring the World Series, meeting the cute, the kind, and the troubled private school youth of Memphis, and of course, saving up all my good words to blow your mind -- after I get through tomorrow.

Objects In Picture Are Way Cooler Than They Appear

Drove to and fro Little Rock and Memphis today for some thrifting and a HOSB session. It was perfect weather for driving and listening to Inherent Vice and the Lewis Family. I’ve been trying to break my very dangerous taking pictures/video while driving habit but did anyone else see the moon tonight? Giant. Orange. Unable to be captured with a consumer grade digital camera from the early 2000s – that is it right there in the picture – the bright shining ball over the eighteen-wheeler taillights.

It’s blurry because of those pesky rumble strips that you hit when you are driving off the road.

Halloween Of Yesteryear, Hard To Top

Last year? Trapped in a Corn Maze, Seizure Baby and the ICP:

This year? I’m thinking I’ll find Elvis, eat three pounds of candy corn, and flying a broom to the moon.

Happy Halloween!

Visual Merch in Hot Springs, AR

The Pie Place

You can get lost in a pigs belly of bad bar-b-q here in the south so it pays to do your research. Before we left for Hot Springs last week we consulted our road food experts of Here Comes Trouble fame, and also the website Roadfood. Both connoisseur resources insisted that we stop at Craigs BBQ in De Valls Bluff, a quaint little town near the White River in Arkansas.

Roadfood said the rib plate was the real hit, but they don’t live in Memphis so we went with the other advice to get the cheeseburger. Yes, The cheeseburger. We were not disappointed.

Slaw-on-burger. Just order it the way it comes.

The service was great and the clientele was nothing but camo and Carharts. Not too many people dined inside but we did because we had to stay put – our desert was waiting across the street.

We were told that we had to get pies from The Pie Lady, a kind older woman who runs a pie shop out of her house, after we ate at Craigs. As you can see, the home is clearly labeled.

Inside was a trove of magical light and buttery crusts.

We ordered two apricot fried pies and ate them on the road. They tasted like homemade jam and dirty fruit. That is kind of what I call the decor of the place as well: Homemade Jam and Dirty Fruit – it is a distinct southern style. I’d go back for sure. Whole Pie style.

My Kind Of Gymnasium

The latest Vista Video taken inside the historic Fordyce Bath House in Hot Springs, AR shows the gym equipment of yesteryear:

Never Toss Your Go-To Material

I decided to get legit this month. Well, legit as far as becoming a proper Tennessee resident because I’ve pretty much decided to stay. This means getting a new license plate for my car. DONE. And a new drivers license. NOT DONE.

See, on my drive over to the DMV or DLS or XYZ of the great state of Tennessee, I started to feel a deep sadness about turning in my California ID. It isn’t due to expire for a good 4.8 years, but it is more than that that fed my resistance.

My hair and cheesy smile on that DL photo has consistently, and I mean 1 out of every 2 times I show the thing, gotten me attention. The kind of attention that makes TSA guards say I look like Linda Blair and waiters at Applebees say, “ha..nice smile.” It has become the only item in my comedy arsenal that produces such reliable results. I got the picture taken soon after I moved to Los Angeles and my hair was still growing out chemically induced curls from chemotherapy so I always looked like I had hot-rollered my hair. The photo quite possibly marks the greatest time of my life (minus the chemo, poverty, and 5am shift at Starbucks across from the Beverly Center).

So when I got to the Tennessee Licensing center and stood in the line behind twenty other people, I made up several excuses including the line being too long and the place smelling like wet diaper liner and I turned around and left, my Linda Blair ID still in my wallet.

My ID doesn’t identify me. Or maybe it does. It doesn’t matter. I don’t need to pin myself to the confines of state borders and boundaries.  After all, I am and always will be just a world resident, who just happens to hold an astounding, unparalleled piece of personal identification (that is valid for another 4.8 years).

Welcome To The Bath Clinic

Hot Springs National Park Fordyce Bathhouse.

Headed Out To The Ozarks

Check Tumblr for photo updates.

Learned, Observed, and Celebrated

… at the Indie Memphis Film Festival

All In: The Poker Movie. I learned that poker is more part of America than the national parks or baseball and I think Ken Burns could do an 18 hours series on the card game. I also learned that once again it was my the technological champion, the camera, the kino-eye, that “let us in” and turned poker into a spectator sport of skill, luck, and psychological study. Thank you Henry Orenstein – the inventor of the Hole Card Camera and owner of large, handsome sunglasses.

Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo Tears and steers! Rodeos are cinematic, prisons are metaphorical, put the two together and you have the perfect ingredients for a movie.

Memphis Movement: Jookin’ The Urban Ballet And I thought that was breakdancing I saw the other night at the Best of The Flyer party. I’m so glad that film has the power to educate, I won’t make that mistake again. The people behind this production are genuinely rad people. I hope they get distribution. If not, I can post the video right here on this heavily trafficked site.

Ghost Bird On our way out to Little Rock to see the Bill Clinton Presidential Library and Museum, we passed a small town with a big billboard that said, “Brinkley: Home of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker.” and I thought to myself, I really should stop, that sounds rare and important. But the exit passed by and I missed my opportunity. I was thrilled when I found out Ghost Bird, a documentary that would explain it all, was screening at Indie Memphis. Some great footage in this -- particularly a short segment that show duck/geese (?) hunters preparing a field of decoys made from white trash bags and plastic ducks.

The Garden Lesson in filmmaking: An exhausting and spirited battle for public land compressed into a tightly edited (a perfect 80 minutes) documentary makes a riveting story, powerful political message, and a worthy historical document.

Getting Over The Hump

I consider myself middle-aged (for someone that lived in 1809) and I am happy that I found an instructional video that justifies my current state of retirement (more like deep R&D) as well as a nice essay written by a smart New Yorker that succinctly describes the effect that life-comparison has on our friendships.

Give Life to Little Things

You don’t have to give birth to get on the latest cultural bandwagon. Try non-committal windowsill gardening. That is what I do. Your best bet in those dollar bins near the entrance to your favorite Target store: Mini Grow Kits!

For a whole week, I thought I got a bunk batch of Black-Eyed Susans (BES) because they were really lagging behind the pot of gold, but this came up yesterday:

This makes me think I could have plant races. I could just watch these little pots for hours. Can’t wait to see BES shake off that dirt and flower up. It seems to be more productive than watching paint dry and gentler than watching water boil. Coming up next Lavender vs Forget-Me-Nots:

A Gesture Study

Mesmerizing hair handling and astounding perm spring-back from a local documentary about Elmwood Cemetery.

From my Historians Hair series.

Concussions

Oh my gosh – Playgrounds from the 70s got me thinking about Monkey Bars and if we are allowed to use that term or equipment anymore. I’m allowed to say whatever I want of course but I just need to know should I get called in to substitute teach a recess of some kind. I was witness to a rather severe concussion in the fifth grade and I have vowed to never challenge a person to a gymnastic competition on metal bars ever again. Monkeys may not be the symbols of play that they used to be.

Be warned: If you search the internet for Monkey Bars you should be prepared to get a bunch of unsettling news about the popular piece of playground equipment.

A Shell of A Different Color

Pre-show warm-up at the Levitt Shell.

Tinted Window

A Life of Magical Thinking

I tested and tried and proved the tumblr voice recorder last night at the Shell. It works. I’m thinking street interviews, deep thoughts, and sing-a-longs in addition to the already fascinating traveler pics on my tumblr.

My Sunday life advice is:

When you are about to open your fortune cookie after eating a nice chinese-american meal at Pei Wei, don’t think in your head, “This fortune, no matter what will be the word map of my destiny and will determine the course of all my actions.” It is childish, magical thinking and you could also get a very lame fortune that will haunt you ‘till the end of your days.

Fun, But Why is it Called a SLAM?

I’m a fan of The Moth podcast and I just heard that there is now a Moth storySLAM in Detroit at Cliff Bell’s every month now. Who picked the venue? It is perfect.

Why does everything involving a mic and no accompaniment have to be a SLAM? Why can’t it be Story-aoke? If it is really going to be a slam, the people who stink should get physically slammed off the stage. I’ve been to overly-supportive readings and performances and such and they aren’t good for anyone's development.

It seems the art of storytelling is on the upward trend (and has been) It is often on the agenda in team building and corporate development programs.  Even The Moth has a corporate training section. It reminds me of sitting through some very rehearsed sales meetings, where the VP stands in front of the room and tried desperately to relay their chosen personal anecdote (hey, everyone has to reinforce a learning moment) in a naturally convincing way. Ooooh so painful. If The Moth doesn’t come to Memphis, I will just start a monthly Corporate Meeting Video Outtake SLAM for all to enjoy.