Travel Notes Pt. 1

(This post was supposed to be about TWO trips. But about halfway through this I thought this was like a reeeeeealy boring version of vacation slides. You may not give a fuck about Memphis. And you may not give a fuck about my vacations. If so, you may not want to read this. That's cool. If you just stop by for me ranting about shit, I'll get back to that soon.)

It's been a while since I've posted, and quite a bit has gone down. I had knee surgery. I was indifferent about the new GZA album. Generation Kill was the best thing on TV and ended. (This will be another post.) Michael Phelps won a bunch of medals. A lot of famous people died, including Issac Hayes and Bernie Mac. And my main man, Chris Carpenter, came and went. With so much going on, I didn't didn't know where to start. But I decided to talk about a couple of trips I took. So close your eyes, read on and imagine me as your own personal Anthony Bourdain.



At the beginning of the month I headed to Memphis. (Or as my buddy Shaw calls it: Memphrica.) For my money, Memphis is one of the most underrated places in the entire country. Great food, great nightlife and great live music. A downtown ballpark with a Cardinal affiliate doesn't hurt either. I can't ever remember having anything less than awesome time in Memphis and this trip lived up to expectations.

On Friday night, barbecue was on my mind. But Corky's and Rendezvous are ri-fucking-diculous on the weekends. So what could we do? Well, we tried a place called Superior Bar. Superior Bar is right on Beale Street in between Silky O'Sullivan's and B.B. King's. I'm not going to get all crazy and tell you that they had the best barbecue I've ever had (I'm a dry rib guy and it was too wet for my liking). But it was pretty fucking good and better than you'll get in most cities (and probably better than any thing you'll get outside of the south or a border state). If you're looking for good AC, good food and good prices hit up the Superior.

From there we went to Flying Saucer. Now I'll admit, I like Flying Saucer, but I do have one problem with it. The problem is it seems out of place. It's new and clean in a place that's old and dirty. You feel like you could be anywhere, and in a place like Memphis that's a negative. But if you like beer you'll forget that quickly. And they do sell the coolest bar shirt I've seen in awhile. It's so cool, that I picked up one for my collection.

The next day was a biggie so we headed home. Just a $10 cab ride. Did I mention Memphis is awesome?

The Next day I caught up with some old friends at The Elvis 7s Rugby Tournament. (If you only ever click on one link, click on the last one.) Despite being plagued by some of the shittiest weather anywhere, Elvis is one of the most fun tournaments around. It's Elvis, Elvis, Elvis. (That may be an album title. ) Elvis over the PA. Most of the ruggers grow side burns. There's a sideburn contest and a beehive contest. And last but not least, Elvis trivia. I've been going to this tournament since I started playing rugby (word is Priscilla and Lisa Maria came out back in the day and were frightened by the rugby crowd.) and the Blues always do a great job hosting. Plus, this year, they had bison burgers marinated in Dale's. Muthafuckin' delicious.

After showers and a few Natty Lights we were headed back to Beale. This time i demoed a rack of ribs at Blues City Cafe. This joint was a favorite of the first black president - Bill Clinton. But even that doesn't change the fact that the ribs were just adequate. My grandmother Daisy puts those fools to shame.

From the Cafe we wandered down the street and saw this dude. His name: Richard Johnston. And my man's life is straight out of a movie. Middle class white kid travels around the world. Ends up in Mississippi learning the blues from cats like R. L. Burnside and Jessie Mae Hemphill. Then some PBS, college-boy motherfucker makes a documentary about him and the rest is history. I will say this, this dude has chops. If you ever wanted to see a lo-fi version of the Black Keys check this dude out he's a real white-boy bluesman. Like Ralph Macchio in Crossroads. Plus he told everybody he was going to go drink beer if nobody wanted to dance. He said he didn't give a fuck about the money, but he did want people to SHOW they enjoyed the music. Everybody proceeded to dance. It was pretty awesome.

He was set up next to Coyote Ugly and we made the mistake of going in. I'm familiar with the concept behind Coyote Ugly. I may have even had a good time at the one in Dallas. But FUCK the one in Memphis. Do not go. It sucks. It's so shitty i won't even link it. Don't say you haven't been warned.

From there we were torn between Club 152 and the Beale street cornerstone Silky O'Sullivans. 152 had a funk band and Silky's, well, Silky's is Silky's. The group split. And I wandered with the Silky's contingent. As always Silky's was a crazy mix of locals and tourist, singles and couples and every other paradox. Met some native Memphians who had just graduated from Wash U. After we talked about the 314, Alan Gann was doling out buckets of the world famous divers. We sat, talked, drank and sweated. It was a good time.

I had a blast that weekend. If you ask me Memphis is like the Vegas of the South. Nothing but good times to be had and tourists everywhere (I say that because it's insulting to call New Orleans the _____ of anywhere.) Next time you're looking for somewhere don't forget about this vastly underrated city. And feel free to give me a call - I'm always up for some barbecue.