05/01/98
Aimless Musings


I'm very disappointed with the Beale Street Music Festival this year. Over the last three years Sonya and I have gotten three day passes and been there from Friday afternoon 'til Sunday night. This year, though, Memphis in May screwed Mid-South Concerts out of the deal and now they've got a lame music festival. We may go Saturday. Or Sunday. Or not at all. It's sad, really. Paula Cole? Bonnie Raitt? It stinks. And the hippies will turn out in droves on Saturday to see Widespread Panic. They will probably also stink.

* * *

How much y'all wanna bet we end up seein' Monica Lewinski in Playboy before it's all over? Maybe Penthouse. Paula Jones, though - I have a feeling High Society or Cheri or Hog Tie will be calling her. It's called a split beaver, folks - you don't want to see it.

* * *
Did anyone see E.R. last night? It was an excellent piece of television. Big fuckin' surprise there, huh?

* * *
Speaking of TV - Thursday nights HBO shows a program called America Undercover. Now, America Undercover is like if they took the guests from Jerry Springer, right? And then they followed them home and kept recording their lives. The Chris Rock bit about the "Tossed-Salad Man" came from an episode of America Undercover about prison life. Yes, there is a real Tossed-Salad Man and yes, he does prefer syrup. Anyway, last week they went into a crack house. Guess who inhabited the crack house? That's right - crack heads and crack whores. Not one of them had a full set of teeth. They just sat around and smoked crack. When they ran out of crack they'd go steal something, sell it and get more crack. It was inspiring, really. Last night the show was about neo-nazi skinheads from Alabama. They declared Alabama a "white haven." I'd like to see these jokers get dumped in Whitehaven here in Memphis at about three in the morning.

"What's that stickin' out of your ass there, Earl?"

"It's the stick I had my swastika-flag tied onto."

"Why's it up your ass?"

"To stop the bleeding, I guess."

I mean, these guys were all the way, 110%, dedicated, professional morons. Though at one point they were chanting "six-million more." I sat on the edge of the couch for the rest of the hour, gleefully waiting for them to deny the holocaust. They never did. I thought about it for a little while and figured that a lie that big was just a little too subtle for them to grasp. They are from Alabama - six-million dead isn't horrifying to them, it's just a damn big number.

It makes me a little sad, really. There's klansmen and racist and skinheads all over the northeast, I'm sure, but I don't doubt that this particular episode of America Undercover would have lacked something had they filmed it in Passiac or Detroit or some such horrible place. The accents make it so much more believable, I guess. Who would have watched A Time To Kill if it had been set in Boston? Me, that's who. I'd watch Ashley Judd eat breakfast.




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