So last night Sonya tells me she wants to go shoe shopping. This is cool with me. I took her to the mall. She tried on LOTS of shoes (of the brown loafer variety) but didn't actually buy anything. I hate that for her. When a guy goes to buy some shoes, he goes out and buys some shoes. If they don't have what he wants he gets something else - though they usually have what we want. But when a woman goes out to find shoes she'll have to work - and there's no guarantee she'll find anything, no matter how many shoes she tries on.

Me, I'm glad to be a guy.

Anyway, that's all beside the point. The point is we were driving home and we went by Neil's, a respectable old bar on Madison. On the sign out front it says

Now The Big Bang is probably one of the best straight-ahead rock and roll cover bands in Memphis, and I'm not just saying that because I'm friends with the band. Local Superstar Bill Oates (husband of Donna, who appeared in an earlier episode) is the lead singer and bass player of The Big Bang. He also used to host open mike night at the Daily Planet, a very cool bar over by the U of M. Sonya and I know Bill and Donna from those days.

We saw the sign and knew we had to stop. I pulled into the parking lot and Bill himself was getting his guitar out of his truck. Sonya and I hooked up with him and wandered inside.

Neil's is a cool place. It's real big, with lots of TV's and a free jukebox and a gameroom in back. They have a colorful crowd of regulars who apparently stayed home last night 'cause there wasn't a soul in there. But we stayed to watch our buddies anyway.

Let me digress for a moment. While the band was playing a was watching Australian-rules football on the big-screen TV. For those of you unfamiliar with Australian-rules football, a bunch of Australians run around, kicking a football that looks a bit swollen and knocking the shit out of each other. Occasionally they kick the ball between some poles. This, apparently, is a good thing. Remember this - it's important later.

Now as my regular readers know I'm fascinated by the HBO series America Undercover. This hellish visions of the underbelly of life is compellingly watchable and damned entertaining. The latest installment of the series is called Pimps Up, Hos Down. It is a study, basically, of the lives of a group of pimps. It's a hoot. One of the pimps featured is named Mister Whitefolks, who is, as his name implies, white. He wears a succession of horrid jackets and the ubiquitous pimp accessory of a white bowler hat. It seems white bowler hats are very big with the high-rollin' pimps.

Here's where it all comes together. Whenever the Australian-rules football guys would kick the ball between the poles, a guy dressed just like Mister Whitefolks would run between the poles and do some funky shit with his hands. Once again, I repeat: the Australians look just like us - but they are not of our kind. Beware.

Anyway, The Big Bang put on a good first set. They were playing 'til one or so, and neither Sonya nor I could stay up that late. There were two highlights of the first set: their inimitable cover of Hungry Like The Wolf (played especially for Sonya) and a rousing version of the old Def Leppard hit, Pour Some Sugar On Me. Man, that one took me back. Do you realize that every single off that album was a hit? In 1987-88 Def Leppard could do no wrong. If you got in someone's car and they didn't have a copy of Hysteria...well, you just didn't know what to do. It was the Thriller of the late eighties. Well, no, I guess Appetite For Destruction was the Thriller of the late eighties. You know what I mean.

In high school my friend Stephen would wander up to people and say, "shake the bottle, shake it up. Break the bottle, break it up." Stephen was like that.

After the first set Jeff, the guitarist, asked me, "so what did you think of the Def Leppard cover, man?"

"Thank you," I said honestly, "thank you, Jeff."

Sonya and I went to the mall tonight, searching for some frames for these two little Andy Warhol prints Sonya got from a friend.

Have you been to the mall lately? Have you looked at the kids? All the girls want to look like they're about thirty years old, and the guys want to look like Puff Daddy. I just don't get it. I must not be a young person anymore, 'cause they puzzle the hell out of me.

I saw some interesting things at the frame store, though. First there was this absolutely horrible watercolor of Nathan Bedford Forrest, accompanied by an oil painting of Robert E. Lee, Jeb Stuart and Forrest (again). It was entitled "Warriors For The Cause." Plus lots and lots of painting of Confederate soldiers riding in to battle, escaping from the Yankees, and so on.

Who actually hangs this shit in their house? When black people come inside do they leer at them, wink, and say, "if we'd a won I'd own you now, bubba." I don't get it. I was baffled, so I wandered off.

Up by the front of the store there were some cutesey calligraphied things that stated southerners were peach-lovin', magnolia-sniffin', porch-loiterin', tea-sippin' slowcoaches. I felt unnecessarily patronized and insulted. True, I like both peaches and tea, magnolias smell fine, and sitting on a porch is a lovely thing. But that's beside the point. Those things are not all that southerners are, anymore than all middle-easterners are convenience-store workers or all Jews are cheaps. I'm a straight white married male, so I rarely get stereotyped. When I do, it stings.

---

Latest Listening Pleasure: John Prine's greatest hits and Tori Amos' Spark single, featuring Purple People as the b-side. It would seem like those two don't have much in common, right? Well, you're wrong.

---

back'ard

latest

archive

for'ard