Lou Pickney's Online Commentary
Pulp Memphis
Tuesday
May 8, 2007
This past weekend I went to Memphis to take part in the fun and revelry of the Beale Street Music Festival. An annual tradition, the event featured a boatload of great bands and certainly lived up to the hype.
The big drawing card for me was the Counting Crows, my all-time favorite band, which was the closing act on the Cellular South stage on Sunday night. It really would have been preferable in many ways for me to stay in Nashville this past weekend, as my room is still a disorganized mess and I wanted to relax, but there was no way I was passing up seeing CC in concert.
The travel plans were very catch-as-catch-can, which proved troublesome at times. With three caravans (my cousin Donald, my roommate Dustin, and my brother Matt) heading to Memphis, it would have been silly for me to drive as well. I decided to wait to ride with my brother on Friday (as I put in a full day at the office), but Matt ended up working a marathon shift, not making it here until around 9 p.m. Central, well past the 5-6 p.m. goal time. We didn't leave Smyrna until past 10.
By the time we made it to Memphis, it was 2:45 in the morning. We tried to hunt down my old buddy from high school, Brian Costner, but Brian was unfortunately so hammered by that point that he was unable to give us any sort of coherent directions to the bar he was at with his girlfriend. "Turn left on South Main and you'll find us," he said, his words slurred, but unfortunately Main was blocked to traffic. Facing a cluster of a traffic situation, we ended up giving up on that idea.
With Brian out of the picture, Matt and I ended up finding a hotel (an overpriced Quality Inn), which worked out well for our friend Snapper Dan and his buddy Brad, as they needed a place to stay and ended up staying there with us.
Saturday was mayhem. Riding downtown in Brad's Excursion (more on this later), by 2 p.m. we made it to the Flying Saucer, a great bar with an incredible number of beers on tap (and waitresses who wear short schoolgirl skirts in a brilliant gimmick.) Naturally, we began drinking soon after our arrival. I started things off with a Woodpecker Cider, the first time in a long time that I've had one. That stuff is tremendous, and the Flying Saucer in Nashville is the only other place in the United States where I've found it on tap. Then it was beer... lots and lots of beer.
Friends of Matt's (and, by association, friends of mine) began showing up there, from Dunski to B-Squared to Manny Fresh, and we had our own section of people together at one point, watching Detroit/San Jose hockey and Yankees baseball and the pre-race festivities of the Kentucky Derby. In a hilarious moment, an order of nachos intended for Dustin ended up with Matt and I... and we proceeded to polish it off for him. You know, because we'd hate to have seen it go to waste. And as my late Grandma Pickney used to advise me, "You snooze, you lose!"
Finally, as the afternoon wore on, the decision was made to head down to the music festival at Tom Lee Park. I bought my ticket at the gate; $30 cash each day to get in, which was quite reasonable.
The first band we saw was Jack's Mannequin, headed by Andrew McMahon (who is/was the lead singer of Something Corporate, who I saw in Clearwater, FL in December 2002.) I enjoyed their set, but it was certainly not my brother's flavor as far as music went. "This is pussy whiner rock!" he bemoaned, quickly opting to find another stage to watch. To each his own, but I dug it. It wasn't as good as Something Corporate, but I enjoyed enjoyable nonetheless.
The scene at the music festival was interesting, spread out enough in the park area where it didn't have the jam-packed feeling that some concert scenes provide, but not being ridiculously spaced so that getting from stage to stage took forever. Flanked by the Mississippi River to the right and some very nice (and I'm sure expensive) houses on a hill to the left, the scene was a good one for a festival.
The big attraction on Saturday night was Wolfmother and Godsmack. I'm not as much into hard rock, and I had seen Godsmack in concert before (Livestock 13 in Zephyrhills, FL in April 2003), so I wasn't as excited about it as the rest of the guys were. The performance was good, but it didn't have the same "Oh wow!" impact on me that I think it did to the rest of the crew.
By the time we headed out of the park, I was exhausted, but the night was young. The challenge: finding Jonny (aka Rocco DiVachi, who is one of the friendliest and most likable people you'll ever meet), Jonny's mega-hot girlfriend Jennifer, and their friend Wesley (a cool guy in his own right.)
We ended up meeting up with them at Alfred's, a bar on Beale Street. Beale Street is unique, with a Bourbon Street like feel (you can drink on the street there) that I didn't realize it has. There are a bunch of bars wedged into a roughly three block long stretch, and when we arrived Beale was packed tight with concert attendees and weekend partiers alike.
My gas tank was on empty, and I desperately wanted to go to sleep. Matt gives me shit about this all the time, but when I don't have enough sleep, the negative impact on me can be severe. But Jonny was our ride out of there, and he was wanting to enjoy Beale Street, so I had to be patient.
I wish I had some crazy stories from Saturday night, but I felt the polar opposite from the mostly all happy faces I saw on Beale Street. A long, exhausting day combined with lots of alcohol can do that to me, and I turn into Angry Lou. I don't like that it happens, but it does sometimes, and I just have to deal with that. You have to realize that I'm a bit crazy; at times that fine line between genius and madness can get a little fuzzy, especially after consuming copious amounts of alcohol.
After much discussion, we finally left Beale Street, which was still packed at nearly 4 in the morning. But all was not finished yet; there were some complications awaiting us.
Remember how I mentioned that Brad drove us down there? My prescription medicine was in his Excursion, kept there in case of a migraine emergency (trust me, when you have suffered from migraines in the past, you make sure you have an out at all times if possible.) In a snap decision move that in hindsight was a mistake, I brought my bag that had *all* of my prescriptions in it, and I absolutely needed it for the rest of the trip (and beyond.) As it was, Brad and Snapper ended up leaving town the next morning, so had I not retrieved the bag that night... well, it would have been very, very bad times for me.
Being a stranger in a strange town (and drunk), I didn't know what road was where, and finding the Excursion proved to be a major pain. Jonny drove us around looking for it, and finally he parked when we thought we were close to the vehicle. Matt (who had transformed into Incoherently Drunk Matt by this point) walked with me to find the Excursion.
We walked a long, long, *long* way before we finally found the Redbirds baseball stadium, which Matt luckily knew was a landmark to where we parked (one of the few non-gibberish things he was able to say at that point.) Snapper was asleep in the Excursion, and I banged on the windows until he woke up and gave me the bag.
From there we had a long walk back to Johnny's car, and then the daunting task of trying to find Brian's house. Luckily I had obtained directions from him earlier that day, but he didn't know that I was bringing a party of five to crash at his place.
At about that time I began to visualize parallels between the weekend and the movie Pulp Fiction. My bag equated to Marcellus' briefcase (or maybe Butch Coolige's watch); us crashing at Brian's reminded me of when Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield showed up at Jimmie Dimmick's house. "We ain't leaving until I make a few phone calls, but I don't want it to come to that." Luckily, Brian doesn't have an albatross like Jimmie had with Bonnie, and we were able to stay there with no trouble. Brian's always been a great friend to me, and I've always appreciated his generosity.
Sunday brought on more concert fun, including a tremendous set by Papa Roach. I saw them open for Eminem in August 2002 at the Ice Palace in Tampa, and they managed to put on an even better show this time around. Their lead singer (Jacoby Shaddix) ran into the crowd, as he did at the show in Tampa five years before, but he ended up over by an elevated platform near where I was standing. He tried to climb it, but a security guard told him that he had to go around. So Jacoby took the stairs and sang from the top of the platform, right in front of me. Very cool.
There were some very white-trash looking people there (surprise), including a woman who had a poorly designed tattoo on her upper back that read Naughty -N- Nice. This provided fodder for several rounds of laughter amongst the group.
After Papa Roach, I separated from the pack to watch the bands I came to see: Guster, Barenaked Ladies, and the Counting Crows. It rained on us early, and apparently rain is a tradition at Memphis in May. A girl I met, Amy, told me that they call it Mudfest since it turns into a wet, muddy mess most years. Naturally I wore my new Skechers on Sunday, thinking that 30% odds for rain was good enough to risk. Roll the dice, pay the price. They are covered in mud and I'm not sure if I will be able to restore them.
Sunday night lead to more Beale Street craziness, though I was in a much better mood that time around. That's what happens when you have two beers in a day as opposed to 10+ (or however many it was -- I lost track on Saturday.) We hit
BB King's Blues Club, which was a very fun place.
Despite it being a Sunday night, Beale was packed with people, though not ridiculously crowded like what I saw there the night before. I had agreed to drive us back, so I took it easy on the drinking, but unfortunately I also had to keep tabs the rest of the crew I was rolling with (Matt, Jonny, Jennifer, and Wesley.)
We somehow managed lose my brother when we left BB King's; I thought he had shot out like a cat, disappearing into the night. The remaining four of us ended up at a woefully understaffed Denny's. I doubled back down the path from Beale to Denny's to find my brother, but I ran into another complication: cell phone power.
Silly me, I thought that a fully charged Verizon LG phone could last the weekend without needing a recharge, but it was almost tapped out by Sunday morning. And, sure enough, I had it go out on me at an inopportune moment, as it died as I was calling Matt to figure out where in the hell he was.
On a hunch I went back to B.B. King's, and sure enough there was Matt, passed out at a back table, his head in his hands. It's a good thing he and I have a near telepathic connection (despite being separated in age by almost four years.)
I managed to wake Matt up and get him to come with me to Denny's. A guy on a bicycle began hassling us as we went back over there, wanting to show us tricks he could do on his bike (trying to hustle for money, I imagine), but I just ignored him. Matt was too tanked to even register the guy's presence; as we walked away from him, he mumbled "You guys are punks," which sounded like something out of a poorly written PG-13 movie or one of those stupid network TV crime shows.
Somehow I managed to get everyone together and then over to the car, but trying to make it back to Brian's house was another adventure (Jonny drove on Saturday night, and I wasn't exactly in familiar territory.) I drank cautiously that night, but how in the hell do you really know if you're over or under a .08? The last thing I wanted to do was to find out the hard way, and to top it off, Matt's car had a turn signal light out, giving any officer justifiable cause to pull me over. Not fun times.
The peanut gallery was bugging me to get some food on the drive home, and finally I found a McDonald's that was open 24/7. I remember shouting loudly at the guys in the back to shut up (as I looked for Poplar Street); the circumstances weren't exactly great to begin with, and they were yelling out ridiculous restaurant ideas (KFC is not open at 3:05 a.m., but convincing the drunken coalition of that fact was not an easy task.)
But all ended well: we obtained our food, made it back safely, and went to sleep without incident. Matt and I came back to Nashville yesterday, leaving around mid-morning.
Was it worth it? Definitely. I would have liked to have had more control over the situation; I have no problem going off the script or seeing where the night takes us, but I want to at least have a Plan A versus a Ladies Man-esque "Things will just randomly work out" non-plan. Live and learn.
The effect of the long hours out and mingling with large crowds hit me this morning, as I woke up with an ominous scratchy feeling in my throat that typically is a sign of an impending illness. It has only gotten worse this afternoon; complicating things is that I had already taken Monday (travel day) and today (dentist appointment) off from work.
But despite the disorganization of the trip, the oncoming sickness from being worn down and tired, and the chaotic nature of things, Memphis in May was a memorable, worthwhile adventure. Perhaps I'll be seeing you again next year, Beale Street...
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