What I can tell you about Tuesday morning is that I got out of bed at 4 a.m. and got on a plane. A little while later, I woke up. While deplaning in Charlotte, an elderly woman a few rows in front of me referred to the rather masculine (but definitely female) lesbian behind her as "that young man."
Then, I got on another plane and went to sleep again. When I came to I was standing on a platform waiting on the A train to take me into Manhattan, watching a middle-aged Hispanic man dance to music on his headphones while facing out into the open train track, gesticulating wildly and making sexy faces at absolutely no one. And then I realized that New York and Memphis aren't so different: people do really ridiculous shit in public and everyone just goes about their business as if absolutely nothing out of the ordinary is happening. Mostly because nothing out of the ordinary IS happening.
Crazy is universal.
After I got settled at my friend Ashley's apartment and picked up my CMJ badge, I spent most of my afternoon at Starbucks, working on a few client projects and attempting not to stare at the girl next to me who was smiling and talking to herself in the reflective surface over the bar where we were seated. Attempting not to stare. Operative word.
That evening I met up with my friend Emily, who I worked with briefly at the Music Foundation when I first started and she was finishing up a part-time college gig there. Since our paths only crossed for about two months, we never really had the chance to hang out socially. And in New York, we did. In a word? FRENAISSANCE.
We had wine and tapas at a Spanish restaurant on Houston before heading around the corner to Kenny's Castaways for my inaugural show of CMJ 2011. We ended up making fast friends with two guys who were in the first band that had played there that night -- whose set we managed to miss while we were busy guzzling wine -- and after the music was done there we ended up heading way uptown with them to a place I'd been to a time or two back in my college intern days called Brother Jimmy's.
I should probably back up here and calm the concerns you likely have right about now: I need to clarify that under no circumstances will there ever be a story about me meeting a guy in a bar on this blog that does not involve the busting of some balls. I think you know me better than that, y'all. First I had to inform one of the guys in the band that his home state was not, in fact, in the South. Then I had to school another guy in the band, who happens to be from Kansas, on both basketball AND barbecue. It is possible that later in the week I was persuaded to expand my once-rigid definition of the South to include this additional state, which I will refrain from identifying for the protection of the innocent. (And so that I don't have to tell you that I actually had to be shown a map to come to this acquiescence.)
Now, then. Where were we? Oh, that's right. Headed uptown.
So when we got to Brother Jimmy's, the skies opened up and God handed me a beautiful gift: KARAOKE. Clearly I held it down on "Nuthin But A G Thang," and clearly I said a lot of things on the microphone about Memphis, and being from Memphis, and representing Memphis, and maybe something involving Memphis being in "the house." Later I was saddened to learn that they did not have "I Wish" by Skee-Lo, which has become a recent fan favorite. I made do with my standard, "Bust A Move" by Young MC, which I actually messed up the words to for the first time perhaps in all of recorded history. Old age and beer, y'all. Deadly combo.
Luckily everyone else was suffering from the same ailment, and they did not seem to notice. Or care.
Round about 3 a.m. we headed next door to what I'm pretty sure was just another bar and ordered what I'm also pretty sure was every single appetizer-type item on the entire menu. There were french fries, tator tots, wings, there were fried macaroni and cheese bites. And all of it, every single bit of it, was like the best, most delicious thing I had ever eaten. Also? KETCHUP.
As far as I can estimate, I got home around 4:30 a.m., which means -- yes, you guessed it -- I had been awake for 24 solid hours.
And that was just the first day. Lawd.
cheers,
elizabeth
Posts
