Laissez les bons temps rouler

On my final night in Nashville a few of us went back to the Wildhorse for some food and live music. Unfortunately Kathryn is under 21 and thus she was unable to follow the rest of us to the bars. She did write me down a list of country artists to check out though, so I guess everyone’s* a winner.

*I’m

After a couple of pitchers in Paradise Park (two for $6 on a Tuesday) and some more drinks and music at more bars it was time for an emotional last look at Broadway before we went back to the hostel. After a small gathering outside it was bedtime, with an early alarm set to be up in time for the Greyhound to Memphis in the morning.

In the morning I had breakfast, said some goodbyes and, fairly reluctantly, left for the Greyhound station one pair of shorts worse off on account of them being broken. Once there I was interrogated by a fairly colourful character as I waited to check my bag. I had a brief conversation with a German backpacker but he didn’t seem very talkative and I was tired so I gave up after a little while.

Before too long I’d boarded the bus and was settling in for the journey. I’ve never seen someone take such care over a fluorescent vest as the driver, who retrieved a coat-hanger from his bag and lined it up perfectly behind his seat. The journey was once again uneventful and before long I arrived in Memphis. I went for a walk and before long I was on Beale Street, almost by accident. I had a brilliant lunch accompanied by a singer/guitarist with a great hat. I was a little concerned to see the waitress had a fairly fist-shaped bruise on her face, but I suppose I am in the South.

From there I got a taxi to the hostel where I found that the code I had been sent for the door didn’t work. After a quick phone call I was checked and settled in. The hostel requires that people who stay there do a small chore every day, but at $15/day I wasn’t complaining.

After I’d unpacked I set off for a nearby convenience store to get some food but before I could get there I bumped into the German guy from the Greyhound station in Nashville. He’d just walked all the way from the station and was unsure exactly where the hostel was, so I led him back there. When he’d settled in we went to the convenience store. Back at the hostel I got chatting to a guy called Ezra who is into some fairly nerdy stuff and we traded some electronic comics.

After a while Jasper and I were fairly hungry so we walked to a nearby pub for food. Highlights included the waitress fishing for tips, a pub quiz (which we were too late to join) and, inexplicably, a man setting fire to his newspaper at the bar. After our food we went back to the hostel and checked out the library. There we found ourselves talking to a 73 year old lady from Baton Rouge who was reading John Grisham. She informed us that she doesn’t like staring at screens so she doesn’t watch TV. She’d rather watch a movie instead. Oh dear.

Later in the evening I noticed someone I recognised sitting at the table over from me and said hello. It was Frederick, the Danish fiddler who had played at the hostel in Nashville. We were discussing our plans for the next day and when it became clear that we both wanted to go to the Gibson factory and the Civil Rights Museum we decided to go together, which meant I could have a lift into town as well. Bonus.

After a good night’s sleep we did our chores, which for me consisted of the incredibly taxing ‘take out the paper recycling’, and then got in the car. Unfortunately there is no photography allowed inside the Gibson factory so I don’t have pictures of all the cool stuff which goes on there. Suffice it to say that a luthier sanding a neck into shape by hand with an error margin of 1/16th of an inch is a fairly impressive sight. Particularly when it takes him basically no time at all and looks as though he’s not even looking. Having said that, based on what I’ve heard about Gibson’s quality control, maybe he wasn’t. As for the guitars which don’t make the grade? Shredded into sawdust. It’s enough to make you cry.

After spending some time playing guitars in the shop (none as good as the Martin, by the way) we made for the Civil Rights Museum. We didn’t really have a plan for how long we would be there, but I don’t think either one of us intended to spend 5-6 hours trying to digest the overwhelming amount of information on offer. I was a little confused when a museum worker started asking if I was Texan, until I realised she meant ‘texting’ as I had my phone in hand and no photography is allowed in the museum. When we were outside taking photos of the balcony where Martin Luther King Jr was shot I was accosted by a man wondering if I was a member of the press as there was an event on in a few days. Quite why they were there so early for their own event, and indeed expected the press to be, is beyond me.

After the museum it was more than time for food so we went back to the hostel and cooked. There we met Nicola, who is coming to the end of an 18 month world trip. After a quick rendition of a Danish folk song, Frederick drove us all into Beale Street for a couple of beers, and it was time for a let-down almost on par with the excavated Reflecting Pool. Unlike Broadway in Nashville, which felt authentic and current, Beale Street seemed tired and tacky. The ridiculously drunk people crawling all over the floor didn’t exactly help. Still, we found a bar with some live music and had a few drinks.

Frederick left early in the morning, and after we’d said goodbye, Jasper, Nicola and I got ready to go to Graceland. If I am to teach you only one thing through this blog, let it be this. If you want to get from 1000 South Cooper Street to Sun Studio, take a fucking cab. Otherwise you may well end up catching the wrong bus to the wrong place, inadvertently starting a minor race riot through no fault of your own, waiting at the wrong bus stop for another bus, finally catching the right bus, still having to walk for about half an hour after it’s dropped you off, and arriving at roughly the time you would have had you just walked from the hostel in the first place.

The tour of Sun Studio was semi-forced upon us as the free shuttle to Graceland would have required an hour’s wait anyway, but as it turns out it was probably more interesting than Graceland, and certainly better value for money. It was helped by the fact that the tour guide was quite clearly completely insane, which made a nice change from the generic drone I’ve often experienced.

After that tour we caught the shuttle out to Graceland. It was clear we were in for an experience as we passed the two planes along from the ticket area, which itself came complete with numerous shops full of tasteful, understated, and elegant tributes to Mr Presley.

It’s clear where their inspiration comes from. Graceland is a shrine to tasteful interior design, where mirrors which play with the light in a majestic way hang alongside colours which complement one another perfectly, and fabrics and carpets are used in wonderfully traditional ways. It’s hard to believe anyone who entered this house could ever have taken drugs.

Once we’d had our fill of hall after impressive hall of gold discs, we caught the shuttle back to Beale street and went for a beer. As Jasper is under 21 I ordered for him, but just as the barmaid was pouring them a fairly robust man to my left asked to see ID. I showed him mine in the hopes that he would ignore Jasper and he just looked back with a big grin on his face and told me he doesn’t even work there. Hilarious.

Still, we had our beers and went to take a seat on a patio where live music was playing. The joker from the bar was soon on the microphone as a guest singer on his 51st birthday. He was a big improvement on the woman whose party trick is leaving the microphone in her cleavage while she carries on singing. It would be fairly impressive if she didn’t weigh more than Lawrence Dallaglio. After two very generous helpings of beer for lunch at 7pm the smell of food drifting from nearby restaurants made us all hungry so we went for some food. If nothing else, Memphians know how to eat.

After a bit longer in town, where we noticed Andy Murray had crashed out of Wimbledon, we went back to the hostel via a takeaway where we procured $5 pizzas. Awesome.

The next morning Jasper left for Atlanta and Nicola and I scored a lift to town with a couple of English guys who are road-tripping. They were leaving for the hostel I am staying at in New Orleans so we said we’d probably meet up here. They are also hoping to catch up with a couple of girls from California who told them if they came to New Orleans too it didn’t mean they would definitely sleep with them. Charming.

Beale Street during the day is certainly preferable to Beale Street at night time, but it’s still very underwhelming. We whiled away some time looking in various quirky shops. Rows of candy next to what basically constitutes a medieval armoury with added tazers is particularly inspired. If I’d just been on holiday rather than a long trip I would have bought a serious amount of cool but ultimately useless shit. As it was, I was very restrained.

When we’d exhausted the shops on the street we went to the Museum of Rock and Soul which had a good mix of exhibits and audio clips, including the option of a virtual jukebox as you wander round. There was also an exhibit of previously unseen photos of The Beatles which only came to light when the photographer stumbled across the negatives in his house. That’s fairly careless if you ask me.

By the end of the museum, the air conditioning had us fairly certain our feet were frozen to the ground so we decided to sit out on a balcony for lunch. The sun was brilliant, but resting my arm on a black metal chair wasn’t a good idea. Nicola ordered a plate of BBQ pork nachos as a starter and it was absolutely huge so I was forced to finish the remnants of her wonderful food completely against my will. The waitress was really helpful, adding a gratuity to the bill without us even asking.

After we’d eaten we walked back to the hostel via a convenience store where I received a complete re-education regarding the similarities and differences between American and English confectionary. After two hours walking in 105 degree heat it was more than time for a shower, which was followed by a trip to the cinema to see the new Transformers film.

‘What?!’ I hear you cry, ‘a film on a Saturday night when you could have been out in Memphis?’ That’s right. Having seen people queuing to get onto Beale Street the night before, complete with compulsory frisking and the general drunkenness on display we didn’t really fancy it with a long bus journey ahead of us the next day. With a taxi booked for 7.30am it was soon time for sleep.

Having been woken in the night by two guys checking in at about 2.30, I went back to sleep secure in the knowledge that my alarm would give me sweet revenge. I was seriously disappointed when I awoke to see neither of them had so much as stirred. Nicola made poached eggs for breakfast before we caught the taxi to the Greyhound station to say goodbye to a city so crazy it has a giant pyramid and ducks which live in the fountain of a hotel lobby.

We’d made sure to get there in good time as we’d anticipated there would be a lot of demand for buses to New Orleans the day before Independence Day, so my heart sank when I saw an absolutely huge queue had formed under door 3 to New Orleans. We were more concerned when they started boarding well before the scheduled time but we went to get our bags tagged for checking and hoped for the best.

Luckily enough we were told to go to gate 4 which had a much more modest queue, although it took me a little while to pronounce New Orleans close enough to ‘N’awlins’ that the woman on the counter knew what I was talking about. Whoever designed these stations needs a talking to though. Let’s have queues form across each other and confuse non English-speakers with words like bend, shall we? Great idea! I’m also unsure about the lime green t-shirt and armed handgun combo sported by the overweight female security guards in the station. I think they could do more damage by shouting at people to be honest.

While we were queuing, Dan from Nashville came over to say hello and we had a quick chat before he rejoined his queue. He’d had an interesting experience couch surfing; his host had passed out shortly after he arrived and he had then fallen asleep himself. When he awoke he needed the toilet and had to go through his host’s room to get there. He wasn’t really prepared for the sight of his host sleeping in another guy’s lap, who he hadn’t seen enter, and who was stroking his head.

Before long boarding was called and we got on the bus. I was a little concerned when the driver acted as though he’d never seen a piece of paper before when I passed him my ticket but I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. There was plenty of leg room on the bus which was nice with the length of journey ahead of me, but it took me a while to get completely comfortable because we left half an hour late leaving me concerned that I wouldn’t make my transfer to New Orleans.

This journey was far preferable to my last long-distance one due in large part to the fact I had good company until we reached Baton Rouge, where Nicola left for Lafayette and Dan and I transferred for New Orleans. Playing ‘Spot the Dollar General store’ certainly helped to pass the time too. Sadly the bus was too busy for me to sit near Dan on the final leg, but in spite of the delays and the driver’s apparent desire to add stops at random, we had all made it in time for our transfers.

A quick taxi ride later and I arrived at the hostel where, much to my dismay, I was given a room key. Codes are much easier, and one less thing to worry about losing. I took a short walk to get some food, chatted to some people who were watching TV and wrote this blog post. Now it’s time for bed before the 4th of July.