I think it was B.B. Kings 16 Greatest Hits...a cassette. It was my Daddy's. I appropriated it...and the family tape recorder and played it everywhere I went...which, at this point in my life, was limited to the front and back yard.
This is the song that did it to me...I wrecked that part of the tape. Play, Rewind, Play, Rewind, Play...until I had every hiss memorized. Which was good cause I'd shredded it by then.
King was my Daddy's favorite and I remember one night as a small child being baby-sat so him and my Momma could go see him. It seemed like magic to me...that they could go and see a person from the records. I tried to imagine what it would be like.
Two years ago we were able to take The Boy to see him. It was a rough night on a four year old but, he made it long enough to hear King sing You Are My Sunshine...and that was long enough. It was priceless watching his face.
Keep an eye on your computer for this one...the first few minutes might melt your screen.
As a rule, I am loath to join in with moments of mandatory mourning but, King's music was an integral part of my childhood. As a corporate loss it's crushing, even if not shocking...you can't replace Southerners like this.
Just to reiterate the ultimate point of my last post...
"Y'all sent me on this terrible bachelorette party and all I got was a snakebite."
I rest my case...you want surnames?
We know one of these fellas...in fact, the Boy has spent the night at the family's house.
DISCLAIMER: as I know it will be of great interest to many of our readers, not only were no snakes harmed during the filming but they're probably saving many non-poisonous snakes from being killed in the drive way. They deal directly, and question, the normal reaction that any sane person would have to seeing a snake...which is to kill it without a second thought...and suggest that it's an irrational response.
Sorry I'm just gonna confess here...I will kill them if I see them. I guess I'm a horrible person but I have been chased, have looked into the beady abyss and seen what a snake bite does to a human leg. The only way I'll grab a snake is with a shotgun.
I love the rowdiness and the decay that can be found from one end of Dixie to the other. It's not only beautiful but it makes an important statement about the impermanence of material and the foolishness of putting any faith in it. There is another side though.
There is a grandeur to The South that I am often guilty of ignoring here. There is the beauty of the dogwoods and azaleas, the magnolias and loblollies...and the live oaks. The unassailable taste and quaint manners...the old money beauty of it.
Nowhere is this side more gorgeously realized than during the Master's Tournament at Augusta National in Georgia.
Martha is, at this very moment, balling as Justin Spieth, this year's winner, hugs his Momma.
It is a cathedral...glorifying the natural beauty of The South and it is a celebration of it's gentile mores. Five dollars will still get you a pimento cheese sandwich...yelling "YOU DA MAN" or "IN DA HOLE" will still you get you an escort off the grounds. Mind you're manners...this is Georgia not the U.S. Open. This morning, Nick Faldo...that's Sir Nick Faldo to you, said that, off the course, it's the greatest sporting event in the world. "On the course," it's the greatest "by a mile."
There's a Thursday afternoon every year in the Spring when I have to fight back the tears. It's not just the overwhelming Southern Beauty of the place, though that does crush, but the memories I have with my Daddy and now with my son...being crouched around the TV (this hasn't changed despite the size of the TV and crispness of the picture) anxiously watching a putt hug the meticulous contours of a green, past the pink azaleas...through the shadow of a dogwood in bloom...watching, covering our faces, peaking....
EDIT...The Boy climbed up in my lap this morning while waiting for his momma to finish getting dressed. He wanted to see the Snakegrabber videos...he's pretty pumped about Mr. Brent...then he wanted see the video of Augusta. He said something about playin there....I would walk buck naked from here to Augusta if it meant getting to play just one hole. I asked him so..."you gonna play there one day."
He turned his head and looked at me, with the most serious expression he could muster..."I am going to win a green jacket." At this point I have no reason to doubt him.
Peter Sellers is still a Super Star in our house. Ironically...maybe poetically, it was his absentee role in Trail of the Pink Panther that solidified his status with the Boy. I have always loved him. First, because he made my Daddy laugh...put him in stitches. Being little, few things brought me more joy than watching him writhe around in his chair...gasping and cackling, hands on his stomach, eyes welling...and then the high pitched "haaaaaaw....ohhhhhh."
"Do you have a massage for me?" He'd repeat to himself and be right back in tears. Magic.
Of course, as I got older and the jokes began to reveal themselves...I had my own troubles staying upright. Older still and the complicated nature that he brought to those roles...the subtly he imbued them with...reveal an absolute genius. Clare Quilty in Kubrick's Lolita....
So sleazy....Him and Natasha Fatale there...it might be my favorite exchange of dialogue ever filmed. Then there's Dr. Strangelove. How easily could this character have spiraled out of control...even in capable hands.
When he grabs his right arm and pulls it forward to bring the wheelchair back around...just kills me.
As comedy it's brilliant but there's also something profound in the grotesque nature of it. Never mind the wicked things these old Nazis had done or the highly dubious use of them in the U.S. defense department...what must it have been like in the minds of these f****ers after 1945? Moody I reckon. They had literally sold their souls for a future that was never coming. What a demented existence. It's there in Seller's performance...without breaking the tone of the film, there's something horrifying in the absurdity. .
Just for giggles...he's also playing the president in that scene.
I guess his own existence was slightly demented. I hope some of that has been exaggerated. There's a ridiculous romance attached to the tortured artist, the sad clown but, of course, there's nothing romantic about mental anguish. He does seem to have been genuinely disturbed. Abusing the poppers and cocaine surely didn't help and four marriages would be enough to put anybody in early grave...never mind somebody with a lousy heart.
All of that's over now and what's left is a brilliant legacy...the Goon Show, The Mouse that Roared, Being There, The Magic Christian, I'm All Right Jack, etc...making my son giggle uncontrollably and my Daddy laugh until he cried. I love Peter Sellers...a genius that's all.
My Daddy's been up for the last week or so...always a pleasure. Last weekend him and Martha were out trimmin' the bushes (I was napping) when Daddy got tore up by some wasps. By that evening his hand was swolled up pretty bad. There was only one thing to be done for it...he'd have to go see my sister and milk some anti-venom from her fangs.
In exchange, she kept him there two nights...drastic circumstances call for drastic measures but, I'm not sure I would have been willing to pay that price.
If you were humorless, there are some problems here...chief among them being the old Yankee adage that a man's not a man unless the snow falls on his back...but, we are not humorless here. This s*** is hilarious...and fairly accurate! We don't do snow and the best place for you to be in a dusting is at home...with the doors locked. We fear snow like a Lancastrian fears the Sun.
The Georgian shot at South Carolina was a nice touch.
One thing though...it's Co'cola...not coke a co-lahhhh. :)
Alright then...that was Louisiana this week. Actually the place I stayed in Alexandria wasn't nearly so nice as that. Is there anyone here who doubts my slobbering devotion to Dixie? Well, even I have trouble making something romantic out of north Louisiana (as opposed to south Louisiana which is one of my favorite places on the part of the map that matters) I'm pretty sure those arrows are pointing east toward Mississippi...though given Byzantine layout of Alexandria (bypasses, three way stops off of frontage roads, loops to nowhere...loops...to nowhere) could probably just pick a spot on the compass and you wouldn't be wrong.
For me the arrows are pointing east-southeast through Alabama and Georgia into North Florida. I'm heading out, in the morning, to spend a few days with my Daddy...playing golf and drinking coffee. A decades old winning formula.
Provisions for the trip have been gathered...
Instead of the usual route that would take me down through Mobile, Alabama and along the Panhandle of Florida, I'm going first to Birmingham...then I'll wind my way down through Montgomery into the Wiregrass, with a swing through Georgia...just because.
I have my reasons, other than the fact that I've been making that same ride through Mobile for 25 years...namely Full Moon BBQ and the Birmingham Museum of Art. I had been under the impression that they had a collection of works by Jonathan Lasker...that was why I had originally made plans to go that way. I don't think his work is there anymore but...they have just reopened the African art collection (in the grand reopening was today)...so my plans are the same.
For the curious, Jonathan Lasker and African masks and shields have as much to do with my paintings as tractor trailers and firework stands. Which is to say, a great deal.
The top painting became increasingly garish...too garish, even for me. In fact, the last couple of ladies I've tried to paint have come off too heavy handed. This one may lack the high soap opera hamminess that I work so hard to achieve but, it's airy...and that's what I wanted. She doesn't lack drama completely*...her face is slightly off set. She's kinda cool...I think.
Enough of that nonsense.
I came across this today. It's been packed away since we moved out of the last house. Those are me and my Daddy's tickets. It was one of the funnest things I've ever done...one of the funniest too. The marquee match ended in a disqualification...which led to a "random" spectator throwing a chair at Superstar Billy Graham...and all hell breaking loose.
I loved wrestling when I was kid. We used to get it on the TV out of Atlanta...filmed in what must have been a small gym. It wasn't the big porno-fireworks show it is now. Just fat men in their underwear kicking each other and smashing things. What's not to love...it was awesome.
The best part though was watching it with my Daddy. Few things made him laugh that hard...he said it was cartoons for grown ups. The last time I remember watching an hour of wrestling...Rowdy Roddy Piper was flipping over a table, his face was purple and my Daddy, who had come in from work with barely enough time to loosen his tie, was in tears. I thought he was gonna fall out of his chair.
Y'all know where this is headed...
Brace you'selves.
*Y'all tell me...what's going on here. What's she lookin' at...what's she thinkin' about. I thought maybe she was thinking about having the herpes but, I've removed the sore from her bottom lip.
