5 cups and a beer

I had a flashback when Z-man, the rapper on stage, asked the crowd to raise their drinks in the air, “5 cups and a beer Tahoe? That’s all? You better represent your city harder than that, I thought this was a party town.” I felt sad for Tahoe because my old roommate Santos and I would have had that many drinks in the air by ourselves back in the day.  I look around Whiskey Dick’s, a great local dive bar in South Lake Tahoe that has live music, and see a bunch of wanna be pro snowboarders standing around watching the eight girls in the bar dance together. “I guess the girls come to dance with girls in this place,” Z-Man says condescendingly.  The lady looks over and says “I wouldn’t date anyone of these grungy mountain rednecks and would probably like girls also if I lived in this town.”  With a six to one guy to girl ratio in the town, I’d figure some of the wallflowers would shower and hit on the girls but I guess they like being the too cool for school and ignoring the hot girls grinding on the dance floor.  It’s nice to be back in South Lake Tahoe enjoying massive amounts of snow.  I took The Lady out snowboarding at Heavenly Ski Resort and she is moving around like my ninety-three year old grandma today.  She did great for her first time, but snowboarding is a rough sport and everyone takes a beating learning to ride the rail.  We are at my sister house in Stateline, NV and it is New Years.  We had a dinner party last night consisting of carne asada, chile relleno’s, crab ceviche, black fly dip (my aunt’s recipe), and all the other side’s that go with a wonderful Mexican feast.  Some new friends brought an aged bottle of 1942 Don Julio Tequila and that got the party started right.  The Lady is learning to drink at altitude and I didn’t follow my own advice and had too many margaritas’ but today is New Years Eve and I will power through the pain knowing that pros play hurt.   Today we are ending 2010 by going over to my sister’s old house, which the Tequila couple bought, and dig out their fire pit from 8 feet of snow, have sake & 1942, then go sledding head first down a homemade course while we wait for pizza’s to be delivered from Chicago.  How they are getting from Chicago to Tahoe is beyond me but Tequila Couple keep saying they are the best pizza’s ever made, so I’m drooling with anticipation because I love pizza and the thought of eating the best pizza ever made to end 2010 warms me up in the 12 degree weather.  Happy New Year Y’all.

I smile as I merge onto 82 west knowing I’m heading away from the east coast and The Lady has returned to riding shotgun.  I’m eager to play a new mix of Johnny Flynn, Felice Brothers, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, Jerrod Niemann and Florence & The Machine for her.  All is good but I thought we were going to have to put the shotgun metaphor to use a moment ago because we just stopped by a friend of a friend of a friend’s house to pick up some contraband for our road trip to Cali and a new friend freaked us out. The Friend came out to the driveway to wave us in and our first clue was his face looked fiery red and he constantly stared at his feet in order to not make eye contact.  I like to joke and be California cool most of the time but as soon as we walk into the house he pulls a gun from a drawer and tells us “if a big black sheriff with a big black gun comes in here and grabs something out of the frig don’t freak out.” I know immediately I am going to play this situation closer to the vest than normal.  Not to mention, I look around and see I’m standing in the middle of the kitchen/dining area and it’s been converted into a prison like weight room.  I'm glad I'm not wearing my flip flops right now because this place isn't over the top clean like some tweakers homes and I don't think there's a neighborhood watch on patrol in this culdesac. It’s easy to see that our roid’ed out southern speed freak is coming down from a few days of partying and is not looking for a joke as he bolts out the back door.  A roommate comes from around the corner and tells us the same stuff about the sheriff.  The Lady says “it’s nice to be on the inside of a small town southern cop mafia,” and the roommate says “it has more benefits then the outside.”  Our Friend bolts back into the house with a new twist that he doesn’t want to deal with our small time business anymore and suddenly we seem like an inconvenience.  We don’t even try to make small talk and start shifting towards the door when he throws us a small container of his homegrown weed and says “this is some homegrown mississippi trash and I don’t want any money for it because I don’t want to deal with you two anymore.” I catch it, keep heading for the door and shuffle the lady to the car.  We are laughing as we hit the freeway continuing to look in the rear view mirror for the big black sheriff and happy that all our worryation didn't have us easily queasy. I keep having visions of Dukes of Hazard and mention to The Lady that she’d look great in Daisy Dukes.  We don’t know this yet but it turns out that we made it to Old Bricktown in Downtown Oklahoma City safely that night and had a really nice dinner at Bourbon Street where we were lucky enough to be seated close to a two person dinner jazz and blues band that had us tapping our toes the entire meal.  After that we had a night cap at Mickey Mantle’s and saw a new cigar torch that is an open fire hazard and a good gift for any guy.  If you are stuck in Okalahoma City, Ok for a night or two, hit up Bricktown in the downtown district and you'll find more than you can pick to do including canal rides and over 40 bars and restaurants.

In the end we made it back to California just in time to attend an Old Friends Christmas party.  Moco, Saul and Green Eggs were there from the old school along with many facebook friends I haven’t seen in person for a long time. H’s house use to be a second home to me and it’s great that old friends make The Lady comfortable and before we knew it new friendships were created.  He had a small taco bar and mark my words the food is always the best and fresh at H’s house.  His hand squeezed lemonade infused with vodka was sharp and not to sweet.  In addition there is no armed party or hassle when H and I talk medicine.  Just old friends sitting in a garage that we’ve sat in a couple hundred times studying five different strands that his brother has developed as old and new friends mingle and it finally sinks in that Christmas is almost here and the first decade of a new millennium is almost over but that wasn’t a time for reflection so I continued comparing breeds and drifted off watching The Lady dance.

I’m drinking in the hotel bar and my Russian Bartender, a practicing magician, is laying out some impressive card tricks.  While she deals out the cards I impress her with my trick of making a drink disappear right under my nose.  I’m sitting next to Tipsy Mcstumbles and a girl who continues to introduce herself as his girlfriend but all of us know all too well Tipsy doesn’t have a girlfriend.  Tipsy shrugs off the statement knowing he’s going to get lucky tonight and then she’s out of town tomorrow.  We’re waiting for Bama to get his car and drive us to the Ale house.  The Ale House is a good size bar and grill that has live music and average food so our production crew has adopted it as a second home this week. Bama’s a good guy to have around and he keeps my head on straight during the day. I’m glad he’s drinking and eating again after starving himself before his final weigh- in for the biggest loser competition that everyone in production participated in.  An English ex boxer won the competition and everyone is upset because he went into crazy boxer cutting weight mode an ran around for hours at a time with trash bags all over his body to get down to zero water weight.  The Englishman looks sick but he’s $2000 richer now so I guess he can eat filet mignon for the next few weeks, but not the Ale House’s.  Jco’s all around after that and the night blends together.   There are a few reasons for that the first being the night before during our white elephant Christmas party many people gave out an assortment of pills, medicine, whiskey and moonshine as presents and now we are all sharing the wealth of an unexpected bounty of goodies.  It’s always funny to see a transpo guys steal the present of vicodin from the editor for the second and last time and I make a mental note not to ride in his shuttle van to our production site in the morning.  I’ve formed a relationship with a moon shining teamster this week and his cherry moonshine is a hit with the crew. Mix it with sprite and you have an Electric Shirley Temple and a better than average buzz.  The Apple Pie moon shine is also a nice smooth blend and seems appropriate for Christmas.  I’m not checking out the local eateries this trip because The Lady is at home and I’d rather order room service and eat vicodin.  If you’re at the Double Tree in Augusta the angus burger will do, but the orange ginger chicken wings are much better.  The chicken Caesar is better than average and came with a side of golden raisins and cranberry’s.  In addition the hotel is full of head spinning Russian’s but I can’t help thinking that Tiger had a field day of orgies while staying here during The Masters so I’ll leave them be.  Truthfully I miss The Lady and I’m not about to sneak behind her back. Bistro491 is a hot spot with certain crew members and from what they say everything is great.  I hate that saying but maybe it’s true and everything is good.  Right now I can’t get off the bed to report any different so I’ll take them at their word.  Two days left on this episode then it’s another cross country trip back to LA.   As I hit repeat and let Jamey Johnson’s Macon play again I can’t help thinking about the Lady and reconnecting with her for a belated birthday party in Sippi.  I don’t have a gift for the party yet but one thing I can say is I won’t be regifting anything from my last party and a certain phrase from The Three Year Old keeps echoing in my head…”mine.”

http://www.carolinaalehouse.com/augusta

http://bistro491.com/

http://doubletree1.hilton.com/en_US/dt/hotel/AGSDTDT-DoubleTree-by-Hilton-Hotel-Augusta-Georgia/index.do;jsessionid=6EA1D1D9FCDD884F32368D1563670049.etc23

Meeting the Devil at the crossroads of the Blues

Your mind plays funny tricks on you when you’re driving to the crossroads  anticipating a meeting with the devil to talk about selling your soul but the Ipod is on shuffle and The Lady is in her environment driving like she’s been the Devil’s chauffer before and knows all too well how to find our destination.  I’ve spent the last week in Mississippi for Thanksgiving with The Lady’s family and we’ve been living in an old shotgun plantation house on an old cotton farm and right now I should be thinking about our upcoming meeting but my belly is full from a great meal at Delta Bistro and I’m relaxing enjoying the ride. The Alligator Ravioli on a bed of organic white beans is something to be raved about but I was absolutely  floored by the art hanging on the walls.  It’s rare to find so many works in one place that you can’t stop looking at.  The collection is a mixture of pieces from the owner, Tayor Ricketts, her husband, and many modernists from Memphis, Jackson and the Delta. Their collection is better than a majority of the gallery’s I’ve seen lately.  If you want an excellent meal, I suggest the wild boar and beef three bean soup, with great art to look at by all means check them out in downtown Greenwood.  Once we get to the Crossroads in Clarksdale, MS, the exact place where Robert Johnson sold his soul and started the blues, I am disappointed that there is statue marking the spot and a Sonic across the street.  I was hoping for 4 dirt roads coming together with nothing for miles except cotton fields but at least The Lady and I have done plenty of back roading and seen tons of places like that in Sippi. Needless to say the devil wasn’t around looking for any souls and I have a sneaky suspicion it’s because it was happy hour at Sonic and he was ordering Cheddar Peppers and a sour cherry slushy.  We decide to visit downtown Clarksdale and see what was up….not much on this Saturday but they have a blue festival every year and it’d be jamming then.  Morgan Freeman owns a restaurant named Madidi and another place called Ground Zero Blues Club where if you’re lucky Mavis Staples will be playing and she’ll sing Down in Mississippi.  For us it was a sleepy mid-day Saturday and we were lucky to find a custom T-shirt shop called The Latest Craze where we made some shirts and talked with the owner who is sick of making T-shirts after doing it for 26 years but he helped us out in a nice southern way.  I didn’t ask but I’m guessing the owner hasn’t found the devil either and if he did he’s sore he only wished for a T-shirt store that would out last every other business in downtown Clarksdale.  Sometimes people are short sighted.  After all that we hit up Stone Pony for a small hand-made pizza, a couple jco’s, and a long island ice tea.  All that was very nice and on the way out of downtown we briefly stopped by Cats Head a local gallery/art/music store that is full of stuff you’ll want to buy and I’ll be back to pick up a piece of my own on my way back to Cali. Unfortunately that’s still a long ways off and worse I have to drop The Lady off tomorrow and go at it alone for the next stretch of work.  It will be a lonely drive but Georgia calls again and I just downloaded Old Crow Medicine Band and the Wagon Wheel goes on and on. Rumor has it the Devil went down to Georgia so I guess I'm hot on his tail and as soon as I cross the state line I'll be on the lookout.