Two days in the Delta

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For Richard’s birthday, I thought it might be fun to drive down to Clarksdale to visit the famed Crossroads and visit the local museums and haunts known for their connection to blues history.

The trip did not disappoint. Even though we went during the week and live music offerings were limited, in part because lots of places have limited operating hours early in the week, we still got to see and hear some good stuff, and just bask in the muggy glory of the birthplace of the blues.

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Check out the full photo set here.

Scurlock’s Donuts in Jackson, Miss.

I meant to write about this, uh, a month and a half ago.

I was down in Jackson, Miss., for a business trip at The Clarion-Ledger, when I went across the street to get coffee and donuts at Scurlock‘s. I didn’t have cash on me and I wanted a dozen donuts (to ply my new business partners, of course) and a cup of coffee. The proprietor’s card machine was down, but instead of turning me away, he began to load the dozen donuts into a box for me. I fished in my purse for loose change and told him I was from out of town and didn’t know when I’d be able to get the remaining money to him. He was not concerned. “That’s OK,” he told me. “You’ll be back.” And I walked out of there with a box of warm donuts I had barely paid for. Talk about paying it forward. So I have been meaning to write about that and mail a check for decidedly more than the $4 or so I owe Scurlock’s. Just to say thanks.

Because how often does that kind of thing happen these days?

So if you’re ever down in Jackson and you get the chance, stop by and say hi. There are good people in there.

Monday, 9 p.m.

I am in the hotel bar at the Marriott in downtown Jackson, Miss. There’s some sort of convention in town. I can tell because the bar and lobby is full of cackling middle-aged women and their severe hairdos. There’s a sweating bottle of white zinfandel on the bar and I can hear good-natured ribbing and knee-slapping and there is no way these people would ever be drunk together were they not here for work. They’d be at home cleaning up kitchens and packing lunches and possibly giving out obligatory blowjobs if their husbands were lucky.

I ordered the $9 sauvignon blanc. It’s unremarkable but the finish is potent and makes me think of cognac but that’s probably just the salted mixed nuts talking. I once read a wine book that said to never order the cheapest wine on the menu. Go a price point up, the book said. So I am throwing caution to the wind and ignoring the $8 pinot grigio. Now I can sit and await life’s dividends.

The barkeep is running around like a madman. He is bussing tables in the lobby and then leaping down the stairs and landing right in front of my table. Every time he flies past, I imagine him taking a tumble right in front of me and I’m trying to figure out how I would react. I’d probably lunge to cover my computer and phone from the fallout, which would be super rude of me. Would I laugh? Maybe get that horrified/amazed look on my face that is contributing to my wrinkles?

Here are some quotes as I hear them across the room:

“My grandmother was alllll into that geneaology crap.”

“I got ALL the money. It just ROLLS.”

“Baaaaaaaaaahhhahhhmaaaeeehhhmeeehhhhhmaaah! *clap clap*”

“Come aaaahhhhn, bartender, come aaaaahhhhn!”

[intermission]

Some guy sitting nearby is telling a story and it involves long overhead arm motions and his chair is squeaking with every movement. It’s starting to make me want to murder him.

I have been sitting in this bar now for a couple of hours and I am bored out of my fucking mind. I am nearing the bottom of my second glass and I don’t have that warm fuzzy feeling I was chasing. I feel lonely and melancholy and bored and I miss my baby and I think I am going to just go up to my room and go to sleep. There ain’t shit else to do.

The cackling ladies are leaving and guffawing on the way out. As annoying as they are, I’m happy they have gotten this one night to act a fool. They don’t seem like the sort to get that chance very often.

Looks like the barkeep knocked a couple of bucks off my tab, probably because there was a stretch of about 45 minutes where he didn’t even remember I was here. I just sat quietly and watched the tennis match on the TV nearby. I don’t even like tennis.

It’s 10:12 and my night has been over for hours.

Fringe

On my way to work today, I listened to a few minutes of Focal Point, one of the several highly entertaining but generally batshit insane programs that air on AFR every day, and I happened to catch host Bryan Fischer indulging some angry callers in their anti-gay rants regarding the Mississippi high-school student whose prom was canceled because she wanted to attend with her female partner and her school said NUH UH and took their marbles and went home. I mean, these people weren’t just homophobic, they were straight-up GAY PEOPLE ARE TAKING OVER THE COUNTRY AND THEY WANT TO RUIN EVERYTHING WE LOVE ABOUT LIFE AND WHY WON’T GOD SMITE THEM, BRYAN, WHY WON’T GOD SMITE THEM? WELL SINCE HE’S NOT SMITING THEM RIGHT NOW I’M PULLING MY KIDS OUT OF PUBLIC SCHOOL BECAUSE THERE IS NOTHING BUT SLOPPY WET GAY SEX HAPPENING ALL OVER THE PUBLIC SCHOOL DESKS RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND. Just genuine paranoia and insanity. This includes Jeremy from Tennessee, who called in and wanted Bryan Fischer to tell him why gay people thought they were entitled to special rights all the time? Back in the day, Jeremy from Tennessee said, you were gay and you were fine with never telling anyone about it, and you just lived with your shame privately and everything in the world was fine. And streets were paved in peppermint, remember? And sometimes the military did fly-bys and dropped cotton candy over playgrounds, and The Beatles led prayer services on Jumbotrons all around the world! But now, those fucking HOMOS and their need to be all not ashamed? They have put the entire world off its lunch. WHY, BRYAN? WHY? BRYAN, WILL YOU HOLD MY HAND? IN A TOTALLY STRAIGHT WAY, BRYAN.

Fischer, after a couple of other calls belching more or less the same hastily digested tripe, goes off on this rant about how the HOMOSEXUAL!!! community is trying to take its agenda and, I quote, “ram it down our throats.” The gays want special rights, Fischer argued, because they just can’t accept their equal right to marry someone of the opposite sex and their right to live their horrible sinful lives in agony and shame. Oh and also? The military will be brought to its knees if gay men and lesbians are allowed to serve in the military. Why? He doesn’t fucking know; they just will!

Ugh.

Why am I writing about this? This is pointless. These people are the fringe, right? Right? They will die out soon, right? My generation and beyond, we see past this unbelievable — and unbelievably mundane — horse shit, don’t we? I mean, I know lots of us are still locked into these idiotic ape thought patterns but most of us, we’re rational, yes? We don’t affix scarlet letters to various sweaters based on who those sweaters prefer to hug. Right? All the hope I’ve ever had is caught up in the notion that we will get past this ridiculousness some day before I eke out my last breath. That some day — some day soon — we will stop listening to these selfish, hateful fucks (YES I CALLED THEM FUCKS BECAUSE THEY ARE MEAN, AWFUL PEOPLE FULL OF HATRED IN THEIR HEARTS AND IT MAKES ME YELL) and go about the business of making sure, at the very least, that our laws are truly fair and not just blink yawn fair or *whatever* to people who deserve to be treated as fully human, fully citizens.

I have been guilty of knee-jerk homophobia. In high school and even a year into college, I was okay with using the word “lesbian” as a weapon. I am endlessly ashamed of my behavior in that regard. I’m sure I did my fair amount of sneering as, in 1997, a girl went to the senior prom in a tux. To my high school’s credit, such a thing didn’t throw the entire prom into chaos and then non-existence. There may have been judgmental grumblings from faculty, but it never got so bad as to halt things entirely. I really don’t remember because it didn’t seem like that big of a deal, even to someone who, at the time, thought it was kinda weird. (I wish I could go talk to my kid self, and maybe slap her around a little.) And that was in rural West Tennessee, in a county where the average income for women is around $16,000 a year. Progressive, Hardin County ain’t.

So to see — in flippin’ 2010 — Itawamba County, Miss., lose its shit over something so seemingly mundane, well, it steams me. And to hear caller after caller rant and rave on a CHRISTIAN radio station about how gay people are so hateful and just want to create a specially protected classification of rights for them and them alone? Well, that makes my generally nonviolent ass want to just fucking wail on people. I want to take these people by the shoulders and shake them: THIS IS NEITHER CONTROVERSIAL NOR COMPLICATED. LET PEOPLE LOVE WHO THEY WILL LOVE. And if that sentence immediately makes you think “Well then what’s to stop people from ‘loving’ horses and dogs and little innocent babies!?!?” then you, my friend, are damaged. In your grey matter. And you need to stop taking out your insanity on a group of people that is decidedly more normal than you.

Mississippians, I do not envy your ‘choice’

The race for Trent Lott’s Senate seat is hot hot hot. I’ve been seeing fairly nasty ads (my own observation is that most of the nasty ones have come from Ronnie Musgrove’s opponent Roger Wicker and his supporters) for weeks now, like the one where the mean voiceover lady says that “RONNIE MUSGROVE TRIED TO KILL OUR STATE FLAG.” I didn’t realize your state flag was alive, Mississippi, but that is kind of freaking magical and awesome.

Anyway, Jen tweeted about the following ad a little while back and I think you’ll agree: It’s really something.

Wow a wee wah. Really? The Village People to represent the Human Rights Campaign?

Anyway, Musgrove’s camp, rather than denounce the ad for the offensive piece of shit it is, came out with a press release outlining that he hates gay people just as much as his Republican opponent:

Musgrove Supported Ban On Gay Adoptions: In March 2000, Musgrove supported a ban on adoption by homosexuals or same-sex couples. The ban not only pertained to adoptions in Mississippi, but also ensured that Mississippi would not recognize adoptions by gay individuals or couples from other states if the parents moved to Mississippi. (Clarion Ledger, 3/23/00)

Musgrove Opposes Gay Marriage: Musgrove opposes gay marriage and believes that marriage is between one man and one woman. (Clarion Ledger, 10/3/08; Sun Herald, 10/22/03)

Also? That press release says, and I quote: “Musgrove Is A Conservative.” Which, if we’d like to talk semantics, seems a bit more sinister than saying “Musgrove is conservative.” I mean, if you’re running as a Democrat. Yeesh.

HT: Reason via Chris Wage