Poop 2012 Vol 6: The end of an Era

This past week was bitter sweet for your favorite bringer of the poop and many others around town. We had good times and visited a number of places in the fair city of Memphis that I'd never seen before all as part of the culmination of the tenure of a guy who has touched the lives of countless people in the 901 area code. Of course, I'm talking about our good buddy John, or if you are a blog reader, "Pete Big Bear." Despite growing up in Erie, PA, John is a true Memphian and on more than one occassion,he  taught this lifelong resident a thing or two about the town I call home. I'm sure I speak for anyone who's met him when I say, we will miss hims, wish him the best of luck in DC and look forward to hitting up a Stillers game with him this fall since Sixburgh is but a short drive from the capitol city.

Weekly Words of Wisdom
You gots to get the job did!
-one of the many Sonny-isms at Alex's Tavern

The "Last" Hurrah
Alex's Tavern
As I alluded to in the opening blurb, this past week was a sort of carnival of drinking and other Memphis fun celebrating the last week of residency for a man who has taught countless High Schoolers in the Memphis area while juggling the equally important tasks of being the Swine Father of Magically Piglicious and Sensei of Swig for myself and many others. For me, this days-long soiree was an eye opening experience. I truly don't know any other person in town that knows more about Memphis than John and going on this greatest hits tour of the town introduced me to a few places that I may never have visited otherwise, most notably, Alex's Tavern. I had always heard good things, but frankly I didn't know where it was and if I did, I'd likely have dismissed it as a place to go if I were looking to get shanked. For those of you who may not know the city, Alex's is on Jackson Avenue, in an area that was once a classic middle class neighborhood that has since come to epitomize urban blight. It's downright scary looking to the average person. When we pulled up to the ramshackle building fortified with barred doors, Ashley turned and looked at me as if to say, "you've got to be kidding me." I told her, "John swears by this place. Let's go in, get a beer, and if it looks like there's a chance that the night will end with one or both of us getting shivved and/or cornholed in the bathroom, we'll head to a more mainstream palce. OK?"

I cautiously stepped into dimly lit tavern and waited for my eyes to adjust to the gloom for what seemed like an eternity before I finally identified the man of the hour at the bar. After exchanging pleasentries, I surveyed the situation inside and was shocked to see that the majority of the clientelle was retired people who I imagine have been patrons for decades. Hell, they may have even been children of patrons of what I was told is the oldest Tavern in the city. John, being practically an adopted son of Rocky, the owner and manager of the bar gave us the VIP tour and took us out back to meet said purveyor who was hard at work cooking ribs and other wonderous items on a barrel smoker. The sight of the food on the grill and the numerous testimonies of folks inside were more than enough to convince Ashley and I to order a burger and wings once we got back to the bar. Now, I don't do rankings of burgers but if I did, this one would be near the top right next to the Huey Burger and the inimatable Soul Burger. Simply put; it was awesome. If you ever feel like living on the wild side and venturing outside of the more touristy parts of Memphis, go grab a bite at Alex's, but bring cash because, like the old Hollywood Raiford's, they don't take plastic.

What the Folk?
The following day, Ashley was stuck working the 3 to midnight shift, but as her dad would say, "one monkey don't stop the show" and so I was off to meet John once again; this time to cap off the party at the What the Folk? Festival at the Levitt Shell. The show included Will Kimbrough, Elizabeth Cook, Hayes Carll, and former Memphian, Todd Snider. Now, the Levitt Shell is nothing new to me. After all, I had spent many evenings there as a kid watching the symphony with my parents, but it was so long ago, that up until last week, I had begun to question whether or not my memories of the venue were real or in fact, some sort of dream that I had conjured up while in a drunken slumber. Well, thankfully for my sanity, the Shell is real and the music played there is still great. It makes it even better when Mother Nature cooperates and grants you an evening like we had Saturday. The humidity and heat were at a mercifully low level for mid-June, much to the relief of every leg and scrotum in attendance. To top it all off, the mosquitos were practically non-existent as if some compassionate soul had hung a giant bag of blood up on their porch thus offering a diversion to the typically voracious, flying pests.

As for the actual show, it was a great combination musical story telling and humorous anectdotes told in such a way that was, for the most part, family friendly. I'd imagine that Elizabeth Cook's comparison of a Ajax powdered cleaner to a streak of green cocaine led to some interesting parent/child discussions on the way home. Other than that, things were kept about as wholesome as you could expect from a bunch of pot smoking, binge drinking folk singers. Even if the music had been bad, it'd still have been worth going just to kick back in a lawn chair with a cooler full of cold beer and a delicious sammich from Fino's on a mild summer night in the park.

I'm sure there are a handful of people reading this wondering why I didn't at least mention some of these events last week so that you could've joined in the fun rather than just read about what an awesome time I had without you. Well, for the record, I did send out a mass text that was lardgely ignored so there's that. Also, it's pretty much my schtick to just try and recount my own weekend shenanigans. If you want to know what's going on this weekend, pick up a Memphis Flyer or read Frodo Baggins' dumb Memphis blog. "Oh but Jackie, what do you have against Paul What's-his-nuts?" well, frankly he's a douche, and not because he invariably dresses as a female waitress at the Flying Saucer every single Halloween. Let me tell y'all a little story....(and I can't guarantee that I haven't already gone through this way back)...

Once upon a time, about 2 years ago, the Brothers Woodward, a few boys from Arkansas, and I were at the Flying Saucer for our weekly domination of the live team trivia. As usual, we were the Huggy Bears (or some other silly name) and we were in the hunt for the weekly title of "knowers of the most useless shit." When the halftime standings were revealed, it was none other than the Huggy Bears in the lead followed closely by the incredibly douchey team called the Rapscallions lead by none other than the douche master himself, Frodo Baggins who took exception to the fact that we were beating his band of rotund, trivia hounds. In his mind, it was clear that the only way for his team to be dethroned as trivia kings would be for other teams to cheat. The Huggy Bears were not amused by this outrageous accusation and none took it more seriously than Phil, the square jawed, dimple-chinned brother of the much more cool headed, Chris. As the game drew to a close, much of the bar had become aware of the friction building between our teams, and just for fun, we held up an Iphone and yelled to our designated answer man, "Hold up, bro, we found the answer on google!" This drew a number of giggles from around the bar, but the joke was lost on the Rapscallions who took this bit of sarcasm as definitive proof that we had indeed cheated. When the final tally was announced your heroes were sadly left in second place behind Frodo and his fellowship who made the mistake of making one last jab about the integrity of our team.

Phil quietly stood up, walked over to Frodo and stood nose to nose with the mop-headed dough boy as the bar held its collective breath for what appeared to be an epic ass-whipping waiting to begin. Were it not for Chris' intervention, there's a very good chance that Memphis would've had it's first ever trivia-borne beatdown. I don't know if Phil's anger convinced Paul of our innocence or if it was simply a way of appeasing a man ready to stomp someone's ass, but either way, a blog entry was hastily entered discussing Frodo's regret for accusing people of cheating at trivia and how the lesson to be learned is to leave computers and iphones at home on trivia night. Ironically, this was all written on a computer that Frodo keeps with him at all times...especially at the bar. Yeah, the real lesson to be learned here is to not be a douche and don't antagonize people that you don't think you stand a chance against should the situation devolve to fisticuffs. The End.

Well, my rant/tale is over, and you now now why Paul What's-His-Nuts, A.K.A. Frodo Baggins is such a tool. I hate to cut it short, but I've got to get to a meeting and I'm struggling to fight through this pizza coma that I got from my other meeting. Y'all have a good, safe week.