After stuffing myself with Prime Rib and waddling out of the Big Texan Steak House, I hit the trail again to the Cadillac Ranch....
What a disappointment! Only 10 Cadillacs in the Graveyard and they were covered in graffiti and being examined by a bunch of soccer mums with their kids in tow....
Straight back on the Route for me with Neil Young's "After The Gold Rush" playing in the car. Probably a sin to play a Canadian country/folk rock artist in the South West - particularly with the inflammatory Southern Man featuring on the album.... But it is a classic and suited the mood perfectly.
With 400 miles of Oklahoma empty, open and above all flat plains behind me, the Texas Panhandle was really more of the same in terms of scenery. Heading out of Amarillo I had become slightly bored with BIG OPEN SPACE so I knuckled down to belting through to New Mexico and plugged in The Dixie Chicks for another listen to what is fast becoming my favourite record of the trip.
In no time I was in New Mexico and the scenery started to change slowly into something massively beautiful. The beginning of the Wild West and suddenly there were hills and then mountains, wilder vegetation, and the earth changed from mud to a terracotta coloured dirt that provides great contrast with the pantheon of greens that map the topography of this part of the world.
The first town I went through is the first after the Texas state line - Tucumcari.
If you ever ride Route 66, stop here. It's main street has the best collection of original motels and diners I have seen so far and really captures the glorious past of Route 66 albeit in a slightly faded way.
The motel with the best neon is The Blue Swallow - which was so cool, I almost decided to stop there for the night - but Santa Fe was calling me. A '57 Chevy was parked outside. Immaculate in white and turquoise. Several photos of both motel and car were taken.
The rest of the town is more of the same - a real blast from the past which requires only a tiny amount of imagination to go back 50 years in just a mile or two.
I was dying for a Starbucks at this point - mid afternoon drowsiness no doubt not helped by consuming a cow and two devil chillies at lunchtime....
So I consulted Janice (my omniscient GPS SatNav system) and found that the nearest Starbucks was 200 miles away.... Obviously Seattle's finest hasn't penetrated the Wild West....
Next stop Santa Rosa and the Route 66 Automobile Museum. This place is a jewel. Run by an old guy who loves classic cars, the museum houses around 35 cars from 1947 through to 1973 including several original vintage Mustangs, 3 Corvettes, a number of BelAirs and a magnificent Thunderbird as well as an original Woody from New Mexico with the plate "El Woody".... All in beautiful condition and several for sale. I didn't quite have the money for the $40,000 1970 Camaro so left empty handed save for a couple more Route 66 T-shirts to add to my rapidly growing collection.
The guy told me that he sells a lot of cars to "walk-ins" - I.e. People who just come in, fall in love with oneof these immaculate beauties and then buy it. He sold two classics to a couple of guys from Ireland a month ago apparently. His only complaint was that he would sell far more cars but the wives stop their menfolk from blowing the family savings on a dream car that will require the sale of a kidney to maintain thereafter. I suggested he bans women from the museum and he looked at me wistfully as though the same thought had crossed his mind a thousand times....
After leaving Santa Rosa - having refuelled with gas and found something vaguely resembling coffee - I faced a dilemna...
Pre or Post 1937.... Before 1937 Route 66 followed a path up to Santa Fe after Santa Rosa and then went down through the canyons to Los Lunas before heading back up to Gallup. Post 1937 and they'd built a direct route through from Santa Rosa to Albuquerque and then onto Gallup. In those times the change would have saved at least four hours of travel through New Mexico - which is already the longest stretch of the eight states of Route 66 at 487 miles beating both Arizona and Oklahoma which are also in the 400s.
I elected to go for Pre 1937 and headed up to Santa Fe. What a great decision. The scenery is beautiful as you rise up into the low mountains from Clines Corner and pass Eldorado among other small towns.
My accompaniment for this leg was David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust incarnation from the timeless album "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" (1972). This is another record I would take to my desert island. It is beyond words. Totally awesome and Bowie at his weirdest and creative best. Zeitgeist certainly, but it still sounds great today and will always sound great to me.
Voted by Time magazine as one of the top 100 albums of all time it also has a connection with New Mexico....
In 2003, in Roswell, New Mexico, a ritual was held and a special laser beam sent four songs from the album into deep outer space - celebrating the fact that Ziggy Stardust had come from planet Mars to save the earth....
The lyrics from the songs on the album, heavily fuelled by heroin, just hit you in the face... I always loved the following line from the first track "Five Years" - which predicts the earth's destruction in five years time:
"Think I saw you in an ice-cream parlour
Drinking milk shakes cold and long,
Smiling and waving and looking so fine....
Don't think you knew you were in this song..."
Wonderful.
Anyway - back to New Mexico as opposed to Mars...
This really is a beautiful place. Lots of space, lots of great fresh air with none of the stagnant humidity of southern Oklahoma and Texas and stunning landscapes. I passed through the valley before Santa Fe as the sun was just starting to set and it was lovely.
Sheryl Crow joined me again for this last stage of today's journey and sang me into the La Quinta Inn with her excellent version of the classic "The First Cut is the Deepest". Her music is also clicking just right on Route 66....
La Quinta is a good deal nicer than the [End of Our] Days Inn that I stayed in last night. A little more expensive at $89 but very pleasant.
There are a bunch of Harley riders staying here who are also doing the "Route".
I have to say that seeing their gorgeous Roadkings - the original 50's style roadster Harley - I am jealous and wish that I was doing this trip on a bike. BUT, the car has its advantages - particularly when it rains, as it did several times today - and of course in terms of music which is such a key ingredient for my Road Trip....
A nice dinner at The Flying Tortilla - a TexMex restaurant about 20 feet from the motel. Big fat fajitas with sizzling beef and vegetables with salsa, cheese, tomatoes, sour cream and guacamole....plus a salad. All for 18$. Great value is a common feature when dining out in the US - as are the enormous portions.
Tomorrow I will eat not a single cow (promise!) - I will simply admire them as I pass them in their fields.
This is perhaps the first state that has made me want to stop the car in the middle of the road and get out and take photographs....which I did several times.
I am really enjoying the road and getting deep into the folklore, the history and the mindset that goes with Route 66. This trip is like therapy - just me, my Mustang and my music plus the open road across America.
Magic.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Day Eight - Amarillo, TX to Santa Fe, NM
Friday, July 27, 2007
Day Eight - Clinton, OK to Amarillo, TX
A stop at the Route 66 museum in Clinton, OK which was a real treat.
This little museum has not only an oustanding selection of memorabilia it also contains some fascinating history of how Route 66 came to be, the original migrants who travelled it to escape the Dustbowl and the Depression and also the culture around Route 66 in its heyday - music, cars, diners and gas stations etc.
The exhibit finishes with a great little film about Route 66 which you watch in an area set out like a drive-in movie house.
The old ladies who staff the museum were bemused and impressed in equal measure that I had rocked up in the little town of Clinton, Oklahoma all the way from Dubai. Of course I had to explain where Dubai was, but I won the furthest away visitor in their guest book for the week.
On leaving Clinton the music began with Tom Wait's Closing Time (1972)... "Ol' 55" - made famous two years after Wait's released it when it was covered by The Eagles - followed by "I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love With You", "Virginia Avenue" and then "Old Shoes and Picture Postcards"... And that was just enough Tom Wait's to kickstart the day. Saving the rest of this sublime album for a night time ride through Los Angeles later in the trip.
Then into jazz for the rest of the morning - starting with the classic Jimmy Smith record "Back at the Chicken Shack". Great organ from Smith and cool saxaphone. This album is usually reserved for Sunday mornings (or Saturday mornings in the Middle East) but somehow suited the relaxed mood driving across the flat plains of south west Oklahoma heading towards the Texas Panhandle...
Jazz is a uniquely American artform which although most famous in its incarnation in music also crosses over into prose and poetry. It is one of the great American exports which has literally covered the globe and spawned all kinds of derivatives over the years.
Following Jimmy Smith I moved to a different jazz era and style with Donald Byrd's "Street Lady" album. 70's, funky and very cool. That could only be followed by one of the originals of American Jazz and perhaps one of the most influential musicians alive still today - Herbie Hancock. This was one of his original and early records - the renowned Canteloupe Island featuring the two classics - Watermelon Man and the eponymous title track...
The road to Amarillo follows I-40 but running almost exactly parallel to it is the Old Route 66 which I spent most of my time on this morning driving through little towns like Groom, Claude and Conway before arriving in Amarillo and stopping at the famous Big Texan Steak House. This place is on billboards starting halfway up Oklahoma state - advertising it's famous 72oz steak. You can have this steak for free - as long as you eat it all in an hour including side dishes. Otherwise it's $72 + tax!
I opted for a slightly more sedate Panhandle Cut Prime Rib which was served with its own juice, some coleslaw and a great big beafsteak tomato with red onions. It was also accompanied by two green chilli peppers which I unwisely launched into until I almost instantly felt my face start to melt and tears form in my eyes. I would have cried out but I had lost my voice. Luckily none of the ginormous Texan hard nuts around me noticed this failure and I survived lunch without incident. (Check out the place on www.bigtexan.com)
This afternoon I am heading for Santa Fe in New Mexico and some real Tex Mex food for dinner....
But on the way I am stopping at The Cadillac Ranch which is just outside of Amarillo where apparently they have a huge graveyard for Detroit's finest with masses of Cadillacs buried in the ground....
Only in America!
Day Seven - Clinton, OK
Parked up for the night in Clinton, Oklahoma.... Centre of precisely nowhere....
Actually Clinton is home to the Route 66 museum which I am going to visit tomorrow morning before I head down the original road to Amarillo and back into Texas again through the Panhandle.
I have noticed an odd but distinct contrast between Oklahoma and Texas. While they both share several things in common - such as huge wide open spaces, road kill (I at last saw a couple of squished Armadillos on the road today, confirming their place low down on the evolutionary tree), huge steaks, very bad breakfast substances (grits anyone?) and a fondness for giant pick up trucks that are actually bigger than houses - they differ a great deal on porn. Yep - the two neighbouring states could not appear to be more different when it comes to the matter of pornography.
You see in Okie the highways are lined with billboards every 2 miles with advertisements speaking out against porn - saying that is corrupts mind, body and soul and destroys families and communities etc. In fact the only rap that porn doesn't get in Oklahoma is possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction. (Which, come to think of it, would make a GREAT title for a porn movie.... But I digress....)
No - in the "Clean State" of Oklahoma (that is the official state strapline by the way), porn is bad, sad, unwanted and just plain evil...
But across the state line and it's a totally different story with "Adult Movie Stores" literally lining the highway all the way to Houston. And with giant neon lights and billboards advertising promos with "buy two dirty movies and get a truly filthy one for free"...
I wondered whether these shops have captured the market in frustrated Oklahomans who dash across to Texas to get their jollies before returning to their towns and villages and to their church meetings on the evil sins of the flesh. Or perhaps Texans just don't give a shit about the niceties and put these stores where they need to be - close to truckers and travelling executives.
Who knows - but the contrast is quite striking. Maybe this is why so many Armadillos are found dead on the road in Texas - they're all trying to cross over the highway to the other side where Kenny's Adult Movie Centre has the free 6 O'clock showing of Annie Does Amarillo (the Armadillo remake of Debbie Does Dallas)...
Anway - back to Clinton (funny how that name follows sexual pecadilloes....hmmm).
am staying at the exquisite "Days Inn" motel. I asked for the most expensive room in the house - and it rather frighteningly only came to $69....
Having got to my room I was VERY glad I didn't opt for a cheaper room....
This was classic American motel stuff - the motels in the movies where the bagman gets off-ed by the mob and the cops find him cut into pieces in his motel room. The kind of room where a 3rd grade hooker way past her prime ODs on smack and they find her 1 month later.... It is not a nice room.
But it is a smoking room - my first so far on this trip since Chicago - and that is a good thing.
It also has a TV that is the same size as my car - another bonus. And a coffee machine so I can make ridiculously poor quality American coffee in the morning and pretend I am being caffeinated....
I dined in the equally charmless "The Branding Iron" restaurant - a place which has only the following good points:
1. The steak was fresh and cooked well.
2. They put enough ice in my Pepsi.
3. It was cheap.
Other than that it was possibly one of the worst dining experiences of my life. Mainly due to the total lack of ambience (usuallly a TV blaring out a Dukes of Hazzard re-run would be a strong negative - but in this place it really lifted the mood) and the "customers". There were about eight other people eating there - whose combined IQ could not have exceeded 37.
A construction worker and two young guys - maybe his sons. They had iceberg lettuce, gherkins, okra, redcurrant jelly and ranch dressing for salads and something that looked like sick in a bun (with fries of course) for their main.
A couple sitting near me who - it transpired from their conversation (or perhaps that should be monologue as only the girl talked, while the guy ate his burger, drank beern farted and grunted) - actually came from Clinton and this was a "night out" for them. Fancy dining and so on.... Jesus wept!
A woman who wore a T-shirt advertising some kind of fertiliser from Tennesee - who ate a salad and left. Probably a good move on her part.
And then two semi-literate teenagers who had been hanging around reception when I checked in and who had joined me in spectating the downfall of Brandy -the on-duty receptionist who blew ALL her fuses while trying to enter my Dubai, United Arab Emirates address into the Days Inn computer system. Poor girl. I could have said I'd just flown in from Mars and it would have made more sense to her...
I feel sure I will catch some diseases from this motel - if I am not shot dead during the night by one of the customers of The Turf Club - the country and western bar also attached to the hotel. I had almost stopped in for a cold beer there until I saw the clientele inside. Brutal rednecks would be an understatement - and the quick peek inside that bar has moved me to consider renouncing alcohol forever and becoming a Mormon....
Tomorrow Amarillo and then on to New Mexico - which I am rather looking forward too. Especially the food!
Day Seven - Music!!!!
Today has been an exceedingly good music day - and the speakers on the Mustang are now resting after a hard day's work which began with the Blues leaving Houston.
Bluesmen have great names and this morning's selection included some of the most varied and interesting:
Roosevelt Sykes
Sunnyland Slim
T-Bone Walker
Floyd Dixon
Otis Spann
Lightnin' Hopkins
Sonny Terry
Memphis Slim
Little Milton
Big Joe Williams
And my favourite (at least as names go)..... Furry Lewis....
I was wondering what name I would take if I were a proper Bluesman..... Would I be in the Blind Lemon school or the Town + Slim.... Or maybe I could be a Screamin' / Howlin' / Bawlin' / Crawlin' kind of Bluesman?
My choice was between Crawlin' Blind Pig Surname and Big Detroit First Name - but I'll need to work on the guitar and the voice before I earn my spurs...
After a good burst of the Blues from the US, it was then time for Nine Below Zero - the all British Blues Band. Their all time classic album - Live From The Marquee (their first professional album) is full of high energy, adrenalin pumped electric blues and includes the Nine's versions of some classics such as Sugar Pie Honeybunch, Woolly Bully and Got My Mojo Workin'. An amazing sound and up tempo as I headed up I-45 and then through Dallas. (Great skyline in Dallas)
Then one of my favourite guitar men - Mark Knopfler (formerly of Dire Straits) - whose solo work just keeps on getting better and better. Today I listened to Sailing From Philadelphia - which includes duets with Van Morrison and James Taylor. A mixture of rock, blues and country it is a great album with excellent lyric writing from Knopfler matched by his uniquely subtle and impressive guitar sound. Great stuff. I'm saving his more recent solo album - Shangri La - for the last leg in California as some of the songs were inspired by places there, as well as being recorded in the original Sixties Shangri La Studio in Malibu - and on original equipment as well!
Then a flashback to the end of the 90's and the album that summed up that decade - Urban Hymns by The Verve. Apart from the well known tracks like Bittersweet Symphony, The Drugs Don't Work and Lucky Man, there are several other blinding songs which are really powerful from the ballad Sonnet to the more abstracted Catching a Butterfly and Space & Time. Out of context with the rest of the day's music but totally appropriate to that particular section of the road and to my mood.
And then on to two hours of the Rolling Stones - who have a strange connection with The Verve. [I warn you in advance - this is the province of music nerds - but the violin part of Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve was actually "borrowed" from a riff written by Jagger and Richards in the 60's. The Stones' manager, Andrew Loog Oldham sued The Verve and won all the royalties from Bittersweet Symphony for The Stones. The Verve didn't make a penny from that song....]
Anyway! All the Stones classics right through the sixties and into the seventies. Speakers nearly blew up in the car and Mick, Keith and the band saw me through to Oklahoma and into the wide open plains again. Probably the greatest rock and roll band in the world today and after 40 years in the business.
It had to happen on this trip at some point. The Poet from Minnesota - Bob Dylan. I began with his best album - Blood On The Tracks. Written just after his divorce from his first wife Sara. A tremendous album. Full stop. So much range and variety and so many emotions - not to mention musical styles from ultra folk (Tangled Up In Blue) to hard core Blues (Meet Me In The Morning). I'll never get bored of this album.
The only thing to follow Dylan's best album is his second best - which used to be Desire - but since last year is perhaps his latest album - Modern Times. Bluesy, jazzy, splash of country and a new Dylan sound with a rougher voice, plenty of piano and a firm rhythm section make this a real treat. While it is something of a departure from what one would expect from Dylan, his trademarks are there in terms of social comment (Working Man's Blues) and the quirky poetic style of the lyrics.
Tomorrow's music is going to start with Tom Waits (who I was saving for California - but who I cannot resist listening to as I head off on Route 66 in the morning). It'll be his first album - Closing Time - from 1972. Still one of his finest records and that voice.....
The best description of Tom Wait's voice was from an American music critic who said that Wait's voice sounded "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months and then taken outside and run over with a car."
I'm looking forward to it already!
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Day Seven - Houston, TX to Oklahoma City, OK
After a much needed rest in Houston, I headed back up I-45 towards Oklahoma aiming to get back on Route 66 by the evening.
The road going up was less full of "Used Armadillo" but I did see the most impressive road kill to date - a wolf. Whoever hit that wolf must have done some pretty serious damage to their vehicle - unless it was one of the myriad of 128 wheeler trucks that seem to own this stretch of road in Texas. I am assuming the only bigger road kill I may see will be a "highway worker" - probably lying next to a cheque for $10,000 (or at least if it was in Missouri - here in Texas Highway Workers may be free - who knows?)
Remarkable place names abound in Texas - again displaying the American fondness for appropriating place names from other cities or even entire countries. The Lebanese from Lebanon, Missouri are sure to be relieved to have some brethren in Texas. I am talking of the Palestinians from Palestine, who live not far away from a town called Italy, Texas. That in turn is near Athens, Texas which is in the same time zone (i.e. within driving distance) of Paris, Texas - made famous by the great Wim Wender's film of the same name....
Bizarre to say the least.
Interestingly, while in Houston I chatted with a Palestinian immigrant (from Jerusalem - the original Jerusalem - not the Jerusalem that will inevitably be located near Shitsville, Nebraska....). He told me there were around 125,000 Arabs in Houston and that life had been good to them - the majority being Lebanese and Palestinian (again, the genuine article). However, they were all now considering another place as their next stop climbing the ladder of prosperity and security. A place in the Middle East which offers them the best of America - opportunity, freedom, comparative safety - but without the bigotry, racism and distance from home (both literally and in terms of being far from their culture). That place? Dubai - of course.
In fact, I noticed a distinct similarity between Dubai and some of America's larger and more prosperous cities like Houston. Large immigrant population, an economy which has had to diversify and a growth of urban and suburban districts springing from the ground with "perfect" gated communities living in a Truman Show like environment where even the Town Square and "neighbourhood" have been instantly and artifically created to give a sense of comfort, home and security.
Of course communities don't grow like this - they need time and an opportunity to grow their own identity away from the schemes and dreams of architects, master planners and entrepreneurial real estate developers.
Interesting that the American Dream is beginning to become tarnished enough for some immigrants to want to return to where they came from....
Anyway, I guess there is one country whose name the Texans won't steal to name a new city . . . and that country would be Iraq....
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Day Six - Layover in Houston, TX
American coffee sucks. There are no two ways about it. It's black water. Weak, flavourless and utterly pointless. No wonder so many places give refills away for free - it would be criminal to charge for it. Having drunk a bucket of the stuff for breakfast I am now off to plug into Starbucks and get a hit of the real stuff before heading into Houston central to see a client on a social visit and then GET ME AN I-PHONE. AMEN.
I considered Darwin's theory of evolution last night before sleeping and came to the conclusion that there is a new way of testing his theory on the highways of the USA. Road Kill.
I have been closely monitoring the road kill on the roads so far and have seen dogs, cats, rabbits, small rodents and numerous Armadillo. (Is Armadill-i the plural of Armadillo? Does anyone care?).
By my reckoning the Armadillo has evolved the least and fundementally failed to adapt to its environment based on the fact that they are leading two to one against any other species in terms of becoming road kill across the US.
Indeed Armadillos must be only marginally less dumb than the bald headed, tattooed truck drivers who squish them with their 48 wheeler monsters which tear down the highways like weapons of mass destruction.
Incidentally, in Missouri there were road signs on the side of the Freeway stating the following:
Do not hit workers.
Fines of $10,000 or loss of licence
I was shocked that the average American motorist had to be REMINDED not to run down innocent labourers fixing the highway . . .
"Homer, remember not to mow down any workers today while we drive to the West . . . "
"Doh! Oooops - sorry Marge."
"Homer! I guess it was only one, so it doesn't matter."
Even more alarming is that the penalty for hitting a worker is just $10,000 or losing your licence! No jail time or public persecution - extraordinary. [On a side note, I was reading USA Today this morning and there was an interesting article about a young man who was sentenced to ten years in jail in Georgia when he was 17 years old for "receiving oral sex" from a girl aged 15. What a country! Run down a worked on the highway and get a $10,000 fine. But a blow job and its 10 years in jail. . .Jesus wept.]
Fortunately I have not seen any "workers" joining the ranks of the Armadillo - but then the trip ain't over yet!
Now, that i-Phone . . .
Day Five - Tulsa, OK to Oklahoma City, OK then a detour to Texas....
Today began bright and early at 5.30am when I awoke and couldn't get back to sleep. Must have been my body reacting to the steamed broccoli I had managed to locate and have for dinner the previous evening...(To be fair the broccoli came with a garnish of a baked potato and a 12oz top Sirloin steak...ahem)
Anyway, after cleaning out the breakfast buffet of bacon and coffee I set of from Tulsa and travelled original Route 66 for about an hour along narrow windy roads until getting bored with going slowly and headed off for the turnpike to Oklahoma City which follows the Route - but not religiously. A bit like me.
Oklahoma City is oh so pretty - as the original song lyrics of Route 66 say. And they're not wrong. The city is very pretty with some very nice old churches dotted about and a nice sense of scale. The outskirts were ugly by contrast and I saw rather more of them than intended as my GPS - Janice as I like to call her - got all confused....
I then headed south towards Texas through some lovely countryside at the southern end of Oklahoma before hitting Texas proper and on to Dallas where the traffic was terrible.
There was a way of avoiding the traffic - The President George Bush Turnpike - but I refused this option on principle. Particularly galling was the idea of paying to be on a road of that name....
Anyway, I toughed it out and nearly ran out of gas before hitting the main freeway south to Houston.
The Texans are crap drivers. Full stop. They hog lanes, they drive at stupid speeds (either too fast or too slow) and they duck and dive in traffic. BUT - this is Texas and so I refrained from advising them of their errors as I believe I am quite allergic to bullets and they dish them out down here with massive generosity.
Music today has been great - Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris on their recent country collaboration album - "All the Roadrunning". His great guitar and rough voice - her amazing clear and tender voice (considered one of the all time great female country vocalists).
Then all the JJ Cale music I own for hours - starting with Call Me The Breeze which had me turn the volume up to full and through Cocaine and After Midnight to Drifter's Wife and so on. Cale is a troubador in the original sense of singing story tellers. Simple, subtle and THE perfect road music for America.
Finally a return to some Sheryl Crow and repeat plays at full volume of "Run baby, Run" - definitely being added to my list of all time classic road anthems and then The Dixie Chicks again. They come from Dallas but have been demonised in their own state for making a derogatory remark about President Bush (see yesterday's post) so I thought I would support them in the Lone Star state they call home by playing them loud and proud in the car (albeit at the risk of getting shot by an angry Texan).
My main observations of the day are that America is very big indeed. I drove nearly 600 miles today and on the map what I drove is a rather short and unimpressive little line.
And, oh yes, Americans are VERY fat.
I had a quick bite at a roadside burger emporium - NOT McDonald's I hasten to add - and the combined weight of the four staff must have been close to a metric ton. I have never seen fatter people in such a confined space - hardly a great advertisement for the products they serve. But fat people - and I mean REALLY fat people - are everywhere in the US.
They live on junk food, do no exercise and turn into greasy behemoths. Apart from almost instant revulsion at the fattest - you end up feeling sorry for them. It seems like they just don't know any better. Moreover, the difficulty you have finding something wholesome and healthy to eat in this country is staggering - particularly by the roadside which is a mass of fast food dives and burger stands.
Anyway - I am beginning to form some first conclusions about America and Americans today which I will elaborate on tomorrow or the next day....
I am taking a "day off" from the trail tomorrow and doing some shopping in Houston and seeing one of my clients whose headquarters are here. Then Thursday it's back up to rejoin Route 66 and head further west....
Hasta la vista....
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Day Four (PM) - Joplin, MO to Tulsa, OK
The Dixie Chicks - from Dallas, this trio of ladies has put a new face on Country / Rock and managed to piss off virtually every Republican in the United States as well as solicit death threats from some "music lovers" after their lead singer "insulted" George Bush before the war began in Iraq. All she said was she was ashamed that the President of the US was from Texas. (I'm sure another 49 states in the US are very relieved he's not from their state so her comment was really pretty fair - but not for the ultra right of the US who boycotted their albums and concerts as a result - including ceremonies to burn their CDs in public places).
Anyway, this latest album of theirs, "Taking The Long Way" is excellent and thoroughly recommended to anyone driving 2,500 miles across America (the long way!)
Sheryl Crow - country / folk rock singer who is from Missouri, so very fitting for the road trip. A voice and a sound that have spanned more than 20 years in the business with a great crossover from blues to folk to country to rock. And she's hot too. And is another musician who has spoken out strongly against the Bush regime and the war on Iraq.
Townes Van Zandt - for anyone who doesn't know Townes Van Zandt then they should rush to buy his music immediately. A Texan country singer with a particular talent for melancholy and pain, Van Zandt is a troubador who sadly died in 1997 cutting short a career which has influenced many leading musicians who have since covered his work. Waiting Around to Die is an all time classic and the title alone sums up the Van Zandt approach to lyric writing. He also possessed an amazing voice which matches his lyrical output perfectly . . . . for more info on Mr. Van Zandt check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townes_Van_Zandt
Just before leaving Missouri I succumbed to a Route 66 souvenir shop in Carterville - just outside Webb City. The owner was a pleasant enough guy initially and had even heard of Dubai - including knowing that the Burj Dubai was due soon to be the tallest building in the world - lots of points for that knowledge. BUT . . . after the initial banter died down and I had committed to a Route 66 T-shirt, he began . . .
This guy was a major Route 66 nerd. I was "told off" for not having visited a Drive In Movie Theatre from the 1950s in some tiny town somewhere which isn't even on Route 66. I was castigated for not having an official Route 66 road book with maps and history (promptly purchased on the spot) and bemoaned for using GPS SatNav to get myself around.
I then had a guided tour of his shop - which, of course, was an original gas station in the 1930s serving Route 66 traffic and which this guy had bought and was now turning into his house as well as his shop. His wife must be delighted.
To be fair to him, his passion was admirable (if not contagious), but it did raise a question for me about my journey. . .
Is it important to be absolutely faithful to the Route - or is it the "spirit" of the Route that is important?
I.e. Should I try and cover every mile and every bend of the original Mother Road to get my experience or is it simply about crossing America in a car and driving through the countryside and small towns seeing the Americana that is seldom visible?
I had begun my journey with the latter being firmly the approach - but today spent quite a bit of time tearing off the Freeway whenever I spotted the little brown "Historic Route 66" signs and spent perhaps far too much time driving narrow one lane roads through the country at 35 mph.
Some of the sights and landscapes were beautiful and some of the little towns still had some character and the old buildings from the 30s and 40s - to the extent that I found myself getting quite addicted to "authentic" Route 66. That is until I met the shopkeeper - who pushed me back to thinking that it really is about the journey across a massive country and the experience one gets while journeying across this nation.
After amassing my fair share of memorobilia, I continued to weave around small towns and creeks - including a visit to a very impressive Deli in Webb City Missouri which was built in 1931 to serve Route 66 and is still in pristine condition today. I sat at the counter in front of the original soda fountain and drank a "Lemon Phosphate" (basically fresh lemonade with soda) and took some photos of the place which was like walking into a time machine.
Then off to Kansas for a brief visit before crossing the State Line into Oklahoma and into rain and The Will Roger's Turnpike. The Will Roger's Turnpike is not apparently named after the former Labour and SDP MP in Britain, but after some American celebrity - but it took me fairly swiftly to Tulsa where I am stopping for the night after what has been a long day in the saddle - around 9 hours of driving with very few and short stops.
Tomorrow will see me cross Oklahoma and through to Texas. I have two vows - one is not to listen to depressing music in the morning, no matter how good it is and second is to avoid dining at McDonald's for the third day running.
I know I am in America, but a day without the Blues and attempting to consume something resembling a fresh green vegetable will be a good thing . . .
Monday, July 23, 2007
Day Four - Morning across Missouri
A slow start getting out of St. Louis and a hunt for a gas station before hitting empty.
Then off on the original road for Route 66 along Gravois Avenue / Road....
Then I-44 for a while and on to original Route 66 again.
Sounds were all Blues this morning - Mance Lipscomb, Clifton Chenier (zydeco music from New Orleans) and more Lightnin' Hopkins - plus some Willie Dixon, Roosevelt Sykes and more...
Off the beaten track and you see another America - one without Wi-fi, without Interstate Highways and one without much progress in the last 50 years.
Made a stop at a "Country Store" in the heart of Southern Missouri to get gas and take a nature break. A lot of men round here with sleeveless shirts, baseball caps and tattoos - all seamingly by the name of Earl and Floyd... And they are very scary in their pick up trucks complete with gun racks....
As you drive down Route 66 you see the villages and towns that once prospered from this rich artery until Eisenhower introduced the Interstate Highway system having been inspired by the German Autobahn system he had seen in the war. Straight, wide lines across the country making travel speedy and direct - but leaving lots of small communities without an income from gas stations, diners and motels.
Lots of great American place names in Missouri - Eureka - surely the town of constant discovery and Doolittle Missouri - a natural landing pad for the indolent were two favourites.
I notice that many towns feel the need for a strapline - some of which are so bereft of imagination it is shocking. Lebanon, Missouri is subtitled "Friendly people, friendly place".... Just like the real Lebanon in the Middle East - except this one doesn't have the Israelis leaning on it all the time....I assume the people of Lebanon, Missouri refer to themselves as "Lebanese"?
A quick stop for some McCholesterol at lunchtime outside Joplin and then it's just 18 miles to my first waypoint in Kansas - the state that has just 13 miles of Route 66 before it heads into Oklahoma.... And my road then takes me to Tulsa...
Day Three - Chicago to St Louis
Judging by the price of the eggs they serve in the "W" Hotel I estimated that the full chickens must retail for around $1.7 million . . . and the pig that provided the excellent bacon would be around $2.9 million for the whole thing.
Even the coffee was priced as though it had been brought from Columbia that morning by 14 year old mountain virgins from Alta Rica . . . although to be honest it tasted like crap.
Struggling through breakfast, shower and packing saw me leave the hotel and head to the Hertz lot to pick up my gleaming Hummer which would be awaiting my arrival. WRONG!
"No Hummer in stock sir."
Bollocks.
"Would you like the smaller Hummer sir?"
No, certainly not. Do I look like a girl?
Time for some quick thinking and decision making . . . the Shelby Mustang convertible (A brute capable of devouring whole chunks of tarmac with one light touch of the pedal) or a regular Mustang hard top but with GPS Satellite Navigation . . .
For once sense grabbed a hold of me and stopped me in my tracks. The choice was simple: drive a guided missile while map reading and end up spending the rest of my days driving in circles in Alaska or rely on a computer to steer me across America in comparative safety. . .
A regular Mustang hard top in candy red was promptly delivered and after much bitching on my part about the Hummer, a mighty discount was promptly offered on the Mustang and I was off.
To be fair, the regular Mustang is a bit of a brute anyway - the difference is that the Shelby version has been convicted for GBH, while the regular Mustang has just been cautioned for being rowdy. . .
Out on to Interstate 55 which has replaced much of the original Route 66 through Illinois (although there are regular signs along the way reminding that this road is the original "Historical Route 66") and off to St Louis in Missouri.
Music for this stage was:
Back to Black - Amy Winehouse. Excellent start to the day with a 21st century take on the 60s RnB / Detroit Soul sound from a mouthy Jewish girl from London. Fantastic.
The Very Best of Boubacar Traore - the bluesman from Mali. Great rhythms settled me into the clacking sound of the tires as they ran over road seams on the highway while cruise control allowed me to sit back and enjoy the ride.
Buddha Bar IX - disc one. Cool ambient lounge sounds to take my to the South of Illinois and clear my head of all crap before arriving in . . .
Springfield, Illinois. Population 110,000. Home to two of the greatest ever Americans . . .
Abraham Lincoln and Homer Simpson.
Strangely, while there is a whole host of memorials and historical sights dedicated to Mr. Lincoln, including his original home, there is little to celebrate Springfield's other great son - Homer.
I looked high and low for Mr. S, but i guess he was out of town promoting his new movie. In the meantime, Springfield is The Simpsons. Decidedly small town with little to commend it other than the fact that it is decidedly small town and has little to commend it.
It has a feel that more rural parts of the USA have - of superficial rectitude but underlying torpitude. There is a sadness about these towns. You can't help thinking of American Beauty and how behind the neat hedges and well cut lawns there is pain and angst ruling lives of certain direction and lack of escape.
And then there are the poor - who actually number many people in America, despite the nation's wealth - with a McJob to cling on to and then shopping at 7 Eleven and collecting food stamps.
All the more depressing when you can still see by the roadside the evidence of prosperity and hope that once existed in these towns 50 years ago with brightly coloured diners and stores with glowing neon, now faded to dust colours and rust and the neon lights long broken and never replaced. But people still plant the Stars & Stripes in their gardens or on the porches and continue you to believe in the Apple Pie American Dream, although the apples are now made with artificial additives and preservatives and the pastry is made in Korea or perhaps Mexico. . .
I "dined" at the Springfield McDonald's and watched a woman in front of me order enough food to have kept me "nourished" for a week - all pure grease - and then sit down and smother everything she ordered with ketchup and mayo and launch in.
It was almost enough to put me off my lunch - but not quite. I ate my burger in silence while contemplating small town America and keeping a watchful eye on the car to make sure it didn't get ripped off while I was busy furring my arteries with McCholesterol.
St Louis was less than 100 miles and the journey was easy - aided by the rich voice of Blues legend Lightnin' Hopkins . . . which saw me cross the Mississipi and leave Illinois and enter Missouri - and St Louis, the Gateway to the West. Famous for its arch, its baseball (The St Louis Cardinals) and its beer (Anheuser Busch, makers of Bud, has its home here).
I was taken to dinner in "The Hill" - a district of St Louis which is populated by the Italian immigrant community. Immigrant district always spells good food and I was not disappointed here.
My hosts were a business associate and her family and we gathered round a table and ate one of St Louis's specialities - Toasted Ravioli.
This dish was apparently discovered by accident and involves regular meat filled ravioli being coated in parmesan and breadcrumbs then deep fried. After deep frying they are drained, dusted with parmesan and parsley and then grilled until crispy. They are then served with a marinara sauce - delicious!!!!
St Louis is a nice "clean" city with simple street layout and pleasant architecture. The locals are into beer, music, food and baseball - the last being incredibly important. Crossing through this city - "The Gateway to the West" gives a sense of anticipation for what lays ahead on the planes of Kansas and Oklahoma. . .
Next stop Tulsa - and hopefully some great music in the tradition of the Okies - and in particular JJ Cale . . .
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Day Two - Movies . . . and the Blues
I struggled with the concept of getting up and walking around Chicago and instead elected to watch some American TV to gauge how America is doing. After 20 minutes of Fox News, and some shopping channels I decided that America is taking too many drugs and needs to spend some time at the funny farm. How people watch TV in America is just frightening. If you have a mental age higher than four and a half then I challenge you to stay lucid after 45 minutes. . .
I moved on to movies.
A morning / afternoon of celluloid indulgence included The Sentinel (Secret Service thriller), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Johnny Depp excellent as usual in a great remake) and Fracture - another thriller starring Anthony Hopkins. Also very good.
Feeling much refreshed and relaxed the next step was to venture out into downtown Chicago and wander around before heading off to Buddy Guy's again for the evening Blues sessions.
Chicago is certainly one of America's architectural marvels - some stunning buildings around the centre of town flanking the Chicago river and this is the home to the world's first skyscraper built at the end of the 19th century.
The city has a pleasant feeling and the inhabitants are intensely proud of their city and all that it contains from media to music, food to fashion, art to architecture. And rightly so.
One of the city's famed foodstuffs is the Chicago version of the Hot Dog more usually associated with New York. Indeed there are Gourmet Hot Dogs in this city . . . .but they will have to wait for my next visit - my mission was the Blues.
Walking down Wabash avenue (which runs parallel to the main drag of Michigan Avenue - shopping galore), you run under the "loop" which is the raised metro line which provides much of the characteristic metalwork running above the streets in downtown and made famous in every car chase and gangster movie set here. Wabash starts fresh and nice and progressively gets more and more down market as you head towards the South Side.
As the neighbourhood starts to crumble in quality, so the character increases and the dirtier but more interesting side of urban America starts to feature. 754 Wabash Avenue is Buddy Guy's Legends club and I started in around 7.30pm - in time to catch the first set on Saturday nights which is a semi acoustic set. Tonight featured Jimmie Johnson - an old bluesman with the polka dot shirt to prove it and a voice which began slightly lower than his boots. He was accompanied by Big Dave (another one) whose girlfriend Kellie was sitting next to me at the bar.
Kellie is a designer and perhaps the only person I had yet met on this trip to the States who knew where Dubai was. Mainly because she had heard that folks were wealthy in Dubai and so was keen to hear how she could start doing business there. One of her best questions was: "Do those Arabs hate the Americans?". Nicely indicative of the black & white nature of the majority of American "thinking". She did go on to apologise for the US President (the first of many!) and promptly blamed him for all ills foreign and domestic. Not a huge surprise in predominantly democrat Chicago.
The second set was a band by the name of Stan Skibby and his Love Soldiers. The name hadn't given me cause for huge enthusuiasm in the run up to them appearing on stage, but it just goes to show that you can't read much into a name.
Stan is a genius. Full stop. And the Love Soldiers are an incredibly tight band - especially the bass player who was a knock-out. Stan is much inspired by Jimi Hendrix and played several tracks including Fire and Hey Joe. If you shut your eyes you would swear to God you were listening to Jimi at Monterey - but then if you shut your eyes you would miss Stan playing the solo to Fire with his teeth in original Hendrix style and leaping around the stage with his guitar smoking with his amazing solos.
Stan was the real deal I discovered. He came over to the bar during the last set to chat with a guy who knew him. He was wired and worried. When the guy next to me asked him how he was, he replied "I am messed up man. I got me some problems with the State and I'm real messed up. Gotta get me some money man and straighten' mysel out. I am real messed up." But on stage he was anything but messed up and played some of the best live guitar I have ever heard.
The last set was Jimmie Johnson with his band - some very cool cats with outrageous headware including a giant white Stetson for the bass player who must have weighed about 300 pounds.
Jimmie is old school, but his "2nd" guitarist, Chico, was new school and he blew the doors off the bar with the first three numbers with powerful, screaming electric blues of the kind that made Chicago famous. I sat and listened to the Blues for about 5 hours washing my throat with American WoodChuck cider and eating one of Buddy Guy's signature "You're Damn Right" burgers . . .
A couple of middle aged women hung out around the bar - on a business conference in Chicago I later learned in conversation.
One of them struck up a conversation having barged into me by accident as I was sitting minding my own business at the bar and enquired as to where I was from. When I said "Dubai" - I may as well have said Ulan Bator. She not only had never heard of the UAE, she didn't even know where the Middle East was. She then mentioned that she had been thinking of getting a passport at some point - although she had no desire to travel outside of the US. Scary stuff. And this is typical of Americans. Despite their super high technology and highly progressed way of life, many of them are blind, backward and isolated when it comes to anything beyond their borders. Indeed some people can't even stretch their brains beyond the state line. Anyway, the lady went back to her girlfriend, not before apologising for President Bush and the way I had been treated at immigration, and welcomed me to America. Hallelujah and Amen to that.
After the quantity of WoodChuck cider that I had consumed went beyond the recommended sanity levels for those taking super strength antibiotics I managed to fall outside and eventually into a cab back to the hotel. Sleep was almost instant but unfortunately ruined by a 3.30 am call from a client in Abu Dhabi (my fault for not turning off the phone) and then sleeplessness was maintained by a crowd of drunken shitheads shouting in the corridor from 4.00am to 4.30am . . .
Tomorrow -Route 66 begins in earnest with Stage 1 to St Louis...but I'll definitely be back to Chicago some time. Nice place and very good blues.
Day One - Rain, planes & anglophiles
My journey began with the cab dropping me at Terminal 3 at Heathrow at around 10am in the middle of a massive thunderstorm. Thanks to increased security I had to run in the pouring rain with my bags including an extra suitcase just to hold my camera equipment about 300 metres into the terminal. They also don't have an awning so no chance for a cigarette - my last having been smoked at 8am in the morning.
In Britain you can only carry on one item of handluggage - everything else must go in the hold. The ONLY country in the world to have this ridiculous rule and the reason why I was laden with an additional suitcase.
Check in took ages - and then on to the Fast Track channel. The only thing I can say about that is that I would hate to see Slow Track in action . . . and then through to scan my shoes in a seperate area. NOTE TO SELF - never fly from Britain again if possible.
I consoled myself with the fact that a steaming Starbucks and a Marlboro were just a minute or two away. Wrong!
Starbucks yes - smoking no. NOT ANYWHERE IN THE ENTIRE AIRPORT. Nazi, fascist, boring legislators have made it impossible now to smoke anywhere inside the terminal - not even a small horrid room full of cancerous desperados is allowed now . . . much to my extreme displeasure.
The lounge was the same old United Airlines lounge - last refurbished in 1974 and ghastly. It used to at least redeem itself with a dedicated smoking area - but alas now, this is no more....
They have also cut back on the food supplies inside and seemingly the only things on offer were celery sticks and health bars with fruit. Not good.
It was also packed and I had to sit next to the obligatory IT project manager from Sadness, Tennesee who was keen to share his opinions on his company and their latest mega project with anyone who would listen and indeed anyone within a 100 metre radius. Unfortunately for me and several hundred other passengers he had encountered an old guy who also worked for the firm. He didn't shut his mouth for nearly two hours and murderous thoughts passed through my mind on more than one occasion. Luckily for him his flight was called just before I could implement my cunning plan to stab him in the face with a celery stick and force feed him to death with "health bars".
Boarding for the flight was delayed by about 45 mins. Apparently to do with the rain which surprised me as rain is hardly a new weather phenomenon in Britain but hey - what am I going to do?
We eventually boarded and I was seated next to Homer Simpson. Unfortunately not the real one, but a similar version from California who also worked in IT (whatever I have done, I have certainly angered somebody to get two IT geeks in one day). Homer also had a chronic cough (although, sadly, not bad enough to bring about his early death before take off) and this was beginning to annoy me. But he was saved by my anger being focused on the airport / airline again when the Captain came on to announce that take-off was going to be delayed - because of the rain.
We were eventually subject to another two and three quarter hours delay sitting on the plane with a nice seven and a half hour flight to follow. Worse - Homer wanted to chat.
Having discussed beer and American politics for an hour Homer asked me how I had amassed such in-depth knowledge of American politics. Well, actually his question was: "How comes you know so much stuff about American politics and shit?". I consider myself woefully uninformed about American politics actually, but it is now evident that I am better informed than the average American voter whose expertise and interest begins and ends at beer. Scary but true.
I passed the plane journey alternating between considering my early death due to the extreme turbulence that had me actually put the seatbelt around my laptop too so as to allow me to work without fear of the laptop becoming part of the ceiling decorations and writing a long speech for a client in the UAE.
Only 16 hours without a cigarette and we landed in O'Hare airport in Chicago . . . my first time in the Windy City. Having filled out my immigration form on the plane and spotted only 19 people in front of me in the passport queue I relaxed knowing that nicotine was only minutes away.
Wrong again.
Because I am resident in the United Arab Emirates and in the course of my business travel to Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Egypt, Oman, Morocco, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, Jordan and Iran, I was singled out for special treatment and asked to wait in front of all the other passengers who looked at me as though I was a cross between the Uni Bomber and a convicted paedophile.
Eventually a man with a an IQ lower than the number of bullets in his hand gun came and escorted me to a holding area for further questions. I was with an Italian who had also been singled out for "the treatment" and we discussed our fate in my rusty Italian mixed with his comedy English. Neither of us could muster "dumbf&ck, knee jerk, fascist, racist morons with a superiority complex" in the other's language but we were both thinking it. Oh yes, we were both thinking it.
I was interrogated by a Latino immigration official who wanted to know where exactly I was going, why, when, how, with whom, where I had come from, where I would go after Chicago and so on and so on. I retained my cool using the logic that my nicotine would come more quickly that way and having weighed up that the satisfaction that I would gain from letting rip would be outweighed by the beating, the jail time and the total denial of nicotine. To be fair, the thought of being in a holding cell with Mr. Big asking me to pick up the soap in seven different languages was also a deterrant - plus I wanted to ACTUALLY start my holiday.
Nice that America's closest allies in the so-called "war on terror" are the English. The authorities at Chicago airport certainly do not fall into the camp known as "anglophiles" . . .
Once eventually cleared of immigration (without a tracking device being injected into my brain - I think) the men with guns took me to the baggage carousel which I thought was rather courteous until I realised that the fun wasn't over when the guy wouldn't give me my passport until my bags were found and then took me off to the "special" section of the customs area.
Luckily the customs area was extremely efficient and well staffed with polite and speedy individuals committed to minimising the amount of hassle and inconvenience for travellers. . .not.
One hour later - queues and unpacking and repacking EVERY last button and sock in my bag while being watched over by Dumb & Dumber and their pyschobitch sister, I was released into the United States of America. The Land of the Free.
I smoked. Vigorously and with purpose. And then I smoked again.
I got into a cab with a nice man from Eritrea (an Arab African nation on the East coast of Africa underneath Sudan). I told him my story and he laughed gently in sympathy and understanding. Then he drove like a complete lunatic to the centre of Chicago while I shut my eyes and prayed to all known Gods to deliver me from Hassan Al Schumacher in one piece.
Got to my Hotel - the swanky W Hotel Lakeshore and remembered why i don't normally stay in "W" Hotels. Everyone in the hotel including staff were ultra cool super models wearing the latest fashions and talking a language so hip I felt like an illiterate mute when I came to ask where the elevators were. Note to self #2 - stay in a Marriott and feel like an ultra suave cool meister with amazing dress sense and poise.
I felt like death having hoovered lots of antibiotics and gone without sleep for about 20 hours so and considered going straight to bed. Instead I started to look at my travel plans for the next few days and check out what to do in Chicago. Blues is one of my big interests and Chicago is the launch pad of some of the greats including, of course, Buddy Guy. Three mouse clicks later and I was out of the door and heading to Buddy Guy's Blues Club on Wabash Avenue . . .
The club was great - the real deal with a cat called Clyde on stage with his band playing raw electric blues and snarling into the microphone wearing his trilby hat and a kind of zoot suit . . .and this bar allowed smoking - indeed there were dozens of the practisers of the Black Art of Nicotine consumption proudly puffing away, drinking beer and listening to live music. A combination which has now been banned from almost all other American cities and now of course, Britain.
The crowd was a mixture of afficionados - easily spotted as one can tell that in the real world they are seriously mal-adjusted and sport strange clothing - and the typical Americans. What was interesting to note is that all young American males - almost without exception - sport bad haircuts and all young American women fall into two camps. Anorexic twigs or hippopotami.... Five vegetable and fruit portions a day are evidently being mixed with nine pitchers of beer and a bucket of fried chicken with the inevitable results.
I lasted about an hour and a half until the combination of Guiness (yes - Guiness, poured badly but still recognisable), some of the medical profession's strongest antibiotics and no sleep for 24 hours or so rendered me a cabbage and I had to leave.
A nice Pakistani taxi driver picked me up and kept me amused as he swore voraciously at everyone and everything on the journey to my hotel. I got to my room and crashed out almost instantly, waking at 4.30 am to the noise of people in the corridor about to be sick, have unwise sex and a hangover - not necessarily in that order.
I returned to sleep and dreamt of cigarettes, the blues and beer . . .