Mark it Off The List

Before anything else, I've gotta be a parent here for a second. I had my proudest moment as a Daddy last weekend.



For the first time I was able to completely unload one my chores...on The Boy. Everybody said there would be moments like this...times when as a parent you are overcome with joy and anticipation for the future.

Last weekend was that moment for me.

Boy started his swimmin lessons this week too...



Our biggest problem with him is that he has NO fear of anything except being made to take a break.

"You're going to have to watch him." the instructor said without smiling.

I spent my last day on the road for June today...it's 1:02am. Mark it off the list Clowns.

Six Months Without a speeding Ticket!!! Them cops probably think I'm dead.


(The coolest sign I've ever seen)

Ate it for dinner...wore it all after noon. I'm gonna have to start carrying extra shirts...and britches.

Anyway..we're outta here tomorrow. Headed to Gulf Shores, Alabama.



First trip to the beach since nucklehead showed up.

If you need anything just contact Mary-Cathcart...she'll be lookin' after the place while we're gone.



And so you'll all have something to hate on amongst yourselves...I leave you with another masterpiece.*



I think that's everything. I'll probably be checkin' in from time to time.

Y'all have a good one.

EDIT: I finished this thing last night and have been staring at it all morning. I think this is absolutely my favorite so far (even counting the box). I don't know if it holds up balance wise, etc. (we have an actual Painter that follows the blog now...maybe he can sort that out) but I love this thing. Suggestion of objects and all.

Burial

Just 'cause I didn't get any Hound Dog Taylor today don't mean y'all should be deprived...



Un-touchable!

A Human at Communion

I took Communion yesterday...like most Sundays.

It's the culmination of the worship service, it's a sacrament, it's supper in the presence of God...God to "whom all desires are known and from whom no secrets are hid." It's the one opportunity in the week to focus on the eternal and stop fighting the mind...what's the point?

Well it only takes about half a second to realize why I keep my mind in a head lock most of the time.

I know some of you don't believe any of this but, just play along with me...what would you think about if you were in presence of God?

You probably wouldn't be worried about whether you had sat on something that morning. We sit in the back and usually most the congregation is seated again by the time we're up waiting to approach the alter...it's even worse, like yesterday when I'm an usher, and one of the last people to go up. Everybody is looking at your backside. Of course, they almost certainly are not but, this is the silly crap that goes through my mind sometimes..is there a giant piece of lent or string hanging off the back of my trousers or worse did I get powdered sugar all over the car seat when I stopped for donuts?

Worst of all...I sometimes have these stupid thoughts at the alter. Dumbest of all, and it's happens more often then I care to admit...I worry that if I don't get that wafer swallowed I'm going to back wash crumbs into the chalice!

I admitted this to Martha yesterday,

"...do you know what I mean?"

She looked at me like I had a peanut bush growing out the top of my head.

"I mean..you know...I worry about it sometimes...you know because I'm so so focused on...you know..."

"That is disgusting!"

Of course Martha never worries about such things. It would be impossible for her to do anything so uncouth even on accident...but, I guarantee she'll be peeking in that Cup before she drinks from it from here on out.

Not only am I an imbecile but, it's contagious. Sorry Martha.

Disease Ridden Southern Spectres...Dusty, Organic and Psychic

(Indian Mounds, Pocahontas)



(Yazoo City)

(Perverted By Language is the greatest record ever recorded and I am unanimous in this...it is the pink album with the Link Wray reference.)

You would be forgiven for assuming that as I trailed through The Delta I'd have some sorta blues in the car but, you'd be wrong. That player has been jammed with Fall Cds for a month now...and last week was no exception.


(Inverness)



(Inverness)



(Indianola)
I can't decide whether it's odd or not but they seem right at home on 49.

Naw I Don't Need No Drugs

Hanna Ave, Indianola, MS

In the universal sign for "let me hold a dollar" a lanky black man lunges up to the car making a circular motion with his right hand. I roll the window down...

"You got a couple of dollars I can hold?"

I reached in my front pocket and pulled out a folded dollar bill that had been in there days.

"That's all I got...You gettin' my last dollar brother."

"You got 35 more cents?"

I laughed and dug it out for him.

"Man you ain't got another dolla?"

"I told you that was my last dollar...I need to get movin' brother. The poleese see my white face stopped on the street like this and they're gonna think one thing."

"You need some drugs man?"

"Naw I don't need no Drugs. I can't be monkeyin' around up here I gotta get back to Jackson."

"You goin' to Jackson? Today?...Oh hold on a second. Wait right here.."

Then he started off toward a house...

"Brother I gotta go. I'm workin'."

"A'ight...A'ight."

What on Earth he wanted me to transport down to Jackson we'll never know but, in my experience it could have been anything from nickle bag of dope to his Grandmama.



I was down there yesterday morning because the night before I couldn't get any pictures...there must have been 10 cops down there and at least that many people lined up on the sidewalk.

I've seen Blues Travel sites nonchalantly explain how easy it is to fly into Memphis, rent a car and drive down into The Delta...Clarkesdale, Leland, Indianolo are "just a two and a half hour drive." I'd like to hear how that's worked out for some of these folks in sandals, baggy short-pants, and Robert Johnson T-Shirts. I imagine being berated with shouts of "you ain't on Beale St. now" isn't the worst of it.



Church St.

Every town in The South, of any size, has a Church St. In Jackson it's Farish St...Memphis has Beale St. The old Black business district. Not just Jukes but, grocery stores, taylors, cobblers, ice cream shops, they had everything. What Church St. had that none of the others did was B.B. King.



I love B.B. King...who doesn't. It's not my favorite brand of Blues (though he's certainly my favorite Urban players and his voice...geeeeze.) but, it's the first I heard and knew. As a little kid I appropriated my Daddy's cassette of 16 Greatest Hits and carried it around in an old tape recorder...even to bed at night.



Anyway that's Idianola. So is this...



Before I let you go. We need to slip back to Leland. I mentioned that there were a few players from around there...and indeed there are and indeed they deserve mentioning.

Son Thomas...not only a Blues player but a renowned artist. They call him a "folk" artist but that's always seemed condescending to me.



You gonna tell me this fella was just ignorantly making sculptures without any sophisticated understanding of what he was doing...bah.

What about Johnny Winters?



Man...Kiss My Grits..that is good.

Booger Loves Sissy

I want our resident expert on the anthropology of emotions to explain this expression of Love as anything but Mystery and Truth.

Satartia, Mississippi is a collection of houses around a cotton gin in the Delta. There's a couple of churches and a Grocery...


(These are the places that The Shed with it's Christmas lights and license plates is trying to emulate. You can buy some staples and honeybuns, bait, and cokecolas in these places but, they're more like social halls. They serve meals and coffee...local musicians will play outside or in if there's a dance floor...pool tables, etc. .)

The place is owned by a woman that seemed perfectly sane but run by two young women who are crazy as outhouse rats (they insisted that they were Booger and Sissy)...I barely got out of that place without a mark.

It was one of the funnest calls I've been on in a long time.

Before you get to Satartia, comin' from Jackson, you gotta pass by Bentonia...



Home of the Blue Front Cafe and Skip James...



I wish I'd gotten a picture of the two convicts being hauled up to the top of a flag pole to change light bulbs...in the bucket of an excavator.

I spent the rest of the day gettin' further into The Delta...


(Allan II)

Holly Bluff, Delta Grocery...where the owner has a cast iron cross from a Confederate grave that must be almost 150 years old. It was surrounded by rattlers that had been taken off snakes he'd killed.

A Grocery in Mayerville with a shag Budweiser rug nailed to wall over the dance floor.

Glen Allen on Lake Washington...where things are slow goin'.



My last stop was in Leland. It's home to it's share of Blues players but, it's also the birthplace of...



Time to start day two...Greenwood, Ita Bena, Morehead, Indianola, etc.

The Title has been fixed...as ISBW keenly observed "who calls themselves bogger?" :)

At first I thought it was a typo...but I did it twice.

Blue Father's Day

This mornin' The Boy brought me a present wrapped in the funny papers.



The book was put together by Roger Stolle owner of Cat Head Records in Clarkesdale. Cat Head and Fat Possum records have done a great job helping to ensure that Blues..real vibrant hard-country Blues...has it's own space to operate in.

Hava little taste of Como Mississippi...and Mr. R.L. Boyce.




The Boy doesn't yet know how lucky he was to have been born where he is...but he will. I'll make sure of that...just like my Daddy is the reason somebody would automatically think to give me a gift like this...it's all cause of his Blues and Soul records (or tapes).

He was here last week and and actually took a better picture of The Blue Front Cafe than one on the cover. His has patrons.

I hope The Boy feels lucky to have me as a Daddy one day...the same way I feel about his Grandaddy.

We'll leave it with Duwayne Burnside singin' his Late Great Daddy's song...