Ribs and blues. Motorcycle frenzy on Beale Street and it's not even dark. Hot sauce, beer, meat, and live music.
I'm in love with Memphis. Fuck love of country, love of family, love of another human being. Fuck it all, because Memphis has ribs and blues.
I'm still having a little trouble believing it's a real place it's so goddamn perfect.
The heat is dry, the sun is the kind of washed out gold that changes lives. Cleansing. Revealing a deeper truth about humanity, although it's difficult to pinpoint what that truth is. Maybe the rattlesnakes will whisper it in our ears once we've hit sand and desert fruit. But right now I'm content with ribs and blues.
* * *
We met a man named Ross in Overton Park. He looked a bit like Sawyer from Lost and mentioned that he had a twin brother, which immediately made me smile and think of Edward Norton and Edward Norton in Leaves of Grass. We had a pretty good conversation with him. He mentioned that he's self-employed, that he's only spiritual (not Christian), that God is within all of us. He mentioned that he loves the beach, waves crashing, that he sells cars. He had a dog named Max. He's adamantly from Memphis, not the United States, nor the South.
I like this man a great deal.
* * *
I want to cry when we're in the Stax Records museum and I see photographs of the Lorraine Hotel the day MJK Jr. was shot. This is not right, I say to myself. Thank god that we're not like this anymore, I say to myself.
I lie a lot.
But it's okay. It's okay because even though race is still an issue in this country, even though homophobia and sexism exist everywhere, there are those who are and will forever be adamantly, violently, lovingly pro-human. Stax, with all its history and its love for music, told me so.
* * *
So then I eat some more ribs and smile. Have a few sips of beer. New Orleans sits just a few blocks, hours ahead and promises great things in dusky deep blue midnight hour.
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