Tennessee Trip Part 5

Day 8: Gaitlinburg to Bedford

Pancake House! Decided on the Log Cabin Pancake House because I could walk to it from the hotel, and they had a lot of pancake variety. Surprising myself, I ended up ordering plain old ordinary buttermilk pancakes with a side of sausage. And ordinary they were, but that was quite alright. An ordinary pancake is practically unrivaled in deliciousness.

The drive out through Pigeon Forge was worse than the drive in, so I was extremely relieved to finally hit the interstate. Just a three hour drive to Bedford, so way shorter than any other trip I'd made so far. Actually fit one more BBQ sandwich into my trip when I stopped at Sheetz for lunch. This was trashy BBQ on a sub roll, drenched in sauce with a cole slaw smear. I liked it. I wouldn't put it in a category with any of the other sandwiches I'd eaten, but I'd eat it again.

Rolling into Bedford. I don't remember anything about this place other than the Peaks, but I certainly don't remember a Wal-Mart, any chain restaurants, any semblance of life in the area really. So, a few changes. But I headed straight up to the Peaks Lodge just to check it out.

You know, it's a pretty stupid thing to do when you're trying to avoid thinking about how old you are, to go revisit a place you haven't been in twenty years, chasing nostalgia. The Peaks area looks pretty much exactly the same, though the inside of the Lodge check-in area and restaurant had changed considerably.

Pretty much it for that day.

Day 9: Heading Home

Rough night of sleep. It was so freakin' hot in the room, and the buttons on the air conditioner just did not seem to be working. Laid there all night just trying to get over it, until about 5 in the morning it occurred to me to unplug the thing and see if that jolted the buttons into use. It did. Probably should have tried that a lot earlier. One of the main reasons I decided to stop in Bedford was the Peaks Of Otter Lodge Sunday Breakfast Buffet, which was one of my favorite things on Earth when I was a lot younger. But, tired as I was, there was just no way I was getting myself together in time to make that, so I skipped it and opted for the free waffle that came with my room. Oh well.

The other thing I wanted to do while I was there, again, idiotically chasing nostalgia, was take the hike up to the Johnson Farm that my family made a million times.

Man that hike seems a lot shorter now. It used to seem like the most arduous thing, but this time I was pretty much up and back in 45 minutes. Not even the length of Ys. (Soundtracking again, and once again perfect.)

Heading out, stopped at a gas station to fill up and ended up leaving with some ENORMOUS apples from the local orchard that were incredibly cheap compared to any grocery store. Amazing how much good stuff actually costs when there's no transport fees involved.

That's pretty much it. On the way home I stopped in Charlottesville for a sweet burger at Riverside Lunch and peanut butter/chocolate frozen custard from Kohr Bros. Awesome. Perhaps the greatest of frozen dessert concoctions. I kind of like Charlottesville. Great way to end it. Within an hour and a half after that I was home doing laundry, watching the Redskins lose, and dreading having to go to work the next day. The end.

Tennessee Trip Part 4

Day 6: Leaving Memphis

Sweet Potato Pancakes again this morning. Second time, just as good. Straight from there I hit the highway heading to Gaitlinburg. Drive was terrible. First, those fucking trucks. They love to get next to each other on a two-lane highway and see how even they can keep their speed. Then between Nashville and Knoxville it poured rain, so that slowed me down. Soooooooo ready to get out of the car.

This is sort of how things go. Between the interstate and the Smokies, there's three areas. Sevierville, Pigeon Forge, and Gaitlinburg. When I was choosing a place to stay, I was leaning towards Pigeon Forge or Gaitlinburg, Sevierville was just too far away. Pigeon Forge had a few places that would have been a better deal, but Gaitlinburg was so much closer to the Smokies that I had to pick that.

Thank. God.

Sevierville is indistinct. A bunch of strip malls and gas stations, progressively more souvenir shops as you move towards the mountains. Pigeon Forge is retarded. All I knew about Pigeon Forge was that it was home to the Dollywood amusement park. But Pigeon Forge is basically five miles of one road that is ALL amusement park, lit up like an arcade, crowded as an Indian market. Why on Earth is this place so crowded? Is it all for Dollywood? I had no idea, didn't care to know, I just wanted to get through it, and it took forever. Driving through, I noticed that people were setting up chairs on the side of the road, pointed at the road, and just sitting there talking to each other and staring. I could not understand why. And this was always the case. When I first came through it was the middle of the day, they were there. Had to go in later because it had the only grocery store I could find. They were out then too. Didn't go back in until I left two days later, but they were there then too. I was thinking, “Does Dollywood put on periodic fireworks displays throughout the day? Is something incredible going to happen on the skyline here soon? Or do these people just travel to Pigeon Forge to sit on the side of the road and watch other people travel to Pigeon Forge?” (I found out later that there was a car show going on, which I assume was Forge-wide. I guess that explains it? Kind of? Not really.) I was really scared that Gaitlinburg was going to be the same way.

About a six mile stretch between where Pigeon Forge traffic ends and Gaitlinburg becomes recognizable. Gaitlinburg is no small mountain entryway, it's definitely a resort town with plenty of tourist traps. It kind of reminded me of the Canada side of Niagara Falls. A lot. A bunch of Ripley's museums, famous car displays, stores full of crap that nobody wants but buys because it says Gaitlinburg on it. Anything to take your money. So, it was busy, lots of people always walking around and crossing the street with total disregard for moving cars. (Look, I understand that cars are supposed to stop at the crosswalks for them to cross in this town, but to just jump out into the middle of the street without so much as glancing to see if a car's on the way is still dumb.) But a MILLION times better than Pigeon Forge. (Though from what I understand if you want to go to the Smokies without any of those distractions, you stay in Townsend. I couldn't find any open rooms in Townsend, and didn't get a chance to check it out, but if I went back I would try for that.)

This hotel was kind of a funky place and I pretty much loved it. It feels old. Not mountain old, but architecturally outdated. Loved it. It's been so long since I've been in any kind of lodging that was not based around corridors, either on the inside or outside, where you enter the room from a hallway or balcony and have windows on the opposite side of the room. The room I had in this place, the windows faced the center of the hotel.

I know that's not a really rare thing, but it was such a change for me that it made me giggly. Entering the room, another oddity I encountered, most rooms I've stayed in have the main bedroom which goes into a sink area and then is separated by a door to the toilet/shower. This one had no separation between the shower and the sink, and seemed wide open to the bedroom. I actually didn't notice until the second day that there indeed was a door between the sink area and the bedroom, and I spent that day thinking it would be extremely awkward to be staying there with anybody. But yeah, there was a door. I'm an idiot. That's how distracted I was I guess. No coffee maker in the room, that was a disappointment. Especially since every description I read, from hotels.com to the hotel's own website, advertised a coffee maker. I got to have my decaf before bed or I'm incomplete!

Kept the BBQ train going by stopping in at a nearby place called Bennett's and getting a sandwich. Meat was good but unremarkable, but I really loved that they put it on garlic bread. That was very tasty. More sandwiches should be put on garlic bread.

Oh yeah, this was my birthday. Didn't think about it much. Mission accomplished. But I went and got some ice cream to have my own mini-treat. Blue Bell Snickerdoodle. It was really good. Ate that while catching up on Sons Of Anarchy and went to bed.

Day 7: Smokies Day

They love pancakes in this area. Like, combine the amount of Wal-Marts and McDonalds that are in our area, and that probably comes close to the number of pancake houses between Pigeon Forge and Gaitlinburg. But my room came with a free breakfast buffet, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Well, it's about as good as you'd expect from a free breakfast buffet. French toast sticks, eggs, bagels, bread, stuff that could be made en masse and wouldn't wither under heat lamps. A couple things I actually liked. The gravy on top of biscuits was good. And for some reason I have never gotten bad bacon on a breakfast buffet. It always a great compromise of crisp, firm, and chewy. Nevertheless, I decided the next day, I'd hit a pancake house.

Heading to the Smokies to take a hike. I wanted one that was going to keep me occupied for a while, moderately taxing, but most of all offering scenery. From the descriptions I'd read, the hike to Charlie's Bunion fit the bill. About 8 miles round trip, high elevation, and opportunity to touch rocks.

First was a drive to Newfound Gap. Starting to realize that any time I get in the car in this area, I'm going to be irritated. The problem here is that it's a very winding road going up the mountain, obviously, and there are people with trailers driving up there, I guess heading to campsites or something, and despite signs that say, “Slow Traffic Move Over And Let Other People FUCKING PASS YOU” I guess nobody considers themselves that slow. Maybe if they realized they're towing loads and it's slowing them down, but I think they're just trying to look over the side of the mountain. While driving. Jackasses. An extremely long 8 mile drive up the mountain.

All redeemed as soon as I stepped out of the car. When I got in the car at the hotel, I think about 9 in the morning, it was already muggy and warm out. Stepping out at Newfound Gap, I would say it was in the low 60s, overcast, breezy, absolutely the most gorgeous air I've felt since early last spring. It was almost shocking to get out of the car and feel that, just hadn't anticipated it. Very thankful I had thought to bring a flannel in my backpack. Made me so comfortable. So, off I go a-hiking. I had brought my mom's camera on the trip to take whatever pictures I could come up with, but this was out of control. A mountain is such an expansive thing, the way I imagine it, I would expect that you get a picture of one view, that's going to be the view for a while. Didn't seem like the case here. Every time I would pass one tree or make a slight turn, it felt like I was getting a whole new perspective on the scenery. The amount of pictures I felt like I had to take was getting ridiculous and eventually I realized I was going to have to change my goal from getting great pictures to just getting enough pictures to remind me of the experience later, or else I was never going to complete this hike.

Just beautiful. Enhancing the feeling was that I chose Ys to soundtrack it. I swear to God, that album just takes any great experience and amplifies it immeasurably. One of the overwhelming thoughts in my head at the time was that I'm really not sure why I ever try to find new music when this album is sitting there available for me to just listen to forever as many times as I can fit in. But the trek was longer than the album, next logical step was to go to Have One On Me for the remainder. And I realized that was probably the first time I've given that album a real concentrated listen. And now I plan on giving it a lot more listens, because it's remarkable.

The hike to it was a real delight, and the Bunion was a lot of fun. The hike feels like you're walking on this shelf that's attached to the side of the mountain. A lot of being able to look right off the edge on a downward slope. Not trying to suggest a straight drop down, but if you jumped off and hit that slope with some velocity you'd slide for a while and have a hard time trudging back to the trail. Lots of fun, very green and shaded. Then the Bunion is like a culmination, because you suddenly hit an open area and bare rock.

And what do you do with bare rock? You climb on it. And it reaches out over that slope, so it's a little thrilling. You have to watch your grip, and of course you naturally want to know just how far out you can go before the whole thing drops out. It doesn't, you can pretty much go out as it goes out and down, and eventually you have to stop yourself and realize you better go back before you're stuck. Especially when there's no one there to insist you're going too far.

And here's some smoke:

And that was sort of it. That fulfilled all my plans for the trip. But I still had two days left. First, went back down the mountain and straight to Corky's BBQ for my last sandwich of the trip. Corky's is a chain now that started in Memphis. They also apparently sell frozen ribs in supermarkets. Sandwich was pretty good, the star here was the sweet potato fries. First or second best I've ever had. So hard to get sweet potato fries the way I like them. Normally when I get them they are soggy and pretty greasy. These were crisp. Just like regular fries, but made with sweet potatoes, which is exactly how I love them. Only ones I've had to compete with them, oddly enough, I got at a greek restaurant in Lewiston, NY with a Beef on Weck. I might give those the slight edge. Didn't do much with the rest of this of this day. Walked the length of the tourist area of Gaitlinburg and went back to the hotel to make plans for the next day. I decided to split the trip home in half by stopping in Bedford, VA, closest town to Peaks Of Otter where I spent a lot of vacations as a kid.

Tennessee Trip Part 3

Day 4: Graceland Day

Back to the Arcade. This time I got the Eggs Redneck. I'm not sure why the eggs are in the name, the star of the show is definitely the sausage on biscuits with gravy. Oh man, I can feel my blood stopping. Very very good. Very very good going down, but found out a little later, doesn't make a stomach, or at least my stomach, so happy.

On to Graceland. Pretty much in all stages of planning, I assumed I was going to be giving Graceland an entire day. I hadn't been able to fit Stax in the day before, so I thought I'd get to that too if I had time, but I wasn't counting on it. It was kind of hard to tell from the descriptions I'd read to tell how much was involved in a visit, and how much time it would take, but I just assumed I would want to stretch it out.

I think I got there about 10, and as you pull in, first thing you see is the tail of the Lisa Marie, with a giant TCB symbol on it.

I'm in love already. Already a crowd when I arrived. Man, this is a Tuesday, so pretty much all the tourists were blue-hairs coming to relive their youth. They're kind of impatient if you get in their way and aren't moving quick enough for them. That's right, I wasn't moving quick enough for the elderly. I'm trying to soak it in here people! So you buy your ticket (unfortunately, it was about this time I found out what Eggs Redneck does to my digestive system. Went and spent a good 15 minutes indisposed, almost thought I'd miss all the buses) and proceed to get on a shuttle bus that takes you across the street, through the gates, and up to the house. Another audio tour. How was this one going to be? This one was going to be AWESOME. Redeemed the concept for me. Every audio track was of a length that easily fit into the time you needed to check out every room, so you never felt like you were skipping something or missing part of what you paid for. And, oh man, there was so much to take in. Just to be inside those walls. To think, “This is where Elvis took naps and acted lazy. (Although you don't get to go upstairs.) This stuff is what he thought was cool.” And the house just feels like another world compared to any home I've ever been in. Despite being an enormous mansion, a lot of the rooms have low ceilings and very little light in them. And some crazy accents. A room where the floors, walls, and ceilings all share the same carpet.

Sure, why the hell not Elvis?! I can't think of a good reason not to. I think my favorite part was the basement, with the TV room and billiard room.

Then out of the basement into the infamous Jungle Room.

The buildings outside of the mansion have mostly been converted into houses for collections of memorabilia rather than keeping them original to how Elvis would have used them. My favorite of those was what used to be a racquetball court. You walk into the building and it's like a room for entertaining. A piano, a sitting area, very welcoming. Then you walk into the area that used to be the court, which you can imagine is an enormous room, and it's been converted to house a ton of memorabilia.

Some of his jumpsuits, a TON of his records, a bunch of stuff. And, at the time I walked in, “Also Sprach Zarathustra” was playing, just like at the beginning of one of his concerts, so it seemed like even more of a colossal thing to walk into.

Onto the gravesite and the Meditation Garden. I took the obligatory pictures, but to be honest, that part wasn't as intriguing to me as the rest of the house. It was like the guy at Front Street Deli said to me, having lived there for 30 years, “Yeah, you gotta go to Graceland. It's interesting to see the way the man lived.” Yes it is. Much more interesting than staring at a granite slab and pondering bones.

After that the bus takes you back across the street and there's several more exhibits. One that displays stuff from his movies, one that displays his cars, one of the '68 Comeback Special, touring his jets, one of his clothes, maybe a couple others. None of these are really that overwhelming or majestic, I'm pretty sure they're meant to get you into the gift shops that they all end up in. I was happy to go through them though. I definitely get a kick out of seeing clothes that were on his body, checking out a house with wings. His guns. And I didn't mind at all the incredible amount of gift shops you have to walk through. I thought it was fun. There was one thing I was after, the Follow That Dream version of Elvis Country, which lucky for me was in the second to last gift shop I visited. Doing the whole thing, and I think I covered just about every inch of the complex, took me about 6 hours. Time for BBQ.

That day it was Marlowe's, about a mile down Elvis Presley Blvd. from Graceland, and I think this was my favorite BBQ had during the trip. Maybe the euphoria was a by-product of the great day I'd just had, but I think it was the sandwich. The meat was perfectly moist, a beautiful chew, and the sauce amount was just the greatest. I don't care what people say about it being “all about the meat.” I love BBQ sauce. It's so satisfying to my sweet tooth. It's one of the bigger restaurants I went to, but they don't open until 4 in the afternoon, so when I got there, there weren't a whole lot of people there. I was able to leisurely eat and watch some TV, the waitress was really nice and attentive, just had a great experience there.

Once I got out of there, it was too late to go to Stax. Could've figured as much, but that's okay, I have another day to fit it in. I decided to go down to Beale Street and have a look around. Okay, here's my take on Beale Street. Obviously the area is of HUGE historical significance, and there's lots of great stuff down there to see. For me personally, it didn't offer me a whole lot other than just being able to soak in the concept of standing in that area. It's really a night-life place, and I am not a night-life person. Lots of clubs, lots of bars, lots of shops, basically not for me aside from a couple pictures.

And the panhandlers are out of control. Though I will say, I liked dealing with these panhandlers a little bit more. The ones I met in the morning, I guess they were fresh and excited, they accost you and launch into long and drawn-out tales of woe or sidle up and start giving you tons of advice you didn't ask for then expect payment for it. And then they launch into a tirade of insults if you don't give them stacks of twenties, or tell you how you really didn't live up to their expectations of you. The guys at night, I guess they were tired. They just walked up to me and said, “Hey, gimme some change.” “I don't have any.” “Ach.” And that was it. Clean, simple, thank you for making this pleasant.

Day 5: Records

The plan all along for this trip was: Tourist, Tourist, Records. So this day was records day, and I was stoked. I never did put up the post on it that I wanted to, but I saw a documentary a couple months ago called I Need That Record which got me insanely pumped for records, combining that with a new found enthusiasm for 60s-80s country, and I picked up probably between 100 to 200 from thrift stores between July and August. (A new genre interest is always helpful for jacking up the numbers) Well, I knew I was going to want to visit record stores in Memphis, so for about the month before my trip I kept myself out of thrift stores and record stores, kept myself off eBay, off Amazon. So I was a-rarin' to go.

But first, what else? Arcade Restaurant. That day was french toast. Tasty enough, but a little underwhelming. I guess I'm so used to french toast being in the shape of your thick piece of average bread, that when it actually looked like french bread, I was a little baffled. It was good enough. Bacon was awesome though. Crispy crispy.

Out of there, ready for records. But before we hit the records, goddammit, we're getting in the Stax tour! I liked this one quite a bit. Lots of interesting displays. My personal favorite part was walking into the room where the music was played (well, a replica of course, the original building is no more) and then walking towards the exit door, you realize you're walking into a giant hallway where the walls are lined with records.

I didn't get confirmation that it was every record ever made between Stax, Volt, Watt, whoever else, but it was a fucking lot of records. Pretty much my dream house. I just want to live in a hallway like that. Basically awe-inspiring.

On to records. First stop, because it was open earliest, Spin Street Records. A really big big store, but only part record store. It's a used & new store. CDs, DVDs, records, clothes, magazines, and a bunch of useless crap. Sort of like part music store, part movie store, part Spencer's Gifts, but not quite as juvenile. The LP area was decent I'd say. Pretty much everything you would expect to find, with prices just the good side of a almost too high, with some above average stuff peppered throughout. So I really did have to go through it all, and I did. Managed to meet a few goals here. Found an Elvis record I didn't have (From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee. Fantastically appropriate). Got a Stax Record. (A Staples Singers best of) Couldn't leave Memphis without having met those conditions. Got several others, including a smattering out of the 5 for a dollar clearance bin (take notice other stores! That's a good thing.) Overall I'd give it a good rating. Don't know what the turnover is like, but I did see a couple people in there selling collections, so I bet it's decent.

Next was Shangri-La Records. Definitely my favorite of the bunch. This is it:

This is the parking lot:

It's in a commercial area, but it looks like a freaking house. I was expecting bad things from that appearance. I think the area it was in might be near a school, so I was expecting some college douches inside, and thin shelving full of whatever indie whispers they're trying to talk up but not talk up too much. Not. At. All. First of all, the place is PACKED with records, almost all used. There was no way I was going through them all, but I decided I was okay with that. The owner, or guy who was working there, whatever, just stayed out of the way and let me do my thing. So, this is in the first room, which would maybe be the living room of the house. The biggest room. Prices were what you would expect, not very impressive. Lots of good stuff in the soul and rockabilly sections (any store with a rockabilly section is going to get an A+ from me) if you wanted to pay for it. I saw a couple things I might pick up coming back around on a second stroll-through, but nothing that was blowing me away in a desire vs. price comparison. Kind of reminded me of the old Record Mart in Alexandria. I imagined the stock was pretty stagnant, and they were priced according to what somebody imagined a person who was looking for a particular record might pay for it. But, I'm a hunter, so they weren't really my kind of prices. Still, I was expecting an Orpheus-style shit head experience from this place, so I was pleasantly surprised. So then I went in the back room, which would maybe be a bedroom size room, in the middle of which was the all-mighty low-cost bin. My one and only true love, and I found some good stuff in there. Curtis Mayfield's first solo album, which got me SO pumped! Otis Redding Live at the Whiskey A Go Go. Al Green Can't Get Next To You (meeting another one of my conditions, leaving with a Hi Record). Several others, including Led Zeppelin II, the one Led Zeppelin record I had never picked up. I was so stoked I went back through and picked up several others from the average price area, including a couple Willie Nelson I've wanted for some time, and a couple Aretha's. Best experience at a record store I had on the trip, extremely happy about my purchases. I don't know how long they've been around or how long they will be around, but I hope they keep it up.

Next was Goner Records. Frankly, I had good expectations for this place. Read a lot of good reviews. But this was the shit-head experience I thought I was going to get at Shangri-La. There's a difference between letting the customer leisurely browse and do their own thing and almost seeming resentful that the customer is there. Did not feel welcome there at all. Almost felt like I was walking in on the employees business meeting for some bullshit venture they were excited about, like I was intruding. But whatever, I'd still look. Nothing I saw there totally blew me away. The prices were definitely nothing to write home about. And they commit what I would consider an unforgivable sin. The budget records are stacked vertically, between 4 and 5 foot tall stacks, rather than placed horizontally so they can be flipped through. Now, not even taking into account that that is HORRIBLE for the shape of the records, putting way too much pressure on them, it makes it absolutely impossible to browse them. Maybe if you made sure the spines were facing outwards you could at least get some idea of what was in there, but they didn't bother. I wasn't going to bother giving them enough of my time to break down these stacks into manageable sections and going through them, even though I would bet many many hundreds of dollars that there was some stuff in there I would have walked out with. I ended up buying a Little Milton and Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown record and getting the hell out of there. Good riddance. (I later found out that Rolling Stone put Goner on their Top 25 Record Stores in the country. Fucking figures.)

BBQ Time! None of these record stores were in close proximity to the others, so today was a driving day. So I figured I might as well go to the BBQ place I wanted to hit that was way out of the way, Leonard's. An old place with a really good reputation. My experience there was mild. Service was incredible, probably because I was very literally the only customer there. This was about 3pm, so the lunch crowd was out, and apparently they start a buffet at 4:30, so there was no one around for that. Kind of awkward. It's a fairly big place, big enough to fit an old car in and have plenty of room for diners, and I was the only person in there eating. Sandwich was pretty good, though I'd say a little dryer than Marlowe's. Awesome honey apples. The fries, I probably would've enjoyed them more, but I didn't feel like waiting for them to cool down, and they burned the hell out of my mouth. It's hard to complain about hot fries though.

Headed back downtown and thought I'd give Beale Street another quick go. Still just not that much for me there, but I did go to A. Schwab's this time. Oldest store on Beale Street, and man it felt like it. Felt a world removed from the rest of it. It's this weird combination of a souvenir store, a thrift store, odds and ends, and the most useless crap you never knew you wanted. It's pretty hilarious just walking through it. You want to buy one of everything, knowing you need none of it. Really enjoyed just browsing it. Such a fine line between the things I want to own and the things that could not possibly matter to my existence. Actually they seem to be all the same things.

Back to the hotel, because this is my last night, and I haven't made any plans for where I'll be staying the next couple days. Found a pretty good deal in Gaitlinburg, right near the entrance to Smoky Mountain Park. Feeling ready to move on, even though I know there's a lot of stuff I still haven't done. At least a few BBQ places I didn't get to, didn't get to Alcenia's, didn't have a peanut butter and banana sandwich (kind of voluntarily. The Arcade makes the most famous one, I could've had it any time I was there, just really wasn't sure I could handle it.), didn't get to the Zoo, didn't walk the waterfront park, didn't ride the trolley, didn't do the Gibson plant tour, etc. Plenty to check out if I ever decide to go back, but I hit all the really major stops I wanted to. Definitely feeling satisfied and ready to move on.

Tennessee Trip Part 2

Day 2: Erwin to Memphis

Got up early, found out the free continental breakfast was basically coffee and donuts, so I walked to a nearby Huddle House, which I had never heard of before, but when I got in there it made me think of a low-rent Denny's. That's right, low-rent Denny's. Got the strawberry waffle, which was easily three-quarters strawberry topping and whipped cream, and generously one-quarter waffle. Hopped way up on sugar and now ready for travel. Took off. First of all, I think Erwin was quite a bit further off the main trail than I thought it was. Second, Tennessee is long. This day of driving did wear me out quite a bit. I-40 reminds me a lot of I-81 in Virginia. The 70mph speed limit is sweet, but it's still only as fast as the slowest truck. And the exhaustion was not helped by the time change. Never, in all my planning, did the time change ever occur to me. Didn't occur to me until I saw a sign on the interstate that said “Central Time.” I said, Oh Shit!, and started looking at every clock available to me. Some of them changed automatically, some did not, and the ones that did not, I never bothered changing. Consequently, the time change messed with my head for pretty much the entire trip.

Getting in that night, I pretty much knew I wasn't going to get any tourist type stuff done, so I decided I was going to get some bbq (obviously) and then watch the first Redskins game of the season, which luckily was being nationally broadcast. So, after much deliberation, I decided on Central BBQ, because it was on my list, and also near a Kroger that I wanted to go to. The location of the hotel and the drive to food made it clear to me that navigating this place was going to be interesting. The hotel was in this weird area, about 3 blocks from Beale Street, it seemed like my block was kind of run-down. A bunch of empty buildings, a lot of slow-moving people just kind of milling around, not really well lit. But then you can go one block in one direction and you're at the Peabody Hotel complex thing. Go a block in another direction and you're in a public park. Yeah the park is full of homeless people, but still, it's a park. There's a statue. That sort of played out throughout the parts of the city I went through over the whole trip. Nice area, bad area, collapsed area, decent area, really nice area, bad area. All right next to each other. So when I picked a place to go, I never really knew what kind of neighborhood I was going to end up in. It was okay though, nothing too frightening. (Except the one homeless guy who, while I was stopped at a light at the end of a ramp, walked out of nowhere, stared straight at me with some enormous eyes and wild hair, and started yelling something at me, then sat down next to my door. Not going to lie, that light seemed really slow.)

Central BBQ was pretty good. A good balance of sauce to meat on the sandwich, and the baked beans actually were pretty incredible. Overall, a decent introduction to the BBQ scene. Went back to the hotel, realized I had missed the first hour of the game because of the goddam time change, and spend the rest of the night half watching the game and half trying to figure out how to spend the next day.

Day 3: First Tourist Day

One thing I knew, first thing I was doing that day was going to the Arcade Restaurant. Apparently a Memphis institution, from the moment I read “Sweet Potato Pancakes” on their website, I knew I was going to be spending some time there. The restaurant has such a reputation I was worried I wouldn't be able to sit down, but when I got there it was pretty empty. That's about when I realized that I guess I'm not here in prime vacation time. Getting excited. Walked there the first day, but decided after that that if I came back I'd drive. The walk was longer than I thought it would be, especially when there's breakfast at the other end of it. And the alternation of good to bad blocks was stark. And panhandlers seem to be most active and insistent in the morning. The sweet potato pancakes were amazing. How could they not be?

Just contemplate what they are for a second. (Sure, I could give you the "before"/uneaten photo, but these were delicious.) I pretty much decided then that all other breakfasts in the area were going to be voided, I was going to be at the Arcade everyday. (Even though I later found out there was a place right around the corner from my room that served what basically amounted to a pancakes version of the peanut butter and banana sandwich.)

A bunch of stuff I wanted to get done that day. My plan for the day involved Sun Records, Stax Records, a Mississippi River Boat tour, the Memphis Rock 'N Soul Museum, and, at some point, BBQ. First thing, walked to Sun. The tour begins upstairs with this little mini-museum, some interesting stuff behind glass, but I wasn't totally blown away. Still, it seemed a little rushed through. Tried to take some pictures of records, but didn't get all that I wanted because the tour guide kind of moved us along. So, anyway, after listening to the tour guide tell you all the stories you've heard before, you go back downstairs and into the Sun Studio. And I have to say, that really was pretty special. Records on the walls, instruments on the floors, the most special thing about it to me is that the room is all the original walling and flooring.

So, this is it. Elvis's shoes were here. Howlin' Wolf's shoes were where my shoes are now. And this:

This actually sort of took my breath away for a minute. A picture of Howlin' Wolf with a guitar under it that looked like one you'd see in pictures with him. So, I'm thinking, “That's genuine! I'm sharing air at this moment with one of Howlin' Wolf's guitars.” Complete and utter tourist fan-boy amazement. The worst kind of it. But then the tour guide picked up the guitar and played with it, basically calling me an idiot and saying “No, idiot! This is a prop.” I got all my wind back. But, honestly, standing in that room was something special.

So, after that, took the long walk to the riverfront and bought my ticket for the Mississippi tour. Thought it was later than it was (CLOCKS!) and realized I had over an hour to kill before it started, so I went to find some lunch. Knew of no BBQ around, but ran into a place that I had read about, the Front Street Deli. And that's what I was totally in the mood for, just a simple turkey sandwich. I guess the place is known for just being a little hole in the wall with a decent sandwich and a personable owner. Pretty sure, actually no question about it, I spent more time talking to the owner of the deli than I did speaking to anybody else the entire week. And it didn't feel like that, “I have a reputation for being personable so you're going to engage with DAMMIT” thing that I feel with a lot of business owners, but rather, “Well, we're the only two people here. What's up?” Much more enjoyable to me.

Mississippi River Tour. I might advise people to skip this. I don't know what I was expecting. I guess a guy dressed up like Mark Twain sword-fighting scoundrels with his cane and almost getting knocked into one of those big spinning paddle things. Paddles and steam and spinning of yarns. Not an hour and a half of one bridge for cars, one bridge for trains, and pointing out where Cybil Shepherd used to live, and making sure everyone knew exactly where the real state line was, and how the basketball team is a bunch of whiners. Oh, and making a point of telling everyone that the Mississippi is shorter than a lot of other rivers and not nearly as awesome in size as you might think. Yeah, let's make this trip as underwhelming as possible, tour guide. I didn't totally regret it. The weather was pretty nice. It's pretty hard to get genuinely aggravated on a boat. I'm just saying, it put me to sleep.

After that, walked to the to the Memphis Rock 'N Soul Museum. Sounds pretty expansive, that's a lot of ground to cover right? Well, in my opinion, this was the most disappointing display I went to. Before this, I'd never taken a self-guided audio tour, and I wasn't immediately impressed with the concept based on this place. Because there was a lot of audio, and not nearly enough to look at. So it was like the sync was off. The audio track might have five minutes left and there's nothing left in the section to explore. What am I supposed to do? Sit down, close my eyes, wait for the audio to end, and then move to the next one? Eventually I dispensed with the audio portion and just looked around for my own enjoyment. Much better. But there was some neat stuff there, like this:

And this:

At which point I realized, this was the first point my birthday had even entered my mind since leaving. (Your fault, BB King!) It's working! Went back to the hotel to make dinner plans, but upon reaching my room, my stomach was just screaming at me, “No BBQ! We'll do it again later but I just can't take it right now!” and my eyes and face were feeling the effects of being bludgeoned by sunshine all day. Plus, for whatever reason, a lot of restaurants are not open on Monday. Ended up just getting a pint of frozen yogurt and flopping on my back for some napping and planning, which ended up becoming a pattern the whole trip. Kroger had these really good pints of frozen yogurt, for a store brand they were really good and the stats on them were pretty fantastic. So I tried them all over the course of the trip. A nice little cap to the day back in the room.

Tennessee Trip Part 1

Pretty much every blog post I make now starts out with “I've been meaning to post this for...” because I just have very little zeal for blogging lately. And by lately I pretty much mean this year. But I do want to get this out before I forget it all. Went on a vacation a couple weeks ago, making the long flirted with trip to Memphis, and a couple other stops on the way there and back. First vacation I've taken in a long long time that was not centered around some big event or family obligation, which was really nice. Those events, no matter how benign they are in reality, always give me a lot of anxiety in the anticipation, and it makes it hard to me to have fun on a trip. Really nice to just go with an “I'll work it out when I get there” attitude toward the whole trip. So, the run-down.

The Pre-Go

Looking at what my summer work schedule was going to be from a vantage point of late May, it was pretty obvious that I couldn't realistically take any significant amount of time off. I wasn't too upset about that. No part of my family was planning a beach trip or a Niagara Falls trip or anything like that, so I decided early in the summer I'd be happier just working the whole summer and taking time off once school had started back up, my projects were over, the air was cooler, and I'd just go somewhere. Hadn't decided where or when, but in pretty quick succession it occurred to me what would be perfect. My birthday, a 30^th that I was definitely uptight about, was two weeks after the end of scholastic summer. Seemed like the perfect time to do it. I could take the entire week off surrounding it, and hopefully avoid even thinking about it. I'd just take myself completely out of the situation. No sitting around the house thinking about how depressing it is to be as old as my oldest memories of my parents. (Does that make sense? In my head, I guess I always think of my parents as 30 year olds. They're not 20 year olds, because when I was growing up that seemed too young for parents. My parents turned 30 when I was between 2 and 3, so I guess around the time I could make logical sense of who they were, especially in relation to other people. So, the way I think of it, if I'm 0, they're 30. Now I'm 30. That's a mess of crap to deal with. Yeah, that makes them 60, I should probably take that into account. But I have to deal with 30 first, and I'm not getting by that quickly.) Nobody around who has any idea who I am, or what's going on with me, and certainly nobody who's going to remind me of it. Seemed perfect, but where to go? Initially I thought, “mountains.” For a long time now I've thought I wanted to take a trip to some mountains somewhere and just hang out. But I realized pretty quickly that would probably get old fast, I doubt it would entertain me for a week. But, visit a city? As a general rule, cities of any size annoy the fuck out of me. Call that a generalization if you will, but it's true. So I wanted to find one that wouldn't annoy the fuck out of me, but what the hell city was that? I just kind of stared at a map and tried to figure it out. Maybe Portland? Just guessing, I've just heard it's kind of nice but there's no real particular attraction there for me. And now that indie rock pretty much annoys the shit out of me by default, let's avoid the capital. Maybe Atlanta? Why? I don't know, Georgia seems nice. Nope. Maybe Oklahoma City? You're really stretching now. Then I attacked it Kissick-Seattle-style, asking myself, What's a place that's held mythical sway over my brain for a long time, that I'm somewhat familiar with in terms of attractions, that will offer me plenty of alluring distractions?

DUH!

*SMACK*

Memphis.

And it just all sort of fell together. I could even break it up and include the mountains. Take a leisurely two days to drive to Memphis, stopping wherever along the way, do three days of Memphis, on the way back stop somewhere in the Smoky Mountains, take a hike, and take an even more leisurely two days to get from the Smokies back to Fredericksburg. Perfect. I'd even rent a car so I didn't have to worry about my truck handling the trip. Even more perfect. Summer goes by. Summer sucks. I don't like summer, don't want anything to do with it anymore. I pretty much worked for 10 hours a day, came home, filled 2 hours, slept for 9-10, got up and did it again. And was content to spend it that way. Moving on.

Day 1: Fredericksburg to Erwin, TN

Erwin seemed like it was smack in the middle of the line to Memphis, so that's where I made plans to stay. Picked up my car on Saturday morning and headed straight out. Was so thankful to get a rental with the auxiliary-in for the Zune I'd bought a few weeks before. One of the only things I spent my summer doing was compiling a crap-load of rockabilly, soul, blues, doo-wop, country, R&B, rock & roll, roots, and swamp. (Plus Joanna Newsom of course) Let me tell you, nothing's better than putting that mix on shuffle. Sustained me through hours and hours of driving with a lot of smiles on my face. More than one at a time. I'm really considering never adding or subtracting another thing to the Zune in order to preserve this perfect collection of wonders. Even more amazing because I spent all summer being mostly sick of music. I was saving those genres for this trip, so I was trying out other stuff while driving around. None of it stuck, and I basically ended up listening to a lot of podcasts. I took a separate mp3 player with me on the trip for podcasts, but as long as the battery was holding up, it was all Zune. Drive the first day was uneventful but not unpleasant. It didn't exhaust me the way these trips often can. Got to the Super 8 in Erwin, ready for something to eat. I pretty much knew I was going to be eating a truckload of pulled pork while in Memphis. I didn't see any way to avoid it, figured to pack it all in I'd pretty much be having it every meal. More on that later. So I figured I'd get started early in Erwin. Went to a place called Hawg 'N Dawg, whose specialty is a hot dog with pulled pork on top of it. I wasn't feeling that, not much of a hot dog person anymore. So I ordered the pulled pork platter, which was advertised as pork with bread and two sides. Gotta be beans and slaw. Now, “pork and roll” sounds to me like you're just getting the ingredients for a sandwich, which is why I didn't just order a plain sandwich. Cuz I wanted those sides. But the “roll” was more like a hot dog roll split in two, not really enough to pile pulled pork on. So, it was just okay. It did it's job though.

Fun fact about staying at the Super 8 in Erwin. If you try to go into town to get something to eat, there's a good chance you will be sitting waiting for a train to go by. And possibly stuck between two trains.

Stayed up a little later watching some MMA and went to sleep.

Updating Is Hard

Candy Ban 2010 is in major peril thanks to a sighting of these:









I am soooo tempted. I have a feeling this is another knock-em-out-of-the-park win for M&Ms. As far as I know these are a permanent addition, so hopefully they'll be around in 2011.

Have been meaning to post on several things lately, ranging from prog to ice cream, but just haven't gotten around to it. And now the things I want to include have so bloated that every time I think about sitting down to get it all out...there's a lot of TV I could be watching.

First thoughts on Have One On Me

Very first thoughts? Drag City, I love you. I think I pre-ordered this pretty much as soon as the option was available, because of course I was getting the vinyl set, but it kind of bummed me out because I figured that my having it on the day it came out would be an impossibility. Figured I'd have to wait until close to the weekend if it shipped on Tuesday. But nope, got it on the Monday before it hits stores. I love that. THAT is how you do things, Drag City! I wish I liked more of your artists! What was even better was that it was a surprise right up until the very moment I opened the box, because I recently also ordered the new book Visions of Joanna Newsom, and that's supposed to be coming any day now. So when I saw that box sitting on my steps, I assumed it was the book. Wrong! Elation!

So, I'll take my initial thoughts (and they are sooooooooooo cursory at this point) from this angle. I have literally been waiting for years to hear a studio version of "Esme." I have listened to that youtube video of the live version more times than I'd care to realize. It came out at a time when there were no rumblings of her working on a new album, or songs for a new album. The story that circulated on it was that it was written about a friend of Joanna's's baby, or actually written for the baby. Who knows if that story is true or not, but if you buy into it, the whole situation makes it a perfect candidate for a song that would never end up on an album, just left to be sung for whoever Esme was, while Joanna moved on to a larger project. So I've always thought of that song as a singular piece. It never really occurred to me that it would end up as a section of a larger album. If it did end up on an album, I assumed that would mean Joanna had retreated from something that seems conceptual like Ys (though she denies there's a concept or one vision running through that record, it's hard to believe because the five songs just sound too much like they belong together) back to a collection of songs like The Milk-Eyed Mender. In fact, that's kind of what I was expecting, an album that took the lessons learned writing Ys but applying them in several different directions. And the advance release tracks seemed to be pointing in that direction too. 81, Good Intentions Paving Company, and Kingfisher are pretty radically different, so I thought we were going to get a record that was all over the place. I didn't realize "Esme" was going to be on the record until I got it, didn't look at the tracklisting before it was in my hands. So even when I started listening, I thought I was going to be listening to her basically playing with sounds that were new to her and seeing what she could do with them, but not necessarily trying to make a whole out of them.

I'm pretty sure I'm wrong. It's true that there's new sounds for Joanna on this record. There's a lot of For The Roses-era Joni Mitchell in here. And if people finally start forgiving her voice on this record (FOOLS!) they're going to find faults this time around with the way she often abandons meter in her vocals. Sometimes, actually many times, she sounds way more interested in singing what she's written than making a tune out of it. Especially on the second of the three records. My guess would be that if people try to split it up, they're going to harp on the second record being unmemorable and declare the third record as the triumph, and because of that call the whole thing overlong. But to split them up would definitely be their first mistake. Even starting into the second record, I still hadn't made my mind up as to whether or not what I was listening to was one whole or a bunch of songs, partially just not being able to believe she could sustain one story over three records. I was wrong. It's painfully obvious to me now. Things just keep popping up as clues. There's spiders and rabbits and horses all over it, attention to dainty clothes, a decent amount of murder, all running throughout. And just reading the lyrics, the first song relates directly to the last in ways I didn't get on the first listen. And the refrain from the middle of the second record that appears at the end of the third. Plus just musically there's a commonality between several songs, though not monotony. It could be that I'm just letting Lost color my view of all media now, but I think there's a lot to pick apart here. So...triumph. It's really rare that I get excited for the first listen of a new album anymore. It never happens that I'm even MORE stoked for the imminent multiple listenings.

And it came with a poster.

How things manage to blow in the face of orgasmic awesomeness

February 23, 2010. One month from today. It's a Tuesday. There will be a new episode of Lost. Joanna Newsom's new album is scheduled to come out. It is also National Pancake Day. Construct a better day. I dare you! But, of course, I find out the guy who is supposed to work the board meetings, which I am not supposed to work anymore, is going to be out of town. And as of now, that means I have to plan to work late that day. CRUEL!

New Year's Resolutions

A quick list of the New Year's resolutions. These are the ones I can remember. New Year's Eve I was coming off a binge of cookies, candy, pizza, ice cream, presents, snow, all sorts of things, that had lasted the previous week. I was in prime mode for unrealistic resolutions and I think I thought about making a lot of them. These are the ones I can remember, thus the ones that I'll stick with.

1. Pitchfork Ban Year 2: Self-explanatory. I should be able to stick with this one pretty easily.

2. Watch fewer TV shows: It has become apparent to me that I'm way too easily sucked in to TV shows. Right now, as all my shows are taking a break from new episodes, my nights are so free it's unbelievable. While the season is in full swing though, I'm constantly checking Yahoo TV listings and skillfully planning what I'll watch live, what I need to record, when something will rerun so that if it's playing at the same time I'm watching one thing and recording another I'll still be able to get the new episode of this other show within the week. It's stressful. I guess this is really not to watch less TV but to follow fewer TV shows. I will still be watching lots of television. But there's really no reason I need to be steadfastly following Top Chef, Hell's Kitchen, Tough Love, Dr. Drew's Celebrity Rehab (I don't know if I can give this one up honestly), PTI, Around the Horn, Community, Office reruns, UFC rehash, and so on into infinity. Do you know how stressful it was trying to fit all those in and keep up with Christmas specials last month? Brutal. Mostly I need to learn to let these shows go and not feel like I'm missing out on anything. If they get good, I'll hear about it and I'll check it out. Community is the perfect example. I've watched since the first episode and so I feel invested in it. But it's never ever really been that funny. I keep waiting for it to take a leap into the same level as the rest of those Thursday shows but it really doesn't look like it's going to. And 90% of the characters annoy me, but I keep watching because What If It Gets Awesome?! Bad. BAD! I should maybe think about getting a hobby.

3. Play music more. For my own benefit. So depressing. Two years ago I bought the Harmony Rocket I had been after for years. Such a pretty piece of work. And after the first week I had it, I've maybe really played it four or five times. So sad. I want to pick it back up, just for my own enjoyment, so I don't get mad at myself when I realize I'm not up to writing songs and I shouldn't consider taking it outside the house. Just try to get back some of that enthusiasm I had in my bedroom in middle school. And it should be relatable to that, considering my ability after this lay-off might be hovering somewhere around what it was when I first picked up the instrument.

4. Lay off the candy: This one, at least in the short term, is going to be insanely hard. I have yet to be able to keep myself from strolling the candy aisle to see what's there when I go to the grocery store. But I need to knock it off, and I'm going to try for the whole year. The problem with my candy operation is this: I want to try all the new candy that's out there. Sometimes I would get lucky and the things I wanted to try came in singles, but lately, with things like all the varieties of Kisses and the new Pieces line, I had to buy a size of bag that was meant to be consumed over a lengthy period of time or by multiple people. I do not operate that way. What would inevitably happen is I would buy a big bag of candy, wolf down some, enough for a review, and then one of two things. Suck down the rest in the span of, say, a couple of days, maybe, then be disgusted with myself, and swear off candy. Until next week. Or, I would wolf down some, enough for a review, suck down a little more, get disgusted with myself, and throw the rest away, knowing that if I kept it around I was not going to be able to resist sucking down more, and wasting a lot of money. It all depended on how quickly I got disgusted with myself. (Which I guess is a pretty good barometer of how good the candy is. If I want to suck it down faster than I get disgusted with myself, it's probably good candy.) So, I don't want to do that anymore, and the easiest way to avoid it is to just convince myself I'm going cold turkey on candy. Lord knows I don't seem to be able to instill any willpower in myself. It's going to be really hard for a while though. Like the other day I was in the grocery store, and they're already putting out Valentine's candy, and even Easter candy, which includes Reese's Hearts and Eggs. I think Reese's Eggs might have the absolute greatest chocolate/peanut butter combo ratio of them all. Love 'em. Not this year though. Very hard to keep myself out of that candy aisle. It's a lot like my thing with TV though. I need to convince myself that by not partaking in candy and TV, even if it's only around for a limited time, I'm not doing anything life-threatening, not missing out on anything catastrophic.

I kind of want to extend the candy ban to sweet baked goods and pastries too. It's not right for a single person living alone to buy an entire cake. What am I going to do with an entire cake other than eat the whole thing? Well, more likely scenario, buy an entire cake, eat a piece, not want it anymore and throw the rest away, along with a good chunk-a-change. However, that resolution will not apply to birthday parties or holidays. Even the candy thing may not apply to birthday parties. I'd rather be struck dead than not participate in another ice cream party topping festival.

5. Follow more MMA. I'm really enjoying this sport, but I've only really been following one part of it, the UFC. Need to get into other fight leagues, especially the Japanese ones. Shouldn't be hard, considering the UFC is going to start suing "pirates" and other organizations seem to have fewer problems with their fights showing up on the internet.

Man, it hasn't been five minutes and I'm already kind of regretting the candy one. I'm really not sure how long that one lasts.

I tried...

I was going to put together a list of my favorite video clips from the past decade, which I guess would actually be things I watched the most. But, I ran into a couple of problems. First, so many of the ones I wanted to include were not available for embedding, or else just not out there uploaded somewhere. Second, I started going through some of the old cd's I had burned with videos on them, trying to find ones I wasn't thinking of. And the most interesting thing I came across was two discs worth of video of Adam & I practicing in the Little Theater and some Trinkle. And then I got severely depressed. Because I was enormous and an ass. Lots of cringing going on here Sunday night. But anyway, I decided to narrow the decade down to these two available clips, one of which, of course, is probably almost 20 years old.

Quick reviews

Want to get these out of the way before I start making some lists. I will keep these short.

First thing I tried was some of the new Pieces line. Seems like these took a loooooooooooong time to be released, they should have jumped on this train years ago. Expanding the line that started with Reese's Pieces, they've now taken and made pieces out of other candy bars. They've done it so far with York Peppermint Patties, Almond Joys, and Hershey's Special Dark. I bought the Yorks and the Almond Joys. The Yorks are delicious, they're pretty much what you'd expect. They taste like little crunchy peppermint patties in M&M-like form. Cram them. In a good way. The Almond Joys are a little more interesting. I wasn't sure how these were going to work out, trying to cram coconut AND almonds into a little M&M-size candy. How is that possible?!? When M&M wants to put even one of those ingredients in they have to double or triple the size. Well, I didn't really notice the almond so much, but the coconut is dominant on these. Not just in flavor like the coconut M&Ms, and you don't really notice it if you just have one, but if you cram a handful in your mouth and start chewing, you get the sensation of the exact texture of a coconut candy bar. There's real coconut in there, so all the people who found a reason to be angry about there being no real coconut in the M&Ms can shut up AND have a miniature candy now. Not my favorite flavor, but I could see them being really addictive.

Last review. Turkey Hill Ginger Snap ice cream. "Spiced ice cream swirled with ginger snap cookies." The ice cream was not way out there spiced but definitely off vanilla. You could detect ginger and cinnamon in there, but it wasn't an overwhelming flavor. The ginger snap cookies were more solid and crunchy than the Ben & Jerry's version, which was more like dough. More like what you'd expect if you had a bag of ginger snap cookies. And there was no caramel swirl in this, which was fine with me. Glop is fun sometimes, but after the debacle of the sweetness of Maple Blondie I just wanted some rather straightforward ice cream.

More listing

Starting this at 1:30 (I woke up at 1, I haven't done that in a really long time) and it will probably be all day or more before I finally get it published, because I'm just so easily distracted.

First of all, I'm taking it back and I am actually going to make a Favorite 10 of the Decade list. No explanations, because this list is really so obvious it's almost embarrassing. But I went through allmusic's best of each year lists and realized there were some things I really liked that were worth noting. I didn't include reissues though, and I limited myself to one album per artist (thus meaning no Furnace Room Lullaby or Milk-Eyed Mender on here, though they easily could have been). So I guess it kind of ends up being a 10 favorite artists of the decade as much as albums. First of all, honorable mentions to M. Ward's Transistor Radio, Brian Wilson's SMiLE, A.C. Newman's The Small Wonder (really wanted to put that on there but I had New Pornos and felt like I was double dipping) and Calexico's Scraping.

So here's what I decided was my decade top 10.
(10) Jazzanova - Of All The Things
(9) Cat Power - The Greatest
(8) The New Pornographers - Electric Version (hard one to choose from their first three)
(7) Robert Belfour - What's Wrong With You
(6) Bob Dylan - Love And Theft
(5) Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Pt. 1: 4th World War
(4) ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - Source Tags & Codes
(3) Arcade Fire - Funeral
(2) Neko Case - Blacklisted
(1) Joanna Newsom - Ys

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My top 5 bands that get a lot of attention I don't think they should:
(5) Iron & Wine (even when I was way into nothing but new folk music, I hated this guy. King of the weakly whisperers.)
(4) The Walkmen
(3) Kings of Leon
(2) The Mountain Goats
(1) The National
and I would just like to shout out here to the Black Keys, Modest Mouse, Deerhoof, and Malkmus/Silver Jews/reunited Pavement. And I would really really love to put The Decemberists on here, but it's a little disingenuous considering how much I used to like them. It makes me want to cut myself.

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Top 20 Albums That Had A Major Effect On Me This Decade (not necessarily from this decade). I can't really try to order these. They mattered to me for such different reasons, it would be kind of impossible to compare them.

Television - Marquee Moon: Hard to overstate what a big deal discovering this album was for me. Heard about it on that VH1 Top 100 Albums show, the one line I could make out from the feature was stuck in my head for days before I downloaded it and fell in love. In a weird way, it broke the stranglehold that guitar-based classic rock had on my listening habits, by being a guitar-based rock album. The songs were just so different from anything else I'd been listening to, the guitar was new to me, although the working relationship of Lloyd and Verlaine wasn't all that different from a lot of classic rock bands I'd listened to, what they made of it was.

The Flaming Lips - Transmissions From The Satellite Heart: Also hard to overstate. Another monster guitar album for me. I spent a lot of time trying to figure how Ronald made the sounds on this album and loved the fact that the band came up with songs to support them. This first, then with help from Clouds Taste Metallic, forced me to fall head over heels in love with this band.

Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea: The language, the melodies, Mangum's unhinged jaw, instrumentation that ran the gamut from an acoustic guitar to everything plus horns made this the album that for years after I heard I was not hesitant to call my favorite album ever.

Elvis Presley - From Elvis In Memphis: I had been into the typical Sun Session Elvis for a long time before. But when I finally listened to this album, over and over and over, I realized there was way more to Elvis than I had ever thought. Not my fave of his anymore, but the major one in my fandom.

Bob Dylan - The Basement Tapes
The Band - Music From Big Pink: I'm putting these two together since they kind of overlap and I was obsessed with them at about the same time and for similar reasons. I fell in love with the idea of making music for no other reason than because. And fell in love with Richard Manuel's voice.

Charles Mingus - The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady: Fave jazz album, fave instrumental album, at a time when I was falling out of love with guitars this album let me fall in love with horns.

Joanna Newsom - Ys: Just plain my favorite album released this decade. For a period of a couple months after this was released, I would go for a walk everyday and listen to this in its entirety.

of Montreal - Coquelicot Asleep In The Poppies: I gave these guys a lot of attention as what seemed like the last of Elephant 6 and because they were this little indie band with seemingly limited resources that managed to make what sounded like really involved records. Have a hard time listening to it now though because of the cute factor.

V/A - Golden Apples Of The Sun: Comp that made me fall in love with neo-folk, which lasted for a pretty good amount of time.

The Sonics - Here Are The Sonics: Fueled my garage love more than anything

The Hives - Veni Vidi Vicious
The Shins - Oh Inverted World
The Strokes - Is This It?
The White Stripes - White Blood Cells: Putting these all together because they were from that first summer when I first started putting a little credence into semi-indie rock that was getting hyped like mad, which seems to have become a major trend in popular music. The Hives, I don't remember where I heard them first, probably MTV, so reminiscent of The Sonics that I couldn't avoid them. The Shins, good singing, and learned about them from a stamp of approval from Zach Galifianakis. The Strokes, too catchy and pretty too ignore. And The White Stripes, gimmick after gimmick after gimmick that all worked and all supported songs with a lot of Zeppelin in them.

(about 7 hours between when I wrote that last one and when I've come back to this. These descriptions are going to get much shorter.)

Magic Sam - West Side Soul: Started the decade with this. First band we put together, this is all I wanted to play.

Robert Belfour - What's Wrong With You: My favorite blues album released this decade, and the one that made me want to play acoustic blues with itches.

Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Pt. 1, 4th World War: I went crazy for the "Honey" single when I first saw the video, thought it was one of the best new songs I'd heard in a long long time. The album was just as good, though completely different from the single, and it made me realize neo-soul was something that was worth checking out.

Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation: This gave me the itch to check out all those years of indie I had no idea existed. Informed what I listened to for a good three or four years.

The Velvet Underground - White Light/White Heat: Mostly side two. As much as I wanted to be Ronald Jones, side two of White Light/White Heat was just as much of an aspiration.

My Morning Jacket - At Dawn: Someone sent me "If It Smashes Down" on a mix. Loved the voice. Jim James completely changed what I was looking for in male singers. Being that that is basically a solo performance, I wasn't prepared for the interplay of the band when I heard the whole album, and the variety of performances that ranged from gorgeous "I Needed It Most" to balls-out "Honest Man" and a mix in "Strangulation," creating this mix of several of my beloveds including Brian Wilson and Gram Parsons and even my old classic rock tendencies. I do think they kind of stepped it up with It Still Moves, but At Dawn was always my favorite.

The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds: Nothing to say.

Bruce McCulloch - A Shame-Based Man: How much did I love this? The greatest mix of hilariousness, surrealism, and not horrible music.

Neko Case - Blacklisted: Exactly what I wanted at the time that I found it. Her voice is still one of my absolute favorites, and I think this collection of songs is still her best. Sparing instrumentation that still shimmers, and her voice can often make you see things in vibration. And these songs sound timeless to me, I'd stack them up against anything.

Honorable mentions: Randy Newman - Sail Away, The Stooges - Fun House, Mitch Hedberg - Strategic Grill Locations, various comps from Charley Patton, Blind Willie McTell, and Elmore James. There's probably a lot of stuff I should add to this list that I'm not thinking of, but what kind of list would it be if there wasn't? Not one of mine! Probably a few more than 20 too. So if I wasn't sticking to a set number, why did I end up with honorable mentions? This must be why the professional list-makers at Rolling Stone get paid millions upon hundreds of dollars.

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These are my top three guilty pleasures of the decade. Guilty pleasures are not something I usually recognize, usually if I like something I know why and I consider it a good reason. But, there was that one year where I had the MTVHits channel, with its videos OnDemand, and I watched it a lot. And in particular I became enamored with these three.

(3) Beyonce - "Get Me Bodied": I especially liked the second half of this. I'd walk around my apartment going "Do the scissor leg. Touch your heel touch your toe," in a really quiet voice. And for some reason I deemed it awesome that she had gotten the former Destiny's Child members to be in the video. Why did I think that was so great? I never cared about Destiny's Child before.

(2) Lil Mama - I was pretty sure I was supposed to hate "Lip Gloss" but there was no way I was going to. I liked that it was this big fake drum in space with a vocal on top that was the 00s equivalent of Kris Kross. And even though it was all big fake drum, Lil Mama felt the need for a "no music" section. Ironically, if I was younger at the time, say high school age, I would have hated it, because I would have hated the people it was pandering to (or representing, however you want to look at it). But maybe because I'm way too old to be listening to it, I had the reaction of "Oooo, Lil Mama! What are the 'mac-mac brushes'?!" And then I loved the follow up "G-Slide" just as much, because it reaffirmed the Kriss Kross association. Lil Mama tour bus might ride through your town. Any chance that's the same bus Kriss Kross missed? What's weird is that I saw these videos and there was no album. For the longest time there was no album! I looked and looked and it just had not come out. Kept getting pushed back. Then the album finally came out and I didn't hear anymore from Lil Mama. Then I find out she's on some dancing show and otherwise is just trying to make Jay-Z's life hard. One other thing, her head is enormous. Her head to body ratio is something like a Pep Boy or Mars Attacks. That's a little intriguing.

(1) Paramore: This one is really pretty embarrassing. I work with this guy who is always talking about Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift and how he's always watching what they're up to. He just sounds like a statutory rapist. I do not want to sound like that, so I would never bring up how much I listen to Paramore, which I swear is strictly a musical thing. I saw their videos on MTVHits and for some reason they just struck a chord with my like button. Even though they look like the most annoying brats of all time, I got sucked into what sounded like a lot of enthusiasm for a young band. It's weird, because they have no musical similarity whatsoever, but whenever I saw them I got this Katrina and the Waves vibe. Because it was a band that sounded like they were excited to be playing with a girl singer that didn't mind shouting at the top of her lungs. I write that out now and I look at it and I STILL don't totally understand why I think that's such a good thing. But, here's the embarrassing part, it didn't stop with those videos. Checked out the album, listened to it multiple times, two years later their next album comes out, and I'm all over that one too. Maybe even enjoying it MORE than the first one.

And I'm ending there. For today. I may put a couple others up later, I'd at least like to get my resolutions up there, hoping that if I make them public I'll feel more pressed to stick with them.

Lists

So, lists. I'm not going to make a "Favorite albums of this year" or "Favorite albums of this decade" list. Those lists would be short and uninspired, because I just haven't been paying that much attention the lasts few years, and largely the albums I liked that came out 2005 and before I don't like now (things such as the Decemberists and of Montreal. Wow have I ever switched off on stuff like that!). There have been a few albums from this decade that have become ones I'd place among my favorites. Blacklisted and At Dawn come to mind. There were a lot of albums in The College Years and the couple years after that I loved to death but now I can't stand to hear. I don't want to revisit them much. There's really only been one album this decade I can think of (Ys) that I would stack up with any other throughout time and wish to be buried with. That is, if I had to be selective about which records I was going to be buried with. It seems like most other things I've heard have been pleasant enough to listen to once or else trash.

(Someone is driving through the neighborhood honking their horn, apparently because they think honking a car horn is a universal way of saying it's a new year to all the people sitting in their homes that obviously have no desire to be anywhere near that fucker and his car. Or it's just a way for him to get some attention, whether it's from someone in his house or someone in his passenger seat. I hope he hits a tree. Or finds a canyon.)

That's not to say I haven't listened to a lot of stuff that was new to my ears during this decade that I did enjoy. (Although, not so much the last year.) But it really has no relevance to the last decade. They're only relevant to me. For instance, in college I was probably the last person to figure out the Velvet Underground was awesome. More recently, I'm probably the last person on Earth to figure out Yes is better than just Fragile. But, anyway, maybe I can make a few lists.

First of all, in terms of new music I tried to follow, the overwhelming trend this decade seemed to be that I would get into a band heavily, get incredibly excited when they were about to put out a new album, and then be disappointed with the new effort. My top five examples:

(5) Wilco - A Ghost Is Born. I don't care much for Wilco now, but at the time I thought they were super geniuses. I thought they were versatile in the styles they covered with excellent execution, thought the lyrics were good, and the instrumentation was pretty interesting too. Then A Ghost Is Born came out and I was bored to tears. End of that. Where before I had liked Jeff Tweedy's vocals, all of a sudden everything he sang from then on sounded like he was as bored as I was listening to him.

(4) The White Stripes. I'm not really sure which album to pick here. I was crazy about them. Bringing blues (though as much a put-on as it has ever been) into indie in a simple way that was both fun to listen to and eye-catching. Elephant came out and had a bunch of tracks on it I really liked, but by and large I wasn't that taken with it. So was that the disappointment? After that Get Behind Me Satan came out and I didn't care much for that at all. A big departure for them, and not one I was enamored with. But actually, after some time, I grew to like that one more and more. So was that the disappointment? Icky Thump, that was absolutely a disappointment, and it's totally indicative of why I can't stand to see Jack White's face anymore. I couldn't help but think that album would have been a lot better if hadn't been trying so hard to make himself a jack-of-all-trades. He wants to be everywhere and everything to everyone, and sort of assumes that anything he does will get a massive stamp of approval. And so far it has, even though every album he makes sounds more half-assed than the one before, especially when it comes to the White Stripes.

(3) My Morning Jacket - Z. Sweet merciful christ did I love My Morning Jacket before this album came out! I guess what I loved about It Still Moves was just the guitar rock aspect of it. The songs sounded ENORMOUS, and you got this back and forth in the guitars that was rare. Then Z comes out and it's dominated by keyboards, or at least that's what I heard. I was so mad. And that happened a lot to me this decade, keyboards taking over. I am not totally averse to keyboards. At the time I was heavy into The Band, and part of why I was so into My Morning Jacket was that I thought they incorporated a lot of that guitar-keyboard interplay on At Dawn and It Still Moves that made The Band so great. But they synthy sounds on Z that seemed to come with the new keyboard player just sounded so inorganic to me that it was a total turn-off. And when I read the lyrics. Geez. I had thought of Jim James as a pretty good lyricist, but I didn't like these at all. Like "A good showerhead and my right hand, the two best lovers that I ever had." (In fairness, after that I went back and read a lot of his previous lyrics and was less impressed than I thought I'd be.) I've since sort of come to terms with and can listen to this album, but still not the follow-up I was hoping for.

(2) Neko Case. Another one where I wasn't sure which album to pick. Blacklisted hit me hard when I first heard it. These very mysterious songs, they seemed out of time, classic, and a beautiful balance of song and story. And obviously her voice thrilled me. When I heard Neko was working on a new album and Garth Hudson was going to be out, little squeals of excitement came out of my ears. When Fox Confessor came out, not so enamored with it. I thought the mood on Blacklisted was so natural, here it seemed like something she was trying to create. She was very wordy now, sometimes at the expense of lyrical flow. Some of the songs like Teenage Feeling and At Last, I just plain didn't like. Then I heard her trying to connect all these songs to Russian folk tales. Geez. Basically an intellectual exercise where Blacklisted was completely visceral. The big problem is, that album is actually very good. Star Witness is up there with anything else she's done. Another big problem is that I have met several people who got into her on the basis of this album and think it's a masterpiece, which a lot of people do think. But it bothers me because those people don't even acknowledge, or perhaps haven't even heard, Blacklisted. Anyway, as I say, Fox Confessor was a very good album, but initially a disappointment. Middle Cyclone came out and just was not memorable. Now she was very very wordy, and it always sounded like she wanted to speak more than she wanted to sing, making the songs a lot less than memorable. Middle Cyclone is definitely the lesser album, but I don't know if it was quite as big a disappointment.

(1) Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. Oh boy, do I really want to get into this? I loved everything about The Flaming Lips from their inception to the time when I got into them, which I guess was 2001 or 2002. They made great albums, they got better and better with every album, they made great B-sides, they did lots of crazy stuff with the packaging of their records and singles to promote fanaticism, they had a revolving cast of some of the most genius musicians to contribute to "indie" rock in ways that other bands just seemed completely incapable of approaching, and their live show seemed to be taking steps to since the days of flaming cymbals to becoming a circus. I loved that they had that one hit, and that seemed to actually keep them more obscure than they should have been. It seemed like people knew that hit and figured that was all they needed to know. I loved telling people at WCWM that I was going to do a nine hour Lips show and having them say, "Shit. I didn't know they had that much music," and knowing myself that I was not going to be able to fit in all I wanted to play in nine hours. Yoshimi was the first album newly released while I was into them. I convinced myself at the time that I liked it, I forced myself to like it, but deep down I wanted more from them. It seemed so gimmicky to me, it reminded me of someone trying too hard to be weird, which became what the Lips were all about after that. The live show became the same thing for, what, four years? Bringing people to dance on stage, a plastic bubble, Wayne's suit, the same list of songs (had to stay the same so they could play to the tapes!). I was not impressed anymore, and I think it started with Yoshimi. The robot gimmick, Do You Realize as a pandering to the audience, pandering throughout the album, trying to approach these big questions which their audience just ate up, but ultimately I thought were too easy for these guys. And they did make some great songs at the time. Funeral In My Head is still one of my favorite Lips songs. And I could just as easily say Mystics here. That was definitely a disappointment, that was just a disaster. They should never have made anything that awful. But Yoshimi is the one that sticks with me, because I was waiting for it with such anticipation.

Well, now it's 2am. That took too long. If I keep writing too much explanation I'm not going to get much written. I'll try.

Favorite Things Of The Past Year:
(5) Limited Edition Everything: Lots of fun hunting, lots of fun doing my best impression of serious reviewing, lots of good discoveries, a couple of favorites being the Strawberried Peanut Butter M&Ms and Ginger Snap Ben & Jerry's. I even have a new review to put tonight for Turkey Hill Ginger Snap. Ooooo! Controversial comparisons! I had an enormous satisfaction when, after a couple months, I finally found that Snickers Fudge bar I had been obsessing over. It was fun, but I think I'm going to let that hobby be stuck in 2009. I'll explain that more if I make a list of resolutions.

(4) Texting: In general, I hate cell phones. They are a necessary evil in my opinion. I can't imagine not having one with me in case of an emergency in my car, but I cannot buy into them wholesale. I really hate that people feel like because you have a cell phone, they are entitled to your time. There have been numerous times at work where people from the schools have gotten my cell phone number from HR, called and left a message, completely subverting the proper channels they're supposed to go through to put in a help call to me, and then been mad when I didn't get and respond to the message immediately. They like to think because they called my cell number, I have no excuse for not immediately responding to them. Well, here's my excuse. I didn't tell you you could get ahold of me through my cell phone. Personally I can't buy into carrying this thing around with me at all times. And the fact that everyone on Earth does so now is becoming really inconvenient for me. It also just plain bugs me that people cannot stay off their phones. Like, I live right next to the college. When school is in and I drive out in the morning to go to work, I drive by countless students walking to class and every single day talking on their phones. Who are they talking to at 7:40 in the morning every single day?!? That means they have an accomplice in this. If someone wanted to call me everyday at that time, after a while I would just have to convince them they don't want to talk to me through obscenities and threats of bodily harm. That's off-topic. Despite how much I dislike cell phones, this year I fell in love with texting. Mostly to my family. It's rare that I need to have a long conversation with my family, I guess because they're all so close. Usually all I need to know from them is where I need to be and at what time. I don't need all the hello's and pleasantries of a phone conversation anymore, all I need to is a quick text. Then I can disperse the pleasantries in person. So convenient too. If I send my brother some bullshit text just to remind him that my kung fu is superior to his kung fu, there's no sense of urgency yet applied to texting. You get to it when you get to it, a lot like email, and that's all anyone expects of it. Unlike a call, where if you don't answer immediately, it's an inexplicable national disaster! Should we call the police?!? I will be very upset if texting takes on that quality in the future. Right now I'm looking for a new cell plan that lets me limit my monthly minutes to a bare minimum but gives me unlimited texting. Not easy to find. Because most months I literally use between zero and two minutes of calling, but I use more texts than I'm allotted.

(3) Jazz and Prog: I was in such a musical rut for most of this year. I was listening to the radio a lot, like the hits stations, just to have something playing while I was driving around. But I wasn't really into anything. I shifted my focus constantly, mostly between current pop hits, neo-soul, and a lot of lunk-headed classic rock. When I went to the beach, I ended up having a bunch of Ornette Coleman and Sonny Rollins on my mp3 player, and since the water was way too cold to go into, I ended up sitting on the beach a lot listening to that. And I was totally bowled over. When I got back, it was back to the same old stuff for a while. Eventually I just said "I've had enough of this!" and wanted something that was exciting, being good for driving, but I just didn't want lyrics or singers, because posturing vocalists were irritating me at the time. I also wanted something to explore. Thus my new enthusiasm for jazz. I knew next to nothing about it really, so I decided I was going to start buying an album a week from someone I had never heard of, but that could get me excited based on an allmusic description. That didn't last much more than a month, but my interest had definitely been tickled. AND even better, I didn't feel guilty about buying jazz CD's, because the records are so much more difficult to find than old rock. Then there's my latest enthusiasm for prog. Mostly Yes. I had always had problems with prog, thinking it was more of an intellectual exercise than an emotional one. Yes kind of helped me put that to rest. So far I've only struck the tip with Yes, ELP, King Crimson, and a little Mahavishnu Orchestra. (And thank you, Adam, for that last rec. Definitely enjoying the first couple Mahavishnu albums, and I would probably never have checked them out if you hadn't told me to, because the words jazz-fusion in general make me cringe.)

(2) Lost and The Shield: The two TV series I breezed through this year. Started the year off having gotten the first season of The Shield as a Christmas gift. Fell in love with the series and blew through it in a couple months. Similarly, finally gave into the recommendation of Lost when it was presented to me by The Kissicks in a way I could not refuse. "Here are all four seasons, you can start from the beginning and watch as much as you want." And I got majorly hooked, quickly. Most times, if a show where the major evil could have easily been a giant cyclops or a dinosaur but instead turned out to be a menacing plume of smoke, I would be screaming angry. Not this time. That show developed so masterfully, and I'm siked for the final season coming up. Both these shows were obsessions for me, literally haunted my dreams and for the time I was watching practically altered the way I perceived the outside world.

(1) Netflix: You know how the number 1 of Letterman's top 10 lists is usually the least entertaining entry of all? That's what this is. Finally broke down and joined Netflix this year, after everybody else on Earth, and, big revelation, I can't get enough of it. Initially I did it because I was getting heavy into martial arts movies and wasn't going to find them on VHS at the thrift stores, and I was sick of dealing with the always iffy quality of torrents. Since then I've used it to feed my MMA obsessions, my love for Westerns, through the streaming I was able to watch the entire original The Office and after years and years of remembering that commercial I saw so long ago finally saw the movie Satisfaction. I could not be more pleased with it, and can't believe I ever though eight dollars a month might not be worth it.

Well, I want to come up with some more lists, but being seemingly incapable of briefly explaining myself, I'm kind of wondering when I'm going to get to bed. Might post some more tomorrow if I come up with something, but that just about sums up the decade doesn't it? Disappointment in and distraction from music that used to rule my life. Dismay. On the bright side, I'm listening to Sade's Stronger Than Pride album for the second time tonight and it is fantastic. And I have record news and a couple new/ltd. edition reviews that I should get up tomorrow, plus a list of resolutions I'll try out. And I'll try to come up with a couple more lists reflective on the past year(s). I should at the very least be able to make a list of the albums that hit me hardest this decade, even if most of them are not from this decade.

But lastly, here's one more thing. The #1 sign that I am old, way older than I ever realized. Songs from my youth are now considered oldies. Once the oldies station stopped playing 24/7 Christmas music this year, they officially announced they'd be playing music from the 80s on the oldies station. I'm hearing music from Elton John (Too Low For Zero-era) and Eurythmics on there that I have distinct memories of hearing on the car radio as a child when they were still considered fresh if not brand new. Now, I was jarred the first time I heard Welcome To The Jungle on a classic rock station, but I could justify that as sort of a loose translation. But oldies?!? Bring on the shaving kits and baby food.