On the run from the fuzz on the way to Nashville

The sun rose lazily over the horizon as the dark orange sky turned red, then pink, and finally the familiar bright blue that heralds a new day of running from the law - one thing I excel at.

I got out of bed and showered - avoiding small dogs running around the upstairs of the house on my way down the hall. I stripped the bed, folded the sheets and left them neatly stacked in the corner of the room. Finally, I packed my guitars into their cases and carried them downstairs like rifles before loading them into the car. I put on my sunglasses and took off down the dusty road - but there was one piece of unfinished business I had in Kansas City.

I'd heard tell that the barbecue 'round these parts was the best on the planet, and I aimed to put that claim to the test. After all, if Anthony Bourdain told you that Oklahoma Joe's Barbecue was the best on Earth, and you just happened to a) be less than a mile from it and b) have an hour to kill, what would you do?

Other than burnouts in your Honda Element, of course.

Why, nothing other than visit Oklahoma Joe's Barbecue. So I found the address and sped recklessly down crowded streets without any concern for human life for several minutes until I found the place. And it's exactly like where you would expect the world's best barbecue to be - in a converted gas station. I heard once earlier this summer that in order to have good barbecue, you have to have a gnarled old black man working in the restaurant. So naturally, the first goal of mine was to look behind the counter into the kitchen, and sure enough, not one, but TWO gnarled old black men were making barbecue back there. I couldn't help but think maybe Anthony Bourdain had it right. 

Protip: Click the image to enlarge it!

At only 11:30 in the morning, right as they opened, the place was already completely packed. All the tables were taken up, and the line was nearly out the door. I learned later that on Friday and Saturday nights, the line actually wraps around the outside of the building several times. But this was before noon, and look how many people there already were:

And after ordering? Here's what came:

I'm not even gonna bother writing about how good it was, especially after only having eaten raisins and a gas station salad in the last three days. Any words I could write here to vainly attempt to describe what the experience was like would make me feel bad later for not having written more. 

Excuse me, I have to go consider ending my life after having had the experience of eating here - and knowing that there would be a very low probability of ever eating anything better again.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm finished, and I've decided that I'll hold on a little longer because I haven't tried everything on the menu quite yet. But that, ladies and gentlemen, is reason enough.

So I departed the back roads and headed out onto the interstate, where I'll make up a story about why I came home with a speeding ticket:

It was bright... bright enough to make you want to close your eyes, like the light glinting off the asphalt was enough to make a man go blind. But you'd never wanna open them again, because you'd be afraid that the world would change away from the renegade hellhole that had made you who you are - a man, alone, nobody to look after and nobody to look after you.

Yeah, that was me.

Sure, it was bright... but I reckoned it was better to tough it out than to drive blind - I'd almost feel bad for the poor bastard unlucky enough to get in my way. So I put my sunglasses on, and headed out onto the open road. Interstate 70, eastbound. Some call it home, some call it hell. Me? I just call it another battlefield to get lost on. 

Like I said, it was bright. There was no way to tell the difference between the sun way up in the hot sky and the thousand suns you saw in the reflections on the bumpers and grills of the steel horses around you - you just kept following them until they led you into the night, into Nashville, where I was bound. 

In front of me, maybe eight or nine good lasso-throws off, I noticed something I hadn't seen since my pa got himself done in by a pair of outlaws from Kentucky - the very car they drove, a dark red Bronco, the same color of the blood I saw on the walls that day so long ago. I could almost smell something. It's a smell you never forget - the smell of regret after two men from Kentucky shoot your pa dead in cold blood. The smell of regret that you were never man enough to go after them. I can still hear his final words to me.

Boy, I ain't never seen a rattlesnake know no fear. You go after them, and you bite them. You bite them dead, you hear me boy?

 

It's a strange feeling when you got to have a man's blood on your hands in order to keep the adrenaline down. But that's the feeling that came over me, and that's exactly what I set off to do. The gas pedal hit the floor, and the rubber skipped across the road like a stone across a lake of fire. I was right behind them. I could smell their fear - they knew this was their last day walking the earth.

But in the rearview mirror, I could see the Missouri State Patrol light up like a match. The adrenaline was gone. It was hate - hate for the men what killed my pa, hate for the law, hate for injustice. In the end, I drove away not with vengeance, but with a speeding ticket. 

Pictured: What my life is like 90% of the time anyway.

But what really happened was the cops set the speed limit on a stretch of interstate to 45 mph, to fill their ticket quotas. So when I raced by in the right lane at the breakneck speed of 64, guess who got to make a donation to the donut fund.

(me.)

I got to Nashville that night. Chill out, it's coming.

The (J.J.) Grey area between good and bad

I had picked up my guitar. I had a total of two guitars, two cases, a gig bag, three harmonicas, a harmonica microphone and a 50-pound amp in the car. My next stop would be the concert, but first I would have to get back to Kansas City.

The GPS on my phone told me to take I-70 east, but it didn't tell me that it was a turnpike that took a toll. I'm not one to carry cash on me, so naturally, when I came to the toll plaza, I had to execute a perfect 180 complete with screeching tires and roaring engines, Burnout style (pretty much the same way I do everything, honestly). I was debating whether to take Route 10, the same way I came, which was free but added fifteen miles and thirty minutes, or to man up and pay the $1.60. In the end, the decision came down to the fact that I liked the font on the street signs used in Lawrence, and I wanted to support the Kansas DOT and encourage them to keep up the good typography work. And that's pretty much the definition of civic responsibility.

Just doing my part.

So I drove back to the music store and suggested a convoluted method by which I could take $5 out of my checking account through a series of purchases and returns, but it proved to be too complicated and possibly illegal. But they suggested going down the street to the grocery store to buy something cheap and get cash back. It felt like a cop-out, but I reluctantly agreed.

I bought a nectarine and got $20 in cash (the smallest cash back amount) which was a little overkill for the toll, but served its purpose. At the moment, I have $18 in cash still sitting on my table. I think it might be a problem that I have no idea what to do with cash when I have it. Usually I just end up blowing it on cockfights and cigars, but I'm trying to curb my gambling and smoking addiction. I swear.

The first Google image result for "cockfights and cigars."

So I get back to Kansas City, and go to the address of Hailey Lauren, the wonderful girl I met through Couchsurfing who let me sleep in her house for the night for free. If you're keeping score at home, the total I've spent so far on lodging is $0.00 (or €0,00 for Eurozone readers). Hailey's house was very similar to Stephanie's, in that it looked like it was taller than it was wide. And I believe it was blueish in color, but the only picture I got of it was, for some reason, color-false. Perhaps because my camera malfunctioned for a second, but I'm gonna say it was because the house was haunted. 

Hayley is super nice. She's the one on the left, I believe.

Her house as seen through a malfunctioning camera WHICH IS HAUNTED.

I could only stay for a few minutes before I had to hurry downtown to the concert. It took place at a venue that pretty much just boiled down to a hollowed-out city block surrounded by old brick buildings. The whole thing had a very slight redneck tinge to it, but I'm not complaining - the opening act was reason enough to go.

Here's the venue. The concert was actually inside the city block on the left side of the picture.

So, according to the ticket, the performing acts were J.J. Grey and Mofo, and Jonny Lang. But to be honest, the only reason to actually go there was the opener. Sure, I'd heard a lot about Jonny Lang that day, so naturally, I was expecting some kind of show. But I've been a fan of Mofro for some time now, and hearing all these other people not even BOTHER to mention them when talking about the concert kind of pissed me a little bit off. After all, Mofro was, in my opinion, one of the best bands in existence, and I'd never even heard of Jonny Lang. Later, I learned he had won some Grammy awards, and had been featured on the most recent albums by Santana, Eric Clapton and Lenny Kravitz. But compared to Mofro? This guy was nothing.

Jonny Lang and J.J. Grey & Mofro? More like ONLY MOFRO.

The interior of the venue (I say "interior" instead of "inside" because it's outdoors) was just a rectangle covered in wood chips. It was surrounded by the backs of dozens of restaurants, all of whom catered to those inside the concert. The show was supposed to start at 7:00, which is when I showed up (what a loser!), but it instead started closer to 8. Which gave me plenty of time to stand guard at my spot at the very front center spot of the crowd.

Doing what I do best: chillin' in a crowd with a goofy smile.

So the concert got started, and it got started CORRECTLY. They began with Hide and Seek, and the set included such fantastic songs as Everything Good is Bad and Orange Blossoms. It was one of the best concerts I've ever been to - if not only for the music, also for the fact that quite literally EVERYTHING these guys do is cool. Seriously. Everything that is said by them on stage is cool. J.J. Grey could have had chronic acid reflux, thrown up a little bit in his mouth, forgotten about it, and opened his mouth to sing only to have the bile and saliva mixture dribble lazily down his shirt, and it would have been AWESOME. He could have 26,000 square miles of land from Mexico for $244 billion just to have a little bit of land to build a railroad on, and it would have been the coolest thing ever.

The Gadsden Purchase: Lame when the government does it, awesome when J.J. Grey does it.

He even broke a tambourine during the concert. He threw it into the audience, and  jumped up to catch it, and it was right in my hand, but then it bounced out and the girl next to me got it! I'm not bitter, but it would have been cool to get that. After they finished their set, some of the folks around me went away and were replaced by other, more annoying folks. They kept informing me of how wonderful and great Jonny Lang is - one of them even told me that he was the only reason to come to the concert (in other words, screw Mofro). I stayed for a few songs, but left after realizing that a) he was adding a whole lot of fake emotion to his performance and b) the people around me didn't like each other, and it seemed like a fight was about to start.

So I got out of there. And let me tell you, it's very difficult to feel any cooler than when you walk out into a dimly-lit alley with live blues/rock music playing in the background. 

Much cooler than you, James Gadsden.

In conclusion, keep your overrated Jonny Lang - I'll be a Mofro fan for life.

The rainy, flooded and dangerous plains of Missouri - the only place in the country where people can drive.

I got up early in the morning. And by early, I mean about 9:30. I showered, bid adieu to the family, thanked them, and got my ass out of there. It was about this time that I realized I hadn't eaten a single thing except for raisins in nearly two days.

I've come to notice that when I'm traveling alone, I just forget to eat. Until two or three days have passed and suddenly I realize that I'm kind of starving. It sounds like a problem, and I'm sure it's unhealthy in some way, but I don't mind it too much. I feel like by not eating, I can lose weight and things like that. I know that's not necessarily the suggested method of losing weight, but whatever way works for me is the best way in my opinion. If I want to stay in shape, I feel I should travel alone as much as possible. I only mean that sort of in jest.

Well, I decided that eating something might be a good idea, and what better way to get ready for a big day than with a gas station salad?

 Pictured: gas station salad. I promise that under all that crap, there are actual green things.

So I called my mom and talked to her for a little bit in the parking lot of the gas station, and then I was on my way. The road to Kansas City is a very, very long one. And if you're not into scenic views of picturesque farmland, then you might fall asleep. Fortunately, I kind of dig that sort of thing. Everywhere you turn, there are these little communes of buildings WAY far away from anything else. And they all face inward, like they're huddled together for warmth. And there a few trees in the middle, and that's it. Surrounding the communes are hundreds of acres of flat farmland. It's so cool. I kind of wanted to just veer off the interstate and off-road at them at 60 mph and just kind of... take them out, Red Faction-style, you know? Ah, America is wonderful.

Well, after two hours or so, the rain suddenly started pouring down torrentially. The clouds looked much more dramatic in person, I promise:

After a little bit of driving through the floods, traffic grinded to a halt. There were two lanes going west, and both of them were blocked by an accident ahead. People were getting out of their cars and standing around. It reminded me of the video to REM's Everybody Hurts.

If you just watched that whole thing, I'll give you a few seconds to recompose yourself.

Seriously, get it together.

Come on, people are staring.

There you go.

Okay. So I called the music store in Kansas City, thinking that the traffic jam would last, you know, eight or so hours. I told them the situation, but they said it wouldn't be a problem - traffic jams in the middle of Missouri are cleared quickly. And wouldn't you know it, right when he said that, a tow truck and police cars zoomed past on the shoulder, and we were all moving again in ten minutes. It was impressive. I commend the MODOT. In fact, the MODOT shines in other ways too. All along the road, every few dozen miles, are electronic signs reminding us to buckle up, slow down, things like that. Maybe that's why they can actually drive in Missouri? I mean, the closest thing we have in Atlanta are morons running across the interstate, kind of inducing us to take pity on them instead of jamming the accelerator as far as it will go 100% of the time. In fact, the only thing I didn't like about the way they drive in Missouri was the way truckers passed each other. This was actually a huge problem.

Here's how it would play out: Truck A pulls up behind Truck B. Both are going 66 miles an hour. The driver of Truck A decides he would like to pass Truck B. So he executes a seven-minute lane change, complete with turn signal, painstakingly-slow drift over into the left lane, and dramatic reorientation of the entire vehicle so its heading is exactly 0.000 degrees relative to the direction of the interstate. After this delicate procedure is carried out, the trucker apparently radios his dispatcher and requests permission to pass the other truck. Only the dispatcher is apparently located on Mars or something, because this decision takes roughly eleven more minutes of dicking around before the trucker actually accelerates past 66 miles an hour. After deliberation, the trucker finally exerts 0.04 more newtons on the accelerator pedal, allowing him to accelerate to a much-more-breakneck speed of 66.006113 miles an hour. Meanwhile, the entirety of the driving population of the state is backed up behind the ordeal, watching with bated breath as the complex and delicate operation is carried out. Twelve hours later, Truck A is a sufficient distance ahead of Truck B that they can finally occupy the same lane again. Collectively, the whole state breathes a sigh of relief, and traffic can finally pass the two behemoths again, at human speeds this time instead of trucker speeds.

But in all seriousness, I actually spent thirty minutes behind one of these ordeals. Two trucks kept on passing each other, not realizing that they were basically forcing the whole road to travel exactly as fast as they were until they realized they were just doing the trucker's version of bickering like angry pre-teen girls.

Here's a picture of Lawrence, KS, which is 40 miles west of Kansas City - this is where the guitar store, and subsequently, the guitar, is located.

It's a great town! This is where the U. of Kansas is located, which I didn't know until I noticed all the license plates and buildings.

I'd been on the same road for four and a half hours, and finally I got the opportunity to turn right onto Massachusetts Street, where, oddly enough, Mass Street Music is located. It had taken a total of fourteen hours driving west to reach this place, but finally, I had arrived.

And inside?

That's right, the beautiful Artcore AGR70, sitting on the counter, looking all shiny and new. It's pretty easy to guess who I felt like.

That's right - the man who went all the way to California to be employed as a dolly grip in the filming of Raiders of the Lost Ark: Colin Manning.

 I spent a total of three hours in the music store, trying out different amps, figuring out what all I would need, and I ended up buying the following items:

Ibanez Artcore AGR70
Fender Blues Junior III Limited Edition amplifier with Jensen speaker
Hard-shell Gator case for dreadnaught-style acoustic guitar (my acoustic, in fact)
Ibanez AG100C hard-shell for the AG series of archtop guitars
Suede strap
Glass slide (for playing like an old black delta blues man)
Strings
Snark guitar tuner (tunes by the vibration of the guitar's body!)

All in all, it cost me just over half of what I had earned all summer. That's less than I expected. I was pretty happy with the outcome. After all that purchasin', it was time to get my fat ass back to Kansas City to see the J.J. Grey & Mofro concert (with some no-name I-don't-care-who-you-are headliner named Johnny Lang).

Saint Louis, and things of that nature

Seven hours passed. I had finally arrived in Saint Louis.

The drive was long and hard, and involved two entire stops for gas. I can only imagine what early America's pioneers must have felt like - sure, the gas prices may have been cheaper, but their cars were primitive and their Mountain Dew was flatter. My heart goes out to them.

Like I said before, the arch first appeared over the horizon when I was still about ten miles out from the city. The next few minutes were a bustle of excitement as everyone around me suddenly remembered how to drive. I think it's something about entering Missouri that makes people suddenly good (read: not terrible) drivers - everyone east of the border found their licenses in a dumpster outside a Red Lobster in the ghetto, and everyone west of it actually took their driver's test. It's interesting to see how the driving styles change once you reach Missouri.

I'll have a lot more on that later. After I peel the burnt rubber and shattered glass out of the side of my car.

In any case, the first stop in Saint Louis for me was to find a place to stay. I ventured down to the world famous Hampton Inn St. Louis (notice how I abbreviated the word Saint: I looked it up online, and that's its official name) and asked for their "crappiest room."

They didn't have any left. It made me sad. But the girl at the desk suggested driving up to the airport to find some hotels - apparently they're plentiful up there. Plentiful enough for the early settlers to have hunted them almost to extinction, because I couldn't find any rooms up there either. But then, my phone rang. It was Stephanie Claypool.

Stephanie is the roommate of my friend from high school, Hana. She knew I would be in Saint Louis (where she lived), probably because I posted it very obviously on her Facebook wall the day before, although I can't help but have a sneaking suspicion it was because she had a psychic sense of it. That would at least make it a lot cooler. Apparently, she was going to a basement party (what is a basement party? it sounds dangerous and/or sexy) that night, and I was invited. So I got her address, drove to her house, and was shocked at what I found.

The house was adorable. Check it out:

Pictured: Stephanie's house, all blue and awesome.

So I went inside, and met her great parents, her two cute kitties (and one shy, kind of mean one) and her dog. So many animals, yet the house doesn't smell out-of-the-ordinary at all. I think it's the psychic thing again. Here are some of the kitties.

Pictured: Milo, the 21-pound behemoth, sits idle, while Baby, the shaved Siamese mix plays joyfully with a piece of blue ribbon. I LOVE KITTIES.

Soon, we left for the dangerous/sexy (dangerexy?) basement party. It was here I met some cool folks - multiple people in various bands, one of whom had played bass for bands ranging in prestige from this basement band to the band that opened for Jimmy Eat World. I also met a girl named Melissa who claimed to be a big Tom Petty fan. Upon letting her know I was one too, she asked what my favorite album was. When I responded with Wildflowers (his kind of sensitive, slower album - a little gay, I know), the way her eyes softened and she got that "awwww" look in her face let me know that she was good people.

I learned that I was spending Stephanie's 21st birthday with her, so we left the party to walk through the seedy underbelly of Saint Louis and visit shady, dangerous (not sexy) bars. After all, the best way to make Stephanie's friends jealous was to prove that I was with her when she drank her first legal drinks! Here's some proof, to some extent:

I think I forgot to look at the camera.

Pictured: Stephanie and her first legally-purchased bottle of wine. Bought the only way that makes sense: from a 7-11.

So take that, posers. I'm her only real friend.

After the dangerexsmentparty, at which multiple garage bands played, we went back to the best blue house in the world, where I was allowed to sleep rent-free on the couch for the night, but only after being forced to watch two episodes of Pretty Little Liars. It's like Gossip Girl, but worse. But I did get to sleep with the cross-eyed Siamese cat, so everything turned out great.

The next day was the long drive across the rainy plains of Missouri. Coming up.

Getting that prepared

At the beginning of summer 2011, I made a vow that I would do something cool by the time school started again. I knew that I wanted to go somewhere, but where? I thought about New Orleans for a while, and I even got a job at a creole restaurant (Rotagilla Creole Cafe in Tucker - go there right now). But after some number of weeks, I started wanting a hollow-body blues guitar. What would that have to do with where I decided to go? I researched hollow-body guitars, and found that the best option for me (an Ibanez Artcore AGR70, of course) was not available in any store in Georgia. I looked on the internet, and nowhere had it. I called every music store I could think of, but the same thing happened every time. Eventually I complained enough that word got around to Joe Palese, a regular musician who plays at Rotagilla. He recommended a store he had some history with. I got their number and called - and 'lo and behold, the guitar had already been ordered from Ibanez!

Only thing is, the store was located in Kansas.

After roughly eight seconds of packing, I thought I was ready to start my arduous trek across the eastern US to Kansas. Look at how excited I was!

That's me, gazing out into the distance, ready to face the entire world head-on. You can tell by how determined I look.

But then my mom kept me a while longer with advice - don't get beaten, don't get mugged, don't get killed, things of that nature. But after a few hours of lecture, I was ready. Just look how ready:

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the look of someone ready to take a Honda Element across the country to a music store in the middle of nowhere just because he can.

So I started out. I would be spending the first night in Saint Louis, the second night in Kansas City and the third night in Nashville. The drive to Saint Louis was a bit longer than I expected it to be - but the feeling I got when I first got there was ridiculous. I had to take pictures from the car - and before someone gets mad at me for taking pictures while driving, I can assure you that I was extremely safe when doing so. Don't ask how

. Chattanooga, going over the Tennessee River.

Passing through Nashville on the way up.

The only way to eat raisins that makes sense to me, obviously.


After something like seven hours, I finally arrived in Saint Louis. Someone told me before I left that driving into Saint Louis is always fun - first you see the arch over the horizon, and then before you know it, you're there. He was totally right. Not knowing where I was gonna stay that night, I parked the car to call some hotels. Little did I know, actually, that I had parked at the Boeing headquarters, where this building is:

Which is weird, because here's the shirt I had on:

What a coincidence, right? I tried to get into the building and pretend I worked there, but once I realized I couldn't figure out how to get to the front door, it became clear to me that I was probably too much of a moron to pull of such a ruse.

Shoot, more cool stuff happened later - stuff that involves not paying for a place to stay, and celebrating someone's 21st birthday. At the time I'm writing this, though, it's 2:00 AM, and I'm busking in Nashville in the morning.

So hang on a sec.