Feet Ten Feet Offa Beale

So this time I actually got to Beale Street. Neat. Like Bourbon Street, but clean. And without all the naked people. Now that I think about it, why is it neat, then?

Oh yeah, the food. There may not have been any crawfish, but there certainly were ribs. After grabbing a big ass beer (you could tell because it read BIG ASS BEER on the side of the cup) and walking down the street past a bunch of cops with it (not that I'm not used to being able to do that... it's just nice to have somewhere else in the USA to do it), we stumbled into B.B. King's Rib House. Or Rib Store. Or Bunch O' Ribs. Not sure what it was called actually, as I was fairly hosed at that point. But we slammed down some ribs and some gumbo, and heard some blues. Not just any blues, though... there really is no such thing. The Carl Drew Blues Band was up, and they brought the South with 'em.

That blur there in the front is Carl Drew, and he really is that fast. And he's 85. Past him there is Ms. Joyce Henderson, the Diva Of Beale Street, and she's the good parts of Tina and Aretha. A funny thing happened to me there, drunk in a bar and listening to the blues. I had spent most of my early years really not caring too much about New Orleans or the blues. I was all sci-fi movies and video games. But being there in the blues, after being out of it here in the West for a while, I realized that I am that. I can claim it. Maybe not so much as an 85-year-old guitarist who played with Elvis, but that's where I'm from, and maybe I don't have an iPod full of W.C. Handy, but I can always stop into a blues joint, crank up some catfish, and laugh at all the Mormons when they say, "Gosh, this music is neat!" I have a Blues License, right in there behind my drivers license.
Memphis is not done. I'm goin' back.