Category Archives: the south

the summer moon lights my way

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from dixie to a lake in michigan

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my taste of georgia’s coast draws to a close. an interesting experience and i learned i love living on a beach, but this is not my beach: it is their beach and it is like gummo meets a prequel to wall-e. isn’t it great they have a beach that’s not my beach?

an invitation to lake-house in michigan arrives with perfect timing: hurricane matthew

my drive to the lake house is pleasant, introspective, full of hard rain – not quite “baptismal” though it has the cleansing vibe one looks for in hard rain. i stop in ashville – i like it there and the iyengar studio has nice views of the mountains which, though hard to see beyond all the prop-cities, is just lovely. my prop city had a million blankets

pulled over in ohio – no ticket

the cottage has been in the friend’s family for a hundred years. it gets the sunsets across the lake. what a treat! a reward for the taste of a place well-done ferrrrrsure

me in hammock
sunset through glass
pure serendipity
sunset across the lake
neighbor / kindered spirit
i and dog
lotus and a wink
sunset reflected
lotus
bike the trail

listening to jonathan wilson’s the way i feel (2011)

welcome to mercer house, mr. irwin

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chatham county, georgia

spanish moss doesn’t play for the camera. try and try to take pictures of her but it’s no use, she’s to be felt. savannah too. the old town and its squares, the gospel coming from the churches on sundays, the cargo boats, the dress and the dialect, sometimes i can’t tell if it’s authentic or retro but it doesn’t matter, things are the way they are and that’s how the south would have everything if it could. after a month in the city i move to the beach. i wake up and meditate by the ocean then go to yoga before going to work at a little  restaurant in an old house, it’s not bad – ice cream everyday

the baywatch movie is filming on the beach.

listening to bombino’s tar hani (2011)

reflections on the road to peaches

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south into dixie
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listed five places from the map and moved to the first one that came back to me in conversation. proximity to the ocean’s the primary calling. is it really a move? on this drive, at this moment, i’m thinking: i’ll only stay long enough to taste
this year needs a bindle

the whole of golden hour’s spent watching the above house change colors. there’s nothing inside it. the tree in the photo above is as big and old as it looks.

 

shadie
shirt and shoes implied
on fields of soft sand
out of the empire rain (allegory implied)

listening to rhythm & sound’s mango drive (2001)

Cupcakes Turtles and Kinks

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dolly parton had her own variety show on abc in the late 80’s. we watched it as a family. she said a lot about growing up in the smokey mountains. they meant a lot to her.

in the early 00’s a girl i was with told me she’d never pilgrimed graceland and wanted to, badly. hours after the start of spring break we were diving south to the mississippi delta in the rain. we wore all black. the sad-face photos of us at the eternal flame were outstanding and appeared meaningful.

while dolly aired, the family took a spring break road-trip to florida. we left in the middle of the night. i woke up in the backseat when my mom announced, “this is where dolly’s from!” the rising sun shined through the fog that rested on the range: smokey mountains! the name made sense

the day after graceland, girl and i were entertaining the staff of a bbq place on beale street. we asked if they had ideas on where to continue our trip but they weren’t much help: two of the cooks hadn’t ever traveled outside of memphis. we numbered six places we knew on a napkin and rolled a die. one was drive east to the smokey mountains; two was south to new orleans; six was west to texas; i don’t remember four or five. we rolled a two, easy!

despite my car breaking down so close to new orleans, i didn’t make it back on this trip or back to the smokies on that trip. if i stay on the road long enough i’ll be able to connect all the nouns of my life. e.g. if i take the smokey mountains on this journey, i’ll be experience mapping at a highly skilled level. like the circled white icing on a hostess cupcake

great smokey mountains-

i stayed the night with family friends in louisville. from there it’s a straight four-hour-drive to st louis. i wasn’t ready for that: i had this feeling that the trip was incomplete: it wasn’t a i-don’t-want-this-to-be-over feeling, rather a this-isn’t-done one. i turned the gps off. exited the highway and cruised with no direction

for days i wove roads and states without a map. i often didn’t know where i was. i slept in the car. i barely spoke. i drove really fast. this is experience dessert.

weaving until it feels right-

in southern missouri, i was on a farm-to-market road. the speed limit is marked 50 but everyone keeps 70+. at the top of a hill, off the corner of my eye, i noticed a turtle crossing the street. i hit the brakes and ran out. i snapped the photo and picked him up as a caravan of trucks sped past the spot he was at

i set Allegory Turtle down safely in the field he was walking to

now i’m ready.

i kept a rough course in the direction of st louis and as the cupcake’s circle would have it, came upon the subject of the journey’s first photo via a road i’d never traveled-
how predictable – life is pathetically poetic

listening to: the kink’s till the end of the day  (1965)

Pulled over in Spartanburg

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A Palmetto State of Mind
south carolina

from savannah, i took two-lane state roads through the cradle of reconstruction. this is where lincoln and johnson experimented with giving land to the Freedmen. everyone i met was wonderful though my conversations were more “yes” and “thank you” than talking. im over talking. it’s forced. self-oppressive. i don’t want to talk anymore. i want drive through the south quietly, forever.

the sun isn’t far from setting. i got the biggest coffee the gas station had. then got another biggest coffee another gas station had. it’s not a big deal: i pull over and pee wherever i want cause i can do it standing up cause im a man. i pulled into spartanburg, sc cause it’s on the edge of the smokey mountains. a perfect place to stop before appalachia.

i fill up my tank and drive towards downtown. a police car is to the right of me at a four-way-stop. the police car turns and i pull behind them. then they pull over to the shoulder. i pass them then they get behind me. i can almost hear the benny hill theme playing really slow. then they turn their lights on and i start my voice recorder. it is no longer forever.

oy. remember when i was over talking?

Hostess City of the South

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i left miami and began the conclusion of my journey. i slept at a rest stop near daytona beach. woke up at sunrise and went to the beach: we went there as a family when i was seven. my folks drove the station wagon through the smokey mountains down to florida: it was my first road trip. i’m backtracking their route for the finale. kind of.

savannah photographs were lost because my computer ate the sd-card

Savannah, GA
the savannah college of art and design is a private design university for the artistically inspired children of those wealthy enough to afford it. you can see the money in their bone structures. i liked savannah, it’s cute. my ex-fiancé and her husband have been living there since last summer while he works on a secret project that will be a very popular toy among the parents of scad students.

they’re awesome. we ate shrimp cocktails on the ocean and saw real gators and ferrel cats and (i) drank so many piña coladas at this place that was like merlotte’s- they were two of maybe six people dancing to new order at ultra because the stage was empty… they’re awesome. she knows everything about eighties and nineties pop music there is to know. she coulda done 120 Minutes on the fly-

two weeks before our wedding her and i had a bickerment that lead to calling things off. we’d have been divorced within the first year. in my opinion we couldn’t find a balance between our dreams so for one of us to be happy, the other would be miserable. i feel much of the time since then has been a frenzy of proving it not in vain and perhaps this journey was my way of coming to terms with what i see/saw as a major sacrifice *mind you my hindsight is messianically romantic.

her and i spent the morning walking through forsyth park talking about everything that’s happened since we last saw each other and what we thought of what we had. she sees our end a little differently, “you live your life like a game. constantly finding different scenarios to put yourself in. you figure things out faster than your patience and when you find yourself in the throws of total intimacy the game suffers and eventually… eventually you get bored.” ffffffffffffff

there’s no fountain at st augustine’s fountain of youth. no basement either

listening to : new order’s world  (the price of love)  (1993)

Baton Rouge’ll Flirt Wit’cha

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i wanted to get a prostitute. i’ve never picked up a prostitute. i’ve taken girls out for dinner and after dinner we did stuff which is kind like paying for it and i’ve been with girls who were a lot of work the next morning so i payed for it in other ways but i’ve never actually paid for it. if prostitution truly is the world’s oldest profession, i’ve been neglecting my rite as a man to soliciate this service. tonight’s the night.

i checked into the cool boutique hotel in downtown baton rouge a couple blocks from the one bar i found googling “hipster baton rouge”. the room was nice and the desk clerk called me “mr. joseph”. i had sushi on top of the slick high-rise next door. i sat at the bar a couple chairs down from tanya. tanya is 40+, educated, and works in insurance. it’s her birthday and she was there with all her black coworkers. she kept saying, “lukatchu cute lil’whiteboi. if i wadn’t marrieeeeeeeed, ewebet dat’ass i’d be flirt’n witchah. ooowwwwah” she didn’t. she passed out from too many blue martinis and her coworkers carried her to elevator.

at this same time but in miami my friend was walking along the beach when a tall and mysterious fisherman opened his hands to present the most beautiful shell of the season. “for me?”, she asked. the stranger nodded his head with a smile. my friend took the shell and that was that.

after dinner i walked towards the hipster bar i found on google. some djs set their pa up in the corner and played a mix of eclectic favorites like hot butter. the bartender who took care of me is young, thin, beautiful, excited about her vintage mom jeans, she’d soon love my blog. she ignored the other patrons and let her co-bartender make all the drinks. we spoke of the perks of self-awareness and i told her about my journey. “i wish i could do something like that” she whispered she asked where i was staying.

as i’m going through a real empower the self-aware thing, i spent 45 minutes at the corner of the bar verbally pumping my bartender full of empowerment then said goodbye before finishing my second drink. in my head, i was a magic apparition of light who appeared on a slow night and gave her a shell of strength to do wonderful things then left without a trace or “pumping” but there’s a thousand other ways she may have and probably perceived me.

baton rouge is on the mississippi and the old town buildings were erected at the same time as st. louis’ inner city. i felt akin there, this is a cousin home. mark twain probably felt the same way except he would have written tanya differently.

the sky looked super neat and i took photos before going back to the hotel to call prostitutes. i called five. deep down i knew i wouldn’t actually sleep with one. she’d show up, we’d jump on the bed, eat pizza, and fight over little spoon while sharing bad date stories. none of the prostitutes returned my calls. i’m worse at prostitutes than sealing deals with young bartenders and tanya. the next morning my car broke down next to a sign that read, “watch for snakes. theyre watching you.”

baton rouge was alright

 

listening to primal scream’s rocks (1994)

one night in Beaumont

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mike and rachel took me out on the town. it was really foggy. all the night-life happens on crocket street, downtown. there’s a country bar next to another country bar next to the bar we went to that had a lot of dubstep. the club next-door had people line dancing to songs like footloose and nelly’s ei.

Dallas, TX – Houston, TX

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oklahoma got cold. it’s warmer in texas. i’ve never been to texas: this is it – have you ever been to texas? there’s miles and miles of nothing. a lot of nothing. not actual-nothing tho, the no-asphalt or plants-that-matter-to-me nothing.

 

sometimes when you’re driving through nothing you’ll see a barn near the highway. someone built that barn in that spot. now there’s no roof on the barn and it’s filled with actual-nothing. maybe it was a bad spot to build a barn or maybe the barn didn’t have the structure necessary to support the roof, but why take it down? sure it’s missing a roof but a barn was a good idea, not necessarily that barn but a barn was and this site is my barn. you’re standing in my barn, figuratively. i wish i was next to you right now in figurative-barn; i’d dim the lights and talk at you about myself so hard

in dallas i saw the grassy knoll. there’s an x in the road where jfk got it. people stand in front of the x and get their pictures taken. they smile. i didn’t take any photos in dallas. debbie did it there, dw’s sells the proof on the way to houston-

houston and the menil collection with sue // we would have taken more pictures but they got wise to us

listening to tiedye’s remix of rubies feat. feist’s i feel electric (2008)