We got into New Orleans pretty late, around 10:30…too late to get into the Acme Oyster Bar. We ended up eating OK Cajun food outside a Bourbon Street window where they were taping an episode of "America’s Most Wanted." The next day was my birthday, so we packed quite a few highlights into it. First was the obligatory stop at the Café Du Monde for chicory coffee and beignets. Then a drive out to the Garden District with its fine old houses and the distinctively turquoise-and-white striped awnings of the Commander’s Palace Restaurant, where we were served one of the most extravagant lunches ever consumed. (Turtle soup. Catfish art salad. Bread pudding souffle.) We walked off the lunch around the Garden District in sub-freezing weather, inspiring me to get out my blank book and do a drawing (from the cozy confines of the car).
K-Paul’s Kitchen (that of the larger-than-life Paul Prudhomme) was the choice for dinner which, tragically, we could not finish. It sort of finished us. Great, though. After dinner we found a jazz haunt called Snug Harbor…an intimate little room just outside the Quarter where jazz of the more avant variety is featured. We were treated to a kaleidoscopic set by the Rob Wagner quartet: Wagner on a variety of saxes, a pianist on a grand that took up half the stage, a monster stand-up bassist, and a talented but perverse drummer who generally avoided any sort of groove whatsoever, but occasionally sustained one long enough to tease us into thinking he might.
The next day, we booked a swamp trip hoping to see some alligators. Unfortunately, they prefer temperatures in excess of 30 degrees, so most of what we got were good stories. For dinner (a major decision on any night you are in New Orleans) we opted for Dooky Chase’s, which features "homier" cooking in a sophisticated ambiance and was enthusiastically recommended by the hotel staff, who were not impressed with the more famous tourist-oriented places. It was located in a "take a cab" neighborhood, but we had a great meal there.
The next part of the trip was a two-day stay at an elegant plantation in Natchez, Mississippi. Our time there included tours of nearby plantations, and a very elegant formal dinner on Super Bowl Sunday. Having suffered through the first half, it was easy to leave the game and have dinner, which we shared with two other couples at the end of a hopelessly long banquet table laden with enough silver and china to host a coronation. Six wonderful courses later, we were ready for our four-poster bed next to a gas fireplace…a room we took lots of advantage of during our stay.
The next part of the trip was the blues section. Natchez to Memphis is a lot to drive in a single day, and Clarksdale (with its famous "Crossroads" where legend has it bluesman Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil) was located conveniently towards the middle of that stretch, so I booked a room at the Shack Up Inn, a Delta plantation with "shotgun shacks" (so named because a blast fired through the front door would get anyone in the house) that had been "B&B-ized" (running water, heat, electricity, coffeemaker, etc.) but otherwise left in their original state of near-dilapidation. Our shack was the Pinetop Perkins Shack, dedicated to the venerable blues pianist. The entertainment consisted of a TV monitor which only got an audio feed of blues music (identified by artist/title/label) and a piano in a corner of the main room. After tickling the ivories a little, we ate an unremarkable dinner in a local hangout with more sports memorabilia than you’d think could fit on the walls, and a clientele to match. Being a Monday night, no juke joints were open, so we snuggled under a blanket on the couch, Ellen reading a novel while I listened to good blues and read back issues of "OffBeat" magazine.
After stopping in Clarksdale’s informative Delta Blues Museum (and purchasing a Highway 61 sign for my music studio) the trail led towards Memphis and our stay at the esteemed Peabody Hotel. We chose a route into town that went by Graceland and missed the mansion entirely, as our eyes were distracted by an enormous complex of parking lots, shuttle buses, a jet plane, gift shops and the like, on the other side of the street. Soon, we arrived at the Peabody, just steps from Beale Street, where the action still seems to be, despite some ill-advised urban renewal that has left only a three-block stretch of clubs, shops and restaurants. Again by asking the hotel staff, we found a great place to eat just opposite B. B. King’s blues club, where a female singer was scheduled to perform later. The gumbo at the Blues City Grill was spicier and better than anything we had in New Orleans. We walked across Beale to the club, where a spiffy-looking R&B outfit with a couple of horns held forth, playing predictable covers. The featured singer never materialized, and the band was fronted by a fill-in whose sense of attire was out of synch with the rest of the sparkly outfit, but he was a decent singer in a Wilson Pickett sort of way. The music was pretty loud and we were right in front, so I couldn’t take a whole lot of it before sensory overload set in, and we headed back to the hotel.
The next day we took in Graceland and Sun Records…the former dedicated to The King, and the latter where he recorded his first hits. I’ll try and describe Graceland, although I feel doomed to failure. It’s not just a house that’s been decorated a bit…unusually. It’s a sprawling document to the monumental impact that one performer had on our culture, and how our culture reflected it back to him. Separate exhibits highlighted his recording accomplishments, memorabilia created to merchandise Elvis (Elvis Lipstick – "Be on my lips always") displayed alongside homemade portraits (and trophies) sent to him by fans, stage costumes, posters from more than thirty movies, a collection of cars and motorcycles, even his private jet, the Lisa Marie. Each of these exhibits conveniently funnel patrons into vast souvenir shops where every conceivable type of Elvisiana can be found. The total effect of all this was overwhelming, and moving. Elvis’ standing among the faithful seems much closer to that of a religious figure than an entertainer. Sun Records was quite a contrast…a small brick building virtually unchanged since the mid ‘50s, where we were given a tour (with soundbites) of the studio that launched the careers of Elvis, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash. Ellen photographed me with Elvis’ microphone, in front of a giant blow-up photo of Elvis singing into the same microphone, and I plunked a few Jerry-Lee-like chords on the spinet piano. Not too many though, as an engineer was preparing for a session later that afternoon.
Dinner in Memphis (as opposed to New Orleans) is more a matter of "where’s some good barbecue?" A friend and a John Hiatt song lyric pointed us towards the Rendezvous, just a short stroll from the Peabody. The no-frills atmosphere provided the unusual combination of cloth napkins and plastic silverware; the food, although OK, seemed to be based more on reputation than actual quality…the Alioto’s Fish Grotto of Memphis. Returning to Beale, we were drawn into the Rum Boogie Café by some spirited blues playing and stayed for a set, gazing up at the collection of autographed guitars hanging from the ceiling. Some made perfect sense (ZZ Top) others none at all (Brian Boitano and Rudy Galindo?) but the music was just what you’d want in a blues bar house band. A much better Wilson Pickett-style singer. An imposing dyed-blond blues lady (who looked like Serena Williams after living under a bridge for twenty years) sat in with them and got the crowd going with some call-and-response. Our final day was spent touring the Gibson guitar factory and the excellent Rock and Soul Museum, who share the same building off Beale. A long afternoon and evening of flying and time changes got us in about midnight, and you will be thrilled to hear that I’m done talking about the trip now.
Forgive me for going on about the trip, but it spared me the task of starting off with some news that is less than encouraging. I had the second of my every-other-month series of MRIs that are monitoring my condition, and met with my neurologist at UCSF to look at the results. What they revealed was that the tumor has resumed growing adjacent to the area that was removed in September. This means, basically, that the Temodar oral chemo I have been on during the last two months was not effective, and I need to change my plan of attack. The next step will be to have chemo administered intravenously for a couple of hours in sufficient amount to last six weeks. This will be supplemented by a medication called Temoxifin, which is commonly used to treat breast cancer patients, only I will be given a much larger dose. (My head requires much more than does a breast, insert your own joke here.) It is hoped that this protocol will be more effective than the last one, and both of my neurologists refer to the revised medicine as "more toxic" which I interpret as "more effective," since that’s more comforting than the obvious. Nonetheless, I’ve been reassured that with anti-nausea medicine the most noticeable side-effect will likely be more fatigue than I’ve had to date. (A small price to pay if it works.)
So, six months into this journey, we’ve encountered a waypoint that wasn’t on our original map. But it was wonderful that we were able to take the entire trip without this new challenge hanging over us like a foggy drizzle…enjoying eight days of eating, music, sightseeing and loving each other. As we face this small change in our itinerary, we invite you to continue sending us your prayers and best wishes, and be comforted by the fact that I still have viable options available to me that have a good probability of being successful. I will continue, as your humble correspondent, to keep you up to date along the way, as I strive to smell every flower and appreciate every moment.
Peace and love,
Dan
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