Well, the first day is almost complete. A long day's drive... 10 1/2 hours of steady driving, with only a few stops for gas and nourishment. If you can call a (almost) grilled chicken sandwich and under cooked french fries nourishment. Still, they filled a empty spot in my gut.
And so we arrived at the shabby little hotel in Biloxi, the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. A nice room, a freebie thanks to Faye's gambling habit and the bad economy, with a three head shower, Wi-Fi internet connection (so I can sit here in the bed and wander about the internet while watching Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck save the planet from a comet on FX on a 42" plasma... or LCD...whatever screen), a comfy king-sized bed with lots of pillows, and a casino where Faye is stalking that elusive prey... the Jackpot.
The Hard Rock is a study in nostalgic silliness and denial. It is full of 50 and 60 -somethings pretending not to be what they are and transporting themselves mentally back to what they probably never were. All the images of aging rock stars (some no longer with us) from those heady days of the 60's. And moving among them the pudgy, pot-bellied, butt-sagging aging `never were' Hippies in Sears loose-fit designer jeans instead of snug bell bottom Levis. Eric Burden and the Animals will be playing here next week, all white haired and wrinkled, reliving the dream. I don't want to see them. I have my memories of a concert in Pasadena (though they are drug-fogged) and that's enough.
I saw my image in the mirror and wondered who that aging guy was for a moment and then, sadly, recognized him.
No pictures of the trip so far. Faye would have had to take them while I dodged the bad drivers and threaded my way through the traffic. The bad drivers were out as usual, driving slow in the fast lane, playing "rolling blockade" with whoever happened to be next to them, and just annoying the heck out of me. You bad drivers know who you are, mostly the ones with G E O R G I A on your license plates. Well, and your first cousins from Louisiana. They all seemed to be heading home from Speed Week in Daytona Beach after almost sobering up.
No, Pearl, I didn't see any square-heads from Minnesota driving along, just their southern relatives.
Tomorrow, we wander along the southern swamps and off into the great dusty west Texas hills before stopping for the night again. Maybe some pctures if I can convince Faye she can take them while zooming along somewhat above the speed limit or we stop someplace of interest.
For now, though, it's calm the frayed nerves. Quiet the jittering in my brain. Hope for dreams that do not involve highways and traffic. Only to wake, grab some greasy breakfast somewhere and head ever west.
A Night Unremembered
13 years ago
2 comments:
Understanding a bit more as to why my dad likes The Hard Rock...
Michael.
"If you're going through Hell, keep going."
Holy Holism!
I have always been fascinated by the Mississipi river area, a key cultural place I guess for the US South. I wonder btw if Katarina did anything to this Biloxi place, that Hard Rock Casino place you are talking about. I'd love if you belonged to the Missisipi cultural place, tho it doesn't really matter, you are interesting as a 'thinking person' no matter where you're from in the US.
Btw is the English, the French mixing a bit in Missisipi as they are in Louisiana?
I saw this movie, No Mercy, starring Richar Gere and Kim Basinger: I love both the movie, a noir thriller and the cultural substance. Gere is this Chicago cop, the bad mob guy is French and a cruel terrific character. I liked how the contrast between Chicago, North, and New Orleans, this iconic place of the South, was depicted. It might be phoney and plasticky to you, but to me it was full of stimuli. The movie is seen from the North angle, so the local culture is not much well seen, but nonetheless the overall picture of the South I found exciting.
I love your country Douglas. I am doing what I can since I live too far, and cannot travel everywhere. I have read almost all James A. Michener thick, and a bit Tolstoj-like, novels (Centennial and Chesapeake - the best to me - and also Alaska and Texas: this one has revealed to me many things, Chesapeake too, about this South North contrast (and wound) in your country, which happens here too.
Weird how in a small coastal town a few miles north of Rome, Ladispoli, where I recently had to live for 8 months, I often went to this main-square Hard Rock bar (a local thing, nothing to do with the Amercan Hard rock chain) whose owner, absolutely crazy about Elvis, had created it so full of huge statues of the King and all kinds of memorabilia he and his son continuously buy stuff in Memphis, I might be wrong. I also like Jonny Cash btw, a cultural icon of the area possibly too. I saw his last video song that summarized his life and where also his wife appeard. I was impressed.
Btw, I know I still have to reply to you at the MoR's and at Hannibal's. I will as soon as I can.
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