SOME WORDS FOR THE GREAT STATE OF ALABAMA

Perplexing, backwards, f-ed up Alabama, your beauty and charm are at times elusive. Your trees hang large, dangling over rotting buildings and crushed dreams beaten down before they had time to form. The huge swathes of empty countryside that blanket your length and width roll on to the horizon only to be broken up by a man walking from nowhere to nowhere. Little black mating bugs are every which where, but in particular they have gathered outside the Outlet Food Center flying in circles smacking in anyone’s face who dares to step out of their car. Every other little shack or large wooden or brick structure is some sort of Pentecostal, holy tabernacle ministry of light. The spirit of Jesus pervades in the scowling red face of the obese lady sitting in her pickup truck at the lengthy traffic light and on the expression of the gray-bearded black man in the neon blue suit traipsing through the appalling humidity of God’s holiest and least fun day.

In the urban centers, the children ride in circles on their bicycles around the statue of the Alabama statesman. Business hours are inconvenient and esoteric. The traffic is light and in no particular hurry. Any glory or excitement that might have once graced the fair city of Mobile or the reasonably large and empty-of-human-life expanse of Montgomery appears to have dissipated decades back when something might have happened of import. The gargoyles of the graceful old buildings now sleep. Their security guards text their children to stop texting. As the work day ends, downtown shuts itself tight leaving only the man with the crazy smile holding the paper bag and the unread newspaper blowing amidst the otherwise happy flower arrangement.

When Alabama gets animated and boisterous, when its passion unfurls, it might very well be in a massive college football stadium which stands above the rest of the university looking down on it with an upturned nose. “War Eagle” they shout, the kids fresh out of high school and dumb as opossums, the old men with their season tickets and surly opinions of the quarterback, the women with their Tiger pride and floppy grey hair. The legend of Paul Bear Bryant, the titan of Tuscaloosa, and the Crimson Tide is perhaps Alabama’s greatest glory, certainly much more agreeable history than that part about setting fire hoses on peaceful black protestors. Bear Bryant, the steely disciplinarian who stood down those boys in their helmets and told them to go out there and win, win the football game you little shits, or something like that. Alabama’s glories may have been fleeting and decades ago, but they were legendary and the stuff of dirt, sweat and an elbow to the loins.

From the home of whole fried flounder to the Alabama cowlick one cannot comb down to the steaming asphalt parking lot of the Food Tiger to the old man mumbling about how to bury a body to the sandwiches wrapped in aluminum foil at Mama Goldberg’s to the man and his girlfriend playing the Big Buck Hunter arcade game a little too seriously to the boll weevil monument in Enterprise to Grapico soda, the artificially flavored grape drink that once implied falsely that it contained real grape juice, Alabama, you are one weird, wacky-ass old fart of a man shaking around a cane while drooling on a white handkerchief.

Yet, it is your very oddness and otherworldliness that is so appealing. Alabama, you can be dutifully proud of your Victorian Southern grandeur, your natural beauty draped in Spanish moss, your small town fortitude and genuine affability. But these as-common-as-bugs Southern attributes are somewhat overshadowed by the grandma in the leopard skin bikini at Gulf Shores beach, not to mention the Nascar-worshiping, Ted-Nugent-looking motherfucker one must try to avoid in every other town. Alabama, may you remain all pleasantly jacked-up and ass-backwards as you are for evermore.

COCKROACH ON MY FOOT

In Atlanta, just for a day. Last night I saw a firefly during the daylight in my backyard. It was neat to see the little thing propel itself around with its flickering yellow light. At the airport, while waiting in the lost baggage line (lost both ways, good job Delta), I overheard some dumbness, "They didant even look at their itinerary, they didant know when the plane was leaving, so I guess they are still there, all of dem." Then, this morning, at my desk, there was a cockroach walking across my bare foot. Welcome home Jew. This is the South. Get used to it.

HILLBILLY TOW TRUCK DRIVER

I was trying to get somewhere in a hurry this week, but my car was not functioning, no cranking noise, no lights, shifter won’t move, totally dead. I call the AAA (‘cause I am a Jew and a member of the AAA, AAA+ thank you) and they send a giant hillbilly man with a big, red, curly-haired afro. I’ve been speaking to him less than a minute about what might be wrong with the car and he spits tobacco there on the dirt part of my driveway. As a Jew from the Westside of L.A. living a sheltered existence where as a young child I was protected and very distant (probably several hundred miles) from any man who might chew tobacco, this is likely the only time I have had a conversation with someone whilst they spit tobacco. This hillbilly man was very helpful. He said “you cain go to a mechanic, if you just wanna spend money.” He jumped the car and suggested the Auto Zone, where they could test my battery. The car was fine. They said that it was probably an electrical surge. Thank you crazy, fucked-up looking hillbilly man. You can spit tobacco on my driveway any time.

PARADISE GARDENS

Last weekend, we drove to a far corner of Georgia, near the Alabama border, to check out Paradise Gardens, the creation of outsider artist Howard Finster, a country preacher who transformed his backyard into a jumbled folk art landscape of twisted bicycle frames, hubcap sculptures, stone mosaics and glued-together trash. When I looked online for directions, I discovered that it happened to be the weekend of Finster Fest with artists and bands appearing at Paradise Gardens to benefit the restoration of the large chapel structure on the grounds, which is falling apart.



We got a late start, had a leisurely lunch in Rome, Georgia and arrived as the event was winding down. It wasn’t clear if everyone had left early or if nobody had shown up (there had been a heavy thunderstorm earlier that day). We were thinking that Finster Fest would likely attract a mix of local artists, some bona fide outsider weirdos and perhaps just a sprinkling of hipsters. I wasn’t sure if hipsters were dedicated enough to outsider art to drive that far. In fact, it was almost all hipsters. There was a two person band that was basically the Black Keys, if the Black Keys had no talent whatsoever. Otherwise, there were about 30 people there entirely hipstered out.

Finster Car

In the world of outsider art, which is no longer reclusive and is very much tied in to the rest of the art world, Howard Finster is probably one of the most famous practitioners. He was incredibly prolific, so every outsider art museum has a Finster piece or two. Paradise Gardens was his masterpiece and though it is somewhat in a state of disrepair, it is a very worthy destination for a weekend drive.

The gardens are set in a rural, residential neighborhood, overgrown and with lots of barking dogs, on swampy land with a creek running through it. In the front of the place, there’s a nice gallery of Finster’s work. You can wander in various directions, all of them muddy the day we were there. The land has all sorts of odd structures, shacks, pagodas and the very large chapel, which was in the off-limits, not-safe-to-walk-in area. It’s a pleasant, mosquito-ridden place to amble about with art (created from marbles, sporting equipment, bottle caps, sewing machines, car parts and the like) and religious messages peeking out of every which corner.


We were equally impressed by the town of Summerville, where Paradise Gardens is located. It looks like things in this town began deteriorating in the ‘70s and then time stopped in the ‘80s and nothing much has happened since. Many of the buildings on the main drag are engulfed by vegetation or near collapse or crying out for someone to save them from turning into dust.

None of my photos of Summerville came out that great. Here's a scary pawn shop.

One of the highlights of the day was witnessing a man driving a lawn mower down Summerville’s main street. At first, we thought he had just finished cutting the grass, but nope, he drove right up to the front of the Ingles Market, parked his lawn mower right there like it was a bicycle and went into the store. We considered waiting outside to hopefully get a photo of him on his lawnmower and see what he was buying; but thought the better of that and went on our merry way. “Leave the locals alone!” I always say.

Lawn mower parked at Ingles Market

THE HAUNTED

I gathered with little more than 100 or so metalers the other night to catch the staggeringly splendid, thrashy, Swedish metal band, The Haunted, at the Masquerade in Atlanta. Despite the not so great turnout, the band played a pulverizing set to a youngish crowd, which had a lot of heart and made the Swedes very welcome, like they tend to do here in the South. My imaginary friend Eddie didn’t show. The heaviest music he digs is Limp Bizkit and No Doubt. I was surprised that the crowd was so youthful and pint-sized. More often, your average headbanger is tall and skinny like the members of the Haunted or short and buff with tattoos. And almost always, they are ancient-style old and Geezer Butler-like. In the mosh pit (not sure if that that term is still in use), there was a plump young lady holding on to a large purse and a little skinny stick figure boy who was so rambunctious that some other dudes knocked him to the floor. The spastic stick figure boy was fortunate that the security guys with the big hoop earrings pulled him away ‘cause one of those other little dudes was going to sock him. You could see that coming. There was also the bearded, long-curly-haired troll-like man wearing a skirt. It could have been a kilt, but it looked more like a skirt. Either way. He was not in the mosh pit, but jumped up and down doing the devil horn finger salute.

The singer of the Haunted, Peter Dolving, was very charismatic and grateful for the warm reception, while the rest of the group were your classic, garden-variety metal dudes of the long, wavy hair and monotonous headbanging. My wife has a friend who has dated ten or so of these guys, almost always with the long, wavy hair (usually Dutch metalers, ‘cause she lives in Holland). We can never tell them apart.

The Haunted play speedy, complex thrash and also have some soft-loud, Poison the Well-type songs. They are not dissimilar from fellow Swedes Arch Enemy, but faster, more pissed and a bit uglier. If I may offer a criticism for one of my favorite bands, I would suggest that they spend a little more time on the lyrics. There’s too much black heart/rotting carcasses/immoral savagery/human debris/sickness and scars metal clichés in their screamed verbiage. What about a song about a favorite kitty or what a pain it is to take out the trash? Those subjects can be dark and evil too.

http://www.myspace.com/thehaunted

MY IMAGINARY FRIEND EDDIE

Since moving to Georgia, I haven’t made a whole lot of friends. Being a married male in my late 30s, I have no idea how to go about making a new friend. I imagine I should probably get involved in some group or organization where the people have similar interests as me, but that would likely require a lot of wasted time and energy for perhaps, one measly, half-ass friend. So rather than join some pathetic group like Westside Jews with Ambivalent Feelings about Living in the South or Gay Death Metalers Who Fancy Squirrels or Homogenized Milk Drinkers, I thought it much easier to conjure up my very own imaginary friend, and that is Eddie.

I call Eddie more often than he calls me, usually about twice a week. Typically, he calls me on Sunday when there’s nothing much to do in the whole state of Georgia except go to church, have a barbecue or shit on a log.

“Hey. Ya wanna have a beers and watch duh footballs,” says Eddie.

“Sure,” I say.

Eddie comes over and gets so comfortable on the couch sometimes that he passes out and drools, but I don’t mind because he’s my pal.

We watch a lot of TV, mostly it’s the jewelry-selling channel or Emeril, the cooking genius, or sometimes we watch the golf channel for hours. Eddie doesn’t ever demand the remote, but sometimes I say “Eddie, why don’t you decide what we should watch?” and pass him the remote and he takes it and inevitably we end up watching a poker game with some guy wearing a big, stupid hat, a gal with enormous boobs, a billionaire in a baseball cap, pink shirt and tie and some pseudo celebrity like El DeBarge, but it’s not really him. Eddie always roots for the girl with the big boobs, but she never wins.

Sometimes, I go over to Eddie’s to watch TV. He has a gigantic bong that we call Bongosaurus, though I must admit the bud Eddie gets is pretty weak. I usually have to pretend that I’m stoned or smoke for a half hour straight to get high. We like to watch the music videos with Eddie’s other pals (I forget their names) and of course, Emeril, or really the same crap that we watch at my house.

When we get restless, we go for a drive through the city on Eddie’s ATVs. He has two of them. Lucky bastard. But he always gets to wear the camouflaged helmet with the deer antlers attached to it. He’s never offered that maybe I could wear it once. Selfish prick. One time, we got pulled over by the police, who told us that you can’t drive ATVs around on city streets and Eddie pretended to be a backwoods hick that was lost in the city and they bought it hook, line and sinker. He had them eating out of his hand. They even pointed us in the direction of the North Georgia hills, so we could git duh hell outta there. Eddie’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but when the hammer falls, wait, stop that!

I think my wife has mixed feelings about Eddie. She likes that I have some social life and have stopped conversing with the air conditioner, but she finds Eddie to be somewhat dim-witted. One time, she called him “dumb” and another time she called him “Beavis.” Not to his face! She didn’t like it that one time when he asked her to bring him a 7-Up. I didn’t like it because that was the last 7-Up in the fridge.

Recently, I had a baby, a little girl, and that takes up a lot of my time. The other day (I think it was Sunday), Eddie called and asked “Hey. Ya wanna have a beers and watch duh footballs.”

I said, “I can’t. I’m covered in baby poop.”

He said “Ah, really, OK,” and hung up the phone. He sounded sore.

I really was covered from head to toe in baby poop. I wasn’t trying to blow him off.

But now the baby is sort of my friend and I can talk to her about all sorts of stuff and we can watch Emeril together. On Sunday, we like to just lie around and she usually poops on me.

Sometimes, I feel guilty that I don’t call Eddie anymore. He doesn’t have a girlfriend and some of his friends are also married and one of them I think has six babies from at least two women. Everybody in Georgia has four to six babies. It’s ‘cause of the Christianity and the general stupidity. Even babies have other babies.

But I digress. What was I talking about?

INSULTING A SOUTHERNER

I in no way condone insulting anyone based on where they are from or their ethnicity. That sort of behavior is reprehensible and uncalled for. But... if you ever find yourself in a heated argument with a Southerner, may I, suggest, you might call them... a Waffle House motherfucker!

Just keep that one in your back pocket if you ever need it.