USA Email Series 24: Trousered, waffle, sausage patties and Bob‏

(First sent: 02 December 2009)

Greetings my little dears,

Oh, father time, how your wispy beard and cruel beady eyes mock us, your minions, and slaves. Just like Autumn fades into Winter, so my seemingly interminable travels will come to an abrupt and miserable end. All that lies before me is the abyss of home, reality (whatever that is) and thoughts of a lifestyle more mundane than an evening rearranging CDs with Gordon Brown, where the only distraction being his wandering, haunted, glass eye.

But somehow the dream, although weak, lives on in Nashville where this week I have been casting my roaming satirical (non glass) eye across its vista of charms. Again.

Returning to the same city has been a unique experience as (save for a few, all too short hours in Chicago on a layover from Denver) I've always headed onwards, blinkered, taut trousered and sparkle toothed, never back. But there was a good reason for doing so - Thanksgiving. Nothing like a celebration that romanticises the screwing over of an indigenous population to warm your cockles. And boy, after the Denver air, did my cockles need warming. Certain 'things' were starting to retreat back into my body like a turtle's head in a sandstorm.

Quite why Americans choose to base their most recognised holiday around a celebration of the settlers policy of deception against their Native American hosts, is a mystery to me. Imagine if every year in England we gathered our nearest and dearest together to have a big old 'Highland Clearances Festival' or sent cards wishing elderly grandparents 'Happy Indian Railroad Week' or 'Invention of Concentration Camp-a-mania', but that is pretty much what is done here.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm waffling on about (impossible to imagine) Thanksgiving is a time for all Americans to give thanks for their lot in life, but it's a festival based around the fabled story of the Plymouth settlers sharing the feast from their first harvest festival on foreign soil.

The parts that are left out of the story is the systematic disenfranchisement of the entire Native American population from their homeland. Somehow, these bits don't really sit too well with turkey and football, so Thanksgiving is now largely a secular celebration of, well, everything. So long as 'giving thanks' is covered in gravy or deep fried in meaty, glistening fat, it's all good.

For a nation with so little history, it's not really surprising that America has so many national holidays to compensate them for their lack of days off in their basic job packages. Most Americans stare at me with uncomprehending, sparkle eyed awe when I tell them of the far away land of Englandshire with it's 25 days of annual leave, a working health system and bread that is not enriched with sherbet. That revelation is immediately followed by them checking their pulse and consoling themselves by imbibing the 6th sausage patty of the morning.

My own Thanksgiving experience was a helluvatime and a real community affair. We woke at dawn and, much like Christmas, investigated some of the finest American brews of the era (both kinds of beer - bud and bud light) and bringing in the emergency tables from the shed. It's not that easy to balance 2 bottles of Budblueribbon on a table top while carrying it across a gravel driveway. Looked like the Chuckle Brothers re-enacting swan lake on ice. While on heroin.

Everyone in the hostel pulled together and discovered their war time spirit of mucking in and making do. After the required amount of time (3 to 4 and a half hours depending on the size of the bird and the alcohol intake of the chef) and after a quick speech of thanks from the hostel owner, we troughed like sweating heaps of blubber on the feast that had unfolded. One of us became diabetic at the table, four people had a stroke and I needed the assistance of a plunger to push the final piece of stuffing through my heart before it caused it to pop in my chest like a cherry in a microwave.

After the feasting was concluded and a large scale communal nap was had by all (in a heap) we absconded into town for some much needed refreshment. Despite it being quiet downtown, we had time to enjoy the myriad delights of scantily dressed waitresses dancing on the bar, which all sounds very glamorous, if not for the fact that at least one of them was texting at the same time and both had a look on their face that said 'if I have to spend one more second of this tedious life here, then I will weep into my own sparkly bra' before looking for a nearby penknife to jab into the lurching eyeballs of the nearest drooling musclebag waving a dollar bill in her general direction.

After that, we headed for a well known local dive bar where the music was rumoured to be excellent. Despite the extraordinary long walk through the kind of weather that would make Frosty the Snowman book a flight for Fiji just to get some feeling back in his toes, we heard it was great from our Dutch tour guide from the hostel. However, when we finally got there we found it totally closed with no hope of re-entry. Dutch guide, meanwhile, was so drunk, she proceeded to lie face up in the middle of the road in the hope that this would flag down a taxi. The Dutch. God knows how they get so wacky when thy spend so much time in coffee shops.

After all that fun, carbs and delicious sweatmeats, there couldn't possibly be time to be doing anything else. Perhaps we will find some respite from this ridiculous email? No. No you wont. Read. This. Stuff...... NOW.

1. Discussed 'sexy time' with random Dutch people (no partaking though, just revelling in the pronunciation of scchhhhheeexiii ttthhhyyymmee
2. Imagined the lyrics to incomprehensible Kings of Leon songs and sang them around the hostel all day.
3. Once we finally got into the bar that was closed on Thanksgiving night, we met the friendliest bar owner in the world. Robert owns 'Bobbies Idle Hour' bar on Music Row here in Nashville, and this giant of a man (across between Mick Fleetwood, Father Christmas and a cheeky uncle at a wedding) provided beers and country singing all with a sly grin plastered all over his mush.
4. Headed out to Norm's River Roadhouse which is literally in the middle of a field outside Nashville. At first I was sure the only drinkers would be cattle, but the bar was filled with country music fans coming to listen to the bedazzled crooners. The place was perfect, a true American roadhouse experience.
5. Saw a solid 20 minutes of evangelical TV. Every time a blue jacketted Roy Hudd lookalike bellowed something from the Bible at his petrified congregation, the referenced passage was displayed in the bottom left hand corner of the screen (for those playing along at home) right next to the phone number tat you call with details of how to make a donation (all major credit cards accepted). I almost herniated with laughter.
6. Hit the record shops and bought back issues of Rolling Stone and felt about 12% cooler for fifteen minutes.
7. Had fun at Tootsies bar for an evening of ales and music only to discover that the Aussie girl with us did a spot on impression of a mouth organ and proceeded to get up on stage and demonstrate for the bemused crowd. It's amasing what being blond lets you get away with.
8. Sat around one night and, bored, proclaimed: 'lets go bowling'. We rocked up to the bowling alley for a few sweet frames of bowling. Stephen and I were immediately embarrassed by the girls who irritatingly, despite spinning round on their run up, throwing it between their legs and generally larking about comprehensively outplayed us...
9. ...until the final frame when Steve defied the odds and hit 3 strikes in a row. We exploded with amasement, until...
10. ...up steps Adams with a strike...
11. ...and another. Can I do three? Is this the greatest moment of my life?
12 ...no, it isn't. 9 down, one left standing. Damn you universe.
13. But it was enough to come from nowhere to snatch victory. IN YOUR FACE WORLD!!!
14. Remembered it was only bowling and to grow up and stop taunting everyone and running around the bowling alley with my shirt off, spinning it around my head.
15. Watched an episode of Bewitched where the she-devil patronises the arse off some black people. Practically an incitement to riot.
16. Have just watched a few minutes of the most disturbing thing I've ever seen on television. 'Worship for Children' which was seemingly created in a basement with a budget of 12 pence, includes such gems as Gary and his friend called Bob. Bob is a balloon. With a face drawn on it. Gary then takes his seat among 3 small boys who are encouraged to sit on his lap and talk to Bob about Jesus, while Gary sings songs (in his shirt and tie) while grinning a suspiciously wide grin and clicking his fingers. Chilling.

So that's me for now. I'll be pushing one more mail out, like a sparkling word-turd, before the end of the week to sign off this series and the final, final, mail will be just around the corner when I pack up my crayons and get back to England. Be brave. I'll be home soon.

So, for the penultimate time while I'm in America:

Byeloveyoubye.xxx