Mystery Train and the Blue Monkey Bar

Mystery Train and the Blue Monkey Bar

                August 21, 2007: It was all whirlwind, heat, and flash.  We killed my parents and hit the road. 

                The only time I got lost through all of my map-quest trip planning was in the city of Chicago.  I got confused trying to find my way south out the city and probably wasted about an hour of time getting onto the wrong expressway.  In this time I made a playlist on my iPod while driving.  I do not recommend trying this for anyone.  It was horribly dangerous and I could have easily died before I had any fun, with $26,000 to my name.  Perhaps it would go to a highly-respected non-profit charity organization. 

                I should admit something.  Okay, two things.  First of all, I had facetiously told my parents that I was going to spend all of my money on the road and then kill myself.  Of course they didn’t like hearing this.  But I did have a dark plan in the back of my mind.  I did not see any way to succeed in this world.  I had been a total failure of a human being in Chicago.  I had suffered through loveless misery for far too long a time.  Here was the interesting part: Sam had a friend named Zach who had disappeared on the Pacific Northwest peak Mt. Ranier a year or two before.  Sam believed that Zach was still alive, and that we would go to Mt. Ranier and look for him.  I looked forward to this immensely, because Portland and Seattle were two of the cities I had been most interested in visiting for several years.  I also thought that maybe, if we didn’t find Zach, I could pull a Zach on my own. 

                The second thing: I am obsessed with indie rock.  It is the only thing in life that gives me joy anymore—smoking cigarettes in my car, blasting indie rock, singing along.  In my first two novels, I always include lots of my favorite songs and use their lyrics to highlight particular emotions which I have shared.  I wanted to say, if I had to pick a song to encapsulate my experience of living in Chicago between January 2006 and August 2007, it would be the Wipers “Window Shop for Love.”  And if I had to pick a song to symbolize the beginning of that road trip, that leg of the journey between Chicago and Memphis, I would pick the song that I chose to start that ill-advised playlist made on the expressway: “Letter to Memphis” by the Pixies.  When I realized I had found the right road, and was now on my way, I started up the playlist, heard this song, and felt a sense of total communion and happiness with the world around me.  I was living my dream and I couldn’t have been happier. 

                Five or six or seven hours later, I was in Memphis, and I found my hotel, the French Quarter Guest Suites, which was not close to the downtown area, but which was not very far away either.  It certainly was not in walking distance but it wasn’t more than a ten or fifteen minute drive.  I checked in, got to my room, which was $50 a night for a two-room suite, with a couch, two televisions, queen-size bed, and a whirlpool bathtub (the element which made me book the place).  I took out my bong—which I should introduce the reader to—the Ghost of Condoleezza Rice—named as such because it was the replacement for my previous bong Condoleezza—named as such for reasons that are relatively unclear at this time, but which I still find appropriate and hilarious (there were annoying rings on it that you could use to grasp it, but they always felt like they could easily break).  I took out the bong and smoked up and played music through my shitty laptop speakers.  I looked through the guest services guide and found that there were a few restaurants open at this relatively late hour nearby.  The Blue Monkey Bar appeared interesting and I decided that would be the place I would get dinner.  I picked up my copy of This Side of Paradise, put it in my messenger bag, left the hotel high as a kite, and walked a few blocks to the Blue Monkey Bar.

                I drank Bass beers there and am not sure what I ate the first night—probably chicken wings and mozzarella sticks—two of my favorite foods.  I had three or four Basses and was pretty drunk.  I sat alone in the corner, reading my F. Scott Fitzgerald, occasionally glancing at the other bar patrons, hoping that I could start a conversation and convince them to come back to my hotel room and smoke and spend the night with me.  But I was not so ambitious the first night.  I received my bill and found it to be surprisingly cheap.  The Basses were $2 each.  What a deal!  I loved Memphis.

                I had been excited to come to Memphis primarily because of the film Mystery Train, directed by a fellow alum of mine, Jim Jarmusch (if he is thirty years older than me, it makes no difference, we share indelible experiences).  I loved the final part with Steve Buscemi and Joe Strummer and I wanted to get drunk in the same area and smoke cigarettes and act like a badass.  I had no job.  I had picked up a carton for a very good price in Missouri.  I had nothing to prove to anyone and I had $26,000 to my name.  Well, now more like $23,000, after what I had spent in Chicago before I left.  Later I watched Mystery Train in Los Angeles and saw a familiar sight in that third part—a boarded up theater which I recognized as being a few blocks from my hotel. 

                I went back to my hotel room and Lost in Translation was on HBO late at night.  I smoked a bowl and watched the final scene of that movie, when “Just Like Honey” by the Jesus and Mary Chain is playing, and I felt totally happy and thought about how I was going to try to meet Scarlett Johansson when I finally made it to Hollywood. 

                The next morning I had breakfast not too far from my hotel, close to that aforementioned theater seen in the movie.  I read a short story from the Roald Dahl book Skin, which my creative writing workshop friend Dave had given me at a Sangria party he had thrown a week or so before I left the city.  I saw an advertisement for a studio apartment in Memphis--$400 a month.  I thought, what a deal!  I should get some friends together and we should all move here—it’s a wonderful place. 

                I loved Memphis, and I drove downtown that day to go to the Beale St. marketplace (or whatever it was called).  I should also mention that I came at the perfect time.  We were right at the 30^th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death.  Signs of Elvis were everywhere.  Signs said, “Welcome Elvis Fans,” as Elvis tourism was probably at peak numbers the same two nights I stayed there.  I bought a poster from a store on Beale St. that said, “Devil’s Harvest—a good girl until she smokes a reefer!” picturing a 1920’s gentleman with a 1920’s flapper having a marijuana cigarette.  The man in the store was chatty with me and I talked about how I was from Chicago and used to live right by Wrigley Field. 

                At the moment, the Cubs were beginning their improbable run to the playoffs in 2007.  In 2006, the Cubs had one of their worst seasons ever.  I felt I had brought a curse on them by moving so close, and had suffered for it.  In 2007, just when they made the playoffs, I had to move away.  And in 2008, when they had one of their best seasons ever, I had to be in Los Angeles, and then in the suburbs the day they clinched, not six blocks away like before.

                I went to a mall downtown and bought tickets for an evening show of Superbad, a movie that had come out the previous weekend.  I went to a record store called Goner Records and bought a Be Your Own Pet single—“Damn Damn Leash”—and also a Richard Hell album “Spurts: The Richard Hell Story,” which I had wanted to get for about a year.  When I checked out I got a free bumper sticker, which now is on the top side of my laptop (I was about to say I didn’t remember the name of the store until I realized I had this sticker in a prominent place) and I asked the guy what he thought about Be Your Own Pet.

                “Are they good?” I asked.

                “Yeah, they’re good.  I’ve seen them once.”

                “Aren’t they from here?” I asked.

                “They’re from Nashville.” 

                Which was where I would be the next day.

I went back to my hotel room beforehand and smoked a bowl and wrote about Chuck Klosterman.  I had just finished reading Killing Yourself to Live and I wrote about how Chuck Klosterman had anticipated my literary style before I had been published and therefore was a genius.  I drove back downtown and had no problem parking.  Memphis may be a city big enough to have its own NBA team but it is never so crowded that you feel superfluous, like in New York or Chicago or Los Angeles.  Everybody there seemed very much at peace with themselves and the world.  I could not sense any racial tension or resentment, which I could definitely feel in parts of New York or Chicago.  The prices were cheap, the businesses were performing and the people were happy.  I watched Superbad by myself and thought it was one of the funniest things I had seen in a while. 

                Later I went back to the Blue Monkey Bar for the second night and ordered a filet mignon and more Bass and worked on a letter to my friend—who figures very prominently in this story and probably does not wish to be called by his real name—Sycamore.  As I wrote this letter, waiting for my food, a girl came up to my table.  She asked what I was writing and I told her a letter.  She told me one of her friends at their table over there had been at the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop.  I told her I had applied to that MFA program a year before and hadn’t gotten in, but that her friend was very lucky and cool.  She asked if I wanted to join them and I said as soon as I finished my steak I would move over to the table.  She left, my dinner arrived, and before I had finished, they had left.  This made me sad. 

                However, I met another group of people closer to my age.  One girl, named Caitlin, came up to me.  She was with her boyfriend, who had tattoos.  They had a couple other friends with them.  They were very welcoming to me.  I remember hearing the song “The Underdog” by Spoon in the bar, and writing to Mike that Memphis was super cool because they played indie rock songs in random bars, this before I knew the song had become something of a pop singles chart hit.  Also, “The Heinrich Maneuver” by Interpol—and the albums those songs had come from had come out on the same day and I had bought them.  We had a couple drinks and then this girl came into the bar.  She looked just like Edie Sedgwick—or more accurately, Sienna Miller as Edie Sedgwick in Factory Girl.  Her name was Brittany.  I told her this at a moment of drunken glory and she was the friendliest girl I had met since my college years in New York—friendlier than any girl I had met in Chicago.  I asked her if she knew who Edie Sedgwick was and she said she did and that was a huge compliment.  What a girl!  I will never forget that face simply because it was such the spitting image of that famous socialite’s. 

                The night wore on and my new friends told me they were going to a bar and I should meet them there.  I ran back to my hotel briefly to get my car.  I really shouldn’t have been driving.  I was wasted.  I got lost looking for the place and found it shortly thereafter.  It was around 3:00 AM on a weeknight.  They all cheered when I showed up at the bar.  I felt like I had become part of their clique in just a few hours.  What great people Memphis had!  So friendly, so open-minded.  I was not at this second bar for more than an hour as it was getting very late.  I thought about inviting them over to smoke with me, but decided they probably wouldn’t have wanted to, for some reason. 

                The next day I had to check out by Noon and I was late and slow getting up.  I probably checked out around 12:15.  I was very hung-over.  It was okay though—the drive to Nashville was shorter than usual, only a few hours, three or four.