The Southern Comfort Tour - Interlude: Memphis Skyline
The Tuesday before I left, I found myself with some time to kill between shows at the IMAX (which, truth be told, is what always happens between shows there - 45 minutes of downtime can be pretty nice, all things considered) and so, knowing of the general make-up and route of my trip, I had looked online for hostels in the two places I wouldn’t be staying with friends, Asheville and Memphis. One of my coworkers who is from Asheville told me about Bon Paul & Sharky's, and with a little digging, I found one in Memphis, a place called Pilgrim House. I had called both of them and made reservations with no hassles whatsoever; I’d had to call and break the first due to my car trouble, and once I realized just how late I would be - I had thought that I could make up time on my way there, but the weather had made that impossible - the fact that my cell phone stopped working pretty much made that impossible as well. Even so, I was bound and determined to get there, and once I arrived in Memphis, I found the WiFi hotspot and logged into my e-mail for the phone # and access code to get inside the building. I figured that it was a hostel, it was Saturday night, and it was Memphis; the place would be crawling with people, right?
I was a little worried when I drove into the parking lot for the place, drove to the area right next to the door, and parked next to the only other car in the parking lot.
Even so, I got out, stretched, went to the door and entered the security code, made my way to the top floor, entered the code again, and walked into a very quiet, deserted looking occupied space. I walk down the hallway, looking for any sign of life - there is none. It sinks in, slowly, that I’ve come in way later than I thought I would, that whomever was supposed to be there to check me in is long gone, that for the moment, I am, once again, on my own. Visions of another night in a Super 8 motel flash through my head, and I am nearly brought to my knees by the overwhelming sense of dread and depression I feel at this prospect.
And then, oddly enough, salvation comes in the form of a flushing toilet. I hear someone come out of one of the bathrooms, and when the older woman comes around the corner and sees me, I put on my best smile - which, based on my experiences of the day, is probably paper fucking thin at this point - and ask her if she’s one of the people in charge. She responds that she isn’t, and I then quickly explain my ordeals of the last 12 hours, and why I’m arriving at the hostel so late. The woman - her name is Barbara - Barbara is actually very understanding, and thus begins an attempt to reach the RA on duty, a task that ultimately meets with failure. After this, she calls the woman in charge at her home and explains my predicament, and the woman tells her to tell me that she’s sorry that I won’t be able to sleep in any of the actual rooms, but if I want to crash on one of the many couches, they won’t charge me. Obviously, because I’m road-weary exhausted by this point, I say yes and take her up on this offer.
With that settled, I ended up sitting and talking to Barbara for the better part of half an hour. I’m sure that I drove her crazy, because now that I was actually face to face with someone who wasn’t charging me money for gas or trying to fix various things wrong with the car, it was like a dam inside me started to spill over, and then the cracks in the face of the dam grew larger and larger, and then, finally, it broke wide open. Words spilled out of me as I talked about my day, about the car, about everything that had transpired.
Now: I think that we, as human beings, have started to acquire - especially with all of the technology that we now have access to - I think that we have started to forget how important that human interaction is. I think that between phones, and the internet, and self-scan checkout lanes at the grocery store, and CNN and ATM machines and all the rest, we lose touch with that all important aspect of humanity, of being human. It would be almost entirely possible to make a trip like this without ever coming into contact with other people at all - paying for gas with a credit card, buying your food at a drive through, sleeping in your car in rest areas - but, in my mind, that completely defeats the purpose of a trip like this. You don’t take it because you want to avoid people. You take it because you have found - at some magical point of existence in the recent past - that your experiences with other people has taken on a distinctive downward cast.
Some friends have become quietly hostile enemies, or at the very least, bitterly neutral acquaintances. Others have drifted away, distanced themselves, because you’ve become this other version of yourself, like if you were a popular radio song that has suddenly become the latest parody sensation by Weird Al Yankovic, and you wake up one day and find out that you’ve been the parody song the whole time. A few have stuck by you and offered support during your time of crisis, and really, these are the friends who will, at one point or another, hold you by the shoulders and tell you, flat out, “Steven, I don’t care what the fuck else is going on in your life, you need to take this trip.” Regardless, all of them can see these new aspects of you written upon your face, your demeanor, your general weariness and defeat at the hands of fate. And when faced with that reality, it seems that the only answer is to get out, get away, get your head clear, get a new perspective.
See, the only problem with that - and it’s a BIG problem, to be sure - is what happens when you leave somewhere and go through these changes, and then you come back to the place you left, and all of the people, all of the situations that you put behind you, haven’t changed? What do you do when you walk back into somewhere feeling like a completely different person, and all anyone sees when they look at you is the same old schlep who trudged out of town 2 weeks before and is now back to bring down your week again?
And then, sometimes I think that all we can do - all we can ever do, and continue doing - is keep trying to make those connections, keep hoping that even those connections once made and now lost can be rebuilt again, slowly, over time.
After talking with Barbara for a bit, I told her I needed some food and a beer, and she directed me to a few places nearby. Indeed, the closest corner to The Pilgrim House had no less than 4 different places open and serving food and alcohol, and after looking at all of them, I settled on The Young Avenue Deli, where I went and had a pastrami sandwich that was glorious, a beer, and some really good conversation with Danny and Beverly, who just started talking to me on the unlikely topic of the opening credits of The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air. We stood and chatted for about an hour, and they were both very courteous and kind to an out-of-town stranger when they didn’t need to be. And really, that slice of conversation was why I took this trip - to meet people in strange cities who, whether for a minute or an hour or an evening, I could have a brief connection with. And it hit me pretty hard, standing in that bar - that I was having the first real sense of interaction with someone who didn’t know me from any of a thousand other strangers who will wander in and out of that place over the next year. I could have been anyone, and when it came time to make introductions, I could have easily trotted out a fake name - Arthur Greene or Carlos Angeles or Chandler McCarthy or Philip Hamilton or some other entity that didn’t even exist in my stories - but I found that, much to my surprise, I was very happy just being Steven.
Soon afterward, I went back to the hostel, changed to my PJs, climbed onto the couch, and almost immediately fell asleep, slumbering a few miles from Old Man River. And I have to tell you - I slept much better that night than I had in a long, long time.
The next morning, I woke up and had coffee with Barbara and Ben, a traveler from Australia who was taking a month to tour the states, along with brief appearances from two of the people who actually ran the place - before packing up my things and hitting the road again. In a moment of solidarity and generosity, I ended up giving Ben a Nautica jacket that I’ve had for nearly 2 years and worn maybe twice, telling him that since I hadn’t paid to stay in the hostel, I felt like I needed to pass something on and help in a good cause. And I don’t know why it was so important to do so, suddenly - I just knew it needed to be done, that I needed to help this stranger out, as I had been helped the night before, and the day before as well. And I think maybe that part of me just wanted to do something to repair my karma, my cosmic gas tank that had been flailing on empty for what seemed too long, now. He was certainly appreciative, and we stepped outside for a smoke, where we had some good conversation before he left for Graceland and I went inside to pack up everything I needed to and hit the road again.
In a few short minutes, I was done, and after saying my goodbyes to the people still there, I clambered back into Mary, started her up, and made my way, by fits and starts, out of Memphis.
I was a little worried when I drove into the parking lot for the place, drove to the area right next to the door, and parked next to the only other car in the parking lot.
Even so, I got out, stretched, went to the door and entered the security code, made my way to the top floor, entered the code again, and walked into a very quiet, deserted looking occupied space. I walk down the hallway, looking for any sign of life - there is none. It sinks in, slowly, that I’ve come in way later than I thought I would, that whomever was supposed to be there to check me in is long gone, that for the moment, I am, once again, on my own. Visions of another night in a Super 8 motel flash through my head, and I am nearly brought to my knees by the overwhelming sense of dread and depression I feel at this prospect.
And then, oddly enough, salvation comes in the form of a flushing toilet. I hear someone come out of one of the bathrooms, and when the older woman comes around the corner and sees me, I put on my best smile - which, based on my experiences of the day, is probably paper fucking thin at this point - and ask her if she’s one of the people in charge. She responds that she isn’t, and I then quickly explain my ordeals of the last 12 hours, and why I’m arriving at the hostel so late. The woman - her name is Barbara - Barbara is actually very understanding, and thus begins an attempt to reach the RA on duty, a task that ultimately meets with failure. After this, she calls the woman in charge at her home and explains my predicament, and the woman tells her to tell me that she’s sorry that I won’t be able to sleep in any of the actual rooms, but if I want to crash on one of the many couches, they won’t charge me. Obviously, because I’m road-weary exhausted by this point, I say yes and take her up on this offer.
With that settled, I ended up sitting and talking to Barbara for the better part of half an hour. I’m sure that I drove her crazy, because now that I was actually face to face with someone who wasn’t charging me money for gas or trying to fix various things wrong with the car, it was like a dam inside me started to spill over, and then the cracks in the face of the dam grew larger and larger, and then, finally, it broke wide open. Words spilled out of me as I talked about my day, about the car, about everything that had transpired.
Now: I think that we, as human beings, have started to acquire - especially with all of the technology that we now have access to - I think that we have started to forget how important that human interaction is. I think that between phones, and the internet, and self-scan checkout lanes at the grocery store, and CNN and ATM machines and all the rest, we lose touch with that all important aspect of humanity, of being human. It would be almost entirely possible to make a trip like this without ever coming into contact with other people at all - paying for gas with a credit card, buying your food at a drive through, sleeping in your car in rest areas - but, in my mind, that completely defeats the purpose of a trip like this. You don’t take it because you want to avoid people. You take it because you have found - at some magical point of existence in the recent past - that your experiences with other people has taken on a distinctive downward cast.
Some friends have become quietly hostile enemies, or at the very least, bitterly neutral acquaintances. Others have drifted away, distanced themselves, because you’ve become this other version of yourself, like if you were a popular radio song that has suddenly become the latest parody sensation by Weird Al Yankovic, and you wake up one day and find out that you’ve been the parody song the whole time. A few have stuck by you and offered support during your time of crisis, and really, these are the friends who will, at one point or another, hold you by the shoulders and tell you, flat out, “Steven, I don’t care what the fuck else is going on in your life, you need to take this trip.” Regardless, all of them can see these new aspects of you written upon your face, your demeanor, your general weariness and defeat at the hands of fate. And when faced with that reality, it seems that the only answer is to get out, get away, get your head clear, get a new perspective.
See, the only problem with that - and it’s a BIG problem, to be sure - is what happens when you leave somewhere and go through these changes, and then you come back to the place you left, and all of the people, all of the situations that you put behind you, haven’t changed? What do you do when you walk back into somewhere feeling like a completely different person, and all anyone sees when they look at you is the same old schlep who trudged out of town 2 weeks before and is now back to bring down your week again?
And then, sometimes I think that all we can do - all we can ever do, and continue doing - is keep trying to make those connections, keep hoping that even those connections once made and now lost can be rebuilt again, slowly, over time.
After talking with Barbara for a bit, I told her I needed some food and a beer, and she directed me to a few places nearby. Indeed, the closest corner to The Pilgrim House had no less than 4 different places open and serving food and alcohol, and after looking at all of them, I settled on The Young Avenue Deli, where I went and had a pastrami sandwich that was glorious, a beer, and some really good conversation with Danny and Beverly, who just started talking to me on the unlikely topic of the opening credits of The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air. We stood and chatted for about an hour, and they were both very courteous and kind to an out-of-town stranger when they didn’t need to be. And really, that slice of conversation was why I took this trip - to meet people in strange cities who, whether for a minute or an hour or an evening, I could have a brief connection with. And it hit me pretty hard, standing in that bar - that I was having the first real sense of interaction with someone who didn’t know me from any of a thousand other strangers who will wander in and out of that place over the next year. I could have been anyone, and when it came time to make introductions, I could have easily trotted out a fake name - Arthur Greene or Carlos Angeles or Chandler McCarthy or Philip Hamilton or some other entity that didn’t even exist in my stories - but I found that, much to my surprise, I was very happy just being Steven.
Soon afterward, I went back to the hostel, changed to my PJs, climbed onto the couch, and almost immediately fell asleep, slumbering a few miles from Old Man River. And I have to tell you - I slept much better that night than I had in a long, long time.
The next morning, I woke up and had coffee with Barbara and Ben, a traveler from Australia who was taking a month to tour the states, along with brief appearances from two of the people who actually ran the place - before packing up my things and hitting the road again. In a moment of solidarity and generosity, I ended up giving Ben a Nautica jacket that I’ve had for nearly 2 years and worn maybe twice, telling him that since I hadn’t paid to stay in the hostel, I felt like I needed to pass something on and help in a good cause. And I don’t know why it was so important to do so, suddenly - I just knew it needed to be done, that I needed to help this stranger out, as I had been helped the night before, and the day before as well. And I think maybe that part of me just wanted to do something to repair my karma, my cosmic gas tank that had been flailing on empty for what seemed too long, now. He was certainly appreciative, and we stepped outside for a smoke, where we had some good conversation before he left for Graceland and I went inside to pack up everything I needed to and hit the road again.
In a few short minutes, I was done, and after saying my goodbyes to the people still there, I clambered back into Mary, started her up, and made my way, by fits and starts, out of Memphis.