Day 6: Krusty in Memphis

August 22, 2007
By Jamie

6:00?!? What the hell were we thinking? There’s a whole heckuva lot to do in Memphis. We’re clearly not destined to get to much of it today. After our late night/early morning we slept in until 1 or 2:00 in the afternoon. This is actually our first stop where we’ll be staying more than one night, so we take advantage by spreading our crap all over the room. And we stink. I’m pretty sure Craig pooped in his bed, but he won’t own up to it. And I’m not willing to check.

After we finally get into gear, we mosey out of the hotel and head to a diner called the Arcade for some grub. (Breakfast?) Pretty standard fare, but it’s a cool place. Oldest diner in Memphis or something like that. I think it’s been around since 1919. The Arcade is south of downtown and there’s ready street parking there, so it seems like a good place to leave our cars while we check some things out around town. A short trolley ride brings us back into the Beale area. Our first stop is the Southern Folklore store. Lots of neat rustic tchotchkes that will make Kristi mad if brought home. Our next stop is a tour of the Gibson guitar factory. Gibson has three factories: Memphis, Nashville and Bozeman, MT. Memphis is where all the semi-hollow body electrics are made. The tour was really cool. The tour guide was certainly informative, but it was clear she’s given the tour a bajillion times. I want to add another father/son project to my dad’s list and figure out how to make a guitar. After the tour we did some casual strolling about town including a walk through the Peabody. The Peabody is famous for the pomp and circumstance surrounding some ducks they have in their fountain. They roll out the red carpet at 11:00 and 5:00 when they bring the ducks in and out. We saw the ducks, but not the little show. I will forever be disappointed. (Ducks?!? Walking?!? That’s unbelievable!!!)

We’ve got some time to kill before our next museum visit so we take a pit stop back on Beale Street at Silky O’Sullivan’s. A quick drink helps take the edge off our stressful day. Not a fantastic place, but the people are nice and the live blues is enjoyable. (Overall I’d say the bars owned by Carson are better – Rum Boogie, Pig, etc.)

After Silky’s we head to the Memphis Rock and Soul Museum. It’s a very informational place with lots of cool artifacts. New Orleans may have invented jazz, but Memphis didn’t do too bad by coming up with soul and rock & roll. (Basically gospel and blues came together to form soul. Country and blues came together to form rock & roll. And it all happened here.) A good little history lesson.

Time to get out of downtown. We hop in the car and head over to the Cooper-Union neighborhood. Neat area with cool independent shops, restaurants and bars. By this time the stores we wanted to check out are already closed. The bars are open. We stop into the Young Avenue Deli to do some planning. I sip on a PBR. Craig’s excited because they’ve got Schlitz. The Greek bartender is very friendly (pretty much everyone here has been) and he’s eager to tell us stories of forlorn love. The guy’s a talker.

On our way back to the hotel we stop off at Murphy’s for a quick car bomb. The name is a bit of a misnomer as it’s more of a punk rock band than an Irish pub. The place is essentially empty. It takes us around two hours to make our quick stop. As usual, the bartender and the two other patrons are very friendly, so we have another nice discussion and get more scoop on Memphis. Two of the gals were in a band called the Whoremones, an all-girl Ramones cover band. What a simple and brilliant name. One of the bartenders owns an old school cop car that he uses to pull over his friends. Of course this is a nice photo opp for us and hopefully the only time on the trip I’ll be bent over a cop car.

Time for some more BBQ. There’s a Top’s right by the hotel, so we stop in and fill the void. Top’s is a chain down here and it’s basically fast food barbecue. Pretty decent though.

Next stop: the Buccaneer. It’s a pirate-themed (loosely) bar in a converted house. Cool place. This is where we get our first taste of the local indie music scene. Most of the bars we’ve gone to are on our list because they “sometimes” have live music, but this is the first one to come through. I get the impression the indie music scene is rather small here with a leaning towards punk/garage/rootsy. (The scale of it is a pleasant reminder of how good we’ve got it in Mpls/StP.) Can’t remember the name of the band that was playing but they were an entertaining psychobilly trio. There was some crazy old lady hopping around who had the hots for Craig. Her arm was in a sling, but she was sure flinging it around a lot. I think maybe she put it on with the assumption she would eventually fall and hurt herself. She was also accompanied by a strapping young buck who was looking out for her. He pretty much stood at attention the whole time. Nice enough guy, but he didn’t seem any too comfortable with either the setting or his assignment. Maybe both. It was confusing.

After the Buccaneer, we went to Neil’s. Rather unremarkable place. But they did have shuffleboard. Craig got his rematch. Same result, sucka. We probably would have moved on, but the other side of the bar had karaoke. I did Mama Tried (again) and To Love Somebody. Craig broke out some new material with a fabulous rendition of Brandy.

After a late start, we managed to pack in a lot of stops in our day. Even so, we kept it a (relatively) early night as we had a litany of things to tackle the next day. OK, so it was still 3:00. I’d say we’ve successfully eased ourselves into the Memphis experience and found our stride.