…that’s what this blog is all about these days. It used to be about bums and pigeons. Is that an improvement?
Saturday night I was on the rooftop of my building, talking to a friend of mine, a caterer who had just moved in. I asked him if he had ever tried out the rooftop hot tub. “Hell no, I’m not going in there!” he said. “That thing’s fucking community bathing! It’s like dick cappucino!”
Dick cappucino. That’s great. I’ll probably never be able to set foot in that hot tub again.
Later that night, I took one of my neighbors to Earnestine & Hazel’s. He had just moved to town and had been to the places like the Flying Saucer, Pat O’s, etc. that everyone has heard about. Now he wanted to experience the REAL Memphis. He loved the place. I showed him the upstairs where the “businesswomen” used to perform their services (E&H was a brothel until about fifteen years ago). Russell, the manager, was there and gave us a 30-minute history lesson on the place. He told us that Germantown parents would sometimes bring their college-age daughters there to see the prostitutes so the daughters would understand that not everyone had it as well as they did. He also told us about some of the stars who would come there to relax on their nights off – B.B. King, Tina Turner, Ray Charles, Francis Ford Coppola.
I had forgotten what a special experience it is to listen to that jukebox and eat a Soul Burger. I see more nights at E&H in my future.
Today I took the elevator up to the roof about 11:45 AM. I had planned to just stay up there a minute before heading out to the Blue Monkey for my usual Sunday festivities, but one of my neighbors was up there, and for some reason I felt like I should stay for a while and talk to her. Perhaps it was because she had a bikini on.
(How to get mentioned in this blog over and over again: Feed me, or put on a tube top, or a bikini. I know some of my neighbors read this. Are you taking notes?)
So I had been talking to my neighbor for maybe an hour, and she had to go downstairs for a minute. When she came back up, she had one hand behind her back, and she asked me when my birthday was. “If it’s nowhere near now, do I still get the present?” She promised that I would. So I told her that my birthday is in November, and she pulled out the present – a bottle of Boone’s Hill Raspberry Wine. Boone’s Hill costs $1.65 for a fifth bottle, and is in approximately the same class of wine that the bums drink. I think she gave it to me as a gag gift, but that didn’t stop me from unscrewing the cap and downing the entire bottle.
Her birthday is at the end of this month, so I suppose I’m under obligation now to purchase her a comparable present. I found this site which is a good list of gift ideas.
Later that evening, I re-appeared on the rooftop, and found that the caterer and his family had cooked bacon-wrapped shrimp, and they had extra. (Again: feed me, tube top, or bikini.) So I helped them get rid of all the food, watched the sunset, and that was the end of another glorious weekend downtown.