Spring Break 2004!!!
Whoa yeah hooker!
All I got to say is Pigeon Forge, Tennessee is a land of sin and debauchery.
If you’ve never been to the Louise Mandrell Live In Person Theatre, you ain’t lived.
Seriously, that place is like the French Quarter for antiquers and lovers of old dried up country and western singers.
Just drive down their main drag and wave some discontinued Fitz and Floyd figurines in the air; oh you’ll see some boob.
It’s amazing what some 65-year-old women will do for a cow-shaped salt and pepper set.
Let’s just say older women know how to “do it.”
On the real tip, my friends and I rented a swank little chateau in the Smoky Mountains.
We sat in the hot-tub, drank Zinfandel red and sang old Al Green tunes.
It was amazing.
Anywho, have you ever smoked crack?
It’s a rhetorical question really, but I was just wondering. I’ve never smoked crack. My girlfriend loves it, but I really never had the urge.
You know crack always reminds me of a cousin of mine, not because he smoked it necessarily, but because he had a poster of Bart Simpson caught in one of his aunt’s butt cracks.
The poster read, “Crack Kills.”
It was a moving piece of art.
Its message has kept me away from the rock so far.
Which brings me to an interesting phenomenon: the beggars of Chimes and State Street.
I have no physical evidence that these people are “on the rock” so to speak, but that seems to be the common consensus among people to whom I speak.
Personally, I have a weakness for beggars. I always give a dollar or two if I can, but if I’m out of cash I’m always good for a couple of smokes.
Now, maybe they don’t really have hungry children or a wife with cancer.
Maybe they just want to get drunk or stoned.
I’m down for whatever.
I mean, some nights you just want to get krunk. I think we all know that feeling.
Sure, I wish that they would just tell me the truth, but I understand the reasoning behind the sad story which may or may not be true.
It’s sad enough that they have to ask people for spare change — I’m sold.
However, the other night I was confronted with perhaps the best most truthful plea for spare change ever pitched.
I parked my car at in front of the neighborhood gas station blaring the new Harry Connick, Jr. album.
I turned my car off and stepped out onto the gas soaked parking lot only to be confronted by a middle-aged man in a dingy white t-shirt.
“What’s that you jammin’ to, playa?”
“Harry Connick, Jr.,” I replied boastfully.
“You ain’t got an extra smoke stick huh,” he asked without reaction to my answer to his previous question.
“Actually, I just smoked my last one, but I’m going in to buy some more. Can I get you one on the way out?”
He shook his ahead agreeably.
So, I walked in and bought myself a pack of cigs and walked back out toward my car.
Waiting for me patiently on the hood of my car, the man jumped up and took the four cigarettes I gave him with a “God bless you.”
I thought the transaction was complete, but before I could put the pack in my pocket my friend had whipped his wallet out and had it open two inches in front of my face.
I was a little taken back; after all I didn’t expect to get paid for the cigarettes I thought he was bumming from me.
“That’s my parole card, man,” he said.
And there in one of the clear plastic holders of his pleather tri-fold was a white ID card with the D.O.C. seal at the top.
“I got out of jail, yesterday.”
“Congrats,” I replied in a noticeable tone of awkwardness.
“I was in for ten years. You wouldn’t happen to have any spare change, because I really want to get drunk.”
“Sure,” I said, as I reached in my pocket to grab the $1.48 in change left over from the 5 dollars I used to buy my smokes.
“You know, I’d rather buy a piece of ass.”
I wasn’t sure if I was being propositioned, but before I judged him I was going to hear his offer.
“But them hookers on Highland chargin’ 15 bucks these days, 10 years ago you could get a cold forty and woman for less than 8.”
I love it when old people gripe about the cost of soda pop.
I was blown away at his honesty, and ended up giving him 20 dollars.
I gave some dap, and I walked away with the satisfaction that because of me someone was getting laid tonight.
And that felt good.