Pribek

If I don’t love you baby
Grits ain’t grocery,
Eggs ain’t poultry,
And Mona Lisa was a man

from the song “Grits Ain’t Groceries” by Titus Turner

I like grits. I take mine with butter, a little salt and pepper. I’ve seen folks put, maple syrup, corn syrup, sugar, and even ketchup on grits. I like places that serve you grits even when you don’t ask for them, places where grits are just part of the meal, a given. That being said, I found this Breitbart/AP story a bit, shall we say, hard to digest.

Pat Bertoletti, a mohawk-sporting chef from Chicago gulped down 21 pounds of buttery, goopy grits in 10 minutes to win $4,000 in the first World Grits Eating Championship at Louisiana Downs on Saturday.

The grits were presented in 2-pound trays, each about 8 inches by 6 inches and 1 1/2 inches deep, said Ryan Nerz, a spokesman for Major League Eating.

Bertoletti, in a statement, said the race “tested our stomach capacity like no other.”
The buzz going in was that a lot of grits would go down because they are so easy to eat, Nerz said.

21 pounds of grits!!

First off, the fact that there is an entity called “Major League Eating” is absurd. Eating is not a sport. I don’t care about the fact that they show this suff on ESPN. I don’t care that these people allegedly “train” for months to prepare for these events. They are not athletes and eating is not a sport.

Watching some guy pound a bunch of hot dogs or slam jalapenos or suck up a bunch of oysters does not fall in to the same parameters as watching football, baseball, soccer or skiing.

Watching somebody over eat is a spectacle, not a sport.

I would think that it is safe to say that eating 21 pounds of grits is dangerous. Eating 21 pounds of anything is unhealthy. I think that if you sat down and ate 21 pounds of lettuce, you would feel bad.

Supporting this nonsense, offering $4,000 to the person that eats 21 pounds of grits is worse. Actually, there is an element of cruelty here. Let’s see; we have a group of people over here that need money and/or a burning desire to get some recognition of any kind. How can we manipulate these people’s lack of funds and self worth and at the same provide maximum entertainment? I know, we can make them eat boiled hominy and lots of it.

Remember those old western movies when there is a pathetic, broke drunkard standing outside the saloon? The cowboys all get together and make the drunkard sing “How Dry I Am” and then laugh a big laugh, throw a couple of coins at the poor man. That’s what competitive eating reminds me of.

Actually, that gives me a great idea. If we find entertainment in paying people to participate in over eating contests; why stop there? We should have competitive vodka and tequila drinking contests. There should be a “Major League Drinking” orginization. That would provide endless yuks. You could have obstacles. A contestant would be eliminated if they fell down a set of stairs, hit on the boss’ wife, drove his car in to a bridge abutment.

Why stop there? Why don’t we see who can smoke the most pot or, snort the most cocaine or, shoot the most heroin?

Come on people, we have to take responsibility as consumers here. Clearly, we enjoy watching people stuff their faces with doughnuts and sausages. Clearly, we get a kick out of watching people engage in harmful consumption. We are cheating ourselves by limiting our enjoyment to watching the consumption of food items. At the same time, there are people in this world, who have no interest in gobbling up Krystal burgers but would slam 30 shots of Jagermeister for cash, that aren’t getting a fair shake. We owe it to ourselves and we owe it to them to make all forms of self abusive behavior fair game for our enjoyment.

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Played this gig at Tequila’s last night. It’s a Mexican restaraunt upstairs and a bar in the basement set-up. Pretty good food by the way. The bar part, the basement, features some neon lights, cactus murals and painted concrete floors.

So, it’s just Mark and I playing acoustic guitars, cover songs; a pretty simple deal. I’ve played here, maybe a half dozen times in the last couple of months. There has never been a real “crowd” in this place any of those times. Fifteen people would be about the most I’ve seen in there at any one time.

Anyway, last night there was a handful of people we know and a few that we didn’t. Flash was there, he got up and sang “Alberta”. There was one loaded, middle-aged, flannel shirt wearing guy who gets up and dances by himself. He’s been in there every time; don’t know his name.

Shannon Holt came up and played a couple of songs at the end of a set. He played Mark’s guitar and Mark went up the bar. I look over and Mark is talking to this frail looking, bleach blonde young woman wearing, what appears to be a very large man’s shirt that comes down to her knees. She’s got to be early twenties, I’m guessing. She is holding a baby and crying. Mark is saying something like; “Don’t worry, calm down, your safe here”. This is the same place, by the way, that we played at a couple of weeks back and Mark had three slashed tires at the end of the night.

We went up and played a few more songs and then the bartender comes over and hands us the money. He is saying go ahead and knock off early if you want to. We siart packing up guitars and I asked Mark about the girl with baby in tow situation. She told him she had been molested by some guy and went running away in the middle of the night because she was afraid.

The girl is going around and asking the few people that were there, if she could get a ride somewhere. I just kind of glanced a her and, I got the impression that she was high. Seemed like maybe she was on meth. I don’t know this for fact, just an intuition. We have this friend named Glenda; the girl told her story about being molested and asked Glenda for a ride. Glenda told her to call the cops and the girl said she couldn’t do that so, the drug use theory makes some sense.

Meanwhile the jukebox is just blaring. This basement room is harsh sounding and the jukebox is real loud. Dancing by himself guy, has played a bunch of Kid Rock, Alice In Chains, Nellie’s “It’s Gettin’ Hot In Her” and he wants his money’s worth; keeps asking the bartender to turn it up. The baby, or I guess I should say toddler, is standing with his hands on the jukebox and looking up at it with wide-eyed wonder.

The girl leaves the toddler at the jukebox and, I guess goes to the ladies room. When she returns, she has now abandoned the man’s shirt. She is wearing very short, very tight, terrycloth shorts and a white top that is translucent. Nickleback is playing on the jukebox now; “Cause we all just wanna be big rock stars” and the toddler is out on the dance floor cocking his head back and forth and dancing. He looks like the old dancing internet baby.

The girl sidles up to Mark to ask him for a ride and Mark says, “I rode with Jack, you’ll have to ask him about it”. Thanks a lot, pal. I really had been trying to avoid any eye contact with this chick.

So, she walks up to me and this is what she says: “I was staying with a friend of mine who turned out to be a pervert. I was sleeping on the bed, next to my baby and I woke up ’cause he had his hands down my pants. Could you give me a ride home?”

What are you going to do, you know? You got this glassy eyed chick with a dancing baby, who is telling this story that doesn’t add up. Why don’t you want to call the cops? What are you doing sleeping at some guy’s house, with your baby? Did you not know this guy, it’s a revelation that he’s a pervert? Why are you stoned and taking a baby anywhere?

I just told her that the car was full of gear and that there wasn’t room, which was true. I’m pretty sure that she didn’t think to grab the car seat while escaping the pervert either.

Here’s the thing, I really try to help people if I can. If someone is having trouble with drugs or booze especially because, others have helped me. I feel bad that I didn’t try to do something for this girl, she’s not in a good place but something inside warned me away. I don’t really know what I could have done though. I think that the best advice she got was to call the cops and she was adamant about not doing that. The bartender said he was going to give her a ride home.

So, that was my Friday night. We’ll go do it again tonight. Dancing guy will probably be there. Hopefully, no dancing babies.

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Another sterling day in the Ozarks. The high temp’s are going to be in the low 80’s all week. Godamighty the weather has been nice. I was driving to a rehearsal last night, with the windows wide open and the air just had a pop to it. The trees had this surreal vibrant color to them. It was like a state of heightened awareness or something.

I’m listening to the Led Zeppelin live record, “How The West Was Won”, as I’m writing. There was a period, early on, where I didn’t really dig Zep. I think it was a combination of reasons really. For one thing, back in the 70’s Led Zep music was everywhere you went. KSHE played them all the time, cars passing by on the street were all blaring Zep and if you went to a party that was what you were going to hear. The other guitar player in my first band was a huge Zeppelin fan. We used to drive gravel roads, smoking joints and listening to Zep for hours at a time. At the time, I didn’t own any of the records because, I didn’t need to; it was pervasive.

I also had a hard time trying to play the stuff. It used to baffle me that I had no problem with, say a Muddy Waters groove but, I couldn’t get the feel of Zeppelin. I could get the notes but not the groove.

Years later, I was playing in a band called No Thanx. The drummer, Jake, had the John Bonham thing down cold. He had that groove, the power, the foot, the whole thing. Jake would play like that naturally. I had a hard time playing with him at first. Bonham was very precise but there was always swing to his groove. Jake was the same in that sense. I’m not saying that he was doing Bonham’s act but there was definitely common ground. When you play with a drummer like that, you have to be as precise as they are. They don’t leave grey area.

So, a guy like Jimmy Page, who is doing a lot of improv, has to be a real salty player. Playing with Jake gave me a whole new respect for Jimmy Page; hell the whole band, for that matter. Ever since then I have been a big fan of Led Zeppelin. One of the things that is cool about this live record is the rhythmic interaction between Page and Bonham.

Since I made my move from the trailer park (more details later), I have been watching some T.V.

I saw a little bit of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band on the dreaded Today Show this morning. They sounded good, tighter than hard times in ‘29. One of the Today Show wonks said that they started playing before the show started and just kept going. Rave on, Boss.

One thing I’ve noticed, with this recent re-introduction to the television is the disturbing use of tapes of 911 calls on the news. Every time some crime has been committed, or some one has a wreck, they have audio from the 911 call. So, you get to hear people in times of distress. A lot of times it’s embarrassing.

How does the media get these recordings? Is this some kind of freedom of information thing?

I don’t see the necessity of Nancy Grace being able to play these things over and over.

Here is what bugs me; Let’s say that you think somebody may be breaking in to your neighbor’s house to kidnap their 13-year-old while they are out bowling. You aren’t totally sure but, you have a feeling something may be going down. You don’t want to go over there because, if something is going on, you would put yourself in danger. You are just suspicious; that’s all. People say some pretty goofy stuff when they call 911 because, they are under stress. Are you going to avoid calling because the call might end up being played by Geraldo over and over?

That is pretty far fetched, I know but, it is common nowadays to just turn your head when trouble happens. Like in the John Kerry/guy gets tazed video, they all just sit there and watch it happen; not my problem, you know.

The fact that your frantic 911 call will live forever seems to me like it just adds more reason to remain indifferent.

Mark and I will be playing un-plugged shows at Tequila’s in Branson West, tonight and tomorrow night. Starts at 9:00, stop by.

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