Day 1: Memphis

Alright. My first blog ever. I have entered a new era of computer usage. No promises kids.

So.

I am now in Memphis, after a crazy week of rehearsals at NTC, getting tons and tons of information about traveling, schools, finances, not the mention the show itself. After tearful goodbyes, we drove to Chicago, (myself, my tour partner Steve, and another group that are headed to TN, Nick and Aimee. We spent the day walking around the city, looking at Second City, and all the greats pictured on the outside. John Candy under 200 pounds? Holy shit. We jumped on the EL and took it down to the Magnificant Mile, saw the Bean, and walked through the park, down to the pier. There were tons and tons of sailors walking around on shore leave but Aimee and I did not have the balls to go ask to get our pictures taken with them. Of course we had deep dish pizza and beer, but then headed down to Louisville, KY. I really enjoyed our day here. I started the mullet count, which is still at 2 surprisingly. The city was beautiful, but oddly quiet. Many of the buildings stood vacant, and there was little to no traffic on the road or on the sidewalks. We found a local diner with a Sunday buffet and had REAL sweet tea, and REAL fried chicken, and sweet corn. Actually come to think of it everything was sweet. Even the bread. Weird. As we walked back towards the home of he Louisville Slugger, we ran into the AIDs walk which was really moving to hear peoples stories. And the worlds largest bat was just crazy huge, even got to hit the batting cages, and suck really hard at it. Awesome.

So 6 hours later, in Memphis. Looks just like any other town here by the hotel. But as you get into neighborhoods, you find these beautiful buildings, hole in the wall bbq places, waffle houses, and beautiful foliage. We had our first two shows today, they went great, now I have 3 hours before the next one, and then we are done for the day. I am still figuring out how to manage my time, but I have a feeling once I get the hang of it I will have a LOT. This will be an adjustment to be sure.

(insert 2 hour nap on the loveseat here. why the love seat? because the jerk at the front desk booked us a room with one king size bed. and steve got there first.)

Things I have learned about Memphis, TN so far:

1. You can smoke pretty much anywhere, the guy at the liquor store was a chimney.

2. Liquor stores sell wine and liquor. Beer is purchased as the gas station.

3.  Administrators at the schools find it damn near unfathomable that you will able to speak loud enough to a room full of kids without a mic.

4.  There is a Waffle House on pretty much every block.

At our third show, we met a guy who was the TA for the school, who was setting up the sound system that we had NO intention on using. He was very willing to chat with us about the educational system, and even felt the need to give us tips about how to connect with the kids. The interesting thing was that he assumed that we had been told that we would have to "dumb it down" for this area, and was quick to tell us that it was "getting better". He even gave us some pointers about where to go downtown for some great authentic BBQ.

Another random fact. If I so much as allude to Hanna Montana during the show, or even just chatting with the kids before the show, I get deafening screams of joy. Scary.