bigbonton

“Hey kids, rock and roll
Nobody tells you where to go, baby”

We got to this lunch place not a moment too soon – it was 3PM on a random Tuesday afternoon, late for lunch but perfect timing for the last of the unsweet tea mixed with lemonade. We got to chat with Mr. Weaver D himself, he had time, looked up from his paper. Nice guy, seemed self-assured and fulfilled in the way everyone wants to feel. Maybe we caught him on a good day, maybe we were projecting, since that’s the way everyone wants to feel. Or maybe he is the King of this domain, Weaver D’s, Athens, Georgia. He knows the public, he talked, he listened. I told him I was leaving town for a long drive, visiting a 90 year old Uncle. “Uh Huh, Oh,” he said. I’ve been at a conference, I said. “Oh, a conference,” he said.

Weaver D S Delicious Fine Foods
Automatic For The People

We got to this place not a moment too soon, in this case “not a moment too soon” means fourteen years later than we originally thought of visiting, but when we first heard about this joint we were half a world away from Athens GA, in Budapest, Hungary. It was one of those moments that seems insignificant but sticks in your mind like a time stamp.

Mr. Weaver D knew what I as doing there, he was cool about it. I looked, tried not to stare at the "Automatic for the People" memorabilia, but being deliberately blasé is hard to pull off. I wanted to ask him what being on an R.E.M. album cover felt like, did it change anything? For the better? Do people like me bug him? Am I bugging you? Should I say it? Do I seem remote because I’m not talking? Am I giddy from a brush with fame?

April, fourteen years earlier, I got off the yellow Budapest tram near Octagon Ter, started down the promenade but got caught in an April downpour, a sudden soaker that had everyone scurrying for shelter. Not I, since I was done being The Professor for the day (3pm) and was on my way to my Sweetheart of the Month. Wet clothes gave an excuse to shed clothes.
I strolled in that springtime, everything was going my way, I watched the mere mortals fear the elements. Near her courtyard I paused to collect myself, shook my wet hair like a dog, ducked into the tarp shelter of a bootleg cassette pirate. A new R.E.M. release played on the jambox of the street vender. I bought a cassette (700 forints), presented my discovery to Miss Sweetness of April and we enjoyed it together for a long, long, long, long time. It wasn’t until I returned to the USA that I found out that the cassette had a fault, it played a bit too slow. The correct version of “Automatic for the People” sounded like up beat Pop-Schmaltz to me in America. My idealized version is more of a blues, slow and low is the tempo. Seems more meaningful, going slow. The up tempo version lacks depth.
[addressing two comments that came in very quick, yes, "Everybody Hurts" going slow tempo can be even more painful, but we were blissing, untouchable, and didn't pay attention to that]

Every single freaking lyric was written for us that season, it was the soundtrack to our lives. Spring, Summer 1993 in Budapest, Lake Balaton, that week spent in a haystack, the weeks surfing Croatia... train rides, homemade wine with grape seeds in it, bread and cheese for lunch...

You can call the pay phone.
Let it ring a long, long, long, long time.
If I don’t pick up, hang up, call back, let it ring some more.

Baby, instant soup doesn’t really grab me.
Today I need something more sub-sub-sub-substantial.
A can of beans or black-eyed peas, some Nescafe and ice,
A candy bar, a falling star, or a reading of Doctor Seuss;

Night swimming, remembering that night.
September’s coming soon.

Pick up here and chase the ride.
The river empties to the tide.
All of this is coming your way.

I will try not to breathe.
This decision is mine. I have lived a full life
And these are the eyes that I want you to remember.

Posted by bonton at 9:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

$6.95 All You can Eat Buffet

Eat in a train car!
(But it turned into a circus train.)
Somewhere beside the train tracks with weeds growing up through the railroad ties.

Before we went inside we saw the first old person using a medical walker, she was slow, old and infirm. Her husband let her out of the car at the train car restaurant entrance. Once she had fully disembarked from the vehicle (five long minutes) she stood at the handi-ramp while her husband parked the Ford Fairlane. She just stood and waited for him and he came around and walked beside her and held the door. It was the healthiest thing we’d see for the next ten minutes.

Inside in a booth along the far wall was an old farm couple, we knew they were a farm couple because everyone else was and he wore overalls. We wondered if they liked the all-you-can-eat boiled vegetables from the buffet. The farmer man had his arm cut off below the elbow. Maybe from a farm accident? How long ago was the accident? How did he get to the hospital? Did they amputate it on the farm and say “We don’t need no fancy book learning Doctor, we country folk can survive.” We walked past and overheard his farm wife saying with a tired tone, “for better or for worse,” - no kidding, she was saying that. How many times does THAT marriage vow get worked into a conversation, especially when it applies to the exact thought of a passerby? We were wondering how that lost limb had impacted their lives together.

At the $6.95 All You can Eat Buffet walk-up counter there were two old folks using medical walkers. Make that trying to use walkers, they were clanging together, muttering tiny “oh my’s” and each one waiting for the other to do something right and solve their tangled dilemma. This never happens at home when they sit and stare at the TV. They seemed like they were together but it also seems like they’d be better synchronized if they were together.

Tried not to be juvenile and impatient, but… we couldn’t stay, headed for the door. On the way out we passed the circus fat lady, and we’re not being mean, but she could sell tickets to the sight of her girth. She took up two chairs and spilled over the edges. Did the place notice her when she arrived? What engineering did it take for her to be seated on her two chairs? Couldn’t help but peek at the chair placement strategy, there was a two foot gap between chairs. For air?
Her husband, the husband of the circus fat lady, was addressing one of their three kids. The middle kid, a boy, was getting dressed down, the oldest, a girl, looked resigned, despaired and void of emotion. The youngest (Boy? Girl? WTF?) stared and drooled, barely moving, an odd stillness for a young kid. But the middle child! Not yet beaten down but it’s coming, energy and life will drain from a little boy when Pop has a sneer like Popeye (pulled face, one eye winking closed) and is saying in an angry tense stage threat, “Dat kinda leg kickin’ gonna get yo butt tow up” while glaring with that one open hot eyeball. Pop communicates with heat & hate. The middle child little boy licked at his fork, smiling an embarrassed “see if I care” smile, without having any escape or even a point of reference to know there was any escape. This wasn’t what he signed up for before being born. His poor, poor life.

After we escaped to the parking lot we had to admit the fried chicken looked good, really crispy, but we couldn’t bear to reenter even for a to-go order. Anyhow, what’s the sense of getting a to-go from a $6.95 All You can Eat Buffet? That’s crazy.

“Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
- Macbeth's soliloquy in act 5, scene 5.

And down the road we went.

Posted by bonton at 8:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Our Senior Wedding Correspondent reports from the chapel, square, and club:

Oh, the pageantry, the immensity of the spectacle.
Some hearts stood still, some hearts were a flutter, some were un-wowed - but all paused and pondered.

Overheard at the wedding:
Marriage is all about what a man puts into it and what a woman can get out of it.
 

The Vows.
This little girl has heard too many adults saying too many things that are not true.
She made it through the vows and was a good girl, doing what others wanted her to do.
Her reward? Dunno, but she made the deal so it must have been something she wanted.

The bride wore a high belted beaded orgazma dress, designed by Oscar de la Renter, the White House said.
I’d love to get a closer look at that bauble that bobbed from the necklace the bride wore (pearl? ice?), but I’m only interested while it’s around her luscious neck.
The attendant wore a cocktail dress the color of wildflowers, if wildflowers were that color, designed by Lela Rose. The women wore dresses. The men wore suits and ties.

Photo by the hidden camera of a bigbonton operative.

It was just a small wedding, just family and a few friends.
Oh! “Just a small” play on words, because after the small wedding came the royal reception!
“You are Invited to See and Be Seen at an Honest-to-Goodness Event!”

With the soundtrack provided by “Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How's Your Fathers,” everyone felt fitted-in, in the tent. Make that "tents", plural. Small wedding, mega-reception. “Just a few” is a shrewd saying when the guest list includes astronauts, regional monarchs, the finest silvery haloed and the utmost solid titans, no patience for non-special hangers-on, et certainement pas de bateau rockers. The fix was on, air was kissed, eyes were caught, and everyone left feeling puffed up.

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A pole star is a visible star that is approximately aligned with the Earth's axis of rotation and so might be mistaken as the center of a facile pre-Copernicus universe. It may indicate a stable point of reference, useful in navigation, providing assurance of place until the next required fix.
And what a fix this pole star provided, when she used to rock and roll.
Here, Mrs. Star, the photo is months old, but these were for you:

. . . kiss kiss . . .

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From John Keats' epic poem, Endymion, 1818:

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Happy April Fools Day 2008.
Fools in love, are there any other kind of lovers?
Fools in love, never knowing when they've lost the game
Fools in love they think they're heroes
cause they get to feel no pain
I say fools in love are zeros
I should know, I should know
Because this fools in love again.
- Inara George / covered by Joe Jackson

Posted by bonton at 8:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)