Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

Also, there is a video about barbecue that I was in a few weeks ago, along with my friend, Hugh. I keep forgetting to post it. Now’s as good a time as any: The Great NC BBQ Debate

@hughlh – I have tried, I really have. But I just cannot dig the NC B-B-Que. But then again, I am from Memphis, where Que is a religion.

@jessmartin – @hughlh until you’ve had Texas BBQ, you haven’t had the real thing. Why do east coasters even use the same word?

@BrianR – @jessmartin Blasphemy Sir! 😉 NC BBQ is THE one true holy pork!

@hughlh – @jessmartin You mean the yellow sauce variety? It has 2 problems: It is yellow, and it is not pork. I am just saying.

@hughlh – @BrianR You, sir, are deluded.

@BrianR – @hughlh my tummy & taste buds are quite content thank you! I’ve tasted it all Sir! 🙂

@abbyladybug – My BBQ pref = pulled pork, with either yellow mustard-based sauce or Memphian “wet” red sauce. Vinegar-based stuff is OK, but not my fave.

@logicblue – @abbyladybug…”Vinegar-based stuff is OK, but not my fave”…back on my shit list 😉

@snoopdave – @jessmartin Where is Texas anyway. Is it up near Asheville?

@hughlh – I am pretty sure they serve Memphis style bbq in heaven, ’cause if they did not, it just would not be heaven.

@abbyladybug – @logicblue Yeah, live it up, local boy. Like you’ve even HAD the other kinds. @hughlh BBQ Spaghetti sounded so gross, but OMFG. SOOOO good!

@jessmartin – Real problem w/ using BBQ to refer to several meats/sauces/processes is it violates expectations. BBQ is a giant bait-and-switch.

@jkreesnc – I learned I really DID NOT KNOW true BBQ until I moved to NC – nom nom. NC BBQ is the only BBQ for me 🙂 #BBQ

@waynesutton – It looks like @jessmartin @dayers @danlondon @hughlh @abbyladybug on team 1 of NC #BBQ haters vs everyone else!

@abbyladybug – @hughlh knows all about the best BBQ ever. Bar-B-Q Shop on Madison in Memphis. That’s BBQ heaven to me. Better than Rendezvous. No kidding.

@BrianR – @smalljones help me out here defending tha NC BBQ

@hughlh – http://tinyurl.com/5oegcv The best que in Memphis (IMHO) and thus, the world.

@hughlh – @jessmartin I ate some yellow sauce que in north TX once, thought that was what u meant. Pork, and occasionally bologna are the only meats.

@jessmartin @hughlh @brianr And why would you destroy the meat by *pulling* it into little pieces. You know in Texas we have these things called knives.

@jessmartin @hughlh Yellow? It’s made w/ tomatoes and is therefore the proper color for BBQ sauce which is RED. And it’s the proper meat which is beef.

@dayers – @jessmartin @hughlh @abbyladybug this is tough, I’m from TN, living in NC, and had an awesome TX BBQ experience at http://tinyurl.com/5nv2pg

@jessmartin – @hughlh the fact that you can say BBQ and spaghetti in the same 140 characters tells me just how confused you are 😉

@jessmartin – @dayers Salt Lick is some damn fine BBQ.

@jessmartin – @hughlh is bologna even a meat? seems like some sort of frankin-meat. like vegan chicken.waynesutton Only in NC that you’ll see a twitter BBQ tweet war! I’m watching the convo on summize/search here http://tinyurl.com/5ln7fv lol #BBQ

AND THE DEBATE RAGES ON…

By the way, I have to disagree with Wayne. This is a debate that could easily rage on in Memphis, and I bet Texas as well.

For those not in the know, to see any of these individual Twitter streams, the URL convention is http://twitter.com/username. For example, my twitters can be found at http://twitter.com/abbyladybug

Barbecue Spaghetti from The Bar-B-Q Shop in Memphis

Image from Time Magazine’s “The Last Days of Martin Luther King, Jr.”

Last night just after midnight, I remembered on my own that it was April 4th, the day Dr. King was shot. I always remember it because of the line in the U2 song “Pride (In the Name of Love)” off their Unforgettable Fire album. It came out when I was in high school, and I remember U2 coming to town to see Coretta Scott King when it was released. The line is:

Early morning, April 4. A shot rings out in the Memphis sky. Free at last. They took your life. They could not take your pride.

My senior recital at Oberlin was April 4th, 1992. It was easy to remember that date because it coincided with King’s death. Growing up in Atlanta and attending Atlanta Public, Dr. King was always in the curriculum. The King Center for Nonviolent Social Change is in Atlanta, and I spent a winter term during college working in the media department there. I got to meet Coretta Scott King in person in her office. I was pretty star struck, actually. I couldn’t believe I was in a meeting with her. It was surreal.

I was born in Memphis in November 1969. I always thought it strange that the man who had such an effect on my life and the society in which I grew up was never alive at the same time as me. There was this story my dad used to tell about how he was chief resident on call at the emergency room in Memphis when King was shot. I was sitting here trying to remember all the details when I had the genius thought: I bet Dad blogged about it today. I was right. Here it is: His telling of that day in Memphis, April 4th, 1968.

I was an Intern at the City of Memphis Hospitals on this day forty years ago. We had a shortage of Residents, and I’d been temporarily promoted to “admitting resident” for the day. I was proud to be asked, but had spent the day terrified I was going to make some fatal mistake, send someone home who died or create some indelible medical catastrophe. That evening, I was sitting alone pondering the day, glad that both I and the patients had survived, when I got a call from my wife that Dr. King had been shot downtown.

It wasn’t an easy time to be in Memphis…

Read the rest of Dad’s story: Link

I lived in Memphis from August 2004 – August 2005. I’m not sure why or how it happened, but it seems that the fruits of the Civil Rights Movement never really “took” in Memphis. It’s like there’s a black cloud over the city. I’ve heard other people describe it in similar ways. While there are many wonderful things there, the color line and the poverty line seem to be identical. The gap between rich and poor, the haves and the have-nots. It feels huge. Maybe it’s because I was working with victims of domestic violence and abuse and in the Memphis Public Schools, but I certainly felt while living there that Memphis was a city that was still in need of healing. What a burden to bear. If you ever get there, go to the Civil Rights Museum. It it housed in the Lorraine Hotel, where Dr. King was staying when he was shot, that fateful April day.

It seems that lately every night of karaoke has been an adventure. Last week was the proposal and the Jon Stewart adventure. This week, I was able to bring my new friend Jane along, which was just SUPER. (Please check out her blog… she wants lots and lots of readers, and she’s a journalist in training, so she’s a REAL writer!) Jane has only been in Boston for 2 months, and if I was going to stay in Boston longer, I know she’d become a close friend. Hell, she can be anyway. Why the hell not? I think I met T.B.O. for all of four hours. Plus, there’s that whole internet thing.

In addition to the new addition to the crew, Friday was DJ Jimmy‘s birthday. Happy Birthday, Jimmy! There was another Jimmy at karaoke on Friday, too. He and his lovely wife were dressed to the 9’s, he in a white tux, and she in a sequened black and silver dress. Billy Bob (our favorite trusty bartender) told us that they showed up at about 10pm. They changed the whole tone of the evening, so much for the better. It’s such a friendly group of regulars there, and we welcomed them right in. I sang “Sentimental Journey” for them, knowing they would appreciate an old standard. Kristin bought them drinks. Jimmy signed up for and sang Elvis hits. See, he’s a big fan. HUGE! He was VERY impressed that I’d lived in Memphis for a year, and when he found out I was born there, it was almost more than he could take!

I’ve put together a little montage of their night. If anyone got their information, we should find a way to get this to them. Jane actually ran into them again later in the weekend:

Guess who I saw walking down Dartmouth St (nr Copley Place) yesterday when I was hastening home after meeting a dude about a bed? Jimmy and his wife! I recognised those sideburns right away. They were dressed in regular clothes, but Jimmy was puffin’ away on a cigarette, lookin’ for all the world like The King. I almost went up to them and said hey, but thought it might’ve seemed intrusive, so I didn’t. But I smiled all the way to Back Bay T station.

Enjoy the video, and please pardon the editing. I’m a beginner:

I guest-blogged and didn’t even know it! Here’s a review I wrote a while ago after seeing Andrew Bird in Memphis at the Hi-Tone.

Thanks for the bloggy love, Rachel! 

We actually had tickets to see him on my birthday, but it was over in Cambridge, and it was raining like hell, and we bailed. Lawd, I’m old!