Day 4 - New Orleans

Howdeh from New orle-ahns,

Another amazing day on the road. We woke up, stuffed our faces at the continental breakfast, and headed out. While Paradise walked around looking for a haircut, Bourbon Williams and myself continued to Harrah's casino. I flew solo this time... as 'Jackie Carman' age 25 and 'Adam Cassel' age 23 were not even close to N.O.

Without getting into too much detail... I played two slot machine games. One had bruce lee on it and I had no idea what I was doing. I put a five dollar bill in, got 1.80 back...

Ever the dreamer, I dropped another 5 spot, this time walking away with a whopping .75 cents... Fail...

We then took the free ferry to Algiers, a small island off of N.O. This is an amazing part of the U.S. Only 5 mins. from the French Quarter by way of ferry, this town has remained untouched by ANY commercial or even tourist interest. Paradise, still looking for a haircut, found a small barber shop down the road, which turned out to be one of the most memorable experiences of the trip.

We met Russel Templet, a man who has been cutting hair in Algiers for 55 years. His barbershop consisted of his wife, Sharon, and a regular that had grown up with Russel; Frank. We sat for two hours listening to stories about old Algiers and watching Russel give Paradise a haircut. Here were some highlights,

Russel: '...My hair style is 'convertible'.' (In reference to the obvious fact that he wore a hair piece)

Frank: 'I'm getting it cut short for my girlfriend' (In reference to his wife questioning his new hairstyle.)

I can't begin to write how amazing these people were, or the classic delivery of each sentence. They suggested that we get some crawfish down the block, and actually called in our order.

We ordered 2 lbs. of Crawfish and walked down into a distant part of the town to pick it up.

We at the crawfish back on the other side of the river. I learned that 'Sometimes, You must eat the poop'. Well, I was eating the black line in the crawfish, assuming that Tom was doing the same; He wasnt. We went to Cafe Du monde and had Cafe Au Lait, and Beignettes.

We were exhausted and went back to the crib. Tom and Mike slept, and I finished reading The Stranger. Then we got ready at about...

As I am writing this, Tom and Mike were talking about how Mike might have stole a soda from the Crawfish shack. Above the soda was a sign that read 'Thou shall not steal' ...Nice, Stags.

Then we got ready at about 9:30, went and got arby's and headed into Jackson Square.

We had our palms read by a gigantic bearded man. Mine was spot on. Stags' was solid, and Tom's Tarot card was pretty good too.

Back to Bourbon. We had Hand Grenades, which were gross. We went to Fritz's jazz club, and suckered into buying a beer..

Then the highlight of the night;

While asking our Palm reader, who had moved to Bourbon, a question, I was mistaken by a large group of girls to be 'Chris Allen'; the winner of American Idol. SWEEEETTTTT!!! Of course, I am not him. They realized this, and even my running down the block saying that I was him would not be of any use. We continued home, and are now going to sleep.

GOOD NIGHT!

-Beck

Day Three: Mempha to Nawlins!

We woke up in Memphis this morning and headed out to the Gibson guitar factory. Sweet man, now we all want one but could never afford one. Well the most romantic type of love is that which is unfullfilled, right? So then we headed down to Graceland (after seeing the ghost of Elvis on Union Avenue) which was sorta kitschy - they charged $30/person to let you on the property. So we made a pact to never let our estates fall into such misguided commercialism someday.

7 hours later on route 55, we write a song midway through Mississippi! and learn the values of actually listening to the GPS system. We recorded the tune in the car and should be able to post it by tomorrow, word. Drive down to New Orleans was beautiful, and after splitting some expensive but delicious jambalaya and fried alligator bites (!), we hung around Bourbon St. for the rest of the night, listened to a few decent bands, and stayed out of trouble. These kids got hurricanes from Pat O'Briens - but I unfortunately don't really look enough like Adam Cassel for that to happen.

Louisiana Williams is asleep next to me right now in fully-clothed face-down glory, how should I mess with him? Send your thoughts.

Love !

Sal Paradise

Day Two: Tennessee

Hey y'all,

So we hit the Bible Belt today, and we came across some pretty incredible stuff. It all started off with a continental breakfast at the hotel followed by about seven hours of driving, not to mention that we didn't get on the road until an hour after we had planed to leave. But then, when we were on the road, we realized that we would actually gain an hour by passing into Central Time Zone. So, 1 hour lost plus 1 hour gained equals 0 hours lost! Sweet!

Seven hours later, we arrived in Nashville, and we hit up a sweet BBQ joint called Swett's and had some great country style cooking. Then, thanks to the friendly locals, we were told to hit the downtown area of Broadway and Second St., where we met the coolest person ever; "Mandolin" Mike. He is a mandolin player who has traveled around a bunch playing gigs and now lives in Nashville, and he ended up practically giving us a tour of the area and the different live music joints. He recommended this amazing place called Robert's that had a great trio playing, and we really got a feel for what Nashville is all about. Amazing city. I just wish we had a day to spend there.

Then we moved on to Memphis for the night and hit up the pretty hopping area on Beale St. Lots of bars, live music, locals, and Elvis paraphernalia. Sal and I hit up some BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, and then the three of us enjoyed some of Tennessee's finest - Jack Daniels. We spent the night at a local Blues Hall and then a Karaoke Bar where we sang Bohemian Rhapsody, and killed it. The crowd loved us, and a bachelor party led by the groom came on the stage and sang with us. Plus, we met these really cool people from Austin who were all theatre people. Great city, great times.

Peace and Love,

Tennessee Williams

Day One: NY - Roanoke, VA

We started the day packing the car. Grandma Joan brought over bacon egg and cheesers, and that was awesome. We also assembled the tent which is glorious. It is gigantic. Mt. Everest style. P.S. Shout out to Jamie Carman, who unknowningly provided this beauty. We set off for the city at about 1:30pm. Not much traffic. well anyway, blablabla here's a more concise rundown...

We picked up stags in the city, and while illegally parked asked a cop to take our picture. top 10%

I was driving, and made it all the way to Maryland, where we ate subway.

We continued, passing through west virginia, and out of nowhere mountains appeared! whoa!

Mike was driving at this point.

I fell asleep some time around 930 and woke up an hour later.

We checked in at about 11 to our hotel, and went immediately into the pool and hot tub that had closed at ten. renegades...

Set up a 6am call, and now at 1, heading to bed... big day tomorrow in tennessee.

-beck

Red/White/Brown

Almost there...

  Providence Williams and I headed up to visit Paradise at Brown.  We now have a guideline map and are planning specifics this week.  We ate a ton of food and ice cream and met a ton of awesome people.  Also, we killed frisbee... intense.  Looks like we'll be pushing through a bunch but taking our time on the pacific coast.  

 On the drive home we took excursions to an outlet store and McDonalds.  USA!  we hit some traffic, and realized excursions are time consuming.

 Booyah,

    beck