Tupelo

A coupla dozen monkeys stumbled out of the latest UG haze of whippet-induced jackal fucking having accidentally typed TUPELO BEER, which reminds me of the days I spent driving to Tupelo and back, my boss in Oxford having a second store there.

The thing about Tupelo is that it was the creepiest town in the state country world universe, based on the fact that you'd drive through the town and see about 10000 cars, and yet no people. Nobody on the streets. Nobody on the sidewalks. Nobody in the shops, nobody walking from the shops to the sidewalks to their cars waiting for them in the streets, nobody. A fucking weird place.

This idea wasbrought home by the one guy living there I DID meet, the manager of the other store whom I'd meet with to exchange shit or whatever for my boss. He was, and I say this as a compliment, a Beatles freak. I walked in and saw him for the first time, boom - Beatle boots, Beatles white tie/black tie with vest. Straight out of any photo you've seen from the recording of Please Please Me. We start talking, we both love the Beatles, he's in a Beatles cover band, he finds out I'm in a band (the you-wouldn't-even-believe-how-good-we-were-if-I-told-you,-even-tho-apparently-I-am-right-now,-I-guess The Happy Scene) and excitedly asks me to come "jam" with his band. I show a bit of interest and he gives me a tape (produced from his wig, in looking back on it) and I don't think anything of it until a few days later when I pop the tape in to listen. And I realize this isn't a Beatles cover band, it's a Break Down Every Note and Reproduce it Exactly Like it Is on The Album, Therein Making One Wonder Why Anyone Would Bother Band. Hmm.

The last time I talked to him, he asked me how many pairs of Beatle Boots he could order for me ("I like to keep at least four pairs handy, myself.")

Fucking Tupelo.