October 31

Halloween! Americans love the Halloween and you know what, so do I while I'm here. It makes our Halloween look like a half-assed local community event. In the States it's such a big deal that it spills over into November. People deck out their entire house and then spend days slaving over their costumes. We had the choice of either a house party (on a commune) with six live bands or a night at the Hi-Tone with three live bands and a burlesque show. We chose the latter, but not before catching an NBA game in which the local no-hopers (the Grizzlies) beat Orlando Magic 88-86 with hilariously-named star player Rudy Gay scoring the winning basket with 0.8 seconds left on the clock. Already four gins in on the evening, the excitement was almost too much to bear.

I left myself precious little time to dedicate to a Halloween costume and I settled on "1970s Pink Floyd Fan" out of necessity rather than choice. My friend, who was already wearing a somewhat-nautical looking dress simply bought a $5 sailing hat and became a fairly convincing sailor. Girls are clever like that.

The best costume I saw all night in terms of sheer effort was a guy - an art student predictably - dressed as a packet of Pall Mall cigarettes. I came across at least three Sarah Palin (who if God willing isn't the second most powerful person on the planet by the time you're reading this), the best of which also happened to be a fat, bearded drunk man. He even had a plastic gun. "I love guns nearly as much as I hate abortion," he said.

He was a volatile chap, at one point telling me I was "a fucking asshole", and then adding after a long pause "that was a joke".


The bands were good, especially the guys who played a full 12-minute version of Ina-Gadda-Davi-Da to a rapidly emptying room at 2am. That takes all kinds of balls. It was a burlesque evening however, and the local Memphis Belle-esques (ha!) troupe were as good as a gang of young, tattooed, naked, fire-breathing girls should be. A round of e-applause for the ladies.

I was slightly shocked at how young people in Memphis have really embraced the drink-driving. They stagger out of bars and get straight into their cars. Obviously I condemn drink-driving and would never condone or glamourise it. Operating a vehicle while inebriated is irresponsible. So I probably shouldn't have climbed into the passenger seat of that BMW 3-series with two trainee-lawyers (dressed, incidentally as a nurse and Cleopatra).


Cleopatra turned out to be a local celebrity whose mum dated Elvis. None of this was verified by anyone apart from her and to be honest saying your mum dated Elvis in Memphis is a bit like saying your mum in London went to Asda.

I'd like to add finally that a crack head in the street (who was with his crack-bride) told me I look like Bruce Springsteen. Memphis truly is a great city.