Dinner Time

eating bbq in mississippi

toodle pip

With only four weeks to go, I have grown bored of this blogging lark and so this will be the last message posted, unless Burke decides to take over. I will use my new found freedom to do productive things, such as look for somewhere to live on return to the UK. A job would be handy too. If anyone is moving to a new city and looking for a housemate, let me know.

I hope y'all have a splendid Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year. Charlesworth.

mail competition

In the five weeks that we have been here, Burke and me have had a small but significant competition: who will receive the most mail? I have to say, you lot are rubbish at sending post. Do you not know how to lick a frigging stamp?! Burke is winning but this is clearly only because she celebrated her birthday here. It is 7-0 to Burke. Rectify the situation.

the lost weekend

The last week saw the arrival of Burke's gentleman friend. As a way of welcoming him to America we set about sight-seeing the most joyful of Memphis' limited attractions: the pubs. Settling in a nice little Irish themed bar (really tasting the American culture) we began the drinking that was to ravage my weekend. It started with a friendly but alpha male orientated bout of darts between Burke's gentleman friend and I. Given that I have grown accustomed to being the only male (and therefore, alpha male by default - got to take it any way you can!) in our clan for the last five weeks, I was somewhat enfeebled by the male visitor. Darts would settle any doubt over the alpha male standings between a bar manager with broad shoulders and a male OT weighing in at ten stone... On losing the darts, I accepted my standing graciously and decided that consuming large amounts of alcohol should be the next step forward. For those who do not know me, this was an atrocious mistake as I do not have the capacity to drink and maintain normal conversations or facial posture.

And then I woke in my bed, head throbbing from Beverly Craven's song 'promise me' being played on repeat on my i-pod. How did I get home? Actually, what happened after that third shot? I lay for a while and tried to piece together the evening but nothing ever came. I made the journey from my bed to the fridge in search of water and it felt like I'd been on an expedition in a desert with the foreign legion while being poked in the eye by a monkey. Sitting down, I realised Burke and her gentleman friend had vacated our grim flat for the weekend, leaving me hungover with only the cockroaches for company. I made use of my newfound bachelor pad by stumbling into the bathroom and vomiting with door wide open before returning to the living room in only my pants.

At noon there was a knock at the door. Swiftly putting on some trousers, I answered, only to find a chirpy OT student who would explain that I had committed myself to skydiving the night before. When was I skydiving? In one hour. So off I went to jump out of a plane while hungover and only paying $200 for the privilege. Approximately, two minutes before arriving at the place of doom, I needed the car to be pulled over. Vomiting for the next ten minutes was a sure fire way to back out of skydiving without anyone thinking I was cowardly; gutless in the literal sense rather than the metaphorical. My excellent plan worked and I returned to my apartment with the good intentions of sleep.

At nine o'clock, while I was in a pleasant slumber listening to a Billy Idol concert on the television there was another knock at the door. It transpired that I had invited my colleagues around to watch a film and drink some beer. Oh, joy. The film we watched was called 'totally awesome' and it had caught my eye shortly after the New Orleans trip. Four bottles of wine and two crates of Heineken later it was 6am and I was google-earthing Sunderland and Leeds, detailing the cities to my friends, who were both simultaneously sleeping and looking bemused. Having lost my audience, I went to bed in search of the sleep I needed.

birthday greetings

Happy Birthday to Burke's mam. The video takes a while to 'buffer' but bear with it and you will be amazed by Burke's Tour Guide of our apartment.

now then, now then

I thought I'd share what I just watched on TV with you folks in Engerland. Mr T of the A-Team has his own television show (I thought he had died of cancer some years ago) making the dreams of the proles come true, like a 21st century Jimmy Saville. He starts his show with this catchphrase... "Hey guy's, come in and join me for a nice cup of T. Mr T. I pity the fool that doesn't". It's a good job I always preferred Face! Television in this country is fucking annoying. I watched a half hour program(me) the other day and it had four sets of adverts in it! Honestly, it is enough to drive me to doing Uni work. Almost. I'm watching a lot of television due to the guns outside and a lack of money in my pocket. Oh, I'm watching Me, Myself and Irene just now and there is a part in the film where Jim Carey waves a giant dildo around the screen. Fortunately, this God fearing country pixelised the screen like a crime stoppers reconstruction so that my pure English eyes weren't offended by the image.

So, Halllllooweeeeeenn!! Moo haw haw! Well, I was working at my facility (drugs, lunacy and homelessness) that day and we had a 70's Disco party to attend. I had no outfit since I did not foresee the event and pack my stacks and oversized collar shirt before I came to Memphis. However, boredom struck and I started looking through the OT cupboard to see what materials we had for future groups. Low and behold, I stumbled across a clown costume with wig, nose, outfit, and oversized shoes. What kind of job other than being a clown or an OT requires a frigging clown outfit?! I dressed up with the wig and the shoes and looked pretty dang awesome! Burke was the epitome of seventies. The residents enjoyed laughing at me as I learnt the electric slide dance in my massive shoes. The best thing I heard that day was these words from a client, "this is the first time I had fun since I quite drugs". Sad but I'm glad that at least they had this. And because of that it goes down as one of my favourite Halloween's ever.

smiles

The smile that melts the hearts of those that glance upon it.

The taxi driver that was trying to compete with me!

And Burke is still waiting for her false teeth to arrive. Happy Halloween.

nawlins

So it's been a while and there is debauchery to be told... Saturday night appears to have become the day that people come to our apartment to drink and take narcotics (for the parental units of Burke and Charlesworth the latter does not apply to your sweet little angels). This is good as we do not have to move and I can work on my sitting posture while watching cable throughout the day. Last Saturday brought with it a man named Wes, visiting his OT friend for the weekend. Finding out that he had travelled from California I asked how much he had paid for his flights for a two-day visit. $350. 'So you fancy the OT friend?' I said in more of a statement than questioning tone. He answered with some verbal diarrhoea about 'just being close friends' but it was his secret desires that were to fuel my evening because Wes, my friends, was a man of traditional masculinity; he was to impress his lady-to-be with an unlimited fund of money that bought her and her friends (this is where Burke and I entered) beer and shooters. This was the perfect plan for Wes as he got to flaunt both his drinking and financial might. Genius. And so, we drank. And drank for free. Starting to feel the warmth of the alcohol, my mind shut down and my body was on its own, left to fend for itself. This is typical and my memories of life during the next seven hours are typically faint.

Having lost interest in Wes and his subtle and ineffective wooing, I began to gyrate on the dance floor. This was matched with manic smiling and staring at the strangers that were unfortunate enough to meet my eye. Eventually, enough time and alcohol passed for me to entrance someone with my dancing. The next thing I remember was getting in the car of a stranger with my new friend and another friend. Still smiling. Realising that the driver was questionably drunk, my friend moralised 'hey dude, you could get arrested'. The driver turned to us said 'what for? Being awesome?’ I laughed hysterically and when I stopped we were there at the club. My memory is blank up to the point I was in a taxi home with my OT friend. Making a diversion into Ronald McDonalds kitchen I became aware of the time. 'I'm sorry we don't have any quarter pounders we just have breakfasts' said the little silver box. Morning had arrived without me noticing. I had also failed to notice the taxi-driver was a little bit mad. While waiting in the drive-through he entertained us by bouncing up and down on his seat, screaming and smiling more widely than me. This made me smile too.

The next day it transpired that Wes had left a note for his friend to find after he had left Memphis; smooth mover. Burke and I went to a film festival and watched the worst film I have ever seen. Truly, excruciatingly bad. If I tell you that at one point the main character 'blacks up' with shoe polish, joins a civil rights march and then runs in slow motion when reunited with her mother, perhaps, you will begin to understand. We laughed out loud throughout, only to discover that the filmmakers were in the audience. It was a bit embarrassing when they applauded themselves at the end.

After a week at work we went on our first road trip. New Orleans, aka, Sin City. Leaving on the Friday we piled into my friend's car with a keg of beer and a packet of jerky. This was my first jerky experience and I have to say the aesthetics of dried up portions of beef aren't great. But like all things eaten when drunk, jerky was like a little piece of heaven in a bag. There was a point on that nine hour drive that jerky became my last meal should I be put to death. This coincided with my gibberish about being arrested for being too awesome, which was hilarious at the time. Other sayings included 'how do you plead? I plead awesome!' and 'somebody better call the cops, I'm just too awesome'. Did you have to be there? The nine hours felt like ten minutes and I was outside the car staring at the neon lights the next watering hole. On arrival we drew glances - this, I think, is never a good thing. We bought some beer and got settled (we had to stay there until 5am because the hotel was going to charge us $100 for an extra night if we arrived earlier). I mistakenly made a clenched fist and arm pumping action at Burke while telling her that I should be arrested for being... awesome. Quick as a flash some dancing-queen came over to me and asked what I'd just done. Thinking that I may have been misinterpreted as something more aggressive I explained that I was just playing around, being awesome. He kindly recounted that such an arm action and fist clench means that you are 'rock hard and ready to go' in his world of wickedness. In fact, I think he was a little disappointed that I 'really, really, really' didn't know it meant that and I was 'really, really, really' not 'rock hard and ready to go' with him. Welcome to Nawlins.

Waking at noon we drove to Bourbon Street. I saw the superdome that they all went to when Katrina happened and it made me feel a little sick. Or perhaps that was the alcohol. Five minutes out the car, I got arrested for being too handsome and not partying hard enough. I got a ticket for $10 made payable to the Katrina Foundation. I handed it over, knowing that I was being 'had' but smug that I had been arrested for being too handsome. So the rest of our time in Nawlins was spent drinking and laughing at the same 'awesome' joke said in different ways but with new arm pumping action. I will not bore you with the details. Suffice to say, we got drunk, went to a strip club, I walked up to the stripper with a dollar bill in my mouth, spilt Budweiser on the stage, stripper got mad, we left, I lost my postcards. A good night had by all.

golf crazy

At work last week I came across a few tickets for a place called 'putt-putt' in my desk drawer. Putt Putt: a crazy-golf-emporium. Those three words combined roused the boy inside me (can I get away with using the words 'roused' and 'boy' in the same sentence?) and I was lost in a world of fantasy playing golf with Bill Cosby and Burke. Why Bill Cosby was there, I do not know, but his smile brought joy to the dreamland. After I unburdened myself of the patients hanging around my office I considered pilfering these tickets for the night ahead. Admittedly, I knew the tickets were intended for the patients, who have little else to do but to walk aimlessly around and around the corridors, and there was indeed a nagging feeling that I shouldn't take them but...

We arrived at Putt Putt and I magnanimously paid the $10 for both Burke and me, safe in the hidden knowledge that I have evil thoughts but sometimes make the correct choices. We selected an easy course of the crazy variety. Though, I don't really see what is 'crazy' about a twelve-foot piece of green felt with a square piece of metal blocking the hole. I had expected to be amazed by moving objects, stunning visuals and, for some vivid reason, windmills. Instead, there was a manky plastic Giraffe standing in a stinking Algae filled pond. This was not even close to the stunning golf course that Kurt Russell designed in the film 'Overboard'. My dreams of crazy-golf in the land of the free were shattered.

We played our 18 holes but our appetite for golf was impossible to satiate. We wanted more but one round was as far as our $10 would stretch. Unless we played without paying; more evil thoughts and again the correct decision was made. We quickly played our way through another couple of rounds, careful to avoid the watching eyes of the speckled teens who are employed to make you feel better about yourself. On return of our clubs we were invited to stay for the 'putt putt lock-in' by one of these sub-humans. 'Lock-in?' at a crazy-golf course. I was bemused. 'All the golf you can play until 3am. For free!' he said in a ludicrously excited voice. 'Do you sell beer?' said Burke optimistically. 'Nope' was the answer to the only question that mattered. Golf, fun as it may or may not be, is certainly not the temptress that alcohol is and to be 'locked-in' until 3am was quite simply nuts. At last, the crazy part of putt putt had been availed to us.