peaceful easy feeling

This weekend, the Warrior Princess and I partook in that most Arkansan of summer rituals: we went to the lake. Friends of ours invited us up to Lake Ouachita to spend a couple of days on a houseboat. We ate, we hung out, we lollagagged. The kids danced to Lady Gaga and did kamikaze water slide tricks and splashed in the lake. Weekends at the lake are lowbrow in the best possible way - you, too, can be a rich redneck for a weekend! Jet ski races! Loafing on a ski boat! Grilling out in the palm-tree-party-light-festooned slip and chatting up the neighbors. (He's a contractor. She does hair.) And best of all, you can forget the cookie-fancy and the blowout and rock your tank top and shorts and flip flops and your wild-ass-hair-and-no-makeup "lake look" as you lounge around on someone else's $360,000 boat! The WP and I were grubby as can be and happy as two pigs in a biggo pile of slop. And it got me thinking about this very distinctly Southern pastime.

Look, I'm from Memphis, home of Elvis, the capital city of the Delta blues, the birthplace of rock and roll. I was born and raised there and then sent to two fine Southern institutions of higher learning (the University of Alabama, roll Tide, thank you very much, and the much more high-falutin' - but no less Southern - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). I drink iced tea all day, every day, I love black-eyed peas and cornbread and pecan pie. Hell, I've even embraced the Razorbacks, now that I'm ABC (Arkansan by choice). So, I'd put my Southern cred up against just about any of y'all's.

Having said that, there's one characteristic that many of you other Southern folk share that missed me by a mile. I don't understand it, I can't explain it, but I sometimes fear I'm the ONLY one of my kind in the Southeastern United States.

I HATE the Eagles. Seriously, can't stand them. Which is a problem, because apparently where two white people from the South are gathered, SOMEONE has to pull out the Eagles, and always that same record - Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975). Lord, deliver me from a bunch of half-lit middle-aged guys with beer bellies getting all weepy over "Desperado". And sure enough, I was enjoying my chillax on the houseboat thoroughly until I heard "Take It Easy" coming from a neighboring boat, thereby triggering my post-traumatic music stress.

I attended college from 1988-1992. Granted, not the greatest years for rock and roll, but this period of time saw the advent of the compact disc, and also some interesting innovation in what was then termed "alternative" music, most notably a return to guitar-driven rock through the rise of the grunge movement, piloted by Nirvana and Pearl Jam. To a lesser extent, you also had the fuzzy post-punk shoegaze movement out of Great Britain, which was a blip in the states but actually birthed some really innovative and influential stuff, like My Bloody Valentine and the granddaddy of the shoegazers, the Jesus and Mary Chain. Of course, I recognize that I am now, have always been, and evermore will be, a big, BIG music dork. But this was where my head was between 1988 and 1992. So imagine my chagrin that every fraternity boy attending school in Tuscalousy at that time owned three cassette tapes, and three only*, which were worn out at every. Single. Party. And those were:

1. The aforementioned Eagles record.
2. The Doors' greatest hits, which I might actually hate even more than the aforementioned Eagles record, if that's possible. And
3. Abysmally, the Steve Miller Band's greatest hits.

*Also, there were a lot of Deadheads and Deadhead posers and Widespread Panic show-followers running around, so you'd occasionally get that tiresome jam-band thing.

Either way, this Sonic Youth, Depeche Mode, MBV-loving girl found absolutely NO quarter in this place that time forgot.

Ah, but wait. I seem to remember this one house party, keg, yada yada yada, same craptastic music, basically the same party as every other. And by some absolute miracle, in a quieter part of the house, I found myself in a conversation with some guy. Strangely, I don't remember the guy all that well, or what we talked about, but I'm sure we thought it was very Deep and Philosophical in our slightly inebriated state. What I do remember are two things. One: the room was dim and quiet compared to the rest of the house, deliberately so. (I wasn't born yesterday, folks.) And two, I remember the music: Cowboy Junkies' Trinity Sessions.

I'm pretty sure I made out with him. Dude, Trinity Sessions! So I'm just saying, fellas, it pays to branch out a little musically.

But back to my original point, which is this: I hate the Eagles, which is carried on a highly recessive gene in Southerners, apparently. It's like being one of the only ones in third grade who can't curl the tip of my tongue into a little roll. See? Recessive! And as a red-haired, green-eyed person, I know from recessive. There are scientists that say that red hair and green eyes will both be genetically phased completely out by the year 2060! Just sayin'.

Other than that, the weekend was perfect.