Firstly, if anyone is reading this, we’d love to know what you think. But best not to use the Indoulou site, because we’re getting about 100 spam a day on the site. Use our normal email addresses.
Ok, the Grand Ole Opry. I’m still very ambivalent about it. Or thoroughly underwhelmed. It’s a live 2 hr radio show, divided into 4 quarters, with each 30 min section carrying 6 to 8 mins of advertising, read out by the host, whilst studiously ignored by the audience. It’s certainly a step back in time, with everything from almost rock to the singing Japanese cowboy. I kid you not! We had a singing Japanese cowboy, cheered on by I assume his extended family ( it was his 25th appearance, honestly ), a singing dwarf, one of the rudest jokes I’ve ever heard, ( I’ll tell it when we get back ) and a real invitatation by one of the hosts to his church the next day in Nashville.
They also get all of their armed forces vets to stand up before the show, to great applause, and sing songs dedicated to and about their police forces. It’s all a bit confusing. Essentially white, and God squad, even lauding Nixon, who I thought was impeached over Watergate, and yet with the odd bit of rebellion thrown in, such as their induction to the Hall of Fame of the Dixie Chicks, just after they were ostracised after criticising Bush in their London concert.
Let’s just say that we’ve been, and that we’re unlikely to ever return!
Some more random musings now!
One of the concierges said something very useful to us. If you get great music, don’t expect great food. If you want great food, don’t expect great music. We have to agree.
Every time we see a sign for a state, city, town or county whilst we’re driving, there’s a song associated with it – Jackson, Indiana, Nashville, Memphis, Tupelo etc. It’s a great driving game singing along.
Not everything is as it appears. For example, we saw some Hells Angels/bikers in a chemists, buying sanitised hand wash!!
It seems to be a very honest place – people get up to dance and leave all their things on the table, girls leave their handbags on the backs of chairs etc. Not what we expected.
The local beers are great!
We think that they put laxatives in their coffee. Can’t think of another explanation!
Lou’s had a belief for a long time that no-one should be allowed to sing Leonard Cohen songs but the man himself. We’ve now added Johnny Cash to that list.
Our credit card isn’t accepted in garages, and you have to prepay. It goes like this. ” how much will it take, sir?” “I’ve no idea.” “How many gallons?” “What’s a gallon?” Etc. You get the gist. In the end, you give them some cash, and if it’s less than that, you go back in and they refund you the change. But you have to pay in advance. For an advanced, technological country, some things are really illogical and cumbersome.
We got the chance the other day to talk to a waiter about tipping. He was a full time, professional waiter on $2.30 an hour, ( about £1.60 or €2.30 ), who said that he earned good money, easily enough to keep his family, on tips! Why don’t they pay good wages, and price it into the food and drink? At the moment, for visitors, it’s very difficult to understand. It’s really just another tax. You have to pay, whatever the service.
On a lighter note, in search of a wifi connection, Lou took me to Hooters for lunch today. I can only assume that “hooters” is American slang for a certain part of a girl’s anatomy. Somewhere at the front, carefully kept just inside a tee shirt. Well, nearly. Lunch took me 2 & a half hours to eat.
And tonight, we saw some real blues, sung by some real blues men. Up to now they’d all been white. Memphis has a very, very different feel to Nashville. Looking forward to it.