Scotland

In late January of 2001, Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys went to Scotland and England to play a few festivals and pubs. I'm in the band and I write, so I wrote a little piece about the trip for the band's newsletter, to which David Greely then added his own pithy comments. Much of what I wrote was edited out due to the delicate sensibilities of the band's fans. If you’re one of them, be forewarned: you’re fragile. Of course the editing was a necessity, given the way that it starts (talking about toilets and stuff). Here is the original yet revised text, if there is such a thing as original and revised.

We first went to Glasgow.

David Greely and I had departed for Scotland a few days ahead of the rest of the band so we could trudge around on our own, unencumbered by other Americans looking for hamburgers.

The UK immediately displayed all the signs that one is elsewhere: prettier money, elegant clothes on arousing mannequins, English words I can't understand, the entering of cars from the wrong side and driving on same, bathrooms that smell like lollipops fresh from the wrapper, and a woman cleaning those scented, hallowed stalls. I've traveled a lot, so I'm used to that last one. Reminds of being in a French restaurant some years earlier; in France, it was. I was directed to some urinals in the back, where women had to walk behind the busy men – almost brushing against us – to go to the ladies' room. (And we saw more recently in Denmark what I call Yellow Carousels. They're blue, and they look like a revolver’s chamber, but stood up on its end and with the sides stripped away. A man walks into one of the bullet chambers and gestures into a flared spout. He can, as they did, look behind him and carry on his conversation with his date.)

But thank God we never encountered one of those Turkish toilets. They have them in Scotland, but we never stumbled upon them since we normally rub elbows only with people of high breeding. By the way, the French have a joke about those hole-in-the-floor affairs. They will tell you that originally it was called a Belgian toilet – the Turks just put the hole in it. (I don't know why the Belgians are so often the butt of French jokes. Perhaps because France has twice been obliged to send in their military to save Belgium from being invaded by New Zealand. I assume that the British are the butt of Scottish jokes. And it all turns around: a shopkeeper told me that some Brits don't like Bank of Scotland-issued 20 pound notes. A joke followed, but I couldn't understand him.)

The customs agents in the Glasgow airport were a couple of jolly older folks. "Welcome to jolly old Scotland, young fellow! ‘ere, have a whiskey! And have a safe trip, now!" I had the impression that they took the job so they could meet a new person every sixty seconds. We have folks like that here at home, so that was a comfortable way to begin. I'm reminded of what the charming British pundit Quentin Crisp said about Texans, "They want you to want something very badly so they can then bring it to you." What would a South Louisiana border station be like? "Here, have some gratons (pigskins). I can't eat all these. Well, I can, but the doc told me to lay off the salt. My heart, you know. Here, the fat won't hurt you. And look, we had a truck up from New Orleans about twenty years ago, had a load of Jax beer and seems nobody paid the tax. We got some left, and it's antique! Ten bucks for a six-pack. Oh here, have mine. Doc told me to lay off. Hey! Jax beer in the twenty-first century! Now, let's see your license. A Sam's Warehouse card, okay, that'll do." Yeah, much nicer than those Canadian border "guards." How about Canadian border "extortionists"? Hey, Canadians, I love you! The Bible says in Leviticus that we can take slaves from neighboring countries, but we'll just take the Mexicans and leave you guys alone. American border guards are probably pricks, too, and yours probably learned it from ours.

We met up with my friend, chef de cuisine Simone Cormier, from Rayne Louisiana, who had been there for a week traveling on her own. She joined up with us. Simone is a tall, lovely, vividly dressed woman with long, thick, black curly hair. She's the most well-traveled person I know, and speaks several languages. I wish she hadn't whipped about twenty people in the Gloucester dressing room, but I love her anyway. A story for another time, and for a different kind of website. So the three of us walked beautiful downtown Glasgow until we found a nice restaurant/bar where we sampled the excellent local fare, complemented by a few glasses of Scotland's finest. Much of the food is served with "tatties and neeps," potatoes and turnips. It was all wonderful except for the background music which sounded like stomach noises from a hungry whale.

But back to whiskey. Those of you who appreciate a glass now and then will probably enjoy this paragraph: Simone is a near-somalier, and on her urging we sampled each of the six classic single-malt whiskeys chosen by the Master Distillers of Scotland to represent (not "best represent") each scotch-producing area of that fine, very relaxed country. The six are: Glenkinchie, from the Lowlands; Dalwhinnie, from the Highlands; Cragganmore, from Speyside; Talisker, from the Isle of Skye; Oban, from West Highlands, and Lagavulin (Simone's favorite; I liked them all), from the Isle of Islay. Now, my dear lecteur, you are well-informed about Scotch. I hope that those of you who care not a whit for whiskey at least enjoyed all the pretty words.

Did I mention whiskey? It wasn't really the drunken promenade that I would like to make it out to be, because in our almost hourly samplings of the local scotch that they pour so proudly and frequently, we never even got a buzz, though we slept well. They pour about a finger's worth into elegant glasses which we sipped slowly. In this peaceful, friendly ambiance it just seemed unseemly to guzzle it like pigs. By the way, beer and whiskey cost the same in a Scotland pub. The beers are bigger, however.

Speaking of whiskey, we decided to take in a distillery tour after we had satiated ourselves on fine food, glorious architecture and pastures filled with sheep that never looked up until their final moment. So we visited the Oban distillery in the fine town of Oban. The tour instilled in me a reverence for the great art of whiskeying, and I was struck by the fact that our tour guide, an eloquent young woman who seemed much too young to drink, was so knowledgeable about all aspects of scotch including its effects. She mentioned that her grandfather made his own, as well as the effects of that. Perhaps they are a rational people who understand the good things in life, and perhaps they naturally give them the respect they deserve by refraining from enjoying them too much. I took notes, which I’ve since lost.

This won’t be all about drinking, but let me make sure that you have my priorities straight. Look, when I travel with this band, I'm not a songwriter. I write constantly, but my duties are primarily that of the lead guitar player. You know how it is, you plug into an amp and turn the knob to 4, or you play an acoustic guitar and beat it so you can hear it. And as such, we have an image to uphold. I'm tall, thin, I have (had) a retro ponytail and I fumble across the fretboard for the solos that add so much to the world – we’re trying to give it hug, aren’t we? In return I'm supposed to lead a dissipated lifestyle – sort of a VH-1 Lord Byron in cowboy boots – that poetically mirrors the injustice of life. Thus this detailed account.

We then went to Edinburg in a car or a train and there saw the famous castle, a squat, sumptuous presence high on a hill, furnished with fine furniture and cannons. The largest room that we saw was filled with ancient armor and cruel, spiky eviscerating weapons. The expert attendant informed me that the intent of most slashing was not to kill but to wound, thus requiring two men to carry off one wounded man, thereby removing three from battle; the idea was to reduce as many of the enemy as possible to an inactive status. We've progressed to the neutron bomb, which kills people but not buildings, and I fail to see any relationship between the two by extension, but I’m told that we live in a more civilized time. Not so back then. I learned how the Brits squashed an ancient Scottish bid for independence in an excessively cruel manner. It was a mass atrocity. If the Brits had had the neutron bomb, they would have used it. They have some sickening colonial history, like most nations with a taste for empire.

Also in Edinburg is the Robert Burns memorial, an imposing tower with no purpose but to memorialize Scotland’s great poet and literary archivist. I suppose one can climb up and look around, which could be an apt metaphor for Burns’ contributions. This enormous black thing studded with smaller spires left me awestruck. If the future of the human race allows any taste at all, we will travel between the stars in vehicles shaped and ornamented much like this. The tower is kind of cruel-looking as well, now that I think of it.

Next was the Isle of Mull, just off the western coast and across from the city of Oban. Did I mention, a fine whiskey is made in Oban. The ferry trip was nice, the craft being outfitted with a bar. We relaxed without thirst and wrote postcards. The Isle was nice, but it was raining, surprise, so we didn't see much. I love rain, but it does tend to obscure things. I think we were a bit self-obscured at this point, but my memory isn’t clear on that. The pope could have been riding around on a bicycle for all I know. Simone took photos of haggis hanging in the butcher shops, sheep stomachs filled with edible delights.

Rain, whiskey, and sheep. A nice balance, that.

Upon our return to Glasgow I got sick and retired to my bed for a day and a half. I think. David and Simone considered staying and nursing me back to health, but no, they left. A man can get sick anytime, but Scotland comes into a life all too seldom. I recovered well enough for our first show. I lacked the Byronic touch, but I was pretty thin. My ponytail hung limp down my back.
Scotland was wonderful, and I’m greatly indebted to the Scottish people for their kindness. The plaid still eludes me, but the people and the sheep stomachs were great.

England. English people are also very friendly, and everyone connected with the Gloucester festival is to be commended, especially our host, fearless and long-suffering promoter Chris Hall. There was a fine musical jam with Jock Tyldesly and I believe Frankie Gavin, but I may be remembering Frankie from another time. The only downside of the festival was the English version of gumbo, a dish which perhaps should not be attempted outside of Louisiana unless it is cooked by a Cajun. Simone would have been glad to help, but they didn't know they needed her. After our first taste we all just stared at each other. Do we have space and patience for another whiskey story? It ties in with the gumbo thing in that there is a remote chance that the gumbo was fine, but the ambiance was wrong. Not bad, just wrong, like lots of things. I noticed this with Jameson, one of the finest of Irish whiskies.

Jameson has a creamy, velvety texture when consumed in the UK. Back here it does not. Curious and always intrigued by the metaphysics of altered states, I bought a bottle at the corner store near Chris's house, and another upon arriving home. I didn't trust my unrefined palette, so Simone came over to help. In truth, that velvety texture was lacking from both bottles. We had a few more modest samplings and reminisced about the trip, recalling as much of the feeling as we could. Sure enough, we began to taste that ethereal creaminess. It never lit on our tongues as powerfully as it had in the UK, so what other conclusion could we come to? You had to be there. So maybe their gumbo was fine, although I doubt it.

We didn't see as much of the famous English countryside as I had hoped, but what did poke through the gloomy weather was in keeping with the stereotype. It summoned up a respect for these people who, like many Europeans, have for untold centuries sculpted their environs in a way that is not only practical but pleasing to the eye. The pastures and fields were separated by hedgerows with perfectly flat tops, and even the sheep, an animal that never looks up until its final seconds, seemed stoned on a weed that pulled them further into their own stereotypes.

In London I hung with Simone for some shopping, since I was hoping to find a certain style of boot. Her advice is always welcome at lunch time, if not while shopping – her tastes are rather vivid; Byronic in a way, but another Byron. If you know me, you've probably seen those hideously battered snakeskin boots I wear so often. I've only seen one pair like them, but I hoped to find another. Off to Camden Row we went while the rest of the band took in Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and other imposing artifacts of The Empire. I missed out on this touristic grandeur, but at least I didn't find the boots. I have something to look forward to on the next trip.

Shopping is hard for a man most places on Earth (except for that huge flea market in Paris), but I felt in London I would see some things that you can't easily find in the States. I did see a few unaffordable items later in chic King's Row, but generally the experience was like one of the better malls in one of our larger cities. As always, shopkeepers were friendly and helpful, unlike in our larger cities.

We left London and went on to play or something. I don’t remember much about those parts except that the were loud. Somewhere in the midst of our little whirlwind tour we met with the brilliant Brit rocker Nick Lowe and recorded a song with him in Odiham, a village south of London, that boasted a fine recording facility with the quaint name of Blah Studio. Nick was a founding member of the marvelous band Rockpile, and is one of the best writers in rock and roll, having many albums of high personality to his credit. He has produced many artists such as Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, the Pretenders, John Hiatt, the Fabulous Thunderbirds and many others. He is also a generous and amusing gentleman, so on a personal I level I feel he’s quite deserving of his success. The recording project is now on sale, and in fact was nominated for a Grammy award. It's called Evangeline Made, and is selling quite nicely, thank you. It's on Vanguard Records, and features artists such as Patti Griffin, John Fogarty, Richard Thompson, Linda Ronstadt and others singing Cajun songs – in French, with few exceptions – all backed by the best Cajun musicians. It's a great record, and the brainchild of producer Ann Savoy, a talented and industrious woman from down here who has, along with her husband Marc and their frighteningly talented children, done much for Cajun music. She is a member of The Magnolia Sisters, who can be seen at various festivals of a Louisiana flavor. At the session we also cut a backing track for a prerecorded vocal by the esteemed Linda Thompson who had done her part earlier, accompanied by Anne on guitar. It was an old Cajun ballad, and Linda's French, with her rolled Spanish r's, sounded exactly like that of our treasured ballad singers, women such as Inez Catalin and Alma Bartholomew. Another track was laid for a vocal by the ethereal Brian Ferry of Roxy Music fame. Brian was more ethereal than usual in that he didn't show up. I think he was ill. So Patti used a track we had cut. During the recording session, Simone borrowed Nick's Mercedes for a grocery store run and returned to cook us an excellent coq au vin. Some day we'll tell Nick about what happened with his Mercedes on that little errand.

And now I shall gift you with my overview of Europe, since we need another. Europe in general is a fascinating place from what I've seen, and perhaps we should fix our Social Security system so we can use it to force our young to live there for several months after high school graduation. Kurt Vonnegut suggested this in the sixties. Make it compulsory, he said. They'll learn the value of being bilingual, which is a fact so obvious it slaps one in the face within a day of arriving anywhere overseas, or even Canada. They'll witness extraordinary architectural achievements that are as awe-inspiring as the first moon landing. They'll make friends with people who think differently about things and they'll bring these enriching, even conflicting, attitudes back to our shores. Sure, it helps to have a brain in order to digest these things and be properly enriched thereby, but so many of our young are so well informed and educated that only fewer than half of them will return more narrow-minded. We must have faith, I say. Our Cajun friend Simone is as American as apple pie in many respects, but she's so much more than that from having eaten a huge chunk of the world, and all she had to do was squander her college money on visiting other countries and learning their languages. There are different slants to be confronted with when traveling, slants on simple things such as the ideal of beauty, for example, and our young people could profit from this to bolster their self-esteem. They would perhaps stop being suicidal just because their facial features can’t fit on a Barby doll. And even if the relative lack of fat people overseas can be a bit intimidating, they might be encouraged to walk and eat like Europeans do in their cities. And they need to experience this before our more airbrushed idealizations finish their job of infecting the rest of the world like a computer virus. Oh, it's too late, I know.

And now I shall gift you with the picture in my mind of an American college student, a man who grew up around women who got chest bags for graduation, and I imagine him meeting one of those proud, Latin-nosed French women with her hair pulled back from a refreshingly un-American profile that says, "This is my face. If you don't like it, you may leave." She'll have an accent that he's only heard in the movies, and he'll feel like he's in one, and, ideally, he'll examine his reaction. He'll try to maintain his cool so far from his moorings and his secondhand opinions, and maybe he'll rise to the occasion if he has any humility. Maybe he’ll get laid.

And maybe the young woman he meets will be tricked out with bags, blonded hair and a nose job, which is why he needs to get over there quick.

But just maybe he'll return with a different slant on things and pass them on to his children – his tricked out children, and this country will be better than it was ... never mind. I need to end this, because a reputable cable news network show is coming on shortly, and it’s anchored by a former congressman. There will be some stimulating debate about Iraq and some presidential hopefuls. And the last quarter-hour will be about Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan or the model going to jail and the fears that she’ll be murdered for her car keys and cellphone.

Americans need to taste this overseas thing before it's gone. The world has our fast food, our WWF, Survivor, Jerry Springer, Pamela Anderson and Paris Hilton clones, implants ... they admire all our cute little cultural speed bumps. These days even a few suicide bombers go to meet the Prophet wearing ball caps from our proud sports teams. But my point is that the Old World still survives, and so much of it is just plain Good. It looks good, tastes good and feels good, especially the hot stuff on the nude beach. Our kids need to share buckets of fries with them on the beach now that they know how to really make those things. They’ve stopped drowning them in mayonnaise – except in Belgium – and are beginning to use ketchup.

"I'm proud to be from a country who's food is loved throughout the world."