The Fall of Memphis

There was some internal strife amongst the Bronsonius Writer's Guild of late, and it concerned the destination of our Spring Break rendezvous. Our writership is not only a diaspora of topicality but also an actual diaspora, with Charles, Bobby, Amerigo, and Pierre residing in DC, LA, MN, and PA respectively. Miraculously, the calendars aligned like the stars to allow Amerigo, Pierre, and myself (Your Charles) a free week in March to reunite the TriForce. The contentious question was...where?

While Your Charles sought blonde hair and blue eyes in Reykjavik or a Leopold Bloom-like foray into the streets of Dublin, and Amerigo wished for a Stallone/Cliffhanger johnse at a devilish SD outcropping, the increasingly cowed (by way of new mortgage) Pierre deemed COST the deciding factor for our agreed upon destination. So be it; we are teachers, after all.

So, due these new restrictions (i.e. miserly COST) the international and exotic locales whittled down to a few frequent-flier cities here in the USA, namely Chicago, Nashville, Vegas, and Memphis, which eventually whittled down to Memphis and Nashville. Memphis because it is the home of the King: my idol and yours, second only to you-know-who (CB!). Nashville because we heard it rocks in the name of outlaw country a la Hank Williams and Johnny Cash. Yet, when the scales were weighed and votes were tallied, Memphis won out.

That is, until we received a hideous email from Pierre, which you may read after the jump. My hard-line rebuttal follows that. Read the both and be aghast, then awoken.


To Whom It May Concern:

I'm starting to feel as if a three way consensus is going to be hard to reach. I would like to take this opportunity to express my feelings on this matter. I would like you both to consider how many times you have changed your mind in the last two weeks. We had New Orleans for a good two hours planned out...then Memphis.....then Nashville. I'm losing confidence that we will ever agree.

Amerigo and Charles: I realize that you have your sights (for the moment) again set on the Asshole of the US known as Memphis. Amerigo, you are interested because you went to a library and read a "tourist attraction" book. You then went on to make the "logical" claim that if they wrote a book about Memphis, it must be nice. "They certainly wouldn't write a book telling us to go there if they knew it was bad. That wouldn't be morally correct." Hmmmm. You also went so far as to claim "if people live there, they must not fear violence." If this is a valid point, why are we not going to Camden or Detroit for break? Maybe we can get a hotel in the South Bronx and hit the local clubs.

Charles, Amerigo tells me that you spoke to several people (while drunk at Hooters) that told you Memphis was cool. I can respect that, but Erin's brother Chris dates a girl who lives there. Both he and she tell me that under no circumstances should I go there. On New Year's eve this year alone there were three stabbings and over 30 arrests on Biele Street. That kind of shit doesn't happen in BIG cities, ESPECIALLY not on the "main street". Last fall he SAW a guy get stabbed on Biele Street. Amerigo, I'm not making the claim that I think if we go, I'm getting stabbed(which is the impression I accidentally may have given you on the phone). I'm making the claim that there is a certain "type" of behavior that seems to be the norm down there, and
that reflects on the people living there. More than that, it is widespread around the whole city, not concentrated in "bad neighborhoods" like in DC and Philly. I don't want to spend a week in an area where fights and arrests happen even night.

Furthermore, all of this is to go to a city that we already vetoed! I thought that we didn't want to spend the money to go there? I thought we all liked Nashville? As far as my "other suggestions" go, I'm not sure what is left for me to suggest. We've gone through most of the spots in the lower half of the country. I looked up Phoenix and it's all golf courses and Museums. The consensus is Austin is the only city worth visiting in Texas, and we've already been. You guys didn't like New Orleans, I don't like Memphis, you guys don't like Florida or Nashville. I don't think any of us like Atlanta. Vegas is going to be more expensive then we think. While hotel and flight wouldn't be bad for any of us, being there a week and partying definitely would be. As far as places I would still go....I'm still interested in Nashville, Austin, Seattle and Chicago. I would also do Tampa, Florida (although I know Amerigo won't).

I look forward to hearing your thoughts,
Le Poop

Pierre Miley,

Relax. You need not get so flustered. Adding circumstantial arguments to circumstantial evidence is never convincing to a shrewd Bronson. Raving hypocrisy and xenophobic moralizing, Pierre? You can do better than that.

Let's not mention the terrorist threats to subways and landmarks in NYC while you lived there, nor the drug dealers and gang members near the SpaHa hoop courts where we reigned, nor the very reputation (violent, worldwide) of the Bronx, where taught for three years. Remember reading Amazing Grace our first summer of grad school? You went to the Bronx over 500 times and did any of that stuff happen to you? How many times did you really feel threatened? How many times was a knife or a gun drawn in your presence? .

Nevermind that I took a poll of Memphis v. Nashville at my Saturday pickup basketball game, where I got the lowdown from one guy who grew up in Memphis and another guy who has a wife from Nashville and two others who had been to at least one of those cities. They claimed Memphis to be more authentic, gritty, and bluesrocking than the anti-septic, countrymusicallthetime, stripmalled Nashville. And I assure you, from their firsthand experience, never did they mention Memphis being a post-apocalyptic freeforall where (God forbid) the drug addicts and criminals indiscriminately butcher Beale Street whiteys.

I'm very concerned that you believe that the separation between rich and poor in "BIG CITIES" is comforting. So we can go to a place like Chicago and feel safer because all the stabbings happen on the South Side? Las Vegas is home to tens of thousands of convicted child molesters and gang members and drunks and lowlifes on the city's outskirts, but if we hang on the strip and in casinos, it would be fun, but maybe a little too expensive? But, as soon as some violence happens on the "main street," where the bad shit used to happen on the periphery but is happening in the center of the city's assumed identity, even if we hear such news from a friend of a friend, we are immediately dismissive and genuinely scared? Keep the riffraff out of where I want to go, so i can feel better about myself and my time touring the sites? Is that your message, Pierre?

Memphis is moot. This is about your easy submission to xenophobic attitudes and your stubbornness in listening to multiple points of view. Not visiting a place is perfectly acceptable if you would rather go somewhere else, but not visiting a place because your friend's girlfriend told you there is some crime and your fellow travel rockers tell you otherwise and you refuse to listen to them is just selective hearing. How many people have told me Philly is dangerous, but I still went to visit you? How many people are impressed and/or shudder when you tell them you taught in the Bronx (because they fear it as part of its overwhelmingly but somewhat unfair reputation)?

Listening to hearsay and believing it is indicative of a life lived further and further from reality. Becoming paranoid from stories of random violence, by taking a few overheard incidences to mean manifest, widespread lawlessness is both ignorant and sad. It reminds me of the people here from Georgetown who protested the construction of a metro stop for fear of "outsiders" (read: black people) entering their neighborhood. This kind of thinking is dehumanizing - essentially mongrelizing the "outsiders" that have to live in abject poverty and hopelessness, as well as disrespecting the sensible people who (perhaps stupidly) believe in equal opportunity for everyone and some sort of universal goodness in people.

Pierre, you know I love you. But you need to cut that shit out. Let's go to the beach somewhere. Name it and we'll book it.

Sincerely,
Elvis Presley of Memphis, TN

N.B. The rich irony: after all this garbage, it was decided that we will travel to NOLA, the most dangerous city in the US right now, by way far.