Pigeon Forge

Raise the Barn - Keith Urban (with Ronnie Dunn) (mp3)
Johnny Quest/Stop That Pigeon - Reverend Horton Heat (mp3)

I spent last weekend at a family reunion outside of Pigeon Forge.

Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg are the anti-New Orleans. I'm not sure one can truly love both places. It would be like loving both Betty and Veronica, or Ginger and Mary Ann. You can like one and love the other, but you can't love both and be a normal human being.

We only entered "PF proper" -- otherwise known as one long damn strip of road -- for one brief block, because the town was too busy hosting two biker rallies, one Elvis Presley Fan Club reunion, and hell, I dunno, several Southern Baptist revivals, perchance. Whatever was getting hosted, there were even more people clogging up that single road than usual.

In New Orleans, life is all about what happens after the sun sets. Where do you eat dinner? Where do you get the best drinks? Of what kind of nightlife experience would you like to partake tonight?

In Pigeon Forge, life is all about what happens at breakfast. Which of the 229 pancake restaurants shall you visit today? Does blueberry syrup or pecan syrup go better with your country ham, wherein is packed enough salt to cure leprosy or stay afloat on a small lake? Where are those dark blue socks you had planned on wearing with your plaid shorts and loafers, and where's that package of Werther's Originals you'd brought along? Which of your six pairs of black leather chaps would look best today, and does it go better with the half helmet or the three-quarters?

In Pigeon Forge, traffic is already at its peak level by 10 a.m., as bikers and motorists of all shapes and sizes pour onto the road looking for a good outlet bargain, or trying to find the perfect go cart track, or seeing if they can figure out which closed-down bungee jumping place is the one where that feller done got hisself kilt the other week.

In New Orleans, it's illegal to drive anywhere before 10 a.m. lest those hungover tourists go get themselves kilt like them idjits up in Pigeon Forge who go bungee jumping for giggles.

New Orleans is 67% African American. Whitey makes up just over one-quarter of the population. By contrast -- and I do mean contrast -- Pigeon Forge is almost 95% white.

The only thing whiter than Pigeon Forge is Ivory soap.

(EXAMPLE: I dare you to find one African-American depicted at right. Like a "Where's Waldo?" contest. Show me any other thriving business in the US that can so baldly ignore all minorities in their promotional materials -- it's not even a photo, fer Chrissakes, it's a painting! They didn't even require a real live African-American to model for it! And if you're staring really hard at that girl in the light blue tank top, thinking, "She might be black..." then you're only proving my point.)

When my family ventured briefly onto the strip so that my girls could ride GoKarts and Bumper Boats, we actually saw an African-American couple. They were riding in the bumper boats right before we did, and I could have sworn that all the other honkey boats spent most of their time trying to spray that couple.* When they got out, totally drenched, they were smiling and happy, so I kind of gave them this look of "Did you realize you're the only two black people within 10 square miles unless Darius Rucker is playing Dollywood this weekend?"

Honestly, I don't think they cared. Which is simultaneously a sign of progress for our country and also a sign of what it must be like to live in North Dakota. Except without all the pancake houses and outlet malls.

The other way Pigeon Forge is the anti-New Orleans is that the former is practically bleached of all vices. Alcohol is limited to Pabst, Bud and Franzia and ain't sold on Sundays. No strip clubs. No beads or drunk losers saying things like "Show your t*ts!!" (and that's not "tots," but thanks for playing, Napoleon). Hell, they don't even have any karaoke bars... although you can pay to go watch a group of overly made-up Tammy Faye-esque white people in glittery outfits who have been pre-arranged to sing karaoke on stage.

And, only in Pigeon Forge can you watch "The Miracle," a moving passion play musical about the Life of Jesus. You can have your soul saved for only $40 a ticket!

(Just be sure not to accidentally impale yourself on one of those angels' swords. God's Angels will be one of the next contestants on Spike's "Deadliest Warrior"!)

I mention all of this to note: what better place than Pigeon Forge for my family reunion?

While it might not have been obvious after a single year of BOTG, I am white. My family is whiter than Colonial Bread and whole milk. We spend our days and nights playing white people games like Ladder Golf and Cornhole. We spend our nights talking on porches and playing card games. Our cabin was so high on the mountain that pilots used us and our reflective skin as markers, kind of like lighthouses.

We stayed in a cabin I preferred to call a "cansion." Although the last census report doesn't contain accurate numbers, there are more than 4 million cabin/cansions with hot tubs and pool tables in Sevier County, and 3.6 million of them are located within 10 miles of Pigeon Forge. Amazingly, despite the large population of cansions, they're all "secluded" and "private." Which is true, other than all the old-timers who are annoyed at all the cansions that have razed the once-beautiful tree-topped lush hills will spend all night yodeling to one another hoping to keep people awake and annoyed. You can hear those bastards for miles!

Our cansion had three floors, two kitchens, two outdoor hot tubs, 12 bedrooms, seven baths, two large screen TVs, eight microwaves, a pool table, and one of those touch screen bar games that no one ever plays in bars unless they're drunk or got stood up by blind date.

If you have a family or a large group of people who aren't gonna go all Jack "The Shining" Nicholson on you from being cooped up in a small space for a weekend, I can't think of a more reasonably-priced and enjoyable destination.

* -- This is totally not true. It only felt true for about five minutes, and it might have been less time if the boats moved faster than about 3 mph. There were only six people in boats at the time, and it just so happened that the other four totally surrounded that couple and squirted the hell out of 'em. The odds are good that I'm the only dude who even noticed that I was living a 1950s flashback moment... except in little motorized bumper boats and without the white hoods.

Suck Creek Discomfort

My Baby Loves Malt Liquor - Roger Alan Wade (mp3)
Nighttrain - Public Enemy (mp3)

An acquaintance of ours celebrated her 30th birthday last weekend by renting out a cabin on the outskirts of Chattanooga. The place is called -- with no sense of irony -- The Pot House. In many ways, it was the antithesis of my own party a week prior. My party was about inviting everything but the kitchen sink to join me, cram human bodies into small spaces and gab away like some wrinkling gray attempt at recreating a frat party. Her party was about getting away from the crowds, renting the cabin for a night, and inviting 40 or so people to stop by and stay as long as they liked from morning to late at night.

Getting to this cabin required driving down four long miles of curvy, semi-paved road off of Suck Creek. If you ever wondered why they named it Suck Creek, you only needed to drive this stretch of road. I'm pretty sure the only other option was to name it Meth Creek. And "Suck" just had a better ring to it.

What I'm about to observe will say much about my own issues of race and class. It's not particularly pretty, so there's a level of discomfort in even writing this. Some would say, "That's 'cuz you're supposed to keep these thoughts to yourself." And maybe they're right. But the problem with where we are as a culture right now, it seems to me, is that we're all so afraid of sounding ignorant or racist or bigoted that we don't ever even try to express ourselves. We're so afraid of being excoriated that we never get the opportunity to exchange ideas and perspectives in a truly deep and meaningful way. And without that exchange, how are our beliefs going to change?

We drove down this pothole-filled, winding road at 15 mph. On one bend, the houses were all overrun with trash in all shapes and sizes, from cars on cinder blocks to broken lawn chairs to piles of traditional garbage. A few hundred yards later, we'd drive past fairly nice houses, some over 2000 square feet and well-tended. Then a few more dumps. Then a few more nice ones. Some in-between.

"I'm so nervous," I told my wife. "I don't like this at all."

I live on the campus of a school that is a stone's throw from some fairly poor housing areas. One of the city's two most crime-ridden districts is basically this school's neighbor. Prostitutes and dealers can be found walking down several of the streets within miles of our house almost any night of the week. We pass them regularly, and I rarely think much of it. But... most of the people who are involved in these shady activities around the school are black. Maybe a few whites and a few more Latinos in the mix, but primarily black. They don't make me nervous, and I don't fear for my life.

But you take me out into White Trash Honkeyville, and I start getting agitated and frightened.

"Why?" she asked. "It's not like some drug-addled Bubba in a Jason hockey mask was going to bound out of a house and kill our children in a meth-crazed frenzy." -- I'm paraphrasing and exaggerating her words, but that was the general gist -- "so why are you nervous?"

"Because these people could be my relatives," I said.

I can't deny the implications of what I said at that moment. My words implied I get more upset about poverty and dilapidation when it affects whites, that it's all fine and good when minorities are plagued by problems like this, but I see white folks suffer, and all of a sudden I'm bothered.

After I'd had some time to consider the weight and implications of my claim, I realized there was another factor involved that explained my discomfort that had nothing to do with race. I am a downtown Chattanoogan and have been for more than a decade. Inner-city issues are something I see every day. I served on the board of a local homeless ministry here, so I saw it close up at times. The white poverty I saw on the fringes is something I haven't seen much in the last 13 years. I saw it in Warner Robins, but not since.

My Suck Creek Discomfort was more about me being a stranger in a strange land. I can't deny race playing a possible factor; I've had several handfuls of relatives who've dabbled in meth and/or lived in plenty of rundown trailer parks. But they're relatives I don't see much, and it's a lifestyle I neither see nor easily comprehend. Meanwhile, if you want to try and comprehend the life of the inner city, you can watch The Wire or Boys N Da Hood or any of dozens of movies, TV shows, or any of thousands of songs. The poor black life is constantly chronicled. Stereotyped, perhaps, but chronicled nonetheless. The white trash life isn't, and nobody much wants it to be. (And no, kiddies, Roseanne doesn't count.)

Maybe part of the new racial paradigm will require that we acknowledge the extent of the problem of white poverty, that we recognize drugs and gangs and ramshackle existences aren't just a black thing. Maybe that part of America is ignored because, for most of us, it's more frightening when it's all that much closer to home.

The Roger Alan Wade song is from All Likkered Up. Public Enemy's is from Apocalypse 91: The Enemy Strikes Black. Both can be found on iTunes or Amazon.com's mp3 site.

Postcard From Hawai'i

Hawaiian Style Band--"Kaimana Hila" (mp3)
Willie K--"You Ku'uipo" (mp3)

I'm not above making gross overgeneralizations, so I'll start with one here: Maui is Hilton Head on an island in the middle of the South Pacific. That's right. Whiteyville. Resorts, golf courses, and a island menu softened and elevated for a blander, wealthier clientele. Prime land that once belonged to indigenous peoples taken from them by developers through the use of skyrocketing property taxes.

Oh, yeah, Maui is also just about the most beautiful place I've ever seen. Coincidence?

And if you're really wealthy, then Maui is probably a bit too crowded and common for you, so you move on to Lanai. Lanai has the highest gasoline prices in the United States at $5.80/gallon. Coincidence?

And I tend to forget until I get here that Hawai'i was a sovereign nation that we basically took over with the help of some Marines and the desires of some plantation owners. We felt the need to protect American interests on the islands. Sound familiar?

Our trip was to O'ahu. And but for a queasy trip back and forth on the Super Ferry and a bit of self-exploration around Maui, we've spent all of our time on this crowded, touristy island. O'ahu is sprawling, messy, at times, even ugly, but it an authentic Hawai'ian experience if you are willing to venture away from the South Beach-lite area of Waikiki (which I also really like, by the way), and given the melting pot of foreign tourists, hotel staff, and restaurant workers, even if you're not willing to leave Waikiki. All that is true on Maui is true here, but to a lesser degree because so many peoples have staked out turf in this crowded city already. So the wealthy are snatching up the North Shore, where the big waves come in the winter.

Just a sampling of a few items will give you an idea of what I mean about the blend of cultures that makes for the Hawaiian experience on O'ahu. The best doughnuts on the island, called malasadas, come from the Portuguese. The "plate lunch" with its meat, two scoops of rice, and macaroni salad, is originally from the Phillipines or Korea. The ukelele (of course I bought one and have already learned to play Springsteen's "I'm On Fire," among other things--the lyrics sound pretty damn stupid when you're singing and strumming a ukelele) comes from contact with Mexican cowboys who came here with the cattle. Pineapple are a transplant from South America; coffee the same. The incredible shrimp trucks, like Giovanni's (pictured here) are Italian in origin, basically serving shrimp scampi with enough garlic to kill the vampire Lestat. The Hawaiian shave ice, now ubiquitous, of which I ate the original, complete with some kind of baked beans (azuki beans) at the bottom, is Japanese. The Italian restaurant where last night I had Opah fish sauteed in garlic and olive oil with a light white wine sauce is staffed by Vietnamese and run by a Vietnamese chef. And the traditional Hawaiian food, with slow-cooked pork wrapped in taro leaves, a tomato, salmon, and onion salad, a tender beef jerky, and poi (the healthiest starch in the world), which tastes like uncooked, fermenting bread starter, to dip everything in is perhaps the best eating/immersion experience of all. You get the idea. All cultures meet here on O'ahu.

Which is to say that Hawaii is a lot like the rest of America. Those whites who can flee to their safe havens where they/(we?) can recreate safety and comfort, but occasionally they'll venture out for a brief foray into the "real thing." Or maybe not. We were on a bus tour around the island the other day, and the driver/guide Mele, a native Hawaiian, said, "Hey, let me ask you all. We have these new restaurants now called P.F. Chang. Do you have them on the mainland? Are they any good? Should I go?" The chorus around us yelled, "Yes, it's awesome!" This is an area glutted with authentic Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Filipino eateries, but where the people who staff those restaurants speak those languages.

Sorry to be preachy and condescending. I leave you with the sign across the street from our hotel, with its syntax-challenged attempt to lure the tourists: "Totally Nude and Billiards."

Having a great time. Wish you were here. Though by the time you see this, I'll probably be back. Mahalo. Aloha.

Both songs above come from the compilation CD, The 50 Greatest Hawai'i Music Albums Ever.