As of yesterday I'm 26 years old. "Get me - I'm grown!"

The weekend was an adventure.

And I mean that in a totally good way. Yes, Buffett was great. But the concert was only half the fun...

So Sonya and I leave Memphis about seven on Friday night. Sonya drove and the trip from Memphis to Nashville was uneventful. The high point? An especially large and juicy bug hit the windshield right in front of Sonya.

"You know what the last thing to go through that bug's mind was?" I asked her.

"No. What?" she said, working the windshield wipers.

"His butt."

We laughed for an hour about that. It's a road-joke my family has told for years - I can't remember not knowing it - but apparently I've never shared it with Sonya. It was a special moment. I'm a funny guy and all, but Sonya and I have known each other for so long and spent so much time together that she has, over the years, seen most of my routine. She knows all my little comic bits so when I can make her laugh with a new one I feel pretty good.

Sonya drove on through Nashville; then we stopped to get gas, coffee, and to switch seats. My plan was to get past Louisville and then find a place to stay somewhere along the road to Cincinnati. Got past Louisville just after midnight. The first exit I come to has a few hotel signs, so I stop.

"Got any rooms?"

"Sorry, we're all booked up."

No big deal. I went to the next hotel.

"Do you have anything available?"

"We're sold out. Sorry!"

On to the next exit.

"Anything?"

"Nope."

"Got a room?"

"Uh-uh. Sold out."

"Anything open?"

"Get the hell out. I'm sleepin'."

I briefly considered asking if anyone had a stable we could stay in, since my wife was tired of riding on her ass. I reconsidered, though. It was Kentucky, you know.

Finally I was just walking into the office and holding out my arms in a semi-pleading posture. Most times, the person behind the desk would just shake his head and I'd leave without a word.

There's some interesting types working the front desk late night at second-rate hotels. Far and away the most predominant type in Kentucky was the dyed-blonde-white-trash-kinda-chunky-twentysomething-chick-with-a-black-eye kind of front desk clerk. Granted, only one of them had the black eye, but the rest of them were from the same school of appearance.

It was one of these - the girl with the black eye, as a matter of fact - who explained to me the reason for the lack of accomodations. "There's a jazz festival in Cincinnati," she said, "and some sort of Jimmy Buffett festival. And HORDE is in Louisville."

Great.

So Sonya and I drove on through the foggy Kentucky night, getting more cranky and irate with every mile. Finally I was almost in Cincinnati itself, just miles from the Ohio River, stopping at every exit and intersection to inquire for room at the inn.

All the inns were full. Except one.

Finally, at about four in the morning local time, I find one Comfort Inn that had a cancellation. The guy behind this particular front desk looked like Big Gay Al from South Park, just without a moustache and blonde.

"Your last name is Williams? So's mine!" he enthused. "Super!"

The room was ridiculously overpriced. The air conditioner made horrible death-rattle noises and failed to cool the room. The bed was about eighteen inches wide. It didn't matter. We were in it and asleep in moments.

So a few hours later we get up, shower and drive across the Ohio and into the city proper to our previously (and intelligently) reserved room. More napping followed.

Just for the record, Cincinnati is a grubby, grubby city. It needs a good wash. And really, who builds a city on such lumpy ground? They should have done just a touch more clearing of the foundation before they started building.

The show itself was great. We had good seats in the pavillion. The diehard Parrothead purists seem to prefer the lawn, but sitting on a nasty blanket doesn't seem like the optimal way to enjoy a show to me. The Parrotheads are an odd group, but I love 'em. Hell, I'm one of 'em - I was the guy in the Hawaiian shirt and multiple leis. That narrows it down to about five-thousand or so. Fun.

Brian Wilson of Beach Boys fame was even there to sing his new song he co-wrote with Buffett and he came back at the encore to do Surfin' USA. So that was a little bit of musical history.

Leaving the show was trying, which I guess is universal for leaving a concert. Sonya and I finally made it out (her driving, me navigating) and I immediately put us on the wrong road. Soon we found ourselves on a long, dark stretch of road that followed the Ohio River. Mind you, I knew where we were the whole time. We were never lost. We were just never quite where I wanted us to be.

So I point Sonya down a suburban road that I think goes back to the interstate. We get on it and find ourselves going up, down and all around steep hills and trails, winding in between lovely homes. It was weird. Sonya went around one particularly nasty turn - simultaneously going up and left - and in the headlights of the car ahead of us we saw someone wandering around. In the middle of the street.

Sonya slowed down when we lost the person in the shadows. So it was a surprise when he nearly fell in front of our car. Sonya slammed on the brakes as this guy, barefoot, wearing cutoffs and the aforementioned Hawaiian shirt/lei combo, stared at our car drunkenly. We were maybe five miles away from a concert that had been over thirty minutes or so.

Maybe he was looking for the bathroom? Or the t-shirt stand? More likely he was a liquored-up moron someone couldn't stand to have in their car another minute.

Sonya started to inch forward. Dude lurched and almost fell in front of the car again. Now, my wife is very ladylike and feminine in every way - but she can cuss like a hungover drill sargeant when she needs to. She did then, letting fly a stream of colorful invective while holding the horn down. The guy slowly backed away and Sonya stomped the gas, taking us farther into the Ohio night.

We eventually made it back to the hotel. We found a Taco Bell, too, so the story has a happy ending.

The drive home was uneventful - and long. Kentucky, apparently, has a great many hills. Hills are a novelty to me; where I'm from, the ground is flat. Kentucky also has a lottery, so I got a couple of Powerball numbers. If they draw one of my numbers tonight, you probably won't see any more updates to this site. No offense to all my loyal readers but I'll be on a beach somewhere, living off the interest.

Rita Rudner said it best. "I don't understand these people who win the lottery and then say they're not going to quit their job," she explained, "I think they should take the money back." Amen, sister. If I win, I retire. At twenty-six. Yes! I will be the most obnoxiously nouveau-riche person you've ever seen. I'll smoke huge, obnoxious cigars at Folk's Folly and fling pizza boxes out of my skybox at the Pyramid. I'll buy Southwind TPC and turn it into a low-income firing range with a 50% discount for people from Frayser and West Memphis. I'll establish the biggest, gaudiest krewe in the Cotton Carnival and get Blaine Kern to build the floats.

But I know that the odds of my winning are right along the lines of me getting killed by an Armageddon-sized asteroid while simultaneously being hit by lightning and being in a plane crash.

Hell, it could happen. Right?

I had a lovely birthday yesterday. Got happy birthday wishes from the family, a Brak t-shirt from James and Jen and a big ol' hunk of beef for dinner last night, courtesy of the Butcher Shop and Sonya. Me and Sonya and James and Jen walked down to the Butcher Shop last night (it's just a few blocks from our place) and had a very civilized late dinner.

I love the Butcher Shop. It's neither as swank or as expensive as Folk's Folly or Ruth's Chris (the other two mondo dinero steak joints in Memphis) but the foods is in the same league and it's a hell of a lot more convenient to my house. The Shop has lots of big, tacky oil paintings and stuffed animal heads. And Blues on the muzak. It's a manly place for eating the flesh of lesser creatures. Yum.

And don't give me that animal rights stuff. Sure, I don't like the thought of a bunny taking a shot of toilet cleaner in the eye - but we're talking food! Face it, y'all - humans are at the top of the food chain. The only thing that could eat us are...what? Lions and sharks? Maybe the occasional bear or cape buffalo? And we can keep them in their place.

And eat them, if the mood strikes us.

So, since we're at the top of the chain, we can eat anything below us. If there were twenty-foot tall land-walking shark/lions that loved to eat people, well, we'd just have to deal with it. We'd either be eaten...

...or kill the damn things. And eat them.

It's all about who eats who, really. Much like life.

And sex.

Speaking of which...

(Now was that a smooth segue, or what?)

I watched the brand-new America Undercover last night. This one was Taxicab Confessions 5. Excellent stuff. This dude went down on his girlfriend in the back of a cab. It rocked!

There was also a really creepy couple - the guy looked like the star of Harry Dean Stanton - The Next Generation and the chick looked like she really wanted to be a porn star but just didn't have the requisite taste and charm. Anyway, they were swingers and they happily discussed how much they like to screw other people and displayed the girl's talent for lactation. She had the creepiest laugh I've ever heard.

Now here's what I don't get: why do the swingers and polyamorists get married? Huh? I mean, really. You want to screw other people? Fine. Your partner is cool with that? Fine. Your cool with your partner doing that? Fine. So why get married? Seems like it would be a rather square thing for such hip and liberated folks to do.

Here's my problem: marriage is basically a promise to the other person that you're only gonna date them, right? It like going together was in high school, just with legal (and possibly religious) backing. Doesn't that mean anything to these people?

I don't get it. You want spice in your marriage? Rent a video. Give each other a spanking. Do whatever it takes. Don't bring another person into it. Certainly not another group of people. Committees ruin things, folks.

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