Finally got my shrimp and grits at EAT on Sunday and, William H. Macy on a cracker, that shit is delicious. The day dawned bright and beautiful, so I walked up Dauphine to Dumaine and went right into the sunny front room and took up a two-top. The “bowl” of shrimp and grits is about feeding-trough size for maybe three horses, and comes with a biscuit as big as a lumberjack’s fist. Drank iced tea and looked out the window and it was a perfect morning. They do put mushrooms in their broth, though, which is a little weird. I would have preferred green peppers. Couldn’t finish half of it, so I left, panting slightly and clutching my belly, and started my day.
Lee had told me about an awesome novel called “Yellow Jack” by Josh Russell, so I went to Faulkner House to buy it. Saw James talking to his “new best friend”—some grizzled, homeless-looking old guy—and he said he’d tried to call me the night before. (Wrong prefix: He prides himself on his memory and had called 701.) I laughed at him. He is entertaining as hell but not quite worth making an effort for, since he sees that as a weakness and a game like that doesn’t interest me.
Spent the entire day reading “Yellow Jack.” What a novel! What a waste of a day. But totally worth it.
I betook myself to dba around 6 to see Sophie Lee’s husband’s band (one of his bands; the other is the renownd Jazz Vipers), the Palemtto Bug Stompers, and just as I was bellying up to the bar for a glass of pinot noir, he did call. He came by and we watched the band, then left for R Bar, which has Abita Strawberry this time of year. Girly beers in hand, he took out an envelope and read out loud a “play” by his new best friend, Buzz Wright, in which he, James, was contracted to play “The Ghost of James Dean.” It wasn’t a play, just a narrative with directions, and only three pages long, and involved the hero going to see the Roches at the John Anson Ford Theatre in L.A., then driving Maggie Roche through Malibu to a lost-in-time roadside joint where ghosts of various American heroes, from Dean to John Wayne, appeared, played by cutouts as various classic-rock numbers (Buddy Holly, Elvis) are being played on the jukebox, skipping like mad as the songs reach their emotionally tormented climaxes. It was like a demented puppet show. “It’s just a treatment,” he said defensively.
We walked around the Marigny, he pontificating about architecture, which was fascinating, and the history of the area. I knew some of it from “Madame Vieux Carre,” but it was really fun to see it come alive in his words. His bitterness at the downscaling of Marigny Brasserie was particularly entertaining. The rant about Saltines on the tables alone was epic in its scope and flourish.
