Lyn Fuchs's Blog, page 8

The Mississippi Cradle of American Music IV

New Orleans is where the Bible belt comes unbuckled. I realize this on Bourbon Street when a black transsexual offers me his unconscious, whiskey-drenched sister for a ten-dollar blowjob or a twenty-dollar screw. Suddenly an all-white jazz band appears. Clarinets, saxophones, trumpets, banjos, trombones, and drums pummel the tragic siblings with “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

Race, rye, and religion are constant themes on the Mississippi. In the American Odyssey, Huck Finn and sidekick Jim...

The Mississippi Cradle of American Music III

Here I stand at the gates of Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion—the Taj Mahal of tacky—architectural proof that the unexamined life can be worth living, if you’ve got the cash. Elvis was as unrefined as he was charismatic. Like the Great Gatsby, he remade himself into a squire but really only convinced his “po’ white trash” brethren. He found rising from dirt-poor son of a bootlegger to filthy-rich king of rock ‘n’ roll much easier than rising above class snobbery.
When bought by Presley in 195...

The Mississippi Cradle of American Music II

Led Zepplin’s Lemon Song and My Head's In Mississippi by ZZ Top are both referenced in the previous post of this musical history. Both tunes refer to the songs of Howlin’ Wolf. His story is somewhat typical of the Mississippi Delta’s legendary bluesmen, who constitute the foundation of American music.

Chester Arthur Burnett, aka Howlin’ Wolf, was born in 1910 on the Illinois Central train line near the Mississippi/Alabama border. His eighteen-year-old, Black, sharecropper dad married...

The Mississippi Cradle of American Music

From Vicksburg to Memphis, the Mississippi Delta was once a vast swamp of gum trees, panthers, snakes, mosquitoes, and malaria. For eons, the great muddy river gently deposited dirt on the site. Now, it is a land of rich black soil and poor black people, of fat white cotton bolls and fat white cotton bosses. The population is around 80% black. The landscape is awash in shotgun shacks without plumbing or electricity.

Ironically, a century ago, as diminishing crops were being carefully weighed a...

Mount Everest Just Isn't Worth It

Reading Jon Krakauer's book Into Thin Air and seeing the new movie Everest about the same fatal climbing expedition led me to the same cold analytical conclusion. Everest is a lousy travel destination. Are there other mountains that offer a breathtaking view uncluttered by trash, decomposing human popsicles, and those sacred Tibetan prayer flags easily confused with Mexican barrio party flags? Check. Do other mountains offer that breathtaking view without taking so much breath that...

Hail Caesar and Heil Fuhrer Trump

I didn't intend to be a prophet in my recent post about Hillary Clinton. Yet, I accidently was. After doubting that Republicans could find any candidate as sordid, corrupt, and unfit for public trust as America's former first lady and permanent first hag, I added a comment that we still don't know what lies under Donald Trump's frightening hair. Now we do. Two months ago, Trump was a real ass but not a real presidential candidate. Now he's both.

In order to appreciate the Antichrist-like...

Battle of the Sexes: Round III

Finca Don Gabriel is part coffee plantation and part enchanted tourist kingdom. No doubt the honeymoon ambience contributed some to my curvaceous partner's increasing apprehension that she'd be expected to put out. My drooling may not have helped either.

(Feminists of the bat-shit-crazy variety can now add obscene natural beauty to the list of things that conspire to create rape culture. Sensitivity police can now be offended by the preceding rape jest, refusing to accept that people often cho...

Battle of the Sexes: Round II

Our journey to the coffee-growing village of Pluma, Oaxaca should have been short and simple. Yet, the best laid plans of mice and men who want to get laid oft go astray. (And you thought Steinbeck corrupted Shakespeare to illustrate the plight of the common man.)
We took a taxi to the bustling crossroads of Santa Maria Huatulco. Our driver urged us to jump into a collectivo (shared taxi) just leaving. Halfway thru our winding ascent into the mountains, we realized our backpacks were still in...

Battle of the Sexes: Round I

Your author once asked a barista, “Which is better: coffee or women?”
She responded without hesitation, “Both are delicious, but the coffee won’t cause you much trouble.”
This sage wisdom more or less captures the essence of my recent trip to a Mexican coffee plantation with a Mexican hippie girl. Join me as we relive the sensual passion (and the sexual frustration).
The coffee was a fine, dark, organic Arabica from finca Don Gabriel. The hottie was a fine, strawberry-blond Bohemian with pouty,...

My First Love Connects After Many Years

My first love sent a Facebook invitation this week after many years incommunicado. Then, she sent me a letter. I had just left home at 17 when I encountered her in the lobby of my university. Her raven black hair, sparkling blue eyes, and gently swelling cardigan would distract almost any idiotic boy from noticing the enormous compassionate heart that lay underneath the sweater. Yet, boy did this boy ever notice.

I was in love within weeks and passionately wanted to marry her. However, I had a...