Summer Solstice

Summer officially arrived a couple days ago, and in my boredom at work on Friday, I got to thinking about what exactly this meant. Typically for me, and for most college students, the understanding of seasons goes something like this: Winter (December-January), Spring (January/February-May), Summer (May-August), Fall (August/September-December). I'd say for most Louisianians the seasons fall along these lines: Winter (December-Mardi Gras, which falls somewhere in February or early March), Spring (Mardi Gras-June), Summer (June-October), Fall (October-December).

Summer as represented in popular culture is typically much different from summer in my personal experiences. I guess the best way to say this is far less Len- "Steal My Sunshine" and De La Soul- "A Roller Skating Jam Named 'Saturdays'" and far more Drive-By Truckers- "Bulldozers and Dirt" and Steve Earle- "Someday." The music of summer, in my mind, is always filled with a heaviness, a stickiness, and something a little dirty. The heaviness of Drive-By Truckers, Whiskeytown, and Steve Earle, the stickiness of "Spottieottiedopaliscious" by Outkast, and the dirtiness of The Meters always represent summer in my mind far better than the breeziness of all those "Boys of Summer" jams. This is mainly due to the fact that I have spent the past two summers, and now Summer 08, in relative isolation, working my ass off.

Summer 06 was filled with spinning Whiskeytown and Uncle Tupelo during dreary, sultry kitchen hours. Late-night drive homes following the closing of the restaurant fuelled on my 87th coke of the night and numerous "cigarette breaks" behind the restaurant (even though I didn't smoke) remain the most lasting images of that summer. Yes, it was terribly boring.

Summer 07 was spent working outside. I got paid cutting grass on a private golf course and driving a golf cart around an enormous piece of property doing odd jobs. I spent a lot of time careening around dusty back-woods trails and mindlessly cutting down fairway grass in the blazing June-July-August heat. I listened to a lot of Widespread Panic ("Chilly Water, "Driving Song," "Tall Boy") and Drive-By Truckers ("Carl Perkins Cadillac," "Bulldozers and Dirt," "The Southern Thing,"). I can vividly remember getting cans of "Sparqs" at 10 a.m. break and slamming them in mere seconds to get a morning kick (Godawful), drinking tall boys at lunch in the woods, and occasionally, when everybody else was away, sneaking copious amounts of Jack Daniels into my fountain coke and then spending the rest of the day driving around on a golf cart drunk out of my mind. It was a lot of fun, but there was nothing worse than working out in the fucking scorching Louisiana heat and humidity for 8, 9, 10, even 11 hours at a time. I have probably never sounded more like the Catholic-school middle-class poli-sci major that I am, but God did it seem like July would never end. I don't mind dust in my hair, dirt on my hands, or sore muscles, but I do mind that relentless sun and heavy air.

Summer 08 has been one of mindlessly shuffling papers and running files to lawyers. Nights have consisted of studying politics and drinking bourbon and whiskey. At work I mostly try to ignore the idle chatter of the office receptionists or the cheeseball girls talk about how many cheeseballs they cheated on their cheeseball boyfriend with. Perhaps the most memorable moment at work was attempting to convince the receptionist to go to the dentist and get a tooth pulled so that she could get a Percocet prescription, and then selling that shit to me. Alas, this failed.

Monroe is a perplexing town for me. I have spent nearly my entire life in the New Orleans area, one which is at least as French as it is Anglo-Saxon, and most of the time, way more French than Anglo-Saxon. This is not a minor triviality. Everything is different.

Chiefly involved with a budding poli-sci major from down south such as me is the approach to alcohol. Luckily this does not extend to my grandfather, who was finishing his second Bloody Mary of the day when I got out of bed this morning. On the other hand, I have found that few will laugh at jokes about the "Holy Spirit" and that many kids celebrate drinking by "drinking and driving at breakneck speed out in the sticks." Ooh, cheating death behind the wheel in Calhoun, Louisiana is sooo much fun.

But even the racism is different here. In New Orleans, racism is largely glossed over because people are not that overtly racist and there is so much cultural mix, especially when considering local festivals, the music scene, etc. In Monroe, however, I have encountered the word "ni**er" more times in a few short weeks than I think I ever have around New Orleans. Conversations constantly feature such statements as "Goddamn, that little ni**er can run" or "I don't know what it is, but I just don't like ni**ers." In Monroe, the black and white societies, are clearly, and I mean clearly divided.

The ironic thing is though, the racial problems in New Orleans, are definitely much worse. One only has to look at the example of Hurricane Katrina to see this. Through decades and decades of historical patterns, blacks in New Orleans simply do not have the same chances and opportunities. Thus you see the only decent schools in the city are the private schools filled with upper-middle class white kids and the stands at Hornets and Saints games are filled with suburbanites. Voting patterns in New Orleans are constantly, and by constantly I mean always, split by racial lines. The only compromise is a sort of white-friendly black-person, such as Ray Nagin pre-Hurricane Katrina. The two main political factions seem to be dominated by white business leaders intent on maintaining a business-friendly environment (which largely doesn't exist) and black leaders of the Jeremiah Wright type, neither of which do anything to move toward "the middle." This does not even begin to approach the drug problems in New Orleans that infuse the vibrant drug community. If one dwells on the subject of New Orleans for too long, it tends to get depressing.

However, New Orleans, is still far-and-away the greatest city on the planet. Perhaps in another post I will delve into this phenomenon.

The topic of drugs leads to some other thoughts. Just recently 16-people were busted for various drug-related crimes in Monroe. These ranged from some poor college kid having $100,000 bail for "conspiracy to distribute marijuana" (I am sure it was like 10,000 ponds of it, and he was probably pretty sinister, but I like giving the benefit of the doubt to people busted with weed) to larger-scale crack, cocaine, and crystal meth "operations." Being neither "inner city" or "small town, middle of nowhere," I have no relation or understanding to the crack and crystal method epidemics. My closest encounter with either is some hooker looking for drug money on Beale Street and the song "You and Your Crystal Meth" by Drive-By Truckers. But I can say that I am just as scared on a daily basis of Xanax-addled soccer-moms driving around gigantic SUVs as I am of anything (well maybe not bored kids drunk driving cause they ain't got nothing better to do).

But back to the original focus, summer. It involves so much waiting. Waiting for the new semester, waiting for something to happen, waiting to get out of this hell-hole (its not that bad). It also involves a ridiculous amount of reflecting, because there is often nothing better to do. In a present that is so slow and still, you can't often help but reflect on the past and the future.

As I reflect on this, I realize that seasons don't begin and end according to the moon, or according to the beginning of semesters, or changes in weather, or the dates of holidays. Rather they begin with personal "sea-changes." I won't get much into this, but I realize now that summer began in May, in Baton Rouge, when I listened to "A Ghost To Most" by Drive-By Truckers about 15 times in-a-row at about 4 o'clock in the morning, drunk on Shiner Bock and whiskey.

Real music posts will return when my grandparents get rid of their technologic isolation. But for now, one of my favorite summer jams, a real killer from Heartworn Highways. And some excellent live-Truckers.