"Did you get a poster?? Good job baby!"

Thank you portly gentleman for providing tonight's blog title/quote of the weekend at the Beale St. Music Festival, as you noticed my beautiful mother holding the cardboard tube containing her poster. You're lucky she did not joust you with her tube.

A very big thank you to Robert and Susan for the Southern hospitality! :) You guys take such good care of us every time we come down. It was awesome getting to see the rest of the killer B's at the Rendezvous and watching some great music with everyone. I'll put my entire family up against anybody else in a second. Eat your heart out Hiltons.

I don't know if it was because I was trying to soak up every act knowing I wouldn't get to come back to Memphis for awhile or what, but I felt like every act we saw put on a good set. Of course some were better than others but no band really layed a dud. It was hard to pick a consensus favorite of the weekend. The Flaming Lips was a visual explosion of confetti, multicolored balloons, human hamster balls, and bear suits. Cage the Elephant's lead singer did his patented crowd dive/stand on the hands of the crowd, all while continuing to sing the song. The Avett Brothers convinced me to use an iTunes $10 gift card on their latest cd. Mumford and Sons impressed me as well but not like The Avett Bros. The New Pornographers also blew me away, good call on that one Mom. Sublime had the entire crowd singing "Santeria", but it still just isn't the same without Bradley. Johnny Mellencamp was still up there rockin' out. Gregg Allman looks like Willie Nelson's brother and can still belt out "Whipping Post". I'm sure there were other acts that I am leaving out. We were doing the zombie shuffle by the end of most nights so I am doing my best to recall our hijinx.

*Edit*
I forgot to relate the story of Saturday night. While Mom and Dad were watching Lucinda Williams, Ben and I headed down to see Ludacris. After Ben managed to give the O-H and taunt the guy wearing Wisconsin gear, we managed to squeeze ourselves in next to beer cart in a horrible location in the middle of the packed crowd. Pretty soon some big drunk guy was trying to get around me to no avail. He wanted to know why we were standing by the beer cart if we weren't drinking beer. After bozo got his booze, we formed an alliance with some people around us to stop letting people walk through our area because there was nowhere to move and they'd just end up standing right in front of you. This was pretty successful until the two guys that asked Ben for help. He looks down and sees them carrying/dragging this passed out girl through the crowd. Being the music fest vet that he is, Ben grabbed up her muddy feet, I got the waist, and her two cronies grabbed her arms and we started our trek out through the capacity crowd. For some reason, Ben and I were the only ones yelling for the crowd to move out of the way and coming through while the two brain busters leading us weren't saying a word. IDK if they were just freaked out they were gonna get in trouble for what happened to this girl or what but they didn't seem too animated about getting their friend help. They also were horrible leaders because we went directly out from the stage, not to either of the sides where we could get out of the crowd. After about 50 yards of knocking fellow concert patrons out of the way, the girl wakes up wide eyed asking "What's going on!?" We put her down and gave her our water which she accepted and walked off. One of the guys muttered thanks and the other one shook our hands and off they went. You're welcome for making sure your blonde friend didn't just die.

Also, shout out to our friend Angry Guy. This guy was rocking a Peace, Love and Beale St. t-shirt while loudly yelling in multiple peoples ears and trying to start a fight with anybody around him. Later on in the night after we had proclaimed him face down in a pile of vomit, he was seen only a few people over from my mom. Angry Guy you made us laugh so hard as you "WOOOOOOOO'D!!!!!" people's ear drums to the point of rupture and tried to convince everyone around you were the single biggest asshole at the festival. And for that we salute you.

The weekend was over before we knew it. It was without a doubt one of the best times of my life because I got to spend an entire weekend with my parents and brother, 3 of the people I love the most in this world, sharing what we all love with one another before I embark on a journey that will take me far and wide. As the days near, I find myself taking mental images and burning them into memory to flip through on homesick nights in Cameroon. I just feel blessed to have the wonderful friends and family that I do to have a surplus of memories to take with me to Africa. I hope to bring some good ones back to share with all of you upon my return :)

I am going to try and write more frequent, shorter posts to get in the habit of updating this little guy for when I do get overseas. Also if you have any questions/topics/etc about PC/my experience/anything feel free to leave them in a comment on here and I will try to address them.

Until next time.