“I might get burned up by the sun, but I’ve had my fun.”

Halloween Eve, 2004

I drove the streets around 1:30 am, the same streets I once knocked up and down in bands and with friends trying to make some jangly noise.

The ghouls and demons were sparse. Well, at least the ghouls were. There was a sizable cluster of costumed twenty-something’s along Demonbreun. They were spilling out of the clubs and restaurants now in the same buildings once occupied by tourist shops. What was a gaudy joke of a street has become the new hip strip. Police cars-in-waiting flashed their blue whirlies on one side of the street as angels, beasts, maids, Dorothy’s, hookers and devils met each other on the sidewalk on their way to cabs and cars.

Carefully they all proceeded, watched over by the Music Row roundabout statue dancers with their bronze breasts and penises waiting to make the next ass-tight rich white man-of-power uncomfortable. Beautiful young ladies crossed the street with knee-high socks and thigh-low skirts carrying the painful beauty that autumn brings and brings and brings.

I thought about going to a strip club, but bought a cheeseburger instead.