The other Jewish Elvis in Cajun country

Recently, I made good on a pledge I made to myself and took advantage of a weekend to explore the South. Steve the "I promise I'm a straight" Flight Attendant had an overnight in Little Rock, Ark. and I headed north to meet him.

The drive alone was worth it. Winding along the Mississippi River, hugging the Louisiana/Mississippi border, I passed through some seriously country Southern towns. Along the way I stopped for lunch in Natchez, Miss., a sleepy historic town with a lot antebellum architecture and a beautiful view of the Mississippi. It's also home to the Under the Hill Saloon, a dark, seedy bar on the river with nothing on tap.

Not being in any particular rush, I stopped in to catch the matinee crowd and have a Dixie beer. There wasn't a lot of company at 2 p.m., but I was served by a midget woman, and chatted up by a creased-faced middle-aged woman chain smoking at the bar. Add to this the Confederate kitsch dotting the wall, and it was a satisfyingly weird pit stop.

From there I continued to ride storied U.S. 65, which continually criss-crossed the state border, until the gas light and nature forced a stop at a gas station in some small, non-descript north Louisiana town. Looking around the station's store, I noticed a lot of vampire-themed items and I worried I had fallen into a Twilight Zone episode with an unpleasant ending until I looked at one of the vampire beer cozies: Transylvania, Louisiana, it read.

So I stocked up on water and snacks at the Transylvania Quick Stop and brought it to the register. There, the malnourished, bearded and slightly inbred looking store owner rang me up as his probably 16-year-old, country cute daughter eyed me and blushed slightly. This, I thought, is where my car breaks down, I stay at the friendly locals house and get run out of town with a shotgun pulling up my pants.

My fantasy unfulfilled, I continued on and pulled in to Little Rock around 9 p.m. and met Steve at his hotel. There a fat, baby-faced bell hop who looked 17 excitedly gave us detailed advice on drinking and strip clubs. After a few beers at a nearby sports bar, Steve and I ventured downtown and found, to our horror, that the bars in Little Rock close at 1 a.m. Putting efficiency first we quickly downed several drinks and closed out the bars before heading to a strip club in the Little Rock ghetto.

In one of the lower moments of my life, we were told, after a $15 cab ride, that no dancers had shown up that night and the club was closing. We then heard the voice behind the door respond to someone, "No, just a couple of drunkies."

The next day, haggard and still smarting from our misadventures, Steve and I decided to explore the two things Little Rock is known for: Barbecue and Bubba. So we started the day with delicious barbecue pork sandwiches and ended it at a ratty, neon lit barbecue joint where I ordered a rib sandwich, fully expecting some kind of boneless rib sandwich. What I got was a pile of dripping, bone-in ribs on top of a helpless, drowning piece of white bread with another piece of white bread placed precariously on top for show. It was delicious.

Between our straight-to-coronary meals, we headed to the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Center. First off, the center is right on the banks of the Arkansas River and is meant to represent a bridge a la Clinton's bridge to the 21st century. In reality, it looks, fittingly enough, like a giant trailer. Once inside this monstrosity was what I can only describe as a Bubba overload. (Almost) Everything Bill adorned the walls of the cavernous, three-story building. From the displays one gets the impression that Clinton brought peace to the Middle East, brought all the downtrodden out of poverty and really didn't fuck up universal health care that badly. It did genuinely make me nostalgic for the 90s. One display had video of Tony Blair saying that the United States had never been so well-respected in the international community. A nice fuck you to the current regime and also terribly depressing.

The highlight however was the Lewinsky display. In a building the size of 42s libido, the Lewinsky affair was off in a corner in a four foot by four foot glass case with no fanfare. Of course, that's the amount of attention it should have got in the first place, but it was amusing nonetheless.