Ali/Spinks 2

It's New Year's Day in New Orleans
And I'm walking to The Rib Room with the girl of my dreams
And when we're walking I have thoughts I'm not sure others have
Like how the most underrated actor in the world is Steve Railsback
Who played Manson in Helter Skelter and who played Ed Gein
He's been in a few Rob Zombie films too, I'm pretty sure, I think
Yesterday, we were at Honey Island Swamp and I was thinking about the new year and what I'm gonna do
And I thought about the movie Southern Comfort with Keith Carradine, Fred Ward, Peter Coyote, and Powers Boothe
And the slide guitar soundtrack of Ry Cooder
And how Powers Boothe could've played Vincent Bugliosi in the movie Helter Skelter, Manson's famous prosecutor
I could've pursued acting or maybe been one of those soundtrack guys
But I'm a songwriter and writing songs is my calling 'til the day I die
Gonna write songs that make people laugh, cry, happy
Angry songs that make grown man shit their pants like little fucking babies
Songs about lazy little cats sleeping on 9th ward porches
Songs 'bout pitbulls howling in cages at police stations while the cops process their pimp dog owners

The first chapter of a book about Maurice Ravel
He was born a few years after my home was built and that's put me in a spell
Thinking about Marx, Freud, and Einstein and the late 19th century
And then we started to doze off in the afternoon because we were feeling pretty sleepy
From all of that good rich Southern food that we ate
Turtle soup, grits, salmon with creme fraiche
Remoulade shrimp, and fried catfish plates

Last night, we watched fireworks along the Mississippi
And I got a call from my friend in Tennessee and it was her grandmother's 97th birthday
She's the closest thing to a grandmother that I've ever had
She makes oyster stuffing every Thanksgiving
But the last time that I had it, I was sleeping in her basement in 1990 reading Riders on the Storm
I was obsessed with the Doors
But didn't care for the perspective of John Densmore

This past Christmas Day, my dad's friend Dan Engelberg died
In a hospital bed at the old age of 99
Weeks away from turning 100
And the Saturday before, he talked to my dad and said he was ready to go
And that he loved my dad and that he was one of the best friends he's ever had
And I called my dad Christmas night and he was quiet and said it hadn't quite hit him yet

And I talked to my friend last night
And she was at home with the shingles
All alone on New Years' Eve
Someone else was watching her children
Cause she's not well enough to handle them by herself these days
She was tuning out watching True Detective on DVD
And right now, me and my girl are gonna go find a place to eat
Try to dodge the drunken fans of the Ohio and Alabama college football teams
Playing at the Superdome right now as I write
It's hard getting out of this big, soft bed tonight

Just back from Saint Charles Tavern where they were blasting the game
She had bread pudding and I had chocolate chip pancakes
She keeps talking about adopting a dog or a cat
And I keep talking about which guitarist I'm gonna bring to Japan
When I finally go to sleep, I hope to have a nice dream
About my old kitty cat sniffing at the Christmas tree
Not a nightmare where I'm lost in a Malaysian sea
Snakehead fishes tearing me apart with their nasty teeth
You never know if it'll be a good or a bad dream
But nothing beats falling asleep to the sound of the streetcar in New Orleans

And I dreamed that it was 1978
And I lived in Central City and it was a warm autumn day
And me and my friends went to see Ali/Spinks 2 at the dome
And we walked back to someone’s house, so excited about how we'd seen the fight of the decade in New Orleans
And we laughed all night on a muggy front porch 'til the sun came up
And then the dream cut to the back bedroom of a shotgun style house
And I was looking around the room and the walls were purple and gold
The radio was on, then I woke up, it was January 2nd
I picked up a guitar that I bought at a pawn shop