The Observor: Travel Stories (Volume One)

This is my travel story from Worlds 2008 in Memphis. I’m going to share another of my stories every month with you as an enticement to make it to as many Grand Prix and Pro Tours as you can, even if you aren’t qualified. You really should try. If these stories are any indication of it, the events are always a blast. I hope you like them.

All it took was three hits of the snooze button—that, and the realization that if I slept in any longer I’d miss my flight. I’ve only missed one flight ever. In fact, it was my return flight from Atlanta. Sweet tea is nothing but caffeine and sugar, so I have no idea, with the gallons that had effectively replaced my blood since setting foot in the Dirty, how I was able to sleep in as late as I did. Apparently, my B-class super power is the ability to sleep through any wake-up call. I could do worse.

I really didn’t want to start a trend of missing my flights, so I packaged myself up in some nice, warm clothes and headed out the door. It had been snowing over the last couple of days in Indianapolis, and it was fairly well blanketed in white outdoors at one point. But the night before my trip, I had stepped outside into 55°F weather and a steady downpour. Oh well, at least it wasn’t any more snow.

I live on the opposite side of town from the airport and had to hustle over to the far west side to meet my ride to the airport. Considering the fact that the snow had been replaced with what I thought to be the “safer for driving” torrential downpour, I was a bit surprised that I was almost run off the road on not one, not two, but three separate occasions… on my way to the interstate. Apparently, it’s an unwritten rule that when you’re running a bit late and driving in bad weather, people simply forget how to drive. The rain pelting their cars must have been providing an insulating shield preventing them from seeing the other cars on the road. It was like a two-year old playing peek-a-boo—if they can’t see you, you don’t exist. Sadly, I did exist, but luckily, I possess the self-preservation instincts of an alley cat.

After proving that Mario Kart skills translate into real life (though I’m sad that eating mushrooms while driving does little to improve your speed), I eventually made it to my ride’s office and ended up at the brand, spankin’ new Indianapolis International Airport. I was starting to freak out a little bit. It was 45 minutes before my flight was scheduled to depart, and I was just now getting to the airport.

Being the apparent masochist that I am, I had scheduled the earliest flight that Northwest had to Memphis. Consequently, I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was to find absolutely no one in the airport when I walked in. The lady at the check-in counter seemed legitimately surprised that I was there. It took her a second or two to finally acknowledge my presence, like she was trying to figure out whether I was real or part of some bizarre daydream. Apparently, after the third hello, she realized that I was there for a flight, and not to juggle fish, or whatever other random, symbolic thing I’m sure you can catch me doing in a dream.

The security station was just as deserted. In fact, I’m pretty sure that they took my bag out to inspect it thoroughly more because they were bored to tears than for suspicion of carrying anything illegal. I mean, you don’t really expect someone to search your bag with real intent and then look at the person running the X-ray and tell them, “Nope, it was only a book.” That’s right, kids, apparently one of the biggest threats to National Security takes the form of a Kurt Vonnegut novel. Fahrenheit 451, here we come!

—Oh crap! I was running late and they had pulled my bag aside to filter through it! I had to make like Usain Bolt and jet to get to the gate, though I did take the time to slow down at the end and mock the runners who decided not to run on the moving walkways. Amateurs. After breaking the tape at my gate, I was informed that my flight was delayed an hour due to the weather. Great. So I’d worked that hard making up for the fact that I was lazy only to find out that I could have snoozed for another hour? It’s a good thing I had my book (read: bomb).

About 35 minutes after getting the news that my flight was delayed, we were finally given the chance to board. For those of you that don’t know me, or haven’t at least seen me, I am a giant person. I’m a skinny, wiry 6’6″. Airplanes are not designed for people like me. Just walking down the aisle, which has about an even six feet of head room, I have to compress my spine. Once I’ve gotten to my seat, things get worse. I usually like flying in the exit row or, what randomly happened on my way to Denver once, business class. On airplanes, space is at a premium, and I’ll take whatever I can get. At least this was to Memphis and not Kuala Lumpur. That flight was fun ….

I grabbed my seat in the row directly behind the emergency exit row (sigh), and waited for my neighbor to show up. They’d told us it was a full flight, but I’ve been told that before and gotten away with an empty seat. I was hoping. And then I saw him. I knew I was running cold, so I knew even before he asked me to let him in that I was going to have to get up. Just as I was too tall to make it down the aisle without some sort of contortion, this guy was wide enough that he couldn’t seem to find a comfortable way to make it to his seat. His belly was like the spokes on the Wheel of Fortune slapping against the seats beside him as he moved. And he was aiming for the seat right next to mine.

Normally, I wouldn’t mind too much. Being as skinny as I am, I’m usually able to cram myself into cramped spaces without a terrible amount of discomfort. However, this guy had other plans. After getting in his seat, he somehow added another dimension to his body and unfolded so he was taking up half my seat as well. The worst part was that he didn’t seem to notice or care. So I was developing adult-onset scoliosis while he was enjoying the airspace over my seat. Life was good.

One hour and forty-five minutes, 465 miles, and a concussion from banging my head into the seat in front of me and cursing my luck later, we landed in Memphis. If memory serves me correctly, I was at the front door of the airplane the exact second the wheels hit the ground. The stewardesses just looked at me and smiled with pity in their eyes. They were well aware of what I had endured. I’m pretty sure that if there was a Purple Heart for airline travel, they’d have given one to me. Nodding in acceptance of their sympathy, I patiently waited for them to open the door and let me out of the plane before the guy had a chance to unfold into another dimension again and trap everyone on the plane like in some bad episode of Fringe.

The last couple of events I’d been to have been in relatively close proximity to the airport. I could just take a shuttle from the airport to my hotel, and then walk to the event site. Here in Memphis, there was a bit of a cab ride, which I really didn’t mind too much, but I was kind of hoping to run into someone else with whom I could share a cab on my way downtown. Like some sort of angel, Reid Schmadeka appeared. Reid’s a Content Manager for Wizards of the Coast, which means he is at least partially responsible for all the cool things that make up the Pro Tour, Grand Prix, PTQs, and virtually any Wizards-sponsored event that you might play in, even Worlds.

The cab ride to the hotel was an interesting one. I like Reid. We had met for the first time in Buenos Aires, right after he’d gotten his new job, and had a good time discussing our opinions about the direction the Pro Tour was going. This time, we got on the discussion of things we try to do in coverage, trying to figure out what you guys value the most in coverage, and a topic that’s near and dear to my heart: States. I love States. It has always been my favorite tournament of the year. I’m not sure if this is only true in Indiana, but it seemed that States was the one tournament each year that, regardless of their current status in the game, every player in the state showed up for. It was like walking into a dream. Players you saw one day a year, players who had quit the game, even some players who had moved to new states came to play. For some of these players, it was the first time they’d seen many of the cards in their deck. They just knew that everyone was going to be there, and they wanted to see their friends. States rules.

Last year, Wizards effectively discontinued the States program. I understand the reasons. After all, Magic is a global game, and it’s difficult to rationalize having a class of tournaments that applies to only a fraction of the countries in which Magic is played. There are some programs that are universally applicable, but they only show a large amount of popularity in certain areas. A good example of this is City Champs, which was incredibly popular in Europe, but didn’t exactly catch on the way States did here in the US. Since the concept of states doesn’t necessarily exist in other countries, or at least not in the way we understand it, States had to take its final bow. Frowntown.

However, under the direction of Sun Mesa Games, out of Albuquerque, Tournament Organizers banded together and put together a plan to organize and hold States themselves. Wizards ran with it and let the organizers take over the States tournament. Thanks to the diligent efforts of TOs who clearly love the event as much as we do as players, States was revived, at least for the time being. Hopefully, something will come together again to allow this great tradition to continue.

Reid and I finally made it to the Marriott in downtown Memphis, and I understood why the tournament had to be here. We were a couple blocks down from the infamous Beale Street. BB King’s House of Blues was a short trolley ride away. I’m pretty sure a person could actually live on the air alone, which I’m pretty sure is made of pure pork and barbecue sauce. This was Memphis, and I wouldn’t have them hold Worlds anywhere else.

We walked into the lobby at around 3 in the afternoon, and were promptly told that our rooms weren’t ready, and we’d have to wait an hour before they were. Great. At this point, I was hungry enough that I didn’t care that I couldn’t get into my room, and, unless the desk clerk was edible, he or she had officially moved to the back of my mind. We just checked our bags, wandered into the restaurant bar, and grabbed a seat. Our conversation continued, though I admit I was splitting my attention between what was being said and the menus that were splayed out in front of us. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the only words out of my mouth during this time were “Barbecue, nom, nom, nom.”

Speaking of barbecue, I came to Memphis with the intention of leaving a legacy as the guy who ate all the barbecue in Memphis. Part of the reason I’m as skinny as I am is that I have a metabolism strong enough to power an entire city. Saying I eat a lot is like saying that Olivier Ruel (congratulations, by the way, on your Hall of Fame induction!) has traveled some to play Magic. I’m like the Predator Dragon in Elves.

I decided to start off right, ordering the pulled-pork sandwich from the hotel bar. Dear God. A huge, sloppy pile of pork wedged between two buttered pieces of Texas toast with barbecue sauce added for taste. It was glorious. And I got it from a hotel restaurant. If you’ve ever eaten hotel restaurant food, you know it’s kind of hit or miss, but it’s never really anything too special, at least not in my mind. I figured that if this was the lower end of what I could look forward to in Memphis, I should start looking for apartments.

After excusing myself for a second to clean up, I came back and headed out to finally check in to my room and work off my barbecue sandwich with a rousing game of “can you sleep until everyone else gets into town?” I’m a professional at this game, incidentally. Before I made it to the front desk, though, I ran into another friend of mine, Ruud Warmenhoven. I said goodbye to Reid and sat down to have a few words with Ruud. He’d been traveling across the country recently staying with other friends, enjoying himself, and gaming. Oh the lifestyle that Magic can afford you! We caught up a bit, and he told me some stories about a few trips to Atlantic City with Jon Sonne and some other New Yorkers. Fortune was unkind to Ruud during that trip, though he did have some great stories of fantastic play for me. Now he was here in Memphis and in a pretty similar boat to my own—waiting for others to show up so the fun could begin. By this point, the barbecue had started to hit my bloodstream, like a good dose of morphine, and I was ready to headbutt a pillow. I had to take my leave from Ruud and head up to my room.

Sometime later—the barbecue that had taken up residence next to my brain cells prevented me from knowing exactly when—my roommate Brian David-Marshall came waltzing in the door. Yea! Now the fun could begin. His arrival woke me from my pork-induced stupor, and I started to regain my bearings. Now that people were starting to arrive, that meant two things—drafting and more food! We had planned for anyone who got in on Tuesday to meet up in the lobby for a nice ribs dinner. Then, BDM hit me with the hammer. No one else had arrived yet. According to Kelly Digges’s Facebook status, the Wizards crew coming from Seattle was stuck in Chicago and had been for hours. At O’Hare. And I thought my trip was bad. If Jund existed on Earth, O’Hare would be the capitol. You don’t pass through O’Hare as much as you survive it. All of the medals I thought I had won for surviving my trip were officially trumped and passed off to them. Or they would be, assuming they ever made it to Memphis.

Worst of all, these guys are my drafting partners and my dinner companions. Things were looking grim. Ribs time was rapidly approaching and we had no contact with the others. BDM and I pushed back dinner. We pushed it back again. Eventually, our stomachs won us over, and we were forced to set out in the rain by ourselves to eat dinner. We asked the concierge for a good ribs restaurant and were pointed to a place down on the corner of Second and Beale by the name of Blues City Café. We snagged a cab and took off down the street. Upon arriving at the restaurant, we were greeted by a nice Rastafarian with a couple of menus in his hand. We figured he was going to grab us a seat, but he just pointed to the very obvious entrance like two feet from us. A blind two-year old could have found their way in. I guess I shouldn’t complain, though. As hungry as I was, I was willing to take any provisions meant to ensure that I was eating ribs in the timeliest manner possible.

(A quick aside: Beale Street is amazing. It’s very clearly the tourist area of Memphis, and, with all the neon lights and music, it’s like Las Vegas and Mardi Gras had a child that soon realized it was way too cool for them, emancipated itself, and moved to Tennessee. It’s pretty surreal.)

Anyway, our table was a four-top with three mismatched chairs around it. Under any other circumstances, you would just have assumed that this was a random dive, but on Beale Street, it was hard to think anything other than they planned it that way. Our menus looked old enough to have been originals, and messy enough to provide a good samples of the barbecue options. I chose the lower left-hand stain, also known as a half rack of ribs. The barbecue gods smiled upon us, and within minutes, we had a steaming pile of ribs sitting in front of us. BDM was initially a little confused when he couldn’t find the side items on the menu. When our food got there along with Texas toast, french fries, cole slaw, and baked beans, he understood why he couldn’t find them. They just gave you everything, actual everything.

While we were eating, I couldn’t help but notice BDM constantly looking over my shoulder. Much like I did, he found it odd that they would have a person standing a foot outside the entrance whose only job was to point to said door. I mean, it sounds like the easiest job in the world. Being the native New Yorker he is, he came up with a reasonable alternative: maybe the guy out front was just a homeless guy who was fishing for some tips. It made sense to me. I mean, most of the year, the weather in Memphis is really nice, and he’d never go hungry since you can in fact eat the air. Seems like a good place to set up shop.

Eventually, though, we realized that the other restaurants nearby had their own “guys pointing to a door one foot away.” As wild as Beale Street is, I found it hard to believe that an army of homeless people had moved in and taken up positions in front of these restaurants in this organized a fashion. I understand busker law, and I know that marking off territory is important, but this seemed a little overboard. It turned out that these guys were street callers, hired by the restaurants to convince people to come to their restaurant instead of a competitor’s. When you think about it, if you cram seventy rib restaurants into a three-block section of town, you take whatever edge you can get.

During the course of this discussion, I had apparently eaten all of my food and a small portion of my hand. Good ribs can put you in a trance. BDM noticed a sign by the kitchen that said “You haven’t been to Blues City Café until you’ve had a piece of fried pie a la mode!” Well, I came to the restaurant and, you’d better believe I was going to be able to say I’d been there. When our waiter came back over to offer us dessert, I jumped on the chance. The conversation went a little like this:

“You guys wanna try some dessert? We’ve got apple cobbler and brownies!”

“Actually, can I get a piece of fried pie a la mode?”

“We’ve got apple cobbler and brownies.”

“Yeah, but I want some fried pie a la mode.”

“We’ve got apple cobbler and brownies.”

“But the sign says that I can’t say I’ve been here until I’ve had fried pie a la mode!”

“We’ve got apple cobbler and brownies.”

“But the sign—”

“That’s just a sign. We don’t have any fried pie a la mode.”

“Now I’m sad. How will I be able to prove I’ve been here?” *sigh* “No dessert, thanks.”

Who has a sign promoting a dessert that you “have to have to say you’ve been there,” but doesn’t have the dessert in question?! What kind of world had I entered? First, the “doorman,” now this? Congratulations, Memphis, you’ve won this round.

Upon arriving back at the hotel, we headed to the lobby and start chatting with some other Wizards staffers who had finally started to arrive. While we were talking, a player came wandering over looking for people to draft. Hell yes, we want to draft! It turned out that BDM and I had wandered into a draft with the Dutch national team, but we were short of a full draft. There were a few other “random” players hanging around the lobby, so we started asking people until we found a group that was interested. There were three of them, so it worked out wonderfully for us to have a full draft. It turned out that our “random” players were the Mexican National team. I guess with this being Worlds and all, this shouldn’t really have surprised me.

I drafted a nice little Grixis number with a million Dregscape Zombies and Goblin Deathraiders, and a Predator Dragon to finish things off after the ground got gummed up. My team came out on top thanks to a 3-1 performance by my deck and a sick double Battlegrace Angel, Empyrial Archangel deck drafted by Mexican National Champion Axel Martinez. That’s how you get to be champ, ladies and gents!

That’s one of the fun things about Worlds. There are an ungodly number of people here, from absolutely everywhere, and you never know who you’re going to be playing cards with. It was a lot of fun drafting with these guys, and I have every intention of battling with them some more as the week progresses.

After that draft, and the ridiculousness that I had subjected my body to over the course of the day, I was ready to take the rest of the night off. I left BDM behind to keep repping the US, while I sauntered off the bed. The Dave Chappelle skit about ribs was right on. I had a bad case of “the ‘itis.”

BDM wandered in sometime way later, and I only vaguely remember this. Another thing I only vaguely remember was the 5:30 a.m. wake-up call we received from the front desk. I mean, honestly. Do we seem like the kind of people who want to get up at 5:30 in the morning? In my opinion, 5:30 in the morning only exists if I’m still up from the night before. We were still incredibly dazed and confused by the call when the alarm clock on the table next to my head went off. WHAT the #$%^! Just let me sleep! Much later, after rejoining the world of the living, we figured that maybe they were left as a practical joke by the people who had our room before us. I mean, it’s the kind of thing that’s absolutely hilarious … unless it’s happening to you. Hats off to these guys, though—they are utter masters.

Apparently, even though he had some help from a phantom wake-up call and an alarm clock, BDM was entirelly unable to get me out of bed when it came time for sightseeing. I told you—B-grade mutant power strikes again. Around noon (I love sleep!) I finally roll out of bed and get dressed. As I was heading out of the room, the cleaning lady stops me to ask what room I came from. Apparently, she had tried to come in and clean, but couldn’t because I was there. She had knocked and everything and got nothing from me, so she assumed I wasn’t there. Imagine her surprise when she opens the door and finds a half-clothed sasquatch two sizes too big for the bed she is supposed to make. I’m surprised I didn’t wake to find an unconscious cleaning lady on the floor. That would have been fun to explain.

“Um, I found her like this?”

Anyway, it was a new day, and the previous day’s gluttony had cleared my system, so it was clearly time to replenish my stores of pork and barbecue. I had heard from someone the night before that the place to go for ribs in Memphis was a little place called Rendezvous. It was only a couple blocks from the hotel, so I decided to take a little walk.

Ever since hearing that I was coming to Memphis for Worlds, my friends and I back home had been making jokes based on Marc Cohn’s “Walking in Memphis.” While I was in Memphis, I wanted to do as many things as I could from the song. I’d already been walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale, so I figured I was in good shape to hit my quota. The song had made walking in Memphis sound so glorious, I had to get out and see if it was everything it was cracked up to be.

For those who don’t know, in December, Memphis is cold. Cold and windy. Walking in Memphis was not the awesome experience I was lead to believe it would be. It was more of a numbing experience. Literally. If I hadn’t been wearing my Big Gay Scarfâ„¢, I might have actually frozen to death.

After what seemed like an eternity out in the cold, I suddenly walked into a wall of the most delicious air I’d ever tasted. It was like a cartoon, as though some incorporeal hand made of pure deliciousness had grabbed me and yanked me down an alley. I was blinded to the danger I might have been subjecting myself to by wandering into a dark alley in an unknown city.

The smell had me.

After dreamily walking a few yards into this alley, I realized that I had stumbled right to the front door of Rendezvous. How cool! As the sign says, it’s been in the downtown alley since 1948. I don’t think they could have found a better spot for it, either. The compact nature of the alley serves to condense the salacious aromas wafting up from the charcoal grills. It’s impossible to ignore.

I walked down the stairs to the host stand and, after waiting there for a second or two, was greeted by the manager who casually informed me that they were closed for another three hours. Kill me. You’re going to dangle that smell in my face and tell me I can’t have anything? After a nine-month pregnant pause, he continued with, “that is, unless you don’t mind that all we have is ribs?”

…

If I wasn’t so happy, I could have punched the guy. I mean, why else would I have come? He led me to a table and got a nice long staring down from me. The promise of ribs soothes the savage beast far better than any music ever could, and I was soon back to my ravenous self. I finished my order of ribs before he could even come back to check on me.

With the pork ribs now insulating my own from the inside, I braved the cold to return to the hotel. By this point, it was time for our writer’s meeting. We discussed all the usual writing things, like what our focus was, what the setup was going to look like tomorrow, and what the rotation was going to be for the writer’s hot tub at the event site. If only. Needless to say, without 2,000+ people to warm the place up, it was a little cold in the event hall, and a hot tub would have ruled. Though picturing a hot tub populated by Bill Stark, Josh Bennett, and myself is not for the weak-hearted.

We made plans for our trip to the player dinner at Graceland later that evening, and then all dispersed to our own little plans. The trip to Graceland was far better than I thought it could be, and the snarky comments about Elvis’s decorating taste were quickly stopped when we entered to his awards room and realized that the man had over 140 singles on the Billboard Top 100.

Needless to say, it was an enlightening experience. But that’s another story.