Patrick J. Sauer Online

Katrina hit Mississippi the hardest.

The Magnolia State is irrevocably damaged.

Entire gulf communities have vanished from the planet.

So why not drown your sorrows in a heaping plate of barbecue?

Here's Part Two of the southern sojurn.

We weren't lucky enough to have a "Jubilee!"

But I did enjoy bopping an angry goose on the head with a stick.  

A lot of us yankees (that’s with a lower-case “y,” nothing to do with that unholy squad in the Bronx) wonder what exactly goes on in the Deep South. Or, I do anyway, considering it holds the political power in the country and apparently holds the Lord’s blessing in ways us blue-staters will wish we understood when we belly up to Lucifer’s tavern in the fiery red state known as hell. My wife and I decided to take our spring break driving from Atlanta to Jazz Fest in New Orleans with stops in Alabama and Mississippi along the way to get at least a taste of southern hospitality. I’m guessing that a lot of the revelations we uncovered teeter toward the “duh” side of things, but experiencing it firsthand is a lot more enlightening than say snide hipster wisecracks uttered while milling around outside the Magnolia bakery.  (And for the record: sitting under an actual Magnolia tree is a lot more comforting than waiting on line for a friggin’ cupcake).

The two major topics of this travelogue will be the massive destruction of property wrought by Hurricane Katrina and the massive destruction of my BMI wrought by the amazing southern cuisine. I’d be lying if I truly grasp how the other half lives, but I know a bit more than when I started and thought y’all might enjoy some of our impressions while traversing through the “land of a million churches.”

Netflix is the greatest invention since the U.S. Postal service itself, even if it is destroying my marriage. (Read my interview with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, the man responsible for leading me down the path of D-I-V-O-R-C-E.)