Ellington

"Now where exactly is Jackson?" was the response when we asked if anti-war cartoonist David Rees could stop by on his 30-cities-in-50-days book tour supporting his new book, "Get Your War On." He found us Nov. 14 when his Greyhound bus deposited him on Jefferson Street. Looking a little discombobulated and worn out from the 4 1/2 hour ride from New Orleans—and from sleeping on some punksters' sofa the night before—the North Carolinian-turned-New Yorker seemed ready for a meal and a bourbon on the rocks.

Once we were seated at a table in Hal & Mal's (which I help manage) I ordered half the menu, and he ate all of it, proclaiming it the "best meal I've had on the road." The road he's on has taken him from Maine to Kalamazoo, Mich., by way of Jackson (one of two signings in the Southeast). He ate—I'm not making this up—a salad with comeback sauce, four black-bean hot tamales, a cup of gumbo, a cup of red beans and rice, half a fried seafood platter and a quarter of a muffaletta. I stopped eating about 30 minutes before he did.

Over at Seven on West Capitol Street, our little reading/signing event turned out a couple dozen people to hear Rees—dressed like a preppy—"perform" some of his comics. He projected his strips onto a blue wall, taking little side trips to complain about corporate-sponsored full-page ads in The New York Times declaring love and emotion for New Yorkers in the wake of Sept. 11 while trying to sell them cruises. He had the crowd laughing and shaking their heads in disgust at the same time.

After a six-minute video on the de-mining effort in Afghanistan (Rees' book royalties support this cause), he signed books and talked to the crowd, which included folks from Lemuria Books and Morrison Bros. Music, Jackson State students and JoAnne Prichard Morris, who was duly impressed that the Free Press got Rees to Jackson after he was written up in the New Yorker and The New York Times. Later, Rees enjoyed more bourbon and Rhonda Richmond at Hal & Mal's (where the staff lined up to buy books), had long conversations in a renovated loft on South Street (he got his own bed), and was duly shocked that the Confederate battle flag is actually part of the Mississippi state flag. "Wow," he said, while passing the Old Capitol.

Headed to the airport the next morning, Rees proclaimed his Jackson stop the highlight of his book tour to date. We are not the least bit surprised.