Nashville Confidential

you could eat off the floors

GMT had good words for my mandolin progress tonight. I am proud to report I can play a couple songs now. I usually inflict Thursday recitals on my team. They were very encouraging today and said, "Wow, you can go a lot faster than you did last week!"

One thing I really like about my lesson is that I will play a song and GMT will accompany me. I am struggling over every note, trying to remember all the things I'm supposed to be doing with each hand, and he looks completely placid. I asked GMT how he learned to play the mandolin, and he said he pretty much taught himself. That is the only discouraging thing he ever said to me, and he didn't mean it to be discouraging.

There is a great (yet creepy and somewhat misogynistic) John Cheever story called "The Music Teacher," in which men find that their repetitive, beginner piano practicing is a way to bring their calcitrant wives back in line. When I am stumbling through "Tennessee Waltz" for the 40th consecutive time, I think about that -- and how the residence next to mine has been vacant for so long. I try to play 20 minutes every day (even if it's not 20 consecutive minutes), and I find it calming and really enjoyable.

GMT said he can tell I am practicing a lot, and I guess I am, but this week has been tough to find the time. It seems like we are hurtling toward August. Ever wish you could just stop everything for just 48 hours or so, just enough time to get your stuff together?

Usually, when I am stressed, I do something I can control: I clean. My place is pretty spotless right now.

twice -- in the theater

I was reading this weblog and feeling somewhat morally superior, but then I realized, I saw "Point Break." And kind of dug it.

Well, the countdown to major site changes is T minus 4 days. And it's T minus 10 days to my 20-year high school reunion.

More on this later.

blowed up real good

Make a note of this: Today they destroyed something in Nashville and I was really happy about it. It's true! They imploded the tower at the thermal plant in order to clear the eyesore area for some yet-to-be-determined riverfront development (downtown baseball stadium, perhaps)?

Some people thought they should leave the tower up as some kind of landmark. That would have been fine if we were trying to commemorate industrial ugliness. Fortunately, because the tower had neither historic nor architectural significance, they strapped a bunch of explosives on it and took that baby down about 7:45 a.m.

Another positive thing: It got spectators onto the pedestrian bridge. (I could see it from my place so I waddled out in my pajamas, heard the boom, then went back to bed.)

You can watch the video at the Tennessean's site. It fell like a tree -- not too exciting. Never underestimate the drawing power of a Sunday morning explosion. I'll never forget when Wallace Station was demolished on the Peoria riverfront. Downtown was packed with people wanting to see the former power plant in its last gasps. That was a much more elaborate and impressive spectacle.

And what sits on the former Wallace Station parcel today? A Wal-Mart. No such blight is on the drawing board for Nashville. Let us give thanks.

24 months and counting

I moved here two years ago this weekend. I know this because it’s NAMM weekend, and that convention was taking place when my folks were here to help guide the 53-foot semitractor-trailer into downtown and then stand with me and wonder, “Where are we going to put all this stuff?”

I don’t think I have thanked my parents enough for all the help when I moved here, especially that first weekend. They slept on an air mattress in my little “den” and at times escaped to the public library. My dad got to eat at Monell’s (back when they had a place on 6th Avenue N) and chatted up a table full of NAMM attendees, so he was in his element. My mom got to design a new household’s kitchen cabinets, closets and shelves, so she was in her element.

It takes me a while to get in a routine, but two years in, I have developed my own method for Saturday. I begin with a walk. This morning I could barely see the tops of buildings because the haze was so thick. That humidity prompted me to break a longstanding personal rule, and I wore a tank top. My apologies to NAMM attendees and the good people of East Nashville. I have a couple great downtown routes – I should post them sometime.

Usually, but not always, my walk takes me to the Farmer’s Market. I get there at some point on Saturday and try to gauge how much fruit I will be able to consume before it turns. I always have one peach and one nectarine that don’t last, so I have yet to perfect my system. I always buy wildflowers from a Kentucky woman who sets up a booth with her husband and daughter. She looks for me and we talk a little each week. She is a lactation specialist at one of the local hospitals and is a very natural and mild-mannered person. She puts together amazing bouquets. Many weeks I take pictures of the bouquets – I should post them sometime.

Then I clean the house [read as: move piles of stuff from one room to another] and decide if/where I’m going to the grocery store. Since I live downtown, I have to drive out a little to the store, and sometimes I work that into the Sunday routine, which involves church and a class at the Donelson Y. More often Saturday early evening finds me at the Kroger in Germantown (which I affectionately call the Ghetto Kroger).

And Saturday nights I usually stay in. It’s true! And it’s wonderful. I plan for the upcoming week, watch a movie, and read.

Two years in, I am ready to make these pronouncements:

I have never had anything but a great meal at Tin Angel.
I have unlocked the mysteries of the Ellington Parkway.
The best place to practice Spanish is in the movie ticket line at the Hollywood 27 Cinemas.
The Kroger in Germantown really isn’t that scary.
Cool Springs is.

best of the best

I'm always proud to be a Jason Ringenberg fan, but never more so than when he is in a lineup of Nashville luminaries -- and when it's his turn, he just blows the place away.

Once a month a great band called "The Long Players" gets together and performs a classic rock album. The band stays the same, the vocalists change each time. Tonight Jason was part of a group that recreated "Blonde on Blonde," and he did NOT do the Scorchers cover hit, "Absolutely Sweet Marie." He did "Most Likely You'll Go Your Way ..." and it was amazing. His energy and stage presence won over the whole room -- and he had to follow Adrian Belew's heartfelt number.

It was such a fabulous show and a fabulous night. It was pretty much my happy Nashville lineup: Will Kimbrough, Phil Lee, and Bill Lloyd were also part of the festivities. Only Paul Burch was lacking; otherwise the night would have been complete. Oh, and Webb Wilder. And Tommy Womack. And Kristi Rose. Well, obviously, they are going to have to do another Long Players with yet more people to include all my locally based favorites.

Some visitors to town stood next to me; we talked and probably will see each other again tomorrow night at the They Might Be Giants show (although, as has been proven before, I can't seem to go out three nights in one week). They are in town for a wedding and have pledged to see live music every night they are here. Now these are my kind of folks!

The woman grew up on the South Side of Chicago [63rd and Rockwell], about a mile from where my dad went to high school. Now they live in a rural California community that refused to let Wal-Mart come to town. I said to these complete strangers, "I love you."

hi-larious

I know I am the last person on the planet to see/hear this cartoony political satire, but I must share. Warning: mild profanity.

My favorite line: "You can't say 'nuclear' / That really scares me."

mom and dad: please do not read

Last night I decided that since the weather was so nice, and I had about 40 minutes for a walk, I would go to Shelby Bottoms. This was a good plan, with one slight problem: I wasn't far along the asphalt trail before I developed terrible shin splints. So I took off down a grassy "primitive" trail, which was easier on my legs. I had looked at the map of the trail and had two simple instructions in my head: turn left, turn right.

Well, the left turn worked well. I never found that right turn. I was 45 minutes out ... and had no clue where I was. And the sun was setting. And did I mention that I had consumed a lot of water in anticipation for this outing? I called VGG from my cell phone and, happily, just as I was explaining my plight, I found a marker directing me back to the park, just two miles away!

A Girl Scout I am not. My walk was 1 hour, 20 minutes, and I think I have never been so happy to see that railroad trestle that runs over the Shelby Bottoms parking lot. [On the way home, I was listening to author Amy Tan talk about Lyme disease, which freaked me out since I had just spent a considerable amount of time walking through grasslands.]

Just now, driving back from a show at Exit/In -- and may I just say, buy Richard Bennett's new album right now -- I was less than a block from my house when a man raced through a red light and nearly T-boned me. Thank God for peripheral vision and good brakes. The moron sped off, unrepetant. Never even slowed up for a second.

I am wondering if, tomorrow, I should not leave the house. At all.

antidote

It’s hard to feel too down on yourself when people
-- Send you gorgeous flowers.
-- Send you an e-mail that says all kinds of nice stuff that would be too embarrassing to print here. (Don’t get excited, it was from my dad.)
-- Send you a card that says, “You are a true friend and I am proud of you.”

This is why I love my birthday.

as in rock days of yore

KNS sent me a great Billboard article about the Who's Isle of Wight concert being released in theaters and remastered in DVD. My favorite line in this article: "As was a common practice at the time, band members destroyed their instruments once the show concluded."

Doesn't that sound like something from an anthrolopogy textbook?

perspective

After my mandolin lesson tonight, I raced home to the Ryman so I could see the Del McCoury Band in concert. That's pretty much both ends of your whole spectrum of mandolin performance, right there.