Nashville Part 1

Soooo... Spring.  It is nice.  Sure we have some cold rain but the nice days get mixed in and it is...sweeeeeet.  It also marks the end of my wife’s busy season.  She has been working 60 hours a week since Christmas and as a result we try and schedule a long weekend to mark the end to get to know one another again in some other context other than grabbing a meal together or saying good morning to one another before we go running off in 7 directions. Last year we went to Lexington to go to Keenland and visit some friends and drink some bourbon and eat some food.  It was a very sweet trip and we ate a lot of good food and chilled at a bed and breakfast and decided it needed to be a tradition.

This year I had been thinking about perhaps doing Oxford Mississippi which I have heard is a pretty awesome town.  Lots of good food and a little different southern college culture but we heard that Elizabeth Cook was playing the Grand old Opry then Nashville became the destination.  Nashville is a 4-1/2 to 5 hour drive and once you hit 57 and head south it starts becoming a pretty drive.  It was one of those Thursdays that was just...rain.  it was nothing but rain and it was slow going.  Lots of accidents and cops and even as we got south where Illinois gets pretty... we could see nothing.  So we could not take a break to check out southern Illinois Shawnee Zipline.  That will be another trip.  The thing about the trip is that you have time... time to talk... time for Sandy to sleep and time to listen to a little music.  Even in shitty weather.

Sandy had made reservations and she did her investigation and her research and determined that we needed to stay downtown.  I didn't really know why but I trusted her even though I questioned why we wouldn't stay at the Opry Land Hotel since we were going to the Opry but she said no, so we stayed at the Hampton Inn which is two blocks off music row.  It was a high rise Hampton Inn and it was OK, like most Hampton Inns are OK, but this one cost 260 bucks a night.  Still, we got in around 5 and crashed for a few minutes and then went to explore.

We headed down to Music Row which is a bunch of bars and shops. It seemed like all of them had music and it was loud.  Some of it was twangy, some of it was poppy.  So we ate some bad BBQ at the BBQ place with the pig and we looked in shop windows and I saw the Hatch Show Print Store where they have created some of the best music art in history.  We looked in the windows of 5 places and finally went in what I knew would be my favorite which was Roberts Western Wear.  Roberts, back in the day was the home of BR-549, a seminal alt country, cross over band that cut an awesome “Live At Roberts” CD that was vaguely life changing at the time.

Roberts is cool.  Most of these bars are set up like classic New York shotgun bars.  Doors in front, bar running almost the length of the room.  All the way back.  The stage is directly to your left as you walk in and you can see the back of the band through the window and it is PERFECT.  

All of these places are cool in their own way.  Almost all of the bands play cover songs and they run the gamut but at Roberts seems to trend to Hank and Johnny and George Jones and it is just sweet and it is nice for me because my wife loves that kind of music and we have a good time together and listen and drink and watch people. We got a wobbly table in back (all tables in all bars in Nashville wobble... it has something to do with physics) and shared it with another couple who might have actually been older then us.  There is scribbling all over the place and when I looked up I saw a sticker for my favorite record label.  

Sweet.  The bands were sweeter and we had a few drinks in cheap plastic cups and heard a few sets.  In Nashville there is never any cover. The bands play for tips and occasionally someone will walk around with the tip jar.  It seems like a suspicious model but, it is what it is.  We went out and explored another place that was playing loud pop covers and it was cavernous and band sucked so we decided it was about time to head home but...

The thing about Music Row is that there a lot of bars and on the side street to our hotel there was “The Swinging Door” so we went in there for a nightcap and heard some more fine country music.  None of the bars has a jukebox because almost all of them have bands, all day long.  That is the nature of the bar business down there and it is more than a little cool and fun. We enjoyed the swinging door but we had one more stop before bed.  A friend of ours from St. Louis has a brother who was a singer songwriter in Nashville and he was not a bar owner.  He opened a place called “The Listening Room” and he did it at least partially with a Kickstarter campaign.  If you don't know what that is look it up.  Anyway, the place is a beautiful huge room with a giant stage that is actually set up for... music.  They had three singer songwriters sitting on the stage and they just kept trading off songs one after the other.  Apparently they all lived in a place called “The Ryman Loft” and were subsidized to come there and write songs and sing songs.  What an industry.  A few songs... a few drinks and then off to the Hampton. Quite a Thursday.

Now we have kind of a vacation routine or perhaps a vacation rut that calls for me to get up, leave the room, get newspaper, go to breakfast and leave my wife to sleep.  A couple of problems with that as we get older but the biggest one that has recently presented itself is that I can no longer eat my normal breakfast of biscuits and gravy and in fact no toast or anything with wheat or that might have been with wheat.  As the writer of the St. Louis Diner Review I have...obligations though and with a little work I found The Hermitage.  Just a little out of downtown... slightly seedy and perfect.  I had eggs and sausage and they were awesome but they could have done a lot better for me... if I had let them.  I will still make a strong recommendation for it if you hit downtown.

I then went and grabbed my lovely wife and we headed off for what the Hobbits refer to as 2nd breakfast.  We tried to go to “The Pancake Pantry” on Belmont near Vanderbilt but it was packed so we settled for some foo foo place across the street that was a bakery which was likely not the perfect place for a gluten intolerant boy.  But we muddled through.  i think I ate some ham and an egg.  Then we were off to Vanderbilt to visit a girl we knew who was going there and it turned out she is actually a campus tour guide and we got the “tour”.  It was getting a little cool after having been in the 70’s last night but we took a nice forced march around the campus and... wow... what a beautiful campus.  We saw everything from their football and baseball fields to their library, to sorority row.  It was really beautiful.  They also had a cool thing in their commons which projected EVERY google search that was being entered at the school at that moment and in laser script put all these hundreds of searches on the floor where you could walk over them, and read them, as you walked over them and it was.. cool.

We left there and headed back downtown to walk around some in the daylight.  We went straight to where I wanted to go which was Hatch Show Print.  It was gorgeously full of posters all over the wall of music, events.  The place was packed with people looking at the poster art for sale and what is displayed on the wall and we shopped for a while and discussed whether we could by a large print to put in the family room before buying nothing and leaving.  We needed a nap but not before we went back to Roberts.  But it was a big night coming up which now required... a nap!

We got up for happy hour and drove to East Nashville where evidently all the cool kids live and play.  We headed to a place recommended on no less than GOOGLE as the best street tacos in Nashville.  It is questionable whether they were actually gluten free but the place had a long lines and was more than worth the wait.  We split 4-5 of them with carnitas, chicken and some unidentifiable meats.

Tasty, spicy and once again worth the trip.  This was really our first vacation where we totally relied on the iPhone and Google maps to get around.  No directions, just dictating where you wanted to go into Siri!  It worked... reasonably well.  We are after all old people and it becomes kind of difficult to even accomplish the most basic of tasks.  Especially when drinking.

From there we went well filled to the 5 spot.  Tim Carroll, husband of the beautiful Elizabeth Cook.  He does happy hour every Friday at 5 at the 5 Spot in East Nashville.  The ceiling at the 5 Spot looked a lot like this:

http://www.the5spotlive.com/blog/

We came in and order some drinks and were thrilled to find out that in East Nashville they

serve drinks in glasses.  That is a treat.  The 5 Spot is a really quality dive bar and we were the ONLY ones there.  Literally.  The bartender.  The band, and us.  And they do it every week.  We had two drinks and they played 5 songs and it was awesome.  He simply is a great guitar player, has a very solid voice and writes some seriously bad ass songs.  He does get annoyed with me requesting songs he cant remember but... I can live it.  But we had to go because it was time to go to THE GRAND OLE OPRY!

Now I cannot pretend that I had any real desire to go to the Grand Ole Opry but, I had never been, and Elizabeth Cook was playing and it did seem like it might be kind of a bucket list item.  We got there and parked about a mile away.  It is in OPRYLAND which includes a mall and a hotel and it is all kind of new and kind of cement and charmless.  But the Opry... the Opry is pretty cool.  it is really not a huge venue with a floor and a balcony seating and it looks like most people use the stage.  There were fewer bathrooms than at a Blues game.  We found our seats on the balcony at 8:05 and the show had already started and... it was kind of cool.  The way it is formatted is there is a different host every half hour and during that time three acts play... two songs each.  And it was... fun and interesting and sooooo country.  And there was an announcer who did commercials and each section had it’s own sponsor and it was sooo country.  But is was fun and Elizabeth Cook excellent and Tim Carroll made it over from the 5 Spot and we saw... (End of Part 1)

THE Cruise Day 3 and 4: We Go Somewhere

The Cruise Day 3 No Stops

You wake up on the boat. You eat. You float. Not a lot more then that happens. You notice a couple of things, or at least a copuple of things get confirmed.
1. The food is not that good
2. The food is plentiful
3. There are a shitload of people on this boat
4. Since we are not going into port anywhere they all think that they will swim and sun today.
5. Drinks are expensive
6. It kicks ass to have a room with a balcony to hide/drink on.
7. There are several pools. None of them really for swimming.
8. There are several hot tubs but none of them are that hot.

The people who are on the cruise tend to be from all over. I know it costs a lot of money to cruise but you would never know it from the people. They tend as a group to be unattractive, appear unhappy and appear pushy. They are in a word...me. I sleep a lot. I have a few Red Stripes. We go to dinner in the upscale (upcharge-CHA CHING) restaurant called Chops. The food is pretty good there. Better then the wedding fair in the main dining room. Not Smith & Wollensky's but not too far off. We go sit in the hot tub at night. Tomorrow Mayan Ruins. We go to bed.

***

Day 4: Costa Maya

Costa Maya is a made up town. Evidently the cruise lines all conspired to have a deep water port and town here because they needed one. It fir. Hurricane Dean blew through here in 2007 and leveled everything so they built a new little Branson outlet Mall complete with Senor Frogs and a Hard Rock Cafe and two other chain places and a load of jewelry stores, souvenir stands and t-shirts. Awesome. They also allow you to take a 2 dollar cab ride to town Muhahual or something. The town is like every port town we later find out with crappy shops and with people hustling you for your attentions and your dollars every step (literally every step) of the way.

We split up and Pat and I go and wait for a charter we have scheduled to go see Mayan ruins. While waiting, Pat pukes. We never determine why. We get on a bus and ride to town and hook up with a nuclear family of three from somewhere in Georgia. We all get in a mini van. The Georgia people are fat and appear (sound) stupid. The man forgot his "click camers" (I do not know what that is) on the bus so we drive back to the port.. We get the camera. The mini van we are in breaks down (equipment breakdowns seem to be THE common thread in the Caribbean). We drive 45 miles north through mango swamps and through a military check point complete with small child in fatigues carrying a machine gun. On the way our guide suggests we buy soem fresh pinapple from aroadside stand and put come chile peper on it. The fat family declines as does Pat but I do. It is VERY good.We go to ruins. The fat family keeps asking questions and "the Mayan calendar and things they heard on the discovery channel about the world ending in 2012. Based on their questions (including the fat kids questions about human sacrifice) I find myself praying it would end sooner. He shows us a town where the Mayans lived 1200 years ago and points out a face carved in the rock. The fat kid insistes that he see an entire tableaux that evidently has been missed by the thousands of people and archeoligists who have viewed it before. We go to climb one of the two large pyramids. The fat kid comes along with us while his parents sit and sweat. It is muddy. The Mayans disappeared about 1200 years ago. The fat man thinks it was aliens. I think that I would like for aliens to make me disappear. All during this time pat takes about 200 pictures of nothing. We drive back to port.

Where we find our four compatriots drinking fruity drinks out of long, plastic tuble like cups with name tags on from Senor Frogs which say things like "easy "and "Horny". I asses the situation and take a cab inbto town. Manalana is a fishing village and I saw several huge tubs on wheels filled with fresh snapper. I have cab driver take me to a bar with a dirt floor and I go in saying "cook me very fresh snapper". They nod. I insist on seeing it. They bring me out a fish that is perfect, [ink, a little sea weed in the gills and stillfresh with rigor mortis from being caught. They gut it on the bar. I am the only person in the bar. I say how much and they say 19 dollars. I have 26 dollars and it is a 3 dollar cab ride back to the boat. i ask them to throw in a beer. They agree. I sit there and watch this extended family go out to the beach and hustle people on the street but I sit in the shade sipping my Dos Equis. I explained that I just wanted the fish cooked who and as they kept offering me options and I kept declining they got happier and happier with me. They brought me another beer "no harga". Eventua;ly they brought me a beautiful (seriously beautiful fish with skin head and tail all in tact, staring up at me and screaming "EAT ME!" I did. It was awesome. I asked for a little chile and they brought me a green sauce I watched them mix up and I wanted it for side two of the fish. being smarter then I used to be I dabbed a little on a small piece of the fish and ate it... and almost passed out. Way too hot. Still...i used just a litte, folded it up in some soft corn tortillas with rice and it was awesome. It made my day. Fresh fish in a fishing village cooked on a very hot fire...to die for. I will never go to a fishing village again and not try to replicate this experience.

I went back to the boat, ate, had shots, fell asleep.

The Cruise Day 2: Bon Voyage

Royal Caribbean is a fine cruise line, not that I have any idea what I am talking about. I have never sailed on another line and the last time I was on this one was 17 years ago. They tell you not to arrive before 1:30 but we woke up bored and tired and after running to Marshalls to get some golf shirts for Pat (who seemed to pack not realizing he might need shirts...WITH COLLARS!)we left the downtown Courtyard Marriott and headed over. The cruise lines all leave from one big terminal in Miami and it is something to see several boats all tied up there in the water. i was relieved in my way of overcompensating that our boat, "The Liberty of The Seas" was the biggest. my children informed me that it currently is the 3rd largest cdruise ship around. My children are of course my children which makes them hopeless liars and over dramatizers of the "facts" in our life. I could get on Wikipedia and check their facts but lets say it was a big ass boat and leave it at that.

Arriving at the terminal we got to wait in our first line for security and then to get the passes which would allow us to charge things while on the boat. You might find it curious to charge things on the boat. Isn't everything paid for? Well, that is how they get you. Your food and lodging is all paid for but... you want a soda, you pay for it. Any kind of alcohol...pay for it. A can of Pringles..."cha ching!". Merchandise of all kinds, extra amenities and shore excursions, a massage, a shave with a straight razor, a picture of the family, an upgrade on your wine, a lost towel, pictures which are constantly being snapped by their on board phtogs... it goes on and on and you get the picture. So you wait in line and you get your card. For four of us our card was pristine. Pat's card had one punch because he was only 20 and poor Laura at 17 had the dreaded two hole punched card. Pat could gamble, but not drink. laura could do neither. Oh the humanity.

We finally got through the check in and got to our rooms. The kids were on the interior but Sandy had bucked up for a room with balcony on it for us and it was delightful. Other then the bathroom it was as large a room as a typical Holiday Inn. Very comfortable with all the amenities including mini-bar (Cha CHING again). We set off to explore the boat walking around the upper decks and seeing the pools, hot tubs, running track, health center and "Flow Rider". The Flow Rider was a 20 foot padded slope with water shooting up it allowing you to boogy board or surf if you could get the hang of it. My wife quickly discerned that we could rent exclusive use of it some time for an hour (CHA CHING and a half) and so we reserved some time for later in the week. Wednesday.

We got some lunch at the Windjammer Buffet and I found it very...food like. My kids all got hot dogs and pronounced them great and the fries...greater. I thought the food was exactly as expected, a high quantity of average food with a reasonable amount of diversity. The iced tea was instant. The pizza had that troubling too much humidity texture. Everything was buffet and at the entrance their were 4 hand santizers and everyone was admonished to use them. I am NOT a germaphobe and think this a creepy habit we have gotten our civilization into but my wife explained how paranoid ships had become about germs AND that in a buffet we all used the same serving utensils. This provided some amusement as you watch the people get the alcoholic stuff on their hands and then rub them and wave them (waving is the key) to make the stuff go away. It was a weird little dance.

I then sat in the room on my balcony and waited for us to pull out. I love the ocean and being on the 10th floor of a floating sky scraper is very, VERY cool for me. As you pull out of the Port of Miami you pass their container storage and it is kind of...wow. A lot of stuff comes in here... and goes out. You also cruise by Key Biscayne and a few other private islands. I do not live on a private island...yet. Unfortunatley next to us, divided only by a plastic divider was a crew cutted, big gunned, heavy tatted 30 something and his two kids. I am sure there was a wife in there somewhere but I never heard from her. Men who look like this... for some reason...bother me. They look like they have so much to prove. This guy looked like the asshole older brother Chet in "Weird Science" and he had a camera with one of those 10k bazooka lenses and was taking pictures and ignoring his children who were screaming constantly...DADDY...DADDY...look at this!...or THAT!...in loud..surprisingly childlike voices. If that was not annoying enough for this old man he also had an iPod player and rather then burden himself with head phones he blared bad music from the 80's and 90's. Lots of bad metal but then even more annoyingly he had the complete Sheryll Crow collection on the mix. I had to go in and close the door... sobbing quietly to myself.

We hit dinner in the main dining room. Oddly enough the captain had not seen fit to invite us to his table (an oversight I am certain). We had two waiters, one from India and one from Turkey. It was here where I started to notice that none of the cruise employees are American. They were hard to understand foreigners of all stripes. Still they were nioce although the Turk had a VERY irregularly shaped head. The food is always good on cruises but never great. It is like going to pretty good wedding reception every night. We had ordered a "wine package" which meant I got to chose from a wine list of about 20 wines every night and that was a nice upgrade. At the end of dinner we were introduced to Dexter, the shot guy. They sell a specialty shot every evening (cha ching) in a special shot glass, you get to keep. A different color every night. BRILLIANT CHA CHING!

We sent the kids on their way and Sandy and I had a night cap at "Olive Or Twists". They had a nice little combo and lounge singer. We went to bed. The ship had pulled out and the Florida Keys had trailed into the sunset before darkness gobbled the sky on our first day at sea.

Hiding In Michigan

"I have come here to get high, to do more then just get by, I have come to test the timber of my heart" Joe Pug/"Hymn 101"

Sooooo it is July. I snuck out of the Lou a day early since the office was officially "closed". The Banks were open, my clients were still broke but the office was "closed" so I bullied my brother in law and sister to leave early and take me to Michigan. I could have waited at home for my daughter to get home. She was in Oklahoma on a servant event with our church and allegedly had not potable water and a bevy of scorpions and snakes. That sounded suspiciously like my job but who am I to call her a liar? Anyway, my wife could picker up and they could drive up Saturday. Me, I needed to go to Michigan NOW!

After all it is only three weeks since they tried to arrest me. As a post script to that I have to tell you that Manistee County had indeed screwed up and I had paid the ticket and the great news is that I now can drive in Michigan again. My privilege to do so was "unrevoked". Imagine my relief. So I got in the car with them and hauled ass up here. We had no incidents and ate lake perch in Holland Michigan. We hit town around 11:00 P.M. and I found my house full of kids (19-26) drinking my beer and celebrating my arrival...by drinking my beer. It was a minor party. The next day when my brother in law went to golf I had him drop me off in Pierport and walked a few miles on the beach back to camp. I got sunburned and my whole body still aches.

But why Michigan? Well there are a lot of reasons:
1. We have been going to family camp up here for 14 years
2. I know lots of people here
3. Most of them are Lutherans which makes them:
a. boring
b. generally non threatening; and
c. very comfortable around a cold beer
4. My son has been working up here the last three summers.
5. The weather is flawless and Lake Michigan looks like the Caribbean (a very cold caribbean).
6. We have a house there now
7. The dogs (which my wife loves more then me) can come along
8. A lot of the people I know here I consider friends (they might not but I have found that is ok)
9. There is still a bar in town called The Big Apple and often we are able to drink their kegs of La batts, Budweiser and Bud Light dry.
10. The Big Apple has an internet jukebox.
11. Cell phone reception in Arcadia sucks
12. My kids love it here
13. Their are always at least 5 vacationing pastors to take my confession
14. You can talk about God and contemplate your faith....but you do not have to.
15. The Camp has events planned every night which you can attend...or not.
16. About this time of year the berry crop comes in.
17. I feel better here
18. I am far away from most people
19. I could go on and on.
20. I can work on that beer can pyramid I never got around to in college.
21. When you take your cans back you get 10 cents

It is a nice place to hide. My wife came on Saturday with the dogs, my daughter and one of her friends. My brother showed up with his wife. When they came I was sitting at Pastor Tiemann's house drinking my 3rd Bud Light of the afternoon. We ate. It was the 4th of July and they all went to see fireworks. We went home and my wife and I talked and was able to talk her into not leaving me again.

I really love my country. I am grateful to live here. The 4th of July with it's forced rah-rah, yay us mentality leaves me cold. I didn't go see fireworks because I go up here to get away from crowds. Besides, one of my dogs (the mentally ill older one) goes nuts during storms and any loud noises so we had to stay around and comfort it. We drank beer and went to bed.

On Sunday up here you have the chance to get up and go to this little Lutheran Church in the center of town. From our house I can here the bells as they chime off each hour. The church is old and small and pretty and if you pack it with a bunch of Germans it can realluy rock the house for "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God". This is good stuff. John Nunes is up here this week as Dean (head spiritual guy) at the Camp and he is one of my favorite people. He makes me think big thoughts. It stretches me out in a non threatening way and is very different from being stretched out at work.

"I have come to be untroubled in my seeking.
I have come to see that nothing is for naught" Joe Pug/"Hymn 101"

Bottom lione for why I go to Michigan. I go to hide. Everyone should have a place to hide and if they can hide with friends then sometimes you get to recieve a little Grace (capital G Grace) right here on earth which....is sweet.

"Life is sweet, life is sweet, life is sweet, bittersweet, and days keep rolling along". Maria Mc Kee/"Life is Sweet"