Music City

MUSIC CITY

 At dinner at a decent joint with my wife's classmates. She'd taken a 3 day workshop. "Abstracting the Landscape". It comes up that I have to check out of the rental and will to kill the time the next day. In Nashville. by myself. Fuckit. I can do that. One of the dames at the table asked if I had any plans. Hell no. But I lied...I said "ehh..maybe go to the Hermitage" That got them to leave me alone. They went on with their talk about composition, contrast...all that art class shop talk. I ate my Caesar salad.

 So, this airbnb was essentially a Swedish prison cell. Very hip. Modern. A huge garage door of glass windows that retracted so I could smoke and stuff. But the building was nothing BUT airbnbs. Mostly young people in town to party in Nashville. At 7:30 am the fire alarm goes off. I could hardly believe the decibels and the screeching. The whole population of the buildign poured out onto the street. I pulled on my clothes and grabbed my money. I briefly recalled Summer Redstone who had apparently survived a hotel fire decades ago. It was a false alarm. Guin and I staggered back in and up the stairs and I made some Starbucks deep roast Sumatra coffee which I had to insure some level of decency in my mornings. 

After I drove Guin to the workshop, I came back, gathered up the gear and loaded the car and then I was off to kill a Saturday in Nashville. Nashville is a pretty good town...I guess. People were friendly everywhere. Not like fucking Boston where everyone is a snob. But as I was driving around noticing how the town presented itself. I decided to head out 70 and go ahead and visit the Hermitage. I was kind of resenting Nashville. Broadway..on a Wednesday night was rocking like Las Vegas and the town did not seem to have suffered what has been wrought on Louisville. Of course, they didn't have a Breona Taylor moment either. Still.

 So I am heading out 70 and I look over at a building that's being worked on. Some ass had put up a sign "Pardon our Progress" ...Really? F you progressor! What a little braggart you are. My feelings were pure. I did not know the author of that sign so it wasn't jealousy or envy...it was just pure disgust at the attitude. The smugness. 

Driving out to the Hermitage, I start remembering. When I was growing up my mom and dad took us to Nashville a couple times. We couldn't afford going to Disneyland but..Opryland was within reach. The first time we went was on a train ran from Louisville to nashville. While in town we visited the Hermitage... Andrew Jackson's plantation home. Back then, I thought the stories about him were cool. He killed a guy trying to break into the Whitehouse. He had a duel. He was a badass soldier in the War of 1812 and stuff. We saw the big brick house. Saw the garden. Saw the guitar shaped drive and yeah..saw the slave cabins. They look like places you would shelter a dog in. We went again a few years later and repeated the visit to the Hermitage. Now it included an 'interpretive' exhibit that presented a Disneyfied version of the events in Pres. Jackson's career. I wasn't thinking in analytical or critical terms then...just took it all in. 

 But today, driving out towards the Hermitage, I notice stuff. I start to thinking about how Trump hung a big portrait of Andrew Jackson in the Oval. How Jackson had indeed, been a killer. How he wrought genocide on the Indians. Somewhere I'd read the phrase "the only good indian is a dead indian" attributed to him. I thought about how his duel had been a product of a feud over someone who had dishonored his wife Rachel, claiming she was a bigamist which...the source revealed in a somewhat embarassing way was..ahem...true. I started thinking about Andrew's slaves. I am definitely not a person thinks that people of the past should be judged by the standards we have evolved to today. Still...being a slaveowner was pretty shitty. About the time I arrived at that last thought, I passed a fricking garden nursery for shrubs, plants and stuff. By the drive into the place were flags. An American flag. A State flag of Tennessee and a "Dixie" flag. Damn. I drove on. Everything started to be branded with something "jacksonian" ..."Ole Hickory Place Smorgasbord" Hermitage Halls, Andrew Jackson Parkway and so on. They were mighty proud of old Andrew. "Pardon our Pride" might have been on a sign.

 I made the turn into the Hermitage...the landscape changed. By god you were on a plantation. There were no commercial buildings..just rail fences, green pastures, and a country lane up to the 'visitor entrance'. How bad did I want to see the Hermitage again? I could remember it well enough. They had the room where Jackson died..his bedroom. it was all old timey...but you know...rich for the time. Brick house. It wasn't remarkable...just big. A place to match a President's ego of 1830 or so. I was hungry so I decided to have lunch at "visitor center" cafe. Usually such places are pretty decent. I wasn't dissappointed. It was southern style cooking. I had spare ribs, candied yams, and mash potatoes. The server tossed in a couple of hush puppies. She was nice. I also noticed she was black. I looked around. She was the only black person in the place. I went out to a picnic table and had lunch. From that spot I could see the people coming in and out of the site. White people. Nothing but white people. I turned my attention to the tourist attraction flyers I'd grabbed before ordering my meal. It was something to read/look at while I ate by myself. Mostly it was trash. But, on one of the flyers there was an ad for "NASHVILLE ARMORY" ..a gun range where you can go in and rent any kind of gun and shoot it on the range. After my meal I went back in to use the restroom. They had a good old boy in propped up in the visitor center there playing a guitar ...he was singing a country style tune about..no shit..a cowboy. I came out and walked to the ticket office. I heard the gal in there talking to tourists and explaining the interpretive center .."or you can go on through straight to the mansion if you want". Ticket prices were listed. It was $24 a person for the VIP tour. I started thinking? Do I really want to tour this place? If I were to say screw it...and just leave right now...would I regret it? I looked around. I saw a sign...it said "Andrew Jackson, the PEOPLE'S PRESIDENT!" F that! I thought. Andrew Jackson has had enough Mosley money in my lifetime already.

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BACK TO TOWN

 I went back into the downtown to checkout Broadway in mid-afternoon. OMG it was still rockin! Thronged with tourists, loud live music seemingly coming out of every other building, and white people...more and more white people. I finally found a coffee shop where I knew I would likely get wifi. It did. I got a coffee and looked on maps for the gun range. As I sat there on the sidewalk fourtop I was on Demonbruen street and watched as bus load after bus load of 'partiers' rolled by. I was near a stoplight so I could get a good look. Every bus featured open air riding, loud pumping music and booze. Almost without exception every bus was loaded up with 20 something year old women ..whooping and screaming and dancing like they were at Studio 54 ...this is apparently what they feel they have to do to prove they are having a 'kick ass good time". They seemed to be competing on who could shake their ass the most and squeal the loudest. One young woman turned and looked at me and pointed her finger at me. I ignored this and focused on my Gun range.

 It was at 4290 Kenilwood Dr. I found it on my Google map and figured out how to get there. First thing is all the guns. It really is an armory. Cases and cases of guns. Rifles all over the walls along with other gear. I go up to the counter to rent a fricking assault rifle. They have me fillout a waiver form (Costs 5 bucks to waive all rights) then give'em my id. Then give 'em some money and the man asks me what gun I want to rent. I point to the meanest scariest looking one. He says "that's a machine gun...it's $75 to rent". I don't want a damn machine gun. So I point to another scary af looking weapon. He hands it to me. I buy a box of ammo and pay the rental. Then I put on some ear protectors and head my ass out to the range. I'm in stall #11. Next to me in stall 12 are two black guys..shooting off a glock.

 I have to load the damn clip. Yeah. CLIP. I know it's a magazine and gun nuts hate it when you call it a clip. I loaded the clip. I jammed it in, attached the target sheet and sent it electronically out about 25 yards...as far as it would go. The rifle had a fricking lazer sight on it....All you had to do was put the red dot in the center of the target and pull. I was baddasss John Wick with great accuracy. Hell I learned to shoot the hard way 40+ years ago. The rifle wasn't all that great or fun. Boom! Made a lot of noise even with the ear protectors on. I shot off half the box of ammo. Then I got bored. I didn't feel the f like loading the clip again. So I bagged it. As I go out to return the hardware, there are more black guys renting guns..I have to wait for them to finish. I swear. I think I saw more black guys in the gun shop than the whole rest of the trip. I did not see any Indians though.