I'm happy to be done there. I take full responsibility for inwardly being extremely thankless for the job, when in fact it was a huge blessing. Back in January, while I was still in Ohio, Dawn and I first talked about me actually finally working for Haber. It was news that made me dance around in my room for the first time in weeks. And then I remember within two months of moving here, I called my dad bawling. I was heartbroken, I was alone, I hated my jobs, I was stressed out and I needed to breathe.

The work at Haber was low-key enough to let me catch my breath. And after the little celebration my coworkers threw for me today and all the well wishes I received from them...I know I will never work with a group of people quite like that again.

Photos of my lovely parting desserts:

Dang.

I think my little Kodak digital camera broke, and this time it is most definitely not my technologically challenged little sister Shannon's fault. I'm seriously contemplating buying a Canon DSLR in the next two days. I wanted to get a DSLR anyways, and I should probably have one before I go to Uganda. Yeah...

Later in the afternoon we plodded our way up to White House for another football game. Unfortunately, the Commandos couldn't pull out a victory.

So what's in store for today. Hmm, well I am still in my "play clothes" sipping on a Stella and blogging so...

This is a field recording that I made in 2004 when I lived in Nashville in my favorite house ever, amongst the trees, and consequently, the tree frogs.

[audio http://www.quietamerican.org/download/other/Duquaine_Frogs.mp3]

'A late May 2004 night in Nashville, TN, after a short rain. The frogs are conversing across the hollow where I live; the din of Interstate 40 is in the distance; the wind rustles the leaves high in the trees. I used the new Marantz PMD670 Solid State Digital Recorder with an Audio Technica 825 microphone to record this scene out at the edge of my property in a hillside in West Nashville.'

Courtesy of Quiet American who archives submitted field recordings as "one minute vacations" on his website and then compiles them on a CD at the end of the year and sells them for charity. His work also is very impressive, especially recordings from Viet Nam. Check them out.

It is amazing how much my environment has changed when I hear this. The personal benefits of reflection and insight from making little audio documentaries is quite powerful I think. Almost more photographic than photographs. Evocative and real.

I look forward to getting back into field recording, as well as dealing with the hundreds that I have yet to edit and clean up from my travels over the last few years.

Time. Time.

Maybe I could start something here similarly, except have it be made by people who never do such things. "My First Field Recording". How about this. Make one and email it to me. Use any microphone and record any sound on any equipment. Even digital cameras make mpeg videos and have microphones built in. Cover the lens, and hit record! I will post it here.

[caption id="attachment_672" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Sherri Neal (HCA AVP, Diversity & Inclusion), Kim Sharp (HCA VP, Diversity & Inclusion), Daniel Tidwell, Kasar Abdulla, Remziya Suleyman, Beth Curley, Kevin Crane, Tywana Bryant (HCA Intern, Diversity & Inclusion), Linda Paek (HCA Community Relations & Diversity Coordinator)"][/caption]Our original documentary, Next Door Neighbors: Little Kurdistan USA was recently screened as part of HCA’s Cultural Inclusion Series, an ongoing program that provides HCA employees with a forum for innovative and educational interactions that include engaging cultural and artistic presentations. NPT's Beth Curley, Kevin Crane and Daniel Tidwell were in attendance along with documentary principles Kasar Abdulla and Remziya Suleyman. The screening was followed by a Q&A session hosted by Sherri Neal, HCA’s AVP, Diversity and Inclusion. Kasar and Remziya provided those in attendance with moving insights into the experiences of Kurdish refugees in the United States. The HCA Foundation is a major funder of NPT’s NDN project along with the Nissan Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Was it AIM Productions which put up the funds to get Casey out of jail again?  It would certainly seem so.  Bounty Hunter Leonard Padilla stated that he received a phone call from the Nashville area code, asking if he thought Casey was a flight risk, but he did not get a name.   It has also been revealed that Casey's attorney, Jose Baez, has hired a Public Relations firm out of Nashville.  It is unknown what, if, any relationship may exist between the production company and the PR firm.

Casey was released (again) at around 10:00 a.m. today.

Note: Mr. Morgan decided to disable embedding so just click the link. It's also fun to sing "I'm a goddamn motherfuckin' combine driver!"

Imagine getting a personal invite to play a friendly game of baseball with none other than The Strokes and Kings Of Leon. To many music fans, this is the stuff that dreams are made of. However, Matt Pelham, lead singer of The Features, had more important business to atten d to. Taking care of his twin daughters.

After speaking with Pelham, it instantly becomes clear that this grounded approach to his personal life carries over into The Features as well. One would think that after releasing their album Exhibit A on Universal Records, performing overseas to crowds of over 7,000 people, and making their nationwide television debut on Jimmy Kimmel that the early stages of fame might go to their heads. However, The Features are still the same group of friends who just want to make music on their own terms without conforming to industry stereotypes by “wearing skin tight pants” in order to sell more records.

The Features formed in Sparta, Tennessee in 1993 as a group of friends who simply wanted to make music. After a few shows in neighboring Murfreesboro, they joined the likes of Self and Fluid Oz. on Spongebath Records. The group slowly became a staple of the town’s live music scene, drawing in fans with their energetic live performances and sing-along choruses. After Spongebath disbanded, two friends at the label decided to co-manage them and the rest, as they say, is history.

The Features sound is made up of suspenseful verses, soaring choruses, and the pervasive retro synthesizers of keyboardist Parrish Yaw. While many bands may have a keyboardist for aesthetics, none feature it as prominently as The Features. Yaw’s melodic lines add a key element to the group that rounds out their sound, whether it’s adding to the wall of sound that make up their choruses or filling in rhythmic space of the verses.

If you haven’t already heard their music, their website is the place to go. The site is unique in that it is divided into two sections. One for the typical information one can expect from a band’s website, and the other a more personalized blog written by the group where fans can find everything from demos from the new album to exclusive photos of drummer Hollum Haas during a chance meeting with Metallica’s Lars Ulrich.

Despite being a self-described “quiet guy,” Pelham leaves most of his quiet persona behind once he hits the stage. The result is a visually captivating performance of the group “where their most comfortable.” One can expect to see Haas beat the drums with a death wish while Pelham employs his trademark “back up and scream at the mic” technique at the height of his verses. Even the little things like the askew manner in which Pelham holds his guitar can be quite pleasing to see.

If you’re a new fan, don’t worry because their songs are accessible enough to sing along to at their show, even if you don’t know them by heart. Their single, “Blow It Out,” for example, features a breezy and unforgettable “doo doo doo” line between verses, and there is even a clap-along chorus to their song “See You Though.”

Despite how lively the group is during their set, the guys are back to their reserved selves once the music stops so don’t expect too much between song banter. This comes not as a product of stage fright, but rather that he “doesn’t know those people,” Pelham explains. He joking mentions that he “hopes to be able to tell a story between songs in ten years.” Until then, there are plenty of great Features songs to listen to.

The Features will be at The Dame on Saturday, March 25. The show starts at 9 p.m. and cover is $5. Their current album, Exhibit A, is available on Universal Records.

The singer, Aaron Robinson, is now carrying on as a solo artist and recently released an album entitled "We Are Racing Ghosts."

Here is some live video:

Check out some of our most popular Nashville restaurants and their offers:

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And Much Much More...

Imagine, if you will, my alarm when I am informed by my water company that according to their latest reading of my water meter, my daughter and I have used 79.400 gallons of water this month!

Once again, that's 79,400 gallons of water this month!

Needless to say, I bounced between the responses of panic and despair, as I decided that it was my lot in life to owe every body I owe forever and ever without ever getting ahead, no matter how hard I try.

Yes, I do get depressed sometimes, especially when I see light at the end of the tunnel, and then something else hits and it's one step forward, two steps back.

So, fearing that perhaps there was an underwater pipe leak, I had a fine gentleman from the water department come to the house, check the meter and check around for any kind of leak.  He found nothing that looked unusual.

What could have caused my water bill to spike?  Could it be that Milkshake has learned this new game to play while he's home alone all day?

Actually, no...I called the folks at Hiller Plumbing and had them come out to check on my, um, facilities to be sure nothing was amiss.

Sure enough, the fill valve on one of the thrones had gone bad, so it was running the water much longer than it should have been.  The reason I wasn't noticing it was because it would eventually stop.

Here's the great news:  the part was still under warranty!  Hiller guarantees their work!  I didn't have to pay a penny!

Even better:  They are going to complete an affidavit, send it to my water company, and they will adjust the bill so that I am not hit with an outrageously horrible water bill this month!  Did you know that water companies will work with you if you do all you can to figure out what the problem is and make an effort to fix it?*

I am thankful to the City of La Vergne for their understanding on this.

Whew!  I love a story with a happy ending!

*Heads up new home owner, Aunt B, hopefully you'll learn from my moment of panic. lol

I'd intended to go downtown later in the evening, but I found myself short on enthusiasm for the Nashville bar scene when the time came around. A few others talked about wandering over to Café Coco, a short walk to an adjacent neighborhood in West Nashville, but those plans fell to the wayside as the evening wore on.

Instead, five or six of us just remained on the front lawn at the hostel drinking beer, talking and smoking into the wee hours of morning. And singing the theme song to a popular British children show called Fun House. OK, I didn't sing, but the lyrics are likely permanently seared into my brain.

Surprisingly, I woke up fairly early this morning, around 7:30am, and decided that I might as well shower and get on the road. So I got my stuff together, washed up, stripped my bed and deposited the linens in the office, and said farewell to Hope, the hostel manager. My second stay in Nashville was a lot of fun, and though New Orleans fell through I was happy to get a second chance at Music City.

Ladies of America, beware of this man. While a confidentiality agreement prevents me from releasing his name on the worldwide interweb, I can tell you that this strapping young British lad has left a string of broken hearts across the U.S. since arriving earlier this summer. While most girls seem put off by the need to remind him, repeatedly, "Excuse me, but I'm up here, buddy" many another has fallen for his crafty, some say charming, ways. Consider yourselves warned.

This has been a public service announcement. Cheers.

But, then again, what has Nashville given us but watered down, over-produced country(ish) music? Maybe being the dirty, drunken cousin isn't so bad after all...

---------------------------

Pete,

I just finished my 6th week of Egoscue with Kathy in Atlanta and your first
book of Healing Through Motion.  The combination of your words and Kathy's
instruction has given my life a new direction, a direction refilled with
pain-free motion that I have not enjoyed in fifteen years.

I am only forty, but I "lost" my lower back in Air Force pilot training
during some maneuvering in the early 90s.  I was still functional (and
flying) after the first episode of back pain, but I slowly began eliminating
twisting, bending and running activities as the pain cycled through my life.
Out went golf, skiing and softball, my three favorite physical activities,
and in their place I substituted restricted movement, back pain anxiety and
an attitude of capitulation to "bad genetics".

It took just one day with Kathy and two pages of your book to realize that I
had it backwards:  My back didn't give up on me, I gave up on my back..and
my body.  I learned that muscles move bones, an almost "the world is flat"
concept for me, and that strength is derived from position and coordination.
I learned that the body is a connectivity prism through which health is
derived and that what I do today to make myself functional will dictate the
quality and longevity of my life in the future.  And I learned that
sometimes simple concepts - and simple movements - can change a universe of
experience and bad assumptions.

Thank you for your book and your truly inspiring clinical director in Kathy.
You two have given me the most valuable gift I think I will ever receive in
this lifetime - the confidence to heal myself.

Jay

So Jen's grumpy, and I'm bouncing around the hotel room, and I can't WAIT to get to Columbia. There's green chili beer at Flatbranch! There's the hot tub on the back porch! There are thrift stores that aren't incredibly picked-over! 

And in the meantime, holy god, did I mention that Nashville is gorgeous at night? I'm an asshole and didn't take any pictures (it was the tail end of a 12 hour day, after all), but still. It's glitter without glitz, all sparkling lights & water & interesting lines. I love it.

Downstairs for check-out and coffee! 

bouncebouncebounce

I first saw The Band Apart play in Nashville for only $5 at The 5 Spot and it was a great time. Their music is poppy yet intricate and smart. I had the chance to talk to them and try out some of my Japanese skills for the first time after their show and they were really nice people. I found a flyer for one of their shows in Japan recently and the price was a staggering $50-$70.

Here's the video for my favorite song by them called "Still Awake." It's kind of a boring video, but a great song:

Here's the link to their Myspace page.

I was aware of Jerry Reed from a very young age and long, long before the Smokey and the Bandit films started coming out.  I remember when "Amos Moses" was on top of both the pop and country charts (uh huh, I'm that old), we used to watch his variety show on TV (I had no idea until reading it tonight that Sista Smiff's dad Biff was the emcee, though not surprised), my dad had all his records for years and years - all long before the movie thang started.  Turned out he was a pretty good actor too, though.

There are fifty thousand posts throughout this blog about my father's influence on me with music, and his Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed (together) records were by far some of his favorites to listen to.  They (and the dozens of tracks on the reel-to-reel tapes my parents recorded) were frequently heard in my house while growing up.

Dad had a habit of stopping and saying, during those listening sprees, "Listen to that guitar", or "Listen to those drums", and made you really pay attention for a while.  When listening to the Chet & Jerry records, of course, it would be "Listen to that guitar" - or "that guitar" - and so I did.  As a very small child, I knew which one playing was Atkins and which one was Reed.

And Jerry Reed was funny, so funny.  Not a surprise years later when he was such a hit in the Smokey and the Bandit films.

No matter what your favorite flavor of music generally is, you'd be hard pressed to find many with favorite flavors of all kinds who don't have some appreciation of what a great Jerry Reed was.  The music world, all of it, harbors one less true legend this week.

Read more thoughts and writing in the wake of Jerry Reed's passing by Newscoma, GingerSnaps, Sharon Cobb, Sadcox, Thunder Jones, Blowing Smoke, Churlita, and at The Tennessean.

Yeah, the wife and I spent a ton of time exploring the Nashville Zoo and we did not miss any of it!

This "little" guy came right over and posed for us. I think he wanted to go home with us. I told him "no" as we didn't have a truck. Also, I was a bit unnerved when he kept sticking his long black tongue into his nostil. I guess I am a bit snooty...

Another fellow posed for us as well. I could almost hear what he was saying..."Hey, how's it going? It sure is hot. I'm gonna sit right here and let you take my picture. Can you get my balls in the shot?"

After trudging through 300 million acres of zoo we had to go to a former hot spot for me back in the day to wet our whistles.

It appears that someone's whistle was wetter than mine. Ahem, TWO margaritas? Sheesh!

Now we are refueled for another challenge tomorrow.

It was so cool to see both our Cross Point Nashville and Cross Point Dickson students gathered as one worshiping the One.

Grabbed a little video for you to see...

He was 71 years old, that I didn't know, and died at his home in Nashville. I have always enjoyed listening to his songs, especially Caffeine, Nicotene, and Benzadrine. His song She got the Gold mine and I got the shaft reminds me of my second marriage. The best line in that song is "I'm workin' two jobs to eat Bologna." The songs really made the nights go by when I was drivin' truck.

Oh, don't forget Smokey and the Bandit. He was a heck of a trucker in those movies and everybody on the road knew the Snowman. I guess it comes to all of us one day, but I can sure think of alot of other "people" I would have rather seen go first.

So, God Speed Snowman. The Coops (scales) are closed and the hammer lane is open clear to Cowtown.

The larger issue of immigration though is one which our society is being confronted with in a much more significant way than we have had to in the last several decades. Despite the influx of Asian immigrants from the late sixties onwards, the current immigration boom is new for many, and frightening. A recent census bureau report indicates that soon the US will be "majority minority" a phrase I find particularly interesting. Interesting because it has only been fairly recently that Hispanics (or Latinos if you prefer) have been counted separately. Interesting because they are only minorities in that they are not White. The last great immigration boom, around the turn of the 20th century, saw many millions of European immigrants come to the US. There was great debate at the time over whether they would properly assimilate into what was a clearer dominant Anglo culture.

Successive waves of immigrants each dealt with the baggage if you will of not being White enough. First the Irish, then the Italians, the Poles, the Russians... all the eastern Europeans. Most of these White ethnics settled in enclaves on the east coast and upper midwest where they were accused of the same sorts of things that Hispanic immigrants are now accused of. Of course in time they assimilated, intermarried, and largely became White. Being White in America mainly meant not being Black or Yellow (no offense to my Asian American readers, just using the lingo of the times). Many people don't realize that many of the soldiers that went to fight in WW2 spoke a language other than English at home as their first language; maybe as many as 1/3.

Nowadays now one really is focused on the many illegal Irish or even Asian immigrants in the country. No one is going door to door at Korean cleaners and checking how much under the table cash is being doled out to someone's cousin's sisters brother in law. Those immigrants aren't scary, and they aren't brown.

What should be the Christian response to the challenges of immigration? On the one hand it is easy to assert that we should be treat the foreigner and alien as neighbor, since that is what God commanded Israel. At the same time, how do we apply that principle meaningfully in a nation whose laws we are called to obey? What is our priority? And what is the true face of the immigration debate that is tearing our society up? John Lamb, a somewhat acquaintance who I've never officially met but admire nonetheless is doing a talk on this issue tomorrow at Vanderbilt. If anyone knows what he's talking about, its John.

Birth

1955. Bruce Foxton (The Jam) born in Woking, England.

On Stage

1979. It's revealed that the stage for tonight's performance at Edinburgh's Rock Festival had to be specially designed as the headlining act, Van Morrison, suffers from Vertigo if the stage is more than six feet high. Promoters for the festival, at Ingleston Showgrounds, said both the singer and the audience would be happy with the stage. Morrison's problem came to light earlier in the year when he played Glasgow's Apollo Theatre. During the show he never left the safety of the piano as the only other microphone was too close to the edge of one of Britain's tallest stages!

In Court

1999. An acrimonious three year legal battle between George Clinton and his former talent agent comes to an end in Los Angeles Superior Court. Clinton had originally been sued by the agent, Earl Ciccel, who claimed wrongful termination of his services. Clinton counter sued when he discovered Ciccel was not properly licensed as an agent and claimed back all monies collected on his behalf. Although Clinton won that suit, Ciccel was today succesful in getting a motion barring its enforcement on the basis that the court had already ruled in his favour regarding the original suit. Both parties will now have to share the legal expenses for the past three years.

In Politics

1967. The House Of Keys, the lower house of the Manx (Isle Of Man) Parliament is forced to accept the British government's ban on pirate radio stations. Mr. Charles Keruish, Speaker of The House Of Keys, said the British government may have the legal right to impose its will but lacked any moral justification. He said, "It's the first time that the mother country has forced unwanted legislation on the island, and that makes it the blackest day in the history of the relationship between the United Kingdom and the Isle Of Man". As a result of the legislation, residents of the island have been banned from assisting Radio Caroline International which is moored 4 miles off Ramsay. Ronan O'Rahilly, head of the Radio Caroline organisation, said the station would get its supplies from the continent and would not be leaving the area.

On Television

1980. Disco (ZDF, West Germany) 113. Eruption; Chris Roberts; Spider Murphy Gang; Ingrid Peters; Secret Service; Gitte; Oliver Onions; Olivia Pascal; Stefan Waggershausen; Village People. Here are Secret Service with "10 O'Clock Postman". 3m 38s.

Death

2008. Country singer, songwriter and actor Jerry Reed (born Jerry Reed Hubbard) died in Nashville, Tennessee, of complications from emphysema, aged 71.

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