snow flurries and big dreams

(i miss my puppy)

chad and i drove up to nashville on friday, making a stop in atl to pick up his djembe with its new head. we got there at about 10:15 (ga time) and there were snow flurries which was pretty cool since it doesn't snow in milledgeville. we hung out in lindsey's apt, watched hitch and then i finally went to bed. well, when i say bed i mean the floor. by that time chad was sound asleep snoring away in the bed. we got up pretty early to go to breakfast at the cracker barrell and then lindsey went to do some officer training for her sorority.

saturday morning was very cold. and when you add the big buildings funnelling the wind down the downtown streets, you get some crazy low wind chills. we ended up parking in this really run down parking deck on printers alley. it had metal plates covering holes in its floors and there were two strip clubs across the alley from its first floor. everything was closed except for a few record stores and cheap souvenir shops. everybody was asking us if we were there for this nascar thing. did they look at us? i didn't have a moustache or a single corporate advertisement on my body!

chad had a gift certificate to lifeway, so we looked around at cds and books for a while. they were all sold out of derek webb. we left broadway and headed to discover mills and walked around for a while. i went into the gibson store to laugh at anybody paying that much for a guitar. (my chet atkins sst is now up to $2,400 in their store... my ebay price looks better and better.) i paid way too much for 2 derek webb albums at tower records, but i've wanted them for a while and figured i'd buy them since i was on vacation. (that ridiculous sales tax in tennessee will kill ya. i'm sure having no state income tax is nice, but it's really depressing to be a tourist and pay that sales tax.)

we ate lunch at the food court then went back to lindsey's apartment. chad and i jammed a lil bit, but we were pretty tired and so we put on bad boys. there were a lot of people in the apt, and we couldn't really watch the movie, so i took a nap. we figured if we went to cheesecake factory at 6 we'd be able to get a table. we were wrong. people had been waiting since 4:30 and 5:00. the wait was 2 hours. it's new to nashville, and thus very popular. speaking of new to nashville... when the heck did it become so metrosexual? all of the billboards are for designer mens shoes. i felt like a redneck in my rei polo and new balance shoes. where are the justin boot and stetson ads?!? we ended up going to a steakhouse called calhoun's.

lindsey's friend kelly went to dinner with us. meeting this girl made the trip super worth it. she reminds me of my friend julie: republican, super proper, and super ambitious. the girl drives a friggin' cadilac. so kelly basically has her shtuff together and will be very successful in the music business once she graduates from belmont. i played some of my songs that i think would work as country songs, and she made a list of newer artists who she could pitch them to. it was fun to hear how the music biz really works and talking to her definitely got me dreaming about a songwriting career again. she said most of the folks at belmont are better at the music than the lyrics, and well i'm better at the lyrics. translation: lots of cowriting opportunities with her contacts. i'm gonna send her a cd with my songs and we'll see what happens.

we left sunday morning, swinging by chad's cousin's apartment in antioch. i don't know much about comics, but if that's your thing, he's pretty talented, and supports himself that way. we bought some fireworks and suffered through a horrible lunch at long john silvers in a town that looks like it's built around the big daddy's fireworks store.

believe it or not, i didn't take a single camera to nashville. no more 3x5s. oh, and that looking for a place to apply for a job and a place to live... didn't really get around to that.