Just as I was driving out of Racine on Thursday evening, WXRT (93.3 FM, Chicago) played a live from the archives cut. Picture a smoky Chicago nightclub, March 1978, packed with all manner of freaks.
Onstage you observe the irrepressible Warren Zevon howling "Werewolves of London" while banging on a piano & leading a tight touring band. Warren was not yet sober then.
I had to pull over & savor that song. Thank you to whomever invented radio (Marconi et al.).
Friday, April 30, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Rep. Tammy Baldwin & the 3-legged dog
I met a vet student walking her 3-legged white wolf-like collie mix at the tip of Picnic Point Friday afternoon. That was one frisky, well-adapted, happy, fast-moving 5-year-old puppy! I could tell that she wanted to jump into Lake Mendota & swim after some ducks near the shore.
On Saturday afternoon I saw Rep. Tammy Baldwin (Democrat), the lesbian Congresswoman from Madison, running along the Picnic Point trail. I wanted to say "Run, Tammy, run!" But I gave her the gift of anonymity instead.
She is an inspiring political leader, but not quite as inspiring as that dog with three legs.
On Saturday afternoon I saw Rep. Tammy Baldwin (Democrat), the lesbian Congresswoman from Madison, running along the Picnic Point trail. I wanted to say "Run, Tammy, run!" But I gave her the gift of anonymity instead.
She is an inspiring political leader, but not quite as inspiring as that dog with three legs.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
The kind bud, an Earth Day ode
Kind is the green bud,
Harbinger of spring,
Bringer of good mood:
Sweet evergreen bud -
Kind friend, ember end.
-JCM (4/22/10)
Harbinger of spring,
Bringer of good mood:
Sweet evergreen bud -
Kind friend, ember end.
-JCM (4/22/10)
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Bumper Sticker in Madison, Wisconsin - April 22 (Earth Day), 2010
On a car parked beside Lake Mendota,
at the Warner Park boat launch:
"I'd rather be at a STEVE EARLE concert."
Amen, man. Nice graphics too. Sunny day.
I gave a shout out to the folks on the jetty
who owned the vehicle bearing that sign.
The Hardcore Troubadour lives!
at the Warner Park boat launch:
"I'd rather be at a STEVE EARLE concert."
Amen, man. Nice graphics too. Sunny day.
I gave a shout out to the folks on the jetty
who owned the vehicle bearing that sign.
The Hardcore Troubadour lives!
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Literary thoughts for Earth Day 2010
"There is, one knows not what sweet mystery
about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings
seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath."
- Herman Melville
[anthropomorphic as usual]
This is the epigraph to a chapter entitled "The Pattern of the Surface" in Rachel Carson's beautiful 1951 National Book Award winner, The Sea Around Us. It concludes with this sentence:
"For all at last return to the sea -- to Oceanus, the ocean river, like the ever-flowing stream of time, the beginning and the end."
Amen, sister. Happy Earth Day, everybody! Please help keep our precious planet clean.
about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings
seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath."
- Herman Melville
[anthropomorphic as usual]
This is the epigraph to a chapter entitled "The Pattern of the Surface" in Rachel Carson's beautiful 1951 National Book Award winner, The Sea Around Us. It concludes with this sentence:
"For all at last return to the sea -- to Oceanus, the ocean river, like the ever-flowing stream of time, the beginning and the end."
Amen, sister. Happy Earth Day, everybody! Please help keep our precious planet clean.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Hank Williams, posthumous Pulitzer Prize winner
Howdy, Friends!
I read yesterday that the geniuses at the Pulitzer Foundation gave
Hank Williams (Sr.) a special Pulitzer Prize for composing songs that
helped popularize American country & western music globally.
Too bad he's been dead since 1953. Old Hank would have appreciated the
recognition, though. But he'd have just spent the money foolishly, I reckon.
So it's just as well he's not around anymore.
Maybe next time they could award a Pulitzer to a great composer who's
still alive, like Bob Dylan - who didn't even get a Grammy till 1998.
Or maybe give it to somebody who could use the cash, like Alex Chilton
(Box Tops/Big Star). Oops - too late - he's dead now too. Relative obscurity is a bitch, ain't it?
I read yesterday that the geniuses at the Pulitzer Foundation gave
Hank Williams (Sr.) a special Pulitzer Prize for composing songs that
helped popularize American country & western music globally.
Too bad he's been dead since 1953. Old Hank would have appreciated the
recognition, though. But he'd have just spent the money foolishly, I reckon.
So it's just as well he's not around anymore.
Maybe next time they could award a Pulitzer to a great composer who's
still alive, like Bob Dylan - who didn't even get a Grammy till 1998.
Or maybe give it to somebody who could use the cash, like Alex Chilton
(Box Tops/Big Star). Oops - too late - he's dead now too. Relative obscurity is a bitch, ain't it?
Friday, April 9, 2010
Nashville Adventure
Music City Hostel and Other Budget Ideas
by Joseph C. Mrazek (April 2010)
It's estimated that at least three dozen aspiring stars arrive in Nashville every day. After all, it's been the undisputed capital of country music since the late 1940s, when recording studios were finally installed in that bustling city of a half million souls on the banks of the Cumberland River.
But the city has been synonymous with what used to be marketed as “hillbilly music” since at least 1925, when the Grand Ole Opry commenced its regular weekend radio broadcasts from Nashville, Tennessee. Carried throughout North America via AM-radio powerhouse WSM, the station is an acronym for "We Shield Millions" - slogan of the life-insurance company that once owned it). Now an Internet-driven mecca, Music City USA is stuffed with singers, songwriters, studio musicians, wannabe managers, clever promoters and those techno-wizards known as record producers. Only Los Angeles and New York have nearly as many show-biz types per capita as Nashville.
Many of the newcomers, like Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton once upon a time, have more talent than money. If you're looking for for a weird low-budget adventure in Nashville, you should check out Music City Hostel (www.MusicCityHostel.com). Conveniently located between the Tennessee capital's bustling downtown and the leafy Vanderbilt University campus, this homey little hostel occupies a pair of former apartment buildings at 1809 Patterson Street in the Mid-City neighborhood. It's a hit with professional musicians and amateur songwriters alike.
Owner Ron Limb, who emigrated from Korea to the USA as a young boy, and his wife Tracee, a native of South Dakota, run this international oasis in a spirit of true Southern hospitality.
"We see ourselves as a family, a community, here at the hostel," says Limb, a former engineer who modeled his dream-business on the better hostels he had stayed at while traveling the world. He started Music City Hostel in early 2005 and has built a positive reputation, partially via the Internet postings satisfied guests have left to guide others.
Google, the Limbs' energetic Boston terrier, might even pay you a visit. Good company from around the globe is always on hand, in case you feel like meeting new people and making new friends. You might even get to practice your foreign language skills with another guest. I got to speak German with native speakers again after a long layoff.
A bunk in a shared room costs just $25 a night (or $150/week), while a private room for two is $70. The hostel features a small lounge with television & nearby laundry machines & rental computers (there’s free WiFi Internet access throughout the facility), and a large kitchen stocked with cooking equipment. Coffee, tea, oatmeal & waffle batter are complimentary and free food items left by prior guests are usually available. The dormitory suites as well as private rooms have keyless locks for extra security. Ron also has apartments available on short-term leases, for those in town temporarily. Several guests I met were in Nashville for a medical internship or to conduct business.
Guests can walk safely to a tempting cluster of ethnic restaurants around West End Avenue & upper Broadway - everything from Middle Eastern to Indian to Mexican places plus the Noshville Delicatessen. Lower Broadway, with its panoply of honky tonks (live-music clubs) is also within walking distance or a short cab ride away from Music City Hostel. I've stayed at numerous hostels in Europe and Japan, but have found few inns quite as welcoming. Only the famously cozy low-budget bed-&-breakfasts spread across Ireland can compete.
Now for the downside. You might get a roommate who snores, or an unwelcome wake-up call at 3:00 a.m. from a cowboy-booted bar closer. Peace and privacy can be hard to come by. The kitchen is sometimes messy, but at least the bathrooms are cleaned daily. It's not a bad trade-off for the opportunity to meet adventurers from faraway places. You can explore hip and historic Nashville with fellow hostelers.
Here is a partial list of good excuses to visit Nashville, alias Music City USA, in case you need one:
Pay your respects to Hank & Patsy
- The Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum (CMHFM) at 222 Fifth Avenue South, is open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily (closed for a few holidays plus Tuesdays in January & February). Permanent exhibits include Webb Pierce's weird customized Bonneville, complete with mounted chrome-plated pistols and real silver dollars glued to the dashboard. Other items of interest include original handwritten lyric sheets, and a collection of stage outfits and well-worn guitars used by stars like Johnny Cash. Special exhibits, such as one I saw on the Hank Williams family musical legacy, rotate every few months. Admission is $19.99 for adults, $11.95 for kids age 5-17, and free for kids under age 5. The Museum Store is stocked with CDs, postcards, t-shirts, posters and many other souvenirs. If you don't want to tour the collection, you can grab lunch or a drink in the spacious glassy atrium, where "Music City Ambassador" Dave Anderson takes requests and plays country favorites on his Epiphone electric guitar while roving among patrons' tables.
Enter “Honky Tonk Heaven”
- You can drink and dance at more than a dozen bars, such as Robert's Western World (try the fried pickles), that feature free live music all afternoon and evening long in Nashville's neon-lit entertainment district, also called simply “The District.”.
- Until 10:00 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, you can enjoy a good cheap buffet-style meal at Jack's Bar-B-Que. Look for the Flying Pig sign at 416 Broadway. Or you can walk around the corner and visit
- the historic Ryman Auditorium (at 116 Fifth Avenue North), spiritual home of the Grand Ole Opry. Concerts by such artists as Neil Young and Emmylou Harris occur several nights a week at the Ryman. Tickets are accordingly expensive. The Opry moves back to the Ryman from suburban Opryland USA for a couple of months every winter. See it then, if you can afford it.
- You might also catch a celebrity, like musician/producer Jack White (The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, Dead Weather) who moved his ultra-hip recording studio and vinyl-record shop Third Man Records from Detroit to Nashville last year. Kid Rock, Alison Krauss, Taylor Swift and other stars are frequently seen hanging out, shopping or carousing around town.
Buy fresh produce and mingle with local farmers
- The Farmers Market, just downhill from the modest-sized Tennessee state capitol building downtown, is open every day except Christmas and New Year's Day. In addition to vendors selling local fruits, vegetables, molasses and jam, this roofed but open-air market also has a cluster of restaurants in a food court that cater to tourists and state office workers.
Soak up some Culture
-The Frist Center for the Visual Arts (919 Broadway) features exhibits of Southern regional art and world-class fine art. They also sponsor free concerts by offbeat musicians as well as more mainstream groups in the lobby on Friday evenings.
-The Tennessee State Museum (at 505 Deaderick Street) has many interesting artifacts and special exhibits, such as one on the February 1960 lunch-counter sit-ins by young civil-rights activists.
-The Hermitage, site of General & President Andrew Jackson's 19th-century estate, is a national historic landmark and museum located about 12 miles from downtown, in suburban Hermitage. Admission is steep, but it's free a few days a year, including the January anniversary of Gen. Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans.
Brush up on your manners
People say "sir" and "ma'am" without a trace of irony in Nashville because it's the South, where politeness is required and rudeness is not tolerated. I was once refused service by a gas-station cashier in Nashville until I said "please." Etiquette and formality, like relics of a dying civilization, are fast fading up North and elsewhere. In Music City you can experience social life as it used to be, but even better since Jim Crow racism has been rooted out. We Yankees could use a refresher course in good manners. Most Southerners will set a good example for you, but in a relaxed way.
Travel backwards in time
Whether you’re
- picnicking alongside the Parthenon, the world’s only full-scale replica of the Athenian temple, at Centennial Park (adjacent to Vanderbilt University),
- hobnobbing at the renovated “first church of country music” - the Ryman Auditorium,
- gazing at ornate murals above the grand lobby of the gorgeous and historic Union Station Hotel (1001 Broadway); or
- boarding a passenger car at thetiny Tennessee Central Railway Museum,
Nashville offers plenty of opportunities for time travelers to visit another era. Some sites, such as the 4 highlighted above, can even be seen for free.
Nashville is an exciting modern city well worth exploring, whether you spend a few weeks or just a few days there. It's a creative capital, full of musicians and music fans, and sits conveniently in the middle of Tennessee, 35 miles south of the Kentucky state line. Louisville is merely 3 hours away by car, and Wisconsin is just ten hours distant. In fact, Wisconsinites will find a familiar convivial and welcoming spirit there.
© 2010 by J.C. Mrazek
by Joseph C. Mrazek (April 2010)
It's estimated that at least three dozen aspiring stars arrive in Nashville every day. After all, it's been the undisputed capital of country music since the late 1940s, when recording studios were finally installed in that bustling city of a half million souls on the banks of the Cumberland River.
But the city has been synonymous with what used to be marketed as “hillbilly music” since at least 1925, when the Grand Ole Opry commenced its regular weekend radio broadcasts from Nashville, Tennessee. Carried throughout North America via AM-radio powerhouse WSM, the station is an acronym for "We Shield Millions" - slogan of the life-insurance company that once owned it). Now an Internet-driven mecca, Music City USA is stuffed with singers, songwriters, studio musicians, wannabe managers, clever promoters and those techno-wizards known as record producers. Only Los Angeles and New York have nearly as many show-biz types per capita as Nashville.
Many of the newcomers, like Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton once upon a time, have more talent than money. If you're looking for for a weird low-budget adventure in Nashville, you should check out Music City Hostel (www.MusicCityHostel.com). Conveniently located between the Tennessee capital's bustling downtown and the leafy Vanderbilt University campus, this homey little hostel occupies a pair of former apartment buildings at 1809 Patterson Street in the Mid-City neighborhood. It's a hit with professional musicians and amateur songwriters alike.
Owner Ron Limb, who emigrated from Korea to the USA as a young boy, and his wife Tracee, a native of South Dakota, run this international oasis in a spirit of true Southern hospitality.
"We see ourselves as a family, a community, here at the hostel," says Limb, a former engineer who modeled his dream-business on the better hostels he had stayed at while traveling the world. He started Music City Hostel in early 2005 and has built a positive reputation, partially via the Internet postings satisfied guests have left to guide others.
Google, the Limbs' energetic Boston terrier, might even pay you a visit. Good company from around the globe is always on hand, in case you feel like meeting new people and making new friends. You might even get to practice your foreign language skills with another guest. I got to speak German with native speakers again after a long layoff.
A bunk in a shared room costs just $25 a night (or $150/week), while a private room for two is $70. The hostel features a small lounge with television & nearby laundry machines & rental computers (there’s free WiFi Internet access throughout the facility), and a large kitchen stocked with cooking equipment. Coffee, tea, oatmeal & waffle batter are complimentary and free food items left by prior guests are usually available. The dormitory suites as well as private rooms have keyless locks for extra security. Ron also has apartments available on short-term leases, for those in town temporarily. Several guests I met were in Nashville for a medical internship or to conduct business.
Guests can walk safely to a tempting cluster of ethnic restaurants around West End Avenue & upper Broadway - everything from Middle Eastern to Indian to Mexican places plus the Noshville Delicatessen. Lower Broadway, with its panoply of honky tonks (live-music clubs) is also within walking distance or a short cab ride away from Music City Hostel. I've stayed at numerous hostels in Europe and Japan, but have found few inns quite as welcoming. Only the famously cozy low-budget bed-&-breakfasts spread across Ireland can compete.
Now for the downside. You might get a roommate who snores, or an unwelcome wake-up call at 3:00 a.m. from a cowboy-booted bar closer. Peace and privacy can be hard to come by. The kitchen is sometimes messy, but at least the bathrooms are cleaned daily. It's not a bad trade-off for the opportunity to meet adventurers from faraway places. You can explore hip and historic Nashville with fellow hostelers.
Here is a partial list of good excuses to visit Nashville, alias Music City USA, in case you need one:
Pay your respects to Hank & Patsy
- The Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum (CMHFM) at 222 Fifth Avenue South, is open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily (closed for a few holidays plus Tuesdays in January & February). Permanent exhibits include Webb Pierce's weird customized Bonneville, complete with mounted chrome-plated pistols and real silver dollars glued to the dashboard. Other items of interest include original handwritten lyric sheets, and a collection of stage outfits and well-worn guitars used by stars like Johnny Cash. Special exhibits, such as one I saw on the Hank Williams family musical legacy, rotate every few months. Admission is $19.99 for adults, $11.95 for kids age 5-17, and free for kids under age 5. The Museum Store is stocked with CDs, postcards, t-shirts, posters and many other souvenirs. If you don't want to tour the collection, you can grab lunch or a drink in the spacious glassy atrium, where "Music City Ambassador" Dave Anderson takes requests and plays country favorites on his Epiphone electric guitar while roving among patrons' tables.
Enter “Honky Tonk Heaven”
- You can drink and dance at more than a dozen bars, such as Robert's Western World (try the fried pickles), that feature free live music all afternoon and evening long in Nashville's neon-lit entertainment district, also called simply “The District.”.
- Until 10:00 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, you can enjoy a good cheap buffet-style meal at Jack's Bar-B-Que. Look for the Flying Pig sign at 416 Broadway. Or you can walk around the corner and visit
- the historic Ryman Auditorium (at 116 Fifth Avenue North), spiritual home of the Grand Ole Opry. Concerts by such artists as Neil Young and Emmylou Harris occur several nights a week at the Ryman. Tickets are accordingly expensive. The Opry moves back to the Ryman from suburban Opryland USA for a couple of months every winter. See it then, if you can afford it.
- You might also catch a celebrity, like musician/producer Jack White (The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, Dead Weather) who moved his ultra-hip recording studio and vinyl-record shop Third Man Records from Detroit to Nashville last year. Kid Rock, Alison Krauss, Taylor Swift and other stars are frequently seen hanging out, shopping or carousing around town.
Buy fresh produce and mingle with local farmers
- The Farmers Market, just downhill from the modest-sized Tennessee state capitol building downtown, is open every day except Christmas and New Year's Day. In addition to vendors selling local fruits, vegetables, molasses and jam, this roofed but open-air market also has a cluster of restaurants in a food court that cater to tourists and state office workers.
Soak up some Culture
-The Frist Center for the Visual Arts (919 Broadway) features exhibits of Southern regional art and world-class fine art. They also sponsor free concerts by offbeat musicians as well as more mainstream groups in the lobby on Friday evenings.
-The Tennessee State Museum (at 505 Deaderick Street) has many interesting artifacts and special exhibits, such as one on the February 1960 lunch-counter sit-ins by young civil-rights activists.
-The Hermitage, site of General & President Andrew Jackson's 19th-century estate, is a national historic landmark and museum located about 12 miles from downtown, in suburban Hermitage. Admission is steep, but it's free a few days a year, including the January anniversary of Gen. Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans.
Brush up on your manners
People say "sir" and "ma'am" without a trace of irony in Nashville because it's the South, where politeness is required and rudeness is not tolerated. I was once refused service by a gas-station cashier in Nashville until I said "please." Etiquette and formality, like relics of a dying civilization, are fast fading up North and elsewhere. In Music City you can experience social life as it used to be, but even better since Jim Crow racism has been rooted out. We Yankees could use a refresher course in good manners. Most Southerners will set a good example for you, but in a relaxed way.
Travel backwards in time
Whether you’re
- picnicking alongside the Parthenon, the world’s only full-scale replica of the Athenian temple, at Centennial Park (adjacent to Vanderbilt University),
- hobnobbing at the renovated “first church of country music” - the Ryman Auditorium,
- gazing at ornate murals above the grand lobby of the gorgeous and historic Union Station Hotel (1001 Broadway); or
- boarding a passenger car at thetiny Tennessee Central Railway Museum,
Nashville offers plenty of opportunities for time travelers to visit another era. Some sites, such as the 4 highlighted above, can even be seen for free.
Nashville is an exciting modern city well worth exploring, whether you spend a few weeks or just a few days there. It's a creative capital, full of musicians and music fans, and sits conveniently in the middle of Tennessee, 35 miles south of the Kentucky state line. Louisville is merely 3 hours away by car, and Wisconsin is just ten hours distant. In fact, Wisconsinites will find a familiar convivial and welcoming spirit there.
© 2010 by J.C. Mrazek
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