memphis, sweet memphis

A couple of the little boys on Beale Street who 

do backflips and cartwheels for tips.

Getting in the zone for his next run.

One of my favorite pictures at the Rendezvous. 

A Botero sculpture at Brooks Museum.

Halloween decor at the Lamplighter Lounge.

Ray LaMontagne

Sunday night, we saw Ray LaMontagne at The Ryman. Wow. First, let's talk acoustics. Amazing. Every "s" was like a whisper directly into my ear from an inch away. And we had cheap seats -- Row X to be exact. The theater really is amazing and lives up to the hype.  

So, what about this guy? For us, he's typically dinner music -- in the background, kind of low. I mean, to describe his style as "gentle" is an understatement, right? 

In concert, that was still the case -- to a point. The only times he talked, he was soft-spoken, polite, brief, hard-to-hear. Of course, it would have helped if certain members of the audience didn't start screaming every time he DID actually talk. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy who gives a shit about some girl screaming from the back: "I love you, Ray!" In fact, I think it probably frightens him. It's always frustrating when an audience doesn't understand the performer. ... But back to the original point. 

While quiet and gentle, on certain songs his raspy voice just became beyond enormous. My better half described it as a bear rearing up on his hind legs, throwing his head back farther and farther and opening his mouth wider and wider as this ever-increasing roar lets loose. ... I think she's 100 percent right on in this evaluation. Even if she does admit his huge, bushy, brown beard probably contributed highly to her bear analogy. 

ASCAP

Martina McBride poses with a fan.

Kix Brooks oddly bathed in orange light.

Last night, we wandered down to the Ryman Auditorium to check out the scene at the ASCAP Country Music Awards. The show was just wrapping up, so we hung around the red carpet and valet area to see who was in attendance (and who was hitting the after-party across the street). 

I don't know if it's just the nature of Nashville, or the genre, or that it was the ASCAP Awards, as opposed to the Grammys, but the atmosphere was remarkably casual. No limousine line. No metal barricades. Just a few valets and LOTS of SUVs with tinted windows. 

(I'd like to break for a moment here and suggest that you don't have to be in California to be environmentally conscious. Just saying -- I'd like to have seen ONE Prius.)

As the stars waited for their cars in the Ryman parking lot, they took pictures with fans and signed autographs. 

Some observations:

1. Ninety-nine percent of the women at the show wore black dresses and extremely tall high heels. ... Kellie Pickler bucked this trend and wore bright red. She also hit the after-party.

2. Dierks Bentley wins the "down-home" award for driving his old, white Chevy truck.

3. Martina McBride has excellent hearing. While posing for a picture, a fan who was 5 feet away said quietly to her friend, "I just saw her in Virginia." Martina turned and called out, "You were at the Virginia Beach show? That show was a lot of fun."

rain and earthquakes

It's raining really hard right now. 

When we first moved to Nashville, I realized how much I had missed rain. The sound of it, the white skies and how, afterward, everything looks and smells so much cleaner. In L.A., when it rains, it rains a week at a time, and it feels confusing after day two because you are accustomed to ever-present sun. In the south, it's not so scripted. It catches you off guard, a big, dark cloud rolls in, a quick burst of hard rain and then blue skies and lower temperatures. 

I thought I felt an earthquake this morning, when I was still in bed. I must have imagined it. When we were still in L.A., I felt a couple of the smaller earthquakes. It felt like the floor was rolling. This one didn't feel like that. It just felt like I was being shaken. Strange. 

We moved about two weeks before the last "kinda big" earthquake in Los Angeles. Initially, the report was that a 6.0 earthquake had hit L.A. When I got that news via Twitter, I burst into tears. I knew that my old office building could not seismically withstand a large quake. I thought my co-workers could be trapped or crushed.  

Cell phone service was down, but texting worked. All my friends were OK. The earthquake was later downgraded to a 5.4, and damage was minimal. Still, it was hard to be 2,000 miles away. I wanted to be there. The reporter in me wanted to see and feel it for myself. The friend in me wanted to hug all the people I missed.  

good morning

It's mid-morning in downtown Nashville, and I'm doing laundry. It's really quite a glamorous life. I thought I should launch this blog with a picture of the AT&T Building, aka The Batman Building. This picture was taken from my window about 15 minutes ago.