christmas at opryland

Last night, we got the first snow flurries of the season. I honestly was confused when I saw them. ... It's been that long since I've seen snow. I could tell it wasn't rain, so I assumed it was some sort of dusty matter falling from a tree! 

The night before, we went to Opryland to check out the Christmas decorations and see ICE!, which is based on the Dr. Seuss story "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" 

This is the show's last year in Nashville. Next year, it will move to Texas, so if you want to check it out, check it out now. Tickets are $20-22 for adults and $12-14 for children, depending on what day you go. ICE! runs through Jan. 4.

To put the show together, dozens of Chinese ice sculptors come to the U.S. to carve enormous blocks of colored ice shipped down from Kentucky. To keep the ice frozen, the theatre is kept around 9 or 10 degrees. As you enter the show, staff provides heavy blue parkas that were amazingly warm. 

I liked the characters just fine, but I've never been wild about the illustrations in Dr. Seuss books. My favorites were the igloos and the 20-foot ice slide. Very impressive, and lots of fun. 

election 2008

(Pictures taken at Nashville's Rally for Equality against California's Proposition 8, held on Sat., Nov. 15 .)

On Nov. 4, Americans voted for sweeping change -- an African-American presidential candidate from the Democratic party who holds a dramatically different outlook on domestic priorities and foreign relations than soon-to-be former-President Bush. 

Included in President-elect Obama's policy plan is the promise that all Americans, regardless of socioeconomic status, age, race or gender will be represented. The not-so-lucky among us will not be swept aside any longer. 

For this vote, I am thankful, optimistic and proud to have voted for Barack Obama.

The victory was sweet, but with the sweet came the bitter.

As millions of Americans voted to usher in change, Californians concurrently were deciding the outcome of Proposition 8 -- a "constitutional amendment" that strips away the right of same-sex couples to marry. This right had been granted to the state's residents just a few months earlier when the California Supreme Court found that prohibiting gay couples from marrying violated the state constitution. 

Some 18,000 same-sex couples married between June 17 and Nov. 4. I am half of one of those couples. 

It took until the afternoon of Nov. 5 to determine that Proposition 8 had passed by a slim margin -- 52 percent. The validity of the amendment has been challenged, and yesterday, the California Supreme Court ordered the parties to brief the Court on the following issues: 

1. Is Proposition 8 invalid because it constitutes a revision of, rather than an amendment to, the California Constitution?

2. Does Proposition 8 violate the separation of powers doctrine under the California Constitution? 

3. If Proposition 8 is not unconstitutional, what is its effect, if any, on the marriages of same-sex couples performed before the adoption of Proposition 8?

The road before us is long before this all shakes out -- months and months of waiting. Proposition 8 is getting the most press because of California's size and high-profile nature and because the outcome was the most surprising, given the state's tendency toward liberal views on social issues -- but its voters were not the only ones who simultaneously voted for change while contributing to what I've deemed "the backlash." Similar measures limiting marriage to straight couples passed in Florida and Arizona. Arkansas voters also passed a statute that bans unmarried couples from fostering or adopting children. The referendum was written specifically to keep same-sex couples from being foster or adoptive parents.

The election was more than two weeks ago, but it has taken me this long to write about it because learning the outcome of Proposition 8 was emotionally painful. It took time for the sting to mellow. Now, it simmers in the back of my head instead of encompassing it, but it takes very little to bring back strong feelings of disappointment and confusion.

Being in Tennessee since July, I was not in California to witness the scare tactics, to see the bright yellow "Yes on Prop. 8" signs, to feel the friction and tension. You see, I wasn't worried. When we moved in July, no one thought Proposition 8 would actually pass. Never before had Californians voted to take away rights. Even in the days leading up to the vote, when I started reading news stories that indicated the vote was closer than expected, the vast majority of friends said, "Don't worry." Only one said, "This doesn't look good." 

A friend of mine who has two small children with her partner said she felt hated for the first time in her life. Her neighborhood was awash in yellow signs. I imagine she felt -- and may still feel -- like a prisoner in her own home. 

Now, we wait. We wait, and we hope. We hope fervently that "change" will not pass us by. 

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.