SxSE: Nashville, Tennessee

Traveling across Tennessee, our South by Southeast road trip moves on to Nashville.

You roll into Nashville and you know you're entering Music City USA center of Country Music and other kinds of music. Home of the Grand Ol' Opry, Ryman Auditorium and Music Row.

It's also the home of the Vanderbilt Commodores

♦ Nashville is the 2nd closest SEC town to Columbia, 433 miles away (359 air miles).  Vanderbilt is in the SEC East Division.

♦ The Nashville Mizzou Alumni Chapter is online at MusicCityTigers.blogspot.com

♦ Fun facts about Nashville, TN

• 2010 population: 601,222; metro area: 1,589,934
  
  
• Along with other nicknames (Music City, Nashvegas), Nashville is known as Little Kurdistan, with the largest Kurdish population in the United States, around 11,000 (about double the population of Starkville and Oxford, MS, combined).
  
  
• Sheri Lynn and Brenda Kay Jugg (sisters) run Nash Trash Tours.
• Sheri Lynn and Brenda Kay Jugg take you on a hot pink bus all around Nashville, giving all the best gossip about country music stars. They serve "squirt cheese" hors d'oeuvres. You bring your own liquid refreshment (alcohol okay). The ladies are dressed in "trailer trash" outfits and do a bit of a show. Tour is 90 minutes of laughing your butt off. They spot people on the street and yell out country music singers names. Faces on the people on the streets are hilarious. (roadsideamerica.com)

Fred Thompson
Vanderbilt alum

♦ There are 4 Chik-fil-a locations in Nashville.  But there are 13 if you count all the suburbs

♦ According to DumbLaws.com no person in Nashville may own a cheetah as a pet

♦ You are so Nashville if . . . (Nashville Scene)

There were some 1,300 entries to our 19th Annual You Are So Nashville If… contest.

FIRST: You saw Kenny Chesney in a Kroger reading Out & About.

SECOND: You accuse Al Gore of hypocrisy for exhaling carbon dioxide.

THIRD: You’re bummed out by the fact that you won’t be able to smoke at your workplace, which sucks because you’re a topless dancer with a serious meth habit.

And the rest...

• You’ve loyally gone to Steeplechase for the last 25 years and have never watched a horse race.
• Pacman Jones has spit on you.
• You saw that Ted Nugent was booked at the Ryman and wondered just what the hell that place is supposed to be the Mother Church of now.
• You remember when you could just say something, and no one would write a song about it.
• Your first thought upon running into Reba McEntire in line at the local Chinese buffet is “That girl better not have eaten the last of the noodles!”
• You’ve ever said, “Hey, I got a cut on your next record, I sure hope it goes platinum like your last one. Did you want sour cream and guacamole on that?”

And the dark side . . .

• You tell your spouse that you are thinking about “going Perry March” on her during an argument.
• Your preacher’s wife keeps giving you the crazy eyes.
• You get a wheelchair instead of a lap dance.
• You were shot by your dog.
• You’d rather be a child molester than married to Wynonna Judd.
• You hope they don’t stop racing dragsters down Main Street just because of one little incident.
• You pick on the homeless.

♦ Read about the history of the Nashville and Memphis music scene in A Strange Resemblance (Nashville Scene)

Memphis may be only 200 miles from Nashville, but the musical sounds identified with these two cities are worlds apart. Nashville is apple pie and fried chicken, pickup trucks, starched jeans, straight spines, and Sunday school recitals. Memphis is barbecue sauce and bacon grease, pink Cadillacs, sharkskin suits, swiveling hips, and ecstatic shouts of amen. Nashville plays it slick, sweet, and a little ahead of the beat; Memphis plays it loose, sexy, and a little behind the beat.

It’s not just the difference between country music and rhythm and blues, or the difference between contemporary Christian and rockabilly, that separates the cities. It’s the way each town does business, the way it treats music as a cultural commodity. In Nashville, music is driven by commerce and back-room deals; in Memphis, it’s driven by street-level expression and pure feel.

♦ HolyTurf.com's SEC Bucket List: Nashville

#54 City House: The City House has a lengthy wine list and plenty of cocktails to choose from. Frequent diners at the City House will suggest you share several items with your fellow patrons. The pizzas are popular especially those with eggs on them, but the meat is where the City House separates itself. The pork meatballs are popular as is the iron skillet roasted chicken. The menu does vary, so keep an open mind.

#80 Pancake Pantry: The Pancake Pantry is a Nashville tradition that can have lines out the door and the around the block that began in 1961 when Robert Baldwin opened the restaurant. According to their website, the special ingredients for the pancakes start with the specialty ground flours from East Tennessee.

The menu offers a variety of dining options, but eating pancakes is a must with a bounty of pancakes options to satisfy even the most fickle pancake consumer. Yes, there are plenty of other items on the menu in addition to pancakes, and you can eat breakfast all day long.

♦ Perhaps the strangest Nashville story story this past year:

A fugitive [William Todd] spent his bus layover in Tennessee allegedly committing 11 felonies in just 9 hours -- a bizarre crime spree that included Tasing bar patrons, lighting a business on fire and carjacking two cabs, cops said.
. . .
3:05 a.m.: Todd burglarizes a business, stealing a Taser, a revolver and a shotgun. He fires shots, steals a T-shirt and then lights the place on fire.

3:30 a.m.: Todd finds four people at a local watering hole, holds them at gunpoint, Tases one, pistol whips another and steals everyone's cash.

3:40 a.m.: He carjacks a cab and heads to Walmart to spend $200 on supplies.

5 a.m. to 6 a.m.: Todd breaks into a law office, defecates on a desk and smears poo all over some framed law degrees.

6 a.m.: Todd hits Hotel Indigo nearby, where he impersonates a female housekeeper and then steals $600 from a Canadian couple at gunpoint. He was crying the whole time.

Some time later: He shaves his head and leaves.

9 a.m.: Todd crashes his stolen cab into a parking garage.

11:30 a.m.: He hails a new cab, holds the driver at knifepoint, and takes his new ride to Opry Mills shopping mall. He submerges himself in a vat of water until cops find and arrest him. (Huffington Post)