Nurse the Hate: Nashville Gig and NFL Week 4

We played a show at the 5 Spot in Nashville on Friday night.  I love to play in Nashville.  The sound systems are always good, the people are enthusiastic and informed, and we often get to play with our friends in Hillbilly Casino.  When you have done it as long as we have, there aren't many people that are on the same wave length as you, and I count the Hillbilly Casino boys in on that ever shrinking circle.  The best part of playing a show with them is it forces you to play well so you don't look like an asshole in  comparison, and you also get to watch them play when you're done.  

Nashville is so different than when we first played there in the late 1990s.  Back then it was a sleepy mid sized city with some quaint local customs and surprisingly half assed local music scene.  There were not very many venues for people playing rock music to crowds of less than 500.  We would show up, play a disappointing show in a weak venue, and then get to Atlanta to where the real action was located.  Once in awhile you'd find a good cowboy shirt in a thrift store and have a filling meal in a "meat-n-three".  I bought an Earnest Tubb Record Store shot glass once.  That was about it.

Nashville now exists to host Bachelorette Parties.  It's a place for people that look at Lower Broadway as Jason Aldean Fantasy Camp and think the Real Housewives shows are documentaries.  Then you pop across the river.  When you get into East Nashville, it's a sea of 25 year olds that a couple decades ago would have moved to Atlanta/Chicago/LA but now goes to Brooklyn/Nashville/Austin to live their best Instagram Lives.  Nashville is now the apex of "hipster service", where if you go order an overpriced coffee someplace, you'd better buckle up because that coffee isn't coming any time soon from the indignant help that feels that this job is beneath them and they don't have to shower or put on clean clothes before going to work.  You'll get the coffee when they feel like making it, and it's almost like you asked them to make you the $8 espresso as a personal favor.  I do find something satisfying about pressing the "amount of tip-ZERO" button when I go to pay for something.  Chances are I've taken the purchased item from a cooler just like I was at a 7-11 yet the business feels justified in suggesting tipping their employees.  If you don't do anything but ring the register or hand me a cup, it's not a professional service.  Fuck the business for asking and fuck the employee that doesn't feel embarrassed in begging for the tip.  I'm a crank now and this is my role.

In the morning I picked up Basset #2, Elaine.  The breeder was located in Jackson TN, which was a great bit of serendipity.  Hector and I met her right outside of the hotel and after a brief conversation she drove off, leaving Hector and I to walk inside the hotel with the puppy and all the dog gear.  We were both aware of looking like Nashville's Newest Gay Power Couple.  As people inevitably stopped to greet the puppy, I felt like needing to explain we weren't a couple.  "Yes, we are in a band and played a show and it just worked out that we could pick up the puppy and we aren't a couple not that there's anything wrong with that..."  It didn't really go well.  We scrambled to get the van, Leo/Sugar and prepare for an eight hour drive with a 16 week old basset hound.

At the elevator I saw a couple walk out in matching Cincinnati Bengals gear.  I remembered that Cincinnati was on the road, in town to play the Titans.  I suppose there are worse ways to spend a weekend than watching one legged Joe Burrow play a toothless Titans team after a long wait for hipster coffee and digestive system churning hot chicken.  Nashville is a perfect road trip town.  It's important to know where the real places are so you don't get fleeced like a tourist Rube.  Of course, a better weekend would have been to go to London to see the Jags play the Falcons.

The Jags play in London annually, the ownership group happy to take the team on the road as no one in Florida really cares about the Jacksonville Jaguars.  Jacksonville is Toledo on the ocean.  It's a great place to buy meth, but not ideal to be a pro football fan.  Rooting for Jacksonville is like being all in on Olive Garden.  It's a faceless corporate concern meant to provide slightly entertaining but ultimately disappointing experiences for their customers.  However, since the team goes there each year, it does provide them a modest edge.  While the Jaguars opponents are trying to remember to not get run over by cars on the wrong side of the road and discovering "chips" are "fries", the Jags are over that excitement.  It's a modest edge.  And when you play the Falcons, how big of an edge do you need?  The Falcons can do one thing, run the ball.  The Jags stop the run relatively well.  I'm hoping the Jaguars aren't as bad as they've looked so far this year and can win a poorly played and forgettable game.  Jacksonville -2.5

Full disclosure.  I got on the Browns -2.5 early this week as I assumed it would go to 3.  Of course, I didn't know Watson had an injured shoulder and wouldn't practice and David Njoku would light himself on fire with a fire pit/grill or whatever the hell he did.  Who else but the Browns has a key player go on the IR because he lit himself on fire?  If a dude was going to miss a game because of a "falconry accident", it would be a Brown.  I might buy myself out of this position if I can get a sense of how hurt Watson is.  There is no way the Browns are beating the Ravens with a rookie QB and no Nick Chubb.     

Here's an easy handicap.  I am betting against the Bears because they are fucking terrible.  It was a real gift that Denver got historically blown out by 50 points last weekend, because that's the only time this year the Bears will be sitting around a 3 point underdog.  These NFL players do not take being a laughingstock well.  The Broncos defensive meetings must have been a bit tense all week.  I think Denver comes out with a max defensive effort which should be helpful against a Bears team that is fundamentally inept.  Justin Fields in three weeks went from "Dark Horse MVP Candidate" to "Total Bust" in a month.  The Bears defensive coordinator resigned "to focus on his family" which I take to mean "he pulled his weinar out at work".  It's a new regime in Chicago, so this feels like a total slash and burn coming.  They are three games in and already everyone is talking about the #1 pick in the draft.  The Broncos have to win somewhere, so why not here?  Denver -3.  

Season Record:  4-7