Live from the Grand Ole Opry

I finally got everything sorted out and drove over to the Grand Ole Opry. Not only is it a music amphitheatre, but an entire outlet mall sprung up around it. It just looks so wrong and out of place, like a spectacle in a Disney World park. I bought a ticket for tonight's show and went to the mall to kill some time.

I was surrounded by country music, NASCAR crap, christian messages and very wide people waddling slowly in front of me, slurping their milkshakes and eating fudge. Now, the people down here are very friendly, but Thank God I don't live here. I feel like I have to read a book otherwise my brain is just going to rot out from contageous stupidity.

I know I'm sterotyping southerners, but my GOD!, how much John Deere and hunting and fireworks stores can I stand to see?



It was time for the show to start and I went inside the Opry House. There I learned that I was about to see not a concert, but a live radio show that has been going on for 80 years.

Song lines overheard:

"There ain't no slow dancin' with a fast woman."

"If my nose was running money, honey, I'd blow it all on you."



I stayed for about 90 minutes. It was ok. I can cross it off the things to do before I die. Now I'm in my motel room for the night and I have to read a book. Now that I'm on my way back north maybe my brain cells will rejuvinate.

Top 10 from Billy Joe

I got into Nashville around 2:30 and went downtown to a stretch of boot shops and bars. I found one with a band and sat at the bar to listen to some good 'ol boys.

There was an old man at one of the tables drinking beers, doing shots and obviously having a very good time because every now and then he would get up and wave around his arms giving the thumbs up sign - his version of dancing.

Theres a big guy sitting at the table next to him. Long, stringy hair, scruffy beard, drunken slur. He came to talk to me at the bar. His name was Billy Joe, not William, but Billy Joe. I saw it on his union card.

Top 10 things I learned from Billy Joe

10. He grew up in Cleveland for 25 years until his parents moved to a farm in Nashvile.
9. He is a stagehand for the union for 15 years, making $30,000 a year.
8. He doesn't drive, but he got out of work early and had been sitting in the bar drinking for 2 hours and will stay until 5. That's when his mom gets out of work a few blocks away.
7. He used to keep a journal - a requirement of AA. He's quit the journal, and apparantly AA.
6. He tried to leave Nashville to go back to Cleveland, but the bounty hunter caught him.
5. Billy Joe was in prison. I don't know why.
4. He had a football scholarship until he hurt his shoulder.
3. Billy Joe was center, and he hated the quarterback's hands under his ass.
2. Billy Joe raises chinese pugs with his parents on their farm.
1. He thinks Secacus, NJ is a smelly place.


He talked to me for a while, and although he seemed harmless, I told him too much about me traveling alone and felt it was time to leave. I lied about the kind of car I drove. You know, just in case.

He tried to get the band to play "Pretty Woman" for me, but they only knew the opening riff and quickly switched to a Merle Haggard song.

I was going to go to the Grand Ole Opry, but that chicken sandwich I ate did something becaue I soon could give a shit about the Grand Ole Opry - I was more concerned about taking one.

The Music Highway

Interstate 40 between Memphis and Nashville is known as the Music Highway, according to the signs. Now I'm not much of a country music fan, but since this whole trip is themed aroung music, I'm obgligated to stop in Nashville.

On the way, I pulled off at Jackson, TN at Casey Jones' Village. Cute little tourist trap with a train museum and Old Country Store. I got myself a tasty strawberry ice cream.

Overheard:

"If you can't be good, be good at it."