Driving west of Nashville beneath its last swirling system of on and off-ramps, I noticed a large, concrete pillar in the middle of the interstate median. It was the same kind of structure that was supporting the elevated highways around it; only this ramp had somehow been misplaced, erected on a lonely vertical, its broad, sturdy wings reaching for a burden they would never carry. This purposeless statue, pompous and pitiful in its triumphant rise, oblivious to our lack of appreciation of it for holding up our sky. My own anxieties of writing for an audience shoved askew of the beautiful expressiveness of language by the flashing pace and succinct morality promised in an episode of "24" began to weigh as terribly as that tragic monolith
As it grew smaller in my sideview mirror, it occurred to me that if the inattentive contractor or city-planner who had the vision to construct this piece- and one so gleefully brimming with post-apocalyptic cynicism - had seen to name it "untitled 21" and written an abstract for it; they would have attained instant celebrity. Hope regained! Thus, as I drove the thirty miles to Fairview, Tennessee, I imagined the abandoned pillar lost in daydreams about its forestalled fame. How it imagined comporting itself before the lines of shiny vehicles packing the thoroughfare at its feet, all connoisseurs, twisting their heads through the open windows to catch a glimpse of rare brilliance. Incidentally, I was on my way to Fairview to meet a band that devotes all of its time daydreaming about its own unlikely rise to fame.
Albania Mania is milling about their school bus with cans of expired auto paint. Today’s agenda includes painting racing stripes onto the hood, painting the black bumper black, and putting the final touches on their idea to petition the U.S. government to lower the earth’s gravity. This is why, they say, they painted the exterior of the bus white. For people to sign it. They have asked me to include in this article a request for readers to, “tell us if this was a good idea or not, maybe.” They have not yet asked me for my opinion.
My first encounter with the band was on Nashville’s popular 2nd ave. I was there to cover the Country Music Awards for the afternoon when I found myself holding the door open for an elderly woman leaving Hooters. The good deed was unexpectedly augmented by a slow parade of boisterous seniors utilizing my generosity, which led to the taxing improvisation of twenty-eight distinct expressions of “you’re welcome”. They filed past and dissappeared into a tour bus, which rumbled off down the cobblestone.
As the bus ambled past, a dash of accordion notes riddled its engine’s low groan. They ricocheted off the vehicle, and peppered me from behind, as if from the outdoor speaker above the Hooter’s entrance. The speaker had been buzzing an indivisible swarm of Tim and Bill Mcgraws for the past 15 minutes, but this new sound appeared to come from some lost eastern bloc broadcast. Perhaps it had spent the last seven decades tangled in the corroded wires of the dilapidated soviet radio infrastructure, years desperately treading those crackling air waves, slogging ashore today onto 2nd Avenue, its hungry, gray life of containment now glowing in the incandescent neon cast by a sign reading "Laser Quest."
I looked up the street to locate the music. A band had formed on the sidewalk amid tourists topped with white or pink cowboy hats, pale legs bared by high denim shorts or sealed in stiff, light blue jeans, a tacky mass drifting along the concrete on a staccato sea of steel toes.
I reached them as they had begun a keening waltz, a familiar Russian melody passionately flattened by the estimations of an amateur cello player. Stooped over the cello he looked like a scarf slung. The others soon joined in with guitar, accordion, bass and clarinet. At the climax of the song, they were shouting and wailing with the melody, mutating the woeful song into a slow-motion howl of debaucherous and decidedly creepy laughter. Then, instruments comiserated and smothered the song hauntingly. I had approached with stalwart skepticism: the only part of me my many years deigned to strengthen. But, by the end of the song- to my great surprise- I was still there. They appeared to be very excited about that, as I was possibly the first pedestrian to show interest, and they all turned eagerly, eerily towards me........
back to topAfter a brief introduction and a conversation with their guitarist (one of two native english-speakers in the group), they invited me to lunch with them at their favorite local restaurant, Sam's Sushi. Lest this become a review column on dining in Nashville, I will resist the urge to say any more about this place than this: If you are ever in Nashville, please eat here. Do it quietly and unassumingly and bring as few people and opinions (unless they are backed solidly by factual information) with you as possible, but do come here to satisfy your sushi cravings. If you are lucky you will not only leave with your guts full, but your mind may be less empty as well. That is all.
web design by Chaiman\/manchaiR inc.