Dead Last? Nope...Dead's BEST!

By Peter Rodman

Hey, man..
Just got back from a Grateful Dead show!  
Oh, yeah…the LAST Grateful Dead show.
But no, I wasn’t at Soldier Field in Chicago...
I was in somebody’s living room, here in Nashville--with about a dozen earnestly appreciative and lively people of all ages, at a 'watch party,' for the pay-per-view 'live stream' of their very last concert.  
And I’m writing this blog for a number of reasons…all good. 

First: I cannot remember actually convening for such a thing in quite this way--spread around a great stereo, enjoying the vibe of unexpected solos and perfect arrangements, sharing a beer or a coke with a bunch of disparate souls there to pay homage--since…well, you’re really not gonna believe this:  
June 1, 1967.  
That was the day ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ was

released…and since Louie Feldman had the best homemade speaker system in town, that was where we all decided to gather for the great unfolding (literally) of the Beatles’ most elaborate and wildly innovative LP cover (and music) up until then. To say it was a mind-blower would be a serious understatement.

But I digress...
Here at Craig’s place, we eventually migrated from the living

room (with the 'BIG' TV) a few steps down, to the LISTENING room...with its wide array of speakers, high ceilings, feng shui perfection, and a decidedly small TV screen (compared to his other one, a postage stamp) to witness this humble bit of history:
Yep...The Grateful Dead’s very last show.  
(This, you can be forgiven for describing as a "Ripley's Believe It or Not." Ask fans of The Band, The Who, the Eagles, and even…yeah, yeah, yeah...the Beatles--who miraculously exhumed John Lennon in 1995, for one last record…and then…WHOA!...another one.) 
The mysteries of this 'historic' era of ours abound, as we all know.
Meanwhile back in NearSouth Nashville...
It took about two hours, before everybody got downstairs to actually LISTEN to the show, and several

This is us in Craig's living room, earlier tonight--June 5, 2015.
...NO it isn't!  This is the crowd at a Grateful Dead show in
Boulder's 'Folsom Field,' during September of 1972.
Photograph Copyright 1972/2015 by Peter Rodman.

aspects of this experience floored me--the first being that 15 year old kid inside me, who emerged fully formed this evening--in a room full of people I knew only about as well as I knew Louie Feldman’s friends, 48 years ago.
Next was the utterly unexpected magnificence of the music--some of which I’d heard/seen on YouTube the previous night and in recent days--but none of which came close to the stellar interplay between the players, on this, their final night.
Yep. 
It actually took ’em this many 'Fare Thee Well’ shows to completely perfect the vibe they were going for…and if you ask me, the Grateful Dead hit it out da park, Sunday night.
It was a walk-off grand slam.  
And it unfolded like a precious piece of origami, well beyond the 'bar tricks' skillset of any of the Chicago bartenders undoubtedly standing there in Soldier Field, actually watching them in person.

 Not to be too reverent about it... there were, of course,

Until tonight, this is the girl I saw every single Grateful
Dead show with, from '68 to '82 or so. I know what
you're thinking: Was she blind, or what? 
How she ended up with me, I do not know.
But call me sexist: every Dead Head needs a
Dead Head Babe...and quite frankly, it was
she who turned me on to them, with 'Anthem of the Sun,'
back in '68. That's some pretty amazing stuff! 
(...the music, too.)

several points of humor to be found…and although me and my friends kept the snark to a bare minimum, a pan-and-scan view of those gray-hairs dancing at field level drew the biggest spontaneous eruption of laughter, on this particular night. 
“It’s so nice of them to play a nursing home,” I quipped.
And then I zipped it.
Why?
Because great music, well rendered, perfectly mixed, and brilliantly edited leaves not much room for anything else but awe. (And I swear, this thing looked like a completely edited movie already …amazingly so!) 

I’ve seen the Dead more times than would be fair to mention.
Honest, I'm not tryin' to "one up" ya...it's just that you get old, and what the hell other advantage does that give you, but "I was there in '68?"   So forgive me, but the highlight reel starts there.

Getting rained on for six or
seven hours straight was almost like
an Initiation Rite, for Deadheads.
By 1972, I felt like a Charter Member!

They include the Fillmore East '68 show (Anthem of the Sun!), Boulder in '72 (See pics...I still call it 'The Bertha Tour'), Red Rocks (it was the '70s, man...like, I don't recall the actual year...is that okaaay, or what, maaan?) and 1980...when they literally did have only "A Touch of Grey."  
Add to that a few one-on-one interviews--most notably with Bob Weir, an affable and easy goin' guy (who unfortunately tends to stiffen up a bit, once the mic is turned on) and there you have it.
I never considered myself a ‘Deadhead’ per say, but I guess my bona fides are as good as any but the craziest fanatics, whom even the band couldn't really stand being around, for very long.* See interview clip, at the bottom of this page.

Folsom Field~ Boulder, Colorado, 1972
Photograph Copyright 1972/2015 by Peter Rodman.

     

These kids actually quit their jobs to live in vans, surf friends' couches, and bathe (if they bathed at all) in local streams from coast to coast, just so they wouldn't miss a single lick of Jerry’s guitar brilliance…which was NOT always brilliant, but was always adventurous--although you couldn't convince his most spaced-out acolytes of anything but that he was a God.
Then they'd black out at the show, essentially missing the whole thing they swore they'd never miss! 
And this wasn't just a few people either...it was a known fact, the 'Medic Tent' at Dead shows was always busier than any 'merch table' you've ever seen.  Dozens and dozens and dozens of casualties, ranging from simple dehydration to serious drug overdoses.
Even Bob Weir found this aspect of their fan worship disturbing, back when we first talked in the '70s--and he worried aloud that Jerry Garcia (already an uncomfortable icon, then) might eventually succumb to the whim of some disturbed (or even 'overly generous') fan. 

Let me be brutally honest with you.
I loved the Dead before they 'went commercial' (with Workingman's Dead-- their 1970 bow to Crosby, Stills and  Nash--and the first Dead record with concise songs, detailed harmonies and a semblance of structure) which, at the time, enraged their hardcore fans. 
And I liked 'em even better after that.
But as me and my girlfriend became older--after college, after group houses, after our 'experimentation' phase gave way to watching All in the Family and telling Sting I had to wrap it up early, because I wanted to go home to bed--well, those "live" Dead audiences became a nuisance I was just a whole lot less interested in being near. 
In fairness to me, please understand--Boulder was the Hippie Capital of America, in the early '70s.
And running a groovy record store 'On the Hill' in that town--which had become the specific 'Mecca' for druggies, misfits, dreamers, and street people--it got harder and harder to want to stand around smelling piss and body odor, while some guy puked next to you, and another guy had a bright gold beard, inadvertently spray-painted while he huffed his way to oblivion.
I no longer wanted to stand for six hours in a seat-free football field covered in a plastic tarp that retained every drop of rain to protect the field--but not you--during a day-long downpour. No thanks, man!  Even the array of braless or bare-breasted young women 'space-dancing' nearby lost its appeal for me, when their armpit hair was thicker than mine.  
Guess I got 'old,' right about then...

I never blamed the band; why would I?
I just got sick and tired of patchouli oil, which makes me wretch, to this day. 
Did I ever leave the music? 
Not really...although on the air, I'd sometimes resist catering to the stoners who incessantly requested one Dead song after another, sometimes calling 20 times in a row, as if they had no record player at home, and forgot all about their previous 19 calls.
Again, not my thing...sorry!

But the Grateful Dead's music was always cool.
And backstage, these guys were 'just a band'--as much as any group of folks who've got a big gig, but still just wanna have fun. 
There were feats of musical brilliance along the way.  
At some point, for example, Bob Weir became quite an adept lead player, to compensate for Jerry's indulgences or indifference...and then, they'd trade roles again, depending on where they each were in their lives. 
It went like that.  Each tour, another couple guys in this band 'stepped up' and took charge, musically--and their 'jam band' reputation gave everybody onstage permission to fail. 
That was key.
Overall, they succeeded more than they failed; I can attest to that.
 
Fast-forward to Sunday night, in my friend Craig's listening room.

Having watched Trey Anastasio with Hornsby and Lesh and Kreutzmann and Hart (and oh yeah, sometimes Bobby) I gotta say, this "Dead Last" concert was the perfect culmination to it all.
The big surprise was that none of it was 'concise,' but all of it made sense, musically. More than probably any Dead concert I've ever been to, these were purposefully elevated, sophisticated jams--not just aimless noodling in search of one brilliant moment.
It was at once a blessed moment in the band's history and a great summation, but also an adventurous high-wire act all its own (though a lot less shaky than they used to be), quite worthy of their legacy.
But most of all?  
My reaction was...“You coulda fooled me!” 
This was LIVE???
That, to me, is the mind-blower here. 
 
Despite the laughably horrid pre-show ticket mess-ups, all the obvious 'age jokes,' and the turbo-charged marketing (you could pre-order the box set of this weekend’s shows before they ever happened--a rather unprecedented bit of hubris)…
They actually pulled it off!
 
Again, Sunday night's show was as good as any I ever saw the original band do.  In some ways, better.
In fact it was so good, it actually made me sad that this band-- having finally found their 'legs' with Anastacio and Hornsby after Garcia’s death (it only took, what...21 years?) are not gonna continue performing, with this configuration.
Because they really should.
 

Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, and Phil Lesh--pictured here 43 years ago, in Boulder Colorado during 1972--closed out their career as The Grateful Dead on Sunday night, along with drummer Mickey Hart (not pictured)--on July 5, 2015 in Chicago's Soldier Field.
Photograph Copyright 1972/2015 by Peter Rodman. All Rights Reserved.

Here's my Big Statement:
Their final show was in some ways, their best ever.
 
And the video! The flawless on-the-fly video direction was as spectacular as any riff played onstage. Whoever the director was, he or she deserves an Academy Award--because although it was happening in real time, what we saw was on par with the best rock concert movies ever made.
I can only guess they all knew it would be good, but had no idea it would be this good. 
Oh, I'm sure they hoped...and you know they prepared.
They most assuredly outlined and mapped things out, pretty well in advance--unlike the old daze.  They set certain musical boundaries, signals, and sound checks in advance…sure.  Even a few 'dry runs,' in California, and two shows earlier in the weekend.
All that.
But NOBODY could have pre-printed a recipe for the kind of perfect musical conversation and in-the-pocket sound mix we saw Sunday night.
Trey Anastasio's Gretsch was tweaked to perfectly replicate Jerry Garcia’s sound, but...he added a concise 'crackle' all his own. 
Bruce Hornsby was only 'showy' when it was called for, and both keyboards wove magic with the guitars, all night long.  Phil Lesh’s six (or was it 8?) string bass played a central role…and at one point during Mickey Hart's percussion showcase, my friend Craig turned up the sound system, to emphasize the moment for his guests:
“This is his LAST solo!”


I’ll admit, I came into this affair as much for the great chili and camaraderie, as anything else.

Normally, the thought of  watching anything on TV with a group of people is enough to send me out to make an appointment for elective orthodontia work. (“Sorry, can’t make it--I’m getting’ a whole new rack o’ chompers, tonight!”)

But I left this event feeling we’d all witnessed history-- not even so much for the occasion as for the pinnacle of a performance between some risk-taking players who, in the greatest Grateful Dead tradition, essentially pulled off a musical ‘Man on Wire’ stunt for all who saw the show, either in person or at home.
Bravo, Grateful Dead!

Now, if I may…my only other snarky line of the night:
It came as I studied Bob Weir’s 'grizzly bear' beard, and watched his workmanlike (but rather joyless) gait, in direct contrast to Trey Anastasio or Phil Lesh or Bruce Hornsby or Bill Kreutzmann or Mickey Hart, who seemed utterly blissful throughout.  Not that he wasn't good--without that amazing voice, this night would not have been the same.  But it was surprisingly, uhhh... minor, to the over all picture.
In fairness, Bob’s had a tough couple of years, health wise.
Okay, to the giggle...  

What cracked me up was his shirt.
It was just a sort of dirty, unadorned, plain green undershirt.
Whether or not he’d had it on all week, I don’t know.  But at some point it occurred to me, this guy had to get up this morning (or afternoon, as the case may be) and actually say, “I think I’ll wear this one, for our last-ever show.  Yeah.  Perfect.”

Peter Rodman and Bob Weir...May, 1979...Boulder, Colorado.
Photographs Copyright 1979/ 2015 by The Peter Rodman Radio Archive.

For some reason, that thought cracked me up. And despite myriad opportunities to change it (he left the stage for at least a half hour during Hart's drum solo) he never did.  "No, no...this shirt is perfect."
It kinda was.
The album (and the DVDs, which I can attest will also be perfect) are out November 10th, in at least six or seven separate configurations--and can be pre-ordered now, at the band’s website.    Highly recommended.

Too bad for you, though...
You cannot pre-order Craig’s home made chili.
But it, too, comes highly recommended. 


______________________________________________________________

This Opinion Column Copyright 2015 by Peter Rodman. 
All Rights Reserved.
___________________________________________________________
Here's the Bob Weir chat from 1979.
Please, NO "sharing" of this COPYRIGHTED sound recording.
It is not legal to edit, reuse, or broadcast, share or transmit in ANY way, without express written permission from me--which you ain't gettin'. Just enjoy it here, okay? Thanks! =)
BOB WEIR talks to PETER RODMAN--May 19, 1979.
WARNING: Copyrighted material!
This sound recording is Copyright 1979/2015bySNPR/ThePeterRodmanRadioArchive. All Rights Reserved.

Mayor Dean takes a Dump on South Nashville

By Peter Rodman

Here's the SHORT version of this blog: 
If you OPPOSE the arrogant way this thing is being pushed through, with virtually NO community input, you need to join the hundreds of citizens who plan to be at the downtown Courthouse tonight, to make themselves heard.
Sheriff Daron Hall has repeatedly poo-pooed any need for such input, saying "WE've already studied it!" and "The Council has known about this for a year!", as if the citizens are just garden variety pests, kicking up dirt in His Eminence's fiefdom, and slowing down an already-determined outcome.  He's not just confident or 'cocky' about it; he's downright irritated, that we-the-people have any say in the matter, at all. 
We don't need to move the jail.
We need to renovate it.  
Downtown needs a jail--as do all major cities in America.  Even the Mayor's favorite "model" cities--Portland and Seattle, after which he likes to model his growth--BOTH have downtown jail facilities! 
Be reminded, this is a mayor who hasn't even found a way to open a grocery store downtown yet--even though almost 100,000 new residents now live in all those massive new condos! 
Is there even a drugstore down there? A hardware store? Nope. 
He'll have none of it.
Just hotels, condos, souvenir shops, venues, and honky tonks. 
You'd be forgiven for thinking downtown Nashville now resembles a theme park, more than it does an actual city.

It would be just as cost efficient to tear down the jail and build a new one right there, where it's needed, as it would to ferry hundreds of prisoners a night, back and forth on a 20 mile round trip journey, forever after.


                                    [END OF SHORT VERSION.]
___________________________________

Beginning of lengthy, detailed version:

Mayor Dean takes a Dump on South Nashville


By Peter Rodman


To be sure, a lot of great improvements have been made

to our city, during Mayor Dean’s tenure--but it could easily be argued that most of these projects were simply the "logical next steps" any Mayor would have taken, given the exploding profile a prime time series gave this town.
Unfortunately, the Mayor's penchant for 'bright and shiny objects' with instant rewards has often distracted him from securing the nuts and bolts of a truly major city, which Nashville has (rather suddenly) become.
The truth is, we are woefully unprepared for all this growth.
Mass transit is non-existent here. 
And major capital projects have been almost exclusively aimed at certain 'favored' areas, under Mayor Dean: 
The Gulch, East Nashville, West End, and Downtown.  
Even his proposed 'AMP' bus lane system--a poor excuse for 'mass transit,' if ever there was one--inexplicably shut out North and South Nashville, and became an entirely east-west proposal, linking the privileged, from West End to the Cumberland River.
This was particularly galling to the city's existing bus riders, consisting mainly of full time workers living on the north and south edges of town, who need real mass transit from the least wealthy areas, to downtown--in order to clean hotel rooms, serve dinners, bus tables, and work the cash registers that collect all those tourist dollars.

Those of us living and working in what I call 'Near South Nashville' --the area bordered by Franklin Pike on the west, Old Hickory Blvd. on the south, Antioch Pike on the east, and Thompson Lane/Murfreesboro Road at the north end--are beginning to see a pattern in this Mayor's "favored neighborhoods"...and for us, it’s not a good one.
The Mayor’s “chosen areas” get gilded over and over again, as though needing constant reinvention…while Near South Nashville has become his most neglected, and some might say even abused, stepchild.
Every section of town he has paid attention to has seen property values rise exponentially,  while 'Near South' area home values have remained relatively flat.
This, despite being less than six miles straight down 2nd and 4th Avenues (which both become Nolensville Road, to the south) from downtown. 
What is the reason why home buyers haven't flooded the area?  Crime isn't particularly high here--certainly nothing like North or east Nashville...so what could it be?
Neglect, that's what.
Codes are rarely enforced, so multiple immigrant families sometimes cram into single family dwellings, unbothered by Metro's useless 'statutes' at all. 
Corporate headquarters are planted either smack in the middle of downtown, or way out of the area--even though ample space (and unrivaled proximity) should logically favor the 'Near South' area.  

But the biggest problem is the attitude, coming from City Hall.
Because many citizens and immigrants don't speak English as a first language, it's assumed they are the majority here...which isn't so. 
As a result, the only projects allocated to us are always "ethnically based" tokens, to provide handy photo-ops for politicians, instead of lifting up the whole area.
Nothing new or shiny happens here, and that's a direct result of Mayor Dean's own preference, to go where developers tell him to go, and solidify his legacy by picking all the easy, low-hanging fruit...most of it, downtown.
Face it:  There were no residential buildings there to speak of, a decade ago.  It was easy pickin's, once ABC's hit series Nashville put the real Nashville on the map.


But as mentioned earlier, whenever a problem arises, it’s ours, here in South or 'Near South' Nashville. 

And whenever we need something fixed, it’s moved!
Greer Stadium?  Gone.  
These guys in the picture below lost their jobs, when the Mayor packed it in, and split for Sulphur Dells...

Workers at Greer Stadium, on their last night.
August 27, 2014
Photograph Copyright 2014 by Peter Rodman.

State Fair? Gone.
Now it's a lowly flea market, on its best days.  
Meanwhile, all we get down here is spillover--essentially the WASTE from other areas. 
The Nashville Speedway will almost certainly be the next to go. 

It's no coincidence that Green Hills Mall has been transformed into what feels an architect's drawing, with idyllic sidewalks and fake 'streets' to accommodate its pricey new specialty shops and restaurants, and people walking around like illustrations, next to its toy-like trees.  
But wither Bellevue Mall, or Hickory Hollow Mall?
Today they are massive ghost towns, and the reasons lead you right to Mayor Dean's doorstep.
Oh, sure...the internet has killed many indoor shopping malls nationwide, it's true.

Hickory Hollow Mall~ May, 2015 Photograph by Peter Rodman.
It should be re-named 'The Mayor Dean Mall,'
if only as a way of prodding him to pay more attention,
because THIS is as much his 'legacy' as any skyscrapers downtown.

But the surrounding, extremely dense condo development allowed outside Hickory Hollow Mall crammed  first-time condo buyers right on top of each other, so cramped and close together that even upwardly mobile families soon found themselves without enough space for their kids to find anything but trouble...much of it at that mall, just down the hill from their shiny, new, cheaply stacked, lushly carpeted, townhome-cum-ghetto.
Would ANY of that massive development have been allowed in East Nashville? 
Not on your life!
Even a single oversized home permit east of the Cumberland usually draws the kind of 'connected' complaints that find their way to City Hall, in many cases sending would-be developers packing. 
And where do they usually go?
To the area of least resistance: 
'South Nashville'...better known as Antioch.

This Mayor let developers run roughshod down there, ruining the beauty of the hills and creating a hangout for disaffected kids that ended the Hickory Hollow Mall, far faster than internet commerce ever could have--and almost all the surrounding retail, which was substantial, is gone too.
On Mayor Karl Dean's watch, this place became a ghost town.
But we’re supposed to celebrate Hizzonor's benevolence in bringing tiny patches of this vacant monstrosity back to life-- as an ice rink or a library, on a lot so vast that a recent citizens' meeting there--to protest the moving of our city jail--found even savvy media members flummoxed by its remote location, in the eerily haunted setting...the 'Global Mall,' a post apocalyptic movie set from another globe altogether, once known as Hickory Hollow.

Mayor Dean...YOU OWN THIS!

Birds swooped overhead, as a Channel 2 cameraman asked of the few passersby, "Excuse me...do you know where the meeting hall is? I sure wish there was someone to ask in here...but there's not even a sign, anywhere!"
All he got were shrugs.
Look around you.  You see a dying Antioch.
Property values? Gone.


There are malls that haven't quite closed, like 100 Oaks. Again, that one's in Near South Nashville--at least 10 miles closer to town than Antioch--and has become a wacky hybrid between off-brand 'doh-doh bird' retailers (Burlington Coat Factory, Electronic Express) and spillover testing facilities from Vanderbilt Hospital.
Even the hospital itself seems to have dumped just the most mundane, mind-numbing testing facilities in 'Vanderbilt at 100 Oaks.' 

It is against that backdrop that Mayor Dean and County Sheriff Hall dropped a shitbomb on South and Near South Nashville that nobody expected--and nearly nobody wants--the proposed importing of the City Jail to our suburban neighborhood.
After quietly commissioning a bogus 35 page "study" to affirm their already-made decision, they offered no other specific alternate locations to the one on Harding Place.
In all 35 pages, only generalities (like "North Nashville") are given, with guesstimate costs accompanying each one-- whereas  ONLY Harding Place seems to ever have been seriously considered, in actual detail. 

At the very outset, the most logical choice--staying put downtown--was discarded.
No comprehensive study of renovations at the downtown jail was ever done. 
That facility holds 2,000 prisoners...and handles up to 200 fresh ones a night, most of whom are arrested within a few blocks of the building...that's right:  Downtown.
Mayor Dean and Sheriff Hall--both 'no shows' at every community meeting about this--say it should be summarily shut down, and the building and property sold to the highest bidder. 
As mentioned above, they then propose to move the jail to Harding Place, in residential 'Near South Nashville,' where the South Precinct Metro Nashville Police Headquarters currently resides.
Now, get this...because it's an amazing sleight-of-hand:
After building a MASSIVE new prison facility there, they propose to move the South Precinct 10 miles further down the road, to guess where: 
Hickory Hollow, or thereabouts...in Antioch.

All of this is peachy, if you're a sheriff who's grown tired of his

Sheriff Daron Hall's empty seat at the 'Global Mall'
community meeting, May 27, 2015.  Claiming 'scheduling'
problems, he nevertheless found time to talk to all the
local TV stations 'live,' on that night's 5 o'clock news.
The citizens' meeting was attended by hundreds,
who had hoped to question him about his plans
to move the jail into their area. It took place at 6:30.

decrepit building downtown...or if you fancy the long, quiet rides with arrestees of all sorts each night, all night, back and forth from the courthouse and 2nd Avenue to Harding Place in Near South Nashville. 
Or...if you don't like oversight.  Which our Davidson County Sheriff's Department notoriously does. not. like.
 
Let's forget about how many cops it takes off the streets and for how long every night, as the uniformed taxi service ferries perps in and out of town--first at night, when all the action takes place; and then, the next morning, back into town for court appearances! 
Forget how many squad cars this will tie up.  
Forget how many fewer officers will be available to answer citizen calls.  
Forget all that gas, amounting to millions a year, when a 20 mile round trip accompanies every single arrest, 24/7/365, back and forth, back and forth, just so the Sheriff and his boys have a cushier place to call home.

The Mayor and the Sheriff have unilaterally (without almost ANY community input) decided to dump downtown’s nightly crime problems on Near South Nashville--muggers, thieves, drunks, rapists--every single night of the year, so our beloved tourists won’t have to look at them. But once bonded out of jail, where will they find themselves?

One of dozens of children who walked into
a recent community meeting about moving the jail
holding signs that said stuff like, "KIDS LIVES MATTER.'

They'll be stuck on Harding Place, surrounded by a host of new bond businesses which will follow the jail here.  And they'll be left to wait at one of a very few bus stops for our fabulous twice-a-day city buses to take them...somewhere. 
Roughly 7,000 new prisoners a year will be in this situation.
Do you think they'll sit patiently at that bus stop, waiting six or more hours?
Or might they...well...y'know..."look around a little?"
Maybe take a walk...maybe canvass the neighborhood for easy marks?
If it only happens one percent of the time that this results in a significant crime, that's SEVENTY significant new crimes, gifted to a suburban neighborhood that's struggled WITHOUT the Mayor's help (so far) to lift itself out of poverty and crime, and to build new alliances among homeowners.

Thanks, Mayor Dean.
Thanks for nothing.
Now, your problems--all generated downtown--will be well out of your lovely tourist area, and smack dab in the middle of ours.
You know...at first, with all your resources directed at downtown, the Gulch, East Nashville, West End, and Sulphur Dells--we felt like abandoned step-children.
But now it seems we’re just a toilet, for whatever waste you generate down where all the money comes and goes. 
 
Make no mistake:  This is all about 'image.'
In a city whose idea of 'planning' has created a downtown fantasy land for tourists (and naïve condo buyers) without a single grocery or hardware or drug store, we mustn’t ruffle the feathers of our city fathers!
“We know best,” the Sheriff tells us, over and over, but really…what does he know about cities? 
No other major city in America has a downtown living area without so much as a place to buy toothpaste, a loaf of bread, or (God forbid!)...a screwdriver. 
What kind of theme park has Mayor Dean created, down there? 
And now, you want no jail...
So you give it to us?

No, thanks!
It’s OUR turn to share in this city’s prosperity.  It’s our turn to have some REALLY nice projects, not “ethnically based” stuff so politicians can get a photo-op…but
We deserve prosperity-based projects, as gleaming and as gorgeous as all the stuff OUR tax dollars---and corporate tax breaks---have subsidized in downtown Nashville.
How about some of that stuff along Nolensville Road, and Harding Place?  
Jail, my friends, isn’t what we have in mind. 
We could use RAILS…not JAILS.

Just the temerity of exporting your downtown crime problems to an area which has struggled (without any help) to lift itself up from blight, is ranklesome.
We haven't done too badly on our own down here, either--despite being tagged as ‘Scary Walmart,’ in the (more than slightly racist) Hipster’s 'Map of Nashville' that floated around the internet, a couple years back.
I’ll tell you something:
When Harding Mall closed, that Walmart saved us.
It replaced all those jobs and then some--and to this day we know all the faces of the folks working there, because ours is a friendly neighborhood.
So while it may not be trendy enough for Five Points, it's a basic need this area had, after Kroger abandoned us.  Not everyone can afford to be so choosy about which life raft to grab.
Ours is a working class area, and it's on the rise.
But it can’t stay that way with handcuffs on--either figuratively or literally.
And we’ve gotten no help from you, Mayor Dean!

What’s even more insulting is that you propose to REPLACE our 'Near South' area police headquarters with that jail, and move the precinct 10 miles away...increasing call times by who-knows-how-much!
It seems obvious that moving the precinct we need here further away will unduly increase our police response times. It’s a lot longer ride from there to here.
Can I confidently feel like, say, a noise complaint...or a traffic incident...or a suspicious prowler will be caught in time, when squad cars are based ten miles away from my area?
Just because you lump it all together as 'South Nashville' doesn't make it so.
'Near South Nashville' is as far from Antioch as Bellevue is from the 5 Spot, in East Nashville.  You'd never group that whole area as one, and yet...we're all lumped together.

All the extra tourist money Nashville has attracted of late has been, as mentioned at the top of this column, a net positive.
But our beloved downtown tourist trap attracts not only business and buildings--it also 'attracts' our police force, stretching them to the limit and beyond. 
Leaving us...here in Near South Nashville…where? 
Nowhere.

Which is where that squad car will be, while transporting perps from downtown to the holding tank, to the court house and back.
Pretty soon we’ll be running a uniformed taxi service for crooks, instead of watching over each neighborhood and dealing with its problems locally, as we should, not centrally.  

I submit to you that this concept is a BAD idea, and only exports trouble from downtown to the Harding Place/Nolensville Road area, where we LEAST need it…and to paraphrase Taylor Swift, it  would "NEVER, EVER, EVER" be allowed in:
The Gulch, East Nashville, Belle Meade, or West End…and now...not even downtown…all of which are (not coincidentally) Mayor Dean's "pet areas." 

Please, stop using us a garbage pail, and WAKE UP! 
There’s much more to Near South Nashville than just pretending you tolerate it. 



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This opinion column and all photographs herein are Copyright 2015 by Peter Rodman. All Rights Reserved.  No portion herein may be copied or used in any manner without express written permission from the copyright holder.

Bob Dylan delivers "All the Truth in the World"

By Peter Rodman

Three Bob Dylan fans walk into a bar. First one says, “I’ll have a beer. Import, please…” Second one says, “No imports here; gimme a Bud Light!” 
Third one says, “Nothing here is of any import.”  

Bob Dylan at Tennessee Performing Arts Center, Nashville ~ April 27, 2015
 Photograph Copyright 2015 by Peter Rodman.

The most common kind of Bob Dylan fan still finds it charming to declare him inscrutable, mock his churlish ways, and happily say, “I’ll never figure him out, but I love him anyway!” 
A rarer kind thinks it’s much more simple to picture him as a human. What if the man just wants to live his life, entertain the people (if they’re entertained by what he does), get away from all the myth-making, and tell the truth, wherever practical?
These days, he often begins his sets with “Things Have Changed”:

“I’ve been trying to get as far away from myself as I can
Some things are too hot to touch
The human mind can only stand so much…”

Bob himself seems like that second kind of 'Dylan fan.'
He’s laid it all out there for everyone to see, but they still don’t see it. Or they don't want to.
And hey, that’s okay with him…you can only give so much.

“People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, but I’m out of range
I used to care…
But things have changed.”

No wonder either, that his only early-period blockbuster in this whole concert (“Blowin’ in the Wind”) finally showed up second-to-last as a piano-based saloon song, bookended by standards. 
Personal Confession #1:
With every bone in my body (and I am serious here), I had to resist the urge to shout out “BALTIMORE!”  during a lull in "Blowin' in the Wind." (Referring to the week's unrest there...

...because things haven’t changed all that much, it sometimes seems.)

But Bob has, and quite frankly I’m happy I didn't succomb to the urge to make him be what he used to be, and no longer can be.  Besides, I hate people who shout out things at concerts. (Recent Jackson Browne tours have become so unbearable, I won't be back--no matter how good Jackson is.)

Think about this for a second:  Had he wanted to, Bob Dylan could have built his later years into a sports-arena farce, full of grandiosity, aided by audio tricks, and gilded with carefully ginned-up adulation.  In short, he could easily make a far better living,  pretending to be ‘Rope Line Bob, of Olde.’
But the truth is, that Bob never survived 1966.
This one did.
For many years during the ‘80s, he seemed to straddle the fence between his own image, flopping around like a freshly caught fish...and his growing personal reality.  Watch, as Stevie Wonder famously coaches him in How to Sing like the OLD Bob Dylan, on 1985’s “We Are the World”:

Probably the last glimpse of Ye Olde Bob was the Traveling Wilburys, done partly to appease his pal (and lifelong devotee) George Harrison, and partly just to see if he could dig a true collaboration.
Even then, the so-called 'Never Ending Tour' had already begun…and somehow, the carny-like lure of medium-sized halls, state fairs, county roads and classic diners ultimately won out.

Long Live Ye Olde Bob!  

Ye Olde Bob is dead.

The above is a National Lampoon radio parody, from the mid '70s.

And so it is, that 'Mr. Dylan' has enjoyed a steady rollin’ road life ever since. 
Nashville has venues galore.
Bob could play any of ‘em he wants. He’s done the Ryman, but no longer even does that.
Instead, he’s played every dump from Greer Stadium (former home of minor league baseball's Nashville Sounds) to the impossibly cavernous and outdated ‘Auditorium Theatre,’ one of those concrete cow palaces that would be better off razed.
So TPAC (The Tennessee Performing Arts Center) was this year’s (perfectly hoary) compromise between upscale comfort and neo parking garage ambiance. It normally hosts kitschy road companies performing Broadway shows, like Phantom or (good heavens!) Kinky Boots, and its decidedly churchy crowds don't seem to mind feeling dwarfed inside what feels like a carpeted Bundt-cake mold.
Audiences here are used to having their patience tested.
Besides, it’s virtually across the street from the last classic American hotel in town, The Hermitage.
Bingo. Bob's here!
If there’s one thing Bob knows, it’s classic Americana--and I'm not talking about some lately-concocted musical genre.
After spending the first five years of his career deifying the Dust Bowl (and then leavin' it, to rock a little), Dylan disappeared behind the Rolling Thunder Pancake & Folk Circus, which began a curious left-turn toward life as Repertory Bob, only to circle back later.

The Nashville show was no surprise to never-left-him Bob watchers, which made it a disappointment to others.

And it was a huge surprise to the tuned-out-but-still-curious Bob Watchers, who forgot that he hasn't played guitar on stage for years, thus their (slightly outdated) disappointment.
Still more folks can't understand why Bob won't adhere to his own melodies as originally written, choosing instead to rewrite them every single time he sings them.
I fall somewhere in between, but wasn’t too disappointed at all--other than not being able to take pictures…which has admittedly become my main hobby now, as a full time hobby horse (retiree).  
                   
The 'show' was more than adequate, by classic American standards. (All puns intended.)
If you're still happy merely attending a show, as are most TPAC patrons on most nights, presumably you weren’t  obsessing on cell phone pictures or making YouTube videos, selfies and texts. 
If, however, you are among the millions who now demand such self-generated amenities from your paid-seat universe, join the disappointed.
Over all, it cannot be denied: 
Bob aimed to please.
There was a nifty version of  “She Belongs to Me,” which always reminds me of a sexy trumpet player I briefly dated, in the ‘90s. 

(I don't care if it was written 30 years earlier...I choose to believe it was about her.  I also like imagining that Bob was talking about the 'Madonna,' when he sang "and Madonna, she still has not showed..." in 1965. Not possible?  You say. See? Myths are fun!) 
Another plus was his articulation, far more accommodating and discernable than it has been in years.
The point is, it may not look like it to a spoiled forever, I-want-it-all crowd, but he's really trying up there, the band is quite good, and for cryin' out loud...he'll turn 74 in a couple weeks!
If you’re pleased enough with a sit-there-and-listen atmosphere, this'll do.
Bob provides other accommodations, too. 
Ya want t-shirts and trinkets?  We got ’em! 
Dylan swag was reasonably priced, as were the show tickets (top price, under $150) and not much time or money was wasted on designing those shirts, because Bob clearly believes they’ll end up in your son’s dresser drawer anyway.
Is he wrong? I don't think so. 
Same for the $20 posters that say
“IN SHOW~ IN CONCERT” with a “your city here” spot filled in at the bottom, to (sort of) personalize them.

The top of the poster said
"IN SHOW~ CONCERT"
but that part is cut off, here...

This is the kind of traveling show that dates back to 19th century America …and Bob Dylan knows that.  He knows just where he stands.
He is "in concert," for some.
He is in “show,” (or on display, not unlike Buffalo Bill was) for others.
Bob wants you all to know, he knows all that. 

Whatever ya like, people…Bob’s here to please.
That the merch resembles tossed-off ephemera is no accident. It's good enough, for what it is.
Heck, even Steven Tyler lined up to buy some.

Let nothing distract from the here and now, right?
And right here, right now, Bob's gonna play us some songs.
So please…once again, if we may…no photographs, no movies, no cameras, no texting…just ignore the extra burly ‘help’ TPAC has hired for this occasion, to watch over you. (Lucky for me, on the few occasions when he parked himself directly in front of the blinding floor emergency light beside my seat, I could almost make out Bob Dylan onstage!)

Chinese Dylan Album~ Photograph Copyright 2008 by Peter Rodman.

I no longer ascribe 'evasion' to Dylan as a motive, at all. 
In fact, I think the opposite: He’s been trying to be himself for a lot of years now, but we still won’t let him. 
Though as smart and as thoughtful as any man on the planet, he’s a simple guy at heart.
Or at least he longs to be...I think.
At this point, Bob knows history doesn’t matter as much as it used to, including his own. (I wish I knew that, so I could avoid writing, now that I'm not getting paid for it anymore!)
But that's just it.
To illustrate just how much time has changed our perspective...
Back in 1977, famed 'Beat poet' and Dylan confidante Allen Ginsberg visited my radio show, and said modern day poets should never assume Dylan hadn't studied all that came before him.  "I mean, they shouldn't be too dumb," he said, half-jokingly. "It's like saying, 'Do you think Dylan should have heard some folk songs, before he started writing his own?' Well, naturally! 

Your intrepid writer, at the opening
of the Country Music Hall of Fame's
'Dylan, Cash, and the Nashville Cats'
exhibit. ~ March, 2015

He started by adapting (very old) folk songs. And nowadays, what he's got on his book shelf is A Child's Ballads, which is a collection of classic English ballads, put together in the 18th or 19th century. What Dylan knows, is that everybody should know as much as they can.  They should certainly not be dumb."
I sometimes wonder what Ginsberg might say about that today, in our post-historic, glorify-the-dumb society--giddily riding out its descent, without a concern in the world...or for it.
"Nowadays," as Allen once called it, we live day by day...by idiotic day.
Bob knows this. 
And unlike Ginsberg, he has lived to see it all.
Back when the above National Lampoon parody was done, it was literally unimaginable to think Bob Dylan might "go commercial," which is what made it so funny. To hear it today, you can almost believe it's real. 
By today's standards, Bob hasn't sold out at all--though there were those TV ads for Greek yogurt, Victoria's Secret, Chrysler, and Cadillac. 
So why not a Christmas album?

Why not an album of Sinatra covers, even if his voice croaks more than croons these days, making even Leonard Cohen seem melodic?

Can't a man have any fun anymore?
As John Mellencamp once put it (in the world’s greatest-ever album title):  Nothin’ Matters…and What if it Did?

This is where we are in America, circa 2015.
Unlearning lessons that took 200 hard years to learn, about everything from vaccines to unions, and gun control to governance itself.  If that's not the "decline and fall of," I don't know what is. All I know is, there seems little need to learn anything anymore, in a country that would rather cave in to stupidity and bigotry than open up to the world around them.  The idiocracy values selfies more than science, and web page construction more than sentence construction, giving every nut with a so-called smartphone the chance to chime in like they've suddenly got a better idea. 
Yes, I am 'a walking antique.'
But even taken in that context, Bob saw all this coming way before I did. 
“All the truth in the world," he sings......

".......................adds up to one big lie.”

He knew interviews no longer mattered by the late ‘60s, long before I'd ever done my first one, and two full decades before the one above. He already knew images would fade, and should fade--including his own.  He knew that success is a temporary gift, usually given (and taken away) way too soon before the last breath is drawn--and carelessly wasted, unless you truly are more careful than you used to be.

They say he’s inscrutable.  Elusive.
Mysterious, and all that.
I no longer believe that for a minute.
It’s all right there in front of us. 
In fact, the guy’s pouring his heart out, right there on stage, and it’s ours for the taking...until the show’s over.

This is a Big Picture guy.  He’s thinking in terms of the universe, knowing his own (universe) is small, consisting only of what can actually be seen and heard and touched, in a single day.  These days Bob goes for walks, unrecognized in almost every city he plays. More than once, however, he's been mistaken for a vagabond. (Could that be more perfect?) Once, he was picked up outside Bruce Springsteen's boyhood home, staring into the yard, late at night.  

Just after finishing his reinvented version of “Blowin’ in the Wind” (which I somehow identified, in less than a minute!) he closed the show with a straightforward plea to the audience, lifted right off an old Frank Sinatra record:

“Should my heart not be humble
Should my eyes fail to see
Should my feet sometimes stumble on the way,
Stay with me.”
It very much recalled his own song, “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’,” which had shown up earlier in the night:
“Just as long as you stay with me
The world is my throne
Beyond here lies nothin’~
Nothin’ we can call our own.”

See?  Bob’s soul was right there all along, for the taking.
His warts 'n all mortality freely admitted, but no longer of special concern. Better to wear out your welcome than to flame out, as per Neil Young's instruction.
We've been mighty lucky to have heroes like Bob--as self-aware and unimpressed with his own hype as possible, given the fun-house mirror we insist he use. In his last years, he seems eager to rejoin and physically touch the world around him, dutifully lowering expectations, decades after serving his time in the Stuperstar Army.
Though it does not sit well with souvenir seekers, I like this approach just fine. 
"Since you went away the days grow long
And soon I'll hear old winter's song
But I miss you most of all my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall..."

If you enjoyed spending some idle time in a dimly lit room  with Bob the other night, you probably loved the show.  If you were looking for idol time, well...maybe not so much.


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This Opinion Column is Copyright 2015 by Peter Rodman. All Rights Reserved.