July 2016 Murfreesboro Pulse

SPORTS Blue Raiders nominated for ESPY award for best upset

JULY 2016 | VOL. 11, ISSUE 7 | FREE

NEWS Meet the candidates for new General Sessions Judge

Middle Tennessee’s Source for Art, Entertainment and Culture News

Macon History Bluegrass great DOYLE LAWSON to perform at this year’s Uncle Dave Macon Days SCHEDULE INSIDE!

ALSO IN MUSIC

GREG REISH

talks about Uncle Dave Days & his latest album

JAKE'S CYMBAL REPAIR, AYE MAMMOTH, UBERPHONICS, JUSTIN REED, GUITAR WORKSHOP & MORE!

Contents

Word from the Editor IN CAPITALIZATION NEWS, THE LATEST

MURFREESBORO PULSE | JULY 2016

42

THE GRASCALS

Features

6

10

CYMBAL REPAIR

Area drummer Jake Winebrenner breathes new life into cymbals.

MAKE BONNAROO GREAT AGAIN

Fest still inspires many fans to radiate positivity.

14

12

DRUM SOME

Rythmists gather for Make Music Day; Lester continues the beat each Saturday.

24

14

UNCLE DAVE MACON DAYS

Annual Bluegrass festival brings pickers and cloggers to Cannonsburgh.

28

30

MEET THE CANDIDATES

AURELIUS

First short film

by MTSU alum lands in 2016 film festivals.

Candidates in the running for Rutherford County General Sessions Judge.

In Every Issue

4

MUSIC NOTES

Events THIS MONTH

Big Holly Home; Flick ’n’ Float; Splash Out and more!

Guitar Workshop Plus; Souther Girls Rock Camp; Justin Reed Show and more.

Sounds LOCAL CONCERTS

Ashleigh Caudill Trio Tok, Vamptones, Hurts to Laugh and more!

ALBUM REVIEWS

Uberphonics; Aye Mammoth

AROUND TOWN

MOVIES

Opinion

Reviews

22

Now You See Me: The Second Act; Independence Day: Resurgence

GARDENING

LIVING ROOM CINEMA

Living

9

26

Keeping the Marauders Out; The Tomato

24

Food

Spooky’s Pizza now haunts Walter Hill area.

In Their Own Words

’Boro Business Buzz

34

THE STOCKARD REPORT

Sheriff snuck out the back door, but charges aren’t going away.

32

BUSINESS BUILDER

News

Write outstanding headlines.

MURFREESBORO TRIBUNE

CONSUMER VS. CORPORATION

History Department removes ‘History’ from name.

VIEWS OF A CONSERVATIVE

Obama erases references to Islam from terrorist equation.

40

Sports MTSU SPORTS

Blue Raiders nominated for best upset ESPY SPORTS TALK

Patriotic moments in sports history.

BBB may be able to help with a dispute.

VISIT US AT BOROPULSE.COM FOR MORE!

Publisher/ Editor in Chief: Bracken Mayo

Art Director: Sarah Mayo Copy Editor: Steve Morley

Advertising: Jeff Brown Don Clark Leslie Russell Yost

Contributors: Dylan Skye Aycock, Sam Clemens, John Connor Coulston, Greg Crittenden, Joseph Kathmann, Zach Maxfield, Anne Mercer, Robert Ritch, Justin Reed, Manny Santana, Elizabeth Sawyer, Edwina Shannon, Jay Spight, Justin Stokes, Andrea Stockard, Sam Stockard, Norbert Thiemann, Phil Valentine; Patsy Weiler

To carry the PULSE at your business, or submit letters, stories and photography: bracken@boropulse.com 10 N. Public Square, Murfreesboro, TN 37130 (615) 796-6248

Copyright © 2016, The Murfreesboro Pulse, 10 N. Public Square, Murfreesboro, TN 37130.

Proudly owned, operated and published the first Thursday of each month by the Mayo family; printed by Franklin Web Printing Co. The Murfreesboro Pulse is a free publication funded by our advertisers. Views expressed in the Pulse do not necessarily reflect the views of the publishers. ISSN: 1940-378X

Sign up to receive our weekly digital newsletter at BoroPulse.com/Newsletter

ON THE COVER: DOYLE LAWSON BY SANDLIN GAITHER; PAGE 3: BONNAROO-GOER BY SCOTT WALKER/WGNS RADIO

THIS MONTH: UNCLE DAVE MACON DAYS VIEW SCHEDULE

edition of the AP Stylebook, released last month, instructs the lowercasisazation (take that, English police!) of the word “internet.” After calling for capitalization of the word—handled as a proper noun, short for the “International Network” of computers—until this year, the good folks at the AP Stylebook have decided the internet is just as present and ingrained into earth’s culture as “sun” or “sea” and saved everyone an unnecessary press of the shift key when typing it henceforth.

Live your life like you are on a reality show, and enter your internet search terms as if they are public record.

Because you may be on camera right now, and someone may be going through your search history. Really, it may indeed be happening.

Plus, this strategy may keep everyone from doing some awful things, if they thought everyone else may be watching them. People seem to act a little more respectfully when they have to put on their public face.

Free sun! All month, worldwide. While supplies last.

Enjoy. I can’t take credit for it, but I do want to remind you to take advantage of it.

The horrible shooting at Pulse nightclub in Florida reminds those who may attend concerts, sporting events or patronize clubs where the venue’s “security” seems primarily on hand to make sure the crowd doesn’t bring in their own drinks, or that someone doesn’t try to crowd surf, are pitifully ill-equipped to handle any sort of active shooter situThe Editor ation. If someone does breach drums some. the gates with an assault weapon, the attendees, unfortunately, are fish in a barrel.

The group of legal professionals running for the new judgeship contains a great diversity, not just talking about young and old, black and white, male and female (which is true as well), but each candidate has a unique background and perspective on the legal system. It has been interesting learning about their views and having some real dialogue about criminal justice.

I am doing my best to never have to appear before a judge . . . but many in the community will have to, and we need someone focused on improving life for all, not just funneling as many individuals as possible through a money-making or control scheme.

Another point: since so much money is being taken from those going through the system, why is it that that the sheriff’s office, police department and jail are such a multimillion-dollar drain on the taxpayers (with the “conservative” sheriff asking for more and more as each year passes)?

Within the past few weeks I was lucky enough to have taken in Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros in Cumberland Caverns as part of the Bluegrass Underground series, Warren Haynes and the Nashville Symphony Orchestra performing a tribute to the Grateful Dead, and the Bonnaroo merriment. What will be next?

Radiate positivity!

Let go of the ego and let pure love flow through.

Peace, BRACKEN MAYO Publisher/Editor in Chief BOROPULSE.COM

* JULY 2016 * 3

Events COMPILED BY

ANDREA STOCKARD

Send event information to murfreesboropulse@yahoo.com

THROUGHOUT JULY DINOSAURS: LAND OF FIRE AND ICE EXHIBIT Visit prehistoric times with face-to-face interactions with dinosaurs at the Discovery Center (502 SE Broad St.) as you put on an insect costume, buzz around a swampy bog, coast down an icy slide and dig for fossils. The exhibit features an immersive learning environment divided into three sections: two dinosaur habitats (warm and cold environments) and a field research station.

The dinosaur environments include the flora and fauna believed to be present 65–70 million years ago, during the end of the Cretaceous Period, and represent areas that are now part of North America. For more information, call (615) 890-2300 or visit explorethedc.org.

THROUGHOUT JULY STUFF THE BUS/DROP YOUR DRAWERS The United Way of Rutherford and Cannon Counties is collecting items to assemble back-to-school kits for children pre-K through fifth grade. The United Way has increased corporate and community collection sites to reach its goal of providing 5,000 children with kits containing resources that students need to encourage school readiness.

Items needed include crayons (24-count Crayola), scissors (Fiskar), composition or spiral notebooks with wide-ruled paper, glue sticks (Elmer’s), folders with pockets and prongs, one-inch three-ring binders and Expo dry-erase markers. Drop-off locations include City Auto, DoubleTree by Hilton, Hilton Garden Inn, Publix, Rutherford County Chamber of Commerce and Tangerine Salon and Spa. Visit yourlocaluw.org for the full list of participants.

Additionally, other area businesses including The Block, Cultivate Coworking and Dreaming in Color are collecting socks and underwear for children, as some teachers have pointed out that many lowincome families in the area do not keep their children stocked up on those items, so “drop your drawers”(new, of course), socks and underwear at those locations to help out area children in need.

TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS RUTHERFORD COUNTY FARMERS’ MARKET Join market vendors from more than 20 Middle Tennessee counties with a wide 4 * JULY 2016 * BOROPULSE.COM

variety of seasonal fruits and vegetables, meats, eggs, baked and canned goods, flowers, plants and more from 7 a.m.–noon each Tuesday and Friday at Lane Agri-Park (315 John R. Rice Blvd.). For more information, call (615) 898-7710.

SATURDAYS MAIN STREET SATURDAY MARKET Join vendors on the west, north and south sides of the historic Rutherford County Courthouse for local fresh fruits, vegetables, breads, meats, and flowers from 8 a.m.–noon each Saturday. For more information, call (615) 895-1887 or visit downtownmurfreesboro.com.

SATURDAYS SMYRNA DEPOT FARMERS’ MARKET Enjoy local produce, dairy products, meat and more at the Smyrna Depot (98 Front St.) from 8 a.m.—noon each Saturday. For more information, call (615) 330-0516.

JULY 9 AND 23 HALLOWED GROUND: A LANTERN TOUR OF THE STONES RIVER NATIONAL CEMETERY Spend an hour walking through the cemetery of Stones River National Battlefield (1563 N. Thompson Ln.) by lantern light at 7:45 p.m. Saturdays July 9 and 23 while hearing the stories of soldiers and civilians of the Civil War. Make reservations in advance. For more information, call (615) 893-9501 or visit nps.gov/stri.

JULY 11 & 25 NASHVILLE ASSOCIATION OF SALES PROFESSIONALS The Nashville Association of Sales Professionals invites all area sales professionals to NASP Net, a networking and referral group, the second and fourth Monday of each month at the Embassy Suites Hotel Restaurant (1200 Conference Dr.) beginning at 11 a.m.

There is no cost to participate, but lunch is available to purchase for those who choose to eat. For more information, visit nashvillenasp.org or contact (615) 397-3052 or jfurbush@gobbb.org.

JULY 11–15 CODE CAMP Rock Springs Middle School (3301 Rock Springs Rd., Smyrna) hosts a Code Camp

JULY 9

Historic Home to Host Celebration The home of Gordon and Sara Bell, known as Big Holly, celebrates its 150th anniversary this year, and the Bells invite the community to an open-house celebration from 3–7 p.m. on Saturday, July 9. The home, located at 718 N. Maney Ave., was constructed in 1866.

The now 200-year-old American holly tree that was at the previous building is still growing, and is how the name Big Holly originated.

In 1892, the style of the home was changed to Queen Anne. The roof was raised, and electrical and gas lighting was installed. The outdoor kitchen was joined to the main house by a pantry, and a bathroom with hot and cold running water was located above the kitchen.

In the early 1960s, the home was vacated and vandalized, unauthorized parties took place.

Gordon and Sara Bell purchased the property in 1997 and began a painstaking restoration of the brick home. The home will be open to the public from 3–7 p.m. on Saturday, July 9. Admission is free, and barbecue will be served (no charge, but contributions accepted). for middle school students July 11–15.

Tennessee Code Camps are educational, five-day programs that strive to create a fun, engaging and immersive environment in which students are challenged to think about technology. The program teaches students to create with code, giving students the resources needed to become leaders in the high-tech Tennessee workforce. Code Camps teach real-life application, encourage entrepreneurship and creativity and teach client-side

interaction. For more information, visit rutherfordchamber.org.

JULY 12 BUSINESS AFTER HOURS The Rutherford County Chamber of Commerce presents Business After Hours at Creekside at Three Rivers Assisted Living (2744 Ashers Fork Dr., Murfreesboro) from 5–7 p.m. on Tuesday, July 12. Business After Hours is an informal, social networking event designed to connect busi-

THROUGHOUT JULY

Movies Under the Stars

Bring your blankets or lawn chairs and the whole family to Murfreesboro’s outdoor movie series every week beginning at 8:30 p.m. nightly. Admission is free, and the locations are: Mondays—Cason Lane Trailhead (1100 Cason Trail); Tuesdays—Cannonsburgh Village (312 S. Front St.); Thursdays—Siegel Neighborhood Park (515 Cherry Ln.); Fridays—Mitchell Neilson Primary (1303 Jones Blvd.); Saturdays—Hobgood Elementary School (307 S. Baird Ln.).

JULY 5–9: Goosebumps (PG) JULY 11–15: Flipper’s New Adventure (G) JULY 18–23: Wall-E (G) JULY 25–30: Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (PG) For more information, contact (615) 890-5333 or recreation@murfreesborotn.gov.

ness professionals from across Rutherford County. Rockslide will provide live entertainment this month, and Creekside’s resident chef will provide the gourmet fare. For more information, visit rutherfordchamber.org.

and Oaklands Park (901 N. Maney Ave.) from 6:30–10 p.m. Friday, July 22, with Southern-fried chicken, catfish and all the fixins, music on the veranda by The Knott Brothers and special tastings by Prichard’s Distillery. Enjoy a tour through the mansion.

For more information, find Oaklands July Jamboree on Facebook, or contact (615) 893-0022 or info@oaklandsmuseum.org.

JULY 13 FLICK ’N’ FLOAT Come out to Sports*Com’s outdoor pool (2310 Memorial Blvd.) from 7–10 p.m. on Wednesday, July 13, for a movie (movie begins at 8:30 p.m.). Bring your own float for the pool or a blanket to watch poolside. For more information, call (615) 890-5333.

JULY 28 BUSINESS BEFORE HOURS The Rutherford County Chamber of Commerce presents Business Before Hours on Thursday, July 28, from 7:30–9 a.m. at DoubleTree by Hilton (1850 Old Fort Pkwy.). Join area business leaders as DoubleTree Hotel takes guests to Breakfast at Tiffany’s. For more information, visit rutherfordchamber.org.

JULY 14 SPLASH OUT! Cool off under the spray from the Murfreesboro Fire and Rescue Department at Old Fort Park, Pavilion #1 (403 Overall St.) from 1:30–3 p.m. on Thursday, July 14. Wear clothes and shoes to get wet in, and don’t forget your sunscreen and towel.

Admission is free. Parents, plan to stay with your children and enjoy the water, too. For more information, call (615) 893-2141.

JULY 16 AND 30

JULY 29

Hot Rod Club The Murfreesboro Hot Rod Club meets at Central Magnet High School, 701 E. Main St., from 5–9 p.m. on Saturdays July 16 and 30. The fun includes music, door prizes, food, games and more. Find photos of past cruise-ins and club information at 4mhrc.net. For more information, call Dale at (615) 405-5271 or Sandra at (615) 556-0547.

JULY 15 COFFEE WITH THE VETERANS Join Operation Adopt a Hero at Cultivate Coworking (107 W. Lytle St.) from 7:30–9 a.m. on the third Friday of each month for Coffee with the Veterans, an informal, social networking event designed to foster friendships between local veterans and their community. Enjoy coffee, pastries and the chance to meet and mingle with our service members and their families. For more information, call (615) 893-6565.

JULY 15 3RD FRIDAY NIGHT CONCERT AT CANNONSBURGH VILLAGE Come out and bring your lawn chairs or a blanket for outdoor music and dancing at Cannonsburgh Village (312 S. Front St.) from 7–9 p.m. on Friday, July 15. For more information, call (615) 890-0355.

JULY 15 ISLAND FUN RUN Help celebrate National Parks and Recreation Month with a fun run (one-mile route as many times as you would like) at the Gateway Island and Reception Center island (1875 W. College St.) from 7–8 p.m. on Friday, July 15, with music, prizes and more.

Admission is free. For more information, call (615) 890-5333.

JULY 15 LIONS CLUB SPAGHETTI DINNER The Murfreesboro Lions Club invites you to a Spaghetti Dinner fundraiser to benefit their Lions Sight Programs from 4–8 p.m. on Friday, July 15, at Murfreesboro Lions Club House (407 Hickerson Dr., Cannonsburgh

Village). Admission is $8 and children 5 and under are free. Tickets are available by calling (615) 295-2605 or (615) 895-8282, or by visiting 1602 W. Northfield Blvd., Suite 503.

JULY 15–17 MURFREESBORO ANTIQUE SHOW Enjoy this longstanding Murfreesboro tradition with some of the finest antique dealers from across the country at MTSU’s Murphy Center (2650 Middle Tennessee Blvd.) on Friday and Saturday, July 15 and 16, from 10 a.m.–6 p.m., and Sunday, July 17, from 11 a.m.–4 p.m. Admission is $7 for all three days with parking included. For more information, call (615) 319-2085 or visit murfreesboroantiqueshow.com.

casual, no-obligation event, where they can meet other small-business owners and tap into one another’s experience and energy.

An open roundtable discussion will encourage participation from those in attendance, asking them to articulate their vision for their business and calling for examples of some of the business challenges and solutions they are experiencing. The series will continue the third Thursday of each month.

JULY 22 OAKLANDS JULY JAMBOREE Oaklands Mansion holds its Summer Picnic Party on the grounds of Oaklands Mansion

DRINK & DUNGEON Join Robert Schwalb and Michael Bielaczyc for a night of gaming, old fantasy movies, and drinks at The Block (123 SE Broad St.) at 9 p.m. Friday, July 29, with featured systems Shadow of the Demon Lord and SagaBorn. Enjoy an art show featuring local fantasy artists Paul Bielaczyc, Sam Flegal and Melissa Gay. For more information, find a Drink and Dungeon event on Facebook.

JULY 30 SCHOOL OF ROCK Participate in exciting projects while learning about different aspects of geology at Earth Experience: The Middle Tennessee Museum of Natural History (816 Old Salem Rd.) from 11 a.m.–4 p.m. (last group starts at 3 p.m.) Saturday, July 30. For more information, call (615) 605-1417 or visit theearthexperience.org.

JULY 16 DEWDROP JAMBOREE Dewdrop Jamboree features live music showcasing a varied and colorful cast of local and regional guest musical artists performing old and new favorites across multiple musical genres at the Washington Theatre, Patterson Park (521 Mercury Blvd.) at 6 p.m. Saturday, July 16. Admission is $10 for adults and $5 for children.

For more information, call (615) 542-6427.

JULY 21 THE CONNECTION, BUSINESS NETWORKING AT MAYDAY The Connection: an Evening of Professional Networking and Business Brainstorming will be held from 5–7 p.m. on Thursday, July 21, at Mayday Brewery, 521 Old Salem Rd. All Middle Tennessee entrepreneurs and professionals are welcome to attend this

JULY 29

Movies in the Park

Enjoy the hit kids’ movie Zootopia (PG) at Rotary Soccer Park (300 Soccer Way, Smyrna) with food vendors, inflatables and train rides on Friday, July 29. Gates open at 5:30 p.m. with the movie at dusk (approx. 7:30 p.m.). For more information, call (615) 459-9773.

BOROPULSE.COM

* JULY 2016 * 5

Sounds

Read more about local music at

BoroPulse.com/Category/Music

O

n many days, 38-year-old drummer Jake Winebrenner’s office is onstage or in the recording studio with local bands like Flea Market Hustlers or Rhythm Kitchen. On other days, it’s at Process Welding Systems, a welding company located in LaVergne, Tennessee.

However, when Winebrenner’s not working his day job or night job, he’s tucked away in a back room at Process Welding Systems repairing cymbals for clients from Nashville and across the world. Winebrenner—a musician, father and welder—can now add another name to the list: cymbal repairman. And, as far as he can tell, he may be the only one.

“It’s a fluke,” Winebrenner explained. “This wasn’t an idea I had stored in my head until I could find the right equipment . . . I found the right equipment and then the idea was born.”

Less than a decade ago, then-owner Tony Childers hired Winebrenner shortly after he moved to Middle Tennessee from Auburn, Ind. At the time, he says he shared the story of many struggling musicians and needed an additional source of income to fuel his drumming career. Winebrenner, who worked as a carpenter for most of his young adult life, says Childers welcomed him to the company and taught him everything he now knows about welding.

“I told him that I’m not the employee he was looking for,” he says. “I was out on tour half the week, but [Childers] didn’t listen to me. He saw something in me and hired me anyway.”

Childers then introduced Winebrenner to a machine that forever changed the way he looks at cymbals. The machine, unlike others in the shop, uses a laser to fuse materials together and was rarely used until Winebrenner noticed it could potentially repair cymbals.

One day, Winebrenner brought a cracked vintage cymbal to work and put his plan to action.

“I had this vintage cymbal I had used on every recording,” Winebrenner says. “I wanted to use that cymbal for the rest of my life. It has sentimental value, it has mojo, it talks to me.

So I brought it in and started working on it.”

Up until his first days at Process Welding Systems, Winebrenner says he had no prior welding experience. In addition to a lot of practice on the machine, he says he spent many nights browsing Google and having conversations with cymbal companies and friends in the music industry before he felt comfortable working on other musicians’ cymbals.

“Different companies use a different alloy recipe,” Winebrenner explained. “It was my job to get really scientific and decide which recipes were used for each cymbal.”

6 * JULY 2016 * BOROPULSE.COM

Doctor Crash Cymbal Repair by Jake breathes new life into cracked cymbals.

STORY AND PHOTOS BY DYLAN SKYE AYCOCK “It’s like going to the doctor with a broken arm,” he continued. “Everybody’s bone break is going to have a different healing plan. Cymbals are no different.”

Winebrenner says his cymbal repair business is strictly word of mouth, however, that

hasn’t kept musicians, including high-profile artists, from discovering his business. Last summer, Winebrenner received an inquiry from Ben Folds to repair his ’50s Istanbul K cymbal, a cymbal used on his 2001 album Rockin’ the Suburbs and every album since.

After Winebrenner completed the repair, he delivered the cymbal in person to the historic Studio A recording studio on Music Row in Nashville, where Folds then shared stories about the cymbal. In addition to Folds, he has worked on cymbals for George Sluppick, the original drummer for JJ Grey & Mofro, and several others. Winebrenner says there have recently been talks about repairing a cymbal belonging to the Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts.

“We’re not talking about any cymbal here,” Winebrenner says. “This one has seen it all . . . so many Rolling Stones records. It only has a tiny crack, but it could go at any moment.”

Winebrenner says being one of the only cymbal repair businesses has its perks. In addition to networking with fellow drummers from all over the world, he’s also had the opportunity to meet some of his idols. Whether the customer is well-known and plays the cymbal every night or it’s just a collectible, he says he treats every order the same.

“I’ve been given the opportunity to work on equipment that belongs to drummers I look up to, and that’s not something I even had on my radar a few years ago,” he says.

“I’m a drummer first, so I don’t look at this from a welder’s standpoint. I’m going to be reasonable and honest.”

For now, Winebrenner, who juggles a full-time job, family time and weekly performances, says he maintains orders as he has time to work on them. Until he sees an influx in repairs, he says he will continue to run the business through word-of-mouth and his Facebook page.

“My business is fueled by people saying ‘there’s this guy who can repair your cymbal’ or ‘there’s a guy who can make your cymbal crash again,’” Winebrenner added. “That’s all I can do until it becomes something more.”

Winebrenner says he hopes to turn the cymbal repair business into a full-time job one day, whether it’s in the next few years or during his retirement. At the moment, it’s just him, a cymbal and the machine.

“This is a one-man show,” he says. “Right now it’s a small business, but one day it may be my main source of income and the very thing that fuels my drumming career.”

Winebrenner can be contacted at jmbwine brenner@gmail.com or at Cymbal Repair by Jake on Facebook.

BOROPULSE.COM

* JULY 2016 * 7

ENTERTAINMENT

DJ, BINGO, TRIVIA & KARAOKE NIGHTS  MONDAYS AHART’S PIZZA GARDEN Trivia, 6:30 p.m.

BUNGANUT PIG Trivia, 7 p.m.

LEVEL III Trivia, 7–9 p.m.

 TUESDAYS BOB’S BBQ Trivia, 6–8 p.m.

BUNGANUT PIG Karaoke, 7:00 p.m.

NACHOS Trivia, 7 p.m.

OLD CHICAGO Trivia, 9 p.m.

THE BORO Karaoke, 8:30–p.m.–12 a.m.

TGI FRIDAY’S Trivia, 9 p.m.

8 * JULY 2016 * BOROPULSE.COM

HANDLEBARS DJ Mikey Mike, 6 p.m.

MT BOTTLE Karaoke, 9 p.m.–3 a.m.

LEVEL III Trivia, 7 p.m.

PHAT BOYZ Karaoke, 8 p.m.

NOBODY’S Trivia, 7 and 9:30 p.m.

WHISKEY DIX DJ Cliffy D, 8 p.m.

PHAT BOYZ Karaoke, 7 p.m.

 SATURDAYS

SAM’S SPORTS GRILL Trivia, 8 p.m.

STATION GRILL Trivia, 7 p.m.

 THURSDAYS CAMPUS PUB Trivia, 6:15 and 8:15 p.m.

NOBODY’S Karaoke, 9:15 p.m.–12:30 a.m.

SPORTS SEASONS Trivia, 7 p.m.

WHISKEY DIX DJ Cliffy D, 8 p.m.

 WEDNESDAYS

 FRIDAYS

CAMPUS PUB Karaoke, 10 p.m.–2:30 a.m.

LIQUID SMOKE DJ Night, 10 p.m.

MELLOW MUSHROOM Trivia, 8 p.m.

HANDLEBARS DJ Mikey Mike, 8:30 p.m.

CAMPUS PUB Karaoke, 10 p.m.–2:30 a.m.

LA SIESTA (CHURCH ST.) Karaoke, 6 p.m.

NACHOS Trivia, 7 p.m.

NOBODY’S Karaoke, 9:15 p.m.–12:30 a.m.

WHISKEY DIX DJ Cliffy D, 8 p.m.

 SUNDAYS O’POSSUMS Trivia, 8 p.m.

SAM’S SPORTS GRILL Trivia, 8 p.m.



Send entertainment information to

Listings@BoroPulse.com

Concerts JULY 2016

IF YOU GO: Bird Song Studio 213 West High St., Woodbury 615-772-6432

Send show listings to Listings@BoroPulse.com View the monthly concert schedule online:

Bunganut Pig 1602 W. Northfield Blvd.

893-7860

BOROPULSE.COM/CONCERTS BUNGANUT PIG

Hoo Doo Men

THE BLOCK

California Cousins, The Verge, Harper and the Bears, The Touch

THURS, 7/7

BUNGANUT PIG

Pass the Mic

MAIN STREET MUSIC

Russell Moore and IIIrd Tyme Out, Glade City Rounders, Jesse Kramer

NACHO’S MEXICAN RESTAURANT

Ivan LaFever

Regime, As Yourself

Coconut Bay Café 210 Stones River Mall Blvd.

494-0504

THE BORO

Bikini Car Wash

SUN, 7/10

BUNGANUT PIG

Sunday Night Soul Sessions

ASHLEIGH CAUDILL TRIO

THE BLOCK

Robyn Taylor’s Country & Bluegrass Jam

WED, 7/13

BIRD SONG STUDIO

Robyn Taylor, Bri Murphy

THE BLOCK

People Zoo, Slumberjack

THE BLOCK

THURS. 7/14

THE BORO

NACHO’S MEXICAN RESTAURANT

A Night for Eva: RA Benefit Concert All-star jam with Stuart Montez

FRI, 7/8

FRIDAY, 7/15 @ BIRD SONG STUDIO

The Ashleigh Caudill Trio will bring its gentle acoustic string sounds to Bird Song Studio’s Bluegrass In The Hills Series on Friday, July 15. A Colorado native, Caudill attended Boston’s Berklee College Of Music before coming to Middle Tennessee and continuing to develop her passion for songwriting, clawhammer banjo and bass, and is now promoting her recent release, Looney Bird. Check out some of Caudill’s work at ashleighcaudill.com; get tickets and learn more about the church-turned-listening room Bird Song Studio at thebirdsongstudio.com.

BUNGANUT PIG

Pass the Mic Ivan LaFever

THE BLOCK

THE BLOCK

MAYDAY BREWERY

THE BLOCK

Dewdrop Jamboree

NOBODY’S

THE BORO

Main St. Music 527 W. Main St. 440-2425

TEMPT

BUNGANUT PIG

FRI. 7/15

THE BLOCK

COCONUT BAY CAFE

Scott Free Band

SUN, 7/17

Sunday Night Soul Sessions

Melt, Zeke Beats

MAYDAY BREWERY

BIRD SONG STUDIO

NOBODY’S

BUNGANUT PIG

THE BLOCK

COCONUT BAY CAFE

Brittany Opperman The Mesa Project Pinion, Ladybird, The Strumms, The Mad Gear

SAT, 7/9

BUNGANUT PIG

Rockbox

CANNONSBURGH VILLAGE

Uncle Dave Macon Days

MAYDAY BREWERY

The Worried Minds

PHAT BOYZ

Ashleigh Caudill Trio Marshall Creek Zone Status

THE BLOCK

Ataruu, Sic Semper Tyrannis, Behold the Slaughter

SAT, 7/16

BIRD SONG STUDIO

Maybe April

Two Fresh, Skinny B, Comatosik, Suit Up

COCONUT BAY CAFE

Dream at Midnight, Shutdown Tactic, Stone Cold Fire,

Ragged Co DJ RDP

MAYDAY BREWERY

Stephen Simmons

PHAT BOYZ

Graham Anthem

Junkbox

THE BLOCK

Day Drive, The Old Paints

THE BORO

The Accidental Trio

THE GOAT

Jake Beavers and Jaysen Gold

SAT, 7/23

Terror Pigeon, Nathan K., Tomato Dodgers, Apathy Wizards All-star jam with Ross Maynard

FRI, 7/29

BUNGANUT PIG

Casual Exchange

COCONUT BAY CAFE

Karaoke with Hitman Walker

Hoo Doo Men

COCONUT BAY CAFE

MAYDAY BREWERY

Sonder, Maschine

MAYDAY BREWERY

NOBODY’S

THURS, 7/21

BUNGANUT PIG

Pass the Mic

NACHO’S MEXICAN RESTAURANT

Ivan LaFever

THE BLOCK

Static Pop

Graham Anthem Band

The Glade City Rounders, Frank Rische, The Harmaleighs, The Festivus Players

PHAT BOYZ

Junkbox

THE BLOCK

BUNGANUT PIG

Sunday Night Soul Sessions

THE BLOCK

Robyn Taylor’s Country & Bluegrass Jam

WED, 7/27

BUNGANUT PIG

SAT., 7/30 @ THE BLOCK

Jake Beavers and Jaysen Gold

THE BORO

The Trep Agency

PULSE

PICK

THE BORO

Antler Hopkins, SunSap

SAT, 7/30

BUNGANUT PIG

First Ave. Band

MAYDAY BREWERY

SUN, 7/24

BUNGANUT PIG

Marshall Creek Band

The Creeping Cruds

All-star jam with Stuart Montez

FRI, 7/22

Accidental Trio

MAIN STREET MUSIC

THE BORO

THE BORO

Big Smo and Friends

Another Dead Saint, Lost Generation, Ashford

Obelisk, Dischordia, Pinion

TOK, VAMPTONES, HURTS TO LAUGH The Block will be filled with a barrage of punk rock on July 30 as Tok comes to town from St. Louis, joining Middle Tennessee’s own Vamptones and Hurts to Laugh. Look for Tok’s video featuring marshmallow bunnies set to their tune “Cult Hero” at facebook.com/tokandroll.

8 Ball Aitken

Ivan LaFever

MAIN STREET MUSIC

THE BLOCK

Ragged Company

Crossroads

BUNGANUT PIG

NOBODY’S

BUNGANUT PIG

THE BLOCK

WED, 7/20

MAYDAY BREWERY

Scott Steele

TEMPT

Robyn Taylor’s Country & Bluegrass Jam (brunch); J. Buck album release party

BUNGANUT PIG

Will Payne Harrison

Level III 114 S. Maple St. 615-900-3754 Liquid Smoke #2 Public Square 217-7822

CANNONSBURGH VILLAGE

Uncle Dave Macon Days

JoZoara 536 N. Thompson Ln. 962-7175

NACHO’S MEXICAN RESTAURANT

THE BORO

All-star jam with Ross Maynard

Hippie Hill 8627 Burks Hollow Rd. 796-3697

COCONUT BAY CAFE

BUNGANUT PIG

Mixtape ’80s Band

Handlebars 2601 E. Main St. 890-5661

Battle Path, Ire & Uprise, Forgotten Grey, Neptune The Mystic

PATTERSON PARK

Open Mic

My July

ASHLEIGH CAUDILL BY SCOTT SIMONTACCHI

WED, 7/6

THURS, 7/28 BUNGANUT PIG

Pass the Mic

Falcon One, Fable Cry, Flummox, Mutual Groove Blind Honey Bees

PHAT BOYZ

Matt Nichols Band

TEMPT

Battle of the Bands

THE BLOCK

Vamptones, Tok, Hurts to Laugh

THE BORO

Al Deluca, Delivery Boyz

SUN, 7/31

BUNGANUT PIG

Sunday Night Soul Sessions

THE BLOCK

Robyn Taylor’s Country & Bluegrass Jam, R&B Hip Hop Night

Mayday Brewery 521 Old Salem Hwy. 479-9722 MTSU Wright Music Building 1439 Faulkinberry Dr. 898-2469 Nacho’s 2962 S. Rutherford Blvd.

907-2700 Patterson Park 521 Mercury Blvd.

893-7439 Phat Boyz 4425 Woodbury Pike 615-546-4526 Tempt 211 W. Main St. 615-225-7757 The Alley 223 W. Main St. 203-3498 The Boro Bar & Grill 1211 Greenland Dr. 895-4800 The Block 123 SE Broad St. 393-9935 The Wheel 534 SE Broad St. 295-2862 Wall Street 121 N. Maple St. 867-9090

BOROPULSE.COM

* JULY 2016 * 9

Sounds

Read more about local music at

BoroPulse.com/Category/Music

MAKE BONNAROO GREAT AGAIN What a long, strange trip it’s been.

STORY BY BRACKEN MAYO

JOHN MAYER AND BOB WEIR

BONNAROO ATTENDEE

 FOR MORE BONNAROO PHOTOS, VISIT BOROPULSE.COM

“I JUST WANT TO LOVE EVERYONE and be friends with everyone,” a Bonnaroo attendee smilingly exclaimed during a particularly inspiring Death Cab for Cutie set at the 2016 ’Roo. This jubilant public expression served as a suitable reminder to those surrounding this music-loving young man that in the midst of all of Bonnaroo’s social media check-ins, bag searches, sunburns, recreational drugs, funny socks and freak flags, that the music and community experience can be so mind-blowingly awesome that an overwhelming feeling of pure love and musical glee can come over an individual. No doubt, he is not the first to experience a mid-concert philosophical revelation in this Tennessee field in the hot, hot summertime (try telling the Bonnaroovians that the festival is technically held in spring . . . ), injecting some joy, love and creativity into a perhaps stale worldview.

Later that evening, The Dead and Company closed the festival out in true jam-band fashion as the legendary group welcomed former member Ms. Donna Jean Godchaux onto the massive Which Stage for a little throwback to the hippie festivals of yesterdecade.

The Dead and Company, which features original Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann alongside John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge and Jeff Chimenti, did not repeat a single song within the first four concerts of the band’s 2016 summer tour. Some of the Deadheads witnessing 10 * JULY 2016 * BOROPULSE.COM

the Bonnaroo set couldn’t have been happier with the selected mix of Dead classics they got to hear, including “Bertha,” “Terrapin Station,” “Shakedown Street,” “The Other One,” “Tennessee Jed,” “Help on the Way/Slipknot/ Franklin’s Tower,” “Scarlet Begonias,” “Truckin’,” “Casey Jones,” “Fire on the Mountain,” “Touch of Grey” and more.

Way back in 1995, the Grateful Dead lost a large piece of its soul when Jerry Garcia died following a packed early-year touring schedule; that same summer Pearl Jam was touring across the world in support of itsVitalogy release (while boycotting Ticketmaster, of course). But here we are, 21 years later, and the two groups topped the bill at Bonnaroo, to the delight of both children of the jam-rock BAND OF HORSES

and grunge-rock eras.

LCD Soundsystem, the Friday night headliner at Great Stage Park (as the What Stage is sometimes known) celebrated a reunion itself. After a busy decade of music, the synth/dance rock group broke up in 2011, but announced a reunion in late 2015 before embarking on a tour of some of the largest festivals in the U.S. and Europe.

Ween, Steep Canyon Rangers, J. Cole, Death Cab for Cutie, Clutch, Macklemore, Lamb of God and many other fine artists also graced the Bonnaroo stages during its 15th anniversary.

After all these years, even veteran ’Rooers can still struggle to navigate the stages and tents of Centeroo, thanks to their always

EDDIE VEDDER WITH JUDD APATOW

confusing Which Stage, What Stage, This Tent, That Tent and The Other Tent names; it’s still necessary for many to refer to the map before heading to every set, just to confirm they didn’t walk all the way to This Tent when they intended to head to That Tent.

Ellie Goulding and her band brought a nice blend of electronic and traditional rock.

Sometimes, that blend can sound contrived and does not work too well—an electronic act may throw a drummer out there, or a rock band may add some weird sounds on top. But Goulding and crew seemed to strike a fine, danceable balance, as she sported a Pearl Jam shirt.

Bonnaroo organizers did acknowledge that the crowd was “slightly down” in 2016, but rumor has it that attendance was below the 50,000 mark for the 15th incarnation of a festival that once boasted 80,000 attendees.

Still, there was plenty of magic, art and jams to take in, and many concertgoers said they enjoyed the extra room to spread out.

Until next year, and always, keep on radiating positivity.

ALBUMS

AYE MAMMOTH

UBERPHONICS

Local sludge-metal outfit Aye Mammoth is gearing up to record a new EP, entitled Venomous Bones, in July, so it’s as good a time as any to talk about the band’s mean, lean 2015 offering, Lightning and Hellfire.

Aye Mammoth’s third project since forming in 2012 and the follow-up to 2014’s Bring the Dawn cram-packs 13 songs into 32 headbanging minutes, giving listeners an unrelenting dose of doom, sludge and thrash. The group taps into influences like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin while giving everything a distorted, metallic touch. Much of this comes from the record’s aggressive sonics, which may sound overdriven to some but are ultimately what give Aye Mammoth such a hefty sound. It’s loud, it’s uptempo and it wants to demolish your eardrums.

After a surprisingly ethereal instrumental opener, things pick up with the 91-second “Here Comes the Hellfire,” a driving intro with distorted vocals akin to King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man.” Listeners should be advised that song title is a warning. The trio of vocalist/guitarist Micah Loyed, drummer Phil Stem and bassist Paul Haggard roll right into the blues-metal combo of “Revelator” and “Gravewalker” and pound out cut after cut of hard-rock and heavy-metal fierceness for the remainder of the record.

Other highlights include the spacy lyrical moments on “Howling Lightning” and dance-ready “Devilsbane,” which features some unexpectedly groovy rhythms from Stem.

The only downfall of Lightning and Hellfire comes in its later moments. The tracks “Dread of the Deep” and “Starkiller” each take half-steps down in tempo that, because the record is so fast-paced up to that point, result in an energy drop that may be a letdown for some fans.

Things cap off with re-recordings of “Rattle Your Bones,” “Raise Horns” and “Thunderbolt” from the band’s 2013 self-titled debut, with much improved recording quality this time around.

While it can be easy to zone out from its non-stop rocking at points, Aye Mammoth’s latest is worth a dive into.

Lightning and Hellfire is one of those records that goes by quickly, ends before you can get tired of it and makes you wanna put it back on—if your headphones can handle it.

— JOHN CONNOR COULSTON

Nashville psychedelic “junk-jazz” outfit Uberphonics is a group I’d yet to experience until recently. In addition to regularly playing the Nashville circuit regularly, the trio has also frequented its fair share of Murfreesboro venues. Whether you’ve caught Uberphonics live or are just tuning in, jazz fan or not, the band’s ear for improv and six-minute jazz jams on their latest effort, What Do You Want to Do, will have you hooked.

Uberphonics formed in 2006 and has since hit music festivals such as Memphis in May and Murfreesboro’s annual JazzFest, and, despite being lauded by Relix as a “Band on the Rise” following its 2008 debut, the band has mostly stuck around the Nashville area. One of the driving factors of this release is the musical chemistry between the three members (Matt Jaggers on guitar, Stephen Hopkins on bass and Griffin Criste on drums), developed during the abundant time spent playing together over the past decade.

The album’s trippier moments arrive on “When The Numbers End” and “Cylindrical Entropy/The Broken Mirror,” the latter of which sends listeners into a psychedelic headspace with spacey instrumentation such as a rainstick and slide whistle. Like most jam albums, the tracks can run a little long, but it’s the strange, dynamic instrumentals—such as the aforementioned tracks—that make this record enjoyable.

When tracks start to lose steam, like on “Whitelephantusk” and “Head Trip,” Jaggers picks up the slack with guitar solos on both songs and Hopkins swoops in on bass to save the tracks from becoming stale.

All in all, Uberphonics has successfully turned an hour-long jam session into concise and accessible tracks with a clean and polished production.

Check out What Do You Want to Do on Spotify and, if you can, catch Uberphonics at Nashville’s Springwater on Saturday, July 9.

— DYLAN SKYE AYCOCK

Lightning and Hellfire

What Do You Want to Do

A CLASSIC OUTSTANDING

AVERAGE BELOW AVERAGE

AVOID AT ALL COSTS DEAD BOROPULSE.COM

* JULY 2016 * 11

Sounds

Read more about local music at

BoroPulse.com/Category/Music

Feel the Beat

Rhythmists gather for Make Music Day; Lester plans to continue the tradition.

STORY AND PHOTOS BY BRACKEN MAYO

M

urfreesboro percussionist Ross Lester led an enthusiastic and diverse group of drummers in a rhythm ensemble event on June 21.

Make Music Day began in France in 1982 and is now celebrated in hundreds of cities around the world on June 21 each year (coinciding with the summer solstice). In contrast to most music festivals, which adhere to the performer/audience format, many Make Music Day events aim to make everyone a performer. Often, free lessons are given and musicians and music organizations offer their instruments to others, giving them an opportunity to try them out.

Observations of this day of music spread to more and more communities each year, and in 2016 Murfreesboro residents gathered in Old Fort Park to play drums with their neighbors for a while.

Along with some of his percussion students and acquaintances, Lester, who runs a local percussion outfit called Everybody Drum Some, unloaded a nice collection of drums, tambourines, shakers and more at the park on this Tuesday evening, and proceeded to lead the crowd of seasoned musicians and children and first-timers alike in some enthusiastic music-making.

In addition to possessing a solid sense of 12 * JULY 2016 * BOROPULSE.COM

rhythm, a passion for music and “encouraging creative life in the city,” Lester has some significant leadership and organizational skills; somehow, he has the ability to motivate a group of strangers, some of whom have hardly touched an instrument in their lives or do not consider themselves performance artists, to follow his lead and make music as a group.

For the most part, beats sounded in unison, drawing curiosity from all corners of Old Fort Park during the evening. The expressive ensemble leader would indicate a rest in the music, and the beat would stop (excluding perhaps an isolated drummer or two so wrapped up in the rhythm that they didn’t immediately notice the signal to pause). On Lester’s signal, the group would pick back up where it left off, players happily drumming, shaking and dancing away.

He would direct changes in volume, instruct the group to hit four consecutive beats all together before dozens of participants applied their own intricate twists and takes to the improvisational composition unfolding before everyone’s ears.

At times, Lester would take a cowbell solo as he walked among the crowd, encouraging everyone to feel the pulse of the music.

To Lester, such a rhythm event is much more than a bunch of individuals smacking drum heads to make noise.

A drum circle can teach skills such as listen-

ing to your neighbor, respect, communication and creativity.

Many say that listening to your neighbor, respect, communication and creativity could benefit our community and the world.

“It is exemplary of society as a whole,” Lester said of a drum circle.

These group rhythm events can indeed offer a chance for plenty of personal artistic expression and freedom, but Lester spoke of the importance of listening to what those surrounding you are saying, and of being conscious that your part doesn’t infringe upon the rhythm of the community.

At the conclusion of the event, as the summer sunset painted the sky in bold pinks and purples, Lester asked group members to describe what just happened in a single word.

Words offered as descriptions included: “heartbeat,” “awesome,” “community,” “amazing,” “rhythmatic,” “home,” . . . “pulse.”

Lester noticed that the percussive participation can mean different things to different people. Some in the group were focused and intense, perhaps with a strong idea of the part they want to contribute to the group at a given moment. Others were more laid back, and just let the music flow through them.

One used the word “wild” to describe the event, while another used the word “peace.”

“Yeah, peace, you mean beating your hands to pieces,” chimed in the young man’s friend.

For those wanting a taste of this type of group working together to release sound waves into the heavens, Lester hosts a group each Saturday morning outside of Concert

Productions near the Square, simultaneous to the Murfreesboro Saturday Market.

Organizers aim to gather another group at Old Fort Park on the fall equinox, Thursday, Sept. 22.

Also, coming up at the Aug. 5 Friday Night Live concert on the Murfreesboro Public Square, featuring C.J. Vaughn and Highway 58 (with Lester on drums), the band plans a mass drum ensemble interlude where they will invite the crowd’s participation during a portion of that night’s set.

For more information on Everybody Drum Some, visit everybodydrumsome.com.

BOROPULSE.COM

* JULY 2016 * 13

Sounds

GLADE CITY ROUNDERS

Read more about local music at

BoroPulse.com/Category/Music

DOYLE LAWSON AND QUICKSILVER

O

Macon History

n July 7, 8 and 9, bluegrass, oldtime and country music fans will travel to Murfreesboro’s Cannonsburgh Village for a weekend full days of old-time pickers, jug bands, cloggers, bluesmen and more for the 39th annual Uncle Dave Macon Days festival. A variety of local and regional acts are lined up for the event, which honors music legend Uncle Dave Macon, a pioneer of country music and a resident of Rutherford County. This year’s lineup includes renowned acts such as Doyle Lawson, The Grascals and The Boxcars, alongside locals like Robyn Taylor, Glade City Rounders, Robert Eskew, Greg Reish and many more.

The festivities open Thursday, July 7, with a mass attempt to break the world record for the largest square dance, to be held at the Murfreesboro Public Square. A special festival-opening performance at Main Street Music follows, featuring Russell Moore and IIIrd Tyme Out, The Glade City Rounders and Jesse Kramer.

Friday morning, the Cannonsburgh gates open for yet another summer-weekend of banjos, fiddles and fun.

Reish, who currently serves as the Director of the Center for Popular Music at MTSU, is a classically trained musician and scholar (with a Ph.D. in historical musicology), and will bring his diverse repertoire and vast knowledge of old-time music to the festival’s Dixie Dew Drop Stage on July 8 at 9:45 p.m.

We talked with him about his new album, his love for old-time tunes and Uncle Dave.

14 * JULY 2016 * BOROPULSE.COM

MURFREESBORO PULSE:

For the uninitiated, who exactly was Uncle Dave Macon?

GREG REISH: Uncle Dave Macon was a Middle Tennessee entertainer and a recording star in the 1920s and ’30s. He lived until 1951, but the height of his career was when country music, then known as hillbilly music or old-time music, was first being recorded and released commercially. He was one of the big stars of that era and was one of the first major stars of the Grand Ole Opry.

He was, of course, a resident of Rutherford County. He was born out in a smaller town near McMinnville, and lived for a while as a teenager

Uncle Dave Macon Days brings Doyle Lawson, The Grascals, Greg Reish and more.

in Nashville, which is where he first came in contact with a wide variety of professional entertainers. He was living in Nashville in the 1880s, in an era where minstrelsies, vaudeville circuits and other traveling entertainment were common and popular in the United States. He got exposed to all different kinds of entertainment: comedy, dancing and music of all kinds from performers of different ethnicities. He incorporated a lot of that into his own act.

As an adult, he lived out in Kittrell in the eastern part of Rutherford County, between Murfreesboro and Woodbury. Starting around 1900 or so, he started a hauling business between those two county seats. He would also do

STORY BY JOHN CONNOR COULSTON a lot of entertaining when he was riding with his mule- or horse-drawn wagon and he would entertain around his home, but he wasn’t a professional and making money at it until the late ’10s and early ’20s. He was close to 50 when he started his professional entertainment career.

In those early days on the Opry as a featured member, even then he was considered a throwback to an earlier era and style of entertainment. There was a bit of nostalgia attached to the way he sang, the way he would entertain, spin the banjo, kick up his heels, crack corny jokes and mix in gospel numbers.

He was a conduit between these entertainment traditions that were thriving in the 19th

THE GRASCALS GREG REISH

Historic Shacklett Photos Show Opry Star’s Local Roots Recently, in preparation for the upcoming Ken Burns documentary project that will feature Uncle Dave Macon in the story of country music, many photos were pulled from the Shacklett Historic Photograph Collection as possibilities for the documentary.

Some of these are rare, one-of-a-kind images of the “Dixie Dew Drop,” the first superstar of the Grand Ole Opry, who was from right here in Murfreesboro. Others are images of the town from that period.

On the evening of Thursday, July 7, the opening day of Uncle Dave Macon Days 2016, supporters of bluegrass and old-time music and dance will try to make history with an attempt to break the record for the World’s Largest Square Dance. This will be at 7 p.m. on the Murfreesboro Public Square.

Uncle Dave Macon, circa 1952

century in America before the age of electronic mass media and the first, second and third generations of country and bluegrass musicians. He was a real link between those eras.

Why do you think it’s important we honor his legacy to this day?

We celebrate him not only as one of the founders of what we now call country music, not just as one of the iconic figures of the Grand Ole Opry and of the early years of the hillbilly recording industry, but also as somebody who represents a connection to the deeper roots of all those different phenomena.

It’s that everything about him, all the cultures that he represented, were so much a part of this region. He needs to be remembered as part of Middle Tennessee’s heritage.

How did you start playing music?

I was just always fascinated with music for as long as I can remember, even though I didn’t grow up in a particularly musical household. I found myself begging for a guitar and finally got one at 9 or 10 years old.

My brother showed me some things, then I got a more professional teacher, who got me interested in traditional acoustic music. That started by him exposing me to Doc Watson and Norman Blake. I was only 11 or so when I heard their music and was just completely bowled over by it. From those guys and their output I discovered bluegrass and old-time music, and that goes back to the era of Dave Macon.

I’ve always loved the sound of acoustic instruments, although I’ve played plenty of electric ones over the years. There’s something

bare and elemental about acoustic instruments and acoustic performance; the idea of one musician or a small number of musicians with acoustic instruments and their voices breathing life into music that is part of a tradition much older than the musicians themselves. There’s something about that that’s always grabbed me and that I’ve always wanted to be a part of.

America’s vernacular music is, in my opinion, the richest, most varied musical tradition that the world has ever known; we have these utterly fascinating, complex and unique mixes in our collective musical heritage in the United States, and I think that’s particularly strong in a traditional music of the South.

How did your new album, Speed of the Plow, come about?

While I was living in Chicago, which is where I was before coming to MTSU, I established a musical partnership with Matt Brown, who’s a very fine old-time musician.

In 2014, while he was on a visit down to Tennessee and we were playing a lot, he and I hatched this idea of making an album together, which we did in late summer 2015.

It’s an instrumental album of old-time guitar and fiddle duets. We decided on this record we would pare down to the bare essentials, each of us on our main instruments, and see what we could do with the old-time repertory.

What was the selection process like on the album?

A lot of old-time records are devoted to a very specific repertory, the music of a particular source musician from the early 20th century, for instance, or maybe the music of a particu-

Guinness World Record Attempt for Largest Square Dance Join in the attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the largest square dance at Murfreesboro Civic Plaza and Rutherford Country Courthouse at 6 p.m. on Thursday, July 7. For more information, call (615) 893-2371 or visit uncledavemacondays.com.

lar region or a particular state even. Well, Matt and I didn’t want to do that. Because it’s an instrumental album of just guitar and fiddle duets, we wanted it to have as much variety as possible . . . a broad regional representation, we wanted to have a wide variety of styles and flavors and moods.

We didn’t just want to have one breakdown after the other in the key of D, which is what often times happens in old-time music. I love breakdowns in D as much as anybody, but we wanted to make a more varied album. So we decided that we wanted some dance numbers of different feels and in different tempos.

We wanted to have some things also that showcased our interpretation of well-known fiddlers, but with less well-known pieces associated with those fiddlers. For example, Bill Stepp, another Kentucky fiddler who is very well known and recorded by Alan Lomax back in the ’30s. We pulled out a couple of more obscure recordings that not only are lesser-known tunes, but also showcase another stylistic facet of Bill Stepp’s music. We wanted to bring out the fact that a guy like that had more breadth than he’s usually given credit for.

And, of course, we put our own spin on a lot of these. Some of these tunes we interpreted somewhat close to the originals; there are some other tunes that we took much greater liberties with and tried to modernize them, but in our own way that we hope and feel are very respectful of these traditions.

What can people attending the festival expect from your live performance?

My set will be a solo performance, so I’ll be singing and bringing a couple different instruments with me, most of my solo performances are with guitar and banjo accompaniment, although I’ve sometimes been known to use a fiddle or mandolin. I’ll have some very old material, some traditional ballads with some of them going back hundreds of years. I’ll have some material that comes from the hillbilly recording era and the work of professional songwriters. I will certainly include some humorous material that balances out the murder ballads and all the other grim material.

I invite people to come out and hear what these songs can be like when they’re stripped down to the bare essentials.

2016 Uncle Dave Macon Days Schedule FRIDAY, JULY 8 11:30 a.m. Gates Open 1 p.m. Competition Begins @ Main Stage (dulcimer, dobro, harmonica) 2 p.m. Old-time Singing @ Dixie Dew Drop Stage 3 p.m. Tommy Jackson @ Main Stage 3:30 p.m. Blues Singing @ Dixie Dew Drop Stage 4 p.m. Jug Band @ Main Stage 4:30 p.m. UDM Free Wheeling @ Dixie Dew Drop Stage 5:30 p.m. Uncle Shufflo @ Main Stage 5:45 p.m. Robyn Taylor @ Dixie Dew Drop Stage 7 p.m. Flatt Lonesome @ Main Stage 7:45 p.m. People on the Porch @ Dixie Dew Drop Stage 8:30 p.m. The Boxcars @ Main Stage 8:45 p.m. Robert Eskew @ Dixie Dew Drop Stage 9:45 p.m. Greg Reish @ Dixie Dew Drop Stage 10 p.m. Grascals @ Main Stage 10:45 p.m. Michael Sessoms @ Dixie Dew Drop Stage 11:15 p.m. Showcase of Champions @ Main Stage (jug band, blues and old-time singing champions)

SATURDAY, JULY 9 9 a.m. Gates Open 10 a.m. Parade 11 a.m. Competition Begins @ Main Stage (guitar, fiddle, mandolin, banjo, old-time band) 11 a.m. Dance Opens @ Dixie Dew Drop Stage 1 p.m. Grasstime @ Dixie Dew Drop Stage 2 p.m. Dance Finals @ Dixie Dew Drop Stage 2 p.m. Old Time Singing @ Main Stage 3:30 p.m. Carolina Express @ Dixie Dew Drop Stage 4:45 p.m. The Bluegrass Sweethearts @ Dixie Dew Drop Stage 5 p.m. Glade City Rounders @ Main Stage 6 p.m. Church Sisters @ Main Stage 6 p.m. Robyn Taylor @ Dixie Dew Drop Stage 7:15 p.m. Robert Eskew @ Dixie Dew Drop Stage 7:30 p.m. Doyle Lawson @ Main Stage 8:30 p.m. The Bluegrass Sweethearts @ Dixie Dew Drop Stage 9:15 p.m. Lonesome River Band @ Main Stage 11:15 p.m. Showcase of Champions @ Main Stage (bluegrass band, old-time band champions) BOROPULSE.COM

* JULY 2016 * 15

Sounds

Read more about local music at

BoroPulse.com/Category/Music

GUITAR WORKSHOP PLUS, THE ULTIMATE EXPERIENCE IN MUSIC EDUCATION, BEGINS JULY 31 AN AWARD-WINNING SUMMER music program, Guitar Workshop Plus, has made its way to Murfreesboro this year. The session will be held at Middle Tennessee State University from July 31 to Aug. 5.

Guitar Workshop Plus was designed for aspiring musicians of all ages to have the opportunity for intense musical and personal growth.

MUSIC NOTES

Courses are offered for all levels, ages and styles including blues, jazz, rock, acoustic and classical. This is a chance for local musicians to study multiple styles, courses and levels with some of the industry’s leading musicians.

“We have an amazing list of guest artist instructors who will be teaching and performing in addition to our first-rate faculty,” said Brian Murray, program director. “From

rock stars to certified blues and country legends, we have it all this year.”

While the same core curriculum is offered on any given week, the seminars change from session to session. Brent Mason, a top Nashville country guitar player, and Matt Schofield, one of the top 10 British blues players of all time (according to Guitar & Bass Magazine), will both be guests at the Middle Tennessee session.

In Toronto, Canada, nearly 15 years ago, Murray thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to immerse yourself for a week and have the opportunity to rub shoulders with famous artists?” With that thought, Murray started the program development and plans grew from there.

By directing instruction to the student’s personal style, level of experience and musical goals, the program is meant to create a healthy, non-competitive environment in which to learn.

Each day consists of morning and afternoon classes that involve a hands-on approach, late afternoon clinics, ensemble performances and evening concerts.

Guitar Workshop Plus has been ranked the No. 1 program of its kind in North America.

“We received a Player’s Choice Award for best instructional program from Acoustic Guitar magazine, and we have expanded to four great locations including Toronto, Vancouver, San Diego and Nashville,” Murray said.

The program’s administration has been organizing and directing summer music workshops for 14 years and BRENT MASON is considered by many to be the premier summer music education program in North America.

Students can register for the workshop at guitarworkshopplus.com up until the first day of classes, provided that space remains.

— ELIZABETH SCOTT SAWYER

The public is welcome to attend free evening performances in the T. Earl Hinton Music Hall in Wright Music Building, 1439 Faulkinberry Drive.

Monday, July 11 – The Nelons, 7 p.m.

Wednesday, July 13 – Christy Sutherland, 7 p.m.

Thursday, July 14 – Freedom Quartet, 7 p.m.

Monday, July 18 – LeFevre Quartet, 7 p.m.

Tuesday, July 19 – HighRoad, 7 p.m.

Wednesday, July 20 – Dave Clark, 7 p.m.

Friday, July 22 – Dynamic finale: choir concert and student showcase, 6 p.m.

The concluding evening concert this year will pay tribute to Speer and his dedica-

tion and many contributions to the school during the last three decades. Directed

by Chase Moore, a former student at the school, the talented Stamps-Baxter choir— comprised of this year’s students and returning alumni—will present an inspiring program of gospel classics in a style similar to the Gaither Homecoming shows.

Those who attend the school regularly comment that the school “only lasts a few days, but the effect on your music lasts forever.” To learn more, visit stampsbaxterschool. com, facebook.com/stampsbaxterschool or email stampsbaxterschool@gmail.com.

— PATSY WEILER

BEN SPEER’S STAMPS-BAXTER SCHOOL OF MUSIC CELEBRATES 30 YEARS THIS SUMMER Gaither Homecoming concerts, videos and BEN SPEER’S STAMPS-BAXTER music recordings. Speer grew up attending School of Music, coming up July 10–22 music schools and recognized their value in on the Middle Tennessee State University developing music excellence; in his words, campus in Murfreesboro, will celebrate its students learned “to do it the right way.”

30th anniversary this summer.

While embracing the shape-note heritage, Limited enrollment remains open for participants ages 8 to 80. Space is open for students from around the world will gather either the one- or two-week sessions for day on the MTSU campus to study classes offered in music theory, sight singing and ear or boarding students. training from beginning to advanced levels.

The school continues the tradition of singVocal technique, performance training and ing schools begun in the mid-1920s by J.R. choral conducting are also included in the Baxter Jr. and V.O. Stamps, publishers of curriculum. Private instruction is additionally gospel music songbooks with shaped notes. available in piano, voice, guitar, bass guitar Thousands of people were taught to sing and and songwriting. harmonize by reading the different shapes, “It is one of the most important things which represented a note on the musical that young people today can scale. Throughout southern Appatake advantage of and something lachia, the schools often were held that is so necessary if we are to in churches, where the training retain the quality of musicianship and skills learned there became that our gospel music pioneers the foundation on which Southern possessed,” Bill Gaither said gospel music was built. about the school.

Ben Speer, the modern-day Workshop and classroom school’s founder, was lead singer instructors include Kenna Turner for the legendary Speer Family, West, Christy Sutherland, Ala music publisher and former BEN SPEER lison Speer and Tim Parton. music director and artist with the 16 * JULY 2016 * BOROPULSE.COM

BOROPULSE.COM

* JULY 2016 * 17

MUSIC NOTES

THE WILD FEATHERS GET A LITTLE HELP FROM THEIR FRIENDS AT THE RYMAN Nashville rock band The Wild Feathers returned to Music City for a triumphant homecoming show at the Ryman Auditorium in June.

Since releasing its self-titled debut album in 2013, the four-piece has toured the world and performed on numerous TV shows, all while keeping a passionate fan base back home, accommodating them with notable shows in 2014 at Bonnaroo and Live on the Green (also appearing on that local event’s bill in 2013). The band has spent the past year touring heavily behind its latest album, Lonely Is a Lifetime (recorded in Nashville), finally circling back home and making its Ryman debut.

“99 percent of [the new album] was written on tour, trying to find our way back home,” said vocalist/guitarist Ricky Young during the set.

The band got off to a fast start with Southern-style rockers including “Help Me Out” and fan favorite “Backwoods Company,” with Young, bassist Joel King and guitarist Taylor Burns passing vocal duties around verse to verse and teaming up for harmonious choruses. The sold-out crowd ate up these big choruses, and it’s no wonder. The Wild Feathers’ very accessible, Southern-influenced rock sound is only a pedal steel away from country; they’re one of the few young, top-tier rock acts in Nashville that don’t seem to shy away the country aspect of Music City, all while not going too far in that direction to alienate the rock crowd. This can kind of come off as “middle-of-the-road” to some listeners, but luckily the electricity of the hometown crowd was enough to keep things interesting.

The night’s collaborations proved particularly potent, as founding member Preston Wimberly rejoined the group for “Left My Woman” (a song from the band’s debut album about leaving your significant other while on tour) and local guitar whiz Daniel Donato delivered a blistering, Allman Brothers-esque solo on “Hard Times.” Both Wimberly and Donato stayed around for several tracks, and even returned later with opening act Jamestown Revival (which had an excellent Ryman debut itself earlier that night) for a Joe Cocker-inspired rendition of the Beatles’ “With a Little Help From My Friends.”

“So many dreams have been made tonight,” said Young. — JOHN CONNOR COULSTON 18 * JULY 2016 * BOROPULSE.COM

PHOTOS BY DYLAN SKYE AYCOCK

Sounds

JUSTIN REED SHOW INTERVIEWS EMMYLOU HARRIS, JOHN CONLEE, ROY CLARK FOR UPCOMING FALL SEASON June served as a busy month for me and The Justin Reed Show. We finished the ninth season on the 9th right in the middle of CMA Fest. This year, TJRS was a part of CMA Fest and we had a blast!

On June 8, I had the privilege of attending the R.O.P.E. Luncheon with the Stars. Standing for the Reunion of Professional Entertainers, R.O.P.E. serves to keep the traditional country music alive.

Murfreesboro legend Billy Henson, writer of “Lonesome Feeling” for the Osborne Brothers among others, serves as the president of the organization. Performing at the luncheon were Dickey Lee, Dianne Sherrill, Tennessee River Boys, frequent guest on TJRS Teea Goans, and Little David Wilkins. The highlight of the show was seeing 91-year-old Country Music Hall of Fame Member and TJRS guest Mac Wiseman sing the Wabash Cannonball and ’Tis Sweet to be Remembered.

It is not every day that one can witness a true legend doing their thing. For more information about R.O.P.E., please visit freewebs.com/reunionofentertainers.

On June 9, I was over at the Nashville Palace on Music Valley Drive for the Second Generations Show. This show, now in its fifth year, highlights the sons and daughters of the Country Music legends.

Many of the performers have been guests on TJRS. The announcer for the show was Robyn Young, son of Faron Young. Among those that performed were Lorrie Morgan (George Morgan), Hawkshaw Hawkins, Jr. (Hawkshaw Hawkins & Jean Shepard), Chris Golden (William Lee Golden), Waylon Payne (Sammi Smith), Kathy Louvin (Ira Louvin), Karen Wheeler (Onie Wheeler), Shelly West (Dottie West), George Hamilton V (George Hamilton IV), Steve Kilgore (Merle Kilgore), Thom Bresh (Merle Travis), Melissa Luman (Bob Luman), Sharon Wilburn (Doyle Wilburn), Seidina Reed (Jerry Reed; no kin to me, sadly), Mark Cash (Tommy Cash), Donnie Winters (Don Winters), Cherish Lee (Johnny Lee), and Chrystie Wooley (Sheb Wooley). It was a fantastic show of real Country Music. Wheeler came on the show to promote this event. For more information on the Second Generation, please visit their Facebook page.

Skipping ahead to the end of the month, I had the privilege to attend the Summer National Association of Music Merchants show at the Music City Center on June 25. NAMM holds several shows throughout the year and the Summer NAMM did not disappoint. During the event every year, the hold the American Eagle Awards honoring individuals

with Emmylou Harris

with Roy Clark

with John Conlee

and institutions that help promote music; this is done in conjunction with the Music City Council. Receiving the award this year were Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill and the Grand Ole Opry. I had the privilege to interview Harris along with John Conlee and Roy Clark for the fall season of my radio show. For more information on NAMM, visit namm.org.

I am looking forward to starting Season 10 of TJRS on Aug. 4; mark your calendar as it will be great! Visit thejustinreedshow.com, follow @tjrs_wmts on Twitter or like facebook.com/thejustinreedshow for more information as the new season approaches.

Peace, Love and Ernest Tubb!

— JUSTIN REED

BOROPULSE.COM

* JULY 2016 * 19

Sounds

MUSIC NOTES

SOUTHERN GIRLS ROCK CAMP LIVES ON  Are you ready to rock? For girls ages 10–17, it’s time to pick up a guitar or drumsticks, plug in and rock out at the 14th annual Southern Girls Rock and Roll Camp.

The Murfreesboro camp, which runs July 25–30 at Middle Tennessee State University, is aimed to empower young girls through performance and songwriting, as well build positive self-esteem and teamwork through music and community. The Southern Girls Rock and Roll Camp, along with Youth Empowerment through Arts and Humanities (YEAH), fundraise each summer to offer scholarships for campers unable to pay the fee. For more history on Southern Girls Rock and Roll Camp and YEAH and to register for the event, visit southerngirlsrockcamp.com.

— DYLAN SKYE AYCOCK

20 * JULY 2016 * BOROPULSE.COM

EXIT/IN CELEBRATES 45 YEARS WITH ELLISTON PLACE STREET FEST Nashville staples Exit/In and independent radio station Lightning 100 are joining forces to celebrate the acclaimed venue with the return of the Elliston Place Street Fest on Saturday, July 23.

This day-long event, which first took place on Nashville’s Elliston Place more than 30 years ago, will feature live performances inside Exit/In and The End, as well as on a large outdoor stage throughout the day. The artists slated to help celebrate Exit/In’s 45 years include Nashville rock acts Diarrhea Planet, the Protomen, the Delta Saints, the Features, Elliot Root and several more.

In addition to live music, there will be vendors set up along the block, a VIP lounge and more. General admission tickets start at $20 which can be found at exitin.com. — DYLAN SKYE AYCOCK

BOROPULSE.COM

* JULY 2016 * 21

Living Farmers’ Market Education Series

BY EDWINA SHANNON

The Tomato

Essential oils, especially the mints and cedar, are being used as both a repellent and as an insecticide. The oil itself is the repellent.

Mixed with water, they become insecticides.

Citrus oil will also kill, but as a suffocant.

LOOKING FOR IDEAS

Keeping the Garden Marauders Out THE FIRST CROPS OF THE SUMMER plantings are ready. We are not the only ones who want to enjoy the bounty. Squirrels, possums, moles, weasels, deer and more find their ways into the garden. I find half-eaten produce scattered about my yard. Arggh! I did not go through the cost of time and money to feed the nearby wildlife. So I started researching what I could do to keep the pests at bay. Fencing in plants, and not just gardens, seems to be preferred for saving tomatoes. I was told by an experienced farmer that he fences in his corn but does not attach the chicken wire all the way up. He described that in this way, squirrels would scale the wire but when they got to the top, their weight would cause the fence to bend back down, causing the squirrel to fall off. Hmm . . . that could be worth a try.

Someone else shared that they used cayenne pepper around their plants. Another buys wolf urine online and liberally spreads it. My fear with that is the possibility of attracting wolves with the smell. The kids and the chickens don’t need that. I did, however, find that non-toxic animal repellent is sold in stores.

If you attended Reggie Reeves’ program “Organic and Sustainable Gardening Techniques” at the Farmers Market class, you will recall that Reggie did present some organic pest control methods for insects. I will share a summary of his suggestions here. First and foremost, many pests and their eggs can be hand-picked. You do want to be sure to discard what you find. Row covers, which are sold as insect netting or found in a fabric store as tulle, can be used until the blooms appear.

You do want to attract birds to the garden to eat the insects, but you will probably need to protect the tomatoes from bird pecks.

The RC Farmers Market Education Series 22 * JULY 2016 * BOROPULSE.COM

video channel on YouTube has Reggie’s presentation on pest control as well as other related resources. Label your pesticide sprayers, no matter how you use them. Both chemical and organic solutions are toxic. Both kill. It is paramount that you follow directions and precautions.

Some homemade organic pest control solutions can be made at home. Insecticidal soap is effective at controlling softbodied insects. Combine two teaspoons of dishwashing soap in one gallon of water and apply with a quart spray bottle. Horticultural oils control soft-bodied pests by dehydrating and suffocating them. A fungicide solution can be made by combining two tablespoons of baking soda or potassium bicarbonate and one teaspoon of vegetable oil per gallon of water. Spray on suspected fungal infestations.

Homemade horticultural oil can be made by combining two tablespoons of vegetable oil and one teaspoon of dish soap in a gallon of water. Apply as a spray to dormant fruit trees.

BT (Bacillus thuringiensis) is used to control foliar feeding caterpillars. Iron phosphate is used to control slugs and snails. I have had some success leaving a shallow saucer of beer for those pests. They drown. Kaolin clay makes an unsuitable surface for pests, deterring feeding and egg laying. Milky spore controls grubs.

Neem oil and spinosad are effective against a wide range of pests. Neem oil also acts as a fungicide. Pyrethrin should be used as a last resort, as it affects beneficial insects and aquatic life. If pesticides are needed, try using OMRI- or NOPlisted products. (Respectively, abbreviations for the Organic Materials Review Institute and the USDA’s National Organic Program.)

Within Murfreesboro there are some gardens which lend inspiration and ideas, and are easily accessed by the public. In the median of Old Fort Parkway, for example, there are beautiful examples of rain gardens. Oaklands Historic Home and Museum has a garden out front, behind the cedar fence. It is a combination of raised flower beds and vegetable gardening. The flowers will be used for arrangements at the July 22 Summer Picnic Party fundraiser. Across town, at the Lane Agri-Park, the Master Gardeners maintain rain, vegetable, herb and butterfly gardens.

They also have a great example of collecting and distributing rain water.

Pick a local one for your gazpacho, soup, sauce or sandwich.

BY CHEF MANNY SANTANA I’M NEITHER a great storyteller nor am I a journalist. But there is one thing I do know, and that’s food. So this is going to be a column about food, and food education; specifically, the tomato.

Why the tomato, you ask? Because it is possibly the least understood produce out there . . . our food industry overall is not very well understood.

Sure, the tomato technically classifies as a fruit, but it’s also a vegetable, looking at it from a nutrient sense. It’s also one of the only produce types that actually does not lose all of its nutrient properties when cooked, one important nutrient being lycopene.

Farmers Market Classes The Farmers Market classes are held at 9 a.m. on Tuesdays and Fridays when the market is open at the Community Center at the Lane Agri-Park campus, 315 John Rice Boulevard. Classes are open to all and are free. They last approximately one hour.

JULY 8 Linda Stevens, Certified Master Gardener: Deciphering Nutritional Labels

JULY 12 Tiffany Scmidt, Extension Agent Cooking with Kids

JULY 15 Kim Hall, Extension Agent: Rabbits 101

JULY 19 Susan Welchance, Rutherford County Beekeeper: Beekeeping 101

JULY 22 Art Whitaker, Mid-State Brew Crew Homebrewing 101

JULY 26 Mitchell Murphree, Chef, Five Senses Restaurant: Cooking Demonstration

JULY 29 Edwina Shannon, Certified Master Gardener: Garden Signs

AUG 2 Carol Reese, Certified Master Gardener: Planning a Cutting Garden

AUG 5 Carol Reese, Certified Master Gardener Homegrown Bouquets

The tomato can be found in 3,000 different heirlooms (a type of plant not crossed with another variety, planted from the same lineage of seeds generation after generation, leaving its genetic structure intact), and over 10,000 total varieties of tomatoes. Each one is unique in its own way, different colors, shapes and sizes, each one with a different antioxidant, each one with its own purpose.

Now how does this tie into the food industry? We live in a strange time when many do not question food safety, how food is being produced or where the food comes from. We live in a time where food is being consumed faster than it can be grown. Think about that, if we’re eating the food before it can be grown where is the food coming from?

Is the food even food or is it just foodlike substance? If you only knew the amount of restaurants nowadays that are being supplied with “food,” you would think twice about where you eat.

The one thing we do have in Rutherford County is our farmers’ market at Lane Agri-Park. If you have not been there, this is a must. You can usually find your local food industry leaders there,

GAZPACHO INGREDIENTS: 6 ripe tomatoes, chopped ½ large cucumber peeled, halved, seeded 1 green pepper, cut into chunks 2 garlic gloves, smashed 1 cup of water ½3 cup extra virgin olive oil 2 Tbsp. sherry vinegar Salt to taste DIRECTIONS: Put all into blender. Blend. Chill. Eat. Life. It’s the simple things. buying real food for real restaurants.

Now, granted, we can’t always find green tomatoes in season, so we source from one of the big food vendors, but even the vendor we use knows where, when and who picked that exact case of tomatoes.

We live in a time when information is crucial, and at our fingertips. I shouldn’t have to question where you got my tomato, and whether or not it’s fresh—not fresh-frozen, not ripened with gas: fresh!

So, I implore you, this week, go out and find a fresh tomato. If you can’t find one, come see me I’ll give you a life-changing experience and all it will involve = one fresh tomato and a little

bit of salt and pepper, with a lot of love.

Simple, just like a tomato is supposed to be. Would you rather eat a tomato that’s been grown in a factory or one that was grown locally? Now, ask yourself whether you would rather eat a dinner that’s been grown in a factory or one that was made locally. Food for thought.

Do you need an idea of what to do with all of those fine red tomatoes you will see this July? Try a gazpacho—it’s easy!

Manny Santana is the owner/operator of The Block, 123 SE Broad St. You can often find him there, at a catering job or at one of the area’s farmers’ markets.

BOROPULSE.COM

* JULY 2016 * 23

Food

Read more about local restaurants at

BoroPulse.com/Category/Food

So Good It’s Scary Spooky’s Pizza now haunts the Walter Hill area.

STORY BY BRACKEN MAYO | PHOTOS BY SARAH MAYO

W

ith a ghoulish theme in tribute to the haunted hotel in Wartrace, Joe Peters has taken his Spooky’s Pizza concept just north of Murfreesboro, delivering food out of a shopping center on Memorial Boulevard near Jefferson Pike.

Spooky’s serves some fantastic pies, all tabbed with ghostly names. You have the Hell Cheeses Over, a cheeseburger-themed pizza with beef, bacon, lots of cheese and onions, or try the Ghostly Chiller, a ham and pineapple pie. The restaurant continues the fun for meat lovers with the Zombie Feast, a pizza with generous amounts of meatball, pepperoni, Canadian bacon, sausage and bacon (American bacon, incidentally, is belly-cut, while the Canadian variety is typically loin-cut).

Peters says the decision to use only 100 percent whole-milk mozzarella adds a lot to Spooky’s pizzas. Many of the large pizza chains use skim-milk cheese, but “it’s watered-down 24 * JULY 2016 * BOROPULSE.COM

cheese; it doesn’t lend anything noteworthy to your palate,” he said. The whole milk is “so much tastier . . . and we use the best meat we can get our hands on.”

The cheesesteak-inspired pizza is a winner; topped with cuts of sirloin steak, sautéed onions and peppers, and provolone and American cheeses, the Franken Philly bursts with flavor and brings a taste of Philadelphia to Walter Hill.

These specialty pizzas run $13–17 for a 14-inch, and Peters said the area certainly has enough pizza-lovers willing to pay for a great pizza.

“We believe that there is a market out there of individuals who would prefer to get a really top-quality pizza,” Peters said. “Sometimes a budget dictates your family gets the $5 pizza. . . . Different strokes for different folks, but I would rather raise prices than compromise quality. People have grown weary of mediocre becoming the norm. We want to do better.”

“We were told there’s simply not enough And the menu contains far more than people in the area (to support a pizza delivery pizza; if you live in the store’s delivery area, business),” Peters said. But the roughly 3,000 Spooky’s can bring a cheeseburger, order of people who reside in the original Spooky’s chicken wings or sandwich to your door in service area of Wartrace, Bell Buckle, Noraddition to pizza. mandy and Beech Grove were “3,000 people “We have an Italian sub called Sleep with that never had food delivered to their homes— the Fishes,” Peters continued. “A patty melt ever,” and the support for the restaurant was called Cannibal Lecter, the triple-decker determined to be sufficient. turkey club called the Tennessee Chainsaw “That was my first venture into pizza,” PeMassacre, a burger topped with sirloin steak ters said, and since Spooky’s originated within called Dead Meat.”

And if a customer orders the breadsticks, they the haunted hotel, the restaurant’s name pays homage to the Walking Horse and Chais. should know to ask for “The Walking Bread.”

Peters, along with business partners and The burgers contain Braveheart black angus best friends Christine and Robert “Hydro” beef, “given no hormones, with no chemicals,” Mullin (both world-class concert production the Spooky’s owner proudly continued. “We use managers, having done stage setups and tours Benton’s Country Bacon, made right here in Tenfor Madonna and Justin Timberlake, and nessee . . . take a bite of the BLT and the bacon currently on tour this summer with Selena Gotaste is just going to explode in your mouth.” mez), decided to open a Spooky’s store closer Spooky’s deep fries its wings rather than to the Murfreesboro area. just running them through a pizza oven. As for “We do a lot more volume here than we dessert, Peters encourages everyone to try a could ever do in Wartrace,” Peters said of his Drooler—a breadstick cut down the middle and newer store. stuffed with marshmallow fluff, Reese’s peanut Shortly after the decision was made to open butter chips and chocolate syrup, topped with the Walter Hill location, the hotel in Wartrace powdered sugar. caught fire and had to close for repairs. So Peters purchased the Walking Horse Hotel now, Peters is all in on the pizza business. in Wartrace back in 2007. There he opened the He said he’d like to identify another location Chais Music Hall (named for his late wife), to open another Spooky’s by the end of this which hosted live bands, dancing and other year, possibly towards Lebanon, and have an entertainment. However, in 2013, the roof of additional two stores the music hall suffered open by the end of 2017. some storm damage.

As for other news, “We were shut down Spooky’s plans to soon and couldn’t do any deliver beer alongside its of the music, and the NAME: Spooky’s Pizza pizza, burgers and wings. things that we do,” LOCATION: 5995 Lebanon “For those guys and girls Peters said. “It was Road, Murfreesboro out there during football suggested to me, ‘Why PHONE: (615) 217-5000 season in our area who don’t you do pizza out don’t want to leave the of the hotel?’” and thus, HOURS: Sun. and Tues.–Thurs.: 11 a.m.–8 p.m.; Fri. and Sat: 11 house, we plan to be deSpooky’s was born, he a.m.–9 p.m. livering ice-cold beer to says, “by accident.”

COST: Large Franken Philly pizof-age customers,” Peters Though having never za: $16.99; Large Ghostly Chiller said, adding he would operated a restaurant pizza: $12.99; Burger and fries: like to implement a prior to this, Peters and $7; 10-piece Demon Wings: $10; milkshake home delivery crew gave it a go in rural Paranormal (chicken) parmesan service as well.

Wartrace, Tenn. sandwich: $9

THE DISH

ONLINE: spookyspizzatn.com

BOROPULSE.COM

* JULY 2016 * 25

Reviews

MOVIES

INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE DIRECTED BY

Roland Emmerich STARRING

her fiancé Jake Morrison (Hemsworth). Jake isn’t anybody’s son, yet somehow takes up the mantle of hero, adopting a Chris Pine-as-Captian Kirk bravado that never quite works. His best bud Charlie (Travis Tope) overshoots the quirky best-friend role, moving straight into creeper territory. Brent Spinner returns as kooky Dr. Okun, the comic relief mooning his way through the picture in an open hospital gown. Lastly (at least for this review) is the inexplicable casting of Lars Von

Trier’s whipping girl, Charlotte Gainsbourg, as Jeff Goldblum’s tepid love interest.

With so many characters and 20 years of back story to cover it’s no surprise that nearly every line of dialogue is expository drivel like “you almost killed him, remember?” or lazy callbacks like “they like to get the landmarks.” What little humor the writers managed to sprinkle in between the exposition and explosions is so broad it seems more catered to an international audience than the one after whose holiday the film is named.

The campy original holds up surprisingly well as a fun, special effects-laden take on a ’50s B-movie. Rather than focus on that campy fun, Resurgence tries in vain to bridge the 20-year gap between the films, bogging down itself and the audience with too much, too late.

— JAY SPIGHT

what it actually is.

The overall tone of this film is entirely too heavy. Unlike the first one, which was very playful and fun, The Second Act tries to actually give gravitas to these giant tricks our heroes are doing and it simply does not work.

I could not get past the ridiculousness of this

film because it basically said, “Oh, look at that! Wasn’t that amazing?” right after every trick. Then the film tried to explain everything.

Ohhhh boy, when this film tried to reveal the curtain and explain everything, it completely lost me and everyone else in the theater. Not only that, it even tried to set up a sequel (more so than the original one did, at least).

There are so many problems with this film, but Caplan killed it as the “new” fourth horseman in basically every scene she was in. Additionally, Daniel Radcliffe had a blast in his role, putting in a hilarious and evil performance as he attempts to put his Harry Potter persona in the rearview mirror.

If anything, this film set up the notion that Radcliff is up for whatever, which he had better be, because Swiss Army Man is right around the corner.

Beyond that . . . some of the cinematography was good, particularly during the magic sequences, but it was surrounded by shakycam effects in the chase sequences and a horribly choreographed motorbike sequence.

— JOSEPH KATHMANN

Liam Hemsworth, Jeff Goldblum, Maika Monroe, Sela Ward, Jessie T. Usher RATED PG-13

“We had twenty years to prepare. So did they.” So reads the tag line for Independence Day: Resurgence. Thewe, of course, refers to the human race, while the they are the aliens, but I read it a little differently. In my view,we, the audience, had 20 years to mentally prepare for this sequel, while they, the filmmakers, had 20 years to get it right. They didn’t.

ID:R feels like the Chinese Democracy of film: an overcooked, bloated and completely unnecessary follow-up to a shining example of mindless ’90s spectacle at its best.

Like its predecessor, ID:R tells the story of an alien invasion from the perspective of multiple characters with interweaving storylines.

Jeff Goldblum returns as David Levinson, jet-setting from Africa to the moon to Area 51 for no apparent reason other than he was willing to reprise his role. Bill Pullman’s President Whitmore, the man whose strength of character enabled him to make the rousing speech that saved the world back in ’96,

seems to be the only survivor of the first attack stricken with PTSD. A bearded and broken man, haunted by visions and nightmares of his alien foes, the former president now inhabits the role of the crazed Cassandra, doomed to spout unheeded warnings of the dangers to come. His daughter Patricia, played by Maika Monroe (and not, controversially, Arrested Development’s Mae Whitman, who played her in the original), is a former fighter pilot who now works for the current president Lanford (Ward). Then there’s Will Smith’s character’s stepson Dylan (Usher), a fighter pilot who should arguably be the lead, but instead plays second fiddle to Patricia and

NOW YOU SEE ME: THE SECOND ACT DIRECTED BY

Jon M. Chu STARRING

Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Daniel Radcliffe, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman RATED PG-13

Ugh. You gotta love corporate-mandated movies. You know, I actually kind of liked the first Now You See Me. Yes, it was a mess of a film, but in terms of mindless popcorn flicks it was actually pretty good! Plus any film that brings Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson together again immediately gets points in my book (I freaking love Zombieland) Really, this series as a whole is stacked with some of my favorite actors in the business, and when I heard they added Lizzy Caplan for the sequel, I was stoked.

Caplan cannot star in enough things nowadays, and she steals the show here (even though there is a very unnecessary love story between her and Dave Franco).

But despite all the great actors, this film is an absolute dumpster fire. Why? Because, unlike the first film, it tries to be more than

A CLASSIC

26 * JULY 2016 * BOROPULSE.COM

OUTSTANDING

AVERAGE

BELOW AVERAGE

AVOID AT ALL COSTS

DEAD

BOROPULSE.COM

* JULY 2016 * 27

MOVIES

FIRST SHORT FILM BY MTSU ALUM LANDS IN 2016 FILM FESTIVALS BRIAN C. BROWN, A DECEMBER 2015 MFA in Recording Arts and Technologies graduate from MTSU, completed his first major short film, Aurelius, earlier this year.

The film has since been an official selection for the New York City International Film Festival, the Accolade Global Film Competition, the Los Angeles Cinefest and the Miami Independent Film Festival.

Aurelius has Murfreesboro written all over it, as the main character, Marcus a.k.a. Aurelius, deals with balancing classwork, his own music, his job at Davis Market, the decision to smoke up or finish his term paper, a showcase performance at Tempt, and how to simultaneously navigate serious emotional and family issues; in this case, the death of the young man’s father.

Brown’s other main work recently involves live sound reinforcement and studio engineering, and he has also completed mixing and mastering his first major album project for an established Nashville blues artist.

He continues to pursue his career as a filmmaker, scriptwriter, audio engineer and music artist.

28 * JULY 2016 * BOROPULSE.COM

LIVING ROOM CINEMA column by NORBERT THIEMANN

facebook.com/livingroomcinema

In Their Own Words

Not much more can be said beyond the fact that these documentary filmmakers wisely let their subjects tell the story. An honorable mention goes out to Errol Morris for almost everything he has ever created.

 Listen to Me Marlon (2015) is directed by Stevan Riley. Miraculously, the late Marlon Brando left behind a treasure trove of autobiographical audio tapes.

They are interspersed throughout this posthumous documentary, which tells the story of his fascinating and turbulent life.

The Kid Stays in the Picture  (2002) is directed by Nanette Burstein. Robert Evans produced some of Hollywood’s most amazing films, such as The Godfather, Chinatown and Rosemary’s Baby, just to name a few. His larger-than-life personality comes through in a narration that only he could deliver.  Portrait of Jason (1967) is directed by Shirley Clark. The camera is firmly fixed upon a smooth-talking Jason Holliday, who previously changed his name from Aaron Payne. His stories of hustling and surviving as a gay black man in the ’60s crescendo as he is taunted into more confessions.

The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins  (1967) is directed by Les Blank. This wonderfully loose short film allows Hopkins to talk about the blues as he visits with friends, drinks and plays his music.

The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins contains no pretense and, like Hopkins’ own music, feels completely authentic.

BOROPULSE.COM

* JULY 2016 * 29

News



Read more of what each candidate has to say at boropulse.com

Candidates Vying for New Judge Position, Election Day Aug. 4

R

utherford County Voters will soon head to the polls to vote in primaries for Tennessee House and Senate and U.S. House seats, Rutherford County and Murfreesboro School Board positions, Murfreesboro City Council seats (with only three candidates, Bill Shacklett, Eddie Smotherman and Kirt Wade, running for three open positions), and other contests.

Additionally, a new criminal judgeship will be created, to be known as General Sessions Part IV, and nine candidates are running to fill an eight-year term in this capacity.

With Election Day coming up Aug. 4, early voting begins July 15. For more information on local elections, visit election.rutherfordcountytn.gov.

The candidates for General Sessions Part IV judge took some time to share some information about themselves and their views with the readers of the Murfreesboro Pulse:

Lisa Bell CAREER HISTORY:

In 2006, I was hired to work for the General Sessions Part III Judge as a Court Coordinator. For the past 10 years, I have had handson experience in the courtroom assisting the judge with civil, criminal and mental health matters. I have also had the opportunity to be appointed to sit as a Special Judge and hear cases on numerous occasions.

Why should the voters select you?

This has been my goal since I was 16 years old. My education and experience have prepared me to be the next judge. I will bring balance and the right temperament to the court­—I’ve spent more time serving directly in the courtroom than any other candidate.

What about the system needs to change?

There should be a more direct focus on mental health issues. There are often times that inmates are in legitimate need of psychological care, but instead simply contribute to the overcrowding of our jails.

What is the best thing about the U.S. criminal justice system?

While our system is not perfect, it allows for numerous checks and balances beginning at the time of investigation all the way through to a verdict. Regardless of background, all citizens have the same rights and responsibilities. This is something that few legal systems in other countries provide and I’m proud to be a part of our legal system.

How do you balance punishment and providing tools one needs to succeed?

While someone’s debt to society needs to be paid, society as a whole can only benefit from helping someone who is willing to learn from prior mistakes and equip themselves to become someone that contributes to society in a positive way.

30 * JULY 2016 * BOROPULSE.COM

Larry Brandon CAREER HISTORY:

From 1980 to 2006, I operated a solo practice in Murfreesboro. During those 26 years, I handled hundreds of civil cases and hundreds of criminal cases, ranging from simple misdemeanors to robberies, rapes, and double capital murders. My experience has allowed me to view every aspect of the civil and criminal practice. I have seen what does not and what does work.

Why should the voters select you?

I am the only candidate with eight years of judicial experience. The new judge will be charged with establishing a new court.

I have successfully accomplished this with General Sessions, Part III and its civil court, probate court and mental health court. The new court will be charged with controlling jail population. The new judge must establish policies and procedures to move the jail population from 900 closer to 500.

What about the system needs to change?

The high cost to house inmates creates a burden on the taxpayers. Added to this is the continued privatization of prisons; a system in which states are required to guarantee a certain percentage of filled beds or pay regardless, encourages inmate population growth.

This is to the detriment of the taxpayers.

The misdemeanor criminal court system often appears to be more interested in money than in rehabilitation because rehabilitation costs money. Rehabilitation is like any other form of education—it needs to be considered an investment. Some could have their punishment combined with a program of education and employment skills and after serving their time for their crime, can become productive citizens in our county.

Kirk Catron

Andrae Crismon

CAREER HISTORY:

CAREER HISTORY:

I have been an attorney for almost 12 years, mainly focusing my practice on criminal defense. I am one of only two candidates that can say they are in the court in which this judgeship will serve on a near daily basis.

Why should the voters select you?

One of my passions is community outreach.

I want to utilize this passion to remove the negative stigma of the judicial system that has long been prevalent. I would like to implement a program to bring in students to see that there is more to court than just feeling like they are a target. Our country as a whole does a poor job educating and communicating with our citizens about the law. This has led to our citizens feeling alienated by the justice system.

What about the system needs to change?

The efficiency of the court must improve.

For example, waste of time and expenses of our local enforcement, defendants, court personal and victims. As judge I would streamline the judicial process creating a cost effective and competent efficiency. The wait time in court is too long. By waiting for hours for cases to be heard, victims and defendants are missing work, family time or a much needed paycheck. Our law enforcement officers are taken off the street or are having to stay long after their shift or come in before their shifts to deal with cases.

I will work to clean up the probation system and run an efficient and friendly court environment. The former probation system in Rutherford County had been a problem for years.

It continually let our citizens down. It became a money-making mechanism for the private company and ultimately greed took over.

Currently individuals are being drug tested for non-drug-related offenses. I believe this should stop. Someone convicted of driving on a revoked license with no indication that a drug crime has occurred should not be tested.

It is costing our citizens money.

How do you balance punishment and providing tools one needs to succeed?

There are individuals who are just bad people and they need to be punished to the utmost extent. There are more individuals that just need help. Maybe it’s substance abuse or mental disabilities. These individuals need to be treated differently until it is proven that they cannot be helped.

I have spent the last nine years working with Legal Aid Society. Our public interest law firm provides free, civil legal assistance to persons with low incomes, the disabled and seniors.

Why should the voters select you?

I believe I possess the character, temperament, knowledge and humility that will make me a good judge. I will fairly apply the law and treat every person before me with courtesy and respect.

What about the system needs to change?

Having spent the last two years teaching males incarcerated at the Rutherford County Correctional Work Center some basic principles of landlord/tenant law, my eyes have been opened to the deep hole that many of these men and women will face once they are released. In Tennessee, roughly 46 percent of persons who are currently incarcerated are expected to return back to the criminal justice system within three years.

They will need to secure employment, locate housing and find some way to pay back probation fees. Not to mention the good fortune many will need in securing these resources without transportation because they lost their driving privileges.

Rutherford County does not currently have an organized, whole-cloth approach to help equip men and women that are released so that they avoid becoming re-offenders. I will work with government leaders, the private sector, non-profit agencies and the faith-based community to bring together housing, employment, and drug counseling resources to give persons released from jail or prison a better choice than returning to the system. If we can develop a comprehensive re-entry strategy, hopefully persons who offend, upon release, will have options to get back on their feet.

Thoughts on the lawsuit filed against Providence Community Corrections: It is still a very embarrassing situation. I in no way condone the underlying criminal act that may ultimately lead a person to be put on probation. Yet, this lawsuit caught our government either unaware or ignoring an unscrupulous vendor that in certain circumstances kicked probationers who were already down.

Lisa Eischeid

Jeffrey L. Peach

CAREER HISTORY:

CAREER HISTORY:

I obtained my law license in 1992 and began my practice as a litigation attorney in the fields of civil and criminal law with David Kious and his firm. In 2004, I opened Eischeid Law Office and have continued my practice in the criminal and civil areas of law. For the last 24 years I have assisted the Rutherford County General Sessions Court as Substitute Judge and I have also assisted the City of Murfreesboro as Substitute Judge.

Why should the voters select you?

I have worked with most of the attorneys in Rutherford County and have presented cases in front of all the judges. I have handled a variety of cases with our District Attorney and his assistants. This actual experience gives me the judicial temperament necessary while on the bench.

What about the system needs to change?

There needs to be a system for misdemeanor nonviolent offenders to get out of jail (public drunk etc.) and not be housed by our county jail because they cannot make bond. I know currently our judiciary along with the county mayor’s office and other community members are meeting to work on a release program which will help in this situation. We also have a population in the jail that is mentally ill and even when released are not getting the services necessary to make them law abiding citizens.

Rutherford County has to work on these problems to stop our overcrowding in the jail.

What is the best thing about the U.S. criminal justice system?

We actually have a criminal justice system that ultimately allows a jury of unbiased citizens to make a determination of one’s guilt or innocence.

Thoughts on the lawsuit filed against Providence Community Corrections: When you have a third-party for-profit company they are not looking at the actual probationer and trying to assist in getting them off supervised probation and out of the system.

That company was really interested in keeping the probationers on probation to continue to collect fees and profits for the company. I am glad Murfreesboro decided to incorporate a supervised probation service that is actually helping the probationers and the county by not housing violators in our jail for nonpayment of probation fees.

How do you balance punishment and providing tools one needs to succeed?

You have to look at each crime committed and then apply the law as written. I would also incorporate certain services for that defendant to assist with why this criminal behavior occurred. Our court system has started a Veterans court and the Mental Health Court which is solving some problems.

I started my law enforcement career at Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office. In 1996, I began working for Smyrna Police, where I volunteered for the SWAT team, arson investigation, to serve as the designated local U.S. Customs Agent, to be the only Neighborhood Watch program coordinator and then was subsequently was promoted to detective in 1998, where I remained until my retirement. In 2008, after attending law school while simultaneously working as a detective, I started practicing law in the Smyrna Town Attorney’s Office, consequently becoming the Town Attorney.

Why should the voters select you?

My experience spans more than just inside the courtroom; I have an understanding of not only what should transpire inside the walls of the courthouse, but also what propels victims and defendants into court, as well as what ramifications exist after a court decision. I have spent time at the plaintiff/ prosecutor’s table, the defense table for pro bono cases and also in the witness chair as a detective. Experience is more important when it encompasses more than one viewpoint, because it allows me to appreciate what is expected from all court participants and to have actually experienced what they are by appearing before the court. I will make a positive impact . . . by making the community safer and successful.

What about the system needs to change?

Addressing recidivism. There are a plethora of reasons men and women find themselves in the criminal justice system and while I believe the first key factor is self-accountability for one’s actions, are we concentrating enough on the cause versus the cure; to me, that is the pivotal issue.

What is the best thing about the U.S. criminal justice system?

While our system may not be perfect, the ability to present your case before a group of citizens instead of a government tribunal allows the person to choose their peers to find for guilt or innocence beyond a reasonable doubt, and in many countries, this opportunity either doesn’t exist or it is severely restrictive.

How do you balance punishment and providing tools one needs to succeed?

This is the reasoning behind alternative sentencing, which can provide the offender with a mechanism to make positive choices and to utilize the resources that are available while avoiding the traditional jail sentence. Just as I mentioned previously, however, the person must choose to accept personal accountability for their actions and then actually use those resources offered, before they can move forward successfully.

BOROPULSE.COM

* JULY 2016 * 31

News

BY SAM CLEMENS murfreesborotribune@gmail.com

University to Remove History from History Department's Name, Says it Offends Too Many AT A RECENT MEETING, the Middle Tennessee State University Panel of Ethics voted unanimously to remove “History” from the official title of the MTSU Department of History.

“History is riddled with offensive and racially insensitive conduct,” said Chairman Nathan Forrest. “The panel feels that this decision further shields MTSU students from anything and everything that one particular student may find offensive.”

Last year, students organized a petition against the name of the Department of History. After building support on social media, a group of students formed the organization Change History Now and demanded that the MTSU Administration remove “History” from the department title.

“For the students of this campus, I think this is the most unifying decision the university can make,” said sophomore Paxley Miller. “To use the word ‘history’ on this campus forces students to hear of a movement that includes war, terrorism and genocide.”

“It’s unthinkable that the university has allowed this name to remain on campus this long,” echoed junior Brentley Montgomery, who protests for eight hours a day instead of working, paying taxes or contributing to society in any other meaningful way.

“History is filled with crime and corruption,” Montgomery continued. “While on campus, students shouldn’t see or hear anything that makes them uncomfortable.”

The Murfreesboro Tribune investigative team has discovered that history has an extensive background in racial discrimination and offensive behavior. History includes such events as slavery, segregation and Jim Crow laws.

“If we remove history from this department, it will change everything,” said Miller.

“It will be as if these horrific events never happened, which will make us all better people for never hearing about bad things.”

MTSU President Ridley McPeak acknowledged the panel decision, but asked protesters for patience as the administrative process runs its course.

“This is not a simple issue. There are others who feel just as strongly as the students on the other side,” McPeak said. “We should be open to different views and different situations regardless of how we feel about it, or how repugnant it is. It’s part of our duty to let the other voices be heard in a deliberative, orderly process.”

Student leaders from Change History Now refused to accept calls for calmness and agreement. “[Expletive] that,” said activist Jaymeigh Johnston. “Every day that we wait, history

“Every day that we wait, history grows larger and larger.

The time for action is now.”

32 * JULY 2016 * BOROPULSE.COM

grows larger and larger. The time for action is now.”

 Meth Café to Open at Knights Lodge

Harold and Diane Massey believe in selling a product that the customer wants, which inspired the couple to open the first full-service methamphetamine restaurant in Tennessee.

The Masseys will open their unique restaurant, the Meth Stop, at the Knights Lodge in Murfreesboro.

“When you look at the demographics of this area, it’s clear that this community loves meth,” said Harold. “I can’t remember the exact numbers, but there were something like 8,000 meth arrests within a square mile of this place last year.”

The Knights Lodge, which is located on South Burch Street in Murfreesboro, is a local hotspot for drug use, police activity and fans of hobo fight clubs.

“This place is the portrait of meth use,” said Harold Massey, waving his hand toward the motel. “We just hope that we can provide

enough methamphetamine to keep up with the high demand in this neighborhood.”

According to police reports, the Murfreesboro Police Department was called to the Knights Lodge for 3,721 methamphetaminerelated offenses in the past year, an average of over 10 calls per day. The Regal Motel, which is across the street from the Knights Lodge, witnessed a paltry 2,855 reports of methamphetamine production.

“That was the determining factor,” said Diane Massey. “We thought about opening the restaurant at the Regal Motel, but it just wasn’t infested with rampant poverty and meth use like the other locations we looked at.”

Other locations considered by the Masseys included the Jackson Motel, the Murfreesboro Motel and stall three in the women’s restroom at Shoney’s.

The Meth Stop will be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, serving American fare with a Southern twist. VIP trailers will be available for a more private meth experience. For more information, contact harold@themethstop.com.

(Relax, it’s a joke . . . kind of.)

Sam Clemens is the founder and publisher of The Murfreesboro Tribune, "The Paper That Prints (Some) Facts." According to one unnamed source, the Tribune is “the best newspaper you’ll ever read.” Contact him at murfreesborotribune@gmail.com.

AROUND TOWN ’BORO BUSINESS BUZZ

PUCKETT’S GROCERY, known in Franklin, Nashville, Columbia and Chattanooga for its wide selection of fine Southern food—biscuits, ham and eggs, French toast, meatloaf, fried chicken, steaks, barbecue, burgers, shrimp & grits and much more served alongside live music—has purchased the building at 114 N. Church St. in Murfreesboro, the former home of Big Bang, Bluesboro, 3 Brothers, Blue Rooster and Sports Planet. Puckett’s ownership plans to be in operation by late 2016.

After announcing plans to move to another location, JoZOARA owners Dan and Jane Ogg decided to close the popular Thompson Lane coffee sanctuary they purchased four years ago, posting simple replies to confused customers’ posts on the Jozoara Facebook page, stating, “Things didn’t work out as planned,” and “We will not be reopening.”

SIR PIZZA at 110 Barfield Crescent Road near Church Street remains closed after a kitchen fire in late May. Management says they plan to reopen as soon as possible, but in the meantime Sir Pizza’s East Main Street and Memorial Boulevard locations will keep cranking out the pizzas for the veteran establishment’s many fans in the area.

Developer David Stansberry prepares another of his operations for launch. BARCADE FROM MARS THEATER will serve burgers, hot dogs and beer in a space at 115 S. Church Street packed with arcade games and pinball machines.

MAPLE STREET GRILL has vacated its space on the Murfreesboro Public Square, allowing Mike and Debbie Zelenak the chance to focus on their Eagleville location, and offering an enterprising restaurant owner an opportunity to move into a prime spot in downtown Murfreesboro.

DAVIS MARKET, the legendary MTSUarea convenience store at the Main Street/ Middle Tennessee corner, will soon be filled with pineapples, avocados, beans, beer and even piñatas and other Hispanic-oriented items. Operator Jose Silva also plans to serve tacos and other hot food as well.

TEXAS ROADHOUSE plans to open its 14th Tennessee location on John Rice Boulevard, near I-24, at the site occupied

by Nobody’s BBQ before it moved across the interstate. The chain, known for handcut steaks and free peanuts and bread, will destroy the existing building and raise another, with plans to be open for business by late 2016.

 JAZZMATAZZ brings jambalaya, po’ boys, étouffée, shrimp & grits, cocktails and live jazz to the former Santa Fe space near Home Depot on Old Fort Parkway. Leo and Deanne Hathaway invite the community to come by and experience the new elegant and spacious venue, opening at 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday, with live entertainment planned for Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays (and also available for private parties and events).

MILANO II on College Street is expanding its space and services as Jack Barakat renovates the building next door for a bar and space for events and receptions.

THE MURFREESBORO BILLIARDS CLUB had planned to relocate to 127 SE Broad Street, which still sports a big blue Brew U sign. However, the owners recently abandoned those plans, and that building, visited by the TV show Bar Rescue a couple of years ago, remains available. In the old Billiards Club location, 1253 NW Broad St., a different pool operation, MJ’S POOL HALL, has set up shop.

Kennedy-Shehan are partnering on a pop-up dinner on July 10. The dinner will feature sweet corn grits soufflé, heirloom tomato gazpacho, black cod, duck with carrot and plum jam, and other delights. The duo offered 30 tickets to the event at $90 a pop, and they went quick. Keep your eyes

on Belew’s and Simply Pure’s social media pages for similar events in the future.

For more information about using the Murfreesboro Pulse to promote your business, contact Leslie Russell-Yost at leslie@ boropulse.com or (615) 631-5768.

The space at 2705 Old Fort Parkway, once the location of Touchdown Wings, now serves as home to CHEX GRILL & WINGS, serving hot wings and even fried shrimp coated in honey hot sauce.

QUINN’S MERCANTILE has opened a couple of blocks off the Square at 301 N. Spring St. This unique boutique, owned

by Tracy Toy, offers vintage, industrial and farmhouse chic furniture and home decor, gifts, women’s wear, handmade items and other treasures.

Fans of Nike and Air Jordans have a home in downtown Murfreesboro now that SOLE COLLECTIONS has opened at 115 E. Vine Street. Once the site of a popcorn store, Sole Collections—which buys, sells, trades and consigns shoes primarily of the urban/ basketball variety—will keep it poppin’.

The local 84 Lumber store hosted the company’s Tiny House Tour in June, where representatives brought models of small structures on trailers to Murfreesboro. 84 LUMBER now sells both tiny house kits and ready-to-go homes under 200 square feet, on trailers.

Murfreesboro CHEF ALEX BELEW and SIMPLY PURE SWEETS owner Chantell BOROPULSE.COM

* JULY 2016 * 33

Opinion Arnold Makes Special Exit, but Criminal Charges Here to Stay APPARENTLY THE OLD SAYING holds true: there is no honor among thieves—or at least alleged thieves.

The day Rutherford County Sheriff Robert Arnold, Chief Administrative Deputy Joe Russell, and Arnold’s uncle, John Vanderveer, surrendered to federal authorities on a 14-count indictment charging them with profiting from illicit e-cigarette sales to Rutherford County jail inmates, the sheriff pulled a quick one.

After their court hearing, as they left the building, Russell went through one of only two public entrances at the federal courthouse, while Arnold slipped out a back door not accessible for public use.

One could surmise he used his buddy as a decoy—even hung him out to dry.

As a result, Russell had to walk in front of a host of TV photographers who were waiting outside the building’s 9th Avenue door.

Arnold, on the other hand, used a loading dock door on the back side of the building to

34 * JULY 2016 * BOROPULSE.COM

The

STOCKARD REPORT

BY SAM STOCKARD sstockard44@gmail.com

exit and walk down an alley. By the time TV photographers recognized him they got only a couple of seconds of footage before Arnold jumped in an SUV and vacated.

One of the female TV reporters said he told her to watch out, implying she could be run over by the truck.

While he thought he was being tricky, Arnold’s getaway might have caused a security breach. The Federal Protective Service, which is a part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, allows the general public to use only two doors at the federal building: the one on Broadway and the one on 9th Avenue.

Department of Justice spokesman David Boling had told reporters no special exit

would be allowed for Arnold. So when Arnold sneaked out, in a way he made Boling look like a liar, which would irritate anyone.

“Unequivocally, no favor was done for anybody as far as the Department of Justice was concerned,” Boling said recently when asked about the incident. “We would not go there, no matter who it was.”

Think about it. If every federal defendant used that door, the feds wouldn’t know who was coming and going. Such irresponsible behavior could cause a serious security problem. But when you think you’re above the law, you don’t really care what door you use, as long as it suits your purposes.

It must be noted, too, that the vehicle equipped with government plates, a Rutherford County Sheriff ’s Office SUV, was used to pick up Arnold, and sources say Maj. Terry McBurney, who heads up the warrants division, was driving. Channel 4 News backed that up with a report.

So not only is Arnold accused of setting up and investing in an e-cigarettes business and profiting from local jail inmates, making more than $66,600, even after being indicted he continued using Rutherford County’s taxpayers to fund his trip to federal court.

Taxpayers provided the gas, the vehicle and the driver for Arnold’s Nashville adventure that day, although since he was handcuffed and shackled it probably wasn’t as enjoyable as the extradition trips he’s taken to Alaska, San Francisco and Seattle.

It’s little wonder, then, that many county commissioners didn’t want to provide the funds for 19 new deputy positions next fiscal year. They don’t trust Arnold to spend the money properly.

And while Arnold has accused county commissioners of playing politics with the budget to deny his personnel requests, the blame lies with him.

When elected leaders and the public lose confidence in the county’s top law enforcement officer, they can’t just keep funneling money to his office to pay for more officers.

According to the indictment, Russell was pretty much running JailCigs, the company he co-owned with Vanderveer, from the sheriff ’s office and using jailers to deliver ecigarettes to inmates and monitor their use.

When inmates were booked into jail they were given a sheet of paper showing them how to gain access to JailCigs, which could be done only by going to the company website and making a purchase through family and friends. This term has been beaten to death

over the last year, but it really was a “captive audience.” They couldn’t buy from anyone else, and no other vendor got to bid.

No wonder so many former Arnold backers dropped their support of Arnold like a bad habit—sort of like quitting smoking cold turkey.

LEGISLATIVE EFFORT TO ALLOW RECALL

State Sen. Bill Ketron, who called for Arnold’s resignation immediately after the indictment, is prepared to look into legislation giving voters the ability to recall a constitutional officer such as the sheriff, county clerk or register of deeds, those positions set up by the state Constitution. Under existing law, a constitutional officer can be removed only through an ouster suit, felony or election loss.

Ketron says the measure should apply to all of the constitutional officers because if they were to be charged with a heinous crime such as murder, rape or child molestation, they couldn’t be removed from office until ousted, convicted or voted out.

“If people have lost trust in any of our constitutional officers, there needs to be some provision to protect the citizens and let them have some say on it, just like wine in grocery stores, let them decide,” Ketron said.

Such a measure could require a large number of voter signatures to put a recall vote on the ballot. If such a process were in place, an Arnold recall could have been put on the ballot by August or November. As it is, his term runs out in September 2018.

An Aug. 2 trial date is set for him and his co-defendants, but Russell’s attorney is already trying to push it back. Word has it the Department of Justice has put together a massive amount of evidence—does anyone know what a terrabyte is? It’s a unit of information equal to one million million, and the computer file is said to be at least that big. So it wouldn’t be surprising to see the trial pushed back.

Ketron acknowledges Arnold has a right to a fair trial. But even if Arnold is found innocent, if the voters hold no trust in him and want to recall the sheriff by gathering enough signatures to hold a referendum, “then the citizen electorate should have that opportunity to do so,” Ketron said.

If Ketron sponsors such a bill, he’s likely to run smack dab into the sheriffs’ association and other lobbyist organizations for elected county officials. But it’s about time Tennessee adopted a method for booting questionable critters out of office. After all, Arnold isn’t the first sheriff in Tennessee to be indicted.

GOOD FOR THE GANDER

A funny thing happened recently amid the nine-person race for a fourth General Sessions judgeship created in Rutherford County.

Election Commission Chairman Ransom Jones and his wife, Wren, held a soirée at their Lascassas home to raise money for the campaign of Ben Bennett, a local attorney who used to work at the sheriff ’s office.

This isn’t a reflection on Bennett. But two years ago, when Nicole Lester (wife of indicted sheriff ’s administrator Joe Russell) was the election administrator, Jones said, “It probably doesn’t look good,” when asked whether Lester should have several election signs in her yard. She had three.

Now that Jones has a Bennett sign in his yard, he says neutrality should apply only to election office employees, not to election commissioners.

“Absolutely not,” he says, when asked if he feels he has a conflict of interest.

In fact, Jones points out election commissions are made up of political activists, people who’ve been involved in campaigns.

They are also partisan appointments.

“There is nothing about election commissions, or has been, that is neutral,” Jones says.

He is correct.

According to the Tennessee Secretary of State’s office, which oversees the Tennessee Division of Elections, the only restriction for county election commissioners is that they may not serve as a candidate’s campaign manager or treasurer.

In addition, the makeup of the commissions, whether they are controlled by Republicans or Democrats, depends on the majority in the General Assembly.

Democrats held sway here for many, many decades until Republicans wrested control of the House of Representatives from the Democrats about six years ago.

When change came to the local election commission, the crap hit the fan. They booted longtime Democrat Hooper Penuel as election administrator. Former commissioner Chairman Tom Walker inserted himself as election administrator but then resigned. Then some of the commissioners left, and finally Jones was appointed to serve and became chairman.

Since then, the commission has worked in unison, even voting unanimously to fire Lester because she just wouldn’t report to work at the office as Jones requested.

So the county election commission is running smoothly. No more hordes of hell raisers at the meetings, which is really kind of boring. And, as Jones also contends, election commissioners probably can’t influence a counting of the votes to make sure their candidate wins.

But even though Jones may be keeping things well-oiled at the office, when it comes to him and his wife holding a big party for Ben Bennett, well, in his own words, “It probably doesn’t look good.”

Sam Stockard can be reached at sstockard44@gmail.com BOROPULSE.COM

* JULY 2016 * 35

Opinion HOW TO WRITE HEADLINES THAT STOP THEM IN THEIR TRACKS BUSINESS BUILDER

T

BY ROBERT RITCH

he last column discussed creating at least two offers to use as lead generation tools for your business, and testing and measuring each one to evaluate which is more effective.

Just like your lead generating offer, your headline has one job. It doesn’t need to close sales, or win copywriting awards, it just needs to grab and hold your reader’s attention long enough to keep them reading.

The rest of your copy only matters if you can get your readers to read it!

Headlines are used to grab and hold attention in all marketing materials. Most readers take only a few seconds to decide if they want to spend any time reading what you have to say, whether in an email, website, sales letter or direct mail postcard. Just like you, your audience is bombarded by information every minute of the day, so if you haven’t convinced them to care in a few seconds or less, they’ve already moved on.

Every headline should: Grab the reader’s attention Be something the reader cares about Offer your reader something Trigger emotional reactions Create curiosity When you’re writing, put yourself in the mindset of your audience. People are pressed for time, so your headline has to offer something to them that is going to solve their problem, make their life easier or give them information that they know they need.

For example, if I were to write a headline like this—Give me three hours of your time and I’ll show you how to double your annual income by creating a passive income stream—I’m probably targeting overworked, overwhelmed, underpaid professionals who are struggling to provide for their families. I’ve tapped into their emotional motivators and caught their attention.

There are a few categories of basic human needs that encompass most purchase motivations. When you are aware of these, you will be able to incorporate them into your writing and appeal to your target market’s emotions.

By identifying your target market’s needs, wants, and desires, you’ll be able to identify the words and phrases that will effectively trigger emotional reactions, which will motivate them to take action.

Using the list of basic human needs below, identify which apply to your target market and create a list of words that will trigger the emotions related to these needs, wants and desires.

– Personal, financial and emotional secu36 * JULY 2016 * BOROPULSE.COM

rity for self and family – Convenience and time management – Freedom from worry, including peace of mind, comfort – Self-improvement, including spiritual, intellectual, physical – Acceptance and recognition from others, including self-esteem, achievement, attention, respect, companionship – Basic needs, including food, shelter, clothing, love, personal maintenance When you begin writing your headlines, you will discover that certain word combinations are also very powerful. You can combine your list of emotional trigger words with these power words in all of your copywriting.

According to a Yale University study, the most powerful words in the English language are: love, money, health, discovery, proven, save, safety, you, easy, results, new and guaranteed (with some of the other top words including: breakthrough, profits, incredible, shocking, ultimate, free, master, revealed, scientific, powerful, suddenly, miracle, magic, introducing, amazing, remarkable, compare and bargain).

Here’s how you can write effective headlines for your business in a few easy steps.

Identify the persons you are trying to target.

You need a clear understanding of whom you’re writing for and what their motivators are (as a previous column covered). The more specific you can be with your market, the easier time you will have identifying and reaching their emotional “hot buttons.”

1

Identify what you are trying to communicate.

Once you know to whom you’re speaking, clearly define what message you need to communicate to them. Be specific, and even write it down in plain language before you start drafting your headlines.

Do you have a solution to their problem?

Do you offer a new product or service that they need?

Can you provide the information they’re looking for?

Do you have a better option for them?

2

Identify the motivators or “hot buttons” that will elicit an emotional response from your audience.

Take the list you drafted above, and highlight or write down the words that will pique your target market’s interest.

If you’re selling vacuum cleaners to young

3

mothers, you’re going to want to identify words that would appeal to her desire to keep her home germ-free for toddlers, and make her cleaning efforts easier and less time-consuming.

Try to paint a picture for your audience.

Carefully select descriptive words they will relate to, strong power words like the ones listed above. For example, phrases like “challenging outdoor experiences” would appeal to physically fit readers, but not to those who don’t like to exercise.

Choose a type of headline that will work best based on the emotional motivators you have identified.

Direct Headlines clearly and simply state the offer or message, without any attempt at humor or cleverness:Pure Silk Scarves – 40% This Weekend Only; Brand-new Security System Just $99 Per Month.

Indirect Headlines are subtle, and often use curiosity to pique a reader’s interest before providing an explanation in the body copy. Clever puns, figures of speech and double meanings are often used: The key to weight-loss success lies in your backyard.

News Headlines mimic a headline you would read in the newspaper and are a great option for a new product announcement or industry scoop. These work best when you actually have news, and can stay focused on benefits, not features: Newco launches the ultimate time saver for new moms.

Question Headlines ask the reader something they can closely relate to or would need to continue reading to discover the answer.

Questions are easy to read, and can immediately tap into your reader’s emotions: Are you tired of worrying about your children’s education fund? Do you know what’s in your fruits and vegetables?

How-to Headlines indicate that the rest of the copy or the offer itself will describe a step-by-step process of interest or use to the reader. These two words create headlines that work wonders: How to find a job in a recession; How to start a profitable internet business from scratch.

Command Headlines are similar to direct headlines, but always start with a strong verb or command for action. It usually focuses on the most important benefit you offer your reader. Triple your energy in just three days.

Stop wasting money when you travel.

Reasons Why or Ways to Headlines precede lists of tips, suggestions, product benefits or even mistakes of interest to your target audience. Keep the list to a reasonable length or you’ll run the risk of losing your reader:Eight ways to save money around the house; 25 mis-

4

takes you could be making at the grocery store.

Testimonial Headlines use other people’s opinions and expertise to persuade a reader to keep reading and begin to build trust. Quotation marks are used to indicate that the words are a testimonial, not the words of your business, and they can increase readership by almost 30 percent. “ToneYou Bootcamp completely changed the way I look at my body” – Miley Cirrus. “I never thought I’d get out of debt before I discovered Money Saver!” – Grace LePage Draft at least 10 different headlines, and pick your best three to test and measure.

Don’t stress about the length of your headline. Use the number of words you need to get your point across, without writing a paragraph. Remember that your headline needs to do one thing: get the reader to keep reading.

Don’t be afraid to draft pages of headlines or sift through the pages of a thesaurus before you get yours just right. Sometimes you’re only a word or two away from transforming a boring headline into a really effective one.

Headline Templates:

5

How to become the smartest _____ in _____ How to end ______ How I improved my _____ How to develop _____ Seven ways to add to your _____ without cleaning out your bank account How to begin _____ 12 innovations in _____ design How to enjoy _____ Introducing the four key rules for _____ How I _____ Six things to check when buying a new _____ How to conquer _____ Complete these three simple steps for a _____ How to start_____ Five hints to make your _____ rise above the rest How to have______ How to become _____ Announcing eight powerful answers to your “what _____ to buy” dilemma Which _____ do the experts use?

Powerful ways to update your _____ for free How to keep _____ The four components that make up a successful _____ CONTINUED ON PAGE 41

Tips for Incorporating Email Into Your Local Marketing Plan DID YOU KNOW that research completed by the Direct Marketing Association found that email marketing has an ROI of 3,800 percent? If you’re not leveraging email marketing for your business in Middle Tennessee, you’re missing out. Before diving into email marketing, know that there is a right way and a wrong way to use email marketing for your business—so choose wisely.

Authentically Build Your Recipient List We’ve all received emails from companies or individuals we don’t know. After opening the email, you begin to wonder how they obtained your email address when you’ve never interacted with their business before.

While it may be enticing to acquire a list of email addresses for a cost, what does it really say about the type of tactics your business engages in? Consider that most of the email addresses won’t have previous interaction with your company and may find your email marketing messages “spammy.”

Instead, convince your local customers to subscribe to your email marketing through non-intrusive pop-ups on your website, in-store sign-up capabilities and simply asking face to face. These tactics help you foster a positive relationship with your customer base while building a list of qualified subscribers that will actively engage with your email content. Allowing customers to organically “opt-in” to your email program will also position your business in a positive light with your local market.

Send Emails with Actual Value When using email marketing for your company, consider what value your local audience will receive. Perhaps you’re sending an article that will educate the user on a product in your industry. Or, maybe you’re sending company news that will have a direct impact

on the user. Whatever you choose to send, make sure your audience can derive significant and legitimate value from your emails.

From loyalty program emails to educational emails, always consider your local audience and the type of emails they want to receive.

Adapt to Your Email Marketing Data When using email marketing, always reference the data from previous campaigns.

This data will help you answer vital questions, such as: When is the best time to send your email?

What type of links does your Middle Tennessee audience click on?

How long should your subject lines be?

What type of content does your audience prefer?

Your email marketing campaign will only generate results for your business if you focus on what your data is telling you.

Are you receiving dismal open rates on certain emails? Try sending your emails on a different day of the week and time of day.

If your recipients are opening your email but not clicking through to your website, consider the type of content you are sending and how it appears in their inbox. If your email template or design does not appear correctly on their screen, they certainly will not click through to your website!

Email campaigns should always add value to your audience’s daily lives. Using these three simple tips will help you incorporate email into your marketing plan in no time.

— ANNE MERCER Titan Web Marketing Solutions, a digital marketing agency in Murfreesboro, TN, understands the local market and is ready to be your email marketing team. Visit titanwms.com or call (615) 890-3600 for more information.

BOROPULSE.COM

* JULY 2016 * 37

Opinion Consumer vs. Corporation When you have a real issue with a company, the BBB may be able to help.

BY JUSTIN STOKES GOING ALL THE WAY BACK TO 2011, I’ve been cited by such outlets as Android Authority and Tech a critic of the Better Business Bureau. That’s when Times. When I addressed this to Verizon, one of their I first got acquainted with the organization through personnel acted like their phones were somehow my at-the-time employment with Vector Marketing— mystically impervious to the bootloop issue, saying the super-shady MLM company that used plenty of “it’s not a known issue.” unethical practices but still maintained an A+ rating I addressed these issues to Pulse team members with the BBB. Outlets likeTime and others have since Leslie Yost and Bracken Mayo, who both recomwritten critical pieces about the way the Bureau mended getting in touch with the BBB. Skepticism sometimes grades businesses. flared when I had a phone chat with the president I’ve always questioned the logic in tattling on of the Middle Tennessee chapter of the BBB (on a businesses to the Better Business Bureau. Should one phone now serviced by AT&T after switching carritrust them just because they’re a nonprofit entity? ers), trying to get her to acknowledge the unethical I didn’t. And for that, I owe the Better Business behavior of Verizon toward me.

Bureau an apology after the organization helped me However, my complaint lodged with the BBB was out of a jam with Verizon Wireless. eventually able to get me $375 credited to my AT&T Here’s what happened: In August of last year, I account that would have been charged for buying out traded in my Samsung Galaxy S5 my contract with Verizon. I would for the LG G4. I didn’t need a new not have guessed that they would phone, but being a journalist who have pulled through, based on “Your secret weapon makes his money through his cellthe theory that Verizon wouldn’t against fraud is to always phone, laptop and tablet, I felt that have any interest in being actually pay by credit card.” – BBB it might be the best move. Signing accountable to a third party if they If you have received faulty up through the “Verizon Edge” chose to act that way towards a goods, been fraudulently program, I was paying a premium customer. charged or otherwise dispute a charge on your credit phone bill that increased from $115 Now, why share this back-handcard, and the business to about $136. ed compliment about the efforts of refuses a refund, you can And for paying through the the Better Business Bureau? Well, request a “chargeback” from nose, it felt that I was being punthey don’t seem to be the best at your credit card company or ished for wanting to give Verizon handling the criticisms against bank who issued the charge. more money. As soon as I got the them; the network of feedback They will reverse the charge, phone, I immediately began expedoesn’t really do a good job of and then the burden of proof lies on the merchant to afriencing issues with call quality, handling its own PR. firm they did not act frauduand took the phone back within But the mountain of questions lently or unethically. This a week of initially getting it. My against the BBB, its grading syschargeback can be second phone still had similar tem and its handling of some of its requested within 60 days, issues, but I roughed it out. After dialogue with consumers doesn’t and sometimes even up to having it for only a few months, bar a good outcome in my case. I 120 days, from when the my second version of the LG G4 was pretty dismissive of the Better charge was made. crashed, re-booted, and froze Business Bureau, but can now say in the re-boot stage. This happened to the third as a personal witness that they’re the one group that version of the phone, as well as the fourth version, helped me when my back was to the wall. with each LG G4 only working for a few months As I’ve learned something from the experience, before crapping out again. perhaps the BBB could learn something here too— This was getting to be a serious problem, as it about dealing with criticism about how it does busiwould take a few days to get a phone. Since my ness in a more enlightening fashion. Without directly livelihood hinges on the ability to get phone calls, proving the good they can do to some of the skeptics text messages and emails, this was beyond the peak and critics, many consumers are missing out on the of inconvenience and heading toward financial loss. one chance they might have at restitution against Having been a loyal Verizon customer since Christmajor disadvantages dealt to them by companies mas of 2007, I assumed that my complaints carried through red tape and poor treatment of customers. some weight. Every complaint was met with “oh, I highly recommend that anyone having an issue what you’re experiencing is not a known issue, and with a business’s practices consult the Better Busiwe’ll just get you a new one.” ness Bureau and see how they might be able to help But this was a known issue, finally acknowledged you—even if they’re not a member business. They by manufacturer LG as a “bootloop problem” and might just be able to help.

Consumer Tip:

38 * JULY 2016 * BOROPULSE.COM

Obama Administration Trying to Erase References to Islam From the Terrorist Equation

A

ttorney General Loretta Lynch and the Justice Department have become so politically correct that it’s nearly impossible for them to recognize the true enemy of America, much less protect us from it.

Let’s start with Exhibit A: the doctored transcripts of the Orlando terrorist’s 911 conversations with police. At first they redacted any reference to ISIS or its leader. Their excuse was they didn’t want to encourage others of like mind. Everybody knows the attack was on behalf of ISIS, but Obama and the left are trying to recast it as a gun problem.

When the full transcript was finally released there was one glaring error. The terrorist was quoted as saying “Praise be to God” and “In the name of God the merciful.” It is impossible to believe that he used the word “God.” All of his Facebook posts used the word “Allah,” but printing “Allah” would inextricably link his terrorist act to his Muslim faith.

That’s something the Obama administration has avoided at all costs.

In the wake of Orlando, the FBI claims threats have been made against Muslims. I certainly don’t doubt that nor do I condone it, but it was the FBI’s response that was so troubling. An FBI spokesman and assistant special agent told reporters, “Civil rights violations are a priority for VIEWS OF A the FBI.” Really? Civil rights violations are a priority?

How about stopping terrorists? column by Of course, Obama himself refuses to use the term PHIL VALENTINE philvalentine.com “radical Islamic terrorists.” He acts as though it’s merely a matter of semantics. It’s not. If you cannot clearly define the enemy you cannot effectively defeat it. This PC president is so opposed to profiling that he goes out of his way to ignore the obvious. Trying to act as though the Orlando terrorist had nothing to do with Islam removes one of the most powerful tools in police work. Profiling is a weapon in the defensive arsenal of law enforcement that’s been repeatedly proven useful. Countries around the world—notably Israel—have employed it with great success and it’s kept them relatively safe.

Obama says people who kill in the name of Islam are not Muslims. If he really believes that, why does he accommodate the terrorists at Gitmo with prayer rugs, Korans and sharia-compliant diets?

Understand, not all Muslims are bad people, but most of the terrorists these days are Muslim. To ignore that salient fact places us all in peril.

Former Obama advisor Van Jones said on CNN that if we’re going to profile we need to be looking for young white males because they’re the ones who shoot up schools. As far as schools go, he’s exactly right, but the Orlando killing was not a school shooting. It was a terrorist act. The terrorist made it perfectly clear that he acted in the name of Islam, clear to everyone except the liberal left.

If the consequences weren’t so grave, this avoidance of Islam would seem silly.

Political correctness has been getting us killed since at least 9/11, when then-Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta forbade profiling at airports. It’s exactly how Mohamed Atta got on the plane. Had the ticket agent been allowed to act on his instincts he would’ve flagged Atta before he boarded. In one phone call he would’ve learned that Atta’s visa had expired and he wouldn’t have been allowed on the plane. Without the ring leader, it’s doubtful the attack would’ve gone forward.

The same mistake was repeated at Ft. Hood, the Boston Marathon bombing, San Bernardino, and several other sites. Those who will not learn from history are bound to repeat it.

CONSERVATIVE

“Understand, not all Muslims are bad people, but most of the terrorists these days are Muslim.

To ignore that salient fact places us all in peril.”

Phil Valentine is an author and nationally syndicated radio talk show host with Westwood One. For more of his commentary and articles, visit philvalentine.com.

BOROPULSE.COM

* JULY 2016 * 39

Sports

BLUE RAIDER SPORTS BY GREG CRITTENDEN

Blue Raiders Nominated for Best Upset ESPY Award THE PUBLICITY MACHINE KEEPS ON CHURNING for the Middle Tennessee State University athletic department. Months after pulling off one of the greatest upsets in the history of the NCAA Tournament, the Blue Raiders men’s basketball team will once again find itself in the spotlight, having received an ESPY Awards nomination in the “Best Upset” category.

In March, the NCAA Selection Committee pitted the Blue Raiders against Michigan State, who was a favorite to win the National Championship, in the first round of the tournament.

While most perceived this as a death sentence for the Blue Raiders’ season, the team members saw it as an opportunity to put their stamp on history, and that they did.

MTSU never trailed the Spartans in a 90–81 victory.

“It’s a big honor for our school and program. You are on a national stage with college and pro sports from all over, so this is a tremendous honor,” coach Kermit Davis said of the nomination.

The exposure will likely continue to bolster MTSU recruiting across all sports. Even the football team has seen a boost in recruiting since the upset occurred, garnering interest from higher profile recruits than in the recent past.

According to 247sports.com, a handful of four-star recruits, and a bevy of three-star prospects, are realistic targets for both the football and men’s basketball teams.  It’s not too late to vote for your Blue Raiders. Click here to submit your vote. Voting is open until the ESPY Awards air on ESPN at 7 p.m. on July 13.

40 * JULY 2016 * BOROPULSE.COM

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 36

How to improve your _____ Six essential questions to ask before you buy a _____ How to get ______ Three clever ways to impress _____ without breaking the bank The six warning signs you don’t want to miss in _____ How to get the most out of ______ Nine tips from the _____ experts How to avoid _____ How to stay ahead of business _____ trends in _____ How to get rid of _____ Five proven advantages that _____ enjoys over the competition How you can _____ Finally! The latest _____ secrets revealed!

Learn how _____ has improved since you bought your last _____ Always test and measure the effectiveness of your headlines.

As always, you will need to test and measure the strength of your headlines. Try to test at least two “hot buttons” in different media to determine where your target audience’s reaction is the strongest.

You can also leverage off of the information gathered from testing and measuring your powerful offer. For example, if the offer geared to safety and security concerns was a roaring success, headlines that tap into those motivators will also be successful.

You can apply these headlinewriting techniques to all your marketing materials, as well as your copywriting.

In our fast-paced society, nearly everyone has become a skimmer instead of a reader.

Strong, well-written headlines are the only way you can lure a browser into reading your message; use them on every piece of marketing material you have.

6

Robert Ritch is a successful entrepreneur and business consultant, and has helped small businesses increase profits by assisting them in identifying and reaching their target market. Contact Robert at ceo@robertritch.com or at robertritch.com.

BOROPULSE.COM

* JULY 2016 * 41

Sports PATRIOTIC MOMENTS IN AMERICAN SPORTS HISTORY

42 * JULY 2016 * BOROPULSE.COM

SPORTS

TALK THE TRAIN DADDY IS BACK, as always, combining sports news, life lessons and politically incorrect talk into one spectacular article.

Let’s celebrate America’s Independence Day, blow up some aliens, save the world, make fiesta with the sexy chick, yes! Or you can just chill out and stuff your mouth with a bunch of wieners; they say Americans eat 60 hot dogs a year on average. Crazy!

Let’s break down some of the most iconic patriotic moments in sports history. All aboard! Choo-choo!

This is the greatest country in the world. I love America and am thankful to be born in such a country. Any American citizens who want to complain and protest about how unfair America is: Shut up! Go ahead and play pin the tail on the map, pin a spot, pack your bags and leave, see if you can do better than America—I’ll bet you end up somewhere sketchy.

Every July 4th I watch the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, it’s as American as apple pie! A diverse group of people stuffing as many wieners down their throats as possible in 10 minutes—only in America. Well, this year Joey Chesnutt reclaimed his title and pounded down 70 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes. Amazing!

Leave no wiener behind!

I celebrated my Independence Day eating and blowing stuff up. Apple pie! Instead of blowing up fireworks, I blew stuff up with my family: target shooting with my grandfather’s 1911 Ruger, some skeet shooting with my pump action Winchester Model 12, some archery with my PSE compound bow and, for the grand finale, we blew everything up with my customized Colt AR-15. American Freeeedom!

As my grandfather once stated, I owe everything I have to American veterans. My grandfather passed away a little over a year ago; he was the foundation of our family and is very much missed. He was a true patriot, an Air Force veteran who served 1951–55, primarily in Okinawa, and he loved this country. He instilled a sense of patriotism in me at a young age. God bless America, and God bless the men and women who fought and died for this country!

America isn’t perfect; we have made many mistakes in the past, done evil things and yet learned from those mistakes. Don’t think I am

COLUMN BY ZACH “Z-TRAIN” MAXFIELD

titanman1984yahoo.com

Jesse Owens

some champion for the conservative cause, because I am not! Call me a Constitutional man, that’s my affiliation. I want nothing to do with Republicans or Democrats.

Okay, let’s reminisce on happy things. These extraordinary moments in history make my list for most patriotic sporting events ever!

I have to start my list with the patriot Pat Tillman, the NFL player who turned down a multimillion-dollar contract to join the Army Rangers and go to war. Pat turned down a contract from the Arizona Cardinals so he could enlist after the events of 9/11 played out. Pat was killed in a firefight in Afghanistan in 2004 and became a face of bravery and self-sacrifice against the war on terror.

Travel back 80 years. The story of Jesse Owens is extremely inspirational. In 1936, a bastard by the name Adolf Hitler decided to use the Berlin Summer Olympics as a platform to spread his Nazi propaganda. Hitler’s idea of a master Aryan race was overshadowed by a young African American who was the son of a sharecropper and grandson of a slave. Owens dominated the field, winning four gold medals, something not accomplished again till 1984.

Owens’ accomplishments opened the eyes of many, and helped bring discussion and understanding to the evils of hate and racism.

One of my all-time patriotic moments is known as the “Miracle on Ice.” In 1980, a group of unknown stinky college kids came together and pulled off the biggest upset in sports history, period! The defending Olympic champions from the Soviet Union were bigger, stronger,

meaner and unbeatable, or so the experts said. Well, what do experts know? A bunch of unknown Americans took center stage and won gold for this great country. USA! In 1976, two protesters stormed the field at Dodger Stadium, one holding an American flag and another with lighter fluid. Center fielder Rick Monday snatched the flag away from the protesters and took it to the dugout. Monday, who spent six years in the Marine Corps Reserves prior to becoming a professional baseball player, stated he had a lot of friends who lost their lives protecting the rights and freedoms that flag represented.

Mr. George Bush throws a perfect strike! That’s right, this event makes my list of top patriotic sports moments. On Oct. 30, 2001, a month after the 9/11 attacks, George Bush threw a perfect ceremonial strike while wearing a bulletproof vest prior to game 3 of the World Series.

The Yankees were at home against the Diamondbacks and patriotism was running high after the recent terrorist attacks. This simple pitch was a statement that Americans won’t be held captive by terrorism.

Another sports moment dealing with 9/11 and showing some true patriotism occurred five months after the attacks. U.S. athletes carried the World Trade Center American flag during the opening ceremonies of the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. U.S. athletes and an honor guard of policemen and firefighters carried around the tattered flag found in the rubble of ground zero.

A strong statement!

Train’s out the station. Choo-choo!

BOROPULSE.COM

* JULY 2016 * 43