Nashville Scene 10-27-22

BY CONNOR DARYANI AND ELI MOTYCKA

BY MARY LIZA

BY LENA MAZEL

BY MATT MASTERS

BY HANNAH HERNER

BY BRITTNEY M c KENNA

SARAH STEWART

Photo: Hamilton Matthew

HERE! I love toys and treats, and especially love them while enjoying the company of another doggo. I am slow to warm up, but I promise the love I show will be more than worth it. Once I warm up to you, I will always want to be by your side. I like to take charge and follow my nose when out walking, but I’m getting better and don’t pull too much. I promise! I’d love to be your best friend and hope you’re ready for a lifetime of friendship!

Call 615.352.1010 or visit nashvillehumane.org Located at 213 Oceola Ave., Nashville, TN 37209

Adopt. Bark. Meow. Microchip. Neuter. Spay.

WE CAN DO BETTER: TENNESSEE NEEDS NEW REPRESENTATION IN THE U.S. SENATE Tennessee can do better than Marsha Blackburn. We have a decades-long career politician representing us in the United States Senate who frequently brings embarrassment on Tennesseans.

Where to begin? Remember when Blackburn grilled Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a Purple Heart recipient and Iraq War hero, while he testified during the 2020 congressional inquiry into Trump strong-arming Ukraine over the Russia mess? Vindman’s attorney, a former U.N. ambassador for special affairs, called Blackburn’s actions a “testament to cowardice” as she tried to discredit Vindman and questioned his commitment to his country.

And we can’t forget her inflammatory interrogations of Black attorneys who were recently up for consideration for some of the most prominent positions in U.S. courts. Memphis’ own U.S Court of Appeals Judge Andre Mathis successfully overcame Blackburn’s comments that he had a “rap sheet with a laundry list of citations” — three speeding tickets received more than 10 years earlier. Was it racist for Blackburn to question whether U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to be nominated to our highest court, had a hidden personal agenda over the use of critical race theory in educational institutions? Many people thought so.

Speaking of education, Blackburn also recently fought to revoke the federal charter of the National Education Association, the labor organization that represents teachers across the nation. How is attacking teachers helpful to our public education system? Was she fighting for more funding? More services for our most at-risk students? Better nutrition standards for school lunch programs? No. She was arguing to revoke the charter of one of our country’s oldest and largest labor organizations — an institution that has protected the rights of teachers and students for more than a century.

Blackburn’s exaggerations over her 2017 town hall meeting in Fairview, Tenn., must also be considered. Remember that one, when she said on CNN that the Fairview meeting had been stuffed with far-left extremist ringers, with fewer than one-third of the crowd being actual constituents? She was continuing a trend popularized by then-President Trump — casting doubt on legitimate dissatisfaction — as she depicted her critics as radical extremists who had infiltrated a small community’s town hall meeting. Blackburn’s comments that, in essence, the meeting had been delegitimized left many legitimate Williamson County residents who had attended

the meeting feeling ignored and pushed to the edges. “If she’s gonna go on television and say something like that, she needs to be able to back it with facts,” one well-spoken Fairview resident told NewsChannel 5 at the time. “She has taken what the folks in Fairview viewed as a successful town hall, and she went on television and basically delegitimized it for us.” Blackburn’s veering to the far-right extreme has simply gone too far. Where has the equitable exchange of ideas, legislation and productivity gone? Long gone are the days when Republicans and Democrats could agree to disagree on larger issues but still get the job done. Simply put, we need new representation in the U.S. Senate. We need someone who can and will listen to logic and reason and will work cooperatively and productively on behalf of all Tennesseans — not just the ones who march to the same drum.

If we are to start from scratch, we should consider all angles. What is their possible statewide appeal? Have they staunchly aligned themselves with Trump? Have they championed moderation and consideration? Would they be able to generate interest in their campaign and draw sufficient fiscal support from a wide array of potential constituents? Do they have proven business experience that would apply to political aspirations? After all, if Bill Lee — a man who ran his grandfather’s plumbing company — can win the governor’s seat, that opens the field to a wide array of businesspeople and community leaders.

We should also consider city officials and members of the Tennessee General Assembly who have clearly expressed a desire to improve their communities and better our circumstances. Tennessee Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton has proven himself to be moderate and well-respected by House members from both sides of the aisle — all while navigating the turbulent waters brought about by state Rep. Glen Casada and his aide Cade Cothren, who were recently arrested as the result of a federal investigation. Conducting business-as-usual is impressive in and of itself in this partisan world, but doing so in the midst of that tumult is a testament to Sexton’s abilities to champion caution and moderation.

Whomever Tennessee elects to the U.S. Senate, we should all hope to be represented by someone whose balanced politics take into consideration the opinions, needs and perspectives of all Tennesseans.

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SEN. MARSHA BLACKBURN

REP. CAMERON SEXTON

AS CAR VIOLENCE INCREASES, METRO STRUGGLES TO KEEP UP

BY CONNOR DARYANI AND ELI MOTYCKA

From Reddit to Nextdoor to Facebook, Nashvillians are arguing for more traffic cops, speed bumps and ways to get around the city that don’t include cars. As political momentum for a widespread mass transit network stalls, much of that energy is going toward better protections for pedestrians and cyclists. Regardless of politics or platform, council district or daily commute, much of the city is in rare agreement that Nashville roads are too dangerous and too crowded. So what happens next?

In August, the Metro Council passed the latest iteration of Vision Zero, a five-year outline that sets a goal of no roadway deaths by 2050. Like so much of what Metro produces, it’s a guiding document, meaning it requires a spate of additional legislation, funding, planning and coordination to actually happen. Many of its projects demand cooperation (and funding) from state and regional agencies like the Tennessee Department of Transportation and the Greater Nashville Regional Council. Vision Zero drew fierce pushback at the time from councilmembers

due to a lack of clarity and urgency in its attempts to address roadway deaths. A fiveyear implementation plan followed, full of projects and timelines without specific sources of funding.

Since the beginning of the year, Davidson County has tallied 112 traffic-related deaths. Of those, 33 were pedestrians and two were cyclists. This is up from 104 in 2021 and 87 in 2020, statistics at the tragic extreme of nearly constant car-related damage and injuries. A Metro Nashville Police Department website keeps a live dashboard. The state has logged 54,925 crash injuries in Davidson County since 2010, making it the most dangerous county in Tennessee by injury crash rate.

Vision Zero hopes to be the city’s plan for safer roads, and includes a heatmap for car violence in Davidson County. State routes — lit up in red and orange, identified as “priority areas” — make up 46 percent of the high-injury network. Theoretically, actual projects to slow speeds and reduce traffic should follow. But maintaining, improving and regulating land is among the scarce territory directly controlled by the city government. Certain major routes

— like Murfreesboro, Charlotte, Gallatin or Nolensville — were pre-interstate highways and remain the purview of state agencies. And as these are some of the city’s busiest and most dangerous roads, the cross-jurisdictional nature of these projects becomes an obstacle to significant change.

Funding is still a limiting factor and can come from a variety of places. Councilmembers can get projects on the city’s capital improvements budget, eventually funded via a capital spending plan. Projects on non-state roads are entirely within the purview of Metro. The city can rein in traffic with speed cushions or aggressively expand its bike lane network — the Complete and Green Street Project on 12th Avenue South is an example of a large, comprehensive, multipronged project that was locally funded and administered, though it lagged on its timeline. State roads like Murfreesboro and Nolensville pikes are in the jurisdiction of the Nashville Department of Transportation and Multimodal Infrastructure, but are TDOT’s assets. The state has its own planners and a budget. For some projects, the two agencies could go through the Greater Nashville Regional Council, a regional planning entity that allocates federal dollars, and has its own analyses for determining planning needs and priorities. Or the federal government could hand down money directly via grants. These are competitive and often tied to specific federal priorities. To qualify, a city must show a clear commitment to solving a specific problem.

Even putting speed bumps in neighborhoods can be a long, laborious process. District 17 Councilmember Colby Sledge has witnessed traffic-calming projects take nine to 12 months per application, snagged in bureaucracy even

as nearly everyone agrees on what needs to happen.

“The overriding concern I hear, time and again, is, ‘Oh, well, what if we get sued,’ ” Sledge tells the Scene. “We know where people get killed. We know everything we need to know to make things better. We just have to go out and do it.”

Sledge explains that, in his experience, the city’s planning is very “conflict averse.” Plans get scrapped as soon as there’s any pushback, he says, even when everyone knows it’s for the greater good. The prospect of getting sued by a private party, usually a business, has killed transit improvements.

“I’d much rather us be in a lawsuit than be in a funeral,” says Sledge. “I think the last thing we need is a new plan.”

On Oct. 20, a 14-year-old MNPS student was killed in a collision on Briley Parkway, the city’s latest traffic-related death as of this writing. Three pedestrians were killed by cars in one week in late September, each in a different Nashville neighborhood. This summer, famed Nashville singersongwriter Amy Grant was hospitalized after hitting a pothole on her bike — not a direct car-related injury, but an example of how Nashville’s roads privilege certain modes of transportation over others. In

June, Councilmember At-Large Bob Mendes was hit on his e-bike near Charlotte Pike. His injuries were minor, but the incident put a spotlight on the dangers of non-car transportation. Mendes has been vocal about his adoption of e-biking and spoke out when Metro Parks had e-bike stations removed from Nashville greenways.

The idea of induced demand — “if you build it, they will use it” — lies at the core of transportation planning. As a growing bike network slowly takes back the city’s limited right-of-way, it’s molding users into advocates. From a bike lane, it’s much easier to see the inefficiency of cars that spew exhaust, stop and start, and often ferry more empty seats than passengers. Drivers — some of whom are distracted by cellphones or are otherwise playing loose with traffic laws — wield substantial physical power over pedestrians and cyclists and get little training on how to share the road with other forms of transportation.

Faced with a massive puzzle full of moving pieces with life-threatening stakes, planners and politicians are now trying to figure out how to get from here to there.

SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR, DAVIDSON COUNTY HAS TALLIED 112 TRAFFIC-RELATED DEATHS. OF THOSE, 33 WERE PEDESTRIANS AND TWO WERE CYCLISTS.

A DRASTIC RENT INCREASE IN SOUTH NASHVILLE AND THE CITY’S AFFORDABLE HOUSING CRISIS

BY LENA MAZEL

RJ Thornton and his fiancée had lived in South Nashville’s Tremont Apartments for nearly four years when they found out that their monthly rent was increasing by 90 percent.

Thornton moved to Tremont when he first came to Nashville because it was known to be affordable. When Nashville-based property management company Brookside Properties bought Tremont in June, he went to the new management office to see how much his rent would increase. At the time, there were 60 days left on his lease.

“We were anticipating a $400 increase for the area — crime, space, no amenities, we’re going to be OK,” Thornton says.

Instead, the new manager — who Thornton says was eating a Snickers bar during their conversation — told him his rent was increasing from $1,000 to $1,949 per month when his lease renewed on Oct. 1. “I think my brain had a short for a second,” he says. “I said, ‘Can you repeat that number to me one more time?’ And he said $1,949.”

Thornton and his fiancée, who were getting married a week after their lease renewed, had just two months to find a new place. While his Metro Council district representative and local housing advocacy groups offered support and resources, Thornton discovered there was no law limiting how much Brookside could increase his rent. And this wasn’t the first time the company had benefited from the lack of regulation around rental increases. Dating back to 2014, Brookside has bought historically affordable complexes — often ones known for providing Section 8 assistance — and raised rent significantly with little notice.

In 2014, residents at Howe Garden Apartments and 500 Fifth Apartments, both in East Nashville, experienced similar price hikes. When Brookside bought the properties, some residents’ rents increased as much as 80 percent, according to a Tennessean report. Some residents had just over a month to move out. Howe Garden was a historically affordable place to live — many residents received Section 8 assistance.

In December 2021, Brookside acquired an apartment complex in Nicholasville, Ky.

Local media outlets reported that Brookside gave residents until the end of January to vacate, leaving many with unexpected moving expenses over the holidays. “It’s legal, but it’s not right,” one resident said at the time. (Worth noting: According to a story by Lexington’s ABC affiliate at the time, Brookside offered to return deposits, waive January rent and give “financial assistance to help offset relocation costs” to residents, though follow-up details were not provided.)

Back to Nashville and RJ Thornton. He found a new apartment. His neighbors moved out. Brookside painted the red-brick complex white — spraying his outdoor plants in the process, Thornton says. On Aug. 24, he gave Tremont’s management the formal 30-day notice to vacate. On Aug. 31, the complex left him a formal notice of nonrenewal stating that he and his fiancée must vacate the property by Sept. 30 or face potential legal costs.

District 16 Metro Councilmember Ginny Welsch helped Thornton through his legal options as he planned to move out. “Tremont was one of the last affordable complexes, and with that gone, there really isn’t anywhere to rent here that doesn’t costburden the average person,” Welsch says.

“The laws are on the side of the landlord.”

Last year, Tennessee passed legislation prohibiting local governments from enforcing regulations that conflict with the

Tennessee Uniform Residential Landlord Tenant Act, which is designed to standardize leasing regulations across the state. But this standardization takes away local governments’ ability to pass their own leasing regulations — according to Welsch and Thornton, this includes provisions for requiring landlords to keep copies of tenants’ leases and provide at least 90 days notice prior to a rental increase upon a lease’s renewal. Welsch says that for a month-to-month tenancy, landlords can provide as little as 30 days before a rental increase.

And there’s no law in place limiting the amount landlords can increase rent.

Affordable housing in Nashville is a complex puzzle of rezoning, rising cost of living, lack of affordable units and more. But the situation becomes even more dire when tenants can’t rely on their rent staying affordable. Thornton says Tremont’s new property manager told a resident who had lived in the complex for 25 years that his rent was increasing by $1,100 per month. Thornton says he asked the property manager, “Do you have an extra $1,000 liquid to put toward putting a roof over your head?” The property manager didn’t answer.

Welsch says that although tenants have limited options for fighting a large rental increase, they should keep a copy of their lease and “make sure there isn’t a provision in their lease that gives them more rights and leverage.”

Since his experience at Tremont, Thornton has been sharing his story with everyone he can. “Yes, it could happen to you,” he warns his fellow renters. “It can, and it will eventually.”

Thornton, a drummer, says the rising housing costs are pushing the artists he knows farther from Nashville — to areas like Murfreesboro and Mt. Juliet. “The musicians playing on Broadway don’t live in Nashville,” he says. “We are just surrounding the city that we want to call home.”

Brookside Properties did not respond to the Scene’s multiple requests for comment.

THIS WEEK

POLITICS BLOG:

Nashville is preparing for its first midterm elections since the Republican-controlled state legislature redrew districts in January. Election Day is Nov. 8, and all early voting loca tions are open through Nov. 3. Even though the state cracked Nashville into three congressional districts, Democratic state Sen. Heidi Camp bell has a $150,000 spending advantage over Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles in a closerthan-expected race in U.S. House District 5

After nearly a year of negotiations, Tennessee Titans CEO Burke Nihill appeared with Mayor John Cooper to announce that the team and city have reached new lease terms that hinge on a new domed stadium next to Nissan Stadium, the team’s home since 1999. Cooper, citing bil lion-dollar liabilities to renovate Nissan, pitched the city last week on a completely redeveloped East Bank surrounding the proposed site. Lease terms and financing — the city has committed to $760 million, alongside comparable portions from the team and the state — will now move through the Metro Council. At $2.1 billion, the proposed Titans arena would be the secondmost-expensive stadium in the world. … The Scene’s council column, On First Reading, is back in the capable hands of Nicole Williams, aka @startleseasily. Last week’s meeting fea tured debate on the city’s struggle to implement traffic-calming measures across Davidson County and advanced a council effort to wrest back some money for affordable housing from a growing surplus of funding accumulating in the coffers of the Convention Center Author ity. … The Tennessee Public Charter School Commission has approved just three schools, all in Nashville, out of 13 applicants. “We’re not a rubber-stamp committee,” said commissioner Eddie Smith during discussion, an apparent gesture toward the public impression that the commission was created to strong-arm districts into accepting charters, per Gov. Bill Lee’s edu cation agenda. … State overdose kits will now include fentanyl test strips, which were legally categorized as drug paraphernalia until the state passed an exemption in the spring. Fentanyl, a highly potent synthetic opioid, is present in 74 percent of overdose-related toxicology reports in Tennessee. Overdose-related deaths continue to rise. … Newly elected Davidson County Judge Lynne Ingram rushed her last trial, which came with an $80,000 retainer, ahead of her swearing-in, according to her former client’s new attorney, who has requested a new trial. … Farright commentator Matt Walsh organized a rally against gender-affirming health care in Nash ville, drawing national media figures and Sen. Marsha Blackburn. Last month, Walsh began whipping his vast following into a frenzy around gender-related pediatric health care provided by Vanderbilt University Medical Center Scene contributor Betsy Phillips has kept the heat on Lee, whose talking points have become increasingly disingenuous and inflammatory, and state legislators, who stood alongside farright extremist group the Proud Boys at Walsh’s rally on Friday.

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Street View is a monthly column in which we’ll take a close look at developmentrelated issues affecting different neighborhoods throughout the city.

it will eventually.’

FOREMAN AND HEMMER FACE OFF IN THE NEWLY REDISTRICTED STATE HOUSE DISTRICT

BY MATT MASTERS

Tennessee’s state House Dis trict 59 will soon have new representation. Democratic Rep. Jason Potts, who won the seat in 2018 and was reelected in 2020, decided last year not to seek a third term, citing a demanding work schedule and an inability to pass legislation as part of the state’s small Democratic caucus.

Following the Republican supermajority’s extensive redistricting efforts, District 59 now contains Belle Meade and Green Hills, with Democrat Caleb Hemmer and Repub lican Michelle Foreman facing off for the seat in the Nov. 8 election. Foreman earned 62 percent of votes in the August Republican primary, while Hemmer ran unopposed in the Democratic primary.

Foreman is a registered nurse and a Brent wood Academy and Lipscomb University graduate. According to her website, her pri mary focuses are on education, “responsible government,” low taxes, access to affordable insurance and supporting law enforcement. She’s been endorsed by the Tennessee Right to Life PAC, The Tennessee Conservative, Americans for Prosperity PAC, the Nashville Fraternal Order of Police and Latinos for Tennessee.

Foreman did not return several requests

ANTI-TRANS RALLY LED BY MATT WALSH BRINGS RIGHT-WING MEDIA STARS

TO NASHVILLE

Tennessee legislators discuss filing bill banning gender affirming surgery next month

BY HANNAH HERNER

Awho’s-who of conservative media figures met at Matt Walsh and The Daily Wire’s “Rally to End Child Mutilation” Friday at Legislative Plaza in downtown Nashville. Eleven speakers, including Tennessee legislators and U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, took the stage, prais ing Walsh’s efforts calling into question the actions of the Pediatric Transgender Clinic at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Walsh posted a social media thread in Septem ber that prompted Republican Gov. Bill Lee to call for

for comment from the Scene

“No one likes politicians who divide us and turn neighbors against each other,” reads a statement on Foreman’s website. “That’s not how I was raised growing up in Nashville. It’s not the Nashville Way.”

But Foreman appears to take a different approach on social media. “No matter what a democrat calls themselves, we can call them wrong for us!” reads a recent post. And another: “Democrat politicians have defunded our police departments so many times that there are not enough officers to handle the situation. Crime has escalated to the point that it is literally in our backyards, so my question to voters is this: why in the world would you ever vote Democrat on November 8?”

In a conversation with the Scene, Hemmer discusses how to address the country’s wid ening political divisions.

“I think it starts by electing serious people who have a background of experience of working in government and working across the aisle and getting things done, like I have,” Hemmer says. “Government is very serious business, and it takes serious people that can actually work and effect change for the better, and that’s one of the main reasons I’m running — I’ve got a background and track record of actually doing that.”

Hemmer is a Nashville native who previ ously served as an aide to former Gov. Phil Bredesen and as an executive in the Ten nessee Department of Economic and Com munity Development. He also served as a commissioner on the Metro Board of Fair Commissioners for the past seven years, and currently works for a health care company. Hemmer has been endorsed by 10 Metro councilmembers and Davidson County Sher iff Daron Hall, as well as by his former boss, Bredesen.

Hemmer touts his experience and Metro accomplishments, including the redevelop ment of The Fairgrounds Nashville, as proof that he can get things done. He says one of the biggest lessons he’s learned in his govern ment experience is what he calls “the lost art of listening.” He calls health care “a right, not a privilege,” and is focused on education and public safety, calling for fully funding TBI crime labs to address the state’s backlog of untested rape kits.

Hemmer also supports “enhanced back ground checks” for firearms and increasing law enforcement funding, and pledges to

“protect and defend” reproductive rights and gay marriage. He says what he’s heard most from voters are concerns about the economy, education and conservative extremism.

“A lot of people are very concerned about the economy, they’re concerned about educa tion, kitchen-table issues, you know, as well as democracy and extremism in our legis lature,” Hemmer tells the Scene. “A lot of comments I get from people when I knock on doors [are about] just how much time and energy is wasted by our general assem bly, working on divisive and extremist poli cies versus kind of the kitchen-table issues that most people care about and affect their daily lives.”

Hemmer calls Foreman’s campaign “more in the chaotic mold” reminiscent of embattled U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia. He says he would approach the office as someone who is “pragmatic and solution-oriented.”

Early voting is already underway in Da vidson County and will conclude on Nov. 3, with Election Day Tuesday, Nov. 8.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

Workers Alliance.

“I’ll say for myself, I’m a trans person, I care very deeply about this,” said Mina, a leader with the Middle Tennessee Democratic Socialists of America.

an investigation into the clinic and brought on a fire storm of attention from conservative lawmakers.

On Oct. 7, VUMC announced it would temporar ily pause gender affirmation surgeries on patients younger than 18. VUMC noted that among those minor patients receiving transgender care, an average of five per year received surgery and none receive genital surgeries.

“We are here to fulfill one of the most fundamental obligations as humans, and that is to protect our chil dren,” Walsh said at Friday’s rally.

Walsh, who recently relocated to Tennessee, warned of a conspiracy to indoctrinate children into a “cult of gender ideology” and intentionally cause a crisis of identity — calling it a battle of “good vs. evil.” Signs from The Daily Wire were passed out that read “Do no harm” on one side and “mutilation =/= medi cine” on the other.

State Sen. Jack Johnson (R-Franklin) and state

House Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Port land), flanked by Sen. Dawn White (R-Murfreesboro), Sen. Ed Jackson (R-Jackson) and Janice Bowling (R-Tullahoma), announced their intention to introduce legislation next month to “end the practice of irrevers ible body-altering surgeries on minor children.”

Sen. Blackburn took it a step further, encouraging people to vote Republican in the November general election, with the intention of getting Lamberth and John son’s legislation passed and replicating it in other states. Blackburn also spoke of a letter she wrote to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration calling for an investigation into the long-term effects of hormone replacement therapy.

A counter-protest was staged downtown by the Middle Tennessee Democratic Socialists of America, supported by groups including Red Door Collective, No Exceptions Prison Collective, Elmahaba Center, Veterans for Peace, Workers’ Dignity, and Nashville

“I know that what Matt Walsh is saying is completely unfounded, it’s a fig leaf. What he’s really wanting to do is to limit our rights. What he’s wanting to do is destroy trans kids, because any sort of abrogation of trans health care right now is just going to lead to the deaths of more children, because it’s been scientifically proven. And here’s the thing: People like that don’t care about it. But what we can do is show that we’re not go ing to stand it. And we’re going to go down swinging.”

Members of both groups called the other “fas cists.” Among the crowd were dozens of Proud Boys, a notorious American far-right group, who stood in a formation cutting through the crowd. The Proud Boys were eventually separated from the crowd of mostly counter-protesters by state troopers. There were also countless shouting matches and instances of heck ling between the two groups, who were both armed with megaphones.

Other speakers at Walsh’s event included former congresswoman and 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, Mark Meckler, Robby Starbuck, Landon Star buck, self-proclaimed “former trans kid” Chloe Cole, Scott Newgent, Colin Wright and Christiana Kiefer.

After the event, Walsh and other speakers met some of the crowd at the barricade for autographs and photos.

CALEB HEMMER

MICHELLE FOREMAN

LOWER BROADWAY’S CROWDS AND WORKFORCE ARE DIVERSE. SOME WORKERS ALLEGE RACIST TREATMENT.

BY BRITTNEY McKENNA

THIS TOWN

espite a painful slowdown during the lockdown phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and early 2021, Nashville tourism is enjoying a strong recovery. Data published by the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp clocks some 12.6 million visitors last year, with a projection that this year’s total will beat the 14 million recorded in 2019.

As Nashville established itself as a country music mecca in the mid-20th century, Lower Broadway became famous as a hub for music lovers. By the 1990s, it had become something of a ghost town, but bar owners and restaurateurs began taking chances in the district. Closed since the 1970s, the Ryman reopened to the public 1994. Investment from major firms also started pouring in around the turn of the millennium.

Nashville’s rapid growth over the past decade saw, for better or worse, growth on Lower Broadway. Tens of thousands of tourists from around the world now flock to famed haunts like Robert’s Western World and Layla’s Honky Tonk. Celebrities like Miranda Lambert and Florida Georgia Line have opened massive bar-restaurantentertainment spaces in the district, and drunken revelry spills out into cross streets. The bar that Garth Brooks is set to open nearby will include a Metro police substation. Other major new attractions include the mixed-use Fifth + Broadway development, which includes the National Museum of African American Music. The building’s Assembly Food Hall includes Slim & Husky’s and Prince’s Hot Chicken, bringing local favorites directly to the downtown set — a group that includes “woo girl” bachelorettes besieging the city in hideous matching outfits, whose presence has drawn national attention.

Another phenomenon developing on Broadway, however, has gone largely ignored. As more people head downtown, diversity among the visiting crowd has also increased, as has the variety of music on offer in the district’s many clubs. Country music of one sort or another still blares from most doorways on Broadway, but there are also rock acts, pop artists and a variety of DJs spinning curated mixes of hip-hop, R&B, EDM, Top 40 and the occasional crowd-pleasing oldie. In other words, Broadway is as much a destination for dancing as it is for catching cover bands.

Jerry Pentecost is one of those DJs. A beloved and respected local musician, DJ and advocate, Pentecost is a familiar face to many music fans, having played drums with artists like Amanda Shires and Brent Cobb and now serving as drummer and percussionist for Old Crow Medicine Show. While off the road, Pentecost often picks up DJ gigs across the city, some of which led him to contact the Scene with allegations of racism in several popular Broadway establishments. As he tells it, Black DJs, Black bar personnel and Black patrons often encounter a culture of racial profiling and discrimination while working in or patronizing bars and clubs on Broadway.

“It’s changed a lot in the last couple of years, because now every bar has multiple floors and rooftops and has multiple DJs,” says Pentecost. “At one point, I feel like there was really a core of about 15 or 20 of

us DJing at all the spots. I DJed at several spots. And I just saw the way that security treated [Black DJs and performers] and the way that management talked to them.”

Inspired by his own experiences of discrimination, Pentecost set out to talk to as many current and former Black Broadway employees and performers as possible, doing so with a notepad in his hand and his friend Chris Wood, who is also an attorney, by his side. The more than 30 interviews Pentecost conducted paint a damning portrait of a culture of racism and abuse that extends far beyond any one bar.

Pentecost shared notes from some of these conversations with the Scene, which are excerpted (and lightly edited for clarity and confidentiality) below.

Female bartender and singer at two popular Broadway bars, seven to eight years of experience working downtown:

“I experienced a lot of gig discrimination. They didn’t want me to be the face of their establishments. It’s hard to maintain a gig when you only get the shitty shifts. I had decent shifts, then the [bandleader, who is white] left, and the shifts changed. … Lots of people called me ‘blackie,’ ‘midnight,’ etc. I got touched and grabbed, too. Management and

security’s answer was to ‘get thick skin.’ I was constantly accused of stealing money for no reason.”

Male barback, performer, door security at three popular Broadway bars, seven years of experience working downtown:

“One bar only wanted one Black man and one Black woman as performers. I was always offered bad deals and bad stages. Other performers got in trouble if they called me to fill in [for them]. With management and customers, it was subtle [discrimination] but it was a lot, and it came from everywhere. You have to tiptoe around [if you’re Black].”

Male security guard and barback for three downtown establishments, four years of experience working downtown; has since moved out of state and works in a different field:

“I thought about it daily, and now I’m able to see it clearly after time away. One time while bartending during my training phase, I was waiting on a small group. A woman asks if we have sushi. [I tell her] the

sushi bar is closed. She responds, ‘Take your Black ass over there and make my sushi,’ and, ‘This n****r won’t make my sushi.’ I told my trainer and the next day I told my manager. Nothing happened then or afterwards to keep me safe. … There were other comments when I was behind the bar. ‘I didn’t expect to see a Black bartender. I expected to see a cowboy.’ ‘That’s the biggest boy I’ve ever seen,’ from a woman who would not let me serve her. … While working security at another bar, there were no people of color in management. All of the owners, managers and security thought it was best to keep the room ‘whiter,’ to get ‘more business.’

They tried to keep [white and Black patrons] separate — to keep people happy, they monitored playlists to make sure they appealed to white people.”

Pentecost gathered so many similar stories, from a broad range of people, that it would be impossible to print them all here. But he can sum up the crux of these conversations succinctly: “There are two versions of Broadway: the one that white people get to experience and the one that people of color experience.”

JERRY PENTECOST

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

GIVEN HIS EXTENSIVE résumé as a DJ, Pentecost also has many experiences of discrimination of his own to share. While DJing at Dierks Bentley’s Whiskey Row, Pentecost recalls increasingly hostile interactions with security, including a security guard getting physical with him because he entered the bar wearing a backpack, which he used to carry his DJ equipment. He also notes that it seemed like patrons had more access to him than other DJs.

“I’d be DJing on a set, and I’m having to keep drunk girls off of me — just trying to mix songs and trying to keep people from spilling drinks on my equipment,” Pentecost says. “Security is just wild and loose, just hanging out. When we’d switch over and it would be another DJ’s shift, I’d always hang out for a little bit. And you couldn’t get within two feet of the next DJ for their shift. They always had security coverage. Girls couldn’t come up and talk to them unless the DJ told them it was OK. I was like, ‘Why am I being treated so differently?’ ”

For reasons Pentecost says were never specified, he wasn’t allowed to work more-desirable shifts in the bar’s club level on weekends, though he was asked to participate in some special event programming. In 2019, after he suggested to management that DJs should be fairly compensated as part of rooftop buyouts for private events, Whiskey Row told Pentecost he had a “bad attitude” and fired him.

The Scene reached a representative of Whiskey Row and provided details of the experiences Pentecost shared. They offered the following comment: “This is a case of a disgruntled former DJ, who over four years ago, was asked not to return after continually trying to sneak his dog into the restaurant in his backpack.”

Pentecost admits to bringing his dog Stella with him to the bar — while visiting with a friend on a night off, not to work — and attempting to sneak her in after he was told he was not allowed to do so. However, he notes that the incident happened in fall 2018, several months before he was let go, and he says he had the dog with him while DJing at a different bar on the same day. He also shared a photo with the Scene that he says he took a few weeks later as he walked into Whiskey Row for his shift in the DJ booth. The photo shows a patron wearing a similar backpack, out of which a small dog is peeking.

While DJing at another club, Pentecost says, management tried to steer his

playlist choices along racial lines. “One of the managers just straight-up said, ‘Hey, you need to play some country because it’s getting too rough out there,’ ” he says.

“And I looked out, and no one was fighting or anything like that. I just saw a crowd of Black people, and I was like, ‘I don’t understand.’ I’m not saying I was naive this whole time. I just wanted to give these people the benefit of the doubt. But these [instructions] were basically, ‘There are too many Black people in here. We need to change this around.’ ”

Changing up playlists is not the only way clubs try to attract primarily white patrons. Pentecost witnessed multiple instances of discrimination against people of color from door security, including racially skewed dress codes that prohibit patrons from wearing sports jerseys or popular sneakers like Air Jordans. Witnessing patrons treated this way led Pentecost to change his own behavior.

“I didn’t dress the way that I normally dress,” he explains. “I was worried about a dress code everywhere I went. But it did start to enter my mind, like, ‘You mean to tell me that you can’t even wear a gold chain out anymore? You can’t wear a jersey?’

So my closet got really small. I just wear T-shirts and jeans all the time, because I know nobody is gonna give me any shit over wearing a band shirt and a pair of Levi’s, you know?”

Dress codes are only one barrier to entry for nonwhite patrons. Lines to get into popular establishments are often long and require a wait, a typical experience for anyone familiar with nightlife. In 2019, a white would-be patron of Jason Aldean’s Kitchen and Rooftop Bar alleged that her husband, a Black man, was prevented from entering because he was wearing a hoodie, while white patrons were not. The story in her Facebook post went viral, and the owners of the bar issued a statement of apology, promising to look into the matter with their third-party security firm. Pentecost also noticed that nonwhite would-be patrons of bars where he’s worked were more likely to wait longer than their white counterparts — or worse, would never get in the door at all.

“The same Black people that were in line when I went [into a bar] to DJ for four hours, sometimes they’re still in line waiting to get in [when I come out],” Pentecost says. “And that’s really hard to see. But at the same time, it’s not my place to jump in and start beef with security, because these are the

dudes — and half the time they don’t — but they’re supposed to protect me. They’re the last people you want to piss off.”

These revelations from Pentecost and his sources come amid a high-profile case involving security at Whiskey Row. An August 2021 incident resulted in the death

of Dallas Barrett, a 22-year-old Black man and Smyrna resident. Pentecost had already begun conducting interviews, but Barrett’s death increased the urgency of his work.

“I started reaching out [to colleagues for interviews] because I just knew it was only a matter of time before somebody got hurt,”

PHOTO:

PHOTOS:

he says. “I always wanted Broadway to be a place for everybody. And it was drastically unfolding before my eyes that it wasn’t.”

In the August 2021 Whiskey Row incident, Barrett died from oxygen deprivation after being wrestled to the ground and held there by several of the bar’s security guards, who allege they asked Barrett to leave the establishment and that he refused. Seven men — six members of bar security along with one bystander — were indicted on charges of reckless homicide and aggravated assault in December 2021. In January, The Tennessean reported that four of the involved security guards were not properly licensed, and Whiskey Row’s private security license, which allowed the venue to hire and train its own security staff, had been suspended. Weeks later, a group of state legislators proposed Dallas’ Law, which would require training for unarmed private security guards. In June, Gov. Bill Lee signed Dallas’ Law, which will take effect Jan. 1. Three of the involved men — Tarrell Gray, Dylan Larocca and Mallet Meneese — will stand trial on Feb. 27.

IN LATE AUGUST, Ryman Hospitality Properties’ then-chairman and CEO Colin Reed — who in October announced he would transition to executive chairman of the company — shared plans for a new initiative to address the future of tourism in Nashville, with the Broadway district a particular focus. Reed’s initial announcement listed six areas the committee would address: housing, homelessness, public education, public transportation, cleanliness and safety. The new committee has yet to have its first meeting, but in a statement sent to the Scene, Reed reiterates the importance of making music fans and staffers, as well as employees, feel safe and welcome.

“We’re proud of our progress, but we know there is still much more work to do,” Reed writes. “Accountability is at the core of building a more equitable future for our company and our industry, and we are committed to living these values in all that we do — whether, for example, through OPEN, a new space for Ryman Hospitality teammates to celebrate individuality and empower one another, or Opry NextStage, which is nurturing the next generation of artists that represent country music’s increasingly diverse fan base.”

Mayor John Cooper, with whom Pentecost had lunch to discuss his experiences, believes the initiative can also be a fitting and effective forum for future conversations about race and equity within Nashville’s tourism and hospitality industries.

In an emailed statement to the Scene in response to Pentecost’s revelations, Mayor Cooper writes: “Discrimination of any kind has no place in Nashville. When we see it, it’s important we address it head on. That’s why our new tourism strategic planning group will take on how we achieve better diversity and root out systemic racism as part of their work developing a cohesive vision for the industry. I’m grateful to Jerry for courageously speaking out about his experience, which unfortunately is far too common and must change.”

Of course, the allegations of inequity on Lower Broad aren’t coming solely from DJs. In June, the Nashville Banner

issued a report laying out how the district’s established venues resist fair opportunities for performers of color, relegating Black musicians to less-visible spaces. Noted longtime performers including Wendell “Bizz” Bigsby, Kelly “Top Notch” Buchanan and Carl Fields Jr. explained to the Banner how, despite the diversity of crowds on Lower Broad, Black performers tend to receive more pushback and fewer chances to play in the district’s busiest spaces.

It’s impossible to look at the culture of Broadway without also looking at the culture of country music. The country music industry is a sizable part of what draws visitors to Nashville, and particularly to Broadway — especially given the recent spate of famous country artists (and a washed-up has-been or two) slapping their names in neon onto some of the area’s most prominent real estate. There’s Miranda Lambert’s Casa Rosa, Florida Georgia Line’s FGL House, Luke Bryan’s Luke’s 32 Bridge, Jason Aldean’s Kitchen + Rooftop Bar and Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk Rock N’ Roll Steakhouse, to name a few.

For anyone who’s paid a bit of attention to country music in recent years, it’s apparent that the genre still has a long way to go toward establishing racial equity among artists and fans, as well as within the industry itself. Scores of Black and brown people love and make great country music, but the lion’s share of resources have long gone to support white fans, white executives and white artists — white men in particular, though white women are beginning to fare better. And while marginalized groups are making some hard-earned headway in country music — thanks in large part to grassroots efforts like the Black Opry — the systemic rot at the heart of the country music industry remains largely unchanged. Breland is the only Black artist nominated for a CMA Award this year, sharing a Musical Event of the Year nod with Dierks Bentley and Hardy for Bentley’s song “Beers on Me.” Morgan

Wallen, who was infamously caught on video using the N-word in February of last year, is nominated in several major categories at the Nov. 9 ceremony, including marquee award Entertainer of the Year and the similarly coveted Male Vocalist of the Year — his first CMA nominations following being barred from participating in the 2021 ceremony. Wallen’s seemingly effortless transition back into the industry’s good graces is one of several issues currently fracturing the country music industry.

On Oct. 14, Aldean invited Wallen, as well as Miranda Lambert, to join him onstage during his own show at Bridgestone Arena. The performance came on the heels of a contentious public feud between Aldean’s wife Brittany Aldean and country star Maren Morris, prompted by Brittany’s use of transphobic rhetoric in an Instagram story. Morris, following a strongly worded condemnation of Aldean’s post by fellow artist Cassadee Pope, defended the LGBTQ community in a series of tweets that found her keyboard-sparring with, among others, right-wing influencer Candace Owens and former The Voice contestant RaeLynn. In September, Morris told the Los Angeles Times that she does not “feel comfortable” going to the CMA Awards. During his Bridgestone show, Aldean joked to the crowd that he planned to invite Morris onstage as a guest too, which drew boos and obscenities from the audience.

While celebrity feuds may seem little more than gossip-rag fodder, the fact that one of this particular dust-up’s key players, Aldean, owns one of the city’s more popular bars shouldn’t go unnoticed by Nashvillians. It isn’t wild conjecture to assume that more than a few of those fans gleefully booing Morris and cheering Wallen, upon leaving Bridgestone, spilled out onto Broadway and into establishments that do little to protect the rights and safety of people of color.

For Pentecost, Broadway still holds opportunities for lifting up marginalized voices. During September’s AmericanaFest,

he assembled an all-Black band to perform at Robert’s Western World, with guest artists like Joy Clark and Kyshona stopping in along with renowned Robert’s mainstay Joshua Hedley. Captioning a photo of the band on his personal Instagram account, Pentecost writes: “I don’t want to say that it’s never happened before, but I’ve never seen an all-Black country band at any of the honky-tonks downtown. … My events have always been about bringing people together and that’s exactly what we did last night!”

He hopes his efforts can be part of bringing people together in a larger way, one that works toward equity across all of the Broadway district and creates a fun, welcoming environment for employees, performers and patrons of all stripes.

“When I’m walking in my gigs, I don’t only just see white people,” Pentecost says. “I see Black people. I see Latino people. I see Asian people. I see tons of people, everywhere. And that’s a sign, in my mind, that we’re doing something right, because everybody is coming down here looking for the same experience. Now the problem is, will everyone have the same experience?”

Pentecost is open to being part of these efforts, expressing during our conversation — which took place before Reed’s announcement — his desire for a coalition of bar owners, musicians and DJs, tourism officials, state and local legislators and local activists to come together to make Broadway a place that truly is for everyone. With Reed’s hospitality initiative beginning in earnest, perhaps there is a seat at the table for Pentecost, whose passion for creating connection through music runs deep.

“Broadway is this magical place,” he says. “It should be a magical place for everybody. And I know that it’s not, and that it’s going to take a long time before we get there. But by not addressing these issues, by constantly sweeping them under the rug — that’s a large part of going backwards.”

“WHEN I’M WALKING IN MY GIGS, I DON’T ONLY JUST SEE WHITE PEOPLE,” PENTECOST SAYS. “I SEE BLACK PEOPLE. I SEE LATINO PEOPLE. I SEE ASIAN PEOPLE. I SEE TONS OF PEOPLE, EVERYWHERE. AND THAT’S A SIGN, IN MY MIND, THAT WE’RE DOING SOMETHING RIGHT, BECAUSE EVERYBODY IS COMING DOWN HERE LOOKING FOR THE SAME EXPERIENCE. NOW THE PROBLEM IS, WILL EVERYONE HAVE THE SAME EXPERIENCE?”

ART [NOVEL ROMANCE]

LOUISE JONES: ISN’T IT ROMANTIC

Isn’t It Romantic is the debut exhibition from California-born, Detroit-based artist Louise Jones, but the show of more than a dozen large canvases on view in the airy, temporary ZieherSmith space proves the artist is ready for the moment. The acrylicon-linen paintings of oversized magnolia blossoms, mating butterflies and water lil ies are poetically unsettling, like a familiar melody played on an out-of-tune piano. In one particularly affecting work, a bouquet of roses on a bed takes on an uneasy sadness because of the metallic balloons spelling out “I’M SO SORRY” just above it. In her art ist’s statement, Jones describes her creative impulse: “Making paintings feels like honor ing that which often is overlooked — reas sessing one’s first perspective, and making small, fleeting moments immortalized.” Opening reception 5-8 p.m.; through Dec. 3 at ZieherSmith at Cummins Station, 209

Ave.

[SIGNATURE RIFFS]

MUSIC

VIOLENT FEMMES

What critic Robert Christgau once dubbed their “shallow postfolkie primi tivism” comes through loud and clear on

Violent Femmes’ 2019 album Hotel Last Re sort. The band formed in 1981 and released what might be its best-known collection, Vi olent Femmes, in 1983. That album contains “Blister in the Sun,” which is indeed simple if not shallow folk rock, with a signature riff that makes you wonder why no one came up with it before they did. What I get from the Femmes’ ’80s music is a healthy sense of humor and a feel for punk folk that reminds me of the ’60s, as if bandleader Gordon Gano managed to tap into something both unfash ionable and commercial. Gano famously licensed “Blister in the Sun” to Wendy’s in 2007, and while the song does seem congru ent with the fish sandwich Wendy’s was sell ing at the time, Gano’s action precipitated a legal fight with other members of the Femmes. The current version of the band sounds great on Hotel Last Resort, which stands as one of its best albums. If you’re looking for funny songs about the songwrit ing process, Gano & Co. come through on the title track and “Another Chorus.” The primitivism is more sophisticated than on

previous records, and Hotel Last Resort is a marriage of opposites: It’s both expedient and compelling. Los Angeles singer and songwriter Jenny O. opens. 8 p.m. at Mara thon Music Works, 1402 Clinton St. EDD HURT

PICKS

MUSIC

FRIDAY / 10.28

[LOVE CAN BUILD A BRIDGE]

THE JUDDS: THE FINAL TOUR

Earlier this year, iconic mother-daughter country duo The Judds announced plans

for one final tour together, a run that would celebrate the decades of influential music Naomi and Wynonna Judd made together. Tragically, Naomi died by suicide mere weeks after the announcement, and a day prior to being inducted into the Country

Music Hall of Fame alongside Wynonna. Though grief over Naomi is still fresh, Wynonna and the Judds’ band are carrying on with the tour, which stops at Bridgestone Arena on Friday. What would have already been an emotional evening will be even more so now, as the tour celebrates not just the duo’s lasting impact on country music but also the life and songs of Naomi herself. And be sure to get there on time, as fellow country legends Trisha Yearwood and Mar tina McBride are both special guests at the Nashville tour stop — and perhaps there will be a surprise guest or two in store, as well. 7:30 p.m. at Bridgestone Arena, 501 Broad way BRITTNEY MCKENNA

THEATER [KAMIKAZE CABARET] MEOW MEOW

She has been called a “post-modern diva,” an “international song siren and comedienne extraordinaire.” On Fri day, Nashville will finally get the chance to see what all the fuss is about, as Meow Meow — the stage name of Melissa Madden Gray — arrives at War Memorial. Presented by TPAC and OZ Arts, this award-winning Australian-born actress, dancer and caba ret artist has dazzled audiences around the globe with her fearless brand of humor and stunning vocals. Her original works — in cluding Vamp, Meow Meow’s Pandemonium and Apocalypse Meow — have played from the Edinburgh International Festival and

Berkeley Rep to Shanghai, Slovenia and beyond. When she’s not creating her own music and theater pieces, Meow Meow is known for her brilliant take on works from the Weimar repertoire and the French chan son. Guests should expect the unexpected, as Meow Meow dares us to “enter the sacred space.” 8 p.m. at War Memorial Auditorium, 301 Sixth Ave. N. AMY STUMPFL

MUSIC [UN RATITO]

NOCHE DE VERANO SIN TI

Bad Bunny is the biggest artist in the world, and Un Verano Sin Ti is easily the album of the summer, if not all of 2022, marking 13 nonconsecutive weeks atop the No. 1 spot on the Billboard albums chart. The 23-track LP is about heartbreak, like much of his work, but it’s also a love letter to summer and to his home of Puerto Rico — and all explored over a few different musical genres. Sadly, San Benito will not be blessing Music City with any touring dates, but fans can still gather to dance and remi nisce about sunnier days with Noche de Ve rano sin Ti. The touring dance party, billed as a “Bad Bunny Celebration,” will feature sets by DJs Johny Mezcla and 6lactino. 9 p.m. at the Basement East, 917 Woodland St. ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

FILM [ROSE TINT

MEOW MEOW

CRITICS’ PICKS

and give yourself over to absolute pleasure — come to a screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Belcourt. The screening will not only feature the aforementioned wicked, libido-driven alien on screen, but also a live performance from Nashville’s Little Morals shadowcast. The campy, sexy, comedic horror musical — which features outsized performances from Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Meatloaf and Richard O’Brien (who co-wrote the screenplay with director Jim Sharman) — has garnered an immense cult following since its 1975 release. For decades, fans have dressed up as Rocky Horror characters and interacted with the film through call-and-response lines, dancing and prop work. While many aspects of the movie and its surrounding culture haven’t aged well — its loose rela tionship with consent, for starters — the film has nonetheless carved out a space for folks to explore and express their sexuality for decades. So go if you want, wear and do whatever you feel comfortable with, and enjoy the chaos surrounding you. But per the Belcourt’s rules, leave the glitter, con fetti, rice, squirt guns, open flames and silly string at home. These showings tend to sell out, so hop on tickets quickly. Midnight Oct. 28-29; 10 p.m. Oct 30-31 at the Belcourt, 2102 Belcourt Ave. KELSEY BEYELER

COMMUNITY

[WHICH WITCH IS WHICH] HALLOWEEN EVENTS

MUSIC

[DON’T EXPECT A TURKEY DOG HERE] WHITE LODGE: AN EVENING WITH THE MUSIC OF TWIN PEAKS

In the Twin Peaks universe, director David Lynch uses myriad tools to pry up the edges of mainstream culture and gaze into the unsettling abyss bubbling away down there. Among the most memorable is the music composed by Lynch’s longtime col laborator Angelo Badalamenti. It’s wistful, foreboding and fascinating, with a mix of sounds including diaphanous dream pop — some of it sung on the show by the late, great icon Julee Cruise — and a warped, exaggerated take on jazz so sincere that it blasts through caricature and circles back to being cool again. A slew of great Nashville singers and players will set up shop at Third Man Records on Saturday to pay tribute with tunes from the soundtrack while the crowd mingles with the owls and enjoys some pie (cherry, befitting the repu tation of the Double R Diner, one expects).

The band includes singer-songwriter and keyboardist extraordinaire Thayer Sarrano, while guest singers include Tristen, Caitlin Rose, Brian Wright, Caroline Spence, Kim and Scott Collins of The Smoking Flowers, Justin Collins and Owen Beverly. Character

All Hallow’s Eve approaches, and the barrier between us and the spirit world grows thin — and Halloween is on Monday this year, so that means there are heaps of spooktacular events throughout the weekend. If you want to get started early, head to the Station Inn on Thursday for Kentucky bluegrass band Wolfpen Branch’s Wolf-O-Ween (starting at 9 p.m.). On Friday, The Mouthhole hosts Uncle Meaty’s Meat Meet Cute, a tribute show and costume contest (9 p.m.; DM or ask a punk for the address).

Saturday is when the ghouls go for broke. All Hallows East takes over Five Points with family-friendly activities during the day and music at night, featuring hip-hop dance-party experts The Boom Bap with Jurassic 5’s DJ Nu-Mark as a special guest. When 7 p.m. rolls around, R&B and hip-hop dance party Nashfeels: Scary Hours Edition (organized by 2 L’s on a Cloud founder and Scene contributor D’Llisha Davis) commences at Brooklyn Bowl; you can get in an hour earlier if you’re bowling. Also at 7 p.m., doors open for Acme Feed and Seed’s meme-tastic Children of the Corn party; lots of live entertainment and DJ action is the norm for Acme’s parties, but the lineup wasn’t announced at press time.

Starting at 8 p.m., Funk Night Nashville returns from the dead with The Gripsweats and more at The 5 Spot, while superb singer and DJ Alanna Royale’s Alannaween Pt. 2 dance party kicks off at The East Room, with featured DJs including Afrosheen All proceeds from Alannaween go to benefit Abortion Care Tennessee. At 9 p.m., venerable ’90s tribute champs My So-Called Band take the stage at Eastside Bowl, while a frightful and delightful QDP Halloween gets going at The Basement East and vinyl-centric DJ crew Sparkle City turns Emerson Hall into Spooky City: Emerson Hell (There’s also a great Twin Peaks-themed show at The Blue Room at Third Man Records; see our Critics’ Pick below for more details on that.)

Expect Sunday to be a bit quieter. If it’s too quiet for you, head back to The East Room for Sick Sad World: ’90s Alt Halloween Party, which kicks off at 8 p.m. and includes comedian Cortney Warner, drag ace and horror fan Trauma Queen, ’90s-schooled rockers Sad Baxter and lots more.

On Halloween proper, your array of choices includes Tool side project Puscifer at the Ryman (read more in our feature story) and post-hardcore outfit City of Caterpillar at Drkmttr (learn more in our Critics’ Pick). If you’d prefer a different dark and eerie flavor of rock, head to Exit/In at 7 p.m. for Return of the Halloween Ball!, featuring Nine Inch Nails tribute Not Your Nails and lots more. At 8 p.m., funkmeisters from beyond the grave Here Come the Mummies run amok at Marathon Music Works, while at 9 p.m., Giovanni Rodriguez and 12 Manos lead the charge for Rudy’s Dia de Muertos at Rudy’s Jazz Room. Per tradition, an hour of swing dancing starts at 9 p.m. at The 5 Spot, followed by the Motown Monday Halloween Dance Party at 10 p.m., featuring scary good classic platters from Motown, Stax, Chess and more. Oct. 27-31 at various locations

STEPHEN TRAGESER

costumes encouraged. 7 p.m. at The Blue Room at Third Man Records, 623 Seventh Ave. S. STEPHEN TRAGESER

THEATER [GABA-GHOUL]

FABLE CRY’S FESTIVAL OF GHOULS

Tired of the same old tricks and treats?

OZ Arts has you covered this Halloween weekend with Fable Cry’s eighth annual Festival of Ghouls. Billed as an “immersive Halloween party and over-the-top cabaret,” the evening promises a marvelous spectacle that will get you right in the goosebumps, while celebrating artists from the worlds of burlesque, cabaret, puppetry and circus. Beyond the headlining set from favorite theatrical noir rockers Fable Cry, this year’s lineup includes music from The Bad Signs and You Bred Raptors?, with special per formances from Back to Black Burlesque, Suspended Gravity Circus, Risky Sour, Sophie du Mal and Raven Von Roe. Natu rally, guests are encouraged to don their best costumes, and there will even be prizes awarded to some of the audience favor ites. 8 p.m. at OZ Arts, 6172 Cockrill Bend Circle

FILM [LIFE IN HELL]

FINAL DESCENT: AN ANIMATED TRIP TO THE UNDERWORLD

Chiara Sulprizio is senior lecturer of classical and Mediterranean studies at Vanderbilt University. She’s also the creator of the web archive Animated Antiquity: Car toon Representations of Ancient Greece and Rome. Most American kids grow up learn ing about Greek and Roman mythology us ing colorful picture books or even animated cartoon depictions of Hercules and the Hydra, Theseus and the Minotaur. Because these foundational Western myths are such a common part of early learning, most of us have never stopped to consider the role that illustration and animation play in our perceptions of these ancient stories. Sul prizio’s presentation, titled Final Descent: An Animated Trip to the Underworld, is a deep dive into infernal cartoons illuminating ancient Western stories about the afterlife. 10-11 a.m. at the Belcourt, 2102 Belcourt Ave.

NOLAN

PHOTO: TIFFANY BESSIRE

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COMMUNITY

[THE FAR SIDE]

EL DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS

Cheekwood is once again hosting a twoday celebration at its garden to com memorate El Día de los Muertos — a holiday observed in Mexico and other Latin American countries celebrating and honoring the memories of deceased relatives. There will be murals, puppets, mariachi, dancers and food. Plus, local organizations and schools — including Vanderbilt University’s Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latinx Studies — will be setting up memorial altars. Oct. 29-30 at Cheekwood, 1200 Forrest Park

SUNDAY

[ABSORBING FOLK]

MUSIC

ZIONA RILEY

If you care about the singer-songwrit erly craft as it exists in a part of the Nashville music scene that sometimes gets ignored by the outside world — Nashville encompasses far more than mainstream country and Americana — check out the final installment of Ziona Riley’s October Sunday night residency at Vinyl Tap. What Riley does is, by some measures, outsider music. The Indiana native is an accom plished guitarist who favors fingerpicked patterns and the kind of chord changes you absorb from records by ’60s and ’70s per formers as different as Syd Barrett, Arthur Lee, Bridget St. John and The Byrds. Riley, like other Nashville singer-songwriters who follow a similar path — Lou Turner comes to mind — scrambles the idea of folk music in her songs, which work off the somewhat restless harmonic inventions she plays on guitar. On her 2019 EP Not Too Precious, Riley writes about the pressures of fam ily and adulthood in songs like “Kerfuffle” and “Coming of Age in the Midwest.” Riley delivers her songs in an artless voice that never strains for effects, and her guitar work is pretty far-out — I bet she could nail tunes by everyone from Skip James to The Incredible String Band. She’s been playing new material in her recent shows, and something titled “Texas Bodhisattva” shows off her talents nicely. Expect some

cool guests to lend support at Sunday night’s show. 7 p.m. at Vinyl Tap, 2038 Greenwood Ave. EDD HURT

FILM [SAY MY NAME] SPIRITED AWAY

Fathom Events wraps up its 2022 Studio Ghibli Fest with the Japanese anima tion mecca’s most successful film to date. The always imaginative Hayao Miyazaki did the 2001 fantasy Spirited Away for all the little ladies out there. With help from Disney (which covered 10 percent of the $19 million budget and eventually distributed a dubbed version when it hit the States a year later), he created an empowering tale in which a 10-year-old girl navigates her way through an abandoned amusement park filled with kami (read: spirits of Japanese Shinto folklore). This kid grows up hella fast as she tries to find a way back home for her and her parents, who eat some cursed food and spend most of the movie as literal pigs. Not only did this harrowing heroine’s journey end up grossing nearly $400 million worldwide, it also was the second film to win an Oscar for Best Animated Feature and obviously inspired a lot of today’s animated films. (Turning Red director Domee Shi straight-up said it’s her favorite film ever.)

Visit fathomevents.com for tickets and showtimes. Oct. 30-Nov. 2 at select AMC and Regal locations CRAIG D. LINDSEY

MUSIC

[CONTAINS MSG] MICHAEL SCHENKER

Of all the kings of ’70s guitar rock, few crowned heads were heavier than that of Michael Schenker. From 1972 to 1979, Schenker and his Flying V shredded their way through nine magnificent albums with his bands Scorpions and UFO. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Schenker’s career, the Michael Schenker Group has hit the road to let it roll again. The night starts with Alabama rocker Damon Johnson and prog sters Images of Eden, offering fans plenty of time to properly shut down their guitar shops without the danger of missing a single lick of MSG. 7 p.m. at Brooklyn Bowl, 925 Third Ave. N. P.J. KINZER

COMMUNITY

CRITICS’ PICKS

[BLOCK PARTY] OPEN STREETS

Every year the Open Streets festival closes off a notable road to vehicular traffic to let pedestrians and cyclists roam free and safely. This year, Main Street is car-free for a few hours, and you can enjoy a number of activities and patron ize local vendors all without needing a car. Part of Open Streets’ mission is to help resi dents imagine a city that didn’t favor cars so heavily — and putting it on one the more dangerous roads for pedestrians in the city highlights not just the fact we could be do ing more for street safety, but the different ways we could and should be able to enjoy and explore our town. Noon on Main Street from Fifth to 10th streets ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

MONDAY / 10.31

DESIGN [DESIGN OF THE TIMES] NASHVILLE DESIGN WEEK

Nashville Design Week is entering its fifth year with programming through which designers of all disciplines can learn, connect and garner inspiration. “From its inception, Nashville Design Week exists to recognize our city’s design community, and this year more than ever as we celebrate five years,” says Nashville Design Week co-director of programming Emmanuel LeGrair. “This year’s calendar includes a special opening and closing party to toast our milestone anniversary, as well as mul tiple opportunities for the community to check in with each other and share what’s new and exciting in design. Several events will also provide both professional cre atives and aspiring professional creatives with tools they can use to start, grow or refine their business, work and ideas. The world looks a lot different than it did when we were founded in 2018, and we are ex cited and grateful to be able to celebrate five years of Nashville Design Week and

help recognize the many talented and diverse individuals in our city.” The fiveday festival includes 18 events that range from workshops to panel discussions, pre sentations and networking opportunities. Titles include “Contributing to the Bigger Picture: A Hands-On Art Roulette With a Focus on Community and Collaboration,” hosted by Make Nashville and Aberdeen Studio, and “Weaving Perspectives: A Workshop and Panel Featuring Local AAPI Artists and Designers With Current Frist Art Museum Exhibit, Weaving Splendor,” hosted by the Frist Art Museum. These will happen all across Nashville; some events have a cover, but others are free. Check out nashvilledesignweek.org for more informa tion about the festival and its schedule. Oct. 31-Nov. 4 at various locations KELSEY BEYELER

MUSIC [WHO ARE YOU?]

CITY OF CATERPILLAR

Though the original run for the Rich mond, Va., band ended after less than three years of relative obscurity, the ef fects of City of Caterpillar’s sound have been baked into the sound of underground hardcore of the past 20 years. Borrowing heavily from their D.C. neighbors alongside Virginia punk peers like Pg. 99, Target for Aggression and Stop It!, the Caterpillar kids helped spur a wave of post-hardcore full of experimentation that’s relatively uncom mon in the often stagnant scene. City’s new album on Relapse feels like the spiritual child of Neurosis and Fugazi. Georgia emoviolence maniacs Slow Fire Pistol and Bir mingham, Ala.’s Bulging open the gig. 7 p.m. at Drkmttr, 1111 Dickerson Pike P.J. KINZER

TUESDAY /

THEATER

CRITICS’ PICKS

unconventional musical Hadestown from indie theater project and concept album to the bright lights of Broadway. Nashville audiences can experience this acclaimed new work for themselves, as Hadestown finally lands at TPAC’s Jackson Hall. This unusual musical actually blends two ancient mythical tales — Orpheus and Eurydice and King Hades and Persephone — while also merging the sounds of modern American folk music and New Orleans-inspired jazz. Winner of eight 2019 Tony Awards (includ ing Best Musical and Best Original Score), Hadestown was developed by Mitchell, along with the imaginative director Rachel Chavkin (Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812). And the rest of the creative team is just as impressive, including scenic designer Rachel Hauck, costume designer Michael Krass and choreographer David Neumann. Nov. 1-6 at TPAC’s Jackson Hall, 505 Deaderick St. AMY STUMPFL

MUSIC

[BRILLIANT DISGUISE] NICOLLE GALYON

I find many discussions about main stream country’s musical values off the mark — despite the determined efforts of exponents of traditional country to stem the tide of modernity, the radio-friendly vari ety uses effects drawn from classic rock, pop, hip-hop and anything else that works

to sell the song. This seems normal to me, and the career of Kansas-born songwriter and singer Nicolle Galyon illustrates how mainstream country’s tropes — in her case, a persistent success narrative — differ from those of the standard Americana-roots song writer. Galyon, who started a label, Songs & Daughters, in 2019, is indeed a successful, much-honored Nashville tunesmith, with songs cut by Keith Urban, Florida Georgia Line and Dan + Shay. In her 2014 hit co-write with Natalie Hemby and Miranda Lambert, “Automatic,” the trope turns on the differ ence between the past, when people made things by hand and everyone was patient, and the present, which I don’t need to tell you about. On this year’s debut album First born, Galyon makes the tropes explicit. She sings about making it in Nashville and being too busy to go to Disney World over a bed of guitars and keyboards that barely reg isters as country. Firstborn is pop country disguised as a singer-songwriter album — Taylor Swift would be proud. 7:30 p.m. at the CMA Theater, Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, 224 Rep. John Lewis Way S. EDD HURT

DOWNTOWN

BY MARGARET LITTMAN

Think about a wine bottle. Not the label. Not the price tag. Not the taste. Not the provenance of the grapes from whence the wine came. The bottle itself. What happens to it when you’ve toasted your last toast and drunk your last drop?

In Nashville, in many cases, it ends up in the trash. The city has limited glass recycling programs, particularly on the commercial scale — glass used in home consumption can be dropped off at one of the neighborhood convenience centers or picked up by a private recycler.

At 1 Hotel Nashville, the new sustainably

for its orders — everything is sent through electronically. If you order room service, you’ll sign the check on an app, not on paper. Vendors are encouraged to reduce the amount of wrapping materials for delivery — fish is delivered in a reusable cooler rather than plastic.

The idea is for all of these elements to exist but in a nonintrusive way and without a schoolmarm tone.

“We’re not activists in the sense that we want to show people a different way of doing things, because we are a luxury hotel experience,” Farina says. “We want to do things in a way that we are educating people and making them think and hopefully eventually change some sort of future behavior. We just encourage people to take a pause.”

focused downtown hotel, tossing the glass didn’t seem like an option that was consistent with its green mission. So the hotel, which has 215 rooms and multiple restaurants and bars, installed a pulverizer to ground all its glass into sand. Burlap bags then are filled with the sand, and plans are in the works for finding options for donating the repurposed goods. Possibilities include using it as construction materials in affordable housing projects or as sandbags in flood prevention. (Testing is still underway to see where the aggregate will perform best.) In the future, Nicholas Farina, general manager of 1 Hotel Nashville, would like the hotel to become a drop-off site where Nashvillians can bring glass that can’t otherwise be recycled. Recycled glass is also used to make the inroom wine carafes.

Creating a system for turning excess beer bottles and wine bottles into sand is one example of how the luxury hotel creates its green footprint, says Farina, who serves on the Mayor’s Council on Sustainability. The glass is just one example of how the hotel, which opened on Demonbreun in June, is looking to create more mindful, sustainable moments in a city where environmental impact is not always top of mind.

The new-construction building is an example of biophilic design, an approach to architecture that aims to connect people inside buildings to the outside world using natural light and landscaping. Guest rooms have live plants, in-room filtered water taps to encourage refilling water bottles and small hourglasses to help track how long guests run water in the shower.

The hotel is largely paperless, with rocks instead of paper do-not-disturb signs, chalkboards instead of notepads and wooden keys. Business cards and other necessary paper are printed on materials that contain wildflower seeds so they can be plowed back into the earth, and they have useful reference information printed on the back. Hangers are made from recycled materials. The kitchen doesn’t even have a printer

A good opportunity for just such a long pause? When the hotel’s main restaurant, 1 Kitchen, participates in the chain’s quarterly dinner series, A Supper That Sustains Us. The idea of the series, which started in New York with chef Jonathan Waxman, is to highlight local purveyors and beverage partners with a four-course family-style dinner featuring the farmer or other purveyor present.

“Everybody says they’re farm-to-table, but are they really?” asks 1 Kitchen Nashville culinary director Chris Crary. “We really wanted to take that to the next step.”

Crary, a Top Chef alum, came to Nashville from the 1 Kitchen in West Hollywood, where he had a property featuring a 2,000-square-foot garden and a honeyproducing beehive. Crary volunteered to helm the Nashville restaurant in part because his grandmother was from Tennessee, and he wanted to explore his Southern roots — from pawpaws to stinging nettles — and in part because he felt his experience in California could help Nashville when it comes to waste reduction and recycling.

Nashville’s A Supper That Sustains Us series started in September with Smyrna’s 400-acre Bloomsbury Farm. For every dinner purchased (tickets were $100 each), the restaurant donated a meal to those in need in Nashville. Copia, an organization that allows businesses to donate excess food, also helps 1 Kitchen Nashville make good use of its leftovers. A Supper That Sustains Us will have its next installment in November, with that partner to be announced soon. Farina says it may eventually become a monthly event.

The dinner series is designed to not only show off 1 Kitchen Nashville’s partners, but also to underscore its other efforts to create zero-waste dishes. Menus are built with seasonal produce, with an aim of sourcing 75 percent of ingredients from within a 200-mile radius. (It’s hard to find locally grown avocados, for example.) The bar includes a biodynamic and organic wine list and a sustainable cocktail program featuring zero-waste cocktails

and sustainable liquors. Cray sources meat and seafood ethically and says he enjoys working with Tennessee farms. While many of the farms here may be smaller than the ones he worked with in California, he appreciates the focus of the farmers who may grow a smaller number of varieties and do that exceedingly well.

“It is really nice to see seasons,” Crary says. “I’m not used to seasons. California has summer and award season.” He says waiting for tomatoes to come into season was rewarding anticipation for him. He’s planning to grow root vegetables and flowering herbs at the hotel to supplement what he’s buying from local farmers.

On the back end, the hotel watches its utility usage, particularly when it comes to things like the A/C running when no one is in the guest room, or the speed of the ventilation hood in the kitchen. An iPad tracks all waste that leaves the hotel, weighing it and tracking cardboard recycling. “Until you know the numbers that are attached with your impact, there’s not a

lot you can do to change it,” Farina says. The restaurant composts all green waste and recycles its cooking oil.

Both Crary and Farina hope to help improve Nashville’s sustainability infrastructure, which has room for improvement. Eight states have banned polystyrene foam, so seeing Styrofoam used in takeout containers (and in the trash downtown) has been an adjustment. “I hadn’t seen Styrofoam in years,” Crary says.

Of course, 1 Kitchen Nashville’s takeout packaging is compostable.

Crary, the father of two, cites his kids as a motivator for his sustainable practices. “I want them to grow up and live somewhere that’s not polluted, that’s not overrun by landfills and off-gases, and I want them to know that the food that they’re eating isn’t tainted with chemicals.”

There’s a health benefit to the 1 Kitchen perspective, too, he adds: “Eating locally, eating in-season is better for you and better for the environment.”

PHOTO: FRAWLEY PHOTOGRAPHY

BLANK CANVAS

Gay bar Canvas moving to East Nashville after 11 years on Church Street

BY HANNAH HERNER

When it comes to Canvas, the bar he founded, Darek Tanner says he’s all about evolution. That’s why he put blank canvases on the bar’s wall to be painted over time, con stantly switching out decor and art from local artists.

Now, after 11 years at its Church Street location, the local LGBTQ staple is undergoing the next step in its evolution. Canvas is moving to new digs at 1105 Fa therland St. on Nov. 3, with Oct. 31 set as the bar’s last day on Church Street.

Tanner and general manager Seth Thomas say they had been looking for a new space in East Nashville for some time, and didn’t have to think twice about partnering with Music City PrEP, which renovated the former Bill Martin’s grocery store to open a clinic in September, making them Canvas’ landlord.

Back when Canvas opened, there were five other gay bars on that single Church Street block. It has since dwindled down to just Canvas and one other tenant, WKND Hang Suite, though longtime gay-scene sta ples Tribe and Play are still nearby. Tanner says crowds still haven’t quite gotten back to what they were pre-pandemic, and park ing has shrunk, making it less accessible.

The new location will offer a different vibe than the original. It’s a place for people to get lunch and dinner, with its opening

hours set at 11 a.m. until 1 a.m. Thomas says they’re planning to take the food to the next level, with house-made pasta along with bar staples like burgers and wings.

“It’s been a 3 a.m. party bar over at Church Street, and it’s more in the vein of dive-bar nightclub,” Thomas says. “This is more bar/ restaurant and neighborhood focus. We’re here to enhance, not impose.”

“Canvas is definitely a neighborhood bar to where we want to be woven into the fabric of the neighborhood,” Tanner says. “That’s a really big theme for me. That’s why we’re so excited about being here, because now we can grow with the neighborhood.”

Tanner’s goal from the start was to create a gay bar that felt like Cheers — a place he didn’t have growing up in his small town in Southern Illinois in the ’80s. The new loca tion will feature the old location’s recogniz able church-style lights, as well as some of the original art and stained-glass pieces — all meant to be conversation pieces, says Tanner. He’s always been adamant that the space not feature TVs, hoping to encourage people to talk to one another more.

“For somebody with an office job, for them to come into Canvas, they can really express who they are, because they have to kind of squash it down a little bit in a box whenever they’re behind the computer,” Tanner says. “Here they can be themselves. I don’t care if you’re the butchest guy with the biggest beard and wear a prom dress and a tiara in here, great. I love that.”

While they’ll miss having Tribe and Play nearby, Tanner and Thomas will now be able to collaborate with what they’ve always called their sister bar, Lipstick Lounge, a few blocks away. Tanner calls it the “gayborhood.”

“This is a gay bar that’s everybodyfriendly,” he says. “It still has power to have our own place. Just be accepting. If you see a couple girls holding hands or you see a couple of guys making out in the corner, well, you’re on our turf.”

BY SARAH STEWART

all the soup’s ingredients. Completed with tofu, mushrooms, tomatoes, and fragrant basil leaves, this take on a traditional bún riêu leaves a lasting impression with every bite.

PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

BY MARY LIZA HARTONG

Vodka Yonic features a rotating cast of women and nonbinary writers from around the world sharing stories that are alternately humorous, sobering, intellectual, erotic, religious or painfully personal. You never know what you’ll find in this column, but we hope this potent mix of stories encourages conversation.

For six years I wrote my grandmother a letter once a week. It began the summer before I left for college and ran all the way through the week she died.

I can’t say these letters were interesting. In fact, most of them said rather boring things like, “I’m torn between two different purses, but I’m not sure which one to buy. The red canvas one or the small leather one. The red one’s better for every day, but the black one’s glamorous. What do you think?” I wrote a lot about how cold it was in New Hampshire. How I’d keep a jar of Vaseline in my coat pocket so that when I arrived at my Virginia Woolf seminar I could smear a glob on each cheek and hope to salvage my face before spring.

From her perch in suburban Chicago, my grandmother must have understood the cold (better than the purse dilemma anyway), though she only ever wrote me back a handful of times. Once she included a newspaper clipping about a matchmaking festival in Ireland. This was just after I’d gone through a breakup. She wrote, “I hope you find a new home for your heart.” Being so few and far between, the notes she did write me were all the more precious and important, like the words of a psychic recounted over a longdistance phone call to warn me the future was fast approaching, and had I invested in snow tires yet? She would sign them, “My Best Love.” With Gramma Liz, you were never getting the second-rate stuff.

For a woman who adored her grandchildren, she also loved shooing us away. We’d fly up from Nashville to see her, gather around the armchair where she watched 60 Minutes, and talk her ear off until she’d declare, with a nervous shake in her voice, “Don’t you kids want some ice cream?” Pulling a 50 from under her sewing table, she beseeched us to leave her in peace. Gramma Liz was funny like that. She wanted to see us, but she also wanted to be left to her own devices, those devices mainly being needlepointing. Maybe that’s why she liked my letters so much. I could talk and she could listen and neither of us needed to leave our cozy chairs.

“I read some of your letters,” my father would say after a visit to Chicago. “I wish you’d write me every week.”

How could I explain? Writing Gramma Liz was unlike writing anybody else. A

living diary, a confessional. She didn’t share her innermost thoughts, but she offered a soft place for mine to land. When I came out to her in the spring of my senior year, I wondered if she’d write back. Coming out is an exercise in geography. Who will rise to meet you and who will retreat? The letter came immediately. “As it turns out,” Gramma Liz wrote, “two of my very best friends are gay, have been together for over 15 years, and are happy as can be. I can only hope that you’ll be as lucky.”

She loved sand dollars and the color blue. Turtlenecks in the summer and Starbucks once a week, when she’d drive like a bat out of hell to the nearest branch for the biggest Frappuccino money could buy. When Gramma Liz died, rather than sweaters or coffee, my uncle had glass sand dollars made for each member of the family. Mine broke in two. A clean break, but I wonder what would have happened if it had shattered. I might have thrown it away. Instead, I glued the two halves back together, let it dry, and stuck it above my writing desk. It wasn’t until my cousin visited last year that I realized exactly what the sand dollar was.

“In the light, you can see the ashes,” my cousin said.

“What?”

“The little gray parts. Those are her ashes.”

My grandmother will never write me back again, but as she did in life, she will every now and then make herself known. I’ll look up from the paragraph I’m writing and find the sunlight filtering through her. I’ll imagine her telling me to stay warm. And, because life is so awfully short, to buy both purses.

CULTURE

BY D. PATRICK RODGERS

Acouple decades back, Old Hickory native Nate Bargatze was working as a water-meter reader in Mt. Juliet. In April, the comic will take the stage at his hometown enormodome.

Last week, the Donelson Christian Acad emy alum — who earlier this month won Best Stand-Up Comedian in the Scene’s Best of Nashville readers’ poll — announced that he’ll headline the 20,000-capacity Bridgestone Arena on April 15 as part of the Nashville Comedy Festival. Via relentless touring, numerous late-night appearances and a pair of well-received comedy specials — 2019’s The Tennessee Kid and 2021’s The Greatest Average American — Bargatze has become renowned for his impossibly delightful deadpan delivery and relatable material. The Bridgestone stop lands in the middle of his upcoming 27-date Be Funny Tour, with Bargatze planning to release a new special in January. More details and the full lineup of the Nashville Comedy Festival are forthcoming, but tickets for Bargatze’s Bridgestone date are already on sale.

On the heels of the big announcement, the Scene caught up with the comedian and pod caster to talk about Nashville, writing new material and how, as he puts it, “The panic is what helps you figure it out.”

Seeing as how you’re from here, and I think you’ve played just about every size venue in the Nashville area over the past decade or two, what’s the personal significance of headlining this venue in this town? Whenever they built Bridges tone was a little bit before I started comedy. But it’s obviously the big arena here. And I remember when I first started, I dreamed of playing it. I don’t know if it’s like a “goal,” because it just seems impossible. But you definitely dream of playing it. … I mean, 20 years ago, I was standing on a corner in New York City, handing out flyers to get people to come into shows. And you’d just kind of daydream as you were out there, and so for it to be here is pretty wild.

Do you cater your sets — either your approach or the material itself — to the venue? How does a headlining set at Zanies differ from one at Bridgestone? I’ve done some arenas. I haven’t done one as big as Bridgestone. But I’ve done, you know, minor league hockey arenas and stuff like that. They can be 3,000 seats or something. So it’s definitely weird. It’s just different. You’re not gonna go try a bunch of new jokes. … I think I’ll move around a little bit more. I don’t think I’ll ever be someone that moves around a lot. [But the Bridges tone stage is] so open, and you have so much more space. You feel like you have more freedom. So it’ll be a new thing. I’m excited. That’s what makes it fun, to figure out how to do [a set] in that big of a space.

You mentioned handing out flyers in New York. How much time did you spend there? When I first started I was reading water meters in

Mt. Juliet. And I had a buddy, we moved to Chicago first for about two years, and that’s when I took some comedy classes, and I did some open mics. Nashville’s got a great comedy scene now. And Nashville had a scene back then too, but it wasn’t as big.

And so the first time I ever went onstage was in Chicago. … And then I was in New York for almost nine years. So New York’s really where I developed, and I was in L.A. for a couple of years. And now we’ve been back [in Nashville] for probably eight years or something.

Was that always the goal to come back home? Or did you just play it by ear as things went along? You definitely play it by ear.

You don’t know what’s going to happen.

But once I started touring a lot, and I was going to all these clubs, and almost every weekend you’re working somewhere else.

And I realized, my whole family is still here, my wife’s from Alabama, her fam ily’s like an hour from here. So I was like,

“You know what, I just want to go home.”

… It’s easy to even travel out of Nashville. When I first moved back I tried to keep it a secret, because I was worried people were gonna think I quit comedy. At that time, I was in L.A. and was like, if I leave L.A., it’s just gonna seem like I quit. So I just moved back and didn’t really say anything. No one knew, because you’re just working so much. But now it’s the cool thing to do.

I interviewed SNL cast member James Austin Johnson a couple months ago, also a Nashville guy. We were talking about him kicking off his comedy career in Nashville at places like Spanky’s. What were your old stomping grounds here? Did you ever do much comedy here when you were first getting a start? Yeah, I would come back a lot. Es pecially there at the beginning. And then in between Chicago and New York I came back for a few months. But I went to Spanky’s and … Bar Car, maybe was the name of one?

This was so long ago. Yeah, some spots like that. … I remember James. I’m older than him, but I remember he was here. He was new and was a super funny dude. And then he moved to L.A. And even back then, it’s never bad to move. Usually work ends up being why you have to move. Now it’s like, you can definitely stay here longer than you used to. And I hope that Nashville can be a place where it’s like, “Yeah, you can live here.” If you have to go to L.A. or New York, you go there to do something like he’s doing, or writing or like KC [Shornima], she just got on SNL

She’s hilarious, that’s great for her. Yeah I’ve seen her at Zanies.

I looked up the spot you mentioned — you’re right, it was the Bar Car. Yeah [local comedian] Chad Riden ran all that. He really kept the scene together and did a really good job with that kind of stuff. And he’s been around as long as I have. … You could smoke in Spanky’s right? … It was the one where people would show up. You just had to go.

On this upcoming tour you’re planning on doing

all new material. Have you gotten into flushing all that out yet? Not yet. I’ve already got some stuff. But that’s what I’m really doing. I try to mix it in. I just taped a special, the spe cial’s gonna come out in January, so I’ll have it ready by January. I’ll just slowly put it in. I’m touring right now, and when I’m home, I’ll just try to go to Zanies or something. I think there’s a lot of new rooms to try to pop up in and work on [new material]. Probably mostly Zanies, on a Monday or Tuesday. But yeah I’ll get it all figured out. I’m hoping [to focus on] where I’m at now and my life and family and all that kind of stuff.

You have very approachable material, it’s very relatable. But there’s just something about your delivery that just kind of works with everybody. It’s not anything that you do on purpose. Doing it for so long, you’re just able to say more things funny than you are at the beginning. But I mean, every time you record a special, you’re like, “I don’t know how I’ll ever come up with another joke. That was it.” You don’t

feel like there’s ever a formula. Every year you’re like, “I wish I had a system in place,” but you don’t. I gotta figure it out. The panic. The panic is what helps you figure it out. How has it been reconnecting with audiences over the past year when you’ve been able to get back into it? Does it feel special and different? Does it feel just like it did before the pandemic started? It feels special and different. You can feel an appreciation, and it’s an ap preciation for just all of us being together.

I was just talking to one of the comics that was with me on the road this weekend, and we were just talking about how when you’re up there, and [the audience is] laughing so hard, they’re having fun, and you can just feel that, I don’t know, relief? …

Everybody’s having just a great time. Ev erybody’s got the stresses of life. So it’s like, if you can even be just a break from that for the show, that’s all you want. So when you feel that, it’s very rewarding.

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

CAKE POPS

Nashville Rep serves up a sweet comedy with Bekah Brunstetter’s The Cake

BY AMY STUMFL

In the opening moments of Bekah Brunstetter’s The Cake, we meet Della — a good-natured Southern gal and baker extraordinaire who is eager to share the secret of her success.

“See, what you have to do is really, truly follow the directions,” she tells us with a knowing smile. It’s a simple philosophy that clearly applies to more than just baking for this devout Christian and dutiful wife. But things get complicated when Della is asked to provide the cake for a same-sex wedding involving her best friend’s daughter — a young woman who Della clearly loves like her own family.

It may seem like an obvious ripped-fromthe-headlines formula, but Brunstetter — who grew up in a conservative family in North Carolina — clearly knows a thing or two about these characters. Perhaps best known for her work on the NBC drama This Is Us, Brunstetter displays a real gift for dialogue — she serves up some delicious one-liners. But she also takes great care to humanize the issues at hand without villainizing the people involved. In fact, what makes The Cake most satisfying is that it’s not just about Della’s beliefs on same-sex marriage. It’s actually more about how those beliefs have shaped her own life and marriage, and how we all must navigate the intricate reali ties of unconditional love.

That’s a lot to tackle in just 90 minutes, but with its excellent production of The Cake — onstage at TPAC’s Johnson Theater through Oct. 30 — Nashville Rep gets right to the heart of the matter, providing a sweet comedy that could open the door to tough conversations, and perhaps even a bit of empathy.

Director Lauren Shouse leans into the script’s considerable humor while mining the material for honesty and truth. She keeps the action humming along at a crisp pace, offering a marvelous showcase for her outstanding cast.

Megan Murphy Chambers is an absolute delight as Della, delivering her lines with appropriate sass and sparkle. (When her husband Tim insists that a marriage be tween two women is “just not natural,” Della fires back: “Well, neither is confectioners’ sugar!”) In the hands of a lesser actor, Della could easily slip into well-worn caricature, but Chambers offers a far more tantalizing blend of uncertainty and vulnerability. Yes, she is a brilliant comedian, as demonstrated by her breathless dream sequences with an unseen British baking judge (voiced with perfect snark by Jonah M. Jackson). She also serves up one particularly uproarious scene that may leave you questioning every thing you think you know about buttercream frosting. But it’s actually in exploring her character’s deeper questions of inherited

shame and unspoken desires that Chambers really shines.

Christopher Strand also succeeds as Tim, wisely sidestepping the standard “good ol’ boy” in favor of a more realistic brand of restraint and occasional self-doubt. Mariah Parris gives a thoughtful and often tender performance as Jen, capturing her charac ter’s anguish as she struggles to reconcile the lessons of her childhood with what her heart knows to be true. And as Jen’s fiancée Macy, Maya Antoinette Riley enters the

stage like a lightning rod, brimming with strength and uncompromising principles. But as she lectures Della on the evils of both processed sugar and bigotry, we realize she’s nursing a few wounds of her own.

Scenic designer Joonhee Park draws us into Della’s world with a cozy little cake shop outfitted with plenty of homey kitsch, along with a clever pair of oversized draw ers that open up to reveal the respective couples’ beds. Alexis Grigsby’s costumes help establish the characters, and Phillip

Franck deserves mention for his evocative lighting — especially when taking us into Della’s wild imagination.

At a time when we often feel completely divided by politics and estranged from our neighbors and loved ones, The Cake asks us to open our hearts and walk through all the messy emotions together. As Shouse tells us in her director’s note, the hope is that this play “will help start the hard conversations that lead to growth.”

NASHVILLE REPERTORY THEATRE’S THE CAKE THROUGH OCT. 30 AT TPAC’S JOHNSON THEATER

BY HANNAH HERNER

hree years ago, Nashville journalist Becca Andrews

rowing. She suspected the back in time, but

instituted a near

should have been two months of work in

a Fundamental American Right was released earlier this month.

Andrews sat down with the Scene to discuss her book. No Choice weaves together oral history accounts and reporting to lay out chronologically the ways those in power have chipped away at access to abortion across the country, and the groups that have come to the aid of vulnerable pregnant people.

The book covers both the pre-Roe and the post-Roe eras. Comparing those two eras, is there anything that’s easier for pregnant people looking to obtain an abortion? It’s hard to put it in those terms, because I think everything exists on such a spectrum that it changes depending on your race and your income level.

I think the big difference between preRoe and post-Roe is now we have access to medication abortion. It’s a safe, effective way to self-manage abortion, so people aren’t driven to the ends of the coat hanger or Lysol or whatever it is. I do think that self-managing abortion should be a choice.

I think it should be something that people come to because that’s how they want their abortion experience to be, not because they’re forced to do that.

In the book you discuss how “choice” was proposed as the antonym to life, and how the word “abortion” itself carries stigma. How important is language in talking about abortion? I’m a huge language nerd — that probably came through in the book.

I think people always look for the snappy political slogan, and that makes a lot of

sense. You want something that people can remember really easily and that sticks out in people’s minds. The problem with that — and with Twitter and with trying to encapsulate everything in a few words — is that you lose a lot of nuance. People have complicated feelings about this. And that’s valid, and it doesn’t always fit neatly into a quick hyphenated phrase.

The women who obtained an abortion before Roe v. Wade are now seniors. Did you see it as a historic value to document their stories in your book? It was very striking talking to women who have access to abortion care before Roe, and then were living to see the ruling overturned in their lifetimes and were really struggling with what that means for our country, for their own families, for their grandchildren. I don’t think you expect to gain a right and lose it in the same lifespan. That’s not a thing that usually happens. I felt like it was important to hear people wrestle with that. I also think it’s important to show historic context and to show people have been getting abortions forever, and when abortion isn’t legal, it means that the barrier to care is a lot higher. As a result, people are actively harmed. There’s historical precedent for that. I felt those stories were important for that reason as well.

Another thing that stuck out in the book is that despite abortion laws changing, there have always been barriers to getting abortion care — especially for women of color, Native Americans, undocumented immigrants, those who have low income. I’ve been covering abortion for about eight years now, and that’s a disparity that has always existed in the course of my reporting. I did come to the book wanting to expand on that disparity. I think it’s one thing to write about [the fact] that it exists, and that here’s all this research backing up that it exists. It’s quite another to be able to take the time to step back and show what that looks like in the lives of individual people. I really wanted to write this book, in part, to be able to do that. To show people it’s not just a one-off barrier. Here’s how this manifests over the course of years, and sometimes over the course of a lifetime.

Being from rural West Tennessee, how do you see the state’s role when talking about abortion rights? I think the South has always been at the forefront of abortion activism for a lot of reasons, mostly for the fact that abortion has been curbed here the most drastically over the past couple of decades. I take a lot of comfort in that activism that’s being done here in the South. I think there are groups in Tennessee that are really doing the work that I think a lot of other groups want to be doing, or talk about doing.

It’s also really frustrating. It’s been strange dealing with this as a person with reproductive capabilities and being like, “OK I live in Tennessee. If I get pregnant, well, what happens? What if there’s something wrong? What if I don’t want a kid?” It’s been very strange to be reporting on this, but also thinking about this from a personal, private level. This really has a direct impact on me and my community.

Medallion Ceremony

Medallion All-Star Band

Joe Galante

Kenny Chesney

The McCrary Sisters

Kix Brooks

Miranda Lambert Garth Brooks

Justin Moses, Ricky Skaggs and Molly TuttleKris Kristofferson

Alabama

Hank Williams Jr. Chris Isaak

Mickey Guyton

Bill Anderson

Lee Ann Womack

Lorrie Morgan for Keith Whitley Judith Lewis for Jerry Lee Lewis

Photos by: Jason Kempin and Terry Wyatt / Getty Images for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Donn Jones Photography and Amiee Stubbs Photography

LAUGH TO KEEP FROM CRYING

Puscifer gets ready to bring its eerie theatrical production to the Mother Church

BY P.J. KINZER

After more than 30 years front ing prog-metal icons Tool and more than 20 leading all-star ensemble A Perfect Circle, Maynard James Keenan — in Cher-like fashion, he’s known to most fans simply as “Maynard” — has become something of an elder states man in the world of heavy music. He has al ways placed exceptional emphasis on the art of a musical group as a unit, and his bands’ stage shows and music videos have long pushed creative boundaries that many other acts just accept.

Though it’s pretty clear that Keenan and the members of his bands have welldeveloped senses of humor, much of their vivid and imaginative work comes across as extremely serious and overtly dark. A third project, however, brings to the surface a lot of elements that don’t fit into the oeuvres of Tool or APC. Puscifer’s name, with its accent on the “puss,” was dreamed up for a 1995 Mr. Show sketch featuring Keenan and his

Tool bandmate Adam Jones, and the project released its first EP in 2007. In Puscifer, Keenan’s main collaborators are multiinstrumentalist extraordinaire Mat Mitchell and British singer-songwriter Carina Round. Together, they cut loose with an array of characters, costumes and bawdy jokes steeped in black comedy. It’s like a cabaret show from an alternate universe where things are even bleaker than they are in ours.

“Wherever we’re making a joke, there’s probably something that’s hard to joke about,” Keenan tells me over the phone. “I think historically, comedy and tragedy go together.”

On Halloween night, Puscifer’s longdelayed tour behind their latest record Existential Reckoning stops at the Ryman, almost two years from the day the album was released. Thematically, the LP focuses on the havoc that living in the Information Age has wrought on us, from our relation ships with each other and ourselves to our collective ability to sort out fact, fiction and opinion. Musically, it’s an adventurous mix of sounds leaning toward post-punk and drawing from a wide range of electronic music, presented with peerless skill.

“Mat and Carina are incredible at paint ing those landscapes and soundscapes,” says Keenan. “Just pick up the album and ignore all the other stuff — and go down a rabbit hole and have fun. We’re definitely a ‘head phones band.’ ”

Existential Reckoning was the result of the hard labor of all three members, spaced between Los Angeles and Keenan’s Arizona winery, Caduceus Cellars, where he spends

most of his time off the road. The process of making both an album and a season’s worth of wine is a difficult balance and a unique kind of creativity. Plenty of musicians col laborate from separate locations routinely — and even more learned how to during pandemic lockdown — but not that many are simultaneously responsible for a vineyard.

“I am the winery — at my house,” Keenan explains. “I do it about 150 times a year up here in the bunker with my wife and my friend Tim.” Keenan spent a sig nificant amount of time swapping digital files with Mitchell that became the build ing blocks of the record. “Mat’s definitely experimenting a lot with various synths and keyboards and patches, and is also an incredible guitar player.”

He compares his creative relationship with Mitchell to that between art-rock guitarist Robert Fripp and Brian Eno, or Marc Ribot’s collaborations with Tom Waits. While many musicians — especially great guitarists — rely on cranked amps and distortion pedals to make their mark heavy and dark, Keenan explains that Mitchell takes a different path, leaning on synthesizers for the heaviness.

The collaborative process generally begins with Keenan spending time absorb ing riffs that Mitchell has come up with — playing the recordings in his truck, just letting them cycle through on headphones as he works around the winery. Once riffs have been sorted through, it’s Round’s turn to contribute her voice; then the files land back with Mitchell, who will begin build ing up layers of synths, bass and guitar. By the time the demos have made the rounds

of the core trio a few times, Puscifer has a pretty good idea of what they’ll be doing in the studio.

Keenan appreciates the methodical, in tentional nature of the process — “you can digest what’s happening, rather than having to respond in the moment” — and it’s impor tant to have a plan before recording. Most of their opportunities to work together in person are during harvest season.

“That’s when Mat is able to come out with Carina,” Keenan says with a great deal of enthusiasm. “And we’re able to work on mu sic during harvest, because there are breaks — even if it’s only an hour break.” Over an extended period, they’ll settle into a routine of Keenan’s morning winery work, a late lunch and evenings spent laying down new tracks, making edits and cleaning up the files. During this time, they also map out the myriad other nonmusical aspects of Pusci fer, from music video concepts to their payper-view concert series to developing the characters they (and others in their circle) portray onstage during the shows.

With so much effort put into creating a wild and dark theatrical experience on a regular basis, you might expect All Hal low’s Eve to be the band’s favorite time for a show. You might be surprised.

“I mean, it kind of sucks. Because we already have characters built and there’s a whole show of us not dressed as us. So you have to make the decision: Do we do other costumes or do we let these people see the show? Because there’s already characters involved. I guess we just have to see.”

THE SPIRITS

BY AMY STUMPFL

ver the course of his illus trious career, Gian Carlo Menotti composed more than 25 operas, earning a pair of Pulitzer Prizes along the way.

He also wrote the music for several ballets, along with various chamber and choral works, and even established the famed Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy, as well as its counterparts in the U.S. and Australia.

As Nashville Op era CEO and artistic director John Hoomes points out, Menotti wrote compelling stories and stunning melodies. He may be best known for his family-friendly Yuletide work Amahl and the Night Visitors, but he earned one of his Pulitzers for The Consul, a politi cally oriented piece. So how can it be that Menotti’s work has been largely dismissed and even forgotten by so many in the world of classical music?

“Menotti was unapologetic in his efforts to bring the verismo tradition into the mid20th century, drawing inspiration from com posers like Puccini,” says Hoomes. “And it won him great acclaim with audiences. But

it also brought great derision within the classical establishment, which favored the spiky dissonance that was so trendy dur ing that period. I think there also was just a sense that because Menotti’s work was so popular, it must not be very good. It’s really unfortunate, because his operas are so beau tiful and accessible.”

Hoomes describes The Medium, which Nashville Opera will stage Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the intimate Noah Liff Opera Center, as something of a dramatic thriller

— and perfectly suited to the Halloween season. The story centers on Madame Flora, a phony clairvoyant who is confronted by what she believes to be a supernatural spirit during one of her bogus séances.

“It’s highly theatrical, in the tone of the great melodramas like Dial M for Murder or Sorry, Wrong Number. It’s beautifully melodic, but with some really creepy moments.”

In keeping with that aesthetic, Hoomes says the production will feature naturalistic

scenery. Lighting designer Barry Steele is aiming for a candlelit quality by forgoing contemporary LED and strobe gear for lighting equipment similar to what would have been used when the opera was first staged in 1946. The Liff Center’s customary banked seating will be rearranged in a caba ret format that Hoomes hopes will draw audiences in.

“One of the things I love about this piece is that the audience is in on everything from the beginning,” he says. “We show them what a fake Madame Flora is and how all the gags work. So everything about this fake séance goes according to plan — until it doesn’t. And then we’re left wondering what’s really going on. Are there super natural elements at play here? Or has Flora been driven crazy by her own guilt? Or maybe there are other forces conspiring to drive her mad? I love the ambiguity of it all, and the fact that Menotti doesn’t really of fer any answers.”

The Medium was one of the first operas that Hoomes saw, back when he was an undergrad at Samford University, and it has remained a favorite. Even more than that initial performance, the way the piece crossed boundaries between differ ent kinds of artistic expression struck a chord with Hoomes.

“It had everything that I loved about theater, but with the sound of a classical piece. So I’ve always loved it, and I’m ex cited to be directing it for the first time — I can’t wait for the audience to see it.”

EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

PEAK PERFORMANCE

BY STEVEN HALE

It’s been a little more than nine years since Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit headlined the Ryman for the first time. It was Aug. 17, 2013, just a couple of months after the release of the instant-classic Southeastern, the album that kicked off his post-sobriety ascent. The next year, he and the band sold out three nights, and the annual residency grew from there. Since then, there have been only two years in which Isbell and his crew didn’t set up shop at the Ryman for several shows — 2016 and 2020, or the year of Donald Trump’s election and the year a pandemic drew the world to a standstill. Draw your own conclusions.

When Isbell and the band took the stage Oct. 18 for their fourth headlining set of this year’s eight-show run, they did so for the 39th time since that show back in 2013. There is something thrilling about the fact that, despite the vacuous and retrograde characters giving a bad name to the genre that built Nashville as a music center, Isbell has become a deacon at the Mother Church of Country Music.

What’s also thrilling is the way he has used his annual residencies to share the stage with underrepresented and underrated art ists, often women and artists of color. This

year is no different. On the 18th, Ghana-born longtime Nashvillian singer-songwriter Ruby Amanfu — introduced to many by “Love Inter ruption,” her 2012 duet with Jack White, and even more by her appearance on Beyoncé’s “Don’t Hurt Yourself” — opened the show with a set that seemed to grip the audience more tightly with each song. Fresh off the release of the fourth, fifth and sixth volumes of her The Collections series, Amanfu was backed by a band including her husband, songwriting partner and producer Sam Ash worth. Her voice, by turns delicate, haunting and powerful, hovered above pop-soul-folk arrangements. Isbell came out to join her on “Heaven’s My Home,” a song from 2009’s The Here and the Now by her and Sam Brooker’s

erstwhile duo Sam & Ruby. That was a high light, as was Amanfu’s genuine gratitude to be back at a venue where she too has played many times before.

Isbell & Co. opened their 19-song set with “It Gets Easier,” an anthem about being and staying sober from 2020’s Reunions. From there, they bounced around the catalog, performing mainstays from 2015’s Some thing More Than Free (“24 Frames,” “How to Forget” and “Speed Trap Town”), 2017’s The Nashville Sound (“Last of My Kind,” “If We Were Vampires” and “Hope the High Road”) and two from Georgia Blue, the 2021 covers album they recorded following the 2020 elec tion (Drivin N Cryin’s “Honeysuckle Blue,” sung by 400 Unit guitarist and onetime DNC

member Sadler Vaden, as well as R.E.M.’s “Driver 8.”). In between, as is his standard practice, Isbell introduced the members of his band. During one break between songs, as some techs fiddled with the gear behind him, Isbell introduced keyboardist Derry DeBorja Per Isbell’s anecdote, it seems he once un knowingly dosed himself with LSD at a music festival and spent the day wandering around in a daze — until he ran into DeBorja, who he then asked to join his band.

The set also included several songs from the aforementioned Southeastern, including the near-death tale of a hard-partying road musician, “Super 8,” and the romantic force of nature that is “Cover Me Up.” The latter was performed without Isbell’s wife and frequent bandmate Amanda Shires. Many nights she’s joined in on fiddle for this song, but she’s currently on tour with her eighth solo LP of phenomenal songs Take It Like a Man; she and her band were back at the Ry man to open the Oct. 21 show.

Beyond the enrapturing experience of seeing a band at the peak of their powers, one reason to come back to Isbell’s shows at the Ryman again and again — and even to see multiple shows per year — is for the chance to see him perform songs he rarely performs live. He promised two of those in a tweet and kept his word with tunes he penned during his time in the Drive-By Truckers.

The group closed the show with “Danko/ Manuel,” a poignant reflection on two mem bers of The Band, one of the biggest touch stones in the Americana pantheon. Earlier on, they played “TVA,” surely one of the best songs ever written about the life-altering

Nashville Opera probes the unseen in Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Medium

PHOTO:

JAMES

significance of government infrastructure projects. It’s a great example of what makes Isbell such a vital voice in Southern music. He celebrates the history and culture of this complicated region while reckoning with its flaws and insisting that it can be better — that you can acknowledge, and even love, your roots without wanting to stay stuck in the same old dirt. Amen.

TAKE A DEEP BREATH

BY JASON SHAWHAN

If, heaven forbid, something awful had happened at Bridgestone Arena on Sunday night during the local engage ment for Lizzo’s The Special Tour, Nashville would be facing a shortage of ass so pronounced that Davidson County might never recover. Perhaps it’s the confrontational nature of just being alive at this moment in time, but I couldn’t help but worry there might be picketers holding up signs that say something like “Thicc Is Sick!” outside Bridgestone. This was not the case (and honestly, the elastic nature of language allows that phrase to be supportive or pejora tive depending on context, which is funny). And more so, given how the traditional media landscape suggests that you don’t exist if you’re not a fascist, an anti-vaxxer, a TERF or a violent racist, it felt really good to just hang out in the vibe of a Lizzo show. Clear heels and comfy flats were in balance and abun dance. There were spangles and dangles and an overwhelming ethos of Looking Good and Feeling Cute, while the nurturing, amniotic warmth of the Roland 808 kick drum synced up heartbeats and soothed weary souls.

Lizzo is not just a brand. She believes in liberation, and that extends to the one-nightonly pop-up communities that result from arena shows. The vibe was supportive and energetic, with the utopian blend of bod ies and flesh that we just don’t encounter often enough in public spaces outside of the Wachowskis’ films and TV or when Salt-NPepa’s “Push It” comes on. About two thirds of the way into the show, when Lizzo and her two backup vocalists busted out a trap take on “I’m Every Woman,” emotions got felt all over the place. When an off-white couch emerged from the stage and Lizzo welcomed us to the Therapy portion of the show, it wasn’t just a chance to dazzle with some bal lads. It was an open invitation to recenter oneself, and it allowed the moments of af firmation and emotional rebuilding to really take hold. And maybe that’s not something you go to an arena show for, but it’s nice to get all the production value and choreography and dramaturgy as well as the kind of emo tional connection that tends to be the founda tion of shows in more intimate venues.

But that’s part of what makes Lizzo spe cial — see what I did there? — as well as what gave this evening a great deal of emo tional significance. There were all sorts of instances throughout the set when she found ways to incorporate the unexpected and use that energy to swoop into a whole new set of groovy possibilities. When the band, dubbed The Lizzbians (ha!), kicked into “Boys” (from the Deluxe Edition of 2019’s Cuz I Love You), they did so with elements of Yes’ “Heart of the Sunrise” (aka that song from the Buffalo ’66 trailer and soundtrack). I cannot express

to you what an un expected delight this was, such a left-field choice that meshed dis parate elements in a way that disas sembled expecta tions and charged up the whole rest of the evening with a kind of “any thing can happen” energy. That includes the interlude in which Lizzo tried to help fix the strained relationship between two sisters with a call. Seriously, everyone at Bridgestone wants to know how this whole thing is going to end up shaking out. I hope Emily in New York works things out with her sister, because we all know Lizzo tried.

“2 B Loved (Am I Ready)” is a perfect ’80s aerobics anthem (especially in that stunning new PNAU remix) all on its own. It achieves an even grander destiny in the hands of re cent Emmy winners Lizzo and her dancers, the Big Grrrls. Culturally, we know the color schemes and flesh shapes that are “sup posed” to accompany this kind of driving energy, and what we get onstage with this majestic banger of a song is simultaneously revelation and revolution. Lizzo’s approach to this song and its legacy is a democracy, not a dictatorship. This remains the easiest way to make everyone feel OK with shaking their ass in a more formalized fashion than might be expected. This was a show where nobody felt shamed, and the simple joy that results in that kind of situation is palpable.

Atlanta-based opener Latto had four danc ers, a DJ and a memorable flow that kept the audience hyped and pumped. When she dropped “Big Energy,” it was the kind of elec tric moment when you realize that the right sample — in this case, from Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love,” à la Mariah Carey’s “Fan tasy” — coupled with a dynamic performer can bridge all sorts of experiences, and it was awesome. I wish I could have seen her whole set, but the vicissitudes of Bridgestone security processes meant getting into the building took a bit longer. (Real talk: A friend always accompanies their friend through the security line, whether one of you is carrying a bag or not.)

So much of the focus on the Lizzo expe rience dwells on the affirmation and the twerkulation that comes with each show — and don’t forget the flutestravaganza as well. But in a live setting, what stays with you is Lizzo’s voice. She can rap with the best of MCs, she can weather the Quiet Storm with balladry and love jams. But she can also sum mon that big diva voice that calls to mind the greats — like Loleatta Holloway or Martha Wash or Jocelyn Brown. They’re the women who could set dance floors ablaze with just a sampled five-word hook, and the women who would see their work “visualized” by waifish models back when MTV ruled the intersec tion between inspiration and imagination.

But now, when Lizzo unleashes the full dy namic range of her voice, nobody is getting in the way of that, or trying to ventriloquize respect and attention away from the big and beautiful body who does the work. Lizzo is the headliner. She is the star. And as a society, we’ve at least gotten to the point where we can acknowledge — and bask — in that.

EMAIL THESPIN@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

FRESH PHOTOS WITH THE BOMB LIGHTING: LIZZO

BY JASON SHAWHAN

n the past month, I’ve covered four film festivals, and have a good and only moderately exhausted sense of the movies coming our way over the next year or so. I have a great affinity for horror and genre cinema, and the way the market works currently for those kinds of films is that they tend to go from the festival circuit to streaming services. (Shudder will likely end up being the home for many of these titles, and bless them for it, because someone’s got to keep the vibe alive.) Sadly, this is very much the case in Nashville. So this installment of Primal Stream is specifically focused on what’s coming in the way of genre cinema.

If you get the chance to see these films in theaters, you should (provided you’re smart and safe about it). The recently completed 2022 editions of the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival and Knoxville Horror Film Festival are doing good work here, as is the Chattanooga Film Festival from earlier in the year (where I first saw a few of these titles). I’ve noted throughout where I screened each film.

First and foremost, both as an academic exercise and as a representation of what genre cinema can do, The Timekeepers of Eternity (KHFF) is essential (and inspirational) viewing, taking a three-hour made-for-TV Stephen King adaptation, re-editing it, rephotographing it and recontextualizing it into an hour of distilled cosmic horror that hits the viewer like a train. Just as expansive in scope but retaining the earthy intimacy of their previous and best work (Resolution, The Endless), Benson and Moorhead’s Something in the Dirt (BHFF/KHFF) is an emotional journey into the seduction of conspiracy theory, a soak in the intersection of science and magic, and a pitiless autopsy of what making art with someone you care about can do.

It’s been way too long since Carter Smith fucked up our minds with The Ruins. His queer slasher Midnight Kiss was fun, but in no way prepares the viewer for Swallowed (BHFF/also NewFest). Here, a last-minute scheme to help a friend escape small-town malaise leads to a surreal and scatological body-horror suspense thriller that gets at the heart of complicated friendships and also the divides between generations of gay men. When beloved icon Mark Patton turns up as a backwoods crime lord with an immaculate accessories game, everything levels up to an ideological battleground that delivers a whole lot of intense responses.

If Timekeepers of Eternity is one kind of academic exercise, then Tubi’s currently streaming remake of Terror Train is another: a remake that sticks surprisingly close to the original script, even duplicating some of the more memorable shots from the 1980 original, but trying to address which

aspects of a “slasher classic” are subject to its time and space, and which are narrative functions. The original had Jamie Lee Curtis, Vanity and Hart Bochner. This one doesn’t really allow anyone to shine in such a capacity, but it’s essential viewing for anyone who loves the genre and is interested in how aesthetics shift.

As we roll into December, there will be a couple of holiday-themed films to keep an eye out for, both of which are keyed into whatever a post-midterm-election America may happen to look like. Eric Pennycoff’s The Leech (KHFF; streaming soon on Arrow Unlimited, on Blu-ray in December) is a grungy parable about a priest (indie stalwart Graham Skipper) who takes in a drifter and possible grifter (Jeremy Gardner) at the holidays. Fraught psychological warfare escalates. Perfect for anyone who needs confirmation that a holiday alone isn’t a terribly awful thing. And Joe Begos (The Mind’s Eye, VFW) is back with Christmas Bloody Christmas (BHFF/ KHFF), a colorful and nihilistic casserole of mayhem resulting from the militaryindustrial complex making robotic Santas so parents can feel safer at malls. Begos does shot-on-film atrocity like no one else, and respect to Mystery Science Theater 3000’s Jonah Ray Rodrigues for another superb addition to his gallery of The Doomed.

As far as post-apocalyptic tone for an uncertain world, Daughter (BHFF) and All Jacked Up and Full of Worms (BHFF, streaming Nov. 8 on Screambox) get at very real terrors and express them in unconventional ways. The former uses the emotional legacy of Casper Van Dien to fill in an impressionist, authoritarian portrait of domestic life and community structure, while the latter is genuinely transgressive in its Hubert Selby Jr.-meets-old-school-Harmony Korine portrait of weirdos and fuck-ups in a society where psychedelic worms are plentiful and absolutes are not so much so. All Jacked Up is a bit much (it has many subplots and some of them will really throw the viewer off guard), but it’s something singular and special, and I await the conversations it will start and the friendships it will finish.

Comedian Whitmer Thomas and his longtime collaborator Clay Tatum present The Civil Dead (KHFF), a comedy (with some sharp edges) about the fraught friendship between a struggling photographer (Tatum) and a recently dead struggling actor (Thomas). The two are great together, and Thomas is such an amiable presence that some of the latestage revelations and actions land completely differently from how the filmmakers might have hoped. It’s still worth checking out — just be ready to be angry for how the film does one of its characters wrong.

Lorcan Finnegan (Without Name) is back with a new film, Nocebo (BHFF), in which Christine (Eva Green — staggering, iconic,

sly) is a designer for children’s fashion who finds herself with some live-in help after a debilitating shock. Diana (Chai Fonacier) is knowledgeable, perceptive and well-versed in folk and battle magic, and she’s here to help Christine get better and understand some things. This is political horror at its most delirious, sweeping the viewer up into a world Rod Serling would have approved of. Respect is due writers Garret Shanley and Ara Chawdhury for finding a whole new way of dynamiting a hackneyed old stereotype. Huesera (BHFF/KHFF) is an exceptional Mexican horror of pregnancy and cultural myth, with a dynamite central performance from Natalia Solián and a lesbian coven of aunties, so you know it’s very good. Joko Anwar’s sequel Satan’s Slaves 2: Communion takes the best impulses of Indonesiansploitation and gives us the surviving family members from the previous film now living in a high-rise apartment building on an isolated plain near the sea. There are demons, ghosts, cult action and a suspense sequence involving an elevator that all elevator horror in the future will have to reckon with. You are not ready.

And as far as exquisite political horror, anthology V/H/S/99 (BHFF; now streaming on Shudder) shines with “Ozzy’s Dungeon,” a short film from Flying Lotus that is about the ancient cosmic horror lurking behind every Nickelodeon game show. Equally versed in the racial optics of ’90s game shows and the way that so much of that beloved programming is keyed into unspoken kinks and the power structures of gross old people (Flying Lotus would be ideal to direct a film of Jennette McCurdy’s book), “Ozzy’s Dungeon” can’t help but stand out amongst this latest offering from the V/H/S crew. The folks who made Deadstream have a funny and imaginative segment called “To Hell and Back” that plays like a stoner-farce version of The Outwaters (be ready for that one), and even if it had done nothing else but introduce Mabel the Skull-Biter, it would be essential viewing. Horror buffs know the drill — it’s a V/H/S film and your mileage may vary — but there’s some great and visceral stuff to be had. But on the whole, this is a good assemblage — how can you not love horny

teens versus a Gorgon, or pranksters dying horribly?

I hated Kids vs. Aliens (KHFF). Like, hated it enough that I started wondering if those people who hate horror maybe have a point. I know a lot of people who really loved this, so maybe it’s just me, but this starts out like Michael Haneke making The Goonies (not in terms of skill, but rather compelling you to end the process), tweens yelling “fuck” and suffering the cruelties of popular kids. Then the aliens show up and things get really disgusting (both because of gore and because of the absolute delight this film takes in making all its women characters suffer). This actually sprang from the “Slumber Party Alien Abduction” sequence in V/H/S/2, which was inspired and economical in its excesses, and it will serve as a great example of how not to adapt a short into a feature. Taking a similar impulse to much more genial and successful narrative points, Zach Passero’s The Weird Kidz (BHFF) is a scrappy, handdrawn animation about friends and family and a desert-community insect cult. It has a very teenage sense of humor, but it also has an unforced sweetness that rewards the shakier aspects of its first reel.

One other thing. Everybody needs something to be reading, and if you’ve never experienced Kier-La Janisse’s exceptional critical work House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Film, you are in luck: There’s a new, expanded edition available that is absolutely essential reading. Smart and perceptive and intense, it’s an ideal read for anyone who enjoys genre cinema on many levels, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. That, and the similarly expanded new edition of Cookie Mueller’s Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black were my recent subway reading of choice, and they are well worth your time.

Be on the lookout for the genre titles that will be popping up in my New York Film Festival and NewFest wrap-up, coming Nov. 3: Bones and All, Coma, Enys Men and The Eternal Daughter.

DECISIONS, DECISIONS

BY NADINE SMITH

or one of the most acclaimed directors of the modern arthouse circuit, Park Chanwook is often anything but respectable. Though Park has a refined eye for cinematography and a frequently inventive sense of montage, his films are at times almost gleefully lurid and sensationalistic, from the violent brutality of Oldboy to the erotic intrigue of The Handmaiden. It’s easy to see why Quentin Tarantino was an early advocate of his work — Park Chan-wook strikes a balance between thoughtful artist and pulp stylist.

As Park has grown older, his work has taken on a more elegant and matured demeanor — his new film Decision to Leave is at times almost startling in its quietness, with a remarkable sense of patience and assurity. But first glances can be deceiving, and when you peer deeper into its dark heart, Decision to Leave is still of a piece with his earlier work, filled with Gothic tragedy, unpredictable melodrama and an almost shape-shifting plot.

The protagonist of Park’s latest will be familiar to fans of a detective thriller by another acclaimed South Korean auteur, Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of Murder. In that twisted and moody mystery, Park Hae-il

plays a man suspected of serial killings.

Here, 20 years later, he’s taken on the role of a world-weary cop himself, Det. Hae-jun, a devoted homicide detective approaching something of a midlife crisis. His scientist wife Jung-an (Lee Jung-hyun) is intensely methodical, always rattling off facts and offering practical solutions, and Hae-jun himself is a man of rigid habit and routine who never leaves work alone — there’s a

wall in his home of grisly photographs from all the unsolved cases he’s ever worked on, haunting his every waking moment. Despite his quiet demeanor, Hae-jun clearly lives for violence in a warped way, and becomes unsettled without horrific crimes to fill his mind with. He’s looking for a break from the routine, and it comes in the form of a murder suspect, Seo Rae (Tang Wei), a mysterious Chinese immigrant whose husband dies under uncertain circumstances. Though Haejun eventually rules the death a suicide, there’s still something off about this woman’s story and past, and Hae-jun finds himself fully taken in, as late-night stakeouts turn more to De Palma-esque peeping sessions, and the lines between the two grow ever more blurred. Seo Rae has a comforting gentleness about her, but there’s an unpredictably defiant streak as well, which is all the more noticeable because she’s an outsider in South Korea who can’t completely speak the language. As the relationship between the two develops, it grows increasingly beguiling and complicated, approaching Hitchockian layers of deception and intrigue.

Though the narrative comes equipped with twists and turns, Park operates at a consistent tempo, with a more reserved tone than he’s employed in the past. At times, he uses flashy match cuts of eyecatching editing tracks to weave us in and out of flashbacks, but Decision to Leave frequently has the iciness of a David Fincher thriller. Park’s films have often centered separately around male protagonists (Oldboy and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, for example) or female protagonists (The Handmaiden or Lady Vengeance), almost splitting his career

into two halves. Here, those two gendered strands come together — while Hae-jun is more of the primary protagonist, Decision to Leave is a dual story, not just a narrative about a middle-aged man in crisis, and not just a tale of a woman in trouble.

But more than illicit romance or shocking violence, what’s always made Park Chanwook’s work so distinct is how his use of familiar genre tropes is informed by the unique geopolitical context of Korea. It’s a region that at various points has been the victim of imperialist and colonialist meddling from the empires that surround it: Japan, China and the United States. Park’s international breakout hit was JSA (Joint Security Area), a tense action thriller set within the contentious demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, and his work has always been preoccupied with borders and cultural exchange. The Handmaiden wasn’t just a sapphic bodiceripper, but a tale of imperialist tensions between Japan and Korea, delivered in a mix of both languages.

Decision to Leave is similarly about what gets lost in translation. Seo Rae has a limited grip on Korean, frequently turning to a translator app to articulate her feelings, while Hae-jun begins studying Chinese as their relationship develops. Beyond the lurid thrills, what makes Decision to Leave specifically and Park Chan-wook generally so compelling is the effortless complexity, as a twisty plot somehow balances not only multiple genres and tones but different languages. The context and setting of Decision to Leave are South Korean, with strands of the nation’s history woven in, and there might be familiar notes of Hollywood influence in the visual style — but the outcome is distinctly Park Chan-wook.

IMORDECAI

SATURDAY, OCT. 29 at 7pm • AMC BELLEVUE 12 Emmy-winning actor Judd Hirsch stars in this heart-warming true story of Mordecai. When Mordecai’s phone breaks, a techsavvy girl shows him how to use an iPhone, opening him up to all kinds of adventures, which makes him feel like a kid again.

THE UNITED STATES OF ELIE TAHARI

MONDAY MATINEE • MONDAY, OCT. 31 at 12pm • GORDON JCC Fashion Designer Elie Tahari came to New York in 1971 with less than $100 in his pocket and went on to build a billion-dollar fashion empire that’s stayed relevant for nearly 50 years.

MARCH ‘68

VIRTUAL SCREENING • NOV. 2nd-4th A young couple are protesting against the unlawful expulsion of Jewish colleagues in a country overwhelmed by rebellion. Will their love survive? Will they be able to overcome the adversities that fate presents them?

LOVE & MAZEL TOV

THURSDAY, NOV. 3rd at 7pm • BELCOURT THEATRE What begins as a flirtatious fib, snowballs into a wild tangle of lies, ensnaring

in a comedy of errors, creating a

appropriation and historical guilt, in this

Non-Resident Notice

Fourth Circuit Docket No. 22D1208

MOHAMMAD ZAHIR NASHIR vs.

MEENA MASOUD NASHIR

In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the de fendant is a nonresident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon MEENA MASOUD NASHIR. It is or dered that said Defendant enter HER appearance herein with thirty (30) days after NOVEMBER 17, same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public

Square, Room 302, Nashville, Ten nessee, and defend or default will be taken on DECEMBER 19, 2022. It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

Joseph P. Day, Clerk M. De Jesus, Deputy Clerk

Date: October 19, 2022

Matt Maniatis

Attorney for Plaintiff

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Non-Resident Notice Third Circuit Docket No. 22D412

WILLIAM BRADLEY vs. ANTIONETTE BERRANGE BUKES BRADLEY

In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a nonresident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon ANTIONETTE BERRANGE BUKES BRADLEY. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HER appear ance herein with thirty (30) days af ter NOVEMBER 17, same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropoli tan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Ten nessee, and defend or default will be taken on DECEMBER 19, 2022.

It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nash ville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

Joseph P. Day, Clerk M. De Jesus, Deputy Clerk

Date: October 19, 2022

Robyn L. Ryan

Attorney for Plaintiff

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Non Resident Notice Fourth Circuit Docket No. 22D1293

STEPHANIE E DIXON BARBOSA vs.

EDUARDO BARBOSA SANABRIA

In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon EDUARDO BARBOSA SANABRIA. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after NOVEMBER 17, same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on DECEMBER 19, 2022

It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

Joseph P. Day, Clerk M. De Jesus Deputy Clerk

Date: October 19, 2022

James L. Widrig Attorney for Plaintiff

NSC 10/27 11/3 11/10, 11/ 17/22

STEPHANIE E DIXON BARBOSA vs.

EDUARDO BARBOSA SANABRIA

In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon EDUARDO BARBOSA SANABRIA. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after NOVEMBER 17, same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on DECEMBER 19, 2022

It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

Joseph P. Day, Clerk M. De Jesus Deputy Clerk

Date: October 19 2022

James L. Widrig Attorney for Plaintiff

NSC 10/27 11/3 11/10, 11/ 17/22

Non Resident Notice Fourth Circuit Docket No. 22A36

MARCUS KENTON MARTIN, et al. vs. JOSHUA WILLIAMS

In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon JOSHUA WILLIAMS. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after NOVEMBER 17, same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on DECEMBER 19 2022

It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

Joseph P. Day, Clerk L. Chappell, Deputy Clerk Date: October 20, 2022

Brad H. Frakes Attorney for Plaintiff

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said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after NOVEMBER 17, same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on DECEMBER 19, 2022

It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

Joseph P. Day, Clerk L. Chappell Deputy Clerk Date: October 20, 2022

Brad H. Frakes Attorney for Plaintiff

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Non Resident Notice Fourth Circuit Docket No. 22D428

WENDY ROCHELLE BUFORD TATE

vs. CURTIS NILRON TATE

In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon CURTIS NILRON TATE. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after NOVEMBER 17, same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on DECEMBER 19, 2022

It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

Joseph P. Day, Clerk M. De Jesus Deputy Clerk Date: October 20 2022

Paul A. Rutherford Attorney for Plaintiff NSC 10/27, 11/3, 11/10, 11/ 17/22

It is therefore ordered that a

copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

Joseph P. Day, Clerk

M. De Jesus , Deputy Clerk

Date: October 20, 2022

Paul A. Rutherford Attorney for Plaintiff

NSC 10/27 11/3 11/10, 11/ 17/22

Non Resident Notice Fourth Circuit Docket No. 22D965

NAVEEN AGRAWAL vs. SUSANA CASTRO CANGA

In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon SUSANA CASTRO CANGA. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HER appearance herein with thirty (30) days after NOVEMBER 17, same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on DECEMBER 19, 2022

It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

Joseph P. Day, Clerk

L. Chappell, Deputy Clerk

Date: October 20, 2022

Robert Todd Jackson Attorney f or Plaintiff

NSC 10/27, 11/3, 11/10 11 17/22

Program Manager II position available in Nashville, TN.

Amazon.com Services LLC seeks candidates for the following (multiple positions available): Program Manager II: Lead various cross functional teams to design, develop, execute and implement revenue generating and cost saving projects and programs impacting business and customer experience involving Supply Chain, Retail, Import, Fulfillment Center Customer Service, and related operations by applying Lean/Six Sigma manufacturing operations and best practices to increase efficiency within processes. Telecommuting benefits available. Domestic travel needed up to 70% of the time. Interested candidates should apply at https://www.amazon.jobs/en/ referencing Job ID: 2247391.

Industrial Engineer II Continuous Improvement (Multiple positions. GEODIS Logistics, LLC, Brentwood, TN): Reqs Bach (US/frgn equiv) in IE or rel; 5 yrs eng exp; 5 yrs 3PL warehousing, distribution center, or fulfillment exp. Alt, Master’s (US/frgn equiv) in IE or rel; 3 yrs eng exp; 3 yrs 3PL warehousing, distribution center, or fulfillment exp. Reqs exp w/AutoCAD; PC proficiency w/MS Outlook, Word, PowerPoint Excel, & Access exp. Domestic travel up to 60%. Qualified applicants mail resume to Sharon Barrow, GEODIS Logistics, LLC, 7101 Executive Center Drive, Suite 333, Brentwood, TN 37027 Ref #: INDUS029468

Business Analyst II position available in Nashville, TN.

Amazon.com Services LLC seeks candidates for the following (multiple positions available): Business Analyst II: Use expertise in quantitative analysis to deliver clear and actionable insights to stakeholders. Interested candidates should apply at https://www.amazon.jobs/en/ referencing Job ID: 2243897.

Business Analyst II position available in Nashville, TN.

Amazon.com Services LLC seeks candidates for the following (multiple positions available): Business Analyst II: Use expertise in quantitative analysis to deliver clear and actionable insights to stakeholders. Interested candidates should apply at https://www.amazon.jobs/en/ referencing Job ID: 2243897.

Multiple positions available in Nashville, TN. Amazon.com Services LLC seeks candidates for Program Manager II. Define and build products, features, programs, and platforms that facilitate the customer journey from driving demand and adoption, creating unique customer experiences across all channels (online, offline, mobile, etc.), and engaging with customers. Domestic and international travel 15% of time. Qualified applicants should apply at https://www.amazon.jobs/en/ referencing Job ID 2265196.

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