TOURING THE CEMETERY OF
ANDREW JACKSON ENSLAVED
>> PAGE 8
FOOD & DRINK: REACHING PEOPLE IN NEED THROUGH COMMUNITY FOOD EVENTS
>> PAGE 23
The veteran activist shows you’re never too old to fight for a just cause BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ
NASHVILLIAN KARL MEYER
WITNESS HISTORY
This wool gabardine and satin Nathan Turk western suit, embellished with chain-stitched designs based on Slavic folk-art motifs, was worn by Don Maddox of the Maddox Brothers and Rose, “America’s most colorful hillbilly band.”
From the online exhibit Suiting the Sound: The Rodeo Tailors Who Made Country Stars Shine Brighter
artifact: Courtesy of Rose Maddox artifact photo: Bob Delevante
RESERVE TODAY
East Hill and the Accidental Neighborhood
The East Nashville neighborhood serves as a bridge between two eras of suburban growth BY ALEX PEMBERTON
Touring the Cemetery of Those Andrew Jackson Enslaved
The Hermitage announced last week that the cemetery used by people enslaved at Jackson’s estate has been found BY BETSY PHILLIPS
Pith in the Wind
This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog
State Health Commissioner on Dementia, Opioid Use and More
Checking in with Ralph Alvarado on the Office of Healthy Aging, opioids, vaccines and HIV funding BY HANNAH HERNER
COVER STORY
Nashvillian of the Year: Karl Meyer
The veteran activist shows you’re never too old to fight for a just cause BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ
CRITICS’ PICKS
Suki Waterhouse, Bully, Kindling’s Very Special Holiday Special, YK Records 15th Anniversary Show and more
FOOD AND DRINK
Communal Seating
Local initiatives like Trinity Community
and FeedBack
Cheap Eats: Fleet Street Pub’s Lunch Specials — $7.50
The Printers Alley standby offers Premier League matches, British Invasion tunes and rock-solid fish and chips BY KEN ARNOLD
Conversation Starters Folx Table is bringing strangers together BY
HANNAH HERNER
YONIC
The Anxiety of It All
The eternal struggle of parenthood is not passing our issues on to our kids
BY ELIZABETH JONES
MUSIC
Behind the Desk
Prolific producer Jon Tiven shares perspective on Steve Cropper’s Friendlytown and five decades in music BY RON WYNN
Serving Through Song
SongwritingWith:Soldiers brings creative expression to the healing process BY MARGARET LITTMAN
The Spin
The Scene’s live-review column checks out Wyatt Flores at the Ryman BY JAYME FOLTZ
The Short List
Our senior film critic weighs in on his favorite films and performances of 2024 BY JASON SHAWHAN
NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD AND THIS MODERN WORLD MARKETPLACE
ON THE COVER:
Karl Meyer; photo by Eric England
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Titans stadium under construction, Dec. 12, 2024 • PHOTO BY ANGELINA CASTILLO
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From platinum-selling chart-toppers to underground icons, household names to undiscovered gems, Chief’s Neon Steeple is committed to bringing the very best national and regional talent back to Broadway.
12.15 The Heart Behind the Hits Featuring James Otto, Jet Harvey, Terri Jo Box, Russell Sutton, D. Vincent Williams, Michael Cef, Emily Henline, Joe Bizelli, Justin Love
12.17 Cigarettes & Pizza w/ Aaron Raitiere, Shelly Fairchild
12.18 Uncle B’s Drunk with Power String Band Show Featuring Bryan Simpson w/ Adam Chaffins, Jenee Fleenor, Brit Taylor
12.19 Tom Douglas - Love, Tom
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11.20 Tom Douglas – Love, Tom
12.21 Ty Herndon & Jamie O’Neal “Merry Christmas, Baby”
12.28 Waymore’s Outlaws - Runnin’ with Ol’ Waylon
12.29 Pick Pick Pass w/ Jeff Middleton, Wil Nance, Steve Williams
12.30 Buddy’s Place w/ Lauren Mascitti, Jack McKeon, Dan Smalley
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EAST HILL AND THE ACCIDENTAL NEIGHBORHOOD
The East Nashville neighborhood serves as a bridge between two eras of suburban growth BY
ALEX PEMBERTON
EAST HILL IS an odd neighborhood.
Each street in this small pocket of East Nashville extends from Gallatin Pike in a straight line, like ribs from the spine, for nearly half a mile westward. There is little connective tissue — Delmas Avenue does not link to any other street in the neighborhood, despite sitting at its geographic center, and residents of the north half must exit the neighborhood to visit its south half.
Each street is characterized by different styles. Fairwin Avenue is a largely intact ensemble of old Tudors and Craftsmen. Spain Avenue has been transformed with tall-and-skinnies. Carolyn Avenue boasts an eclectic collection of cottages. Delmas and Burchwood avenues are each a muddled mix of it all.
But as disparate as these streets may seem, they come together to build a bridge between two eras of suburban growth — instantly obsolete products of a past, and accidental visions of the future.
SKETCHES BY SPAIN
East Hill was never intended to be a neighborhood. Each street was created independently of the others by separate owners. Spain Avenue was first, in 1904, with a strip of 100-foot-wide lots carved out of a sliver of land owned by Bush Spain. Delmas Avenue was recorded the following year, while the other streets in East Hill were subdivided late in the 1920s boom but not built upon until after the Great Depression.
Bush Spain was among the last of a dying breed of subdivider — not a professional real estate man, but a bookkeeper and elected justice of the peace. Throughout the 19th century, most expansions of the city had been made by men like Spain — owners of small, disjointed pieces of land who sketched out plats and sold off lots as the market and their personal situation dictated.
By the turn of the 20th century, sophisticated streetcar suburb syndicates formed to plat hundreds of lots on cohesive street networks across large acreages — even then, the modern idea of a neighborhood was just beginning to take shape, and most carried names that referenced physical rather than social connection, like the Richland Addition or the Murphy Addition.
But wildcat developers like Spain persisted. Their ad hoc, unplanned and unnamed urban expansions compounded into a collision of self-contained street grids that followed the outlines of ownership rather than a compass or coordinated plan. This pattern wasn’t problematic for a walking city, but the mangled webs of streets did not adapt well to the
automobile, as the offset intersections along Gallatin and the other pikes caused traffic snarls that cried out for a regulatory solution.
FORTUITOUS ACCIDENTS
Bush Spain and the single-street subdividers of East Hill might not have known it, but their primitive plats foretold trends that defined automotive suburbanization for the rest of the century. A 1938 Federal Housing Administration technical bulletin “Planning Profitable Neighborhoods” set forth subdivision design standards upon which approval for federal loan insurance would be based.
Many of the features of “profitable neighborhoods” were already present — albeit by accident — in East Hill. The bulletin annotated diagrams of “bad” and “good” neighborhood designs with a series of dicta: Subdivisions should discourage through traffic, direct cars to major thoroughfares, provide wide lots and reduce cross streets in favor of economical long blocks.
The FHA was concerned also with the expansion of “incompatible” neighborhoods and residents, which could be halted with subdivisions that were less a web of interconnected streets and more an archipelago
MANY OF THE FEATURES OF “PROFITABLE NEIGHBORHOODS” WERE ALREADY PRESENT — ALBEIT BY ACCIDENT — IN EAST HILL.
of partitioned neighborhood islands. The isolation of East Hill — disconnected from the street grid that facilitated expansion of mixedrace North Edgefield up to Douglas Avenue — was perhaps why it formed the boundary of a “still desirable” area when FHA/HOLC redlining maps were drawn in the late 1930s.
BLOCKED OFF AND BOXED OUT
In March 1940, just as the first houses on Burchwood, Fairwin and Carolyn avenues had finally begun to sprout up, Davidson
County adopted rules and regulations for land subdivision. Streets like those in East Hill would no longer be allowed. Blocks had to be interconnected, no more than 1,600 feet long — 400 feet shorter than Spain Avenue. The rules set forth further standards for lot sizes, building setbacks, utility easements, roadway design and construction, and more.
Rather than a set of rules responding to local conditions, Davidson County’s regulations borrowed heavily from American Society of Civil Engineers publications and reflected the dogma of the age for subdivision design and management, as developed by influential subdividers like J.C. Nichols of Kansas City.
The ordinance even included a set of model deed restrictions developed by the FHA with counsel from Nichols. The restrictions aligned with decades of practice by sophisticated streetcar subdividers in Nashville: “Restrictive covenants in deeds specifying the exact use of the property, the side, rear and front yards, the cost of the house, the architecture, and even the race of the inhabitants, are extremely useful in carrying out the design.”
While the prior decade of planning and zoning policy had been imbued with softly spoken segregationist intent, it was in the 1940 subdivision regulations and its model deed restrictions that local government explicitly endorsed residential segregation by race. Racial restrictions were included with later East Hill subdivisions like Dozier Place and added to individual deeds on lots that were originally unrestricted. These government-sanctioned instruments of private discrimination helped entrench most of Davidson County’s early automotive suburbs as all-white enclaves.
FROM PROTOTYPE TO MASS PRODUCTION
The design features prototyped in East Hill were refined and intensified in the following decades. Later iterations of FHA subdivision design requirements pushed suburban developers toward even longer blocks, curvilinear streets and dead-end culs-de-sacs, while methods of exclusion were expanded and sharpened.
As subdividers became community builders, and suburban extensions pioneered by plats like East Hill were refined, the very concept of a subdivision would be redefined — not merely a collection of streets and lots and buildings, but a collection of people; of neighbors with a shared identity based on homogeneity.
Policy cannot always change the spatial structure of a city once its streets have been laid. But policy structures society — the social norms and notions that we lay atop our places.
That’s what made East Hill a neighborhood. ▼
PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND
TOURING THE CEMETERY OF THOSE ANDREW JACKSON ENSLAVED
The Hermitage announced last week that the cemetery used by people enslaved at Jackson’s estate has been found
BY BETSY PHILLIPS
Longtime contributor Betsy Phillips writes a weekly column for the Scene’s news and politics blog, Pith in the Wind. Find her opinions and analysis on state and local history and politics every Monday morning at pithinthewind.com.
THEY FOUND THE cemetery used by the people who were enslaved at The Hermitage! (I know that sentence is a little clunky, but stick with me.) On Dec. 11, the Andrew Jackson Foundation announced that the cemetery had been found at Jackson’s estate. On Dec. 12, Dr. Learotha Williams, Scene photographer Matt Masters and I were standing in it.
The story of how the cemetery was discovered is gratifying. Hermitage employees found an old map from 1935 that had an area marked “graves and large trees” near a creek and a cornfield, just northeast of the pump house. For years, people had been walking that area, looking for the cemetery, but the area was full of scrub trees and privet and brambles and stuff that made getting to the exact spot of the cemetery impossible. Thanks to an anonymous donor, they were able to get the underbrush cleared away, and voilà, the graveyard was found.
My impression upon visiting was that the people at The Hermitage are being very, very careful with this site. They’ve got a huge fence up, and the gate is locked. When we entered the cemetery, we were told a couple of times to step carefully. And everyone stressed, repeatedly, that the graves had not been disturbed. The top layer of grass and soil was taken off in one spot to visually confirm the presence of a grave shaft, but no one dug into the graves. It had the feeling of, say, if your plumber found your great-grandmother’s long-lost ring, and he put it in a toolbox that he locked with a padlock and left in your bathroom until you and the rest of your family could come and decide what to do with it. That feeling of, “Oh, this is important,” and, “I do not want to be responsible for messing this up.”
And I don’t blame them. The situation at The Hermitage is complicated. Here’s complication No. 1. The Hermitage knows of 26 enslaved people who died on the farm. However, the death rate in the early 1800s for children was nightmarish. More than 46 percent of children didn’t live to see their fifth birthdays. This means, if you want to have a family with six kids older than 5, you should be prepared for that family to also have four kids who didn’t make it that far. I couldn’t find the child mortality rate for enslaved people, but it’s not better than that. The Hermitage knows of only four children under 5 who died at the farm, but it is certainly more. But children’s graves are very hard to find through noninvasive measures.
Complication No. 2: Jackson had at least
three Native American children he had stolen — Lincoya, Theodore and Charley— living at The Hermitage as companions for his own kids. We don’t know what happened to Charley, but the other two died at The Hermitage before reaching adulthood. And they died before there was a family cemetery on the property (though it’s hard to know whether they would have gone in the family cemetery even if it had existed).
The most likely place for them to be buried is in this newly rediscovered cemetery. Now The Hermitage has a big open question about whether they’ve found the burial spot for three stolen Creek children and what that means for relations with the Creek Nation, who already aren’t great fans of Jackson.
Complication No. 3: People who were enslaved by Jackson stayed at The Hermitage for years after emancipation, and a number of them are not on the website Find a Grave or in Tennessee death records. They could have been post-war burials in this cemetery.
This and the complication above it are why I’m hesitant to call this solely a slave cemetery.
A Dollar General on Lafayette Street became a flashpoint for division in the Metro Council last week. After the store closed abruptly without explanation, Councilmember Terry Vo told media that the area, a low-income neighborhood that includes hundreds of MDHA-subsidized apartments, would continue to suffer from poor access to food and basic resources. Fellow Councilmember Courtney Johnston used the Dollar General news to argue that rampant crime has created a hostile climate for businesses, skewering Vo for her lack of support for the police in a series of Facebook posts. Other politicians joined the fray, including Vice Mayor Angie Henderson, who privately asked Johnston to soften her Facebook rhetoric. The blowup comes weeks after Vo and Johnston were on opposite sides of a controversial council vote that blocked Metro police’s acquisition of Fusus, a video integration system that allows police to selectively access private camera feeds.
We don’t know who all is in here, and The Hermitage — rightly so — doesn’t want to disturb any remains without the affected communities deciding that’s the right course of action. So as of right now, we can’t know. Hermitage representatives told me they are trying to figure out how to bring those communities together to ensure the best choices are made about the future of the cemetery. They also told me that, if any family members of people who could be in the cemetery want to access the cemetery without paying admission, The Hermitage will make that happen, and they are considering ways of making the cemetery accessible in the long term.
It’s not my place to say, “Oh, The Hermitage knows what they’re doing here and all is well.”
But to me, their willingness to admit that they don’t know what needs to happen next, except that they need to keep the place safe, comes across as deeply sincere.
And if that remains their attitude, this is a very sad but wonderful turn of events. Some who were lost are now found. ▼
Ronald Johnson has left Tennessee State University just six months after stepping in as interim president, citing irreconcilable differences with the university’s board. Johnson succeeded Glenda Glover, who retired June 30, continuing a turbulent period for the state’s flagship historically Black university Financial stress mired the university near the end of Glover’s term, prompting aggressive oversight from the state government, which has withheld as much as $544 million from TSU in recent decades, according to a 2021 study by lawmakers. The current board was appointed by Gov. Bill Lee in March after the state legislature voted to vacate the previous board. Johnson’s resignation came as a surprise to many as he had expected to continue until at least July 2025. The university named Dr. Dwayne Tucker to succeed Johnson as interim president.
Breakaway nonprofit group SB Initiative will retain the rights to the Swan Ball, a high-profile arts fundraiser previously housed within Cheekwood Estate and Gardens. The nonprofit — a collection of Swan Ball planners and donors — formally left Cheekwood earlier this year and sued the event’s former host site in July to retain ownership of the Swan Ball trademark. After a months-long legal battle, the two parties reached initial settlement terms in October. Both parties released a statement concluding the saga last week. The next Swan Ball will benefit the Friends of Warner Parks, rather than Cheekwood, and has been set for June 7.
THE PROBABLE BURIAL SITE OF ENSLAVED PEOPLE AT THE HERMITAGE
A STONE THOUGHT TO BE THE GRAVE MARKER OF AN ENSLAVED CHILD AT THE HERMITAGE
PHOTOS: HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS
STATE HEALTH COMMISSIONER ON DEMENTIA, OPIOID USE AND MORE
Checking in with Ralph Alvarado on the Office of Healthy Aging, opioids, vaccines and HIV funding
BY HANNAH HERNER
RALPH ALVARADO, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Health, is zeroing in on care for the aging population in 2025.
Last month Alvarado asked Gov. Bill Lee for $7 million in recurring state funding to establish the Tennessee Memory Assessment Network and $3.7 million to stand up five assessment clinics in rural areas. Also in November he announced the creation of an Office of Healthy Aging.
The Lee appointee sat down with the Scene to review some of the state’s biggest health-related matters: aging, opioid abatement and HIV funding and vaccines. (As far as abortion care goes, Alvarado says the department doesn’t take a stance on the issue, but he has supported abortion bans as a former Kentucky state senator.)
AGING
Whether the health care system has enough capacity to take care of the aging population is now an imminent question, Alvarado says. The new Office of Healthy Aging is tasked with pursuing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding for dementia care, as well as establishing a new state dementia director position and a dementia navigator program with local health departments.
“We want to be able to improve the quality of life for people that are older and to be able to collaborate with others,” Alvarado tells the Scene. “Part of that is if you’re going to have a focus on it, you need to create an Office of Healthy Aging to be prepared to tackle a lot of those needs.”
Alvarado notes that there is a window during which dementia and Alzheimer’s treatments are most effective, and many people miss it while they’re waiting to meet with a neuropsychiatrist. The wait can be more than a year to get an appointment at a specialized clinic in a major city. His pitched memory care network will focus on reaching rural communities. He also plans to provide more navigators to connect people with the memory care network and other resources.
“We’ve got over, I think, about $3.5 billion worth of resources for folks that are older, through TennCare and lots of other programs, but people just don’t know how to tap into it,” Alvarado says.
OPIOID ABATEMENT FUNDS
As opioid abatement funds are flowing into state and local governments, Alvarado sees syringe exchange — programs that allow people with substance abuse disorders to obtain clean and unused hypodermic needles — as a key solution. It’s something he’s encouraged mayors around the state to implement. During his time as a lawmaker in Kentucky, he says he saw the
programs work in rural and red counties as well as in larger cities.
“We thought it would only be done in Louisville and Lexington,” he says. “After two years, 30 of the 120 [Kentucky] counties have programs. And now 60 of the 120 counties have programs in their health departments that have been very successful. People are three times more likely to enter rehab if they get into those programs, and you’re also helping reduce hepatitis C and HIV transmission.”
Stigma and concerns about the appearance of encouraging drug use have stunted these programs in the past, Alvarado says.
“The people that need help, folks in their minds have an image of what that person looks like,” he says. “A lot of these are folks that work in places we would work in. They look like you and I. They’re often no longer even getting high, they’re just trying to keep from withdrawing, and they don’t know how to get off the hamster wheel, if you will, and they’re looking for help.”
HIV PROGRAM FUNDING
Shortly after he took on the health department role, Alvarado and the state opted not to take $9 million in CDC funding for HIV prevention programming, and instead were granted the same amount from the Tennessee General Assembly. The CDC crafted a work-around and granted the state $4 million to Tennessee organizations anyway.
Alvarado says the department refused the funds because they were underutilized due to federal strings attached and organizations having to wait for reimbursement.
“That money is being used much, much more efficiently,” he tells the Scene. “Because when we give those grants, we give a very broad grant — it’s a simple one — and we give them to our partners and say, ‘Here is the money up front.’ … They’re utilizing a lot more of it.”
VACCINES
As a physician, Alvarado supported the COVID-19 vaccine, but ultimately suggests people talk to their local physicians about vaccinations.
“If people can have debates on social media and in different kinds of scenarios, ultimately, the questions and answers should be with your provider that you trust, and will be able to answer those questions for you,” he says.
He also notes concerns around kindergarten vaccination rates dropping.
“I’ve started talking to a lot of our doctors in our state, also to start looking at disease states again, because if our vaccination rates continue to drop, we’re going to start seeing infections like diphtheria and tetanus and pertussis,” he says. ▼
DECEMBER 29
NASHVILLE IN HARMONY
JANUARY 3-17
OPRY 100 AT THE RYMAN
FEATURING BILL ANDERSON, CRAIG MORGAN
STEVE EARLE, KELSEA BALLERINI & MORE
JANUARY 14 & 15
RINGO STARR & FRIENDS
FEBRUARY 3-6
OLD DOMINION
7-SHOW RYMAN RESIDENCY
MARCH 16
MATT NATHANSON WITH KT TUNSTALL
MARCH 18 ANDY GRAMMER
APRIL 19
SAMMY RAE & THE FRIENDS
LOCALS PAY
WHAT YOU WANT
Daily pay-what-you-want Museum admission is available for Nashville-Davidson and bordering counties, including Cheatham, Robertson, Rutherford, Sumner, Williamson, and Wilson. Plus, PMC is offering locals parking for $10 in the Walk of Fame Park Garage.
JANUARY 1 THROUGH 31, 2025
LEARN MORE
The veteran activist shows you’re never too old to fight for a just cause
BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ
NASHVILLIAN KARL MEYER YEAR of the
KARL MEYER AND PAM BEZIAT PHOTO:
ON JULY 31, 87-year-old Karl Meyer decided to break the law.
He grabbed a blanket and drop cloth and headed to the Tennessee State Capitol, where he planned to risk a felony charge for sleeping on state property, calling his action a 24-hour peace vigil. Meyer, who has been a radical activist for 67 years, was protesting a state law that he believes unfairly targets homeless people. He had sent a letter to Gov. Bill Lee requesting an audience to discuss the constitutionality of the law.
Meyer camped near the state’s Liberty Bell replica, in a spot visible from a window in the governor’s office. It rained on him. He also chatted with an unhoused woman at one point in the night, learning about her usual struggle to find a safe place to rest.
The next morning, Aug. 1, state troopers arrested him for sleeping on the Capitol lawn overnight.
It wasn’t the first time Meyer had been arrested — a 2001 profile on the activist estimated he had been arrested 50 or 60 times by that point, often demonstrating against war. Meyer later told the Scene that the arresting officer was “very professional and very cooperative.” He was charged with two misdemeanors for criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct, but not the felony violation. (A judge dismissed the disorderly conduct charge in September.)
Undeterred, Meyer returned the next week for a 24-hour vigil but decided not to sleep this time — he brought a comfortable chair instead. The week after that, he camped underneath an overpass, and he was joined by other advocates and unhoused Nashvillians.
Tennessee’s anti-camping law has its roots in curbing this type of protest. Lawmakers passed the first iteration of the anti-camping law during the 2012 Occupy Nashville protest, targeting economic activists camped out on state property with a misdemeanor crime. The punishment was escalated to a felony in 2020 in response to a 62-day campout across the street from the Capitol protesting police brutality. In 2022 the felony law was broadened to apply to all public property, with the goal of deterring homeless encampments.
A panel of service providers and advocates argued to legislators that the law would do little to actually solve homelessness, stressing the need for housing. Gov. Lee also had concerns about the bill; he didn’t sign it, but he didn’t veto it either.
In June, the United States Supreme Court ruled in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson that cities and states had the right to enforce camping bans. The decision spurred Meyer into action, and his arrest sparked headlines.
For his willingness to put himself on the line, even at age 87 — risking not just arrest but even illness and injury — in protest of a law that most experts believe will worsen the problem of homelessness rather than solve it, the Scene is naming Karl Meyer our Nashvillian of the Year. Meyer shows that a fight for justice is a lifelong endeavor, and that you’re never too old to rebel
against an unfair system.
Lindsey Krinks — a friend of Meyer’s and the co-founder of Open Table Nashville, a nonprofit that serves the homeless — says Meyer’s “willingness to live out his convictions” is an inspiration, and says his protest helped keep a spotlight on issues of homelessness.
While Meyer didn’t get an audience with the governor, the concerns he raised were validated later in the year. The Scene reported state troopers arrested 10 people for public camping in November alone, mostly at Riverfront Park in downtown Nashville.
Homeless camps have also stirred controversy and debate in Nashville. Frustrated housed residents raise concerns about safety and crime in nearby camps. The city’s Office of Homeless Services has focused its efforts on clearing camps by connecting residents to housing opportunities and service providers. Homelessness advocates, for their part, worry the focus on individual camps isn’t the fairest way to allocate resources.
IN MEYER’S LIVING ROOM is a black-andwhite photograph of him at age 20 awaiting trial in New York City, circa 1958. He’s joined by four other activists, including legendary Catholic labor organizer Dorothy Day. The quintet had been arrested for refusing to participate in a mandatory citywide drill for nuclear attack — they sat outside on benches instead of seeking shelter.
It was the second time Meyer had been arrested for refusing to participate in the drills. The first time Meyer was arrested, in 1957, he served time in Rikers Island. After that, Day became a close friend and mentor to Meyer as part of the Catholic Worker Movement.
While Meyer is no longer a practicing Catholic, he still considers himself affiliated with the organization. The teachings of Day and Ammon Hennacy still influence his activism. He’s against all war, opposes the death penalty and believes in simple living and sustainable agriculture.
He’s been the subject of several profiles throughout his storied career. In 2001, University
of Chicago Magazine took a deep dive into both his personal life and activist work, painting a compelling picture of a complicated radical who may have some regrets but doesn’t lack resolve.
He’s taken part in provocative actions over the past few decades. He went to Saigon to march on the U.S. embassy to decry the Vietnam War, traveled around Illinois with a mock electric chair to protest the death penalty, and smuggled Nicaraguan coffee in response to U.S. support of the right-wing Contra rebels. He has also worked with the homeless: After graduating from the University of Chicago, he set up a men’s shelter, which he ran from 1958 to 1971.
Meyer also knew many influential figures in Nashville housing advocacy, like Bill Barnes — namesake of the Barnes Housing Trust Fund — and Charlie Strobel, founder of the homeless shelter Room In The Inn. He took part in several protests since moving to Nashville, like the sitins against cuts to TennCare in 2005.
Meyer doesn’t expect much from the conservative Tennessee state government at this point, and is now planning to pressure the mayor and the Metro Council
to focus on affordable housing. (After the passage of a sweeping transit referendum in November, Mayor Freddie O’Connell said his administration’s next priority was housing.)
Meyer sounds optimistic that his ideas would be better received at the local level, and echoes a persistent evaluation that the current Metro Council is one of the most progressive in the city’s history. His fourth and final action of the summer was held outside the Metro Courthouse, seeking to chat with Metro councilmembers ahead of a general meeting.
Meyer supports the creation of public designated campgrounds for unhoused Nashvillians and points to Green Street Church’s “Sanctuary” encampment as an example. Advocates at Open Table Nashville have also voiced support for a similar measure, but the city in the past argued that the focus needs to be on moving people into housing quickly, and that outdoor homelessness is an unsafe situation.
Like many other affordable housing advocates, Meyer thinks the Barnes Fund is an important tool, but that funding still isn’t robust enough. He also wants to see the creation of a fund that would allow the average Nashvillian
“People can’t live in strategies.”housing
—KARL MEYER
PHOTO: RAY DI PIETRO
KARL MEYER BEING ARRESTED ON AUG. 1, 2024
to make small investments in affordable housing developments — just like his camping protest, he has his talking points written and ready for politicians.
“People can’t live in housing strategies,” Meyer says, stressing an urgent need to build homes for working-class people that reflects his history of hands-on activism.
Nashville is facing an affordable housing crisis — a report from 2021 called for the creation of more than 53,000 units by 2030. The report notes that stagnant wages will contribute to the shortage of housing in Nashville. Nationwide, homelessness is increasing as rents soar.
Meyer recalls that in the 1950s he was able to afford rent in downtown Manhattan on minimum wage. “There was much more of a safety net back then,” says Meyer, “and the safety net has so many holes in it now.”
MEYER CAME TO Nashville in 1997, seeking a warmer climate and more affordable housing. He also wanted to engage in urban gardening and promote sustainable living. He purchased a home on Heiman Street in North Nashville in 1997. His lawn became a small farm, and he offered cheap rent in spare rooms. He called the project Nashville Greenlands.
Meyer’s partner Pam Beziat, whom he met at a Quaker meeting, bought her home shortly afterward, expanding the Greenlands footprint. Meyer and Beziat bought five other North Nashville houses over the years, creating what they call a network of homes. Ownership of several of the properties has been transferred to some of the younger activists.
Meyer admits people were surprised to see an older white man move into the historically Black neighborhood. He participated in community meetings, and he and Beziat were careful to purchase only vacant or abandoned properties.
The affordable rents offered to young folks have been Meyer’s own way of helping the housing crisis. Meyer and Beziat also contributed to the first home built by Nashville’s public land trust — a plaque outside the McKinney Street house commemorates the donation.
The Greenlands garden is still surprisingly green despite cold December temperatures. Meyer uprooted his tomato plants earlier in the week, rows of empty cages stacked like small pillars and set aside, and he bundled up a fig tree in trash bags full of old leaves to protect the tree from frost.
The garden drew the ire of Nashville’s health department during Meyer’s first years in town, with the city fining him for “excessive vegetation.” Meyer refused to scale back the garden with gas-guzzling leaf-blowers and lawn mowers. After years of run-ins, a compromise was reached, and the urban farming operation continued.
In addition to the garden, Meyer — a carpenter on top of everything else on his résumé — renovates and repairs the homes in his network.
“It’s really important for community organizers and activists to have intergenerational connections and relationships, because we can learn from folks who come before us and the ways that they encounter struggles, the ways that they position themselves. We have so much to learn from people like Karl.”
—LINDSEY
Meyer and Beziat estimate about 200 people have come through the network of homes. Many of the guests are young activists themselves, folks who have done stints at advocacy organizations like Walk Bike Nashville, Workers’ Dignity and more. About four people are in Meyer’s home, and six next door, and Beziat has a guest as well.
Beziat says the couple help young people out by not just offering cheap rents but also helping them get started in social justice and sustainability work. Beziat is a seasoned nonviolent protester herself. She didn’t seem too worried about Meyer’s arrest this summer, noting she herself had been arrested for past protests.
“The most important thing that I can do at
KRINKS, OPEN TABLE NASHVILLE
my age is … pass this kind of vision on to young people,” says Meyer.
One young activist Meyer and Beziat befriended is Lindsey Krinks. Krinks, who had been learning about the Catholic Worker Movement, met the couple at a protest in late 2007 and has stayed close to them ever since. When Krinks and her husband needed a new home in 2014, Beziat helped with the down payment for a house nearby, and Meyer helped set up the garden and built a shed for them. Krinks also learned a lot about activism from the couple.
“It’s really important for community organizers and activists to have intergenerational connections and relationships, because we can learn from folks who come before us and the ways that they
encounter struggles, the ways that they position themselves,” says Krinks. “We have so much to learn from people like Karl.”
When the state’s camping law passed in 2022, Open Table held its own campout protest in response. One of the first people to join, says Krinks, was Meyer.
Krinks says Meyer is strategic and willing to push buttons other organizers can’t or won’t. But he’s also diligent, she says, and shows genuine care for others.
“I think it’s up to all of us to continue to live as if we can make a difference in this world with our one life,” says Krinks. “Put together, we have a lot more power than we do alone. Just one spark can transform a dark night, and that’s what I see him doing.” ▼
calendar.nashvillescene.com for more event listings
THURSDAY, DEC. 19
MUSIC [COOLEST CHURCH IN THE WORLD] SUKI WATERHOUSE W/BULLY
Suki Waterhouse — the “Model, Actress, Whatever” known for penning sharp indie-pop songs when not starring in silver-screen roles or modeling for major fashion brands — is headlining one of the last touring gigs of 2024 at the Ryman Auditorium. The show comes at the end of a whirlwind year for Waterhouse that included opening for Taylor Swift and releasing a standout double LP on Sub Pop Records called Memoir of a Sparklemuffin. She quickly followed Sparklemuffin with “Pushing Daisies,” a fever-dreamy pop song co-written and released alongside Nashville alt-pop hitmaker Ashe. For this gig, be sure to find your spot in the pews early. Nashville rock staple Bully plays main support. The brainchild of musician Alicia Bognanno, Bully continues to tour in support of 2023’s Lucky for You, one of the finest rock albums released in recent memory. (Seriously, it’s so, so good. Stop sleeping on it!).
MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER
8 P.M. AT THE RYMAN
116 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY N.
THURSDAY / 12.19
MUSIC
[HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YK] YK RECORDS 15TH ANNIVERSARY SHOW
This holiday season, tiny giant YK Records wraps 15 years as quiet keepers of Nashville indie music. The self-styled boutique label, driven by Michael Eades, has invited you to its anniversary party featuring a full cast of bands like Tower Defense, Fetching Pails, Black Bra and The Robe, as well as longtime producerartist Roger Moutenot. YK bands tend to favor the guitar, especially in plugged-in lo-fi. Beyond that, the show’s lineup drifts through a diverse array of organized sound. As Eades has said publicly, YK cultivates music that might not be made otherwise. A YK holiday sampler, promoted as the mixtape equivalent of a tasty tin of Christmas cookies, could be the perfect answer to those incurable music cravings.
ELI MOTYCKA
6 P.M. AT THE 5 SPOT
1006 FORREST AVE.
MUSIC
[HARP OF THE MATTER] ANNUAL TIMBRE CHRISTMAS SHOW
Music City is blessed with an array of special holiday traditions, from Cheekwood’s Holiday Lights display and the city’s annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony, to the Nashville Symphony performing Handel’s Messiah (as well as John Williams’ Home Alone score) at the world-class Schermerhorn Symphony Center. Another anticipated annual event that should get more attention than it does? Timbre Cierpke’s annual Christmas show, which centers on the talents of the longtime local harpist. Over the course of her career, Cierpke — who typically performs under just her appropriately musical first name — has collaborated with performers including Jack White, mewithoutYou and Ricky Skaggs. Her own music is a baroque blend of folk and neoclassical, but for her Annual Timbre Christmas Show, she and her band will focus on — you guessed it — Christmas music. Timbre will be backed by strings, brass and Nashville’s own SONUS choir, of which Timbre is co-founder and music director. Also joining in this year’s festivities is Nashville’s indie singersongwriter Purser, who will open the show with
an acoustic set. This year’s Timbre Christmas Show is set to take place at former church and current nonprofit event space Riverside Revival, where the sounds of Timbre’s harp and backing ensemble will no doubt reverberate in heavenly fashion. Food and cocktails will be available for purchase. D. PATRICK RODGERS
7 P.M. AT RIVERSIDE REVIVAL 1600 RIVERSIDE DRIVE
THEATER
[IT FEELS LIKE CHRISTMAS!] KINDLING’S VERY SPECIAL HOLIDAY SPECIAL
Of all the many versions of Charles Dickens’ classic holiday tale, The Muppet Christmas Carol may just be my favorite. The dark lyricism of Dickens’ prose, balanced with the weird whimsy of the Muppets — and cinematic icon Sir Michael Caine? I mean, come on. And in the hands of those marvelous minds at Kindling Arts, this holiday treat is even sweeter. Once again, Daniel Carter (Bar Fight!) and Emma Supica (East Nashville Facebook Page: The Musical) have teamed up with director Jessika Malone to honor the season with Kindling’s
brilliant Vince Guaraldi music. The nearly 20year tradition has garnered so much love that they will offer 13 performances this year, from Dec. 17 through 22. Pianist Jen Gunderman, bassist James Haggerty and drummer Martin Lynds will team up with guest soloists to bring us a lovely communal experience, much like the film itself. Santa Claus has been known to show up too! The Eastside Bowl is an atmospheric place to enjoy such a performance, and you can extend the evening with bowling, a drink, some billiards or a bite to eat. HANNAH HERNER THROUGH DEC. 22 AT EASTSIDE BOWL
1508 GALLATIN PIKE S., MADISON
FILM [HUBBA-HUBBA IN ITS SOUL] IT’S ONLY A
MOVIE PRESENTS GREASER’S PALACE
In the realm of acid Westerns, Greaser’s Palace is the most what-the-fuck-was-that of the bunch. Putney Swope director Robert Downey Sr. got as strange and surreal as he could with this absurdist, avant-garde 1972 oater, which is also Downey’s take on the New Testament. This time, Jesus is a zoot-suit-wearing song-anddance man (Allan Arbus) who, on his way to Jerusalem, performs such miracles as walking on water and bringing a person back to life. He also visits a town run by Seaweedhead Greaser (Albert Henderson), a very constipated tyrant. As Bill Hader’s Stefon would say, this movie has everything: murders, resurrections, card tricks, an explosion, a caged mariachi band, Hervé Villechaize. Did I mention a woman gets shot several times throughout the movie — and that woman is played by Downey’s wife Elsie? (Of course, we get a cameo from a little Robert Downey Jr. as well.) Yes, it’s offbeat, scatological and downright indecipherable. But for the curious cinephiles who’ll attend this screening, it could become a future Christmas rewatch. Visit thirdmanrecords.com for showtimes.
CRAIG D. LINDSEY
Very Special Holiday Special. Audiences can look forward to a screening of The Muppet Christmas Carol, with live performances from Kindling favorites like Supica (who pays homage to dear Gonzo the Great), Joe Mobley (Rizzo the Rat) and Seth Nathan Green (Kermit the Frog). Add a visit from burlesque artist GrandmaFun, and it’s enough to melt the heart of even the biggest Scrooge. But as much as we all love the Muppets, keep in mind that this show is 21-and-up and not appropriate for little ones.
AMY STUMPFL
DEC. 19-21 AT DARKHORSE THEATER 4610 CHARLOTTE AVE.
MUSIC
[HAPPINESS AND CHEER] THE
ORNAMENTS
When I headed into an Ornaments show for the first time last year, I expected a formal sitdown event. I was pleased to find that this front-to-back performance of the soundtrack of Charles Schultz’s A Charlie Brown Christmas is far from stuffy. It’s kid-friendly and tends to bring out the inner child in the adults in attendance as they dance — often Peanuts-style — to the
FRIDAY / 12.20
DRINKING
[IT’S
A DRINKMAS MIRACLE]
MIRACLE
POP-UP AT TIGER BAR
’Tis the season, Smashville! Holiday-themed pop-up bars are lighting up Nashville, and the iconic Miracle Pop-Up Bar is back at Tiger Bar for the holiday season. The bar transforms into a 1930s-inspired winter wonderland, creating the perfect backdrop for wildly creative holiday cocktails served in quirky, festive mugs. Tiger Bar is already a Best of Nashville-winning bar with an outstanding vibe — imagine sipping a Snowball Old Fashioned or a Christmapolitan there surrounded by twinkling lights, glittering tinsel and a whole lot of holiday cheer. Other drinks include the Run Run Reindeer, a twist on the kir royale Champagne cocktail, and the Krampus Claus, a spicy tequila-forward drink. Pair these sips with a fun food menu of late-night bites like Flamin’ Hot Mozzarella Sticks and you’ve got the recipe for a truly festive night out. Whether you’re gathering with friends, planning a holiday date, or just looking to soak in some seasonal cheer, Miracle at Tiger Bar is the place to be this holiday season. For more holiday pop-ups around the city, check out Bites — the Scene’s online food column — where contributor Margaret Littman is sharing 12 Days of Christmas Pop-Ups until the holiday. KELSEY YOUNG THROUGH DEC. 29 AT TIGER BAR
2909 GALLATIN PIKE
[SABBATH-HEAVY SABBATH]
MUSIC
ZAKK SABBATH W/ZOSO AND THE IRON
MAIDENS
6 P.M. AT THE BLUE ROOM AT THIRD MAN RECORDS 623 SEVENTH AVE. S.
Aging Music City metalheads rejoice: A stacked lineup of classic tribute bands featuring some of the genre’s contemporary heavyweights will descend upon Brooklyn Bowl for what’s been dubbed the King of Monstours. Longtime Ozzy Osbourne band members guitarist Zakk Wylde (Black Label Society) and bassist Blasko (Rob
TIMBRE
Zombie) have been reimagining Black Sabbath’s iconic discography under the moniker Zakk Sabbath since the group’s inception a decade ago. Their latest album, titled Greatest Riffs, was released in September on Magnetic Eye Records and includes journeyman drummer Joey Castillo (Danzig, Queens of the Stone Age, Circle Jerks). The record showcases detuned riffs, brutal beats and Wylde’s blistering guitarwork over eight seminal metal classics including “N.I.B.,” “War Pigs” and “Fairies Wear Boots.” Kicking things off will be America’s premier Led Zeppelin tribute act of the past 30 years, Zoso, alongside The Iron Maidens — an all-female tribute to Iron Maiden. It promises to be a crushing night of heavy metal riffage. Attendees are advised to pop an ibuprofen before dusting off those old Doc Martens. JASON VERSTEGEN
8 P.M. AT BROOKLYN BOWL
925 THIRD AVE. N.
SATURDAY / 12.21
COMMUNITY
[WE ARE STARDUST, WE ARE GOLDEN] WINTER SOLSTICE SKY WATCH PARTY
For time out of mind, we humans have been holding big celebrations to ward off the dark and chill of the winter solstice — the day of the year with the fewest hours of daylight, which also marks the start of winter in the astronomical reckoning. Friends of Mill Ridge Park, an organization supporting the relatively new green space not far from the Tanger Outlets in Antioch, is finding a bright side to the season: more time to explore the majesty of the night sky. Perseus, Gemini, Taurus and Orion are among the constellations that are most visible thanks to Earth’s position in its orbit this time of year, as well as an arrangement of six stars in different constellations known as the Winter Circle or Winter Hexagon (that’s Pollux, Capella, Aldebaran, Rigel, Sirius and Procyon). But unless you’re practiced at finding them, you’ll want a map. Thankfully, the Friends will provide constellation charts for Saturday’s event, as well as binoculars and telescopes for easier viewing and space-themed treats to boot. You’re welcome to bring your own telescope too.
STEPHEN TRAGESER
6 P.M. AT MILL RIDGE PARK
12847 OLD HICKORY BLVD.
FILM [IT HAPPENS IN DECEMBER]
HOLIDAY CLASSICS: HOLIDAY
AFFAIR
A Facebook friend of mine recently posted that, like most Christmas movies, Holiday Affair makes him itch. I can understand why this treacly, 1949 rom-com from director Don Hartman (who scripted several Bing Crosby-Bob Hope road comedies) would give some viewers the ick, as our Gen-Z readers would say. This story of a widowed mom (Janet Leigh) torn between two men — Robert Mitchum’s charming department-store salesman and Wendell Corey’s simp-as-hell lawyer/family friend (you wanna take a stab at who gets the girl and who gets friend-zoned?) — during the holidays sounds
like the kind of hokum the Hallmark Channel proudly drops this time of year. (USA Network did give us a remake in 1996.) And don’t forget about her son (Gordon Gebert), who is so old-school, golly-gee precocious, you won’t know whether to laugh at or fall in love with the little man. Fortunately, thanks to a witty, sensible script from screenwriter/playwright Isobel Lennart (Funny Girl), this film is another example of how even the most far-fetched love story could still be dignified and well-written back in the day. Visit belcourt.org for showtimes.
CRAIG D. LINDSEY
DEC. 21 & 24 AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
[SWINGING INTO COUNTRY]
MUSIC
SWEET MEGG
On her 2024 album Bluer Than Blue Nashville singer Megg Farrell dives into the world of pre-World War II jazz by way of country music. This means Farrell — who often performs as Sweet Megg — makes like a modern Western swing singer. Bluer Than Blue features the playing of Nashville stalwarts like fiddler Billy Contreras, and Farrell’s cover of “I Used to Love You but It’s All Over Now” epitomizes the album’s strengths. It’s a different tune from Bobby Womack’s “It’s All Over Now,” which The Valentinos, The Rolling Stones and John Anderson have recorded. The track featured on Bluer Than Blue dates from 1921 and has been cut
Creative. Support local talent, find one-of-a-kind presents, and embrace the spirit of individuality and sustainability at the Local & Sustainable Winter Market. P.J. KINZER
NOON-4 P.M. AT PATAGONIA NASHVILLE
601 OVERTON ST.
FILM [I LOVE THIS MOVIE, ACTUALLY]
HOLIDAY CLASSICS: LOVE ACTUALLY
by Louis Armstrong, Dinah Washington and Fats Waller. Farrell does the song right, and the rest of Bluer Than Blue is similarly canny and wellsung. Farrell grew up in New Jersey in a musical family and honed her chops singing jazz in New York. She moved to Nashville in 2021, and she’s a delightful performer, as her recent shows at venues like Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge prove. She’s currently touring with Cirque du Soleil’s country-themed Songblazers show.
EDD HURT
9 P.M. AT DEE’S COUNTRY COCKTAIL LOUNGE
102 E. PALESTINE AVE., MADISON
SHOPPING
[RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE] LOCAL AND SUSTAINABLE WINTER MARKET
If you’re concerned about the carbon footprint of your gifts, don’t want to depend on Mr. Bezos to play Santa, or just want to give the elves the year off to pursue their dentistry dreams, the folks at Patagonia Nashville have an event to offer options for unique treasures to go under your tree. The store will transform into a winter wonderland of local artisans, hand-crafted gifts and high-minded holiday goods. Hosted by the superb linocut artist Yanira Vissepó, one of the finest talents in this town right now, the event ties together art and ecology in a holiday spirit. Enjoy complimentary gift wrapping with upcycled and sustainable materials — with freebies from Turnip Green
In the opening monologue of Love Actually, Hugh Grant says, “When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge — they were all messages of love.” Sitting in a dark theater in Antioch with my mom, tears streaming down my face, I felt like Grant was speaking directly to me. I had been home a few weeks when this movie came out, having left New York City after watching those planes hit those towers, and spending the subsequent year trying to pretend I was OK. (I wasn’t.) Some people like to mock this movie for its sentimentality, most notably Lindy West in her seminal review for Jezebel in 2013. But listen, I love this movie, and I think you should give it a chance. Don’t come for me, woke culture, but sometimes we can have a little problematic movie, as a treat. Holiday movies aren’t meant to win Academy Awards or be breathlessly discussed by guys with podcasts. They’re meant to include a song by Maroon 5, precisely one scene with January Jones, a poster-board scene that firmly resides in the annals of pop culture and Colin Firth. Christmas isn’t about being cool. It’s about crying in a movie theater with your mom. KIM BALDWIN DEC. 21 & 23 AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
MUSIC
[THE
MOST WONDERFUL
TIME] OPRY COUNTRY CHRISTMAS
Need to get your family out of the house during the long holiday weekend? There’s a gig for that in Nashville. Come rain, snow or flood, music plays on at the Grand Ole Opry — even in the final hours before Christmas. The annual Opry Country Christmas comes to a close with a two-night shindig that includes performances from Opry member and legendary session player Charlie McCoy (both nights), awardwinning Christian singer Steven Curtis Chapman (Sunday night), country crooner Mandy Barnett (both nights), bluegrass duo Dailey & Vincent (Monday night), Texas-raised artist Sunny Sweeney (Monday night) and Louise Mandrell (Monday night) — country singer and sister to fellow artist Barbara Mandrell — among others. It’s a solid last-minute option to gather family for a few festive classics. After all, you can’t argue about politics if you’re all singing along to “Blue Christmas.” MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER DEC. 22-23 AT THE GRAND OLE OPRY HOUSE 600 OPRY MILLS DRIVE
SWEET MEGG
PHOTO:
STARLA
DAWN
ON A RECENT Tuesday at the Trinity Community Commons’ weekly meal in East Nashville, a woman named Angie Duncan
sliced a donated loaf of sourdough for dinner. She wore a beanie glowing with tiny Christmas lights. “I won that hat at bingo,” her husband Jimmy said. He’d played the game across town at Room In The Inn, a longtime resource center and shelter for Nashville’s unhoused community. It’s where the pair met before their wedding this year, which also took place at Room In The Inn.
Meanwhile, pans of pasta carbonara and salad were carried in, scratch-made at The Nashville Food Project kitchens with donated ingredients from local farmers and butchers. A neighbor named Peggy Frank sliced her homemade sweet potato pies. She brings a couple of them every week. Another couple brought a casserole dish of grits. At the end of the table, Meshach Adams poured glasses of tea. Home for the holidays from grad school at Alabama A&M, where he studies urban planning, Adams had been a regular at this meal for about two years before heading off to grad school. He learned about it while working on a pedestrian safety plan along Dickerson Pike with nonprofit organization Walk Bike Nashville and returned to see friends at what was once part of the rhythm of his life.
“Tuesday, 4:30 p.m? Come here,” Adams says of his routine. “This is a microcosm of what the world should be like.”
This microcosm includes an eclectic mix of neighbors, and blurred lines between helpers and those in need, between “volunteers” and “recipients,” where differing groups don’t stand on opposite sides of a table. Here, everyone serves and receives, and everyone sits to eat together, regularly, for a local bounty in the company of community.
“The most important part is you meet your neighbors,” says Zach Lykins, executive director at Trinity Community Commons. The food is a big draw, yes, but it’s also a community resource exchange that happens only from people knowing one another in a consistent way.
“If you have a resource to share or a need, come talk to me,” Lykins tells the group. He lives in Cleveland Park and initially came to the meal as a guest with a friend. Now he keeps track of needs on a whiteboard at the back of the room.
The dinner at Trinity Community Commons is not new. It’s been happening for more than a decade. But could it be a model for similar dinners around town in the future? Some local — and national — groups have taken an interest in community meals of late.
Food — its cost, its scarcity for some — has been on the minds of many. On the national
COMMUNAL SEATING
Local initiatives like Trinity Community Commons and FeedBack Nashville aim to set a welcome table
BY JENNIFER JUSTUS
COMMUNITY DINNER AT TRINITY COMMUNITY COMMONS
stage, folks debated the price of eggs. “I won on groceries — very simple word, groceries,”
President-Elect Donald Trump told Meet the Press recently. And yet economists say Trump’s tariffs could drive up the price of goods. Groups like the Tennessee Justice Center are bracing for potential increases in food insecurity by hosting webinars about significant cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and other benefits.
All this could make dinners like the one at
Trinity more essential — not just in the sharing of food, but also in the sharing of community care amid what Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy last year described as an “epidemic of loneliness and isolation.” (Murthy’s office recently hosted a potluck to encourage community and released a handbook for hosts called Recipes for Connection.) In Nashville, the notions of knowing and better understanding one’s neighbors and strengthening the fabric of community have bubbled up during a bitterly
The Nashville Food Project will host a community meal focused on discussing community meals Wednesday, Jan. 29. Visit their Instagram account (@thenashvillefoodproject) for details.
PHOTOS:
divided election season when some have felt a desire to find hyper-local connection.
For example, Imagine Nashville, a 14-month community engagement project with input from 10,000 locals, included recommendations to foster belonging and community-building within neighborhoods. Black Mental Health Village might host more community dinners on the heels of its Friendsgiving. FeedBack Nashville, a community initiative to imagine a more just and sustainable food future, identified — based on hundreds of interviews and surveys — strengthening social fabric and diverse “third spaces” as one of its six pathways. The Metro Human Relations Commission will launch dinners called No Hate on My Plate in 2025.
“When we’re in community, we’re less isolated,” said the Rev. Kate Fields of St. Augustine’s Episcopal Chapel in an announcement about No Hate on My Plate at the Tennessee Local Food Summit in early December. “We trust each other more. We start to see each other instead of see past each other. I think that we become resilient in our differences. … People eating and laughing and talking and building relationships — this is the kind of world I want to live in. I’m convinced the table is that avenue.”
Participants at a workshop for FeedBack Nashville convened Sunday to discuss next steps in its six pathways. The workshop drew about 30 people from various fields (education, housing, transportation, food) who split into smaller groups, each focusing on one pathway. A group digging into the topic of community meals included Lykins, a couple employees and a board member from The Nashville Food Project, as well as Kamilah Sanders from Greater Than Equal, a state IT employee named Shalini Gupta, and Carson Bolding from B Corp, a company that measures social impact.
“If something like that had existed when I first moved here,” Bolding said, “I think I would’ve felt a lot more connected to my community, safer walking around my neighborhood, and more at home.”
The group discussed what more community meals could look like. Regularly occurring outdoor pop-ups on city streets with tents and tables for greater visibility? A tool kit for neighborhood associations on streetpermitting and gathering resources for dinners? Identifying designated meal leaders with deep and varied connections within each neighborhood?
Could these meals — the group wondered — become an identifying and regular part of life, like the choice of church or club or gym?
“Wouldn’t it be cool,” asked Marcie Smeck Bryant, a board member at The Nashville Food Project and a regular participant at Trinity, “if people were saying, ‘What community meal do you go to?’”
Disclosure: Jennifer Justus previously worked for The Nashville Food Project. She left the organization in 2021. ▼
FOOD & DRINK: CHEAP EATS
FLEET STREET PUB’S LUNCH SPECIALS — $7.50
The Printers Alley standby offers Premier League matches, British Invasion tunes and rock-solid fish and chips
BY KEN ARNOLD
IN THE BASEMENT level of Printers Alley next to Daddy’s Dogs, you can find a British-style pub with a strong presence of British Invasion music and support for Arsenal Football Club. (It’s the main gathering place for the Nashville Gooners, Middle Tennessee’s primary group of Arsenal supporters.) While Fleet Street has an intense sportspub culture on game day, if you go on a weekday afternoon, you’ll be treated to a much calmer vibe — and better yet, one of the last cheap lunches you can find downtown.
Fleet Street offers four $7.50 lunch specials, each of which comes with a soft drink. (Sorry, lunch beers sold separately!) There’s a lot to love among the options, including lamb sliders, a black-bean veggie burger and a soup-and-salad combo. But the standout, naturally, has to be the fish and chips. Beer-battered Alaskan pollock is deep-fried and served over a small basket of thick-cut chips (fries) with a side of tartar sauce and a bottle of malt vinegar at the table. It’s a solid portion of filling comfort food that won’t break the bank. Whether you’re trying to hit protein goals, stretching the last of your paycheck or just want to be engulfed in the British pub aesthetic of rock ’n’ roll and Premier League matches, Fleet Street delivers. It’s a spot you can count on if you work or live downtown, and one of the last bastions for cheap eats in the city center. ▼
FLEET STREET PUB
207 PRINTERS ALLEY
FLEETSTREETPUB.COM
CULTURE
CONVERSATION STARTERS
Folx Table is bringing strangers together
BY HANNAH HERNER
A dinner with strangers sounds intriguing to some and terrifying to others.
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Emma McCallie and Dallas Condra, founders of Folx Table — an organization that bills itself as a “sit-down social network” — developed a formula to sell the idea to introverts, extroverts and those in between. Following an incubator course with the Nashville Entrepreneur Center this year and a trip to SXSW in 2023, the organization recently shifted — from larger, more expensive monthly events to cheaper tables across the city on any given night.
What has remained is the Folx table mission statement: connection at the center of modern life.
Through the Folx Table website or app, interested parties can give a date range and choose coffee for 60 minutes, drinks for 90 minutes or dinner for 120 minutes. It’s $14 for the drinks experience, plus whatever you spend at the restaurant, or $10 for coffee or $17 for dinner.
Folx Table grew out of McCallie’s attic, where she hosted dinner parties for people she often hadn’t met before. Over the course of two years, 300 people passed through her doors. A middle school teacher at the time, she introduced a classroom rule of sorts: no talking about work or weather. To help people out, she would sprinkle conversation prompts throughout the room.
“I got really curious about what made for richer conversations, what made for people saying not just ‘nice to meet you,’ but ‘I want to see you again,’” McCallie tells the Scene. “I came to realize that we could have 14 of the most interesting people in the room, and we were still unintentionally going to talk about work and weather.”
Those prompts would one day evolve to become the Folx Table deck of prompts, called The Game. A Folx outing starts with a warmup of questions such as, “What kind of s’more do I like?” or, “What would my camping setup be?”
Then it’s on to deeper queries oriented to the future. “What’s something you’ve made genuine progress on that others might not notice?”
“What’s a piece of advice you’ve been given that you’re still trying to put into practice?” Wild cards give a break, like repeating everyone’s names or having a thumb war.
McCallie and Condra match people based on their profiles. Each participant gets a role ahead of the dinner, such as “applause aficionado,” “room reader” or “distribution dynamo.” (“It’s a little bit silly, but adults should be having more fun.” McCallie says.) This could mean helping the process by keeping the plates passing, flagging down the waiter or keeping the conversation moving through the prompts.
McCallie officially established Folx Table in January 2023. Condra, one of McCallie’s original dinner party guests, joined as a co-founder in early 2024. They both run Folx outside of their
day jobs. Condra brings a much-needed introvert’s perspective to what may appear to be an extrovert like McCallie’s dream operation.
“It’s a muscle, and the more you work toward it, and the more you’re intentional about it, the more naturally it comes,” Condra says of talking to strangers.
He says introverts are prone to overthinking and worrying that it’s not the right time or way to initiate conversation. The card game takes the pressure off, he says.
“We’re doing all the hard work, so all you have to do is show up,” Condra says. “You don’t have to worry about who you’re going to be sat with, or how to strike up the initial conversation, or what questions you’re going to need to ask. All of that we do for you. It just takes away so many of those barriers that you have as an introvert.”
Folx is designed to be an addition to activity-based social situations. For example, Condra recently had a back injury and wasn’t able to participate in the rock-climbing community the way he did before. Everybody eats and every-
body talks, so this allows for a more even playing field, he says.
“Regardless of whether those people become my best friends or not, it’s still such a valuable experience and such a unique way to interact with the world and get to know yourself better, and get to open up to new people in these little small table environments,” Condra says.
McCallie adds, “We try to get to this point of invitation, you’re welcome to have a conversation with these people that you otherwise might not be able to have in your day-in-day-out, or your knitting club or your running club.”
Folx outings tend to end with an exchanging of Instagram handles or phone numbers. Soon participants will also be able to connect with their tablemates through the Folx Table app. Loneliness is such a common experience, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic, McCallie says, that she’s surprised there aren’t more programs like Folx.
“For people to go to the effort to try to figure out what their social life looks like right now — that’s really exciting to me,” McCallie says.
EMMA MCCALLIE AND DALLAS CONDRA
PHOTO: PHOTOS BY SHAE
very special animal at Nashville Humane. She came into our care in September in desperate need of a lifesaving surgery. Phoebe had a rare congenital defect that was strangling her esophagus, preventing food from entering her stomach. She received her surgery, is recovered, thriving and is now officially available for adoption! She is a happy, energetic, and resilient pup. She loves to play, window watch, and she loves showing off her zoomies. Consider bringing Phoebe home this holiday! Visit Nashville Humane to meet her or check out the website to see other available animals.
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THE ANXIETY OF IT ALL
BY ELIZABETH JONES
Vodka Yonic features a rotating cast of women, nonbinary and gender-diverse 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.
“MOM, WHEN AM I going to die?”
My 6-year-old asks me this question nonchalantly as she’s multitasking — eating a snack, drawing an alicorn and watching TV. Her expression is curious, but not sad or concerned. Not fraught with dread the way mine is when I think about death.
overbearing that can be. I know a kid can’t thrive with an adult standing over them, watching their every move, smothering them. We have to let them jump and fall, and get scraped and get back up again. The biggest test is letting our children go out into the world where we can’t protect them. Where we can’t see what’s coming. It can be scary for them, but it’s scarier for us. I try my hardest not to pass my anxiety on to her. But I often alternate between two extremes. My daughter is terrified of tornadoes, likely because I visibly shake every time the team behind Nashville Severe Weather goes live on YouTube; yet when she recently broke her arm, I barely registered her pain until my husband insisted it was broken. (He was right. But also, she is OK in the grand scheme of things. In the life-and-death of it all.) It’s the eternal struggle of parenthood not to pass our own problems onto our kids — weird body-image issues, hostile familial relationships. But in society today, where do we draw the line? How much do we let them know?
She started elementary school last year — a notable milestone in a person’s life. I know parents often tell their kids, “Don’t ever grow up!” And while I understand the sentiment — the days are precious, our time together is fleeting, it all moves too fast — I cannot bring myself to utter that phrase. I want my daughter to grow. To live a wild and free and happy life, to reach adulthood, and to get to do everything her older brother never got to do before he died. And I desperately want to see her do it.
Watching her march into her school entrance — head high, backpack on her shoulders, no socks (she hates that they’re “too tight”) — I marvel at how much she already knows. How independent a firstgrader can get. How she already tells me I’m embarrassing her. I used to stand over her and watch her breathe. Our first-born didn’t know how to do that — how to breathe. I couldn’t trust that her body would know either. But it did, and it does. I struggle to force myself to make sure she’s learning her sight words and is able to count by fives to 100 when she’s already doing all I could possibly ask of her. She’s here. She’s breathing.
We have to function in this world. We can’t just ride it out in our house, surrounded by figurative bubble wrap. We have to create good in the world so that the bad doesn’t overwhelm us.
I, like many parents, first toured my child’s elementary school with a critical eye. I tried to avoid picturing large guns in the same hallways where crayon self-portraits and mosaic boats hang on the walls, but I couldn’t help it. And now, every day, I force myself to make her go to school anyway. I don’t think I’m alone as a parent when I say that I want to pour every ounce of my being into making sure our daughter knows she’s loved and safe, but I also know how
THE BIGGEST TEST IS LETTING OUR CHILDREN GO OUT INTO THE WORLD WHERE WE CAN’T PROTECT THEM. WHERE WE CAN’T SEE WHAT’S COMING. IT CAN BE SCARY FOR THEM, BUT IT’S SCARIER FOR US.
Another night, another comment. “I wonder what it’ll feel like when I die?” I wonder too. I hope it’ll be painless and quick and not scary, but I don’t know. I have death anxiety. But my daughter does not. I admire that she hasn’t let the unknown overwhelm her, and I wish that same curiosity would replace the fear in my own heart. She asks calmly, without emotion, and I answer as I always do: “None of us knows when we’ll die or how it’ll feel. But I hope you don’t die for a long, long time. I love you so much.”
She groans. “Stop saying you love me. You’ve said it too many times.” ▼
to the deftones nile
PSYCROPTIC & EMBRYONIC AUTOPSY
Nirvana Tribute Experience ethan samuel brown w/ the prescriptions & zach torres Denny diamond (neil diamond tribute) w/ U4IA (u2 tribute) brittany howard's nashville hardcore benefit show w/ second spirit, kumite, inner Peace, & Snõõper grunge night 12 lily rose magic city hippies w/ mustard service airshow & three star revival the whigs w/ The Medium & Jack Shields fulton lee
blind pilot w/ dean johnson
grlwood & hussy fit
Big, If True w/ Critter Brain, Cluester
Nora Belle w/ Zoë Dominguez, Paperview, and Avalon
casual sects w/ Quiet Local (7PM)
The Local Honeys w/ Darrin Hacquard (9PM)
travollta ft. Zëta Ræ and Miriam Kass
Dead Runes w/ Shitfire and American Goon
The Creekers (7PM)
Campanula w/ The Ever Flower Company and Miles
Connor & The Masterplan
Dead Alive w/ Fatal Attraction, Outpost, and Ugly Bones
Liam Slater w/ Dan Cousart
the deltaz w/ noah nash
Corey Parsons w/ Libby Weitnauer
MUSIC
BEHIND THE DESK
Prolific producer Jon Tiven shares perspective on Steve Cropper’s Friendlytown and five decades in music
BY RON WYNN
EVEN A SHORT LIST of legendary music figures Jon Tiven has produced, had songs recorded by or otherwise worked with is impressive — mentioning Don Covay, Ellis Hooks, Wilson Pickett, Alex Chilton and Steve Cropper barely scratches the surface. But Tiven’s also a composer and multi-instrumentalist whose performing and recording career includes power-pop bands like The Yankees and Prix as well as his own ensemble The Jon Tiven Group. Tiven, who grew up in New Haven, Conn., was even a music journalist in his youth, with bylines in publications like Rolling Stone, Creem and Melody Maker
In the wake of 9/11, Jon and his wife and fellow musician Sally Tiven made the call to relocate from New York to Nashville, where he previously had positive recording experiences. Tiven’s most recent project was producing Friendlytown, an album for the aforementioned legendary Stax Records guitarist and producer Steve Cropper. Released in August, the record features Cropper’s latest band The Midnight Hour and includes guest appearances from Queen’s Brian May and ZZ Top’s Billy F. Gibbons. I caught up with Tiven in a pair of recent interviews for some perspective on the release and his prolific career. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
How does Friendlytown differ from things that you’ve done with Steve Cropper in the past? In 2019, quite by accident, some of the things we started as song demos [on an earlier project] became masters when I brought my old writing partner Roger C. Reale into the picture to finish off our instrumentals, and Steve fell in love with his voice. Voilà, we had a creative basis for making [Cropper’s 2021 album Fire It Up].
When we got the opportunity to make a follow-up to that album, Steve and I were getting together to write instrumentals, but this time we knew who was going to write the words with us and sing it, so that gave us a lot more of an idea of what we had to do. And we had a drummer, Nioshi Jackson, who did some recording on Fire It Up, and then a live performance, which got us personally and musically tight after we were about halfway into the writing process. Steve indicated to me he’d like another guitarist to play with and play off, and sure enough I ran into Billy F. Gibbons in Trader Joe’s and reintroduced myself. … He smiled and asked what I was up to. “Playing bass, writing and producing on a new Steve Cropper album.” His eyes smiled and he said, “I’ve got a song for you.” I said, “It’s not going on the record unless you play on it.” He said, “That can be arranged.” The next day and for several days thereafter Billy, Cropper and I camped out in the studio in my house and
wrote a few, three of which ended up on the record.
How did you transition from writing about music to producing it? I had a band in the early ’70s that [Rolling Stones manager and producer] Andrew Loog Oldham put in the studio to make demos. We garnered some interest from Paul Nelson at Mercury Records. He was going to put us in the studio, but then he got fired because the New York Dolls didn’t sell. So I started making home recordings as I was taking a break from college. When I finally gave up on the idea of completing college, I was offered a job working A&R publicity for Chess Records in New York. So at age 20, I moved to Manhattan. A few months later, they shuttered their NYC offices, but kept me on working from my apartment. I had continued to write songs, even though I’d pretty much given up on being a recording artist, and some of them were not bad. When Alex Chilton called me and asked me to produce him [on 1975 sessions released in 1981 as Bach’s Bottom], I wasn’t about to say no.
What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in the music business? Chaos. I remember when Andrew Loog Oldham told me that we were better off when the hundred-dollar handshake ruled the business, and I thought that was cynical thinking. But now I’m on his side of that argument. The levels of payola are very confusing, and I don’t have time to figure out that maze.
What are your greatest challenges as an independent producer? To find labels for my projects. I was never an insider, so I don’t have anybody calling me, asking me what’s my latest hustle.
I’ve got a few new young artists I’m trying to help out, but it’s hard to convince a label to take a chance on an unknown.
You’ve been in town for more than 20 years. What positive things have you seen in local music, and what would you like to see improve? I like the collaborative nature that Nashville seems to encourage. There’s a lot of talent here that needs other elements to complete the picture, and it’s nice when those elements are allowed to come together. Most of it is by accident; it would be great if there was more rhyme or reason to it. I’m sure there are a lot of young talented people who aspire to be great soulful artists, and I’d sure like to nurture some if they can find me. I’m not that difficult to get to, kids! ▼
SERVING THROUGH SONG
SongwritingWith:Soldiers brings creative expression to the healing process
BY MARGARET LITTMAN
JESSICA RIDENOUR IS a San Antonio, Texas, therapist and a U.S. Army veteran who served for 17 years. She is interested in creativity as a modality for her clients, so when she heard about Nashville-based nonprofit SongwritingWith:Soldiers, she was interested for professional as well as personal reasons. She thought the work they do might help with her healing for what she describes as “military sexual trauma and traumatic brain injury.”
“I’ve done all the antidepressants and all the regular talk therapy, and this was by far one of the best things that’s happened to help me recover from my own traumatic stress,” says Ridenour, who writes as Jessica Hope.
SongwritingWith:Soldiers organizes retreats for U.S. veterans from all conflicts at 16 locations nationwide. Since 2012, they’ve paired veterans and active-duty military with professional songwriters — including Beth Nielsen Chapman, Amy Speace, Radney Foster and others — to help veterans write about their experiences and their emotions. Veterans pay for their own transportation, but once they arrive, all expenses are covered. Because of that, and because of the healing that comes out of the experience, there’s a waiting list to participate.
In addition to helping veterans process what they experienced while serving, SongwritingWith:Soldiers also hopes to help bridge the gap between civilians and veterans in the U.S., improving understanding and providing support for returning service members. Ridenour applied, was accepted and was paired with Denitia at her Tennessee retreat. The first night, everyone gathers in a room and collaboratively writes one song based on shared prompts given by a facilitator. At Ridenour’s retreat, that shared prompt was about gratitude, and Ridenour was surprised by how many common themes came up.
The next day, the veterans work one-on-one with songwriters to write their songs. They have less than three hours to do it. According to Jay Clementi, SongwritingWith:Soldiers’ music director and a professional songwriter with extensive credits, that can be an aggressive timeline.
“I was the most nervous for that,” says Ridenour. “I knew that’s when we could get into the roots of the trauma. I have testified in front of Congress, and I’ve been a part of changing laws. I was a senior military leader. I did want to talk about my personal suffering a little bit, but more, I wanted to talk about why I chose to become an advocate after that suffering.”
The result of Denitia and Ridenour’s work is “I Am Joy,” a song about “grace and grit” and choosing to “Get off your ass and do something / Make the world a better place.”
The benefits are not just anecdotal experiences. A small pilot study conducted by Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital found that the SongwritingWith:Soldiers process can reduce
Steve Cropper’s Friendlytown available now via Provogue
JON TIVEN (LEFT) AND STEVE CROPPER IN 1992
post-traumatic stress disorder by 33 percent and depressive symptoms by 25 percent.
In a long-term study the organization conducted with participants from 2012 to 2018, SongwritingWith:Soldiers found that 83 percent pursued additional creative activities after their experience and a full 100 percent of attendees would recommend the experience to other veterans.
Music director Clementi has had songs recorded by Dierks Bentley, Sara Evans, Martina McBride, Darius Rucker and others; he had a No. 1 hit on Billboard’s Coun-
MUSIC: THE SPIN
WITH HIS WHOLE CHEST
BY JAYME FOLTZ
COWBOY BOOTS AND distressed denim filled the Ryman’s pews as rising country star Wyatt Flores made the Mother Church his own on Friday night, his first of two sold-out headline shows at the venue. It was a full-circle moment for the 23-year-old, Oklahoma-born, Nashville-residing singer-songwriter, who was returning to the historic stage just a year after opening for West Virginia songsmith Charles Wesley Godwin.
Managing the whirlwind of writing, recording and touring for the sake of his mental health has been key for Flores; with this in mind, he took a break early this year. But the Grand Ole Opry frequent flyer has been on a roll for much of the rest of 2024, and the run up to his Ryman shows was no exception. The week prior included an album signing at Grimey’s, a guest appearance with The Castellows when they opened for Little Big Town, and performing at the Opry NextStage class concert along with nearly a dozen fellow artists, most of whom are also under 30.
Flores’ Ryman return follows his debut album Welcome to the Plains, which features stories about the people and the history of Oklahoma, and Oklahoma artists warmed up the audience on Friday. Lance Roark opened the evening,
try Airplay chart with Luke Bryan’s “Move.” He is very passionate about the organization’s work.
“I didn’t know how powerful and profound it was going to be in my life until I sat down across from a veteran, listening to them tell their story and just tried to put their words into a song,” Clementi says. “There’s just some amazing things that happen when you’re sitting with someone and trying to tell a piece of their story. It’s magic.”
If you’ve written as many songs as Clementi, you know there’s a professional filter. You know what topics
you need to avoid, what themes have been repeated one too many times. You know not to drop an F-bomb. But at SongwritingWith:Soldiers, there are no filters, and that’s freeing.
“You’re kind of holding the paintbrush,” Clementi says. “You’re there, but they’re the paint.”
For her part, Ridenour says the process also helped her hear music differently. Now she thinks about word choice, chords and that process songwriters go through to articulate feelings and experiences for other people.
captivating the crowd with his gravelly voice on tunes like “Oklahoma Blacktop.” Switching to electric guitar for “One More Chance,” Roark confessed he didn’t often play electric, though you wouldn’t know it from his performance. Next, longtime Oklahoma red dirt country champions The Great Divide made their Ryman debut, with frontman Mike McClure joking they’d “crawled straight out of the ’90s.” Their set blended old favorites like “College Days” and “Pour Me a Vacation” with newer songs like “Good Side” from 2022’s Providence Flores came out beaming, and by the time he launched into the anthemic “Little Town,” his infectious energy had the crowd hooked. From his bright smile to the way he confidently
worked the stage, it was clear he was here to leave a mark. And the audience wasn’t just singing along — they were a full-blown choir, belting every word in sync with Flores and his flawless band.
“I’m having the best night of my life if you couldn’t tell,” Flores said with a laugh as the crowd chanted his name. Switching guitars, he leaned into darker territory with “Stillwater,” supported by Kenzie Miracle’s sharp fiddle work, before diving into the upbeat “Wildcat.”
Flores reminisced about his first Ryman performance last year, surprising fans with a guest appearance by the aforementioned Charles Wesley Goodwin for a heartfelt cover of Chris Knight’s “The Jealous Kind.” Later, he brought
Since its inception in 2012, SongwritingWith:Soldiers has worked with more than 2,000 combat veterans — more than 1,000 in 2023 alone — building a catalog of more than 1,500 songs. Eminent songsmith Mary Gauthier included 11 of them on her 2018 album Rifles and Rosary Beads, which garnered a Grammy nomination. Clementi hopes more songs from the project will be released. But recording and studio time take money, and the nonprofit is focused for now on getting more veterans off the waiting list and into more retreats. ▼
out The Castellows for a lively rendition of “Sober Sundays,” celebrating their serendipitous collaboration born of an impromptu meeting on the Ryman’s balcony.
The show took a melancholic turn — seemingly something of a specialty for Flores — with “When I Die” and “Half Life.” The first, led by pedal steel and infused with wry humor, reflects on enjoying the life we’ve got, while the second weaves a gut-punch of regret into a story about the yearning to get out on your own.
Flores also brought out his cover of The Fray’s “How to Save a Life.” You’d think topping the original version is impossible, but Flores proved himself more than capable of matching singer Isaac Slade’s emotional flair. The audience (including myself) was completely floored.
As the show neared its close, whoops and applause accompanied the band as they cycled triumphantly through earlier songs that marked Flores as a standout, like “Losing Sleep,” “Milwaukee” and “Please Don’t Go.” A fitting goodbye, “Don’t Want to Say Goodnight” closed out an evening that fans seemingly didn’t want to end. The uptempo country-rock piece is a perfect showcase for Flores’ sincere storytelling, magnetic stage presence and undeniable connection with his fans.
The best songwriters often seem naturally wired for emotional vulnerability, and their words cut deep, leaving an impression long after the song is over. Flores is undoubtedly gifted, and he keeps raising the bar with every new song and every show. ▼
VETERAN KYLE WELCH (LEFT) AND JAY CLEMENTI
JESSICA HOPE
PHOTO: ED RODE
PHOTO: KRISTEN DRUM
OKIE DOKEY: WYATT FLORES
ERROR 404
Saturday, December 21
SONGWRITER SESSION
Matt Warren and Dave Pahanish
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Sunday, December 22
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT
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1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
Saturday, January 4
SONGWRITER SESSION
Brinley Addington
NOON · FORD THEATER
Sunday, January 5
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT
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Saturday, January 11
SONGWRITER SESSION
Tommy Karlas
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Sunday, January 19
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THE SHORT LIST
Our senior film critic weighs in on his favorite films and performances of 2024 BY JASON
AS THIS IS not a binding legal document, I approach my year-end top 10 as only a concept. The thematic discussion going on in the spaces between these films is where the magic is — a scenic route for anyone looking for side quests and sumptuous promenades to explore. An asterisk denotes a film that did not play (or has not yet played) theatrically in Nashville. Stay tuned for our annual Jim Ridley Memorial Film Poll — which will feature our countdown of the year’s best movies, as selected by a large assortment of our critics and film-expert friends — coming in January.
1. NO OTHER LAND*
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this one since the day I saw it.
2. BRAMAYUGAM*/LONGLEGS/RED ROOMS
These great works of terror are like obsidian pearls, built over time from something upsetting. It is the excavation that bolsters the greatness — a journey that allows multiple perspectives on a monstrous disruption in what we hope for, what we expect and what ultimately awaits us all.
3. THE BRUTALIST*/HARD TRUTHS*/THE SUBSTANCE
These films study the way a character is built and the way they are broken down. Studies of what one can bear, and what they ultimately cannot. Constructivist portraits of how we transform the world, and how the world transforms us. Rage is a chisel.
4. ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT/CHALLENGERS/THE PEOPLE’S JOKER
Navigating pathways through what life throws at us, fording the obstacles of tradition (and copyright) to get at something all too real
and relatable. The more specific, somehow the more universal.
5. HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS/LOVE LIES BLEEDING/ THE WHEEL OF HEAVEN*
Realism is for suckers. Bloody, beautiful, brilliant and deeply alive.
6. I AM CELINE DION/LUTHER: NEVER TOO MUCH/ MARIA*/SMILE 2
We don’t quite demand ritual sacrifice of our artists, but then again, maybe we do? Does suffering enrich great work, or does it simply provide focus and perspective? It is, in fact, all for us …
7. THE END/GREEN BORDER/WICKED
When films make moral challenges to their audiences, it’s still enthralling (and maybe a little bit shocking). And when the circumstances of and fallout from moral choices are the foundation of something focused on making self-reflection part of the viewing experience, it’s delicious and devastating in equal measure.
8. THE BEAST/WALLACE & GROMIT: VENGEANCE MOST FOWL*
You’ll find no better perspectives on the opportunities and terrors of AI than in this refreshing and exciting pair, whether sexy time-slip chaos or garden-based shenanigans are your preferred means of exploration. An ongoing series of sharp delights.
9. BETTER MAN*/I SAW THE TV GLOW
Dysphoria presented in ways that promote visceral empathy. I Saw the TV Glow, Joan Schoenbrun’s ’90s-addled psychoscape, allows anyone to understand and relate to a life lived under the backbreaking weight of regret, and Better Man, the Robbie Williams biopic, takes its
SHAWHAN
ape-substitution conceit far enough to get past Dewey Cox signifiers into a realm of psychological pain no one expects from a pop star. Better Man also has the single most devastating moment of psychological horror for the whole year when a supporting character realizes that her faculties are failing her — it hits so hard I had to run for the hallway for a few minutes.
10. DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD/HORROR IN THE HIGH DESERT 3: FIREWATCH*
Unexpected procedurals that end with the unspeakable. End of the World, Radu Jude’s vivisection of the gig economy, is a singular portrait of the Global Now, while High Desert 3, Dutch Marich’s found-footage faux doc, finds the tension in the unbroken take. Both are like a meat tenderizer of the soul. The former is blessed with an incredible performance from Ilinca Manolache, and the latter features two of the most sustainedly scary sequences that the found-footage genre has managed to produce.
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
The first four minutes of Alien: Romulus, Anora, Babygirl, Birder, Dahomey, The Feeling That the Time For Doing Something Has Passed Hostile Dimensions, The First Omen, Furiosa, the red-band trailer for In a Violent Nature, the trailer for Joker: Folie à Deux, the formalist eye of Nickel Boys, Oddity, Omen, Poolman, Problemista, Queer, Saint Drogo, Stopmotion, This Is Me … Now: A Love Story.
OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCES:
Michele Austin (Hard Truths), Jonathan Bailey (Wicked), Betty Buckley (Imaginary), Glenn Close (The Deliverance), Daniel Craig (Queer), David Dastmalchian (Late Night With the Devil), Michael Emery (Birder), Nathan Fausteyn (The
People’s Joker), Kyle Gallner (Strange Darling), Juliette Gariépy (Red Rooms), Mia Goth (MaXXXine), Ariana Grande-Butera (Wicked), Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Hard Truths), Dakota Johnson (Madame Web), Lawrence Johnson (Kinds of Kindness), Angelina Jolie (Maria), David Jonsson (Alien: Romulus), Lady Gaga (Joker: Folie à Deux), Brigette Lundy-Paine (I Saw the TV Glow), George MacKay (The End), Mikey Madison (Anora), Ilinca Manolache (Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World), Mia McKenna-Bruce (How to Have Sex), Demi Moore (The Substance), Catherine O’Hara (Beetlejuice Beetlejuice), Guy Pearce (The Brutalist), Chris Pine (Poolman), Divya Prabha (All We Imagine as Light), Margaret Qualley (Drive-Away Dolls), Beatrice Schneider (The Best Christmas Pageant Ever), Jason Schwartzman (Queer), Naomi Scott (Smile 2), Léa Seydoux (The Beast), Kiernan Shipka (The Last Showgirl), Graham Skipper (The Lonely Man With the Ghost Machine), Jaquel Spivey (Mean Girls), Alison Steadman (Better Man), Dan Stevens (Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire), Kristen Stewart (Love Lies Bleeding), Jeremy Strong (The Apprentice), Moses Sumney (MaXXXine), Ryland Brickson Cole Tews (Hundreds of Beavers), Yorgos Tsiantoulos (The Summer With Carmen), Denzel Washington (Gladiator II), Alicia Witt (Longlegs), Zendaya (Challengers).
NOT TO BE MISSED IN 2025:
Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story, April, The Damned, Dead Mail, Exorcismo, A Guide to Becoming an Elm Tree, Happyend, The Last Sacrifice, Misericordia, My Undesirable Friends, The Shrouds, Stranger Eyes, Viet and Nam
OUTSTANDING RESTORATIONS:
Bwana Devil 3D, Closed Circuit, Hellraiser, North by Northwest, Nostalghia, Obsession: A Taste for Fear, The World’s Greatest Sinner ▼
SHOP UNBEATABLE DEALS FROM YOUR FAVORITE BOUTIQUES!
$10
SUNDAY JANUARY 26 | 1-4PM
THE FACTORY AT FRANKLIN’S
LIBERTY HALL
General Admission
Enjoy a day of shopping the many boutiques at Fashion for a Fraction!
VIP Admission
• Early entry to beat the crowd
• Complimentary mimosa
• Tote bag full of gifts from our partners $35
LIGHT BITES PROVIDED BY
PARTICIPATING BOUTIQUES
Brittany Fuson | CT Grace, a Boutique | Edelweiss | Elle Gray | Fab’rik Franklin
Flash & Trash & a Little Bit of Sass| Franklin Road Apparel | Glamour Formals | Hollie Ray Boutique nancybgoods | Patch | Society Boutique | Style with a Twist | Vinnie Louise | The Willing Crab AND MORE TO BE ANNOUNCED!
30 Blot
1 ___ Posadas (annual Latin American celebration)
4 Care
8 Quickly throw (together)
12 Iron-rich molecule in blood
13 “That makes sense”
14 Literally, “bean curd”
15 Fail to mention
16 Car freshener scent
17 Doner ___ (meat dish)
18 Uninhabited wilderness
19 Motor coaches?
21 Element between bromine and rubidium
23 Blocks in a bar
24 Blanquette de ___ (French stew)
25 Drop precipitously, as a stock price
27 Bird with a harsh cry
30 Went all out
32 Trait of a courageous person
33 Soup go-with
34 Before, in classic poetry
35 Former N.F.L. quarterback Tim
36 Position in soccer and football
37 Red carpet attire
39 Award first given by King George V, in brief
40 Classic dog name
41 Election campaign
42 ___-mo
43 Blade seen on the Angolan flag
46 Hit rock album of 1980 depicted three times by this puzzle
51 Levels in a ring, for short
52 Consumed gladly
53 Nowadays it’s often accessed via QR code
54 Call at a bakery
55 Big Ben, e.g.
56 Sob
57 Member of a “Great” quintet
58 Make some noise
59 Pet welfare org.
1 King Julien of “Madagascar,” for one
2 Titular horror movie town
3 Temporary defeat
4 Game show billed as the “world’s largest obstacle course”
5 Like the majority of products sold at H Mart
6 Check for a flat?
7 Feat
8 ___ Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America
9 Region of the brain
10 A ways away
11 Brits may refer to them as “boozers”
12 Captivate
17 Certain bribe
19 “Out of my way!”
20 Feature of many an aged cheese
22 Recant an opinion
25 “___ of Adele” (Rodin sculpture)
26 Offerings from 11-Down
27 Those who apply themselves?
28 Years, in Uruguay
60 Key above ~ DOWN
29 Tree mentioned in the witches’ brew rhyme in “Macbeth”
31 Pay attention to
32 Smooth-barked shade tree
33 W. Coast hub for United Airlines
35 Retrace one’s steps
37 Heraldic animal
38 Whom Count von Count is a parody of
40 Move famously performed by figure skater Surya Bonaly at the 1998 Winter Olympics
42 Bit of Halloween decor
43 Hyperactive
44 2004 Britney Spears hit
45 Dirección from Cancún to Cuba
46 What to expect when you’re expecting
47 Exactly, after “to”
48 Word with division or number
49 X1, X3, X5 and X7
50 Increase dramatically
54 Name tag?
for young solvers: nytimes.com/studentcrosswords.
PUZZLE BY MATTHEW FAIELLA
ACCIDENTS WRONGFUL DEATH
TRACTOR TRAILER ACCIDENTS Voted Best Attorney in Nashville
Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Diamond Lynx Drama Is Looking for You! The Singer, The Actor, The Dancer, and The Musican. Children, Teens, Young Adults, Adults, and Seniors. Join us to bring the People from the Bible to Life! Volunteers. Email me @diamondlynxdrama24@g mail.com Name, Age and Headshot!
MISCELLANEOUS
24/7
LOCKSMITH:
We are there when you need us for home & car lockouts. We’ll get you back up and running quickly! Also, key reproductions, lock installs and repairs, vehicle fobs.
Call us for your home, commercial and auto locksmith needs!
1-833-237-1233 (CAN AAN)
AFFORDABLE TV & INTERNET.
If you are overpaying for your service, call now for a free quote and see how much you can save!
1-844-588-6579 (CAN AAN)
We Buy Vintage Guitar's!
Looking for 1920-1980 Gibson, Martin, Fender, Gretsch, Epiphone, Guild, Mosrite, Rickenbacker, Prairie State, D'Angelico, Stromberg. And Gibson Mandolins / Banjos. These brands only!
Call for a quote: 1-855-402-7208 (CAN AAN)
CASH PAID FOR HIGH-END MEN’S SPORT WATCHES.
Rolex, Breitling, Omega, Patek Philippe, Heuer, Daytona, GMT, Submariner and Speedmaster. These brands only!
Call for a quote: 1-855-402-7109 (CAN AAN)
NEED NEW WINDOWS?
Drafty rooms? Chipped or damaged frames? Need outside noise reduction? New, energy ef cient windows may be the answer!
Call for a consultation & FREE quote today. 1-877-248-9944. (CAN AAN)
NEED NEW WINDOWS?
Drafty rooms? Chipped or damaged frames? Need outside noise reduction? New, energy ef cient windows may be the answer!
Call for a consultation & FREE quote today. 1-877-248-9944 (CAN AAN)
WATER DAMAGE CLEANUP & RESTORATION:
A small amount of water can lead to major damage and mold growth in your home. We do complete repairs to protect your family and your home’s value!
For a FREE ESTIMATE, call 24/7:
1-888-290-2264 (CAN AAN)
YOU MAY QUALIFY for disability bene ts if you are between 52-63 years old and under a doctor’s care for a health condition that prevents you from working for a year or more. Call now!
1-877-247-6750 (CAN AAN)
AGING ROOF? NEW HOMEOWNER? STORM DAMAGE?
You need a local expert provider that proudly stands behind their work. Fast, free estimate. Financing available.
Call 1-888-292-8225 (CAN AAN)
PEST CONTROL: PROTECT YOUR HOME from pests safely and affordably. Roaches, Bed Bugs, Rodent, Termite, Spiders and other pests. Locally owned and affordable.
Call for service or an inspection today! 1-833-237-1199 (CAN AAN)
Attention: VIAGRA and CIALIS USERS!
A cheaper alternative to high drugstore prices! 50 Pill Special - Only $99! 100% guaranteed. CALL NOW:
1-866-472-4367 (CAN AAN)
STOP OVERPAYING FOR AUTO INSURANCE!
A recent survey says that most Americans are overpaying for their car insurance. Let us show you how much you can save.
Call Now for a noobligation quote:
1-866-472-8309 (CAN AAN)
BATH & SHOWER
UPDATES in as little as ONE DAY!
Affordable pricesNo payments for 18 months!
Lifetime warranty & professional installs. Senior & Military Discounts available.
Call: 1-877-510-9918 (CAN AAN)
YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD
LOCAL ATTRACTIONS
Opry Mills Mall
Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center
Grand Ole Opry
TOP 2 BARS
Twin Peaks
Chili’s Grill & Bar
LongHorn Steakhouse
ENJOY THE OUTDOORS
Cedar Hill Park
Centennial Park
Treetop Adventure Park at Nashville Shores
FAVORITE LOCAL NEIGHBORHOOD BAR
Fox & Hound BEST LOCAL FAMILY OUTING
Dave & Buster’s Nashville
Swimming Pool
Fitness Center
Clubroom
GOT AN UNWANTED
CAR??? DONATE
IT TO PATRIOTIC HEARTS
Fast free pick up. All 50 States. Patriotic Hearts’ programs help veterans nd work or start their own business.
Call 24/7: 1-855-402-7631 (CAN AAN)
BEAUTIFUL BATH
UPDATES in as little as ONE DAY! Superior
and shower systems at AFFORDABLE PRICES! Lifetime warranty & professional installs. Call Now!
1-855-402-6997 (CAN AAN)
