NATIVE | ISSUE 78 | NASHVILLE, TN

ISSUE 78 POTATO MOUNTAIN 615

8 C1TY BLVD

Connect + Creative

Nashville, TN

onec1tynashville.com

Interiors

Architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe once said, “God is in the details.” That could stand as the credo for oneC1TY, a vibrant urban community where intentional design nurtures creativity, fosters productivity, and caters to bold corporate cultures and market shifting entrepreneurs. From shared spaces for connecting between meetings and simple places to recharge, to the thoughtful repurposing of materials providing warmth and texture, to stairs that beckon healthy activity—every inch of oneC1TY is designed with elevated human experiences in mind.

This intentionality influenced Microsoft’s regional office move from Franklin to oneC1TY. Over the past few years, the tech giant has researched working conditions, tracking employee movement and studying surveys. They complied this information to create “The Design Language for Place,” a framework that is currently guiding Microsoft's shift toward collaborative, thoughtful offices around the world.

It's pretty cool that they've implemented that language for the first time here at oneC1TY, where every detail unites to form a hub of creation, collaboration, and community.

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CONTENTS ISSUE 78

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THE GOODS 13 Beer from Here 17 Cocktail of the Month 20 Master Platers 61 You Oughta Know 65 It’s Only Natural

FEATURES 26 Tessa Violet 34 Potato Mountain 615

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44 Literature Spotlight: Betsy Phillips 52 Marilyn Murphy

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BEHIND THE COVER:

Potato Mountain 615 For this month’s cover story, NATIVE editor in chief Charlie Hickerson and photographer Zachary Gray spent an afternoon with Chef Ralph, the man behind Potato Mountain 615. Together, the trio sold fifty baked potatoes around the greater Antioch area, but more importantly, NATIVE got to know Ralph, the hardest working man in the potato business (or maybe any business, for that matter).

Check out the full story starting on page 34, and, to quote Ralph: “GET U 1 QUIT PLAYING” (and by “one” we mean a Potato Mountain potato and an issue of NATIVE).

PRESIDENT, FOUNDER: PUBLISHER, FOUNDER: OPERATIONS MANAGER:

ANGELIQUE PITTMAN JON PITTMAN JOE CLEMONS

EDITOR IN CHIEF: COPY EDITOR:

CHARLIE HICKERSON DARCIE CLEMEN ROBERTSON

CREATIVE DIRECTOR: ART DIRECTOR:

EDITORIAL INTERN:

ERIN OQUINDO

MARKETING AND DESIGN INTERN:

DANA KALACHNIK

PHOTOGRAPHY INTERNS:

HANNAH LOVELL COURTNEY SPENCER WRITERS:

SENIOR ACCOUNT REPRESENTATIVE: ACCOUNT REPRESENTATIVES:

KELSEY FERGUSON

SHELBY GRAHAM

EVENTS AND ACTIVATIONS COORDINATOR: HUNTER CLAIRE ROGERS ACCOUNT REPRESENTATIVE/ ADMINISTRATIVE COORDINATOR: PAIGE PENNINGTON PRODUCTION MANAGER:

PHOTOGRAPHERS:

HANNAH DEITZ CHANCE JARVIS CHRIS PARTON CHARLIE HICKERSON CAT ACREE COOPER BREEDEN NICK BUMGARDNER DANIELLE ATKINS DANIEL CHANEY ZACHARY GRAY EMILY DORIO

FOUNDING TEAM:

MACKENZIE MOORE JOSHUA SIRCHIO TAYLOR RABOIN

FOUNDER, BRAND DIRECTOR:

DAVE PITTMAN

FOUNDER:

CAYLA MACKEY

FOR ALL INQUIRIES:

HELLO@NATIVE.IS

This month’s Master Platers recipe is reprinted from Ramen Otaku: Mastering Ramen at Home by arrangement with Avery, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2018, Sarah Gavigan with Ann Volkwein.

GUSTI ESCALANTE

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WITH JOE CLEMONS Operations Manager at NATIVE Liquor Name: Belle Meade Bourbon Distillery: Nelson’s Green Brier Distillery Style: Whiskey Food Pairing: Hatcher Family Dairy Eggnog and sugar cookies Appearance: Amber Aroma: Rye spice, vanilla Where to Find It: I like to go to the distillery in Marathon Village so I can pick up some last-minute gift bottles (and a bottle of Single Barrel for my pop).

Overall Takeaways: When I think of the holiday season, I often feel nostalgic for both my Gran and Grandma’s cooking. One recipe I miss in particular is their boiled custard—I’ve never found a store-bought version that I like as much as theirs. And though our family’s culinary grimoire holds the likes of popcorn balls, persimmon pudding, and pecan pie, it doesn’t contain the recipe for that coveted custard. So, left with few options, I began to get curious about another creamy treat—eggnog. Because I’m from a generations-old Tennessee family, we never had eggnog, we only had boiled custard (for hardcore Southern folk, boiled custard is the only acceptable holiday dairy treat; eggnog is considered an inferior, Yankee-fied cousin of custard). In fact, when I recently asked my dad about eggnog, he practically leaped out of his chair and exclaimed, “I never had eggnog one time growing up and neither did you!”

Well, I may get coal this year, because I have a confession to make . . . I recently found, tried, and fell in love with (spiked AF) eggnog. I’d still rather have my Granny’s custard, but since I cannot, I’m excited that Hatcher Dairy makes a concoction

that still manages to take me back in time—even if it’s to a place where eggnog wasn’t allowed. Add a little Belle Meade Bourbon, and you’ve got a oneway ticket to sleepy town via one of the best coldweather nightcaps imaginable. Note: Lots of folks opt for rum rather than whiskey in their eggnog, which as an avid rum drinker, I totally understand.

But Green Brier’s whiskey has just enough charred molasses notes to take care of my sweet tooth, and its robust, rye-induced spice doesn’t get lost in sweeter cocktails. Consequently, this is a (rare) instance in which I’m Team Whiskey. Pair this spiked eggnog with simple sugar cookies, and you’ll feel like Santa—or, if you’re like me, a kid in your grandma’s kitchen.

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The official

@hifibooth

photobooth.

hifibooth.com NATIVE NASHVILLE

RAMBLER ICED COFFEE

BY FREDDY SCHWENK BAR CONSULTANT AT RAMBLER COCKTAIL BAR

PHOTO BY NICK BUMGARDNER

THE GOODS 1 1/2 oz dark rum 3/4 oz Demerara Syrup* 2 oz cold brew Amaro Whipped Cream**

DIRECTIONS Combine the rum, Demerara Syrup, and cold brew in a glass and stir to combine. Top with Amaro Whipped Cream.

*Demerara Syrup 2 parts demerara sugar 1 part water Combine over low heat, stirring until sugar dissolves.

**Amaro Whipped Cream 2 parts heavy cream 1 1/2 parts powdered sugar 1/2 part Amaro Averna Combine and whip slightly, enough to dissolve the sugar but still keep the cream pourable.

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READY TO WEAR AND MADE TO MEASURE FASHION JUST FOR YOU HALF PRICE STATEMENT TEES: USE CODE “NATIVE50” THROUGH DEC 31 100 TAYLOR ST. SUITE C3 - LILYGUILDERDESIGN.COM

YOUR ONE-STOP SHOP FOR ALL YOUR NASHVILLE PIECES

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MASTER PL ATERS

BY SARAH GAVIGAN AUTHOR OF RAMEN OTAKU: MASTERING RAMEN AT HOME

PHOTOS BY DANIELLE ATKINS

SOY-BRAISED SHIITAKE MAZ AND CHEESE

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FOR THE RAMEN (Serves 4)

FOR THE SOY-BRAISED MUSHROOMS (Makes 4 cups)

FOR THE MAZ SAUCE (Makes 4 cups)

THE GOODS

THE GOODS

THE GOODS

2 cups Soy-Braised Mushrooms (recipe follows) 1 cup Maz Sauce (recipe follows) 1/2 cup julienned pickled mustard greens 20 oz thicker ramen noodles, cooked 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese 1/4 cup toasted white sesame seeds, for garnish 4 tsp shichimi togarashi, for garnish 4 slow-cooked boiled or poached eggs 1/4 cup scallion threads (green part only), for garnish

DIRECTIONS

In a large sauté pan over high heat, combine the mushrooms, sauce, and mustard greens and bring to a boil. Add the noodles and toss until coated and the sauce begins to bubble. There should be very little to no excess sauce left in the pan, as it should all be coating the noodles. Remove the pan from the heat and add the cheese. Stir until the cheese is evenly distributed. Divide the noodles among 4 bowls for serving. To each bowl, add 1 pinch of the sesame seeds, 1 teaspoon of the togarashi, 1 egg, and a pinch of the scallions.

2 tbsp vegetable oil 10 cups shiitake mushrooms, roughly chopped 1 cup vegetable stock 1/2 cup soy sauce 1 tbsp sesame oil 2 tbsp sake 1 tbsp plus 1 1/2 tsp dark brown sugar 1 teaspoon ground white pepper

DIRECTIONS In a large saucepan over high heat, heat the oil. When the oil begins to smoke, add the mushrooms two cups at a time and sauté until they’re caramelized, about 10 minutes. Work in batches to ensure the mushrooms have room to brown.

Stir in the stock, soy sauce, sesame oil, sake, sugar, and pepper and reduce the heat to medium. Cook until most of the liquid has reduced. Remove the pan from the heat and transfer the mixture to a sheet pan to allow the mushrooms to cool.

Transfer the mushrooms to an airtight container and store it in the refrigerator.

3 cups vegetable stock 1 1/2 cups soy sauce 6 tbsp sake 1/4 cup dark brown sugar 1 tbsp ground white pepper 1 tbsp cornstarch 1 tbsp water

DIRECTIONS In a large saucepan over high heat, combine the stock, soy sauce, sake, sugar, and pepper and bring the mixture to a boil. In a small bowl, mix together the cornstarch and water to form a slurry. Add the cornstarch slurry in a slow stream to the boiling liquid, whisking constantly and vigorously until the liquid begins to thicken. Remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool.

Transfer the sauce to an airtight container and store it in the refrigerator.

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by CHRIS PARTON photos DANIEL CHANEY

Candid, No Camera With Bad Ideas, vlogging superstar Tessa Violet gets real about music

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SONGS DON’T NEED TO HAVE A MORAL OR AN ANSWER

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“I ACTUALLY HATE BEING ON CAMERA,”

declares twenty-eight-year-old artist Tessa Violet, her casual revelation catching me off guard so completely that I nearly choke on a mouthful of hot coffee.

“What?” I ask. “Your YouTube channel has over a million followers, and it’s pretty much all videos of you.”

“Yeah,” she says. “But it’s so stressful.

On camera, if you look even 2 percent unsure of yourself, that reads as 23 percent unsure, and it’s very uncool.”

The admission comes as a shock—but considering Violet first found fame as a vlogger, perhaps her honesty should have been expected. Starting in 2007 she built a dedicated fan base of more than 1.4 million YouTube subscribers, connecting through quirky, self-produced videos that explore vulnerable themes like depression, personality, and creativity among other deep-thinking bedside topics. There are also homespun song covers and interviews with other social media stars. Back then the name of the game was authenticity, and although she’s not vlogging anymore, Violet keeps finding ways to open up, lately as a Nashville-based pop artist.

With a pair of spring-loaded singles out now and more on the way, Violet is still focused on being her most authentic self— and what’s most authentic musically is a messy-but-charming mix of irreverence and genuine probing of the human condition, with questions about love and self-worth in the wake of a breakup presented as lighthearted, electro-pop earworms. Her upcoming second album, Bad Ideas , puts her gift for bold selfexamination on blast, getting brutally real (in a cheerful way) about the lowest low point of her life so far.

“I had always seen songwriters as these wizards,” she says with a chuckle, speaking over the phone from the cozy, snowed-in paradise of her mother’s home in coastal Maine. “Like, I always imagined songwriting as a kind of magic you either possessed or didn’t, but then I started realizing it was just problem solving. ‘How do I say what I need to say?’”

Violet’s musical side quest began just

five years ago, kick-started when a friend abandoned an acoustic guitar in Violet’s car and moved away. After learning a few chords, she wrote her first song a month later and went on to release a number of embryonic recordings, including 2014’s Maybe Trapped Mostly Troubled and 2016’s Halloway EP. A year ago, she decided to stop putting herself in front of the camera every day, feeling instead like her new creative outlet was a better way to connect. Looking back, she explains that vlogging was her way of learning how to tell a story, and she says her fans have come with her for the most part—the whimsical daydream of her “Crush” music video has pulled in more than 24 million views since it was posted in June.

“I had gone through a breakup, and people were like, ‘Why are you not online?’” she says, explaining her career’s hard left turn. “I was like, ‘Because I have no perspective to offer. I’m just sad and lonely every day and doing things that I know are not really bringing me life, but that’s just where I am.’ I felt like I couldn’t be online with those things, but songwriting is really a safe place to work through that stuff. Songs don’t need to have a moral or an answer, they can just be, ‘This is my experience.’”

Her experience is sure to come through on Bad Ideas. Following a simple mantra while writing—“don’t bullshit songs”— she cautions that most of the new tracks are “devastatingly sad.” But judging from the two tracks out now, that emotional space is only separated from optimism in Violet’s mind by a razor’s edge. All but one was written completely alone, often sitting on the same bed where she filmed so many vlogs, and naturally, the song “Bad Ideas” set the project’s tone. She and producer Seth Earnest had been writing and recording for about a month, Violet says, but nothing was working. Then she went on a date—one of the first post-breakup— and everything changed.

“There was a guy who I felt like I had chemistry with . . . and I was like, ‘I’m gonna invite him to spend the night

tonight,’” Violet explains. “I was like, ‘That is a bad idea—but I’m gonna do it anyway.’”

Violet tells me her sound is inspired by the place where pop and alternative music meet. And on “Bad Ideas,” that means a mix of featherlight beats and theatrical, playground gang vocals pushed up against the innocence of Violet’s voice, with carefree romantic energy propelling the whole thing forward and clever lyrics keeping it interesting.

“Let me say, [inviting my date to spend the night] was only a bad idea because I knew I was gonna get kind of obsessed with this person, as I often do,” she goes on. “But he did, and the next day I was on such a high that I was like, ‘I’m gonna write a song to flirt with this guy.’”

Written in the same cheeky tone that peppers Violet’s YouTube channel, the track opens with the couplet “I hope you don’t think I’m rude / But I want to make out with you / I’m a little awkward, sure / But I can touch my face to yours.”

“As I was writing it, I was like, ‘This is so sweet and romantic,’” she says. “But then it slowly dawned on me, ‘Wait a second, is this sad? I don’t know if this guy is thinking about me at all, and I’m writing a song about him right now. I’m way too invested.’ I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is what this album is!’ It was the first song I wrote that was just so honest from front to back. I [knew], ‘Ok, this is what this album needs to be.’”

Meanwhile, “Crush” explores the more primal side of Violet’s romantic desire, throbbing and pulsating in a way that mimics the heady blush of a justdiscovered infatuation. It represents her first and only cowrite so far, stitched together after months without a chorus by Solomon and Lauren Olds, the alt-pop duo who go by the moniker YACHTMONEY. “When you write what’s true, it comes really easy,” she points out. “Those verses came quick, because I normally write from like 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., but that day it was probably noon and I had just been scrolling through my phone looking at this guy’s Instagram for like two hours. I tossed my NATIVE NASHVILLE

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phone down and said out loud, ‘Ugh! I can’t focus on what needs to get done!’

And I was like, ‘That’s a pretty good place to start.’”

Led by a chipper piano motif, Violet writhes and roils in the recurring theme that she would make a great crush for someone . . . if only someone were interested. It’s an interesting stance to take since she’s already proved people will follow her, but the music biz is a different animal than YouTube.

Explaining that online success actually works against an artist when it comes to getting mainstream industry support (she thinks the big players took chances on early YouTube stars that didn’t work out, which left a bitter taste in labels’ mouths), she says Bad Ideas won’t follow the traditional “rules” of a pop album release. Violet plans to put it out one song at a time in three EP bursts—Act 1, Act 2, and Act 3—only then putting the whole thing together with a prelude and interlude to make a complete piece of work.

The whole project has been financed through Patreon—a paid-content digital platform that allows fans to support indie artists directly in a tier-based system— and when new songs roll out, they’ll be available everywhere digital music is found. But fans probably won’t be hearing this stuff on the radio. That’s okay, Violet says, since it’s not really her goal. Instead, what she’s really aiming for is to play some “huge shows” and remain the same person her YouTube vlogging empire introduced. She still craves the cathartic connection she found online, but since she’s pretty much over being on camera, she’ll have to find it elsewhere.

“I’ve shared a lot in my life and maybe I feel a little more private now,” she says. “Or maybe I just don’t feel as comfortable in that medium at this place in my life—but I may again. This sounds lame, but I write songs that make me feel understood, and it’d be great if the thing that made me feel better also makes other people feel better.”

“Bad Ideas” is available now. Violet will continue to release songs from her second album through 2019.

1013 Fatherland St. 6592 Highway 100 Suite 1

EAST NASHVILLE BELLE MEADE

Courtney Adair Johnson, Scovel

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Ain't No Tater High Enough An afternoon selling potatoes with Potato Mountain 615 by CHARLIE HICKERSON photos ZACHARY GRAY

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I’M SITTING IN AN ANTIOCH STRIP MALL, AND

Chef Ralph of Potato Mountain 615 is late. We’ve postponed this meet-up a handful of times now, and today looks like it might be another raincheck.

“1:30ish now guys,” a text from Ralph reads.

“Slightly behind. Got 50 potatoes I had to get ready but I’ll be there. Sorry.”

At 1:40, I check the battery life on my recorder and take another look at the dashboard clock.

He’s never early, he’s always late / First thing you learn is you always gotta wait. I wonder if I’m the first person to ever apply those lyrics to waiting for a loaded baked potato. As a diabetic, Lou Reed probably couldn’t eat baked potatoes, but I’d like to think he’d approve—or at the very least find it amusing that someone is about to make a potato deal in a parking lot.

------------------------------------------------For the uninitiated: Potato Mountain 615 is a local baked potato delivery and catering service run

by Chef Ralph, the company’s CEO, executive chef, sole delivery driver, and relentless one-man marketing team. Here’s the gist of how PM615 works: spud-craving Nashvillians call, text, or DM Ralph (@PotatoMountain_615 on Instagram— there is no business line or website), who then delivers his signature loaded baked potatoes to you or your business, straight from his Altima.

This, however, is only the tip of the mountain, if you will. These aren’t normal baked potatoes, and Ralph is no normal chef. For $10 (or $12 for a couple of higher-end offerings) Potato Mountain serves head-sized baked potatoes, topped with heaping amounts of everything from Philly cheesesteak to chicken alfredo to taco-style ground beef. There are also breakfast potatoes, potatoes with mac and cheese, “soul food” potatoes with chicken and dressing, and, naturally, potatoes topped with Nashville hot chicken. Wendy’s, eat your heart out.

And while the potatoes are incredible—the Insta bio claims (perhaps not unjustly) they’re the best in the world—Potato Mountain’s success is as much the product of Chef Ralph’s infectious online persona as it is the cheese-laden chicken that drips over his potatoes like lava on a starchy Mount Vesuvius.

If you’re one of the nearly seven thousand people who follow Potato Mountain on Instagram, you probably know the shtick: Ralph posts videos and stories all day every day, letting Nashville know what and where he’s serving. There’s also this sort of candid camera bit he does in some videos, where he asks first-time customers— often mid-mouthful—if it’s the best baked potato they’ve ever had (the answer is always yes). But

most notably, every video is accented by the Potato Mountain call to arms: “GET U 1 QUIT PLAYING.” The catchphrase is on the PM615 merch, people shout it at Ralph everywhere he goes, and his three-year-old daughter even says it.

Today, on a chilly fall afternoon in Antioch, I’ve decided to finally quit playing and get me one.

More specifically, NATIVE photographer Zachary Gray and I are hopping in Ralph’s car for a day in the life of Potato Mountain. Here’s what we saw.

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2 p.m., Top Chop Barber Shop, 50 potatoes left Ralph finally pulls into the fire lane in front of Top Chop, hazards on. He grabs two massive insulated pizza bags, each filled with twenty-five baked potatoes (he declines help with carrying them), and sets up shop by the barbers’ break room.

Top Chop is the biggest barbershop I’ve ever been to, with at least twenty-five chairs making a semicircle around the waiting area in the middle.

Migos’ Culture II is blaring, and ESPN is on nearly all the TVs, which cover just about every inch of free wall space. Inexplicably, there’s one TV showing Friends reruns—I don’t question it.

Top Chop, Ralph explains, is one of his main hubs of business. It’s centrally located enough to where he can simply post he’s there and a good chunk of his Antioch clientele will show up. Plus, as Ralph and a few barbers explain, an operation like PM615 is ideal for hairdressers, who often don’t have time to grab a bite between appointments.

One of the first things I notice about Ralph: having a conversation with him is tough. It’s not that he’s not personable—as most of his online following can attest, he’s quite the opposite. He even describes himself as “a very, very people person.” It’s just that he is always taking orders and always posting.

“A regular shift, it’s eight hours,” Ralph explains while texting. “I’m probably on the phone at least half of that.”

But the phone is only half the battle, of course.

A typical day begins with kitchen prep at 6 or 7 a.m., which gets Ralph out the door around lunchtime with thirty to fifty potatoes. He loads those up, sells them, then goes back home to prep more during rush hour. Around 6 p.m., he’s back out with another thirty to fifty, and he’ll keep delivering until he sells out or is too exhausted to drive.

Between constant phone calls—almost always answered with “Where ya at?” or “Potato Mountain 615”—Ralph gives me a cajun chicken and shrimp potato, one of three f lavors in NATIVE NASHVILLE

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this batch of fifty (there’s also Philly cheesesteak and chicken alfredo, two of his best sellers). I grab a plastic fork and dig in.

Eating one of these things is a beautiful exercise in gluttony. As one customer tells me later that afternoon, “Get you one if you feel like indulging in sin.” They’re every bit as rich and decadent as they appear, with the cheese, butter, and marinated chicken melting in your mouth like a hearty stew.

But nothing—including the potato—is dry or overcooked, and Ralph seasons each variety so that some acidity and spice punch through that mountain of itisinducing goodness. I eat mine down to the skin, but not before Ralph catches me on Insta. “It’s his first time,” Ralph yells to the camera as I chew. “He can’t even talk! GET U 1 QUIT PLAYING!” Now that I’m ready for a nap, Ralph fields a steady stream of orders while explaining how he got into the potato business. He grew up in Shelby Park (“East Nashville, man, that’s where my heart is at”), and up until he was eighteen, he thought he was going to play sports for a living (“typical football player, basketball player, baseball player,” he says with a sigh).

When he realized the majors weren’t calling anytime soon, he moved out to Antioch, where he took a few kitchen gigs at chains like Olive Garden and O’Charley’s. He also laid concrete with his dad’s construction company, but—like Lou Reed—Ralph is diabetic, which makes manual labor a challenge (ironically, it also keeps him from indulging in his product too often). At twenty-two, he had his first of three children. That’s when he realized things needed to change.

“It gave me a sense of like, What am I going to do now? I got to do something, I got to take care of this kid,” he explains.

“I had a conversation with my mom, and she said, ‘What do you love to do?’ And we both knew: cook. That was it.”

Dietary restrictions aside, potatoes are Ralph’s favorite food. “So I just figured, man, I will cook, and everything I cook, I’ll put on top of potatoes.” He experimented with a few recipes, polled his friends and 38

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family on what they’d like to see on top of a potato, and started loading loaded potatoes into his car.

That was two years ago. In the time since, he’s severed ties with a former business partner (the guy left and started selling suspiciously familiar potatoes), sold hundreds—if not thousands—of potatoes, and become a kind of weird local folk hero.

For example, he tells me about going to pinball bar No Quarter, where he was greeted with cheers and sold fifty potatoes in five minutes; or how he regularly delivers sixty potatoes to surgeons and nurses at Vanderbilt. There was even a time when—after Ralph got into a minor wreck mid-delivery—the two cops filing the report got some potatoes. Oh, and the customers Ralph was en route to see? They came to the wreck site to pick up their order.

“That’s how bad they wanted their potatoes!” he explains. “No lie, I cannot make this up!”

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3 p.m., Salon Suites at The Crossings, 40 (ish) potatoes left After about an hour at Top Chop and ten or so potatoes sold (Ralph isn’t concerned with the exact number), we pack up and go to our second destination of the day, Salon Suites at The Crossings.

If you’ve never been, Salon Suites is this massive, warehouse-style building that houses dozens of beauty and cosmetics businesses. The idea is that you can get highlights, a mani-pedi, and makeup done all in one place, and from what I can tell, the idea is working.

Ralph does well at Top Chop, but he thrives at Salon Suites, the barbershop’s hyper-feminine inverse. As soon as we step into the building, he’s off, scurrying through assorted nail salons and beauty shops like a carb-carrying Santa Claus.

And, much like Kris Kringle, everyone is unanimously ecstatic to see him. “I’m gonna be on my elliptical later cussing him out!” says Kenya Hisun, repeat customer and owner-operator of Flawless Faces

Makeup & Photography Studio. “Good shit!” says another satisfied customer.

“He seasoned the hell out of the alfredo,” says yet another. In one of the day’s more surreal moments, we weigh two potatoes on a beauty salon scale and get the message, “o_LD.” We’ve broken the scale.

“When they weigh a potato up, that’s how you know it’s real! We broke the machine!” Ralph says to his Instagram followers.

By the time it’s all said and done, Ralph sells about twenty-five potatoes at Salon Suites. As we’re moving the bag—now we’re down to just one—back to the car, I ask why he thinks people are always so happy to see him (aside from the fact he’s usually carrying ten pounds of deliciousness).

“I enjoy making people laugh and making people smile,” he explains. “And then when I give them the potato, I believe in the potato so much that I talk shit about the potato.” He starts to chuckle. “And it makes them laugh, and it gets them into it.”

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4:30 p.m., 20 potatoes left, Greater Antioch Area To unload these last twenty potatoes, we’re going to do what Ralph does best: straight delivery. We weave through a series of Antioch back roads (Ralph never uses a GPS) and hit a handful of apartments, houses, and assorted strip malls. It’s mainly kids eating before TSU’s homecoming, which Ralph plans to visit during his second shift. Then we’re off to a BP to see a mother and daughter, then to Kroger, where a construction worker sheepishly doubles his order from one to two (!) chicken alfredos at the last minute.

We make one more sale at a different gas station—Ralph goes in and gives everyone there his card, naturally—and like that, we’re out. The sun is going down, Friday rush hour is about to tighten its grip around the city, and Ralph is ready to go home and do it all over again, into the wee hours of the morning.

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6 p.m., Mountain View Road, 0 potatoes left On the drive back to Top Chop, I notice a bag of pee wee footballs in the floorboard— Ralph is his son’s biggest cheerleader (“He’s damn good”) and never misses one of his practices (“If anyone wants a potato at that time, pull up at football practice—where I’m at—and get you a potato!”).

We talk about plans for Potato Mountain’s future—a “hype” food truck complete with live music and dancing, adding more staff, new recipes, and even tours around the country. Ralph envisions a Potato Mountain 901 in Memphis or a Potato Mountain 404 in Atlanta. He hopes “GET U 1 QUIT PLAYING” will be on the signs and to-go cups of Potato Mountain franchises around the country. If all goes according to plan, Chef Ralph will one day be the Colonel Sanders of baked potatoes.

We pull up to Top Chop, and I realize this is what the early mornings, late nights, and endless hustling is all about. Ralph is building an empire—albeit an empire built on chicken alfredo—one delivery, post, and hour in the kitchen at a time. Sure, it’s a little jokey, and sure, he’s not going to win a James Beard nod anytime soon, but that’s not the point. The point is leaving something behind, something that his children and grandchildren can inherit and grow for generations.

“I feel like I’m building a legacy right now,” Ralph explains from the parking lot— the same one I sat in earlier today when I got the “1:30ish” text. “Some days I could be tired, or some days I might not want to do anything. But you know, when I look at it, it’s like, ‘Man, I’ve started something. This is what I started. I can’t run from it now. I gotta keep going.’ When it’s time for me to sit down and take a break, that’s when I’m going to sit down and take a break.”

Maybe that break will come someday, but right now, there’s potatoes to make— and a whole lot of people who need to quit playing.

Best dessert ever!

Potato Mountain 615 accepts orders via Instagram (@PotatoMountain_615) and phone (615.506.5162).

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NASHVILLE’S OWN PRETTY DAMN GOOD WINE

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LITERATURE SPOTLIGHT: Betsy Phillips illustrations COURTNEY SPENCER

I live up in Whites Creek with a good ole dog and a tiny cat. My fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Apex Magazine, among other places. I’m the author of A City of Ghosts and The Wolf’s Bane. My nonfiction work has appeared in the Nashville Scene and The Washington Post. I’m currently working on an afghan made with yarn I dyed with stuff in my life—my life is mostly weeds and Kool-Aid, it turns out. I’m also working on a nonfiction book about three unsolved bombings that targeted integrationists here in Nashville in the late 1950s/early 1960s. Spoiler alert: Racists did it.

When the time came to pick three stories for Jesus Crawdad Death, my chapbook with Third Man Books, my goal was to try to showcase all the different kinds of stories I write—funny, dark and weird, beautiful, and a little sad. I ended up with three stories about revenge. It wasn’t on purpose, but I guess I’m just feeling angry and helpless lately.

“Jesus Has Forgiven Me. Why Can’t You?” is based on true events. Everything that makes me look like a dumbass really happened. The part where I triumph in the end, sadly, did not. At least, not yet.

—Betsy 44

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The following is an excerpt from “Jesus Has Forgiven Me. Why Can’t You?”, one of three short stories from Phillips’ Jesus Crawdad Death. Earlier in the story, the narrator finds out her significant other—a religious, amateur wrestler named Larry—has a wife and children. In this scene, the narrator teams up with Jesus to battle against Larry in a tag-team wrestling match.

Jesus’s outfit is similar to mine, except that He’s in silver from head to foot.

I shouldn’t say this, probably, but the metallic sheen of His outfit gives Him the look of a walking fire hydrant. I wonder if He’d look better with a cape.

We hung out in the locker room through the first three matches and then we were up. When I heard the announcer say our names, I vowed to never let Jesus pick our tag-team names again. The Power and The Glory. I wanted to be The Millersville Mystery. That’s a good, old-timey wrestling name. Right? But I was stuck with The Power.

The match was ordinary for the first part. I was in first, against Hanging Jack, who was a good six inches taller than me, which put him a whole foot over Jesus. Hanging Jack was pushing fifty and had been wrestling forever, so being in the ring with him was more like dancing than fighting. He’d pull me to him, whisper our next move.

Then, if I was supposed to run into the ropes and use the momentum to clothesline him, when my outstretched arm reached his chest, he would crumple so expertly it looked as if he’d been hit by a train instead of barely touched by me. When it was my turn to suffer, when it had to look like he was about to pin me and he rolled me way up on my shoulders, he slipped his arm under my back to give me a little more support. When I kicked out, he moved

away from me as easily as a dancer avoids his spinning partner.

After that, I tagged Jesus in. He and Hanging Jack did their thing for a few minutes and then there they were, face to face, Jesus and Larry. At first, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

Kick, stomp, spear, clothesline, one’s down, then the other, then the first, repeat. But when they’re on the ropes by me, I heard Larry plain as day saying, “Okay, you flip me over your back next, and I’ll sit down and pull you over mine.”

Jesus answered, “I love you.”

I saw Larry shake his head, just a slight movement, like he almost didn’t mean to make it. He thought Jesus was trying to rattle him. And maybe He was. Every time the two men put their heads together, Jesus would say to Larry, “I love you.”

I was trying to concentrate on what was going on in the ring, because even though it’s all planned out, things can go wrong. You have to watch. But still, I stole a glance at the audience to see what they were making of it.

They looked only half-interested. I imagine the loss of local boys to root for had soured their feelings on the match. They didn’t appear to notice the proclamations of love coming from Jesus.

Now, the end of the match was tricky. It called for all four of us to be in the ring together. Larry and Hanging NATIVE NASHVILLE

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Jack were supposed to be ganging up on Jesus, both whaling on him while the ref is distracted or out cold or something. I forget. It doesn’t matter. The point is, that’s when I do my thing.

Everyone’s back is to me and I climb up on the top ropes in the corner and launch myself onto the two men pummeling my partner.

But then I’m supposed to act like I’m knocked unconscious and Hanging Jack will pin me for the win. Finally, I’ll unmask myself and Larry will see that it’s me, which will prove . . . what, exactly? I don’t know. Honestly. “Ha-ha, you beat me,” isn’t much of a victory speech.

But it was a step up from, “You made a fool out of me.”

Okay, so it starts off according to plan. The ref is not in the picture. Larry and Hanging Jack are beating up on Jesus. I’m climbing the ropes from the outside of the ring. The crowd is actually paying attention. The little kids down front are straining to see what’s coming next.

Just as I’m stepping onto the second rope, I see Jesus lean in and whisper to Larry. I think we all know what. And then I’m pulling myself up onto the top rope, precariously balancing as it shifts back and forth under my weight. Larry pulls away from Jesus and says, loudly, “Shut up, you fucking faggot.” The crowd goes nuts.

Some of them are cheering, some of them are booing. A plastic cup whizzes by my head and hits Hanging Jack in the back. It’s about to turn ugly. I still have one hand on the rope. I could just climb back down.

But I stand up, just as Jesus removes His mask. And now a hush falls over the whole place and, since Larry’s half-facing me, I can see that he’s in mortal terror. He is what the Bible calls “sore afraid.”

Is Jesus going to smite him? Do the whole crowd like that fig tree? Everyone is waiting to see.

Everyone but me.

I bend my knees, just slightly, and push off.

Every inch I’m crossing as I fly through the air 48

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seems to take five minutes to go by. I am the highest person in this building and, from this perspective, I can see everything. I see a look of disappointment on Hanging Jack’s face. I see the swallow perched on the scoreboard at the far end of the gym. There are two girls in the crowd, one with new braces, the other with a black eye, who are sharing a bag of popcorn. Larry’s wife is sitting in the middle of the bleachers, her hair like a golden halo, and she’s crying. So is the tiny baby. I realize that Larry doesn’t know what love is. Not when it’s his Lord and Savior whispering in his ear. Not when it’s his wife giving him beautiful children.

Not when it’s me, believing in some best, fake version of him. And if he doesn’t know what love is, then he doesn’t know what it even means to be sorry. Not really.

That’s what I think as I’m slowly, so slowly, floating over toward him. I see every detail of him, his dishwater-blond hair hanging loose, his stormy hazel eyes, that scar on his shoulder that could be road rash, could be a burn, the confused look as he realizes the match isn’t over, that I’m still coming. He turns instinctively toward me, reaches out to break my fall, and I slam into him. We tumble to the mat. Someone’s supposed to pin me. I’m sure of that. But no one else in the ring makes a move.

So I just lay across him, still out of breath from the force of my landing. Eventually, the bell rings, so I guess I won.

Larry’s still laying there, sprawled in the middle of the mat, with his eyes shut, like he wishes he could just die. Poor guy, so many theological problems and his pastor is nowhere in sight. So I put my lips right by his ears and whisper, “It’s not the end of the world. At least now you really do have something to apologize to Jesus for.” And then I take off my mask and he sees that it’s me. He sees me.

Jesus Crawdad Death is available now via Third Man Books.

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Cirrus Business Artist Marilyn Murphy on clouds, surrealism, and her new exhibit at Cumberland Gallery by CAT ACREE photos EMILY DORIO

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OF ALL THE IMPROBABLE TASKS, TO BE AN

artist has to be one of the best. But not far down the list would be the namer of clouds.

It’s a task that began with the first International Cloud Atlas , published in 1896 by the World Meteorological Association (WMO), which categorized clouds by genus, species, and variety. The names are the epitome of lay-scientist delight, with Latin-derived titles that carry their own poetry: cirrus refers to a tuft of hair or bird’s feathers; castellanus conjures the castle of a fortified town. The last time a new cloud type was added to the Atlas was in 1951: the cirrus intortus, or “an entangled lock of hair.” But in 2017, shortly after artist Marilyn Murphy joined the Cloud Appreciation Society, a new type of cloud made history.

The members of the Cloud Appreciation Society, founded in 2005 by Gavin PretorPinney (a former absinthe importer), noticed what would eventually be called undulatus asperatus , or “turbulent undulation,” a low-lying cloud that looks like the underside of a roiling sea. PretorPinney submitted the cloud to the WMO for consideration, and it was added to the Atlas in 2017. Citizen cloudspotters became, improbably, cloud namers.

Murphy’s love for clouds goes back to her earliest roots, to her childhood in Oklahoma at the foothills of the Ozarks.

“My family was always kind of skyoriented,” Murphy says, explaining that her mother could fly planes before she learned to drive. “That’s the only thing my mother ever got after me about. She never said, ‘You need to get married,’ or ‘You need to have kids.’ She’d always say, ‘Honey, I just know you’d be the best pilot in the family.’”

That Ok la homa sk y, f rom its distinct, defined light and shadows to its threatening gusts of wind, has informed Murphy’s thirty-nine years of oil paintings and graphite drawings. Big fluffy clouds are the dominant thread through Murphy’s latest exhibition, Atmospheric Perspective. It’s her seventh solo show at Cumberland Gallery and the gallery’s penultimate show before its closing in the

spring of 2019. In these pieces, cumulus clouds obscure the horizon and any sense of reality, and Murphy’s subjects, posed in their too-shiny American midcentury sensibility, often have their heads literally in the clouds.

“Atmospheric perspective is the way to create the illusion of depth on a two-dimensional surface,” Murphy explains of the show’s title. She is, after all, a Vanderbilt professor emerita of art. “Linear perspective is like railroad tracks going off into the distance.

Atmospheric perspective, you can see easily coming down, say, Hillsboro Road toward Green Hills from town. You can see the mountains are softer, the colors get cooler in the distance. The contrast becomes softer and a little more pale, less highlights, less deep shadows.”

On the afternoon of our conversation, fog has crept in outside Murphy’s Green Hills home, and the hills are hidden. The sky has fallen down on top of us. Inside Murphy’s house—unassuming from the outside, a museum on the inside, or perhaps an asylum for conscientious collectors—every inch deserves a close look. (“We’re maximalists,” Murphy says of herself and her husband, Wayne Roland Brown.)

The “fire room” displays Murphy’s fire paintings against black walls. On the mantle of the intricate marble fireplace are six brass airplane ashtrays (on one balances a cigarette—no, wait, that’s a pen that just looks like a cigarette) and a lava lamp. There are model trains, an animatronic dog made of twinkle lights, and golden logs in the fire. I recently heard about a man who was given visual exercises to repair his sight after peering through a single-lens microscope for many years. Some time spent in Murphy’s home would’ve been a nice prescription.

In the kitchen, Murphy makes a halfdecaf cup of coffee and pours me a tipple of really good gin: “Oh, be joyful, my mother used to say.” Indeed, if there were any words to sum up Murphy’s work, it would be those—or maybe Murphy’s favorite exclamation, “Hot dog!”

To be the namer of clouds seems

fantastical, but no more so than the tasks being carried out by Murphy’s figures, who have previously battled oversize desserts, rolled bocce balls into roaring cane fires, and flown creamers as if they were kites. In Atmospheric Perspective, women in reinforced hose plump pillows, men dive face-first into cushions, and one young woman lounges in the sky. The latter is titled Cloud Nine, referencing an idiom that, Murphy explains, refers to the ninth cloud listed in the Cloud Atlas, the towering thunderhead cumulonimbus—a sight as beautiful as it can be portentous.

“Isn’t that great?” she says. “People are still saying that. They know it means you’re happy. You’re up there.”

It is with tangible glee that Murphy dances between the postwar gloss of midcentury imagery and her own brand of small-town, domestic surrealism. Like a smile pulled a bit too tight, there’s a frisson of disquiet in scenes where people seem a bit too calm to be going about their tasks.

In the hands of a lesser artist, the banality of these classic American tropes would likely feel trite, maybe a little wistful, but as critic Peter Frank once wrote of Murphy’s work, “Normal has sprung a leak.” Apparently, we’re not in Kansas anymore.

“I want a visually seductive image, but on the other hand, I want a little discomfort,” Murphy says. “Is that guy going to fall to his death, or is he flying? . . . The surrealist manifesto was [about] tapping into your dreams for those improbable connections that you don’t find in real life. When I first started [making art], I would have a lot of improbable dreams going on. A brick curtain, a couch with arms. One of my professors said, ‘This would be a lot more powerful if you only had one of those things going on at a time.’ And I thought, Oh, well I’ll try it and we’ll see. And I tried it and it worked.

I’ve become a true believer . . . in setting the stage, a completely believable stage, and then having a little twist or surprise or something curious.”

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entered some dreamscape. Furthermore, the viewer is unlikely to see a full face, as most of Murphy’s figures have been cut off. With no expression or personality to focus on, the viewer is directed toward those improbable tasks—like in some dreams, where people seem to flicker in and out.

What little we do see of those faces is nearly always pleasant, capturing that polish of perfectionism and glamour of Murphy’s parents’ heyday. The 1940s and ’50s were a time of optimism, both real and manufactured, and with an eye to these decades, Murphy collects piles of magazines—Life, Popular Science, and Popular Mechanics—where she has discovered wonderful “visions of the future” such as flying vehicles (the clownish flying contraption in the painting Modern Mechanix comes from some 1935 concept art) and a rather industrious pre–Martha Stewart attitude.

“It’s like: Don’t throw away that chair, you can cut off the top of it and turn it into a side table. Or take that barrel and turn it into a chair!” Murphy says, delighted. “Here are some simple plans for making a plastic lamp! It’s all things you can do . . . Maybe coming out of World War II, the country thought, Wow! I didn’t know we could do that! I didn’t know we could make a difference.

Now, let’s build highways.”

But before we get too romantic about the way things were, Murphy’s surrealism spirits us away. The term nostalgic has been used in reference to her work, but that doesn’t seem quite right.

Her twists keep these scenes from being too rosy.

“That’s one of the things that always drew me to surrealism,” Murphy says. “Mom showed me a little gray picture of Salvador Dali’s limp watches, The Persistence of Memory . . . As a little kid, I looked at that and went, what? I just thought, How can someone have that kind of imagination? I want to think like that too! You 56

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know, a limp watch is ruined. It should be ruined, really. But how fabulous.”

Perhaps one of the elements that puts me most at unease with Murphy’s work is the pervasiveness of the pretty girls, who sometimes seem to play into the madness of their strange tasks, with odd, plastered smiles. Other times they’re apparently naive, caught in a world that’s fallen into the absurd. Murphy agrees with this, in a way that suggests she’s more interested in my reaction than anything else. “[In a show in St. Louis,] I had this painting of a woman,” Murphy says. “She looked like she was in a nutritionist’s outfit.

She had the stove open, and there was a little house in the oven . . . I was giving a little gallery tour, and I said, ‘This is Home Cooking.’ Wayne and I had been looking for a house forever. We had been looking for a year, a couple of years or something. I had wanted a Craftsman bungalow then. So I told that story, my story, and this woman in the group said,”—Murphy drops her voice to a low, threatening groan—“‘That is not what it’s about. That woman is sick of cleaning up after her family, vacuuming the floors, doing the dishes, cooking, doing the wash. She’s ready to take that house, and she’s going to put it in that oven and burn it up!’” Murphy flashes a surprised smile. “And I went, ‘You’re right!

You’re absolutely right!’ It really stunned me, but it was her story, and that’s as valid as my story.”

Clearly, there’s more than one way to plump a pillow. Within Murphy’s world, the shadows and light might be crisp, but the rules are barely defined. Hot dog!

Atmospheric Perspective is showing now through December 22 at Cumberland Gallery.

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YOU OUGHTA KNOW:

HOUSTON KENDRICK

by NATIVE STAFF

There’s a lyric on Oasis’ eight-times platinum debut, Definitely Maybe , that spoke to a generation of disaffected lads in Manchester and will probably end up on Noel Gallagher’s gravestone: “I need to be myself / I can’t be no one else.” While we acknowledge that the elder Gallagher’s work isn’t exactly Poundlevel poetry, we admire the sentiment. There’s only one you, and if anybody doesn’t like who that is, fuck ‘em—you can’t be no one else.

Maybe that’s why we’ve been loving local alt R&B crooner (and sometimes rapper) Houston Kendrick, who is undeniably himself—and no one else—on his debut, Pink. The triumphant mixtape is a celebration of all the traits Kendrick was encouraged to downplay during his religious upbringing in Alabama. It’s eccentric, feminine, and unabashedly queer, just like—as Kendrick aptly pointed out in a recent Instagram video—the color pink itself. On the mixtape, Kendrick touches on everything from

black excellence to young love to the joy of wearing velvet yearround (Killa Cam would approve), and the sound is appropriately cathartic as well. There’s a heavy Channel Orange feel here, plus some big, victorious beats that wouldn’t sound out of place on Late Registration or Graduation (we still miss the old Kanye).

Overall, Pink is a study in joy, self-love, and pride—and in this age of performative cruelty, that gives us hope.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that a guy who loves wearing velvet in the summer likes to hang out at a bar that’s beautiful and lush. “I love going to Old Glory because of how glamorous it feels,” Kendrick says, citing the Soler sisters’ Edgehill staple as his favorite local spot. “It’s so tucked away and intimate—every time you go, you feel like you’re discovering a secret!”

We say the sooner you discover Kendrick, the better.

photo EMILY DORIO

Pink is available now.

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One morning as I was sipping coffee in my living room, I watched two foxes merrily chase each other in broad daylight down my suburban, South Nashville street, into my yard, and nearly to my front door step. It’s not the first time I’ve seen a fox in an urban area. The most surprising was the time I saw one run out from under an ornamental shrub in the US Botanic Garden in the National Mall in Washington DC, just a few hundred yards from the US Capitol. The National Mall may have acres upon acres of green space, but it’s hardly fox habitat (though the bounty of overly bold squirrels may make up for it).

As I watched the foxes in my yard, I wondered what in the world they were doing there. Then I remembered that a small creek runs behind the houses across the street. Beyond the creek is a strip of forest, and beyond that are other streams and forested strips which ultimately connect to Radnor Lake State Park.

Despite Nashville’s growth, we still have a lot of green space, and small corridors like this one in my neighborhood abound.

These corridors serve an important role in connecting larger patches of natural habitat and are crucial to the long-term survival of fox populations among many other plants and animals. But it begs the question, how much natural space do we need to maintain the biodiversity, or diversity of living organisms, of our region? Back in the ’60s, a couple of Ivy League researchers set out to address this question. However, they were working specifically with oceanic islands and weren’t aware that their theory,

called island biogeography, would have much broader implications.

Robert H. MacArthur and E. O. Wilson first cooked up their theory of island biogeography to predict the number of species on oceanic islands. Though they developed the theory to address islands specifically, other researchers have since put the theory to use in other natural systems around the world. For instance, mountaintops with plants and animals adapted to high elevations have islandlike characteristics, as do natural parks in the middle of densely populated urban areas. As can be expected from Ivy League researchers, their theory is dense and backed up by plenty of math and data, but at its core, it focuses primarily on two components of an island: its size and its distance from the mainland. Basically, it says that the number of species on an island will reach an equilibrium that is proportional to the island’s size and inversely proportional to its distance from the mainland. In other words, larger islands have more species, as do those closer to the mainland.

Considering the biodiversity of our region, which includes our urban foxes, swallowtail butterf lies, mockingbirds, Tennessee conef lowers, and many thousands of other living things, the question remains—how much land is adequate to ensure our native populations survive? As you can imagine, there’s not a simple answer. However, in the years since the theory was thought up, a few guiding principles have been established: large

areas are superior to a series of smaller ones that add up to the same size, circular shapes are better than elongated shapes of the same area because circles reduce the ratio of edge to interior area, and corridors are beneficial. Corridors—like the one by my house—are smaller areas of habitat that connect larger areas. They can be as small as a fencerow or as large as a one-mile-wide swath of forest.

The broader application of island biogeography has become more popular among scientists as habitat fragmentation has increased. The most obvious example of fragmentation is a pocket of forest surrounded by an urban cityscape. But other examples exist, such as islands created by the centuries-old act of fire suppression. In the absence of fire, most landscapes will grow into forests, which shade out many of the species that were dependent on higher light exposure. In Middle Tennessee, for instance, we have unique ecosystems called cedar glades which are surrounded by forests. The forests can grow to the point that they sever the connection one glade has with others in the area, making the cedar glade into an island-like ecosystem. This fragmentation of our natural areas poses a threat to our region’s rare plants and animals.

So next time you’re out, try to notice the green spaces around you as islands or mainlands. Appreciate the bigness of Beaman Park and the sanctuary it provides.

But also don’t overlook that small cedar glade or wetland down the street.

*ABOUT THE AUTHOR Cooper Breeden is the conservation coordinator for the Tennessee Plant Conservation Alliance and is finishing up his graduate degree at Austin Peay, focusing on botany and ecology. In the past, he worked in watershed and wetland restoration, environmental education, fisheries management, and philanthropy.

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