SALT 51 Worst of Nashville by thesaltweekly

CORPORATE RESPONSE Beaman, Lee, & Ingram react to the Call

ADSANITY 52 “Maximationships” by @pujoldotcom

THE VIM & THE VIG “Power to The(se) People” charged by Jon Sewell

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WORST OF NASHVILLE SUBMISSIONS “*people who aren’t…” by Anon, “Totes Toad” robbed by Kellie Lemming, “*revision” by P. Mortem, “Worst Metanarrative” edited by @mythomania69 “Worst Dogma” barkeda outta by @hornydogshit, “Worst Reminder that we are Powerless…” grounded by Peter McCarville, “Worst Parking Lot” and “Worst Local Politician” driven by Joe Nolan.

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WORST OF NASHVILLE SUBMISSIONS “Amgios Welcome” (sic) matted by Frank Hand, “Pankration, Pt. 3” spelled out by Joe Nolan, “Worst Worst” powered by @bardboi428934, “Worst Looming Realization” journalism-entried by @gwaragerox2, “Worst Councilperson” voted out by Polyanna McDirt (D5 resident), “Bridge Monster” hung up by John Carr

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PHANTITHESIS 51: The Day the Content Died

WORST OF NASHVILLE SUBMISSIONS A Cheeky critique “Cheeseworld” by the noble Sam August, “Worst Kept Secret” unkept by @riotmom23, “Worst Innovation” renewed by @feelsonwheels, and “Worst Media Bandwagon” re-re-re-launched (?) failure directed by Mr. Rector

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SEXY CENTERFOLD “Certificate of Depreciation” by the SALT staph reflection and YOU

PAINTING WITH THE EYES CUT OUT 51

WORST OF NASHVILLE SUBMISSIONS “Church (St.) of the Friendly Giveaway” raffled off by Barry Cade, “Worst politically empty phrase: ‘Inclusion’” power-tripped over by Richard Tuck, “Worst Cocaine Additive” cut by Roger Thaat,and “Worst Weekly: SALT Weekly” by Lou Treen

“WON: Obazi Fever in an Outdoor World” pitched by Crud Phlegming

TREASURE HUNT by @Stinklinez: “Reflections on my time alongside Patient 57” by Dr. Hooper

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“No Respect for the Customer” scanned by Lebbie Marrow

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“Birdcloud & Kid Rickets vs. the Forbidding Mangelina Brolie” (Spread 4/8) Doug Leonard

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WORDS “Negative Production Internality” by @pujoldotcom

Co(n)-Founders: Alex Lockwood, Daniel Pujol, Jon Sewell Design & Layout: Alexa Sullivant, Ben Snacken, Grant Gasser Cover Art: @pujoldotcom Editorial Board: Stephanie Koehler Prompt for Next Issue: WORST OF NASHVILLE Submit: thesaltweekly@gmail.com Website: saltweekly.com Contact:

@saltweekly

Anonymous Submissions: 507 Hagan St. Nashville, TN 37203 Subscriptions and Extra Servings of Content: Patreon.com/SALTweekly

@thesaltweekly

Power to The(se) People! by Jon Sewell

Y’all this is downright pitiful. Ain’t nobody got time for this

campaign; but here we are in a sad state of affairs in local politics.

It’s a new day for the old guard and a good ole time for the good ole boys. And the courage to come out and really stand for something is diluted like some day old sweet tea left in the sun. The flies are

buzzing around and the bugs are all in the sugar. Im talking about

getting real. Im talking about saying what you mean with at least a hint of sincerity. Lets quit kissing babies, and start kissing some ass! I’m not asking anyone to develop a comprehensive

philosophy- the days of critical thinking have been compromised.

I’m no longer even asking for basic facts-uninformed opinions have turned into soundbites and I’m hungry for more than just one bite. I want a feast! Hell, I want everyone to feast. Lets quit drip-feeding municipal coffers to blueblood native sons and turn on the damn spigots!

Get in there and do some damn work. Get your hands dirty. No more

acting like you got clean hands. Lady Macbeth would be proud as hell. We’re not washing out spots, we’re washing out entire neighborhoods. We’re opening the general funds to the general public.

Its a pay-to-play program and it goes to the highest bidder. The store is open and we’re keeping extended holiday hours. It’s a fire sale, and like our hot chicken, no amount of water will put out the back-end burn.

Who’s the man behind the mask? Who’s the wizard behind the curtain? Who’s the dude under the desk? We’ve gone overboard

getting under the table: and staying on the sidelines means you’re really in the game. We got contractors all over town getting green tags because they know someone downtown. We got vendors getting contracts and giving

kickbacks to get up front. We got affluenza. We got green money from

blue-in-the-face red-handed greed. The power doesn’t run for office. The power

gets appointed. The power finances. The power is omnipresent and determines the parameters of discussion. You think you got a voice? You get one vote on election day- you don’t get

sit-down dinners over donated vino. They got the gold mine- we get the shaft.

Worst of Nashville *revision By: P. Mortem FOR SALE: physical landmarks of Nashville’s history. Culturally significant locations available for immediate destruction all over town including burial grounds, as nothing is sacred! Redevelopment encouraged, particularly if plans are insipid, monolithic, and institute complete disregard for sentimentality. Add-on amenities include reflection pools filled with tears of former residents and dispatching of undesirable humans in residential areas. Proboscis style facial apparatuses for siphoning the originality out of the area available upon request. Call us today, we take unsolicited offers if the price is right! Together we’ll change the face, and ultimately the soul, of Nashville.

Worst Metanarrative Three chords and the “Truth About” YouTube videos. By: @mythmania69

A general mercenary attitude that glorifies the mutation of all human-to-human interaction into service sector power relations. It doesn’t make you sound adult or professional. It makes you sound like Rob Lowe from Wayne’s World dressed like Mike Myers from Wayne’s World. By: @hornydogshit

@totestoad

Worst Dogma

Worst Reminder That We Are Powerless In the Eyes of the Cold, Relentless Universe: The Mourning of What Was Maybe a Beloved Nashville Hot Doggery By Peter McCarville Once a day, every day, all men find the time to look out onto a remarkable body of water and see the water wade from here to there, thinking of what is - thinking of what could be. It would not be unfair to say that one hundred percent of them would have the same simple thought: what has made me fall so short? What wrong turn - or series of relentless mistakes, self inflicted, mind you - did I take that has afforded me this unforgiving dowry of shit and degradation? Words typically fail men in this moment. The harsh realization that mankind has failed, has continuously failed, and will fail in perpetuity for the brief amount of time we have left is certainly one each and every man has daily. And yet? We are still here, wasting away in a pool of our own failures, without a single correction readily available. We are a lame-duck existence, powerless in every way. What mark do we leave? And, for the love of God, what mark would we possibly want to leave? Everything that is, is an undeniable and complete embarrassment to the very idea of existence. We leave no marks, only a miserable stain that reeks of the energy-drink-green piss that has been showered on us by the indifferent universe year after miserable year for millennia. These thoughts were especially amplified for us all this past month, as we’ve had to try and somehow process the loss of Hot Diggity Dogs - a Nashville hot dog establishment I had somehow never known existed until I, caught completely off guard, ran across the news on the Internet. They are but another passerby in the walk of life, carried on and out of view with each step of time. Is it goodbye? Of course. We are all forgotten. Each and everything we experience is forgotten. The good times and bad, the skirmishes in the Middle East, the high-highs of Newt Gingrich’s brief-yetperfect tenure as our Speaker of the House, the look of a lover as they lunge toward you - intimately - twisting your bodies together until it is impossible to know one from the other (yes, I am thinking of one specific lover!). The real question is whether or not their brief time in our minds as we remember them after their passing is something to be desired. After all, our memories are distorted nearly as soon as they’re made, and it is pretty much certain we will dangerously misremember some things about Hot Diggity Dog. We are doomed to fuck with each other’s memories for eternity. We are an irresponsible and selfish world.

with Reagan in ‘68 too! I was red in the face, but we ended up both getting what we wanted. This memory has warped over time, but I accept the various distortions peppered throughout my intense love affair with Mr. Agnew. There’s a big difference between my memories of the former vice president – with his enviable sex appeal and charming pillow talk – and my memories of Hot Diggity Dogs. It’s one I’m having trouble reconciling (I do not mean to talk about my feelings like some type of teen of the 2010’s, of whom I feel compelled to tell you I think quite little).One is tangible, and one is completely based of little bits of information I can get about it from others. The EIB Network is unlikely to provide any concrete details, so I must think for myself, searching for these fleeting reasons. These tidbits are the scratched initials of sweet young boys and girls, long dead, carved in the bark of some ancient tree, as it were. What can I really glean? Everything I can discern is grim. How many people will have this little recollection of me? I will be reduced to what physical things I have left behind. What a spit in the face of my life! I also have vast amounts of power, which can never be accurately measured. And now I have no choice but to go down this rabbit hole of thought with Hot Diggity Dogs and the countless other lives that have come and gone during my years? Yes, I am left with no other option. This is the nature of the man-made epidemic known as humanity. We are complicit in forgetting, or completely unknowing, our fellow living things.

I remember a one night. 1969. Me and Spiro Agnew were kissing and talking about our favorite moments of the previous three Republican National Conventions. I kept blushing, thinking of telling him about how I wanted to kiss

God has done this intentionally, and we are here to profit off of it. What a relief that our struggle will not be known past a certain point, no matter what! Infamy is fake, or at least impermanent. Inflict whatever means necessary to get ahead. It really doesn’t matter, and the only thing standing in your way is not realizing this is the truth. Hot Diggity Dogs is gone - that is a fact we cannot change. But its legacy, to us, will be that it bowed out of our way as we danced to the top of the food chain, pissing in clean water, blowing our noses with big bills (as well as rare two dollar bills and coins) and keeping our foot planted firmly on the face of the middle and lower classes. It is a gift of those close to God to reach this understanding, and to get closer to Him by means of insane capital gains. I would never wish ill-will on a hot doggery, but the money not being spent there now is just more potential money that could be lining my pockets. It is the same in the wild as it is in civilized society, which is to say we eat the dead. It sustains our life. It is a cycle. It is the cycle. Thank God it is so indifferent to us.

Worst Parking Lot

Worst Politician

By Joe Nolan

By Joe Nolan Nashville’s worst politician is U.S. Congressman Jim Cooper. Cooper is a Democrat beloved by Nashville liberals. That said, Cooper, and all those proud Blue Dogs, live only to leech the Left just like the smiling foxes Malcolm X warned us about. A purge must come.

Nashville’s worst parking lot can be found at Trader Joe’s. In the purgatory where Richard Jones meets Hillsboro, horrific traffic management meets Green Hills’ concentrating of the worst drivers in the city. Is a two dollar bottle of wine really worth it?

Worst Worst

The Worst Of Nashville is generally attributed to local dynastic power struggles ignited around social and financial troubles following the 2008 Financial Crisis, adjacent to the unfolding structural problems of feudalism, combined with the chronic anxiety and anti-social scrambling-danger net of freelance gigs which revived interest in Big Data’s claim to the opportunity of a rebooted hot-take on the throne franchise. By: @bardboi428934

Worst Looming Realization

The unintended consequences of lifestyle journalism as hagiography like the blowback subcategories of both higher rent and Proud Boys. By: @gwaragerox2 This epic verse is a journey through wrestling and the alphabet – the West inherited both from ancient Greece. It’s inspired by source material found in the Wikipedia entry “Glossary of professional wrestling terms.”

He’d kicked-out of King’s Road, lost in the Land of Rising the Sun. He’d sucked as a lemon luchador. He’d grappled a chain from low-carder to Main Event; from lumberjack to lucharesu. As a hard mechanic he’d fixed the easy marks. Then he slow-burned the sell to set-off the smarks. He’d money matched monsters and soaked the Muta scale. Never a no-show. Never a night off. He’d no-tell the no-sell to set-off that nuclear heat. Never a pipe bomb. Always a payoff. The ace never needed no paper to paste that pinfall Pop.

The Pankration Abecedarium: A Dirt Sheet Elegy in 5 Parts By Joe Nolan Part 3

@frankhandart

Worst Politician By Pollyanna McDirt (D5 resident) A good example of a person who has absolutely no place in politics, CM Davis’ eight year reign of terror over D5 has been nothing short of horrific. A long winded rambler of garbled ideas, he is likely responsible for more displacement of residents than anyone in the history of Nashville! Davis has worked tirelessly with greedy developers to rip apart every neighborhood in D5 under the guise of “helping his neighbors”. Then, he has the audacity to turn around and act alarmed at the lack of affordable housing... while he himself has been involved in decimating so much of it! The many he has harmed far outnumber the few who have benefitted from his ways, and there is little doubt that most of D5 will look back at him as being a worse CM than anyone could’ve even imagined.

@frankhandart

Cheeseworld By Sam August Of the 480 words included in Cheekwood’s about section on its website, 300 words go toward describing the resume of its CEO, Jane O. MacLeod. The remaining 180 words speak on the actual history and mission of the institution, for which three words must further be redacted: museum of art. Alongside a recent rebranding as Cheekwood Estate and Gardens, something more has been lost other than the word art from its name. Waffling between identities certainly happens in the life of a nonprofit. Economic and political climates change, so too do the sources for funding and the direction to obtain that funding, for which nonprofits are particularly sensitive toward. In Cheekwood’s case however, family programing, event space rentals, and holiday themed events can only be added to a mix of irreversible decisions to supplant the original mission of Cheekwood as a cultural center in Nashville. It goes without saying that Nashville is an almost completely different city than it was just five years ago. All of Nashville’s art institutions have been trying to keep up with this dramatic influx of new audiences. Alongside the Frist with its recent change in name and the State Museum with its new building, Cheekwood has also undergone renovations and rebranding; dropping museum from its title and restoring many of the rooms in it’s historic mansion to their original state. The renovations also included the demolition of several art spaces on the campus and the deacquisition of hundreds of works from its permanent collection. Described as a means to consolid Cheekwood’s focus on art, these moves have actually isolated much of the art experiences on the campus to a single floor in the mansion and it’s aging sculpture trail.

A short-lived stint by curator Gina Wouters brought in some fresh air to Cheekwood’s bland rebranding as an estate this past year, but with her recent departure from the institution there is no involvement in the contemporary art scene beyond the shows that she had programmed one year out. There are steps underway to give the sculpture trail some much needed love and accessibility, however its aging roster of works show that Cheekwood is a rudderless ship in terms of acquisitioning new works. Cheekwood also has plans to host another Dale Chihuly exhibit in it’s gardens. Chihuly will present work throughout the spaces and gardens in 2020 and is a crowd-pleaser for sure. What Cheekwood doesn’t realize however is that the work will offer no antidote to its sterilized narrative. The history of the manor, gardens and family of Cheekwood is only really a story of the rich getting richer. By doubling back and underscoring this narrative, Cheekwood has removed an essential element of relevancy and diversity from its campus. The art programming at Cheekwood is becoming thinner by the day and art is what made Cheekwood’s story relevant - not the story of a family born into richness, or even it’s historic setting, but the art that it placed in contrast and as supplement to that privileged narrative. Recent programming, renovations, and rebranding are only sad reflections of a path that romanticizes the discrepancies between the haves and the have nots. As the city moves forward we will see this gap grow and Nashville’s first permanent collection of art, Cheekwood, will simply become another byword in someone else’s resume.

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Worst Kept Secret Worst Innovation Electric scooters are the future of litter and trash. They are trash as a corporation’s private property that litter my lawn -- while neutering non-private, practical arguments for both better public transit and city planning. They perpetuate a virtue-signaled recreationalization of privatization that disguises the privatization of social, public, commons, psychic, relational, etc. spaces as being supportive of the local business community. Guess I’m a crab! By: @feelsonwheels

Ring fenced dual-zoned real estate rent collection shadow funding the “independent” music industry. It is okay. Those nasty “Majors” are venture capital firms now seeding phone apps. You’re just the music industry now. Drop the underdog mythos. Drop the “pulled-up-by-your-own-boot-straps-inskinny-jeans” thrift store costume stuff. Quit slumming. Go “off brand.” Drop the “This is so organic and amazing. We don’t know how it happened,” stuff and own up to rent collection from creative-class tenants and lifestyle brand-adjacent retail corporations. Or you could you afford development then? By: @riotmom23 1

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Worst localmedia bandwagon:

“Relaunch” of the Nashville Banner By Mr. Rector History of Top-Down Boss-is-Right Classism You definitely -as a matter of being sincerely impressed- tip your proverbial hat to a marketing campaign that has a mostly white mostly liberal ghostly literary crowd praising the return of an entity whose primary defining historical characteristic was its anti-labor, pro-business, segregationist, rich boys-will-be-powerbrokers propaganda machinations. The afternoon paper with an elitist twist seems like a perfect reintroduction into an exclusive political class that has everyone else’s interests in mind? Nashville Banner Digest Intriguingly bizarre in the celebration of the (re)re-launch is the simple fact that the Nashville Banner itself never did digital, and obviously not digital-only. “It existed before the dawn of digital journalism” would provide germane food for thought were it not for the online presence of that newspaper: the Nashville Banner Digest. In essence, what is being revived is NOT the Banner, it’s the Digest. Saying the Nashville Banner Digest is returning certainly carries significantly less advertising and marketing appeal. “That’s the past” would again be a good excuse were it not for the obvious fact that both the Banner and its Digest DIED MORE THAN 20 YEARS AGO. The revival is a marketing stunt for a brand name, roughly equivalent to a Little River Band performance in 2019: NO original members and maybe a couple of dudes that played on a few past-the-prime albums in the 80s or 90s, but riding that name recognition and a naive nostalgia to its nadir. Nashville Public what? Speaking of borrowed branding, the Banner project confusingly unfurls under the creation of a new local media company: Nashville Public Media, apparently needya of another entity or two to loan some namesake legitimacy, as it is NOT related to the longstanding local noteworthy non-profit news outlets, Nashville Public Television OR Nashville Public Radio (which also does digital-only news content among myriad media).

UnDead ReBorn Again Pile of expired flesh oozing out some interesting aspirations, but not respirating yet., even though legally the name finds itself past its expiration, according to a convo between the actual owners: “the ownership of the Banner name is in some dispute. Dobie told [the Scene] two weeks ago that the trademark had lapsed a decade ago, and that he had filed a claim for it. The process “takes about two years. The important question is whether our application is first in line,” he said.1” So, the legitimacy of the project rested on reviving a long-dead ™ and warehousing it? To be fair, if you died twenty years ago you’d probably smell pretty bad too.

https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/article/13055501/dobie-relaunches-nashville-banner-were-in-beta

Certificate of D

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AWA R D E D W I T H P RO U D P R E J U D I C E

I am a painting with the eyes cut out. Place your face inside of mine and show me what you want to see. I am the window with the ears to vindicate your phantasy. When you are outside me, everything is dark, but I can still hear. I hear what you want to show me. I know where we are going. I hang there waiting blindly, but I need your eyes. Mine are only holes; just like my ears, and you’ve been drawn to what I hear. So, enter me and let me see where it is you’re right to be: Open our eyes through the stapled face of singer-songwriter Guy Broman’s show-poster into the negative space of a dark, cavernous cube. I smell energy drink and floor cleaner. I hear short bursts of high-volume, pulsing sound. Yes, we are in a curated craft beer, cocktail bar plus event venue combination -- during a linecheck. Scan the empty bar/venue’s factory-chic bolted beams, concrete floors, and steel-wire fencing. Now, fixate on the opposite wall. Internalize its locally commissioned, artisan graffiti-muraled corporate logos. Yes, they do haunt the walls. Glean their eerie, cartoonish aggressiveness. They oversee our mandatory enjoyment like manic saints in stained glass. Leave this Poor Man’s Bible, and set our eyes upon the band. The drummer is hitting each drum -- one by one -- as directed by an unmoved soundman. He sounds like a bored demigod condemned to apathetically direct a marionette troupe in purgatory. Yes, you’re right -- everyone is about to “make donuts.” The sound man mumbles, “Ok. You’re good to go,” and the bake-off begins with a “1, 2, 3...4!” Watch as the band immediately starts to contort upon our bar/venue’s altar, frantically gesticulating symbolic gibberish while adorned in a mish-mash of archetypal vestments. Their garments and bodily movements broadcast a consumer-consensus’ understanding of historicized commodities such as “authenticity” and “liberation”. They are performing a workplace ritual. Yes. You understand both these large symbolic gestures and the “good look” this band is trying to project at its “money-play.” It is easy to see that there is no transcendent shambolism occuring at all, but mere desperate, masturbatory ego posturing while three ear-plugged bartenders stare down into their phones at the back of our ambiently-lit cube. The band is flailing, bulging, and sweating. Their eyes go wide, then narrow. They depict saccharine whimsey, then haggard platitude. It is boxcar dandy macaroni. They flop like wet noodles oscillating between agonized defecation and frustrated ejaculation of immanence beneath our big top. Yes, you are right -they “just don’t get it”. They confuse “having soul” with having one. They refuse to admit their ritual is a cheap illusion:

That they are merely anthropomorphized egos asserting their mimetic virility in a marketplace of ideas called “infinity.” They can’t tally the illusion like us because they are rotely performing it. Their postured sincerity is a mathematical montage that forgets one crucial element: to barely subvert the form. Any idiot with a shred of business acumen knows: Polite subversion is monetizable because it masquerades as innovation. It is a new consumable. Yet, these concelebrators are too clerical to understand they must rearrange their ingredients to appear born anew. They spout canon. They are pepperoni not stuffed-crust pizza. Though their faith is executed with cynical precision, their lack of agency in maximizing their own market share is naive. They are not mimetically virile. Their information will not reproduce in the artifactual-gene-pool. It will end at the ritual. They only perpetuate its liturgy as a combination of church, consumption, and transactional tit for tat. They are mere placeholders, and their cooperation is fruitless. They merely legitimize the marketplace for others to exploit. They do not profit from it. They groom a business circuit and inform its lifestyle for a customer base. They enact illusion and teach delusion. They are the smoke in a hall of mirrors. There must always be smoke --incense -- in a hall of mirrors, and they are the smoke. Without smoke consumers might see themselves, which is who they tithe to escape through pay-to-play circle jerked catharsis, ecstatically mistaking their obfuscated reflection as somebody else in the fog: You. You know the rules so well you can decipher them, but you are unable to re-apply them creatively. You know the rules well enough to refuse to play by them -- but in bad faith only. For you can sing and dance illusion, but you can’t write it. You cannot read deep enough to subvert the ritual’s implicit permission -- implicit need -- to be subverted in order to replicate value. This “how” will never be legible to you, and that’s all you’ll ever have to sing about: Tallied math; hopeless, callous, tallied math -- sleight of hand without magic. You are a content-creative calculator of social and cultural capital. Your voice is a lazy, pseudo-mystic math equation. It is sirenic glossolalia providing magical-nihilistic coverage for constructed market realities. You’re the squarest of them all. Now get out of my face.

Painting With The Eyes Cut Out #51

Worst Metro Land Deal: Church St. Park Church (St) of the Friendly Giveaway

Worst cocaine additive: Fentanyl Fenta-Nil For Me

by: Barry Cade

By: Roger That

So you know a guy, youve known him for a while, hes gots the goods, the means, he just needs a little break. Well, really, he needs your break, your land. But hes got some land, nearby, hes willing to cut a deal, or so he says in the age old adage. So youre like thats cool I trust you businessguyfriend and theres no need to get an accurate assessment of What youre giving away and its not even your land to trade off. Sounds bonkers right? Thats Mayor David Briley trying to trade off Church St Park to Tony Giarratana, one of the richest developers in Nashville responsible for some fo the most whatever tallest phallic glass clad reinforced concrete feathers in a cap downtown and trying to work an angle that now includes a fake-ass citizens group which somehow is pushing for the transaction. Of coursem thank god for the diplomatic yet aggressive methods used by local urban developers, landscape architects, and green space common area enthusiasts by politlely demonstrsting that giving awaypublic resources for private profit might not be exactly an execution of a fiduciary obligation to look out for the well being of the citizenry.

Visiting a friend of mine in the mid-aughts in Portland who had resettled there with the rest of his popular hardcore punk/ metal band (because hey thats where the punks migrated if not Austin) i obviously wanted to party since we hadnt caught up in a while. When i asked about getting a powder bag (as was tradition) he was willing to help score but couldnt partake because up there it wsa foten cut with aspirin and allergic was he. So we got into some (actually at that time legal) trucker speed instead which perked that night right up nicely. Energetically reliving that allergy, made me think of simpler times when coke was still itself ethically a bummer but when your humanity kicks in after several beers and a line is laid out, you snort, or even better when youre in the back bathroom at the original HiTone and a fat key gets busted out you take the bump, say thank you so much, and then dive deep into all of lifes questions and somehow manage to solve them or at the very least produce two dozen possible solutions in great emotionally charged uplifting detail. But chances were even when you got some decent blow you also got a decent dose of something else: possibly some local numb the gums benignness or possibly if youre on tour some cheap texas speed sold as coke but you cant tell the difference after a while anyway.

But you cant fault a guy for trying? Well except for that whole PR push in the 1990s when the Downtown Public library was running on the message that “A Great City has A Great Library” with that oublic space in every rendering as the front porch of an active downtown library scene. Sure it bears more than its weight in homeless folks killing time, but the solution to that problem is to give away the entire park for less than its worth to an old friend? BOO on that land deal.

Worst politically empty phrase: “Inclusion” A politically trying cultural class Empty Inside By: Richard Tuck Transparency. Accountability. Objectivity. Fairness… INCLUSION. Everyone wants it… or they want to say it, to say they support it, to support saying it. “Inclusion” implies the act of bringing in, an action on the part of the already-included extended to those helpless souls outside the circle, a gracious action of charity by the privileged extended to those who need help, because they cant help themselves. The focus of “inclusion” then becomes the privileged, thanking themselves for their own grace. In practice, it embodies demographic tokenism from the perspective of those in control, the powerful checking boxes of their own selfless goodwill, with the aim of legitimizing their own status of already-included: The hero demonstrating their noble thoughtfulness. In Nashville this includes a large swath of the privileged electorate, the tastemakers, the press hot takers, and even a mayor’s office (the latter certainly having admirable goals). When confronted with new approaches, methods, political ideas of an unusual nature, the already-included circle the political wagons. The estates (2nd & 4th mostly) line up to protect the structure,reminding the un-included of how the invitation system works. “Inclusion” separated from physical identity manifests itself as fear of the unknown: a mocking of the outsider, a shooting of the messenger to shelter and support the primary statement: “Inclusion” is at the will of the already-included, and a gift from the entitled.

Nowadays? The ethical problems for the drug supply chain have been multiplied about as terribly as the cut itself. Unless youre some downtown lawyer rolling with the group-trip judges with a central american connection, youre getting some gnarly nug of white evil: a heavily addictive narcotic synthetic opiod that is 50-100 times more potent than morphine. Yeah, 100x morphine. This aint DeQuincy’s or Holmes level stuff, it will kill an entire population and is now polluting the illicit drug supply and whats even worse than knowin its potency level is not knowing how much is in that powder bag. Even if that white powder had an ethically allowable level of transaction in its supply chain, the next danger could be of the “caveat emptor” category: you dont what the hell youre getting and now you may inadvertently be in league with the evil behind the opiod crisis as a co-conspirator. The good money says that if you got the connect to get a powder bag you probably can get a suitable alternative as well that doesnt have the nasty side effect of bringin you down psychologically when you wanna get high physiomentally.

Worst weekly: SALT Weekly By: Lou Treen What class of confused losers starts a periodical where “weekly” is in the name of a bimonthly? Try to wrap your head around the insane idea of a project that knows its own deathdate BEFORE ITS EVEN BORN. Universe creation? A year in the life at the edge of the asteroid belt? Between Mars & Jupiter? These aren’t premises they’re pretensions. Blocked by local culturati, welcomed by a new literati, the seams seem to stitch up poorly. Loose clothes on skeletal attempts with no skin in the game? GET OVER YOURSELVES.

“WORST OF NASHVILLE: OBAZI FEVER IN AN OUTDOOR WORLD: AN UNINEBRIATED REVISION” Crud’s Corner by Crud Phlegming

There, in some far off and other worldly dimension, I am certain that the omnipotent author of the distorted minds and patched bodies inhabiting that place would harken unto this pleading request, “With great respect and humility I, your loyal servant, request that you send a legion of baneful seraphim to pillage and obliterate the crude and atrocious gimcrackery called ‘Rainforest Cafe’i- signed Crud.” Alas, the omnipotent author of this reality ignores the distressed cry that breaks from my fragile lean-to and echoes upward off of the walls of an “Outdoor World” until it is smothered by the heavy and permeating silence that has come to life here in this empty expanse, inside of which I have found myself unwittingly trapped. As if programmed to do so, that damned, kitschy hell hole instigated my drunken spiral out of it’s faux paridisal squeeze and into this wild darkness of conscious thought and clouded memory. My six year old Beignet was awarded “City Wide Best Macaroni Portrait Artist”. Thusly, we went to Rainforest Cafe to celebrate. His mother met us there and she informed me that she was taking Beignet back to New Orleans for “a few months”. It’s my fault for agreeing to the custody clause “Mother retains right to appropriate child indefinitely at whim.” Now asking myself the question “How did I get here, inside of this camo colored, Coleman constructed, nylon nightmare”, my gaze drifts lazily down and I find the answer when my eyes meet a nearly empty glass holding the cafe’s signature “Cheetah Rita” cocktail mix. I remember now that I had been disheartened by the whole affair involving Beignet and I chose to console my riotous mind in the extremely effective embrace of about six of these concoctions. However, the embrace gradually and imperceptibly morphed into a scornful chokehold after my ninth. I was asked to leave. And so began the unholy tryst between the Cheetah Ritas and the “Jurassic Tid Bits” I had eaten. This created a roiling in my stomach so great that I was forced to take refuge in the nearest place deemed appropriate by an abominably intoxicated journalist. I somehow snuck into this sham of a tent display, in a berth accessible only by the most unreasonably tenacious ass holes, where I remained unnoticed even past closing. Seven years seems like no time at all. I was exploring the winding alleyways somewhere off of Bourbon Street. I was lost in the best possible sense of the word and so I had no qualms at all about being led around yet another unknown corner by a most entrancing whooshing sound. I was then enraptured by the beautiful and equally peculiar scene playing out on that Big Easy street corner. The lulling green light that suffused the enchanted retreat had mixed with some sewer vapor to create a kind of shimering sphere around her, as if attempting to contain the gypsy queen’s truly explosive energy. Her name was Gumbo Roux YaYa. I found her juggling crawfish and spinning plates, occasionally enticing a few bucks out of the wallets of passers

by. With an intense grace that you could almost taste, she moved as instructed by the musing sounds emanating from a portable stereo sitting on a crab trap next to her. Sounds that were birthed from the mind of the other element integral to my tale of inebriated woei-iObazi. Obazi, the Djibutian rainstick virtuoso whose new music has anomalously struck a phantom chord within Nashvillians, resulting in the collective self described “Obazi Fever”. I thought that I would never again hear the name Obazi after my relationship with Gumbo Roux had ended. Obazi’s music seemed to be the soundtrack that played softly behind every pivital moment throughout the early years of my first real love. Now, it feels as though Obazi is leading a cruel resurgence of bittersweet memories meant to crush me. The recent rise of “Obazi Fever” in combination with my disaster of an evening involving my ex was just to much for me to bear.

OFFICIAL OBAZI ALBUM REVIEW

Obazi is nothing more than a grody, slum bred, self-proclaimed “virtuoso” of the planet’s most counterproductive instrument. There is nothing impressive or remotely engaging in the headache-inducing sound of cheap beads spiraling down a dirty bamboo tube held together by spit and mud. I wonder... if I dropped hand fulls of gravel down my gutters, would it inspire a fervent fan craze like the one we see in Nashville? With only six tracks (one a cover) and a runtime of about thirteen minutes, folks are being taken for a serious ride here. Onto a display of fake caribou next to my tent, I have now most literally hurled my roiling “tid bits”. My chunder appears to me to be the physical manifestation of the animosity that our omnipotent author is suggesting I purge lest, by it’s toxicity, I am vanquished.

MORE OFFICIAL OBAZI ALBUM REVIEW

I want to say that there is nothing more to be gained from the rainstick than the vaguely enjoyable ordeal of turning it 180 degrees while in some gift shop, but the truth is that Obazi has given us a new, remarkable and nuanced experience of an instrument who’s potential now seems limitless. I want to say that the runtime is an insulting waste of our time, but it’s a testament to succinct and poignant storytelling that leaves you wanting more. I want to say that Obazi is the WORST OF NASHVILLE, but he just might be our savior. His sound has introduced some much needed exotic color to our town. On my personal review scale of four to lithium, Obazi receives a glowing golden plum. This drunken journey inward while trapped inside of an Outdoor World has turned out to be just the sort of self pilgrimage that I needed. The intimate connection between my first love and Obazi has made me despise his music. This is true. However, it is also true that his music is nothing less than transcendent, and that is really what makes this whole experience so much worse. For me, Obazi Fever is the WORST OF NASHVILLE. “When you see water flowing uphill, it means that someone is repaying a kindness.” - African Proverb. Maybe this emotionally fueled writing can serve as my way of saying, to a beautiful and incredible soul, thank you. Do you catch a fever? Catch the fever at bandcamp/obazi.

ruth could have arisen among them. - Friederich Nietzsche The intellect unfolds its chief powers in simulation. In man this art of simulation reaches its peak: here

Stink Linez Treasure Hunt

Reflecting On My Time Alongside Patient “57” by Dr. Hopper

times, I have found myself entrenched in my own narcissistic ego bog, tucked away in the corner of my imagination. However, I am always rescued by the sweet, incredible memoryii of “i57i”. iiThis memory is indelibly etched upon my mind. Greatly misunderstood, both me and LouisiI. (57) faced similar closeminded criticism. We were transfixed by the complex arciana and iimagic at work under the fragile veneer of life. This fascination, to all others who would look toward us, appeared as madness. For example, 57 would say that he enjoyed visiting the land of the dead. iiFolks would laugh at that like they would laugh at Micky Mouse, but 57 was no caritoon. Unearthing the secrets of life demands perspective. Most think they know. They’ve no clue.

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ZONE OF SELF DECEPTION

@istink linez

a mask, hiding behind convention, playing a role for others and for oneself -- in short, a continuous fluttering around the solitary flame of vanity -- is so much the rul

deception, flattering, lying, deluding, talking behind the back, putting up a false front, living in borrowed splendor, wearing

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No Respect For The Customer By Lebbie Marrow

The boy sank into his chair. He felt down, so he stabbed his fork into and ate three extra pancakes. He wasn’t going fishing today because school started on Monday, and Grandmother proclaimed that no grandson bearing her last name would start school in the dirty grey, ragged underwear that his mother had allowed him wear. She said she doubted they’d ever even seen water, much less bleach. What if there were a wreck on the school bus? He would forever be the dead boy in ragged underwear. So, today, while all the other boys were fishing, he would be shopping for drawers. The boy exhaled and reached for another pancake. The boy didn’t kid himself. He knew he wouldn’t be missed. The other boys didn’t really like him, but they did let him hang around. Sometimes they called him names, like “Lardo,” but being with them beat being alone or being with Grandmother. Besides, Johnny Cagle had even started sticking up for him a bit since the boy saved Johnny’s dog from choking. The dog got an acorn stuck in the back of his mouth, and the boy had swept the dog’s mouth, and popped it right out. The boy had learned how on an episode of Benson. He loved Benson, and had even pretended at one point that Benson was his long lost father. Of course, that was before Grandmother had discovered that WTBS out of Atlanta had begun broadcasting The Andy Griffith Show reruns at the same time as the local channel ran Benson. Now that she had cable, Grandmother could watch Andy four or five times a day. The boy heard the whistling of the closing theme song and braced himself. He heard the tap of Grandmother’s heels moving towards the kitchen. “Aren’t you done eating yet?” she began, “I sewanee you are going to be a big as a hog by Christmas. We will have to put an apple in your mouth for family picture!” The boy wanted to tell her that she was no Olive Oil herself, but he didn’t. He picked up his plate and took it to the sink. He washed it and put it on the drainboard. Then he went back for his glass. “ I hope you appreciate all I do for you - all this. I mean - it’s not like you are my youngin’. Throwing pearls before swine that is what I say about your momma - pearls before swine. I hope you will be less of a swine than she has turned out to be. She took after her daddy’s side, no fear of God in ‘em. But at least she knew who her daddy was...she had that over you.”

The boy said nothing to Grandmother. He felt her eyes running over his black hair, his carmel colored skin, and it made him feel slightly sick. “I will never understand your momma,” Grandmother continued. “ I set a righteous example. But she was just like her father. She ran off with that drummer and the next thing I know, I get the call that she’s dead and here you are.” Grandmother paused. “Why, sometimes at night, I have nightmares about the shame of it all. I dream I accidently flip on one of those sinful music videos,and there is your momma, back from the grave, shaking and cavorting for all the world to see.” Grandmother shuddered. “Well, hurry up, boy. Don’t stand there like a stupid cough drop. Get your jacket. I haven’t got all day.” It was close to ninety degrees outside, and the boy didn’t need a jacket, but he put one on anyway. It was hot in Grandmother’s car, and the boy began to perspire. He shifted in the sticky seat. He knew better than to attempt to roll down his window. Grandmother had just had her hair done. Upon their arrival at Castner Knott, Grandmother announced to one of sales girls that she wished to see the manager. “Is there something I could help you with?” the girl asked with a rehearsed smile. “If you could help me. I wouldn’t have asked for the manager. Now stop wasting my time, girl. Tell him I will be waiting in the boy’s department, and I don’t have all day.” The boy followed Grandmother as she walked with her nose in the air towards the boys’ clothing department. She stopped near the underwear rack, crossed her arms and began to tap her foot rapidly. “People have no respect for the customer anymore,” she said to no one in particular. An older woman dressed in a mauve pantsuit approached the boy and Grandmother. “Good afternoon, I am Mrs. Woodbury. The store manager is not available, but I am happy to assist you.” “Well perhaps I should just take my business elsewhere,” snapped Grandmother. The boy felt his face turn the same color as Mrs. Woodbury’s pantsuit.

Mrs. Woodbury smiled through many years of retail experience. “ That is certainly your choice, but I am happy to help you in any way that I can.”

She lightly laughed and turned to Mrs. Woodbury, as if to say, “kids!” Grandmother felt like she and Mrs.Woodbury had shared a private joke.

“My grandson here is in need of some new underwear.” “Very good,” answered Mrs. Woodbury. She pushed her glasses up on her nose as she looked at the boy. “He appears to be about a size 14.”

The boy stepped outside of the curtain. Mrs. Woodbury tried not to look at him.

“He most certainly is not!” Grandmother retorted, as if the woman had suggested the boy was half wooly mammoth. “The boy is ten years old so he should wear a size ten. End of story.” Mrs. Woodbury took a packet of size 10 white briefs from the rack and handed the package to Grandmother. Grandmother tore the package open and directed the boy towards the dressing room. Mrs. Woodbury began to object, but Grandmother planted herself and declared, “well, you certainly can’t expect me to buy them before he tries them on, do you? No sooner would I get them home than they’d be defective or something, and then I would have to take time out of my day to bring them back here- and probably get an argument about my refund while I missed out on my Andy Griffith.” Mrs. Woodbury waved her hand in a grand gesture towards the dressing room. The boy walked through the curtain. He knew they wouldn’t fit. He took the underwear out the package and stretched one of the pairs. He waited a few minutes, studying the stains on the dressing room walls. One of the them looked like the shadow of duck. Then he shouted through the curtain, “They don’t fit.” “I”ll be the judge of that,” said Grandmother. “You get out here and let me see that underwear.” Mrs. Woodbury looked shocked and quickly scanned the department. It was largely empty, but a woman with a baby in a stroller was approaching. “Surely that isn’t necessary-” Grandmother cut a glance at Mrs. Woodbury that actually frightened her. She wondered if it was wiser to stay with this woman or to go the register and call for security.

“Well, I sewanee,” said Grandmother as she popped the waistband to see how much “give” the waistband had, “I do believe we need that size 14. He’s fatter than I thought he was.” With that she told the boy to hurry up and get dressed because she didn’t have all day. That night, right before it was time for Andy Griffith, Grandmother put supper on the table. She was complaining that supper was late because the boy was difficult “at the Caster Knotts.” She was eating quickly to catch the beginning of Andy Griffith - she did not believe in eating in front of the television. She believed meal time was sacred family time. When boy reached for a second helping of stewed chicken and dumplings, Grandmother smacked his hand with her fork. “On no siree!,” she began with a mouthful of chicken as the theme song from The Andy Griffith Show began to play on the television in the living room. “Don’t you think after the way you embarrassed me and my name today in that store that I am going to -” Her last word was cut off like someone had hit a disconnect button. Grandmother got a funny look of surprise on her face. The boy knew what choking looked like; he remembered it from an episode of Benson, but he had no intention of sticking his fingers in Grandmother’s mouth. He watched as her face went from mauve to red and her eyes bulged. Her hand released her fork and it clanked to the floor. Her neck stretched out almost like she was trying to sing, and then her head fell face down in her plate. A large piece of stewed chicken flipped up off the plate and landed in her hair, all spread out like an ornamental flower. The theme song from The Andy Griffith Show concluded on the television in the living room. The boy put the extra serving of chicken and dumplings on his plate, and then another. He walked to the living room, sat on the sofa with his plate, and switched over to Benson. He would call 911 once his program was over.

Back in the dressing room, the boy pulled on the underwear. It pinched his legs and hurt his stomach. It rode up his crack. He pulled it down and tried very hard to hold everything in. He walked back to curtain and stood there. He still had his shoes and socks on. “Well come out here boy, so I can make an assessment. You can’t expect me to walk into a male dressing room.”

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But now you are here, and there’s no words. Just what you can’t unknow. The creative spirit whispers into your ear. It babbles glossolalia there is no language for yet, but you are tentacled with tongues whipping new sounds. They crawl out your tongues into new words. Thousands crack and paw around trying to know them. You thrash and strobe through infinite, grotesque faces who vomit parallax with each silvery flick. Its babble is your awe. Go. Unlearn and rebuild.

You can critique something without resentment. You can dislike something without bitterness. You can appreciate something without enjoying it. You can question something without knowing its answer. Do not be ashamed that you question displaying the gratitude

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benevolent human spirit of creativity -- you cannot unknow what you know. Though, you could forget if you tried hard enough. Or became tired enough. Or zombified by ritualized despair, and this despair would remind you or kill you. We hope you do not forget that nothing is inherently anyway ever. Everything is malleable and your biggest obstacle is the systematized failure of human imagination. We want you to not unknow. Now, untangle the habits dug deep into your brain. Where the pang once labelled “Heaven,” was rebranded “Hustle.” You obeyed that pang. Because you were addicted to stress. And shots of relief like Pavlovian reward.

audience

live in and beget despair. You will become just another object in a world of objects, seeking to maximize gains with a limited, prescribed scope of possibility and desire; a cloned actor performing a rational actor’s lossy copy of itself. You will mute this creative spirit as it shrieks and struggles to breathe. But it will not die. You will torture it and yourself. You cannot unknow that the wielder of this desperate, perverted, bizarro simulacrum of humanity’s creative spirit will -- at best -- be an anthropomorphized ego with aesthetic preferences that others do or do not gain power from by association, etc: A soulless anthropomorphized ego whose infinity is archived mimetic ejaculate. This is disappointing and boring whether or not it is “just the way it is.” You’re not here to debate mass-customized metaphysical futility. You’re a fool in love for loving. You’ve felt the positive, unfettered, Through darkness, I came upon a void. I followed screaming and I followed singing until I came upon it, swirling like a drain. It stood like a door, but swirled like a drain. It was a door-drain populated by a mass of orbital bodies suspended in fluorescent ectoplasmic soquid.

Millions of beautiful saturnine beings spun moaning in ecstasy, agony, or both, but grew silent -- in concert -- as they noticed my approach. They began to whisper and twitch body languages at me.

The beautiful saturnine bodied beings floated clockwise and reached for me while contorting

Negative Production Internality is

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people taught to celebrate? Horrible, inflated, feverish caricatures of “big” ones? What are their virtues? How do you write for that audience? Do you want that fictional general population to like it? Who do you write for? Do you loathe their stunted sensibilities? You asked those questions. You found the answers wanting. There was nothing left to sing about. But then you walked off the job. You pushed any goon out of your way by the face that tired to keep you there. You swam through their parting faces until you were outside. Then, you remembered the world was bigger and all feelings weren’t flat. You became an unpredictable, feral lovemaker that crawls on ceilings. You are now a terrifying angel churning against hell on earth without a single face. You cannot unknow. This creative spirit cannot dumb itself down to instantly gratify an tyrannical now. If it tries try to -- you will both

Thank you for your support. Without you, none of this would be possible. (You)

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you? Will you lose everything if you stop scrambling at the implicit tempo of a newsfeed marketplace? How much subconscious socioeconomic calculation can you stomach as a creative being? No one knows what the numbers “mean.” Where in the process does work and labor no longer become art or even mere craft, but content and commodity? Is that point pushed closer and closer to the starting point by urgency milking dollars? Does solvency define value? Is life different than career? How much of you is a career-amoeba swallowing death up an obsolete ladder? How much of you has become an amoral self-maximizer because the secular dogma you live by is free market animism? Did you praise and worship it with big feelings? How many of your relationships were silently understood as mere business-networking? Were you more of a square than you thought? Is everything Sunday in the Prosperity Scarcity Church Of Free Market Animism? Was heaven financial stability? Was salvation dollars? Did you write godless hymns? Everyone skries what the numbers mean. Are supply and demand determined by the kinds of people we are taught to be? What feelings are those

Sneaky Pete

suggested by middle manless robber barons. You are not an ingrate. Do not be ashamed you prefer experiential joy in a flow state over attention and applause. It is okay to make the market wait for you to gather your dignity. You don’t want to only sing about working faster. Do

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You are the next, clutched fool to join our undead community of entrepreneurial ghouls.

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