Early 2016 love-hate letter to Nashville, Tennessee, my beloved-behated-off-and-on-again home of over a decade before moving to California. This is not an appropriate read for PC police. Indulge with a sense of humor and a grain of salted meat, otherwise don’t read it, pig. And don’t look back or you’ll turn into a pillar of salt.
The mayoral reign of Karl Arsch Dean, Reich Minister of Propaganda to Nashville, was coming to a close. He was catching hell from the anti-establishment East and the industrial West he propagated from irony and stole. Somewhere underneath his trail of breadcrumbs there was still a "Music City" that musicians could afford, but it required musicians be relocated to facilities on the outskirts of town.
Initially black, brown, gay and mentally ill people were sent across the river along with musicians to the East Side ghettos. Eventually we were all forced to leave the metropolitan city via Ubermensch and Lyft rails. When it began, none of us knew entirely what was happening. We were forced to wear the Star of David Bowie after his untimely death. We were forced to ask our parents if they had at least one Bowie tee in the attic or maybe that closet in the guest room? Our parents were forced to FedEx us these shirts, and we wore them whether or not they had holes. But it got really bad when we realized all of our girlfriends had knitted anarchy stars into their old jeans we were forced to wear by the fashion gestapo. Whoever said men wearing girl jeans was cool was not cool.
How could we be the illustrious trendsetters again? Tattoos had become commonplace; we'd already been through every incarnation of hair and facial hair pro quos; we'd revamped fashion-music, one decade-per-year from the 1920's to the 1990’s and now we had run back into the present state of meta-meta. Masculinity had taken a foothold as the "norm" and we'd sobbed grievously as they laughed our eye-makeup-wearing predecessors back to Never Never Land. What were we supposed to do? Our dicks just weren't as big as musician-dicks in the 70’s, and nobody liked our makeup anymore. Sometimes I wish I'd just hopped on that train… Who knows? It could've been headed to Funky Town.
They bated the musicians by appealing to our most primordial desire and insecurity: vanity… the achilles vein… of vainness. We joined forces, first NY then LA then Austin then… the order doesn't matter. Nashville was represented and Nashville had another firm hand on the loins of modernity, because after all, Nashville is Music City. Everybody knows how important we are. We’re really important in the music world… right? Yeah, really important… so we put up "Anarchist's Meeting" flyers all over Music Row and Berry Hill, knowing musicians would respond to this obvious misnomer, and they did. Because we’re not just morons, we’re oxymorons. We didn't put signs up in East Side. We’re fairly certain we know everybody there. Anyone who doesn’t hang out in Five Points doesn’t matter anyways.
In many years of protest and satire, only upper-middle class, straight, white people became PC gestapo, for all the oppressed populations of the world had a deep rooted sense of humor. Macs are better anyways. All I ever wanted was to be a real boy, but it was laundry day, and I put on my girlfriend's jeans… To this day, it sends shivers down my spine and up into what used to be my balls. I now coyly call them ovaries, or don't I? Do I? Is that a joke? Does it look like I'm smiling? After wearing skinny jeans, I only sing Tori Amos songs, or do I? Do I even like Tori Amos? I’ll buy you a drink if you can get these pants off. Seriously, I can't get these pants off.
The Reich Minister had "saved us" somewhat from chewing on the bubblegum housing-blow on ZerbrochenenBlasenNacht. The city of Nashville looked like a thriving metropolis under Arsch-Dean, but the repercussions of his actions were large statues of guitars everywhere with no more working guitar players able to afford to live in music city. The recording studios were demolished to make room for hotels and more guitar statues. Working landmarks, legendary recording studios and music venues were knocked over to make more room for high-rise condominiums decorated with musical emblems and treble clef-shaped ornaments painted on park benches out back for homeless working musicians to sleep on.
We were forced to Google the definition of gentrification, out of embarrassment, after our keyboard player friend said it 5 times at Portland Brew, and then we truly understood. East Nashville used to be, what wikipedia referred to as “cultured." There were, like, black people, brown people and other shades of black people and brown people too. Apparently “culture” is why East Nashville used to be a desirable place to live, and without the melting pot, there was no longer any “culture.” We feel more compassionate now that we know that, and we're proud of ourselves for thinking about it for a few minutes before refilling our cafe mocha lattes and posting about how not racist we are on the Facetube.
I knew it was getting pretty sick and savage when they started recording all of our names on a long list… the guest list at Basement East, because this new generation is always conveniently broke, despite $50k cars that seemed to appear spontaneously from Daddyland, and let's not even get into how or why they happen to be in possession of that '67 Les Paul, or that Strat over there, or this 335 that George Harrison played on a really great song you've never heard, or this massive pedalboard and all these amps they "stumbled into". They only don't have money when money is "a thing." We're just glad we have friends with as desperately requisite needs as ours whom actually live within the city limits of music city. They'll be conveniently broke next time we put on a show, and we'll put them on Schindler's List too. By the way, I thought "Getting Pretty" put on a gnarly show, but I still think "Sick & Savage" killed it. We do music for causes so that the expansive world of East Nashville sees that we have lots of altruism, which is why we love spreading our vast knowledge of life and especially music, and we can tell you for certain that altruism is not a form of Alzheimer's or autism or Auschwitz cuz we wiki'd it as soon as our keyboard player friend said it 5 times at Five Points Pizza. That basil one with olive oil is delicious.
To this day, Davidson County residents claim ignorance to the mass exile of talent from Nashville Metro. What was once a loud scream quickly became flaccid and eventually succumbed to a cesspool of mediocrity. Some top-ranking musicians actually worked with the Ubermensch and Lyft-off-schwitz rail service in the final days of talented Nashvillians. There's no denying new locals could see the exhaust smoke on the eastern horizon as their talent drove away. Those brave Uber-Lyfters were the last known talent to occupy Nashville's musician-designated ghettos.
The music ghettos are now being sanctioned for "project demolition: gulch-overflow," commonly referred to as "yuppidy-yuppidy." Music City seems to have discovered some frantic need to house young men wearing Birkenstocks with ankle-socks whilst tucking polo shirts into Khaki shorts. No one's quite sure why these young men are important, but their spray-tans and triceps tell a story that words cannot. They seem to spend a lot of money, yet they never seem to actually do anything. They all have the same haircut and dialect like southern California made an ass baby with rural Texas. Is anyone hungry?
In celebration of Tennessee Pride Day, yuppidy newcomers celebrate Nashville’s own President Andrew Jackson by forcing what’s left of the local population to walk long distances, slowly dying and crying. High five. Trail of breadcrumbs. Darwin just told me why gazelles travel in flocks, and I made sweet love to a lion. It's a long story. Hanukah ma-tits-r- BREAKING NEWS!!
Wait for it… Wait… It's breaking news, but your newscaster isn't prepared… Wait… There’s a delay… Here it is!… Nevermind… 90’s kids will always spell nevermind as one compound word, why?… oh well, whatever… Wait… this breaking news is important though!… Here it- "We've interrupted your regularly scheduled program because it's a new show on prime time and it got shitty ratings 5 weeks in a row and be sure to watch the new season of the smash hit television program, “Nashville,” and also Nashville is building a nuclear rocket. It's going to be a big shiny rocket look like penis in sky make big loud explosion noise and fly like ubermensch.
{Mayor Barry: 'Perhaps you've noticed there have been 749 cranes visible on the Nashville skyline for 12 years now? Yeah? Well, It's time to let the world know that they're actually space probes.’}
Mayor Barry seems to be standing by her promise to full disclosure in a press conference this evening. The Nashville mayor gave many details on the previous propaganda ministration's communication with the extraterrestrial species, 'DIErxs7bntls,' whom planted a single sperm in the cervix of a halfwit in Arizona in 1975. Apparently, the only reason for their choosing this particular woman's cervix was that she had recently married and changed her name to Bentley, which somewhat resembles the last five characters of the species' name. Under false pretenses, the woman allegedly promised her alien captor to coax her unborn son into believing he was a talented musician, despite the godawful noise. She claims the alien father insisted she name her son Dierks, which resembles the first five letters of the alien species' name. It appears the anarchist mud truckers and scientologists had it right all along. The Great Peasant-Feces Deity we worship doesn't have the voice of an angel, as he yodels piglatin like a fart in the aether. Not only is he not our creator, he's as narcissistic and grotesque as we are, and we want vengeance. The woman who birthed the feigned demigod from her anus has taken to Twitter, saying she was duped into believing she'd been impregnated by God, and she wouldn't have endured the 'fingers on a chalkboard voice, if you can call that music,’ had she known Dierks Bentley was half Peasant-Feces Deity. It's hard to say how the alleged fans of Dierks Bentley's alleged music will react to this alleged news.
In other news, Haydren Penerentierre, from the smash hit television program, "Nashville," has taken to 2nd avenue with a mostly full bottle of rumpleminze and a peach-kiwi daiquiri with a little umbrella and a fruit basket straw, giving the AP an official statement: "shaliens cumin. Yeehaw." Dierks Bentley has yet to comment, as no one's entirely sure if he's still in the galaxy, but his halfwit mother wants you all to know that she was a devout Christian from 1975 onward, and she's recently posted pictures to her Twitter account that look to be edited in Microsoft Paint with a logo so unique and antiquated no one can tell it’s actually just a stock font called Papyrus. Here’s one now… It seems to be… It's… It's Ave Maria with two alien cocks and balls for eyes. Mayor Barry is redirecting all of Nashville's local funding toward the "Mission to Ascension." Tom Cruise is now publicly supporting "Mission to Ascension" after his private assistant, to whom he refers as his "private eye,” misread the quote. I'm being told he's jumping on a couch again, but presumably without the provocation of love. The ghost of L. Ron just shit in the woods. The ghost of L. Ron is now wiping his ass with an oak leaf and cursing himself for not having brought a napkin or a tissue. Tom Cruise is now masturbating to a Dawson's Creek poster he pulled from underneath the guest bed, and it's hard to tell which person he's eyeballing. It’s a sea of cowboy hats bobbing up and down 2nd avenue where crowds have gathered in celebration of Peasant-Feces demigod Dierks Bentley, yodeling “Dierks!” and chanting “Scientology’s real y’all.”
The rocket for vengeance has Nashville residents selling and trading all three of their resources: corn, billboards of famous musicians, and condominiums for rich assholes who are no longer rich enough for L.A. Hats off to Uncle Bob, we Gone Country y’all. The state of Tennessee is reallocating all of its federal funds towards the project, and all banks based in the state are now being forced to foreclose on all loans above $1,000.
{cutaway to Local Smyrna Resident, Wilbur “Wily Willy” McWilliambury eating a tortured meat on rye: “Ah thank we shud newk'm. Ah stand bah mah cuntry ‘n mah state ‘n mah seedy too. Ah know Gawds own mah sad, worthe'r 'not he's uh alien. Wur 'gratest. Fuck'm aliens. Ah say newk’m dierks!”}
The federal government has refused to pay the state of Tennessee, citing an IOU written by Tennessee’s very own President Andrew Johnson. He’s celebrated on Tennessee Pride Day with public lynchings and cabaret-style bowel movements on Lincoln’s face, using the 13th amendment as toilet paper. To add insult to injury, 80% of all personal loans in the state of Tennessee were made for $500 dollars or less. This isn't good news for th- I'm getting word in my earpiece now that black people are being rounded up on commerce street and auctioned off at extremely reasonable rates. You heard it here first, folks! If you've ever been curious about the brown sugar and/or were ever incapable of moving your yard gnomes to the other side of your yard, you can purchase a black man or woman to do with what you will, for $500 or less. Honestly, I feel sorry for all the people missing out on this great deal. You know deals like this won't last long. I'll keep you updated on the "labor market" and how and if this city can build a rocket equipped with a nuclear warhead capable of reaching the Sirius star cluster, effectively destroying all Dierks and Bentleys from Genesis to Revelation. Mayor Barry is now campaigning in Mississippi with the catch phrase, 'Demigod-dery or Demagoguery?!' with an outcry of support. Mississippi changed its state motto to, “Birthplace of the color blue,” under which fine print reads, “We was so gawdawful tuh ‘em n____s they created American Music. Oppreshun rox y’all. Yeehaw.”
This is the kind of movement America needs! Look at how excited I am. As a newscaster, I've just waited for the perfect moment when everything goes to shit so my daddy will see me on TV! It’s like when the weather guy excitedly exclaims, “I sure hope the tornado isn’t huge and destructive, nudge nudge, wink wink.” I AM a real boy! Goddam you, Geppetto! Now back to your regularly scheduled program.”
The city is demolishing everything it can to make room for these admirable Birkensockers, Polo-tucking, culture-less voids in time and space. The Ministry of Prostitution aka the “music biz” is ordering a shipment of 3,000 saran-wrapped blond girls to be boxed and shipped over for these newly arrived young men to harass, fondle and rape in their spare time. These blonds can also dance provocatively and lip-synch auto-tuned euphemisms for sex. This is the voice of a generation speaking. Who needs art? This is entertainment. Am I right? Handslaps. Yeah! Yerrr! Yerrrrrr! Yerrrraaa! Fuck, I love testosterone! Fuck you, you wanna fight?! Fuck you! You're fucking ugly! Faceslaps, bitch! Ha! Whooooooo! Fuck everyone, I’m the shit.
Sociologists hypothesize that the Propaganda Minister's insistence on disallowing true musicians and real artists to participate in the city's growth led to people with blond hair and blue eyes and certain body types and facial structures to pretend to be musicians and artists while true musicians and real artists were forced to pretend to be non-musicians and non-artists, moping about town in dress pants with briefcases pretending marriage and mortgage are fulfilling. Others simply "turned" Aryan to gain speaking rolls in propaganda films such as the aptly titled, smash hit television program, "Nashville,” starring Hayley Penterhair. Upon intense questioning about his involvement in the “modelesque-blond-blue-eyed-only" referendum, he replied, "Art is… and it isn't… So, you see, where w- BREAKING NEWS!!
"We're no longer sorry for interrupting your regularly scheduled program. This just in: Blond-haired, blue-eyed, non-musicians now make up the entirety of the music industry and the entirety of Music City, and Mayor Bentley just tore down everywhere Elvis recorded and Johnny Cash and Neil Young and Emmylou Harris and all the legendary venues and that other legendary studio, and culture is officially proclaimed “dead on the vine”. Long live culture! Five guitar statues have been erected in memoriam of culture. In addition, a treble clef-shaped pool is being built on top of a skyscraper condominium. As it turns out, all is fair in love and genocide and gentrification and hell…"
In other snooze, all 7,000 of the music industry’s award ceremonies honoring itself are being held in Nashville tonight. The lawyers who own the music industry must hand out awards to themselves or else musicians might realize the industry doesn’t actually do anything for musicians.
{Cutaway to Haylin Partentard from the smash hit television program, “Nashville,” looking off into a scattered sunset as though she's pondering something more significant than we’ll ever know… D as in douche-canoe… A as in ass-honkey… B minor? Gee golly, that’s it! Dare I say, that’s all that’s necessary! Why did anyone ever try to do anything more with music? Four chords and hook, I declare.}
{The Introduction of Michael Jackson's critically acclaimed #1 hit single, 'We Are the World,' begins to play on a wax cylinder flipping between 4 camera angles…. Wax cylinder from stage right… Wax cylinder from stage left… Wide angle with Questlove's hair visible and wax cylinder in backdrop… A naked picture of Jennifer Lawrence, then curtains open wider and the floor separates from center stage outward to unveil the pit… “omg, it's the real live, totally real, super awesome, Nashville-Smyrna-Murfreesboro London Philharmonic.”}
{crowd applause.}
{a famous conductor who nobody's heard of walks in from stage left}
{crowd applause.}
{Nicole Kidman walks onstage in heels, bu-}
{crowd applause.}
{Nicole Kidman walks onst-}
{crowd applause.}
{the way she's walking with the heels and her dress dragging th-}
{crowd applause.}
{Anyways, it looks painful.}
{crowd applause.}
{Nicole Kidman walks onstage, but it takes too long to get to the microphone.}
{Nicole Kidman is being instructed to walk off stage.}
{crowd applause.}
{A hologram of Frank Sinatra appears over Nicole Kidman as she's tripping on her dress.}
{"Eh, Sammy?!"}
{crowd applause.}
{Nicole Kidman is on the ground}
{"Eh, Sammy?!"}
{crowd applause.}
{audio/video/hologram techs are having a hard time re-synching}
{Eh, Sammy!Eh, Sammy!Eh, SammySammySammySammySammy}
{crowd applause.}
{crowd applause.}
{cutaway: Marky Mark with a tough, smug grin that says, "see, I have a sense of humor and I'm better than you" -exactly the role his publicist cast him in. Good job. Keep up the good work!}
{Dean Martin's voice: 'Whiskey!'}
{crowd applause.}
{cutaway to Gwen Stefani speaking about the tragedy of James Dean's untimely demise.}
{Sinatra's voice: 'Dean's drinkin' applejuice!'}
{Nicole Kidman is carried out on a stretcher}
{Sinatra's hologram introduces Herdania Pententeeare from the smash hit television program, 'Nashville'}
{crowd applause.}
{Herder Pentundrum from the smash hit television program: "I'm, like, it's not what like it should be, but it's all totally should be. I believe!"}
{crowd applause.}
{Sinatra's hologram says, "you got a song for me or what?!"}
{crowd laughs historically.}
{cutaway to Leonard Cohen in his bedroom.}
{cutaway to Jennifer Lawrence. She's taken off her dress, and is now attempting to reenact her most famous scene as a naked girl who took photos of herself. She’s posing now with Bradley Cooper.}
{Harlem Parthenon from the smash hit television program, “Nashville,” begins singing, 'We Aren't the World'…}
{crowd applause.}
{Sinatra hologram pops up stage right}
{crowd applause.}
{Sinatra hologram begins singing 'New York' while 'We Aren't the World' is still playing.}
{crowd applause.}
{Michael Jackson hologram appears, stage left.}
{crowd applause.}
{overlapping Kanye West Hologram appears, stage left}
{crowd applause, jeering along with roaring applause.}
{Kanye West Hologram says, 'fuck the world'}
{cutaway to Beyonce leaving, but it's a long hallway… }
{slo-mo replay of Beyonce leaving…}
{again...}
{same shot, but somehow Jay-Z is sideways}
{Jay-Z is walking on the ceiling… Seriously. There's no ropes.. Jay-Z is actually walking on the ceiling.}
{Kanye West's hologram is bitch-slapping Michael Jackson's hologram.}
{Hardees Puntheair from the smash hit television program, “Nashville,” is singing,'We aren't the world'…. 'No, we're not children’}
{crowd applause.}
{Sean Penn pops out of a papier-mâché tree onto a raft and begins saving children.}
{crowd applause.}
{Both screens are now a mirrored video of Sean Penn outdoors saving kuala bears, and the real Sean Penn is still onstage in a raft}
{Jay-Z is now taking a shit on the audience from the rafters}
{Jennifer Lawrence is now blowing Bradley Cooper.}
{A hologram of Jay-Z is getting really irritated with the real Jay-Z shitting on him.}
{Hackhole Pennetipear from the smash hit television program, “Nashville,” is still singing, "we aren't… so aren't is too…"}
{The real Kanye West’s pulley drops on cue, but the tech is also blowing Bradley Cooper now, so Kanye West is dragged across stage}
{Kanye West flies in with angel wings and slams into a wall.}
{The Ratpack holograms have gathered upstage right, and are debating existentialism. Dean is silent, because he's always secretly known.}
{Michael Jackson's hologram is also blowing Bradley Cooper now.}
{Leonard Cohen finally got to sleep.}
{children are being thrown at Sean Penn, and he's caught all of them so far.}
{The show is now being dedicated to the memories of Nicole Kidman and Kanye West.}
{There is now a hologram of Nicole Kidman tripping onstage}
{There are now two holograms of Kanye West, and they're both blowing Bradley Cooper now.}
{Sean Penn just dropped a kid.}
{The show is now being dedicated to the memories of Nicole Kidman, Kanye West, and Macaulay Culkin}
Hades Prematureheir from the smash hit television program, “Nashville,” is still singing, 'we are the girls, we are the pilgrims… we got referrals from auld lang signs before we killed them}
{Jay-Z and the Jay-Z hologram are both shitting on the audience from the rafters now, and somehow Jay-Z's hologram is shitting real shit}
{Marky Mark is also blowing Bradley Cooper now}
{the famous conductor that nobody knows just broke out with Ludvig's #9 and the crowd points to the rafters synchronistically screaming “nein!”}
BROKEN NEWS!!
D as in douche-canoe. Ode to Joy. Music City isn’t any longer. Kumbaya. After the mass exodus of talent from the city during the Musicolocaust and the tearing down of all its historic music landmarks, the new Tennessee state bird is ‘an outline of a guitar on a bench' and the state’s anthem is Mudtruckers Volume 14. ‘The Athens of the south’ motto was shortened to, ‘we heart trucks,’ and what’s left of the true musicians and real artists of Tennessee will be happy to serve you today, and would you like to hear the specials?
Nashville Mayor, Dierks Bentley says, “If you see 'em 'tard-fags, kick'm, ya'hear?! Give'm uh swift southern kick'n 'er tard-fag-dick. Yeah! Yerrr! Yerrrrrr! Yerrrraaa! Fuck, I love testosterone! Fuck you, you wanna fight?! Fuck you! You're fucking ugly! Faceslaps, bitch! Ha! Whooooooo! Fuck everyone, I’m the shit.”
As a last means of survival before the city was completely taken over by talentless pricks, the French made love and smoked cigarettes in black and white while a Phoenix album snuck its way into the English airwaves, under the English Channel in an Uber rail, where a dude emailed it to that halfwit in Phoenix, AZ and then he emailed it to the U.K. Anyways, that uniquely French mediocrity sounded so similar to every other song of the twenty-teens, Lightning 100 decided to play it once per hour every hour for 3 months until Nashville finally rebranded itself "Freedom City," which pissed off the French so much that they did absolutely nothing. After the Sanders' invaded the East, a wall was erected called The Cumberland River. The West responded in kind by dropping their new nuclear weapon on Japan. They said they were aiming for the Sony building, but they missed and they're sorry.