A blog falls in the forest

A busier-than-expected final weeks of school have hampered my blogging efforts. Plus, in the struggle to find an audience, I've been less than motivated. I did, however, come up with a brilliant ontological question. Here goes:

What audio recording - one song, one version - have you heard the most in your lifetime?

Caveats:
-Live performances of the recording by the artist count - covers by other bands do not
-Karaoke does not count
-Church songs like "Amazing Grace" do not count unless you've heard a particular recording especially
-Partial replays of the recording count, like in a TV commercial or a movie

My friends and I came up with a lot of good ones, but here was mine:

-Bing Crosby's version of White Christmas

I'm not sure I can back this up, but between Holiday Inn and 27 Christmases, I think I might be close. Comments are for your good ones.

Another Titan Arrested

I only mention the incident with Brad Hopkins because I saw him at the Maryland Farms Harris Teeter just two or three hours before the alleged incident occurred. He was there with his family and did not seem particularly agitated. He was carrying a Louis Vuitton bag on his shoulder - maybe his wife made fun of his purse, I don't know.

Son Volt at Exit/In this Wednesday

This has got to be the most under-promoted show in Nashville in my experience. Neither the Scene nor the Rage made any mention of it save a brief mention in their club listings. And I am at a complete loss to explain it - it's friggin' Son Volt, people!

For those of you that are completely clueless, Son Volt occupies a pre-emiment place in recent rock history. Frontman Jay Farrar along with Wilco's Jeff Tweedy basically defined the alt-country genre together in Uncle Tupelo. UT will go down as one of America's most important bands on their influence alone. When Farrar and Tweedy parted ways, Son Volt was the band who initially enjoyed the most success. Wide Swing Tremolo and Trace are two of the alt-country genres very best albums. Tweedy and Wilco clearly eclipsed Son Volt in terms of popularity after Farrar went solo, but look! Son Volt is getting back together.

Son Volt, people, Son Volt.

Books that will make you mad

Running on Empty, by Peter Peterson, is an account of the terrible mess that the federal government has gotten itself in regarding our federal deficits vis-a-vis the massive increase in entitlements that the federal government doles out. What Peterson doles out is plenty of blame but spares no target, placing both Republicans and Democrats in his sights. It's partisanship as much as anything else that escalates spending, citing the recent $700 billion increase in Medicare prescription drug benefits as an electoral parry that will hurt all Americans far more than it will help a few. Major problems identified include:

• Demographic changes
• Budgeting processes
• Both tax and economic policy
• Government accounting

To name a few. Peterson proposes remedies to many of these problems but insists that action is required now. My hope is that there are some policy-makers who have the guts to make real changes in the next few years. We'll see.

Nashville Celebs are cool too

Well, I missed Paris and Nicole this weekend - "missed" is too flattering, really - but did have a celeb sighting of my own. I said hi to Ashley McElhiney, former coach of the ABA's Nashville Rhythm, at the Greenhouse while I was waiting for a cab. In my opinion, she handled the situation with her psycho boss, the media attention, and the premature end of the season with a lot of grace. I hope she finds another job suitable to her talents;still, I'd hate for Nashville to lose another solid citizen.

If there is one good thing about this whole debacle, it'll provide a lot of fodder for this year's YASNI Awards. I'm crafting my entries now.

Trouble in Midtown

The City Paper is reporting that the owners of Bound'ry and South Street are in a slap-fight over property issues at the 20th Avenue properties. The closing of Chu came as a surprise to me only because the massive investment they made to it was a sunk cost. Their ongoing costs must have been pretty enormous because it seemed that Chu did a steady business. Perhaps it was too much like Bound'ry. Anyway, the property holder was a 50% owner in Chu and my guess is that he wants a bigger piece of Bound'ry and South Street for himself as compensation. My take - that's business, pal. There will be hundreds of mad Nashvillians if he closes the restaurants and I'll be leading the mob.

Spring break has officially begun! All that means for me, really, is 10 consecutive nights of finding trouble where it can be had. Hopefully, it will mean a few good days of blogs during which I'll try to get linked up to the other bloggers in Nashville. I'll definitely be updating a couple times a day.