So, I said I don't like bloated, bombastic, over-produced pop music (never said I don't like pop music per se); and Kazuma said Nashville doesn't measure up to his native Detroit; and you...extrapolated some sort of character flaw we supposedly share? You do have a knack for crafting narratives out of the very thinnest of premises.
I've read many posts about this sort of thing, not just this one. No character flaws have been alleged.
Dude. A few weeks ago I ate dinner in a neighborhood called Brightmoor. It's rundown and the restaurant at one point used to have people standing guard in the parking lot. And do not get me started on some of the places I used to visit on the east side. Or "the hood hood" as one former colleague put it. Then there's the times I've spent visiting West Virginia and rural Mexico in the last few years. I can easily handle grit. I'm not criticizing Nashville because it lacks grit, I'm criticizing Nashville because it's a small city with little to do. It gets a lot of attention for country music and bachelor/bachelorette parties and that's it. At least Detroit, Chicago, NY, LA, and SF can say they have varied music scenes and things to do. Nashville, it felt like I did everything there was to do in a single day, including the nightlife. I mean, at least in the cities I mentioned I can find something different to do. Nashville still felt small when I last visited in 2021, at least in Detroit I can see the changes happening for the better.
Tennessee Williams wrote, "America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. The rest is Cleveland." Detroit and Nashville are *most certainly* Cleveland. I'd argue San Francisco is too, these days.
The best most American cities can aspire to is to be "a nice place to live but you wouldn't want to visit there" and that's fine, actually. I felt that way about Lincoln, NE when I lived there (and I didn't even make the most of it while I was there, frankly). Also: I used to love SF. My friends I used to visit frequently have all moved away anyway, but it still makes me sad to see how it's changed for the worse. NYC probably saved just by virtue of being so ********ing big--even with much of Manhattan overpriced and gentrified, there's still plenty of life in the other boroughs (do I have to account for Staten Island?) and of course the physical infrastructure itself is still something to marvel at. The view of Manhattan from, say, the Williamsburg Bridge at night is one of the grandest human-constructed landscapes in the world.
"Great place to visit but you wouldn't want to live there" is a perfect descriptor for those real cities, to anyone with a family. Kids need school and community experiences that don't turn them weird. That said, earning enough $$ to actually take daily advantage of those museums and restaurants and theatres and jazz clubs -that is, making it worth the cost of living and the lack of personal living/being space- would not be easy for most. I bet most of the people living there aren't benefitting from NY or SF or NOLA. They're just serving food and drinks to the 1%ers while they wait for the big acting/modeling break that never comes.
Industrial's really gone downhill Oh good lord almighty… 🥴🥴🥴 https://t.co/WttM1myFjE— Amy🩷✨ Dynasty Era✨🩷KC Version🩷 (@whateverkc22) April 19, 2024
I got a got a T-Mobile update say remembering a Southern Rock Titan, Dickey Betts takes his final bow. I think to myself, who the F is Dickey Betts? Apparently played with the Allman Brothers. This post could also go to the RIP thread.
I get your point, but just to be clear--I think all too often most American cities fail to deliver on that promise.
I don't disagree, but the three you mention are just too pricy. When you live in real cities (I'll expend Williams' definition to include cities as small as Nashville and Atlanta and Charlotte, because they still don't give children that home/school/church experience), you miss out on so much that shapes your thinking and your . I never rode a school bus to or from school, ever. Someone drove us and picked us up, or we walked. You're a librarian- you work with people and you get tosee and participate in programs held at the library that involve more than checking out books. But in bigger cities, that sense of community is shrinking. I can't imagine what it would be like to have a great FB team that didn't get media attention because the city is too big to care about our youth and the rap sheet covers most of the news. Can't imagine what it would be like to not know what team was next up on the schedule or not care. To have to attend school with Brownsvlle Station-type people who hated their lives so much that they had to go smoke in the restroom to alleviate boredom, or with fashionably jaded future Ivies or near-Ivies who care only about what they're gonna earn when they get out. Cities contribute to all of those maladies. Obviously I place a lot of value on extracurricular activities and hate to see them minimized in importance. I always tell people... "for most of us, HS and maybe college is the last time you can really accomplish something. After that, you're probably not going to remain an athlete or a musician. You're preparing to stay ahead of your bills and to keep your spawn out of trouble. " A 50s with modern technology in every aspect of life and all the music recorded up until today, without the racism, would be an almost perfect world. when I drive to ATL I generally go thru Chattanooga, and to get to Chattanooga, I have to drive thru Scottsboro and South Pittsburg (no H) on a state highway. When you get to South Pittsburg, there's a road sign that tells you when they won state titles. When you get to Tuscumbia, AL, here's a road sign that tells you when they won state titles. My town/city doesn't have that. We're too preoccupied with rockets. No, my town makes Al Bundy at Polk High jokes about the things small-town children still care about.
Growing up, I used to think Detroit wasn't that big and was well, crummy. Part of it being some truth to it (Things like Devil's Night, downtown being a wasteland, the crime) and just the negative coverage. Plus, we visited places like Chicago, NY, and LA quite a bit. That skews it. Took going to Nashville in 2007 for me to appreciate that Detroit wasn't that bad or that small. Quite honestly, if I were to look for a home I'd probably purchase in Detroit, and I do regret not buying in Corktown, which has gone up in value since I worked in the city in 2013. Plenty of cities that are nice to live in and visit once or twice, and that's fine.
In full disclosure, I haven't been to Nashville in the last decade for anything other than to see United play a road game or to get a bass worked on. It's not a big city, and it's a very blue-collar city, which is a negative. Chattanooga and Birmingham are similar. Atlanta managed to avoid that cultural pitfall, but Atlanta's cultural appeal doesn't seem to cross racial lines. An example of that is how whenever United plays Columbus, their game thread has a lot of Civil War references* instead of Civil Rights references, like how they're going to fight Dr. King or AU students or Maynard Jackson. They reference hip-hop and rap and strip clubs. They don't know what Atlanta is. It's Civil Rights Mecca, and was up until very recently one of the centers of young Black political thought. I'm not sure that isn't still the case. We don't have seven or eight institutions of higher learning in New York State, and we don't have five or six in New York City. Or San Francisco. Or Los Angeles. Or Chicago, or Houston, or Miami. Atlanta in many ways is what places like Boston and Philadelphia are to White Americans. It is where many of the Civil Rights leaders were trained and where Dr DuBois fought his cultural struggle against the senseless pandering of Booker T. Washingon. *Yes, I know it's all in good fun of a sort, but at the same time, I don't think they see ATL as the legacies of King, Bond, Abernathy, Jackson, Mays, Gloster, Blake, and a handful of folks that only a few of them have heard of.
And even that part of Atlanta culture may be drying up anyhow. When I was there in the 80s, there was a used bookstore nearby, run by a Nation brother (looked like one, anyhow) that had all sorts of interesting books. A Shrine Of The Black Madonna down the street from there. Jamaican and Ethiopian fast food. A brother selling Journal-Constitutions and Final Calls and fruit and bean pies... all mixed in with local reggae and jazz bands and Black tennis clubs and art galleries... all that stuff is gone now, except one Jamethiopian place that seats maybe eight people... and the area close around the schools has REALLY dropped off. It was never a wealthy part of town but the things I mentioned made it a place where young Black folks from smaller towns and bigger cities could feel at home while at school without feeling like they had to code switch to hoodese we had never used before.
Hilariously, there are several references to the Spider-Man 2 video game in the Comments, because apparently there's a saxophone pickup somewhere in the game, and lookign for it on YT also took them to this video.
I didn't see the bolded before. There was a local band around here that used to do a mean cover of this one Burton had the voice for this tune, for sure.
Toldja I wasn't the only one For decades I had assumed that the bald man on the cover of the Minor Threat self-titled EP was the band's vocalist, Ian MacKaye, but it is actually Ian MacKaye's younger brother Alec MacKaye https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/art...ehind_4_iconic_punk_album_cover_photos-164691
3-set stream at Mezzrow Jazz Club. The players are on the vid title. Not famous guys, and I am hearing it as you do. This club streams at smallslive.com. Fascinating shit. The first several minutes are of the previous group tearing down and the video group setting up- the emcee comes in around 27:00 to quiet the audience and introduce the players. Music at 27:30