March-April 2014 by The East Nashvillian

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PUBLISHER Lisa McCauley EDITOR Chuck Allen COPY EDITOR Nicole Keiper

CALENDAR EDITOR Emma Alford

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CREATIVE DIRECTOR Chuck Allen

STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Stacie Huckeba

ADVERTISING DESIGN Benjamin Rumble

SOCIAL MEDIA Nicole Keiper

ILLUSTRATIONS Benjamin Rumble, Dean Tomasek

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Melissa D. Corbin, Timothy C. Davis, Jeff Finlin, Randy Fox, Jon Gugala, James Haggerty, Eric Jans, Jennifer Justus, Tommy Womack CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Eric England, Dave Cardaciotto INTERNS Victoria Clodfelter, Emily Hunerwadel

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©2014 Kitchen Table Media P.O. Box 60157 Nashville, TN 37206 The East Nashvillian is a bi-monthly magazine published by Kitchen Table Media. This publication is offered freely, limited to one per reader. The removal of more than one copy by an individual from any of our distribution points constitutes theft and will be subject to prosecution. All editorial and photographic materials contained herein are “works for hire” and are the exclusive property of Kitchen Table Media unless otherwise noted. Reprints or any other usage is a violation of copyright without the express written permission of the publisher. Correction: Correction: In our Jan | Feb issue, page 34, we reported in the Citizen Award Nominees category that Carol Williams “served on the boards of Historic Edgefield and ReDiscover East!” In fact, she was the chairperson of the ReDiscover East! Codes and Zoning Committee for two years but never served as a board member. We apologize for the error.

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THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

COVER

WHERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD? Who knows? But it looks like a complicated road ahead By Chuck Allen & Timothy C. Davis

FEATURES

TANGLEWOOD TALES

Movie stars, outlaws, a Playboy Bunny and high society—the cabin by the Cumberland has hosted them all By Randy Fox

HIGH ADVENTURE

Todd Jarrell has been there, done it, and brought back the story By Randy Fox

A WHOLE LOTTA EGGS

Jennifer Justus sits in on the non-stop race-to-the-finish that is brunch at Marché By Jennifer Justus

VIVA LA EDUCACIÓN

The founders of Lockeland Elementary Design Center celebrate 10 years in a new East Nashville By Jon Gugala

TARRICK LOVE

Home builder, reality television star By Jon Gugala

ON THE COVER

WHERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD Illustrated by Dean Tomasek

CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

EAST SIDE BUZZ

18 All AMPed Up (and nowhere to go)

In Business News ... By Eric Jans

By Chuck Allen

COMMENTARY

23 My Nashville Peers 96 East of Normal

12 Editor’s Letter 14 Astute Observations By Chuck Allen

By Jeff Finlin

By James “Hags” Haggerty

By Tommy Womack

IN THE KNOW

Know Your Neighbor: Ernie Chaires By Jon Gugala

Artist in Profile: Adrien Saporiti

71 Cookin’ in da Hood 73 East Side Calendar By Melissa D. Corbin By Emma Alford

By Jon Gugala

PARTING SHOT

Chuck Mead Photographed by Dave Cardaciotto

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EDITOR’S LETTER A ttention Deficit Disorder

lthough some of you may find this hard to believe, I’ve never been on the listserv. That testament to fair-minded, civilized conversation has been deemed dangerous to my mental health by the power-that-is, Lisa. Usually, whenever it’s suggested I do (or don’t do) something for my own good, the contrarian in me takes over and does the opposite. This doesn’t make me unique, just human. But in this case I’ve followed her advice. As a matter of fact, I’ve gone one step further: I stay away from Facebook. Not entirely, mind you. I look in occasionally to make sure my home page is as I left it, but I’m definitely not a daily consumer. I keep thinking that one day I’ll get back on and spend the time needed to really set my profile up as a

“

again, I suppose I’m lacking in the virtual cojones department, preferring instead to take the easy way out and tell someone how I feel to their face. Maybe that’s why the furor over residential development has me perplexed. You’d think that every neighborhood meeting citywide would be packed to the gills with people demanding that their voices be heard. I’ve been to a few of these lately and can report that attendance is meager. Those who do attend usually have a vested interest—a so-called “two-plop” three-story duplex being built next door, or a subdivision planned across the street—but they’re also bearing the burden of anyone who cares about the character of the neighborhood. Even the developers I’ve spoken with find it hard to understand. That’s not to say I don’t understand the anger and frustration boiling up here in the ’hood. It’s not the architecture, per se. Most of the two-plops would be perfectly acceptable given the

Maybe we all have some sort of

”

urban-residential-proportionality index

rattling around in our collective psyche telling us these

“duplexes”

are spoiling the vibe of the street.

monument to my greatness. It seems these days I’m not really bona fide without numerous social media profiles enumerating all of the wonderful details of my puny little existence, as if it legitimizes me as a worthy participant in the human race. Strangely enough, though, there are aspects of Facebook I actually like, but I’m afraid if I say them out loud—or in print, as the case may be—kid-billionaire and his cronies will decide those things are unprofitable and nix them. Call me superstitious. I thank the Great Architect of the Universe every day that we have Nicole handling social media for the magazine. Without her wonderfully fabulous talent I would definitely be in the psych ward. By gosh, I think you should go “like us on Facebook” right now. I know Nicole would appreciate it. So would Lisa. And those 10 or 20 new “likes” would justify my existence by proving that my editor’s letter is widely read. One of the cool things about my job is being exposed to snappy new words. Actionable. Communicative. Analytics. Semiotics. Using effective and affective in the same sentence— it’s like slumming with a cadre of Google strategists. Still, it beats hanging out on the listserv all day anonymously berating people I don’t know about things I know nothing about. Then

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

proper setting, and some of them are really nice. No, it’s the context that has people bent out of shape. Maybe we all have some sort of urban-residential-proportionality index rattling around in our collective psyche telling us these “duplexes” are spoiling the vibe of the street. I would even say the same holds true for those responsible, but they must be employing a specialized type of cognitive dissonance, egged on by memes like “density” and “profit margin,” that makes them immune to the existing street vibe. Populist outrage has its place, to be sure. It can elevate public awareness of issues, and when it’s at its best populism can be a call to action—guerilla marketing for the public interest, if you will. The problem, especially these days, is sustaining the public’s attention, and, therefore, its dedication to the cause. Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the Enlightened Ones understood this, and must have foreseen the 24/7 news cycle. Which is why we live in a republic rather than a true democracy.

This illustrates the limitations of populist outrage. Affective slogans don’t always translate to effective leadership, and that, my friends, is what we sorely lack.

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2/12/14 10:16 AM

{ ASTUTE OBSERVATIONS } for the

E ast Side ...& beyond By

James “ HAGS ” Haggerty

Homogenous Domicilius

eing a bass player for hire, a good workday for me is one spent either in town making records or on the road somewhere playing live shows. Since September, I have spent the majority of my days on the road. From the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts, up and down the east coast and out west, it was an amazing fall, full of music and long drives through colorful scenes of harvest time. Now February is coming to an end. Just as I enjoyed an extended autumn, I have also experienced a full dose of Old Man Winter. Chicago, New York, Boston, Pennsylvania: snow. Not the pretty, decorative, snow angels and sleigh rides kind, but the brutal, freezing, slushy, crappy, enough already, all-work-and-no-play-makes-Jack-a-homicidal-maniac kind. I have just returned from the frozen tundra of Chicago. The music was fantastic. The weather was brutal. It was 65 degrees when I landed at BNA yesterday. Sweet relief ! I practically jigged up the jet bridge! This is my favorite time of year. Spring! Every year I feel like we are pulling one over on the frozen, mittened, sneezing folks of less fortunate climes. I love coming home to my little house in Inglewood. The first flowers will soon bloom, warm weather at last. Aaaahhh. But this year, I notice a more invasive, insidious, kudzu-like creeping blight invading our beautiful landscape here in East Nashville. The menace? Homogenous domicilius, aka the cookie-cutter McMansion. I am not going to mince words here. I hate these things.

—

Oversized, ego-driven monuments to conspicuous consumption—too big for the lot, too big for the street, shoddily constructed monstrosities that demand the eye’s attention: “Look at me and all my stuff !” They may be increasing property values and growing the tax base and all that money-speak, but like John Rich on Love Circle, these Barbie Dream Houses are slowly mowing down the soul of our neighborhood. Can they be stopped? An historical overlay would do the trick. But in a city that knocks down beautiful buildings and puts up a Walgreens in their place? So I will simply say, stop it! Go away developers. Screw you. You money-grubbing, soulless destroyers of vibe: You suck. Your quest for profit is sickening and transparent. You suck. If I have offended you, I am glad. You offend our neighborhood. You suck. Generations of people have loved, worked and raised families in these houses that you purchase, mow down and replace like pieces on a monopoly board. To me, our neighborhood was never about great rooms or gigantic, apartment-like closets, but a place of tranquil simplicity and living within our means. To those who are considering buying one of these McMonsters, reconsider. Instead of imposing your will over the neighborhood, partner with it. Improve an existing home. Your neighbors will thank you. Bigger is not always better. The neighborhood has drawn you here with its charm, a big part of which is its older homes—well-constructed and built to last. Respect that. If you want a cookie-cutter home, there are plenty to be found. Go buy one of those. Somewhere else. Please and thank you.

Once Hags’ dreams of being a musician had been trampled upon by the hard realities of life, he decided to become a bass player. When he’s not in the studio, Hags can be seen eight nights a week playing around town with pretty much everybody. Fortunately, he still finds time to provide The East Nashvillian with his “astute observations” about life here in the promised land.

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

EAST SIDE BUZZ

In Business News ...

What’s the big news this month? East-Centric Pavilion has left the building, and in its place Jack Davis of JD Events and Festivals has opened The Pavilion East. We’re thrilled to see this fantastic event space under Davis’ management. His impressive résumé includes such successful events as the Nashville Pride Festival, as well as our own Tomato Art Fest. Another major happening is the expansion

of Five Points Pizza. Powell Design is building a take-out area and walk-up window in the space directly west of the current location, which was formerly home to a hair salon. New late-night hours will accommodate the bar crowd with pizza by the slice, and they plan to be open seven days a week. Architect Steve Powell says it will be finished “well before Tomato Art Fest” this August. Powell Design is also working on the

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

build-out of Spark of Life, a new restaurant opening soon at 1100 Fatherland. Owned by Pam Daley, it will feature gluten-free and vegan food, organic wine and gluten-free beer. Hours TBA. Next door to Spark of Life, Powell Design is also working on Lynne Lorraine’s Juice Bar. Owner Chad Curry hopes to be open by the end of March or early April. The menu includes fruit and vegetable juices, both fresh and grab and go. They will have free Wi-Fi and indoor cafe seating, with outdoor seating available during the warmer months. The name comes from Chad’s mother’s and grandmother’s middle names. Hours will be 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday, 8-2 Saturday, closed Sunday. The Post at 17th and Fatherland is coming along and now plans to be open April 1. It’s a coffee/juice/smoothie place with plenty of seating. A cool hang for that corner of the neighborhood. Progress can be seen also at Five Points Cocina Mexicana, 972 Main St. They should be opening soon. Two Ten Jack, Climb Nashville and Cumberland Transit are now open in Phase II of the Walden development, just to the south of Ugly Mugs. Two Ten Jack puts ramen noodles in an entirely different light, and they also feature a terrific and very eclectic specialty drink menu. The lot at 949 Main St. is to become a four-story development featuring 38 condos and a 5,000-square-foot retail space. Bella Nashville is heading to 1010 Fatherland St., next to Far East Nashville. They have a wood-fired pizza restaurant located at the Nashville Farmers Market, and plans are

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

ESB

to put their bread bakery and retail store in East Nashville. The Yellow House Salon & Barbershop East is coming to 1104 Forrest Ave. It’s the second location for owners Kris and Liz Whipple, who also have a shop in Mid-

town. This location will have six stylists and two barbers. Hoping to do their part to keep the ’hood healthy, East Nashville Family Medicine is open at 801 Woodland, next to Nashville Sweets. — EJ

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

All AMPed Up (and nowhere to go)

The atmosphere surrounding the AMP changes more often than Nashville’s winter weather. It’s warm one day, freezing the next, and, depending on which side one stands, sunny … or cloudy. Or all of the above during the same day. The latest change in the forecast comes from the opposition to the Bus Rapid Transit system, Mayor Karl Dean’s signature mass transit endeavor. The opposition, creatively calling its collective self “Stop AMP,” recently had what they were hoping would a sunny day for their side. In February, State Sen. Jim Tracy, the head of the Senate Transportation Committee, announced he would add language to the upcoming transportation budget blocking any spending on BRT services that use a state highway. Stating that, “We need to provide highways and bridges for economic development,” the senator appeared to make his position clear when it comes to what’s needed for economic development. More cars. A position supported wholeheartedly by Lee Beaman, who contributes financially to both Senator Tracy’s campaign war chest as well as the Stop AMP coalition. Oh, and who happened to make his fortune selling cars, for those of you who just moved to town. The fact that a car dealership magnate is the primary fountain from which financial support flows for a coalition opposing a mass transportation project is clearly a case of reality trumps fiction where irony is concerned. Whether or not the folks who are angling to kill the beast before it’s born succeed remains to be seen, however.

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

ESB

There was a time when TDOT never saw a new lane of highway it didn’t like, but the light of reality is finally beginning to penetrate the thick layer of asphalt that once covered its every dream. Population projections are beginning to convince even the most die-hard pave-our-way-out-of-traffic proponents that

without getting real about mass transit Middle Tennessee will resemble a parking lot by 2030. Which could be why Senator Tracy doesn’t oppose funding for TDOT to perform a feasibility study for a monorail line from Murfreesboro (his district) to downtown Nashville—introduced by Senator Bill Ketron

as Senate Bill 2515. Given the traffic along the southeast corridor, one could surmise that even a multi-lane aficianado like Senator Tracy would support an alternative to sitting in his car on I-24 during rush hour. More to the point, TDOT will more than likely go where the federal funding goes. This isn’t a new concept for them; for decades interstate highways have relied on federal matching dollars. If it weren’t for that, and the speed limit mandates that accompany the money, our ever-vigilant protectors of freedom in the State Capital would probably introduce legislation to remove all speed restrictions on the interstates because they infringe upon personal liberty. As for the AMP, even an opponent attending a recent community comment session in Richland Park admitted that Nashville’s mass transit infrastructure “should’ve been dealt with 30 years ago.” Not that the AMP isn’t without shortcomings. Even its most avid supporters have disagreements amongst themselves. But thus far, the AMP’s design team has been engaging with the community in a proactive way, and they continue to incorporate this feedback into their plans. At a recent workshop at the East Precinct, a small group of area residents tried to hash out how the terminus at the end of Main Street would look. Did everyone agree? No. Was it productive. Yes. So, as Nashville’s planners move forward with their goals of urban density, the crowd that seems to believe roads and bridges are the path to urban nirvana will keep trying to kick the proverbial can down the road. Maybe it would be better to wait; why spend $135 million today when we can spend a billion or two for the same thing in a decade, right? For now, and at least for the near future, expect more winter weather for the Bus Rapid Transit line. In the meantime keep in mind that old cliché: “It ain’t over ’till the fat lady sings.” — CA

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THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

NASHVILLE PEERS By Jeff Finlin

his last summer I was fishing on the great North Platte River in Wyoming. It’s one of the few perks of being an artist and songwriter. I get to go play for people in faraway places and sometimes there’s time enough to do stuff like fish and eat. There’s nothing really like it—the North Platte and the West. The great river rolls dark and mysterious through an Africanlike landscape against a deep blue sky. It’s so clear out on the horizon that you can see thunderclouds plummeting toward the abyss 40 miles away. You can see the craters on the moon if it decides to poke its head up for you. The sage lights up dayglow green, and as you reach out in the midst of it—if you pay attention—you can feel where you begin … and end. I spent the day with my great Wyoming friends. We laughed and talked and had breakfast under an apple tree. They are the most wonderful people; I love them dearly, and they love me. But I found after much time spent there in the West that there is a dimension of my experience and myself that they are terminally interested in but will never completely understand. And it really was the driving force that after 10 years brought me back into the Nashville fold. I was here in Nashville for 20 years before moving out there. My explosive creative years happened here. Twenty years of peers, musicians, and adventurers remain here somewhere in the recesses of my heart and my still curious mind. The guys I drove and sweated and dreamed with on wild, boozesoaked rides across America and Europe for 75 bucks and a crappy gig still loom, bent-faced, in the shadows of clubs like The Family Wash and the Basement. Most of the friends and musicians I made in the West were wonderful, but they weren’t

those fellow crow’s nest dwellers that joined me on a version of Melville’s cosmic whaling ship ride to nowhere. Those travelers know who I am 100-percent of the time. They know me better than I know myself. I cut my teeth with them. I found myself needing them close by to remind me of who I really am as an artist and to help me process what is real and not real in terms of this creative life we’ve chosen. I’ve looked for home in a lot of places, but it’s in my Nashville friends that I’ve found it. You know the guys. They live on your street in music towns like Nashville. They threw everything they owned into a beat up old car with $200 in their pockets and drove halfway across the country—or world— to follow their dreams because they couldn’t live with themselves if they didn’t. In the outback that is a small American town at the base of the Rocky Mountains where I had the privilege of living for the past 10 years, I didn’t find much of that. Most of the writers and musicians in that small town were the ones that never had the gumption, insanity or insecurity to throw it all away and leave. The feeling of usefulness can be absent or hard to come by for a songwriter in that remote corner of America. I don’t need a pat on the back or a smile of understanding that often, but I found myself needing to come back here to the pack, like a wild dog, where the worth of my lifelong efforts as a songwriter and artist are presumed to be useful, if not admired. I spent 10 years out there telling people I was a songwriter. They didn’t really know what to do with that. They would look at you jealously and tell you that it must be great to travel the world and be free, or better yet, just give you a blank stare as they punched the factory time clock in their head. They would wonder why you still had to work a day job in order to survive despite the fact you were so “brilliant.”

One thing I find here that I can’t seem to find anywhere else is that any songwriter from Nashville (at least if spiritually fit and in his middle age) knows that the success of any piece of work, no matter how good, is proportionately thrown off or accentuated by an elusive commodity known as dumb luck. That realization is the only way he can forgive himself as he struggles on to perpetuate the muse. They don’t get that anywhere else. There is camaraderie that lives here that is beyond words and an understanding that transcends the ethos of the normal day. There is a kinship of artistic humility in flesh and blood sitting down at the end of the bar wondering what the fuck happened, trying to find a place to be of service along the boulevard of halflived dreams. I had to live somewhere else to figure that out. Recently, I asked my old friend and peer Joe McMahan of Luella and the Sun why he never left Nashville, as it’s evident that it has always been a struggle for him with the overabundance of brilliant talent that exists here. “I thought about it at one point,” he said, “but then one night I was sitting on a front porch in East Nashville drinking whiskey with Kevin Gordon and (quirky guitar hero/hillbilly savant) George Bradfute, and I realized at that moment I couldn’t be having this conversation with these two characters anywhere else in the world.” He said he became grateful for that and stayed. I find even if I don’t see those characters all the time, knowing they are right down the street or across the bar serving me drinks keeps me anchored with what’s really going on here. It’s a grounding relationship that keeps me in tune with who I am as an artist—for I’ve found keeping one foot planted firmly in the earth is the only way I can truly touch the sky.

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

KNOW

your

NEIGH

BOR

Ernie Chaires Story by

Jon Gugala

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

“I

am in the business of selling food,” says Ernie Chaires, seated in a booth just after the lunch rush at his Rosepepper Cantina on Eastland Avenue.

It’s a seemingly simple statement about a seemingly simple concept: people need to eat; you cook food for them. How hard can it be? But there must be more to it, since, according to Bloomberg Businessweek, three out of every five restaurants extinguish their stoves for good in the first three years. Rosepepper has been an East Nashville staple since 2001, and the Nashville Scene perennially proclaims it has the “Best Margarita” in Nashville. Chaires, 62, has been in the restaurant industry since 1970, owning his first restaurant, a franchise called El Taco, when he was 19. It’s a family business: His father retired from the Army out of Fort Campbell, Ky.—there’s the Nashville connection—and returned to his home in Tucson, where the Chaires patriarch fell in with other men who dreamt of a faster Mexican food restaurant which incorporated a new local concept called the “drive-through.” One of those men, Mr. Glen Bell, decided he had his own ideas for a menu, splintering from the group and throwing the word “Taco” in front of his last name. Maybe you’ve heard of it. “My dad, in his infinite wisdom, took the El Taco concept,” Chaires says, laughing. The family brought their concept, the first fast-service Mexican restaurant, to Nashville,

fornia, where the couple still owns a house. There, he says, he waited tables—a lot of tables, at three different restaurants—with the lofty dream of becoming a bartender. It was his wife, whom Chaires credits with making his career possible, that suggested he get a job at Taco Bell. Showing up late for the interview and without a tie, Chaires still wowed them. “They couldn’t believe somebody at that age had done what I said I had done for so long,” he says. He threw out a number, they accepted, and he became a corporate stiff for an embryonic 400unit business. When an opportunity arose four years later to take over a seven-unit franchise, he slid back into the restaurateur life. “The exposure to what numbers in business meant is what I needed in life,” he says, looking back. “In this business, certainly it’s good will and it’s food. Yeah, I have it. But I’m more in the business end of it. I deal with people.” Seven Taco Bells grew into 25 after eight years. But it was family that brought Chaires back to Nashville. “I woke up one day, and I said, ‘I’m going to make [my father] an offer,’” he says. His father was considering closing Es Fernandos on Gallatin; instead, Chaires negotiated and bought the restaurant with the intent to franchise. After all, hadn’t he just turned seven stores into 25? The problem was, when Chaires arrived in Nashville on Dec. 5, 1994, citywide unemployment was between one and two percent: “You couldn’t hire fast food workers to save your soul,” he says, unless you were willing to pay

maybe you’ll meet Jordan, recently promoted to bartender. She was hired six years ago when she was 17, and says there’s a core group of staff members like her who have worked at Rosepepper five-plus years—a unique occurrence in the high-turnover food service industry. Possibly shedding light on why, according to Jordan, that if it gets too busy, Ernie rolls his sleeves and starts pulling orders. Chaires says his restaurant staff ’s “tremendous tenure and strength” isn’t accidental: “I don’t see how [restaurant owners] could not see how important it is to treat your people fairly, to not coddle your people. And here’s the key, for me anyway: I am always, always trying to teach them and make them better.” And that’s just it: In East Nashville and in his business, Chaires is no longer becoming bigger at what he does; he’s becoming better. “Yeah, you can make more money with more units,” he says, “but I’m happy doing this.”

worked “All125I knew is ayouweek. hours

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHUCK ALLEN

That’s just what you did”. and at its height there were seven El Taco restaurants spread between Nashville, Clarksville, and Fort Campbell. “All I knew is you worked 125 hours a week. That’s just what you did,” he says. The last restaurant standing, renamed Es Fernandos when the franchise dissolved, was on Gallatin just south of Briley Parkway for 37 years, and some of the art that hangs in Rosepepper came from its walls. “There’s a guy sitting at the bar over there,” Chaires says, nodding toward the back of Rosepepper. “He almost breaks out in tears because Es Fernandos doesn’t exist anymore.” But Ernie cashed out of the family business and moved with his wife to southern Cali-

almost twice the minimum wage. He couldn’t afford a workforce. Rosepepper, his plan “B,” is located on the site of an old diner, and Chaires says he wouldn’t have found it if it wasn’t for a traffic light at Eastland Avenue and Gallatin Pike. “If the light hadn’t turned red,” he says, Rosepepper wouldn’t be here. But the reason Rosepepper is still there is because of its employees. Sit at the bar on a typical night and you’ll probably meet Juanita, one of the managers. She was hired a week before the restaurant opened its doors in 2001, and it’s her Nebraskan family margarita recipe that has been voted best in town 12 years running. Or March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHUCK ALLEN

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

Artist IN

Profile THE COMMUNE OF

ADRIEN SAPORITI BY JON GUGALA

t’s 9:30 on a Saturday night and the 12South neighborhood is buzzing. Three girls laugh and hug each other, smiling for the white flash of a selfie. Painted on their cinderblock backdrop is a 12-foot shield-like flag with the words “I BELIEVE IN NASHVILLE” split between its top and bottom. Visit the mural most days of the week and you’ll see a version of the scene played out again and again. It’s minimal—three bold colors and four simple words—but the phrase has become a refrain for Nashville residents and a totem to visitors since it went up in March of 2012. “The mural was just to do it, just to see what would happen,” designer Adrien Saporiti says. “The idea was, ‘Will this resonate? How can I make it so simple, but still extremely impactful? And will it actually work?’ “It’s so simple, but when you see it, you get it right away,” he says. ”You don’t have to think about it. If you think about it, you’ve gone too far.” This is the milieu in which Saporiti works, and the walls of the 26-yearold’s DCXV Industries storefront off Porter Road in East Nashville are filled with examples: clean, immediate, intuitive statements, and thrift store-esque graphics, many based off Nashville neighborhoods, landmarks, and events. ➛

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

â&#x20AC;&#x153;

You have a city

Adrien

in the heart of the south,

the buckle of the bible belt,

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

Saporiti

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that in large part,

because of the music industry,

is this giant cosmopolitan melting pot.

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

(And just in case you didn’t catch it, DCXV is “615” in Roman numerals.) It starts with an obsession for fonts. “You shape the way it impacts people,” Saporiti says, pointing out the design “Amour et Justice.” It’s a phrase Victor Hugo signed onto a pillar of a Vietnamese temple. Saporiti, on a family vacation to the birthplace of his mother—the first time since she’d left the country in ’68—jotted the words down and then referenced his sharp pen scratches for the graphic. “I saw that, and I really, just really loved the phrasing of it. ‘Love and Justice,’” he muses. “’I Believe in Nashville,’ they’re the kinds of things it’s hard to refute. You have to kind of be a jerk.” While Saporiti’s “I BELIEVE IN NASHVILLE” graphic is by far his most popular, with three mural-sized paintings around town (including one on the side of Mitchell Deli at the end of Riverside Drive), it’s difficult to pin down the exact reason for the social movement his art epitomizes. It’s obvious that everyone believes in Nashville now; you don’t have to read that far to find one national magazine or another “discovering” the city, and the Nashville Metropolitan Planning Organization conservatively estimates another million people in the region by 2035. “It’s one of the most unique places in the

world because of the intersection of cultures,” Saporiti says. “You have a city in the heart of the south, the buckle of the Bible Belt, that in large part because of the music industry is this giant cosmopolitan melting pot.” This was the melting pot in which he grew up. The son of a Warner Bros. executive, one of Saporiti’s first memories is riding with his father in their old Mitsubishi Galant. “What do you think of this?” his dad asked. It’s good, he said. “Should we sign her?” Yeah, sign her. “I’m five,” Saporiti says. “It was Faith Hill.” He laughs about it now; he’s an adult, and he’s come to love everything about his boyhood home. But it took leaving Nashville for that to become clear. “When you’re from a place,” he says, ”you don’t really think about it. It just is.” Saporiti spent three years at the legendary Berklee College of Music in Boston after high school, where he was often asked why, if he was from Nashville, he didn’t have an accent. “That’s when it hit me,” he says. “There’s a huge difference between the world I grew up in, in Nashville, just on the education side, let alone how people live, and how people outside perceive it.“ When Saporiti returned to Nashville in

WHAT!

2010, something was different. “Somehow, in those three years, that’s right about when everything started changing here,” he says. While once there was little in East Nashville for someone his age other than the 5 Spot, where he’d played a show with a high school garage band, the community had bloomed. “There’s obviously a very large, young, creative community in Nashville,” he says. “It’s an amazing time and place for it, because the things that I need to have done, there’s people here trying to do that.” And that’s really what Saporiti’s art is all about: giving voice to the effect Nashville’s community has made on his life. He makes art so deceptively simple and kitschy that it echoes out into the U.S. just as all eyes are looking in. While Saporiti accepts that his “I BELIEVE IN NASHVILLE” work may prove to be the most memorable thing he ever does, he’s not slowing down. “I’m happy that it means something to so many people,” he says. “Knowing people that have been one-hit wonders, it’s like, dude, just be grateful. You can’t plan any of this shit. “I’ve learned when something comes up, you enjoy it,” he adds. “If you have a passion for it— doesn’t matter what your plans are. Just do it. Go with it. See what happens.”

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THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

Tanglewood Tales Movie stars, outlaws, a Playboy Bunny, and high societyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the cabin by the Cumberland has hosted them all

By Randy Fox Photography by Eric England

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

itting by the massive fireplace in the “big room” of his Inglewood home, Henry Romersa speaks passionately about a love affair that began over 40 years ago. “I had a friend who was interested in historical properties,” the former Vanderbilt music professor says. “She told me about this huge lodge in East Nashville that was in terrible shape but had a lot of potential.” Driving north on Brush Hill Road through the northwest corner of Inglewood, Romersa found an almost hidden passage under Briley Parkway. It led to a small cul-de-sac of clapboard cabins and log houses on the hilly banks of Love’s Branch that seemed as cut off in time as it was geographically isolated. “In 1973, I was recently divorced and living in a motor home at Vanderbilt,” Romersa says. “They gave me a plug-in and a parking lot, and I was a very free, going-wherever-I-wanted-to-type bachelor. I came out here, and the stone wall around the driveway had fallen down, the pool was collapsing, nobody had raked leaves for years. The whole place was a disaster, but I thought I’d go ahead and see what they wanted for it.” The property’s owner, Catherine Lewellyn, was living in the largest house. Although she had been unable to care for the property since the death of her husband, David, she still loved the land and didn’t want to leave, much to the dismay of her children. As Romersa recalls, “The family said, ‘If you will take care of our mother as long as she lives, we will sell you this entire property for $25,000.’ I thought, ‘Why not?’ I could plug in here instead of Vanderbilt and live in the motor home.” Romersa had stumbled upon one of the most unusual and historic pieces of property in Davidson County. Known as Tanglewood, the land embodied almost 200 years of Nashville history, from the first permanent white settlements in Middle Tennessee through Nashville’s transformation into a modern city in the first half of the 20th Century. In Romersa’s hands, Tanglewood would begin a new chapter, with a cast of characters that included movie stars, Playboy bunnies, academics, country outlaws, and others. Like much of the area along the banks of the Cumberland River, the land that eventually became known as Tanglewood was hunting ground for native American Indian tribes, including the Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Shawnee. In 1780, Fort Union (just north of present-day Tanglewood) was established by Col. Robert Hays as a way station for visitors traveling northward from Fort Nashboro. Within a few years, the settlement became known as the town of Haysborough. With the construction of Gallatin Road in 1839, traffic heading north out of Nashville was routed to the west of Haysborough and the small community

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

“Hefner was trying to get his girlfriend, Barbi Benton, into country music. She couldn’t sing worth a damn, but he flew in and rented the entire place.” —Henry Romersa faded into history. Most of the town’s original site was covered by the waters of Cheek Lake with the construction of a dam on Love’s Branch in 1927. That same year several acres of woodlands just south of the lake were purchased by Robert M. Condra, a young architect and engineer. A 27-year-old graduate of the University of Tennessee with a double degree in mechanical and electrical engineering, Condra was a living embodiment of the entrepreneurial spirit and can-do attitude of young, educated Southerners during the Jazz Age. After gaining a reputation as a first-rate architect and businessman, Condra founded his own construction company and was instrumental in the rebuilding of East Nashville after the 1933 tornado, as well as the development of Inglewood. Although Condra designed and constructed many buildings with an eye on the future, he was also a disciple of the arts and crafts design movement that cast a romantic eye back to the simple and functional designs of pioneer craftsmanship. For the neighborhood he named Tanglewood, he set a personal goal to design and develop the property using as many primitive and scrap materials as possible, building 18 separate log or clapboard cabins between 1927 and the early 1940s. Condra maintained the property as a summer home until he left Nashville to serve with the Army Corps of Engineers in World War II, at which time he sold Tanglewood to his close friend David Lewellyn.

alking through Henry and Kathy Romersa’s home, the 14-room log house that is the largest in the Tanglewood Historic District, one can’t help but think of it as a large, rough-hewn maze. Moving from room to room often requires dog-leg turns into narrow hallways or steps up and down into rooms on multiple levels. It invokes the feel of a modular space station, but one constructed by some alternate history mountain-man version of NASA. “He was very creative, building the place out of junk and scrap wood,” Henry Romersa says of Condra’s design and construction, as he conducts

a tour down hallways of rough, dark-stained wood. “He built all of these as fishing cabins for him and his friends. He just kept adding on and consolidating one cabin with another. The National Register of Historic Places named this ‘Rustic Style,’ and it’s very rare. You either love it or you think it’s a dump.” After his first look, Romersa’s passions clearly ran toward the former. Romersa has spent much of his life dedicated to preserving the legacy of the past for the benefit of future generations. A graduate of the prestigious Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Romersa taught music at Cornell University and the University of Maryland before coming to Nashville in 1962. At Peabody College and Vanderbilt University, he was instrumental in launching one of the first music business education programs in the U.S. In the early 1970s, he served as national coordinator and executive director of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Institute and assisted in the creation of music business programs at Belmont, MTSU and many other colleges and universities. He also led the development of a music business degree program for Southern Illinois University, teaching a special extension class based in Nashville for 30 years. In addition to his public career, Romersa has been a dedicated antique car collector and restorer for many years. After buying Tanglewood, he brought the same care, patience, and attention to detail he used on automobiles to the restoration of wood and mortar. Agreeing to the Lewellyn family’s terms, he began work on the property that included the sprawling main house, a large, separate “party room,” the in-ground pool, a nearby guest house, and various out buildings. “The first thing I did was fix up the guest house and move Mrs. Lewellyn into it,” Romersa says. “Then I started at the front of the main building. I didn’t have a lot of money at that time, and with my responsibilities at Vanderbilt as professor and band director, I worked on the property at night. I did one room at a time until I completed the whole building.” Romersa’s main focus was on restoration and

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

preservation rather than renovation. “Very little was altered, changed around or modernized,” he says. “I tried to put everything back the way I found it. I didn’t change any beams or the floor plans. I tried not to interject anything modern. I just cleaned the floors, made repairs, and finished raw wood where needed.” One of the few additions was to connect the main house to the nearby party room, which features over 1,000 square feet of open space dominated by an exposed beam ceiling, a massive stone fireplace, and removable windows. Both Robert Condra and the Lewellyns used the space for cookouts, parties, and other special events. “All the windows were out of it,” Romersa says, “but fortunately, I found them in the basement. They would have cost a fortune to replace. All the wood was raw; none of it had ever been finished. It took me forever to stain the ceilings and finish them.” For the short foyer and passageway that now joins the main house to the party room, Romersa followed Condra’s style as closely as possible. He used many materials he found stored on the property, including bricks salvaged from the old Maxwell House Hotel after it burned in 1961. Romersa eventually added a kitchen area to the big room, making it the main living space for the house. Tanglewood’s in-ground pool, possibly the first ever built in Nashville, was also a unique Condra design. The 30-by-85-foot brick and mortar structure held over 110,000 gallons of water that was constantly recirculated from nearby Love’s Branch, with the water running through an outside fireplace for heating. To maintain the pool, Romersa had to modernize some aspects of its design, but he strived to keep it as close to the original design as possible. After a year of dedicated labor, Romersa returned Tanglewood to its former glory on a very slim budget. “I finished the repairs but had

no furniture,” he says. “I couldn’t afford any.” It was then that an unexpected benefactor entered the picture.

n the summer of 1974, Hollywood came to Music City. Director Robert Altman was preparing to shoot “Nashville,” his idiosyncratic mosaic of America in the 1970s, and he was scouting locations for the film. “Altman sent his people over here,” Romersa says. “They said if I would furnish the house they would rent the entire place to stay in and use in the movie. I went to the flea market and bought everything I could on credit.” Tanglewood became the headquarters for the production for three months. In the film, it became the home of old-school country music star “Haven Hamilton,” portrayed by actor Henry Gibson. Romersa moved into a small apartment in the basement, staying out of the way of his tenants while managing the property. He was offered a role in the film, but his big-screen debut fell victim to Altman’s improvisational filmmaking. “I was supposed to play the part of the builder of Tanglewood,” Romersa says. “I had my lines and we were all set to go with my scenes. Then a limousine came down the driveway and Elliott Gould gets out of it.” Gould, the star of previous Altman films, was passing through Nashville. “Altman never stopped the camera,” Romersa says. “The whole scene changed and all my lines went out the window.” Despite his missed chance at stardom, by the time filming wrapped in September of 1974, Romersa had paid off his emergency furniture buy and made a profit. Word of his unique cabin in the woods spread, and he soon found himself with another celebrity tenant: Hugh Hefner, publisher of Playboy magazine. “Hefner was trying to get his girlfriend Barbi Benton into country music,” Romersa says.

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

“She couldn’t sing worth a damn, but he flew in and rented the entire place. He asked me what I wanted, and I said $800 a week. He said, ‘That isn’t enough, I’m going to pay you $1,200.’ His staff, maids, butlers all came in, and he had guys with machine guns at both of the entrances to the property. He was supposed to be here for a month, but they stayed for three, and I was tickled to death. By the time he left, I was really in business.” Romersa continued to rent Tanglewood to occasional tenants for both special events and more extensive use, relying on word of mouth to spread the reputation of its unique appeal. One guest became a frequent tenant. “Charlie Daniels came over,” Romersa says. “He saw the big room and said, ‘This place is great, the acoustics are perfect. I want to rent it for two or three months and write a whole bunch of stuff.’ For several years, the main room at Tanglewood became Daniels’ regular practice and work space. His 1979 hit single, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” (which, incidentally, was recorded at Woodland Studios), was just one of the many songs developed at Tanglewood before being taken into the recording studio. “Charlie ran his band like a factory,” Romersa says. “Nine o’clock all these pick-up trucks would arrive. The band would warm up, and Charlie would walk in at 9:30—off they would go until 12 o’clock. Then they all went out to the pool and went swimming. At one o’clock they all came back in and went back to working. Three o’clock, they climbed in their trucks and were out of here. It was like clockwork.” Another repeat tenant was “Hee Haw” head writer Budd Wingard, who brought his entire staff to Tanglewood each year to write scripts for the comedy-music show. Many country music stars dropped by during the marathon writing sessions. Waylon Jennings was a frequent visitor. C O N T I N U E D O N PAG E 8 8

L O O K I N G

E A S T

WESTERN ARTISTS A N D

T H E

AL L U RE OF J APA N

THR O UGH

M AY

Se e h ow many of th e mos t well- k n ow n W e s t e r n a r t i s t s , i nclu d i n g M o n e t , Va n G o g h a n d M ati s s e, were i nfl u e nce d by t he s t yle of Ja p a ne s e a r t a n d cult ur e . This exhibition was organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

P L AT I N U M S P O N S O R :

S U P P OR T I NG S P ONS OR S :

T H E F R I ST CENTER FOR T H E V I S UA L A R T S I S S UPPORTED I N PART BY:

Metropolitan Nashville Arts Commission

DOWNTOWN NASHVILLE 919 BROADWAY FRISTCENTER.ORG

Vincent van Gogh. Postman Joseph Roulin (detail), 1888. Oil on canvas, 32 x 25 3/4 in. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gift of Robert Treat Paine, 2nd, 35.1982. Photograph ÂŠ 2014 MFA, Boston

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THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

WHERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD? New residential development is spreading through Nashville’s older neighborhoods like wildfire. Can the character of East Nashville be preserved as property values rise and gentrification sets in, or will we all be packing up and moving to White’s Creek? Story: Chuck Allen & Timothy Davis Illustrations: Dean Tomasek

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

“The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.”

hirty years ago, I was living just to the south of Belmont College at the corner of 15th and Compton Avenue in a 1930s era two-story gray stone house popularly known as … well ... “The Gray House.” It was divided into four apartments—two on the first floor, one on the second, and a fairly roomy one in the attic space. My rent was $275 per month, which seemed like a whole lot of money at the time. Many of the other houses on Compton were also split up as rentals. Through whatever forces or energies that dictate these things, there was a large concentration of extremely talented individuals living in and hanging around the Gray House. It was almost like a commune. Future members of bands like Lambchop, Wilco, and Ryan Adams were regulars. The bass player from Jason & The Scorchers lived there. The alternative music scene actually was an alternative music scene, and touring bands relied on a nationwide network of kindred spirits to provide crash pads. Black Flag, REM, the Goo Goo Dolls—the list goes on. The entire Hillsboro-Belmont neighborhood was filled with the types of creative people all of whom, each in their own way, helped lay the

—Mark Twain

foundation for the cultural diversity Nashville has the pleasure of experiencing today. No one seemed to have much money back then, so affordable housing played a huge part in allowing that scene to happen. It’s doubtful someone in Metro’s Planning and Zoning department ever thought, “Hey, let’s create an environment for a bunch of impoverished creative types!” Even if they had we’d have probably moved elsewhere. The same holds true for the rise of the creative community in East Nashville, which has roots, this time around, that were planted in the early 90s. For as the Hillsboro-Belmont area gentrified, the young, creative types moved on in search of a place they could afford. That place happened to be East Nashville, broadly speaking. Landlords of the 80s weren’t looked upon favorably; many of the rental houses— including the Gray House—were in disrepair. There seemed to be a “bare minimum” approach to home maintenance, although, looking back, that attitude probably played a major factor in keeping rents low. My landlord, Roger Joynes, was fairly typical of the type. He was a decent enough man, though, and was willing to put up with us. One day I

asked him what he’d sell 1500 Compton Ave. for: “$35,000,” he replied without hesitation. It might as well have been a million dollars. Nowadays there are fully restored Four Squares on Belmont Boulevard selling for well over a million dollars. Sound familiar? It should, because a similar scenario is unfolding on the East Side these days, only faster. The Belmont area has had one thing in particular going for it, though: large swaths of RS7.5 zoning (medium density residential, requiring a minimum 7,500 square foot lot and intended for single-family dwellings). This more or less eliminates the dreaded duplex from the landscape. So, if you happen to be a homeowner or developer wanting to maximize return on investment in the Belmont area, the best option is to renovate and add onto the existing structure, and that’s exactly what they did.

he resulting neighborhood, 30 years on, is still one of my favorites. But it’s an expensive place to buy into now, and the rental houses are long gone. Belmont University began purchasing houses on Acklen and Compton Avenues in the 90s—including our beloved Gray House, which they razed. The scene of 30 years ago wouldn’t be possible in that area today. East Nashville is experiencing the results of a different type of zoning. From 5th to McGavock, it’s almost entirely R6 zoning (medium density residential, requiring a minimum 6,000 square foot lot and intended for single and two-family dwellings). The “two-family dwellings” part allows for “tall skinny duplexes.” Even Edgefield, with its stunning historic homes, is zoned R8 (medium density residential, requiring a minimum 8,000 square foot lot and intended for single and two-family dwellings), although homeowners in that neighborhood have managed to have a “Historic Zoning Overlay” established that places additional restrictions on what can be built there and how it will look. It’s something of a conundrum, really: Push to have things rezoned RS (single-family) or to have other, more restrictive overlays put in place, and the unintended consequence might be one of eliminating the income diversity that gives the East Side a substantial part of its character. Don’t get me wrong; some of the duplexes that have been built are ridiculously out of context. If one went up next to my house I’d be furious. The complaints are legitimate. Developers are people, too, and, like the rest of humanity, some people care while others don’t.

—Chuck Allen

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

“Nobody goes there anymore—it’s too crowded.”

hings stand out because they’re different from other things. Some things stand out because of quality. A really high-end diamond stands out because of its cut and clarity, shining brighter, seemingly, than those around it. A top-notch musician stands out because of his or her facility at playing an instrument. A great singer has a voice that rings cool, clear and true, or else red-hot and unforgettable. Everyone else just sounds like, well, everyone else. And some things stand out because they’re trying too hard, or not hard enough. The 45-year-old man-boy in facepaint and a jersey at a Titans game. That dude wearing a T-shirt to a funeral. The big, tall, gawky, pastel-painted house-looking things you see all over East Nashville. Wait! What are those things, anyway? You’ve seen them by now, provided you even occasionally leave your house. They’re tall, they’re angular, and they’re awkward. If Rik Ocasek were a piece of housing, he’d look like one of these. They usually come two to a property, connected by a building code loophole often derisively referred to as an “umbilical cord,” and are often parked between two other houses or dwellings of, let’s say, more conventionally “home-looking” homes. Some folks call them “two-plops.” Many, especially in the last year, call them something more. An eyesore, or worse: a problem. You’ve probably seen those signs in folks’ yards that say “Build Like You Live Next Door.” Indeed, they seem to be everywhere. Those signs, in and of themselves, don’t solve anything, however. They’re the real-world equivalent of a Facebook status update that 158 people “like” and then promptly forget as they scroll down the rest of their feed. Why? Because the developers of a particular property (or, rather, the LLC that is financing said development) could, quite literally, be based anywhere. Anywhere that someone has a certain amount of money to spend and feels confident that by spending some of his money now, he will enjoy even more money in the future. You may have heard in the last year or so various estimates concluding the Nashville’s population could increase by a million people by the year 2030. Sounds all science-fiction-y, doesn’t it? Consider, however, that it was 15 years ago George W. Bush was first elected president. Fifteen years, unless you’re 15 years old yourself, isn’t such an unimaginable chunk of time. It’s a problem a lot of cities would kill to have. Nashville’s relatively bustling economy, “Nowville” status in national magazines, and

—Yogi Berra

general quality of life have all sorts of people from all strata of society wanting to relocate here, and not all of them are failed butt-rock musicians. These people will need a place to live. Builders and real estate honchos are well aware of this. They are also aware of the fact that East Nashville gets its own share of laudatory press, as well it should, with its inimitable mix of unique people, places and things to do. If they can at all afford it, people like to be around other people doing cool things. Which is why East Nashville, in whose warm embrace you’re likely reading this right now, is about to see a building boom like this side of the city hasn’t seen in almost 50 years.

ut where will all these people—these hypothetical, projected people, mind you— live? Areas like Cleveland Park and Eastwood Neighbors and Inglewood, both South and North, are already seeing single-family homes going for tens of thousands of dollars more than they were valued at even five years ago —and that’s if you can even find a quality home for sale that doesn’t require a near total rebuild.

idea of having two residences on a piece of property where only one stood before. This sort of density is often popular when the piece of property on which a particular dwelling sits becomes more valuable than the structure itself, which leads to the property being bought out by a developer (or LLC), who then razes the structure and, if current zoning allows it, builds a duplex or other, non-single-family home. Infill, or infill housing, is the insertion of additional housing into an already-approved neighborhood. This can come in the form of additional units built on the same lot, dividing existing homes into multiple units, or, perhaps most commonly, by creating new residential lots by further extending lot lines—further subdividing a subdivision, if you will. In many cases, the existing infrastructure may be sufficient, or need relatively little work to accommodate the additional units. As often happens, infill structures sometimes clash with the neighboring, pre-existing ones, at least aesthetically. This leads to your “Build Like You Live Next Door” signs, to your “Oh, you mean those Gumby-looking things” comments when you bring up the

“The pressure from the Planning Department is clearly for more density. They will not deny this. Some neighbors want it, and many neighbors in my area do not.” —Metro Councilman Anthony Davis That’s where two big catchword phrases start entering into the picture: “Density” and “Infill.” Density is a byword for “more people living in an area, paying property and other taxes to help the economy, without building new subdivisions. Density, it is often said, is essential to developing an urban core, something that not only helps sustain cities, but also protects them against the sort of inside-out urban decay that residents of cities like Memphis and Detroit know only too well. Common ways of attaining density are through condominium homes, cottage homes, apartment housing, and, increasingly, the “two-plop”

issue to your co-worker. Truly ugly things never really stand the test of time, of course: think the Ford Edsel, or stonewashed jeans. Think hate. For our purposes, think architecture. I asked Anthony Davis, Metro Councilman for District 7, what his constituents have to say to him about infill development, or if they ever broach the topic at all. “Density has probably been the largest issue, primarily that fear of losing the character of the neighborhood you bought into,” he says. “Also, some of the developers are simply building crap. It’s not everyone—we have a lot of infill development that looks really

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

introducing

. C O N N A S

good, and actually matches the surrounding homes. But you always get a few bad apples in a housing boom. “The pressure from the Planning Department is clearly for more density,” Davis continues. “They will not deny this. Some neighbors want it, and many neighbors in my area [Inglewood/Rosebank], do not. Each of us East Nashville Council Members likely has a slightly different take on it. In my mind, the best balance for my district is pockets of density on specific sites [using SP zoning tools], and also trying to preserve the single family housing stock and the character through our neighborhoods. Conversely, I am more inclined to say no to a developer attempting to do a ‘cottage development’ on what would normally be a lot with a couple of homes on it. To me, that is an attempt to cram in homes for profit, not to ‘add value’ to Inglewood.” Here’s another thing to consider: In a housing boom, there must also be a range of housing price points. Not everyone is able to drop a quarter-million dollars or more (a lot more, if recent $750,000-plus homes on streets like Fatherland are any indication) on a house. Not everyone, in fact, even wants a house in the first place. Many people, as the old cliché goes, are

CRAFT

“Development isn’t always just a place to be; it’s an opportunity to define how to be. As the city is continuously refreshed, there’s tremendous opportunity to define how we want to be. Good development can help.”

BEER COCKTAILS

+ A NEW

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MENU IN APRIL! 1313 Woodland St 615.226.1617 44

neighborhood, by nature of its affordable rent, is home to a cadre of artists, musicians, aesthetes, and other creative types. People from elsewhere (usually elsewhere in the same city, at first) like what that area has to offer. They visit the area. They visit the area more often. They decide they’d like to live there. Other houses are renovated. Restaurants open. Cool things abound. Soon, the unmistakable whiff of profitability starts wafting up. Developers and speculators move in. Cool, quirky businesses can’t afford rent any longer. Landlords and others see they’re sitting on a gold mine, and raise rents for the trailblazing artsy types too. Fast forward the whole thing about 10 years, and all of a sudden you’ve got an area where the businesses and people who helped make an area cool to begin with can no longer afford to live there. It’s like that old Yogi Berra malapropism: “Nobody goes there anymore—it’s too crowded.” There is a workable medium, Davis says, and it’s residents “owning ownership” of their neighborhoods, and, conversely, land-thirsty developers not looking at our little subsection of Nashville like it’s last call for overhaul. “We don’t want to be worried about the infill development all the time, looking over our shoulders,” Davis says. “An example is the duplex bill. We need to fix it and we need to fix it yesterday. Maybe neighbors wouldn’t be so

—Zac Thomas, Woodland Street Partners married to their careers. Some are recent college graduates; others still young professional couples who don’t want children. Some are same-sex couples. Some feel more comfortable in an urban environment. Some, perhaps, just really hate yard work. Maintaining a range of housing price points, then, requires a certain amount of density. In almost every city, neighborhood gentrification follows a general pattern: A

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

upset with the infill if we had better guidelines in place. The planning department is working on the new drafts now, and our neighbors need to pay attention to it. The draft loses the umbilical cord between duplexes, allowing for a shared wall, or two units detached with a six-foot setback [space in between the homes]. I personally think with all the discussions we’ve had in Rosebank, it needs to be attached, or have a 10-foot setback. I’ve had

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conversations with others that only want a shared-wall duplex.” On top of that, many, including Metro Councilman for District 6 Peter Westerholm, caution that talks over a specific piece of property must also factor in not only today’s neighbors, but tomorrow’s. “Discussions can be difficult because, in many cases, you’re trying to think of what’s best for this parcel of land for the next 80 years,” Westerholm says. “And you’re trying to figure out how that will relate to adjacent properties for that period, as well as how that area might also change. “The challenge for cities, for Nashville and for East Nashville, is crafting a longterm vision that recognizes the benefits and consequences of each of our decisions,” he continues. “From the big ones like moving forward with a better mass transit system like the AMP, to the smaller ones like a rezoning going on down the street, or as it often is, next door. Each decision has an impact. Recognizing what these impacts will be and acting accordingly is the challenge for all of us—for planners, for politicians, and for residents. Our neighborhood will change; it is up to us to shape the change to ensure it reflects what we value most in our neighborhoods.” Like Casey Kasem, Westerholm believes it’s possible to keep our feet on the ground while still reaching for the stars. Both Davis and Westerholm note that the only way real change can happen is for folks to get involved, and to change whatever rules and restrictions are currently on the books. Until then, developers can feel free to run the table, even if we feel like their game is garden-variety “dirty pool.” But can you blame a developer for doing what’s within his (if he’s a corporation, he’s a person, legally speaking) legal rights? Perhaps, and this gets to the crux of the matter: It’s critical for neighborhood residents to have a basic understanding of zoning and land use and of the mechanisms in place that empower them to influence outcomes. The developers understand these things. If there were something on the books saying triplexes were permitted if connected by a series of conjoined Rubik’s Cubes, rest assured that some developers would have their people haunting vintage toy stores and eBay tomorrow. It’s a business, as traded professional athletes say all the time, and the market makes the rules. There is a human element to this story, however, as there is to every story worth telling—of course, we’re assuming here that just because corporations are people doesn’t mean they’re human. Developers can’t run roughshod over a city or its citizens (humans) if they wish to continue making our acquaintance. People don’t like to feel like they’re being taken advantage of, or at the very least don’t care for it once it’s been pointed out to 46

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them. Keep building more “crap,” as Davis aptly puts it, and you’ll risk pissing people off. Keep making the city look bad, and your onetime rubberstamped go-ahead might start reading “REJECTED.” “Build Like You Live Next Door” is one thing. Perhaps it would be instructive for folks interested in this issue on a deeper level to turn that around for a second. What if we tried living like we built next door?

ac Thomas of Woodland Street Partners and the Paragon Group echoes everyone we talked with for this story in saying that not talking can be expensive for everyone involved. “Dialogue is critical,” Thomas says. “We favor proactive engagement with the community to help shape what we build. In areas that help by providing us with active feedback, developers have the opportunity to better understand the goals and needs of a changing community. Every year, we’re improving and expanding our community engagement efforts to help us do that faster and in smarter ways. We believe that a builder cannot be successful over the long-term without a community commitment that includes substantive dialogue and engagement. We engage in dialogue to help learn, to improve how we build, to tailor what we build, and to help us prevent repeating something that wasn’t popular or a flat-out mistake.” It’s Thomas’s job—or any developer’s job, when you get down to it—to know what can and cannot be built on a piece of property. As such, if zoning, overlays, and codes allow it, it can be built. However, many citizens don’t feel privy to this information, even as it is, by law, readily available to view—though, admittedly, not always easy to find. I asked him how Metro could improve upon community education and awareness where residential development is concerned. “We don’t know of the full range of Metro’s community education and awareness efforts,” says Thomas. “Metro does make an enormous amount of information on zoning, overlays, and construction/development topics available. There are several places where relevant development and overlay information is posted regularly online. The key is knowing where to look and how to interpret the information. Providing a single place to look online that aggregates all relevant upcoming construction and development activity would likely help to simplify and streamline things. We believe that Metro has something like that in the works. But one way or another, we all need to work to reduce the incidence of a concerned resident’s first look at a project occurring after the chance for community feedback has passed. There’s responsibility there on the part C O N T I N U E D O N PAG E 9 0

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LAND IC ENG BY ER GRAPH P H OT O

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HIGH ADVENTURE Todd Jarrell has been there,done it, and brought back the story By Randy Fox

ne would never mistake Todd Jarrell for The ad showed the rigging of a classic wind-powered one of the larger-than-life characters “tall ship” with four sailors hanging from a spar, surrounded by cordage, the wind filling the sails in front found in classic adventure tales like “The of them. It was a scene from another era, when great Sea-Wolf ” or “Captain Blood.” In his late wind-powered ships circumnavigated the globe. For 50s, average height with a slim build, slightly graying Jarrell, it was the first signpost of a journey that would hair, and a neatly trimmed moustache and goatee, Jarrell take him around the world—from faraway continents has a soft-spoken manner with an easygoing enthusiasm that is evident when he talks about his work. As like Africa and Antarctica, to a Tennessee cavern filled he spins tales of his life as a professional sailor, radio with music, and on to a home in East Nashville. correspondent, travel writer, documentary filmmaker Although the magazine ad was the catalyst, the first and co-producer of the multiple Emmy-award winning 40 years of Jarrell’s life prepared him for the moment. Bluegrass Underground PBS television series, you realAs the child of a career Air Force officer, he grew up ize you’re listening to a master storyteller. For Jarrell, experiencing the nomadic life of a military family. a life of adventure and world travel didn’t begin with “My sister was born in Germany,” Jarrell says. “My the high drama found in fiction, but with a simple bit oldest brother was born in Dayton, Ohio. My next of synchronicity. brother was born at West Point, and I was born in It was 1995; Jarrell was a successful advertising salesMidwest City, Okla., at Tinker Air Force Base. We man for WKRN Channel 2. “A friend at the time was moved around—Canada, Montgomery, Alabama, and flying back to Nashville,” Jarrell says, “and she saw an then Colorado, where I graduated from high school.” ad for Cutty Sark Scotch in a magazine on her flight. I “My dad was very liberal-minded. He was not your picked her up at the airport, and she said, ‘Look at this.’ stereotypical military guy. We lived in Ottawa, Canada, I had seen the same ad in the newspaper that morning. for three years, and on Thursday nights Dad would check The headline read, ‘You haven’t been there, and you havout 8mm films and a projector from the National Film en’t done it.’ And they were right.” Board, and we’d have movie night. He’d bring home

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documentaries, and it opened our heads up like tin cans and poured in all this great cultural information. We lived in the embassy area of Ottawa so we were going to school with kids from all over the world.” While Jarrell’s father opened his mind to other cultures, his mother served as an example of Southern sociability and curiosity about other people. “My mother was the type that would chat-up Dracula,” Jarrell says. “She was friends with everybody. It was natural for her to meet people and be interested in who they are and what they do.” Upon graduating from high school, Jarrell had a world of possibilities before him and no idea which one to choose. “I didn’t want to go to college without having a reason,” Jarrell says, “and I didn’t have a reason. I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do. I met a band and they were playing gigs with the Dirt Band and John Denver, and I had been playing drums since I was a kid. They offered me a job, and I was gone.” Jarrell spent the next seven years on the road as a working musician with various bands, learning the basics of the entertainment business first hand. “I booked and sort of managed most of the bands I was in,” Jarrell says. “Since I played drums, it was pretty evident that I wasn’t going to be picking up singles gigs. I had to have a band. If nobody else picked up the reins, I did it, and I learned a lot about promoting yourself.” “When it became evident that it was time

to do something else, I looked toward radio. I ended up in ad sales and did that for five years. Then I moved into television and did that for 10 years, some here in Nashville.” Jarrell’s parents had moved to Cookeville, Tenn., after his father’s retirement from the Air Force in 1976. Although the family’s roots were in Middle Tennessee, he hadn’t planned on following them, until fate and family responsibility intervened. “My father became very ill with Parkinson’s disease, and my mother was overwhelmed,” Jarrell says. “I moved to Cookeville in 1993 to be closer to both of them and help Mom.”

t was about two years after moving to Tennessee that Jarrell spotted the Cutty Sark ad. The fateful ad was for an essay contest sponsored by the Scotch whisky, and the first prize was two weeks’ passage on the historic Polish sailing vessel Dar Mlodziezy as it ran the first leg of the 1995 Cutty Sark Tall Ships Race. “I had never been on one of these ships,” Jarrell says, “but I wrote 500 words paralleling the great sailing ships to the communication satellites of our time. They circled the globe carrying information around the world. Out of 3,400 entrants, they picked eight of us. When we all met in New York, it was like a team of handpicked bullshitters.” The two week passage across the choppy waters of the North Sea from Edinburgh, Scotland to Bremerhaven, Germany, left an

Sheltering from a squall in an abandoned site during a location scout on Eleuthera Island, Bahamas.

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indelible impression on Jarrell. “I went diving every year,” he says, “and I had a little 22-foot boat out on Percy Priest, but there’s no comparison between that and one of these ships. There were 80 or 90 ships [in the race] and half a million people came to see them. It was amazing.” By 1997, Jarrell’s father had passed away, “and I was living by myself in Mt. Juliet on a horse property with no horse,” recalls Jarrell. “TV ad sales were still very lucrative, but it got to the point where I couldn’t do it one more day.” It was then that he noticed another magazine ad. “I saw a tiny classified ad in the back of Sail magazine,” Jarrell says, “looking for a crew to go around the world on the SV Picton Castle and share expenses. I called my brother Brad and said, ‘If we don’t do this now, when are we ever going to get the opportunity?’ I was just entering my 40s, and it was just going to get harder and less obtainable and less doable. “Brad and I flew to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in Canada and had a look at the ship. It was a wreck. The sails weren’t finished, the stove wasn’t installed yet, there was no food on the ship, the crew wasn’t all there, but we bought into the dream.” The two brothers quickly learned that they had signed on as far more than just passengers. “There was a lot to learn,” Jarrell says. “There were 250 lines that all have a separate job and a different name. In the dark, in a storm, if you do something wrong you could kill somebody.

“You sail into a bay in a boat like that—a hundred feet tall with three masts, straight out of 1890—and people want to know about you. You’re not just another boatload of wallets. People wanted our story.” It’s a whole ’nother world. It was a lot of bloody hard work getting the ship ready to go, but we finally left in November in a fierce gale.” Like most modern sailing vessels, the Picton Castle had a diesel engine for emergencies, but the main goal of the voyage was to emulate the pre-industrial age of sea travel when great sailing ships traversed the globe, powered only by wind, waves and human toil. “It was all manila rope and canvas sails,” Jarrell says. “We had 20 people, men and women, in one cabin. We cooked on a woodfired stove. There was no refrigerator. There was no shower. We showered with buckets on deck. You would dip up sea water, wash with it, and then you had half a bucket of fresh water to get the salt out of your hair. It was rough.” Sailing south from Canada, the Picton Castle spent the next 20 months circling the globe. The journey took Jarrell and his brother through the Panama Canal and on to a score of Pacific islands, including the Galapagos, Easter Island, Tahiti, Bora Bora, Samoa, and

the Solomon Islands. The ship then continued eastward to Australia, Bali, Tanzania, and South Africa, stopping for just a few days in some locations and as much as a month in others. “We went places that you can’t go otherwise,” Jarrell says. “You sail into a bay in a boat like that—a hundred feet tall with three masts, straight out of 1890—and people want to know about you. You’re not just another boatload of wallets. People wanted our story.” With his brother along with him on the voyage, Jarrell soon discovered they had instant common ground with almost anyone they met. “I’d introduce people to my brother and ask about their family, and bam, off down the road we’d go. The next thing we’d be at somebody’s house meeting their family and eating dinner. We had such great experiences. If you just open yourself up, people are so nice, most places.” In addition to honing his skills as a sailor, Jarrell was also creating a new career for himself as a writer and radio correspondent. Before departing on his voyage, Jarrell was

approached by the late Rebecca Bain at Nashville Public Radio with the idea of creating a sound journal of the voyage. “I took it as a mission. I wanted to make something more of it. They loaned me a minidisk recorder just on faith. I recorded the sounds and voiced the stories, then mailed the minidiscs and handwritten scripts from various ports. Scott Smith at WPLN put the elements together and produced the series that aired every other Monday morning for two years.” Jarrell’s sound journal of his passage on the Picton Castle was eventually released as the audio book “Slow Dance With the Planet” in 2001. When he returned to Tennessee in the summer of 1999, Jarrell found himself with two desires: to return to the seas and to keep writing about his adventures. “That’s how I broke into writing,” Jarrell says. “There have probably been more people in space than have been around the world on a square rigger in our lifetimes. Few people have that kind of experience and write professionally.” Between 2000 and 2003, Jarrell signed on as a paid, able-bodied crewman for various

The Bark Europa, under a full press of sail in the trade winds south of the equator and en route to Easter Island from San Diego—a 47 day sail with no sign of other boats, lights, or even vapor trails in the sky.

Jarrell (R) on the deck of Europa just west of Cape Horn, the notorious tip of South America, with his brother, Brad. Diego Ramirez Islands, west-southwest of the Horn, are in the background.

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75,000 miles at 5mph… Crew aloft in the heavy weather and big waves of the ‘Roaring Forties’ latitudes while ‘running’ for Cape Horn. Brad Jarrell is one of the crew aloft on the yard. March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

Bluegrass Underground Emmy night, January ‘14 Left to Right Todd Mayo, Creator, Bluegrass Underground Becky Magura, CEO of WCTE Cookeville, TN James Burton Yockey, Legendary live television Director Todd Jarrell, Producer, Bluegrass Underground

sailing vessels and voyages—down the west coast of the Americas and around Cape Horn, multiple passages to Antarctica, and more. He was also writing about the voyages for various sailing magazines and producing radio stories for National Public Radio, CBC Radio in Canada, Radio Netherlands World Service and BBC Radio World Service. “I just kept going,” he says. “I got on different boats, went different places, and kept selling stories.”

ust as chance and happenstance had sent him to a life on the high seas, once again fate altered Jarrell’s course. “I was back home between trips,” he says, “and I had planned to get on another ship and keep going. The week that I anchored was the week my mom broke her hip, and I met Brooke, who is now my wife. It’s funny how the world turns.” Between caring for his mother and beginning a relationship with the woman he eventually married, Jarrell continued to write and produce radio stories in the Middle Tennessee area. He soon added another credit to his growing resume: documentary filmmaker. “I had an idea to do a film in Africa, and I approached Becky Magura at WCTE, the PBS station in Cookeville. She basically told me I was crazy, but then she thought about it for a couple of months. She called me back in, and we ended up doing it. I hired a friend out of England who was a cameraman.

We met in Africa and shot it.” “Tree Safari: A Sculptural Journey” focused on Cookeville sculptor Brad Sells’ travels to South Africa in search of exotic hard woods to use in his work. With the success of his first film, Jarrell followed it with a sequel shot in Hawaii. More documentaries followed, focused on such varied topics as the devastating effects of the methamphetamine trade on rural Tennessee communities, homeless street children in South Africa, and tuba maestro R. Winston Morris. All were picked up by PBS and broadcast nationally. “I had been around television just enough to think I could pull it off,” Jarrell says about his jump into the world of filmmaking. “I really was the guy who was too dumb to know that he couldn’t do it. I learned by asking questions and people being kind to me. A lot of people in [filmmaking] are very generous in the same way that Nashville musicians are. It’s not a competition. “I never had a burning desire to be a filmmaker, but I love storytelling. I realized I wanted to do the documentary on tubas the day I was in Winston Morris’ office and he was about to play a record for me. He looked at me and said, ‘You know, a song like this can change your life!’ He dropped the needle and this goofy song comes on called ‘When Yuba Plays the Rumba on the Tuba Down in Cuba.’ I was sitting there with the one guy on this planet whose entire life and career was

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informed by this song. I try to find subjects that I can be passionate about because it’s too hard if you don’t have that passion. It’s too much work if it’s just for a paycheck.” Jarrell’s interest in unusual stories coupled with his growing experience in television production led to a “downward turn” for his career in 2008. “I pitched a radio story to WPLN about this local guy [Todd Mayo] who was doing a show down in a cave,” Jarrell says. “I interviewed him, and he said, ‘As cool as this sounds, imagine what it would look like on television.’ And I did.” The two Todds’ collective vision was of “Bluegrass Underground”—a showcase for acoustic roots music staged 333 feet beneath the Earth in “The Volcano Room,” a natural amphitheater located in Cumberland Caverns near McMinnville, Tenn. Series’ creator, Mayo, began the concerts in 2008 as live events for radio broadcast. With Jarrell’s filmmaking experience, the two Todds created Todd Squared Productions to bring the show to television. “We talked for two or three hours about how to get it done,” Jarrell says. “It took us a couple of years to get the pilot shot, but PBS picked it up.” Co-produced by Mayo and Jarrell and presented by WCTE, the Emmy award-winning “Bluegrass Underground” recently finished taping its fourth season. Referring to the show as “‘Austin City Limits’ meets ‘Nova,’” Jarrell applies the same scrappy

The iconic Leon Russell performing at Bluegrass Underground. The hard part was squeezing a gleaming white, pinstriped baby grand piano 1,000 feet into the cave.

Jarrell shooting at LBJ Ranch outside of Austin, TX.

“just do it” attitude to the production that is the hallmark of all his endeavors. After Jarrell’s mother passed away in 2009, he and his wife, Brooke Scurlock, made the decision to relocate to Nashville. For a man who had travelled around the world, East Nashville had charms all its own. “We’d look at houses in other parts of Nashville,” Jarrell says, “and then come back here and spend the day. It was the vibe. The

acres of Shelby Park. We were home.” In addition to his work on “Bluegrass Underground,” Jarrell continues to work on documentaries. The ideas and stories tumble from him as he talks about current productions or future plans—travels to China with an American artist whose work is influenced by traditional Chinese pottery, a history of vinyl records and how technology influenced 20th Century music, and perhaps a return to

to transform their lives simply by deciding to do so and then resolutely following through, with the awareness that fate may alter the course, but not the destination. “If I had had a master plan, I would have screwed it up a long time ago,” Jarrell says. “A lot of it was just flow and trying to put myself in the right place, and that meant working really hard. The ability to travel the world and have people open their doors to you is an

“I pitched a radio story to WPLN about this local guy who was doing a show down in a cave. I interviewed him, and he said, ‘As cool as this sounds, imagine what it would look like on television.’ And I did.” diversity of East Nashville—people took pride in the diversity and that resonated with us more here than in any other part of town.” “We had a brick ranch in Cookeville,” he continues, “and kept talking about knocking out a wall, adding a sliding glass door—but we never did it. We walked into what was probably the 50th house that we’d looked at in Nashville, and it was the same floor plan as our old brick rancher, but the wall was gone and sliding glass door was there. We opened the back door and there were a thousand

the high seas. “I might go again,” Jarrell says, as his eyes sparkle with the excitement of prospective adventures. “My wife is a nurse practitioner, and I’ve looked into the possibility of her signing on as ship’s medical officer. I could certainly see us going.” Reflecting on his life and career, Jarrell is passionate about the possibilities that still lay before him. It’s not a case of reflecting on accomplishments, but rather an acknowledgement of how past experiences shape the future. It’s a testament to the ability of people

amazing gift. You have to come home with a story, which means you better pay attention. You gotta ask the questions. You don’t want to get up before sunrise, but if you want that photo or sound, you better. You do stuff you wouldn’t ordinarily do, and end up with people and in situations you never would have found otherwise. If I had one wish it wouldn’t be for that million dollars, but for the ability to walk into any room in any land and be able to speak the language. Now that would be a wish come true.”

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A WHOLE LOTTA EGGS Jennifer Justus sits in on the non-stop race-to-the-finish-line that is brunch at MarchĂŠ. Photography by Eric England.

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JUST BEFORE 6:00 A.M.

n a recent Sunday, Joey Campbell unlocks the door to Marché Artisan Foods and begins to prepare for East Nashville’s busiest brunch. “This part of the day is actually kind of nice because it’s quiet,” he says, setting up the 3-square-foot space where he’ll turn from counter to griddle and stovetop for the next eight to 10 hours. Soon enough, about 400 people will stream through the doors. For now, though, Joey works alone with a steady calm, lowering blocks of butter into a pot of cream for grits and spooning kale and goat cheese into individual pastries that have been partially baked for quiche. Customers have 34 chances to order it. “Sometimes these will be gone by noon, and sometimes they’ll last until two,” he says. But when they’re gone, they’re gone, and he’ll switch to offering a frittata with the leftover filling. As for the grits, the big pot might last half the day. “Generally speaking we’ll do another batch.” And for frying eggs, making croissant French toast and crepes, he heats another pot to clarify eight pounds of butter. It is a European-style cafe after all.

6:15 A.M.

aul, one of three dishwashers for the day, arrives and flips the sound system on to Flo Rida, keeping the volume low while he mops. The sky has already lightened into mauvegray, but Joey’s alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. He might eat something small before service at 9 a.m., but otherwise he’ll power through until he leaves the restaurant at 2 p.m. (in theory, he says). By then, he’s understandably not really into thinking about food. He’ll crack 360 single eggs and pour four

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quarts of already beaten eggs: for omelettes; alongside steak; or sunnyside up over poutine with mushroom gravy. When asked how much bacon customers will eat, he just shakes his head. “We cook bacon all day,” offers pastry chef Tom Huber, who slipped in to work on a dessert for a special party. Joey goes on to estimate about 30 or 40 pounds. He’ll have six large trays cooked and ready to go by service, and he’ll keep at it. Preparation for Marché brunch begins on Thursday—chopping potatoes to roast, preparing fillings like ricotta and butternut squash cream sauce for crepes—so that when tables are full and the foyer is packed, the kitchen runs as smoothly as possible. “It’s not autopilot,” Joey says of the pace. “It’s cruise control.”

7:20 A.M.

roy Daugherty, the barista and familiar face behind the counter that separates the sunny dining room from the open kitchen, takes the first phone call. The phone rings all day and the first person who can answer is the “the winner,” he jokes. Callers often ask about reservations (they don’t take them for brunch), or they might ask for crystal-ball-type predictions on the wait in a couple hours. “It’s the future,” Troy says. Like Tom the pastry chef, Troy has been at Marché since it opened seven years ago. Margot McCormack and her business partner Jay Frein created this East Nashville gem about three years after opening Margot Café & Bar across the street. Business has been booming since; now more than ever. Servers begin to arrive, and the music has been switched to jazz. Amy Wright begins filling ramekins with honey, Nutella, and jam for the popular breadbasket. Evelyn Blythe cleans the glass pastry case to help show off a chocolate ganache marshmallow cake and gingerbread Bundt cake drizzled with lemon icing. The room is beginning to sound and smell more like a restaurant, too, with coffee brewing, bacon cooking, the rattle of ceramic creamers, and the rush of water filling pitchers. Emily Roley, who began managing the restaurant in October, came from Margot Café, where she had worked for seven years. She recently rearranged the room to include a host stand near the Clearview Avenue entrance to help manage flow. She’ll be the director of the day’s play, with six servers taking care of about 70 seats at a time—four communal farm tables, 10 two-tops, and six four-tops. Kitchen manager Dustin Pritchett has also arrived. Standing between Joey and the chef garde manger (or pantry chef), he makes the sauces and keeps the flow going as tickets roll in. “It’s a lot of premeditation, and then it’s six straight hours pretty much,” he says. Indeed, Troy will have 18 to 20 bottles of Prosecco ready to pop for mimosas. But how much Drew’s Brews coffee will diners drink? “A lot,” Troy says. “That’s my official answer.” He says it depends on the day and the temperature, but he compares the constant coffee-making process (finish brewing a thermos just as someone sets down two empty ones) to Sisyphus, the king in Greek mythology punished by being compelled to roll a boulder up a hill only to have it roll back down again and again, forever. “It’s fairly chaotic,” he says. “But it’s a good gig.”

8:03 A.M.

8:56 A.M.

oey’s pace seems to quicken in the kitchen. His arms are like tentacles, reaching naturally for what needs his attention: sausage on the griddle, the temperature of the quiche, a spoon into grits for a taste. A dash more pepper. With their morning tasks completed, the servers begin to gather around a communal table: preparing their black books, gathering pens, tying on aprons, and fueling up with apples or oatmeal. Jessica Hodges eats duck confit from a to-go container left over from Marché dinner service. Emily passes out copies of the brunch menu, which she just printed. Dustin talks the staff through the dishes as they take notes. Then Margot shows up, as she does every Sunday morning. She shows a picture from Facebook of a friend and former employee who came to visit for her 50th birthday. “Alright, y’all have a good day,” she says before heading back to her other restaurant. “What kind of music do you want to start?” Emily asks the staff. “Michael Jackson?” “Chaka Khan?” Bossa Nova wins out. “Five minutes,” Jessica says, stretching her calves.

hough Marché doesn’t officially open until 9 a.m., a line often forms outside the doors. On this day, they let the first guest in a few minutes early. Then two more file in. Three more. And another. The first plate—scrambled eggs, grits, and bacon—hits table number 10, a two-top in the corner occupied by a man dining alone, at 9:06 a.m. By the time that happens, Marché is on a wait.

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10:30 A.M.

f the room was quiet like church before, it’s now approaching wedding-reception decibels. The busiest hours fall between 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., at which point strangers are brushing elbows, not sure where to stand. “I’m just trying to figure out where to not be in the way,” says Chuck Ellis, who was waiting on his party as servers with eggs on plates snaked past. Glasses clink. A baby screeches. Milk whirls into foam at the espresso machine. Sizzles waft over from the griddle, and energy darts around the room like a pinball—knocking against anticipation and heightened senses. The servers, even with a clogged path to the kitchen, seem to float above it—specifically in this instance—to “Girl From Ipanema.” They move in nonstop motion, smooth, with purpose, and totally cool (at least on the outside) in their non-uniform of clogs with purple socks, tall combat-type boots, and jeans. Elsewhere in the room, the fashions of the guests are just as varied. While one man rocks a jacket, tie and pocket square, another wears a sweatshirt and jeans. A woman in full-length fur waits near another in leggings, boots and knit hat. A man in golf attire checks his name on the hostess list at least three times in 30 minutes. (“Time moves a lot slower when you’re waiting on a table,” says Christian, a back waiter.) A dishwasher pauses to crack his knuckles and swing his arms. A server steps away from the fray and into the tiny office for a second. They expect to stay busy all day, and only toward the end of the shift does it get harder to have a positive attitude. “This is pretty normal,” she says. By 11:25 a.m., the wait is 45 minutes.

3:32 P.M.

W 2:20 P.M.

he brunch menu at Marché changes regularly to showcase the season. Today, it features a regular rotation of crepes and omelettes with special fillings, as well as a grilled cheese with fontina, bacon, and shaved Brussels sprouts. Dustin, who has been kitchen manager for about a year and a half, says croissant French toast with powdered sugar and maple syrup tends to be the top seller. When the first plate left the kitchen, the griddle was already halfcovered in bread to make it. After mowing through the menu, new diners are down to a trickle, and the restaurant is finally off a wait. Jabari Patterson takes the reins from Emily as manager and host.

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

ith less than 30 minutes left of brunch, a couple comes through the door looking as fresh and ready to eat as the first customer of the morning. Jessica, who had been cleaning ceiling fans while perched on a 10-foot ladder seven hours earlier, bops down to the table singing along to “Boogie Shoes” by KC and The Sunshine Band. If she’s having trouble keeping a positive attitude, it sure isn’t showing. “This is when the delirium sets in,” Jabari says. They’ve worked through about 381 covers, which everyone from Jessica to Dustin insists is slower than normal. The pantry chef even had a chance to break for the bathroom. Some of the servers begin gathering around the communal table again for plates of the brunch they had been so busy serving. The last plate that sails out of the kitchen— eggs, grits and bacon—happens to be the same as the first plate of the day, taking the brunch full circle. “Yeah, this is Sunday,” says Christian. And then he excuses himself to answer the phone.

fin

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Viva la

EDUCACIÓN A

by Jon Gugala

t Las Fiestas Café on a Thursday night, the inner circle of a radical coup celebrates the 10year anniversary of the revolution over chips

and salsa. These are battle-hardened vets, four men and one woman, that sit around the table, and while they may appear unlikely as a projection of social discontent—after all, no one has a Che Guevara-like beard, and we’re not exactly camped in the mountains of Cuba—these five individuals defiantly claim that the uprising they led has allowed East Nashville to become what it is today. You feel safe to walk the streets? They birthed it without a gun. You enjoy the renovated homes and boosted

property values? They built it without a hammer. And do you see the children? Doff your caps in respect to the men and women who together created Lockeland Elementary Design Center, the castle-like brick building at 17th and Woodland, now in its 10th year of existence. David Briley is a small, studious man with thickframed glasses and a tractor-beam presence. He comes in late to the Café but takes the story back to the beginning, in 2002, two years before Lockeland’s start. At the time the building, built in 1937, was a middle school, and Briley, an Inglewood native, was an at-Large member of the Metropolitan Nashville City Council with the vision for a community primary school.

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

The Kelley v. Board of Education lawsuit had stretched on for over 30 years when it was finally closed in 1998. This was Nashville’s version of Brown v. Board of Education, the federal case that ended public school segregation. One of the conditions at the lawsuit’s close was the drawing up of school zones to comprise an integrated student body. But these mandated boundaries, well intentioned, didn’t always make practical sense. The Lockeland Springs neighborhood was split down its center, with half the community going to the newly proposed Lockeland school and the other half to Ross Elementary across Gallatin. In theory this was supposed to diversify, but in reality it would have turned Ross into an almost exclusively black school and left the infant Lockeland to wither on the vine. The solution was the delicate redesign of those boundaries to the current system of Global Priority Zones (GPZs), which united Lockeland Springs while achieving an integrated classroom of which the community could take ownership. But to rewrite boundaries wasn’t as simple as it sounds. The initial boundaries were part of the closing of a federal lawsuit, and much credit, Briley says, goes to Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools superintendent Pedro Garcia and District 5 school board member Patricia Crotwell, who navigated the red tape and racial tension in response to the Lockeland

parents’ outcry to give the community what it so desperately needed. “That had been the consistent problem previously,” Briley says. “You didn’t have the ground prepared for the village to come and grow something.” But the key moment in all this, he says, is when Garcia, narrowing down the new school’s principal candidates to two, invited several of the parents in the GPZ (already committed to sending their children to the school in its first kindergarten class) to join in the selection process. “That was like, ‘Hey, we’re listening,’” Briley says. “That’s one of the moments where a big, bureaucratic system said, hey, we’re not going to be big and bureaucratic here. We’re going to find a way to let people who care participate, make decisions, and invest.” There was always nervousness about race. It couldn’t be avoided, because Nashville’s school system is terminally tied to the issue. But the baton was then passed to the school’s first principal, Ms. Kimber Halliburton, who would handle enrollment like a grassroots political campaign, beating the pavement herself in door-to-door recruitment efforts to both ethnic groups. And it worked: that first class was a mirror image of the diverse neighborhood it represented, and it preserved this balance for the next six years. Richard Tennent, Lockeland’s first Parent Teacher Organization president, was one of the

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

parents on the principal selection committee, and he remembers the preliminary meetings vividly. He’d moved his family from a neighborhood near Vanderbilt to East Nashville after the tornado in 1998 for the same reasons many did: He could afford to buy a house. He’s a clean-cut, shorthaired criminal defense attorney with a carefully knotted tie, and his son, the fourth of his children to attend Lockeland in the last 10 years, sits next to him. “Families who could left Lockeland Springs when their kids got school-aged,” he remembers. “I dare say every single family with kids showed up for this meeting [in 2002]. So we’re all in there, and we’re all excited that this middle school was going to turn into an elementary school, and that it was going to be our elementary school.” If there is one sentiment that universally describes this revolutionary group, it’s that last part: Each parent chose to take ownership of this fledgling experiment. They were the ones who, when Lockeland was presented with the original divisive boundary lines, were “wonderfully eloquent in how pissed-off they were about being told that the school they could see [from their home] their kids wouldn’t be able to go to,” Tennent says. A core group of the parents of 16 kids, including Tennent’s eldest, were all acquainted through Holly Street Daycare, and they comprised a quarter of the first kindergarten class. Tennent, a skilled tactician, says the rest of the students came through subterfuge. Before she committed her child, the mother and future successor as PTO president asked him, “Is this school really going to be good?” “And so I lied to her,” Tennent says, laughing. “I said I knew it was going to be great, and she believed me. That was the sort of thing I did, was just lie to people and tell them that I knew that it was going to be great, and then these guys”—he nods around the table—“actually went and made it great.” Mimi Gerber was one. She describes her daughter’s experience as a “fairytale” and “magical”; “It’s hard for me to say how it affected my child academically—and I’m sure it’s positively—but emotionally, it was a very secure, loving environment,” she says. “We can’t pass the school without looking back fondly.” A nurse practitioner, Gerber volunteered at first aid booths for school events. A PTO representative would man the front door on school mornings and almost forcibly accost other parents into participation. Do you have a big pop-up tent? Because we’re going to need one. You look musical. Can you run a soundboard for the storytelling festival? In the end, the five that sit around the table, along with countless others in the Lockeland parent teacher guerilla movement, built the school they wanted. Theirs is the only non-immersion school in Metro Nashville that has its K-2nd students inoculated with a daily dose of

Spanish. The 3rd and 4th grade students receive it every other day. These parents constructed outdoor classrooms with their bank accounts and the sweat of their brows. They wandered their children’s school hallways simply because no one said they weren’t allowed. Jeremy Taylor, a second-generation Inglewood resident whose child was in that first class, describes the time his friends asked him which Metro school their kids should go to for the best education. “I said, ‘You know that school you go into and you read to your kid’s kindergarten class? That’s the one you want to go to.’ And their answer back was, ‘OK, which one is that?’” he says, laughing. Look out onto the school’s lawn after the parents walk their kids to school on any typical morning, Taylor says, and you’ll see realtors in ties talking to musicians with full-sleeve tattoos: “It’s just this eclectic group of people out there that all have this common goal to make this school work. It gives you goose bumps.” If there’s a salesman in the group, it’s literally Alex Sigg, a realtor who moved to East Nashville in ’96 “on a lark” from near Centennial Park. One of his children was in that first kindergarten class, and his son is currently in second grade there. “From a realtor standpoint, the key that made the whole neighborhood work was having a good elementary school, a good option for them to go to,” Sigg says. “And people move into the neighborhood to go to Lockeland.” Actually, it’s for the possibility of going to Lockeland. There’s been a waiting list for three years now, and not only do you have to be in the GPZ, but you have to get lucky in the lottery-based system. It’s worth the risk: For the second year in a row, the Tennessee State Department of Education has ranked Lockeland Elementary Design Center a “Reward School” for both performance and progress, which means they rank in the top five percent of the state. They were the only elementary school in a Metro district with the distinction. Without Lockeland, Sigg estimates property values in East Nashville would be half of what they are now. A lot has changed in East Nashville in the last 10 years. The neighborhood, sure. But progress has its detractors, and no revolution is without collateral damage. Where once there was a diverse ethnic makeup of classrooms, Lockeland’s classrooms are now predominantly white, the price tag of gentrification. Most of those seated at the table are hopeful Lockeland’s example will become a model that can be exported to other neighborhoods—perhaps Dan Mills Elementary in Inglewood or across Gallatin in Cleveland Park. Briley isn’t optimistic that it can happen again. Back then, he says, the bureaucracy was willing to listen to the community., but now it’s being splintered by too many divisive voices on

the school board, all pandering to their constituents. “That’s what needs to change for more Lockelands to grow,” he says. “People can come together—and want to—but it’s harder.” Focusing on the loss of diversity at the school they built is missing the point, Briley says. “To me, the success of Lockeland is that for 40 years the middle class, white families abandoned the public school system. And that’s not an exaggeration. So the more Lockelands you can grow, the more school system itself looks like the community that supports it.

“There’s a risk that you have to go do it again, but there’s not a risk that Lockeland is a failure because of [the lack of diversity]. You have to go build another Lockeland somewhere else to keep the momentum going forward.” Revolutions are never clean. But for their detractors, The Five and their supporters have changed East Nashville indisputably through the birth of Lockeland Elementary Design Center 10 years ago. Property values are up, crime is down, and families are in. It’s for the better.

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

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THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

Tarrick Love Homebuilder, Reality Television Star

By Jon Gugala

“I

like the wild factor,” says Tarrick Love over a seafood burger at Batter’d & Fried, “and I don’t know how you describe that in architecture.” The 39-year-old homebuilder and designer owns two construction companies in Nashville. The first, Dream Build Nashville, caters exclusively to those who also like that “wild factor,” servicing clients who don’t mind spending a little more to have art in their home. Working closely with Dee Bynum of Bynum Residential Design, they pair on projects that start at $650,000 and go up from there.

But Hart-Love is Love’s answer to the common house. Bynum is an amazing architect, “but he doesn’t necessarily have a grasp on budget,” Love says. “For me, I’ve got to have a brand that can focus on this client that is budget-friendly.” Love blends the artistic with the functional, mirroring his background. A 1997 graduate of the University of Tennessee with a degree in mechanical engineering, he worked in auto engine design for years before a trip to France with his wife ignited a passion for building design. Wandering around thousand-year-old

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

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architecture, Love says he found himself taking vacation photos not of his wife, but of buildings. He’s a big fan of contemporary modern, “but not the hardcore concrete, steel, and hard, hard lines.” Love mixes the modern and the traditional, with dashes of prairie and French country. “There’s not necessarily a word for it yet,” he says, “but in my mind, it’s carving out my own path in building.” Does he think of himself as an artist? “I do,” Love says, and then adds after a moment of reflection, “I do—to an extent. I’m more of a technical artist. When I do sit down with my designers and architects, I can transform space. I’ve got vision enough to give them ideas on how to make space better.” It’s this combination of art and efficiency that’s made Love a well-known name in the Nashville builder’ community. To date, four of his finished projects have been in East Nashville; two more are in the works. Life has been predictable for Love— until recently. One night Love and his wife were watching “Family Feud,” and she decided to start researching how to get on the show. During her research, she came across another reality show. It was originally called “Renovation Nation,” and the producers were looking for architects, designers, and builders for a battle royal. She suggested Love try out.

Well, maybe, he said. Let me think about it. Shameless self-promotion isn’t his style, but as Love did his research, he thought, “Why not? I can compete with these guys.” That was the appeal: Love is competitive. “Oh, man, yeah. To the fullest,” he says. “I just want to be the best at anything I do. It’s a rough life.” Love went through a series of interviews and casting calls—in addition to submitting samples of his work—for the opportunity to compete. “I wouldn’t say I’m a star by any means,” he says, laughing. Nevertheless, Love got the job, and spent September to January filming 10 episodes for the first season. The show, since renamed “American Dream Builders,” debuts March 23 at 7 p.m. Central on NBC. “Who wouldn’t want to look nationally?” asks Love. “You want to grow. It’s an opportunity to show what I can do.” The show’s format is simple: two teams of five designers compete, with a sixth man on each as the builder. Love was the builder, and it was his technical expertise and leadership that was crucial for his group. But he was also pushed beyond his experiences in Nashville. “When I sat down with those guys, man, I realized just how much I did not know,” he says. “I thought of design as, ‘This is the structure I want, to transform it into something that the customer wants.’ But when I got there I found that that was only a portion.”

There were the nuts and bolts of what he’d done: stripping structures down to the studs, knocking down walls. Then the rapid rehabbing of a 2500-square-foot home was done— all in one week. But Love says it went much further than just new drywall and a fresh coat of paint. It went from furnishing the home all the way down to minutiae like choosing certain colors of bottles in the refrigerator. Upon completion, the celebrity judge and hosts, including former Tennessee Titan Eddie George, performed a walk-through. Love says the pressure was intense. His team of delicate designers would periodically break down in hysterics when materials wouldn’t arrive. “Let’s face it,” he says, “they’re artistic. It’s, ‘My way is the best way.’ But you have to find a portion of each that makes them feel like, ‘Hey, he’s really listening to what I want.’” But there’s a bigger message Love says he represents. His grandmother, with her eighth-grade education, instilled in him a drive in life that’s propelled him from success to success, from UT to Nashville, and now to the national stage. “I want to show some of the people that I grew up around and kids that are out there watching that there’re other avenues of approach besides sports or music. “To me, you have to be self-driven to be successful,” he says. “No one is going to push you when you become an adult.”

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

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PASTA PRIMAVERA 4 servings under $5 per person

“A

s every season seems best to us in its turn, so the coming of spring is like the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos and the realization of the Golden Age.” —Thoreau

While comfort from the winter cold can always be found in a rich and hearty stew, the verdant offerings of spring bring joyous renewal. With most cold days behind us, asparagus, peas and all the cruciferous greens imaginable are starting to come in. The East Nashville Farmers Market will begin in May, but in the meantime there are plenty of local farms producing spring vegetables that are now available at The Turnip Truck. That

• • • • • •

1 finely chopped shallot ½ red bell pepper thinly sliced 1 cup broccoli florets cut into small pieces 1 large bunch asparagus cut on the bias into 1-inch pieces reserving tips ½ cup green peas 1 cup shredded carrots 3 garlic cloves minced 2 Tablespoons of First Fresh Extra Virgin Olive Oil + 1 tablespoon for finishing ½ cup vegetable stock

’HOOD Recipes from East Nashville favorites

By Melissa Corbin locavore favorite is an endless resource from anything on how to treat spring hay fever or detoxify your body from the impurities of winter to an endless supply of artisan fare perfect for that first spring picnic. It’s also where we found all of the ingredients for our Pasta Primavera.

Directions

Ingredients • • •

Cookin in da ’

• • • • • • • •

1 teaspoon lemon zest Juice of ½ lemon ½ cup grated Kenny’s Farmhouse Asiago Cheese + extra for finishing Salt and Pepper 1-2 tablespoons of chopped dill or other fresh herb in season 1 small bunch green onions cut on the bias in ½ inch pieces 1 8.8 oz. package of Bionaturae Organic Pappardelle 6 cups water

WILL MOTLEY OF WOODLAND WINE MERCHANT SUGGESTS TWO DELICIOUS WINES THAT WILL PAIR VERY WELL WITH OUR SPRING RECIPE: Gobelsburger Grüner Veltliner $17 Grüner Veltliner Kamptal, Austria The Cistercian monks of the Stift Zwettl monastery have been farming the vineyards of Austria’s Kamptal region since they arrived in 1137, including the lands belonging to the ancient estate that gave this winery its name: Schloss Gobelsburger. The young vines of this Grüner Veltliner exemplify the bright, high acidity offerings embraced by wine aficionados in recent years. It is a highly versatile food wine that lifts the palate. Nervy, vibrant; green apple, white pepper; complex minerality

In a large stockpot add water and a generous amount of salt. Bring to a boil and stir in pasta. When pasta is al dente or firm to the touch drain and set aside. It is important to note: Don’t be tempted to throw all the vegetables into the pan at once, because not all vegetables cook at the same rate of temperature. The trick is to keep the vegetables crisp and full of spring flavor. Heat the olive oil with several cracks of black pepper in a large sauté pan. Add the shallots and red bell pepper. When the shallots become glossy, add a pinch of salt, broccoli, and the asparagus pieces. Stir occasionally for approximately 2 minutes before adding the peas, carrots and garlic. Stir in vegetable stock and lemon zest. Simmer for 2-3 minutes. Squeeze lemon over the vegetable mixture before adding asparagus tips and cheese. With tongs, fold in the pasta a little at a time. Toss in the herbs and green onions just before serving, leaving a bit for garnish. Add extra salt and pepper to taste. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil and grated asiago to plated pasta and garnish. Allegria! Villa Bucci Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi $17 Verdicchio Marche, Italia Bucci is a reference point for Le Marche (a hilly territory in the eastern-central part of Italy on the Adriatic Sea) where Verdicchio vines, in particular, stand out. A key factor in Bucci’s excellence is top-notch vineyard management. Their vines are very old and the cultivation of grapes and olives is entirely organic. Pear, apples, white-fleshed fruit; seamless; superb value

Pick up the ingredients for this dish and plenty of others at The Turnip Truck, 970 Woodland Street. THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM theturniptruck.com March | April 2014 71

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

EAST SIDE C A L E N D A R

Emma Alford Calendar Editor

UPCOMING THIS OLD HOUSE

Old House Fair

9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, March 8, The Martin Center

Sure, that old house is charming, but what about the faulty foundation, funky plumbing, or that poltergeist in the attic? The Metro Historic Zoning Commission is holding a free, daylong festival that will explore and explain the many facets of owning and restoring historic properties. There will be presentations and hands-on demonstrations on a variety of topics pertinent to historic home ownership, including the hassle of navigating the labyrinth of Metro codes and permits. 2400 Fairfax Ave. www.oldhousefair.org

CLEAN THE GREEN

Friends of Shelby Park & Bottoms 2nd Annual Shelby Park Golf Course Cleanup

9 a.m. Saturday, March 8, Shelby Golf Course Club House

Trying to squeeze in some good deeds in 2014? Lend a helping hand in your own neighborhood. Friends of Shelby Park & Bottoms are putting on their 2nd Annual Shelby Park Golf Course Cleanup. You’ll hit the course for some general litter collection from the brushy areas of the course, with

FANNY’S TURNS FIVE

stay true to post-punk’s foundations—you won’t hear techno or futurepop, but you will hear a menagerie of classics like Bowie and The Smiths, blended with up-andcoming goth artists sure to please your musical palate. It’ll be Just Like Heaven. 2412 Gallatin Ave. 615-335-3137. www.facebook. com/TheEastRoom

11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday, March 8, Fanny’s House of Music

Eastside Legal Grand Opening

a focus on the water areas of the 11th hole. Meet at the clubhouse (but don’t wear your golfing rags—be prepared to get dirty), and help freshen up the fairway. 2021 Fatherland St.

Fanny’s House of Music Anniversary Celebration

CALL YOUR LAWYER

Head over to your neighborhood one-stop music shop to help celebrate their fifth anniversary. They’ll have an open house with live music and refreshments all day long. At 2 p.m., they’ll reveal a special surprise, a painting installment by local artist Scott Guion. It is also no coincidence that Fanny’s happens to have chosen International Women’s Day for their shindig; Pamela Cole and Leigh Maples are anomalies in the music store world. Fanny’s is one of few shops to be owned and operated by women. Come celebrate with them and maybe you’ll have a chance to pick up that new six-string. 1101 Holly St. 615-750-5746. www.fannyshouseofmusic. com

SHOPLIFTERS OF THE WORLD UNITE

Fascination Street

9 p.m. Saturday, March 8 and April 12, East Room

The East Room has carved out a night just for the new wave/goth-punk crowd. DJ Ichabod and Baron von Birk promise to

5 to 8 p.m. Thursday, March 13, Eastside Legal

East Nashville is welcoming it’s newest law firm to this side of the Cumberland. Eastside Legal will be ready to help with all your legal woes. Head over to their grand opening meet and greet event to see their attorneys, you never know when you may need a good lawyer. 731 Porter Road. 615600-4577.

ON THE CAT WALK

The Hong Meow Collective Fashion Show

Time TBA, Saturday, March 14, The East Room

Come check out the stylish garb Nashville-based clothing line The Woodsman’s Wife has been stitching up. The Hong Meow Collective is hosting this one-ofa-kind show, which’ll include a photo booth, live painting, and performances by a handful of bands. You don’t wanna miss out on all this regalia. Dress your best. 2412 Gallatin Ave., 615-335-3137 www.facebook.com/TheEastRoom

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

ESC GRINE AND GLEAM

East by E-Waste

Nashville transplant Michael Grine will be hosting a show at Main Street Gallery to raise money for Nashville Classical Charter School. The veteran graphic designer will be displaying some unique pieces that fit the show’s title: a trove of hand-painted black-light masks. If you can’t catch the opening reception, the show will be on display through the following week. 625 Main St., 615-457-1596 www.michaelgrine.wix. com/michaelrgrineartist

It’s time to clean those old scanners and wood console TVs out of the garage. Nobody wants that Walkman portable CD player. There will be a chance for you to get your e-waste disposal done in once place in the parking lot of East Literature School. Bring your old computers, printers, scanners, phones---or whatever out-of-date electronic your still clinging on to that you didn’t know how to get rid of. You can also bring unused prescriptions, glass, and bulk items, like furniture or old mattresses. They are going to have a shredding truck on-site, so you can bring any documents that have been cluttering up the filing cabinet for too long as well. If recycling makes you hungry, they will have some food trucks there to satiate your craving. At this event, they will also be accepting and clothing and shoe donations for a local charity. Dump that old 1994 IBM and drop by. 110 Gallatin Ave. Nashville www.eastbyewaste.com

6 to 9 p.m. Friday, March 14, Main Street Gallery

GASLAMP IS ANTIQUE!

GasLamp Antiques and GasLamp Too 10 Year Anniversary Celebration

10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday March 15, GasLamp Antiques and GasLamp Too

GasLamp Antiques is becoming antique! Well, not exactly, but they are celebrating their 10th birthday. The antique mall stores will throw a party for their customers to celebrate their anniversary at both GasLamp locations. They’ll have an assortment of giveaways, special dealer sales, music and refreshments. Don’t miss out on this chance to score some sweet deals on antiques. 100 Powell Pl., Suite 200 and 128 Powell Pl. www.gaslampantiques.com

LUCK O’ THE PUP

St. Puppy’s Day Festival

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday March 15, Walk of Fame Park

Dress yourself and your furry friend in all green for Nashville Humane Association’s first-ever St. Patrick’s…excuse us, we mean St. Puppy’s day celebration. The fest includes a puppy parade for all the canines in costume, and Nashville Humane promises to round up as many green pups and leprechaun lookalikes as they can find. Pet vendors will also be on site, so you can get your fur nuggets the latest and greatest in pet products. Buy your tickets in advance if you want to be sure to get in, though, because tickets will only be sold at the gate if pre-sales don’t run out. For the two-legged, it’ll cost you $5; four legs get you in free. 121 4th Ave. S. www.nashvillehumane.org

REASTCYCLING

“Gleam” An Illuminated Art Show By Michael Grine

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, March 22, East Literature School

“EDUTAINING” THE EASTSIDE Mr. Bond and the Science Guys Science Shows

10 a.m., Saturdays, March 22, April 12, May 17, locations vary

Mr. Bond—the East Side’s very own Bill Nye, of sorts—is here to remind you that science is fun. Along with his Science Guys, Bond will be touring around East Nasty pushing his own scientific agenda in a fun, “edutaining” way. He’s hosting a monthly show at different venues across the East Side to raise funds for each individual location he has chosen. While the shows are technically free, attendees are encouraged to make donations to the charity of the month. The theory of gravity is going to pull you right into these shows. See the different locations for the performances below. www.mrbondscienceguy.com 10 a.m. Saturday, March 22: Shelby Bottoms Nature Center 10 a.m. Saturday, April 12: Fannie Battle Day Home for Children 10 a.m. Saturday, May 17: East Caring Action Network at Pavilion East

ESC BRUSH STROKES AND BAMBINOS

CAPTAIN PLANET, HE’S OUR HERO

Painting for little Picassos

Nashville’s Earth Day Festival

Think your kid could be the next da Vinci? Bring the pre-K kiddies out to help them create the next great masterpiece. Shelby will bring the paint, brushes, and canvas; you bring the little artist. Be sure to wear some paint-friendly clothing. For more information, call 615-862-8539 or email shelbybottomsnature@nashville.gov.

In light of the polar vortex, maybe we should all become a little more conscious of how we treat our little blue planet. Maybe you can’t save the ice caps or polar bears in an afternoon, but you can learn ways to make yourself and your family more eco-friendly. Nashville’s Earth Day festival is a free event with nearly 100 fun exhibits and activities to help educate us on how to better treat our terra firma. There will be plenty of hands-on activities, workshops and family-friendly booths for all ages. Let’s help Mayor Karl Dean achieve his goal of Nashville becoming one of the greenest cities in the Southeast. 2500 West End Ave. www.nashvilleearthday.org

10 to 11 a.m., Friday, April 4, Shelby Bottoms Nature Center

LIGHTENIN’ FROM THE BLOCK

Lightening 100’s Spring Block Party

Saturday, April 12, Marathon Music Works

It’s safe to say we are all ready for some warmer weather after surviving the polar vortex, and what better way to celebrate an exodus from our caves than to have a block party? Nashville’s only independent radio is serving up a dose of springtime with their outdoor celebration of all things Nashville. They will have an outdoor stage with performances by The Wild Feathers, The Apache Relay, Sol Cat, Roots of a Rebellion and more starting at 5 p.m. The Nashville With Love Marketplace will be indoors from 3 to 9:30 p.m., featuring local, handmade, and vintage goods. There will also be a food truck court outdoors starting at 5 p.m.—so come hungry. Tickets are $15. Check online to hear about special VIP ticketing. 1402 Clinton St. www.marathonmusicworks.com

STORIES, STUDENTS, SCHOLARS

Storytelling for Scholars for Nashville Classical Charter School

5:30 to 7:30 p.m., Thursday, April 17, Rooftop of Center 615

At Nashville Classical Charter School’s second annual Storytelling for Scholars event, a “dynamite” lineup of local authors, artists, and Nashville Classical students will perform for the crowd. Of course, there will be a host of complimentary drinks and appetizers. Weather permitting, the event will take place on the rooftop of Center 615 (neat, right?). If inclement weather occurs, they’ll head indoors to Main Street Gallery for cover. Proceeds will be donated to Nashville Classical Charter School. 615 Main St.

11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, April 19, Centennial Park

UNDER THE NEEDLE

Record Store Day

10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, April 19, The Groove

In this digital age, it’s good to know we can still appreciate the tangible treasures of the olden days. Isn’t it better to hold something in your hands than to just digitally download it across the ether? That sensibility forms the core of Record Store Day, an annual celebration of independent record stores that brings out limited-edition releases and music-stocked parties around the world each April. Celebrate in East Nashville at The Groove by scouring their awesome in-store and sidewalk sales, enjoying local craft beer—and, of course, live music. If it’s too loud, you’re too old. 1103 Calvin Ave., 615-227-5760 www.thegroovenashville.com

GET EGG-UCATED

Shelby Park Egg Hunt

10 to 11 a.m. Saturday, April 19, Shelby Park

Easter means egg hunts. Shelby Park is talkin’ the real deal this year. You won’t be looking for the usual dyed dozen and you won’t find any Cadbury eggs on this search. Denise Weyer will lead a group through the park to look for any type of egg they can find, from frog eggs to bird eggs. Dress to get wet and muddy! For more information, call 615-862-8539 or email shelbybottomsnature@nashville.gov.

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

ESC BRUSHES AND BREWS

Paint Nites with Sara Beigle

Throughout March and April at Fat Bottom Brewery and Rumours East Let your inner artist come out and play. Artist Sara Beigle is bringing her brushes to the East Side for Paint Nite, a series of art classes that take students step by step through creating an entire painting. Paint Nite provides all the goods you need to get going—brushes, paints, and even a smock. You just bring a desire to make your masterpiece, buy yourself a drink and release all inhibitions. Beigle is even offering a $20 discount for you East Nashvillians if you enter the coupon code “eastnash20” when buying tickets online. Purchase tickets at www.paintnite.com. Rumours East: March 19, April 30 Fat Bottom Brewery: April 22

RECURRING EAST ROOM HAS JOKES

SPiFFY SQUiRREL Sundays

7:30 p.m. Sundays, The East Room

The East Room is making a name for itself in Nashville’s comedy scene by hosting regular stand-up shows, including SPiFFY SQUiRREL Sundays, a weekly independent comedy show brought to the East Side by East Room head honcho Ben Jones and NashvilleStandUp.com. National and local funny guys and gals take the stage to flex their funny bones each Sunday. If you’re looking for a laugh, check it out. Five bucks gets you in the door. 2412 Gallatin Ave., 615-335-3137 www.nashvillestandup.com

STOP, SHOP AND SWAP FOR THE SONGSTERS

Nashville Musicians Swap Meet

11 a.m. to 5 p.m. the first and third Sunday of each month, The Building

If you’re part of the sea of musicians and songwriters in Nashville, you might want to drop in on the monthly Musicians Swap Meet at The Building in 5 Points. The musically inclined gather to buy, sell and trade their gear. There’s always a smattering of various musical odds and ends: guitars, drums, amps, fiddles, horns—you name it. You’ll also find vinyl, artwork, clothing and other music-related memorabilia. This folky flea market of sorts is free and open 76

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

to the public. Stop by, grab a coffee at Bongo Java, grub down at Drifters and check out the musical arsenal. If you’re interested in renting a booth for the swap, contact Dino Bradley at 615-593-7497. 1008-C Woodland St.

I’M WITH YOU IN ROCKLAND

Kerouacs Beat Mondays

8:30 p.m. Mondays, Performing Artist Co-op

The Performing Artist Co-op, aka the “Purple Theater,” has seen the best minds of our generation, mad, starving, hysterical and naked. OK, we won’t take it that far, but the theater has provided a forum for lovers of the Beat generation to share their own writing. They’re calling all you Dharma Bums to bring out your prose, poetry, or music to this laid-back listening party. It’s reminiscent of a 1950s lounge setting— the kind of joint you might have seen Burroughs stumble into on a hard night. Five bucks gets you in the door to this open mic and a strong brew of coffee or tea. If you require some other type of liquid courage, it’s BYOB. 107 N. 11th St. www.facebook. com/purpletheater

HIT THE OPEN ROAD

Open Road Monday

8 p.m., Mondays, The Building

The Building’s four-year tradition of “Open Road Monday” rambles on. It’s a weekly show that features one or two different bands every week, promptly followed by an open mic sesh. Check out some of the budding talent the Building is showcasing over here on the Eastside for just a $5 cover (and BYOB). 1008 C. Woodland St., 615262-8899 www.facebook.com/pages/OpenRoad-Mondays/267241132017

SHAKE A LEG

Keep On Movin’

10 p.m. until close Mondays, The Five Spot

For those looking to hit the dance floor on Monday nights, The 5 Spot’s “Keep on Movin’” dance party is the place to be. This shindig keeps it real with old-school soul, funk and R&B. Don’t worry, you won’t hear Ke$ha—although you might see her—and you can leave your Apple Bottom jeans at home. If you have two left feet, then snag a seat at the bar. They have two-for-one drink specials, so you can use the money you save on a cover to fill your cup. 1006 Forrest Ave., 615-650-9333, www.the5spotlive.com

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

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ESC RINC, Y’ALL

Scott-Ellis School of Irish Dance

4:30 to 5 p.m. ages 3-6, and 5 to 5:45 p.m. ages 7 and up, Mondays, Eastwood Christian Church Fellowship Hall

You’re never too young—or too old—to kick out the Gaelic jams with some Irish step dancing. No experience, or partner, required—just you, some enthusiasm and a heart of gold. 1601 Eastland Ave., 615-3004388 www.scott-ellis.com

HONESTLY, OFFICER...

East Nashville Crime Prevention meeting

HAVE YOUR PIE AND DRINK A PINT, TOO

$10 Pint & Pie Night

6 p.m. to midnight Tuesdays, The Family Wash

Every Tuesday night at The Family Wash, you can score a pint of beer and a shepherd’s pie for just $11. The reigning music venue on the East Side, The Wash is home to an abundance of good music, and on Tuesdays, the club plays host to the long-running songwriter series Shortsets, hosted by Cole Slivka. They offer a wide selection of craft beer, and even have a vegetarian shepherd’s pie for herbivores. So sit back and enjoy the show, along with your pint and pie. 2038 Greenwood Ave., 615226-6070 www.familywash.com

11 a.m. to 12 p.m. Tuesdays, Beyond the Edge

Join your neighbors to talk about crime stats, trends and various other issues with East Precinct commander David Imhof and head of investigation Lt. Greg Blair. If you’re new to the East Side, get up to speed on criminal activity in the area. If you are a recent victim of crime, they want to hear your story. 112 S. 11th St., 615-226-3343

FAT BOTTOM FOR YOUR BUCK

$10 Pint and Entrée Special

4 p.m. until close Tuesdays, Fat Bottom Brewery

Q: What’s better than a craft beer and a tasty meal? A: Cheap craft beer and a tasty meal. At Fat Bottom Brewery you can grab a pint of their East Nashville-bred brew and an entrée for just $10 on Tuesdays.

Peruse their beer garden and their broad menu; the folks at Fat Bottom have plenty of options for the seasoned beer drinker, and they’re always introducing new flavors and kegging fresh batches. 900 Main St. www.fatbottombrewing.com

TELL ME A STORY

East Side Storytellin’

7 p.m. the first and third Tuesdays of each month, Mad Donna’s

Looking for something to get your creative juices flowing? East Side Story has you covered. They’ve partnered with WAMB radio and Mad Donna’s to present East Side Storytellin’ events with book readings, musical performances and author/ musician interviews, all in one evening, twice a month. Check the East Side Story website to see who the guests of honor will be for each performance. The event is free, but you’ll have to reserve a spot by calling ahead. 1313 Woodland St., 615-262-5346 www.eastsidestorytn.com

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

ESC NO LAUGH TRACK NEEDED

Ultimate Comedy Show by Corporate Juggernaut

they’ll also clear the stage for an open mic. Don’t forget to BYOB. 1008 C. Woodland St., 615-262-8899

8:30 p.m. Tuesdays, East Room

Nashville’s Corporate Juggernaut—a series of comedy shows put on by Gary Fletcher, Jane Borden and Brandon Jazz—has taken up residency in the East Room every week for this open-mic comedy night. Brad Edwards hosts with backing band The Grey Grays, and you can always expect to see fresh material and new talent. Doors and sign-up are at 8 p.m. Get out and help support Nashville’s burgeoning comedy scene. 2412 Gallatin Ave., 615-335-3137 www.facebook.com/TheEastRoom

PANFISH IS IN THE BUILDING

Dave Pahanish with Special Guests

8 p.m., Wednesdays, The Building

The Building is opening up its doors for East Side singer-songwriter Dave Pahanish, who’ll be hosting a weekly residency right here in Five Points. Each week he’ll perform and bring along a few special guests to showcase as well. In addition to the bands,

TOAST TO MOTHER EARTH

East Nashville Green Drinks

6-9 p.m., third Wednesday of each month, Village Pub & Beer Garden

Tired of talking sports and gossip every night out? Village Pub has something in mind for the greener East Nashvillians. Once a month they host an evening for environmentalists to sit down for a drink and discuss ideas for a greener future. You’ll be saving the planet, one drink at a time. 1308 McGavock Pike, 615-942-5880 www.greendrinks.org

ART IS FOR EVERYONE

John Cannon Fine Art classes

6 to 8 p.m. Wednesdays, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 to 4 p.m. Saturdays, The Idea Hatchery If you’ve been filling in coloring-book pages for years but you’re too intimidated to put actual paint to canvas, local artist John Cannon might be able to offer some help. He’s

V-Framing & Services Virgil Balmer (615) 582-1474

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

been teaching small, intimate art classes— low-pressure, with room for one-on-one instruction—at The Idea Hatchery since September. If you feel like you could be the next Matisse with a little guidance, sign yourself up for some of Cannon’s classes. 1108-C Woodland St., 615-496-1259 www. johncannonart.com

BRINGIN’ DOWN THE HOUSE

After-Hours Jams

7:30 p.m. Thursdays, The Fiddle House

Every Thursday, full-service acoustic string shop The Fiddle House keeps its doors open for an after-hours jam, alternating between “old-time” and “bluegrass” sessions. Sometimes only a few fiddlers show up for the soirees, but other nights the House is packed. If you like to pick or if you just want to hear a good jam, check this place out next time you’re free on Thursday night. All skill levels are welcome and this pickin’ parlor is free. The music kicks off at 7 p.m. and ends whenever they feel like calling it a night. 1009 Clearview Ave., 615-730-8402 www. thefiddlehouse.com

Don Kennedy Roofing Don Kennedy (615) 833-9393

Bootstrap Tim McCay (615) 504-8719

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

ESC BLUEGRASS, BEER, BURGERS

Bluegrass Thursdays with Johnny Campbell & the Bluegrass Drifters

8 p.m. until close on Thursdays, Charlie Bob’s

To celebrate your post-Hump Day, head to Charlie Bob’s and bring your axe along. Watch North 2nd Street’s own Bluegrass Drifters kick things off, then join in on the pickin’ party afterward. Have a burger, buy a few beers and add a little ’grass to your life. Oh yeah: It’s also dollar hot dog night. 1330 Dickerson Pike, 615-262-2244 www. charliebobs.com

TROUBADOURS AND VIRTUOSOS UNITE

UnBound Arts Presents: Third Thursdays

7 p.m., Third Thursday of every month, The Building

Each month, UnBound Arts seeks out intriguing artists and displays their work while musicians play a few live sets of their best stuff to complement. Think of it as a hybrid art opening/rock show UnBound Arts hopes to promote camaraderie, collaboration and fusion between the various

disciplines of the arts. Come join in on this artistic amalgamation. Contact unboundartsnashville@gmail.com for further information. 1008 C Woodland St.

PALAVER RECORDS POW WOW

Palaver Thursday Showcase

9 p.m. Thursdays, FooBar Too

Looking to hear some fresh new tunes without paying a pretty penny? Head over to FooBar on Thursday nights—East Nashville-based record label Palaver Records hosts a weekly showcase to promote both local and traveling acts. It gives them a chance to scout performers, offers bands an opportunity to promote themselves, and gives music lovers a cheap show to catch during the week (only $3 at the door—you can’t beat that in Music City). You can see an array of different genres from week to week, and the beer always flows easy at Foo with $3 drafts. 2511 Gallatin Road www. palaverrecords.com

CAN’T FORCE A DANCE PARTY

Queer Dance Party

9 p.m. to 3 a.m., Third Friday of Every Month, 5 Spot

Once a month the 5 Spot spouts rainbows and rains glitter. On any given month, the QDP is mixed bag of fashionably clad attendees (some in the occasional costume) dancing till they can’t dance no mo’. Help pack out the cozy club, shake a leg, slurp down some of the drink specials, and let your true colors show at a party that touts itself as “The Most Fun.” 1006 Forrest Ave. www.queernashville.com

GUFFAW AND GET DOWN

Luxury Prestige III and Moving Forweird

7 p.m., Third Friday of Every Month, The East Room Get all your giggles and jiving done in one spot at The East Room on Friday nights. At 7 p.m., Luxury Prestige III—a scripted comedy competition where the audience chooses the winner—kicks off, featuring live sketches and scripted video competitions for prizes, plus a musical guest. Pay

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$3 to get yer kicks. After Luxury Prestige III wraps at 10 p.m., The East Room hosts Moving Forweird—a techno/acid/industrial dance party—starts up. DJs Talk, Leto, and Grey People spin the beats. 2412 Gallatin Ave., 615-335-3137 www.facebook.com/ TheEastRoom

WHOSE EAST SIDE IS IT ANYWAY?

Music City Improv

8 p.m., third Friday of each month, The Building

Music City Improv is proud to call East Nashville its home, putting on their high-energy show at The Building each month. Every month’s show is different, featuring a healthy mix of short- and longform improv, plus live and video sketch comedy. Think of it as your own local SNL on a Friday night. This gig tends to sell out, so buy your tickets in advance online. 1008 C. Woodland St. www.musiccityimprov.com

THERE’S A FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING…

First Time Stories

7 to 10 p.m., first Friday of each month, Actor’s Bridge Studio

Whether it’s a story about that first prom night (when you weren’t crowned king or queen), your first concert, or maybe that first kiss, First Time Stories are the stuff of the stage. Once a month, Actors Bridge hosts an open mic night for which such soliloquies are made. They call it “storytelling karaoke,” and if you’re sharing, they only ask that you tell your story straight from the heart in less than five minutes. Bring your first and it won’t be the last time you make it out to this night. Admission is $5 (bring a few extra bucks for the cash bar). 4304 Charlotte Ave. www.actorsbridge.org

place Edgar Allen Poe might’ve stumbled out of over 150 years ago. The entrance is behind the building and parking is free. Check out Black Raven’s Facebook page to see what films they’re screening each week. 2915 Gallatin Road, 615-562-4710 www. facebook.com/pages/Logues-Black-Raven-Emporium/119962624774747

NEIGHBORHOOD MEETINGS & EVENTS SHELBY HILLS NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION

6:30 p.m. third Monday of every odd numbered month, Shelby Community Center 401 S. 20th St. www.shelbyhills.org

MAXWELL HEIGHTS NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION

6 p.m. fourth Monday of every month, Metro Police East Precinct 936 E. Trinity Ln.

EASTWOOD NEIGHBORS

6:30 p.m. second Tuesday of every other month, Eastwood Christian Church

1601 Eastland Ave. www.eastwoodneighbors. org

GREENWOOD NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION

6 p.m. second Tuesday of every month, House on the Hill

909 Manila St. www.greenwoodneighbors.org

GET YOUR CREEP ON

The Cult Fiction Underground

8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, Logue’s Black Raven Emporium

Every weekend, The Cult Fiction Underground—housed beneath Robert Logue’s Black Raven Emporium off Gallatin Road—hosts screenings of rare and classic horror and cult films for $5. You can socialize and have a drink before (or after) the film in the gothic-style bar and lounge area downstairs too, and the dim basement creates an intimate gathering space for cult and horror fans. It looks like the kind of 84

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

EAST NASHVILLE CAUCUS

5 p.m. first Wednesday of every month, Metro Police East Precinct

The East Nashville Caucus provides a public forum for East Nashville community leaders, representatives, council members and neighbors. 936 E. Trinity Ln.

CHAMBER EAST

8:15 to 9:30 a.m. first Wednesday of every month, location changes monthly

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

ESC The Chamber East meets every month for a networking coffee to discuss community updates and how to grow and improve the East Nashville area. Check www.web.nashvillechamber.com/cwt/external/wcpages/wcevents/eventsstartpage.aspx?oe=true to see the location of each monthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s meetings.

CLEVELAND PARK NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION

6:30 p.m. second Thursday of every month, Cleveland Park Community Center

610 N. Sixth St. www.facebook.com/groups/ ClevelandPark

INGLEWOOD NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION

7 p.m. first Thursday of every month, Isaac Litton Alumni Center

4500 Gallatin Road www.inglewoodrna.org

MCFERRIN NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION

6:30 p.m. first Thursday of every month, McFerrin Park Community Center 301 Berry St.

ROSEBANK NEIGHBORS

6:30 p.m. third Thursday of every month, Memorial Lutheran Church. 1211 Riverside Dr.

DICKERSON ROAD MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION

4 p.m. last Thursday of every month, Metro Police East Precinct

936 E. Trinity Ln., www.dickersonroadmerchants.com

MOMS CLUB OF EAST NASHVILLE

10 a.m. first Friday of every month, location varies by group

MOMS (Moms Offering Moms Support) Club is an international organization of mothers with three branches in the East Nashville area. It provides a support network for mothers to connect with other EN mothers. The meetings are open to all mozthers in the designated area. Meetings host speakers, cover regular business items of the organization including upcoming service initiatives and activities, and also allow women to discuss the ins and outs and ups and downs of being a mother with other women. Visit www.momsclubeast.blogspot.com to determine which MOMS group your residence falls under. Inglewood: 10 a.m. (email inglewoodmoms@gmail.com for location) Lockeland: 10 a.m. East Park Community Center, 600 Woodland St. Eastwood: contact chapter for time and location If you have an event you would like to have listed, please send information about the event to calendar@theeastnashvillian.com. For more up to date information, be sure to visit us at theeastnashvillian.com 86

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

YOUR FRIENDLY EAST NASHVILLE INSURANCE AGENT

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TANGLEWOOD TALES C O N T I N U E D F R O M PAG E 3 8

y the late 1980s, the number of rentals diminished, and Romersa found someone to share his passion for Tanglewood. “I went to the bank one day,” Romersa says, “and there was this beautiful woman named Kathy Walker. She told me how broke I was. I owned a lot of stuff but didn’t have any cash. So I decided to marry her because I knew she was right. She said, ‘That’s enough of these people tripping through our house,’ and that was the end of that era.” With the end of Tanglewood’s days as the hideaway for stars, Henry and Kathy Romersa began concentrating on preserving the heritage of Robert Condra’s vision. Over the last three decades, they’ve purchased six of the eight remaining houses built by Condra on Tanglewood Drive. After three years of research and documentation, the Romersas secured a listing for the Tanglewood Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998. Their love for the property extends beyond

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

pure history, as Kathy Romersa points out. “We know everybody here,” she says, “and we all feel like we’re part of a community. We have great tenants. It’s not uncommon for people to rent from us for nine, 10, or 11 years. We host a Christmas breakfast every year for the neighborhood, and when someone does move we have going-away parties.” In the front living room, a small, cozy space that was the first cabin constructed by Robert Condra, Henry Romersa recalls when he received a visit from Tanglewood’s first paramour, Robert Condra. “Condra was in his 80s at the time,” Romersa says. “I was working on a 1931 Packard in the garage when he drove up. He said, ‘I can’t believe it, I had a Packard just like this when I lived here.’ We came down to the house and he said, ‘Henry, can I ring the doorbell?’” Romersa gets up from his chair and walks to the front door to demonstrate. He reaches outside and spins a small metal crank with the enthusiasm of a small boy playing with his favorite toy. The sound of jingling bells fills the room. Romersa continues, “Condra said, ‘That sound is so familiar to me.’ He was a multi-millionaire, but he just wanted to hear that bell again.”

March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

WHERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD? C O N T I N U E D F R O M PAG E 4 6

of developers, Metro, and the residents.” Thomas thinks that good business—better business—ultimately grows from good business sense and right action. “A short-term focus on return on investment can get any business into trouble,” he

says. “If something is unpopular, opinions shift against it. We are hopeful that reactions to poorly done development don’t overcompensate in a way that creates new problems without first considering the trade-offs. If demand for homes is high and you limit the size of the homes, the price per square foot will likely climb faster than it would otherwise. If demand for homes is high and you rezone to prevent additional density, home prices likely climb faster than they would otherwise.

FUNKY SPACE & RUMPLED GRACE C O N T I N U E D F R O M PAG E 4 6

In both instances, economic diversity is lost, which fundamentally alters the fabric of a community.” Which is to say: The rich will get richer, and you can’t stop progress. All those clichés, which are, incidentally, probably correct, fundamentally. Culturally, you’ll price out a lot of the quirkiness that East Nashville prides itself on. You’ll lose the ever-changing collective face—and faces—that make the area so livable and desirable. You’ll lose your hot, “it city” status, and not too many media outlets find time to make listicles about America’s most “lukewarm” places to visit and live. Prevent density, as Thomas notes, and home prices will go up. Which is great if you’re currently a homeowner, but not if you’re looking for a home, or considering moving here. The answer to poorly done development, then, is not to prevent all development. It’s to talk—with your metro councilman, with developers. It means going to neighborhood meetings. It means making some time for your home, as well as yourself and your loved ones who live in that home. Like anything you want to keep in peak performance, it means occasional maintenance. “Currently, interacting with residents isn’t something that is broadly mandated in the rules,” Thomas says. “Interacting with neighbors is a decision we’ve made to try to build in a way that’s consistent with the wishes of the communities we build in. That often requires trying to balance opposing viewpoints on what Nashville should become. Residents want less-expensive homes, but sellers want ever more for their land. Residents want smaller one-story houses, but homebuyers want larger ones and higher land prices often preclude that option. Residents want economic diversity, but are often opposed to density that could help provide it. Buyers want less- expensive homes but still want great areas, driving demand for density. Communities often don’t share the same sentiments, or even agree among the residents. Communities often don’t agree with what Nashville’s planners think Nashville will, could, or should look like. Communities often don’t agree with the preferences of relocating homebuyers who are coming from denser areas. It’s not easy to satisfy all people. “Development isn’t always just a place to be; it’s an opportunity to define how to be ... As the city is continuously refreshed, there’s tremendous opportunity to define how we want to be. Good development can help.”

ill Purcell is a lawyer at Jones Hawkins & Farmer, and also a noted hot chicken aficionado. For those new to the area, the East Nashville resident was also mayor of Nashville from 1999-2007, before current mayor Karl Dean took over. He doesn’t live in the vaunted

THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM March | April 2014

ivory tower some might expect for a former mayor who lectures at the Harvard University Institute of Politics. He makes his home on a modest lot in Lockeland Springs. While in office, Purcell developed the Office of Affordable Housing, created some 26,000 new units, and also focused on increasing the density downtown while preserving housing stock in the city’s historic neighborhoods. With the city’s real estate temperature currently as sweat-inducing as Purcell’s favorite Prince’s order—hot—this now seems prescient. Purcell says it’s just called thinking ahead—far ahead, in most cases. And he doesn’t just mean developers, or Metro government.

Avenue, Richland, or Hillsboro-West End, just for example. “Metro Planning and MDHA [Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency] have experience in protecting what has made this city so special,” he continues. “They know what to do and have done it successfully in the past. Most important now is not forgetting what we know—some of it learned the hard way—[thereby creating] a place we are not now and never want to be. We are the ‘it’ city we are today not because of what we might build next, but because we protected—and then enhanced—what made Nashville so special through two centuries and now beyond.”

“Protecting the fabric of a neighborhood is at the core of maximizing return on investment for the long term.” —Bill Purcell, former Mayor of Metro Nashville “The most important thing is for neighborhoods to be engaged in real time, both in policy changes and in the effect those changes have on the ground,” he says. “It takes constant communication and attention to the people, where they live and work.” Purcell argues that economic forces will actually work to save neighborhoods in the long run. Subpar work, whether in an infrastructure or aesthetic sense, actually hinders developers and development. Those seeking to ignore the “spirit” of zoning in order to maximize their return on investment will be pushed aside. “Protecting the fabric of a neighborhood is at the core of maximizing return on investment for the long term,” says Purcell. “Our most successful neighborhoods have been careful about this for a generation now, and the results are obvious in the increased valuations in East Nashville, Sylvan Park, Second

When asked if stricter zoning and overlays, historic and otherwise, could be a double-edged sword, in that what might “protect” one from a developer now might hinder one’s options with their own property in the future, Purcell replies, “There is nothing doubleedged about protecting a neighborhood and the people who have invested their money and their lives in the place.” There are other cities that have no zoning and little building regulation. The people who have chosen Nashville will not forget why they came or why they stayed in a place that protects their homes and values their community.” “They know they made the right choice. Just ask them,” concludes Purcell.

Sunday, March 30

Monday, May 12

Wednesday, May 21 with SUGAR

+ THE HI-LOWS and STORYMAN

Wednesday, May 28 with special guest KRISTEEN

YOUNG

Friday, June 6 with special guest DAWES

Saturday, June 28

Where goes the neighborhood? Exactly wherever you decide to lead it.

—Timothy C. Davis

Times and locations for neighborhood association meetings can be found in the Calendar section of every issue of The East Nashvillian. Please visit our website for full transcripts of the interveiws that were conducted for this article, as well as links to the Metro Planning and Zoning pages, where you can find downloadable PDF files of the various rules and regulations applicable to residential development. theeastnashvillian.com March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

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EAST of NOR M A L By

Tommy Womack

Blue Tarps & Gin Blossoms

as it really been almost sixteen years now? Sixteen years since the epoch of blue rooftops? When Mother Nature bounced off Charlotte, blew out windows downtown and then opened a can of catawampus all over East Nashville? Indeed it has been. That afternoon, in April of 1998, I was leaving work at that sober bastion of weak smiles otherwise known as Vanderbilt Medical Center. I’d snuck out a few minutes early and just missed the lockdown, when security sealed the whole place up and wouldn’t let anyone leave. I was strolling across the Peabody campus commons under dark skies when the wind whipped up. This being Nashville, where high winds and dark clouds mean rain, I made it my mission to make it to my truck before the squall opened up. Buildings were on all sides of me, obscuring the horizon. Over the rooftops to my left, I noticed that the clouds had begun to move quicker than I’d ever seen clouds move, and there seemed to be an arc to them. Then the whole commons came alive. Trees began to bend, and leaves that had been settled in shrubbery since the last autumn flew straight into the air. The wind actually ripped my shirttail right out of my trousers. I bent forward, put my head down, and walked on. I saw a yellow diamond “Watch For Pedestrians” sign swinging left and right, like it was going to come out of the ground and take flight. It didn’t occur to my tiny little mind what might be going on. After all, this is Nashville; we don’t have tornadoes. That’s a Kansas thing. It was over in less than a minute, followed by an eerie

calm. I made it to my truck at 16th and Edgehill and turned on the radio. There was not a station to be found until I flipped over to AM and found life. I don’t remember what the announcer was saying but it was along the sanitized lines of, “What the f--- was that?!?” Cell phones weren’t pervasive then. I didn’t have one. I just drove on home, to find the answering machine full of entreaties from Kentucky relatives, all checking on my heavily pregnant wife and me, hoping we were OK. I thought, “Why wouldn’t we be OK?” It still hadn’t dawned on me that I’d taken a stroll through the outer reaches of an F3 tornado, if it is possible to “stroll” through such a thing. We all spent the next few days calling friends, especially the ones in East Nashville, to ascertain everyone’s sense of well-being. Thankfully, most everyone was OK, although a student in Centennial Park, trapped under a felled tree, perished. Then the blue tarps came to decorate so many desiccated rooftops. Why they were all blue—and never a red or a green one, or a nice mauve—I don’t know. I guess a company making blue tarps had a lock on the market. That weekend was full of rattled weirdness, the most entertaining instance for me being the next night at the Sutler during a Tin Pan South writers round with Bill Lloyd, Ross Rice, and a liquored-up New Yorker who’d been a Gin Blossom for five minutes and apparently had Pablo Escobar on speed-dial. But that’s a story for another time.

— Tommy Womack is a singer-songwriter and author, and a former member of both Government Cheese and the bis-quits. His memoir, Cheese Chronicles, has just been released as an e-book by Amber House Books. Visit his website at tommywomack.com and keep up via his popular “Monday Morning Cup of Coffee” series. His column, "East of Normal," appears in every issue of The East Nashvillian. He is currently working on both a new memoir and his seventh solo record.

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March | April 2014 THEEASTNASHVILLIAN.COM

PARTING SHOT

CHUCK MEAD THE EXIT/IN PHOTOGRAPHED DAVE CARDACIOTTO

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