Nashville Scene 6-11-20

CITY LIMITS: WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT DEFUNDING THE POLICE

JUNE 11–17, 2020 I VOLUME 39 I NUMBER 19 I NASHVILLESCENE.COM I FREE

CITY LIMITS: PPP LOANS PRESENT CHALLENGES FOR CERTAIN LOCAL BUSINESSES

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We conduct a doggietreat taste test, track down a five-legged cat, reveal the results of the Pet Superlatives Photo Contest and much more

BEST IN SHOW PHOTO CONTEST WINNER TINKER MONEYPENNY MORGAN, ESQUIRE

Pet TH E

ISSUE

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6/8/20 6:54 PM

MUSIC IS HOPE

Watch and Listen This week, we’re focusing on music’s ability to imbue, inspire, evoke, and sustain hope. Visit our Watch & Listen page to explore hopeful and hope-filled videos and podcast episodes from our archives, including classic footage of Country Music Hall of Fame member Dolly Parton.

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NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 11 – JUNE 17, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

above: photo:

Dolly Parton, 1975

Raeanne Rubenstein

from the raeanne rubenstein collection at the country music hall of fame and museum

CONTENTS

JUNE 11. 2O2O

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What We Talk About When We Talk About Defunding the Police .................................7

The Future of Restaurants

CITY LIMITS

Looking at how groups like the Nashville People’s Budget Coalition want to defund the police

BY STEVEN HALE

COVID-19 Takes Touch Away From the Deaf-Blind ...................................................8 ‘We were isolated before, and when you add social distancing to it, it makes us feel a lot more isolated’

FOOD AND DRINK

Once COVID-19 is in the rearview mirror and we have a vaccine, will we recognize restaurants?

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BOOKS

Here Be Dragons Wayétu Moore flees Liberia’s civil war and fights to be seen in race-obsessed America

Who’s Down With PPP? .............................9

BY KIM GREEN AND CHAPTER 16

Payroll Protection Program loans present challenges for certain local businesses — like, perhaps, your favorite bar

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Pith in the Wind .........................................9 This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog

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Nashville Symphony Could Lay Off 131 Employees

BY MARGARET LITTMAN

BY HANNAH HERNER

BY J.R. LIND

THIS WEEK ON THE WEB:

MUSIC

In the Slipstream .................................... 30

State AG to Argue for Execution Despite Evidence of Racist Prosecutorial Misconduct Corner Pub Nations Shuts Down After Controversial Tweets Follow These Local Black Artists and Influencers on Instagram ON THE COVER:

Swamp Dogg’s Sorry You Couldn’t Make It sums up a half-century of soul music

Best in Show Photo Contest winner: Tinker Moneypenny Morgan, Esquire Photo: Daniel Meigs

BY EDD HURT

Going Boldly ............................................ 31

COVER STORY

Larkin Poe stands tall on the blues-infused Self Made Man

The Pet Issue

Snack Attack ........................................... 10 Four dogs and six humans taste-test five locally made dog treats

BY LORIE LIEBIG

Winds of Change ..................................... 31

BY MEGAN SELING

Black music business professionals explore pervasive racism in Nashville

Let Your Love Grow ................................. 11

BY ANDREA WILLIAMS

The important role of fospicers — those who care for ill and aging animals

BY J.R. LIND

She’s Got Legs ......................................... 12 Meet Ludog, Nashville’s most beautiful fivelegged rescue

BY D. PATRICK RODGERS

Under the Henfluence ............................. 14 Backyard chickens reign supreme during the pandemic

The Spin ................................................... 33 The Scene’s live-review column checks out livestreams by Adia Victoria, Sturgill Simpson and more

BY BRITTNEY McKENNA, LORIE LIEBIG AND STEPHEN TRAGESER

34 FILM

Primal Stream: Power to the People

Pet Superlatives Photo Contest ............. 16

Powerful documentaries, a Paul Schrader classic and more, now available to stream

Check out the winners of this year’s contest

BY JASON SHAWHAN

BY ERICA CICCARONE

The Zoo Normal ...................................... 18 What do zoo animals do when there are no visitors to look at them?

BY STEVEN HALE

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NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD

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CRITICS’ PICKS

MARKETPLACE

Watch the premiere of Quaranteened: A Virtual Musical, build your own Penelope Spheeris film fest, read up on prison and police abolition, check out the online exhibit Cats in Art History, join The Bookshop’s June reading challenge and more

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FROM BILL FREEMAN IS THE NASHVILLE AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE’S BOARD EMBARRASSED BY ITS PRESIDENT AND CEO? Recently, I wrote about Mayor John Cooper’s budget cuts, which included a 50 percent reduction in the annual $350,000 economic development grant to the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce.

Not only do I understand the mayor’s reasoning, I also believe it was a message of monumental proportion. Why pay a chamber $350,000 annually to direct business traffic away from our city — and our county?

The chamber is, by title, an “area” chamber. If Nashville were gaining new businesses and scoring large by landing great companies, it would be perfectly understandable that our neighbors also score some of the businesses. Our neighboring counties use Nashville as a carrot to pitch companies on relocating to their towns — and they should do that. But the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce has the word “Nashville” first, at the front of that title. As president and CEO of the chamber, Ralph Schulz should be concerning himself with bringing business to Nashville first — and if Nashville isn’t a perfect fit, then it would be reasonable to help the prospect consider nearby options.

But that is obviously not happening.

I may not be the only one disappointed. I

hear some members of the chamber board are also showing signs of discontent.

The chamber membership appears to be down 30 percent, maybe more; I am not sure, because when I looked around on the chamber’s website — and elsewhere on the internet — it was difficult to find any true numbers on membership through the years. They currently advertise an approximate 2,000 members. Just a few years back it was around 3,300. Even if I’m off by a few hundred, the question would remain: Why, in a city that was exploding pre-COVID-19, would our chamber’s membership be going down?

Another issue the chamber board may be having is one related to morale.

Multiple sources have mentioned to me that morale is low and turnover is high.

Vacant positions are going unfilled. Others have remarked that Nashville Chamber CEO Ralph Schulz is not the easiest person to work for, and that tensions are high.

Visualize the work the chamber gets to do each day: reaching out to new businesses, talking to new people — families, musicians, artists or entrepreneurs — all thinking about moving here. How exciting would that be? For the environment to be grim makes little to no sense. While morale may be down due to pressures from the chamber’s CEO, it could also be down due to the compensation structure

RALPH SCHULZ when compared with the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp.

Including benefits, Schulz earns $523,517 annually. The second-highestpaid chamber staffer earns approximately $200,000. After that, salaries hover around $175,000 to $180,000 for other key executives. In comparison, the two top employees one step from the president at NCVC earn approximately $350,000 each,

and multiple employees earn between $200,000 and $250,000.

Some are beginning to make comparisons between Schulz’s leadership and that of his predecessor Mike Neal. You may not remember Neal — he didn’t last long. He was a poor leader and subpar in most measurable categories.

Is the chamber board embarrassed by the recent cuts from the mayor’s office?

Are they embarrassed that Schulz has put them in this position? In his 13-anda-half years as chamber president and CEO, the chamber has certainly not “exploded” as the city has. In the years prior to COVID-19, the city’s population and construction growth was dramatic and impressive.

We need that same kind of dynamic growth in our chamber. We need a chamber that will put Nashville and Davidson County first.

Bill Freeman Bill Freeman is the owner of FW Publishing, the publishing company that produces the Nashville Scene, Nfocus, the Nashville Post and Home Page Media Group in Williamson County.

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CITY LIMITS

WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT DEFUNDING THE POLICE Looking at how groups like the Nashville People’s Budget Coalition want to defund the police

BY STEVEN HALE

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PHOTOS: MATT MASTERS

arlier this month, the Metro Council experienced what AtLarge Metro Councilmember Bob Mendes would later describe as a “slow-speed, peaceful protest.”

So many people showed up — both in person and remotely — to speak as part of the council’s public hearing on Mayor John Cooper’s proposed budget that the meeting didn’t end until dawn. The overwhelming message was clear: Defund the police.

That phrase has emerged as one of the primary banners under which hundreds of thousands of Americans are protesting following the police killing of a black man named George Floyd in Minneapolis. Many people expressing support for the idea advocate something short of what those words imply — they want a reduced police force that takes a dramatically different approach to law enforcement. But the origins of the phrase, and the heart of the movement pushing it, are in abolitionist philosophies that have been largely developed by Black women. In many ways they’ve argued that the idea of abolishing prisons and the police seem so radical only

METRO POLICE IN RIOT GEAR DURING THE “I WILL BREATHE” RALLY ON MAY 30

because we’ve lost sight of the radical nature of the status quo — a status quo in which enormous police departments have military weapons and equipment, and many of our states incarcerate people at a higher rate than any other country in the world.

The extraordinary turnout at the Metro Council meeting was largely driven by the work of the Nashville People’s Budget Coalition, which includes Black Lives Matter; Gideon’s Army; Music City Riders United; No Exceptions Prison Collective; Free Hearts; People’s Alliance for Transit, Housing and Equity; Southerners on New Ground Nashville; and Workers’ Dignity.

The group recently released a report on the mayor’s proposed budget, highlighting disparities between spending on the criminal legal system — police, jails, courts — and public goods that they argue could create a safer society.

“True public safety is built on people having access to and control of the public and social goods — housing, health care, transportation, jobs, libraries, community centers — that truly foster healthy communities,” reads a section of the report’s introduction.

The coalition’s materials do not use the word “abolition,” but some of its members do see that as a long-term goal.

“Policing is a system that can’t be reformed,” says Dawn Harrington, a formerly incarcerated Black woman who is now the executive director of Free Hearts.

“Its origins are from slave-catching from the beginning. A lot of us, myself included, have stared down the barrel of police officers. So it’s not a radical idea to us, except to say ‘radical’ as meaning getting to the root of the issue.”

Cecilia Prado, a co-director at Workers’ Dignity, says her experience as a survivor of domestic violence taught her that the police are not effective at handling even the situations in which many think they are most needed.

“Right now the police are given too many tasks that perhaps they’re not really equipped to do,” Prado says. “Perhaps in some scenarios they are tasked with keeping the peace, and they actually do the opposite.”

Prado identifies as an abolitionist, although she emphasizes that the fundamental goal of the People’s Budget is to increase engagement from community members and advocate for what they want.

The coalition is currently soliciting input through an online survey.

Harrington says she knows a society without police won’t be achieved overnight.

But she says the path to that goal begins with divesting from police and jails and investing in community resources — like social workers and anti-violence work, like the violence interrupters deployed in North Nashville by Gideon’s Army.

There are examples of alternatives to police, at least in some situations. In Eugene, Ore., an organization called CAHOOTS was

“RIGHT NOW THE POLICE ARE GIVEN TOO MANY TASKS THAT PERHAPS THEY’RE NOT REALLY EQUIPPED TO DO.”

—CECILIA PRADO, WORKERS’ DIGNITY started in 1989. Twenty years later, they handle almost 20 percent of the area’s public safety calls, including those for mental health crises and public intoxication. They can also respond to de-escalate personal disputes. Several other cities are considered adopting similar programs.

A theme of the speakers at the council’s public hearing last week was a plea for an about-face in regard to Metro’s spending.

“As a native Nashvillian, granddaughter of Tennessee educators and a Black woman, I am strongly opposed to the allocation of even one more taxpayer dollar to fund a public safety system that does not and has not kept our community safe,” said Phoebe Moore, speaking at the lectern in the council chambers. “Instead, I strongly support the funding of public services, namely education, affordable housing and public health. Tennessee has historically ranked in the bottom 25 states in education, while the incarceration rate in the state continues to increase, especially among Black and brown people.”

Gicola Lane, who is part of the People’s Budget Coalition and was one of the leaders of the successful campaign to create the city’s Community Oversight Board, says some recent police actions have made the pitch relatively easy.

“People seeing the police [at the Teens for Equality march] when we were with the young organizers, in riot gear,” Lane recalls.

“Being able to say, ‘Our tax money is paying for that riot gear to meet high-schoolers with during a protest.’ ” On Monday, Cooper made a surprise announcement that the long-delayed deployment of body cameras will begin next month.

Though it’s nowhere near the shift called for by scores of Nashvillians during the council’s record-setting meeting, there was a small sign of change less than a week later.

The mayor’s proposed spending plan kept the Metro Nashville Public Schools budget relatively flat, while giving the Metro Nashville Police Department operating budget a $2.6 million dollar boost. When Mendes, who chairs the council’s Budget and Finance Committee, released his proposed substitute budget, he’d flipped those two. Mendes’ plan would give MNPS an additional $12.5 million and eliminate MNPD’s budget increase.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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CITY LIMITS

COVID-19 TAKES TOUCH AWAY FROM THE DEAF-BLIND

‘We were isolated before, and when you add social distancing to it, it makes us feel a lot more isolated’

BY HANNAH HERNER

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“WE DON’T ENJOY GOING OUT RIGHT NOW BECAUSE WE CAN’T TOUCH ANYBODY AND WE CAN’T GET CLOSE ENOUGH TO COMMUNICATE WITH ANYBODY BECAUSE WE RELY ON TOUCH FOR OUR COMMUNICATION.

—ASHLEY JACKSON

compared to regular ASL is that a person can’t point to things or use facial expressions. Touch is used to communicate all these things, and sometimes that involves touching the face. Sponseller, a certified interpreter for the deaf, wears a mask and uses lots of hand sanitizer when he communicates that way.

“People might give you strange looks because you’re not supposed to be close together,” Sponseller says. “But there’s no way around it. The Deaf-Blind community at large is struggling with that.”

Jackson was working on her master’s degree in social work at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., when the pandemic hit.

At first, she would meet with an interpreter individually, who would interpret videoconference meetings for her. But as the pandemic progressed, she was on her own.

“Learning online just doesn’t work for me — [it’s] not for people who do better with one-on-one instruction,” Jackson says. “We don’t realize how much we rely on people until now. I’ve noticed that I’ve become more depressed, I’ve become more lonely and emotional, craving contact. It’s just scary not to have contact anymore.”

It’s hard to be left at the mercy of others — and for the Deaf-Blind, most of the time those others are volunteers. They need interpreters for certain things, like medical and legal appointments, but they also need Support Service Providers. SSPs help with day-to-day tasks.

John Forbes, former president and current treasurer of the Tennessee Organization for the Deaf-Blind, says finding an SSP can be difficult, even before stay-at-home orders started keeping some volunteers at home. The day he spoke with the Scene, Forbes — who is Deaf-Blind himself — was

JOHN FORBES

planning his first trip to Walmart since February. He created a list that includes aisle numbers and a description of each item to help out his SSP. He could always bring along his video magnifying glass, but this way will save time. The person who is taking him is volunteering her time, after all.

An SSP is also required for each attendee to Forbes’ favorite TODB event of the year: sailing on Old Hickory Lake. He is sure to send out the dates in his newsletter months ahead of time so that people have time to secure SSPs. The group had to cancel one of the twice-a-year state TODB meetings for the first time due to COVID-19.

When COVID-19 is under control and Forbes can come and go from his senior living center as he pleases, he’s going to keep working to establish a statewide SSP program that collaborates with local interpreting services to make sure the Deaf-Blind have the support they need. He’ll write another grant to have a summer camp for the Deaf-Blind, in hopes of getting the funding again for the first time since 2012.

He’s anxious to get his sign language teacher back in the building, and is staying brushed up on his newly learned Braille

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

W

hen COVID-19 hit, Forest Sponseller began thinking about what his mom, who is Deaf-Blind, is experiencing.

“The world for her exists in only three senses, and that’s taste, touch and smell,” he says. “That’s all there is for her. And those are the three senses that will transmit a virus.”

People who are Deaf-Blind rely heavily on touch and close proximity with others to communicate and complete daily tasks.

Social distancing protocols designed to slow the spread of COVID-19 stand in the way of that.

Ashley Jackson uses tactile American Sign Language, in which she puts her hand on top of the hand of the person who is signing. She also uses what’s known as protactile sign language to get more context. Someone might draw the shape of a room on her back or her hand with their finger, and note where the exits and other people are, along with other points of interest. There are also protactile signs to note expressions on others’ faces, and to alert a Deaf-Blind person in case of an emergency.

Jackson, who is completely blind and has some hearing through cochlear implants, says hearing and sighted people take things like eye contact or a nod for granted. A handshake or a touch on the arm is what makes her feel acknowledged.

“I miss being able to touch a lot,” Jackson says. “We were isolated before, and when you add social distancing to it, it makes us feel a lot more isolated. We don’t enjoy going out right now because we can’t touch anybody and we can’t get close enough to communicate with anybody because we rely on touch for our communication. So many people take for granted — all they have to do is look at one another and know what the other is saying.”

On a typical day, it can be hard for others to understand Jackson’s speech. She says it’s frustrating when it’s further muffled by a mask, but she’ll wear one anyway. Jackson says she’s especially worried about people who are Deaf-Blind and also have special needs. She’s able to understand the virus and why she can’t touch, but she knows people who aren’t able to.

Many people who are Deaf-Blind have some level of sight or hearing. (For our interview, Jackson had her phone audio connected directly to her cochlear implants.)

If a person has some eyesight, they can use zone interpreting, in which an interpreter stands close to them, or tracking, in which the Deaf-Blind person holds the elbow of the person to help their eyes track the signs.

A challenge with tactile sign language

skills by reading the Bible. He’ll also keep advocating for a state-provided curriculum for people who are late Deaf-Blind, like him.

He wasn’t diagnosed with Usher syndrome type II until he was 27, even though his hearing was always bad and his sight started to decline in adolescence.

“It takes a lot of time to go advocate,” Forbes says. “You’re going to hit dead ends, but you have to go back and try and try and try until you find a door that’s wide open.”

Having to wait for others to understand them is an everyday reality for people who are Deaf-Blind. Jackson hopes sighted and hearing people take the time and patience to listen, especially now.

“I’m talking quite a bit, but I feel like I have to say everything because I hope this will give people insight, and they’ll take the time to listen because they don’t have to go out to work and be as busy,” Jackson says.

“They have more time to listen, and I want them to take the time to listen to what I have to say and think about what I have to say.”

For more information on ASL and SSP classes in Nashville, visit bridgesfordeafandhh.org EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

CITY LIMITS

LOWER BROADWAY DURING SOCIAL DISTANCING

WHO’S DOWN WITH PPP?

Payroll Protection Program loans present challenges for certain local businesses — like, perhaps, your favorite bar

BY J.R. LIND

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roll, the loan would be forgiven and the Federal Reserve would compensate the lending institution. Essentially, businesses had eight weeks to spend the money, and the loan would have to be forgiven and would start bearing interest (though at a low 1 percent per annum).

There were navigational problems early on, with thousands upon thousands of business owners applying for the loans and the Small Business Administration still struggling to come up with the rules for the banks. But eventually, the money started moving. It was indeed an unprecedented level of government support for small businesses, which has historically focused stimulus efforts on individual payments, shoring up banks and increasing public spending.

But the weeks started to tick over, and the earliest recipients of the loans began

he problem with unprecedented events is that there is no precedent, and the problem with unforeseen consequences is that they can’t be foreseen.

Take the Payroll Protection Program, a $669 billion loan program included in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. On its face, it’s genius in its simplicity. Small businesses with fewer than 500 employees were eligible to apply for low-interest loans worth roughly 2.5 times their monthly payroll to help keep Americans on the job — or at least paid — during the widespread shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Originally, if the business retained or hired back furloughed workers, didn’t reduce salaries by more than 25 percent and spent 75 percent of the PPP funds on pay-

Six teenage girls who met on Twitter organized a march that drew at least 10,000 people to downtown Nashville June 4. “As teens, we are tired of waking up and seeing another innocent person being slain in broad daylight,” said Zee Thomas, one of the Teens for Equality, who organized the mass protest. “As teens, we are desensitized to death because we see videos of black people being killed in broad daylight circulating on social media platforms. As teens, we feel like we cannot make a difference in this world, but we must.” The organizers ensured marchers stayed compact, provided masks for those who needed them and reminded everyone it was important to stay hydrated. After a final moment of silence to remember George Floyd and others killed by

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

THIS WEEK ON OUR NEWS AND POLITICS BLOG:

FOUR OF THE FOUNDERS OF TEENS FOR EQUALITY

police, MNPD officers told the marchers that there was a tornado warning in the area — which wasn’t true. … Rallies continued through the weekend. A Saturday march emphasized voter registration and voter turnout. The protesters were met by Metro police officers in riot gear at three locations, each the site of violence after a rally the previous weekend: the MNPD Central Precinct, the honkytonk district on Lower Broadway and the Metro Courthouse. … Metro police issued warrants for the arrest of activists Justin Jones and Jeneisha

getting nervous. Many states and cities — Nashville included — had yet to reopen their economies in a meaningful way, and revenues, even for businesses that had reopened, were low. Even with the federal assistance, many struggled to stay above water or fell fatally into the red. While eight weeks had seemed a sufficient dike to hold back the raging ocean of debt when President Donald Trump signed the CARES Act into law March 27, the pandemic — despite Trump’s earlier promises — didn’t disappear “like a miracle.”

The United States was and is a patchwork of reopening plans and phases and restrictions that were inconsistent based on the situation on the ground in a specific place. A triumph of true federalism, to be sure, but political philosophy is cold comfort to a business owner trying to stay afloat, and to the employees relying on steady pay.

The PPP did in fact allow for exceptions to the repayment requirements for businesses kept shuttered by certain federal agencies. Even so, there was no similar backstop for those closed by state or local regulation. In particular, bar owners were faced with tough decisions. With the loosening of age-old liquor laws suddenly allowing for takeaway Jell-O shots and the like, many got creative, relying on regulars coming by for a to-go version of their favorite drink or opting to buy six-packs from their local watering hole instead of the grocery store.

Many with kitchen service boxed their bar food for takeout. But the number of employees (and the hours they work) needed to keep such an operation profitable is far below what was standard in the days before COVID-19. And all the creative solutions in the world can’t force people to come by.

Even when Metro moved into its multiphase reopening plan, bars remained — and still remain — barred until phase three.

Those that qualify as restaurants could reopen for sit-down service last month in phase one, but at 25 percent capacity. For bar staff, continuing unemployment was often a smarter option than going back to work, because so much of their pay comes in tips.

Harris on June 4, charging both with aggravated rioting, claiming that when they climbed on a police cruiser during the first Nashville protest May 31, they damaged the car. Both turned themselves in, but by the time Jones and Harris arrived at the precinct, MNPD and Davidson County District Attorney Glenn Funk announced that the warrants, which were approved by a judicial commissioner rather than Funk’s office, would be rescinded. The DA told Pith he was skeptical about the charges against Jones and asked to review the evidence they were based on. After reviewing photos and video of Saturday’s events, Funk said he decided that neither Jones nor Harris had committed a crime. … The Metro Council gaveled in for a budget hearing June 2 and didn’t gavel out until June 3, as the meeting lasted more than 10 hours, with many of those addressing the council calling for defunding the police, an increasingly popular movement nationwide. Speaking to Pith’s Stephen Hale (after an hour or so of sleep), Budget and Finance Chairman and At-Large Coun-

Tips require customers, and even at those businesses that could reopen, well, to quote great American economist Yogi Berra, “If people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, how are you going to stop them?”

Though it probably wasn’t Congress’ intention, an amendment to the PPP sped through the legislative process over the weekend — and it may help save your favorite bar.

Realizing the initial period was far too short given the realities of a pandemic that’s slowed but hardly abated, Congress extended the eight-weeks-to-spend requirement to 24 weeks (or Dec. 31, whichever is earlier). Further, with businesses staring down the prospect that they had to spend three-quarters of the loan on payroll — which meant making decisions on paying (or even overpaying) workers to meet the threshold or keeping the lights on or paying the rent — Congress lowered that bar to 60 percent.

And importantly, the “safe harbor date” by which employers had to rehire was moved from the end of June to the end of the year. That’s welcome relief for businesses, like bars, still closed by local governments.

On Monday, Metro Nashville Mayor John Cooper said the number of new cases continues to rise and the number of active cases is at its all-time high (per 100,000 people, the number of active cases climbed from 165 to 204 between Memorial Day and June 8).

Therefore, he said, the city wasn’t ready to move into phase three, which would have allowed broader capacity at restaurants and other businesses and reopened bars.

Cooper gave no indication of when the city would re-examine moving to its next step, but it’s likely too early to make such a prediction, given that people have started to gather in larger numbers, be it for backyard parties or protests against racial injustice.

The impacts of summertime revelry and 10,000-strong marches aren’t likely to be apparent at least through the end of June.

Thankfully, for Nashvillians who love their local watering hole, the end of June doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the line for bars.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

cilmember Bob Mendes said he was “persuaded” by the concept and suggested, perhaps, using a decrease in funding for MNPD on social programs in certain targeted neighborhoods. Mendes also reiterated his call that MNPD Chief Steve Anderson be removed. …Monday, Cooper announced that a renegotiation of Metro’s deal with a vendor supplying body-worn and in-car cameras for MNPD will result in the immediate deployment of the equipment, beginning with the West Precinct. … The death of 75-year-old Jeronimo Anguiano, an employee at Goodlettsville’s Tyson Foods plant, after a COVID-19 diagnosis underscores the need for workers’ protections during the pandemic, advocates told Pith’s Stephen Elliott. Meanwhile, the Tennessee General Assembly is considering legislation that would curtail liability of employers in COVID-related lawsuits. … The Nashville Symphony is the latest cultural institution to fall victim to the pandemic, announcing it would temporarily lay off 131 full-time employees. This follows the layoff of 200 part-timers in mid-April.

NASHVILLESCENE.COM/PITHINTHEWIND EMAIL: PITH@NASHVILLESCENE.COM TWEET: @PITHINTHEWIND

nashvillescene.com | JUNE 11 – JUNE 17, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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Pet THE

ISSUE

PHOTOS: ERIC ENGLAND

We conduct a doggie-treat taste test, track down a five-legged cat, reveal the results of the Pet Superlatives Photo Contest and much more

Snack Attack Four dogs and six humans taste-test five locally made dog treats

I

BY MEGAN SELING t wasn’t until I was tasked with hosting a dog-treat taste test that I realized just how great my friends are. That’s because when I rolled up to the puppy party with five bags of locally made dog treats — all boasting all-natural and human-grade ingredients — not a single person flinched when I jokingly said, “Y’all

10

are gonna try them too, right?”

Of course, what the dogs think is the most important part. So our tasting panel was also composed of four pups — Johnny Waffles, Otter, Rudder and Turtle. Sure, they might crunch some sun-baked poop from time to time, but these dogs do have discerning palates. One-year-old Rudder is known to

spit out treats and carefully examine them before digging in, and 6-year-old Johnny Waffles still holds a grudge over some romaine lettuce I tried to feed him a few weeks ago. It was crunchy! I thought he’d like it! He did not.

Here’s what happened when four pups and five humans spent a sunny afternoon eating dog snacks.

SPOTTED DOG BAKERY

Spotteddogbakery.com Sweet Potato BARK, 3 ounces, $8.99 At Spotted Dog Bakery in Kingston Springs, Tenn., you

can get layered cakes and hand-decorated cookies that are as pretty as anything you’d find at a bakery for humans. (For $65 they’ll hand-paint a cake to look just like your pet!)

But they also offer treats better suited for everyday indulgences. Their Sweet Potato BARK is made with just two ingredients — roasted sweet potato and flax meal — and it’s the dog treat that our humans unanimously declared the one they’d most happily eat if left with only dog snacks during quarantine.

Dogs: All four dogs appeared to really like the Sweet Potato BARK, but it disappeared quickly. The bark is thin and delicate, so at least two of the pups just swallowed their pieces whole without any savoring or crunching whatsoever. Did they eat it so quickly because it was delicious and they couldn’t wait to get more, or because it was something edible put near their mouths?

We’ll never know.

Humans: “It tastes like sweet potato! I’ve had gas-station beef jerky that’s less edible.”

“Not bad at all! It’s like a Triscuit.”

MISS KITTY’S

misskittysnashville.com Pitter Pats, bag of 24, $10 Miss Kitty’s Dog Resort has been around since 1991, and it’s a local favorite.

(They were voted Best Pet Grooming by our readers in the Scene’s 2018 and 2019 Best of Nashville issues, and runner-up for Best Pet Boarding in 2019.)

NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 11 – JUNE 17, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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Pet THE

OFFICIAL CANINE TASTE-TESTERS

Their made-in-house Pitter Pats have a little bit of everything dogs love: chicken liver, chicken broth, apple sauce, eggs and parsley all mixed into a base of rye flour and whole oats.

Dogs: Rudder, the youngest of the bunch, appeared to be thrown off by the thin, waferlike texture. He initially spit it to the ground.

But after a few more sniffs and licks, he gleefully gobbled it up just before Johnny Waffles ran over in an attempt to steal it.

Rudder’s brother, old man Turtle (he’s almost 15!), liked his Pitter Pat so much he mustered the strength to jump up my leg and demand another.

Humans: “It tastes like a communion wafer.”

“That’s exactly what I was gonna say!

It tastes like an Episcopalian communion wafer.”

of spent malt barley, and the company uses locally sourced ingredients when possible.

Their Chicken & Waffles flavor has Tennessee sorghum! Their CBD products feature oil from a farm in Cave City, Ky.! For the taste test, I tried the Biscuits & Gravy treats, which are fattened up with pure lard.

Dogs: It’s hard to say for sure which treat was the dogs’ favorite, as they were delighted to eat any and all of the snacks. But all humans present agreed the pup panel lit up a little brighter when they got a hold of these biscuits. The bone-shaped treats were the largest in the bunch, so they made for a crunchy mouthful of chicken-liver-flavored goodness (even for the largest dog of the bunch, 75-pound Otter).

Humans: “This is what I’d imagine a standard dog biscuit tastes like.”

“It tastes like evil … or feet.”

NOM NOMS DOG TREATS

LITTLE BIG DOG TREATS

Nomnomsdogtreats.com Cinnabutter, 6 ounces, $8.99 All Nom Noms Dog Treats are vegan-friendly and gluten-free, and there are flavors like Naturally Nutty, Cinnabutter and Peanut Butter Banana. When ordering, you can choose the size of your biscuit, from small training-treat-sized chunks to larger hearts and squares. (Some dogs love a big crunchy biscuit, after all.) A portion of the proceeds goes to local spay and neuter programs, too.

Dogs: All four dogs appeared to love how the (medium-size, heart-shaped) Nom Noms Cinnabutter treats crunched and crumbled in their mouths. It was like a dog-food-confetti cannon went off as they chomped on the treats and all playfully fought over and hunted for the crumbs that fell into the grass.

Humans: The texture was less of a hit with the humans. “It’s chalky and dusty! There’s no flavor at all! I would not eat this.”

BARLEY BONES

barleybon.es Biscuits & Gravy, 6 ounces, $8.99 Chattanooga’s Barley Bones are made with a base

Littlebigdogtreats.com Music City Mix, 6 ounces, $8.99 The bag of Little Big Dog Treats, made in Lebanon, Tenn., was the only one that didn’t make me gag slightly when I opened it.

It smelled like cheese, cinnamon and apples — not dehydrated liver and feet! And if you care about such things, all the flavors in the Music City Mix are vegetarian-friendly. The apple treats contain apples, molasses and cinnamon; the cheese biscuits have Parmesan and cheddar cheese, egg and rosemary, and you can actually see the hunks of cheese baked in.

Dogs: At this point it was pretty clear these dogs were going to happily eat anything we put in front of their faces, but as with the Barley Bones, I think all four pups especially enjoyed the size and texture of these biscuits. They were crunchy but not rock-hard or dense, and they were big but not overwhelmingly so.

Humans: “This one tastes like apple!”

“I like the aftertaste of the cheese one. It’s like a cheese straw, kind of.”

“Do you want another one?”

“Would you judge me if I did?”

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

ISSU E

CARA SUTCLIFFE

Let Your Love Grow The important role of

fospicers — those who care for ill and aging animals

BY J.R. LIND

F

ostering pets is a rewarding experience.

Whether it’s leading a puppy or kitten through its first few weeks of life without its mom or socializing an older animal to transition from shelter life to its forever home, there are usually smiles at the end.

Tears, however, aren’t infrequent either. After all, by their very nature, foster parents love animals and often grow to love their foster pets, but there comes a point when they have to give up the pooch or kitty to its new owner — unless they themselves adopt the animal permanently, a situation cheekily called “foster failure.” Many tears are shed in the parking lot at the Nashville

Humane Association.

But ultimately, there are happy endings here: a long life in a forever home with a family who chose the animal. Between the outpouring of support following the March 3 tornado and the massive number of Nashvillians stuck inside due to the pandemic, the NHA’s foster program has grown exponentially.

But within the ever-growing community of pet fosters, there is an elite unit with unique skills most of us find hard to fathom.

The hard truth is that not every animal that comes to a shelter is going to leave for a forever home. Long-term medical problems essentially make some animals unadoptable, as does an acute condition the animal is unlikely to recover from.

Enter the hospice fosters, known colloquially as fospicers. When the NHA determines it’s unlikely an animal will ever be able to be adopted — or that its remaining time is so short that adopting it out would be unfair — foster coordinator Erica Beard scans her list to find the right match.

“When trying to match a fospice animal to a person, we ultimately look for a person or family with stability,” says Beard. “A lot of these animals are in their last days, weeks or months, and we’d love to keep them where they are as they age. If your family takes a lot of trips, constantly has people in and out, and has a lot of commitments, you may not be the best fit to take on a fospice animal.”

nashvillescene.com | JUNE 11 – JUNE 17, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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She’s Got Legs

Pet THE

ISSU E

Meet Ludog, Nashville’s most beautiful five-legged rescue

BY D. PATRICK RODGERS

“I

t’s like a big, in-the-way kickstand,” says JB, describing her 4-yearold cat Ludog’s fifth leg.

“The end of the leg is fused to her spine, and then four of her vertebrae are fused together.

So when her leg moves, her spine moves. It’s crazy. You’d think that it would be more painful for her, but it doesn’t seem to cause her any pain at all.”

When a person or an animal is born with extra limbs or parts of limbs, that’s known as polymelia. The condition of having supernumerary toes, called polydactyly, isn’t all that uncommon in felines — perhaps you’re familiar with Ernest Hemingway’s famed polydactyl cats, the descendants of whom still prowl the grounds of the late author’s Key West home. But having an entire extra leg? That’s less common.

Two years ago, JB was living in New York City. Her cat-owning roommate had just moved out, and JB found herself missing animal companionship. She attended the ASPCA Adoption Center’s foster-orientation program — a quick seminar on caring for animals that ended with the organizers presenting three animals who needed foster homes right then. There were two dogs and a five-legged cat named Lulu.

“There were like 30 people there,” says JB. “I was like, ‘Everybody is gonna want to take home this five-legged cat!’ And one by one, as everybody was walking out, they

PHOTOS: DANIEL MEIGS

Experience is also a key factor. Cara Sutcliffe, her husband and their teenage sons have, by Sutcliffe’s own estimation, fostered 18 cats and kittens and 10 dogs. One of them was Tommy. The Sutcliffes had just finished fostering a litter of kittens when Beard put out the word that a woman with numerous cats had died and had essentially willed them to NHA along with money for rehoming. Among them was Tommy, who went to the Sutcliffes with “the idea we’d keep him for three weeks and he’d go back in” the shelter.

“In week three, he stopped eating,” Sutcliffe says.

Tommy, in turns out, had a chronic and ultimately fatal thyroid condition, as well as a heart murmur. He went back to the NHA, and the Sutcliffes started fostering a new group of kittens.

“The kids missed Tommy,” Sutcliffe says. “The boys said they wanted Tommy back and that they would pay for his medicine, so we told Erica we wanted to adopt Tommy.”

Technically unadoptable, Tommy was eligible for fospice — but for whatever reason, the NHA had never done fospice for a cat. Tommy was a pioneer.

He headed back to the Sutcliffes.

“It was like being a grandparent or doing MakeA-Wish,” Sutcliffe says. “We didn’t let our own cats on the table or the counter, but with Tommy, he was special. His food bowl and water bowl were on the kitchen cabinet. He lounged in the kitchen. He had four litter boxes and was the king of the house.”

King of the house, even with one permanent resident being a 140-pound dog who had plenty of experience with kittens by this point — but none with adult cats, let alone one who clearly planned on having the run of the place.

“Tommy walked up to the dog and whacks him on the nose,” she says. “And then they were fine.”

Of course, Sutcliffe and her family knew how it was going to end. They prepared as best they could, including having long talks with the kids who’d begged to have him back.

“I’m a mom, and the kids had to understand,” Sutcliffe says. “It was going to be hard to say goodbye. But it would be harder if we weren’t there with him.”

On May 15, it was time to say goodbye. It’s always hard to say goodbye to an animal who has wriggled its way into your heart, but the Sutcliffes knew they had given Tommy the best life possible in his sunset days. Even so, of course, there were tears. Beard says that comes with the territory.

“It’s OK to cry!” she says. “You will experience some wonderful moments with your fospice pet, and you will experience some not-so-great moments. It’s OK to be raw with emotion.”

Fostering in general takes a special kind of person with a special kind of understanding — an understanding that no matter how much they love an animal, it will be part of their household for only a few weeks. In fospicing, the endgame is a whole lot different.

“You never know exactly what you’re getting into,” says Sutcliffe. “You are dealing with an animal who has health concerns, and things come up quickly. You have to be prepared to communicate with the host organization. I was doing weekly email updates with Erica and the vet. I could communicate behavioral changes. Open communication helps you make those tough decisions.”

Beard agrees that good communication is critical.

“A good fospice parent treats their fospice pet like their own and is very attentive to any medical or behavior changes — big or small,” Beard says.

“We count on our fospice families to be the ears and eyes for us so we can make sure the pet is continuously doing OK. Fospice families are very, very special people, and we could not continue our lifesaving without our small army of fospice families.”

all said, ‘No, we don’t want to take her.’ And then it was just me, and I was like, ‘Uh, yeah! I will take the five-legged cat!’ ” After a few days, Lulu warmed up to JB, and she called the ASPCA back. “She was just

the sweetest cat ever, and really weird. I just called them and was like, ‘Yeah, I’m keeping this cat.’ They were like, ‘We figured.’ ” It turns out Lulu — whom JB soon renamed Ludog — was roughly 2 years old and had been rescued from an animal hoarder’s house, but that’s about all JB knows about her past. JB moved back home to Nashville in July 2018, about a month-and-a-half after acquiring the cat. Ludog doesn’t require special care, but she does have quite a list of medical abnormalities: She has a benign heart murmur, she’s got only one kidney (an “extra-large” one, JB says), and she’s unable to be spayed. JB’s vet tells her that spaying Ludog would be too risky due to the cat’s “malpositioned internal organs” — which JB just calls “scrambled.” Therefore she goes in and out of heat, and can be an “absolute terror” at times.

But past that, Ludog is a pretty normal, healthy and, frankly, quite beautiful cat. She can be found sunning and frolicking on Instagram (@leggylu) — some posts show her reclining, her array of limbs splayed out. In others, she can be seen jumping and darting around like it’s no trouble at all.

“She is remarkably limber, considering,” says JB. “She gets around more than you’d think she would. I feel like it changes her personality — that’s probably a pro for her.

Because she is remarkably tough and mean to other animals. We were housesitting a 40-pound puppy once, and she cornered him in the kitchen, and had him cornered under my desk. She’ll go for it. She’ll chase other cats away, she’ll chase dogs, she’ll scare them off. She’s a bully.”

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 11 – JUNE 17, 2020

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nashvillescene.com | JUNE 11 – JUNE 17, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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Pet THE

Under the Henfluence Backyard chickens reign supreme during the pandemic

T

he black-and-white newspaper ad is so wholesomelooking that at first you might dismiss it as an ironic meme. “Uncle Sam Expects You to Keep Hens and Raise Chickens,” it reads. It features a drawing of two children — the boy building an Aframe coop, and the girl surrounded by her flock. “Two Hens in the Back Yard for Each Person in the House Will Keep a Family In Fresh Eggs.”

When the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued the ad in 1918, America had already entered World War I. “In Time of Peace,” it reads, “a Profitable Recreation. In Time of War, a Patriotic Duty.”

But war wasn’t the only crisis affecting American families at the time. In spring of that year, the H1NI virus, commonly known as the Spanish flu, emerged. It swept the planet, ultimately killing approximately 675,000 people in the U.S. and 50 million people worldwide.

Images of the ad started circulating on chicken Instagram a couple of months ago, tagged with #backyardchickens, #fluffybuttFriday, #crazychickenlady and other popular poultry hashtags. The coronavirus pandemic arrived just in time for hatching season, and people across the country started answering old Uncle Sam’s call without even realizing it.

Judy Wood, owner of Poultry Hollow Hatchery, says this spring her business has seen an enormous increase in demand for chicks. She attributes this to a few factors, education and companionship among them.

But the biggest draw to chicken life, she says, is the desire for food security.

“From what I understand,” says Wood, “there’s been a run on toilet paper, a run on chickens and a run on booze.”

Wood carries a wide variety of breeds at her Brush Creek, Tenn., hatchery, and she keeps an updated “hatch log” of what’s available online. You can buy baby chicks in a “straight run,” which means their sexes haven’t been determined. Or you can buy pullets — hens that are not yet laying — roosters or little cockerels. At Poultry Hollow, you can find the stately plume of a Polish hen, the fluffy beard of an Ameraucana and the gentle temperament of a Buff Orpington.

“I try to keep a really nice selection, because every chicken has its own personality … like people, and it just amazes me,” says Wood. “I think it’s just so sweet and so cute.

I just love the little buggers. And they’re addicting. They’re very addicting.”

Wood says Poultry Hollow has never been busier, with a lot of first-time chicken keepers coming from all around Middle Tennessee. The rush to purchase chicks has presented challenges, especially because the hatchery’s usual protocols have all been changed. No one is allowed in the nursery, and customers must request chicks and wait until they’re brought out by staff. In late 2017, a fire destroyed the hatchery, and Wood went into debt to recover her business. With people

14

stress-buying chickens, she’s been able to put a new roof on her house.

Pre-pandemic, Audry Perkins Mueller, a Montessori teacher, had already been working to convince her husband to agree to start a flock. After the tornado and with the pandemic on the horizon, he finally submitted to her wishes. Originally, Mueller wanted to get a flock of hens that were already laying, which happens at around 3 to 6 months of age. “But I just thought it would be so much fun for the kids to actually see how they grow,” she says.

Her 5-year-old son Hitch is especially enamored with their flock of six — among them are a black silkie named No Face and a Buff Orpington named Dot. The birds may not be the perfect stand-ins for preschool teachers, but they’re teaching Hitch a lot.

As Mueller’s teenage daughter finished up her school work online and her husband worked from home, Hitch had plenty of time to spend outside. “He’ll sing to them,” says Mueller. “All the chicks, they won’t always come to me, but they’ll always come to him.”

Mueller got her chicks at the Davidson County Farmers Co-op early in the spring.

With hatcheries all over the country running low, the co-op hasn’t had chicks for two months, and an employee says they won’t carry them again until next spring. Wood breeds chickens at her hatchery and also orders eggs to incubate so she can carry as many breeds as possible. It’s been difficult to keep up with demand.

Even so, Wood is still enthused by the business, and not just because it’s been profitable. “For kids that haven’t been exposed to [raising chickens], it’s a wonderful learning experience,” she says. “I’m really thankful to the parents that are doing this, because it’s so great for kids. It’s just a nice experience raising chickens. They just soften a person up.”

Kimberly Clo moved from East Nashville to Madison last year because she was picked to appear on HGTV’s home-improvement

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

ISSU E

BY ERICA CICCARONE

HITCH MUELLER WITH CHICKENS NO FACE AND DOT

show Property Brothers. She found herself living on an acre of land with no experience tending to a garden. She’s been reading about permaculture, and is eager to bring her yard into ecological harmony. “If you want that thriving garden, you need to have chickens for that symbiotic [relationship],” says Clo. “They are eating the scraps from your garden, and then they poop and you give that right back to the garden. It’s this beautiful relationship that I’m really new to, but I fully expect to learn and get it.”

Clo is raising two Jersey Giants, two Golden Laced Wyandottes and two Rhode Island Reds. Her children have named them after characters from the animated show Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Mueller planted a victory garden in her alley to share vegetables with neighbors.

Her husband jokes that she’s turning their home into Little House on the Prairie, feeding everybody and taking care of chickens.

Says Wood: “I would say that there’s something good that’s come out of [the pandemic]. I think parents are learning to cook for their kids again, instead of getting fast food. I’m hoping that maybe families are sitting down for dinner. You’ve got to get a

little inventive.”

Wood says there’s a chicken for every personality. You might find yours in the small-yet-mighty posture of a Golden Sebright Bantam, the matronly disposition of a Speckled Sussex or the demanding trill of a Dominique. And if you’re looking for a boy to watch over your flock, Wood has a “gorgeous” Frizzle rooster waiting for you.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 11 – JUNE 17, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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PRESENTED BY

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nashvillescene.com | JUNE 11 – JUNE 17, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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THE RESULTS

Pet Superlatives Photo Contest Pet THE

ISSU E

This year, the Scene’s committee of proud pet parents chose six su-purr-lative categories for our annual Pet Photo Contest. We received 650 entries, and our readers voted on the winners.

BEST IN SHOW

BEST SMILE

BEST DRESSED

Pet Parent: Amanda Morgan

Pet Parent: Gerald Greer

Tinker Moneypenny Morgan, Esquire

Eeyore

Buddy

Eeyore is always down for a post-breakfast nap.

Pet Parent: Veronica Candelaria While quarantined, Buddy found out the best way to relax is by simply chilling with a bottle of wine.

BEST SENIOR

CLASS CLOWN

BEST PALS

Pet Parent: Kelly Bonau

Pet Parent: Ben Schlein

Pet Parent: Sarah Fuqua Despite their physical hardships, best friends Nimzy and Piggy are living the good life. Both of these girls were rescued by Snooty Giggles Dog Rescue.

PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

This old English bulldog-boxer mix has been called “a brat” by his trainer, “perfection incarnate!” by his mom and “best friend” by a neighborhood girl.

Riley

At 15 years young, Riley can often be found lounging in the sunshine.

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Yuki

“I, Overlord Yuki, mock the infinite and await your obedience as my servant hooman.”

Nimzy and Piggy

NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 11 – JUNE 17, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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Pet THE

PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

ISSU E

The Zoo Normal What do zoo animals do when there are no visitors to look at them?

BY STEVEN HALE

O

ence in their behavior,” says Jason Faessler, the rhino keeper, speaking through a mask.

“For almost that first month, they very rarely ventured up into the front part of the exhibit. Normally they’re all over the place in front of the different viewings and everything like that, so it was definitely a transition for them. You gotta figure, these guys see thousands of people a day, and for it overnight to go to nothing — that’s a huge change. The public itself is one of the biggest items of enrichment and stimuli for all these animals.”

Faessler says one day he brought his lunch over to the exhibit to eat near the rhinos. The massive animals all startled at the sound of him opening his Coke can.

On the first day the Scene visits the zoo,

like you might expect. Social animals like the apes are whipped into a frenzy at the mere sight of a group of staffers eating lunch nearby. A tiger named Frances, however, is acting pretty much like your cat at home. She sleeps about 18 hours a day, keeper Danielle Berthold says, and doesn’t seem to miss you too much. She has stopped sleeping near the glass, though, where crowds of children used to gather to take a look at her.

With no guests around anyway, the zoo staff encouraged me — and my nearly 5-year-old daughter, who tagged along on this choice assignment — to go into the women’s restroom next to the Andean bear exhibit to see the cotton-top tamarins that live in an enclosure inside. With no one needing to use their bathroom anymore, the little primates have had a lot less to look at.

As soon as we walked in, they jumped to attention, some leaping to closer branches to look us over. I turned my head to the side and watched as one of the tamarins mimicked me exactly. They stared at us, as if they were wondering where we’ve all been.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

PHOTO: KATE SARBER

PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

n a recent afternoon at the Nashville Zoo, five white rhinos stand still in the summer heat, circled butt-to-butt, on high alert.

Things have been quieter than normal the past few months. With the zoo closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, the crowds of visitors and voices of awed children have been replaced by stillness, occasionally interrupted by an airplane overhead or, in this case, a man pressure-washing the sidewalk outside the exhibit. With so little going on around them for most of the day, the sudden burst of sound from gas-powered equipment triggers their survival instincts.

“It’s definitely been a noticeable differ-

the exhibit across from the rhinos is empty.

Normally, several giraffes would be walking the field, poking around in the trees and craning their long necks to inspect the pressure washer’s progress. But on this day, there is lightning in the area, and — go figure — giraffes face, uh, an elevated risk of being struck. They’ve been moved inside to be safe. But their keeper, Jenna Wolczyk, says their behavior has changed too. Congo, the male of the group, was hand-raised at the Los Angeles Zoo and is very attached to human interaction.

“He normally will stand out at the front of the exhibit,” Wolczyk says. “He has kind of a line where you can see where he walks, and he literally just watches the public all the time.”

The zoo’s Backstage Pass Tours, which let visitors go inside the giraffe barn and interact with the animals up close, have been suspended indefinitely. Even though it’s not clear whether these animals can contract the coronavirus that swept the globe earlier this year, keepers are taking every precaution.

Elsewhere in the zoo, the keepers say, animals have reacted to these bizarre times

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NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 11 – JUNE 17, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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In celebration of #PRIDEATHOME and in partnership with Batch Nashville, Nashville LGBT Chamber and Nashville Pride, the Nashville Scene presents our special edition PRIDE BOX. By purchasing one of our three boxes specially created to celebrate PRIDE, you’ll be supporting local makers and LGBT Chamber members with 10% of proceeds going to Nashville Pride!

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Get ready to laugh, fume, argue and debate the winners as we ask you to complete the magic words....

YOU ARE SO NASHVILLE IF...

All you need to do is finish the sentence. Then our staff will hold our annual daylong YASNI meeting, during which we read over every submission to determine who is funny and who is canceled.

We’ll run our favorite submissions in July’s 32nd annual YASNI issue.

Can you beat last year’s winner?

NOW NOW ACCEPTING ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS SUBMISSIONS THROUGH THROUGH JUNE JUNE 25 25

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CRITICS’ PICKS D I S T A N C I N G

E D I T I O N

[TURN OUT]

TUNE IN TO TENNESSEE WOMEN: THE ROAD TO RATIFICATION AND THE DECADE AFTER

Pre-pandemic, the Tennessee State Museum planned to open a new exhibition in March — Ratified: Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote. The show will go on once it’s safe to browse museums, but we can get a jump on celebrating the ratification of the 19th Amendment — which was prompted by actions that happened right here in Nashville in 1920 — from home.

The museum is offering an online course on Thursday nights this month. Featuring historians and academics and led by museum curator Miranda Fraley-Rhodes, the sessions will explore the work that led to that 1920 commitment to enfranchisement.

The June 11 course will focus on Tennessee women in the Civil War and Reconstruction period, looking at how the war affected the lives of African American women and their relationship to politics. The June 18 class will continue to look at the 19th-century Tennessee women activists who campaigned for women’s rights, many of whom did not live to see the federal amendment pass.

The June 25 class will take a look at the decade after ratification, as Tennessee women seized more opportunities for civic participation. Each hourlong class begins at 6 p.m. Register and learn more at tnmuseum.org. 6 p.m. Thursday, June 11

EXHIBITION VIEW OF “A LIVING THING: FLAG EXCHANGE,” MEL ZIEGLER. PHOTO: GUILLAUME ZICCARELLI

MUSEUM

S O C I A L

CONVERSATION: THE U.S. FLAG IN CONTEMPORARY ART

THEATER

ERICA CICCARONE [BIG IDEAS, SMALL SPACE]

CHECK OUT JOSHUA WILLIAM GELB’S THEATER IN QUARANTINE Even as theaters remain dark, it’s been exciting to see the imagination and

THEATER IN QUARANTINE

ingenuity of theater-makers. Take NYCbased writer, director and performer Joshua William Gelb. Not long after New York’s stay-at-home orders were announced, Gelb converted a closet in his East Village apartment into a white-box digital theater/

and installed them in the upper galleries of theatrical laboratory with the idea of the Frist. But the exhibit opened on March staging livestream performances. Theater 13, just two days before the Frist closed its in Quarantine offers a new work every doors in observance of Metro’s stay-at-home other Thursday, available through Gelb’s order to help slow the spread of COVID-19.

YouTube channel, and follows up with a live The museum plans to reopen later in June chat about the challenges of making and will likely extend the exhibition meaningful digital theater while — but for now, it makes a hell in isolation. On June 11, you of a backdrop for the June 11 can see Topside — a new lecture Conversation: The work inspired by Donald EDITOR’S NOTE: U.S. Flag in Contemporary Barthelme’s Game — AS A RESPONSE TO THE ONGOING COVID-19 PANDEMIC, WE’VE CHANGED Art. Frist Art Museum

by Scott R. Sheppard.

THE FOCUS OF THE CRITICS’ PICKS educator Meagan Rust leads Hypochondriac 1, part SECTION TO INCLUDE ACTIVITIES YOU CAN the conversation about the of a fresh adaptation of PARTAKE IN WHILE YOU’RE AT HOME powerful, subversive and Molière’s The Imaginary PRACTICING SOCIAL DISTANCE. contentious symbolism the Invalid, streams on June flag has provided artists, from 25. Visit joshuawilliamgelb.

Jasper Johns to David Hammons. com to learn more. 6 and The lecture starts at 5 p.m. and is free 8 p.m. Thursday, June 11 to attend, but registration is required — visit AMY STUMPFL fristartmuseum.org for details.

5 p.m. Thursday, June 11 LAURA HUTSON HUNTER [OH SAY CAN YOU SEE]

Mel Ziegler’s exhibit at the Frist was supposed to be a big deal. Ziegler, who is the dean of Vanderbilt’s art department, is a renowned social-engagement artist, and he worked on the Flag Exchange project from 2011-2016, driving across America with a supply of brand-new American flags that he would exchange for old tattered ones he came across during his travels. He amassed a collection of these used flags,

THEATER

ART

PARTICIPATE IN THE FRIST’S ZOOM LECTURE ABOUT THE AMERICAN FLAG IN CONTEMPORARY ART

[THE VALUE OF VIRTUAL CONNECTIONS]

WATCH THE PREMIERE OF QUARANTEENED: A VIRTUAL MUSICAL

The Theater Bug has long been known for taking on important social issues and building community through the performing arts. But with its much-anticipated premiere of Quaranteened: A Virtual Musical, the unique youth arts program reminds us that “while we are isolated, we are not alone.”

Created by teen artists, this original work features the “intertwined stories of a group

nashvillescene.com | JUNE 11 – JUNE 17, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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CRITICS’ PICKS

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Visit nashvillescene.com for our daily takeout picks.

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THE BOYS NEXT DOOR of teenagers trying to stay connected” amid the uncertainty of COVID-19 and the challenges of social distancing. The entire process — from auditions and script development to rehearsal and production — has taken place remotely. The livestreamed premiere event includes a behind-thescenes look at the production, interviews with the cast and creators, and a special announcement from The Theater Bug’s artistic director, Cori Anne Laemmel. It all takes place 7 p.m. Friday, June 12, and will be available to stream at thetheaterbug.org.

7 p.m. Friday, June 12 AMY STUMPFL [WE ARE NOT WORTHY!]

BUILD YOUR OWN PENELOPE SPHEERIS FILM FEST

Even if Metro Nashville were to open movie theaters, megaplexes have nothing to show, with most major studio releases pushed back to the fall or later. Thus, we’re going to keep at our weekly buildyour-own-film-fest recommendations, with titles you can check out from the comfort of your own living room. Up this week (we think this is our 13th installment, but we lost count a ways back): director Penelope Spheeris. Start by picking a film from her acclaimed The Decline of Western Civilization triad of documentaries. Part I, which focuses on the Los Angeles punk scene and features performances from the likes of Black Flag, the Germs and X, is free to stream right now on Tubi. Part II: The Metal Years — which documents, often hilariously, the excesses of rock stars like Paul Stanley and Ozzy Osbourne — is also available for free on Tubi, as is Part III, which Scene contributor Jason Shawhan recently called “a devastating look at a blank generation abandoned by all social structures.” From there, if you can stomach a bit of dismal mid-’80s violence, check out the Charlie Sheen-starring The Boys Next Door (also on Tubi), kind of a less-iconic update on Terrence Malick’s Badlands (which Charlie’s dad starred in … also as a homicidal maniac). By then you’ll no doubt want to lighten the mood, and that’s why I recommend the back-to-back doubleheader of 1992’s Wayne’s World ($3 on YouTube and Amazon Prime) and 1996’s Black Sheep (also $3 in the same spots), both of which feature genuinely gut-busting performances from

SNL alums and are perpetually quotable.

There are plenty more Spheeris works to dip into — including her feature-length mid-’90s remakes of both The Little Rascals and The Beverly Hillbillies — but neither of those has a moment that outshines Chris Farley’s amazing downhill tumble in Black Sheep or Alice Cooper’s cameo in Wayne’s World.

D. PATRICK RODGERS

BOOKS

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FILM

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[ABOLITION NOW]

READ UP ON PRISON AND POLICE ABOLITION

As Americans in just about every large city, and many small towns, take to the streets in protest of police brutality and in defense of Black lives, you’re probably hearing a lot about abolition — specifically, police and prison abolition. If that sounds radical, it is. But many righteous movements were radical before they became reality. At the very least, these ideas are worth reading up on. There is a very deep well of scholarship, particularly by Black women. If you start with these three names, you’ll be on your way to a better understanding of them: Michelle Alexander, Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Mariame Kaba.

Alexander is a lawyer and civil rights advocate who wrote the 2010 bestseller The New Jim Crow. If you want to understand calls for abolition, you have to understand what is supposed to be abolished. In her book, Alexander exposes the racist roots of mass incarceration. Gilmore is a professor at the City University of New York who has been advocating for prison abolition for more than 30 years. A great primer on Gilmore and her work is a 2019 New York Times Magazine profile by Rachel Kushner.

Lastly, you are forgiven if you’ve sworn off Twitter in the Trump era. But if you haven’t, look up @prisonculture, the handle used by the indefatigable Kaba. Her website is a great place to start — mariamekaba.com. An interview she did last year on Chris Hayes’ podcast Why Is This Happening? is an excellent tour through what it means to do away with our current criminal legal system and replace it with something more humane and more effective. Prison abolition and police abolition almost necessarily go hand in hand, but for a deep dive into the latter, check out Alex Vitale’s The End of Policing, which is available for free download from

NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 11 – JUNE 17, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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CRITICS’ PICKS

[BROTHERLY LOVE]

WATCH NEW QUEER EYE EPISODES ON NETFLIX

ART

Since 2018, Queer Eye’s five-man Voltron of wholesomeness — chef Antoni, interior decorator Bobby, stylist Jonathan, life coach Karamo and fashion guru Tan — has done its level best to help real-life Americans confront, and transcend, the things holding them back in life. The reality show’s subjects (“heroes,” in QE parlance) have been Black, white, Latinx, gay, straight, trans, single, married, widowed, city-dwellers, country folk, some who’ve let themselves go, others who just need a push. Often they’ll remind you of yourself, or people you know. No matter who they’re working with, the Fab Five lead with wisdom, humor and class, understanding old habits die hard and that self-improvement starts with recognizing one’s own imperfections — whether real or perceived — not as bugs, but features. After tugging heartstrings in Atlanta (Seasons 1 and 2) and Kansas City (3 and 4), the series moved to Philadelphia to meet its next 10 heroes. How QE’s relentless positivity will land amid the chaos of 2020 remains to be seen, but even if the more compassionate world it pushes for is hard to visualize at this moment, it can at least be counted on as a welcome palate cleanser. All 10 episodes of Season 5 of Queer Eye are now streaming on Netflix. CHARLIE ZAILLIAN [HEY ALL YOU COOL CATS AND KITTENS]

CHECK OUT THE ONLINE EXHIBIT CATS IN ART HISTORY

The Universal Museum of Art wasn’t created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic — it’s been around since 2017 — but the online-only art museum is a perfect fit for our newly online-only lifestyles. The UMA collaborates with museums all over the world to create high-quality tours of

masterworks that you’d never be able to experience at the same time. In keeping with our Pet Issue, this week seems like a great time to introduce UMA through its exhibition Cats in Art History. The virtual exhibit includes 75 works of art — from Ancient Egypt through today — that feature cats. It might sound gimmicky, but it’s an extremely interesting way to access the breadth of art history in an unexpected way. Manet’s masterpiece “Olympia,” for example, includes a small cat at the foot of the reclining woman’s chaise. The focus is on big-deal works by masters like Manet, Goya and Renoir, as well as gorgeous tapestries and Asian art panels, and the whole thing is situated in a series of galleries as grand as those at the Met or the Louvre — except, of course, these galleries don’t really exist. And if cats aren’t your thing, there are also exhibitions of the legendary Henry Chalfant’s photographs of subway art, paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, and more. It’s a fascinating experiment, and now’s the perfect time to explore.

LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

ACTIVISM

›

TV

Verso Books. In all, this work focuses not just on what needs to be torn down, but what could be erected in its place — a justice system that does not dehumanize the people who use it and focuses on repair rather than retribution. STEVEN HALE

[RE-EDUCATION]

EXPLORE ANTI-RACISM RESOURCES

As demonstrations against police brutality once again roil the nation, many of us realize that we are in dire need of education. Eradicating white supremacy takes a lot more than showing up for a march, although doing so is a good place to start. Writers, educators, activists and more offer abundant resources that we can access for free. You can study alone or ask a few friends to join you in a group, which can help you to stay engaged. One such resource is The New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project, which marked the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery, when the “country’s defining contradictions first came into the world.” The project, which is available in full online with interactive elements, contains historical documents, firstperson accounts, photography, essays by contemporary luminaries like Bryan Stevenson and Nikole Hannah-Jones, and more. The Pulitzer Center worked with

A Division of The Heritage Foundation of Williamson County

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PET OF THE WEEK!

HI FRIENDS – THE NAME IS CHAOS! I’m a 5 month old Black lab mix puppers. As of today I weigh 32 pounds, but I’m still an adolescent, so expect some more growing from me! I’m playful, sweet, fun and filled with energy.

This smile is on my face 24/7 and I can’t wait to meet you! I am currently living the good life in a foster home waiting for my forever home!” ***While NHA Nashville Humane Association is still closed to the public, we haven’t stopped adopting furry friends.

We just do it a little bit differently these days with Zoom meet and greets, and contact free curbside adoptions*** If you think you might be interested in meeting CHAOS, please email nashvillehumaneassociation213@gmail. com with the subject line “Interested In Chaos” for more information - Thank You!

FATHER’S DAY BOOK BUNDLES

Call 615.352.1010 or visit nashvillehumane.org Located at 213 Oceola Ave., Nashville, TN 37209

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CRITICS’ PICKS channel. Despite the kaleidoscopic variety of incredible guitar players throughout history, the culture around enjoying gear is still dominated by white dudes, and the pair aims to break down that barrier. In addition to episodes of their podcast (which covers a wide range of music-industry topics), their channel features very thorough demos of effects pedals and guitars that give you a good idea of what it’s like to live with the gear. STEPHEN TRAGESER BOOKS

the Times to create a comprehensive curriculum, which you can access for free at pulitzercenter.org/1619. If you’re the book-club type, consider gathering with friends and colleagues to read anti-racist texts such as Ijeoma Oluo’s So You Want to Talk About Race, Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be Antiracist, and Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “The Case for Reparations” published in The Atlantic. Crossroads Antiracism Organizing & Training — an organization that brings one-day and multiday antiracism workshops to cities around the country — also offers online resources, such as videos about the psychological effects of segregation on Black children. Learn more at crossroadsantiracism.org. In addition, Showing Up for Racial Justice — a national organization that seeks to organize white people in the antiracism cause — offers resources online, such as a discussion guide for watching When They See Us, Ava DuVernay’s series about The Exonerated Five, which is available on Netflix. Explore these at showingupforracialjustice. org. For a local focus, read or revisit Gideon’s Army’s “Driving While Black” report, which the organization put together in 2016. The report includes hard data on MNPD’s racial profiling, as well as interviews with indispensable Nashville activists like Clemmie Greenlee and Jackie Simms. Find it at drivingwhileblacknashville. wordpress.com.

[READING IS FUNDAMENTAL]

JOIN THE BOOKSHOP’S JUNE READING CHALLENGE

This month, East Nashville bookshop The Bookshop is encouraging readers to explore novels and memoirs by LGBTQ writers. Former Bookshop staffer and frequent Scene contributor Brittney

MUSIC

ERICA CICCARONE [GET THE DIRT]

GET YOUR GUITARGEAR FIX WITH R.J. RONQUILLO AND GET OFFSET ON YOUTUBE

Whether you’re a pro, an aspiring pro or a hobbyist, one of the fun parts of playing guitar is getting deep in the weeds on equipment. Forums are great for answering specific technical questions, but if you’ve got more general and subjective queries like, “Does that new effects pedal I heard about sound cool,” YouTube is your friend. There are tons and tons of channels to choose from, but two in particular have had me (a hobbyist, if you’re feeling generous) coming back for more these past several months. Widely traveled and locally residing session and touring guitarist R.J. Ronquillo has a cornucopia of lessons in techniques and product demos on his YouTube channel, and he’s gifted at making things easy to understand. If you want to learn about ways to improve your clean guitar tone, how to build a rig that’ll help you sound like Jimi Hendrix, or what it’s like to play a double-necked ukulele, he’s got your back. My other recommendation is Get Offset, which is a podcast hosted

by Seattle’s Emily Harris and Andrew Rinard, as well as the duo’s YouTube

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McKenna curated the selection of titles, which range from contemporary to classic and span genres — André Acimen’s Call Me

By Your Name, Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel Fun Home are among the 20 titles you can choose from. While you’re at it, check out The Bookshop’s other offerings, which include puzzles, children’s books and bundles of hand-picked titles that correspond with themes as varied as hiking and history. You can order directly from thebookshopnashville.square.site — pickup hours are every day from noon until 4 p.m.

LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 11 – JUNE 17, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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FOOD AND DRINK

THE FUTURE OF RESTAURANTS

Once COVID-19 is in the rearview mirror and we have a vaccine, will we recognize restaurants?

BY MARGARET LITTMAN

“E

ating out is not just food,” says Chris Davis, a senior architect at Hastings Architecture. “It is the service and the atmosphere, the whole experience.”

What will that experience be like postpandemic? And not just in relation to the immediate changes centering on reducing spread of COVID-19, such as fewer tables, the use of PPE and disposable menus. But rather, what comes next? When there’s a vaccine, will we still have counter seating and open kitchens? We asked local architects and designers, including Davis, to take us into the future.

“When you think about it, restaurants

have not changed that much ever,” says Sarah Milkie, an interior designer and owner of Milkie Design Studio. “This could really shake up the design.”

DESIGNATED TAKEOUT AREAS

Like many of us, Davis has enjoyed takeout from his favorite restaurants to get through quarantine, and he sees takeout continuing as an intentional part of restaurant operations. Davis savors the experience of taking something “from the kitchen of a skilled chef to my dining room,” and thinks that will be a focus of design going forward. Imagine an area that is not an afterthought, but rather a separated space where you can pick up your food — a space that has the same vibe as the dining room.

Davis, who has worked on local restaurant projects including Watermark and Kayne Prime, thinks the days of having foam containers stacked on the host stand are over.

Takeout customers will enter through a separate door, and receive packaging that is branded and in line with the design aesthetic of the restaurant.

John Foster is the co-founder of Katalyst Restaurant Concepts, which designs kitchens for fast-casual restaurants. He says that even before the pandemic, interest in to-go food was increasing, and now at least 50 percent of the projects Katalyst is working on are looking at takeout. “If they didn’t have an effective way to do takeout, we are designing that now,” he says.

The answer might be getting you to stay in your car. No, restaurants aren’t going to continue to have someone run out and put your food in your trunk while you are double-parked. But Foster says restaurants that have never had a drive-thru are now asking him to design one.

That doesn’t mean your favorite sit-down restaurant will look like a fast-food joint.

Milkie, who in the past has worked on proj-

ects at E3 Chophouse and Johnny Cash’s Kitchen & Saloon, imagines an all-glass experience, where the drive-thru is like an open kitchen, where you can see chefs at work.

WELCOME TO THE WAITING ROOM

Milling about at the host stand, elbow to ass with other diners while waiting for a table, might be something you’ll never do again. Davis predicts restaurants could start using apps that allow them to see when clients with reservations are arriving, enabling staff to greet them with drinks and usher them into waiting areas until their table is ready. Not only does that change the density at the door, it also allows restaurants to guide guests through an experience for the evening. “It feels like it is about high-end, but is about their safety,” he says.

CLEANLINESS IS NEXT

If Foster had his way, restaurants would operate as if they were hospital kitchens.

“It is more than gloves and masks,” he says. “It is being able to sanitize the entire

PROPOSED RESTAURANT INTERIOR SKETCH BY ARCHITECT CHRIS DAVIS

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FOOD AND DRINK kitchen from floor to ceiling.”

In a bar, for example, he likes to design so that drains, water lines and soda lines are concealed, so no one has to get on their knees under the jockey box to clean a spill off those tubes. Elements like a closed area around such lines are often cut when cost savings are necessary, but Foster thinks a post-pandemic mindset might keep them in the budget. “We should brag about being known as super-clean kitchens.”

DINING ROOMS BECOME SACRED SPACES

Forget the days of having someone walk through the dining room, next to your table where you are having a tête-à-tête, to get their takeout order. Such traffic interrupts the dining experience, and Davis thinks future dining rooms may be smaller — as takeout remains a strong business — but more intentional and self-contained. Without people waiting for their tables or their takeout, without all that milling about, the dining room experience becomes exclusively about dining in.

Milkie thinks high-backed booths may be one new dining room detail. These semiprivate areas could have screens around them to allow diners to experience the buzz of being in a packed dining room, and have some transparency to the world around them, but also make them feel separate from the tables next to them. The omnipresent communal table? That’s likely a thing of the past.

KITCHEN CONSIDERATIONS

With more emphasis on takeout and delivery and the permanent addition of small grocery sections, the kitchen-to-diningroom ratio will change. Kitchens might not get larger — square footage will still be an issue, and real estate will still cost money.

In fact, Foster says he’s seeing average kitchen sizes shrink from 5,000 square feet to more like 2,800 square feet. But they will be rearranged, and may take up space that used to be allocated to tables.

“One of the biggest footprint items is a walk-in freezer,” says Nick Dryden, principal at Dryden Architecture and Design, which is working on Sean Brock’s Nashville Yards restaurant and designed Noelle and many other projects around town. Many farm-to-table-style restaurants have eschewed the freezer in the past, and Dryden predicts even more will eliminate the freezer from their plans as they work more closely with their food sources to reduce waste and to document provenance.

And about those open kitchens? People may not want to sit at a counter a foot away from food being prepared, but they will want to know what is going on, says Manuel Zeitlin, founder of Manuel Zeitlin Architects. His firm has worked on a number of restaurant projects, including Pastaria and Henrietta Red. “You may not have as many open kitchens, but [kitchen staff] will be more visible with more glass,” says Zeitlin. “People want to see the process.” One creative example is the see-through cheese cave in Yolan, the restaurant in the soon-toopen Joseph hotel. It provides some transparency to the kitchen without being open.

Or maybe it goes one step further. In pre-pandemic times, folks were beginning to consider “ghost kitchens” — stand-alone

buildings not connected to dining rooms in parts of town where real estate is affordable, with the kitchens preparing food for takeout and delivery only. Both Milkie and Davis see growing interest in these smaller buildings.

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Right now, people seem to feel most comfortable outdoors. Davis imagines the future filled with European-style pedestrian-only areas in neighborhoods like the Gulch where patios could expand.

Of course, the weather doesn’t always cooperate. Davis says that on any patio project he’s worked on, even if there wasn’t a request to design a canopy, his team did so because they knew it would come eventually. Nashville has four seasons, and making a patio space that can generate revenue year-round is essential.

Dryden says conversations are already happening in regard to examining health department and building codes as they relate to outdoor spaces — in short, with al fresco dining, you don’t want to bring outdoor pests and flies indoors. He thinks there may be some new approaches for patio seating as a result of rethinking outdoor spaces.

But you don’t have to be outside to get fresh air. David Plummer, a principal with Centric Architecture, says looking at COVID-19 and how it is transmitted has underscored something architects and public health experts already knew: Better ventilation systems and more fresh air indoors are better for healthy customers and workers.

Davis and Dryden agree that sustainable and environmentally friendly air handling, while something customers can’t see, will likely be one of the essential discussions in future restaurant design. “People don’t want to be in a hermetically sealed box,” says Dryden.

FLEXIBILITY IS KEY

No one knows what’s happening tomorrow, much less two years from now, so designing spaces that can be adapted to what’s next will be essential. “Everyone is learning how to be agile, and spaces are being designed so that they can be reconfigured easily,” Zeitlin says.

Julia Jaksic, who owns Cafe Roze in East Nashville and is in the process of opening Roze Pony in Belle Meade, creates restaurants with small, cozy spaces, and she doesn’t anticipate that changing.

She’s run restaurants during pandemics before, including at Employees Only Singapore during SARS. While that pandemic ushered in changes, they were temporary. “Instead of manipulating design, you manipulate business models,” she says. One example is Cafe Roze’s addition of a Bodega, which allowed locals to buy essentials without going to a traditional grocery store during the height of COVID concerns.

“You don’t want to lose the essence of what a restaurant is,” Jaksic adds. “I think hospitality is making memories.

You have to make sure that when you are going in and changing design that you are not ruining what we are trying to do.”

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BOOKS

Now ! e l b a l i Ava I

HERE BE DRAGONS

Wayétu Moore flees Liberia’s civil war and fights to be seen in race-obsessed America

BY KIM GREEN

n the first chapter of Wayétu Moore’s memoir, The Dragons, the Giant, the Women, it’s Moore’s fifth birthday. “Tutu,” as her family calls her, wears a purple linen dress for the party and begs to help wash collard greens. “In those years, turning five tasted like Tang powder on the porch after supper,” Moore writes. But her mother Mam’s absence adds a bitter note. Again and again, Tutu asks the adults when she can visit New York, where Mam is studying as a Fulbright scholar. “Why would you want to go there, you girl?” they answer, reassuring her that “Liberia’s sweetness was incomparable,” sweeter than mango, milk candy, THE DRAGONS, THE GIANT, THE WOMEN

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sugar bread or America — “none a match for the taste then, of my country.”

The word “then” quietly underlines the portent overshadowing an ordinary day in their neighborhood in the Liberian capital of Monrovia, where boys go fishing with their “Ol’ Pas” — grandfathers — on the Atlantic shore, girls fetch water from a well, and elders gossip about the corrupt president, Samuel Doe, and a potential usurper they refer to as “Charles.”

Tutu’s little-girl imagination renders doomed President Doe as a monster from her nightmares — Hawa Undu, an avenging hero-prince who becomes the bloodthirsty dragons he’d promised to slay: And now, Hawa Undu was president of Liberia, once a prince with good intentions. Ol’ Ma said everyone was talking about him because there was another prince who wanted to enter the forest and kill Hawa Undu, to restore peace.

This prince was named Charles, like my Ol’ Pa. Some thought he would be the real thing — that he could kill Hawa Undu and put an end to the haunting of the forest and the spirit princes who danced throughout — but others feared he would be the same, that no prince could enter the forest and keep his intentions. The woods will blind, will blunder.

Hawa Undu would never die.

Charles, of course, is the now-infamous war criminal Charles Taylor, so we know where this story is going. The sweetness of ordinary days in Liberia will soon be despoiled, and so will Tutu’s childhood.

The war comes for the Moore family on a Saturday, when Tutu is watching The Sound of Music on a VCR with her grandmother, Ol’ Ma. Tutu and her two sisters flee

on foot with their father and Ol’ Ma to the soundtrack of “Edelweiss” fading behind them and screams and staccato gunfire drawing nearer in the streets. As the family walks for weeks through forests, hiding out in shattered houses, the adults try to shield the girls from the starkest horrors by explaining away the gunshots as drums and the dead as people sleeping. Tutu’s magical thinking transforms her tall papa into a giant who grows larger in her eyes every time he braves another rebel checkpoint, where executions are routine.

The family takes shelter in Ol’ Ma’s home village, the coil of hunger and violence tightening, with no contact with anyone in the outside world — including Mam. And then one day a female rebel soldier appears, sent by Mam to spirit them across the border to safety.

The story skips to Moore the young woman, a burgeoning writer in New York who is suffering from PTSD and bewildered by her adopted home, where the color of her skin is apparently a defining trait. She recalls brushes with racism and isolation as a schoolgirl struggling to adapt to life as an immigrant in Connecticut, then Texas. (The family also lived in Memphis briefly.) Moore’s thoughts and dreams linger on two women: the family’s mysterious savior, named “Satta,” and Mam, whose absence at such a traumatic time in Tutu’s life has carved a scar into Moore’s psyche.

Those ruminations lead Moore back to Liberia, where she hopes to find Satta and bridge the chasm between herself and Mam, who has returned to Liberia with Moore’s father.

Moore begins to close that distance by offering Mam’s side of the story: her ambivalence about leaving the family for New York, her anguish when the war severs contact, and then her determination to get them out. In the final pages, Moore brings 5-year-old Tutu back to narrate the reunion with Mam. Told in spare, childlike prose, the scene is vivid and heart-shattering. (Full disclosure: When I read that section aloud to my husband, we both cried.)

Moore’s gorgeously rendered memoir is an exhortation not to surrender to tragedy fatigue. There are so many stories of war and forced migration that they may, at a distance, blur into sameness. But zoom in and those abstractions sharpen into singular stories, each one a complicated blend of loss and salvation, tragedy and triumph, bitterness and wisdom. “There are many stories of war to tell,” writes Moore. “You will hear them all. But remember among those who were lost, some made it through. Among the dragons there will always be heroes.”

To read an extended version of this review — and more local book coverage — please visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee.

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MUSIC

IN THE SLIPSTREAM Swamp Dogg’s Sorry You Couldn’t Make It sums up a half-century of soul music

BY EDD HURT

B

ecause Swamp Dogg’s art conceals his mastery, you might be slow to notice how effortlessly the singer, pianist, songwriter and producer upends the conventions of soul music on his SORRY YOU COULDN’T new full-length Sorry MAKE IT OUT NOW VIA You Couldn’t Make JOYFUL NOISE It. Recorded in early 2019 at Nashville’s storied Sound Emporium studio with Poliça leader Ryan Olson producing, Sorry is technologically evolved pop — its sonics are inseparable from its themes.

Perhaps by accident, the album sums up the career of one of pop’s greatest conceptualists. Swamp Dogg is the sobriquet of Jerry Williams Jr., who learned his craft as a journeyman soul musician in the late ’60s before inventing his alter ego in 1970. Sorry is an addictive 38 minutes, and it marks a late moment in the history of country-soul crossover, a genre Williams helped invent 50 years ago.

Sorry You Couldn’t Make It once again pairs Williams with Olson, who reinvented the Swamp Dogg concept on 2018’s Love, Loss, and Auto-Tune. On that album, Olson used Auto-Tune to brilliant effect, and Williams pulled off a sparkling piece of postmodernist country, “I’ll Pretend.” Love, Loss, and Auto-Tune situated a great musical thinker in technological space. Williams’ new record, which sports two affecting vocal turns by the late John Prine, builds upon the country underpinnings of his previous work, but Olson finds ingenious ways to present his songs.

I caught up with Williams via phone in May at his home in Southern California, where he’s lived since 1978. As Swamp Dogg, Williams has made 25 albums since his 1970 debut Total Destruction to Your Mind, including 2014’s The White Man Made Me Do It, and he’s produced countless records by all manner of pop and soul artists — his ’60s and ’70s work with singers like Doris Duke, Freddie North and Arthur Conley constitutes a significant addition to the soul canon. I asked him if he had needed a push into a new direction when he made Love, Loss, and Auto-Tune.

“I’m gonna say yes to that,” Williams says after a long pause. “I had exhausted all of my thoughts and avenues in reference to how I should be cut, and what I could appeal to the public with. And so, I hooked up with Justin [Vernon] and with Ryan, and I left it all in their hands. I didn’t get involved at all, which is different when you’ve been doing your stuff your way.”

With its assured simulations of Muscle Shoals-Memphis soul, Sorry You Couldn’t Make It at first seems less audacious than Love, Loss, and Auto-Tune, but the two albums bookend each other nicely. Sorry refracts Williams’ songwriting into patterns that are both organic and artificial. Along

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with the aforementioned Bon Iver singer and songwriter Vernon and Nashville ax man Jim Oblon, Olson assembled a band for Sorry that included keyboardist Derrick Lee, a longtime fixture in Music City’s gospel and country scenes.

Lee, who moved to Nashville in 1976 from Newark, N.J., helps define the sound of Sorry, moving from country piano to R&Bflavored Fender Rhodes. As he says, he wasn’t familiar with Williams’ work, but he felt the music.

“When he heard me playing, he just kind of gravitated to me,” Lee says. “He just kind of connected, and so he wanted me to just do it the way I felt it, more so than me trying to interpret where he was coming from.”

Also on board were synth player Moogstar (whom you’ve heard on records by Zapp and Cameo) and singer Jenny Lewis, as well as Poliça’s bassist Chris Bierden and singer Channy Leaneagh. Sorry grooves like an updated version of a ’70s album by Dan Penn or Jim Ford, and it certainly recalls the country-pop-soul style Williams created on classic Swamp Dogg albums like 1981’s I’m Not Selling Out / I’m Buying In! Still, the theme of both Love, Loss, and Auto-Tune and Sorry You Couldn’t Make It is the emotional aftermath of loss. For the 2018 album, Olson repurposed Williams’ music, creating a nuanced backdrop that represents a departure from Williams’ previous — and more traditionally produced — records.

“He sent me this album he had completed, basically,” Olson tells me from his Minneapolis home. “And I said, ‘I’ve got some ideas,’ and I just kinda fucked with it for, like, a year-and-a-half, two years, off and on.”

Olson chose the songs for Sorry from Williams’ catalog of unrecorded material, which Williams says numbers somewhere around 900 tunes. Sorry is a bracingly experimental record, right down to one of its key drum sounds, which is a mutated sample of Williams’ demo of “Please Let Me Go Round Again,” one of the songs featuring Prine. On “Memories,” the other Swamp Dogg-Prine duet on Sorry, the performance seems to decay, as if technology is eroding the memories both men are clinging to.

“At the end of ‘Memories,’ where it kind of corrodes into a broken cassette, we mixed it down to a cassette,” says former Nashville studio owner Mark Nevers, who engineered the Sound Emporium sessions and mixed Sorry at his Beech House Recording in South Carolina. “Then we pulled at the tape and crumpled it up, and then wheeled it back in.”

It’s a disquieting moment on a record that ambles in the slipstream of soul music’s history. Sorry You Couldn’t Make It may be Swamp Dogg’s most evocative, listenable and mysterious album to date. That’s saying a lot for a confoundingly prolific artist who has amassed a huge body of work since the 1950s.

Now 77, Williams was born in 1942 in Portsmouth, Va. He absorbed country music on the radio, listened to jump-blues artists like Wynonie Harris and Amos Milburn, and began hustling in New York in the mid’60s. He had a minor R&B hit with 1965’s “Baby, You’re My Everything,” but it was an unsuccessful — and demeaning — year as an A&R specialist and producer at Atlantic Records in 1969 that helped turn Williams into Swamp Dogg.

The Swamp Dogg albums Williams cut in the ’70s adapt every kind of American music

that intersects with soul. On funny, outrageous songs like 1974’s “Did I Come Back Too Soon (Or Did I Stay Away Too Long)” and 1976’s “Or Forever Hold Your Peace,” Williams examines the wild morality of the ’70s as a hapless everyman who can’t stop looking at what he’s not supposed to see. The all-purpose African American pop adept filled his early records with covers of songs

by Mickey Newbury, Bobby Goldsboro, The Bee Gees, Joe South and — perhaps most famously — John Prine.

“I heard it, and I took a couple of copies of it home,” Williams says about Prine’s 1971 recording of “Sam Stone,” which got the Dogg treatment on 1972’s Cuffed, Collared & Tagged. “After I listened to it, I said, ‘This has got to be one of the greatest songs I ever heard in my life.’ ” Williams’ version of “Sam Stone” erased barriers he knew were too porous to keep anything pure for long. For the sheer range and consistency of his body of work, Williams belongs in the pantheon of American songwriters that includes Randy Newman and Allen Toussaint, and his production skills include a feel for post-jump-blues horn arrangements that always swing.

Sorry is gently surrealistic and highly allusive, as on “I Lay Awake,” a beautiful track worthy of any country-soul record ever made. Williams’ duets with Prine make their case for male bonding in the face of existential despair, but it’s clear that Williams misses his first wife, Yvonne, who died in 2003.

“A lot of my stuff is for her,” he says, carefully. “Most of my stuff is inspired by her. I look at her picture every day, and think of her. I’ll never get over her.”

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MUSIC

GOING BOLDLY

Larkin Poe stands tall on the blues-infused Self Made Man

BY LORIE LIEBIG

S

isters Rebecca and Megan Lovell, better known as the duo at the core of bluesschooled band Larkin Poe, have accomplished a great deal since they began performing in a famSELF MADE MAN OUT ily band as teens FRIDAY, JUNE 12, VIA about 15 years ago.

TRICKI-WOO RECORDS Megan, the older sister by two years, has become a master of lap-steel guitar, while Rebecca has become a formidable frontwoman who also plays a slew of instruments. They’ve performed at

major festivals from Bonnaroo to Glastonbury, played in bands with Elvis Costello and Conor Oberst, and made the move from their native Atlanta to Nashville about five years back. Their fourth album, 2018’s Venom & Faith, earned a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Blues Album.

What might be their most important achievement is growing from kids who love the emotional response that music evokes into adults who make music that resonates deeply. When the Lovells went into the studio to record their new album Self Made Man, which comes out Friday, they were

looking to capture the electric energy of the shows they played while touring behind Venom & Faith.

“During that year-and-a-half of touring, we were experiencing shows in a way we never had before — like, selling out tours and having fans coming in knowing all the lyrics of the songs and singing along,” says Rebecca Lovell, speaking with the Scene via phone.

“We’re writing now from a perspective of asking what songs we want to sing together with an audience.”

For a prime example of that philosophy in practice, listen no further than the album’s almost-titular opening track “She’s a Self Made Man.” It’s a ferocious, swaggering electric blues tune in which the two tap into the power of an antiquated archetype while turning it on its head and making it their own. As guitars snarl and drums thunder, Lovell sings: “I was down and out, now I’m up again / When I roll the dice, everybody wins / Like the Cannonball movin’ down the track / Baby’s on her way, she ain’t comin’ back.”

Developing and harnessing that kind of confidence has been key to the sisters’ growth and continued success. It permeates their new record, which they produced themselves. The LP owes a deep debt to a wide variety of Southern music — from swampy blues to lyrical string-band music to searing rock — whose power they pay homage to in the original “Back Down South.” There’s also a rendition of Texas bluesman Blind Willie Johnson’s “God Moves on the Water,” in which the sinking of the Titanic is a cautionary tale about hubris. While Self Made Man is easy to enjoy, it’s not so easy to categorize. That doesn’t bother Rebecca Lovell.

“I think that we live in an age in which it’s very easy to ignore your gut,” she says. “Everyone wants to go off metrics and if the algorithm is performing well.

So I think to pull back and just quietly listen to the little voice in the back of your head that says, ‘Hey, just go for it.

Do it. Be vulnerable. Get down to the feeling, allow your true self to come out and don’t be afraid,’ that really has served us so well.”

With an album tailor-made for live shows, it’s been a challenge for the duo to present their new music during a pandemic, when venues are closed and it’s not possible to tour. Still, they’ve been doing their best with a livestream series called Home Sweet Home, which ran through June 6 and featured a new set list each week based on a different theme. They also donated a portion of the funds raised to United Way Nashville to help their adopted hometown’s recovery efforts in the wake of both the March 3 tornado and COVID-19.

“It’s really been kind of a cool shift in focus,” says Lovell. “Now we’re livechatting with fans on YouTube while streaming, and it’s really been fascinating. It’s been so amazing to get a sense of that global community and how everyone from all over the world is sharing in this moment together.”

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WINDS OF CHANGE

Black music business professionals explore pervasive racism in Nashville

BY ANDREA WILLIAMS

O

n June 2, Beverly Keel, the dean of Middle Tennessee State University’s College of Media and Entertainment, and Dr. Sekou Franklin, an author and professor in MTSU’s Department of Political Science, hosted an online conversation with six professionals to discuss what it’s like to be Black in Nashville’s music industry. The panel included Charlene Bryant, founder of Riveter Management; Mickey Guyton, country artist; Gina Miller, senior vice president and general manager of gospel-focused record label Entertainment One Nashville; Shannon Sanders, Recording Academy trustee and program director at 102.1 The Ville; Kortney Toney, corporate partnerships manager for the Nashville Symphony; and Candice Watkins, vice president of marketing for country label Big Loud Records.

Even without considering what was said during the conversation, the panel’s very existence was monumental.

In the fall of 2018, I was working on a story for the Nashville Business Journal that would explore the lack of racial diversity in the offices of country music labels and publishers. Country music, a genre born of Black musical traditions, has intentionally kept its stages nearly allwhite. But even as this issue receives periodic rumblings in the media, there is little talk about what’s happening behind the scenes, in the offices of the decision makers who ultimately reinforce this whitewashing.

My editor wanted to reveal the economic implications of a multibillion-dollar industry that refuses to diversify. What does it mean for country music and for all of Nashville, this relatively new “It City” sitting atop all the best-of lists, if the genre remains so white?

These are valid questions, but I wanted to dig deeper still. I wanted to know what it was like to be one of only a handful of Black people on Music Row, and I wanted to know why label and publishing heads weren’t actively hiring more. Unfortunately, the story was never published. The interviews were too difficult to secure; the efforts to get folks to go on record — even about something so blatant and obvious — proved futile.

I thought of this at the beginning of the June 2 discussion when Candice Watkins admitted to her deep trepidation about participating. Watkins was on my list of interview subjects in 2018, back when she was at Universal Music Group. According to the UMG media marketing exec who facilitated my request, Watkins was unavailable to speak in person or by phone. For two weeks I tried to schedule a conversation. Ultimately, I was told that an email interview was the best I could hope for.

Email interviewing makes gauging the tenor of a subject’s responses nearly impossible, but when I received Watkins’ responses, they felt safe. When asked about any racism she’s experienced working in country music, Watkins wrote that there weren’t “any stories worth sharing.”

I know this mask of safety that Blacks in country music hoist upon themselves. I watched my husband wear it for years as a touring musician and musical director. It is both the only way to keep your job and a sacrifice of gratitude for the opportunity to walk into rooms that so many other Black people are locked out of.

In the end, I was unwilling to compromise the integrity of the piece, so I decided to kill it. There was a very real need to have a very real conversation about the very real racism in country music, but it seemed that the time had yet to arrive. Fast-forward a year-and-a-half, and in the wake of the brutal killing of George Floyd by a

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MUSIC Minneapolis police officer and the protests that began rocking this country in late May, that time appears to be upon us.

During the panel, Watkins was vocal about her uneasiness, but also forthcoming. She spoke openly about the racism she’s encountered in the industry, often as the only Black person working in her department or company.

When asked whether she has ever feared for her safety, Watkins noted that she is always careful about the environments she enters. She feels especially concerned when traveling to music video shoots, especially in rural areas, where Confederate flags fly freely. That anguish crystallizes when her white colleagues see the trauma being inflicted and say nothing.

Mickey Guyton echoed this sentiment when she shared her own experiences in a genre that relies so heavily on Black influences but has been, at times, so unwelcoming to a Black artist.

Despite not having released an album in the nine years she’s been signed to Universal Nashville, Guyton has released a handful of singles, including 2015’s “Better Than You Left Me.” Those singles were enough to land her on a major tour, an accomplishment that should have been marked by joy but was marred by hate. After a show, while signing autographs, someone in the signing line said, “Oh, everyone’s waiting for the nigger.” Guyton froze, unsure of what to do next, trapped in a moment made all the more excruciating when no one spoke out on her behalf.

According to Guyton, her publicist told her to forget about the incident. She could never forget, of course, but she did pledge not to talk about it. “I was so worried about proving myself to the label,” she said during the panel, “that I didn’t say anything.”

The U.S. was built on a bedrock of white supremacy that now undergirds every industry and system throughout the nation. This we know, and we talk about it when we implore people to vote, when we fight for federal policy change, when we consider the viability of reparations for the descendants of the enslaved. But on a micro level, each region, each state, each city carries its own history, and that history is illuminated in its individual transgressions. We need to have that conversation too.

As Minneapolis historian Michael Lansing noted, George Floyd’s death is no anomaly. It is, instead, the cruel and inevitable result of a “weak mayor” system that, when coupled with a corrupt Police Officers Federation, has led to negligent reform in the wake of ongoing police brutality enacted upon the city’s minority communities. Likewise, it is a fallacy to assume that the racism that winds through Nashville’s music industry was born in a vacuum, that it is a rare dark stain on an otherwise spotless town.

We can’t forget that Nashville is, today, the proverbial altar to the Native-removing, slaveholding Andrew Jackson — that his plantation is lauded as an ideal venue for elementary school field trips and six-figure wedding ceremonies, and that his nickname graces one of the city’s main thoroughfares. Nashville is where Black attorney and activist Alexander Looby’s Jefferson Street-adjacent home was bombed, likely retribution for his role in the desegregation of Clinton High School just outside of Knoxville. Years later, Nashville built I-40 right through the middle of Jefferson Street, simultaneously demolishing Black businesses, Black homes, and the collective spirit of all of Black Nashville.

Because of all this and more, the Black men and women who work in Nashville’s music industry don’t just endure racism at work. It follows them everywhere they go.

Gina Miller spoke of being watched while shopping in a Brentwood retail store, of the anxiety that weighs heavy when a store clerk thinks you might steal a $7 pair of earrings. She asked, “How do you move in a place where people don’t think you belong?”

Shannon Sanders knows this feeling well. As a Black man, he said his anxiety is only multiplied, that

he has to go out of his way to check his emotions and not frighten white people by appearing angry or aggressive. “They might think you’re gonna steal the earrings,” he said to Miller, “but they think I’m gonna rob the whole store.”

As conversations around the systemic oppression of Black Americans take over social media, the news and even our dinner tables, the June 2 discussion served to humanize the narrative in a way that even images splashed across the internet can fail to. Nashville is a big small town, after all, and hearing from people with whom other industry folk have likely crossed paths can open minds and hearts in a transformative way.

The fact that the panelists are so well-accomplished makes this theory all the more plausible, even as it also speaks volumes to the tenacity of systemic oppression. The panelists are not average, unskilled, uneducated Black people — the people who, if we are honest, white people most easily overlook. No, these people are exceptional. They are, dare I say, magical. But there is a problem with being the magical Black person, the only Black person who makes it into the room.

While Watkins talked about having her Blackness disregarded, Charlene Bryant lamented being the token Black person expected to represent her entire race. She said she is often asked, “What do you think about the new Beyoncé song?” or, “Have you heard the new J. Cole track?”

Questions like these are tiring, Bryant said, because they reveal that, in seeing her Blackness, too many white people in the industry fail to see her. “I don’t want to have to be ‘Black Charlene,’ ” she said. “I just want to be Charlene.”

But if Bryant, the head of her own management firm, is forced to endure these microaggressions, if Sanders is a Grammy winner whose awards still can’t shield him from racism, and Miller’s position at the head of a record label can’t protect her, either — what does that mean for everyone else? What about the Black professionals who are never allowed into the room at all, who won’t get signed to a major label because country music already has Guyton?

In discussing her path to the Nashville Symphony, Kortney Toney recalled having an impeccable résumé, but hiring managers’ faces would go blank when they realized she’s Black. With that understanding in mind, when the panelists were asked how white people can move past hashtags and fluffy PR statements to show true allyship for their Black colleagues in Nashville’s music industry, Bryant was clear: “Hire us. Give us opportunity.”

Nashville’s music industry has much work ahead if it is going to rectify its past and create a better future.

Beyond learning and reflection, there will have to be intentional, unprecedented action. The racist structures that have stood strong in this industry for generations won’t fall on their own. They’ll have to be torn down. The work is necessary. Even more importantly, it is possible.

Each of the panelists agreed with this point, and they are hopeful that something great will come from this time of turmoil. “For the first time in my life,” Watkins said, “I think change is coming.”

According to Sanders, that change will come when white industry leaders “get comfortable being uncomfortable.” Even white allies who aren’t in leadership positions, who feel helpless to effect real change, will have to step outside their comfort zones too. “Speak truth to power,” Sanders said. Look around, see who does have the power to effect change, and then call those people out.

“Please let this be the beginning of something that is going to change you,” added Toney.

Progress is a process, but if Nashville’s music industry can sustain the energy and sincerity that has recently emerged, we may see that progress sooner than we think.

EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | JUNE 11 – JUNE 17, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

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MUSIC

THE SPIN

STREAM A LITTLE STREAM

BY BRITTNEY McKENNA, LORIE LIEBIG AND STEPHEN TRAGESER ADIA VICTORIA

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ometimes absurdity is the perfect context for trying to get a better understanding of something serious. Such was the case on June 3, when Adia Victoria appeared on Adult Swim’s livestream call-in show FishCenter Live.

With help from guitarists Mason Hickman and William Tyler and keyboardist Peter Eddins, Victoria began with an as-yet-unreleased song called “Take It Easy” along with “Mortimer’s Blues,” a shapeshifting elegy for a cat who was her companion during some difficult times. Then she sat down with a sketchbook and took some questions from the hosts and callers. Near the end of the stream, the hosts addressed the wave of protests that followed the killing of George Floyd by a Minnesota police officer, asking, “What’s this moment like, in your eyes?”

“I feel like my body’s trying to figure out how to exist in this,” Victoria said. “It’s a lot, and it’s intense, and I am very cognizant of the fact that I am Black. This is especially traumatic for me. I have to remind myself: ‘You are allowed to feel, as a Black woman, trauma.

And it’s OK if you don’t know what the fuck to do.’ Because I don’t know what the fuck to do — you give money, you march, you scream, you yell. The frustrating thing about being a Black woman is that this system was never for me to correct. You’re kind of just waiting on everybody else to act like fucking human beings. People just refuse to, and they keep refusing for, like, 400 years. It’s just a huge refusal, and it’s exhausting.”

Before ending with a spoken-word performance of her poem “A Black Woman’s Abridgement of Robert Penn Warren’s Segregation,” Victoria discussed the Nashville People’s Budget Coalition. The group advocates divesting from policing and investing in education, health care and other community services. The issue had taken center stage the night before at an 11-hour Metro Council meeting.

“What a profound lack of faith in your people,” said Victoria, referring to the heavy focus on policing in Mayor John Cooper’s proposed budget. “What a profound lack of empathy, that the thing you would invest in most is putting them in cages. … Hammer your local representatives, get a look at that budget, see where your money is going. We are paying them to kill us.”

In 1981, not long after he moved to Nashville, John Prine launched his independent label Oh Boy Records with help from his manager Al Bunetta and friend Dan Einstein. Just shy of two months since Prine’s death from complications of COVID-19 — and concurrently with his widow Fiona Whelan Prine’s campaign to

make absentee voting available to everyone in Tennessee — the label organized the Whole Damn Family Hour livestream, also on June 3, a virtual mixtape of signees featuring Kelsey Waldon, Dan Reeder, Tré Burt and Arlo McKinley.

The stream kicked off with standout country-leaning songwriter Waldon playing “Kentucky, 1988,” an ode to her upbringing that’s on her 2019 album White Noise / White Lines. Fellow songsmith Burt, who released his debut record Caught It From the Rye in January, found himself working up a sweat in his dark room in Sacramento, Calif. Along with a few of his original songs, including the driving single “Real You,” Burt tipped his hat to Bob Dylan with a cover of “Except You.” Accompanying himself on a keyboard, Reeder rolled through songs including his peculiar and wistful “Clean Elvis.” McKinley, the newest Oh Boy signee, has built a solid fan base from his years in the Cincinnati music scene. Though his deep, powerful vocals recall standout singers like Chris Stapleton or John Moreland, he’s no country cookie cutter, and as if to emphasize the point, he ended with a twangy take on Rihanna and Mikky Ekko’s 2013 hit “Stay.”

Following a bout with COVID-19 and the cancellation of his highly anticipated A Good Look’n Tour with Tyler Childers, Sturgill Simpson engaged his broad fan base to raise funds for three vital nonprofit efforts this spring: The Equity Alliance’s tornado relief fund, the Special Forces Foundation and MusiCares’ COVID-19 relief fund. The noble campaign had a good dose of silliness in its execution, as you might expect if you’ve followed the widely loved singer and songwriter of country, rock and lots more on Instagram. It revolved around sales of merch with the logo of Dick Daddy Survival School, an organization he invented for an internet bit.

The gag yielded an extraordinary success, raising more than $250,000 during its eightweek run. Throughout the campaign, Simpson promised that if fans hit the $200,000 goal, he’d do a livestream and release an album later this year. On June 5, he made good on the promise of a stream with a set performed to an empty house at the Ryman, with any donations during the show earmarked for those three nonprofits as well.

Simpson tapped a band of all-star acoustic players, composed of mandolin player Sierra Hull, fiddler Stuart Duncan, banjo picker Scott Vestal, guitarist Scott Howard, drummer Miles Miller and bassist Mike Bub. Appropriately, the show hearkened back to Simpson’s bluegrass roots while covering most of his career so far.

There were songs from Simpson’s Grammywinning third album A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, his breakout second album Metamodern Sounds in Country Music and his solo debut High Top Mountain.

Nothing from Simpson’s hard-rocking 2019 LP Sound & Fury made it into the set, but he did play a pair of Stanley Brothers covers, “Pretty Polly” and “Sharecropper’s Son.” There were also tunes from his time with Lexington, Ky., band Sunday Valley, for which he set the scene: “I was still writing bluegrass songs and having to play them in a punk band.”

The stream looked to the past to help navigate the present, and it also gave a glimpse of the future. Midset, Simpson announced that he and the players onstage had recorded bluegrass versions of his songs, which he’ll release across two LPs later this year.

EMAIL THESPIN@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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FILM but more often than not if a film can hang as a punching bag for 30 or so years, it levels up to a new sparkle and gets retroactive respect. Like its chrome bisexual sister Basic Instinct (currently streaming on DirecTV and Showtime), Cruising was protested by the queer community at the time of its release. And also like its sibling, Cruising’s problematic depictions of LGBTQ individuals have been eclipsed by its unheralded inversion of the trope of the heroic cop: There are few moments as deeply funny and semiotically rich as undercover police officer Steve Burns (Al Pacino) being denied entry into the leather club he’s supposed to be infiltrating because he’s not dressed up in cop gear. At its best, this William Friedkin effort is an American giallo and a document of a community just before HIV/AIDS came along and demolished it.

BASKIN ON HULU

I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO

PRIMAL STREAM: POWER TO THE PEOPLE Powerful documentaries, a Paul Schrader classic and more, now available to stream

BY JASON SHAWHAN

T

here’s literally no way to even try to guess what kind of world we’ll be in as you read this, a week after my deadline. Every approach I take to try to find some sort of leavening encouragement feels gross. Every concept I try to come up with to address what is happening all around us seems inadequate given what invariably does happen. But we all like to watch movies, yes? Below are some great and relevant ones to stream now. As always, check recent issues of the Scene for more recommended titles.

I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO ON AMAZON PRIME I Am Not Your Negro, an essential documentary about writer/theorist/cultural and film critic/icon James Baldwin, is well worth anyone’s time, but especially so during the chaos of The Now. The fact that the civil unrest we see around us is all going down during what is traditionally LGBTQ Pride Month (note: do not subject yourself to Roland Emmerich’s 2015 catastrophe Stonewall, because it neither raises consciousness nor informs the viewer, which is something Baldwin’s work does both of) seems somehow appropriate given that Pride is about the necessity of social change and the power of protest.

And Baldwin is, simply, one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century. To hear his words is edifying and necessary. And his book of film criticism, The Devil Finds Work, is one of the most rewarding and alive works of film criticism you’ll ever read.

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HARLAN COUNTY USA ON THE CRITERION CHANNEL AND HBO MAX Harlan County USA is one of the most important films ever made about American labor. Director Barbara Kopple gets deep about corporate exploitation, the resilience of put-upon workers, and what it means when a single industry controls nearly the entire economics of a community. If you grew up during (or after) the Reagan era, when worker and union power were systematically disassembled, this is an accessible and informative way to learn how differently things once worked. It also pairs and contrasts nicely with Michael Cimino’s epic film maudit Heaven’s Gate (currently on Amazon Prime) as a portrait of one of

HARLAN COUNTY USA

those pivot points in history that entire decades turn on.

BLUE COLLAR ON STARZ AND AMAZON PRIME My standard line is that the three best movies ever made about the workplace are Alien, 9 to 5 and 1978’s Blue Collar, written and directed by Paul Schrader.

Three co-workers at an auto plant: Yaphet Kotto, Harvey Keitel and Richard Pryor.

The pressure is on, the company is battling the union, families need things, and the money just isn’t there. This isn’t a fun film (I wouldn’t say any of this week’s offerings offer up a lot of fun), but it’s remarkable and volatile, and fueled with three really great performances and Schrader at his best.

Few horror films have ever conceived or executed a murderscape with the visceral dread of the industrial “accident” herein.

CRUISING ON AMAZON PRIME Cruising is one of those films that has been infamous for so long that it’s finally started swinging back around toward respectable — this doesn’t always happen,

If you’ve missed the foundation of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, where the human body becomes a laboratory for desires unmoored by traditional emotional responses, Turkish procedural Baskin delivers all the cosmic splatter you could hope for. There aren’t really any sympathetic characters, and the concept is simple and focused on the principles of symbolic retribution and punishing the absence of empathy. Can Evrenol’s film would make for a great double feature with Tales From the Hood, if you were looking to center your sense of overwhelming horror in latex and goo on screen and not in real life flesh and blood.

BREWSTER MCCLOUD ON TCM Brewster McCloud is an evocative tale of a manboy who wanted to fly, and the ornithology lecturer (recently departed global treasure René Auberjonois) who guides us through it. Sally Kellerman is a fallen angel, Bud Cort is the titular naïf, Shelley Duvall is temptation incarnate, and Michael Murphy is the incarnation of director Robert Altman’s thoughts on superdetectives. This fable is beautiful and heartbreaking and has a recurrent motif where birds kill racists by shitting on them.

ADDENDUM We lost Larry Kramer recently. He was a force of queer rage, an incredible author and playwright, and one of the most inspirational figures of the AIDS epoch. He also wrote the screenplay for and produced Ken Russell’s film Women in Love, which is shamefully not streaming anywhere right now. (There’s a beautiful Criterion Blu-ray out there, though, and it’s worth your time and dollars.) Similarly lost to the digital world is Kathryn Bigelow’s 1995 sci-fi apocalypse Strange Days, stuck in the same “not even a 16:9 enhanced DVD” limbo as Lightstorm/Fox-now-Disney’s The Abyss. (Hulu, this is y’all’s territory, right?) The Bigelow film has been on my mind lately; I want to see Angela Bassett kick ass and Ralph Fiennes give off snivelly weasel boyfriend energy and Juliette Lewis cover P.J. Harvey songs — but I also want to see a future passed where the video is enough. Where no corruption is unshakably permanent.

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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Overly fixated (on) Chip away at ___ Arizona Inveighed Sporty car option Italian mount Lady ___, powerhouse in college basketball Air freshener scent Frans ___, “The Merry Drinker” painter Musical artist behind the “War Is Over!

(If You Want It)” campaign #1 of 24 “Would you mind getting that officer out of bed?”

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Traditional gift for a 30th anniversary Argus-eyed Ticket part Parisian pal Male swan The Buckeyes of the Big Ten, in brief ___ Long, Union general at the Battle of Selma Jungfrau, for one

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SHELDON F. BLAKE vs.

CYNARRA M. BLAKE In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non-resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon CYNARRA M. BLAKE. It is ordered that said Defendant enter Her appearance herein with thirty (30) days after June 18, 2020 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302 Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on July 20, 2020. It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

Richard R. Rooker, Clerk Deputy Clerk By: W. North Date: May 19, 2020

PUZZLE BY BRUCE HAIGHT AND PETER A. COLLINS

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Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 9,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/ crosswords ($39.95 a year).

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Jessica R. Simpson Attorney for Plaintiff NSC 5/28/2020, 6/4/2020, 6/11/2020 & 6/18/2020

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Qualified applicants mail resume to Sharon Barrow, GEODIS Logistics, LLC, 7101 Executive Center Drive, Suite 333, Brentwood, TN 37027 Ref# SRSYS10863.

Systems Analyst II - Operations (Multiple positions. GEODIS Logistics, LLC, Brentwood, TN): Reqs Bachelor’s degree (U.S. or foreign equiv) in Comp Sci or related & 4 yrs related exp. Alternatively, will accept Master’s degree (U.S. or foreign equiv) in Comp Sci or related & 2 yrs related exp. Also reqs exp w/ WMS configuration, implementation, & support in distribution center environment w/ comprehensive knowledge of RF systems & equipment; knowledge of Oracle SQL Db; knowledge of commonly used concepts, practices, & procedures inc inventory control & configuration; experience w/ ASN & EDI; working knowledge of bar code softwares & Zebra Printers; PC proficiency inc Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, Access, Visio, & MS project. Requires domestic travel up to 40% of the time. Qualified applicants mail resume to Sharon Barrow, GEODIS Logistics, LLC, 7101 Executive Center Drive, Suite 333, Brentwood, TN 37027 Ref #: SYSTE10868.

Systems Analyst II - Operations (Multiple positions. GEODIS USA, Inc., Brentwood, TN): Reqs Bachelor’s degree (U.S. or foreign equivalent) in IT or related & 3 years related exp. Alternatively, will accept Master’s degree (U.S. or foreign equivalent) in IT or related & 1 year related exp. Also reqs: exp working w/ Java (J2EE), Spring framework using MVC, Servlets, JSP, JDBC, & Java Script; exp working w/ or implementing Web Services/APIs (SOAP/REST) w/ a good understanding of XML or JSON format structure; exp working w/ SQL Server or Oracle database management systems w/ experience using SQL & writing/reading PL/SQL or TSQL; PC literate w/ proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, Visio, Pro-

Systems Analyst II - Operations (Multiple positions. GEODIS USA, Inc., Brentwood, TN): Reqs Bachelor’s degree (U.S. or foreign equivalent) in IT or related & 3 years related exp. Alternatively, will accept Master’s degree (U.S. or foreign equivalent) in IT or related & 1 year related exp. Also reqs: exp working w/ Java (J2EE), Spring framework using MVC, Servlets, JSP, JDBC, & Java Script; exp working w/ or implementing Web Services/APIs (SOAP/REST) w/ a good understanding of XML or JSON format structure; exp working w/ SQL Server or Oracle database management systems w/ experience using SQL & writing/reading PL/SQL or TSQL; PC literate w/ proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, Visio, Project, PowerPoint & Outlook. Qualified applicants mail resume to Sharon Barrow, GEODIS Logistics, LLC, 7101 Executive Center Drive, Suite 333, Brentwood, TN 37027 Ref # SYSTE10870.

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