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Soul Satisfaction

Sunday
December 22, 2002

"It's like riding a moped; it's fun until one of your friends catches you."
-Richard Karg, tonight at the Nipper's Corner Applebee's

Hello from Nashville. It's been a busy weekend here -- too busy to post anything on the website until now.

My fantasy football team, the Detectives, are your 2002 FFL Champions. Peyton Manning stepped it up big-time. It's my second championship, and I'm quite proud of my team.

It's nice to be here on so many levels. Great to see family and friends. There's always the regulars, but then there are others from years gone by who I seem to invariably run into here. Like when I saw Jan Crowell last month, or running into Howell and B.J. who were at the Flying Saucer (more on that in a minute) on Saturday night. And as much as I love Tampa, this is home. Plus, the stress level is about nil here, compared with the high stress situation with all the nonsense at work. There's no one here plotting my professional destruction or trying to set me up to fail. And it's nice to actually sleep at night.

But I digress. Nashville is a fun city, and like I said it's home. It's great to be back here for Christmas. This is such a wonderful time of year. The crispness in the air, the building excitement for Christmas morning, etc. Granted, it means a plethora of ridiculous diamond commercials and insane crowds at the malls, but hey that's good for the economy. Plus there's the whole shared experience of it all. A tradition that most people can share on in one capacity or another.

Friday night I saw a great band in concert. They're called The Features, and they're fantastic. A difficult band to quantify as far as trying to describe their sound, since they incorporate so many different elements. Think Weezer with the Rentals keyboard (melded with a Doors feel). And then a lead singer with a voice that sounds like of like John Bell from Widespread Panic. Throw in some intangables that defy genre categorization (new wave?) and the great crowd interaction, and you have an established band that's got all the potential in the world to break it big-time. Thanks to Carl Weitlauf who talked me into going.

The Red Rose was the venue for the show in Murfreesboro. It was about the worst place I've seen a concert. The inside decor screamed early 1970's cafeteria. And the place had horrid acoustics. The fact that The Features put on such a good show there is a tribute to the band's talent. But, good beer and good music is a great night in my book.

My friend Glenn Brown also went to the show, and he liked it enough to buy the band's "The Beginning" EP (as I did). Glenn and I have varied musical tastes, and it's a sign of a good band when they fall into the interest realm of both of us.

Glenn and I also hit the town on Saturday. It's great to get to spend time with him. It's interesting in that we've both changed since our high school days, in many ways going in totally different directions (everything from politics and religion and philosophy to what qualifies as a fun time on a Saturday night). But he's one of my closest friends from high school. And he's one of the smartest people I know, and it's great to hear his take on things (usually his insight is dead-on accurate).

The Flying Saucer is a great bar. They have Woodpecker Cider on tap. On tap!!! Do you know how big of a deal that is? It's the only place I've seen it in the U.S. on tap. I consider it to be the best cider in the world, so this was most exciting to me. Speaking of exciting, the waitresses there wear these short plaid skirts that really take things to the next level. Completely distracting. If anyone ever wants to get the best of me in a business transaction or a fantasy football trade, just take me to Flying Saucer, get me drinking a Woodpecker Cider and seeing a waitress leaning against a table in my line of sight. You'd have me trading Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison for two wooden nickles and a bag of beans. Good times.

We ended up meeting up with my bro Matt and some of his crew over at Johny Jackson's Soul Satisfaction, which is a fun dance club with a 70's edge. They had a great remix version of "Lights, Camera, Action" by Mr. Cheeks. Too many $3 Budweisers made things a little dicey, but I wasn't driving and I was ready to throw down. Regretted it today, as I had a hangover for much of the day. So it goes.

I need to finish up my Christmas shopping tomorrow. And go see Gangs of New York. Andy Karg told me tonight that it's a great movie -- I look forward to seeing it for myself. And go Bucs -- beat those Steelers.


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