Lou Pickney's Online Commentary
Clever Storytelling
Monday
March 3, 2008
"I have made the same mistakes over and over again"
-Ben Folds Five "Mess"
As I type this, I'm listening to the Last.fm Radio player that's embedded in my Facebook profile... and I'm thoroughly impressed. Granted, it is playing mostly music that I have played (and allowed last.fm to chronicle), so naturally it's going to sound good to me, but it's the best computer-generated music player that I've ever heard.
My last.fm profile name is LouMusic, if you care to browse my listening catalog. Unfortunately, last.fm is not cooperating with me at the moment to give me the code I need to embed it here, but when I finally get it, I'll retrofit it into this page, and the words you're reading now will likely be modified to reflect the update.
Speaking of good radio, I've also enjoyed listening online to WRXP out of New York City. Formerly a smooth jazz outlet, the Emmis-owned station flipped to rock earlier this year. But it's not a typical rock station -- it's more a rock-leaning AAA outlet. You can listen for yourself at 1019rxp.com, and it's well worth checking out.
My roommate Dustin asked me today if I had updated this site lately, since the last time he checked, I hadn't. It's true that fresh content is an important thing, but it's not as easy to write about weekend adventures when you live under the same roof with two of your cohorts. And even if it's my own adventures, enough people know about this website that I sometimes have to pick and choose what I write about.
Just know this: the free-wheeling days of 2003 might have been chronicled in detail on here, but that doesn't mean that 2008 doesn't have plenty of excitement of its own to offer.
Strangely, I generally dislike being asked about things I write on here. It's impossible to live in a bubble separate from what I write -- I've learned that the hard way plenty of times before -- but it would be much easier to write without consequences. Sadly, that is an impossibility.
The crux of the problem is that writing about personal experiences invariably matches the incompatibility of honest thoughts, reactions, and at times candid stories with the need for not pissing off the very people about whom I'm writing and those who I regularly interact with on a regular basis. That has always been the case, but it became much more difficult for me when the degrees of separation were removed with the move back to the Nashville area.
Again, I have to stress that the pluses of being back in my old stomping grounds outweigh the minuses. Being near so many friends and family is a wonderful thing. But, invariably, that brings them into my circle and into the world of shared experiences. Perhaps the challenge is for me to evolve further as a writer and find more clever ways to tell the stories of modern-day adventures.
On Saturday night we had a huge crew gathered up to hit downtown Nashville. My friend Jana was back in town to celebrate the weekend with us, and we were running nine deep. Luckily we had two designated drivers: Dunski and Josh Lackey. My bro Matt and his girlfriend Amber were running late coming back from Birmingham (to the surprise of no one), but we made plans to rendezvous later in the evening.
Our destination was McFadden's, a bar on Second Avenue in Nashville. One of our crew knew someone who was having a party there, and the end result was that we all got in for free and received special wristbands that allowed us to buy $2 whiskey mixed drinks.
Normally I'd put a picture from the evening in around here, but I have been without a digital camera since the summer before last, when my $300 digital camera disappeared right around the time Melissa '05 came to visit me in Alabaster. For all I know, I managed to pack it away and misplace it, but I performed a thorough search and came up out of luck.
So, for now, I'm at the mercy of others to provide me with pictures, which is a much easier experience in the digital camera era than it was even back in my college days. But I sand pictures as far as Saturday goes. I suspect that soon my stubborn refusal to buy a new camera will break.
We arrived at McFadden's relatively early in the evening, before 10 p.m., and the time flew by. It was my first visit to the bar, and I liked it a great deal. Unfortunately for the birthday girl Jana, she drank too much liquor. By the time the stroke of midnight arrived, she was barely coherent. Soon after, she complained of feeling ill, and the evening on the town ended abruptly for everyone... except me.
In a nice surprise, Dustin and I spotted our friend Ashley Jewel, who was doing promo work (I think) at a bar across the street whose name escapes me. So we said our hellos and such and then let her get on her way.
The plan had been for us to meet up with Matt and Amber at Cadillac Ranch, a fun bar on Broadway that I like. And while the rest of the crew split, I wasn't going to leave Matt and Amber hanging, so I walked down to meet up with them.
When I arrived, they were already there. Amber drove, which allowed Matt and I to drink with impunity. Amber bought both Matt and I a shot of Jägermeister, and things became a bit foggier at that point. I do remember laughing long and loud at the terrible attempts at karaoke being made up on the stage there.
So that was Saturday night in Nashville. This weekend I'm heading down to Birmingham for the first time since my move from Alabaster, and it should be a good time. My buddy Patrick has been bugging me to come hit the bar scene down there, and I've been meaning to check out my sister Mary Beth's layout at Birmingham Southern.
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