So, the last stop on my book tour for my new book We’ll Be Back: The Fall and Rise of America was Nashville with a hit on Mike Huckabee’s show. Six weekends in a row on airplanes – it was like a dream come true, except it was a terrible dream full of dumb people who don’t understand how airline travel works. But it was nice to visit America again. Thanks to the Army, I am one of the few coastal blue state dwellers who has actually interacted with people who can’t throw a rock and hit an ocean. For a bunch of people who pride themselves on their familiarity with the world and their unquestionable ability to run it without input from others, the blue elites have remarkably little idea what is up between I-5 and I-95. Still, living in California, I sometimes forget that in America people are generally nice to you.
They greet you on the street, or in bars, or wherever, and they talk to you. Sometimes they talk a lot. Now, understand that people are not mean to you in California. They are not actively hostile to strangers. They simply do not care. They are all just trying to sell their screenplays and they have no time to pretend that you matter.
"The Huckabee Show" was fun. I’ve done it a few times and it’s very popular to do among the pundit people because the Huckabee staff is very efficient and friendly. They pick you up at the airport and you are swiftly and professionally taken to the studio, mic’d up and made up, walked onto the stage, walked off, put in a car, and waved good-bye to. Some shows are unholy chaos. This one is like clockwork.
Mike Huckabee, a fantastically nice guy in person, has this huge studio out in the country – I assume it is the country because I saw trees and what I think was a cow – and a big studio audience of people who are kind, genuine, salt-of-the-earth folk who should, by all rights, be chasing me out of their fine town with torches and pitchforks. But they seemed to like my hit, especially when I suggested that recently-unemployed abominations Liz Cheney and Brian Stelter should team up. I think they need to do an 80s-style buddy comedy. We could call it “Later Tater” and the duo could solve mysteries or something. It could play either on the History Channel, because they are both history, or maybe on the Food Channel, because Brian Stelter is a potato. By the way, I called him “a potato” during the show and the audience lost it. The tater meme is universal. It brings people together.
Irina and I stayed in downtown Nashville, which was a grave error since downtown Nashville on a weekend night is like Las Vegas meets Times Square and has a hoedown. There are dozens of bars and they all have live bands – proficient ones too. They bar seems pretty high to get a gig – these people can play. And it’s loud. We had a seventh story room and we could hear the doings down below.
Recommended
It was jammed with mostly (but not only) young folks. There are lots and lots of people wandering about in various stages of hammered, though they were all very nice. Packs of brides and bridesmaids dressed in their full love-me-for-my-mind get-up prowled the streets on increasingly unsteady feet or rode in these party buses awkwardly dancing as they held brightly colored drinks. Apparently a final pre-marital fling in Nashville is a southern rite of passage. I just hope everyone was making good choices, but I doubt it.
Well, at least this all bodes well for red state fertility. I am a big believer in out-breeding the pinkos.
The Broadway insanity was most definitely not my scene at this stage in my life journey, but it was remarkably mellow insanity. There was no fighting or bad behavior. People bumped into each other and everyone said “Excuse me.” There were lots of flags and “We support our troops” signs too. Everyone was just having a good time. I assume the constitutional carry law in Tennessee contributed to the general politeness.
We got to grab lunch with Salty, my illustrator for the People’s Republic novels – Kelly Turnbull VII is coming out in October! He’s a California refugee and loves it in his adopted new home. As when we visited Texas and Florida, we got interrogated about when we are leaving California. Apparently, everyone has decided we have to move out of the Golden State except us.
The food is pretty good, both the country food and the foodie food (our travels recently have convinced us that the LA food scene is grossly over-rated). People downtown dress like they are heading to a Jimmy Buffet concert, but in the real Nashville they dress up. I got the vibe that among the real native Nashvillers, you are probably a newcomer until the fifth or sixth generation after your family gets there. We did find one liberal neighborhood that had some pride flags and BLM signs, just like Santa Monica. Luckily, they are just a curiosity in Tennessee and not the ruling class.
Some things about the South for those of you who live on the coasts. Things take longer. There’s no hurry. People chat, and they are not exactly…focused. We tried to pry a breakfast recommendation from our concierge and we got a general acknowledgement that somewhere, out there, there were places serving breakfast. I also note that the bars and the live bands were cranking at 10 a.m. on a Saturday morning.
And you need to specify unsweetened ice tea if you don’t want your sugar spoiled with a few drops of liquid.
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