Somewhere between Vox & Hunter S. Thompson
I’ve said it before on this website and I’ll say it again: London is EASILY the most diverse place I have ever lived. Honestly, it’s hard to imagine any place on earth being more diverse than London. That is not hyperbole! I truly don’t think anywhere else can touch it in terms of diversity. So it should come as no surprise that London’s street art is as interesting and colorful as its inhabitants.
For the unindoctrinated, Everton is a Liverpool-based team coming to play on West Ham’s home turf. This is an interesting season for Everton because they were docked 10-points in what the football world has unanimously agreed is an injustice of the highest order. After that, death (i.e. relegation) seemed inevitable, but they have harnessed their collective spite to mount a revenge-fueled run of wins that has put them comfortably in the center of the table, safe from the relegation zone. If it wasn’t for those 10 points, they would be a strong contender for European qualification right now. Unfortunately for West Ham, this would ultimately mean a home-defeat for them. So there were lots of angry fans in East London on this day, but that’s part of the magic of the game. ✨
Today we’re going to Stamford Bridge to see Chelsea v. Brighton in the EFL Cup a.k.a. the Carabao Cup!
This is not technically my first English Premier League (EPL) game because it’s a cup game (i.e. it’s not part of the regular season, it’s a separate competition) but it’s still a good time. So let’s get into what this experience was like… because, it was an experience.
Today we’re going to walk from Green Park to the BT Tower at sunset. I’d plot out the route of my walk for you on Google maps, but I have no idea what my route actually was. As is my custom, I was trying to get lost. What I can tell you is that this walk will take us through a little corner of Mayfair, and then through neighborhoods called Soho and Fitzrovia. Having only been here for 1.5 months, I still feel quite under-qualified to be making any sort of statements about London as a whole, but these areas really feel like the “heart of the city” to me.
I don’t know if people coming to visit as tourists really get a sense of the scale of this place because most major tourist attractions are clustered relatively close to one another. But to me, whose first time in London was the day I moved to London, its size was a bit terrifying. I couldn’t afford to stay in the city center, so I found an Airbnb further afield. Fighting the traffic and crowds to haul my ass back and forth across this city to do apartment viewings was exhausting, and I only covered a small portion of the city in those trips.
Welp, I won’t bury the lead.
I am moving to London!
If you haven’t heard of it, that’s in England.
It’s a bit surreal that I haven’t been to the UK yet in my travels. I suppose it never seemed like it would be all that foreign, so every time I was planning a bit of travel, I opted for something that felt more AdV3nTuR0Us. I always used to say “I’m sure I’ll end up there eventually.”
Well… that turned out to be truer than I could have predicted.
On our final day we did a dolphin boat tour around the protected waters between Anna Maria and mainland Florida. We did see a bunch of dolphins, which was cool, but what I remember most from that tour was our cruise through a little area that is apparently known locally as the “redneck riviera.” At the very bottom of Anna Maria Island, between the barrier islands and a small interior island called Jewfish Key 🫤 there is a sandbar where the water is shallow enough for a child to walk around. The cool thing is that it’s surrounded on all sides by deep water, so it’s basically only accessible by boat. So there were a number of boats floating nearby, encircling this sandy, teal-water playground, with people walking around in the middle. It was really cool. And of course, the Florida gulf-coast water is as warm as bath water.
East Nashville is the neighborhood that served as home base for me throughout the duration of my time in Nashville, and there was never a moment when I didn’t love this slice of the city. Even at the height of my dissatisfaction with Nashville, I remember saying how much I still loved East Nashville itself. I’d be happy to live in a neighborhood like this one again someday. I just hope it’s not in Tennessee. The casual passerby might not see much past the monstrosity known as Gallatin Pike (which is the main “stroad” of this neighborhood), but once you get off this excruciating wasteland, there is a beautiful neighborhood waiting to be discovered.
I lived in Nashville for many years, pursuing my own musical endeavors. And while it was a great place to make music, I always felt a bit at odds with the larger-than-life, cowboy-hat-wearing, beer-swigging, Trump-voting, bachelorette-party-hosting persona of Nashville’s calling-card genre: country music. At the height of my involvement with Nashville’s music scene, I definitely had a bit of a stick up my butt about country music. The two main reasons for this were, (1) as a non-country musician working the Nashville circuit, I was eager for this city to be more known for music *in general* than for country music specifically, and (2) the novelty of this scene had LONG-since worn off, leaving me annoyed in the way only locals can be in regard to tourist attractions. Therefore, I always refused to cover any of Nashville’s country persona on this website.
Ironically, I actually do like country music.
And now that I am (SPOILER ALERT) leaving Nashville, I thought it’d be prudent to cover the country scene here… you know, for the court record. Afterall, this can make for a super fun trip if you’re visiting from out of town. So without further ado, let’s get country!
Dunno if anybody will read this, but I have learned so much about this subject that it seemed like a shame not to write it down. So here goes nothing.
I should start with one massive disclaimer: I am not now—nor was I ever—a “rock star,” so if you want to write off my advice due to the modesty of my success with this endeavor, I’d understand. But I would have killed (metaphorically) to get this information from somebody like me when I first showed up in Nashville. This is gonna be some insider shit. It won’t all be super tactical, but it should be pretty evergreen. And I can almost guarantee that this information is not written anywhere else on the internet. Or, at least not anywhere easy to find.
