Plans are in the works for a $250 million development on the Cumberland River that would include live/work units, condos, restaurants, retail and boat homes.

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Dubbed The H20 Urban Waterfront District, the project would be on a 35-acre wedge of land tucked away from the strip retail stores of the Charlotte Pike corridor at the site of an abandoned golf driving range.

Sounds like it could be kinda cool.

Last night, some friends and I were going to go to Chili’s (no, I don’t know either. it wasn’t my idea), and of course it was packed to the gills. Shocker! So, we wandered down to Tangredi’s. We approached with some trepidation, because it’s a fairly small place, and by the looks of it, the entire staff was on a smokebreak out back. But, we were seated promptly in a cozy table. The place was pretty much empty, which is also always cause for alarm. Their bar is pretty expansive, but no beer. Just liquor and wine. I started with scotch and soda and a diet coke. (We were going to a haunted house, so I wanted to make sure to mix some relaxation with a heightened sense of awareness.) I ordered the linquine and clams, the rest of my table had “penne a la vodka” — which looked like penne in some marinara sauce — and a crawfish dish that looked awesome. The clams were great, in a light white wine/garlic sauce. It was tasty.

The place started to fill up later as the Vandy game crowd decided to get food. The menu was reasonable.. $13-17 or so entrees. Nashville is not really known for its Italian food, so I was surprised to find this place. It wasn’t half bad. Good service, good food.. cute waitress, to boot. I’ll be going there again.

Building caught fire on 5th Ave S. and Peabody near the country music hall of fame.. I got there in time to take some pics.. Not sure which building it was, as I couldn’t get close enough to see.. WSMV has more…

WHEN: 6:00pm – 8:00pm, Saturday, September 1st, 2007

WHERE: Power Project Office, 42 Arcade (corner of 5th & Church, Downtown, 37219)

Nashville Homeless Power Project will join several other Galleries on the 2nd Floor of the Arcade to open our galleries to the general public. Enjoy this opportunity to view the work of local artists and at the same time meet some of the leaders of the Nashville Homeless Power Project and see first hand the inspirational office from which we work.

Artwork and Photography are for sale and majority of the proceeds will benefit the Nashville Homeless Power Project.

REMINDER
NEW ORLEANS SECOND LINE PARADE
to acknowledge the anniversary of
HURRICANE KATRINA
AUGUST 29th – 6:pm til…

To acknowledge the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and share it with others here in Nashville who have either re-located due to the storm or who love the City of New Orleans, there will be a New Orleans Second Line Parade on Wednesday, August 29th.

We will gather at 6:00pm at The Lipstick Lounge, located at the corner of 14th and Woodland in East Nashville. At 6:45pm we will begin to parade along a short route in East Nashville, stop for a few minutes at locations in the area and end at Pizzareal, located at the corner of 11th and Forrest. If you decide not to march, come on by to meet up at the end of the marching route. We’ll hang out, hug, cry, laugh, meet new friends, and remember how much New Orleans needs our love and support. And, let’s make new memories and friends here in Nashville.

Bring your instrument (whistle, bell, stick noisemaker!)… and if you are so inclined, costume for the occasion!
Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez

The debate was on Saturday, and I attended. See Mary’s commentary for the only possible substantive commentary on the debate. Why? Here’s the thing. I like Karl Dean. Bob Clement drives me nuts. I feel that the direction Nashville will take under one differs greatly from the other. But you wouldn’t have known that from the debate. They started the debate talking about how much they differ, and then proceeded to spend most of the debate agreeing with one another. They both want to improve education (whoa nelly, slow down there, really??), they’re both in favor of the convention center, they both don’t want taxes to be raised (whatever that means). Folks, they both dove for the center so hard they’re gonna come away with a concussion.

Dean, though, at least manages to separate himself by offering actual ideas. This is what I always found so appealing about Briley — Clement (and to a lesser extent, the rest of the candidates) seem to talk about the possibility of new ideas, the theoretical possibility of future changes. Briley would get up there and rattle off ideas as fast as he could speak. Dean has picked up on this a little, and is apparently willing to, you know, actually talk about what he’s going to do. Clement, on the other hand, seems content to just give the Bob Dole thumbs up and repeat “Good to great” like a Chatty Cathy. Come on, Bob, seriously.

The questions were better than I expected, despite being vetted, typed, proofread and orchestrated for the readers (which is always a real tribute to democracy at work, right?). I got a unique birds’ eye view from the media area of this orchestration at work — it was pretty impressive, I tell you what. The funniest part of the night was probably the newschannel5 question that won, which was about the Ghost Ballet. I don’t remember the exact wording, but I think it was something like “Do you like the Ghost Ballet, or do you think it’s ugly and weird, and was it a good use of the money?” (paraphrased). Both candidates did a good job (good in the machiavellian sense, not the objective sense) of laughing off the question without really answering it. They poked fun at it a little, but then said they like it, and they support the arts. A brusque answer to a seemingly shallow question with a deeper subtext. Should the government be spending $330K on public art? Is there anything else they could have spent it on? Oh well, I guess we’ll never know.

So, all in all, it was a boring debate. I think Dean came away looking a lot better, but I’m obviously fairly biased. Angry Bob Clement was out in full force.. I am not sure if that plays well with a lot of people, but to me he just strikes me as trying a little too hard. It’s like there’s a little switch between “sugary southern Bob” and “angry little man” Bob.

Side note: They had an awesome media room for live-blogging the debate, with closed-circuit TV and wireless access. And no one was there. No one. Come to think of it, the Ingram hall auditorium was only half full. What gives? No one cares about the mayoral election, I think. Sad but true.

It’s a good read. It’s also very complicated. I am going to have to read it again tonight … and maybe again after that.

Here’s what needs to happen for the Music City Brewers’ Festival to become awesome:

First, the logistics need to improve. The online ticket purchasing system they are using seems as if it was designed with technology dating roughly to 1995. When I went to print my ticket, it said it had “already been printed” (how would they know?) or transferred away, so I had to spend 20 minutes on hold before contacting someone who could reset it. Then there are the lines. I had to stand in line for 45 minutes in the hot sun just to get in. Not cool. I’m not sure what would improve that — maybe a better (larger) location. There were a lot of people packed into a relatively small park. A new location might also help with the last logistical problem: no shade. This is Nashville, y’all. It gets hot here. You have that many people out drinking beer, you need more shade. When I was in Booneville, I was drinking my beer in the shade of a small grove of redwoods while a stiff, dry breeze blew. Well, we don’t have that. At least put up more tents or something. Lastly, the emergency/first-aid staff didn’t seem to have a very visible presence. At a beerfest — particular one in the middle of July in the hot sun — someone is inevitably going to overdo it. Some poor guy was sitting on the steps puking his guts out and then just sat there with his head in his hands for over two hours, and no one helped him. I even tried to find a first-aid station or something, and couldn’t find anyone. I told some security guard who pretended he was getting up to tell someone long enough to placate me and then when I looked back he had sat down.

Second, ditch the lame vendors. Smirnoff Ice had a tent. Jack Daniels had a tent with their wine cooler things. I mean, come on. Seriously. I’m sorry, I thought this was a brewers’ festival. Malt liquor doesn’t count. Eliminate the lame commercial vendors and work on recruiting more local or regional microbreweries to fill the gap. If I wanted to drink Smirnoff Ice, I’d .. uh.. I’m sorry, my brain is incapable of completing this thought exercise.

So yeah, it was a good time. It was worth the money. It could use some improvements.

I stopped by the dedication for the Ghost Ballet yesterday up on the Shelby St. Bridge. There was a quartet of symphony players making sweet music for everyone, free water and popsicles. Various accolades and thanks were given, to a remarkable extent (I’ve never clapped so much in my life).

Mayor Purcell spoke, and I thought it was actually a pretty good speech considering it was a one-off little dedication that he could have blown off with some banal rhetoric and went on his way. Then we heard from the woman of the hour herself: Alice Aycock, the artist behind the Ghost Ballet. She spoke about her motivations behind making the piece and how she tried to connect it to Nashville’s past and future. She spoke for quite a while, actually. A pretty long time. A good long while. I couldn’t resist posting the picture (above) of Purcell checking his watch towards the end of her speech. She even addressed the sentiment that it looks like a roller coaster. “Of course it does,” she said. She grew up near Hershey Park in PA. Alrighty then. But then where does the name “Ghost Ballet” come from? Shouldn’t it be called the Ghost Coaster or something? Screaming Demon? No?

It didn’t occur to me until yesterday also that the resemblance to a roller coaster may serve as the seed for mass disappointment from our tourist visitors:

Tourist #1: Wow, music city!
Tourist #2: I know! Check it out! The country music hall of fame!
Tourist #1: Hey there’s where the Predators used to play! (just joking, don’t kill me — chris)
Tourist #2: Sweet, lower broad! There’s tootsie’s!!
Tourist #1: Holy crap, they even have a roller coaster!! Best city ever!!

You can imagine where it goes from here. Disappointment, dejection. I dunno. Could be dangerous.

DWC Construction is renovating 1,695 square feet of space at 1222 Fourth Ave. N. in Germantown for a restaurant named City House, a new Italian restaurant scheduled to open this fall with Tandy Wilson III, sous chef at Margot Café in East Nashville and his wife An Kostroski, pastry chef at Margot’s.