In a nutshell: Wickedly funny and definitely disturbing (but in the best possible way!) Four and a half out of five stars.

I’ll be upfront about the Tennessee Rep’s latest production: It’s a humdinger. Filled with brutal emotional upheavals, literary in-jokes, rapid-fire obscenity-laden dialogue, and some pretty damn intense scenes, Albee’s The Goat is a challenging piece of theatre, and the Rep carries it out to great effect. If you’re uncomfortable sliding down the ideological slippery slopes of incest, homosexuality, adultery, and—of course—bestiality, you’d better stay at home and watch American Idol. Seriously. Albee probably wouldn’t want your conventional, boring ass there anyway. If, however, you’re up for something different, and willing to have a laugh at the impressive array of goat-buggering jokes, you’re in for a real theatre treat.

It begins, you see, with Martin—a well-respected and eminently respectable architect. He’s been happily married for 20+ years to Stevie, the mother of his teenage son; and his best friend Ross is interviewing him for a television show. It’s been a landmark year for Martin: he just turned 50; has been honored with the Pritzker Architecture Prize; and was recently selected to design the World City, a corporate-sponsored community being built in the middle of a cornfield. Despite the minor indignities of middle age, Martin is at the top of the world. And, incidentally, he’s having a love affair with Sylvia, who turns out to be a goat.

The subsequent action in the play—how he confesses his attachment to Ross who, in turn, tells Stevie; and how his son and wife confront this mind-blowing announcement—plays out with great emotional realism and sometimes sickening honesty, despite the absurd premise, in large part because of the likable helplessness of Martin himself. This is a character largely free from malice; he seems just as nonplussed by the goatish nature of his lover as anyone, but is sincere in his affection. But while the audience can afford to extend its sympathy to Martin, the other characters in the play—bound to him by ties of blood, marriage, and friendship—are not so generous. And the resulting fireworks, and the shocking ending, are well worth watching.

Actor Matthew Carlton deserves a goat-load of credit for his portrayal of Martin, who is the heart of the play. It is a hell of a task to make a character who gets emotional with livestock, betrays his wife, and calls his teenage son a “faggot” relatable, but that is precisely what Mr. Carlton achieves. Martin is flawed, but Martin is also suffering and it hurts to watch his reaction as his comfortable life unravels. Ruth Cordell’s Stevie is, as she should be, Martin’s perfect foil. While he is careless and forgetful, she is well-polished and deliberately-spoken. She is—to use an entirely outdated term—a classy broad; sophisticated, intelligent, and straight-up MILF material to boot. She can even make a word like “hooters” sound proper when she speaks, which is why it is so delightful to watch her politeness slowly disintegrate as her fury at Martin increases. When the explosion finally comes, it is breathtaking.

Mr. Carlton and Ms. Cordell have excellent chemistry and are a pleasure to watch in their scenes together. They are entirely believable as a committed, long-term couple: even in the midst of the upheaval Sylvia has thrown into their marriage, Stevie and Martin are clearly well-matched. These are people who have a multitude of shared experiences and tastes in common; they even crack inside jokes during the all-out verbal battle that results from Martin’s affair, making the rupture of their obvious camaraderie all the more tragic and painful to watch.

Henry Haggard’s Ross is great fun. He’s a refreshing type: a bluff, uncompromising realist who calls a spade a spade, the fresh smells of the country “cow shit,” and Martin a “goat-fucker.” In all honesty, any line-up of characters benefits from someone who cuts through the bullshit and brings the conversation around to tits or dicks. It makes the dialogue infinitely more entertaining. The character of Ross seems to serve mostly as an X-rated form of comic release, but he is a primary catalyst in the events that transpire. And Andy Kanies does very well with the role of Billy, Martin and Stevie’s teenage son. While Mr. Kanies began rather nervously (and had a tendency to express those nerves in somewhat distracting hand movements), he soon hit his stride and was absolutely fantastic in the challenging third act. Albee didn’t spare his youngest character any punches; and the role of Billy requires as much passion and honesty as any other. His fury at his father (which becomes tempered with pity) and his eager desire to protect his mother, along with the added element of his homosexuality, make him far more than the typical two-dimensional portrait of a teenager.

The set is beautiful; apt in its conception and exquisitely executed. This is, after all, the home of an architect, and Gary C. Hoff has cannily captured the peculiar blend of industrial-meets-organic interior design favored by men of that profession (and which eloquently touches upon the urban-versus-country subtext of the play, as it is Martin’s quest for a pastoral utopia that introduces him to Sylvia in the first place). The table legs are tree limbs made of steel; river rock, leather, rich wood, and water features are used to great effect; and the minimalist art on the walls provides spots of vibrant color amidst the natural elements and earth tones of the contemporary furniture. A special shout-out is especially due to Kate Foreman for providing an abundance of permanent-looking and attractive props that can be smashed to smithereens every evening. The costuming is similarly flawless. (Bravo, Trish Clark; particularly for Stevie’s creamy second-act ensemble, which reappears with great effect in the conclusion of the play.)

All in all, it is an incredibly strong production; when considering the difficulty of the material and how smoothly and effectively it is presented, the only criticisms that can be made seem insignificant and are the sorts of things that will inevitably smooth themselves out during the course of the run. The destruction in the woman-scorned rampage was just a shade tentative (which is not surprising, considering few productions regularly encourage actors to throw the furniture around with reckless abandon). And the powers that be might want to move the seats a little further from the stage, or encourage eye protection for those ticketholders in the front rows, as the shrapnel from the aforementioned rampage seemed to fly a little further than anticipated. (Also, in an entirely personal matter of taste, I wasn’t an enormous fan of the music used to segue from act to act.)

In short, The Goat is one of the funniest and most uniquely enjoyable theatre experiences you’re likely to have this year. It dances lustily onto ground brave men have feared to tread; and challenges societal notions about love, sex, commitment, and normalcy that most people hold inviolable. You’ll laugh out loud (abundantly), you’ll gasp with shock (frequently), and I can guarantee an ending that will elicit a strong reaction. Whether it will startle you into silence or make you roar with sheer delight in its ballsiness, is something you’ll have to determine for yourself; but I assure you that you will leave the theatre lost in thought… and unable to look at a goat the same way again.

Originally published by the Nashville Edge, 2007-2008.

IN A NUTSHELL: Damn good, highly entertaining; but might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

The idea of putting It’s a Wonderful Life on stage is pretty ballsy. The idea of staging it as a live radio play in 1946 is even ballsier. People cling tightly to their cherished holiday traditions, and—as the tepid production of White Christmas that is currently visiting town can attest—not every Christmas classic should make the jump into live theatre. Fortunately, the immensely talented crew at the Tennessee Rep has managed to give the gang from Bedford Falls the translation to the stage that they deserve. Though its format might be challenging to those unaware of the significance (or even existence) of live radio dramas, it is a tight production and deserves a huge round of applause, a fuckload of kudos, and almost four of those little gold star stickers your first grade teacher used to attach to your homework.

The gimmick, if it may be so called, of It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play is that the entire epic tale of disappointment, love, hardship, victory against oppression, and the value of friendship is scheduled to be broadcast, live, as a radio play by five actors (each of whom, with the Rep’s admirable thoroughness, has been given a backstory and a professional resume). As a point of added interest, one of the actors passes out on the very verge of going on the air, throwing the entire cast into a frenzy and forcing the piano player to make his theatrical debut. While they act out the dialogue, utilizing every voice within their repertoire, the cast also scramble to provide the appropriate musical cues and sound effects; pausing for commercial interruptions in the form of jingles for products like hair tonic and toilet cakes.

The Rep gets mad props for thoroughly saturating the audience in the atmosphere; when I walked in to take my seat, the stage was already abuzz. The actors were in character and making preparations to go on the air. David Alford (as Freddie “Fingers” Filmore) was playing Christmas music on the piano, while Matthew Carlton (as Harry “Jazzbo” Heywood) roamed the aisles playing a ukelele. Marin Miller (as Sally Applewhite) and Jenny Littleton (as Lana Sherwood) hung daintily over the piano, chatting and studying the script, while Todd Truly (as Jake Laurents) made himself a cup of coffee. An underling in period garb walked around nervously with a clipboard and managed to infect the audience with a growing sense of anticipication.

The set, I might add, is an absolute jewel of blue and silver Art Deco goodness. Gary Hoff and his team have built something so complete and detailed that it looks like a permanent fixture; from the architectural “APPLAUSE” and “ON THE AIR” signs flanking the stage to the custom steel work on the furniture, the entire thing is elegantly stylized, but entirely believable. And the furniture is not the only thing to strike an authentic period note. Kate Foreman, the props assistant, has supplied the flustered actors with a fascinating array of real, old-fashioned noise-making devices from radio’s golden age. Shoes on planks of wood, wind machines, bags of cornstarch, and all sorts of mysterious doo-dads and gadgets give the production a nice touch of genuine 40s charm.

The costuming also reflects the extensive research the Rep always puts behind its efforts. From the lovely custom-made hats on the actresses to the cut of the men’s brightly-colored suits, Trish Clark and her squad have given the cast clothing suitable to the era and their own characters’ backstories. Sally Applewhite (Miss Ohio 1943, to be exact) possesses a pink suit, trimmed with white fur and rhinestone detailing, that is especially dreamy; Betty Grable herself would have cut a bitch to get her little manicured paws on something this glamorous. Everybody onstage looks great from the tip of their elaborate coiffures to the toes of their shoes.

The cast did a tremendous job with the 20+ characters in the script, though each actor had a “voice” or two that were definite crowd favorites. David Alford was especially notable for his drunky Uncle Billy and enthusiastically accented Martini. Matthew Carlton deserves particular praise for his crabby-old-man-who-pronounces-his-Bs-very-strangely Mr. Potter and his gentle Angel Second Class, Clarence. Jenny Littleton wins a special place in my heart for being able to switch from baby-breathed Violet to lug-headed taxi driver Ernie and back again in the course of a few seconds. Marin Miller gave Mary Bailey believable girl-next-door sex appeal and did a Zsu Zsu guaranteed to make your heart melt. And Todd Truly lived up to the unenviable task of playing George Bailey, a character that will always, until the end of fucking time, be considered the rightful property of one Mr. Jimmy Stewart.

All in all, it’s hard to pick a fault with any aspect of the production, unless it is the fact that nobody thought to slip a printout of the words to Auld Lang Syne into the program, which might have avoided a somewhat awkward moment in the final scene. Audience participation was encouraged, and the blank looks and silent tongues of my fellow theatre-goers and myself just goes to prove that nobody actually knows the lyrics to that damn song. But, obscure song lyrics aside, the important details of costume and set were immaculately attended to, the acting was sharp, and the technical aspects of the production went smoothly.

However, the experience itself, while entertaining, did not feel—to me—quite as emotionally engrossing as the film. While the actors truly did a wonderful job and managed to convey the villainy of Potter and George’s quiet heroism with only their voices, the audience’s reaction to certain poignant scenes seemed dulled slightly by the slapstick mayhem created by the set-up. Don’t get me wrong: it’s entertaining to laugh when an actor uses an incongruous voice, but the laugh perhaps inevitably saps a bit of the emotional vitality from the lines. And while I enjoyed myself thoroughly, I did wonder how the children of the multimedia age will connect with this production. Will a generation that has been bombarded with fast cuts and snappy soundbites since birth find jingles for Lux toilet cakes (“The Toilet Cake that brought our Boys Home!!”) mystifying rather than amusing? Thanks to the usual suspects of video games and graphic special effects, do they lack the imagination required to make the leap from hearing the story to actually feeling something about it?

As I’ve said, it takes balls to reinvent a classic and do it well, and risks of that sort should be amply rewarded. And, despite minor distractions and slight challenges, theatergoers of all generations can find something to love in this story that has stood the test of time so well and remains, to this day, a compelling look at the scope of a single human life and the triumph of decency. George Bailey is truly a hero for the ages, and the Rep gives him the loving tribute he deserves.

Originally published by the Nashville Edge, 2007-2008.

Another young lass, decked in her freakiest garb, came into view calling out for tickets. “Oh MY GOD!!!” she shrieked, as she saw the woman in front of me in line. “It’s my Kindergarten teacher!!!” She ran off in a flurry of shame which was rather funny; as the teacher herself pointed out, it was far more embarrassing for her to be caught there than her former student. The teacher was prepared for the evening to an extent that few of the young ones around her were—though her Transylvanian costume was mild, she had a bag containing everything from confetti to bells to newspaper. She was going to enter into the spirit of things with great aplomb and do this shit old-school.

It was 32 years ago that The Rocky Horror Picture Show debuted in all of its tacky, wacky glory. And it was about a year later that the infamous audience participation began at the midnight showings across the country. Despite knowing every word of every song and a bit of the “liturgy” that the audience is supposed to shout at the screen, I’ve never been to a live showing before, making me that most cherished of all things to the Rocky Horror buffs—a virgin. By all rights, my husband and I should have born the scarlet Vs proudly, but I was entirely too cowardly to advertise my inexperience that blatantly. The blush-inducing antics they put virgins through are legendary, not to mention terribly embarrassing.

Once we got settled into our seats inside (after a quick stop at the well-stocked Belcourt bar), it became clear that we needn’t have worried. The sheer number of virgins was so overwhelming that few were put through the rigorous embarrassments of yore. Back in the good old days, when the Rocky Horror fans held weekly court in the Franklin cinema, a first-timer could be sure of having their cherry popped in the most conspicuous way possible. But with this celebration of kitsch and decadence now a yearly event, a good half of the audience may have never done the Time Warp in public. Instead, they called all of us virgins to the front of the theatre, instructed us to repeat the Rocky pledge, and selected several from amongst our midst to have the balloon between their legs popped by the cast members.

The movie began, as did the audience participation. If you’re one of those sticklers for silent movie watching—the type who shushes people whispering in the aisle behind you—do everyone a favor and stay away from this event. You will not have a good time and might possibly be beaten to death with feather boas and high-heeled shoes if you try to shush somebody in the middle of “Sweet Transvestite.” The heckling was incessant and gloriously vulgar. There were the usual cries of “slut” every time Janet appeared on screen (which might have the distinction of being the least obscene thing yelled out that evening), and wickedly clever people were ad-libbing some pretty damn hilarious jokes whenever the fancy happened to strike. Everyone stood up to perform the Time Warp (which is, without question, the most ridiculous-looking dance known to man), and everyone gave the Narrator of the film an incredibly hard time about his fucking neck… or lack thereof. The cast went through the motions in front of the enormous screen; people pulled things out of their prop kits (which were on sale before the show for those of us who came ill-prepared) at the appropriate times; toast was thrown with great gusto.

It was over all too soon, though. I’ve never known the movie to go by so quickly. One moment, we were singing with sheets of newspaper over our heads; and the next, the teacher was throwing playing cards at the screen as Frank—with tears in his eyes and mascara streaming down his face—sang about going home. Nobody in the audience was anxious to do the same. Another year seemed a terribly long time to wait for the cathartic experience of screaming obscenities at a movie screen surrounded by a hundred other fabulous freaks. A little eyeliner and bawdy songs may not change the world; but they certainly give it a lovely rosy hue.

Originally published by the Nashville Edge, 2007-2008.

Thu [pronounced two], Lord love him, has the dynamic combination of an opinion about everything and a thoroughly irreverent sense of humor. Want to know about his immigration from Vietnam? “It was a damn long swim over here.” The secret vice of artists? “Every artist is an alcoholic.” His Halloween costume for next year? “I’m thinking of going as Maddox [Jolie-Pitt]… shaving my head with the little mohawk, you know?” Life in Nashville? “I love it but it sucks. Half the people you meet are really fucking dumb, and you have to go to places you hate to meet cool people.”

Thu went to school to study pharmacy, though he admits that choice of discipline was entirely to please his parents. After a short-lived attempt at doling out pills as a pharmacy intern, he realized it was definitely not the career for him. “The problem is, I just got tired of selling people with cancer $2000 pills,” he says, sighing deeply as he flicks the ashes from the end of his cigarette. “Health care doesn’t work [here] like it does elsewhere in the world… I decided not to do that because evil propagates evil, and if you’re a part of it you’re propagating evil.”

So, rather than propagating evil, he decided to embellish skin. Thu has been tattooing at the Queen of Hearts for about two years. It is, he says, a “practical” career choice since he’s been doing art in some form or another his entire life. “Rather than doing something extremely uninspiring every single day that made me want to kill myself, I decided to do some art and make some money.” He exhales a cloud of smoke. “I’d really rather be a painter though,” he muses. “I’d rather be sitting around on my ass, smoking weed, doing a painting, chilling out; maybe tripping on some acid or ‘shrooms.”

But though it doesn’t allow for ass-sitting and acid-tripping on a daily basis, Thu relishes the sheer variety of artwork that tattooing allows him to create. Versatility is key to the appeal of a tattoo artist, and Thu has run the inky gamut of body art designs. He proudly displays the tattoo across his belly: beautifully designed letters that spell out “Philosophy” when viewed from below and “Art & Science” when viewed from above. He speaks fondly of having tattooed a “little pussy-cat on a stripper’s pussy.” He’s done bling and lotus blossoms and fireflies and pit bull portraits. And he absolutely cracks me up when I ask him about the first tattoo he ever gave.

“It was the ‘shocker,’” he replies nonchalantly, taking a sip of beer. I half-choke on a swallow of raspberry-pear cider. Although I am perfectly aware of the nature of a shocker, Thu helpfully—and succinctly—describes it for me (“two in the pink, one in the stink”) before continuing the story. When told to make some sketches for his first tat, he checked out some books of Asian art and came across various Mudra designs—the hand gestures used in Buddhist and Hindu iconography. “Each one represents something different,” Thu  explains. “The one I did actually meant ‘reasoning,’ but I turned it sideways.” He pauses and gives me a wicked grin. “It could mean reasoning… Or it could be the shocker.”

This information elicits shrieks of unladylike laughter from yours truly, and I am grateful that nobody is around to hear my impression of a hysterical hyena. After all, Thu’s not too far from the mark about having to dig for cool people in Nashville. There’s probably someone else in the Saucer who is capable of appreciating the humorous dichotomy of sacred Eastern symbols and obscene sexual gestures, but I’m too lazy to find that hypothetical kindred spirit tonight. Instead, I’m content to giggle into my pint and be glad that there’s at least one other person with an unruly creative drive and a sick sense of humor that I can add to my steadily-growing list of cool fucking people in this town.

Originally published by the Nashville Edge, 2007-2008.

Maxx, you see, is every 12-year-old-boy’s dream girl come to life: the body of a stripper and an abiding love of comic books, anime, tattoos, graffiti, and motorcycles. And while she’s worked third shift at the Steak n Shake for what she describes as an “uncomfortable four and a half years,” she uses as much of her down time as possible to further her artistic endeavors.

She slides back into the booth, and I glance into her open sketchbook and ask if she’s working on “flash” for Queen of Hearts, the tattoo shop where she is an apprentice. Her unenthusiastic nod of response is not surprising considering she defines flash as “a bunch of cheesy-ass bullshit drawings that people come in and pick off of the walls.”

She pauses to erase a pencil line from a beautiful, inked-in drawing of a butterfly. “No offense to anyone who gets a piece of shit something off the wall,” she adds apologetically. “They’re still really awesome. Every tattoo is special.”

Maxx flings down her eraser and wheels forward to seat a pair of college-aged guys intent on greasy food.  “What I like to draw is sexy naked ladies,” she continues when she sits back down, referring to the sultry anime-inspired chicks that are her specialty. “Which is perfectly suited for tattooing, as it turns out.” She proudly tells me the slogan she’s decided to put on her business card: A little tit for tat. “I like to think that’s what I’ll have the market on,” she chuckles as she arches her back to display her own ample assets. “Breasts!!”

She takes up her eraser again, and reflects on her former creative aspirations. “Once upon a time I wanted to be a comic book artist,” she muses. “Before I got accepted to Savannah [College of Art and Design] and then shamed by finding out it was going to cost $20,000 every three months for four years…” She blows eraser dust off the table angrily. “Thank you George Bush,” she says with great disdain (referring to the decreased amount of scholarship money available to her generation). “I’d like to tip a cap to that jerk-off. Good college education for the Americans there; give us all something to be proud of.”

I let out a loud guffaw and remind her that she’s half Canadian anyway. “My dad is an illegal Canadian immigrant, if you can even imagine how that’s possible,” Maxx says with a laugh. “He left a nation that was awesome and came to a nation that was less awesome. I wish he would get deported.” She wipes the page. “And then I wish that they would revoke that whole ‘children born within the United States get to be American citizens’ thing and then they would send me to Canada too.”

She flips through her sketchbook, displaying skilled and graceful illustrations of everything from hand gestures to roses. “Apprenticing is an interesting process,” she confesses, as she touches up a sketch of a hand displaying a middle-finger-salute. “You kind of get to be everyone’s bitch for a year and they revel in that fact. It’s so funny to see the amount of petty amusement everyone gets out of ordering you around.”

But Maxx knows it will be worth it some day. “I like being one of the few and the proud female tattoo artists to have graced the business in the last couple of decades,” she admits. Someday she plans to open her own shop, and she wants it to be the “pussiest tattoo shop humanly possible; just oozing with girlieness.” She knows that a tattoo shop with pink walls, owned by a woman, will piss off the traditionalists—the people with “rock star ‘I’m too big for my britches’ Billy-badass attitudes”—but doesn’t give a damn what they think.

“There are plenty of people who don’t get tattoos because they don’t want to walk into a tattoo shop and be fed to the wolves,” she says of the often-intimidating atmosphere. “It’s some super elitist club where only the people who are covered in tattoos get to be treated with any kind of respect.”

She smiles down at her sketches; sketches that will hang on the wall and which, someday, may be chosen to adorn the backsides and limbs of people from all walks of life.

“I like to think that in the next 20 years tattoos won’t be regarded as this horrible wretched thing that only circus carnies get,” she says ruefully. “Middle-aged women will all have their tramp stamps and their cute little ankle tattoos and that’s adorable. I want tattoos to not just be for young, hardcore, punk emo kids, but for everybody.”

She closes the book and wheels off to refill her soda. “I want my mom to have a tattoo,” she says enthusiastically, as she zips past. “I want to think that when I’m a grandma I won’t look weird, because everyone will have tattoos by then.” She slides into the booth and takes a minute to stare into space, imagining a lovely future.

“That will be fucking awesome.”

Originally published by the Nashville Edge, 2007-2008.

You see, a recent visit to Hustler Hollywood—that slick, neon cathedral of slutty shoes, sex toys, and hard-core DVDs—got me thinking about this subject. It was about ten in the evening when I pulled into the well-lit, landscaped parking lot. Inside, where all was spotless and sanitary, I browsed nicely merchandised aisles of lingerie and flavored lubricants. Employees greeted me with a smile and asked if I needed help; fellow customers roamed the store, fearlessly commenting on the larger than life implants of a particular porn star or the awe-inspiring dimensions of a particular dildo.

You might be thinking, “big deal”… In which case you are obviously either a recent transplant or have only come of legal porn-buying age since 2005, when Hustler opened its doors, and the legs of eager Nashvillians soon followed suit.

For once upon a time—and not too long ago, either—the residents of our fair city had a harder time purchasing items to get their rocks off. When I moved here in the early 90s, people who thought they were clever often joked that there was a church and a strip club on every corner of the downtown area. But while there were institutions to cater to every possible flavor of Christianity or pole dancing, there was no variety of adult stores. The naughty shops were not only tucked away with shame in undesirable neighborhoods, but were, in and of themselves, extremely unpleasant locations. You could get a lap dance, or pray, in comfortable surroundings; but you couldn’t buy a strap-on in a building that didn’t look like the setting for a snuff film.

Dimly lit parking lots led to low, dank, windowless buildings. The décor inside left you with the impression that you had wandered into some pervert’s nasty, moldy basement. If you were unfortunate enough to drop your keys, you picked them up very carefully, hoping to avoid the DNA of the generations of Nashville wankers who had frequented the rumored glory holes in the back rooms. A single employee usually sat behind a counter, leering and not even being remotely helpful. But, really, places like these were not designed with customer service in mind—the entire set-up seemed designed for the sole purpose of shaming the customer into silently overpaying for the meager selection of adult goodies. Which is why I’m happy to say I haven’t set foot onto those funky, spunky carpets since Hustler came into town.

Of course, not everyone was happy to see Hustler set up shop on Church Street. Both sides of the [entirely bogus] left-right dichotomy have long had their own reasons to disapprove of Mr. Flynt’s empire. Conservative religious groups have been known to sporadically protest in front of the shop, on account of pornography being evil and all; and the die-hard liberals usually have issues with the objectification of women. To the first faction, I have nothing to say, as they obviously already consider me hell-bound. To the second group, I would urge tolerance. I personally don’t have moral objections to fake-breasted women with shaved beavers, but even if I did I would still consider Hustler to be a tremendous step forward. Maybe one of these days we’ll get a female-centric sexual health shop a lá Good Vibrations, but in the meantime it is awesome enough that local gals can purchase their Rabbits in a safe, professional environment, without having to worry about getting assaulted in the parking lot or sneered at by the guy with the molestache behind the counter.

In fact, when I drive past the shop, and see it blazing forth in all of its tacky glory—fully visible from the interstate, no less—I feel the opposite of nostalgia for the old days. While the entire experience of making a group run to the Purple Onion or the World’s Largest Adult Bookstore could be mildly titillating in an “oh-my-God-we’re-being-so-dirty” kind of way, that excitement quickly faded when you ran out of dental dams late at night and realized you were too chicken to venture in there on your own. And while there was a certain subversive charm in providing yourself with an escort and venturing into the filthy wilderness in search of sexual satisfaction, nothing can compare to buying your necessaries in a convenient, shame-free fashion.

So it is with pride that I walk into Hustler’s glassy palace of smut rather than creeping into some dubious shop. And when I purchase the enchantingly titled “Cunt Coloring Book,” I’m perfectly content when the chipper sales associate puts it into a visibly branded bag, rather than the anonymous brown paper bag the perv behind the counter would have slipped it into with a lascivious wink. In the 21st century, a girl should be able to purchase a vagina-themed coloring book without shame or fear of hell, and Hustler Hollywood is the bright city on a hill, showing Nashville what it means to be sexy without being dirty.

Originally published by the Nashville Edge, 2007-2008.

The kitchen—like the rest of the house—is full of interesting things to see. Art adorns every wall, and there are unmistakable traces of Christine’s two children everywhere you look: alphabet magnets cover the dishwasher and drawings in a childish hand adorn the fridge. A sign warning “HOT!” is taped to the stove for the benefit of her eight-year-old son, while her seven-month old bounces happily in his bouncer chair like the happy jellybean of a baby that he is, suspended in a nearby doorway.

Christine is telling me about her latest venture: her blog, musexbazaar.com. “[It’s a] smart, sexy, bizarre collection of musings on whatever topic catches my fancy,” she explains as she slices peaches. “I’m using it as a testing ground to get comfortable with writing about sex as I segue into pursuing the goal I’ve had since I was a teenager, which is publishing an intelligent erotica magazine.” She reaches past me to grab the box of cornmeal. “People feel comfortable sharing themselves with me. They know that I’m willing to consider any topic, I’m willing to try anything out for myself, to make an informed decision.” And she doesn’t believe in trying new things just once, either. “ I don’t think that once is enough,” she explains. “That initial shock is something you need to absorb, then try it again. Try it twice so that you have some sort of perspective on the matter.”

Sex is an important subject to Christine, and one she is entirely comfortable talking about. She wants to help people by openly discussing the things that “make us giggle or blush.” As she mixes the batter for the griddle cakes, she expounds on her mission. Christine worked in public relations and promotions within the music industry for years, but found it entirely too “manufactured.” Besides, she feels like she has found her calling.
“There’s sex in so many of our interactions with people,” she says. “And I don’t think we’re honest about it. I’m thinking about sex all of the time and I’m exploring all sorts of dynamics between people. I’m very curious, and very tactile and sensual in the way that I interact with the world.” She stirs the peaches into the batter and turns the stove on. “I love bringing that to the internet. That’s a great way to do it, with the mask up like that. In that sort of forum, you can be even more honest.”

The oil begins to wink on the stove, and she pours some batter onto the griddle. “I think it’s really important that we don’t actually feel that anything we do is wrong,” she says of sexuality. “As far as healthy consensual couplings go, there is nothing wrong about it; there is nothing that can be done that is too strange or too different.”

A crow of laughter from the baby turns her mind in another direction. Christine is a breast feeding mother, and has recently had to come to terms with the occasional shocked looks she gets when she feeds her child in public (despite it being completely legal in Tennessee until the child is one year of age). “It’s funny to me, to think that I would need to hide this,” she says. “I think it’s an important thing to make people comfortable with what is fully natural and normal.” She flips the griddle cakes, which are turning golden and smelling so good that my mouth begins to water. “I would love to see equal rights toplessness, anyway,” she continues, joking that she’s seen plenty of 300-lb. men (with bigger breasts than hers) mowing their lawns topless. “I could also be driving, and see a young strapping college lad jogging down the street with no shirt on, glistening. I find that quite distracting. Now, I’m not complaining… I can handle it. I would only hope the other sex could do the same for us.”

The griddle cakes are finished; she stacks them on a plate and pushes them towards me, along with a fork and a jar of honey to pour over them. “You know, humans have pretty well got the basics of life covered—housing, food—to the point where we’ve started turning them into art forms,” Christine muses, as she takes a bite. “That’s beautiful; we can begin to treat life itself as an art form. Sex has become an art form for me. That’s why I like to express myself that way.”

She unexpectedly giggles. “It’s no surprise, quite honestly,” she laughs. “My parents were pornographers. It’s got to be in my blood. So I’m ready to take on the mantle. I’ve established a happy, healthy family and a happy, healthy sex life is part of being a happy, healthy adult.”

Originally published by the Nashville Edge, 2007-2008.

The denizens of Bobby’s look pretty lived-in as well. These are weather-beaten men who have lived life hard (“This one time, the Secret Service arrested me for threatening Jimmy Carter”), love old-school country music (“Beethoven would have made it big a lot sooner if he had used a harmonica”), and wear cowboy hats with a casual ease which the younger wannabes in town—who wear their headgear about as conspicuously and uncomfortably as top-hats—would do well to emulate.

Faced with a cooler full of beer, I choose the sole exception: a vile bottled neon yellow “pineapple colada” concoction that somehow manages to taste like tropical cough syrup. A perfectly silent man in baseball cap flashes some mysterious signal to the bartender, who informs me that Ferris has covered my drink. It seems that I have stumbled into one of the last bastions of Southern male courtliness, where ladies never pay for their own drinks and the menfolk apologize for cursing in front of the gentler sex.

“Sorry I’m late.”

Jami breezes through the open doorway. She has paired her green cowboy boots with a pair of girlish pigtails, and wears her exquisitely bedazzled rose-patterned cowboy hat with both ease and aplomb. Ferris silently buys her a beer and she and I sit down to chat while the men huddle around the bar with some of their newly arrived cronies.

It turns out that Jami’s comfort level with authentic dive bars and country-western footwear is hardly uncharacteristic. Though the girl’s a transplant to Nashvegas, she seems to have an uncanny knack for bypassing pretentiousness and jumping headfirst into the kitschy yet very real essence of this town. Her very first visit to our fair metropolis is a great example of this rare talent: she worked at Hatch Show Print and stayed at the Drake Motel.

“I was good friends with Jim Sherraden,” she says of her gig at the legendary Hatch Show, as she plays with her beer bottle. “So I took a few weeks off from my normal job and came here to work for him. A voice in my head said ‘you need to move here.’ I was living out in the suburbs of Cincinnati on the Kentucky side and it was booooooring.”

I hear a guitar being tuned and realize that, as unlikely as it seems, the bartender has conjured an instrument from some dark corner behind the bar.

“[The Drake Motel] looked great online…” Jami continues ruefully. “I’ve always been attracted by motor courts with awesome neon signs. I was intrigued… stay where the stars stay. I still really want to know what stars have ever stayed there.”

As a graphic designer, Jami has managed to dip her toe into two of Nashville’s biggest industries. While she does a lot of design for the music industry (one of her CD designs was nominated for a Grammy in packaging in 2003), she only accepts work on albums she actually likes. “Packaging is just an expression of the music into something you can touch,” she muses, as the bartender puts down his guitar long enough to ask if we want another round (“It’s on Ferris, ladies”). “When I design someone’s CD, I listen to it over and over and over again.”

She’s also done work for Nashville’s colossal Christian publishing industry, and has actually designed Bibles for a local publishing house (including a duct-tape-cover prototype). “It’s actually a great medium to design for,” she insists, when I let out a sarcastic laugh. “When they’re aimed at a certain demographic, such as women or students, its fun to get into that demographic and really make something readable.”

By now, the guitar tune-up has turned into a full concert. The bartender is strumming his guitar and singing about sleepy hollows and cheating hearts with great emotion; several of the other men provide backup, while the Beethoven critic handily pulls a harmonica from his pocket and adds his contribution to the mix.

“Besides,” Jami says with a smile as she takes another sip of beer, “if I did the same thing everyday, I would bash my head against my computer screen.”

When we finally stand up to leave, the men are still entirely absorbed in their spontaneous music-making. It all makes sense, really, I think to myself with a chuckle. This woman obviously has her finger on the pulse of Nashville memes and—seriously—can you get more fucking Nashville than Bibles and country music? Ferris nods a silent farewell towards us from the melee at the bar, and I smile in his general direction, at once amused and absolutely in love with this quirky Music City that manages to live up to its name when you least expect it.

Originally published by the Nashville Edge, 2007-2008.