Music City Author’s Haunted Nashville Novel Released: A City of Ghosts

This won’t be news to a majority of the readers that still stop by here, but in case you’re one of the rare few, my friend Betsy Phillips (better known to the blogosphere as Tiny Cat Pants author Aunt B.) wrote a novel featuring ghost stories steeped in Nashville legends and lore – a haunted alternative history of Nashville, I guess you’d say – and it was just released on Amazon today and you can get a copy here.

It also has a cover photo that is quite possibly my favorite picture of Nashville ever, shot by the enormously talented Chris Wage.

For you Kindlephiles, it’ll also be out for the Kindle soon.

About half of the stories were published at TCP last October for the Halloween season (and were awesome), but the rest are brand new and I’m super looking forward to reading them! Be sure and grab a copy of your own (P.S. they’d make great Christmas gifts too!).

Love is a Mix Tape

This is another one of those long-delayed posts, much like the one about my trip to Los Angeles in March. Coincidentally, it was on the plane trip back from L.A. that I finished this book. I wasn’t long into reading when I realized this should not have been an airplane read and I should have read it at home in a weekend or something… mainly because it was a tremendous struggle to keep from weeping buckets uncontrollably on the plane.

I’m not sure I can truly do this work any justice with my words, so I’m not going to even attempt to make this out to be a big review of sorts. I just need to write about how awesome it is.

The novel I am talking about is Rolling Stone editor/writer Rob Sheffield’s Love is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time, now soon releasing in paperback in December. The book was brought to my attention last winter by Mike over at Chez Bez, who wrote about it here and here and brilliantly so, and I was just immediately, like, oh yeah!!!… I HAVE to read this! So I ordered it, then it took a while to get around to starting it as I’ve just gotten so lazy about reading anything that’s not on a computer monitor screen these days, and then I opened it, finally… and was immediately hooked.

It’s the story of Rob and his wife Renee, who had little in common except a grand love of music. He was a shy, geeky Irish Catholic boy from Boston when he met her, a loud and extroverted Southern girl (borrowing those astute adjectives from an excellent Amazon review, well put!), and they bonded over their rather extreme connection with the music thing – a dynamic I have not been unfamiliar with in both past and more recent years myself. They married during the Nirvana/Pearl Jam/and/all/that grunge age of the Nineties, and were happily so until Renee’s sudden and untimely death from a pulmonary embolism in 1997, dying in Rob’s arms in their kitchen and at a distressingly young age.

It is quite simply the most wonderful, and most gut-wrenchingly sad and heartbreaking, story I have ever read, I think… but it’s probably so to me because it hits awfully close to home – same age, same time, similar circumstances, and almost the same places. I cried not only when she died, but pretty much through the whole thing; I think I wept reading the first or second page, in fact.

I believe the only other book I have even come close to weeping so much over was Doug Coupland’s Girlfriend in a Coma, and that experience just doesn’t even compare – while heart-wrenching, the story itself is a fantasy. Sheffield’s tale is achingly real and almost unbearably so, but wonderful and beautiful all the same.

This book is probably not for everyone, but if you’re a total music geek like me – and especially if you are in your late thirties or early forties and were around and in the indie music scene wherever you were at the time – and even more especially, if you ever spent hours making countless mix tapes on those ancient antiques called cassette tapes, back in the days before the computer age – yeah, you really need to read it. And have a box of tissue handy – seriously.

What’s Up?

So I found out in the course of my extended absence from here that (A) somebody besides the whiny KC/Greg/Duncan/Jo/etc contingent and Stef actually reads this thing, and (B) people I don’t even know, or at least don’t think I have ever met, actually read this thing, and regularly… so upon finding all this interesting info out I am once again motivated to rant and rave at will, at least until and unless I get pissed off again, so, in that case… hi!!

Really tho I’ve just been staying so busy constantly with eBay junk, i.e., my second just about dang near full time job, as well as some private buying, just haven’t had time to be here… vintage Barbie has been berry berry good to yours truly this summer, anyhow. But, I have waded thru and sifted out all the junk mail, expired stuff and other such clutter in my mailbox, answered a few, and am getting around to the rest, I think I still have mail from 1997 in there but I am slowly but surely getting around to everything, including maybe even updating the website some, in fact, I have to now because someone finally solved the Monarchs Riddle, yay!

I’ve also been pretty tied up trying to get my latest cat family addition, who’s now undergone $300 worth of surgery and basically had himself a facelift, to stop hating all his new brothers and sisters and, since he’s not playing nice, spending quality time with him in what’s become his room and he is most assuredly getting way too spoiled rotten.

What else have I done or has gone on… well, let’s see, our Stef in Boston got married in the interim so congrats all around there… I learned that I have, unknowingly, not had any health insurance coverage this entire year and have instructed my family that if something happens to me they are to sue my employer’s you-know-whats off… I got the new STP CD and man, is it awesome… been to funerals, missed funerals, found out about funerals three weeks too late… Chuckie & Jan have a beautiful new baby girl named Maggie…

Went to see The Watcher, now that was a cool movie, and James Spader and Keanu Reeves in one sitting is about more than a gal should be expected to have to withstand, but I must say here, it was REALLY weird seeing Keanu play a bad guy for a change, and every once in a while I felt like I was watching Bill & Ted’s Excellent Serial Killing Adventure… I continue to harbor reasonable grudges against 22% of my ex-boyfriends…

The Hoodoo Gurus played a one-off reunion gig in Sydney during the Olympics and I wasn’t there, but bless Robbo, Sven, and the always pleasant Andy Kelly for making me feel like I almost was…

Cole & Donna came down with the kids one day and yet another reason why I don’t have kids occurred to me after spending maybe an hour walking around the mall at Wolfchase looking for Halloween costumes (John Stephen is to be Bugs Bunny this year) and came home as exhausted as if I’d been walking around there for twenty hours instead of one…

KC experienced a fit of genuine and selfless generosity and I waited for the sky to fall in for a couple of days, but amazingly it never happened… for the first time ever in nearly eleven years I am thinking about changing jobs… it got cold… there was an unbelievably huge wreck right out in front of my house one night, the aftermath of which turned into kinda a neighborhood block party…

Our man in Sydney, Jimm, was here in the States for weeks and I didn’t get to see him this time around, but thanks to the power of USPS Priority Mail I made sure he went home with stacks of Goo Goo Clusters and chocolate Moon Pies… I also recently saw the movie Hillary and Jackie and it was truly incredible, I had no idea… the annual girls’ slumber party time is coming up again, and can you believe we’ve been doing this for ten years now…

Gorman Bechard’s (out of print but you can usually find it on Half.com) book The Second Greatest Story Ever Told is about the second most hilarious novel I’ve read in my entire life (the first being the oft-mentioned Tommy Womack book) and has many Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson references for any Replacements fan to die for… and I don’t know, that’s probably about it.

Spending Christmas in Chattanooga this year, so expect an ice storm to befall the entire Southeast again just before, just like it did last time I was driving to Chattanooga for Christmas and nearly stranded me by myself in Memphis for the holiday… just thought I’d warn y’all in advance.

So I like just about fell over in shock when I opened up my Commercial Appeal one morning a few weeks ago to find ’80s Nashville power pop party boys the White Animals as the front page story and photo in the Appeal section… my god, talk about one’s gloriously misspent youth staring one in the face! After getting over the shock, I was absolutely thrilled to learn that not only are they doing some shows here and there (including New Year’s Eve in Birmingham) but have put out a new compilation CD, which means I can finally have all, or almost all, of the Ecstasy album back again!! That poor pitiful cassette tape I had from 1986 literally died from overuse ages and ages ago, and definitely has been leaving a great big hole in my Nashville Underground music collection ever since. I need to update and revise the entire Links section again, but if you want a copy of the new compilation CD for yourself you can go to the Links section and go check it out, look at old and new photos, all kinds of stuff. Now if someone would just re-release that 1986 or ’87 Jet Black Factory album, The Movement’s self-titled one, the entire Government Cheese catalog and the City Without a Subway compilation on CD…

Anyway, I must go for now but will probably think of things I forgot later… goodnight Evan D. wherever you are, and talk to the rest of y’all later…

You Talk Too Much

My horoscope today actually had the audacity to tell me to ramble on at will tonight, can you believe that? That’s a shame, ‘cos I really don’t have much to report at the moment. The weather is soooo yucky, it’s been raining for days and I swear we’ve gotten more rain so far this year than we did all last year. I have so much clover growing in the front yard it’s taking over, and really need to mow, but you can’t mow the yard when it’s been pouring down rain for days, nope! I am distressed to find not only CD rack as well as my movie rack (both of which are huge) are just about full… what am I gonna do now.

Speaking of movies, I started watching one of my faves, Benny & Joon, after That ’70s Show was over, but I’d come in like when it (the movie) had already been on for a half hour, and it’s been so long since I’d seen it so I was going to go back and watch the first part since I’d forgotten…. and there are many who just won’t believe this, can you believe I do not have that movie on tape??? Unreal, I must have a couple of thousand at this point and that’s one I don’t have!! So that’s a must-get, I just love that movie…. and speaking even more of movies, we (speaking in the, yes, collective we) are all really annoyed about this whole movie version of Nick Hornby’s fabulous book, High Fidelity, a copy of which was given to me as a present last year and I have passed around the throng… anyone who knows me knows I love John Cusack and John Cusack movies, but my god, they moved the tale for the movie to America and that is just not right. I don’t think I can stand to see it, John Cusack or no, it’s ruined already for me. I did, however, catch Cusack’s Pushing Tin not long ago and that is funny, funny, funny. Anyhow, back to movie gripes, the next thing I know my other fave actor, Matthew Modine, is going to turn up in something I hate… caught him in the new TV movie of Flowers For Algernon when I was required to be out of town most of February, and that was yet another great performance.

Well, that’s about all I’ve got to say for today so I guess this wasn’t a good day for my horoscope, it said you would all be fascinated by my ramblings tonight but I just don’t really have any fascinating news, so sorry. Must get a few projects done as well as do my darn taxes so maybe after mid-month I will actually have some real, honest to god, free time. See ya soon…

I’ve Seen You Down

Just got back in town a little bit ago and felt like scribbling a little end of month Graffiti while waiting for my hair to dry… and, speaking of my hair, it’s time for a hair update, I’ll have everybody know, I just noticed this by accident really since I don’t usually see that side of me – my hair has now grown so long it’s to the middle of my back! I have been grumbling for twenty years about it never growing much longer than past my shoulders and now it’s like, wow… for me this is a big accomplishment. I’m still trying to figure out just what on earth I’ve been doing differently the last few years that my hair and nails (which I never had before either) have been growing like mad.

I saw Greg and Beck for a little while last week and Greg proclaimed me The Blonde Tanned Goddess of Summer… for someone who hates summer as much as I do, I guess I really shouldn’t hate it so since it’s kinda when I’m really in my element, or something.

So, anyway, I took a short trip over the weekend and had a pretty good time, my brother-in-law and I picked on each other (always a favorite pastime), I had catfish for the first time in ages, and I must say it’s pretty doggone lucky when you get pulled over while driving on Memorial Day weekend and the cop that pulls you over is one of your best friend’s little brothers that you used to babysit when he was like, ten years old, whew. I really wasn’t speeding excessively thru my old stomping grounds, but it was still somewhat a relief to find out exactly who had pulled me over and I took my lecture happily with a smile and got a hug to boot.

Next on the agenda… I read an awesome book this week! It’s really not all that often I will give the ultimate recommendation to a book, or even to music, but anyone around my age needs to read Douglas (Generation X) Coupland’s most recent outing, Girlfriend in a Coma – it’s simply great, one of a rare few books that got me surprisingly all weepy several times, kinda tatters out at the end a bit but up until then I absolutely could not put it down, read it thru straight from top to finish in one night. Seems too I’m not the only writer in the world that’s having some kinda wild sci-fi’ish weirdness to the muse, tho Coupland’s doesn’t involve James Spader at all… anyway, yes, rush out to your local Bookstar or whatever (or better yet, go to my front page and click on the Amazon.com link and make me a little $$) and get it and dig it and then spend the rest of your life wondering just what the **** went wrong with our generation…

Next… I have kinda been overdosing on the new Dig CD Life Like (but still not sick of it after thousands of listens, which is an amazing feat) and have been listening to 1993′s Dig when not that, so I swapped it for some other Dig for my drive and listened to the Runt and Defenders of the Universe CDs for the first time in a long time and you know what, “We Don’t Care” on the first and “Song for Liars” and “Opus” on the other, as well as a couple of others, are as awesome as anything on Dig and Life Like. I really should listen to all my CDs more often but when you have this many it’s a little difficult sometimes. Anyway, yay, more cool stuff rediscovered to listen to… I remember the first time I heard “Opus” and I looked at it and thought it said “Oops”, which I think would have been a more excellent name for that song (and promptly said so, of course).

Also, I found out that song on my mix tape where the lead singer sounded too eerily like Paul Westerberg is actually the band Nada Surf and the song is called “Stalemate” (Thanks Bill!). Very good tune. That’s the great thing about music, even if something’s old, if you’ve never heard it, it’s still new, so there’s always something new to be discovered.

Well, that’s about it for me now as my hair’s dry and I’m tired and going to bed indefinitely, and happily, as I just found my other Quadrophenia button (I have two, and it’s a long story)…

So goodnight, good holiday, and remember, the three most dangerous words in the world are “I will” and “You will” (yeah I know it looks like four words but count ‘em, there’s just three)… more philosophies regarding that later sometime. Happy holiday Monday and peace wherever and however you are…

My Brain is Hanging Upside Down

The only non-yuck thing to report today is that my eBay feedback rating is about to hit 200, woohoo! For all the horror stories I’ve heard from other eBay sellers and buyers (and have had a couple of deadbeat bidders myself – beware the Rock & Roll Memorabilia category, sigh), I have to say the folks who are into Barbie stuff are the most terrific buyers and sellers on eBay!

Now, I have some bad news for the Zone (and for bored people with laptops) for the rest of the week as everything here will be on temporary hold yet again, thru sometime probably after the weekend. My mom broke her wrist while on a business trip to Miami (where she still is at press time) and is going to have minor surgery back home tomorrow morning – unfortunately (and talk about Murphy’s Law in action!!) this was one of the few times she flew out of Nashville instead of Memphis, so your favorite blonde will be leaving to drive to Nashville after work tonight, driving back to Paris, and not only dealing with the surgery stuff but also trying to figure out how to get Mom’s car out of Nashville and back to Paris, and possibly making a Paris to Memphis back to Paris and back to Memphis trip in the interim, sooo… yup, it’s a week alright. (sigh)

And I have folks arriving in town here in Memphis Friday, tho I won’t be here ’til later, but after getting back to Memphis that’ll probably tie me up thru the early part of next week, so, in any case, consider yourself forewarned that there will be no updating around here until late in the weekend at the very earliest. Sorry laptop dude!

In any case I can maybe finally get some reading done (not only have I only listened to the new Westerberg album once, believe it or not after all my dying for it to hurry up and come out, I still haven’t read Anne Rice’s Armand yet and she’s even got a new vampire book out now!), plus I’m gonna take my dirty dishes to Paris and do ‘em up there so I can procrastinate the plumbing repair a little longer, hehehe.

ANYWAY – gotta go ‘cos it’s going to be a loooong day, and I’ll only have half as much time to get ready to split town tonight. I did update the Lyrics Zone with some stuff I forgot I’d already done and hadn’t put up yet, even tho nobody ever reads any of it anyway, the Scott Hackwith Hall of Fame now resides in the Lyrics Zone… some definite clues as to why I dig (pun much intended!) this band so much. Buy the album, buy the album!!! (giggle) (Feeling pressured? Call… OK, never mind, enough of the puns for now.) (snicker) OK, with that, I am officially offline until, maybe earlier, but probably Tuesday or so – sayonara…

C’mon Back to Bowling Green and Marry Me

Hello, I know things have been a bit quiet again lately… I’ve been working late a lot and falling asleep a lot, basically, so, sorry. Well, Happy April Fool’s Day I guess, I don’t really celebrate April Fool’s Day since April 1st is also KC’s birthday, who is about the biggest April Fool I know, so, happy (insert incredibly huge number of years here)th birthday, you slug. It’s also the birthday of somebody I like as opposed to birthdays of slimeballs, so, happy birthday to Toni too!

Anyway… I managed to get the worst of the wreckage of my e-mail box out of the way last week, hopefully I will get to the rest of it before the week is out and before things get revved up next week getting ready for the convergence of many many folks on Memphis and my house for the Stones concert next week at The Pyramid. In any case, I am slowly, but surely, actually making some progress for a change as far as the pitiful state of my mailbox.

Notes from the My Life Just Gets Weirder and Weirder, But In A Nice Way department… by way of my mostly-lifelong Hoodoo Gurus fetish and a very strange P.J. Proby occurrence as yet unidentified, I’d like to welcome my new and witty good pal and regular visitor to the Zone, Mr. Johnny Spampinato of NRBQ, to the ol’ Zone. A brilliant conversationalist, all around good and funny guy, and my new partner in crime, we are feeling all Scotland Yard-like lately. (giggle)

Well, I wish I had more news but I don’t, so (commercial break for our sponsors, heh) go out and buy a copy of Dig’s new CD Life Like, some NRBQ CDs, and go buy multiple copies of Tommy Womack’s Positively Na Na CD and Cheese Chronicles book to help pay his recent large auto repair bill so he will be able to tour some more, or else I’ll come beat all of you up. (snicker) Oh, like any of you have anything better to do with your money… ’til later…

We’re Gonna Have a TV Party Tonight

Hullo, just thought I’d check in for a minute, sorry for the delay, going out of town this weekend kind of had me tied up for most of the last week, among other things.

First off, I saw snow yesterday! I don’t suppose it snowed in Memphis (don’t know) but I saw snow where I was, so that was cool. It’s doggone freezing in Memphis tho, at the moment I am kinda a LynnsterSicle so I’m not going to type much tonight, too cold, plus too late.

There’s not much news anyway, at least nothing much I’m allowed to spout publicly… it would seem every three or four years or so I get slapped with a gag order again (giggle). We are all so proud of one of our tribe tho… enough folks stop by here that have known me & KC & the rest of the usual cast of clowns enough years that they know of whom I speak. I spent part of the weekend doing music with some other fellas, and you know, there’s something to be said for my thus far having had no real career in music… at least you won’t find me going ballistic and whining on the phone about some music reviewer saying I had “exaggerated vocal mannerisms” like some people I know. (giggle) Well, anyway, that’s that and we’re all just so proud we could spit. (giggle)

Anyhow, speaking of music and stuff, did I mention that my tremendously talented musician friend Tommy Womack apparently ran into some auto probs while doing some recent gigs and cranked up what sounds like a whopping repair bill, so, I demand that all of my musically-inclined friends, acquaintances, foes and whatnot go right out and buy copies of the Positively Na Na CD and his book, Cheese Chronicles, immediately (easily found at CDnow and Amazon.com, respectively, as well as probably your local CD and book stores)!! I did my part, I just gave copies of both as presents in the last week, plus, Cheese Chronicles is like an excellent gift for your musically-addicted friends and/or family members (or foes, if you give gifts to people you hate, or whatever…). I had to miss Tommy’s show Saturday night here in Memphis, hope he’ll be back soon.

Let’s see, what else… well, nothing really, and I’m freezing and need some sleep. I guess while I’m plugging cool music and whatnot I should note that my #1, which won’t be defeated, album of the year, the best alt-rock/indie/power pop/whatever release of 1999 is Dig’s Life Like, and the #1 single is their “Live In Sound”… buy it now, it’s awesome!!! (And yeah, I did it anyway…snicker.)

Oh yeah, one more thing, I might be on Australian TV or something, for about a half sec, spreading Lynnsterness and joy around the globe… isn’t that a total kick?! More on that later (and more when I know). Gotta go, ‘night, uh, ‘morning rather, stay warm!

I’m Frustrated, My Brains Are Fried

Okay, very quick since I’m just waiting for all this hair to dry so I can get two lousy hours of sleep… first, I hate computers, wish I’d never learned anything ever about hardware, I’m about thisclose to taking an ax to every piece of technogeek equipment in my household. The new modem – fine, no probs. The new hard drive? I’ve spent about nine hours on the #%$& thing tonight and it’s still not running, and almost crashed the working hard drive in the process. I haven’t even started on the computer I’m actually getting paid to build because I’ve been knee-deep in my own tonight, er, today. I used to think it was an advantage that I knew how to build stuff to my own specifications and thus avoid quite a good bit of extra $$ on all this geek junk, but you know, now I’m not so sure. And when is someone going to make a motherboard that a person can actually get their hands into to install stuff? I mean, ask anyone, I have tiny hands and I have to practically kill myself just to hook up a drive cable. Yeah, I know, whine whine whine, but if you’d just spent an entire night and most of the morning messing with this stuff and getting your hands and fingers all cut up and being tired to begin with and now looking forward to a lovely day’s work on two hours’ sleep, you’d be bitching too.

Well, in any case, I have decided not to touch the thing again until I get some of my other responsibilities out of the way this week and I’ll just have to live with the fact that what works is lying around all over the place. Grrrrrrr. And my apologies for my stats counter screwing up a lot and making pages disappear lately – I discovered the problem before y’all did, much to my dismay – you can see the News page for more but in any case I’m assuming they’re working on correcting the problem pronto, they’re pretty good folks.

Let’s see, what else, it looks like I might have a letter to the editor published in our local rag this week RE my war with the cable company, so you locals can watch for that. Lots of others have been expressing their disgust with Time Warner’s most recent batch of misdeeds, after they removed one of my channels *and* raised my bill over $10, which I found out after the first time I’d inquired about whether they were gonna lower my bill since I no longer had what I signed up for, I just thought I’d put my two cents in too. Yep, it’s a good week for griping…

And how about my pals at Northwest, putting up bunches of flights this weekend out of Memphis just when I put out most of my spare change on an investment of sorts… I hate them too.

And, in closing, someone asked me how I liked the new Anne Rice book since I was all excited about it coming out last October, well, guess what – it’s still sitting here and I still haven’t read it yet, no time. I need to clone myself about ten times over lately it seems.

Anyway, must get some worthless sleep so I can work all day and come home and get mad at technology again – ’til later…

She’s a Goddess

Well, nothing much, it’s rainy and nasty in Memphis and still kinda hot and just kinda blah today. I was unable to tear myself away from slumber this morning and wound up going into work about 11 a.m., which served to remind me that no matter what all annoys me about my job situation, the fact that I pretty much have the freedom to do as I please is maybe worth some of the other headaches.

I’m on the verge of reading Rebecca Wells’ Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, which being about a group of rather off-the-wall Southern women seemed to pretty much have my name on it, and when I get a little time later I’m finally going to hit Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches books, I think I’ll save them for a little later on this winter when I’ll have more spare time and can devour them all in less than a week, another habit.

I must be no longer unshockable… a Lynnster Award of some sort should go to Phil Arnold for sending me the only URL that’s ever made me literally sick, ugh (and no, I don’t remember what/where it was). The guys I’ve been hanging with here in Memphis for years, better known as the Gripers, have oft passed around all manner of disgusting GIFs and URLs and all such stuff, I have pretty much seen it all and rarely batted an eyelash, but this took the cake. And no, this doesn’t mean send me more…

Well, that’s about it for now from here, much to do and little time to do it in, other than to say kudos to moi for winning a bet against the unbelieving masses… one small expression of wondering expressed by one of the old West End bunch regarding one of our number whom no one’s heard or seen from in at least eleven years led to a bunch of disbelief and (mostly male, big surprise) posturing via e-mail that I couldn’t do what I said I would do, which was to find this guy. We have this sorta circular e-mail going around between 20 or so of us – i.e., one person writes their junk and sends it along to the next, who sends it to the next and so on and so on – because all the separate e-mailing going on was just getting out of hand, well, this came up and every single (and male) soul kept blabbing that it couldn’t be done, I couldn’t do it, blah blah blah. Bless my little puppy Greg B.’s heart, the only true believer, who said, and I quote, “Lynnster doesn’t miss a (expletive deleted) thing on the ‘net, she’ll rule.” Ding ding ding, 48 hours later I’ve not only located the target but am $75 richer for it thanks to a bunch of non-believers who, surprisingly, put their money where their big fat mouths were, for once. (snicker) I am the Goddess of All Things Web. Gotta go for now, see ya…