Ampersand Promo

May 4, 2008

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A Disappointing Art Crawl

May 4, 2008

The Nashville Art Crawl isn’t all excellent work all the time, and it’s unfair to expect it to be. But usually there is enough good work on display - and enough people we know hanging out - to make the 50-mile round trip to town worthwhile. This month’s installment had neither of those things.

The crowd was easily less than a third of the size of the crowd two months ago when Rachel’s show opened at Twist Gallery. Apparently all those people who didn’t come out last night knew something we didn’t: there was barely anything worth seeing. Only twice did I see work that was worth the time it took to walk into the galleries and look around. The rest was flat-out boring. If we hadn’t walked through the touristy areas on Broadway and 2nd Avenue for a little entertainment (and exercise) the night would have been a complete wash.

There are no refunds for wasted time. So, Art Crawl, you owe me a pretty big favor for this disappointment: put up some good work. I’d appreciate it if you could do it in August, when I’ll next have the chance to come out again. Until then…

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Live Music In East Nashville Tonight

May 1, 2008

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Requiescat In Pace

April 29, 2008

Albert Hofmann died today. He truly changed the world. Very few of us can claim the same of our lives.

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Good News

April 24, 2008

• The new replacement Blackberry came today. I’m in the middle of the long process of syncing up the data from the old one with my Macbook Pro and then re-syncing with the new one. Somewhere in the middle of all of that I have to clear all the old data off the old unit before sending it back, as Verizon says they will “attempt to clear the device’s memory upon receiving it,” but they do not “guarantee that (their) attempts will be successful.” Given my past history with everything else Verizon, my guess is that indeed, they would be unsuccessful and some goober in Nebraska would end up with a phone full of poker blogger contacts. I’d hate to be responsible for a late-night fan call to Doctor Pauly.
• Speaking of bloggers, I got word today that a certain New Yorker and a certain friend of his whom I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting will be staying a night with me and Rachel about the middle of next month. Good times!
• Sonic Youth is playing in Nashville tomorrow night. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I can get tickets at the venue (City Hall), since they don’t sell them there until the day of the show. I could have bought them on Craigslist if I’d been willing to pay through Paypal and hope the tickets arrived in the mail (no thanks!), and I also could’ve gotten them through Ticketmaster for a 33% markup (no thanks again!). I haven’t seen the Youth since 1995, and it’d be awesome to see them again.

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Housecleaning and the Nashville Skyline

April 23, 2008

I decided to clean up the blog today, mainly focusing on the blogroll over at the right. Blogroll’s actually not such a good word for it, because I link to lots of sites that aren’t blogs at all, but we use words all the time even though their original meanings don’t fit our usage so I don’t feel too bad. I pulled several link categories together, deleted a few, and added one. It felt good. Sometimes you just need to clean up the room, even if it isn’t really a mess, you know?

The new category is called Nashville Skyline, because I’m real original like that. It’s essentially a guide to my Nashville - the people I know, the music I like, the food I eat, the bars where I drink. I plan to continue expanding the list as needed, but here’s a rundown of who these folks are and why they’re on the list.

• Ampersand - I do a lot of media work with these guys, and I happen to really like their music as well. Nashville’s going to be hearing a lot from them for some time to come.
• Art and Invention Gallery - Rachel has shown some of her small works at this gallery over in the Five Points area of East Nashville.
• Art at the Arcade - There are several art galleries housed in this historic building between Union and Church in downtown Nashville. The website hasn’t been updated in a while.
• Arts at the Airport - Rachel was one of the featured artists for this program in late 2007.
• Baja Burrito - Best burritos in town without a challenger in sight.
• Belcourt Theatre - Nashville’s independent movie Mecca. Film for film lovers. One of the coolest places in town.
• Cafe Coco - Live music, good food and drinks, and a great outdoor area for warm days. Rachel and I went here on our first date.
• Calypso Cafe - Some of the best food in town - it’s healthy and cheap to boot. They even have a new East Nashville location.
• McKay’s - Used books, CDs, DVDs, computer and console games - this store on Charlotte Pike has it all.
• Moonage Farm Team - Music and more at this blog by Nathan, who works with an old friend of mine.
• Pied Piper Creamery - The best ice cream in town, located in the Five Points area of East Nashville.
• Silver Jews - David Berman, Nashvillian and poet extraordinaire.
• The Alleycat - Good food and cheap beer at Five Points in East Nashville.
• Twist Gallery - Housed in the Arcade, this gallery was the site of Rachel’s 2008 installation/show, The Big Payback.
• Z’s Deli - Good food and drinks and live music at Five Points in East Nashville. Ampersand plays here from time to time.

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The Difference Between Large Companies And Small Companies

April 22, 2008

Last week, Rachel and I stopped by the Verizon store in Green Hills to take care of a little errand. The speaker on my Blackberry had stopped working about a week before, and we just wanted to get it repaired. I do lots of interviews, and the speakerphone makes those a lot easier possible. The girl at the customer service desk, who was very nice, told us that she couldn’t repair it in-store, but that our warranty covered a free replacement. So - new phone in exchange for old, half-broken phone, at no charge to us. Sounds good to me. The girl told us the phone would be at our house in two days, and all we’d have to do is send the old one back with the included shipping label.

Fast forward a week, and there’s still no properly-functioning Blackberry at my house. We did, however, receive a shipping label to return the defective unit. Rachel (whose name is on the account, and thus is the only person they’ll deal with) spent thirty minutes on the phone with Verizon because there’s still no replacement Blackberry at the casa. The person who answered the phone at Verizon directed her to the people at the Green Hills store, who said that they can’t actually order my phone from their distribution warehouse, so she would have to call tech support. She then hung up and called tech support, who eventually got everything straightened out and said there’s a phone on the way to us via expedited shipping. (Which, of course, is exactly what we were told a week ago.)

We pay a LOT of money every month to keep that Blackberry (and thus me) connected to the rest of the world, and this is the customer service we get from a company with untold thousands of employees.

***

Last week I decided I needed to get a new bag to go along with my new Macbook Pro. I’ve been carrying the old $30 Samsonite laptop case and $150 Canon camera bag around the country with me since I bought them in 2005. On the laptop case, the faux-leather-covering-cardboard holding the metal buckles where the strap attaches is frayed and close to dying, and the metal buckles themselves have worn off their shiny paint in several places. On both bags, the fabric is ripped and frayed in spots and looks more than unattractive. These bags have been through two WSOPs and countless WPT and circuit tournaments, and it shows.

I stumbled across the Waterfield Designs website while browsing through Mac forums looking for suggestions on good all-purpose bags that would fit my computer and my camera. Not only were their products attractive, but the company was small, still owned by the guy who founded it, and built all its bags on-site in San Francisco. I chose the large Cargo, paid for it, and waited for it to arrive.

The next morning I got an email from the owner of the company thanking me for my order, telling me he could answer any questions I had, and asking where I found out about his company. When I wrote back to him to tell him about finding the link in a forum, he replied almost immediately, again thanking me for my business. Two days later, just as advertised, my bag arrived and it’s everything I hoped it would be. Inside with the bag was an invoice with a handwritten message thanking me once again for my business.

I paid a lot of money for my bag. This is the customer service I get from a company with a tiny fraction of the employees that Verizon has.

***

Those of you who wonder what’s wrong with America’s economy: I’m pretty sure the answer lies somewhere between the lines of this post.

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Ampersand @ Z’s Deli, May 1st, 8:00 PM

April 21, 2008

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More Poker Stuff, and “Die Gedanken sind frei”

April 19, 2008

Yesterday I meant to mention the two newest articles I have up at PokerListings.com, but I ran out of time before heading to Yvonne Buchheim’s opening at Cheekwood in Nashville.

• I had the opportunity to talk with 2004 WSOP Main Event champion Greg Raymer midweek about poker and politics. You can read the resulting article, “Raymer still fighting the good fight”, here.
• In light of the recent rumors about the 2008 WSOP Main Event final table, I took a look at some of the changes that have occurred throughout WSOP history and concluded that change is one of the only constants at poker’s most storied tournament series. Read “Winds of change blow on WSOP” here.

Speaking of Yvonne’s installation - the whole thing was amazing, but the one part that stuck with me was the video of her singing Die Gedanken sind frei in Tehran. I’d never heard of the song before, but it apparently has a long history of being banned by dictators and their ilk, including the Nazis. Particularly moving, then, that Buchheim sang it in Iran. I’ll leave you with the lyrics, both in German and in a translation to English that’s not nearly as beautiful and succinct as the one in the video.

In Deutsch

Die Gedanken sind frei, wer kann sie erraten,
sie fliegen vorbei wie nächtliche Schatten.
Kein Mensch kann sie wissen, kein Jäger erschießen
mit Pulver und Blei: Die Gedanken sind frei!

So I will renounce my sorrows forever,
and never again will torture myself with some fancy ideas.
In one’s heart, one can always laugh and joke
and think at the same time: Thoughts are free!

Posted in 2008 WSOP, Art, Poker, Politics 1 Comment »

This Is Not Art

April 19, 2008

In 2007, a Costa Rican “artist” named Guillermo Habacuc Vargas killed a dog and called it art. Now, he’s being invited to the 2008 Central American Biennial - that is, he’s being rewarded for his “art” by being given a bigger forum than he had available to him before he tied a dog up in an art gallery and starved it to death.

If this man is an artist, so was Ted Bundy. So were the Columbine killers. So is every disturbed person who thinks that inflicting punishment on others is an acceptable method of expression.

If you care at all about preventing animal cruelty, or keeping some form of honesty in art, please sign the petition protesting Vargas’ Biennial invitation here.

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Free Poker - Again

April 17, 2008

Back in the old days, when I actually played more than 100 hands of poker a month, I played with bloggers. A lot. We’d have tournaments without prizes thrown in from outside sources (gasp!), and the field size rarely, if ever, reached 50. There was a congenial air to those games because everyone knew each other, and to be honest that was why I played them. I wasn’t a favorite over the field by any means, but I had fun playing.

Tonight’s LeCheese Revenge freeroll thrown by the folks at RakeBrain.com is a throwback to the old days in at least one way: the field is limited to 27 players. I also happen to know quite a few of the folks who are playing in it with me, so it’s a throwback there, too. And I can’t vouch for this because I won’t really be with them in person, but I’ve heard that at least half the participants will also be wearing 1980s NBA throwback uniforms, complete with short-shorts and high socks.

Schaubs
TNSpaceman
huntsvegas
garycarson
Buddydank
Pokerpeaker
VinNay
Donkette
katitude
pking19
willhopper
Gcox25
Kickasspoker
Drizztdj
NightRanger
BadBlood
mookie99
AlCantHang
SirFWALGMan
ToastOnTilt
Short-Stacked Shamus
jacksup
MrSubliminal
Crazzynesss - RakeBrain staff
td8507 - RakeBrain Rakeback Member
Sexy Sabrina - RakeBrain Rakeback Member

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Mishmash

April 16, 2008

Random stuff for your perusal:

• If you’re in Nashville this weekend and you aren’t going to be watching Spoon, Lil Jon, Feist, The Avett Brothers, and all the other acts playing Rites of Spring on Vanderbilt’s campus, there are still a few other things to check out.
  • On Friday night, Yvonne Buchheim’s Song Archive Project opens at Cheekwood. A German-born artist who teaches drawing in Bristol, England, the warm, intelligent, and thoughtful Buchheim is also a friend of my brother-in-law.
  • At last week’s First Saturday Art Crawl, my friend Aaron and I found out about a launch party for the (rabbit), a new Nashville art publication. The party at 425 Chestnut starts this Saturday, the 19th, at 6 PM with an art show. Live music & $7 cover starts at 8 PM. They say:
    

    This is an art publication made to be a record of the burgeoning art scene in Nashville. We want to be fertilizer for the healthy plumule of inspiration and competition that can materialize if we, the art makers and appreciators, challenge ourselves to seek out relevant and innovative artistic endeavors.

• I spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours in my youth playing Starflight. Apparently so did Kyle Ackerman, who gets the byline for Starflight: When Emergent Play Was Only A Floppy Away.
• On the poker tip, I have an article up at PokerListings today looking at some of the poker world’s reactions to the April 2nd House Financial Services Committee hearing, “Proposed UIGEA Regulations: Burden Without Benefit?” Click on the image below and dig the full-size graphic that went with the story!
  

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Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

April 10, 2008

A playlist for a stormy night. (Thanks to BG for pointing me in the direction of this service!)

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Tornado Time

April 10, 2008

Without even looking at the weather forecast, I know that this means there are going to be nasty, nasty storms in my immediate vicinity tonight. Not looking forward to it.

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WSOP 2008: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

April 10, 2008

It’s true: our yearly descent into Sin City in pursuit of pieces of silver is almost upon us. In a scant 50 days I’ll be separated from the land I love. The number is small enough to give me pause, if only for a few moments’ reflection before returning to work.
Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in 2008 WSOP, People 5 Comments »