The New Neighborhood
by Doug Hoekstra
Part One
All up and down Nolensville Road, there is a
rapidly growing Latino community taking hold. Parts of it are gritty and urban, reminding me of an
old neighborhood I used to live in years ago, another time, another place. But mostly, in this
new neighborhood, there is a laid-back homespun feel that is more simpatico to the rhythms of
Nashville.
Cars spill frantically onto Nolensville from super highway I-440, but then they shift gears and cruise to a stop, lining up at traffic lights in
front of a string of auto shops, used furniture stores, and musica emporiums. Scattered between
the storefronts, there are eateries popping up everywhere, pick one and pull up to the curb. If
you walk in the front door, the metal frame shuts tight with a bang and you edge your way through
a crowded little market where you can buy bottles of Jarrito (orange is my favorite), votive
candles and refried beans. In the back, there's a restaurant, with formica laden booths and square
tables covered in checkered tablecloths. In the corner, the television stays fixed on the Spanish
channel, soap operas beaming in via Mexico City where buff young neo-hispanic men and women live
through angst-ridden romances in search of love and dreams. I can see this in the looks on their
faces; it doesn't matter what language they speak.
I glance up from my book, by instinct, when the conversation reaches a fever pitch, though I can't understand a word they're saying. I'm reading
because I'm waiting for someone. I'm a few minutes early, she's a few minutes late, but it doesn't matter, because I always take a book with me. I'm used to waiting for things. I am getting
hungry, however, and I wonder if I should go ahead and at least get some chips to snack on. I ask the waitress what time it is. She looks at me blankly. "Que hora es?" I ask. She smiles. A
quarter past noon; it's so familiar in there even my high school Spanish has come to use.
Magically, she returns with a basket of chips and a cup of hot sauce.
An hour later, lunch is coming to a close. My friend -- let's call her Lesley -- and I have had a
chance to connect and swap stories of the past couple of weeks, highs and lows, adventures and debacles, newfound characters and old school heroes. We have much in common in terms of our age,
experience, and approach to our craft -- though stylistically we're worlds apart. He'd never met until recently -- though it seemed as if whenever I
was out on tour, I'd see one of her posters or someone would mention her name. "Oh, you should meet her," one journalist offered, "you guys would get along. She's dedicated, always works it."
I never know how to take this when it falls on my shoulders-often people champion my hard-working dedication, yet isn't there something in all of us that prefers to be the idiot savant, the
ambling genius that can't be denied? I think the reality is that most of us are indeed, hustlers fighting the good fight-or the uphill battle, depending on the day of the week.
Battered pick-up trucks edge down the avenue outside, men honking horns and waving, arms extended through open windows. There's a lot of noise on this
street, the comforting kind, the sounds of warm shouts and forward engines, which is much different than a cacophony of broken bottles and stray gunshots. As the trucks go by, I think
about how those so far from home are often connected simply by their fractured roots. Hope keeps us moving sometimes -- either escaping or embracing the hard questions that will someday, inevitably,
be reckoned with.
I enjoy comparing notes with Lesley -- and while there is a certain common thread and sympathetic tone to our stories, there is also a noticeable
separation. She is an open person, but even her openness bears a certain secretive air, as if the stories she chooses to tell somehow throw direction away from the stories that lie closest to her. To me, what one chooses to reveal is as revealing as what you choose to hide. Today, she's wearing a blue leather jacket, t-shirt, and sneakers, accessories making bright statements that
somehow bely her sad eyes. The soap opera continues to blare away creating a din that mixes in with the conversations of various languages and stripes around the restaurant, and it again
reminds me how complex and different human beings are.
Suddenly, after spearing a tortilla chip and dipping it in salsa, she says, "I see where you're playing the Shakespeare fest. I'm doing that
too."
I'm surprised because she says it in a way that makes me think she thinks it's cool. That's reassuring, to a degree; it's nice to have confirmation in
one's choices. But, the reality is that I have a perverse attraction for the out of the ordinary gigs, the ones that can be surprisingly rewarding or dangerously deflating. These can range from
playing in a crowded soup kitchen for homeless people to plugging in on a boat somewhere on the Mersey River on Queen's Jubilee for drunken Union Jacks. Or, in this case, it might be opening for
an outdoor production of Macbeth, in a little bandshell across from a rebuilt version of the Parthenon, smack dab in the downtown of Music City. Bubble bubble, toil and trouble.
So it was that I took the Shakespeare fest gig with a certain amount of vicarious out-of-body anticipation. Like, if it was a bizarre experience, with
groundlings throwing farthlings at me while I played, I could watch myself in the moment, and of course, relish the picture later. And I knew that whatever happened, it would be a different
audience than you encounter in the clubs, and that would be good, too, for the change of pace. I also knew that if I was really successful in the way I wanted to be, I wouldn't even be
considering the gig.
"Yeah, it should be fun," I say, condensing these thoughts, "but I have a feeling it could be the puppet show."
"Do you think it'll be that bad?" she answers. I'm sure you, wisened reader, know this reference, but just in case-the puppet show is universal rock and roll musician symbolism from the movie This is Spinal Tap. In that film, the hapless heavy-metal parody band goes through a series of setbacks, including a bad booking at an outdoor
festival opening for a puppet show. Of course their dull concern focuses solely on the fact that the puppets got top billing.
"Well, no," I say. "But, if I lower my expectation, than it'll be better than I think."
She says she does that as well. Then, she adds wistfully, "Remember the times when you thought one gig could change your life? I miss them sometimes."
I nod silently. I do miss them in one sense, but in another I'm glad they're over. I remember youthful idealism. I remember fun nights without sleep
and dead sleep without dreams. Then, I remember waking up one day, looking for dreams anywhere I could find them, asleep or awake. Suddenly, instead of one gig changing your life, each gig
reinforces your life, as you work to keep the motion going, manufacturing hope when you're running low. When you start, it's all risk and romance, pursuing a life far from the norm and then
suddenly, the pursuit becomes the norm, the safety net. The alternative is too scary; the alternative is a world where the next song won't be coming, a world where the next song can't put
you over, a world where you can't find your sense of self in anything.
Part Two
How'd Shakespeare fest go, you ask? For my experience, the gig was pretty decent; it had some moments, particularly when the girl playing Lady Macbeth laid out on the stage while we did our sound check, moaning and screaming strange vocal exercises. Wahooo. Ahooooo. Aheeeeee. This gave
me a flash back to some of my more uh, colorful back-up singers. Meanwhile, my drummer kept asking me where the food was and when we'd get our free t-shirts. As we started to play, some of the picnickers seemed as interested in their bottles of wine and boxes of chicken as the happenings on the stage (i.e., us). But as we progressed, most listened intently and there was a special moment
in the set when we did a particularly difficult new song and the applause meter definitely ratcheted up a notch afterwards. There was an appreciably warm response as we finished the show and, all and all, it was a good gig.
We lucked out, in that amongst a week of rain, we drew a beautifully mild summer night and dusk was just falling lightly over the amphitheater as we loaded
up our gear and cleared the stage. Macbeth was hot on our heels, but I didn't stay, not because the witches scared me, but because I wanted to get home to see my son before he went to
sleep. He was five months old at the time, so I caught him just in time. He gave me a big gummy grin the moment I walked in the room, raised my arms and said "superstar!" Then I made a face
and he laughed. At this point in time, everything I did was hysterical to him. We played a bit and then I backed off to let him wind back down and get to sleep. My wife fed him and he nodded
off, and I watched him as he slept. Curved into a ball, perfect eyes shut tight, perfect lips still making little sucking motions. I hadn't thought about anything since getting home-by that,
I mean, I didn't think about the show, or a list of things to do, or some self-identifying trip that revolved around me being something -- as an artist, musician, writer-or the title of any one of
the dreary daytime activities I'd encountered in the Land of 1,000 Jobs. I just was. And, it was wonderful.
My wife and I caught up on the evening, talked about my son and what he'd accomplished that night. His new bath experiences were every bit as entertaining
as my encounter with Lady Macbeth and I realized I'd grown to prefer the fact that the more you play, the more the gigs roll into one series of shows that somehow ebbs and flows like a river,
sending you curving toward an unnamed creative destination, as opposed to a marked place of deliverance. There's something more organic and natural about that path, something about doing
the best with what we have. Maybe I believe in existence rather than attainment, enlightenment more than heaven. Maybe I'm just making excuses. I'm presuming my son will teach me the truth,
as I watch him grow. I wonder what he will become.
Part Three
A month passed before I caught up with Lesley again. Back on Nolensville, this time I ordered a big plate of huevos rancheros for lunch, which also reminded
me of the year I spent in that aforementioned old neighborhood, another time, another place. Lesley's in a more upbeat mood this session, getting ready for a new record release and all the
potential that carries, for a fresh set of highs and lows, adventures and debacles, new-found characters and old school heroes. Afterwards, we work our way over to the cash register when some
friends of hers stop by for a quick chat. She introduces me and one of them says, "Oh I've heard of you . . . you're famous." It's a small-town Nashville is, so I smile and reply "in my own mind
anyway . . . " They leave and I suddenly remember I've forgotten to ask Lesley something.
"Hey, how'd Shakespeare fest go?"
She frowns.
"It wasn't that great; I was kind of disappointed."
"Really?"
"I don't know, it was like MacCulture or something, I expected it to be more."
I nod silently. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a van pull to a stop in front of the musica emporium directly across the street. Two men get out and
walk to the rear, opening the van doors and pulling ladders and paint cans onto the sidewalk. Lesley and I pass through the door, back outside where we say our goodbyes. I get in my car and
spot an old man in a cowboy hat and jeans settling down into an unsold rocking chair outside the furniture shop next to where the men are setting up. He begins to rock back and forth, watching
passing traffic. He glances over at the men and waves as they check their ladders. They lift their heads. One shouts hello, as he begins climbing, higher, closer to the hot sun that was
already shining on the weatherworn sign he's getting ready to touch up. I don't know, but there's something about this new neighborhood, I think, as I turn the key to my car, the one that would
drive me back home, this one's going to last.
END
Canopic Home ♦ This Issue's Home ♦ Next
Doug Hoekstra
