Randomness from "Working the Door" in downtown Nashville

My little office for a coupla nights

I spent a coupla nights this week "working the door" in a downtown Nashville bar "The Wheel". It's a really cool old bar that a good friend of mine Robert Lee co-owns and he's been SO damn nice enough to ask me to do it. The hours are pretty much stripper hours (7PM-3AM) AND it's CRS week (where a ton of Radio guys come into town and meet and hear a bunch of the Nashville "stars", as well).
Thoughts
-FIRSTLY-Good GOD, I've not been sober past 12AM since church camp.
-One night I talked with a really sweet 76 year old man Billy Hazelwood who told me that he'd retired from 37 years of working at the Ford plant and now farms "cuz you GOTTA do something (with your time)!". He had open heart surgery back in '06. Says with the diesel prices going up he's not sure if he can afford to keep farming. Lives out in Springfield and was sitting there by himself just listening to the band play.
 -Sidewalk watching:  Roland & Ashton Shepherd stopped by (gooood "people"!), Two Foot Fred kept rollin' by "at a fast clip", Jessie Jo Dillon (great young writer) stopped and said hey, Pete Robinson (who said some really kind things about my old blog :)), young girls in REALLY short skirts (walkin like Foster Brooks) continuously walked by but rarely "bent over" (as IF they could), Joe BIDDLE (what the hell's a local sports reporter doing with a CRS badge?), Jim Butler, Luke Bryan (ain't changed a damn bit/God bless 'em), Red Marlow and Phillip White. Phillip get's the survivor arward. He was nursin a hangover from the night before (and still out late!).
 -Friends and industry people walking by asking "WHAT the hell are you doing working down here, now"? Some of them looked at me like I was now homeless. I thought about panhandling to play the part but I suck at begging (which I kinda resulted to to get songs recorded and STILL had no luck).
-Watched an artist (post-show) screaming at her boyfriend or husband (in the middle of the street) next to his truck "I QUITE, I QUIT...I'm TIRED OF THIS FUCKING TOWN!!! I love you and I'll see you at home".
Two (mostly) female bands playing in side by side bars! THAT was surprising! More in these two bars than in all of Texas! Maybe their from Texas.
-Some drunk older guy who kept trying to sing his songs to everybody that would listen He said that he's best at writing "Rap" but his son had told him not to sing that stuff down here in Nashville. He kept telling me he wasn't drunk. I kept telling him he was. Being sober is really sobering.
-The GREAT Texas blogger Rita Ballou keeping me company with some funny texts (though she couldn't make it here this year :()

Lookin in through the glass and glare

Lookin' down the street

-Sweet little bartender on Tues. night said a coupla weeks back that it was her and two guys last in the bar late one night and they were wanting to fight. Her being under 5 foot tall said "guys... REALLY!!?? It's us three and I'M gonna have to try and break you up!!?" She said they took it outside (thankfully).
 I may see if ol' Robert will let me do this again. Fun in a weird sorta way....

My good (and damn funny) bud Ali working behind the bar.