Oh yay! Vacation pictures!

When I was a kid growing up in Nashville, "Lower Broad" was shorthand for "dangerous neighborhood." It was the few blocks on Boradway leading from the river up into downtown and featured dive bars and broken men and other country-music-type stuff.


Now it's all been cleaned up and homogenized and stripped of any edge to make it safe for the tourists who waddle around and think they're getting an "experience."

Tootsie's Orchid Lounge is an iconic country music bar that's been around since forever. It used to be the kind of place where unknown country artists would get a chance to play for a half-hour or so and there'd be a few fights every night. The last time I went there, maybe 5 or 6 years ago, the musicians were only playing well-known country covers, and there weren't any fights, but it still had some of that atmosphere. That's progress for ya.

My Dad's boxer, on the other hand, has never compromised her core values.