April 4th

I woke up to strange noises happening outside. I got up to look and was blown away (almost literally) by what I saw. Rain was coming down so heavily, you could barely see 10 feet ahead of you and the wind looked violent and vengeful. Like it had come to Nashville to tear it a whole new batch of assholes. I checked the weather app on my phone: Severe rain/winds, floods and tornado warnings.

TORNADO WARNINGS!

I showered and had just gotten dressed, thinking I’d brave the storm and find some food, when Teresa texted me this little doozy:  ‘GET IN THE BASEMENT’.  I thought she might have just been messing around so i replied with, ‘seriously?’ for which she replied, ‘yes! get in the basement and shut the door behind you’.

Holy shit. Am I in danger here, i wondered? I mean, Teresa lives here. Wouldn’t she know? I tried thinking back on the last time I had been in a tornado. Oh, that’s right. I hadn’t been.

Fuck.

I walked over to the basement door, opened it and peered down into the dark abyss that it resembled. At that moment, all the power went out. The whole neighborhood, hell, most of Nashville had no electricity.

Fuck this.

I put on my jacket (AKA my trusty hoodie), grabbed my keys, went outside and ran to my car. Once inside I could feel the rain pounding against the car and the intense wind attempting to push it over. I have to admit, it was a little hairy but I decided to tempt fate. I drove into town and hoped that my new favorite 24 hour cafe had power.

It did.

Along the way to Coco Cafe, I saw various trees toppled over and a few roofs that had been caved in or had been completely separated from the rest of whatever building they were on top of.  Traffic signals and street lights were out and everyone was driving like an asshole. I got to the cafe and hunkered down there for the rest of the day and until show time.

Eventually, the storm let up and everything was back to normal. Well, not everything. Power was still out throughout much of the city and when I got to the Little Hamilton space, I was greeted by Teresa and Sully, some of the nice locals including the people from the great band Chicken Little (who i played with a couple of years back at Gilman and who might just be the most adorable band ever) and a candle-lit venue.

A nice little crowd appeared out of seemingly nowhere and threw money into the donation box. We performers played completely acoustically and in mostly darkness, surrounded only by a half-circle of tea candles and nothing else.

It was an amazing little show and it gave me new-found hope for the younger, underground music/art/politics scene and made (makes) me wish I had a small space of my own again, one that was supported and maintained by the music, the arts and lively discussions. I’m always looking for little, out of the way buildings, warehouses, garages and storefronts, that I could turn into a community-minded spot for people who still give a shit about such things. Maybe I really do need to move out of Sac to find such a place. I know that it takes hard work, diligence and a good deal of money to get something like that going but I know it would be worth it to try and make happen, in Sacramento or anywhere.