Comedian, musician, host of The Chris Crofton Show and former Nashvillian Chris Crofton asked the Scene for an advice column, so we gave him one. Crowning himself the “Advice King,” Crofton will share his hard-won wisdom with whosoever seeks it.
Follow Crofton on Facebook and Twitter, and to submit a question for the Advice King, email editor[at]nashvillescene[dot]com.
Dear Advice King,
I moved to Nashville a couple of years ago counting on relatively mild weather and a good ride to work. Instead I've found a city totally unprepared for inclement weather — heavy rain, occasional ice and snow — and a highway system that even in optimum weather scares the most experienced driver. Most cities advise people to use mass transit, which, except for a few buses, doesn't exist in Nashville. Ironically, a major plan to provide such transportation was recently defeated by the city council. Could this be a conspiracy to discourage a population increase in the "It" city? I need an explanation.
-Melinda Z.
Dear Melinda,
I wish I could tell you that the pasta dish they call a road system in Nashville was part of a diabolical plot. I completely understand why you would be suspicious.
For a couple hundred years, Nashville was an “It City” for buffalo. Nashville roads were laid out by a guy named Mortimer “Buffalo” Braddock. His nickname was “Buffalo” because he loved buffalo. He thought they were endowed with special abilities. He rode around Nashville on a buffalo named Hightower. He once had a buffalo participate in a seance. It was Braddock, at the age of 92 and wearing his trademark pajamas, who decided that the Nashville roads should be based on historic buffalo trails. The problem was that all the buffalo, no matter where they were coming from, ended up at a huge salt lick on the bank of the Cumberland River. Buffalo love salt. You can’t have a road system where all the roads go to a salt lick. I mean, I love a salt lick as much as anybody, but I don’t want that to be the only place I can go. When the mayor at the time, Spears Wade, found out all his roads were salt lick-bound he fired Buf Braddock, but the damage was done.
It’s 2015, and the salt lick has long since been licked. The human herds of today’s Nashville like to lick charcuterie plates and pan-seared sea bass. Unfortunately, Nashville’s skinny roads are still better suited for buffalo. Buffalo have narrow feet and aren’t in a hurry. Foodies drive huge SUVs and are in a big hurry. In 2012 a food writer from Atlanta named Kim Severson wrote an article for The New York Times that made Nashville sound like a gourmand’s paradise. That was not true (I think people figured the fancy restaurants she mentioned were the BEST fancy restaurants, not the ONLY fancy restaurants), but a lot of people believe shit they read in The New York Times, no questions asked. So the hungry, wealthy hordes descended on Nashville, but newspaper articles don’t magically transform small Southern cities. A restaurant putting foie gras fritters on the menu has absolutely no effect on the number of snow plows in Tennessee. The number will remain eight. There are eight snow plows, two salt spreaders and one sand truck in the whole state. In the South, people stay home when the roads are bad. Transplants from New York and Los Angeles lose their minds if they can’t go about their sociopathic business. I would just like to gently remind Mr. and Mrs. Fastpace: YOU LIVE IN TENNESSEE AND NO ONE FORCED YOU TO MOVE THERE. It’s not a slow Los Angeles or a New York that always sleeps. It’s an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT, COMPLETELY VALID CULTURE, and if you don’t like it you should move.
If you would like a harsher reminder that you currently live in Tennessee, here is some red-hot Red State bullshit that recently went down in your new hometown. Public transportation, huh? Definitely seems like a reasonable expectation for a city to have some decent public transportation. Well, it was looking like it might happen for a minute there. A group of sane people, including Mayor Karl Dean, had a reasonable proposal to expand the city bus system. Some rich people didn’t like it because it would mean poorer people would have access to the rich people’s side of town. In a normal city, the rich people would have had to shut the fuck up because that is an awful reason to oppose something, and the bus system would have been expanded. In Tennessee, where you now live, the Republican-controlled general assembly OUTLAWED THE KIND OF BUS THEY WERE GOING TO USE. The End.
There is no conspiracy. There is no such thing as an “It City.” You live in Nashville. Nashville is in Tennessee, and so are you, Melinda.
