Editor's Note: 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. To submit a question for the Advice King, send an email to editor[at]nashvillescene[dot]com.
Dear Advice King,
I've lived in East Nashville for about a decade now. I've always really liked it over here. I'm an artist (meaning, I work on films and music and writing as much as I can, but I also wait tables), and it's always been pretty easy to find a place with cheap rent. But my landlord is selling my current place, and I have to be out by the end of the year. Everywhere I've looked is way out of my price range. What should I do? Should I move up to Madison, or over to the West Side, or out of Nashville altogether?
-Broke as a Joke on the East Side
Dear Broke,
When I moved to Nashville from New York City in 2001, all the fancy people I knew up there said, “Why would you go THERE? What is it? Like, a general store and cows?? HAHAHAHAHA.” Little did they know it was a nice place to live. That kind of insecure asshole won’t go anywhere that looks different than what they’ve seen in a style magazine. Nashville was safe from those people, because: A) It’s in the South, which people in New York and L.A. think is “sketch” and “random”; B) it didn’t have “any good restaurants.” Insecure people need the city they live in to have “good restaurants,” because what if someone fancy came to visit and they couldn’t prove that where they live is fancy too! Now that condos have been built and there’s a Whole Foods and Husk, the condo-zombies think Nashville is a *magical oasis in the South*, the rest of which they still think is “sketch” and “random.”
“I swear, Larry, you wouldn’t even know you you were in the South. These developers have done a great job. AND there’s no income tax!”
The problem is that the insecure people have all the money in this country. Since the ethics have been completely removed from business culture, only super-insecure people are willing to do the immoral shit it takes to make a lot of money. Nice people won’t work for Exxon or Dow or Goldman Sachs or a health care system that makes the executives rich at the expense of the sick, so nice people don’t have any money. You basically have to be a sociopath to do any of the evil high-paying jobs left, and if you aren’t a sociopath, you are a barista. Baristas can’t pay the same prices for housing as sociopaths, so the best thing the baristas can do is try to keep the sociopaths at bay. But Nashville BEGGED THEM TO COME. Nashville had low self-esteem and wasn’t going to rest until it had an ultra-lounge with a bowling alley, too. Well you got it. And so much more! You were invaded by the sociopaths. And as usual, they only care about one thing: appearances. Tear everything down and make it shiny and new, just like in the magazine, just like Brooklyn, just like everywhere.
I remember when some people in Nashville started selling shirts saying “Nashville is the New L.A.” in 2006 or something. Waving a red flag in front of a granite-countertop bull, they were.
Nashville will never be Nashville again. Not the Nashville I was lucky enough to live in. The one where most people wore a T-shirt and jeans and were pretty goddamn friendly. The one where people didn’t run around in silly hats calling themselves “foodies.” The one where people could afford to live, except for the people who couldn't. Poor people are always having to uproot as the rich people move in and raise rents. The difference is that now middle-class white people are being priced out. There is no color in America anymore that won’t be affected by the giant chasm between the rich and poor. While everybody was porch-drinkin’, the 1 percent has been successfully looting this country, and now no town is safe from the sociopath makeover. The best you can do is to hope that these assholes never get interested in YOUR town. But Nashville wanted to be part of the “in” crowd, and never considered what would happen to the rent. Fancy restaurants and boutique hotels are like raw meat to a rich bear. Rich bears can pay un-fucking-limited rent. And once the rich bears found out that the State of Tennessee had no income tax, Nashville was toast. Honey-toast. This kinda toast.
American whites will now join the ranks of so many throughout history who have been forced to run from assholes. It’s a hipster Trail of Tears with the world’s tiniest violin providing the soundtrack. First go to Madison, my friend, then to Smyrna, then to Columbia, then to the country Colombia, then to that island made of garbage in the Pacific. In the sky above your lean-to on Garbage Island you will see Virgin Galactic flying dickheads from Dubai to East Nashville to get hot chicken, and you will think to yourself, "I should have voted."
