Turns out Jack’s closes at 8, contrary to what my driver said. So I asked for a recommendation. And despite telling me the ‘que wouldn’t be as good, the cook pointed out Rippy’s, across the street.

They tell me Hollywood’s been revitalized. On Friday and Saturday night twentysomethings in their finery go to clubs where skinny guys spin records, the lights flash and bodies bump. I didn’t like the disco scene the first time around, back in the late seventies. But feeling old and out of it, I found Nashville identical to the way I remembered the early seventies, only with MORE DEPTH!

Walk down Broadway and there’s club after club after club featuring live music. Didn’t they get the memo? IT’S MONDAY NIGHT! And unlike in NYC, they’re not waiting until the hoi polloi are in bed. They’re picking now. Before the clock even strikes nine.

In one club they’re playing Mellencamp. In another, there’s an alta kacher on pedal steel, an equally aged man on fiddle, and a barely wet behind the ears twentysomething picking his Gibson, leaning into the mic and singing. And in Rippy’s there are two guys on acoustics, belting songs that seem directly connected to the singer-songwriter scene of yore.

I tore into the ‘que like a savage. As you know, they don’t serve food in coach anymore. And I find it hard to eat in the morning. So, a salad purchased in the airport had sustained me all day. And as I’m pouring the hot sauce over the red meat, picking at it like a man with a lifetime supply of dental floss, I’m thinking how fucking great it is to be alive. Funny how music is the grease.

And speaking of grease, after that meal I needed a shower. The wet naps barely made a dent in the stickiness. And in retrospect I should have stuck around, let the sound continue to wash over me. But I wanted to do more exploring.

The Ernest Tubb Record Shop made me cry on the inside. I used to live to go to the record shop. But CDs don’t have a dramatic visual presence. And the sound sucks, they lack the warmth of vinyl. However there were some curios there. Like Mr. Tubb’s performance suit, complete with stains. And Pete Drake’s pedal steel. Still, music lives online now. Not that that’s such a bad thing. Since everything’s available, and it’s free. You can wallow in the tunes. Whereas we used to have to save our pennies and we could never have everything we wanted. Oh how we looked forward to the new releases. We played them again and again until we loved them. We had to, that’s all we could afford.

At another club, where a band was playing the Bloodhound Gang’s Discovery Channel song, there was a full-blown Camaro in the window. Decrepit.

And eventually I made my way down to the water. I’d passed all types of people. No one appearing rich and famous. Some overweight. But everybody out for a good time.

And the thing about going out for a good time is you don’t often find it. How many evenings did I spend back in the seventies drinking beer after beer looking for the night of my life but ending up only with a hangover? Maybe it’s the human condition. To be lonely.

I popped in a few more bars. The ones without the TVs, the ones with the bands on the tiny little stages, they brought the euphoria back. I didn’t see the desperation in the faces I see in L.A. That the musicians have to make it to justify themselves. Playing was fun. And sans trickery. Yup, that guy peeling the notes from his double bass, that was really him.

They say we live in a hip-hop nation. But that’s hard for me to believe when Nickelback is the biggest band in the land.

But Nickelback has songs, with hooks, that make you feel good. Well, maybe not you. You’re too jaded. But the people working for a living, looking for a little hope…to them Nickelback sounds just fine.

And it’s the songs that are the essence of country music. And these songs are closer to the rock music that blew up this business than what we hear on Top Forty radio today. And the anointed few, who are the priorities of record labels, who get airplay, who claw their way to the top…they tour to monstrous crowds. Because in the acts, the patrons see something of themselves.

So I’m sitting in the Hilton in downtown Nashville listening to Kenny Chesney on my iPod. His live album, "Live Those Songs Again". And now I’ve got "Anything But Mine" on endless repeat. It’s sentimental. I’m sentimental, are you?

There’s a local band playing at the seaside pavilion
And I got just enough cash to get us in
And as we’re dancin’ Mary’s wrapping her arms around me
And I can feel the sting of summer on my skin
In the midst of the music I tell her I love her
We both laugh ’cause we know it isn’t true
Ah, but Mary there’s a summer drawing to an end tonight
And there’s so much that I long to do to you

And in the morning I’m leaving, making my way back to Cleveland
So tonight I hope that I will do just fine
And I don’t see how you could ever be anything but mine

Britney and Kenny are trying to do the same thing. But from a different place. They both are trying to scare away the loneliness. But whereas Britney is trying to do it by being fabulous, by drawing attention to herself, turning herself into a spectacle, Kenny’s speaking truth. We all want to believe. We want the future to be better than the past, pregnant with opportunity. We call that the human condition.

Wednesday, I will be going back to Los Angeles. Nashville will be my late summer dream. And I’ll be happy to see my girlfriend, and have my loneliness end. But when I’ve got more questions than answers, I’ll turn to music. And recently, the music that has gotten me through is country.

This ain’t your daddy’s country, this is OUR country. Rockin’, with electric guitars and amplifiers. Turn it up loud enough, and it drowns out all the bad elements of your life. Every night in Nashville they turn it up and do their best to rid themselves of the bad feelings. They want to believe their lives will work out.

And it’s nice if you’re famous. Not bad if you’re rich. But neither makes a life. Life is about struggle. Life is about victories and losses. But what we love most about life is joy. And I saw that joy on players’ faces this evening. Doing it not to be famous, but to hold the black at bay, to show not only resilience, but power.