TICKLED

It's officially summertime: the air is stifling hot, the college students are gone, and of course - the Rednecks are in town!

You see, every June the CMA Music Festival comes to Nashville and brings with it many talented singers and overzealous fans. It is both one of my favorite and least favorite things about living in this town. Let me first tell you why it is high on my least favorites list.

Mainly it's the traffic. As if Nashville wasn't crowded enough, all these fans come to town and take up good parking and good tables. It's kind of like a hurricane: for the hours that they are all in LP Arena for the concerts, it's bliss. The eye of the storm. You can get anywhere you want without traffic or a wait. But as soon as the concerts are over and they parade back across the river, it's pandemonium. Good luck going anywhere. And most of them are just obnoxious. Yes, you may be having Country Music's Biggest Party, but I am trying to work/eat/get home, thank you very much. And these people are DIE HARD. They go all out: the Tennessean interviewed one family that drove 19 HOURS to get here. There is not much that I would drive 19 hours to do. Besides, add high gas prices and an enormous redneck truck and I really think you are losing money after hour 10 or 11.

But I digress.

Every cloud has a silver lining, and for a people watcher like me, CMA Music Festival is heaven on earth. YOU SEE THE TACKIEST STUFF! And since part of my drive to work takes me down Broadway, I get to see all the cowboys and cowgirls decked out in their shortest and tightest clothes, strutting toward the river-front for the morning concerts. Rhinestones. Animal print. Skoal rings. Tattoos. Boots in every color, print and skin you'd ever want (and some you wouldn't want). It's so bad that it's good.

Luckily, I will be in town this weekend. I will try to take pictures with examples of what I am talking about. Stay tuned.