{"id":402,"date":"2012-06-03T03:41:06","date_gmt":"2012-06-03T03:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/?p=402"},"modified":"2012-06-04T02:57:19","modified_gmt":"2012-06-04T02:57:19","slug":"jan-johnson-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/2012\/06\/jan-johnson-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Jan Johnson Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We had two bites at Nashville. We arrived lateish on a thundery Thursday evening, went out for fried chicken at Monell\u2019s (meeting a lovely couple \u2013 Richard and Karen \u2013 whose college-age son is considering a career in investment banking, even after speaking with us). We then hit the town, which was staging an extended Amateur Drinking Hour. After a couple of hours listening to interminable sound checks and getting pushed around by all-beef-fed meatheads (male and female) we went to bed somewhat frustrated. Nashville hadn\u2019t really been what we had hoped for, and we were due in Memphis.<\/p>\n<p>The next morning we decided to indulge in The Ultimate Luxury, which is \u2013 of course \u2013 time. We didn\u2019t have to be anywhere we didn\u2019t want to be. We would take a mulligan day and do Nashville all over again, Jan Johnson style.<\/p>\n<p>For those of you who don\u2019t know Jan, she rocks. Before we worked together in New York, Jan had spent a little time in Nashville, no doubt being talented, and awesome, and awesomely talented. She had given us a long list of recommendations, which we had initially not paid enough attention to, and we decided that this was our problem \u2013 we would spend our extra day in Nashville purely following Jan\u2019s advice.<\/p>\n<p><strong>First stop: pancakes<\/strong> out by Vanderbilt university. Piles of fluffy deliciousness, with maple syrup, and sausages (just go with it, OK?).<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-403\" title=\"Pancakes!\" src=\"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/01.-Pancakes-400x300.jpg\" alt=\"Pancakes!\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/01.-Pancakes-400x300.jpg 400w, http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/01.-Pancakes-1024x768.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/01.-Pancakes.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Next stop: daytime drinking and live music<\/strong>. We eventually worked out that the key to excellent country music is fiddles. And old dudes \u2013 old dudes are to good country music what fat chefs are to good cooking.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-404\" title=\"Day drinking in Nashville\" src=\"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/P1260339-400x300.jpg\" alt=\"Day drinking in Nashville\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/P1260339-400x300.jpg 400w, http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/P1260339.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Next up: Country Music Hall of Fame<\/strong>. Rhinestones, twangy guitars and hillbillies. Actually deeply engaging, even for an Underworld fan such as myself.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-405\" title=\"Country hall of fame\" src=\"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/P1260341-400x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/P1260341-400x300.jpg 400w, http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/P1260341.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The main event: Bluebird Caf\u00e9<\/strong>. In suburban Nashville in the least pre-possessing strip mall you have ever seen. Cue two hours of finely nuanced, carefully crafted, <em>funny<\/em> singalong singer songwriting.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-406\" title=\"Bluebird Cafe\" src=\"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/P1260360-400x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/P1260360-400x300.jpg 400w, http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/P1260360.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/p>\n<script type='text\/javascript'>_wpaudio.enc['wpaudio-69fa5a52a23e9'] = '\\u0068\\u0074\\u0074\\u0070\\u003a\\u002f\\u002f\\u0077\\u0077\\u0077\\u002e\\u0076\\u0069\\u0067\\u0067\\u0065\\u0072\\u0073\\u002e\\u0063\\u006f\\u006d\\u002f\\u0072\\u006f\\u0075\\u006e\\u0064\\u0074\\u0068\\u0065\\u0077\\u006f\\u0072\\u006c\\u0064\\u002f\\u0073\\u006f\\u0075\\u006e\\u0064\\u0074\\u0072\\u0061\\u0063\\u006b\\u002f\\u0073\\u006f\\u0077\\u0072\\u006f\\u006e\\u0067\\u0066\\u006f\\u0072\\u0079\\u006f\\u0075\\u002e\\u006d\\u0070\\u0033';<\/script><a id='wpaudio-69fa5a52a23e9' class='wpaudio wpaudio-nodl wpaudio-enc' href='#'>So Wrong For You, by Treva Norquist (a great, yet struggling Nashville singer songwriter)<\/a>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Then we strayed. We were weak. We slipped from the path of Jan. The next recommendation was a fried catfish and hushpuppy joint (Caney Fork) a $65 round trip taxi ride from where we were. Jan, we are truly sorry, but we balked, went to a crab shack you didn\u2019t recommend \u2026 and were rewarded with the worst meal we have had in the USA. Truly terrible, and not in a bad New York Zagat review kind of way (\u201cit was my birthday and they only gave me one glass of free champagne\u201d etc.) but actually really hard to eat. We retired hurt to Doritos in our hotel room (actually they weren\u2019t Doritos, but we have a friend who works for Pepsi, Doritos are a Pepsi product and we are under pain of death not to eat anything else, so they were Doritos, OK?).<\/p>\n<p>Despite the weak ending, we had a lovely time, and came away with the obligatory CD &#8211; nothing says \u201cI was in Nashville\u201d like owning a CD of a struggling singer songwriter. Yee haw!<\/p>\n<p>Jan we miss you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We had two bites at Nashville. We arrived lateish on a thundery Thursday evening, went out for fried chicken at Monell\u2019s (meeting a lovely couple \u2013 Richard and Karen \u2013 whose college-age son is considering a career in investment banking, &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/2012\/06\/jan-johnson-day\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,5,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":423,"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions\/423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}