hello knoxville. stan here. it's been awhile, i know--i have no explanation. but i figure this picture was worth sharing. the blogger you know as the pol sent this disturbing image along. apparently, it's creep out your co-workers day.
i know i've moved away, now a foreigner to knoxville. but last weekend i was once again one of you. there's a lot of things i miss about knoxville and it was good to be back.
also, i'm still an administrator on this blog. so i can do pretty much whatever i want. in fact, ck's probably having a conniption right now because i'm not on the posting schedule for today. yes, the wigshop has a posting schedule.
on friday night, i went up into the wigshop with some fellow bloggers to see if they knew anything about gin. the skybox pours a generous martini and we had a good time. but the best part of the experience was the notoriety. they know us!...or, this blog anyway.
also, i only had one drink, so don't let that 6.50 fool you. you still have to pay full price for martinis inside of the sun.
I woke up as my flight from DC was descending into Knoxville, and I had a thought: I am returning to a Stan-less Knoxville. Which means I am also returning to a Megan-less Knoxville (Megan = Stan's wife). It was a sad thought, and for a minute I didn't know what to do with myself.
The truth is that there's nothing to do except miss them and hope for the best for them and anxiously anticipate a visit to Saint Louis.
Today is a sad day in general, as our home has been witness to an incomprehensible act of violence. At about 10 this morning, a gunman entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church and opened fire, ultimately killing a member and wounding many others. I do not aim to oversimplify this tragedy with my own meager reflections, though I cant help but feel a sense of loss and hopelessness. These things just dont stop. My prayers tonight are for the members of this church.
taking a cue from another former blog writer here at the wigshop, my last post is a list of the best and a some the worst knoxville has given me over the past 7 years. it's a bit long, i know. but permit me a little self-indulgence. or just don't read it.
best overall spot: downtown grill and brewery. its not that its amazing, its just that its pretty good at everything. excellent nachos. the pretzels and pub cheese will leave you fat and happy. i love their beer. sitting on the front porch in fall or springtime will make you never want to leave.
best bar: barley's. i have to agree with lucas on this. the beer selection and sprawling interior are hard to beat. not to mention $2 pints on monday and tuesday. shazam.
worst: hannah's in the old city. "why did you even go there?" you ask. good question. i think what makes it worse is that they have that great space there on the corner and totally ruin it.
best bar to drink a knoxville corona: backroom bar-b-q. who doesn't want to hang out in a hidden back porch and drink cheap pbr on draft with a lemon twist? exactly.
best person to consistently make me laugh when i'm supposed to be working: em
best place for cheap used books, movies, and cds you probably don't need: mckay's. and big surprise...
worst: mckay's--i love and hate it.
best place for good used books: woodwards. enjoy the books and the conversation.
best nice restaurant: by the tracks bistro. they have blue cheesecake--macorni with blue cheese. plus, i never knew fried catfish could taste that good.
worst: regas. they're doing their best to keep us in the last century. and it's not because of their clientèle--they're just lazy.
best restaurant: pasta trio. delicious, mostly italian dishes. it's a little kitschy that you can sign the wine bottle you just drained, but i love it.
best book about life under a bridge in knoxville: suttree.
best type A obsessive blog designer: ck
best place to act older than 50: knoxville cigar company and bar.
worst: liquid on the strip, or whatever its current manifestation...
best hidden gem of knoxville: marie's old towne tavern. everyone must go there at least once. you will not be disappointed.
best place to have your car window smashed: the north end of the gay street viaduct.
best place to sleep under the stars: max patch. i know everyone says this, but it's true.
best shameless self-promotion (even though he's getting my vote): the pol
best closet to listen to music: the pilot light. its true 
things went downhill when they banned smoking and got rid of their two tables, but i've seen so many great shows there.
worst: blue cats. i know, i know it moved. and i know, it used to be the only place that was really booking anybody, but i never really enjoyed a show there.
2nd best blog according to the metropulse's reader's poll: the sunsphere is not a wigshop
best blog: the sunsphere is not a wigshop
before i kick the dust off my feet and head west, i've been trying to get my fill of knoxville essentials. so when i heard a friend was going to celebrate successful completion of grad school at king tut's, i was selfishly excited for myself as well.
king tut's is a knoxville treasure for many reasons. it has a strong mediterranean menu--flavors uniquely under-appreciated in knoxville (i can think of two non-hippie restaurants that serve hummus). but the aesthetics bring me back every time--a cross between cracker barrel with no inhibitions (as if it had any to begin with) and big don the constumier on bourbon street. there are masks. many, many masks--more on them later. your drinks come out in giant flower vases. kitschy signs plaster the walls. one of my favorites: as a jittery woman stares at a giant cake, "stressed backwards is desserts." yes it is.
the food is very good. the greek salad would feed five helots--or you and a friend, and is everything you would expect it to be. after you finish, soak up the leftover olive oil with the pita that comes with the egyptian sampler. this is the other essential dish. plenty of food to split as well. you should expect all kinds of delights, many of which i digested unnamed. but there was something wrapped in grape leaves that was delicious, a small dish with chick peas and beans, and of course the requisite hummus and baba ganoush.
to finish the night, we had delicious cake with sort of peach glaze/topping and huge pot of fine coffee. beware when you drink the coffee--mo brings it out in the pot he perks the coffee in, so their are dregs at the bottom. i recommend not drinking those.
[that's a troll above]
after the delicious dessert and coffee is when king tut's superb restaurant turns into king tut's karaoke lounge. depending on your crew, you may be expected to don a grotesque troll mask and sing. not to be resigned to this uncomfortable fate, i darted out before i could sing ("i'm a very important person! i must do important things."). i instantly regretted it. when you go--and by all means, you should go--don't make my mistake. put your head in the sweaty hulk mask, place your legs into the over-sized underwear (i'm not kidding), sing "cheeseburger in paradise."
too men share giant underwear. i can't explain it any better than you. this is just how things work at king tut's.
View Larger Map
i give it 67 wigs.
also, sorry about the images. i only had my phone.
Well our good friend Stan is having a birthday. But where is he? Is he celebrating at the brewery? Is he catching dinner at Nama and a show at the Bijou?
No, no, he is in Hawaii, sipping away on overpriced booze and swimming in shark infested waters. Well Happy Birthday Stan my boy, hopefully you’ll com back with a better appreciation of what you have, because (to paraphrase a great movie) “Who wants to spend their birthday in a tropical climate anyways?"
Here’s a picture message from him to everyone back home:
(Caption: Wish You Were Here)
on monday night around 8:00, i parked my car on the gay st. viaduct. admittedly, i had a brief premonition that parking the car at the northern corner (closest to regas) could be a bad idea. at roughly 8:30 tuesday morning, i walked to my car and found this:
yes, that is a broken glass and yes, that is a brick lying on the driver's seat. s/he/they threw it through my passenger window. if you can get past the image of someone throwing a brick into the window of a honda civic, try to imagine this: we keep nothing of value in our car. but maybe my disbelief reflects naivety.
here's the list of the objects the perpetrators carried off:
-1 first genration ipod nano
-1 silver ring
-1 ipod FM transmitter
making the total value somewhere below the $99 mark.
seriously, talk about a disappointment for the brick tosser.
glass doctors charged me $260 to repair the window and vacuum up most of the glass (not a bad deal, considering they come to you).
there's not much point to this post, other than a chance for me to complain and share some depressing pictures. if you feel remotely unsettled about the place you park, i suggest not parking there. at the same time, i wasn't in a extremely removed place either.
i'm sure some of wiser readers (i'm looking in your direction, smoochies--our ever present naysayer) are already licking their chops by this point in the post, thinking of their cleverest, choicest mean-spirited comments regarding urban living in knoxville. bring it, you cold hearted bas--i mean, play nice, friends, it's bad enough dealing with theft, hearing the chorus of "i told you so" might make me do something drastic. like, move to st. louis.
but in all seriousness, shit does happen. if we, as a blogging community want bring some positive little moral out of my shattered car window, we could start with discussion regarding security and homelessness in knoxville--not necessarily a new conversation for this blog, but one worth endlessly debating.
two things dawned on me recently: 1. i haven't posted in a while and 2. i've never been inside big don the costumier. while the first realization i instantly wrote off as a natural result of my very important and busy life, the second was not so easy.
i resolutely put off going in for a few weeks, claiming to both my friends and enemies that "a post was in the works" or "just wait until i get that big don's post up"--fruitless attempts to delay the inevitable. the shop stared at me every time i walked by, a squat troll challenging me to step inside and into the wonders or horrors of big dons.
once inside, i realized my skittishness was both silly and with merit at the same time. the place is a treasure trove of strange masks, headdresses, and dinner gowns among many, many other things. the store is also a maze--one pile after another strewn about seemingly without discretion. some of them seem to go to the ceiling.
i believe my favorite was the mask room. though the picture below isn't great, you can see a traditional asian looking red, burly thing, a troll wearing a turban, and godzilla. its like going to the toy store!
below is the other side of the mask room. see what i mean about the piles? they just don't stop. while i was there i woman was trying on outfits. she disappeared behind what looked like an endless rack of clothes. after a few seconds, i heard a door open and close. apparenlty there is a dressing room somewhere in big don's as well but i couldn't find it.
notice the suit of armor in the back right. he sometimes makes an appearance on the street. but only on particularly nice days, or when there is an impending dragon.
and of course one can't help but wonder about the charlie chaplan figure below. i suppose if i had a balloon shaped like a frog (or monkey?) head i would tie it my cane as well, but do you lose both the can and the balloon if you let go? these are real questions.
the truly amazing part about big don's (endless costumes aside) is that its been around and in the same location for 31 years. seriously. so sometime in the year 1977 (coincidentally, the year star wars was released--probably increasing big d's costume and customer supply at least 25%, ballpark) big don's was open for business. my mind can't help wondering what the warehouse district looked like in the 70's--this is around the time the bijou was showing "adult art" films.
View Larger Map
the owner and her family have been a part of the area for years as well. her mother and aunt purchased property across the street in the 40's. if you go, make sure you ask her about the place.
for all its strangeness, big don's is a knoxville treasure and a great place to get some good costumes. so next halloween, birthday party, or 'casual day' at work go by and pick up something nice.
i'm sure most of you were as taken aback by the tumultuous shift on this blog yesterday morning as i was. in an era where change is the only inevitability, it's nice to have at least one constant in my life. the sunsphere is not a wigshop is my rock.
every morning, i stumble into work half-awake and flip on the computer. the caffeine may have my blood moving, but my brain typically remains stubbornly asleep, fending off reality to the bitter end. the first site of the day? you guessed it. in spite of the fact that i write for this blog and that we rarely get up more than one post a day, it is essential that i get my wigshop update AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. what if an entire productive hour went by without my knowing the exact time of the last post? the answer is too damaging even to comprehend. afterward, i spend the better part of my day burning the refresh button. you never know and firefox just takes too long...
but that is all backdrop. yesterday morning, i typed in the address (surprisingly, this blog is not my homepage. not surprisingly, it is for other contributors) and look what i found!
it was nearly catastrophic for me. i thought "some hooligan and his friends have undoubtedly loaded one of their blog-viruses on here and it's all over now."
but then i took a closer look.
we have a personalized icon. ck, our hats are off to you for having time, wherewithal, and keen insight into the needs of this blog.
so that's all this overblown, windbag of a post was about. enjoy our icon.
what?! knoxville's own green taxi service. could this be a step in the right direction?
i don't know what's more shocking, learning that this business actually exists in knoxville or seeing robin wilhoit "searching" for emission info online.
will wonders never cease?
http://www.knoxvillegreencar.com/
last thursday, my wife and i took a turn around market square to see knoxville's favorite spring pastime--sundown in the city. when i say "took a turn," i mean we walked down wall avenue and then back to gay street. navigating crowds like that only leads to one place: hopeless frustration. anyway, here are the pictures.
i knew i was in for trouble. just look at gay st! its like waiting in the carpool line after high school.
is there some kind of law against this many people in one place?
seriously. is there a law?
have no fear, in the midst of all the mayhem, you can still get your tomato head fix. they even pulled out the heat lamp pizza turntable!
i just liked the colors on this one.
last week, i stepped into knoxville's newest book store, woodward's, to see if it was worth a damn. it is.
owned by tim and jeannie daniel, woodward books began as an online store for rare and antique books and has grown to such an extent that the couple moved the operation out of their home in north knoxville. the new store is located on jackson avenue next to the pilot light.
i walked in to snoop around and was greeted by tim and jeannie immediately. they showed me their section on southern authors. which was complete with a few first editions of agee's work as well as plenty of lessor known works by various authors, including a beautiful book of poetry by dickey (deliverance) coupled with southern artwork. the whole experience was a history and literature lesson. i highly recommend going by whether you have intentions to buy or just look around. not only are they eager to fill you in about their store, but they have wonderful insight into literature and rare books in general.
as enjoyable as it is for you to hear their stories about finding rare books (he has traveled to england for certain editions) and literature lore (apparently, the illustrations in the first edition of charlie and the chocolate factory depict the umpa lumpas as scantly clad pygmies--drawn by america's favorite nazi racist, walt disney), you feel that they enjoy telling you about as much as you do hearing it. i only stayed for 20 minutes, i could have easily been there longer.
perhaps my description places the store firmly in the realm of your most idealistic version of the neighborhood store, but i don't think that is a bad thing. though the book eddy on chapman has been around for years, it's nice to have an eclectic library downtown. also, don't let my talk of first editions and nostalgia scare you, they keep plenty of 'regular' paperbacks in stock as well. tim said that a few ut students have already come to him for their modern literature. he can't keep salinger and kerouac in stock.
so if it isn't already clear from my kind words above, i'm a big fan of woodward's. go by and have a look around. i give it 10 wigs.
in case you missed the results of the metropulse's "best of knoxville 2008", let me fill you in on the only list that matters:
this blog was not ranked as the best in knoxville, but we did make the runner up. and i'd like to think that we came in 2nd. never mind that it's probably listed in alphabetical order.
all that matters is that enough people have been blinded by the mind-bending graphics, intuitive interface, and witty banter/soul-stirring prose of this charming, humble, little blog that they thought it would be a good idea to make us runners up.
one more time, for posterity.
i don't think we'd even be in the top ten if cthulhu's estranged brother wasn't our banner...
[addition]
outside the internet, i have no real purpose in life. so i was thinking about this post for a little while (2 hours) after i published it.
a story from my childhood best illustrates my feelings on our runner up status.
i was about 6 or 7, and friend and i were playing outside after school. he told me that he was having a birthday party on saturday but that i wasn't invited. his mother only let him invite 6 of his friends to the party. i was number 7 on the list.
"but," he told me with conviction, "if i had been able to invite 7, you could come."
i'm not sure if he was just a little manipulative punk, or if we both were that naive at the time, but i believed him and didn't feel slighted at all. we went on playing.
i feel about the same now. 7 (or 2nd) ain't so bad.
Just a quick little update for everybody at the Wigshop. Stan and CK have been hard at work on my campaign site and it looks fantastic.
These guys do the best work that my money (read: me painting CK's house) can buy. But seriously It's worth a look just to see their handiwork.
Write-In Spellings... come on you know you want to.
pretending that this blog doesn't have enough clever headers seldom used, i'm starting a section dedicated to pictures. fellow contributors, this doesn't mean you can't type up a few thoughts to go with your pictures, just that if you're going to drop some content under "alittleknoxphoto," let it be dictated by the images.
...or something like that. mostly, i wanted to make the header. so here's the inaugural post.
if you were in knoxville and mildly cognizant of your surroundings this past friday, you probably remember the storm that barreled through town. i sapped a few shots. before, during, and after.
the sun had not set at this point, just the storm.
the rain came down so hard and in such volume that it blocked out everything in the background.
after about 15 minutes, the rain stopped.
and by 'it,' i mean the sunsphere.
this past weekend, casual conversation led myself and a friend to sunsphere worship. apparently, it exists. a contingent of our fellow knoxvillians bow down to the oddly mesmerizing monolith. unaware of such a following, and curious of its legitimacy, i turned this query to my most trusted adviser.
after less than a minute and a half of internet searching, i was not disappointed by a link to the sunsphere cult on myspace.
after a quick read through in search of their raison d'etre, the group appears to be nothing more than a group of bored kids on myspace. big surprise . i guess i was really hoping for a small group, reverently dressed, on their mats every morning in a semicircle around the glowing orb.
but then again, the following words are in their bio:
We Hereby worship the greatest achievent [sic] of the world, The Sunsphere, erected for the 1982 World's Fair, seemingly out of nowhere, the sunsphere is a place of Divine Worship and Holy Pilgrimage.how can they not mean business?
