Go Vols?

So, being a blog about Knoxville, one of us has to address this. There are other "cut me and my blood runs orange" blogs out there, but let's look at this objectively.
Admit it: we squeaked in. Kentucky had us sweating. We could win tomorrow if LSU is so despondent over their fall from No. 1 that they commit suicide and play horribly in the SEC Championship. My feeling is that they'll really want to come out of a great season with something, anything.
I would like UT to win. They could do it. Don't get me wrong, I'll be cheering for them at The Pol's party. But these guys who are swaggering about with a "we've got this in the bag" attitude really get to me. Let's call a spade a spade: we're just glad to be going to Atlanta, no matter what happens tomorrow.





This is for The Pol, I thought he might like it. And to entice him to actually participate here. Comment, I dare you!
El Presidente!






Welcome new readers to the WIGSHOP. Our hits have topped 80 today-more than our first month combined- yeah baby!

'tis the season

our knoxville blog

Well, our readership may be increasing according to our hit counter so I was curious to see if the WIGSHOP came up in Google under "Knoxville blog." And... we didn't even come close. Even "sunsphere" didn't do it. I changed our web title slightly so that we will start showing up if someone is looking for a good off-kilter blog about Knoxville. Once Google remaps this week it should start coming up on their search.
I did come across another Knoxville blog- "The Scruffy City Blog." I put a link in the sidebar to it. It's good to see someone else thinks Knoxville is worth blogging about.
In an effort to make the blog more accessible to people who might not be our friends, I have included our contributers likenesses to the right. The Pol and Lucas, send me a picture that you'd like to see here.

knoxville : food, folks, and pianos?

Well, here's another funky tidbit from your correspondent's growing expertise on all things North Knoxville. Biking to work has definitely helped me see new things.
This might be one of the stranger places to buy a piano in Knoxville. It says "Gene Ammans of Clark Bros. Piano Co." on the trailer/sign parked by the street. I know that there's a Clark Bros. Piano Co. over on Magnolia Ave. I get the feeling that this is a splinter faction from the original shop. Preaching the one TRUE word, I'm sure. Perhaps the piano retail world has its many doctrinal differences too.
The shop itself is situated in the rear of an old 40's shopping center across from Greystone Mansion- back where almost no one notices it. A sideways glance and you see Ronald McDonald holding a keyboard sitting on the parapet. This is the same kind of creepy statue statue that used to sit all across the country on benches by McDonald's that gave off a vibe like- "Hey! Come sit by this weird clown statue and let him put his arm around you. Maybe he'll give you a back rub too!" After freaking kids out for most of the 80's they phased ol' Ronald out. Culture changed and a grown man dressed like a clown hanging out with kids didn't seem like a good basis for marketing anymore. Now he works for Gene, hawking pianos on Broadway.

somebody needs to post something new

but i got nothin'.

jason and i are in denver. i dont have my camera, or i would take some pictures. right now i am looking out a window at a pond (most likely human-made) and a bunch of canada geese. there is also a water tower off in the distance.

and somewhere, from heaven maybe, john denver sings his blessing.

thanks...

in honor of tomorrow, here is a list of some little knoxvillians that are very dear to me and that i am very, very thankful for:

the lindsay young downtown ymca
the loop on the cherokee boulevard
sunday brunch at pat sullivans (homestyle breakfast, yum!)
a good cup of coffee and a place to sit and read at old city java
dusk-time runs through downtown, up gay street, through market square and along neyland
the 100 block of gay street
delicious mexican food at senor taco or soccer taco
chilled tequila shots and draft pbr-s at urban bar
the reuben sandwich at cosmo's deli at gourmet's market
cormac mccarthy and all those places suttree hit up
immaculate conception on vine street
the university club swim team
the disc exchange in south knox
easy access to the mountains and my little river home
lazy saturday afternoons bumming around downtown
walks to my choice of wonderful restaurants and bars
the kepner melt on wheat (minus mustard) at tomato head
candy pumpkins from mast general
feeling home
my knoxville friends, those near to me now and those very far away

songza!

www.songza.com

a no-hassle music streaming search engine that lets you listen to songs immediately. it is pretty extensive, although i don't know if it encompasses the whole indie rock genre. definitely worth checking out.

cigar shop, lucas speaks!

last night entailed a trip to the cigar shop--a great place to relax and enjoy good friends. that you smell like an ashtray for the next two days is inconsequential. chris called for a 'meeting of the minds,' but only a few answered the call. i suppose the wiser of us figured that anything so superficially titled could only end in disappointment, but megan, lucas and i went anyway. so, enjoy the pictures.








they think they're so cool...too bad they're not!















of greater importance, lucas gave his first talk at ruf. if you so desire, you can listen here. all there agreed it was relevant and honest. give it a tumble.

and for some general knox pictures...
downtown knoxville was possibly in a cloud two night ago. of course, the camera cannot capture the beauty of it at all, but i tried anyway. it gives you an idea of how dense the fog was. it seemed as if the world shrunk to the size a few small blocks.

because fall is amazing, here are a few shots from my walk to work this morning. i'm beginning to think that this walk is my favorite part of my day.

seeing the difference in the vibrant colors on the trees in real life and dull, fuzzy images this p.o.s. camera captures, i think i know what the jung's next great expenditure will be.

knoxville blog goes to the 1982 world's fair

This was way too good not to post.
The space shuttle has been cleared to land in Knoxville!!
I'll be there!
I'm not sure, but this thing might have possibly hit every ridiculous stereotype. Definitely look for the retarded kid at the end watching the Sunsphere get hit by a meteorite.

And another one...
This commercial demonstrates the cutting edge of special effects of 1982- no expense was spared to show how tech savvy Knoxville was. Be bedazzled!
I'm pretty sure making this burned out the Commodore 64 they were using.

Ladies- you may want to wear a thick sweater when eating here.

[found on Merchant's Drive, Knoxville]

parade

On the southern end of the parade, your correspondent walked through the aftermath and spotted huge flag strung from what appeared to be a fire ladder truck parked on Union Ave. This picture doesn't do it justice. It was BIG.
For more on the actual parade, see my colleague's post below.

party and march

last week, the final two days of the working week were jam packed with adventure!

there were also two fun extracurricular activities. on thursday night, megan and i made our way to an open house hosted by the firm (unnamed) of one of this blogs very own, talented contributors. there, we engaged in pseudo intellectual discussion concerning the elements of style and design while we enjoyed a very nice mixture of sushi, beer, and baklava.









i'm positive that everyone in the picture on the right will hate me for putting it up. sorry, it is just too good to pass up.

flashback: monday evening. megan and i stepped into the elevator at sterchi to notice a notice a note typed in times new roman 12pt on 8.5 by 11. that roughly read: "on friday november 9, please do not park on gay st. from hill to depot. there will be a parade in honor of veterans day. we will tow on friday morning at 8am. the parade begins at 11. i hope to see you there." signed, no one.

on friday, i was more than a little excited both by the prospect of a parade that required an entirely empty gay street and by this mysterious leaver of unsigned notes. perhaps, i hoped, i might catch a glimpse of he or she who had warned the entire sterchi building at the parade.

sadly, the parade was disappointing in both respects. it consisted mostly of high school marching bands and old, decommissioned-looking hummers. though there were a couple flybys from a wing of p-51 mustang (not pictured, unfortunately) stunt planes. also, there was no sign of the placard placer (masked, i assume). no doubt he or she was out warning other uninformed citizens about the upcoming mr. knoxville contest, which is sure to halt traffic from summit hill to the river.

knoxville : magnolia

Continuing to find the stranger places in Knoxville, your intrepid correspondent has brought you his latest post-lunch walk. Magnolia Ave. has many faces, going from old suburbia to downright ghetto, but when it collides with Interstate 40 and the northern section of downtown, it gets funky.
The recent interstate expansion has literally cantilevered itself over the old boulevard, giving this block a Chicago "L" kind of feel. Despite the fact of facing a no man's land under the overpass, several businesses thrive on the other side of the street. An auto repair shop, a print shop, one of Knoxville's oldest and "classiest" restaurants- Regas, and an indie art gallery anchor one end of the block.
But my favorite two places are right in the middle.
Tennessee Valley Bicycles is where all the cool downtown commuting crowd goes to get repairs.
These guys are honest and won't make you feel inferior if you aren't a biking god clocking in 50 miles a day. They just like like riding and actively promote it in Knoxville, as evidenced by the "Booze and Cruise" every Wednesday. It's basically a pub crawl with bikes involved. The cruise usually ends up at my next favorite place on the block- Marie's Olde Towne Tavern. I first noticed this place a few years ago when I was walking down Central. I thought it was just an old sign with no business inside. But sure enough, it's there and thriving. Marie's was a downtown bar long before it was cool to be a downtown bar. It'll probably be there long after all the trendy bars shut down. It reminds me of a place Suttree would go, on the fringes of town, where if you're going there they probably know your name when you walk in.
So here, for yr consideration, is the 300 and 400 blocks of Magnolia Ave. If you pride yourself as an urban Knoxvillian, or are a visitor looking the "real" Knoxtown, you owe it to yourself to explore and support this scruffy edge of downtown.

music part duex

this is the genius who figured out who to make the play list:

music!

just in case you didn't notice, i added a playlist function to the blog. now you can listen to music and read about knoxville. i got the player from a really smart website called finetune. i recommend it to everyone. you can make tracklists for blogs, myspace pages, or just to access online. the only catch is that you can only have a maximum of three songs from one artist. if you would some other artists on here, please let me know--i'll update the tracklist.

enjoy!

busy day at the office

as many of you may already know, this past weekend was the mooney wedding. several o0f the more adventurous knoxvillians, who also happened to be friends of mooney's, braved a cabin in pigeon forge this past thursday evening to indulge in bachelor party festivities. here are a couple shots from that evening. cullin's apron says: "have you hugged a presbyterian today?"in this next shot cullin is having an altercation with one of the nashville boys (jason griffin, i believe) over one of the following things:
1. the meaningless of his 'kicker' in a hand of six cards
2. the proper application of the psalms in a presbyterian worship service
3. whether social security is a pyramid scheme
i love bachelor parties!

our own elvis

One of the more charming features of a Market Square afternoon. You should check out his 1:00 American Flag Finale.

halloween

i was olive from little miss sunshine for halloween. my friend lisa was red from fraggle rock. we went to urban bar in the old city and then to sassy ann's. urban bar is my favorite knoxville bar at the moment. friendly staff. nice, large patio (good for people watching), cheap beers. lots of fun. i love halloween.

autumn

more pictures from knoxville. the leaves are finally beginning to really change (not impressively in this shot). which makes for a very exciting time for knoxville. here are some more pictures from the jung's camera--2 megapixels of digital power. if you think that you're looking at old 8mm film, then the pictures take on a vintage quality. try to think of them that way and they seem downright good.








this was my reward for waking up a few minutes early this morning. pretty amazing.













i actually took this one a couple weeks ago. but i just now found it. nothing really special about it. i mean the jfg building is amazing, i know. but i just posted this one for will. it is right next to where he used to park every time he came to the old city. i'm pretty sure i could hear the radio of the man who sits next to that parking lot when i took this shot. i'll have to put up a picture of him next.







unrelated to the above pictures, brent's friend, jeremy, posted a really good entry on his blog here. there's a link to his blog to the right. if any of you want to add any nifty links to this blog, let me know and i'll do it.