Heartbreak Weather

As many of you have probably heard, it was a pretty horrific weekend in Nashville. The Cumberland River swallowed a good portion of downtown before finally beginning to ebb today, officially shedding its status as a minor waterway generally ignored by the city's good citizens. To the West, the Harpeth performed a similar feat, leaving us with weird aerial depictions of unfamiliar things like a Publix grocery store sign barely protruding from its brown water. All over the city, smaller creeks and forgotten tributaries flowed freely into basements and home studios, quickly overwhelming rusty sump pumps and destroying mountains of memorabilia. The official body count stands at 19 so far.

As my friend Matthew Ryan once sang, it's heartbreak weather. Facebook walls are chock full of despairing reports of loss, reassurances and general offers of help. News channel sites are purring along with multiple amateur and professional videos of the general mayhem. The Internet is an oddly isolating environment in which to be commiserating over a natural disaster occurring right outside your door, but at least it's dry.

Me and mine were fortunate enough to be shacked up in a sturdy bungalow positioned on a favorable angle to a downhill slope. It was kind of amazing to watch the waters run around us, through the back yard and into the alley, which began to resemble a really ugly and powerful water park ride by Sunday afternoon. Besides a loss of electricity and a few trickles of water in the basement, we were completely untouched. Even the new brick sidewalk remained intact. Nature is a finicky lass.

There's no easy way to clean up such a massive pile of shit, but donations never hurt. Please throw some cash Nashville's way here if you feel inclined.

I had planned on posting some new sunshine songs this week, but I think I'll give it a couple of days out of respect for the victims of all this. Let's hope the eerily gorgeous weather predicted for the coming week dries this nightmare up sooner than later; 'til then, please join me in staying dry and being thankful.