Light Out Chronicles: Knoxville, TN

It is my favorite time of day--mid-evening, when the sun comes at everything sideways and the shadows stretch tall. We are cutting through the north of Austin, the less interesting half, but the last half of home I will see for months. You stack up enough months and you'll be talking years--could it be years before I see it again? The truth is, I have no idea, no way of knowing. Freedom costs you your capacity to prognosticate--if I go where I want, I won't be here again til I need to be. Life being what it is (temporary) I suppose there is an outside chance I'll never see these Live Oak choked, lazily rolling vistas ever again. But god what a curse that what be. it is like the last embrace of a lover, the last time lips touch before you're just occasional fuckbuddies or strangers. Welcome but painful, a symbol of an ongoing love that has nonetheless changed. That's what the first 30 minutes of a 22 hour ride on Greyhound are like.

Out of Dallas, usually the end of my line--this is where my family is and I once was. But the emotions came in Austin, now the magnitude of this sardine can experience is growing on me. The discomfort fails to really phase me, however, I end up having a good time. G----, a recently homeless guy from Virginia; K---- and A---- conjoined young lovers from Boulder (unimpressed by the merely majestic scale of the Smoky Mountains' foothills); K---- and J---- from London, UK coming stateside with cheap dollars and tickets to Dollywood; R---- the oil worker from Detroit going home from 10 long months in Ft. Stockton, TX: i made friends. Only 80 pages were taken out of Darwin's Dangerous Idea.

Riding Greyhound is a lesson in the flattening of the US landscape. When in Sulpher Springs or Benton you get to see corporate trucks identical save that in one they have Big 12 ballcaps, the other SEC. The bus stations in Little Rock, Memphis and Nashville are surrounded by the temples of corporate capitalism's last hurrahs--branded arenas and new high rise developments. High rise condos springing up in Little Rock show that the reach of the New Urbanist scourge knows no bounds. In between you have terraced farms in Arkansas and those majestic foothills. Tennessee offers as much natural beauty as anywhere I've yet seen, the foliage a chaos of species packing the landscape to create a lush texture like nowhere else. When the hills start rolling and valleys plunge away from the interstate, it is almost too much to bear. The South Texans among us were clamoring with camera phones and gushing over the view. Into this green and seductive terrain sprouts Knoxville.

There are a couple of quick ways to describe Knoxville--K-Town to friends. One is that it is a negative image of Austin: where Austin is a big city trying to be a small town, Knoxville is a small town trying to be a big city. Its downtown features a signature park--Market Square--full of public art garbage nobody minds getting rained, hailed or sat upon. It is walkable and you could see all the sights in a weekend. People still smile here, and it has got to be the least branded city I have seen. The only corporate eateries in Downtown or the adjacent Old City are an Arbies, a Marble Slab and a Subway. The only other corporate outlet of any sort I saw was a Regal cinema (its logo is downplayed on the facade of a classic movie house). No McDonald's, no Starbucks (check out Coffee and Chocolate or Old City Java), no Gap, Diesel, Express or other corporate shopping. I'm told that during the school year the place is lousy with frat guys and "sorostitutes." But I'm here the week after the other UT let out for summer so only the interns at law offices and banks are afoot. All this to say Knoxville--regardless of its ambitions--exists on a human scale.

The other way of seeing it is as very similar to Cambridge, MA 86 the self-important yankees sub laid back rednecks. It is old--founded in 1792--and it promises a great deal of stimulation. Still, it lacks a Boston over the river, offering the Smoky Mountains instead. It is a city where cars are gratuitous yet public transit paltry (though probably pretty good for its size). There are a few radicals afoot--the woman at the historical center told me that Knoxville turned out in the early 70s to protest Richard Nixon and Billy Graham. If you need any proof that there is a vein of cool running through K-Town note that it is probably the only place in a five state spread that would turn out against the war mongering Billy Graham. One of the alt weeklies has contact info for the local Critical Mass and the Green Party, as well as anti-Bush op ed screeds. It also, in a refreshing exception from its cohorts around the country, has no ads for prostituted women. There are actually two alt weeklies: the Knoxville Voice and Metro Pulse, neither offer women for rent in their back pages.

My last day in town I finally connected with the local underground. At the Southeast end of Market Square sits a Tennessee-style BBQ joint called Guss' with a "Peace In Iraq Now" sign out front. I went in, got the pork sandwich special and talked with the man behind the counter. He pointed me towards Yarnell Perkins, a local activist and writer with a group called Pledge to Impeach. The group is working to organize a general strike for East Tennessee, to be called off when President Bush resigns, the War in Iraq ends, etc. You could criticize them I suppose, and Yarnell is a left liberal type enamored of Cynthia McKinney and the Green Party. But still it was nice to connect with the lefties in town.

That same morning I sat in the aforementioned Coffee and Chocolate where I struck up a conversation with D----, who agreed with me 100% when it came to my radically bleak economic forecasts. His agreement was nice for a season, but when it came out that he was a mutual fund manager it turned terrifying. He is the sort I expect to say I'm crazy when I predict Great Depression style financial collapse. His agreement was unexpected and worrying. He made up for it though, as I was attempting to figure out where my next stop would be and he said some magic words.

"You been to Asheville yet?"

The answer was no, but per his advice it won't be soon. Keep heading east, north will come soon enough. Knoxville could only house me for a few days, Asheville here I come.

PS--Also check out Woodward Books, where I spent two hours before my bus out of town talking to one of the owners about politics. A great spot for rare and used books, not very big but comfy!