Yet More Musings On The Sunsphere 2.0

I just wanted to add my two cents in about what Vic wrote about the sunsphere a few months back. I was mulling over what he wrote with my good friend and native Knoxvillian Martin while he was visiting me in Atlanta a little while ago. After re-iterating Vic's idea that, as silly of a monument as it may be, the sunsphere is Knoxville's brand, we both agreed. Seattle built it's space needle in a similar world's fair boondoggle, and the natives feel like it's just as big of a cheap joke; but what gets drawn at the beginning of every episode of Frasier? Damn straight--the space needle. What do you all know about Seattle's skyline? You don't know shit except the space needle. Ask someone from St Louis about the arch. They all say its a useless publicity stunt. But what do you think of when you think St Louis? Stop lying! You know the only fucking thing you know is the arch; and Nelly, maybe. But Nelly sucks, though. The arch--as useless as it may be from a functional viewpoint--is still pretty cool looking. Heard of a little thing called the Eiffel Tower? Guess why it was built? The world's fair, that's why! You think those whiny French liked it? Hell no, they thought it was ugly! As Frank Black once eloquently pointed out: "They didn't like it but he built it anyway." If you put yourself in the shoes of a nineteenth century Parisian, you can see that they were right--at the time, that is. But now, every year, the Eiffel tower is visual shorthand for Paris on a million elementary-school social studies projects world wide. When viewed in this context, we should thank our lucky stars the sunsphere was ever built!

Martin and I also brought up the legendary Simpsons episode where the sunsphere falls on their car. How cool is that? Sure, perhaps it was meant as a subliminal dis, but so what? (who among the Simpson's writers was from Knoxville, anyway? Sure as hell wasn't Conan. Please, if you know, post a comment. I'm dying to know.) The act of it appearing on the Simpsons makes it cool regardless, a reclamation that brings to mind how gays made "queer" a positive term.

While Martin and I were talking, I had an epiphany. If we can agree that the sunsphere--our personal feelings aside--is a positive thing for Knoxville overall, especially in the sense that, as Vic wrote, it is our brand and should be kept; then the next step is: how can we accentuate this thing and make it something we can be proud of? Here's my idea: Every night at dusk, co-inciding with full darkness, a crane carrying a spotlight on a circular track could arise next to the sunsphere. Once in place, the track would resemble a halo over it. As the crane reaches its apex, the spotlight would burst into light. This whole process would be dramatic, something citizens and visitors alike could watch with an-tici---pation!! Dads at Fort Kid could hoist their kids onto their shoulders and have a moment with their future Knoxvillians gaping in awe above them. Hell, they could blare the theme from 2001 over a loudspeaker! Why not go all out? It would be akin to the bell tower at UT playing "The Tennesee Waltz," (which I love, by the way). But, Ok, even if that bit was left out, the really ill part would be that the spotlight would proceed to circle the sunsphere on its track, turning the whole thing into a giant disco ball! Sounds corny? Think about it. The sphere is already there, and this way, our "brand" can be working for us day and night. I mean, hell, it couldn't hurt. If it happened to stimulate the downtown nightlife, so much the better. Compared to the cost of coating all the panes of glass on the sunsphere in bronze, the setup I describe would literally be a drop in the bucket--maybe, what? $20 grand? What if it came to 50, even 75 grand? For comparison's sake, the dome on the Georgia state capitol was gilded in two applications amounting to 103 oz of 23 karat gold. PURE gold (24 karat) costs approximately $50,000 at today's free market price. That's the price of a decent luxury car for a dome coated in almost PURE GOLD, people! Surely, a crummy crane and spotlight couldn't be much more--probably less, right? How much did Knoxville's taxpayers drop to build a new convention center right next to the existing, empty convention center right inside the same World's Fair Park? What if all those alleged conventioneers were stimulated into checking out the downtown nightlife as a result of the preceding? The revenue generated could pay off this project in, like, five years. Ever been to a club with no light show? Then the A/V nerd employee there finally fixes the problem and all of a sudden the club has a big lit disco ball in effect? Its a night and day change--that's what starts the party! Look--we've got a disco ball just sitting there. Building an engine to make the thing spin on its existing tower would be difficult and costly. But a set-up like I describe would be cheap! Why not have our brand work for us day and night? What? Because Knoxville is backward and fears change and probably equates having a decent nightlife/entertainment district with the devil? Oh yeah, you're probably right. Never mind.

PS: When I googled "sunsphere" to research this piece, the site glasssteelandstone.com has a rating for their entries. The sunsphere has an 80% approval net-wide. Still think we're full of it with the "branding" concept?

PPS: UPDATE 11/01/05 Apparently, my man Andy had this disco ball idea circa 2000 and I subliminally bit it from him. Sorry, dude. Also, as per anonymous' post, I now include a "Spaceneedle" link in the above text. Thanks to everyone who posted a comment. Big up!

What's A Ginkgo?

Trying to keep the ball rolling with a quick one (well, quicker). Big up to everyone who peeped out the site at my behest. And now, 180 degrees opposite of my last post, I want to talk about trees.

As many of you who attended UT know, trees abound in Knoxville. A close second to that kind of tree is the dogwood, which has the yearly festival and tour etc. But I contend that the ginkgo tree is an almost-as-striking feature of the Knoxville landscape. Also called the maidenhair tree before westerners realized "oh, yeah, the Chinese named this tree circa 1100 AD, re-naming it probably makes us sound like colonial assholes or something." But I digress. I realize writing about plant life is kinda for nerds (I almost said "herbs," that woulda been too cute), but I was taught that the ginkgo was a big deal, as far as trees go. When my 5th-grade class went to the Ann Arbor (MI) botanical gardens, the park ranger guy told us all about how they were living fossils, once found wild across the globe (before mammals), eventually dying in all but the most rural parts of China, and if not for the efforts of monks who liked 'em enough to cultivate the last surviving species (ginkgo biloba--yes, the same as the herbal supplement for cognition), they would have gone the way of the passenger pigeon. The tree our class saw was a pitiful, six-foot-tall specimen. Nowhere else in Ann Arbor, and after moving to suburban Detroit and then Nashville, do I recall seeing another ginkgo. Then I moved to Knoxville and suddenly they were taking over and ruling shit like "RAAAGHH!"

Ginkgoes are appealing and distinctive enough to be memorable to me across all those years and moves. Once you know what the leaves look like, I guarantee you'll always remember them, too. I felt a jolt when I recognized the one-of-a-kind ginkgo leaf on a tree so large that I was actually climbing in it, the enormous tree in the courtyard to the left of the door of UT's Clement Hall. A bunch of us were chilling in the lower branches, about 10 feet up. I used to hang out in the courtyard under that tree's shade everyday, but I never saw it's leaves up close because they were all above me--this monster was probably six stories high. Because of the one I saw as a kid, I assumed all ginkgoes were small and ornamental, but here was one I had assumed to be an oak or something. It's bark was reddish-brown and gnarled like a sequoia, not the grey, dogwood-like bark found on the saplings. While I was up there, propped on a knobby branch, I saw this big chunk of wood and bark that looked exactly like a mask--no, seriously, like if you wanted to be an "ent" for Halloween. It had eye holes and sat atop your head without straps, the whole nine. I had never seen anything else like it, so I took it back to my room. But when Dustin saw I had it, he was like "DUDE! Why did you steal The Guardian?" and I was all "whatever," but then I realized he was right. A tree like that deserved respect, not to be ripped off, so I put it back. As hard as he may have partied, Dustin was still an excellent moral compass.

When I lived behind the Pilot on Sevier, there was another huge ginkgo in my backyard that I had the pleasure of seeing from bed every morning through my second floor window. It's canopy was over the roof and it totally freaked out my botany-nerd Mom when she visited me. However, for all the emphasis I'm placing on the big guys, some of my favorites were two rows of youngsters merely 10 feet tall.

One of the coolest features of the ginkgo--easiest to see on small trees like these aforementioned favorites--is that they are great examples of fractals in nature. The leaves grow from twigs that radiate in a spiral around the circumference of the branches. (I first realized this effect one night when I, my buddy Jason, and two crazy underage girls visiting him walked past these particular trees on our way from Maplehurst to the Underground. The acid was just kicking in. In that mind-frame, not only did I notice the leaves grew down the branches in a spiral, but those spirals were actually starting to spin around. It later became the type of trip where I was looking at statues and buildings that I'd seen sober a million times, but this time they were covered with orderly, geometric bas-relief hieroglyphics and I told myself "oh, yeah, but that was always there." Again, I digress.)

These rows of ginkgoes lined both the bits of Cumberland and Main that make an isosceles triangle with Henley St. They separated the street from the sidewalk and were planted at regular intervals in those cast-iron tree grates. Facing west, the rows converged on either side of you as the streets met near the railroad underpass--the tip of the triangle. Also, the land sloped downhill, so the effect was three-dimensional. Couple that with the regular spacing, the uniform size of the plantings, and the delicate, spiraled features of the small trees; the overall effect was a feeling that they were welcoming you, like you were stepping into munchkin land or something. I'm using the past-tense when describing them not because I don't live in Knoxville anymore, but because they were all chopped down. Both sides of the street. One day they just vanished, their thin stumps level with their cast-iron grates. Massacred. It was one of a thousand subliminal messages the town was sending me: "I don't like you, and anything you find beauty in or makes you happy to be my citizen, I will destroy! Beat it!" Eventually, I started listening to those messages.

And don't none of y'all be saying "Gink-Go," either. If it were spelled the way it sounds, the "k" and the second "g" would be reversed. Just say "ginko"; the first "g" is hard (like me, bitch!) and the second "g" is silent. Aiight, G?

Boo at the Zoo Ticket Nazi

Boo at the Zoo pumpkins
Originally uploaded by superpixel.

I promise not to complain for at least a month now (unless somebody really makes me angry!), but I absolutely had to post this.

Last night we go to Knoxville's wonderful "Boo at the Zoo" event. BatZ has been around for a long time, and appears to be a great thing for the zoo. This year they really tried to make it even smoother, while sacrificing a little bit of the "home-i-ness" of previous years.


So we show up with our 2 kids and 3 tickets. You see, the event is free for kids UNDER 3. That means once you turn three you need to buy a ticket. Easy to understand, yes? Not for the Ticket Nazi. I don't know if she hates kids or candy, but the little troll almost wouldn't let us pass. We got through the main gate no problem. We get to the "candy line" and she demands a ticket for our 2-year old.

"But he's two."
"I was told everyone has to have a ticket." (It says all kids under 3 are free on the ticket BTW)
"But he's TWO"

Finally a nicer lady on the other side of the passage here waved us through. But what was all that about? You have to BUY a ticket. Kids under 3 are free. How's he supposed to have a ticket?

I don't care about the money (we had free passes anyway). But here's this woman trying to make a perfectly miserable time for everyone because, IMHO, there is something terrible in her life that has made her so miserable she has to intimidate small children and their parents.

Then again, maybe she was playing a witch. Nice costume!

Knology update

I hope this is the last time in a 30-day period I have to call them out but... Last night we were having "issues" with connecting. So I call support. That was about as bad as it got. First, some background.

Knology used to have a great support system. All the billing, tech, etc. would show up when you called in and verified some info. The operators would speak to you like a human, and while that consistency might be off (sometimes I got a very friendly guy, sometimes I got a sorta rushed person), it was a pleasant experience overall. Which is a plus, because you're usually pretty frustrated when you call tech support. For me and my wife, who earn money by being online, you're VERY frustrated!

Well Knology must have switched to a different system, changed how they do things, or even outsourced to some low bidder because calling help now is a totally different experience.

Now it takes almost 50% more keystrokes to just GET to tech support. And you don't get tech support right away. First you get a sort of middleman, who checks to make sure if you NEED tech support. When you speak to this person, it is like speaking to a robot. They read from a script, they treat you like a bone-stupid moron who couldn't turn on a light switch with a manual and a coach next to you... Also, you have to verify pretty much everything on your account. Once this person has made you jump through all these hoops, and painfully and slowly read all of their script, they decide to pass you on to another person in tech support. After a brief wait, the tech support person answers, and you DO THE SAME THING ALL OVER AGAIN. Seriously, I gave out all the info again, plus the issue, plus the case number. This person read a script, although the man I spoke with sounded like he was drunk or at least heavily sedated. He mumbled through his script (who wouldn't?), and I could barely understand him. He treated me like an idiot... Same as before.

My father informs me that this is a new thing that all call centers are doing. Although Apple's tech support doesn't do this.

Here's what could have happened:
1. I call the help line
2. I type in my phone number (which should be linked to my account, right?)
3. Using a simple menu selection, I explain my issue: "I cannot connect to the internet" See, that was easy right? Hey Knology, most of your tech questions will be service outage reports. So, logic would dictate that you'd provide a menu option (I think you used to).
4. At this point the middleman could come on, or if I had a case number for a previous report, I could type that in (which could shunt me to a real techie, skipping the middleman)
5. The middleman could verify info, give a case number if needed, and pass on to tech
6. The techie should be able to speak conversationally, and not necessarily from a script. That only makes people madder. Seriously.

Knology, wake up. You cannot merely commoditize your product and assume people will buy cheap forever. Ultimately there is something to be said for the experience. My experience last night was that "well we don't see anything wrong right now" so you treated me like an idiot, like all this was my fault. It's easy to say I've got a virus or spyware... Except I use a friggin' Mac on a secured network with a firewall and various levels of protection. I am not an idiot. And I don't do business with people who treat me as such. Don't cut corners on your customers' experience! Let's all hope this is the last time I'll need to complain about Knology, because I greatly prefer them to Comcast (on purely philosophical grounds). But a little more shabby treatment like this and I may have to reconsider...

My Knoxville was secret

Hey, y'all. This is my first post, not only here but to any blog. Me and Vic go back quite a ways, to when we were both new to Knoxville, courtesy of UT. He left and returned for good; I stayed on for quite a while, but finally decided to leave the security blanket of cheap rent, my dwindling community of friends, Walt at Tri-city Barber and Vic'n'Bill's. I'm writing now from Atlanta, and while I miss those things dearly, this larger city is definitely a better fit for me. But I lived in K-town from '92 through '00, age 17 to 28-or-so, and I gotta admit, for a kid who liked to aimlessly wander around figuring out what it is he wanted to do with himself (and party a lot), Knoxville probably worked in my favor. Like it or not, I gave my best years to the scruffy little city, and in spite of the prevailing civic ethos, I racked up a hell of a lot of adventures which, given this forum, I endeavor to relay to you, kind reader.

Despite what the civic planners, politicians, "movers-and-shakers" (here's a hint: if you live there, you're not moving or shaking anything, and that's a pretty gay term anyway, so quit calling yourself that), UT board of trustees, KPD, and the fine folks in West Knoxville whom they represent; despite these entities' best efforts, Knoxville has soul. A flicker; a ghostly, nebulous soul found in the cracks beyond their ubiquitous influence. Its the soul found in places like Maplehurst, Mechanicsville, and South Knoxville--Island Home, sure; but also the swimmin' hole at the quarry. In places like Pluto Sports, the Pilot Light, Opal's Lounge, and the C-yard. In places like Gryphons, Raven, the Snake Snatch, Printer's Mark, the Wallows, the Spot, and our beloved Mercury theatre (oh yeah, all those dreams were crushed...) At a thousand drunken bacchanals in the Fort. This elusive soul can be felt when you wander through Knoxville's industrial skeleton, flowing along the railroad tracks on a long, humid summer's twilight, reaching out, yearning to live again. Step off those tracks and you might find yourself amongst the warehouses and machine shops East of downtown.

This nameless industrial area east of the Old City is the subject of Jack Neely's current "Secret History" column in the MetroPulse. "Secret History" was always my favorite part of that rag (the crossword was dope, too, though). I read it every week I lived there since his inaugural column, and again online just a minute ago when I finally decided to get started on this dang blog Vic got me fired up to post to. While reading the column, I realized that I used to travel through this area-in-question a lot because it was an easy way to get home, particularly from the Old City. And it was the no-cops way of getting home, an advantage not lost on any of you who drive home after a night out in the Old Shitty. If I went east, under James White Parkway (I was probably parked there, anyway) on Depot, then left on Randolph, had a chuckle over the sign for "Hicken City" and on over the hill, it put me at the light on 5th. Now, it doesn't look like you can go straight there; but, unknown to most folks, if you persevere over its potholes, you're on the alleyway that services one lonely city block--my old block--and it puts you literally into my old backyard. See? How's that for secret? Mine was the only residence on that whole block of 4th east of Gill, with James White Parkway out front, elevated, level with my second floor. That dogwood tree in the front yard? I planted it. Most people didn't know there was a house there--it was a secret. A secret in plain sight, waiting for it's eventual destruction with the widening of the Parkway. Is it even still there?

I had my DJ booth set up in the front room. Me and my MC, J-Skillz, used to practice there every Wednesday, eventually doing a couple of shows at the Pilot Light. Knoxvillians, even those who bought rap CDs, didn't really know about people doing hip-hop. A name on a wall you wished wasn't there. DJ Moneymakin' yelling "YEE-AAAAHHHHHH" through your speaker when your dial accidentally landed on New Rock 90. It was a secret. (By the way, fuck a Torch--I'm screamin' New Rock 90 fo' life.) Despite the large turnout (well, as large as a Pilot Light show gets), there was no press or hoopla about our shows before or after. Nothing much changed. But my man Frankie was at our first show. He and his crew were ready to to start doing shows, too. The owner of the Pilot Light, Jason, hadn't anticipated the fire J-Skillz and I had brought and with a smile, he shook my hand, slowly shook his head side to side, and said simply: "I had no idea." Thinking this was a good opportunity to put my man on, I motioned for Frankie to come over and introduced him to Jason as somebody who could kindle a similar fire. A short while later, Frankie AKA Dynamic, along with his crew the Fluid Enginerz, put on the Pilot Light's second hip hop show. It was real dope.

Fluid got a write-up in the MetroPulse a while later, but to most of Knoxville they were still secret. I know I've been harping on the "secret" theme pretty heavy, like maybe I'm implying that I was super-hip or whatever. Well, I was (still am, too. Then again, I'm also a nerd who posts to a blog...), but all I was trying to do was to keep the thread of Neely's "Secret History" alive. I humbly wish to model my articles here after "Secret History," to be as interesting and well-written, hopefully; but also (despite 5-to-15 years-ago not really qualifying as "history") because my history with Knoxville--the history I care enough to write about--was a secret, to most Knoxvillians, anyhow. Be that as it may, that history is still meaningful to me, to some Knoxvillians (Knox-villains?), and to the diaspora that fled the town, tired of their Knoxville being forced out of existence. Tired of their Knoxville being secret while it still existed. People like me.

Knology, you suck.

OK, it wasn't their fault that a plane snapped some fiber optic lines. However, if there's going to be a planned maintenance, I'd really like to know about it.

This past weekend I lost money because Knology couldn't get things fixed. Not their fault.

Today, I tried to join a chatcast over at TUAW, where I blog on all things Apple. It was a HUGE event, as video ipods were announced. Did I get to? No. Knology screwed up our connection again.

So for causing me to miss out on the biggest Apple story of the year-- thanks Knology, for sucking so hard you make a hooker blush.

Will I get compensation? No, of course not. Definitely NOT going to consider Knology as a business solution if I ever go that route. IT JUST ISN'T RELIABLE.

Knology outage!

You know, this has to be recorded for historical purposes... Because the Knoxville News Sentinel walls up their content behind ridiculous registration systems. Oh, KNS isn't the only one. The only other Googled place with this story was some Airline.com or somesuch site... They have a wall too. Aren't the ads enough people? No? Then go talk to Jason Calacanis. He'll explain it to you.

So I'm going to have to find the FAA report on this at some point (which is a matter of public record).

Here are some details:

Art Vance, a 64 year-old man from California was flying a 1944 Grumman F6F Hellcat over Tennessee en route to an air show. Mr. Vance tried to make a pretty ballsy landing on TOP of a large, almost mountainous median area between the interstate lanes on I-40 near Cookeville. He died in the ensuing crash.

My opinion: he saved lives by not trying to land on 40 itself. There was a ton of traffic because of the UT game. He probably hoped to survive himself, but knew he'd be saving lives. That's my opinion, keep in mind.

Now, as a result of Mr. Vance's crash landing however, Knology's connection to the Georgia mothership (that's where their HQ is located) was cut. Naturally it took them a while to even determine what was going on. ALL the local numbers were down, including support. Phone and internet were severed until Monday.

Apparently it took a while for Knology to figure out what the hell was going on... But who can blame them? Who woulda thunk it? Also, the FAA wouldn't let them near a crash until their investigation was complete. A fact verified in the KNS article.

But it's all good now. I'm relieved the local Knology guy is at least talking compensation, even though it wasn't their fault. At this point, all I'd like is maybe a free PPV movie.

My condolences to Mr. Vance's family. Sounds like he really enjoyed flying, and it's cool he got to do so much of it.