First off, a coupla notes:

- Jack Lemmon died today. I will miss him.

- Paula Poundstone got busted on child molestation charges. PAULA POUNDSTONE?!?!? I expect this kind of behavior from Carrot Top, but PAULA FREAKIN' POUNDSTONE?!?!

I've lived in Nashville now for several years, and I like it. I've met a lot of wonderful people in this fine city, including a majority of the Mangy Gang. Nashville is filled with talented, vibrant, honest, down-to-earth people who deserve a chance to be known on a larger scale . . .

Too bad they're drowning in bullshit.

You see, there are too many people in this town who are obsessed with every other city but their own. These people want to make Nashville the next L.A. or New York, and completely disregard the fact that this town is the one and only NASHVILLE. It is this "let's pretend we're not from here" attitude that has led to country music and adult contemporary pop-schlock becoming virtually interchangeable (is there really any difference between Faith Hill and Celine Dion?).

Nashville is the poster child for this country's homogenization. What passes for "country music" nowadays is nothing more than digitally altered elevator music, and the Nashville Independent Film Festival is about as independent as a dog nailed to a tree. When you're sponsored by Bank of America, BMI, ASCAP, and Sony, how committed are you to the filmmaker, really?

It's a shame . . . every night, great musicians are playing throughout the city for chump change and/or beer, and bright young filmmakers are either spending their last dime on film stock, or super-sizing value meals, while untalented hacks who got their job as a friend of a friend of somebody sorta famous ("Why, they've been to Chicago and everything!") are destroying the city's artistic morale.

When did Nashville lose its soul? Nobody really knows. Maybe the influx of non-Nashvillians that moved here after they couldn't get a gig anywhere else had a negative effect. Imagine being stuck in a podunk town where everyone has the most annoying twang and you can't get a decent cheesesteak and MY GOD, THE SEQUINS! This contempt for the city soon seeped into the once-vibrant music (remember, Nashville WAS Music City), and was, in turn, passed onto the wine-and-cheese set, who were just thrilled to know a "real artist" that came from a "real city." If you were an assistant grip on a feature film shot in New York, come on down to Nashvegas. You'll become a GOD.

Therefore, I am pleading to all Nashville artists (except for the pretentious jackasses who think writing a haiku makes you somehow superior to your fellow man . . . you guys can stay in Brentwood) to get to know more about the local arts scene, not by reading pretentious crap like the Nashville Scene (the Bible of the Nashville poser), but by going out and exploring the wonderful nooks and crannies that make this town so great. Get to know fellow local musicians, filmmakers, and even sculptors, and work your ass off, and CREATE YOUR OWN IDENTITY. Maybe then we can be thought of as the one and only Nashville, rather than as some third-rate L.A. wannabe.

This is the MangyDog, over and out.