The Nine Lives of Cars
🚗 Don't we love our cars · State budget deep dive · Blackburn wants the black book · Week in streaming · Much more!
Good afternoon, everyone.
Some local color for you this morning before Megan gets into the more newsy stuff and Jerod presents his streaming picks for the week.
I'm on something of a personal mission to reinvigorate our relationships with the automobile. The below story is in that vein.
Onward.
I've had at least nine cars in my life. That's the number I came up with at a family dinner the other night. Nine different cars. Each one special. Most of them loathed. Few of them truly loved.
Most people I ask about this have had no more than a handful. The majority one, two, and sometimes, three. This shocks me. One great thing about cars, I often tell people, is that you can just get a different one whenever you want. Notice I didn't use the word new here.
I wrecked the 2009 Lexus ES350 I was driving on the way into the office a few weeks back getting onto 65 from 440 in Nashville. Snapped the CV axle on the front driver's side. No injuries. Don't worry. I'm fine. They're fine. There's a silver lining to this story.
Currently, I'm driving a 2007 Buick Lucerne. Learned of it through a friend I know who specializes in finding and polishing up Lincoln Town Cars. But as luck would have it, he had this white Buick there waiting for me when I called him up the day after the accident. “The odometer shows 77,777 miles,” he told me over the phone. Good lord, I thought to myself. If that isn’t a sign, I don’t know what is.
Matters of spiritual significance aside, the price was right. The car was... different. And I needed to get to Arkansas that weekend. After a short test drive confirming it purred, I pulled the cash out of my bank account, shoved the envelope in my buddy’s direction, and closed the deal.
First thing, though: oil change. I picked up another buddy and went to a Jiffy Lube nearby. We talked about the Anglican church while we waited. After too long, our turn finally came and I slid into the second bay. The technician looked from his computer to me as I pulled up like he'd just seen a naked picture of his mother on the screen.
"Uh, I don't know how to pronounce your name," he muttered.
"Just try," I deadpanned.
I don't remember what came out of his mouth next, but it sure wasn't anything close to Virgil Davis Hunt. Can't even say for certain what nationality it was. Would've had to Google it. It was then I recalled the rebuilt title my buddy had mentioned.
"You know, you look like you gamble a lot," the technician told me. "Like you're just making big bets all the time, pulling out wads of cash and stuff."
"Well, I've only bet on a game once in my life," I replied.
Must be the car, I thought to myself. It was apparent then that I'd found a keeper.
The next day, I took the thing across state lines to Arkansas. After being in the state for no more than a couple of hours, I got pulled over by a police officer for expired tags (didn't know about that part) and had to procure the bill of sale to prove the car was mine (title in the mail.)
It must've been a shock to his system to see a guy like me driving around Hot Springs, Arkansas at 8 p.m. in January (the off-season) with a pretty girl next to me because he let me go scot-free.
The interaction brought out a new, heretofore unforeseen dimension of my new steed. Maybe escaping the long arm of the law for years with expired tags is just a Tennessee thing, or maybe this car had a certain... criminal element to it.
It occurred to me then that I wasn't just a bawdy, ball-busting, gambling sonuvabitch when I sat behind the wheel of my Buick Lucerne, but a man with criminal esteem—and one charismatic enough to talk himself out of a corner. My Buick Lucerne added an element of danger to my personality.
My girlfriend worried that this automobile was beginning to affect how I behaved when I shared my thoughts on this with her. But I also detected animal attraction in her eyes. You know how women can be.
About this time, I started noticing little flaws with the car. A ding under the door handle. A front headlight jutting out just enough to indicate a panel had been previously dislodged. Signs of other small, barely decipherable collisions and indentations. The tire pressure gauge was broken. The dash rattled when idling at a stoplight. The check engine light flashes on and off.
Like a flower blooming in spring, every day, the car revealed a new facet of its dark, mysterious, titleless past. As a seed germinates after a long period of dormancy, so too did my eyes begin to perceive this car for what it was. Sure, I could look up the VIN and get the real story, but then I would be short one thing to write about. And, cultivated ignorance is an American virtue.
Say what you want about all this, but the car does make the man. The car that a man elects to drive says something about him. And I remind myself in moments of malcontent—pondering the fact that I'd chosen to portray myself as a bawdy, ball-busting gambler with a raw, desirable element of criminal danger as I sit idly in traffic in the plush cloth seats, dashboard rattling away like a broken keyboard drug over a gravel driveway—of an ethic my grandfather instilled in me from a young age.
"Davis," he'd say. "Everything's either a Motel 6 or a Ritz." That's about right, I nod to myself. That's about right. DAVIS HUNT
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💸 State Budget Deep Dive The Sycamore Institute released an analysis of Governor Lee’s $59.5 billion FY 2026 recommended budget yesterday highlighting the balancing act of trimming total spending, boosting state-driven investments in healthcare, education, and roads, and keeping a healthy reserve he hopes to achieve.
If implemented, the state’s overall revenue source spending would decrease by $1.1 billion, and state revenue spending would increase by $2.4 billion. According to the institute, the largest recurring cost increases are linked to TennCare, state personnel costs, and the school funding formula. Governor Lee also recommended the transfer of $1 billion in General Funds to pad the Highway Fund for road projects, and anticipates an increase in state tax collections this year as tax cuts and adjustments made during the pandemic peter off.
The proposed budget also includes $863 million in General Fund spending from January’s special session. The total is made up of $472 million in non-recurring spending for disaster recovery initiatives, $146 million in recurring spending for the expanded Education Freedom Scholarship program, $198 million in non-recurring spending for public school teacher bonuses, $23 million for grants to targeted school districts, and $6 million for immigration enforcement—$5 million of which is recurring.
📓 Blackburn Wants The Black Book F.B.I. Director Kash Patel and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi received a letter from Marsha Blackburn yesterday. The Tennessee senator requested that they “promptly release the complete flight logs from Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet and helicopter, any records that were in Ghislaine Maxwell’s possession, including her ‘little black book,’ and all video surveillance footage from Jeffrey Epstein’s residence in Palm Beach, Florida.”
For good measure, Blackburn also sent a letter to Acting Commissioner of Internal Revenue Douglas O’Donnell asking for the release of all information connected to Epstein’s business dealings. “The American people deserve transparency regarding the criminal web that Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell established, and their business associations are critical to that understanding,” she wrote. “I hope and expect that you will work with me in providing answers to the public.”
🗺️ Keepin’ It Local A piece of legislation making its way through the General Assembly could change how Metro Nashville operates. According to the Nashville Business Journal, the “Keep It Local” bill would allow areas to reap the benefits of their growth by redirecting half the annual realty transfer taxes collected in each county back to where they came from.
Though the funds can’t be used for salaries or benefits, they can be used for infrastructure, debt service for capital projects, matching funds for state and federal projects, and other nonrecurring expenses. At least 50 percent of the funds must be spent on transportation infrastructure projects—a potential boon for Mayor O’Connell’s Choose How You Move initiative in light of recent federal grant freezes.
"Growth doesn’t pay for itself," Williamson County Mayor Rogers Anderson, who backs the bill, told NBJ. Though the legislation isn’t a shoo-in for this year’s session, it’s been sponsored by leaders in both chambers and supported by a local campaign initiated by a branch of Williamson County’s Chamber of Commerce.
DEVELOPMENT
- Luke Combs opens downtown rooftop; 12South restaurant lands $2.3M permit (NBJ)
- Indoor golf venue, restaurant, bar slated for former Nada space (NBJ)
- East Nashville brewery to offer west side taproom (Post)
- Melrose-area commercial building listed for sale (Post)
✹ THIS WEEK IN STREAMING (February 25th)
September 5 (Paramount+) Last year, this barely released thriller about an American sports news team caught in the middle of the 1972 Munich Olympics terror attack was supposed to be the best picture frontrunner. We all know what’s behind that snub, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the most riveting docu-drama since United 93.
The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet (Peacock) If American culture is on its way back to the 50s, television could do worse than emulating the longest running non-animated sitcom of all time. Featuring real-life clan, Ozzie, Harriet, David,and Ricky Nelson, the show offers a 14-year window into an American family’s life while taking up serious questions about community and responsibility. Easily better than any comedy on network TV in the past twenty years.
Downhill Racer (Pluto TV) It’s a shame that Michael Ritchie’s Olympic skiing drama about a smug upstart (Robert Redford) clashing with his coach (Gene Hackman) isn’t mentioned in the same breath as The Graduate and Easy Rider when we talk about the best of 60s and 70s cinema. Equal parts thrilling sports drama and quiet character study, it’s the kind of movie Hollywood forgot how to make.
THINGS TO DO
View our calendar for the week here and our weekly film rundown here.
📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.
🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.
👨🏻🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide.
TONIGHT
🎸 Lauren Mascitti @ Station Inn, 8p, $20, Info
🎸 Gareth @ The Basement, 7p, Free, Info
🎸 Honky Tonk Tuesday @ Eastside Bowl, 8p, $10, Info
+ two-step lessons @ 7p, The Cowpokes @ 8p
🎸 Cole Ritter and the Night Owls @ The Underdog, 11:30p, Free, Info
📰 Check out the full newsletter archive here.
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