Not yet, but soon. My wife and I are headed to sunny Cozumel, Mexico, in the morning. I’ll be intentionally unplugged for the next several days. See you on the other side.

I thought it was interesting to see The Tennessean cover the increasing difficulty of commercial construction in the wake of a sputtering national economy without mentioning any news about the Signature Tower, the largest proposed commercial construction project in the city.

Like West End Summit developer Alex Palmer, tower developer Tony Giarratana is having to sell more of his planned property than lenders were requiring as recently as a couple of years ago. (It was easy to see this coming a couple of months ago, since activity at the property hass stalled.) It’s strange to read The Tennessean story’s paragraph that seems to beg for an update on the tower’s sales push and not find one following:

While commercial construction continues unabated in the suburbs, these big downtown projects are facing tougher questions than ever about pre-sale requirements, long-term prospects and how likely developers are to pay up if their plans fail, commercial brokers and developers said. “It’s not the small projects, the 10 to 15 million dollar buildings. Those are being financed by local institutions,” said Mark Bloom, a downtown hotel and condo developer. “It’s the large projects where you start talking $100 million and up where you’re at the mercy of the global investment market.”

The Signature Tower’s sales push was announced in mid-March, but The Tennessean hasn’t covered the building (or Giarratana) since February. The tower’s Web site has a listing of media coverage, too, but omits this Fox-17 story from last month reporting that groundbreaking is nearly one-year overdue. In that story, Giarratana says that the very earliest the tower could open is late 2011, contrary to the “Your Neighborhood in 2010″ signage currently at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Church Street.

I’d like to see the tower and West End Summit rise from the ground, but I’m still curious whether they will.

Only time will tell if the City Paper’s Mark McGee is on the money about the Preds: “Now, buoyed by the new ownership group, a drastic change in the marketing plan, a new lease agreement and a fourth straight trip to the Stanley Cup playoffs, this is a team with a bright-looking future.”

I sure hope McGee is right, but it will be awhile before we know for sure. I’m encouraged by the fan response during the end of the regular season and the playoffs and the rising attendance numbers down the stretch. I’m relieved that the new ownership group appears to understand that now is not the time to rest on any laurels:

“Honestly, the number we talk about is not 14,000,” said David Freeman, head of the ownership group. “Our expectation is that we’re shooting in the 15,000 to 16,000 range. We have that much confidence in what this franchise has accomplished in a very short period of time and where we can go from here.”

It remains to be seen whether Nashville will maintain the firm grip it now has on its second chance with the NHL. I want this team to be in town for the long haul and for a long, long time, and I hope there are many people locally who agree … and are willing to continue buying tickets to prove it. I’m pleased that last year’s crisis is in the rearview mirror, and I’m hoping the rekindled fan support can survive–and thrive–when it’s no longer an emergency situation.  Go Preds!!

Several hockey writers are praising Preds Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations David Poile for his efforts in helping the team remain competitive after the franchise’s offseason turmoil and ensuing ownership change. SI’s Jim Kelley says Poile’s a “miracle worker,” and ESPN’s Scott Burnside and Damien Cox include him on their short list of top team executives. If you’re a Preds fan, add Poile to the list of heroes who have helped to keep the team in town. A basement finish would have really put a dent in attendance this season and soured what was already a very tough situation for the team.

Congratulations to the Preds for securing a playoff berth last night and for what remains an amazing season in the midst of so much change last year. Here’s hoping Nashville stays in eighth place over the weekend and faces Detroit, rather than San Jose, in the first round.

Legendary comic Steve Martin, interviewed in a recent issue of Smithsonian Magazine, recounts a major breakthrough in his development as a performer that happened to take place on the Vanderbilt campus:

Because I was generally unknown, I was free to gamble with material, and there were a few evenings when crucial mutations affected my developing act. At Vanderbilt University in Nashville, I played for approximately 100 students in a classroom with a stage at one end. The show went fine. However, when it was over, something odd happened. The audience didn’t leave. The stage had no wings, no place for me to go, but I still had to pack up my props. I indicated that the show had ended, but they just sat there, even after I said flatly, “It’s over.” They thought this was all part of the act, and I couldn’t convince them otherwise. Then I realized there were no exits from the stage and that the only way out was to go through the audience.

So I kept talking. I passed among them, ad-libbing comments along the way. I walked out into the hallway, but they followed me there too. A reluctant pied piper, I went outside onto the campus, and they stayed right behind me. I came across a drained swimming pool. I asked the audience to get into it—”Everybody into the pool!”—and they did. Then I said I was going to swim across the top of them, and the crowd knew exactly what to do: I was passed hand over hand as I did the crawl. That night I went to bed feeling I had entered new comic territory. My show was becoming something else, something free and unpredictable, and the doing of it thrilled me, because each new performance brought my view of comedy into sharper focus.
Martin doesn’t mention the year of this performance, but I’m guessing it must have been the early 70s. I would love to be able to witness what that show must have been like firsthand.

Note to Vanderbilt fans: I really am talking about Steve Martin, not Commodores football coach Bobby Johnson. (Scroll down to the fourth row of photos if you follow that link.)

The Toronto Globe and Mail has a good read on the Preds and their critical road trip through Western Canada that begins tonight, a slate of games that may determine whether they make the playoffs for the fourth consecutive season. The article observes that the “plucky” team’s “surprising” season has come amid much turmoil off the ice.

The Preds are tied with Vancouver and Colorado at 74 points with the final two playoff spots in the West at stake. “If we can get out of this trip with a decent record, then I think we stand a good chance of getting in,” said Nashville head coach Barry Trotz.

Rewind the season 66 games before the puck was dropped and one would hard-pressed to believe the depleted Predators would be tied for the last playoff spot in the West with one month to go in the regular season. When Peter Forsberg, Paul Kariya, Scott Hartnell, Kimmo Timonen and Tomas Vokoun left town last summer, the pundits were quick to predict a spring with no playoff hockey in Nashville.

“Going into the season, everybody thought that there would be no way we would recover from all the losses and the situation with our hockey team (sale) and all that,” said Trotz. “I think our team took a lot of personal pride in terms of trying to prove people wrong and show we’re still a pretty good hockey team.”

The Preds aren’t a given either to make or to miss the playoffs as the season draws to a close, but they are right about where I thought they would be: fighting for seventh or eighth in the West. What’s “surprising” to me is not the Preds’ performance on the ice this season, but instead how quickly and universally the hockey experts wrote this team off before the puck even dropped on their opening game.

It was logical to expect a dip after so many departures, but many pundits ignored that a talented core stayed behind. In the wake of lukewarm attendance and an aspiring owner’s failed attempt at an Ontario exit, I guess it was easy to keep piling on. Here’s hoping the Preds keep piling on the points right back to the playoffs … and hopefully to the second round, too.

Speaking of those ticket sales, if you have what it takes to seal the deal, the Preds are looking for sales reps and all kinds of  interns right now. 

Lexington, Ky., is in the throes of a fight over downtown property that will sound familiar to anyone in Nashville who’s been keeping up with the planned Westin Hotel development on Broadway:

With an announcement of a high-rise downtown hotel development expected as early as this week, two groups are keeping a close eye on a strip of historic buildings on the block where the building will rise. One is interested in the buildings because of their architectural and historic significance (some of the buildings date to the 1820s). The other says the block houses one of the city’s few pockets of night life, which they contend will suffer if the buildings go down.

Both groups say they are not opposed to new development on the block, but they want to see it incorporate the historic buildings and support the existing entertainment district.

Supporters of the mixed-use development — shown as a 40-story tower in preliminary plans — say it will bring new life to the heart of downtown, and that it isn’t economically feasible to keep the old buildings on the block.

Look closely: It seemed appropriate irony to me that there is a Rite-Aid in the foreground of the digitally enhanced photo of the Lexington hotel.

It may be too late, but the Lexington developers might turn to The Tennessean’s Chas Sisk for thoughts on how to proceed. I thought it was strange that Sisk mentioned Free-Will Baptist Bible College in his column today but not Charlotte Avenue Church of Christ or the Westin, two recent and high-profile instances of square-offs between developers and preservationists.

Eric and Katie over at Nashville Restaurants have stumbled upon Manny’s House of Pizza in the Arcade downtown. If you’ve ever visited this great little pizza place, you know that this is the closest Nashville gets to having it’s own version of Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi. It pales (fortunately) in comparison with the rigid ordering process required for George or Elaine to come away with a bowl of soup, but it can be a little intense letting Manny and company know what you want for lunch.

House of Pizza isn’t just a figurative hole in the wall. It really does feel like some pizza cave inside of the Arcade in downtown Nashville. It’s also the closest thing we’ve come to an authentic Northeast pizza joint here in the Nashville area. The worn little dining room in back; the cramped way you have to stand over the counter when you order; the back and forth between Manny and his regulars: I am transported back to the Kenmore Square in Boston.

Eric and Katie have also discovered a new all-you-can-eat Southern cooking buffet and a new Mexican restaurant that looks pretty sharp. Those pretzels are not making me thirsty, but all of this talking about food is making me hungry.

The Days Inn Vanderbilt (map) has earned a dubious distinction as one of TripAdvisor’s top 10 dirtiest hotels in the United States. I personally have never darkened the door at this Days Inn, but doing so has never really seemed like a great idea, either. Here are some representative reviews from the site:

It was a pretty bad motel, but it was clean enough (no bugs and i didn’t get sick) and people were nice. good location and cheap. if you want a nice place, you’ll have to pay more…

Don’t make the same mistake we did! This motel is an accident waiting to happen. Do not even think of booking for the rate, last minute, etc. You will regret it. When we asked about the shape of the place we were told that “we should have known what we were getting into when we drove up to the property” and “afterall its in the west end”……all this by the desk clerk! Football fans beware - go somewhere else!

NASTY, RUN DOWN AND NEEDS TO HAVE A WRECKING BALL USED ON IT; NO AIR IN TINY ELEVATOR OR HALLWAY, WORST ROOM I’VE EVER STAYED IN!!!!! I asked for a rollaway, the lady at the desk told me (at 7:10) that I should’ve asked before 7 because there was no one on duty except her and she couldn’t leave the desk. I have a large vehicle that will not fit in a parking garage so I had to park behind the hotel and I was afraid the it would be stolen or vandalized but it wasn’t. That was the only pleasant experience at this hotel…

1) The rooms smell horrible! Very musty like an old abandoned building.
2) Dirty, sticky carpets.
3) Mold. I can’t be absolutely sure but I believe it to be black mold (see photo above). I have pictures to prove this! I just wish that I had found this on our first day instead of our last.
4) Unfriendly, rude staff.
5) Very narrow halls with huge open windows. It would be very easy for someone to fall out of them.
6) CREEPY, not very well lit parking garage.
7) Holes in blankets and towels

I visit TripAdvisor from time to time when planning trips. It tends to attract polarized comments from travelers with either very negative or very positive experiences, but it’s hard to ignore some of the specifics spelled out in the reviews. Considering that there are thousands of hotels across the country, it’s no small feat to land on this list.

While this isn’t the blasphemy in 2008 that it might have been in 1968, it is something of a surprise that Nashville’s Downtown Presbyterian Church will hold a free screening of the classic horror film Night of the Living Dead tonight at 7 p.m.

The church, which is known for its generous support and service on behalf of the city’s homeless population, is featuring the movie as part of its annual Lenten Art Show. This year’s theme is “An Emancipation Conversation,” and before you begin questioning how a 40 year-old horror flick fits into that motif, consider the following commetary from Wikipedia:

Since the release, critics and film historians have seen Night of the Living Dead as a subversive film that critiques 1960s American society, international Cold War politics, and domestic racism. Elliot Stein of The Village Voice saw the film as an ardent critique of American involvement in Vietnam, arguing that it “was not set in Transylvania, but Pennsylvania — this was Middle America at war, and the zombie carnage seemed a grotesque echo of the conflict then raging in Vietnam.” Film historian Sumiko Higashi concurs, arguing that Night of the Living Dead was a horror film about the horrors of the Vietnam era. While she asserts that “there are no Vietnamese in Night of the Living Dead, … they constitute an absent presence whose significance can be understood if narrative is construed.” She points to aspects of the Vietnam War paralleled in the film: grainy black-and-white newsreels, search-and-destroy operations, helicopters, and graphic carnage …

Other prevalent themes included “disillusionment with government and patriarchal nuclear family” and “the flaws inherent in the media, local and federal government agencies, and the entire mechanism of civil defense.” Film historian Linda Badley explains that the film was so horrifying because the monsters were not creatures from Outer Space or some exotic environment, “They’re us.” Romero confessed that the film was designed to reflect the tensions of the time: “It was 1968, man. Everybody had a ‘message’. The anger and attitude and all that’s there is just because it was the Sixties. We lived at the farmhouse, so we were always into raps about the implication and the meaning, so some of that crept in.”

Although it earned harsh criticism for its violent and graphic content at the time, the Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry in 1999 alongside other movies considered “historically, culturally or aesthetically important.”

A free dinner will be served prior to the film at 6 p.m., thankfully so for those with weak stomachs. For more information, call DPC at (615) 254-7584.

According to the Toronto Star, a group of players is urging the NHL to permit advertising on goaltenders’ jerseys to generate additional revenue for the league.

Now a group of influential NHL players that includes New Jersey’s Martin Brodeur, Dallas’s Marty Turco, Detroit’s Dominik Hasek and Edmonton’s Dwayne Roloson want the league’s – and inevitably the Leafs’ – uniforms altered again. In what would be a radical overhaul that might incite hockey traditionalists but surely gratify some of the league’s cash-strapped owners, several NHL goalies have asked the league and its players union to consider starting a so-called Goaltender’s Club. Revenue-generating initiatives for the club could include placing a corporate logo on the jerseys of the league’s 60-odd goalies.

After reading the story, this idea doesn’t bother me as much as I expected it would. It’s common already in Europe, though I’d hate to see the patchwork quilt of logos that jerseys there (and NASCAR uniforms) showcase. One or two small logos might be tolerable, if the advertising really stays limited to goalies, and the league could sure use the money: The Star attributes much of the NHL’s increased revenues to a stronger Canadian dollar and ticket-price hikes.

The article names the Preds, the Atlanta Thrashers and the Phoenix Coyotes as teams that are “hemorrhaging money.” I’d deal with Chris Mason shilling for Dell and Nissan if it meant his jersey still said Nashville (instead of another market) somewhere on it.

If you’re driving down Broadway between 3:30 and 4:30 p.m. today, you may be surprised by what you see: Kurdish residents are planning to protest outside the Estes Kefauver Federal Building in opposition to recent military action by the Turkish government within Northern Iraq. It’s at least the second time that local Kurds have protested action by Turkey since last October.

Here’s a little background on why:

• More than 8,000 Kurds live in Nashville, which many of them have come to call “Little Kurdistan.” (Shhhh. Don’t tell  Metro Council member Eric Crafton.)
• Why Nashville? The answers vary, but here are a few: a similar climate to their native land, affordable housing and consistent job growth and, more recently, because the Nashville Kurdish community is known as one of the most vibrant in the U.S.
• Did you know that Nashville is home to the first Kurdish mosque in North America, the Salahadeen Center? (I didn’t.)
• Nashville is also home to what may the the country’s first Kurdish youth gang, although this represents a tiny fraction of the local Kurdish community (one that the large majority of local Kurds are devastated to see emerge).
• Kurds were outraged when Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was executed, because still-pending charges against him for crimes against Kurds, including genocide, were summarily dropped when he was put to death.

For a people without a country of their own, I’m glad that local Kurds at least have a community here to call home. I hope someday those who want to do so are able to return to an autonomous Kurdistan in the Middle East, but until then, I hope our Kurdish neighbors continue to make themselves comfortable right where they are.