Although today was Roy’s birthday, he had some art related business to take care of before he could get around to celebrating so he asked if I would like to hang out and give him a helping hand. The mission was to replace his current art installation at the Novel luxury apartments on Music Row in downtown Nashville. Before we headed out, I decided to go ahead and give him his birthday gifts. As itty bitty’s, we would celebrate our birthdays with a two layer strawberry cake with strawberry butter cream frosting. It makes my teeth hurt just thinking about all that sugar. But as an adult, it is hard to justify eating an entire cake by yourself. Don’t get me wrong, I could do it, it would just be hard to justify. Instead, I took a page out of the Jill’s playbook and whipped up a batch of strawberry cupcakes. Far less guilt.
And for his birthday “happy”, I embroidered a moonlit, campfire scene as a reminder of all the adventures he, Lily and Elijah have had camping together as well as all the adventures yet to come.
Once all this frivolity was behind us, we were on our way to Nashville. The Novel apartment complex was ah-mazing. If I were younger, hipper, cooler, single and had deep pockets, this would be the place. Essentially, if I was a totally different person you would find me here. The amenities were fantastic. There was a rooftop, outdoor kitchen with grilling stations along with a fire pit, a pool on the second floor with a resort style sun deck, a fitness center (I would skip that), and since we’re in Music City, a soundproof room for jamming, a writers room and a multi-level event space with a performance stage, huge, I mean huge TV for movie nights, billiards and poker tables. Oh, they also had a 24 hour coffee bar in the lobby. Hello caffeine.
Photos courtesy of Novel Music Row and Michelle Bailey;)
Roy had already decided on the seven paintings he wanted to use, portraits of Bruce Springsteen and David Bowie and a collection of guitars. I thought we’d just pop over, take down the canvases that were currently on display and replace them with the new series. Well, I was wrong, so wrong. We spent some time lining up the new canvases against a wall in the lobby to determine what was visually pleasing to the eye. That took a little shuffling to and fro. Then, there was a lot of math involved. I’m talking a lot of math. Math and I do not play well together. Roy had to measure the available space floor to ceiling, then left to right, measure each canvas, configure the space between each canvas and lastly the height at which the canvases should hang. I tapped out and let Roy and his calculator work on that while I just nodded encouragingly.
Third times the charm aptly describes our hanging endeavor. With step ladder in hand, we began by using the existing nails to gauge the appropriate height. The first hanging was too low and cut off Bruce’s chin. The second hanging was too high which allowed the dangling light fixtures with their Edison bulbs to lay directly on the canvas. Definitely a fire hazard. The next hanging was just right. Yay us!
Street view of canvases. Bruce Springsteen end caps the far left with four guitars proceeding right toward Ziggy Stardust ending with one last guitar.
To reward ourselves for all of our hard work, we decided to grab a late lunch at Pizza Perfect. Back in the day, Pizza perfect was our old stomping ground when we were both working on Music Row. I was a several years into my gig at Warner Bros. while Roy was working just down the street killing it at an advertising agency.
So we’ve been patronizing Pizza Perfect since the 90’s and funnily enough, when I walked in, I immediately recognized one of the brothers behind the counter still running the business all these years later. And as we were ordering, I realized that twenty plus years on, we still ordered the exact same thing. Roy’s go-to favorite is the pepperoni calzone while I ordered a salad with their house vinaigrette and a spinach calzone. I think we have probably solved all the worlds problems sitting in those vinyl booths. Good times.
After lunch, we headed back to Roy’s and watched as the heavens opened up. I’m glad the rain held off while we were loading and unloading canvases from the back of his truck. That would have been a disaster.
What a treat to be able to hang out with my baby brother just for a bit on his birthday.
Happy Birthday Roy!
“Stop that! It’s silly!” – Monty Python.
Lot’s of tomfoolery at the Laws household. Elijah gets a lesson in physics and the kiddos hit the slip n’ slide in the pouring rain.