Yee haw!

The Nonprofit's annual conference is dunzo and I've returned to sunny San Francisco. My last night in Nashville was a blast and I'm left with several strong impressions of the music city.

After the last keynote address, we walked by a bar that advertised "nude karaoke auditions." Auditions? When do you "audition" for karaoke? I was intrigued, but we were on our way to the closing dinner at The Wildhorse Saloon, a bar that seemed to interpret the essence of Nashville through a Disney/Las Vegas lens. At one point, two very peppy southerners tried to teach approximately 1,000 people how to do a line dance. It was insanity. But very fun.

After several hours, ThunderBoy and I left to hit the homo hotspots again and we were pleasantly surprised to see that the bars were busier than our previous outing. Interestingly, both of the bars we went to had a very diverse crowd, ranging from your average twink to your standard bear to your Carson Kressley-esque fortysomething. A few bar patrons left quite an impression on us:

* An obese couple that sat on a couch and watched the goings-on in silence
* A man whose hair resembled a haystack
* A young shirtless man with an underwear model-body who seemed to be on some very strong drugs, as evidenced by the way he swayed against the bar with a blissful expression on his face
* A flirty Dutch nurse-in-training who had designs on ThunderBoy (and about twenty other people)
* A be-overalled couple who appeared to be born during the Great Depression, dancing circuit-style under the disco ball
* A man whose hair resembled Farrah Fawcett's from the 1970s

Overall, my first trip to Nashville was very positive. Good times. Good times.