I have now been in Nashville for ten years. I play a couple of gigs a month (you can hear a little ditty i wrote and uploaded. I am trying to save $1,000 to get my first CD, already recorded, manufactured) , sell the occasional photograph (mostly flowers) for a couple hundred bucks, — see the attached view from my apartment, and do a little acting in commercials. I am typecast as the scrawny old fart in healthcare commercials. Howsomever, last month I did a music video with Three Doors Down and Collective Soul. I played the comic relief role Kryptonite Man, the geeky superhero. You can find it on YouTube if curious what a scrawny member of the Great Class of 1961 (highest SATS, Best Varsity Record, Highest G.P.A., Highest Attendance at at 25th, 30th, and 40th Reunion, Most dollars raised at a Fortieth Reunion, Highest Percentage participation rate EVER in Annual Support — 99%, most consecutive years in first place = 12 — I had a great team. I made a positive contribution to none of those. except the fundraising.)
I volunteer playing music at an amazing hospice — Alive Hospice, I drive the old ladies from my retirement home to their medical appointment, and renovate apartments. I am poor as poor can be, but have never been happier — coming from a family that embraced service as the means to satisfaction. I have the time now and it is most rewarding.
In Nashville, the first person stops to let you out of a parking lot in rush hour. We are so hot that we are growing exponentially. I can see thirteen cranes from my 16th floor window. Everyone in town is hiring, so if you have a kid who needs work, send them here (no income tax, and modest property taxes).
Douglas Gortner
1961
