October 27

We're staying in a hostel a few miles from the centre of town. It's nice. Usually I reject hostels outright because I'm racist against Australians. I wish I wasn't this way, but at least I'm honest about my prejudices. In any case, this hostel we're staying in is good. Full of Australians, but good.

It's run by a haggard woman called Hope who says everything in a world-weary drawl. What made Hope like this? Too much interaction with Australians I'll wager.

Anyway when we first arrived in the hostel Hope gave us a map of Nashville and crossed through a couple of blocks on it with a pen. "That's the ghetto," she said. "Don't go there."

Now I keep staring in the direction of those blocks. Our hostel is in between a nice neighbourhood and a not-so-nice neighbourhood. It's a strange feeling standing on a street corner looking off into the low-rise neighbourhoods which at some blurry point become "the ghetto". The forbidden blocks on Hope's map. It' s like that scene in Predator when the marines are staring into the jungle, looking for some sign of the invisible threat that's out there.

I think from watching the Wire the look of these streets resonates a little bit. You other Wire people know what I mean. The chipped asphalt. The weeds growing up between the paving stones. The deserted corners. It's amazing how dilapidated the city lets these blocks get in contrast to the nicer neighbourhoods which may be literally just around the corner. The irony is that at this exact time John McCain is accusing Barack Obama of being a "socialist" - a dirty word in American politics. Now, I'm anything but a pinko Commie freedom hater but the one Lenin quote still rings true:

"Shame on America for the plight of the negroes!"

Apart from that asshole. He helped kill hip-hop dead here.