home town friday

i just love charlottesville on a friday.

first dan and tashi picked me up from work. it was pouring rain and i was completely on a stress bender. we decided to have dinner at the south street brew pub which has an absolutely amazing blackened catfish sandwich w/ fries for $8.95. it's the best damn deal in the place, don't doubt it. the beer is delightful also. i was sad to discover that as we were eating we were missing a free show of morwenna lasko and jay pun at the charlottesville pavilion fridays after five spectacular. i like to describe morwenna lasko as the jimi hendrix of violin.

but the good food and and beer made up for any sadness.

after dinner we booked down the swarming main street pedestrian mall toward the guano boys, the next act at the pavilion. on the way we saw the buford school steppers who were a bunch of kids doing some amazing synchronized moves and calls and clapping. i got all choked up watching them 'cuz i'm just that way. yay for kids gettin' it together in a world that is totally falling apart.

we had fun watching the guano boys, dancing a little, playing tag, seeing some familiar faces, and yes, drinking more beer. none of that budweiser crap either, just the real starr hill thang. sometimes i feel a little guilty drinking beer in front of my child, but there's something comforting about being in a crowd of many parents doing the same. disfunctional maybe. but frankly, i think hops rock.

the charlottesville pavilion warrants many complaints. it's ugly. the sound sucks. it keeps the surrounding neighbors up too late. the music is bad and good and really great and awful. but on a friday night, there's something just so fine about being able to see some good music with the family for free amongst lots of folks with familiar faces while drinking yummy microbrew as the kids play chase and occasionally do the two step. small pleasures, yes.

but i'm also wondering, where are all the black people?????? please come out and see music at the charlottesville pavilion. the crowd is so white sometimes that i think there is something very, very wrong around here. and well, obviously there is.

after the guano boys ended we went the bridge gallery which is next to spudnuts. spudnuts has some sort of cult following around here as they make donuts from potato flour. but anyway, that's a whole other topic. we went to an art gallery in a sort of old building that was once and auto shop or an insurance agency or an air conditioning dealer. i was pleased to see that one of the exhibits was by a girl who i had met at work recently. she does these mixed media, photo, legal pad, string, anatomical installations floating in space. another room was a giant sandbox which tashi just loved. while she played in the sand we watched an apocalyptic video loop of countryside, sunset, river and industrial wasteland set to the tune of weird answering machine messages. i got grossed out in another room where there was of a film of a guy puking in a cafe. and then there were more photos of italy and factories and then we saw a kindergarten teacher from tashi's school and everything just got too mixed up.

we went back to main street where things were really starting to take turn at 9pm. tashi and dan were getting an ice cream cone and i was waiting outside and a toothless guy seemed to think i was waiting for something else. why can't a woman just wait? there were drunk teenagers and drunk college students and drunk childless couples and drunk old people and drunk toothless people and slightly tipsy tired parents getting their children ice cream cones. it was definitely time to go home.

and home i am, if i dare declare it that, after a night in charlottesville that makes me both pleased and puzzeled about where i might spend the many years ahead.