outskirts: life and times in charlottesville

Potential^* Outskirts Exclusive

Although few confuse the village with Hezbollah, it does appear as if the takeover of the village continues in Crapshawian fashion. A little birdy told me that the VaVino building has recently been bought by the Crapper. Is the birdy right, or was the birdy killed by the same force that killed the bees? One will never know.

Maybe there were a few bucks left over in the toilet after Music Now (or whatever the name of that place is) got sold to the big corporation that is flushing the soul out of the village (according to some).

The big question remains: When will VaVino become a music venue? We definitely need at least another five of those on the smoky wasteland called the downtown mall.
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^* I use the word potential due to the fact that I was out of town last week and may have missed this life changing news.

I’m back in C-Ville. Kill me now. Or is that No kill I.

When traveling to other lands it is easy to forget what a hellhole this place is. Sitting at the airport for 25 minutes waiting for luggage to make it from the plane (10 feet away) to the conveyer belt (most likely due to heat stroke of the airline workers) while locals from the plane charged to get a smoke in the 90 degree evening pretty much summed it all up. Back to stagnancy.

OK, it should have said 4,400 pot plants. A fun drug bust in the outskirts of the village. Was it really 4,400 or was that an approximate number? I wonder if anyone would notice if a few vanished.

After that much dope I’m sick of all these drug busts, so I’m heading off to NYC for a few days. Things will be much saner there, and maybe I’ll remember that there is a civilization once again. The village slowly sucks all life out of non-breeders. I have almost been sucked dry. Do I have the energy left to drink?

Outskirts exclusive!

Remember the movie back in the 70′s called The Swarm. Killer bees were everywhere. Disaster was imminent. Bees needed to be eradicated to protect humans. Is that what happened here in town? Was the children’s museum full of killer bees? Inquiring minds want to know.

It seems as if the local children’s museum (let’s just say The Discovery Museum) had an exhibit of live bees for the past years. The hive was visible through glass inside the museum, and the bees would fly out to the world via a small hole in the back of the museum. So far, so good.

Unfortunately the bees would travel close to the outdoor portion of a restaurant as they headed out to see the world. Since people love to eat some sweet things, bees are naturally curious (especially those killer bees). An anonymous tipster feels that the restaurant (let’s just say C & O) was not happy with the bee traffic zone which had become worse as the restaurant expanded the outdoor seating.

When little Johnny walked in to the museum the other day he pointed at the hive he said, “Mommy…why aren’t the bees moving?” It seems as if the entire hive had been taken out (as they say down by the woodshed) last night. Was some insecticide involved? Why did the bees stop buzzing?

What really happened to the bees? Will we ever know? Will the village get up in Frankenstein-like arms like they did over the local cat killer? My gut instinct says no one in the village will care, except poor little Johnny.

Gotta love the fun around here. This story of kids giving away sex so they can snort some meth (do you snort meth?) is So Very Virginia.

Of course there was also a thrill out in the boonies when someone tried to copycat the NYC guy who blew up his building. I don’t think blowing up a trailer would have the same effect as a big building just a few blocks from Central Park. And is building a bomb really the best way to off oneself? Maybe just a bit too much meth would work.

For those in C-Ville (does anyone live here during these 6 months of living hell/heat/humidity?) that know what the web is you can stop by the informal gathering of bloggers this weekend.

It is of course being held at a location that will have at least two dozen screaming kids at it (aka the nursery school coffee house – with indoor playground), but think of how much fun you could have talking about how blogging first got started here in C-Ville in 2000 before it spread to the rest of the world. Regressive pseudo-progressive flip-floppers will have a ball saying how perfect all the kids are. So very Virginia.

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^*Title comes from a movie, but I’m sure if I went to the gathering I’m sure I would say that at some point.

They always say that as you get older you start to like warm weather, and eventually you end up living in Florida. Well…every year I get older (happy b-day to me!) I further despise warm weather. Unfortunately I’m still in the village, and the only thing we get year round is warm weather. It was so warm this past week that I was on the news…although I didn’t get a speaking role that evening.

Since I’m a year older (aka a year dumber) I’ll let you keep an eye out for me in the news clip. Visit this WCAV story and click on the “Beating the heat” text next to the little camera at the top of the article. WCAV is really the best station in town, but I heard rumors they won’t go high def until hell freezes over. Is that a reference to the heat around here? Their site could also use some redesign.

I really don’t like exercising in the morning but due to other things going on, I was basically forced in to running this morning. It was a typical run. It was hot by 8am. It was humid. As I ran I noticed all the typical morning activity in the village. Cars running red lights, cig stubs being thrown out of cars that did choose to stop, a new slew of broken glass chunks around the Corner due to youth getting drunk, and all the other excitement of a new day.

The scene that summed up the run is when I went by a free clinic. A woman was sitting at the bus stop in front of it. She was about 7 or 8 months pregnant, and her daughter was sitting by her side. The daughter was probably 3 or 4. As I jogged past she was sucking away on that lovely thing called a cigarette. Puff. Puff. Mmm. Gotta love them cigs. I guess the newborn baby will be good and healthy. I’ll bet the daughter will be addicted by the time she is 12.

I wonder what the clinic told her. I wonder if they told her to stop smoking.

Let’s throw a Waldoid in here. Virginia the #2 state in tobacco production. True or false. As it turns out, that is false. Virginia is only #6. I’m sure they want to get back up in the rankings, just like Charlottesville does in the city ranking (since they are entirely missing from the top 100). Can you name 100 cities that are better than C-Ville? It seems others have no problems.

The scene of the pregnant lady with a daughter smoking away seemed So Very Virginia.^*
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^*So Very Virginia was ranked the 2^nd best city slogan in the entire country and it belongs to C-Ville. Unfortunately, no one in the village had ever heard of it before. A few days ago the URL redirected to the C-Ville Tourism site, but now it just loads that site. It seems to have the slogan on there with the lovely ^TM symbol next to it. I wish I’d trademarked that so I could use that as a total slam against anything backward. Oh wait…I still can…and I think I will.

Speaking of which, check out this picture called Virginia Slim:

(more about the photographer).

Breaking news…C-Ville missing from the top 100 this year. Not even among finalists or “others.” C-Ville has vanished off the map of goodness. More on this later. Perhaps others have read this blog and are seeing the village for what it really is. Perhaps some rich old boys got fired from Money. So very Virginia.

I posted a few shots from The X Lounge up on my Flickr page. This was my favorite. In the full size view you can spot a bartender watching what is going on in the lounge.

Click to see larger picture on Flickr