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For a while there, it looked like the wide, wide world of web killed the art of the show flyer. Local venues started to rely more on myspace and email updates, and their posters seemed to be little more than monochrome handbills. Name, date, some image lifted from the internet. 10 minutes to create, tops. Ugly and fairly useless.

Since Truewill bought the Beta Bar, though, I've been seeing some really beautiful art stapled to pizza joint walls and community bulletin boards around town. Bright colors, killer graphics - a real departure from the overly computerish looking flyers that are everywhere these days. A couple times, I thought hard about taking a poster for a show I had no interest in, just for the look of it.

See, my bedroom is pretty well papered in show ads. Most of them are reminders of music I've heard and bands I've seen rock out on little stages from here to Atlanta and back again. After years and years of gathering and displaying them, I can tell you that we've got a really cool thing going locally right now. Mostly due to Jerrod Porter, I think, local artist and man-about-town.

I hope the trend spreads. I'd love to see bright posters promoting punk shows at St. Mikes, diy events at the OAF House, ska blow-outs at The Shed. The internet is cool and all, but you can't hang a myspace event invite above your bed.

down the rushing glen

I nearly got flooded out and washed away this weekend trying to pull out of the Pitaria parking lot onto Tennessee Street. A flash flood took over one whole lane. I sat for a while and watched to make sure a few other small cars could pull through it, and in the end everyone made it safely. The things I go through for a chicken pita.

As a kid, there was nothing I loved more than a stream or a flooded field or a ditch full of running water. Disregarding temperature, bacterial infections, and strong currents, I was happiest up to my knees in run off. Cobb Middle School's athletic field and the creek that runs through Indian Head Acres (aka "Ne Ne Land") were my preferred haunts.


I wasn't completely crazy. I mean, I pretty much stayed away from the orange water, kept an eye out for snakes and crawdads, and didn't spend too much time barefoot in storm water overflow. I've just always had more Rat than Mole in me. Plus, all the best stories take place in or on water. There was Following The River To Its Source or Throwing Off The Scent So I Can Escape or Giant Beast In Shallow Seas.

I need to go swimming.

put your money where your mouth is

Someone just slipped me a very cool link showing where different celebs donate money. It breaks it down to Dems, Reps, and Special Interest (Director's Guild, etc), and then further down into specifics.

A few are no surprise at all. Michael Moore, for instance, ain't funding any fundies. A few sort of are. Traci Lords, actress and former underage porn star, gave $300 to the Republican National Committee. A few are sort of depressing. I really didn't want to know how much money Loretta Lynn's donated to the right wing. A few gave me a chuckle. Is anyone shocked that Burt Reynolds' entire donation history involves Bill Clinton and Bob Graham?

But the one that stuck out to me, just flipping through there, is Bonnie Raitt. There's no way she makes as much as some of those people. You don't often hear her up on a soap box. But she's donated $189,734 (the vast, vast majority of it to liberal causes). You have to respect someone willing to support what she believes in.

ch-ch-ch-changes

Well, there we are. Some of us, anyway. The parade party is such an in-and-out affair. The biggest difference between this year and, say, 2005 (my first spring in the Fives) is all the babies. Look at all those young'uns. I remember going to big shindigs with my family as a wee one, with the grownups disappearing in small groups and coming back smelling funny, meeting other kids that I still run into (mostly, admittedly, in bars and at shows). So I look at my friends' babies and think, here we go again.

As for the parade itself, we cheered nearly every float, beauty queen, marching band, business, politician, community group, poop-scooping prisoner, and boiled peanut vendor who went past my house. Now, there was pretty much dead silence as the Sons of Confederate Vets went slouching past us, with one or two calls of "out with the old south, in with the new!" and "you're standing in the way of progress!" I know, some folks just love the play the martyr, and I'm as proud a southerner as you'll find, but damn. Give up all that crap and get up here with the rest of us. I promise, it's a lot more fun. But I suspect they're not doing as well these days - it looks like they couldn't afford to bring in that one Black Confederate that hires out to groups like that so they can claim not to be racists.

Days of prep, hours of party. Still well worth it.

"best" being loosely defined here

The FSView (which tries hard to make sure it remains the worst local paper, despite the Democrat's best efforts to take that title) just published the results of their annual Best of Tallahassee survey.

Let me just put it this way:
Best Overall Restaurant: Applebees (whaaaa?)
Best Italian: Olive Garden (double whaaa?)
Best Live Music Venue: Bullwinkles (they book cover bands exclusively)
Best Desserts: TCBY (not even Baskin Robbins?)
Best Video Store: Blockbuster (pure ignorance of what's locally available)
Best BBQ: Sonny's (not Jim and Milt's? for my buck it's Mr. T's on the south side)

No wonder college kids consider Tally a cultural wasteland. Evidentially, they've never actually been here.

I will wed you in a box, I will wed you with a fox

Honoring me more than I can say, my sister and her fiance asked me to perform their wedding ceremony next month. Luckily, I think they're really good together, so I was happy to say yes. Like a million other people, I'm a "Reverend" with that church that will ordain anybody, and in Florida that's enough to marry people. But I wanted to make sure this shit's legit, so a few weeks ago I sent off a money order and the downloaded forms needed to become a registered notary.

Now, their wedding is going to be tasteful (from what I understand). But it strikes me that I could do so much more in the four years my appointment as notary lasts.

I keep picturing a tv advertisement, like one for a local car dealership. The camera pans in on me in a black guayabera shirt and dickies, standing among the flowers at Maclay Gardens. I smile brightly and say, in my broadest southern accent,

Getting hitched? Need a no questions asked ceremony? Want to be able to move the party to the maternity ward at a moments' notice? Been turned down by preachers unwilling to make the hike out to your his n' hers deer stands? On a budget but looking for a little class?

Look no further! I am your one stop ball'n'chain shop. No suits? No shoes? No problem! Spent all your dough on camo brides' maids dresses? Worried that the keg will tap out before your friends do? For just a case of beer and a rack of ribs, I will bind you unto eternity.

(Fast voiceover: No actual guarantees made on length of marriage.)

Always dreamed of walking down that aisle to the sweet sounds of Carrie Underwood? Guns n' Roses? Insane Clown Posse? The theme from Rocky? You provide the music, and I promise not to laugh.

The camera pulls back and I'm lit by the setting sun, my shaved red hair a glow around my head, septum ring shining.

(Deep bass voiceover: For when you really, truly have to get married before the baby comes.)

the mildew state

In getting ready for the parade party this weekend, I decided to take a stab at bleaching my bathroom ceiling. See, I don't have a window or fan, and a year or two ago my hot water tap ran hard for a week and a half. That resulted in a garden of mold spots looking down on the room.

Normally, I don't even think about the problem. It's just one more part of living at the Fives. But friends have described it as "disturbing", "disgusting", and "scary like in that movie Dark Water, where you expect the little blobs to form into one giant blob and kill you." That's not exactly what I want to show off when half of town intends to be in and out of my place, so I rallied the troops and went into battle.

My weapons were two mops and a couple inches of bleach and hot water in the bottom of the tub. My armor, a torn up shirt wrapped around my head so that I looked something like a spice-less Fremen and a pair of bright yellow household gloves.

Ever try to apply bleach to a 9 foot ceiling with a sponge mop while, at the same time, keeping it from splashing into your eyes or running down your arms? The war was lost before I even attacked. I need a pressure washer and a tall person willing to scrub. Or maybe I could just tie one of those magic eraser sponges to the end of a bamboo pole and go with that.

On the up side, though, the rest of my bathroom is now so clean that you could actually reach behind the toilet with no fear of grabbing something that would make you puke. Now all I have to do to get ready for the parade is clean the rest of my house, make a spray paint banner, get a keg, boil some peanuts, and remember not to party too hard the night before.