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Wahoo-a University of Virginia Student given to wearing those sweat shirts emblazoned with the orange "V," immaculate white baseball caps with the orange letters "Virginia," and other such nauseating school spirit garbage. The boys have those dreadful frat-boy haircuts with the hair shaved around the ears and in back but enough left on top to prove they aren't going bald. The girls have long permed hair and do their eye lashes before they go jogging. They all go jogging. And on Friday Nights they drink Natural Lite or Daiquiris at the Greenskeeper or the Biltmore Grill on the Corner if they haven't been invited to a frat party in Fratville. As you might imagine, the punk rockers who have to see and mingle with these people in their common Corner habitat have no respect or pity for them. When drunk, a punk rocker is very likely to make loud obnoxious comments about Wahoos as they walk or drive past.
I feel a strong connection to you, Jessika!
Erin on the Downtown Mall, from a photo by Jonathan Hayward, 6-4-96

Wahoo with the eyebrow thing, that-this UVA student, a Libra named Erin, appeared at Big Fun on a whim for the March 1st Drill for Absentee show and found she liked the place. She also developed a fondness for Farrell, who was witnessed in a compromising position with her one morning a week later by Morgan and Ray, who had taken to stalking her. No one really knew what to make of all this, so Erin was referred to as "that Wahoo with the eyebrow thing" for awhile.

Erin somehow managed to sneak into the same Beltane ritual that the Scottsville punks were kicked out of. Not only did she pay nothing, but she had a marvelous time as well.

waif-a youthful person with (at least temporarily) no home and no job, very little money, and no real desire to commit serious crimes. Waifs frequently stay at the homes of friends and attend parties in the evenings. They always know where the parties are, but often have no idea how to get there. Jατασyα is the archetypal waif.

wailing guitar solo-the main problem with rock and roll historically has probably been the ego of the rock and roll guitarist. Frequently feeling like second-fiddle to the vocalist, he perceives the need to show his independence, and what better vehicle for this than a masturbational interlude upon the phallic tone cannon strapped to his crotch? It could be worse. Drummers once felt the need to do solos too (does anyone recall "Moby Dick"?), but that nonsense was pretty much nipped in the bud by the sanity of record producers.

In the 90s, the guitarist has been forced to finally give up his solo as well, to the general betterment of music. Today even metal bands like Korn have reigned in their guitarists. There are still bands that feel the need to stand there and watch their guitarist jerk off, but such bands are anachronistic relics of the 80s.

waiting room-this metaphor, drawn from a Fugazi song by the same name, is used by Jessika and particularly Sara to describe the existential boredom associated with certain places and situations that are hard to escape and so must be endured. One such place is the Philadelphia suburbs. The solution to suburban Philadelphia was Charlottesville, but now, according to Sara, Charlottesville is the waiting room. As the Gus and Jessika point out, life is a waiting room. But waiting rooms don't have to be boring. There are magazines to read (old issues of People and Sassy) and little babies to make faces at. And there are plenty of old people to tell you that despite their dialysis and hip replacement, they used to be spry youngsters who walked to one-room schoolhouses every day through three foot snow drifts.

wallet chain-a steel chain that connects a punk rocker's wallet to his pants. This ensures that the wallet cannot be stolen by any but the most determined of thieves. Some punk rockers connect other objects to their pants with still more chains, but what all these objects are it is difficult to say. While it is true that some punk rockers do not make use of wallet chains, for the most part a wallet chain is essential for conveying the message "I am at least as punk rock as Green Day." On 4-12-96 at the Tokyo Rose, the Gus leapt up on stage and through the microphone made what he claimed was a very important announcement, saying, "It appears that I have lost the chain that connects my wallet to my pants. I still have my pants and I still have my wallet, but the chain is missing. If anyone finds my wallet chain, please return it to me." One of the mall rats, an Aquarius named Josh, puts all other wallet chains to shame with the huge three-inch links of his chain.

water-one of the four ancient elements. In astrology, water implies helpless emotions, nurturing, and suspicion. Water signs are Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces. At Big Fun, water signs are normally considered weak and unappealing. But when aid is rendered by a Pisces, there is thankfulness. Scorpios seem to fascinate Big Fun people, since they live in the darkest, most mysterious sign of the zodiac. And Cancers, despite what is said, always seem to lure us into situations we would not normally enter.

Waynesboro-this town lies some twenty five miles to the west of Charlottesville on I-64 just across treacherous Afton Mountain on the Blue Ridge. Waynesboro has a reputation for being a redneck working man's town. It is full of seedy bars and polluting factories such as Dupont that merrily dump their toxic effluent into the South River. Additionally, Waynesboro is the environment where Matthew Hart was raised, protected as he was at the end of a suburban cul-de-sac on the edge of a country club. Despite the cul-de-sac, Matthew never learned how to ride a skateboard.

weak-lacking in effort, intensity, coolness, or helpfulness given a particular context. For example, it is "weak" to offer to pay Matthew Hart a dollar for gas after his having driven you 60 miles to drop off a box of breath mints at your granny's house.

weak ass-someone who is intimidated by the extreme behaviours and peculiar lifestyle choices of the members of the Big Fun community. The term can also be used to describe someone who adopts attributes of a style, and then finds things to complain about concerning that adoption.

A case in point concerns that girl Annette of Jerusalem. One night in late March 1996, the day after Big Fun people were rambunctiously dancing at the Tokyo Rose, Annette was complaining how someone slamming into her had made her nipple ring hurt. Matthew was disgusted, saying, "Why have a nipple ring if you're going to complain about it? I think that bitch is a weak ass. Jessika has a nipple ring, but she never talks about it and I didn't even know she had it. That's the wei to have a nipple ring."

Wei-pronounced "Way." See "Alien, the"

weird-this word frequently is used to mean uncharacteristically forward in a sexual manner. Sexual overtures always seem to come as somewhat of a surprise at Big Fun, where for the most part, to avoid complications, people pretend they are asexual. When they succumb to their hormones, Big Fun people can't get away with their clandestine affairs for long; however. Almost no one in the know keeps news of a new tryst a secret for long.

Wertland Party-in early October, the Gus was hanging out with the Pegger, Sara Poiron and Jessika as they searched for a house. One thing led to another; the Gus got them all kicked out of a cast party for a movie made in Charlottesville that September. Then an eight year old girl named Allie kicked the Gus' ass and spilled vino all over him. But the Gus knew of a party over in the Wertland apartments on the Corner, and he took the girls there. Sure enough, there was a party going on, with lots of drunk teenagers puking off the balcony, and Matthew Hart raising all kinds of hell as he wanted to go drive drunk as he always does (he ended up at Charter Hospital that night). For some reason, Sara and Jessika reached the conclusion that night that the Gus is a slime, and they wanted nothing more to do with him, and they went off to the Corner to hang out with some philosophical goths (the philosophy was something like "there is no way but the gothic way"). Meanwhile, the Gus took Peggy and Zachary's former girlfriend, Beth, to the residence of John Zawacki and Reg Whatshisname to look at the painting by the Gus entitled "Solo Viola." Reg was there, and he ended up going outside and smoking santa clause with the Gus, Beth and Peggy. Sara and Jessika thought the Wertland party was the worst party they ever attended until they threw their infamous House Warming Party.

wet brain-a condition in alcoholics in which they act drunk all the time regardless of how much they drink. Alcohol supposedly permeates their brain tissues and makes its effects felt all the time. Some members of the Charlottesville rogue scene are rumoured to suffer from this malady. This term was first introduced to me on 4-6-96 by Shira via Sara Poiron.

wet brain contingency-people who are alleged to suffer from wet brain and who hang out on wet brain corner and the Downtown Mall in front of the Paramount, frequently playing music or harassing Sara. One especially red-faced member of the wet brain contingency once asked Sara, "You're a pretty gurl, where can I git some o' dem drugs yew on?"

wet brain corner-the corner on the Corner across 14th street from the Espresso Corner. Sheltering wet brain corner somewhat from the elements is a railroad bridge. Things that happen frequently at wet brain corner: hippies selling tie-dyes and jewelry, bums soliciting donations for their next bottle of Mad Dog, and Phil Ginini and associates playing music.

what are you DOing?-when Jessika asks this, she isn't really wanting you to answer her as much as she is requesting you to STOP doing something that she finds disturbing. In general, if Jessika asks, "what are you DOing?" you have committed a serious violation of the unwritten rules of your relationship with her.

what are you DOING in there?-something Don Mueller asks people through closed bathroom doors when he himself would like to use the bathroom. Of late, Shira seems to enjoy asking this question, complete with Don's falsetto.

what can you do?-a rhetorical flourish with which the Gus sometimes ends statements that detail troubles or conundrums.

what the HELL are you doing?-this rhetorical question is the way Shira and Sara express their disapproval of someones actions.

what the hell is wrong with ___?-this question became popular at Big Fun after Jennn's extensive use of it. Whenever someone is acting different or being different, be they friend or foe, this question is sure to be asked.

when the shit goes down-no one at Big Fun really believes that we can go on violating the lease and acting like some sort of punk rock mafia without measures finally being taken by the agents of repression. Matthew Hart refers to the anticipated cathartic discovery of and reaction to Big Fun outrages with the phrase "when the shit goes down." Sara refers to her feeling of unease about the future as "pre-apocalyptic dread".

White Bathroom-the well-lit 2nd floor bathroom at Big Fun wherein most of the cosmetics and other "products" can be found. This is also the place wherein most of the haircutting and hair colouring takes place. As a consequence, it is a stained and littered horror that Jessika avoids.

White Port-this white sherry came highly recommended by a seemingly wise older afro-American gentleman (who, perhaps not coincidentally, appreciates Wild Irish Rose and Night Train as well). At 19% alcohol, White Port seemed promising enough when the Gus and Matthew Hart went vino shopping on Thursday, May 9th, 1996. But the stuff proved almost undrinkable; it was so sweet that it tasted like liquid candy (according to Theresa Venesian, who actually rather liked it). Luckily the suggestion of a then-tussing Kiki to get two bottles had not been heeded. Incidentally, the wise afro-American gentleman who praised the virtues of White Port did not think highly of the new flavours of Mad Dog. Why? Matthew Hart suspects that the wise gentleman would deride Mad Dog with a line something like "you can't even taste the alcohol in that shit."

White Spot, The-the absolutely least-Wahoo restaurant on the Corner, this austere hole in the wall is famous for its American food, especially the Gusburger. Unlike most places on the Corner, the White Spot caters to a lower-class middle-aged clientele.

Legend has it that at one time The White Spot was a stop on the Underground Railroad; its name is an ironic one that took advantage of the general lack of a sense of irony among southern slave holders.

wife beater-a tee shirt that lacks sleeves; usually worn by men on warm sunny days. Sometimes some of the male Higher Grounds regulars buy four packs of wife beaters that they covertly stuff additional wife beaters into such that all their friends can wear them at minimal expense. When a large group of extroverted men is seen wearing wife beaters, they are heckled by Big Fun people (Sara especially) as constituting a "wife beater contingent."

Wild Irish Rose-another one of those Mad-Dog type fake vino concoctions; it costs $2.49 for the standard litre and is 18% alcohol. It tastes like perfume, and the first sip is almost as bad as a sip of Tussin DM. Only the hard core drink this stuff. The Gus will drink it, but only when that's all there is. The only reason Matthew Hart, when in an "I want fake vino and I want it all to myself mood," drinks Wild Irish Rose is because Johnny Boom Boom does, which is reason enough, I suppose.

In Malvern, you can get 3 litre bottles of "The Rose." I was witness to one such monstrosity the first day I ever saw Johnny Boom Boom Mancini in late February, 1996.

wild turkeys- the unknown people who come through Big Fun while everyone is asleep and make loud and incessant semi-melodic noises that do not appear to contain words from any language. The wild turkeys were thought at first to be one of Jessika's hallucinations until one night the Gus, Jessika and Matthew Hart all heard them cavorting through the halls. That night Matthew was even attacked by them physically.

Blasphemes!
Woman Crucified on Man, oil painting by the Gus, Sept. 1994. Click for a larger copy.

Woman Crucified on Man-this is the name of a painting the Gus painted in September, 1994. It hung for awhile in Jessika's room, then at bozART for the February 1996 "Love or the lack Thereof" show. Now Woman Crucified on Man is back in Jessika's room, where, peculiarly, it has been veiled in expensive fabric like some sort of sacred Byzantine icon. It portrays, against a featureless reddish-black sky, a robust and hapless reddish man, arms outspread, standing on a Grecian ruin on a desolate hill. Upon this man a helpless greenish woman has been crucified, Jesus Christ style.

The idea behind this painting sprung from some trendy fashion magazines that showed limp beautiful women leaning into strong handsome men. In Big Fun, the painting and its title came to be a metaphor for girls who are so boy crazy that they lose their personality.
Wonderboy Neek in Big Fun, January 1996.

Wonderboy Neek-Zachary's thin Scorpio friend, coincidentally partly from Philadelphia; he's full of enthusiasm and he, what with his Philly enunciation pattern, reminds the Gus of an old college friend named David Halpern (also from Philly). The thing that initially annoyed Jessika about Wonderboy Neek is that he says "Do you like?" instead of "Do you like that?" Wonderboy Neek has moved to Chicago for the summer and has left lots of fun electronic music toys for Raphæl to play with.

wonder-bra-a sort of brazier that supposedly can make rather small breasts look larger than they in fact are. Jennn is rumoured to have found the wonder-bra to be the most significant invention since vinyl. For some reason this term also came to be a metaphor for any suitor of the Pegger, especially an Aries. The idea was that an Aries suitor is a "wonder-bra" because in some way he "supports Peggy." I don't fully understand, but language is full of such quirks.

Woodstock-the term people at Big Fun use to refer to the April 20th, 1996 Rising Sun benefit concert held in the field near the home of Peirce and Nelly on Fairview Farms. Althia Hurt was gone at the time, taking classes at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Thus she never knew that the event was held and that over 600 people attended it. Things that happened at Woodstock included several musical performances (see "analbludsnak"), the creation of an enormous roaring bonfire, the presence of countless unfamiliar hippies, and the consumption ample beer and marijuana. The event ended when cops arrived and seized all the marijuana they were witness to. They made no arrests.

Many people were a trifle on the crazy side throughout the festivities. For example, both Phil Ginini and the Gus leapt into the bonfire. But while Phil was unscathed, the Gus slipped and fell, and, upon escaping the inhospitable inferno, suffered second degree burns over his entire left palm. The following week his hand was habitat for two lemon-sized blisters. The Gus also drank a quantity of beer from a gallon jug just used to transport gasoline.

A "National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws" festival held at the site the day before had been killed off quickly by authorities.

word-this is a somewhat cooler way to get across the same point as "Righton!" or "Uh-huh." It means exactly the same thing. It has its origins in rap music. Morgan Anarchy is known to use this term.

word four point four oh-the word processor on the computes at Big Fun. Actually, the version used there is Microsoft Word 4.0A, released back in 1989. It might be old, but it works just fine.

wormsmell-according to Sara Poiron, Senovia the cat smelled like worms one day, and Sara thusly called her "wormsmell" for a time.

wormwood-a member of the Composite family, this acrid plant apparently contains substances within its tissues that can alter human consciousness. Its extract give Absinthe its distinctive flavour and effects. Smoking wormwood yields brief feelings of euphoria, but for the amount of lung damage inflicted, it isn't really worth the ordeal.

WTJU-the college radio station at UVA, located at 91.3 Megahertz. This station mainly plays jazz, though it does have a number of "alternative," classical, bluegrass and even punk rock shows. On at least one occasion WTJU was taken over and wailed upon by an insurgent force of Big Fun people.

WWWV-this Charlottesville classic rock station located at 97.5 Megahertz has a powerful signal and can be received as far away as Staunton. In addition to the usual Jimi Hendrix and Led Zepplin, they also play a little "modern rock" such as Pearl Jam. They don't play anything rough, dissonant, or low-fi though.

Xyza-code name for one of the Gus' seventeen-year old female friends, Autumn, a Sagittarius.

ya think?-this variant on "uh huh" simulates greater interest and involvement on the part of one who says it for the things the person to whom it is said is saying. The overuse of this term has its origins in the Pittsburgh, PA area via Oberlin, Ohio.

yay-said with a slow, weak voice by Jessika, this word means "I'm very happy with the news just received."

I'll kick your ass...coz I'm a tough nazi skinhead rainbow dude...
I've like come into one with Christ...Neeehahahaha.

from top: Yayson, the rainbow skinhead, at Fontaine (Spring, 1995) and at Big Fun ~Jan. 1996

Yayson-Jason Huffman, a Libra, the bigger of the Huffman sons. He passes through phases almost like the moon (his moon is in Aries). Sometimes he is a Nazi skinhead (he is covered with swastika tattoos), and other times he is a Rainbow saying, "Righton Brother." Other times he spews a form of Christianity that defies logic even more than most other forms of that faith.

In March, he decided it was easier to pick on his friends than it was to mess around with his enemies. As a consequence, he developed the habit of sneaking out to Big Fun and stealing items such as Johnny Boom Boom's jacket, Jessika's carry-stuff bag and Matthew Hart's sleeping bag.

yo-this word, one commonly used by Tyrone, means "hey" or "let me tell you." It adds rhythm to speech without adding much meaning.

youth of today-what the Gus calls random young people. He has been known to say arrogant things like, "Youth of today, harken unto me, the Gus" when very intoxicated and in the company of friends on the Corner or the Downtown Mall.

Yummy Violet-when Jessika was taking oil painting lessons on Whidbey Island in Washington's Puget Sound, her instructor, a dreamy Scientologist, had a name for a certain shade of purple, and that name was "Yummy Violet." This same instructor, by the way, did not believe in the existence of purple.

Yummy Violet is exactly the shade of violet demonstrated in the underlying colour of the ridges to the west of Raven's Roost on May 5th, 1996. Jessika and the Gus observed them that day while under the influence of tussin DM; the sky at the time was overcast. The contributing colours to arrive at Yummy Violet are, according to Jessika, Alizarin Crimson, Blue Lake and a little Raw Sienna.

The Philly invasion has commenced!The Philly invasion continues!
Wheeee! I'm like a butterfly broken stumbled!
Wheeee! I'm all married and shit!

from top: Zachary, in front of Fontaine (Spring, 1995), from a photo (4-96) by Teri Flint and from a photo by Jonathan Hayward (6-4-96)

Zachary Firkly-this Gemini musician is much like the walking embodiment of a hallucination. He has difficulty saying more than a few lines without saying something completely off the wall, always though with a profundity that simple insanity cannot account for. His music is full of such lines, as for example in his classic song "Rain Gorgeous":

While she sleeps I'll climb the universe
Let myself fall into her arms

And I'll gently disappear holding nothing but the notion
That if fish can fly so can I

and especially

While she sleeps I'll bury myself in a little three-foot grave
I'm a vampire

Zachary has no appreciation of the value of things of this world; this includes such mundane commodities as his own life. When driving as he most prefers to, Zachary goes around 25 mph curves at 90 mph, going into the ditch a bit if necessary to avoid having to slow down. When he has money in his pocket, Zachary is always generous with the good beer or gin he buys. It is natural in Zachary's world that the good things be shared and used as much as is required for the enjoyment of the evening, for tomorrow we die.

When very drunk, Zachary enters a very loquacious and surprisingly more lucid mode in which he can impersonate any sort of character, such as Tyrone.

Zachary is obviously very complicated underneath his quirky sobriety; and this complication has caused his relationships with certain people, especially Jessika, to suffer through bad phases.

It seems that Zachary is settling down a tiny bit. For example, on June 4th 1996 he married Peggy.

zine-a small, cheaply-produced and irregularly-issued magazine. Usually zines are crudely edited and demonstrate sophomoric artistic and writing styles. Nonetheless, amidst the chaos, there is an uncensored view of the world that slick magazines cannot approximate.

zodiac-a band around the celestial sphere through which the Sun and planets pass. Pluto, some asteroids and comets occasionally get well out of this band, though most planets and the Moon follow paths within eight degrees of the plane described by the sun's path. In astrology, the displacement above or below the path of the sun is not considered important. Astrological importance is attached solely to the angular separation of astrological entities in relation to the astrological signs and houses.

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