June 27 1998, Saturday

I

t was a Saturday after a not-especially-crazy Friday Night. The day was hot like the day before, but still it was refreshing to get out of the Wertland Mansion's air-conditioned air and walk the humid streets. Deya and I went out separate ways to the Corner, and I had an ice coffee at the Higher Grounds. Shawn, the drummer for the Counselors, was there, and we chatted a little about this and that. I told him that he and Jeff had been the best part of last night's Tokyo Rose experience. Something really has to be done about the decline of rock and roll in Charlottesville, a decline that is just a microcosm (in an overly-strict sense of the word) of the decline of rock and roll in the country generally, a decline I'd sensed but which hadn't been driven home until I read the article in Spin Magazine. Everclear, Soul Asylum, the Wallflowers, it's all watered-down lite rock crap coasting on the fading memory of Nirvana. Chumbawumba is good, though, even if Deya hates it when I say that word. It affects her almost as badly as turquoise.

A typical outfit for an anonymous Charlottesville girl on a hot summer day. She is drinking coffee in the hang-out zone directly in front of the Corner's Higher Grounds coffee place.

In the heat of the day, all the girls of the town seemed to be wearing exactly the same thing, pert little mini-dresses.

Over at Cocke Hall on the UVA Grounds (higher grounds than Higher Grounds), I sat in front of a computer for a good many hours. The time of day was distinctly evening by the time I made it back to the Wertland Mansion.

Deya and I drank some vodka and watched some teevee, but then I was nagged by errors in my latest musings upload and, since I'm a perfectionist, I had to slip off to correct them. While I was again online, I posted several crude solicitations for sex in the Ladies of the Heart secret message board (I'd give the link, but the pink chiffon ladies move it every few days as it's discovered by sailors, mule drivers, acne-eroded teenage boys and Mid-Atlantic wrestlers).

W

hen I again returned to the Wertland Mansion, I could see people hanging out on the 2nd floor balcony. The Christmas lights defining the edges of the balcony were all lit up, imparting a Yuletide cheer to all of Wertland Street in defiance of the muggy conditions. P.J. Harvey blared though a wastefully open door out into the humidity.

When I climbed the stairs, I saw that Wacky Jen had arrived. For the past few days she'd been sailing down the James River on a batteau boat with her parents and a number of Internet-obsessed senior citizens, bailing water, eating venison and bear meat, bailing water, getting suntanned, and bailing water.

Soon enough we (Deya, Wacky Jen and I) were all drinking vodka drinks and talking about various amusing topics. When we weren't discussing the batteau flotilla or the terrible state of Wacky Jen's car (it's had bad axle noise since falling off a jack), we wondered aloud about the "porch people" we often see across the Wertland Street. That's where two brick houses have been combined into a "hospice," a place for terminally ill people to die when they can't afford to die in a hospital. Both of these houses have ample porches, and most of the time you can see several people sitting out there with nothing to do but smoke cigarettes and watch pedestrians go by. I lit up a sparkler and waved it around and shouted "Harken unto me, porch people, for I am thy... [I forget what I said]." Unfortunately, I don't think there were actually any porch people on the porches to witness my life-affirming antics.

We were just planning to head out to a bar, Millers perhaps, to make the best of another lame weekend night, when Shonin randomly materialized. Since he's not 21 and doesn't have a fake ID, we sort of dropped the idea of going to a bar for awhile. But as the hour drew late and last call loomed but minutes away, Deya refloated the idea. We decided to go immediately, without further deliberation or consideration, to the Buddhist Biker Bar. We walked, since it is only about two blocks away.

At the Buddhist Biker Bar, Shonin was forced to wait outside while the rest of us went in to track down cheap beer. It wasn't a lonely place to be; many of the patrons were there, and there was plenty of furniture for sitting and waiting.

On a Friday Night, the usual alternative-trendy flavour of the Buddhist Biker Bar is considerably diluted by khaki-wearing collegiate types as well as Charlottesville's ever-familiar not-especially-trendy drunks. Tonight, fitting firmly into this latter category, was Tad and Mel, drunk-conversationalists-born-of-hell. They immediately joined our contingent outside, as did the much younger, more ironic, somewhat hipper Lanky Ben. We hurriedly drank two pitchers of beer as the staff ran around shouting for us all to drink up. By this point, Shonin had no trouble joining in on the festivities.

We all decided to go to Lanky Ben's house, which, as I mentioned in yesterday's entry, is sort of like a new Horrid Crash Pad, but with an unusual preference for LSD over other mind-altering substances. Deya did the driving, and somehow we managed to fit seven people in her car.

L

anky Ben's place is off JPA, a genuine house in amongst the dreary tick tock of the student-housing apartment jungle. Inside, his house was neat and Spartan. A television played a Japanimation videotape and a group of older teenage boys sat on the couch watching it in a state of numb transfixitude. Up until we'd arrived, the gathering had definitely constituted a sausage party. It was all very reminiscent of the Horrid Crash Pad, except the funk hadn't yet had time to settle in. There was no carpet and thus no huge reeking stain, the coffee table was only gently littered with half-full beer cans, and the kitchen had yet to be overtaken by an enormous mound of beer cans and old pizza boxes.

Plenty of cheap beer was in the refrigerator, and there may have been fun things to do, but I was pretty drunk by this point and found myself becoming bored and sleepy. I went outside and sat on some lawn furniture and briefly passed out.

When Deya was starting up her car to take Wacky Jen home, Tad and I climbed in too. Tad needing "a ride home" is usually one of the last things that happens at a party, though often it's the next morning by the time he makes the request.

I ended up at Wacky Jen's place. She and I had to climb in through a second story window to get into her bedroom, and once there, we never left.