I’ve seen so many ethnic festivals over the last couple of years, I should publish my own Zagat-style guide. Festivals could be rated by checking for a few basic criteria. Does the festival serve food native to the country being celebrated, or cheap out and offer corndogs and polish sausage and chili-cheese fries? Is the festival’s “entertainment” a man selling inflatable toys, or does the festival have original offerings actually connected to the country in question? Also, if it’s a food-based festival, do the promoters charge money to enter — so you then have the privilege of spending more money once you actually reach the food booth?
The point of all this — and you were wondering, weren’t you? — is that I went to the Yiasou Greek Festival this weekend. You know the one. The Festival that’s grown so big it makes East Boulevard look like I-77 for four days each September. The only one not held in the Wachovia Atrium.
Despite a cranky friend who decried the admission fee as “like paying money to enter a damned Showmars,” I was able to find a number of reasons this thing is so damn popular. First, the food’s good. Hot baklava beats a rubbery corndog any day. Secondly, it’s in an area of town where people can actually park — even if it’s a half-mile away — and it’s located in a central area. And lastly, it’s become popular because it’s. . .become popular. People like success. People also like one last warm weather, people-watching exercise before Renaissance Faire season. Tank tops and booty shorts beats velvet and sackcloth any day of the week.
I finally did it. (Not a good first sentence. Around town, people are variously saying, “said no to last call?” “picked up a check?”) No, I put my money where my considerable mouth is, and it wasn’t at a tavern.Except, of course, that it was. Kind of. The great Snatches of Pink were at The Steeple Lounge Saturday evening as part of that club’s quarterly ARToxication party/installation/rock show. As part of the event, local artists were creating “live art” right there on the premises. As an example to citizens everywhere, I circulated $50 back into the local artistic community (or, more specifically, the pockets of Ace Tattoo artist Rodney Raines.) Raines was painting many different varieties of something called “drunk fish,” and, heading in that direction myself, I thought they looked really cool. One quick trip to the ATM later, and I was the proud owner of a Rodney (I know, it doesn’t sound as cool as, say, a Renoir, but it was much cheaper).
Surely, I thought, the Loaf will see the figurehead significance of this purchase, and will fill my usually barren, living-on-a-writer’s-salary coffers with the appropriate coinage. (What’s that? You’re not? Oh, OK.)
“I got a real nice Rodney here, ladies and gentlemen, stored in a smoke-free environment. . .”
The fact that NFL football games are usually held on Sunday isn’t by accident. When people say we don’t have pagan rituals anymore, I point them to big-time college and pro football (I also point them to Christianity’s origins, but that’s for a different column). Indeed, the great fun of the game is all the preparation before the ritual sacrifice (which, until John Fox’s arrival last season, usually involved the Panthers).What other sport offers you fans in a chopped-in-half school bus (which had been painted purple, and fitted with a bolted-on grill, tables and chairs)? What other sport offers a large (stuffed) jaguar with a knife sticking out of it, covered in fake blood, and a sign that reads “Die, Jaguars Die!”? (With, I kid you not, an addendum that read in small type “but not really!”) What other sport can turn an underused part of town into some of the most happening blocks in the city come game day? Yes, football.
Of course it’s a ritualized releasing of aggression and pageantry. It’s one of the few such outlets/release valves we have left in this country, which probably explains why it’s the most popular pro sport in this country by a wide margin.
However, I don’t know that I’d go as far as Shrubya did last Thursday evening, when he said the sport promotes “American values” — and what would those be, exactly? — but I can sort of see his point. In fundamentalist Islamic countries, women stand on the sidelines of life covered in fabric from head to toe. Here, we have them standing on the sidelines carrying pom-poms, wearing next to nothing. U-S-A! U-S-A!
This article appears in Sep 10-16, 2003.
