Unlike most other college-age students last Wednesday, I managed to put down the Playstation II controller long enough to go punch some different buttons: those on a voting machine.
I had been hearing horror stories all day of people complaining how long they’d had to wait in line to cast their ballots, so I was a little wary. But really, what choice did I have? Standing in line for a couple of hours to vote sure beats standing in a bread-and-toilet paper line, and it damn sure beats standing on the front line in some foreign country holding a Kalashnikov.
Luckily, lines were quite manageable in my Plaza-Midwood neighborhood, which, judging by the stickers on all the Volvos and Hondas outside, John Kerry looks to have easily carried. I was third in line to vote, and struck up a conversation with a chap who informed me of his plan to hit the liquor store after he cast his ballot — if they were open.
“Is today considered a holiday?”
“Depends on who wins,” I replied. The man, careful to avoid any political malfeasance, then said that he was going to be drinking no matter what, and would monitor his intake and adjust accordingly as the ballots rolled in. He was wearing a Bruce Springsteen shirt, so I imagine he’s still drunk.
Last Thursday evening, sick of the performance of my Carolina Panthers (whom I predicted before the season would go, um, 11-5), I decided to check out the new Carolina Bobcats. I’d bought into the whole talk about how this is a “new team in a new time,” and looked forward to a chance to jeer George Shinn again.Unfortunately, I never made it to the arena. Traffic was still at a standstill well after game time, so I decided to go home and check out the game on TV. Which, I soon learned, was not to happen either — I learned that I needed to subscribe to Bob Johnson’s new C-SET TV station in order to see my “Cats, a decision I believe might backfire on Johnson as soon as he considers that people are more likely to get excited about the Bobcats if they can actually see what the team looks like.
I finally settled on watching the game — or at least the last five minutes of it — at the Fox and Hound downtown, where people were generally ignoring it as the team pissed away their lead. Bobcats fever: Catch it…if you can!
When a band is named after a manifold used in superstring theory — hell, when a band references theoretical physics at all — it’s probably a safe bet that you won’t hear a cover of “American Woman” blaring through the speakers. To which I say, thank ____. (Feel free to write in the deity of your choice.)The band in question, Calabi Yau, play what their website calls post-hardcore/experimental/punk, and what I call a cliche-free blend of avant-garde and the Air National Guard, equal parts ear-ringing feedback and air-raid-siren squall. Featuring time changes trickier than a calculus exam, The Yau are a musical version of a room without seats, never allowing one to get comfortable by leaning on old standbys like, say, predictable chord changes and the like. Hell, depending on the song, sometimes they don’t even seem to play chords at all.
In a lone nod to tradition, the band dedicated a song toward the end of their set. “This next one goes out to the guy who tried to stab me today at work,” said Yau bassist and singer Bo. People chuckled. What a funny guy! What a crazy band! Such Dadaist absurdities!
Well, not exactly. Carrying a pile of schwag into the record store Bo works at a few hours earlier, I ended up face-to-face with said shiv-sporter, who was attempting to exit through the “in” door. The alarm sounded, and he was summarily nabbed by a makeshift security force (i.e., the one big guy every record store must have on staff). While he was being detained, the moron then crawled over a cubicle, did a pirouette or two, and then took off out of the store and across the street. Once again the jackass was caught, brought back, and sat down while everyone waited (and waited, and waited, and waited) for the police to arrive. Whatever CD it was he was trying to pilfer, it couldn’t have been worth that kind of wait. Hasn’t he ever heard of Kazaa?
This article appears in Nov 10-16, 2004.
