Well – I didn’t expect THAT.
Yesterday Kristen and I took a very round-about route down to Fredericksburg, VA in the hopes of avoiding the pulsing blackness that was I-95S betwixt Washington, DC and the house concert we were playing. Google maps also showed seven car accidents between where we were and where we wanted to be, so routing through the countryside of Virginia didn’t seem like such a bad plan.
Of course, somewhere north of Manassas, riding down 28, traffic slowed in any case. I guess it wasn’t really a surprise as I’ve been through the area before and I knew that the area was sort of like Langley Park, filled with used car lots and strip malls and TONS of pedestrian traffic. Mostly Hispanic in demographic, I had lots of time to think about racial divides, cash economies and cultural isolation as we sat in traffic.
Things broke free for a little while and then we were stuck in traffic again. Some sort of event happening up ahead of us involving lots of people parking and walking. We were unfortunately totally unaware of whatever was up ahead of us and we’d routed right through the middle of it. Traffic WASN’T there just a little while ago, there weren’t signs about an event or anything – I checked Manassas’ website and find that…
Mitt Romney’s in town. Just hours after having been in Wisconsin announcing Paul Ryan as his running ma – OH – he was in front of the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk, VA! That makes a lot more sense.
And then the traffic wasn’t the only problem. The line began. Wrapped around the block… for blocks… different blocks in all directions – thousands of people lined up to see Mitt. As we got closer to the pavilion where he’d be appearing the flags and the buttons slowly came into evidence. And his chief demographic became painfully obvious… over the next half hour we passed easily several thousand people and we didn’t see anything but white faces. Even when we got to the no-man’s land between the Romney supporters and the protesters yelling at them from the opposite side of the street (driving between the two crowds was kind of weird…) the only non-white face was the one little Hispanic man selling ice – and no doubt making a killing – to people who were no doubt wondering about his immigration status.
Well – even though it’s a wonderful night and I don’t have to bring a lot of gear, it still is a bit of a work o0ut to run an open mic and Blaze reflected my mood by the end of the night at Georgie Jessup’s Edith May’s Paradise Open Mic!
I think it was worth it to get stuck in traffic. Between detour and Mitt, it took us about 3 hours to get down to Fredericksburg but I think the delay was worth it to be reminded that there’s so much Mitt Love. And so much hatred for Obama.
Thursday night we had played a fantastic house concert: Awkward Pause House Concerts run by our friends Becca and Billie is an awesome series. Packed into a rowhouse in Baltimore within sight of our favourite IT company (Chesapeake Systems), we had a great show with plenty of new faces – and afterwards got into a couple of really interesting conversations including one that threw down the room-silencing statement of “I think things are going in the right direction”.
Silence.
“In what context?” I asked.
“Well, the country in general.”
Now, right or left, Democratic, Republican, Independent, whatever – I don’t think there’s anyone out there who will generally state that they think the country’s headed in the right direction. Everyone thinks they’re fighting the good fight but that they’re always dangerously on the edge of catastrophe…
In the midst of the surrounding sputtering disbelief I said “You’ve got to be able to have a pretty outside perspective to think that way”. And indeed, he’s sort of plugged into the potential optimism that I usually have in my heart. It DOES take the long view to think things are getting better. There’s a lot of vitriol and hatred in the world right now – and it’s very, very loud. The poor are poorer, the rich are richer – but socially we’re slowly (but I’d argue inevitably) getting more liberal. Fiscally we’re probably swinging towards the conservative side, but we’ll probably swing back again. I’d argue that there are dangers, but if we can survive our current idiocy, things ARE going in the right direction. Hot button issues like abortion and gay marriage will continue to be hot button issues but – abortion will no doubt be restricted and legislated, but the genie’s out of the bottle and I don’t REALLY think it’s going back in – gay marriage? People are grumpy around it, but I think in another 20 years there will be more states that allow it than there are now. Slow, but inevitable…
And I think that that’s the reason that there IS so much vitriol and hatred – it’s not because those close-minded ranks are swelling, but because they’re rising. They’re cornered and they can see the inevitable end of a way of thinking and that understandably throws them into a panic. It’s not because those ranks are swelling, it’s because they’re dying.
Before our Tuesday gig at Brewer’s Alley, Heather and I spent some time just wandering around Frederick, MD. Oh, the sites we saw… including this DJ AT-AT! our stage at the Awkward Pause House Concert in Baltimore, MD. Yay! Kristen used her new kitchen torch and made creme brulee! I win at birthday presents! Admittedly she told me exactly what to get her, but sometimes that’s okay. Because… creme brulee. The Rommney electorate of Manassas, VA. I guess there are some things you’ve got to have a sense of humour about to sell. After fighting our way through all the traffic we still had time to wander around Fredericksburg, VA for a while before performing at Manse Fields House Concert. Fredericksburg is apparently where the saints stalk the alleyways. One of the businesses in Fredericksburg, VA apparently had a thing about credit cards…. Our beautiful stage at Manse Fields in Fredericksburg, VA – the platform was built about 20 years and the forsithia covering it took about 8 years to grow. The setting is pretty damned idyllic and it was a wonderful farewell-to-Heather’s-Disney-virginity show.
