Raleigh Rips His Knickers Off

After all the shouting, and despite the grand expenditure and hoopla surrounding the wide-openness of the Convention Center, Raleigh still remains the beloved minuscule wet spot described by Barney Fife: “The big city, Andy, go go go, folks readin’ magazines, eatin’ peaches.”

I don’t need to revisit the lame-brained hegemony that led to rejecting the 60 percent of the people’s will/wisdom, a referendum, in lieu of a top-down iron-clad decision to build this monster. I’ve already had my say in another failed institution, the newsweekly whose name we shan’t mention. The question now is what do we as a city do to try to reduce the clean up of the mud hole. Wahwee Wide Open gives a hint of how we may be able to draw in people whose reaction to booking a convention would very likely be outright laughter upon finding Raleigh is the only city in the US where one is guaranteed to drop a nut on New Year.

“Get on with thy bad self,” Sir Walter Raleigh exhorted me from a street side banner, sporting shades that appeared to have been pilfered from Bootsy Collins’ nightstand. Sounded good to me. Friday morning, downtown was abuzz with preparations before the start of Raleigh Rips His Knickers Off aka Raleigh Wide Open, an unfortunate sobriquet mindful of a seventies porn flick.

Over a cup of tea at the Morning Times, I chatted with Rachel Wilson. Her car had been stolen, that is illegally removed without her permission from where she had parked it.

“I had to find my car because it wasn’t where I left it. It was towed from across the street from the Wachovia bank to a block west.”

“No note, no nothing?”

“No. Good thing it was just a little farther away than I usually put it. And I’m glad they didn’t charge me or take it to some random lot,” unlike another unfortunate, an underpaid public school teaching assistant who was charged several hundred dollars for not being able to read minds i.e. another spontaneous unmarked no parking zone.

I spied Greg Hatem in front of the Raleigh Times headquarters of his empire. We had words about Raleigh’s bold tradition of allowing open containers for one weekend a year, a common practice in other cities: Charleston, Savannah, New Orleans, where the world continues turning. Hatem and I agreed that a general rescinding of the ban would be a fine idea.

“I’ve checked with ALE and everyone else,” Hatem said. “There are no restrictions besides Raleigh ordinances.” He paused in thought. “It would be great if Raleigh could lighten up a little.”

Hatem strode off purposely, attending to the myriad detail surrounding the upcoming weekend. I squandered a moment for historic reflection, that in years past, before prohibition, downtown Raleigh was noted for the staggering number of bars and saloons. OK, maybe hogs and drunks wallerin’ in the mud together isn’t the greatest sell, but, y’know, just a little less of “what the neighbors might think” could go a long way toward enlivening this place’s reputation, enough to maybe drag in a few visitors. Get it? Conventions. The Austin, Texas music scene makes that town somewhat of a destination city, although even so their Convention business lingers somewhere around flat, a general trend in the brave new world of teleconferencing.

By nightfall, amid a smattering of rain, the crowd was getting lubed for the feature act, Chuck Berry, the man who saved Rock ‘n’ Roll for me and a lot of others. Hanna had spooked many of the Whos who stayed in their Who houses, leaving Fayetteville street wide open, so to speak—a manageable crowd, many familiar stalwart Raleigh faces. I tarried at the side stage, the Cherry Bounce Alternative Music Festival, named for the boozy concoction that Joel Lane used to help grease the morphing of the Wake County seat, Bloomsbury into the state capitol. (A capitol named after a notorious rake-hell who knew a bit about booze and booty himself, such as when he stepped in doo-doo with his lover, Elizabeth, by knocking up one Alice Throckmorton, one of “Virgin Queen’s” ladies.) As long as we are talking ring-a-ding-ding, Raleigh style, let us not omit the exploits of the commander of Raleigh’s first expedition, Richard Grenville, who seems to have known a bit about ye olde throw down as well, as evidenced in the aftermath of a boozy first contact with some of the locals. While Walter tarried in London at Elizabeth’s pleasure, never to set foot in the new world, Grenville dispatched a relative of Joel, Ralph Lane, on a failed mission to recover a silver cup that turned up missing during the festivities. Lane ordered the community leveled and the corn crop burned, eclipsing even legendary party monster Frank Sinatra, whose best, pathetic response after being cut off from the tables at the Sands was to drive a golf cart through a glass wall. Ring-a-ding-ding, indeed.

Despite rumors of Chuck being obliged to settle for the rained-out forty grand written into the contract, the grand old man of the devil’s beat took the stage in front of the reduced crowd. Resplendent in a sequined dinner jacket and white yachting cap, toting a magnificent hollow body Gretch, a suitable lyre for a legend, Chuck ripped through a medley of the songs that helped change the world, at perhaps five grand a song, near the end, summoning eight chicas from the crowd who flounced and wiggled with enough verve to allow him to slip away backstage unnoticed—smoove move for a cat in his eighties. After a few celebratory drinks, we skipped home through a wall of water. Once you’re wet, who cares, right?

The next day, we returned to Cherry Bounce to catch the T’s, a band that plays with as much ferocity and elan as these 10,000 show-battered ears have been blistered by in some time, Lutie and Stephen both displayed above and beyond the call enthusiasm, climbing on the equipment during the tight-as-a-snare-drum set. Afterwards, we, being buy local sorts, evacuated da dooded up downtown to catch some other local faves The Loners, in the hinterlands of Hillsborough Street and Sadlack’s, where I occasionally amuse myself with this little game called spot the cop.

One night some years past, a show in full bore, a plain-jane Mercury with out-of-state tags motored into the lot. These two cats strolled past and bells started clanging in my head. I took my time with my Guinness and approached them after I went inside to get another.

“Evenin’ gents. Nice night, huh? Lika the museeka?” They nodded.

“OK, let’s cut to the chase. I know what you are—the only other questions remaining are what’s your jurisdiction and why are you here in my little town, in this joint?”

The one who seemed to exhibit leadership tendencies hemmed and hawed, all evasive and vague.

“Come on, don’t bullshit a bullshitter. Enough small talk, C’mon guys, pull up your shirts and let’s have a look-see.” They glanced at each other, shrugged their shoulders and pulled up their anonymous golf shirts—badges and Glock .40s and laminates.

BALTIMORE POLICE DEPARTMENT
CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION DIVISION
HOMICIDE UNIT

“Huh! My my my! So, like what is this, ‘good cop, bad cop?‘

“Oh, no,” Sean flicked his chin toward Kevin, this steely-eyed Irish kid. “Good cop, crazy cop.“

“So what’s up? What are you guys doing at this dive?“

“We’re going to work in the morning.”

“Vast iss?”

“Some of your little friends got over their heads during a, um, business transaction. We already checked into the Holiday Inn, and started driving around to see if anything happens in Raleigh, saw this place, heard the music and, what the hell, catch the show and a beer.” We had a lovely talk about this and that. Sean bought me a Guinness on Baltimore’s nickel.

Last Saturday, spot the cop was piece of cake at Sad’s. While Raleigh ripped off its knickers downtown, amid the full roar of towering PAs and tube amplification, RPD cruisers showed up at Sad’s and successively shut down the opening and main acts amid murmurs of permits and vague talk of a “neighbor” complaining, unusual considering the only neighbors anywhere close are North Hall, an NCSU dormitory, and the Church of Latter Day Saints next door, who have gone out of their way to make it known that Mormons don’t mind what goes on at the place. Call it what you will, but the juxtaposition of RWO III and da man’s absurd orders to shut down a piddly show at eight o’clock on a fuggin’ Saturday night across the street from a major University Campus, is sufficient enough to display how far the silly, myopic administrators of this town have to go to make this place something to visit and at the same time how close to that place Raleigh is now.

My bud, woodworker Randy Kelly, serendipitously and inadvertently nailed the conundrum as we hung out downtown in the drizzle the night before,

“In your brain, you have a million neutrons…”

“Neurons”

“Neurons. And they’re nothing. They don’t even know each other. They don’t even know who you are. But now, you put a group of ‘em together and you put eyes and ears on ‘em and they want to be friends.”

Kelly for Mayor.