Well I'm in Charleston, South Carolina this week. It's the land of ferociously large mosquitoes and fowl mouth cabbies. I've heard things from cabbies the last two days that would make Larry Flint blush.
Charleston's a beautiful town with a rich but tragic history. Today was another reminder of this as a march was held downtown with a bunch of white folks walking down past the slave markets in chains wearing tee-shirts that said they were sorry for slavery.
I don't know if I can be sorry for slavery because I don't recall ever enslaving anyone. I think Ben Folds says it best in Rockin' the Suburbs' title track:
In a haze these days, I pull up to the stop light,
I can feel that something's not right.
I can feel that someone's blasting me with hate,
And bass, sendin dirty vibes my way.
Coz my Great, Great, Great, Great, Grandad,
Made someone's Great, Great, Great, Great Grandaddies slaves.
It wasn't my idea,
it wasn't my idea,
it never was my idea.
I just drove to the store for some
Preparation-H.
Y'all don't know what it's like,
being male, middle-class and white...
It gets me real pissed off and makes me wanna say,
It gets me real pissed off and makes me wanna say,
It gets me real pissed off and makes me wanna say,
"F***!"
I got into town about 1AM Saturday night. The trip into town was a little surreal. I took a cab, a smoke stained mid-80's model Chevy van, with the cabbie to match, from the airport to my hotel. I stayed at the Hampton Inn on Daniel Island (although I think it's a peninsula and not an island at all), a small rich district of Charleston where my software training is taking place. We traveled through the darkened city, which is really dark at night and not lit up like you would think a major city would be at night. The buildings cast dark silhouettes upon an orange sky overcast by a cloud of smoke from the paper mill.
Sunday morning I woke up and called a cab to take me to "Taste of Charleston" where I ate a variety of local cuisine. The foods ranged from blackened alligator tail to barbecue-bacon-wrapped scallops to turkey and wild pheasant gumbo to crab stuffed flounder on a bed of rice and shrimp. The festival was held at a former plantation, Boon Hall Plantation, where you could walk through the original slave quarters that predated the Civil War Era, where, I think, the majority of Charleston's Caucasian population wished the entire African American population still lived. Parts of Gone With the Wind was filmed here as well as other Civil War movies (The Patriot and North and South). It didn't take too long for me to have my fill of tasting Charleston and shaking my head at our historical mistakes before I was ready to visit the downtown area.
A portly white female cabbie in a maroon mini-van picked me up and we headed to downtown Charleston. On the way, she explained the popular opinion of white folk in Charleston on racial inequality. She said the problem with the "blacks" is that they don't want to work, and if a white person fires them for not working, that's fine with them because then they can sue them for racial discrimination and sit at home and rake in the dough for doing nothing, which is what they wanted in the first place. Again, I hang my head. Then she goes on to say, "And then I thought the same thing was happenin' with the Mexicans, but it's not 'cause they can work and not complain about low wages and long hours. And now the blacks are mad because they're losing their jobs to the Mexicans!!! Funny thing is I wasn't a racist 'til I moved to Charleston." She is now.
She dropped me off in the heart of downtown at the old slave markets. They were pre-Civil War open-air markets where all kinds of folks are sell their cheap jewelry, touristy tee-shirts and memorabilia, and hand made baskets and pottery and anything else that might catch a tourist's eye (nothing real, nothing of quality). The streets are filled with young African-American children selling roses made from the leaves of the tall palmetto trees that line the streets. They weave the roses together themselves and sell them with their best "I'm hungry" face to tourist couples, who might can "spare two dollars so's I get some chicken in my stomach," one said.
Monday night I went back downtown and ate dinner at a very good Thai restaurant called Basils. I had Pad Prik King with red curry paste and a nice glass reisling. After that I walked next door to a long hollowed warehouse type building that housed a bar/music venue called The Music Farm. The night's show was Steel Pulse, one of the best classic reggae bands still performing. I finished eating around 8:00, which was when the doors opened at the Music Farm. I went ahead and bought a ticket to the show, which didn't actually start until after 11:00. So, I had a little time to mingle with the locals who turned out not to be locals at all.
The first fella that I talked to was a skinny Jamaican fella with mangled teeth in traditional African garb with a matching cylindrical shaped hat floating atop a mound of dreads. He was setting up a table at the back of the venue full of hemp and bone necklaces, wide brass bracelets, and "fantasy incenses". I walked over to peruse his merchandise, and he said in a heavy Jamaican accent, "I have beautiful tings from all over da worlt! I have travelt da worlt, Africa, Jamaica, Hong Kong, and collected all da tings you see here!"
I looked at him a little hesitantly, and I guess he noticed my hesitation because he then said in a not-so-heavy Jamaican accent, "Na man, don't believe dat."
"Ok," I said. "But I've been to Hong Kong, and they've actually got this stuff there."
"You been to Hong Kong. Is crowded there?"
"Yeah, very busy"
We talked for a while about our travels. He said he likes to drive everywhere he goes in the states and stop in the small towns and see all the beauty this land has to offer. He says America is his favorite place to travel and that he lives in New York and travels all over the states and sell his merchandise where he can.
After we talked a while a squatty-scruffy-curly-blondish-brown-haired-hippy fella in a tie-dye Dead shirt with a twisted mustache and glasses walks up and joins in the conversation. He says he's moved to the east coast from Cali "right?" and he doesn't look like it, but he's an army brat "right?" and he's been smoking pot since he was 13 "right?" and he's an independent contractor pool cleaner "right?" for tons of millionaires around North Hampton and they get so bent out of shape when there's the tiniest spot on the concrete of their pool "right?" and he lives in a rent house of one of the millionaires surrounded by 750 acres of pristine wood lands and ponds and every creature God created for $250 a month "right?"...
The Jamaican looks at the hippy and says, "You are da one who is da millionaire," he said. He looks at me, "He lives like da king."
...and he bought this "guard rabbit" from Home Depot "right?" and one day he drove up and he saw that his guard rabbit had moved "right?" and as he walked toward the house, it bolted about ten yards away from him, and he realized that the spirit of the rabbit had walked right out from his guard rabbit "right?" and he said "I'm not going to hurt you man" and the rabbit looked at him and hopped around the house and munched on some grass and it's his guard rabbit now "right?" but he did try to hit an armadillo the other day in his driveway because they just dig their snout along the ground and destroy the land "right?" and if you come up on an armadillo at night and bump into them, their defense mechanism is to jump straight up in the air about 6 feet and run off "right? but these millionaires whose pools he cleans are all Republicans "right?" and they're are all down to Earth and have worked hard for every dime they made "right?" well with the exception of one family and their place is fallin' apart, but the others believe in hard work and keepin' all that they earn and his license plate says North Carolina "BUSH04"...
The Jamaican said, "Everyone in dis world we live in just need to learn to appreciate da beauty of dis land and to slow down and enjoy dis life."
"Right on..." said the hippy.
By this time more of a crowd was gathering and making their way over to his tables and I could tell that he was getting back into character, so I made my way with the talkative hippy toward the center of the room.
"Hey man you wanna beer?" the hippy asked me. He was right about that.
"Sure."
He bought me a Sierra Nevada at the bar and we talked a little while about music and the crappy opening act. He then went to meet a friend outside the building where he was going to score some "good feelings". "Take care brother, and hey...vote for Bush," he said with a grin as he walked away.
And again I was alone in the center of the hall.
The crowd was an eclectic mix by the time Steel Pulse took the stage from the college preppie kids (who think its hip to go see good music and get so drunk they don't even know who they're there to see but have a good time no matter who gets on stage) to the alternative individuals (dressed all in black with every appendage of their body pierced at least once) to a rich white haired guy in a tweed sports coat (who was partying harder than all the college kids with a woman who was at least thirty years younger than him) to the Rastafarian wannabes (with the short thin dreads smokin' it up) to the NAACP activists (who acted like every song was their call to arms).
But Steel Pulse was the real deal. They had real dreads thicker than my loaf of French bread. They were so long that they hung down past their waist then looped up and tied behind their head and still were so long that they hung down past their waist. They jammed for hours. They sang songs of the tragedy taking place in Africa today, songs calling for unity as one nation, songs or peace, songs of freedom.
I felt that it was a message that Charleston needed to hear, but who would spread it? The drunk college kids trying to make it with their dates? The even drunker old rich guy who definitely only wanted one thing from his date? The rasta-wannabes who were too stoned to remember who drove to the concert? The NAACP gangstas who only heard songs of "Damn the man!"? Who would spread these wise words of unity, peace, freedom and love?
I was alone in a sea of swaying drunks. Drunk on alcohol, sex, drugs and self-righteousness.
Then I looked at the "drunks" around me and realized I was not alone at all, but swaying in time to the same music as everyone else.
Charleston is a crazy town. Too moral to know it's damned by its own prejudices, but in the end aren't we all?
Well, that's Ben Folds for you-always tellin' the truth. There is something to be learned from everyone we meet if we would just take the time to talk to them. There is beauty to be seen everywhere you go. Today I watched the most beautiful sun set I've ever seen through a tiny alley-way in Charleston's former slave markets. The oranges, pinks and purples were as bright and pure as I've ever seen these colors. 'Twas a sight and a lesson I'll never forget and an end to a truly matt-tastick day.
