When something happens, like Dave Matthews' descending upon Scott Stadium, that's so wonderful it hurts, there has to be at least one detractor to balance things out. One naysayer. One devil's advocate. Preferably one with the means to get published. I nominate myself.
I'll admit it - I like "Satellite." I've been known to hum along to "Ants Marching." But I still think DMB is the most wildly overrated band since the Go-Go's. I can't begin to comprehend why DMB became so insanely popular when other perfectly good and acoustically similar bands like Blues Traveler continue to flounder with only middling amounts of fame.
But enough of that. This is going to be a column for me and the other three people who aren't going to the concert this weekend. It's a column for those people who can't believe I even spent two paragraphs on Dave and crew already.
So what else is there to do this weekend? Well, my friends, the pickings are slim. The Charlottesville and University Symphony Orchestra concert got rescheduled for tonight. It seems as though most everyone ducked for cover once they realized the Dave juggernaut was headed this way.
Now it's up to self-starters to sniff out a better pastime. There are always the usual failsafe methods of amusement: read a book, watch a movie. Some suggestions: read "The Bonfire of the Vanities" by Tom Wolfe. This is the book that kept me from getting a sunburn on spring break of my senior year of high school because no one could drag me away from reading it. Picture "The Great Gatsby" in late-1980s New York City, only with less glowing green lights and more general depravity.
There's a little gem of a movie that more people should know about: "The Castle," an Australian movie that was to Australia a few years ago what "Austin Powers" was to America. It's the story of a low-income family that is evicted from its home when the airport decides to expand. Though the house is a tacky ramshackle dump, it's the family's pride and joy. The father's attempts to face down the powers that be in the airport and in the government are hilarious and touching, on par with anything that the "National Lampoon" series or "The Simpsons" have to offer.
There are other simple joys to partake of this Saturday as well. Being a Hoosier - no, that's not another Hooism, it means I'm from Indiana - I find daylight-saving time to be a bizarre but wonderful thing. We don't play games with our clocks where I come from. I'm still adjusting to the fact that, all of a sudden, the sun doesn't set until after eight o'clock. The late sunset opens a whole new world of possibilities.
Go for a walk. Explore the gardens behind the Lawn - I mean, really explore them. This is the time of year for it; everything is coming into bloom. Find the perfect place to watch the sun go down behind the dogwoods. Take "The Bonfire of the Vanities" with you, and you could have just about the best mix of fiction and reality that a Saturday evening has to offer around here.
As for me, I'm hightailing it out of here. Don't expect to find me within a hundred miles of Scott Stadium come Saturday night. I'll be somewhere in the midst of the Blue Ridge Mountains, sitting on a porch chair under a starry sky, listening to Jeff Buckley, maybe drinking some lemonade. It'll be one of those nights that's worth every penny because you didn't spend a single one; it'll be priceless.
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