credit: JaxScene, see all RAM photos from JaxScene
Editor Note: Earlier today my blog feed was removed from Jacksonville.com. I changed the headline to remove the word “Fuck” so my blog headlines will continue to appear on Jacksonville.com. I feel like this is a good compromise because Jacksonville.com is a good source of traffic for this blog and a good partner for allowing us to record Urban Jacksonville Weekly.
This is the first contribution from Riverside as Fuck. You can follow him/her on twitter, that’s where the cool kids hang out now, right. We’re protecting their anonymity so don’t ask.
Let me first say that the Riverside Arts Market is f’ing awesome. A wise man called it a game-changer for the city, and while I won’t go quite that far, it is a big very big deal, and it is excellently executed and perfectly run. All the people involved in planning and putting on the market deserve a pat on the back, a vegan hot dog, a pack of Parliaments, and a Sparks in congratulations.
So, I spent my Saturday at the market. To begin with I parked my bike with the bike valet. Totally awesome idea that I took advantage of, but I was shocked when the dude in front of me valeted his, like, 20-gear $5 million dollar mountain bike— the valet actually acknowledged that such bikes exist and he parked it. I mean, totally unacceptable, yall: that bike had BRAKES and GEARS. LAME.
Plus, there was no alcohol or smoking?! WTF?! No Sparks/PBR/* and no cigarettes? What, do they expect us to starve while we’re there or what?
Anyway, after valeting my bike I went into the Market and it was awesome. Saw some kid on a 10 foot high unicycle juggling flaming machetes while signing opera. It was so awesome because the unicycle was a fixie.
The only problem I had after that was that I didn’t know where to hang out— if someone would’ve had the vinyl, Sparks, cigarettes, and vegan funnel cakes booth, I would’ve posted up all day. But, the way it’s set up, I was rushing from booth to booth, trying to figure out where I was supposed to be; where the coolest tent or booth for someone to see me shopping was; where would I possibly get my picture taken and put in Folio, some ’social media’ blog, or on some pervy party-pic taker’s blog? Someone needs to blog about the coolest booth to be at when you’re at RAM so we will all know where to go when we get there.
So, after trying to find the cool booth, I decided to just check out the live music. It was okay, and I wanted to enjoy it. But, I was only enjoying it ‘ironically’ and there was no way to communicate to the Ortega/Mandarin/Southside denizens that I was only listening to the same music as them so as to make a joke about how someone like me, clearly so much cooler than them, is only listening to the same music as them so I can imply that I am somehow like them, when I really am not. ZING!!! on them, right?
Plus, didn’t anyone tell the organizers that beautiful open-air parks on the river are SO not the place to host live music? Couldn’t they have set up a satellite venue for the live music inside of a gas station or the bathroom of Einstein’s or the stairwell of the Fidelity parking garage? You know, a ‘cool’ place to be seen listening to ‘cool’ ‘noise’ music? That would have made it so much better.
Anyway I was watching the music and I started talking to someone I thought was a Riverside cool bro— wearing jorts, was bald and fat and had a beard, and kind of dirty— about fixies and TSI and Sparks and vinyl, but it turned out he was just a fat redneck who drove there with his 11 kids in his minivan. You know, he wasn’t the ‘cool’ fat and dirty where you squeeze yourself into waaaaay too tight jorts and don’t take a shower and have a homeless beard and your only exercise is sitting around drinking, writing your blog, watching your bros play bicycle games, and playing in your noise rock band. This guy was uncool fat where it was because he drives an SUV** and eats non-4th-level vegan foods. SO GROSS YALL. Once I realized his fatness was not a fashion statement, I left to keep wandering the market.
And that was when I found the cheese/produce/plants area of the market. The plants were beautiful and the produce looked delicious, but it was perplexing: Cheese? Fresh produce? Is that cool? I thought I read that being poor was what was cool now? SO CONFUSING YALL.
My only other gripe was with the art: there was not a single screen printed piece there. Don’t the organizers and artists even know what art is right now? Who would want a beautiful professionally done water color instead of another poster on Obama/Change/bikes/H8 conservatives and money/beer/ I am cool/ironic internet meme? Someone needs to get on that.
I never was able to find the DJ booth, either.
*insert your favorite cheap-ass beer to drink to be ‘ironic’ or to ‘comment’ on the ‘recession’
**we’re still hating those, right?
