Blue Plum (part 2)

Once again the Blue Plum Festival has come and gone. And once again we did our part in supporting our local street festival that is filled with local vendors. But let me tell you boys and girls, it was hard this year because it's already bat shit melt your brain hot here in Johnson City.

After an attempt to play 18 holes of disc golf yesterday morning with my friend Keith, we had to stop after 12holes because by 9:30 it was already too hot to take a breath, Sparky and I got cleaned up and we trundled off downtown to take part in the festivities. Unlike so many others, we dressed properly for the screamingly humid heat. (Honestly people, when it's 90+ degrees out and the humidity is 100% percent, it's not a good idea to dress all in black. And if your kid is whiter than white except for his blisteringly red cheeks and he or she is sweating like a Republican at a truth telling convention, then it's probably time to get the kid inside or at least under some shade.)

There were the usual suspects vendor wise participating in this year's Blue Plum. The pseudo hippies were there pedaling their tie dyed wares, local food vendors also were amongst the vendors, and the folks from Just Herbs, Inc were there once again and we loaded up on spices, teas, and other herbal concoctions. We also loaded up on handmade soap and bought a soy candle from this great establishment.

One great thing about our small festival is that they offer booth and table space to local non profit advocacy groups. And one group that is near and dear to our hearts is the new PFLAG chapter that was started by our friend Rev. Shuck and the gal who owns and runs Althea Soap. Alas Rev. John was out of town helping his 90 year old father celebrate another year above ground, but the PFLAG booth was well staffed. Our good friends and fellow trouble makers John and Snad, and a bevy of others, staffed the PFLAG booth and they twisted our arms, I mean they persuaded Sparky and I, to become members of their fine organization. Before I forget, here's a shot I took inside Althea Soaps. Having just used some of the soap we bought there yesterday I can truly say it's great stuff. If the overly processed soap corporate America producesa nd sells causes your skin to itch and burn like it does mine, then do yourself a favor and buy some of Melanie's soap. You'll be supporting a PFLAG friendly business and getting a great product to boot. As you can see she also sells other stuff in her little shop so go back and click on her web page when you get the chance.

No self respecting street fair would be worth it's salt if they didn't have a shitload of folks selling all kinds of deep fried food, funnel cakes, and other crap that's bad for you and this years Blue Plum acquitted itself nicely in that regard. Here's a shot of one of the street food vendors I took as I hurried by before the siren song of deep fried food got too seductive for me to resist.I almost succumbed to the fried Oreos.

I love people watching at these types of affairs and here's a couple of shots of kids and others I took:I loved the sight of these two young Hispanic boys wearing madras shorts.

I bet this little gal ended up as red as her great looking shoes by the end of the day.

Here's a shot of my friend Keith. That's Keith on the far left wearing, wait for it, wait for it, a BLACK t shirt. He justified it by pointing out it was an Obama for President shirt, so I let him slide this time.

The heat was too much for us so we left after about an hour and we went off to run our usual weekend errands and then go home to cool down and have some dinner. We decided to go back out to the festival later that night after sunset to see the main musical attraction The Subdudes. They are a hip New Orleans based bunch of middle aged white dudes who play a cool brand of bluesy-boogie-woogie style rock and roll. They were big in the local hipster club scene in Asheville and Knoxville in the mid 90's and for a time they seemed poised to break out and into the mainstream music scene. But while big time stardom has eluded them, they still sound great and put on a great show. This was the first time I had seen them live and they sounded just as good live as they do on their recordings. They concert was free so everybody and their brother showed up for it, we met our friends Snad and John down at the concert venue and they were on their way out to meet some other friends but they kindly loaned us some folding chairs so we got to sit on our booties and watch the show. Here's a artsy (I say artsy, you say blurry) shot of some of people at the show:

And since I figured out how to use my digital camera as a video camera, here's a a couple of minutes of The Subdudes. If you listen very closely you can hear me say, "I think I'm recording a movie." To which you can rightly reply, "No you moron, you're not recording a movie, you're just recording random shit that happened to get in front of your lens. What you have recorded is far from a movie."

Damn, why you got to be so harsh on me? I just figured out how to use that part of my camera last night. Ease up on a monkey, will ya?

Anyhoo, that's all for Blue Plum this year. Next up on the local festival scene is Covered Bridge Days in Elizabethton, TN next weekend and Bele Chere in Asheville, NC at the end of July.