Bele Chere 2009

Bele Chere is a street festival that's held the last full weekend in July in Asheville, NC. It's chock full of artists selling their wares, non profits trying to get you to get into their message, food vendors, and much more. My favorite part of the whole shebang is the watching the people who attend the soiree, I love to watch and make up stories about them in my head as they go by.

We, Sparky and I that is, do Bele Chere every year and we always seem to go on Saturday during the hottest part of the day. Sometimes we can talk some of our friends into going but this year we went solo. It was pretty hot but not as hot as it has been in years past.

This kid was typical of how people dressed their babies this year:However most other people gave their babies food or something to chew on, these folks were going in a different route. Good for them, gnawing on an empty tray will build character in that kid some day.

Speaking of food, I'm pretty sure those hippies fried the chicken and tater tots in Patchouli oil and they laced the waffles with Mary Jane.

Here's a brief summary of some the things I learned at this year's event:
Video games are not just for inside play anymore.

Some white guys can't keep their shirts on, no matter how much other white guys want them to. And by other white guys I mean me.

Kids with hair-dos like this always crack me up.

Turns out that the long lost black member of Dexy's Midnight Runners was not an urban legend after all. He's real and he was in Asheville yesterday.

The gal at the candy apple/fudge/ice cream booth is kind of okay with fat bastards who take her picture. And by fat bastards I mean me.

Some people have waaaay more balls (or in this case ovaries) than me. This chick was doing a karaoke version of Little Drummer Boy. It was Christmas in July for about three minutes.

I also learned that douchebags come in all manner of shapes and sizes. Here's 'Hong Kong Phooey Douchebag':
Here's 'Jesus Hates Anyone Who Isn't White Douchebag':
And finally we have 'Hey Look At Me, Aren't I Super Clever and Amusing Douchebag(s)':
I also learned that buskers are everywhere.

Hey look, it's the little drummer boy:
It's the angsty guitar girl:
And finally we have the white noise busker:
I also learned that superheroes walk amongst us and they dig ice cream just like we do:
But the biggest thing I learned from this year's Bele Chere was that you can take the granny out of the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park out of the granny:
I'm betting she was on her way to eat some of that patchouli fried chicken, get the letters 'G-I-L-F' tattooed on her lower back, or to see if Spiderman would shower her in a stream of his hot wet 'webbing.'

Oh Bele Chere, how I love you and I'm already looking forward to seeing you again next year!

Up your apples!

Yesterday we decided to escape all this house buying and selling business and get out of town for the day, so we went over to the 62nd annual Apple festival in Hendersonville, NC, North Carolina it turns out is the 7th most apple producing state in our nation and most of those apples are grown in the Hendersonville/Henderson county area. This was the first time we've been to the festival, we usually go to the beach around Labor Day but since we're in the midst of all this real estate business we decided to stay home this year.

So off we went across the mountain to the fruit based fete in the little, yet growing, town of Hendersonville. We like Hendersonville's downtown area and luckily that's where the festivities took place so I knew where to go and where to find parking.

Once we got to the big "do" we hit the ground running.

Gratuitous apple shot.

Despite the sunny and mercilessly hot weather the streets were packed with all sorts of people. To my surprise there were many people in the crowd who were openly supporting one Presidential candidate or another. I'll admit I was worried when I saw a slew of people wearing McCain stuff. But my fears calmed down when I saw just as much, if not more Obama stuff being sported by all sorts of people. What struck me was that this is what average McCain supporter looked like:
But us Obama people looked more like America does. We looked more diverseand braless than the Bush McCain supporters did.

Of course Sparky and I slapped on an Obama sticker each and we also bought nifty "Obama '08" bumper stickers as well. And despite her longstanding prohibition against it, Sparky actually had me put one of the bumper stickers on the back bumper of her car later that day. And let me tell you it looks damn good on there.

Sprinkled through out the crowd were some celebrities. Fat Elvis perched under some shade and sang to all of us.

Rudolph the red nose reindeer also showed up but some dumb ass redneck shot him.

And hypocrite evangelist Billy Graham showed everyone his nudes:Speaking of Christians, no outdoor festival would be complete without a bunch of those wacky folks spreading their message of love for their fellow man
and the good news about the return of Jesus.
Ah, there's nothing like a good jolt of religious insanity to remind me why I'm an atheist. It made my heart happy to see a gaggle of goth girls ferociously baiting and debating these idiots about what is and what isn't wicked and sinful. You go girls!

There were all kinds of booths set up at the festival. Some were informational, some charitable, but most were filled with people selling everything from hand made crafts to art to food. These gals in the Scandinavian products booth were cute as buttons. We purchased a few small fish and fishing related prints, we got a print of a rainbow trout for Saprky's dad and I got a small print of some fly fishing flies. Sparky also bought a hand made piece of local pottery. And yes, we also partook of some of the food that was for sale. We tired an apple slushie and some of this crazy gal's fudge.

I wish I could say we tried this:
Or had some of this:

But we had neither and since we didn't I probably won't have to have another coronary bypass for a few more years.

We only hung out for about two hours because the heat was so oppressive but all in all we had a nice time and I'm sure we'll do this festival again some time in the future. And if you want to do it as well it runs through Labor Day. It's held on Labor Day weekend every year so mark your future calendars as well.

And now I'll give the last word on the 2008 Apple festival to this blue GOAT:

"Baaaaaa."