I forgot to mention that there was an event last night -- the "Shop Talk" seminar -- which we didn't go to. We heard that the main speech was a debate between Brian Taylor of HACK (Houston Art Car Klub) and Harrod Blank, director of Wild Wheels, about whether people should make money off their art cars. I like both of them, they're both interesting people, but I cannot imagine any discussion related to art cars that would be less interesting to me. Some folks at the welcome dinner summed it up perfectly: "If you want to make money and you can figure out how, do. If you don't, don't. Debate over; let's have a beer!"
So we skipped the seminar. There was also a speech by the Big Horn guy -- he's in Harrod's upcoming movie, a rough cut of which we saw two years ago -- which I was a little disappointed to miss. But honestly, I enjoyed a nice brisket dinner and turning in early more than I would have enjoyed that speech.
So this morning was the main event. Our line-up number was 41 and we were supposed to arrive between 9 and 10. I think we got there at 9:30, and we were not at all surprised to be among the first arrivals. A very pleasant surprise was when we were lined up waiting to get to the staging area, and discovered our friend Marilyn in the car behind us! We met Marilyn at Artscape a few years ago, and we saw her again here in '04. She told me today that I'm responsible for costing her money, at least my blog is, by getting her hooked on BPAL. I'm always happy to be an enabler! She said that her favorite is the limited edition Red Lantern, which she had to get off Ebay. The conversation reminded me that I have a bottle of Monster Bait: Underpants waiting for me at home. So sad that I can't try it until I get home on Wednesday!
The bad news this morning was that we were number 41, and number 42 was the amazing Draka: a dragon over 100 feet long, made of several buses and flatbeds hitched together. As soon as we saw that, we knew no one would be looking at us. Oh well, we lucked out in previous years and weren't too close to anything spectacular. I guess this wasn't our year. Besides, as Tim Klein said, at least we know we're in a lot of photos. At least, the back end of our car is.
The parade wasn't until 1 pm. Which was good because it gave us plenty of time to walk up and down the line and take photos. But on the downside, it meant we had been walking around in the sun and heat for 3.5 hours before the parade even started. Luckily there was a shady spot not too far from UMJ, where Georg and I could sit and keep an eye on the car.
Every year I'm amazed by the size of this event. It's 10 times the size of any other parade we go to. Looking down the line at dozens of incredible, beautiful, weird art cars is a feeling, a sense of community, that's hard to describe. I don't feel isolated or ostracized because of my art car; on the contrary, people seem to really like it. But still, art cars in Durham are such a rarity that I can't help but feel like something of an oddball. Even when Durham people love the car, they don't -- can't -- get it in the way that a fellow art car driver does. It's such a great feeling to be surrounded by people who share this crazy cool thing with me.
The spectators this year were really cool for the most part. Only a couple of things happened that irritated me. First, during the parade, a woman jumped up in front of me and motioned me to move forward. I thought she was a volunteer telling me to pick up the pace, so I complied. Then I realized that she was just a spectator who wanted me to get out of the way so she could take a photo of Draka! Excuse me, this isn't a Draka photo session. It's a parade and I'm in it too, bitch! I didn't mind people being so much more excited about Draka than they were about us. After all, Draka is way more impressive than UMJ; that's just a fact. But that really cheesed me off.
The second thing was really the most rude. Near the end of the parade, we passed by a boy who yelled "Die, Barbie, die!" and threw a firecracker at UMJ! That was the one time that I had to restrain myself from yelling out language that was not appropriate for a family event. Georg told me later that if there weren't volunteers all over the place, he would have jumped out of the car and confronted the parents. I think the gist was to ask them if they were wolves, because their son had clearly been raised by wolves. The parents, need I add, were standing right there and made no effort to correct their child.
Okay, but enough complaining. For the most part everyone was really nice, and I had many pleasant interactions that didn't involve firecrackers or people telling me to get out of the way of the more interesting cars. I think one of the best interactions was early on, when I talked to a Chinese man who was there with his grandchildren. He saw the mah jongg tiles and got all excited. He pronounced it "mah jiang" so I guess that must be the Chinese name for mah jongg. I asked him if he played mah jongg and he smiled self-deprecatingly and said "Very long time ago." Which probably means that he's a champion player who won tons of money playing mah jongg in his youth. Then he asked me if I played, and I said "yes, but very badly." Unfortunately I wasn't being modest in a Chinese way, I was being honest in an American way about my lack of skill at mah jongg. Not like it matters, he didn't challenge me to a game or anything. I would never play mah jongg against a Chinese person because first of all, I know Japanese rules; and secondly, I don't like to gamble and mah jongg is a gambling game in Asia. I gather that it's like poker is to us; they don't see the point of playing if you don't gamble.
After the parade there was an after party somewhere in downtown. We tried to find it, but the people we were following got lost and so did we. We spent some time trying in vain to follow the directions, until we finally realized that after 5 hours in the sun and heat, we didn't really want to go to an after party which would involve more standing around in the sun and heat.
So we went back to the hotel and rested for a few hours. Luckily we still had sandwich fixings from my drive out here, and cold water in the fridge. Having a fridge in the hotel room is the most wonderful thing.
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