RTP-area local music and culture

[domcasualties AT yahoo.com (Jamie McLendon)]

Here's the deal: No, I don't think Charlotte has any decent BBQ, but
*Shelby*, which is only 45 minutes to the west, has outstanding
honest-to-God-pork cue at Bridge's.

Charlotte. My hometown. A total sinkhole and waste. Charlotte has
always wanted to be Atlanta when it grew up. It made fun of anything
original and stimulating, unless, of course, it came from somewhere
else. It has spent the last 30 years simultaneously acting
condescending to it's NC neighbors, while begging someone from
somewhere else to please pull the "KICK ME" sign from off of it's
back. In the late 80s, Charlotte was going through an identity crisis
because people from bigger places kept confusing it with Charleston,
SC. This was because the abbreviation for the city in the national
news and/or airport listings was always a simple "CH". I remember
telling my sister (who was living in Texas) about it. "That's stupid",
she said, "when I see CH, I think Chapel Hill."

The best thing I'll say about it was that it was one of the few places
where busing (i.e., school integration) actually worked. But then
someone moved there from out of state and didn't like the idea of
their children having to be bused and had the ruling overturned.
(That's a rant for another time.)

The Charlotte Motor Speedway (or whatever it's called) resides in
Harrisburg, incidently. And that's not even Mecklenburg County.

Thank you for your time.