RTP-area local music and culture

[rick sawyer <rickbang AT gmail.com>]

>
> Let's review recent proposals by our "leadership" on the Downtown Durham
> cultural and entertainment landscape:
>
> - The City actively recruited CLEAR CHANNEL -- with an $18 million subsidy
> to build a 4000 seat big box on 8 acres downtown across from the jail.
> (Resolved, thanks to community pressure)
>
> - Boosters and elected officials propose zoning laws to limit or prohibit
> nightlife and entertainment businesses in Downtown Durham -- which would
> impact small businesses and local entrepreneurs the hardest.
>
> Do you see a pattern emerging?


actually, and mind you that i'm not exactly a mathmatics ace, but i
always thought that you needed three or more data points before you
could determine any sort of pattern.  otherwise, it's just a straight
line, right?  statisticians?

at any rate, the two things you describe strike me as wholly unlike
one another.  on the one hand, you have city council bumbling through
a poorly conceived and secretive two year long effort to build a
behemoth stadium that none of the "city boosters" wanted; a stadium
that would have been operated by a behemoth, unethical corporation
that none of the durham community cared for.  whether the measure had
any real legs even before the intervention of the hipsters remains an
unanswerable question, but the fact remains that the city council came
to its senses.

on the other hand, you have an extreme, offhanded and poorly conceived
policy suggestion on the part of a single county commisioner that was
dismissed immediately by the rest of the commission. it sounds to me
like the system works!  all hail the durham "'leadership.'"

besides, there's not much in the way of "downtown entertainment" for
"Durham" to "kill" no matter how much it "wants" to do so.

these spam volleys did inspire me to examine the downtown durham, inc.
webpage, however.  it turns to be a document rife with prevarication
and not altogether immune to boners.  to wit, i discovered, in a
section entitled "downtown lifestyle," the following amenities:

# Catch the train to destinations around the Triangle or across the
country, at the future transportation center slated to begin
construction in 2006.
# Check out the concerts and events along the American Tobacco River
beside the Bulls ballpark.
# Toss a Frisbee with friends on the lawn of Durham Central Park .

"American Tobacco River"? does it run brown?  as brown as durham
central park's alleged lawn?

finally, i would also point out that it is the touted american tobacco
campus that brought durham its first in-town starbucks.  thanks,
innovation, for marching us toward the brilliant future free from
sterile office buildings and francished box stores!

r.