Facebook is a funny thing. It’s like a virtual high school, college, and workplace reunion all in one. You end up seeing people from your distant and not so distant past. They post pictures of their kids as well as pictures from the distant and not so distant past. Sometimes you catch up on mutual friends and whatnot.
This whole social network reconnecting is how I got invited to the DMZ reunion at Vino’s. I hadn’t seen her since school but it was a punk show. I live in the country and they don’t play punk down here so I was down with it. Also, Vino’s has great food. No seriously, it gets great reviews in the papers and everything. Yes I have eaten here before and it is on my short list of stops when I’m in town.
Of course, even though I had RSVP’d weeks in advance, the weather reports were threatening sleet on that day. And dammit I was a going.
And GO I did.
First, Arkansas has had a long and varied punk scene since the eighties. In fact, there is a documentary about the whole thing called Towncraft. Also, Evanescence (not punk) came from here. Another guitarist from one of the local bands went on to be in Green Day. So this DMZ 20 year reunion was sort of a big deal.
To answer your question, yes I had one of those awesome calzones. I had a snack for dinner and then ordered a calzone and ate half of it. I indulged but responsibly so.
The show was fun. Here are some pictures.
Matt Besser as the “Hunchback of Vino’s”
This is a very dark picture of what I believe to be “Trusty” playing. I might even have the band wrong. Man it was late.
This is the sign to the left of the stage. There were several of these around the stage. but but .. it was a punk show. What do you mean no stage diving? Then again, this was a twenty year REUNION SHOW. This means the average age was probably thirtyish.
Arkansas is a really small place. The entire population is about two million people and when you divide the age groups and then put the city dwellers and the people who would like punk music, well you see what I mean. I saw a bunch of people I recognized, which was nice. There was also this one guy who did this very public defriending of me on myspace complete with a blog entry about the whole thing. I haven’t experienced anything like that since the whole junior high “no you can’t sit at my lunch table anymore” scene. in well, junior high. And yet I don’t know what I did to offend so righteous indignationly. (is that even word? I don’t care!) So that was a little, what’s the word, AWKWARD! for minute.
What is about Social networks that bring out the worst of junior high school behavior and social politics in people who are old enough to know better? I just want to know.
But I survived and I go where I want to go, when I want to go. I’m a bad ass like that. Now if the place had only allowed mosh pitting, I would have been all good.
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