Still Laboring Under That?

I've started dreaming about eating chocolate kitties, so I thought I would write about something world shaking today...the guys at city hall who have the jobs I dream of closing down the City Market Building again. I always thought being a first class paper pusher was an art in it's own right. But for the City of Roanoke to pay for people to smoke pot all day and come up with these first class ideas...it would be like having that job at Mattel, or Hasbro, designing matchbox cars and playing with them in the aisles. Or getting paid to play with Lincoln Logs or Tinker Toys all day.

I agree with the decision to let those who cared to, drop acid and bring us the Art Museum...it is a truly beautiful building. But Roanoke, we should have known something was up when the City 'redesigned' the Market Building the FIRST time and left the upper floor looking like Spike's on a Saturday night. It always made me think of a friend's basement where 'XYZ' practiced in high school. I wasn't sure it was ok to wander around up there without a tetanus shot.

Then, They blew more money replacing the tables, chairs and floors without addressing any of the essentials: the colonies of rodentia living it up in there. (They voted FOR the new decor.) What's more cheerful than hard, metal chairs and a floor the color of mud?

It was my impression that the Center in the Square remade Roanoke's City Market to attract people downtown. In 1982 one only went downtown to look at real, live hookers and paper blowing down the sidewalk, a bit like a mini-Chicago on vacation. Since then, A Vibrant Downtown has grown up, attracting people, festivals, money, enthusiasm, admiration.

The City of Roanoke has consistently tried to fuck that up by messing with the Market Building and the lovely people who work and own businesses there. What would the successful merchants on the Market know about business and the Art of Charm?

But then, I am still laboring under the impression that Roanoke would like to look as nice as it really is: City Government excepted.


The only cure for this is a 'Jamaica Joe's' and a Hissee Fit.