Besides the flaming spatula tattoo on his leg—a blue, perforated menace of eggs, surrounded by a cloud of fire—Ben Jones doesn’t have too many reminders of the three or five debaucherous days he spent in Charlottesville in the summer of 1998.
An aversion to gin and Robitussin, perhaps; memories of a friend’s wedding and a meal at Chaps; a note from Hypocrite Press founder Matthew Farrell addressed to Jones’ brother and former local playwright Joel that reads: “I seem to have misplaced your brother. Is this a problem requiring direct/immediate action, or does this normally happen and will it resolve itself [?]. Plz advise.” And a series of cassettes that carry the body of Jones’ recently published Eastern Standard: A Southern Northerner Goes South, dictated during Jones’ three-day Charlottesville bender. Then again, maybe it was five days.
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“Every life is many days, day after day,” spouts Stephen Dedalus, obnoxious, young, brilliant, inexperienced character in James Joyce’s Ulysses. “We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows…” Of course Stephen Dedalus was, like Holden Caulfield and Jay Gatsby and Charlie Kane, kind of a jerk; meeting ourselves might mean meeting the occasional asshole. Tasked with guiding readers through his ’Tussed-out vacation, Jones meets his younger self and concludes in one footnote, “I was a bit of a shit back then.”
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C-VILLE Playlist What we’re listening to: “Don’t Mug Yourself,” by The Streets (from Original Pirate Material)—Put aside the Cockneyisms and you have the universal paean to day-after-bender, hung-over bachelor bullshitting. “Wake Up!” by Les Savy Fav (from The Cat and the Cobra)—From the slithering bass riff and pick-scraped guitar strings to singer Tim Harrington’s final screams of “There’s a rapping at the door,” this is three minutes of punk at its most ominous. “Free Man in Paris,” by Joni Mitchell (from Court and Spark) “Skulls,” by The Misfits (from Walk Among Us) “How Long Has This Been Going On?” by Ace (from Five-A-Side) “Farewell to the Pressure Kids,” by Kevin Drew (from Spirit If…) “The First Five Times,” by Stars (from Set Yourself on Fire) |
But the shape of Charlottesville in 1998 meant that young Jones was a certain type of Downtown Mallrat capable of a certain type of havoc and adventure. Mentions of local landmarks—the bar that lends its name to the book, sure, but also a brand new Waffle House “newly constructed out of cinderblocks on the edge of town”—are as rewarding as the cool bathroom floor young Jones wakes up on, or the cool gin that leads him there.
And as an offering from Hypocrite Press, publisher of “the works of young local authors who choose to write about their lives in Charlottesville,” the book is an enjoyable fulfillment of the press’ goal. Rather than preserve our city behind a chain-link fence, Eastern Standard offers a skewed recollection of the night we hopped the fence and made a mess of it in our own particular ways.
The enthusiasm that Jones tackled his assignment with in 1998—can you imagine bringing a tape recorder to your tattoo appointment?—is a good match for the amused patience and creative diligence of Jones circa 2008. (If you haven’t watched “Jigsaw,” his web-based puppet show, go to jigsawfanclub.com now. You’re welcome.) What’s more, the book’s two narrators seem to reach across their shared pages to high-five one another for their self-effacing humor, easily distracted thoughts and generous word-love for this city. Not to mention the spatulas on their legs.
To order a copy of Eastern Standard, visit hypocritepress.org.
Vinegar Hill reborn?
And then there’s Charlottesville circa 2004, the city that brought together local author William James, Sr. with a new muse, Edna-Jakki Miller. James, who salvaged the stories of the Vinegar Hill neighborhood he saw “razed to the ground” in numerous books and plays, planned a staged reading at Live Arts on November 12, 2004, for Fifth and Dice, and decided to involve the choreographer he’d met months earlier during a performance at her DanceFit Movement Center studio.
“I was writing this play for Live Arts and we didn’t have a suitable person for [the character] ‘Rose,’” says James. “She said, ‘Bill, I think I can do this character.’ This lady was reciting this play in two days!”
The performance of Fifth and Dice was the first and only performance by what James and Miller labeled Sepia Theater, a group the pair hoped would offer a way for aspiring African-American actors and theater-lovers to work in a company where they might feel more at home with a shared identity if not a common goal. After a sold-out show that turned away throngs of people, James and Miller are ready to resurrect their company, almost four years later.
With nearly all roles cast and rehearsals beginning, Sepia Theater will present James’ What is the Meaning of Life? at Miller’s studio on December 13-15. Moreover, Miller will resurrect “Rose,” the character she played in Fifth and Dice, and who also appears in James’ 2007 novel, In the Streets of Vinegar Hill.
Thinking back to her first meeting with James and the character, Miller says she “sometimes went to bed thinking it was, like, real,” though she could mean either the character or the play; in some respects, both were real. And they could potentially get very real, if Sepia lasts a bit longer this time: James has a few other plays finished, including Vinegar Hill Revisited, which draws from his recent novel and uses the same characters, based on real members of the Vinegar Hill community. Sometimes revisiting the same places and people yield a few surprises; save the date for Sepia Theater’s return and see for yourself.
