Last night I attended my second free concert this year in downtown Raleigh. This time the main act was another group from the 90s called the Spin Doctors. I really wasn’t too into this concert, but Hope wanted to go in order to hear some of the music she grooved to in the good ole days of high school and college. I’m glad I went mainly so that I don’t hear that I never take her anywhere.I was also glad I got to catch the act before the Spin Doctors. It was a group called Blue October. Other than lyrics that vaguely made me think of somebody’s inner child having been pistol-whipped repeatedly, I actually liked this group. They had violins and keyboards and pretty lights, which is what I’m into musically now-a-days when I’m not into dressing in black, breaking stuff and dropping the F-bomb.

As different as our musical tastes are, we were actually in agreement on this show. We didn’t feel that it was all that exciting for a concert. Hope said the Spin Doctors didn’t bring their A-game. It could have been that they realized they were playing the same songs they were playing ten to fifteen years ago. It also could have been that the lead singer was high. Now I have no knowledge of this group’s smoking preferences, but everyone that I knew who were really into this group in college were really, really into smoking weed. Speaking of which, some in attendance pulled out their joints for this event (when not getting obnoxiously drunk and spilling beer on Hope).

While the band and the smoking was bad, by far the worst part was the crowd. It was even more crowded than the last show. Maybe that was due to the different demographics of the typical attendee. This was a different crowd than the previous show I attended downtown, everyone being lilly-white. It was roughly rock, no hip-hop artists on the bill to divide the crowd. Of particular instance was when this drunk bitch pushed her way through the crowd saying she’s trying to get next to her friends. Magically, she just stops looking for her friends and parks her ass right in front of us, thus revealing that there weren’t any friends in the first place (or that she was too shit-faced to have a clue). The three other people going through the crowd with her were right on top of us. Feeling a little too cramped, I put my arm around Hope in order to gently slide her a bit closer. To my surprise, I felt somebody’s skin (other than Hope’s) in the area of her butt!!! Some people shouldn’t drink because that could have been the last mistake that son-of-a-bitch ever made.

I was hoping to attend the free Candlebox/Urge Overkill show in a couple of weeks. That’s highly doubtful, though, since I’m not into the crowds and the smoking, even for a pretty decent concert.

Yesterday I attended my first legislative session in downtown Raleigh. I was excited to be in attendance to watch the debate over an important piece of legislation called H88, the Electoral Fairness Act. The goal of this legislation is to give the voters of North Carolina more ballot choices other than Democratic and Republican candidates. This is especially important since more than half of all legislative races in North Carolina are uncontested. Essentially voters can go to the polls to vote for one candidate (since write-ins are typically thrown out). This is a concept that should stun any red-blooded freedom-loving American.The meeting was scheduled for 1:00pm in Room 1027 of the Legislative Building. I made the mistake of going in through the only door marked 1027. That door happened to be the “Members Only” entrance. I found myself staring at a crowd of onlookers, pages, cameras and stunned representatives. If these people don’t get their acts together, I might run for office and make going through that door a habit. Needless to say, I took a couple laps around the meeting rooms and figured out that I should enter through 1127. The room was crowded, and I was twenty minutes late, so I couldn’t be sure if they discussed H88 yet. I figured it was safe that they hadn’t gotten to it yet, since I still saw people I recognized from the NC Green Party, the NC Libertarian Party and the Wake County Taxpayer’s Association in attendance.

At some point there was some discussion regarding H88. I missed most of it because I was so far back that I couldn’t hear. At one point everyone got up and left. WTF!? I heard something about it being re-scheduled for today. It wasn’t heard today and was pushed off until tomorrow. I’m kind of getting the impression they don’t want to talk about this.

Ultimately, the members of the North Carolina Open Elections Coalition are not in favor of the bill in its current version. The current fourth version of the bill was amended at the last minute in a late-night session (conveniently) to actually make the ballot access laws stricter. The Coalition is in support of the third version of the bill. This version will drop the percentage of signatures needed to put a party on the ballot to 0.5% of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election. This would put the Libertarian Party back on the ballot immediately, since more than 37,000 signatures have been collected so far during this petitioning cycle. It also lowers the percentage of votes needed to stay on the ballot from 10% to 2%.

I could go on-and-on about why this is needed. That would be re-inventing the wheel, however, since a lot of good information is available at the Open Elections Coalition’s website. There are also a number of ways you can help out at this site as well. It was frustrating, if not educational. I went into the day thinking that we would have something concrete to go on with this piece of legislation, but as I already know, this isn’t how our government works. Maybe if we elect new representation, it will work better. We can only hope.

I was going to blog about my day at the North Carolina Legislative Building in Raleigh, but I’ve decided to instead write about what happened after I returned from my day lobbying for H88, The Electoral Fairness Act. After returning from downtown Raleigh, I noticed Hope was missing. Fair enough, we both had the day off and I chose to leave her to hang around with a bunch of bureaucrats. After about twenty minutes or so, Hope charges in with a wild-eyed expression and a bag of ice in each hand. She said God told her to take water to the homeless people in Moore Square (in downtown Raleigh, where I just came from). Now getting ideas like this was nothing new for Hope, but acting on them was.Man, I was pissed. First, I was pissed that she was going to go to a part of town she’s never been. Secondly, she’s going to be mixing with a possibly mentally unbalanced population giving stuff away to people. It’s sometimes hard to tell people who are mentally unbalanced that you’re only giving away water (and not, for example, your wallet). The final and biggest reason I was pissed is that I was going to have to go down there to watch her back. I had to be ready for anything.

Anyway, we made it downtown and parked at Moore Square in front of the bus terminal. I was there just an hour earlier and couldn’t find a parking spot anywhere. Hope was a bit hesitant at this point, but jumped out of the car, unloaded her cooler on wheels and rushed across the street. Apparently God changed her orders. Now she was giving water to people riding the bus instead of to the homeless. I was amazed how quickly all of her water went. I was also amazed how appreciative everyone was. It was an incredibly hot day, and I typically preach the virtues of proper hydration. Despite my previous reservations, it was a lot of fun and helpful to so many people. Well, until Hope began discussing it as a ministry outreach project. The little time we spent downtown and she’s already sounding like some damn politician for Jesus. My recommendation: just be happy and give away some water.