Scene & Herd - The asteroid didn’t hit

And the planes didn’t crash

It’s morning in America again. Creed broke up. Speaking of music (flimsy segue, don’t you think?), on Sunday night I grabbed a blanket and headed to the Atlanta Botanical Garden to see Rickie Lee Jones in concert, the first installment of this year’s Concert in the Garden series.

The setting for the event was beautiful. The stage was set up on one end of the Garden’s Great Lawn. Concert-goers sit in front of the stage on blankets or low chairs so that views aren’t obstructed. Behind the stage, you can see the skyline twinkling through the haze.

The concert was preceded by a few short speeches. Z93’s Mara Davis spoke, as did an official from SunTrust, who in one sentence said that it’s an “exciting” concert, and that he’s “delighted” that SunTrust is a sponsor and he’s “excited” about that. That’s two of the four permissible corporate happy emotions in one sentence, so you know he’s gotta be genuinely happy, if not actually delighted and excited (x2). FYI — the other two permissible corporate happy emotions are “pleased” and “thrilled.” If you think I’m exaggerating in the slightest, go to www.prnewswire.com and read some press releases.

Jones sounded fantastic. It’s been 25 years since her self-titled debut and she’s still got a sweet, girly voice. She and her band were mellow, jazzy. A couple of times, it sounded like what Steely Dan would have been had they dug folk instead of rock. Between songs, Jones was tart and funny, introducing the “Greensleeves”-sounding “Ghostyhead” by noting that she puts her sexuality in her songs because, as a Catholic, “there’s nowhere else to put it.”

Speaking of sexuality (flimsy segue, don’t you think?), there was a drunk middle-aged couple on the blanket in front of me and my girlie. By the middle of the show, the couple was having a heavy make-out session. At one point, they paused and the woman half of the couple turned around, looked me dead in the eye, and said, “I’m glad the asteroid didn’t hit tonight.” She explained that a big asteroid had already missed us, but that another is on the way. “It’ll hit the ocean and there’ll be a big wave.” Then she looked at me and my girlfriend, laughed and said, “You gotta do it now.” She then resumed the make-out session, this time scooting back onto our blanket. I slowly tugged my blanket out from under them (it took me two songs) and then we moved.

Celebrate Creed’s demise: Even though it’s actually still spring, Virginia-Highland Summerfest was last weekend along a stretch of Virginia Avenue. It featured the usual mix of music, food, beer, toilets and crafts. About the crafts, one person I spoke to Sunday expressed his belief that, “The crappy crap at this festival is better than the crappy crap at most other festivals.” I disagree. I think the crappy crap was about the same. In fact, some of it was the exact same crappy crap I saw the previous weekend at the Decatur Arts Festival.

The music at Summerfest was a little hipper than festival music typically is. On Saturday, deserved local critics’ fave Y-O-U played. Wandering near the backstage area, I ran into 99X’s Mike Kee. One of his jobs Sunday was keeping non-VIPs away from the VIP port-a-johns. I’m not sure why I did, but I asked him if VIP excrement smells any different than non-VIP excrement. Without hesitation, he answered that VIP potty-waste is indeed less noxious. That’s because VIPs have adapted to frequent use of port-a-johns and tour bus toilets by doing No. 2 in the relative privacy of home, restaurants or truck stops.

Probably the best part of any festival is the people watching. On Sunday, the most intriguing thing I saw during my people watching was a guy in a T-shirt that read, “Eat A Beaver.” I assume that it’s one of those double-entendre shirts like, “Kayakers roll over and do it again,” but for the life of me I can’t think of the clean entendre of “Eat A Beaver.”

Creed is dead: On Saturday night, I went to Eyedrum to see the opening of Chris Gusek’s installation piece called “Deceased.” The installation is a room that you enter through a window. Inside is a comfy chair facing a television set showing flickering images of dead bodies. The wall in one corner of the room is bloody. If you follow the blood down the wall to the chair, you’ll see a bloody skull fragment, a hammer (presumably the murder weapon) and lots of blood.

The cause of the murder depicted in the installation is not explained, but there is at least one good clue. On the ground by the TV is a Nov. 3, 2003, copy of USA Today, a newspaper whose dumbing-down effect on our culture has more than once driven me into a rage.

Creed is still dead: If you were on Buford Highway on Saturday, you may have seen what looked like WWII-era warplanes circling the sky over DeKalb Peachtree Airport. Relax, it wasn’t a day that will live in infamy. It was an air show, part of DeKalb Peachtree Airport’s Good Neighbor Day Air Show and Open House.

Air Show aviation is the opposite of commercial aviation. Occurrences that are negatives in commercial aviation, such as smoke billowing out of an airplane or repeatedly diving straight toward the ground, are typically cause for cheering at air shows. The smokiest of the planes was a Russian SP-95, piloted by a man named Larry King. I watched him get into his plane and I’m pretty sure he’s not that Larry King. Another interesting plane I saw was something the announcers kept calling a “bi-plane.” I’m not sure how the announcers know that or if it’s any of their damned business.

andisheh@creativeloafing.com