Flavors of Italy – monoblogue

Friday night videos – episode 68

I have a couple new videos at the end which come from last week’s Third Friday performances. But I wanted to start off with a video I used awhile back from the late Flavors bar downtown. The Permilla Project did a jam called ‘Black Beans and Rice’ there.

Just for fun I poked around Youtube to see what other music videos I could find shot at Flavors, and there’s a nice little sampling herein. One is the local duo of Chris Demone and Chuck Cook, better known as Test Kitchen. This was shot in 2008.

Another local band which developed a following there was Slim DeNunn and the High Rollers. This was from a 2009 performance there.

Little did the person who took this video of Chester River Runoff just four months ago know that may have been their swan song in the facility.

The venue definitely attracted a wide spectrum of bands, as you can see. It will be missed.

Shot just down the street from Flavors was this video, featuring local classic rockers Pugsly and their rendition of the Monkees’ hit, ‘Steppin’ Stone.’

I certainly wasn’t going for sushi. And the Sex Pistols weren’t the only punk band to do the song; I have a version from the band Minor Threat on tape. In either case, this one was a little slower.

Around the corner in front of the old courthouse was Semiblind. Here’s a solid version of ‘Gimme Shelter.’

Once in awhile my old camera catches a song just right. Michele does a good job with their sound.

By the way, I didn’t mean to slight the Zen Monkeys, who also played at Third Friday. I didn’t get a video of theirs and unfortunately I’m not sure how to embed a video from Facebook.

Well, that’s a wrap for FNV this time around. Hope you enjoyed the tunes.

Third Friday June in pictures and text

I may not be first to post, but I’ll bet I have the most to add to the conversation. The local bloggers were crawling all over this one.

There are those who knock the event for low participation, but still vendors come to the Plaza or open along Main Street to peddle their wares at Third Friday. I’m including the next picture to make a point about one particular vendor and downtown in general.

I have no idea why this building is “coming soon,” when the property records for 224 West Main show the units are sold. (The website doesn’t work either.) So there are a few people living downtown.

Yet there were a pair of realtors at Third Friday trying to sell the 29 remaining units at River Place (of 42 built) for a fire-sale price. Since I was looking at property records anyway, I noticed units there have sold for anywhere between $236,000 and $650,000 (for a larger penthouse unit.) The most recent sale was the $236,000 unit last fall.

I’m not trying to disparage the ladies doing their job or the people who bought high. But in order to bring people to the downtown area to live, perhaps the sights should have been set lower. Does a young professional – the type who would tend to not mind living downtown – really need a 1,600 square foot condo like River Place? Perhaps the reason these units on West Main sold was their size and affordability. (It appeared many in the Brickshire were sold after being bank-owned.)

As for the crowd down there, you can judge for yourself. I took these shots between 7 and 7:30 around the Plaza. Note the weather was looking more threatening as time went on.

Again, I guess anyone who comes downtown on a sultry night either wants a bargain or just to participate in a fun community event in an All-American City. When did they put these banners up?

I think it’s a little ironic that Delmar Pizza is a sign sponsor, but I suppose they want to advertise too.

And the artists were there, inside.

They were selling beer there, but you couldn’t take it outside. What good would that be? Sometimes I think the nanny state goes a little too far with alcohol-related regulations – why not allow open containers in this case since the Plaza is closed to traffic?

Maybe it was better in the end, though, since the rain hit about 8:30. I’m sure the passing shower didn’t do wonders for the impromptu Flavors Memorial put up for Third Friday.

People were leaving impassioned messages, too.

It makes you wonder why the business closed if so many were interested in it. Then again, I don’t know what the margin on beer is as opposed to the margin on pizza. I thought their pizza was pretty good on the three or four occasions I went to Flavors and I can vouch that at least The Permilla Project drew a crowd there.

But now it’s just another restaurant casualty in Salisbury like Checkers, English’s, and many others through the years which are missed to a varying extent.

Of course, the problem whereas Third Friday is concerned is that Flavors served as an anchor and draw at the eastern end of the festivities. Now they don’t have much to draw people down that way, and it creates a scenario where businesses along East Main may not have as much incentive to participate. Perhaps Third Friday needs to retrench and just concentrate on participation by Plaza businesses unless someone else steps up to create an attraction in the area where Flavors was.

Yet as long as someone is interested in taking a little time and trying to make a little money I suppose Third Friday will survive a little longer.

You may have noticed I didn’t talk about the musical aspect of 3F – well, what do you think my Weekend of Local Rock series is for? Look for that in the near future.

A symptom or a disease? Part 2

Last month I made a post which pondered whether the economic situation was adversely affecting the Delmarva Shorebirds and their attendance, which seems to be markedly down from last year.

But in speaking with Shorebirds General Manager Chris Bitters on the subject, he protested that last season wasn’t a fair comparison because this year’s schedule is front-loaded with home games and attendance picks up once kids are out of school. I thought it was a fair critique so today I did a little research.

Looking back in time, the Shorebirds last had a comparable schedule in 2007. Like this year’s, it featured a long June break as the 2007 edition of the team was sent on the road to both complete the first half of the season and begin the second half – that season Perdue Stadium was dark for 2 1/2 straight weeks in June. (At least this year we have the SAL All-Star Game to break up the monotony.)

So I went back to the milb.com archives and looked up each home game of the first half of the 2007 season. In total, there were 31 home dates as four starts were rained out. Add it up and the 2007 first half attendance was 96,310, an average of 3,107 per game.

Fast forward to 2011. Going into last night’s scheduled contest, the Shorebirds had drawn 95,556 for 33 home games. On paper, the per-game average of 2,895 looks to be about 10 percent behind the 2007 clip and well behind last season’s full-season totals.

However, having attended the game I would venture to say that there were at least 5,000 people there last night for a game which was eventually suspended. It’s not counted in our attendance because the game wasn’t completed and will have to be finished next week in Hagerstown because the half is almost over. If you add that lost home date and the estimated 5,000 patrons in to the total of 95,556 which had previously attended so far in 2011, the average would have jumped to 3,104. It makes the comparison pretty much a wash.

In fact, given the fact there were two fewer weekend dates (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) on the schedule so far this year, it would appear the Shorebirds haven’t lost a step and could be headed for a pretty decent season as far as attendance goes. You can also add in the fact that the weather hasn’t been all that bad since the average temperature at the Shorebirds starts was 72 degrees vs. 71 degrees in 2007.

Still, my only concern is that attendance at weekday games has been fairly pathetic, as one game this season barely drew 500 fans. A good percentage of the crowds so far have been enticed by the free tickets given out for reading a certain number of books. (The tickets are paid for by the event sponsors.)

So perhaps I was a little hasty in predicting a down year for the Shorebirds, but that’s okay. I’d rather err on the side of caution.

Yet all is not sweetness and light. Today’s Daily Times featured a loving obituary for the Flavors restaurant which used to be on East Main Street downtown. Add to that the bankruptcy of Allen Family Foods last week, where its assets will likely be purchased by Mountaire Farms, and the impending closing of the local Super Fresh grocery store (with about 80 or so jobs lost) and it’s no wonder people may not be able to afford a ballgame soon. For every success story we seem to have two to three failures.

Allen Family Foods is a blow specific to the Shorebirds because they were longtime team sponsors, annually hosting an employee appreciation night. It’s one business which won’t be contributing to the community anymore. Even Flavors had a Shorebirds connection because they were the pizza vendors for one season a couple years back. (The pizza they have now is not as good.)

But there’s more to the story, and it’s about lost dreams in the last four years.

After the beginning of the rain delay that finished the game last night, Kim and I discussed where we should go to eat. I bemoaned the fact there were no close-by restaurants to the stadium and related to her that there once were grand plans to put up a business complex along Hobbs Road – a complex which would include restaurants, upscale motels, and office space. But that plan was shelved with our local economic collapse and may not be resurrected for a half-decade or more even though the signs are still there announcing the development.

Since I’m comparing our attendance this year to that of four years ago, let me close with this. Back in 2007, the dream of developing the land along Hobbs Road was on its way to becoming a reality as the plans were being drawn up and legal action taken to secure city water and sewer. We may have the same attendance at the old ball game, but we don’t have those grandiose schemes anymore.

And until we can straighten out the economic mess we are in, it may be a long while before we see attendance like we did in the early days of the Shorebirds franchise. To be quite honest, having the Shorebirds here was a key factor in my decision to relocate from Toledo because – to put it mildly – I’m a passionate fan of baseball and I wanted a team close by so I could go to games. While I’d seen “Delmarva Shorebirds” in the agate type of the transactions page on occasion, I had no idea they played in Salisbury until I came here for my job interview.

But even more than a regional drawing card like the Shorebirds, people need to have money to spend, and the lack of job creation hinders businesses of all sorts. Let’s keep capital in the private sector where it belongs so smart people can invest and create opportunities for themselves.