Parental advisory
Your cover story “Bare necessities” [January 20] was well written and informative. However, after reading it I find myself again wondering: Where are the parents of these children? Are the parents of these girls suffering from collective denial about the world in which we live?
I work with sex offenders and sexual predators daily in my office. Believe me, these men notice and can describe in detail the latest pre-teen and teen fashion trends. They are indeed titillated by what they see at the malls and, in their twisted view, they interpret what they see as an invitation for sexual predation. They cruise the malls and they cruise the Internet looking for “targets” to exploit, the younger the better.
Parents need to wake up and stop seeing the current fashion trends only as cute or innocent. The sexualization of pre-teen and young teen girls further blurs the boundary between appropriate adult sexuality and predation for those so disposed. Let’s give kids a chance to finish being kids and not expose them to the sexual predators of the world as potential targets. I don’t need the business.
Jeffrey C. Fracher, Ph.D.
Certified Sex Offender Treatment Provider
Charlottesville
Goth talk
It seems that your recent article about the temporary hiatus and relocation of The Dawning [“Fade to black,” Fishbowl, January 20] has caught me aback.
I was surprised to see a piece that made me feel like we were misrepresented.
The Goth and industrial scene here in Charlottesville is well known all over the United States as one of the best around. Bands and patrons that come here constantly tell me how impressed they are by our courteous, friendly crowd and they return often to experience the environment they find here. We have a widely varied cross-section of people that attend, including office managers, UVA students, lawyers, retail clerks and retirees. Yes, we do have an underage contingent. Many of the parents of the kids who come out have complimented The Dawning on providing a venue that allows the younger folk a chance to socialize and see live music performed.
When Trax was open and doing business, very few articles were written about crowd violence. In fact, many fights broke out there, and most people didn’t give a second thought. At The Dawning, very few fights happen. The last incident that happened at Tokyo Rose on a Saturday night involved people at the upstairs bar who weren’t there for our event and had no connection, despite some rumors to the contrary.
People look at the youthful, unusual crowd and make some assumptions about us. Then when anything at all negative happens, it is often taken out of context and used as ammunition against us. People fear nights with all-ages crowds, too, and will often judge them much more harshly than a 21-and-up night.
In my experience, most of the trouble comes from the overage group! The younger set knows that they are lucky to have a place to go, and they generally act accordingly. What I’m trying to put across here is that any time you have a gathering of people, trouble may happen. We have had a proportionately low record of this happening in the length of time we have been holding this event, better than plenty of other less controversial groups can claim.
I felt that the article in question only painted us in a negative light.
Also, just to clear things up—The Dawning is not dead. It will become a regular reoccurring event once I get my new establishment open. A testimony to how awesome the patrons of The Dawning are: We have raised a substantial chunk of money towards the new venue, thanks to the donations of our loyal patrons.
Christiane Knight
Promoter/Manager, The Dawning
Dawning praise
It is sad indeed to see The Dawning go, it was an institution that gave the kids and population in general who don’t buy into the mainstream pop “sensibility” a place to go and decompress once a week. What I am surprised about is that the fact that the troublemakers were not part of the regular crowd was not mentioned in the article. The gist of the article came across as negative toward a scene that is filled with very intelligent people who are actually on the edge of passivism.
The fact that a few troublemakers ruined it for everybody is the true tragedy. I am a 36-year-old currently located in Nevada employed as a slot director for three casinos. When I was in Charlottesville, I was in the Army and worked for a few local Internet providers part-time. In my last couple of years in the State, I started to DJ at The Dawning and never saw any of the people actively involved in the scene start any trouble whatsoever. Currently, I am an organizer of similar events in Reno, Nevada, have guest DJ’d in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Sacramento, California, and in complete honesty, the Goth/industrial scene in Charlottesville is one of the friendliest and most accepting I have ever experienced.
This is a tragedy for an area so rich with musicians who create some fantastic music that had no other venues to perform in. I am sure Christiane Knight and her friends will find a new home for the music you’ll never hear played on the preprogrammed wasteland known as pop radio. To them I say, good luck and Godspeed.
Matt Szymanski
computing@pathways-inc.com
Support woes
I think it’s safe to say that Charlottesville is a city that supports the arts. Right? Well either I’m in my worst nightmare, or the local support and respect for music in Charlottesville has dropped drastically.
The first sign that I noticed was when UVA bought the old Trax, Maxx, and local student music studio property, only to bulldoze it down and use it for something other then a venue where big-name acts and local acts can both play. It just baffles me that a school that I thought to be so pro-arts and have an excellent musical program would take something so influential and important to the community that was originally built on that same school.
Second was the demise of the Pudhouse in Belmont. I’m not sure of the ins and outs of it but I do know that the neighbors of the Pud weren’t complainers. As far as I know, it was mostly the businesses across Market Street who supplied the bulk of the complaints. Which doesn’t make sense to me because by the time the music started, the business day was well over.
The third is more of a respect of a issue. Not long ago, at a fairly run of the mill punk rock show, at Tokyo Rose, two fights broke out in the middle of the performance. Both fights involved young teenagers approximately 15 to 17 years old. After the first fight the crowd was warned by the then-performing band that if fighting and misbehaving continues at any time at Tokyo Rose, rock shows will be stopped. Despite the disclaimer, more teens in the crowd began to fight no more then three songs later.
This night proved to be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. After this brawling night, [Tokyo Rose owner] Atsushi Miura, understandably, had to cancel punk rock and Goth shows. Don’t get me wrong, Miura is not to blame. The blame should be placed on everyone that has ever caused trouble or disobeyed the rules at Tokyo Rose.
Barry Dowd
elvis888elvis888@yahoo.com
Clarification
“Bare necessities,” last week’s cover story about ‘tweens and stripper chic, was nationally syndicated through Alternet. It first appeared in the December 24 issue of The Nation.