Alive After Five: it's back

Yup-Town's signature event returned in full force to Wachovia Plaza yesterday.

For anyone not in the know, every Thursday evening from now until it gets too cold there will be a free concert in the plaza, usually some type of cover band. Tents will sell overpriced bottles of domestic beer. The plaza will be packed with well-dressed people showing off and avoiding those they don't want to have to say hello to. It's a great time.

Here are some helpful hints.

There is a caste system at Alive After Five.

For men:

At the bottom are the people wearing jeans or shorts. Who invited those guys? Go back to NoDa.

Next is the khaki-pants-and-polo-shirts crowd. Nice try. That's not what real people wear to successful jobs.

The middle caste wears standard business casual. They have their best shot with the girls wearing jeans and high heels. Smart to accesorize with expensive-looking watches and neat shoes. A five-o-clock shadow means you're lazy, not too busy to shave.

Near the top are the suits. Take off your tie and unbutton the top of your fancy shirt. This suggests you came right from an important job, are looking for a good time, and will definitely pay for drinks. The suits have their pick of most females. Every man not wearing a suit looks at them with trepidation and envy. Except the guys in the jeans and shorts. They're too drunk to understand. If you're just wearing a blue blazer, that's kind of weird, and it might seem like you're showing off.

The highest caste are the men who had the leeway to return to their uptown condo and change into classy casual attire. Nice chinos, a pastel button-down, and leather sandals or boat shoes signify a man of leisure. They often show up with a lady in tow.

For women:

It doesn't really matter. There are so many freakin' men.

The classic "I-want-to-marry-a-banker" look. A shiny, expensive-looking dress, just short and revealing enough to convey the following: You can probably take me home tonight if I think you're successful and attractive enough, but I'm a classy girl and don't do that for just anyone, so you should feel extremely lucky, and compelled to date me, if it happens.

The standard currency for any Yup-Town gala. Tickets. First you buy the tickets, then you use the tickets to buy the beer (or tiny clear plastic cups of wine). Tickets cost $4 apiece (please tip your ticket-tender). But a Bud Light only costs one ticket (please tip your bartender)!

Can you sneak liquor in? Yes. Use a flask (not plastic), and buy a small bottle of coke. But you're letting everyone know you can't afford to get drunk off $4 beers.

The proper way to show you're down with the funky music from the band. Every once in a while, nod your head, slightly, to what you have identified as "the beat."

Dancing? Don't even think about it.

How to pass through a tight crowd (of mostly men, who have been drinking). Confidence is key. Clap your hand on the shoulder of the biggest guy in the group you need to get through and say, loud enough to be heard clearly over the music, "Excuse me." Stare straight ahead, through the group. Try this with the short guy, and he'll think he's being picked on. The big guy has nothing to prove.

Most polite and effective way to blow off someone you know who catches your eye. A short, aggressive nod, coupled with a knowing furrowing of the eyebrows. Don't make eye contact for more than a three count.

Now, enjoy.

Jurassic J almost got clapped at the mart

A guest post from the esteemed and sometimes ferocious roommate. As it happens, he came somewhat close to getting clapped, or at least jacked, one night on a visit to the mart.

So I've finished off the Harris Teeter sub special of the day (which rarely leaves you completely satisfied) and I start planning a night around HBO On Demand and Season 4 of the Wire. I sit down and realize I don't have enough Skoal to help me pound out two or three episodes before I go to bed. Now, I could have purchased a tin at the Harris Teeter when I was scoring point number 28 on my sub tab (for some reason I can't bring myself to use sub points unless it is a special occassion), but the Harris Teeter grossly overcharges for smokeless tobacco. So I take a trip down Graham Street to the mart. You may know this as the Fourth Ward Market, but for me and everyone else in the know, it's just the mart. A stroll down Graham Street to the mart is never uneventful.

After nearly having my left elbow torn off by a sideview mirror, I finally get to the mart. Instead of the usual half-smoked menthol cigarrettes still burning on the sidewalk, I see two of North Meck's finest's vehicles parked outside. No sirens, no lights. To the untrained Fourth Ward eye this looks like it could a routine stop for a complimentary snack for keeping the hood safe. I walk in knowing from past experiences this is probably not the case, and I throw the hoody up. Inside the mart the clerk is jabbering to the tall officer while the officer repeatedly responds, "Did you scan the lotto tickets, sir?"

As I march up to the counter, the shorter officer looks up from his clipboard and casually says, "He just got robbed at gun point." He went back to writing his report, murmuring, "Improperly scanned lotto tickets were stolen."

After a few seconds of scanning the scene, I glance over to the shorter cop and say, sarcastically, "Oh yeah, you gonna catch the guy?" Both cops immediately stop what they are doing and laugh in unison. With the clerk's incense still burning, the shorter cop leans over to me and motions to his buddy: "Watch this, I'm gonna make him file the report." He chuckles to himself. "Hey, Foster (name redacted to keep the anonymity of the officers that protect us intact), how about I stick around here and gather up all the eye witness information. You can head back to HQ and..."

"Hell no," Foster interjects. "I ain't heading back to HQ with the video tape. All that means is I'm the first one back and expected to file the report. No, no, no. I will not file this report!"

During this exchange the clerk is creepily manuevering his way around Foster to get to me at the register. "Yes how may I help you?" he asks in his foreign accent. "Skoal mint, please," I reply. The clerk rings me up for more than the standard rate. After all, he's got to find a way to make up for those lost lotto tickets.

New series: My Homey Almost Got Clapped

Yup-Town is beginning a brand new exercise in bad taste.

Have you, or someone you know, had a memorable experience with a firearm inside the seemingly safe confines of Uptown Charlotte?

If so, send in your account. If I don't deem it entirely fabricated, you'll win a free posting of your story on this very blog.

Here's one to get us started:

My homey was walking through Fourth Ward Park one sunny afternoon after work. Suddenly, a man ran up to him, waving his arms, and related the following:

Just minutes earlier, a pick-up truck driving down Sixth Street screeched to a halt in front of the park. Two men, in the middle of a heated argument, jumped out onto the sidewalk. After some screaming and gesticulating, the driver reached back into the truck and pulled out a handgun. The other man took off through the park, and the driver jumped behind the wheel and sped away.

Not the most exciting one I've heard so far. But still, a couple minutes earlier, and my homey could have almost got clapped.

As a side note, you'd think with all the cops who like to kick it in the shade around the park on sunny days, something like this would be noticed by the Law. As it turned out, the man waving his arms was approaching my homey to see if he could use his phone to call the police.

Fourth Ward Park: the Hollywood of Mecklenburg County

Following the recent debut of a Bojangles commercial featuring happy picnickers in a lush, green Fourth Ward Park (obviously filmed many months ago), white moving trucks and grungy hacks wearing cargoes and t-shirts and carrying things like sound booms filled Pine Street near the park last week.

One night I pulled up around 11 to find the entire park lit up with fluorescent lights. Later, what sounded like fireworks shot off several times.

The dog-walker rumor mill holds that all the commotion was the filming of a movie called "Insignificant Other," which I can find no evidence of on the Internet. IMDB lists it as a "Hitchcockian version of Sex and the City" that was released to little fanfare in 2002.

An update to last week's conspiracy theory: a man with a little black dog informed me that the police watch tower is in fact a prop for the movie, which also features several police officers. If that's true, either the cop I talked to was an impostor, or he was badly confused.

But was the police helicopter also a prop? And though the hacks have seemingly disappeared, the tower still looks in through my window.

Another update: While the frightening police tower may in fact be there for the movie shoot, it is, in fact, real. The $60,000 (by one confused officer's estimate) have indeed been wasted. Unless Charlotte's anticipating any unrest in the near future.