Weekend (I of II): Friday night.

So, on Friday night my neighbor who I volunteered for Obama with down in Indiana biked down to the vegan soul food place. I'm always amazed by the number of Family Dollars, laundromats, and check-cashing places in the poorer neighborhoods, especially the Family Dollars - for many people, that and a corner store is where people get their groceries...

The restaurant was good. There was a homeless dude on something selling papers out in front when we got there, and he had this whole schtick about how everyone who had seen us biking knew we were coming to that place, which was very true - it's pretty much the only restaurant in that area that whites go to.

Later, we biked back and, after stopping for a bit to hear the informal (black) drum circle that gathers evenings at this one beach just south of our neighborhood and occasionally attracts jazz flutist and clarinetists, went to the black neighborhood bar for a drink. The jukebox recently added some Chaka Khan, and when "Tell Me Something Good" kicked up, I counted four black women bobbing their heads and lip-synching to no one in particular - two younger women like our age near us drinking, one with a fedora and a wine glass with the little bottle of wine next to it, and another a little older further down the bar, and then this one way across the bar who was in her early 50s and had this metallic red beehive, rhinestone-rimmed glasses, and a jean jacket that left her belly hanging out, though she wasn't that fat.

My neighbor, who goes to law school, mentioned that practicing civil rights lawyers tell them never to quote the Bible in a defense to lend it gravitas unless you were raised in a Bible-quoting church, because it's better to use it not at all then use it and not know what you're doing, since you're guaranteed to have usually at least two Bible-reading old women in the jury, and they'll call you out on that shit and turn against you if you do it badly.