First Friday art walk is always fun, especially when the weather is good. Had an especially great…read moretime listening to a group of young ladies playing ukuleles and singing. (The Ukeladies!) Many of them had written and performed their own songs! Downside was it was hard to hear them with the traffic passing by. I love that Springfield has this- a nice time to walk around, look at art,listen to music and grab some great food downtown.

Art walk is a mixed bag…read more You can have AWESOME art walks with a little of everything, or you get shitty ones that try to follow themes or have little turnout. I HATE going to the galleries. Why are there so many art galleries in Springfield and how do they stay open? I know MSU has a great and wonderful art program, but artists (who don't make much money at all) collect and meet together to support each other (with little to no money at all) and crowd up small buildings to talk about elitist concepts of art that I, especially, don't give a rat's ass about! You want to know my opinion about art? Art is a skill that comes from necessity. Hunting, for example, is a necessary skill that later turned into target practicing. Painting, I think, came only after someone started conveying messages on cave walls. We DO need to convey messages, but when that message is an entire gallery of penises--I mean, "phallic symbols"--what message are you making? No joke. Before it became Pickleman's, there was a MSU gallery there. They'd have featured artists who got famous from shtick or gimmick. The artwork wasn't about skill, but usually controversy. I was a dating a design major at the time and she invited me out. She told me that she wanted to see the phallic exhibit. I walked in the front door and felt like smashing the sculptures and killing anyone who had anything positive to say about it. Think about this: if I opened a gallery with sculptures and pictures of vulvas, would I be a pervert or an artist? This bitch who fashioned dongs out of clay is a pervert. Somehow, though, she's making money. I go for the bars and specials. I HATE paying full price for beer and will go places that offer me something to drink at a reduced rate. So what if I have to wait 15 minutes to get it, I'm paying half price for the same shit that was costing me my night's budget! I suggest going to art walk AFTER 9 pm. The roving packs of high schoolers, older and slower moving car targets, and many yuppies tend to recluse around that time. Galleries start closing. Don't worry, you're only missing a tray of crackers and Yellow Tail if miss out on the wonderful, wonderful artistic fortitudes of Springfield's financially desolate only found in cold, pretentious art galleries. There will be a lot of people in the bars, so I suggest you and your friends secure a table and send one person the bar at a time for pitchers. Beware of the frat-asses who'll blindly intimidate you into moving, but never keep good on their promises of ass-kickery. You may need to bring a squirt gun with you to fight off hipsters smoking clove cigarettes (hipsters hate water). If you're like me, you'll probably be content in finding a hole-in-the-wall by your lonesome and farting when someone starts crowding your shit OR riding your bike as fast as you can through large crowds of Jersey Shore look-alikes hoping to flatten a Snooki or Situation. Keep a flask in your pocket, 'cause you're likely to wait.