Apparently at the Phil Lesh show, you could get what looked like nitrous oxide balloons smack dab on the streets of Charlottesville. Now, we didn’t taste these baloons, but we’re pretty sure people don’t huff helium like this. We aren’t saying they are nitrous balloons, but let your imagination do the work.
By the way, if you don’t know what nitrous is, go ask your local dealer… or, sneak some from your dentist.
If you remember, a while back we had rumors of nitrous baloons being readily available at another spot on the downtown mall.
More pictures after the break…
Popularity: 59% [?]
Tagged as: baloons, Charlottesville, drugs, Nitrous, Party, phil lesh, show, street
Those hippies sure do litter a lot
Hey everyone, Thor was that dork walking around last night with the camera!
The cops? They were off catching salvia divanorum dealers.
/if the balloon is bigger than your head, sit down.
I don’t do cameras.
Let me guess - your first concert?
Those pictures weren’t taken by Thor, but they do have a very familiar style and subject matter. I think I can guess the photographer.
We watched guy suck down a huge balloon, then stumble around with a second. Finally, he found a place to sit while his head exploded. Then he finished his second balloon, just in time for some people he mistaken thought he recognized walked by. He got up, danced a jig around them and then vanished into midair. It was all quite strange. I think he went to my highschool.
Yes, it is an ironic tale. No, I was not on huffers. ( although one time, I accidentally brushed arms with parlie, and have had flashbacks ever since.)
@5
So, I think that’s pushing it. I have been to dozens of shows at the pavilion (not including FAF), and I can’t recall ever seeing anyone selling questionably nitrous-filled balloons. And considering my pet peeve with littering, I’m fairly certain that I would have noticed the spent balloons all over the ground if they were such a common occurrence.
Check out parlie in the top righthand corner.
@shenanigans: nice try, we all know that you were the dork with the camera.
so what’s with the littering? how shady is that first picture, nitrous is just shade ball material. too bad nobody fell down and cracked their head, they’d have deserved it.
Thor, where have you been? This is no new development. After certain concerts nitrous has been all over the mall, the side streets, and especially a certain venue for years. Charlottesville rages. Every time a Bisco/Phil/Ratdog type show comes through, it’s everywhere. It’s just the way it always has been. There was also a thread awhile back where someone was insulted that a guy asked him if he had a bowl at a bar. This is Charlottesville, for chrissakes!! Its par for the course. It’s not only on concert nights. People here like to party. And, to quote Forrest, “that’s all I have to say about that.”
I thought we lived in God’s country?
We do. Only little “g” god. Unless we’re talking about you
This is no new development
Yeah, that’s why he linked to a post from last year.
But for realsy, the pics make it look like there was some egregious drug activity going on. I’m down with it and all, but it’s hard to believe no cops noticed.
Is it illegal to sell nitrous oxide in virginia?
/probably is. everything else is illegal in virginia.
@14
Probably. I imagine that you’d see the little cartons of Whip-It’s in the local head shops if it were otherwise.
Not SANGRIA!
@16
Has Mas brought it back to their menu yet?
@13, after Phil last year there were tanks everywhere. At a certain now defunct in name only bar off the mall there was a certain local band playing and balloons were flooding the entire venue, even the band was on the stick, not to mention the entire bar. It was so obvious it was absolute lunacy. No cops. I’ve seen so many things downtown. For some reason, there are either no cops, no cops that notice, or no cops that care because it’s rich people spending money in a mixed crowd of women and men and they are just trying to maintain the peace. I can’t think of any other reasonable explanation. Whatever the reason, I sometimes feel like downtown is a free for all. Whether it’s blatantly puffing in a bathroom, outside a venue, or in broad daylight, they turn the other cheek. I like it that way. No matter ignorance or laziness or toleration on the cop’s part, they’re letting it be. And I can’t complain about that until “Devilish Nitrous Inspired Thugs, Murderers, and Rapists Invade Downtown Charlottesville Post-Phil!!!” is on the cover of the Washington Post.
oo.. i should write a fake piece mocking charlottesville for all those things..
/would make people mad at me
either no cops, no cops that notice, or no cops that care
And yet, pump the thump one notch above 75 db’s and its off to gitmo.
sigh.
@20, that’s because rich people that live near downtown can hear the noise. Evidently, they can’t smell the smoke, or see the balloons.
I think it’s a pretty straightforward policy with the cops here (speaking only of beat cops, state trooper / traffic cops are a different story): if you’re not causing a problem for anyone else, they’ll pretty much look the other way. Once you cross the line from quietly stumbling down the mall barely able to walk to stumbling down the mall yelling at everyone that walks past, they step in.
Sadly, that means kid playing the bagpipe, Harmonica Dave, etc are going to have problems once some douche complains (and probably none *until* someone complains). Some guy watching his kid playing a violin is probably not going to get any complaints even if she’s just as loud. It’s not really fair, but that’s not the cops fault. You don’t blame the cop for busting your party, you blame the old guy next door that mows his lawn at 5 in the morning. At least I do, anyways.
From what I’ve heard, your attitude when they confront you can also be a big part of what happens to you. If you shut up and calm down when the officer walks up, you mind find a cab called for you instead of the paddy wagon.
Even if all of the laws don’t match it exactly, we’re a pretty hands-off town as far as personal freedoms go. Maybe my outlook is skewed because I’m good friends with one of the younger more liberal cops in town. YMMV.
Can I complain about the kids who play crappy music and have no skills, yet people still give them money?
Crossing the railroad tracks must offend a lot of people.
Who needs N2O to have a good time?
I think it just means you have boring friends.
@23 If you did, and have a legitimate complaint (as much as I wish “the suck” would work, I doubt it will) I’m sure you could get them kicked out.
the = they
You don’t blame the cop
Certainly not the new guy they have on the wednesday nite beat. He is awesome. We have a “we are both just doing our job” understanding and work together so everyone is happy.
The old guy, Mr. pull the plug and have an aneurism about citing me “PERSONALLY!!!11eleventy!” well, not so much.
@24, that was one of the most ridiculous things ever. You’re right, it doesn’t add up. Perhaps it was more for the liability factor ($, again) with the city vs. railroad bit than it was that the cops actually cared that people were doing it.
Authority is interesting in terms of what it chooses to enforce, doesn’t choose to enforce, and the penalties resulting from enforcing the law.
@28: It was a liability thing. Trains were sick of hitting people or something.
Authority is interesting in terms of what it chooses to enforce, doesn’t choose to enforce, and the penalties resulting from enforcing the law.
Im actually quite the authority on that subject, but I choose not to discuss it.
@27 There are always going to be people anywhere you go that are assholes. From what I’ve seen, Mr. Aneurysm is more of an exception in our town than the norm (which isn’t the case other places I’ve lived). Sorry you got shut down.
Sorry you got shut down.
Only until he left. No one can stop the power of homojams.
Sangria was tasty at MAS tonight with a great dinner
Just say N(2)O!
/seriously, don’t do hippy crack, mmmkay?
I saw a bumper sticker at a Dead show once that said, “Only Users Lose Drugs…”
Can’t we live while we’re young?
(smugly comforts himself in his heady-ness, mocks loser Thor who doesn’t get “hippie bands,” masturbates furiously while thinking of Phish tour 2009)
I saw the dead over 200 times, jerry band 50-60 times, planet drum once, ratdog once and phil & friends once.
am I going to hell?(in a bucket)
am I going to hell?
Nah, brah, you’ve already been there. Congratulations on making it back alive and largely intact.
meatloaf!
@40 sounds like a personal problem Thor
@41.. very personal!
So what? A local band’s manager that the city fathers/mothers appear to worship (mainly by giving him free money to build the pavillion) used to sell nitrous balloons at Dead shows.
@43 I doubt it.
I wish these people wouldn’t litter they way they do, but in the end, nitrous is pretty harmless. Hippie crack isn’t nearly as diabolical on this town as crack (and heck, might as well mention coke) is/are. I’m not saying I’m excited to see the nitrous mafia move in after a concert, but there are other sorts of dealers that I would hope are a bigger priority.
I hear most of the effect is from oxygen deprivation. Used in a dentist office, it is different.
18: no we can’t, but we can write about “Devilish Nitrous Inspired Litterbugs” on page 2…oh noes!
i played 21 questions … more like 5 questions … with a huffer when i saw a group dissipating in front of atomic b, mostly about the sensation and the motivation, from what i’ve gathered lulu (25) is right, but here’s the highlight:
q: aren’t you afraid of getting caught in this public place?
a: the cops can’t really do anything to us, we just let go if we’re still holding.
i would assume the only person the cops can really try to bust is the dealer(s), the only contraband is the actual N2O tank. i suspect that a number of the cops see the physical exertion as more effort than the end result is worth. *cough* lazy *cough* even if unsuccessful in arrest, they should still try to break up the party! force the huffers off the main drag, teach them to be discrete, etc.
for certain there are pros and cons oft the huffers being out in the open, but it would still be nice to see the cops actually acknowledge the illegality of the act.