My Very Own Freaknik
So Chapel Hill has this lovely little event each year to celebrate Spring. It is called Apple Chill (which, in a delicious play on words, sounds a lot like “Chapel Hill”). This street fair closes off nearly a mile of Franklin Street, the main drag in Chapel Hill and where all the rioting takes place when there are sporting events. It also occupies just about every police officer, security worker, event staff, parking attendant, you name it for the entire day. I’m not sure there was this much security back in the day, but nowadays they are keeping the Chill on lock-down.
“Why?” you may ask. Well, Apple Chill is no longer for Chapel Hillians, Orange County residents or the locals. If you ride a hot rod street bike or drive a pimped out Impala with enormous chrome dubs in North Carolina, then you know about Apple Chill. And your community probably is aware of it, as well — which brings a lot of hotties and crowd-watchers. For years I’ve always trucked on down to Franklin for the event and every year I come home with a sunburn. It has always been a lot of fun and offers some amazingly dangerous food stuffs. They’ve also got covered the gamut of crafts, face painting, henna, pottery, dance competitions, and the like. But the real event (as far as some of us are concerned) is the endless parade of flashy cars and suped-up motobikes.
Usually, I do the smart thing and walk up to the festival, but this year I had time and gas to kill before going to Uzi’s picnic later in the evening. So I wanted to drive around to check things out. It was stop and go in every direction. For the most part, we were all just sitting in place for five to eight minutes before creeping up a few feet. Unreal, but fun because of the ruckus going on all around (and I had Alva in the car for her enjoyment). It took us an hour and a half to complete a 6 mile loop around the UNC-Chapel Hill campus.
This line of bikes was down Merritt Mill Road, but could have been any direction. The crotch rockets were out in full force, but I wish I had gotten pictures of the custom cars that had their wheel size printed on the rear panels. The biggest I saw was a bright green Impala with 24″ adorning its tail.
The other popular thing to do was to hang out a window or sunroof in some fashion. The folks doing this were of two camps — either video taping the show or being a part of the show. I think this guy is checking his cell phone and being a videographer all at once.
Alva models one of the coolest cars I saw parked during our circumspection of the periphery. Last year we did the same walk around Apple Chill, but she was a young puppy then.
Here is the view from the middle of West Franklin Street (near Penang and Carolina Brewery). See the larger image to view the masses of people up at Franklin & Columbia.
In case you don’t know about Freaknik, it was a pretty rowdy party that gridlocked Atlanta for a day each summer between 1990 and 2001 (altho there appear to be discrepancies as to the actual demise of the event). Regardless, it was always fucking crazy. I had the pleasure of being trapped in the middle of a Hotlanta Freaknik a time or three in the mid-90s. While I never had a problem with any party participants, I did realize that if I pulled any bullshit I would have immediately gotten my ass beat. For the most part, Apple Chill does not share this aggressive vibe (altho the PR agent for the NC Gangs Coalition sent a memo this year warning of ‘escalated violent activity’). Thats why I like to think of Apple Chill as my very own down home genteel country time Freaknik.
June 30th, 2006 at 11:55 pm
[...] Please check out my photos from Apple Chill 2006. As you may remember from last year, Apple Chill is a Springtime street festival in Chapel Hill, NC. However, 3 people were shot this year (at 8 PM, two hours after the street festival ended) and it looks highly unlikely that the event will be occurring in the future. In fact, these could be the last photos of Apple Chill you ever see. Please people — Stop the killing. [...]