Checked out a musical feature Friday night at the former Hurricane/now Riot Room. Funny how a venue can be bought, sold, closed down, reopened, and remodeled, and still seem like the same skanky, drunken old place. (With one large, badly missed exception, of course.)

It's been a long time since I've tied one on in Westport. The crowd seemed different than usual — not the same skanky, drunken old crowd. I'm not sure if it was because of the crummy weather or because the obnoxious types were at home watching the basketball. Or if all the Westport merchant fearmongering about the area losing business to the P&L District is true. In any case, it was much more pleasant than average. Which selfishly leads me to hope that if the Bud Lite-swilling frat rubes have taken themselves and their cash to the P&L District, they're going to stay there for awhile. (I realize this is probly wishful thinking, but let a girl dream a little.)

If I were on the Westport merchants' blitzkreig marketing committee, I'd be pushing to advertise the change. I'll bet if they adjusted their campaign billboards just a little, they'd see business pick up.

On a side note, I was not aware of the severity of Westport's tagger problem. Until I woke up Saturday morning with these...