Life Without Velocity Girl - Pop 3

Velocity Girl broke up in 1996. Their final album, Gilded Stars and Zealous Hearts, played in a small coffeehouse on the east side of Orlando in the summer of that year. As a newly minted "grown-up", I had began taking up the myriad responsibilities of supporting myself such that I no longer had the teenage time to pursue my musical interests. As such, I had not heard the album yet. Having taken a rare mid-day break to investigate a tiny coffeehouse in the heart of college town, I bonded with the barrista when recognizing Sarah Shannon's sing-song voice. Doug would become a dear friend and roomate not many years hence. Our mutual fondness of music stirred up the then-latent passion that used to conflagrate in me daily. The news of VGs demise further cemented the harsh reality that, as a new man, life will be rife with disappointment.

Velocity Girl had one singer before Sarah Shannon. Her name is Bridget Cross, who recorded just one song with them, "I Don't Care if You Go", before leaving to play bass guitar for another seminal indie rock band, Unrest in 1992. In 2002, a decade after the breakup of Velocity Girl, Bridget Cross went on a camping trip to Skagway, Alaska with companion Franswa Fernandez. Fernandez is a Black man and a South African national. Bridget is white. Unfortunately, that detaii is germane to this story.

Much of the data regarding what transpired on the trip is collected from 20-year-old Metafilter data and info captured from Gecities websites right before that web provider reached end-of-life. Varying accounts conflict. Some maintain that Franswa was the object of derogatory and racist treatment from the locals in this secluded Alaska working-class town. The majority of that treatment being received at the Red Onion Saloon, one of very few taverns in the area. Other accounts assert that Cross and Fernandez were drunk and obnoxious, causing discord in this remote bar where fights were a weekly norm. Whatever the reality, a brawl broke out between the bar patrons and Franswa Fernandez. A railroad worker was slashed by a blade wielded by Fernandez, inflicting a critical wound. Cross and Fernandez fled the scene by car, attempting to make the Canadian border and a hasty retreat. They were stopped at the border by Alaskan authroties. Franswa Francisco was charged with intent to kill, Bridget Cross was charged with fleeing a crime scene and DWI. Accounts suggest that Franswa Francisco was denied contact with the South African Consulate.

While Cross was released and returned home to the contiguous United States, Franswa remained in Alaska awaiting trial. Bridget Cross first accepted a state-appointed attorney, but eventually had to retain a private lawyer to dispense with some of the more superfluous "bogus" charges against her.

Velocity Girl, having been frozen in carbonite in my memory, agreed to reunite for one performance at the Black Cat club in Washington, DC to raise money for Briget's legal fees. To see Velocity Girl again would be a near-religious experience. While definitely talented, it is safe to say that my obsession with them is not wholly based on their musicianship. They imprinted themselves on me during a formative and emotional time in my life. When you're young, emotions are so much more intense, and can be scarring.

I did not see the show at Black Cat. In fact, It would be several more years until I even learned of this reunion on Wikipedia. An opportunity missed, and as a young man I came to terms with how to deal with missed connections, chances not taken, and loss.

Nobody knows the fate of Franswa Fernandez.