Thoughts While Sitting in Traffic Listening to New Wave

So a few months ago I'm sitting in Atlanta traffic, listening to a college station. They're playing a whole set of new wave stuff that sounds pretty good - sort of like stuff I'd catch on college radio  back in the '80s or at a new wave club where they'd never announce what the names were.

Then the DJ announces that all this stuff came out in the last year.

"That's pretty cool," I think. "Glad that the kids are getting into the new wave instead of all the other crappy musical styles they could be listening to."

But wait.

"Wouldn't that be the same thing as bands in the '80s aping, I dunno...Country Joe and the Fish or something? College kids should be making music that I find unlistenable and offputting. They shouldn't be doing stuff that makes me remember being a teenager. This is almost starting to annoy me as much as when I finally check out one of those raved-about indie beardy bands only to find I've been listening to a repackaged James Taylor album."

Then a new DJ comes on and announces that her set is all vinyl.

"That's cool, I guess." I think. "Although really, who's gonna know if she isn't really playing vinyl? What if she's sneaking some MP3s in there just to trick us?"

She announces she's starting the set with something off Bauhaus' live album "Press the Eject and Give Me the Tape."

"I played the hell out of this album in high school," I think. "Again, weird that kids today are listening to stuff from what - 30 years ago? Also, I never really noticed this long-ass intro. They're really building up the tension with these two notes. How did I miss this? Damn, they're still milking those notes. Funny how obvious the reggae/dub influence is in their bass. Guess I wouldn't have known anything about that in high school though. Damn, they're really building the tension. Is this an import or something? I know I would have remembered this."

Just then the DJ comes on the air and apologizes for the record skip. I guess they were really playing vinyl after all.

When Animals Attack

I am a friend to the animals. Sort of a St. Francis of the 'burbs. I'll swerve to avoid hitting a squirrel. I'm on a first name basis with all the feral cats and dogs of the neighborhood. OK, so first name basis means Kittycat or Poochie, depending on species, but it proves that I'm interested in their feelings.

Some of my favorite times have been spent in a boat, fishing and checking out river creatures or biking early in the morning on the trail digging the deer and turkeys as the morning chill starts to evaporate.

But do I get any love back from the animal kingdom? No, I do not.

Last weekend my girlfriend and I went to the North Georgia Zoo. It was pretty cool. We hit the Atlanta Aquarium earlier thanks to free passes, so it was a day of animal fun. We bought a bucket of food and started feeding animals. I made friends with an emu, a bird you might recognize from crossword puzzle clues.

The goats and sheep were all over us, due to our magical bucket. Here's one of the few photos I shot, mostly because my fingers were covered with goat spit.

As I was distributing handouts to another group of pushy farm animals, a llama wandered over. I started to say something deep like, "Check it out, a llama," when it looked at me with its stupid llama eyes and spit all over me.

If you've never been spit on by a llama, imagine being dunked in lawn clippings that smell like the inside of an animal's stomach. Add some grit, some liquid, and a little more stink, and you've got the idea.

It was all over my face, my hair, my shirt, inside my mouth, basically everything above the waist. I dropped my glasses on the ground while spitting and coughing. Apparently I was ready to just leave them, saying, "I'll just get some new ones." I'm surprised I didn't just leave my shirt on the ground as well, but my reluctance to display my doughy physique won out.

I spent the rest of the day smelling like the stage of a 1977 Sex Pistols show, and learning a valuable lesson about animals that pretend to be your friend.

I still speak to the stray cats in my neighborhood, but I am a bit more wary and not as cheerful. Will I still swerve to avoid a squirrel? I'm not 100% sure anymore. Some might say that blaming all of animalkind for the actions of one asshole llama is a terrible example of racism, but I'll bet those people have never been covered in llama spit.

Days of Fish and Death

So my girlfriend arranged a whole Valentine's Day surprise for me. She wouldn't tell me anything about it, only that the day had a theme. I would find out later the theme was "fish and death," which there's no way I would have figured out. Oh, don't act like you would have got it, you would have been as clueless as me.

Things got off late thanks to my drive the night before, since I sort of hit a deer. I guess. It was in the middle of the interstate and I thought it was a log. I heard this huge crash when I hit it and pulled over to the creepiest gas station ever, surveyed the damage and drove the remaining 2 hours in a state of fear and sweat. It wasn't until the next morning that we noticed that the log left hair on my bumper.

So I'm dealing with insurance and wondering what's going to happen, but was remarkably able to relax and go with the day's theme (which was not revealed to me until the end).

First up, Atlanta Aquarium. This place is awesome! We got to see all the stars - otters, penguins, sharks, all your A-teamers.

We also got to hang out at Jellyfish Wall. Check it out:

I don't know why rich people buy boring stuff like yachts and memorial walls at hospitals. When I get rich (hey, there's still time), I'm buying a wall of jellyfish. I will sit in front of it in a leather chair wearing a smoking jacket petting a cat while I plot my kung fu treachery. And yes, I like how I went from rich to Bond villain in about 3 seconds.

And of course, any aquarium that doesn't have lots of stuff that can kill you isn't worth your time:

Piranha 3D!

It was also cool just hanging out and looking at fish whose friends and family I caught and ate:

Hangin' with Mister Grouper

After looking at fish for a few hours, it was off to part two, Oakland Cemetery. It was cold.

This is right after a ghost told me not to be shitty about Christmas

We had a pretty awesome tour, then we wandered the cemetery on our own, writing poetry and reflecting upon the futility of life.

Actually, I was thinking about the ending of "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly."

After that, we ate about 30 pounds of seafood across the street. I think that's where the ugly fish from the aquarium end up.

Oh crap! She also got me this awesome shirt - check it out:

If you live in Murray Hill, or I've driven you around, you'll recognize this as the logo on the baseball field. Every time I pass it I say, "I wish I had a shirt like that." Now I do. I figure I'm either gonna lead a team of scrappy kids from the poor side of town (which I guess is Murray Hill) to a baseball championship, or I'll have to start a gang or a doo-wop band.

She also collected all my old Myspace blog posts in a book, bound with fine Corinthian leather. So yeah, I really made out.

Guess I'll really have to up my game next year from this year's half-off day old candy and flowers from the gas station.

Golden Shower of Hits

I don't know how many of you are familiar with public men's room design (I'm thinking about half of you), but a lot of bars and restaurants place little ads or public service announcements over the urinals. The thinking is, you're standing there with an ad at eye level so even if you don't actually read it, it will stick in your head so you start to think, "Hey, maybe I shouldn't get a DUI," or "Man, nachos sound good right now."

So I'm in a restaurant Saturday night. Before sitting down I go to the bathroom. I see some ads and a couple photos on the wall to my right so I follow over and unzip. in the collection is a photo of three people, I guess a trivia team, called "He shoots, she swallows."

"That isn't very nice," I think. "I wonder if this woman knows she's in that photo above a urinal with that caption. Well, I guess she probably knew the team's name beforehand, so she knew what she was getting into. Hey, this urinal sounds funny."

Many of today's handless driers are actually less sanitary than paper towels.

I looked down. For the past few seconds, I hadn't been using a urinal at all, but a handless air dryer. Conditioned by advertising, I had followed the ads to where I had been trained to see them. I think that whole Black Friday had something to do with it, also.

I have heard stories of this happening to friends and family for years - where the person was either drunk or half-asleep or in a different house and ended up peeing in a chest or closet or something. But I was wide awake and sober.

Luckily the door was locked. I finished up my business in the real urinal and started gathering water and soap in my hands and splashing it over the urine-soaked dryer. I figured that would at least dilute it a bit. Now that I think about it, that probably wasn't the best idea I've ever  had, but I was panicked. I thought the next guy through the door would know that I had peed on the air dryer and ...
well, I'm not sure what they'd do. Probably force me to wear a big scarlet P for the rest of the night while I was shamed in the public stocks.

Luckily, no one was the wiser, and hopefully the puddle of water around the dryer discouraged others from using it for the night. Actually, it might have short circuited if anyone used it, what with all the liquid and soap.

I didn't say anything at all through dinner, and truthfully I kind of forgot about it until we were walking to the car and the girlfriend mentioned something about how cool looking the space-age hand dryers were.

"Uh...yeah. About those handdryers."

So gentlemen, the next time you find yourself in a public restroom, take a second or two to orient yourself to your surroundings. Also, you might want to skip the fancy handdryer and just use some paper towels or the back of your pants.

What I Did Last Weekend

I don't know who you people are (although if the search terms are accurate, you really love pictures of Aunt Esther from Sandford and Son), but I'm pretty sure that once again I had a better weekend than you.

My friend Todd's 40th birthday was last weekend, so it was back up to Atlanta for hijinx. And not just any hijinx. Limo hijinx. That's right, we were going out in a stretch Escalade, just like the rappers on the MTV show.

He planned it all out, where about 20 of us would take the limo from his house, go to Trader Vic's for Polynesian treats, then to a fancy beer place, finally ending up at Atlanta's famous Clermont Lounge.

I don't think I've ever actually been in a limo before. I never had one for prom, because I drove a '77 Lincoln Continental in high school, which was pretty much the same thing, only I didn't have Jeeves driving me around. It was pretty awesome, even if the driver got lost and our fully stocked bar was unstocked except for some water bottles, which was probably for the best.

But even though it didn't have booze, it had all these cool Tron lights all over the place. Check it out.

Doesn't it look like some sort of sci-fi judgement chamber? "I find you ...guilty."

It also had a stereo system playing My Bloody Valentine, Wire,  Naked Raygun, Jesus Lizard, Radon, Guided By Voices, Misfits, and uh...that Billy Joel "Heart attack ack ack ack ack ack" song on it really loud.

And you know, if you're cruising around Atlanta with your good friends listening to that stuff, you don't really need booze at the moment. Although we'd soon take care of that at Trader Vic's.

Trader Vic's is this awesome tiki bar, which means that most of the drinks are basically a whole bunch of rum with some pineapple juice thrown in there for Island Flavor. They also come in cool looking containers. Check it - this is called the Rum Giggle, and it's served in a conch shell. Look how impressed your narrator was with it.

Extra! Extra! Drink comes in shell!

Oh yeah - the hat. I stole it early in the evening from my friend Dave since he wasn't wearing it and I thought the night needed an olde tyme newspaper seller to add some period flavor. Here's a better shot. As you can see, the resulting ensemble was so awesome my girlfriend Sherri took off her glasses to ...better see it or something.

I would like to add that I was not as drunk as this picture suggests. I only ripped my shirt off once the whole night.

After that I stole a little pumpkin at the fancy beer place. The host would hit me in the balls with that little pumpkin later that night. I was told it was an ancient Sicilian tradition, so who am I to argue with the birthday boy. I also managed to take some decorative dried corn, but someone made me give it back as we were leaving. People are always trying to ruin your fun.

We didn't make it to the Clermont, which is probably just as well. Who knows what I would have decided to steal there.

Later that night Jerry Lewis cleaned up after us. No, really, check it out:

He was just happy we were having fun.

So how was my first (I think) ride in a limo? I'll let the sci-fi judgement chamber pronounce sentence on that one.

"We judge your Earth limousines to be...awesome."

The next day I carved a pumpkin for some early Halloween atmosphere while Sherri took photos, because that stuff has to be recorded for future generations. I noticed in one photo that I looked like my dad when he got mad at me for not doing chores. That was some Halloween scary.

This is for your kid hitting me in the balls last night.

So yeah, I carved a pumpkin, hung with some old friends and the new girlfriend, rode around in a limo listening to the Misfits, drank out of a shell, a pretty awesome weekend all around. You really should have been there.

I've ...Seen Things You People Wouldn't Believe

Went on yet another Atlanta trip last weekend. If I go one more time I will have to start paying rent to the family who keeps putting me up (and putting up with me).

I saw and experienced quite a few things, so much so that it has taken this long to process everything. For whatever reason, I took almost no pictures, so like the quote that inspired the title goes on to state, they'll all be lost in time, like tears in rain.

Wow. After that dramaticalness, it'll be kinda hard to come back to talking about my weekend.

This was the weekend of Dragon*Con, a nerdfest like none other. I was with 3 or 4 friends. We saw many of your favorite movie and comic characters, many in fun plus sizes. Sad Godzilla was probably my favorite. He was sitting on the floor by the elevators half out of his homemade (and quite badass) costume, looking all red and sad. I wanted to get a photo, but he looked too depressed and heat stroked, so I decided to leave the King of the Monsters in peace.

I ended up buying a lobby card for Dracula's Dog, because that is absolutely something I need to have.

So yes, if you're keeping score, I went to a comic convention and a Star Wars convention within two weeks. I am racking up some serious nerd points.

We ended up drinking pina coladas at Trader Vics, like the werewolf hero of the the kick-ass song "Werewolves of London."

So that's a pretty fun (but nerdy) weekend, right? I could stop there and you'd think, "Man, that guy really knows how to have some fun. He bought a poster for Dracula's Dog! He reenacted "Werewolves of London"!"

But there's more. There was a jerk festival the next day where vendors were selling delicious treats from the islands. My friend Sherri and I bought some somewhat overpriced (but delicious) strawberry smoothies, mostly because they were served in a pineapple. How could you turn down a chance to strut around like you were in Gilligan's Island with a big ol' pineapple drink?

From there, we went to this huge drive-in extravaganza, all full of bands and fireworks and movies. They played Big Trouble in Little China, Blade Runner, Blacula, and H.O.T.S., which didn't really fit in with the B title theme, but whatever.

It is strange that I had never been to a drive-in before, especially considering that many of my favorite movies were made for the drive-in. I think I'm ruined now, because I can't imagine I could have a better drive-in experience ever. So I might just stop while I'm ahead.

I also got to uncomfortably sleep in two cars over the course of the weekend and saw a pony, a tiki car and a little bitty Grave Digger monster truck that would speed through the drive-in with a person's head and torso sticking out of the top like a Big Daddy Roth cartoon come to life.

I don't know what you did on Labor Day, but I can almost guarantee you that you didn't have as much fun as I did.

Cap'n Gown

Went to see some Yacht Rock in Atlanta this weekend. For the uninitiated, Yacht Rock is a term to describe the smooth rock hits of the '70s. If you're of a certain age, its the stuff you fell asleep to in the backseat of your parents car. You know, like this:

If you're a few years younger, it might be the music your parents played while they made you in the backseat of their car.

So this band of younger guys resurrected the songs, occasionally getting the original artists to sing or play guitar or whatever.

Sure, you could dismiss it as campy or kitschy or just another case of hipsters being ironic. Or you could just mellow out and sing along to "Brandi," like the happy people here:

Me with my hostess. Probably singing "Brandi."

It was a pretty swell night. I also saw someone suggestively lick a light saber (I don't know why there was a dude with two light sabers walking around. Maybe he was from the future.)

I sense a great disturbance in the Force. A great sexy disturbance.

So yeah, it was pretty fun. You know what's not fun? Driving the 5 1/2 hours back to Jacksonville the next day through a monsoon. I don't mind long drives too much - day to day driving can suck it, but long trips can be relaxing when I don't focus on how just a few inches of space separate two two-ton vehicles speeding along at 70 miles per hour and holy crap, isn't it amazing that I haven't died multiple times driving?

I used to make up games in the car to keep me focused and awake. One of my favorites was trying to hold my breath over every bridge I drove over. My ex-wife didn't like that game, probably because my stubbornness made me speed up to cross the bridge rather than give up and inhale, even if I was turning red and purple.

Looking back, maybe that was sort of dangerous.

I had other rituals, like how I wouldn't shower the last day of a trip, the idea being that sitting in your filth would make it that much better when you got home and could clean up. She didn't care for that game either.

As I left my host's neighborhood, I knew I needed a new challenge, something to keep me occupied on the long ride home. But what? I needed something that had just the right amount of stupidity. Glancing in my front seat, I had it - with our tickets we also received these captain's hats. You can see mine in action up there. I decided I'd wear my captain's hat the whole trip home. The only rule I had is that I couldn't take it off - not to buy gas, to eat lunch, change a tire, whatever. The captain's hat had to stay on my head the entire journey.

After the first half hour it felt kind of natural. "I should wear a hat more often," I thought. "Look at this thing - look how sophisticated and dashing I am. I look like I should be commanding a PT boat with JFK."

I pulled up next to a carload of college kids playing The Cure's "Why Can't I Be You" at my first gas stop. I gave them the cool guy head nod. They didn't really pay any attention. Probably intimidated.

In fact, it was disappointing how nobody really glanced at my hat when I'd stop. I was hoping for some sort of acknowledgement or laughter or subtle points or something. But no, nothing. Not a muffled "Gilligan" or "Aye, aye Captain" - nothing.

Things were different on the road, where I could sense fellow motorists were suitably impressed. A truckload of Victoria's Secret models frantically motioned me to pull over. A Cadillac full of old people silently saluted me for my service to the country.

But I couldn't stop for any of them, nor could I remove my hat. And I'd like to think I learned a little something on that trip.

By subjecting myself to potential ridicule all day, I gained more empathy, more understanding. Never again will I make disparaging comments on the internet about someone I don't know, but who strikes me as funny. And aren't we all wearing our own captain hats in life? Did I not learn that from my journey?

Nah, I just wanted an excuse to wear a ridiculous hat all day. Nice try, though.

Green Door, What's that Secret You're Keeping?

Took a trip to Atlanta last weekend, due to my poor reading comprehension skills and lack of anything else going on in Jacksonville.

It wasn't a crazytime explosion like my last few vacations, but I was fine having a laid-back weekend hanging out with old friends, meeting new people, eating a ton, and trying to forget the speeding ticket I got on the way up there.

Oh yeah, we also discovered a secret Korean bar.

OK, it wasn't really secret secret, they had signs and stuff like any other bar, but it still felt like we discovered it. Sort of like Columbus "discovering" the Americas when people had been hanging out here for centuries. So yeah, we were totally like Christopher Columbus.

The first thing the bartender said to us as we looked around was, "It's OK, we've had white people in here."

So we felt right at home. There was a bit of a language barrier, their English wasn't the best, and our Korean was rusty. They also didn't seem to know too much about their drinks. We'd ask what was in certain drinks and either get an "I don't know" or two fingers crossed in an X warning us away. Which sucked, because I really wanted to try something called "The Hulk." But we ended up with something called "The Junebug," which was highly recommended and I think the only drink on the menu they knew how to make.

As we drank our flourescent green girly drinks we looked the place over. It was huge - much bigger than the outside would have us believe. There were also a couple groups of Korean guys hanging out here and there, a few of which were slumped over their table while their friends continued drinking. The waitresses would come sit next to us and brush up against us which was a bit strange, but hey, you get used to it.

There were also secret rooms. Again, they weren't secret secret, but they were closed doors that we imagined all sorts of fun was going on without us. Was there gambling going on back there? High stakes karaoke? Secret sexy stuff? There were at least handjobs being distributed, we were pretty sure.

Sadly, we never got to see behind the doors, even after one of us gave what we were sure would work as a password, "Do you even KNOW about the Misfits Fiend Club?"

Maybe next time.

Ain't No Party Like a Skinhead Party

I was probably only one of two or three people delivering food from Hunan Palace in Atlanta who wasn't a skinhead. They weren’t Nazis or anything, in fact one of them was black and one was from somewhere in South America. Of course one of the big white power skins in Tampa/St. Pete was Puerto Rican, so who knows? I got along with them alright, we liked some of the same bands, but the whole worshiping this magical time in England from before they were born was a little strange, as was their habit of beating the shit out of people every weekend.

This made for some interesting weekend recaps. I'd get blow-by-blow stories about putting some dude in the hospital, while I'd come out with something like, "I saw The Crow at the dollar theater with my roommate. It kinda sucked."

It was weird running into them outside of work. I remember a Buzzcocks show where I was drinking with them before the band started where you could just feel the tension. Somehow, somebody was going to get their ass kicked that night.

Of course, it wasn't gonna be me, so screw it.

So I get invited to this party at a warehouse. A bunch of bands used to practice there til they got kicked out, so they figure they’ll have a big party and trash the place. I think I got a ride with someone after work. It soon becomes clear that everyone there is a skinhead, except for like 2 or 3 other people and me. Even though I had a pretty good idea nothing would happen to me, I had heard those guys tell enough stories about how they looked for an excuse to beat some outsider’s ass that I was pretty nervous. To take the edge off, I had a couple beers. A couple bands played while the rest of the skinheads destroyed the warehouse. After a few more beers, I figured I’d help ‘em out. Somebody handed me a crowbar so I started banging away on some drywall. “Oh shit! Hey, that’s a Jam song! I know that song!” I threw my crowbar to the ground and pushed past a bunch of skinheads and ran up to the band. Like I had many times in Gainesville when a band played a song I knew, I figured I’d help them out. I snatch the mic from the singing skinhead and give the crowd my rendition of "Boy About Town." About ¾ through the song, a reminder fought its way through all the beer in my brain. “Hey. You’re not at the Hardback. You’re at a skinhead party where you know a handful of these bald people. Do you think they appreciate you taking the microphone from their bald brother?” I sort of mumbled the rest of the song and tried to inconspicuously slink back to the corner.

However, the skins seemed to be impressed that I sang and was helping destroy the place, even though I had hair. They kept giving me drinks all night and I felt sort of like the nerdy waterboy hanging out with the football team. After a while I got paranoid that they were getting me drunk to surprise me with a stomping, so I took off on foot through a pretty sketchy neighborhood and walked about 2 miles home.

The next day at work I didn't hear that anyone got their ass beat, so I guess the whole thing worked out for everyone.

My Dinner with Tupac

Hey kids, do you like the hip-hop music? You do? Well, did I ever tell you about the time I hung out with Tupac Shakur in Atlanta? I didn't?

Well, that's because there's really not much of a story there.

We got a delivery order for a club downtown near the end of a day shift. The club was pretty well-known, although I have no idea what the name was now. I ended up getting the order, which was fine; the craziness of lunch had died down, so I could take my time, and clubs were usually pretty good tippers.

So I gather a box of food and drive downtown. "Man, am I lucky," I'm thinking to myself. I get to close out my shift with a big ol' tip. Everyone knew that clubs tended to tip well, they were second only to strip bars in knowing the importance of tips.

So I get there and there's a group of about 10 guys waiting for the food. They're wearing big gold necklaces and a couple guys are sporting diamond earrings. Right away they start trying to determine who ordered what. This happened a lot, especailly at hospitals or strip clubs. This meant you had to stand around while everyone argued with each other for about a half hour. In strip clubs, it wasn't too bad, they have naked ladies there and you'd end up with a fat tip for your trouble(get your mind out of the gutter). In hospitals you'd end up standing around forever while all the nurses paged each other, then paid with a handfull of change and stiffing you on a tip.

So I was used to that. All the guys seemed to be deferring to a guy in the middle. I had no idea who he was, but they seemed to act like he was important.

I stand around while the guys discuss the bill (by the way, America? You know when a good time to do this is? AFTER YOU'VE PLACED THE DELIVERY AND BEFORE THE DRIVER SHOWS UP.), then take my cash and leave.

On the way home I realize I've been stiffed. Hell, the whole thing was as crappy as going to Grady Hospital.

Couple days later we're watching the news and I realize that the guy in the middle was Tupac. I had checked out of hip-hop after they stopped discussing sucker MCs and waxing and milking, so I had no idea.

Anyway, Tupac was on TV because he had shot an undercover cop the night after his posse stiffed me. Or been shot by an undercover cop. If it had been a dude from Fugazi or Jesus Lizard or the Didjits cold shootin' cops, I might have paid more attention.

Apart from the weirdness of figuring out that I sort of met someone famous (OK, was in the same room with someone famous), I was just pissed. Famous Tupac and his friends can't leave a tip? With all that gold they were wearing? LL Cool J would have tipped me. Run DMC would have tipped. Boogie Down Productions would have tipped me and dropped some knowledge on me.

Tupac would be dead a few years later. To this day the media wants you to believe it had something to do with a West Coast/East Coast rap war, but I've heard on good authority that it was a server, delivery driver or wait person pissed off over a missing tip.

To the Gothic Castle

I don't really remember how we ended up at the gothic guy's apartment. It was one of those blurry nights back in the early '90s in Atlanta with my roommate Rachel. Somehow we were out with our neighbor, Juliet.

That was strange in itself. We shared a hallway, and were nice enough to each other, but she would go on these screaming and crying jags late at night. We weren't really sure if we were supposed to do anything or not, so we'd just turn the TV up louder (free cable!) and drink more Natural Light. I remember our downstairs neighbors warning me about her. "I'm from Ireland," she said. "I know about banshees."

So we tended to keep our distance.

Somehow after drinking somewhere Juliet ended up taking us to a friend's apartment. I don't remember the guy's name, let's call him Raven or Mykel or something. I remember the apartment was painted black and he had a lot of black and spiky furniture. He also didn't seem to want us hanging around. Probably because we looked pretty square, and weren't our stripper neighbor.

Raven kept talking to Juliet while Rachel and I giggled about how much of a cliche the dude was. I mean, he was wearing leather pants, just sitting around the house! Sure, it was immature, especially since the guy had begrudgingly given us more beer and a dark place to sit in, but you know how it is in your early 20s. And hey, we had to amuse ourselves somehow while he tried macking on our neighbor.

"What's the matter, you don't like Nine Inch Nails?" Raven yelled over the stereo.

"Yeah, they're OK, I guess," I said. "They played them in the mall last week while I was shopping for Dockers."

"Oh yeah? Well, check these out."

With that, Raven dropped a pile of photographs on my lap.

"I don't know if I want to look at dead people, man."

"What's the matter, can't take it? Well, I've got tons of these. Most people can't take it, but this is unfiltered, in-your-face reality."

"Yeah, well, I guess you totally win...hey, wait a minute! This picture's from a movie. That's from Dawn of the Dead, right?"

I ended up trying to talk horror movies with the guy, but he was a little crestfallen after finding out that his in-your-face reality was actually concocted by special effects wizard Tom Savini.

I can't remember how we left the guy's apartment, or if we were still with Juliet, but I can say with about 90 percent certainty that we ended up getting Taco Bell, drinking Natural Light and watching Mystery Science Theater 3000.

I never really did make that many friends in Atlanta.

Luck of the Irish

I've been going through some pretty heavy emotional stuff lately. Don't really feel like getting into it right now, but let's just say it felt great to get out of town for a while.

Why was I going out of town? Well, Santa had the foresight to get me a ticket to see The Pogues on Monday night in Atlanta. He really does see all.

I was told by friends who had seen them previously to be prepared for a fun, if shambolic, event. I was told the band would be tight, but Shane MacGowan would pretty much just slur a bunch of garbled nonsense over it, relying on the crowd to, you know, actually remember the words.

But holy crap were they awesome last night.

Shane would do sort of mini-sets of 3 or 4 songs before shuffling back offstage for a couple minutes, and his opening remarks were completely incoherent. I loved seeing all these people doing the 'what the hell did he say' face to their shrugging friends. But as soon as he started singing, he sounded exactly like the recordings. And all those tin whistles and accordions and banjos and what not sounded great. The crowd was singing every word, I overheard the bartender mention they ran out of Guinness by 9:00 and a good time was had by all.

The last time I really listened to the Pogues a lot was when I actually lived in Atlanta, so I kept getting strange little flashes of deja vu or nostalgia or something, especially during "Thousands are Sailing," which is a song I didn't think they'd play.

The song is about Irish immigrants in America, how they still miss their homeland but are making lives here at the same time. Now I'm part Irish, I'm not exactly sure how much, and while I think that all that Irish history stuff is pretty cool, I also think that if my great-great-grandfather had wanted me to get all weepy about Ireland, he wouldn't have gotten on the boat.

Anyway, I can distinctly remember playing the song around Christmas after getting back from a shift delivering food. For whatever reason, the lyrics, "Did the old songs taunt or cheer you, and do they still make you cry," and "So we raised a glass to JFK and a dozen more besides/ when I got back to my lonely room, I suppose I must have cried" suddenly made things clear. I had to get out of here. I had to move back to Gainesville. I wasn't exactly unhappy, but I don't suppose I was that happy either, and I could feel myself getting comfortably trapped. After months of rejection, I had stopped sending out resumes, and could feel myself getting more and more comfortable working a couple hours a day and walking home with a wad of cash.

So I ended up going back to Gainesville with my tail between my legs. Sure, Gainesville was another comfortable trap, a way to stay in a holding pattern for another year or so before actually growing up and/or doing something responsible, but at least I was happier, I guess, and sort of working on a plan, which would eventually lead to the holy path of library science.

And yeah, I realize that delivering food in Atlanta was a far cry from digging out a railroad or whatever, but still.

So while I still have flashes of bad feelings, the Pogues (and my hosts) helped a lot, at least for a little while. I think they're only playing a couple more shows in the U.S., so if it isn't sold out, you should really, really go.