Wah wah wah wah!

I was going to record today since I had the house all to myself, but I woke up with one of those deeply depressed moods and haven't felt like doing much other than laying face down on the floor. Tried getting some work done, but the inspiration just isn't at the moment. I think I'll try fasting or something. This will be a long one so stick with me.

Next Two Days

After having a horrible breakfast at Crystal Burger we decided to go visit the World of Coca Cola which lay somewhere in down town Atlanta. On the way there we passed by this amazing old graveyard, and I insisted we stop and check it out. It was Wednesday and this was the coldest it had been up to that point so we slipped on gloves (I bought gardening gloves since I couldn't find mittens at the last moment) and walked around. The place was amazing. Some of residents had been there since the early 1800's and there was even a tomb stone marked unknown.

Sean and Paul complained about me violating some kind of cosmic code because I was taking pictures of things. It's funny the kinds of boundaries people just make up on the spot. It was all very beautiful with marble structures and statues, but Paul yelped like a dog at one point when I got too close to the grass. It's like he thought the dead would rise and take vengeance on the spot.

Of course there was two things that seemed a bit out of place. First a woman was jogging down the rows of graves. It was large and the perfect place for it, but jogging in a graveyard does seem a little bit strange. Second there was a bar across the street called "Six Feet Under" and that's just a little crass don't you think? I believe we spent around an hour there, and then continued into downtown.

As I mentioned before down town Atlanta looks a lot like down town Miami with the two major differences being no Spanish people in sight and lots of brick buildings. We walked to where Paul thought the World of Coke had been, but it turned out it had moved to another location. A homeless person saw us looking around and gave us directions to the new location, and I gave him a couple of bucks.

We passed through an underground shopping plaza with a stand that sold bootleg kung fu movies until we got outside. Before we too far down the street bits of ice came falling from the sky. At first I was excited because I thought I was about to see snow, but it turned out to be God's vengeance in the form little balls of ice that stunf your face when they collided with it.

We walked for another 30 minutes or so, passing through a lovely park with an ice skating rink, and finally arrived at the world of Coke having only had to ask directions twice. But fate was not on our side, and it turned out that admittance was more than twice the cost that we had expected and we would have had to wait in line for over two hours. Defeated once more we went back to the hotel and got wasted until 4 a.m.

On a side note we passed the William Street building which is the offices of the Cartoon Network and Adult Swim if any one cares at all.

Thursday

Thursday was my favorite day on the trip, and the reason I fell in love with Atalanta. We got up early and ate at a small restaurant called The flying Biscuit Cafe. The place had artwork of famous jazz musicians on the wall and waitresses were all pretty attractive. I had a first rate meal of baked chicken with macaroni over collard greens. The chicken was flat that macaroni where in these strange rectangular blocks, but the food was amazing and they served it with their signature flying biscuits which were huge.

Unfortunately Sean was not feeling well after that and decided to go and lay down while me and Paul drove around to take some pictures. We stopped at a few places and snapped some quick photos then went on to visit a comic book store that me and some other friends ran across one night that last time we were in Atlanta.

The previous night we all decided we wanted to go to a local show, and I wanted to visit Little Five Points. Add that with the fact that it was New Years Eve and a lot was going on. We decided to see a show at The Star Bar mostly because they had this female punk band there that did a song about their boobs.

We called Sean, but he was going to visit a lady friend of his so me and Paul set out alone. When we got to little five points we visited two infamous spots from the last trip. First was the gas station Paul turned into after blowing his tire, and second was the former site of the echo lounge (not a restaurant) where we saw Bitch and Animal which for those who don't know (because I certainly didn't at the time) is a left-wing lesbian folk duo.

Since this post is long enough as it is I'll go into the magic of Little Five Points in the next entry and just keep it to the event details for now. First Paul took me to The Earl which was a local bar that had shows in the backroom. He bought me a local ail and we sat and talked over the eclectic selection of music in the jukebox before heading out.

Since it was a couple of hours before the show we walked around and watched some of the street performers. There was one man that looked like a statue and remained motionless wearing white make up until some one dropped money in his bucket. Then we would play a rotten song before going back to being a statue.

There was one dude who sort of sounded like he free styling while playing acoustic, but as we got closer it turned out he was just making mouth noises and ranting like an insane person. Attractive couples walked all around us as we went from shop to shop seeing what was open, and spent a little time in a record store. Did I mention that in Little Five Points hot chicks buy new albums on vinyl? What a paradise!

Eventually we settled down and had dinner at a place called the Porter. It was a sea food bar/grill with amazing ambiance. Again the waitresses were attractive and nice, the place was packed with hipsters, and they played heavy metal over the sound system. Paul was determined I remain buzzed (despite the fact that he does not drink), and insisted I try another local drink. Their beer menu was a clip board with about 20 sheets front to back filled with different drinks divided by region of the world, alcohol content, and price. By the time the waitress got back I had no idea what I wanted, but then I saw it.

Before we went on the trip me and Sean kept making jokes about drinking Mint Juleps which of course were more of a Kentucky thing, but when you live in South Florida the truth is you have to go North to really reach the South so it was all the same to us. I ordered one and me and Paul talked about music and the local scene while I sipped my Julep and ate the most delicious hush puppies I have ever thrown a lip around, and it even came with some kind of amazing Japanese apple sauce for dipping.

After that we killed a bit more time by visiting a liquor store and the drinking a 40 oz in the car. When we got to The Star Bar we kicked around for about an hour watching all the ironically dressed people with stupid hats toss balloons at each other until The Judies came on. You see the thing about the Atlanta music scene is that each band picks another famous band that they like, and they just rip that band off. It took me a while to place my finger on it, but eventually I settled on David Bowie as this bands "inspiration." Paul claimed that they were doing "Low" era David Bowie. Not my style of music, but the performance was pretty good.

After that Coathangers (the band we were there to see) came on. Their girls were all attractive, and the music... well some of it seemed to have an off beat quality to it that should have been interesting. It was kind of like the Go Go's meets Sonic Youth, but the sound mix was terrible. The bass was way too loud, you couldn't understand a word they were saying, no one was in time for more than a bar or two, and none of them could play worth a damn.

Of course no one expects virtuosity from punk music, but enough was enough. Every one who knows me knows how much I hate music, despite me being a musician, and it wasn't long before we left. I finished my Paps Blue Ribbon, listened to their song about boobs, and we drive back to the hotel just as the New Year rang in. Then we got wasted.