I Want To Be Here

I have some friends who are pretty “metropolitan” types. They’ve lived in several cities, mostly in the North East, and city life is for them. It’s basically written all over their lives, from their public transportation habits to their housing choices, to their clothing styles, to their dining habits etc. etc.

The other day we were talking about San Francisco, and they each said something to the effect that the city by the bay is in their top three places they want to live. New York City being basically at the top, I gathered. Now, mind you, they were saying this having moved to Atlanta, bought houses in Atlanta, and basically sunk some hefty roots. And yet Atlanta isn’t in their top three, or even five places they want to live.

They had their reasons, although we didn’t discuss it very long– I guess they like the culture, like the arts, like the food, and even, for SOME reason, like the climate. If you’ve never been there, lemme just say that San Francisco is cold, baby. Said Mark Twain:

“The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco.”

Actually, he only supposedly said that, but the sentiment is accurate. Regardless of the chill, I’ll agree with my pals that San Francisco is a great town. I’ve got a bunch of friends out there, and have visited several times; I look forward to returning. But San Fran has problems, man.

• It’s really expensive to live there– you basically have to give up hope of owning your home, unless you make a shit-ton of salary.
• There are lots of homeless.
• The hills, although charming, are still really f-ing steep man.
• It’s touristy.
• Despite the much-vaunted public transportation system, traffic is still pretty bad, especially if you need to head out of town.
• Barry Bonds plays for the Giants.

I’m sure there are other problems– I’ve only visited, I don’t live there. However, those are enough to make my point. It ain’t perfect. Where is? Certainly not my town, Atlanta.

But if I wanted to live in San Francisco, or New York, I would. I’d be there. Where I live is pretty high up on the list of “What Makes JB Happy,” and I didn’t just move to Atlanta on a random whim. Every place in the world has something to enjoy, whether it’s the quality or strength of the people, the landscape, the history, or the culture, and personally, I think Atlanta ranks way up there and deserves a lot more respect from the metrogenti. There’s so much going on here, from the big-ticket items to the tiny little details, that in my humble opinion Hotlanta can hold its own with any city people usually stick on their lists of “Oh I’d like to live there someday.”

I will now attempt to explain why.

Art! We’ve got a lovely major art museum in the High Museum. We’ve got other assorted galleries around town that, including the Museum of Design. There are two galleries that sell art right in my little piece of the city, and the works they display are pretty damn cool even if I can’t afford them. Art is all over the place. It’s not Washington, DC, but the ATL art scene is by no means a vast wasteland. If you drop by, check out what’s going on at the Eyedrum, and the SCAD gallery in the Woodruff Arts Center. If you act fast, i’ll give you one of my free passes to visit the High Museum.

Speaking of Vast Wastelands, Atlanta is the home of Turner Broadcasting, which means the Cartoon Network people live and work here. In fact, at the Museum of Design I just mentioned, there’s an exhibit by the Cartoon Network right now.

Big Ticket Culture– by which I mean that Atlanta has a world-class symphony orchestra (I heard them play Mozart and actually LIKED it. Mozart usually puts me to sleep), a gigantic aquarium (second largest in the world, they say), a fantastic botanical garden, that High Museum of Art I mentioned before, and innumerable other performing arts organizations dotted around town. Like the Institute for Puppetry Arts. There’s also the Carter Center, where I saw Jimmy Carter and Madelaine Albright speak just a few weeks ago. And last year listened to Sarah Vowell read from her latest book.

College– Georgia State, Georgia Tech, Emory. That’s enough there, but there’s also the Savannah College of Art and Design, there’s Moorehouse, there’s Agnes Scott, and other smaller colleges whose campuses I drive by when I get lost around town. Why do I mention colleges? Because they draw stuff. They generate activity. At Emory University you can sign up for lectures about stuff like the weather or a “mini med school.” Rob has taken a few of those. Colleges have sports. Colleges have concerts. Colleges bring people in to speak and teach– Salman Rushdie is a visiting professor at Emory.

Music! Ok, so the Police aren’t coming here. But so many other acts near and dear to this indie-pop white boy’s heart are. At the bar down the street from my house, the Electric Six are playing this Wednesday. At that same tiny little room in a tiny little bar, I saw The Hold Steady rock out last winter supporting an album that wound up on the Top Ten list of more than one major critic. And just a couple weeks ago, Southern Culture on the Skids twanged away. Shut up. I like them. Late next week Sebadoh is at the Variety.

In June, Rush is dropping in for the first stop of their latest tour, and Fountains of Wayne are also playing that week. Not at the same venue, of course. Ha. Wouldn’t that be interesting, in a surreal and fabric-of-space-and-time-destroying way. “Leave the Biker” vs. “The Trees.” *schloomp* <– sound of world imploding.

Any night of any week of the year, you can hear something to your taste. We have the Tabernacle, which the Decemberists seem to consider a second home, since they’ve played there like three times in a year. I’m probably going to see Patty Griffin there in April. In May, Modest Mouse will be at this goth club called Masquerade.

I mean, geez, this town kicks ass for music. And not just the major-label acts. There are kickass local bands too, like Moresight, who played at ISP Records (down the street and around the corner from my house) recently and completely blew me away. I met their guitarist at my neighbor’s house, where they make homebrew that kicks my ass while it whispers sweet beery nothings into my ear.

And hell, Paste Magazine publishes out of Atlanta. They have a really great compilation CD with each issue. Love it. LOVE IT. And at their first annual Rock-n-Reel festival, which was just a month or so after I got to Atlanta, I saw the Brothers Chaps of Homestar Runner fame speak, and I saw Erin McKeown, and lots of local bands, and Victoria Williams, and Buddy Miller, and Elf Power, and and and… *gasp*

And it’s not music but there are two improv comedy troupes in town, and they’re both pretty funny. At least I think so. Last Christmas you could have gone to Dad’s Garage and seen their “Scientology Pageant,” which was a pageant, based on Scientology, exclusively starring kids. Heh. I didn’t get to see it, alas. Maybe they’ll do it again this year, lemme know if you want to come along.

Movies are a big part of my life, and Atlanta doesn’t lack. You can’t see “The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T” at a seedy little place on Christmas eve like you can in LA, but the LaFonte Plaza had “Inland Empire” for like three weeks. And there’s the Midtown Art Theater with at least 6 flicks, there’s Tara, with 4 art screens, and for mainstream fare there’s 16 screens at Atlantic Station, 12 at Phipps Plaza, and 24 up the highway 10 minutes from my office– and that one’s an AMC, the best of the megaplex presenters. And there’s a freakin’ drive-in about 5 minutes from my house. A drive-in. That’s still in business.

Sports, yeah yeah yeah. What, the Braves, the Falcons, the Thrashers, and whatever the hell the basketball team is called aren’t enough? How about flat-track ROLLER DERBY, bitch?!

I Like the Buildings in this town. I’m no Brad Pitt, but I love architecture in an uninformed way. I saw the Frank Gehry documentary. I wasn’t completely repulsed by the Experience Music Project building in Seattle. In Atlanta there are like three separate skylines, and while I will admit that NYC is far and away more intriguing for architecture, I find the Atlanta skyline to be pretty rad when I’m driving up Freedom Parkway to this certain stop light right before I get on the highway.

And then, after having had lunch at Atlantic Station’s yummy California Pizza Kitchen franchise (don’t sneer, it’s good), walking back to my office across the 17th street bridge, I look to my right and see this cluster of buildings that makes me wish I had a sketchpad.

I don’t find anything boring or bland about the buildings in Atlanta. Subtle, maybe, but distinct. The Georgia Power building with it’s sides that slant out as the building goes up so it looks like the top part of an italicized exclamation point. The Westin hotel with its 70’s roundness and the glass elevator that goes the whole way from the bottom to the top outside the building. The High Museum, which you can see on film in Michael Mann’s “Manhunter” playing the part of the Sanitorium where Hannibal Lecter is incarcerated. The Woodruff Arts Center, right next to the high and just as interesting. The brand-new Bank One building with the weird wings at the top. The Wachovia building that looks like it was built out of giant toy blocks from different buckets. I love walking to lunch.

The Food is Good and that’s no lie. I’m no foodie, but Rob is, and he’s been to the great restaurants in town. He and his wife had dinner at the (five star) Dining Room at the Ritz, and said it was totally great for only a few hundred dollars for the two of them. A pittance. But it was their anniversary! Happy belated anniversary, guys! He said they had unpretentious, yet consummately professional service and delicious food. As he remarked to me, it’s hard to believe some people eat like that almost every day.

There are several other big-time restaurants I’ve never been to that Rob says are really nice. Bacchanalia. Float Away Cafe. Joel. And I have been to this Brazilian steak joint called Fogo de Chao, where these guys walk around the whole time with skewers of meat and you flip a little cardboard thing over to indicate whether you want them to offer you some. Green means “I’ve swallowed, and am ready for another chunk of filet please.” Red means “wait, gimme a minute, I’m chewing as fast as I can. I wish I had bigger cheeks, but there you have it. Don’t go too far.”

There are little indie places that the hipsters go to, like The Flying Biscuit and The Earl and Taqueria del Sol. There are little indie places that the hipsters don’t seem to know about. And I’m not going to mention here. Feel free to go get a pretzel at Auntie Anne’s at the mall while you dream about the awesome joint I’m having dinner at, chump.

There are lots of mid-scale, good restaurants. I had the fried chicken at Watershed one Tuesday evening, and it was so yummy my mouth is watering even now. There are bars with good food, even though nobody believes me. Just try the salmon dinner at the Earl. It’s good, I swear.

You can drive up Buford Highway and eat at any of about three hundred ethnic restaurants, and the authentic kind no less. You know, the kind that I probably wouldn’t like. But we went to one for Rob’s birthday lunch, and I’d go back there. EVEN ME. (I’m rather famously averse to culinary adventurism.) Suffice to say that it’s an f-ing BIG CITY and it has good food and if you don’t think so then you’re not looking in the right places.

You can shop, oh my yes can you ever shop in Atlanta. It’s kind of insane. You can go buy a $12,000 Bang and Olufsen stereo at the high-end mall. That’s right, it’s a mall, and it’s high-end. I could maybe buy a shirt there some day. Or you can go across the street to the giant regular mall, where they have an Apple Store. You can go to any of the little neighborhoods and find a unique boutique to drop some cash on a cheap consignment outfit or a pair of $200 jeans. From clothes to bikes to art to books to food to groceries– we have a Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s is coming, and there’s this great Dekalb Farmer’s Market just ten minutes away– to tattoos to scooters to lapdances. There’s an Ikea, and even, *sigh* a Wal-Mart. Ok, that’s not a plus, but it’s a big town, and big towns have it all. Speaking of neighborhoods…

We Have Neighborhoods in addition to the big downtown with the big buildings, Atlanta has this cluster of neighborhoods just a few blocks to the west of the skyrises. These neighborhoods comprise most of what goes on in my life. All summer long there will be festivals and parties in these neighborhoods, each of which has a distinct identity.

My own neighborhood, East Atlanta, has its festival later in the year. It’s called the East Atlanta Strut, and it’s a really great time. Each of the festivals also includes an arts and crafts show, the kind where the itinerant artists all set up tents and sell their stuff right there. They have the like all over the country, and Atlanta has like 8 of these shows and festivals throughout the summer months.

The neighborhoods themselves have their own personalities. East Atlanta is kind of working-class bohemian youth culture with an emphasis on grit and rock-n-roll. Little Five Points is where the hippies hang out and where you go to buy that expensive glass “tobacco” smoking contraption. Inman Park and Grant Park are where in-town parents and young professionals seem to live. The Virginia Highlands are hip and expensive and you’re either rich or you rent, and where you can go to Fontaine’s and eat seafood. Mmmm. Decatur is where the Indigo Girls live, and you can extrapolate from that fairly easily. It’s true. I like Decatur a lot, despite all the lesbians. I kid! I kid! I like Decatur a lot BECAUSE of all the lesbians.

I’m here. I bought a really nice house here. I have great friends, and a great job. Those things aren’t in San Francisco, and they probably wouldn’t be. The same friends certainly wouldn’t be, and unlike some people I don’t feel like friends grow on trees. And my house in San Francisco would be a townhouse that I’d share with three other people, not a detached house with a big back yard that’s still in the city. And my job? Well, I might be able to have a similar job, and even possibly stay with the same company. But it’s doubtful, and without a giant raise all of a sudden I’m 23 and renting again. I like my house.

IN CONK-LUSION
There are books about Atlanta. There’s a big ol’ map just like the Thomas Bros. map they issue to each car arriving in LA. There’s magazines about Atlanta. There’s a rumor mill. There’s a lot to know about Atlanta, and in my year.5 of living in this town I’ve only scratched the surface. And of that scratch, only the merest sub-scratch is in this post! So you get what I’m sayin’ right?

The spirit of a city is engendered by its people.

I just made that up; it sounds profound doesn’t it? But it’s true. I mean to do my part to make the spirit of Atlanta one that attracts people people like me. Not by protesting the latest development scheme, not by donating large sums (which I don’t have) to municipal renovation, but just by being me. Going to the festivals, making a soapbox derby cart, playing my music, participating in the scene, helping out with stuff, walking around town, drinking beer at the Earl, buying local art, and generally being the all-around cool guy my Mama always knew I was.

This is my town now. I have no plans to leave. I’m not on my way to somewhere else. I like other places too; I like New York and San Fran and to a certain extent even stinky Philadelphia. Other places are great. But this is where I live, and I picked it, and before it gets dismissed with a wave of some ignorant “only-ever-visited-friends-who-live-in-the-suburbs” hand, you’ll need to reckon with me.

How Many Times

Here’s a story about a Saturday several weeks ago. Might have been months, actually, ’cause I don’t remember it being very cold on the day in question. I hesitate to relate the incident because I have a giant case of white-middle-class-gentrifying-bastard-guilt over stuff like this. You know what I’m sayin’. I’m just gonna go ahead and post it though, because part of why I post on this blog is to explore stuff that goes on in my head, and maybe someday somebody will read it and go “hey, I think that way too”.

So on this Saturday I walk down to the East Atlanta Village (where I live) to pick up my dry cleaning. I’ve never been to this dry cleaner, and so I’m surprised to discover that they don’t take credit cards, so I must walk to the bank and get cash. On my way to the bank, two black guys are arguing in the parking lot behind the pizza joint near the dry cleaner.

The first guy is a little bit older, and he is really pissed off at the second guy. He’s all got his dukes up and shit, and is like “come on, motherfucker, let’s go” and his erstwhile sparring partner is like “nuh uh” ’cause he knows you shouldn’t get in fistfights when you have no health insurance, and starts to walk across the street. I know he’s heading for me, and I’m right. I have excellent timing, I must say. There seems to be a high percentage of intersection between when I’m walking and when a panhandler is walking. Or maybe it’s the panhandlers who have the excellent timing.

He just ambles over, like he doesn’t realize how threatening he is. He probably doesn’t. It’s not a racist thing, at least I don’t think so. If a dissheveled white guy ambled at me in similar fashion, I’d feel threatened (and have; hey it’s the city). If a black guy in nice clothes was doing the ambling, I’d think he was coming over to ask for directions. If a woman of any stripe was moseying towards me, I wouldn’t feel threatened. Someday that might get be mugged, but there it is.

Anyway, I’m all “is this guy going to mug me or just ask for money” calculating my odds and what I’d have to do to get some attention should he go the violent route. He just asks for money, but he gets too damn close in the process. How unfortunate to be reduced to begging *and* be a close-talker, making 80% of your marks even more uncomfortable than the standard keeps-a-polite-distance panhandler. I wave him off, not making eye contact, staring at the ground. I just want to get my drycleaning, and my lunch.

So I go to the bank, I walk back to the cleaners, I pay them a surprising amount of money, I get my clothes. I’ve parked in the lot the two fellows were bellowing in, and I put my clothes in the trunk of my car before I go in the back door of the pizza joint. Before I get to the joint’s door, the same dude comes over, asking me for money.

I wave him off again, thinking “wtf, man, I’m wearing a bright red t-shirt and film-student glasses, you couldn’t remember I’ve already said no?”

Of course he couldn’t. I probably wouldn’t either, in his position. He sees me as a blur with a white face, a target for a simple question with a slim chance for positive response. I feel like I’m being racist when I have this thought, but sometimes it just seems like as a white guy I get a lot more attention from panhandlers. Is my white guilt that obvious?

So I go in and have a couple slices of pizza, eating food that I could easily have shared with this homeless guy. I never said I didn’t have money to give him, I just said “no.” For a good ten minutes of my lunch, a whole TEN MINUTES, that white guilt that rests so prominently on my sleeve pipes up and I contemplate getting a slice to go to give him when I leave. I even go so far as to reckon he’d need a drink to go with it, but then where would he go to the bathroom? Sometimes I need a can of Raid for the bees in my head.

I finish my lunch, and I decide not to get that slice to go. I leave through the back door and go out to my car. Some jackass in a BMW has parked about 12 inches from my driver’s side, obviously wishin’ and hopin’ for a nice insurance check when I’ve Hulked out and overturned his stupid car.

I’ve squeezed into my car and am about to start it up when that same guy comes up to my window and taps on it. And it’s not like I’m the only car in the lot. And he also has to squeeze between my car and the BMW. What are the odds he just wants to point out that I have a flat? I shake my head, he goes away. “Jesus,” I think.

As I drive away annoyed and, of course, ashamed, it occurs to me that if I had more business in the area, perhaps going to have some copies made at the East Atlanta Copy shop, or buying some nails at Ace Hardware, maybe getting my nails done or some hair extensions at the boutique, that this guy would have kept bugging me for money all damn day. Maybe that’s why the other guy was so pissed at him.

After that day, I saw the guy a bunch of times around the area. He asked me for money several more times, although less intelligibly each time. Eventually I stopped seeing him. Maybe he wasn’t having much luck and moved on. That’s what I’ll choose to think.

Whatever

Hello my dears,

I was kind of pissed on Friday (in American *and* English fashion) and
scribbled this ditty down, then this evening recorded what you will hear
if you decide to click the link. IF.

It’s not as tricked out as the several previous, just kind of a demo
with me and my guitar. Some loud singing, which is disgustingly
self-indulgent of me. But I’m hoping it has a kind of simplistic charm.
Because I’m charming, and simplistic, and would like to think this makes
me cool. Please ignore the enormous clam in the middle, and the other
one near the end. Unless you like that sort of thing, in which case it
was totally on purpose.

Listen to “Whatever” by JB

I need to be punished
Think I’ll take my punishment in shots
Of demon rum and bourbon whisky
To ease my mind and stop the clots

I’m always so hungry
But my tongue has gone awry
Venison tastes like white vinegar
Ocean salt like apple pie

CHORUS:
Let the bleeding slow
When the vein runs dry
The right to cry
Is purchased with love
Don’t bother
Don’t bother to lie

I need to be punished
Have to purge these angry thoughts
They radiate like cracking plaster
At a hundred thousand watts

No reason, no rhyme
Stop the clock’s annoying chime
It’s dark all day
Rain and cold and gray
And all I’ve got is time

I want something else
What I have is for the birds
Please forgive my oh if onlys
All I have are empty words

Come on, come on, see me
Through these prism bars
That split this oh so ordinary
Into its component parts

CHORUS

Killer Queen

Yes, yes, that’s all well and good. But what I really want is for people to listen to my new song!

“She Does Me In“
by JB

INTRO

CHORUS:
She does me in
Like a deadly sin
I’m laid in my grave, I’m aghast and amazed
Who knew there was this much love to drown in?

She does me in
But I don’t feel a thing
I’m put in my place, with a smile on my face
If I’m going to Hell, baby do it again

VERSE 1:
I’m lost for words
To express my dismay
At the implications of the ramifications of
The pattern of my Summer days.

BRIDGE:
I hope a lovely sermon
Graces my memorial
And in lieu of flowers
Make donations to Heartbreak Hotel

VERSE 2:
She stops my heart
But I can’t hate her
‘Cause she starts it again with a touch of her hand
Like a beautiful defibrillator

VERSE 3:
She calls me home
Baby I’m coming!
I’m crawling up from my bed, I don’t care if I’m dead
Sublet my empty mausoleum

INTERLUDE:
Oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh OH OH Ohhhhohhhhohhhhohhhh
Ohhhhohhhhoh

CHORUS

OUTRO

The heart of the matter

A friend of mine (who chooses anonymity) just said it as well as it can be said. When considering the courtship of a Christian girl, the only thing a fellow really wants to know is this:

“Is God ok with BJs?”

So much depends on her answer!

A Few Items of Note

1. Sometimes, when I remember, I get angry. Like right now, I’m starting to get sick, and as I was leaving the office this evening found myself planning how I’m going to take care of myself if I wind up feverish in bed.

   I’ve got it all planned out, how these things swing to and fro and I’ll get up and go to Kroger sometime in the afternoon when the pendulum is hovering around “doesn’t feel completely like crap” and I’ll pick up my supplies so I can be safely ensconced on my couch for the evening swing back to “feels completely like crap.”

   And it’s while I was figuring this out that I remembered and I got very angry, and I wanted to kick something and break my own foot out of fucking SPITE.

   

2. Often people seem unwilling to undertake the mental effort required to do what’s necessary. Like for example, figure out some really thorny issue that would take organization and cooperation and TIME. They just don’t want to do it, and nothing is forcing them to, so they don’t and you can’t make them.

   Even though you feel like yelling at them “If we just sit down and figure this out, we’ll be so much the better for it!” Still, it’s easier for them to worry about smaller things.

   This is manifested in a small way by some friends of mine. When planning an evening out, if the discussion involves more than one round of negotiation (“Where do you wanna go? I dunno, where do *you* wanna go?”) they beg off. “You know what, I’m just gonna stay in.” Just two or three more minutes of figuring out a plan and the evening would have been set.

   In a larger way this manifests itself in people at work wanting to chat or kvetch or spitball about minor issues when the huge lump that forms the majority of the problem at hand just sits there throbbing on the table while we dance around it. Everybody means well, and I know why they’re doing what they’re doing or at least can form a pretty good theory. But I still sit there cursing quietly to myself.

3. I wrote a song a couple days ago. Most of you have probably heard it already, since I’ve been pimping it out via email and myspace and IM and passenger pigeon and pony express and scrying pool. But in case this blog is your only source of information re: JB, here ’tis: “Ghost Strokes.” Hope you like it.