Man oh man. I just saw the hillbilly vampire himself, the King of Country-Western Troubadours, UNKNOWN HINSON! he put on a blistering two set performance at Melting Point (my first time). Each set began with a blank fired from a .38 Special hoisted in the air followed by Unknown’s signature licks on his signature Reverend guitar. The band of studio ringers were totally professional and belted out a heaping 32 songs about drinking “party likker,” and fun times with “sexy womerns.”  Unknown handled hecklers with ease, suggesting one enthusiastic guy “hurry up and finish that beer so you can make your midnight shift at the Wendy’s drive-thru.”

Melting Point is a really nice venue and the food was super tasty. My Memphis burger topped with a red cabbage slaw and a Duck-Rabbit brown ale were delicious. I forgot my phone, so no pics. Luckily my buddy Will snapped some shots. We also got Unknown to autograph a pack of REDMAN chewing tobacco.

Well this looks promising. Two stories, 2 br, 1 ba, wooded lot. 177 Chattooga. Next to the railroad tracks and the old water tower. Close to THE TREE SWING. Monthly mortgage could be $650-780 a month. This is potentially swingable in the next 12-18 months. It’s seafoam green inside. Spiral staircase. Woods all over the lot.

Edit: Checked it out this morning. Tiger approved. He kept calling the house a “car! Brrrrrrrooom!” I think that’s his universal sign for approval. Anyway, the house would need two things: A garage and additional bedroom/office/play space. This space could easily be located above the garage. The lot is slim so additional construction but would be difficult, oh and impossible to finance.

Tiger’s first fountain.

“Ca! Ca! Ca! Brrrrbbbbb!”

translation: “Cars, cars ,cars! Vrooom!”

Fell asleep with my beautiful family at 8:30. Exhausting Monday. Woke up hungry, smelling of chlorine. All I want to do is cook with garlic and listen to New Order. Oh, and take another shower. It’s times like these where I get deceptively nostalgic and dangerously creative.

Edit: So I’m just going to listen to Rhino’s Left of the Dial, think about the Athens of my childhood.

(Warning, I can be long-winded about love…)

I wish I could remember every date ever. My first date was sixth grade with my first girlfriend Brooke. She had blonde hair and blue eyes. My mom took us to Subway. I used a buy one get one free coupon for our meals. Mom drove us to the movie theater in the nearest town to see Free Willy.

My first date with S. was a walk around Memorial Park. We watched the ducks have sex.

One of my favorites was our two-year anniversary. I had clues written down that related to our favorite spots around downtown/campus. She had to figure out each portion of the date. (Note: It’s not a good idea to take a lady on a date and not tell her specifically where you are going). It was mostly walking, talking about our friendship and sitting at the Founder’s Garden in that little nook by he goldfish pond, the fountain at Herty Field and supper at Five Star Day. I gave her a Mates of State album from Lo-YoYo and a tambourine from Chick Piano.

We had another North Campus walking date where we found ourselves caught in a rain shower. We took shelter in one of the big trees outside the library entrance. There was a low limb and we climbed up to wring out our clothes. I could see her bra through her soaked shirt and couldn’t keep my hands off of her.  We had an epic make-out session in the soggy boughs of that big tree with the warm rain falling all over us. We were awash with love. It was really exciting with all the funny feelings in our tummies. Touching her is like touching pure energy. I feel like electricity is dancing up my arms and consuming my body when I touch her.

We found ourselves delivering a car to California on Christmas break one year. We stopped in New Orleans (favorite big city) for a day. We split up with $10 each to find a Christmas gift for each other. We met on the steps of the Cathedral at Jackson Square several hours later bearing our gifts. We toured the Wax Museum and showed each other all the places we explored followed by gumbo at a little restaurant. We went back to the hotel room and slept the night away.

Slept in. Triangle PB&J’s for lunch with S. and baby Tiger. Tidied up around the house. Listened to The Band on the turntable S. gave me years ago. Realized we have $40 to survive until the end of the month. Family nap in the early afternoon. We pile up like the lost boys of Never Land when we nap. Afternoonsoftball at Bishop Park with lots of friends. Score was lopsided (21-12) but it was a fun game. We hustled to the magic tree and saw more friends. I had to skip out early and head to work where we’re doing lifeguard training stuff. There was food but I had to leave and head to Nuci’s for band practice with Visualizations. We really need a bass player to fill out the sound. I totally forgot we have a show tomorrow! Titans are playing too so I have to play bass and drums tomorrow. It’s great exercise! April in Athens is always magical.

I am not ready for this. Like, sharing the space, dealing with another person, making so many decisions and trying to decipher what another person is trying to say with so few words. Also, he’s watching SNL for the first time. EVER. He’s never seen the show. I was like “WHAT? The comedy is written specifically for people too young to drive or be anywhere doing anything else!” He went on his first picnic today and ate his first PB&J. EVER. Hmm, other things… went to his first bar, saw his first show and recorded his first song. 

Quotes: “Dena’s voice isn’t like what you hear on American Idol but it’s better than anything I’ve heard on American Idol. I want my music to sound like El Hollin. I think all my friends should listen to stuff like that. It’s better than the music on the radio back home.”

“That Lonna girl is really nice. She has a cool job and gets to do whatever she wants.”

“I wonder if Lydia has ever been to Little Italy Pizza.” - This was especially cute because it was totally random and the first of many, many ponderings about Lydia this week.

He goes home tomorrow and I look forward to having our home back and some uninterrupted cuddle time with S.

Little bro underaging (but not under raging) it for the first time last night. Swell show! The bands were great! Dena gave me brownies and Sarah bought me a birthday drink. I took CJ to Little Italy for the late night, post-show pizza routine where he got to witness marvelous drunken conversations.

Hey friends in town, my kid brother is coming to visit for Spring Break. He’s at an impressionable age (14) and needs his mind blown by awesome people and music. Also it’s my birthday on Tuesday. Also, I’m playing drum ‘n bass three times next week:

Monday-Hendershots- Visualizations and some New York bands. it’s an art show or something. I don’t know, I just play drums. I didn’t even know the name of this band until we played at Go Bar a few weeks ago. Jesse from Tunabunny plays bass and Keith from Jacksonville via NYC plays guitar and sings and stuff. it’s like Deerhunter/Sonic Youth/Jesus & Mary Chain

Wednesday-Go Bar- Titans of Filth, Grape Soda and a Baltimore band. I’m really excited about this one because I like Grape Soda a whole lot and they’re great people and I like Go Bar a bunch since they put that heavy fabric up on the wall. Also I like all the people in Titans of Filth so much. Help me sneak my brother into this?

Friday-Little Kings- Visualizations and I don’t know? It’s supposed to be a good show, that’s all I know. Jesse Tunabunny put it together and it’s at Little Kings and I like that place but I wish they would rename it Little Kongs because I like that better. They have good lemons and a clean bathroom. Help me sneak my brother in again?

Yayyy my birthday week y’all!

So, S’s mom was in town for the weekend (they’re planning Tiger’s first birthday). We went to this pizza joint across the county line in Oconee County because we were in the area running errands.

note: (I don’t like to spend money there because a large percentage of the citizenry are “White Flighters,” who left Athens-Clarke for a myriad of reasons and now hold it over our heads like they are better for creating this spooky-ass snooty middle class white suburb across the county line that has no culture yet constantly mooches off Athens’ positive aspects.)

So we go in on a Sunday afternoon and order some buffet plates. We get to the buffet and it’s half a tray of old breadsticks. I was pissed because I was surrounded by white people, in Oconee County, I was hungry and my family needed food. We sat down and waited. And waited. They put out a 12” pizza and this old loner dude went and took the whole damn thing. I was steaming internally but trying to find positive points. For example: I loathe televisions in restaurants. This pizza buffet only had one tv. It was only 19” and stuck way over in the corner with the volume down. This was good. I focused on this. Despite this small point, I can’t help but say aloud to one well dressed family “This is the shittiest pizza buffet I’ve ever seen!” 

More pizza comes out. Loner dude strikes again. What an asshole. About this time the cashier; this haggard, 60-something chain-smoking shell of a human-being starts walking around the tables of fresh-from-church families carrying a special order pizza. She’s stammering around and semi-yelling in her Georgia Prison Cigarette (GPC’s, like the Dollar General version of Marlboro’s) tinged voice “Merrga-raita Pees-uhh.”   So this zombie is just stumbling around yelling in this pizza buffet that has two slices of cheeseburger pizza and half a tray of cold breadsticks for a buffet while these well dressed white people are trying to maintain their pride and I’m just losing it inside. A couple minutes went by and I had to reflect on the whole scene and I decided that I EFFING LOVE THIS PIZZA BUFFET. It fronts as a legit white suburban franchise yet it’s the most inaccessible way to get your boring feed on. I can’t wait to go back!

Awe, this was my first show ever when I moved to Athens. I played bass in a band called the Shazbots. We were opening for Two Week Notice and MeWithoutYou or one of those Vagrant Emo bands or something. I don’t know who’s bass or amp this was. I actually never owned a bass amp while playing in that band. I couldn’t carry one on my motorcycle at the time anyway.

Spotted. Onlineathens.com 2/29/12

 I log onto onlineathens.com each day to read the local news. I like to be informed about local issues. The site is easily navigable but there’s always a big photo block next to the headlines with this stuff. It used to be random pictures of stuff around town but now (every damn day) it’s scantily clad women who are not always aware they are begin photographed and their images are being plastered on a website that gets thousands of hits a day. I think women are awesome, beautiful, glorious people who are worthy of praise and publication but this seems a bit slimy, especially from a local newspaper. I’ll be real, I see lots of gals wearing less than this every day on tumblr and I like it. Boobies and vaginas and backs and dimples and nipples and collar bones and cheeks and smiles and eyebrows and hips and noses and eyes and feet and ankles and arm hair and souls are wonderful parts of incredible creations but I can’t get behind ABH’s flagrant “Spotted” thing. It’s not even an article or column with any content beyond the image. Granted, that’s a lot of what tumblr is too but something seems seriously unprofessional and abusive about posting pictures of local girls on your professional news publication website without their permission.

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