 20061104 Notes from the South
Nick picked me up at the airport, but before we left, we grabbed a sandwich from the massive food court attached to baggage claim. I noticed Nick had mostly ignored his sandwich and was busy observing the scene around us. As though he knew I was watching him, he said without looking back at me, "The airport is the closest thing to a big city for me. I don't see this many people at once very often." I hesitated, then I confessed that the Atlanta aiport is the closest resemblance to shopping mall I've seen in a long time. It seems the gates are crowded in every direction by something like a Panera Bread Company or an Eddie Bauer outlet store.Confirmed: The traffic is worse than LA's. It took us 90 minutes to drive the 30 miles from Hartsfield to Nick's Alpharetta office. I told Nick that I would move from Atlanta before having to suffer this commute for a week. He said, "Good call, because there's only two ways to waste time in life: In traffic and a bad marriage." I visited Nick's office at Flight Display Systems. The company is owned by his family, and they design and manufacture entertainment systems for aircraft (like flatscreen displays). Their 20+ employees is a double in size since my visit last year. Nick's dad just returned from a trip to Southern Texas, where he had chance to tour the new Google 767 outfitted for Larry and Sergey. On the way to Nick's house, we pulled into a gas station and parked. Nick asked, "Can you imagine why I've stopped at a gas station when my tank is already full?" "You play Powerball?" I wondered. "No, for BBQ," as he opened up his car door. I followed him inside reluctantly. Earlier, I asked that we eat some BBQ, because I miss it in NYC since moving away from school in Winston-Salem. Sure enough, inside the station, a man behind a stand was selling buns and pulled-pork by the bulk . It was constructed like a booth at a country fair, with a set of stools and a bar on the side, where a family of three was dining. I admit I was skeptical because the place was nowhere as charming as the sawdusty restaurants in North Carolina, where we would famously order a pound of meat and gallon of sweet tea every visit. Nick asked, "It's pretty good, right?" Yeah, it's pretty damn good. We took the sandwiches home and watched an episode of Discovery Channel's Atlas. I had never seen it before, and now I'm eager to start recording it on my DVR. This week's episode was about Australia. The photography, and narration by Russell Crowe, was excellent. We headed out for another snack. We drove to a seafood bar to get oysters done Southern style: steamed and served on saltine crackers with cocktail sauce, horseradish, and Tobasco. Washed down well with a Budweiser. Then, for the final act of the night, we drove out even deeper into the sticks to The Lantern Inn to see an Elvis impersonator. The place looked like a old dancehall, or a stripmall church, and in front shone a flourescent sign announcing "Elvis Lives!" Inside, we found that his act hadn't started, and instead a country rock band was playing songs like Three Dog Night's "Never Been to Spain." Our attention was quickly grabbed by a group of 12 tipsy, at least 35-year old women who were dominating the dance floor. Seeing as that they were all dressed up nice and in a place like this wearing identical gaudy gold-rimmed sunglasses, I guessed they were here for a bachelorette party. Turned out it was birthday, and they were all VERY excited for Elvis to come on stage. They were fun to watch as they rotated between finishing off margaritas on their table and laughing uncontrollably as they flailed their arms to the wailing of the cover band. They must have all been thinking, "If only my husband could see me now!" Then, suddenly, that one song started playing, you know the one that is famous for introducing Elvis, but is also used by a game show -- The Price is Right or Let's Make a Deal, I can't remember which -- and the table of women became hysterical chanting, "El-vis! El-vis!" And just as promised, out came Elvis, dressed fit in a gold sequence jacket. He grabbed the mike, and everyone went hush, and then Elvis pointed at an Asian man sitting in the frontrow and shouted with a thick Georgian accent, "Who let Kim Jong-Il in here?" (I admit, the guy looked a lot like the North Korean despot). The audience was bewildered, and nervously laughing, but mostly sat quieted. Then, one of the party ladies, this one name Wendy, shouted back, "Sing Elvis! We came to hear you sing!" Elvis snapped back, "This ain't no singing show. I tell jokes. Believe me, if you hear me sing, you'll just beg me to start telling jokes again." Then Nick clued me in. This was a gag the locals loved. All the Atlanta surburbanites hear of this Elvis impersonator and come out in droves expecting a Vegas-styled lounge show. As it turns out, he's only a crass, homophobic racist who slightly resembles Elvis. The birthday women were completely sullen. Anyway, it turns out he did sing a little bit, but not with effort. The show was meant to make the audience feel awkward, and the women would never forgive Elvis for it. 60 million fans now minus 12. If you're interested in a more thorough account with pictures, see this Atlanta blogger's post. *** We're heading over to Athens today to see some other college buddies of ours: Jake, Jenny, and Everett. *** Listening to Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver - I'm Winging My Way Back Home and Atlanta's Eagle 106.7 FM. Labels: Listening 3
Comments:
said... Hi Zach! Don't forget about Oh Atlanta by Alison Krauss and Union Station...say hi to Everett for me. Alex 12:28 PM said... Zach, I love how your writing style at the beginning of this post really reflects Nick's personality. He took me to the Lantern Inn, too! It's a fantastic memory. 2:40 AM Nick said... Regarding the BBQ place in the gas station... Local Atlanta hipsters have some simple text-friendly slang for situations like this-- OMGWTFBBQ?! 5:31 PM Post a Comment |
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 Hi, I'm Zach. I grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana and graduated from Wake Forest. After college, I moved to Manhattan to get serious about a company I ran with friends. We sold it to Barry Diller's InterActiveCorp in 2006. I just wrapped up with a project I co-founded called Vimeo and left CV to focus on being a twenty-five year old. I have another blog called Copy and Taste, where I post about learning to cook. I live in Brooklyn now.  Del.icio.us My Flickr Me on Flickr Last.fm Linked in MySpace Netflix History Vimeo  Amir Blumenfeld Chris Bodenner Mareen Fischinger Fort Wayne Observed Nick Gray Hype Machine Jake and Amir Jakob Lodwick Oh My Rockness Jonathan Marcus Youngna Park Megan Scheminske Eliot Shepard Shorpy Signal vs. Noise Alex Soth Stereogum Ricky Van Veen Khoi Vinh Eugene Wyatt   Postal Skype SMS (via AIM) |
