In the summer of 1995 I pulled into Atlanta driving a Ryder moving truck with my Nissan Centra in tow, knowing no-one and with no place to live. At the time, I was fleeing South Beach and anything north of Dade and Broward counties held the promise of something better. I remember pulling off the interstate downtown, turning north on Peachtree Street, and slowly driving all the way up to Sandy Springs. It was sunny, the rolling hills were chock full of greenery and anywhere I stopped it seemed that Georgia hospitality was in full bloom.
This month marks the passing of 10 years in Atlanta. A decade. Unbelievable. For a guy who spent the first 25 years of his life moving 25 times, living in 3 continents, 7 countries, and 5 states … well, 10 years in one place was as unlikely a bet as any. So in the spirit of journal writing, personal reflection and the general stewardship of time spent, I’m going to write 10 anecdotes that represent the highlights, lowlights, and seminal moments of each year I’ve spent in Dixie. Undoubtedly I’ll miss a story, forget a name, fail to mention a friendship, or lapse in memory on something you, the reader, may think I should never forget. Well too bad. This is my prosaic party and I’ll lapse where I want to.
Let’s spin the magical time portal, make mystical time traveling sounds (“bee-boop-oo-lah-swivvy-loo-la-boop”) and jump back in time.
1995 - Yvonne, Laura and Revolution.
My first seminal moment in Atlanta happened faster than you can say “American Pie”. When I got to Atlanta I used the Apartment Finder service to help find me a place to live. The Apartment Finder agent was a cute redhead named April who was all southern accent and bubbly charm. Somehow, I managed to coax April into believing that as part of her Apartment Finding duties she should also give me an introduction into Atlanta nightlife. Beeper numbers where exchanged and she agreed to take me out the first Friday night I was here.
April took me to American Pie, an outdoor bar/dance club for the khaki-pant wearing, hard-bodied, fake tan sporting, bleached blonde, hoochiephile masses of Sandy Springs. Immediately I knew that this was not my scene and that knowing how to get back this bar was pretty much a piece of throwaway trivia. To my surprise, the evening was actually much more valuable to me than I could have guessed. I was introduced to four of her friends: Maggie, Tom, Laura and Yvonne.
Yvonne and Laura where the first lesbian couple I was ever introduced to and who didn’t seem to be offended by my heterosexuality. I was sooo intimidated by them at first: Yvonne was a well known DJ on the best station in town and Laura was a stunning model who in her earlier years was a competitor in the pageant circuit. I remember that shortly after being introduced, Laura invited me to a club called Revolution in Buckhead on Wednesday night, where Yvonne was spinning. I accepted immediately and promised to show up.
What I didn’t know what that Revolution on Wednesday night was ladies night -- as in ladies who like ladies night. I walked right in, thinking, “Wow, check out all the chicks in this place…” Laura came over and said hi and then pretty much left me to fend for myself. As uncomfortable as I was, Yvonne could really work the ones and two’s and I couldn’t help but to stay and get my dance on. I kept going back week after week, always repeating the same routine: Enter the club. Say hi to Laura. Wave to Yvonne. Dance. Leave.
Eventually, I must have passed the “Is-this-straight-guy-ok-for-lesbians-to-hang-with?” test because Yvonne and Laura started inviting me to other parties, concerts and eventually to hang out at their house. Yvonne single handedly kept me in touch with the music scene because she was constantly hooking me up with free tickets to what seemed like every band that rolled through town. A year or two down the road, Yvonne was the first DJ at 99X to play a Shimmerzine track on the late night show called Pleasuredome.
Laura turned out to be the ultimate wingman. As any dude who has tried knows, meeting girls while standing by yourself at a bar/club is damn hard. I suppose it screams “SWM: LONELY. HORNY. AFFECTION STARVED. LOOKING TO HANG OUT WITH ANY FEMALE WITH A PULSE.” On the other hand, if you show up to a gathering in the company of others, you tend to broadcast a signal more along the lines of “PEOPLE HANG WITH ME. NOT SOCIALLY RETARDED. PROBABLY SAFE TO SPEAK WITH.” If you show up to a place with a drop dead gorgeous woman on your arm, the unspoken message is “YES, I AM FANTASTIC. MAYBE I’LL TALK TO YOU IF I’M NOT TOO BUSY WITH THIS OTHER HOT LADY. WHY YES, I AM THE LOVER-WEIGHT CHAMPION OF THE WORLD.” Laura did more to further my cause as bachelor-extraordinaire as any other woman I’ve ever met.
1996 – The Thursday Skate.
I came to Atlanta in 95 behalf of a company called Skate 2000. We opened two inline skate shops, one in Buckhead and the other in Sandy Spring. It felt like I spent all my time split between the two stores, managing irresponsible skater employees, teaching class, rotating wheels, managing a relationship with the totalitarian micro-manager company owner, and hosting the Thursday night Buckhead Skate.
The Thursday skate was simple. Meet at the store in the evening. Skate about 4 or 5 miles around Buckhead. Finish up at the Tin Roof Cantina for hot wings and pitchers of frozen margaritas. At the time, it was just a way to bring customers into the shop. In hindsight, the Thursday skate introduced me to what would become the two best guy friends I’ve ever had. (Also of note: it was through the Thursday skate that I met John Cloonan and Guillermo El Guapo Palermo, two great long time buddies of mine).
Dan and Jason came into the shop in a late afternoon. I don’t remember exactly the day or time, I just remember that they walked in heatedly arguing about something completely unimportant, probably along the smell of mouthwash would most impress girls at a party. The bickering was such that at first I thought they were a gay couple. I invited their seemingly gay selves to the Thursday skate and to my surprise (I was always surprised when anyone showed up to our somewhat grueling skate) then became Thursday night regulars. I realized quickly that they weren’t gay, just long time college roommates who liked to fight about virtually everything.
I have to admit that at first I didn’t place much stock in my new acquaintances and just figured them to be guys I knew through the skate shop. They were both clean-cut Emory grads, working hard in their corporate jobs and had conservative blonde girlfriends to match. On the other hand, I was busy kicking off my time with new band called Shimmerzine and fancied myself a fledgling rock star in the scene. I had just discovered a fantastic underground bar (and epicenter of the indie-pop scene) called MJQ and was busy hustling gigs and such. When I invited to Dan and Jason to a gig at the Q, I honestly thought they would show up once and then move on to other things. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Not only did they come to the show, they came to every other Shimmerzine show I can recall. I’m not exaggerating when I say that from that point on, one or both of them just seemed to always be there. Parties. Gigs. Clubs. Skating. Before long, they both learned how to set up and break down my gear at shows. They helped me print flyers. They passed out flyers. They listened intently to every demo the band put out. Unbelievably, I was young and arrogant and really didn’t recognize the hallmarks of a true friendship until late in 96 or early 97. For the purposes of continuity, I’m going to write about the night the lights came on and these two were revealed to me as true brothers in arms.
We all went out for a night skating, drinking and all around carousing on a Wednesday night. We started the night at Club March where they hosted roller disco once a month. Even though this was a gay club, they tolerated my rowdy group of buddies and let us slam Long Island Ice Teas while skating around the club. It’s a wonder we didn’t crack our skulls open or knock our teeth out on the edges of tables because we were doing more of a roller derby thing than a roller disco thing. Anyway, after roller disco we took my car and Dan’s car to the Q for brit-pop night. Since the Q didn’t have a liquor license, we started to pound brew instead. Not one to do anything half-ass, I drank myself into a category of wasted not previously achieved by yours truly. At one point, it had to be pointed out to me that I had been dancing seductively with the cigarette machine in the corner… Beer goggles indeed.
Not surprisingly, it wasn’t long before I made for the exit to get some fresh air. The Q didn’t have much of a doorway, but there was a little overhang, maybe 6 inches deep that hung out over the doorway. As I stumbled out into the night, I realized that it was POURING. I flattened my back against the wall, convinced I could find shelter under the 6-INCH OVERHANG. That’s where Dan found me a good while later. The back half of my body against the wall and dry. The front half of my body totally exposed to the rain and water rolling off the overhang, my hair matted to the front of my face, and soaked. And me grinning away like I was the smartest guy who ever needed to hide out from the rain. Dan insists it’s one of the funniest things he’s ever seen his life.
The story continues.
As you recall, we took my car and Dan’s car to the club. You would think that someone would put me in my car and drive me home. Instead, Dan put me in his nice Acura Integra (for no really good reason that we can recall) and Jason drove my car back to their apartment. On the drive home, I was overcome with the reality that I was about to return all drinks to sender and lunged to get my head out the window. Unfortunately, the seat belt locked tight and prevented me from getting my head out the window by mere inches. I redecorated the interior of Dan’s car with some serious puke. I mean ALL OVER.
Dan kept his cool and both he and Jason carried my sorry ass up their apartment where they set me up on the couch, garbage pail nearby and kept me company until I eventually passed out. OK. Now here’s the moment of truth. The moment where Matt learns the meaning of friendship.
Upon wakening, I’m completely chagrined and humiliated and I go out to Dan’s car to clean it up… but Dan had already taken care of that. HE HAD ALREADY CLEANED UP ALL OF MY PUKE FROM HIS CAR.
The deal was done. We were (and remain) friends for life. Later in 97 I actually used the friendship the three of us shared as the basis for one of the better songs I’ve ever wrote. The song was called “Jason Daniel” and was basically about the wonderful times we spent at the Q.
1997 – Welcome To This: An Electric South.
I already wrote about this recently (click here) so I won’t write much more about it now. But there is no mistaking the fact that 1997 was all about the band.
We played virtually every local venue in time multiple occasions. I spent months in the studio recording our album “Welcome to This: An Electric South”. Which we never released. We played the closing night of the Old MJQ. We had the band James come to a show and get down with us. I bought more mod racing jackets than I knew what to do with. We eventually broke up that December.
To say that 1997 was about anything other than living the rock and roll lifestyle would be a complete falsehood. The year was a blur of gigs, band practice, parties, girls, in fighting amongst the band mates, recording sessions, and more girls. I went night after night with a few hours of sleep between day and night. It’s really a surprise I made it through the year alive and intact. Life is not without her small mercies.
Other honorable mentions for 97:
Cat and Karen: Sometime during early 97 I think, I started going to Swing Night at the Masquerade. I don’t remember if it was my first night there or not, but I know that it didn’t take long before I was introduced to Karen and Cat. What started out as a hard core devotion to being the best swing kids ever, turned into a much deeper friendship that has yet to die. They’ve stood by me through thick and thin. Cat has since been kidnapped by the allure of the Colorado but there isn’t a street in the city that the three of us haven’t spent time on.
1998 – Suddenly Sarah.
Wow. In contemplating 98, it’s pretty clear to me that I can sum it up in one word: Sarah. This is the year that I fell in love for the first time. It sounds unbelievably corny to admit, but yeah, a girl stopped me cold in my tracks one night in March at Masquerade. I can sum up the first year of our relationship like this:
Boy meets girl.
Boy loves girl.
Boy marries girl.
It went pretty much that fast. We danced together for the first time upstairs in Heaven at Masquerade. By our second or third date I knew I would pop the question. A few months later I knelt down in front of her while we were dancing with retired WWII vets at an American Legion big band night and gave her a modest diamond engagement ring. We spent the summer planning our own wedding and in October we had my Dad marry us in the backyard of our ramshackle apartment on Greenwood Avenue. Mom made her dress. John and Suzy Cloonan made our cake. Jason was the DJ. Dan was my best man. Karen, Cat and Shay were bridesmaids. It was perfect weather. I was so stressed I don’t remember much except she loved the song I wrote and recorded as my wedding present to her. I also remember that the white lights and luminaries cast a warm glow all over the yard and driveway; I had my own piece of heaven that night.
In time, the marriage would run its own course, but that’s a story for another year.
1999 – The Corporate Blossom and The Internet.
In the fall of 98 and at the recommendation of Dan, I left the retail business and joined a small company called ExecuTemp as a recruiter. This was my first foray into a true Monday through Friday, 9 to 6, office job. To be honest, I really had no idea what I was getting into, but Dan assured me that I could be successful at it. I know I got the job purely on his recommendation.
By the middle of 99 I had proved myself successful as a recruiter. To my surprise, I was offered a job as an account manager and before long I was learning the do’s and don’t of corporate sales. My start was modest, but I had success as often as I had failure, so I quickly began to gain confidence in the work place. You have to bear in mind that only 18 months prior I was keen on making it as a hard core rock and roll star, so this was a complete change of lifestyle and it took awhile for me to find my footing. As I did find my footing though, I began to gain a confidence in my abilities beyond music, and as I look back now, my time spent doing cold calls and making sales presentations to a world of good for my confidence.
1999 was also the year that I really became aware of the power of the Internet. Until I joined ExecuTemp (now called ESource) I had never even so much as used email or online chat. With access to the web at work, I was so taken with the boundless limitations of the Internet that by the end of 99 I had already taught myself the basics of HTML and JavaScript and was building my first website. Ultimately, all the time spent building websites would translate into my little web development venture that I do on the side, called www.ataricharm.com.
2000 – Turning 30 and My Dot Com Boom.
What a year. I can sum up my outlook on life in the year 2000 with one statement: In the year 2000, I quadrupled my income over the previous year. Yes, I said QUADRUPLED. It just seemed like every company in the US had money to spend on what I was selling. I couldn’t miss. I was on fire. For the first time in my life, I had the cash to buy pretty much whatever I wanted and spent my cash like it was going out of style. Damn. Damn. Damn that was stupid. Fast forward one year and you’ll see why.
Sarah and I moved into a small bungalow in Reynolds Town. The first year of our marriage was really rocky. Hardly surprising considering the pace at which we escalated the commitment of our relationship, the stark changes I had made in my lifestyle (I was completely sober now), and the natural hardships of living with someone. In spite of my financial windfall, cracks were developing in the shallow foundation of our marriage, but I was too blind to see them. Foolishly, I figured that if I just kept throwing money at a problem, it would eventually go away.
The winter of 2000 was great. Sarah threw me an amazing 30th birthday party. I had no idea she had planned anything, but she brought friends in from all over the place and caught me totally flat footed. To this day the best and only surprise party I’ve ever had. We were also making plans for an early January trip out to Montana to go snow boarding. Sarah once made a comment to me that our time in Reynolds Town was the happiest time we spent together.
2001 – The Opposite of Good.
For all the good years and times I’ve had in this town, this was by far the sourest apple in the bushel. There just isn’t much good I can say about 2001.
The year started out ominously I suppose. We went to Montana and had a wonderful winter snowboarding trip. But I was so enamored with the mountains and open air of being there that I actually suffered a couple of months of depression once back in Atlanta. I just couldn’t deal with the traffic, smog, and overall crowding of the city. By April of that year, I series of events pretty much did me in. I could write a volume about each, but I’ll spare you the self-pity and just present you with the facts.
April – Find out I owe the IRS $15,000 in back taxes because my HR wasn’t withholding properly.
May – Close on a new house in Lawrenceville to be closer to work.
July – The economy starts to tank and by July/August my salary and commissions have completely collapsed.
August – Sarah and I are really struggling with life in the burbs. Between her struggle with life in L’ville and my internal horror being newly saddled with a mortgage and losing most of my income, we were at odds more often than not.
September – 9/11. I was in NYC on 9/10 and staying in Washington DC on 9/11. To think I was in both places within 24 hours of each other is eerie.
October – Splitsville for Matt and Sarah.
2002 – Marginally Better Than 01.
The first 75% of the year was spent basting in self-pity, self-loathing and self-destruction. One could say that I handled the divorce as gracefully as a typist with ass cheeks for fingers. I won’t and can’t justify my time spent in that black funk of wicked depression. I will only report that I eventually made it through and started to register sun light in conscious thought once more.
Two things happened this year that make it noteworthy.
One – I landed a new job that would require me to travel the world over. Pretty good medicine for a guy tortured by memories around every corner. I joined a retail software developer as a Technical Instructor, and although in many ways under qualified for the job, I buried myself in books, user guides, and software documentation until I was dangerous enough to send to a client.
My first assignment was two weeks in London. I arrived on a Monday and took the Gatwick Express into the city. After checking into the hotel I made my way across the street to a pub called the Millennium Arms. Arsenal was playing Man U on the big screen. I ordered fish & chips and a pint of Boddy’s and listened to Oasis on the juke box. This was the most euphoric moment I had had in years. My soul rekindled and I quietly decided that it was time for the healing to begin.
Two – I moved back in-town. After struggling to stay in the house and then in an apartment in Lawrenceville, I reached my breaking point one and decided it was time to move. I abandoned my apartment lease and moved into Bass Lofts in Little Five Points. It was a great corner loft that overlooked Euclid Ave. The old hardwood floors had a warm creak to them when I moved around. The sun light would streak in blues and green across the loft in the morning as dawn broke. I had a great housewarming party where my entire group of friends showed up to wish me well and welcome me back to the land of convenient in town living.
2003 – A Globe Trotting Fool.
As a traveling corporate road warrior, I spent a lot of time on the road. I worked in London, San Francisco, Tokyo, Winston-Salem, Vancouver, Minneapolis, and Boca Raton to name a few. I took advantage of every minute of travel. I worked hard during the day and then did as much sight seeing as time would allow in the evenings and on weekends.
2003 is the year I remembered why I love Atlanta so much. In spite of the great places I traveled to and worked in, there was something really comforting about walking out of Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson to the South Terminal economy parking lot and smelling the scent of the South. In the spring and summer, the humidity holds a unique perfume of old pine, clay, and asphalt so while driving home I’d roll the window down and suck in air with deep breaths. Olfactory memories would reboot and I’d be overcome with the comfort of being home. Sometimes stepping away from where you’re at is all it takes to create value in what you’ve had all along.
2004 – Natasha, Boris and the Tokyo Death Plague.
This was the year of something bad highlighting something good. Let’s start with the bad:
While working in Japan in April, I was invited out to eat Sushi at the ground zero of sushi – Tokyo harbor. My wonderfully hospital Japanese colleagues sat me down at a long low table in a smoke filled sushi house and asked intrepidly what I would and would not eat. This is what I said:
If you put it in front of me, I’ll eat it.
What an idiot. I was an idiot to say it, but more important to my story is that I was a complete idiot for following through on my boast. Board after board of exotic fish, shellfish, and unidentified gelatinous masses passed before me. I ate it all. I was on a mission to literally take in the culture and I wouldn’t be dissuaded. My new Japanese friends were duly impressed. It all went down smooth and I felt like a National Geographic traveling writer who was putting another notch in the belt of world experience.
12 hours later, I’m standing in front of my same Japanese colleagues during the last day of class. I’m in mid lecture when all of sudden, my world tilts on axis, I turn green, break out into an uncontrollable sweat and go weak in the knees. The change in my body chemistry was not subtle, so everyone let out an audible gasp at my change in demeanor. I ran off to the bathroom (a tiny post modern Japanese shrine to the automated porcelain throne) to get very sick…
I stayed sick for days. Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into Months. When I say sick, I mean a constant state of nausea and wooziness. Let me be more graphic: You know how you feel right before you puke? Your tongue gets tingly, you break out in a sweat, you start to salivate more and your body registers alarms in your brain along the lines of “Quick! Stop what you’re doing and assume the position!” I felt this way most hours of the day, but would never actually puke. Talk about torture.
After four months of extreme discomfort, I had lost about 40 pounds and gone through a stomach biopsy, CT scans, rounds of antibiotics, antibacterial agents, pro-biotics and such. However, I finally started to respond to all the varying treatments and got back to a place where I could eat more regularly, manage the conditions and resume more normalcy in life. The final prognosis was that I got wicked food poisoning but that my stomach was already severely distressed from high stress/lifestyle and that those two things combined where enough to cause a gastric meltdown of sorts. My stomach had stopped digesting, so the acid build-up made everything worse. I still have fully recovered, but I’m probably around 90% of where I used to be.
Now for the good part of 2004:
Shortly after contracting the Tokyo Death Plague, I met Natasha. It was a casual enough meeting through our mutual friend Shay and we hit it off pretty fast. We didn’t hang out tons at first, mostly because I couldn’t handle going out and didn’t want to try to impress a girl while I felt like puking on her at the same time. Nat was hyper understanding though, and slowly we figured out things we could do that wouldn’t totally destroy me. By the 4rth of July, we were seeing each other exclusively and I found myself actually willing to get into a relationship again. Surprise of surprises I tell you. That was the last thing I expected to find. Things stayed great all year long and by October I had temporarily moved with her in her loft. I was starting to feel as though I had really lucked out.
That same October, we decided we should get a dog together. I searched the classifieds in the paper and tracked down a Boxer breeder out in the country who had a new litter of pups. We drove about three hours into the rolling hills of west Georgia until we arrived at a horse stable in a scenic pasture. We opened up one of the horse stall doors and about 5 puppies came tumbling out. Within minutes I had picked out Boris as the dog for us. I’ve never had an easier dog to live with. For a boxer, he’s remarkably calm and obedient. It was tough house breaking him, even using a crate when we lived in a 3rd story loft and had get him to hold his pee until we were outside, but eventually we managed to help him figure it out.
2005 - Halfway There.
The year is only half way over and it already been eventful and full of memories that won’t quickly fade. I won’t write much about it here, because I’m already wrote enough about it my recent blog entries.
Here’s to hoping I get another 10 years as motley in experience as the previous…..
