Onederlust Tour: 6/18-6/20 Serendipitous Adventures in Atlanta
Wednesday 6/18 20 Hour
Bus to Atlanta
As usual, I woke earlier than I should have, I hugged goodbyes and said my thanks to Ian and Sarah as they were on their way out the door for work. I gulped down coffee and Tony drove me to the bus station at 10:45am. Due to the length of the ride going through the night, it would be the first night in 9 days that I hadn't performed! The 20 hours bus ride was empty and began relatively fine, it was frustrating to find none of the promised amenities the bus offers such as outlets or wi-fi on the bus itself.We stopped at a Burger King very early on and I bought another coffee with the gift card Libby Lefebvre gave me. The air conditioning was constantly on and made for a brutally cold environment. I finished reading “One”
by Richard Bach. The book was gorgeous and incredibly wise, as I've
come to expect from Bach and he always delivers. It was very
concerned with philosophy, metaphysics, spirituality, He and his
wife discuss ideas that everything is happening simultaneously and
always has and always will, that everyone around us is a permutation
of ourselves. It was a very Buddhist sort of feel and a lot of the
concepts behind the “AllOne” movement, hence the name of the
novel I suppose! Another great quote I read was “We always KNOW,
it's whether we choose to accept or REMEMBER.” Despite not having
wi-fi I worked on writing aspects of this tour journal until my
computer started to die. About four hours into the trip my phone
died so I was fretting about that a little bit. I could not sleep a
wink on the ride whether day or night time. We stopped in several
cities going through Ohio, which I initially considered stopping in
when planning this trip but being as I had no connections into those
towns and couldn't find many events I opted to skip it for this trip,
sorry Ohio! At some point, a passenger came on and I felt compelled
to write a story so I quickly scrawled the tale in longhand in burst
of inspiration. There was a 45 minute transfer in Cincinatti where a
group of people and I sat on the sidewalk beside a parking lot
sweating waiting for the bus, which luckily came an hour sooner than
expected. During that time I did some writing and an ice cream man
came and delighted the children and perspiring parents alike.
Throughout the trip I listened to a bunch of music while I could,
which is usually my last option if I can help it on the bus but I
amassed this pretty hefty and enjoyable soundtrack for the drive,
which was comprised of primarily hip-hop or hip-hop influenced works,
all of which I recommend...
and my
“We'll Make It Together”
Thursday 6/19 Arrival in
Atlanta, the familiarity
Finally
now with my phone, Ipod and computer dead, eyes bloodshot and skin
riddled with goosebumps we pull into Atlanta at 6am Thursday morning.
I got out into the jarringly humid city of Atlanta. I paced the
sidewalk dodging the lines of people waiting for buses and averting
my eyes as the homeless begged at me. While frantically seeking an
outlet thinking Max would never know to pick me up, suddenly I hear
“Mr. Pandolfoooooo” in a British accent and see a car pull up, as Max steps out bright eyed and bushy tailed full of hugs. It was as
though no time had elapsed from last February when Alexa and I had
stayed with him! “I texted you at 11pm last night and when you
didn't respond I figured your phone died and just stuck with the plan
of picking you up, I mean, you're on a bus for twenty hours its not
like you were going anywhere”! He had school and work so he was up
studying and we headed back to his apartment. Again, it was a
strange and comfortable feeling of familiarity being in his Georgia Tech student apartment. He set up a bed for me and encouraged I sleep, invited me to anything I want to eat, left his apartment key with me and towels out for the shower. Time and again the charitably and thoughtfulness of friends and strangers no matter how close or distance warms and shelters me! Somehow despite my fatigue, as is typical for me my body only volunteers to sleep for four hours and so I got up to shower. For several hours I wrote, working on this journal and started reading my massive Unabridged O'Henry collection I'd brought with me and snacked on the last of the treats Mike sent me off with!
Come mid-afternoon, Max
came back and I met his friend Cassidy, a sweet sort of spacey artist
who does really interesting patterns designs beautifully with marker,
very intricate and mesmerizing. Check out Cassidy Odell's artwork!! I also met their funny friend Jack, an aspiring comedian who climbed a tree nearby while we were all hangout. Our friend Katie whose birthday it was so we
intended on celebrating that! We spent the evening hanging out side
in the shade and getting to know one another, laughing and telling
stories. We went to a fancy grocery store called Publix and I got a whole bunch of trail mix bags for the road. Tour food de force! Later intending to go out, Emily came around and I saw my
old friends, Max's other housemates Mala, Eric and caught up with
them as well. I also met their friend Marco and Max's boyfriend
Vincent, both funny guys on entirely opposite ends of the energy
spectrum. Some pregame drinking having been accomplished and we
headed out to this particularly notorious part of the city called
Buckhead. To get there, we used a really cool service called “Uber”
that is essentially an app for private driving services, cheaper than
Taxis and circumventing the middleman of the taxi company, and doing
the payment through the phone app automatically. You can even track
when your driver is coming near to you and how close any available
drivers are! There is a comparable service to this called “Lift”
as well, I recommend it if you find yourself in a foreign area and
need an affordable and safe ride somewhere! We went to a bar called
Hole In The Wall that was like a big saloon/club with multiple rooms
with themes and did some Karaoke, everyone was getting pretty drunk,
we wandered in and out of a few places. I had the surprise of
meeting a new friend in a bouncer at a Pool Hall that we went to.
Upon seeing my license, it turned out that he was from Long Island
and I explained to him that I was a touring musician doing a brand of
conscious hip hop and poetry, he smiled and offered a high five
marveling at how weird it is that he was a producer and was doing
something similar and that we should run into one another in Atlanta
of all places when we are both from Long Island! After some time of
everyone being pretty exhausted and intoxicated (save for myself of
course) we took an Uber car back to the apartment.
Friday 6/20 The Final
full day in Atlanta
We
started the hot day hiding from the heat, languidly in the dim lit
apartment. I relished in reading O'Henry and making some progress on
the edits of my new song. For lunch Max, Cassidy and I ended up
going to this excellent southern BBQ place called Fat Matt's Rib Shack suggested by Doug Widick! The place had a small family vibe,
there were murals on the walls and a kitchen you could see into, I
got chicken and ribs and rum baked beans it was absolutely delicious,
the sauce was so good and they had this lemonade that was impossibly
sweet and cold. There was such a blues/soul vibe to the place and
there was a small stage that our table was practically on top of and
we all wished that there were people performing on it! Back at the
apartment we watched a really cool documentary about a movement going
around called “Mortified Nation” about a series of performances
that go on around the country where people read their journals and
diaries from when they were kids, in order to poke fun at and glean
lessons from the triviality of their most mortifying childhood
secrets, and to celebrate the survival of these perceived horrors.
It is on Netflix and I support it heavily. It is side splitting, eye
opening and eye watering. You should definitely watch it as soon as
you can, careful, its often vulgar and graphic!
Shortly after that, self conscious about our sedentary day, Max and I
made plans to go to Piedmont park and enjoy the day outside. I met
Patricia, who is the charming young wife of Jason, Max's Greek
friend who greeted Alexa and I last year! She and Max had to bring
their bikes to a shop by Piedmont park. We made plans to meet
Alexa's sister Liz at the park! Pouring sweat, we ended up going
into a place called Smoothie King and it happened to be five dollar
medium Fridays so for five dollars we all got like 32 ounce fresh
fruit smoothies! You should certainly go there, I got a blueberry
green tea flavor that was phenomenal and the smoothies never ended! We got to know each other, discussed out pasts and plans for the future as well. We joked as we laid out on a blanket on a hill overlooking the
expanse of Piedmont park with the sun bearing down on us with the
metallic city skyline posing boastfully in the near distance. Finally Liz found her way and we all exchanged hugs and caught up, she really seems to enjoy where she is in life geographically and career wise and it is always nice to see people taking the more conventional route in life actually enjoying it, because that is something I found impossible for myself! While the
sun fell and we scrambled for something interesting to do, Patricia
left. Max and I opted to go to Liz' apartment at Emory, which was like a gigantic hotel!
We got beers and went to hang out in his poolside courtyard in here
area and met some of Liz's friends. One of them, Marcy, from
California had an uncle who lives in the same town as my father in
Long Island and would be there in august so we agreed to meet up!
After a few surprising unwatched hours of all sorts of personal,
comedic and intellectual talks, around 230am Liz drove Max and I
home, waving goodbye, anticipating a short nights sleep before taking
my 6am Nashville bus!
The world seems smaller when you are
willing enough to bridge the gaps.
Everyone is a friend you've yet to meet!
Find the
most likable people in the unlikeliest places.
-AllOne
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