HUDSEPTH
Ron Hudspeth
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JANUARY 2001
'Cast-Away' almost out of my tree
GUEVARA BEACH, Costa Rica&emdash;It's a few days before Christmas and the sun is beating down ever so warm. About 85 degrees, nearly the same temperature as the water pounding the white sand beach. We have left all civilization behind us. Just the two of us, yours truly and my bride of nearly three years. Well, we aren't quite alone. Our two dogs, Drac, a 2-year-old German shepherd, and 1-year-old Che&emdash;a golden retriever born here and named after the revolutionary Guevara of Cuba and poster fame&emdash;are frolicking in the surf. Like me, this is their favorite place in the world. Those who know me well wouldn't believe it. Neither do I at times. Wow, it's almost 2001&emdash;a mind boggling thought in itself&emdash;and here I am, the city boy of 30 years of Atlanta bright lights and party, loving the total spirituality of civilization meltdown. Faraway is the TV weatherman, tie loosened and reporting from the storm center, grimly forecasting the Atlanta temperature will drop to 14 degrees tonight. Faraway is Georgia 400 gridlock. Faraway are cell phones and NASDAQ and the Internet and Peachtree watering holes and, frankly, it does not matter who the next president is. This is the first time we have pitched our tent on Guevara Beach, a new discovery, thanks to four-wheel drive. It is maybe a mile long in half moon shape, surrounded by mountains, and deserted. Well, most of the time. Behind the beach in the jungle, crocodiles teem in an estuary and not 15 feet from our tent are tracks from a giant leatherback sea turtle who has crawled onto the beach in a recent night to lay her eggs in the sand. In the trees, an occasional howler monkey gives a mighty roar, flocks of bright green parrots scurry nosily about and high above majestic frigate birds float effortlessly like giant kites in the winds. It is all as spiritual as I have ever been in this life. The best and most totally alive I have felt since spring Friday nights in Atlanta of the early 1980s, a truly magical place and time that can never be repeated. If I don't feel childlike enough in this setting (yes, we can run naked, build bonfires and laugh and frolick and no one cares), my bride is a Washington State girl, knows the outdoors, and can put up the tent. Yes, I realize I am a lucky man. Costa Rica has hundreds of beautiful, deserted beaches of all shapes, colors and sizes. Discovering them&emdash;pardon the comparison&emdash;is like wandering into a new nightspot back in Atlanta's heyday as fun city. Each has a different atmosphere and beach hopping is the natural high equivalent of Miller Lite hopping honky tonks and you don't need a designated driver. We have camped on many and they all have their charms. There is Playa Matapolo (Killer Beach in Spanish) where wild horses gallop down the beach and occasionally, maybe a mile out, a giant whale will breach the Pacific waters. There was four-mile long Coyote Beach, with awesome surfing waves thundering in, reminding one again that the ocean is king and from whence we came. We'll always remember Bejuco Beach where we camped for four nights and did not see another human soul, except for the final night when four young Costan Rican boys, who lived nearby in a jungle hut with no electricity, shyly wandered up and set silently around our campfire, gazing at myself and my blonde bride like we were odd and mystical creatures from another planet. The Spanish conquistadors had nothing on us. As most of my friends know, five years ago I built a home on a cliff overlooking the Pacific here. We rent it and that, of course, means that on occasion we have to get out when guests are on their way from The United States. Suddenly, we are homeless, save our trusty 12-year-old four-wheel drive and camping equipment. But I must confess I'm going to remedy that soon. I have found a special plot of land directly on the water on a special beach. There is no power within miles and no fresh water. But it is a paradise filled with gorgeous greenery and wild animal life, even jaguars I suspect. There is a big tree on the plot of land, not 75 feet from the surf. I confess I want to build a tree house and live in it. All I have to do is convince my bride. "Hey, you won't have to put up the tent anymore," I can hear myself pleading, "and I'll buy you a satellite phone to talk to your friends." I'm crazy as a coconut and lovin' it. Fact is, I'm still puzzled why they cast Tom Hanks rather than me for that "Cast Away" movie.
It was a 2000 of after-dark note
by ron hudspeth
The year 2000 is history and it was this kind of year:
•Pano Karatassos, not surprisingly, led the insurgence of new eateries with his snazzy Blue Pointe, and, uniquely for this dining wizard, created his first bar happening with a slick scene for those who want to be seen.
•The Brandy House turned 27 years old&emdash;and maybe 25 years after it ceased to be part of the hot singles' scene&emdash;it resurfaced as a straightahead rock and roll club in the evenings, thanks to Brad Sharpe, a chip off the old block of owner dad, Don.
•ESPN Zone opened in Buckhead, looking like a poor man's Dave & Buster's and serving as headquarters for ESPN telecasts when important games come to town.
•Bill (The Abbey) Swearingen has 30-plus years of experience in the Atlanta bar-restaurant scene, but between trips to semi-retirement and Aspen, he returned to back friend and chef Philippe Haddad to open clubby neighborhood Philippe's in the former Lindy's space in Peachtree Hills.
•The Super Bowl came to town again and the cash registers rung&emdash;but it wasn't quite like that first time in 1994. Ray Lewis made most of the headlines, sending Buckhead on a slide from which it's still attempting to recover, and betcha can't recall who played in the game?
•John Rocker became the overblown story of the year.
•Ray Lewis' trial proved the Fulton County prosecutor's office is nowhere near as smart as your average limo driver.
•The Stones' "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" was voted the greatest rock and roll song of all time. No argument with that.
•Mark Wills, former lead singer of the house band at The Buckboard, produced his third hit country album ("Permanently") and proved nice guys make it big too. One of his song, "In My Arms" was about his new born daughter.
•The brand new Thrashers, the worst team in hockey, played to sellout crowds, proving Atlanta's corporations have deep pockets.
•A $12 glass of "house wine" became routine at many of Buckhead's upscale establishments.
•The silverhaired man, Bobby Cremins, left Georgia Tech and somehow the basketball lost a bit of its bounce at Alexander Memorial Coliseum.
•Politicians argued&emdash;then argued some more&emdash;over whether to close bars at 2 or 4 a.m.? Guess what? We still don't have an answer.
•Andres Galaragga beat the Big C, had a great season by anyone's standards, especially a 39-year-old, but the Braves proved anything but sentimental by rewarding him his walking papers.
•Fine dining, once the haven of Buckhead, continued its Sherman-like march to the mountains when Cabernet opened way, way up Georgia 400 at Windward Parkway and immediately played to capacity crowds and rave reviews.
•Midtown began to explode and explode and explode with bars and restaurants.
•Buckhead tried to figure out how to shake deadbeat kids and urban cruisers.
•Downtown, as usual, struggled.
•Virginia-Highland said enough is enough and told The Cotton Club to take a hike.
•The Cotton Club found a home among the homeless downtown, underneath the Luckie Street Tabernacle.
•Perimeter Mall exploded into a restaurant mecca and proved restaurants in malls don't have to be cheesy with a unique design for Goldfish, Maggiano's and Cheesecake Factory. Adding to the mix a stone's throw away on Ashford Dunwoody, McCormick & Schmick's, Il Fornaio and P. F. Chang's again proved there was no need to drive to Buckhead.
•Mama Mae's Bayou Room, slickly done and playing to nice-looking crowds, opened on Roswell Road in Marietta, causing oldtimers to remember the glory days of Cobb nightspots.
•The 22-year-old Buckboard on Cobb Parkway in Smyrna closed, driving another nail in the coffin of the struggling country music club business in metro Atlanta.
•Cobalt, the club that brought Buckhead national notoriety, folded.
•The Velvet Room opened in the seedy former Cotton Club space in Midtown and the transformation to a South Beach like disco was stunning. I nearly ran outside on Peachtree to check for an ocean.
•Are we getting big or what? The Buckhead Brewery & Grill opened in&emdash;are you ready?&emdash;Cumming.
•The Hudspeth Report sailed through its 14th birthday. Me? I started skipping mine a long time ago.
Atlanta's on the run...
by ron hudspeth
Good grief it's 2001, somewhat more shocking than 2000, since 2001 was the stuff of which weird science fiction movies surfaced. It could get weird, folks? Whom in the Atlanta of a few years ago would have surmised that traffic of the future would threaten to throw this city into utter chaos? One could almost predict by the year 2015 or sooner road rage will have peaked to such a point shooting someone in another car would have been reduced to a $25 misdemeanor fine payable by credit card on the internet... Atlanta officials need to look no further than Miami to make that new bridge over the downtown connector to the Atlantic Steel project attractive. Miami had adorned its downtown bridges and railway transits in 'Toon Town' neons of purples and blues, turning a once drab area into a feel-good place. Of course, with rumors of Home Depots and such headed there, the project already sounds cheesy.
Pina Colada, anyone?
This winter is apparently going to give new dramatic meaning to my terms, Janugly and Februweary. Throw another log on the fire, sip on a hot buttered rum and pretend that ice on your driveway is an 80-degree ocean wave frozen in time... The past year was the worst of times for Buckhead, but look for the area, still the city's slickest, to rebound in 2001 with the opening of new places like the panoramic view Capital Grille on East Paces Ferry, the slick Brazilian steakhouse Fogo de Chao on Piedmont Road and the Killer Creek Chop House on Peachtree in SoBuck. At the same time, as developers continue to chip away at the East Village area, the urban cruisers and teenage loiters will begin to disappear... And to the immediate south, the renaissance continues in Midtown. The new Spice, on our cover this month, surely wants to become a signature happening and on its heels this month will come Cherry, wanting much the same. The names, Cherry & Spice, sort of sum up the sweet happenings in exploding Midtown these days as it rushes to become the entertainment-restaurant equivalent of Buckhead.
Circuses and such
Noticed the Cirque de Soleil tent in the parking lot of the stadium on a cold dreary night. Thankfully, this year I skipped this once-unique circus, which after two or three visits, becomes like the third strawberry shortcake. Maybe it's time we retire Cirque de Soleil or reinvent it. The colorful tent even looked bleaker sitting in the no man's land which still surrounds the stadium four years later. If a new mayor had anything important on his or her agenda, it would be somehow begin developing the area around the stadium into shops, sidewalk cafes, pubs and such as other stadiums around the country have. It's no less than disgrace for a city that considers itself world class... My favorite restaurant opening last year was Gary Coltek's "Alaskan" restaurant called the Kodiak Grill on Roswell Road, serving up halibut, salmon and even Alaskan beer. Can an Eskimo eatery be far behind?
Sports of old
As we roll into 2001, the Atlanta sports scene is more like the days of old - classically mediocre. The Hawks, Thrashers and Falcons struggle at low levels while the Braves' penchant for not winning World Series, has taken frustration to a new level, i.e., they win almost all their games, but not the big games. There's nothing much to indicate that any of the above are about to do anything different in the near future... Live music, on the other hand, has slid into a nice groove in Atlanta. Peter Conlon and Alex Cooley know their stuff and that's why The Midtown Music Festival and Chastain Park work so smoothly. The Tabernacle on Luckie Street is the best place in town to catch an act and The Variety Playhouse in Little Five Points is beautifully laid-back and has the most eclectic schedule of performers. The Fox remains a classic setting and Phillips Arena? Well, if you must see a performer it's there with all its polish and glitter and absolutely too big and with no atmosphere for music... Atlanta itself heads into 2001 on a bumpy wild ride, busting at the seams, rude at times, polite at others, ever changing, mixing many new faces from all over the world. It is not a place many of us will recognize in 20 years. Happy new year.
JANUARY 2001 NIGHTCLUBBIN'
Atlanta never has been the "celebrity" nightclubbing town of a Los Angeles or New York. But it's had its moments. A sampling:
•Asking for no advance publicity, Madonna showed up at a party at Limelight in the 1980s and even came down from the VIP room to dance with the public. She got embarrassed, however, when the deejay kept playing her songs and finally asked if he could play something else she could dance to. A bodyguard had questioned her safety, but Madonna looked at him and said, "Dammit, I want to dance."
•Janet Jackson arrived at Petrus&emdash;the later offspring of Limelight located off Peachtree in Midtown&emdash;and became so irritated with the deejay's song selection that she sent word to him that, "if he kept playing all those Madonna songs she was gonna leave." The deejay obliged and begin playing Jackson cuts.
•In the mid-'90s, Jack Nicholson slid into a booth at Otto's on East Paces Ferry in Buckhead and flashed his famous grin. "What was he like?" responded Otto's co-owner Nick Ellis to a question. "Just like he is in the movies."
•Rod Stewart fell in love with The Gold Club&emdash;better yet a statuesque dancer there&emdash;whom he later dated and took on tour with him back in the mid-80s.
•One night in the 1970s after a gig at a local club, Jimmy Buffett grabbed a late night breakfast at the 24-hour restaurant in the old downtown Marriott Hotel. After watching a tipsy couple attempting to fondle each other in the next booth through his eggs and bacon, Buffett went back to his room and wrote, "Let's Get Drunk and Screw."
•In the early 1980s, Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones grabbed dinner at the legendary Southern cooking spot, Aunt Fanny's Cabin in Smyrna, and the manager, not having the foggiest idea who they were and worried that the long hairs couldn't afford their meals, phoned the restaurant owner at home for advice. Postscript: Jagger and Co., managed to pay for their meal.
•Maybe no one had more fun in Atlanta than former Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda. One night in the late '80s, Lasorda began by downing a couple double cheeseburgers at Stooges on Collier Road, and was later spotted at six nightclubs, including Rupert's and the late-night American Pie.
•Ice skating star Dorothy Hamill was among those who loved Limelight. One night she arrived there with 25 friends, ordered 30 bottles of champagne and after the party was over, tipped the waitress $350.
•No one spot had more celebrities show up than Harrison's on Peachtree, the fabled bar of the '70s and early '80s. Richard Dreyfuss became a regular while in town doing "Shakepeare," Ted Turner entertained at the backbar, local Gordy Watson came in regularly with girl friend Vanna White, Harmon Wages and Debbie Norville showed up in matching full length fur coats, basketball center Bill Walton ran out on his tab and footballer John Riggins got drunk and threatened to burn down the place.
•Dan Aykroyd was a wild man while in town filming "Driving Miss Daisy." Aykroyd bartended at the Pharr Side pub, climbed on stage with harmonica in hand and jammed with guitarist Eddie Shaw, and ran up a $1,500 tab at 103 West before reaching into his pocket and discovering that he had forgotten his wallet. Management graciously allowed Aykroyd to federal express a check the next day.
•Rob Lowe became the only interesting news item of a dull 1988 Democratic convention in Atlanta by picking up a couple young girls from the downtown Rio nightclub and going back to his hotel room and having himself videotaped having sex.
And what has happened to all the celebrities in recent years? Good question. We all know about Elton John (yawn). And Ray Lewis and Co., who encountered a couple guys outside of Cobalt and the two guys wound up knifing themselves to death. Keep your eyes peeled. Atlanta's after-dark celeb life might start to pickup again.
FEBRUARY 2001
Finding happiness and tunes at sea
by ron hudsepth
ROCKIN' AND ROLLIN' AT SEA - It had been years since I had been on a cruise ship and I was a bit leery.
The last voyage nine years ago&emdash;christened Fun Boat I and sponsored by Longhorn's George McKerrow Jr., and myself&emdash;had been less than spectacular. From those great Star 94 cruises of the early '80s (when 500 mostly single Atlantans had sailed off for a wild week of partying), I discovered cruising had changed drastically.
It had been invaded by rugrats. Nothing against kids, but I'm talking 8, 9 and 10 year olds here, whose parents let them run wild on the ship. Why didn't they leave them at home to trash a McDonald's? Basically, the curtain climbers took over the ship, crashing into people and screaming like wild banshees. They even invaded the disco at night. Let me tell you it's a downer when you walk into a bar and the dance floor has been taken over by 10-year-olds.
I felt sorry for two single female schoolteachers in their thirtysomethings who had saved their money all year to take a cruise, no doubt with visions of "Love Boat" bliss and romantic liaisons dancing in their heads. "This is awful," moaned one, watching two little brats climbing atop a table in a game of tag. "I'll never do this again in my life. I'd jump off and swim back if I could. How far do you think it is to Miami." She looked slightly suicidal when I guessed 800 miles.
McKerrow, distressed that he couldn't get a Flo's Filet and traveling single also, jumped ship in the Caymens and flew back to Atlanta.
Not surprisingly, George and I decided not to do Fun Boat II.
So, it was with a bit of apprehension last month that I found myself on another cruise ship heading out into the mighty ocean.
It didn't help that the weather was more like Aspen's as we cruised out of Tampa Bay toward the Mexican Mayan peninsula. The wind howled and the thermometer threatened to sink below 45 degrees. Hold the pina colada and the suntan lotion.
Fortunately, a few hundred miles south our ship, the Regal Empress, a 48-year-old ship with intimacy (only 900 passengers) and turn-of-the-century like charm, found warmer waters and 70-degree temperatures.
Let the fun begin!
And it did. Talk about smooth sailing and good times.
Cruising on Delbert McClinton's Sandy Beaches cruise (this was the seventh annual) is a slam dunk for fun.
I have again found happiness on the seas. The formula: Simply bring along a boat load of the planet's best musicians and crank up the tunes.
In addition to McClinton's soulful blues and rock sound, there was Michael McDonald (lead singer of the Doobie Brothers), Tommy Castro and Marcia Ball (you might recall them from B.B. King's Chastain Park show last summer), Jimmy Hall (the great voice from the late Wet Willie), Junior Brown, Stephen Bruton, Bonnie and Becky Bramblett, Wayne Toups and his great Zydeco Cajun band, Asleep at the Wheel and a hot new Austin, Tex., group, The Derailers.
That was just a few of the musicians who had stowed away on a boat rocking with jams from noon until 3 a.m. in the morning. One night Danny Flowers gave an impromptu concert in a small lounge in the wee hours. Flowers wrote Eric Clapton's "Tulsa Time." On another occasion, T. Graham Brown (oldtimers will recall T. Graham Brown and REO Diamond from Athens) jumped on stage to jam "Mustang Sally" with Hall and McDonald. My socks literally ran up and down. Only kidding. No socks are allowed on a cruise.
Hey, and there were a few kids on the cruise too, well behaved I might add. Hall's sons even played in his band. I'm kid friendly again.
Delightful jewels kept appearing nightly, like Kasey Jones, a dynamite vocalist, who did a zippy duo with Delbert, "You're The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly." Kasey incidentally, will appear February 2 at Eddie's Attic's, February 3 at the Red Light Cafe and February 4 at Hoedown's. The latter, thanks to her song, "All my ex's are Drunk, Gay or Dead" at the gay club.
You can also catch Marcia Ball Feb. 10 at The Variety Playhouse in Little Five Points and Junior Brown on February 16.
Best part is the musicians are having the most fun. There's no racin' for the bus and the next gig. They hang on, mingle, visit with each other and were strikingly cordial to all the music lovers on the boat.
"I've been on five of these," said Hall, "and if Delbert invites me, I'll be back."
The common denominator for those on the cruise, musicians and non-musicians ("I play CDs," was the favorite line of the latter when asked) was fun. Most amazingly, I didn't run into a bad egg among the bunch.
Only disturbing factor was everyone was either from the Midwest or Texas. Not a soul from Atlanta.
I got to thinking. Maybe I ought to try to change that. Maybe run an ad in The Hudspeth Report and see if we can't get an Atlanta contingent for next year's Sandy Beaches cruise (slated for the second week in January).
I haven't called George yet.
Big league dining...
by ron hudspeth
Pencil in the names of Mike Burdick, Tim Hazelman and Co. If Pano Karatassos and Tom Catherall are currently the one-two punch of Atlanta fine dining, say hello to a third group making metro Atlanta diners sit up and take notice. Burdick and Hazelman's Cabernet off Windward Parkway and Bistros on Piedmont in Midtown - both less than a year old&emdash;are drawing rave reviews and it could just be the beginning. Already Burdick and Hazelman have a third restaurant coming soon, a 250-seat seafood creation, as yet unnamed, which is about to break ground on Windward across from Vinny's. Insiders predict it will rival Pano's Fish Market in quality... Sad to hear the affable Rafih Benjelloun of the fun Imperial Fez lost half a million dollars downtown in three-plus years before closing his Farlie-Poplar Cafe the other day. It's the same old story with downtown: No one lives there, so no one goes there after dark. One day maybe, but not now. You know downtown is in a sad state when poor old Underground brags about signing up a Ruby Tuesday restaurant.
The real $$
The new Clubhouse at Lenox is the slick operation one would expect from its celebrity members Nicklaus, Costner, Couples and Co., and, thankfully, no resemblance to Planet Hollywood or ESPN Zones. This is class, a true upscale clubbie men's bar and restaurant (you'll like it too, ladies) and it had better be. Word is rent is a whopping $50,000 a month... Across Peachtree at The Tavern the other Friday night, a worker beneath Phipps Plaza accidentally cut power to the popular bar at the height of happy hour with the place jammed. Rather than lose his customers, manager Larry Miller hustled to a nearby store, bought bartenders those little miner's lights to strap onto their heads, lit candles and climbed on the bar to announce: "Free drinks for everyone until the power comes back on." The crowd, not surprisingly, roared. Atlanta without power can be fun as old Snowjam folks will recall.
Swung out
As fads always do, swing dancing has swung into oblivion. Swingers on Bolling Way in Buckhead is history, replaced by a club called Uranus, which will be a wonderful tongue twister for drunks and jokesters. The new attraction is jello wrestling which should cause 21-year-olds to stampede there is masses... Norman King, former Georgia footballer and man about Atlanta's nightlife for 30 years, most of it with Georgia Crown, recouping after an early January heart attack. After a round of golf, Norman felt a nagging chest pain, drove himself to the hospital and got the surprise of his life. "The doctor asked me how I felt and I said, 'great, except for a little bit of pain here in my chest.' He said, 'Sir, you've had a heart attack.' I couldn't hardly believe it. The pain wasn't that bad." Norman was always tough as nails... George McKerrow Jr., founder of Longhorn Steaks, retiring at the young age of 50 and you can find him in Aspen where he's bought half the town... Speaking of Aspenites, Bill Swearingen, whose owned a place in Aspen for years, turned his Abbey restaurant into a Gothic disco for a New Year's Eve party and the place got rave reviews from attendees. If Bill ever gets tired of serving food, he may have a nightclub winner.
Darryl surfaces
Mentioned recently what ever happened to Darryl Rhoades, the wonderfully whacky musician who entertained '80s Atlanta audiences with his Hahuvishnu Orchestra and turns out Darryl disbanded his band in 1988 and has been doing 45 to 50 weeks standup comedy ever since. He's just released his 8th comedy & music CD "Rhoades All Over The Map" which earns its title by being "a mixture of live standup, live radio appearances, rockabilly, blues, Spanish, swing, etc..." You can find Darryl on his website www.music-comedy.com, but better hurry. "I miss performing with my groups but not the hassle of trying to make a living while baby sitting," says Darryl. "I bought land in the mountains of North Carolina where I plan to build my cabin, wear camouflage, and target practice," he smiles... Two forks up for Veggies To Go at 8290 Roswell Road. Chip and Cathy Morrison have preserved the dying art of Southern cooking diners. I chowed down on mouth-watering country fried steak, fried okra, mashed potatoes and gravy and fresh creamed corn. Their secret is they have copied the early 1900s recipes of B. B. and Blanche Godwin of Blakely, Ga., who grew the vegetables in their backyard off mainstreet of that South Georgia hamlet before Blanche put her magic tough to them. The Morrisons even have a "Belly Buster" meal - meat, four vegetables, cornbread, dessert, etc... - that if you are able to consume you get your photo on the wall in the "Bellybuster" Wall of Fame. The photo, a toothpick and Alka-Seltzer are compliments of the house.
MARCH 2001
Lasting favorites in a city of changes
by ron hudspeth
Favorites in my favorite American city:
The classic curve of Peachtree heading south at beautiful St. Philips Cathedral as the giant Midtown skyscrapers come into view through the trees.
A crusty but unwavering Waffle House cook simultaneously cracking eggs, buttering toast, dipping grits, frying bacon and flipping sausage patties and never getting an order confused, despite a restaurant full of 3 a.m. rowdies and drunks.
The goofy but brilliant expressions and mannerisms of Greg Maddux, everybody's common man on a baseball field, making you think if you had only worked a little harder you could have been him.
The old cannons at Grant Park aimed toward downtown. If only there were loaded, we could get on with the much-needed remodeling.
Mike & Angelo's tell-it-like-it-is motto: "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead."
Augusta anyone?
Wide-eyed tourists and out-of-towners jamming on their brakes as they hit Atlanta on the downtown connector around the stadium and suddenly panic at which lane is the correct one.
A 90-year-old and a 82-year-old in a heated tennis match with a couple 75-year-old youngsters at Bitsy Grant Tennis Center. Losers buy the drinks.
Harold's Barbecue where everyday looks, feels, smells and tastes like 1959.
Pleasant memories of the city before Elton John, Ted Turner and Jane Fonda had anything to do with it.
Midtown's magnificent IBM Tower, or whatever it's called now, peeking at you from all angles of the city.
Keep on smilin'
Jerry Farber telling the same joke I've heard a million times and making me laugh.
Larry Munson's grumpy voice living and dying with those Dawgs.
Monica Kaufman's never-ending enthusiasm reading the same old, same old news.
Pete the Northside barkeep (currently performing at Park Bench in Buckhead) in his 25th year of pouring the perfect cocktail, our city's own Cal Ripken.
The obscured and almost forgotten blue-domed Polaris and its connecting bubble elevators, which one day 31 years ago made a boy from the swamps gasp in amazement.
Happy hours
The totally alive feel and anticipation of Atlanta at 6 p.m. on a Friday evening as it races toward the fun and excitement of a weekend.
The magnolia tree on Ponce de Leon, our own "Field of Dreams" where, if you look closely, you can see ghosts from our baseball past.
The taste of the perfect pickle in a Chick-fil-A sandwich when you're starved and surrounded by fast food garbage.
Peachtree covered with a couple inches of snow the morning after. Make that a weekday so all the city plays hookey.
Tree of life
The old oak enveloped in the Steamhouse Lounge deck, battered but hanging onto life. May it celebrate another 200 or so years.
George Lefont's old-fashioned Garden Hills movie theatre, the antithesis to cramped multi-screen madhouses.
On the first warm day of spring a ride along beautiful, twisting Mount Paran Road where these days every dot.com millionaire in the city seems to be building a $2 million mansion backed up to another $2 million mansion. Apparently there is not much room in cyberspace.
Watching motorists inch along, caught between frustration and their cell phones, maybe wondering if "this is the good life."
The first bloom on a dogwood on a 70-degree spring day.
Multi-flavored Pie
The sunny afternoon spring deck at American Pie with its multi-flavored collection of greats, near greats, never-will-bes, hustlers, bikers, oldtimers, newcomers, hustlers, northsiders, southsiders, night crawlers and others who most probably came from under a rock.
People watching those who think 'slick' is it at places like Blue Pointe and The Clubhouse.
The no-hassle, no-cover friendliness of Fuzzy's where Joe Dale cooks the best bar food in the city and week-in, week-out the best live music is played.
The tattoos and body jewelry of Little Five Points, the final holdout from Atlanta's yuppie sprawl and "Big Hustle" attitude.
The descendants of Willie B. lounging in their gorilla 'suburbia' habitat at Zoo Atlanta, seemingly as happy as if they were hanging out in deepest Africa.
The city's old neighborhoods were "Driving Miss Daisy" still clings to life.
The new ethnic flavor of the city, Hispanics, Asians and others by the thousands, who bring a strong work ethnic, family and moral values and are strengthening Atlanta, while at the same time bridging and blurring the overplayed gap between whites and blacks.
APRIL 2001
Why can't we deal with the truth?
by ron hudspeth
Drugs.
Tough subject. Just ask a Prez.
Bill ("I didn't inhale") Clinton handled it in the way he knew best. He lied.
George W. Bush spent much of his campaign dodging questions about cocaine use.
When presidents can't be frank about it, what would you expect from the rest of the population?
Not much, right.
And that's what we have in the good 'ole United States&emdash;hypocrisy about drugs.
Fact is a good portion of Americans&emdash;young and old&emdash;like to do illegal drugs. And contrary to popular belief, the vast majority don't become addicts, lose their families and homes. Most of them get up and go to work the next day and live rather normal lives. Few will admit, however, of their enjoyment of illegal drugs for obvious reasons.
The subject of illegal drugs has been brought to the forefront of late by a brilliant new Stephen Soderbergh movie "Traffic." It again has Americans buzzing over what to do about illegal drugs. The movie points out that our current drug policy is a sham, something everyone should know by now. The movie is so well done it is forcing many to take another long hard look at the billions we waste trying to stop the flow of drugs.
It's such a simple, yet complex issue.
We could squash the drug problem tomorrow by decriminalizing it. Simply make them all legal and treat those who get hooked the same way we deal with alcohol, which, incidentally, reeks more havoc in our city than all illegal drugs combined. The fact is when the profit motive disappears, so do the criminals. When you can buy your stash at the local Kroger Pharmacy the pusher is forced to get a real job.
But don't look for Americans to be anywhere as liberal in their thinking as, say, Amsterdam, Holland where marijuana is legally bought, sold and smoked openly in pubs in a country where hard drugs like cocaine and heroin remain illegal, but the drug abuse rate (surprise!) is the lowest in Europe.
So would Americans accept and respect a law that legalized marijuana for recreational use, but came down tough on hard drugs like cocaine?
Not likely. Fact is Americans can't even bring themselves to make it legal to use marijuana for medicinal purposes even though it has been shown to have benefits to sick human beings. Marijuana and heroin are apples and oranges but those who make the rules want even acknowledge that.
We can't solve the drug problem because we are a hypocritical nation. The same parent who has smoked pot tells his teenager never to do the same. That kind of naive parenting, plus the fact that drugs are illegal make them even more enticing to the young.
We are a hypocritical nation because we blame the Mexicans, Jamaicans and Colombians for our appetite for drugs. We are the biggest drug consumers on earth. They only give us what we want, and isn't it a fascinating question as to why those nations are not ripped apart by drug consumption among their citizens? More precisely, it is an indictment of our society. Do we simply make too much money and have boring lives, so we all need a hallucinatory trip away from it all?
The fact is if Mexico, Jamaica and Colombia disappeared tomorrow, someone would come along to fill the void. Once you get away from the United States and look back with perspective, you realize how foolish our me-generation of Americans are. Next time you're at a party and see someone overdosing, blame a Columbian peasant farmer for his or her plight. Yea, right.
The facts are we're wasting tens of billions of dollars on a drug policy that is a sham. Those guys making all those silly useless drug busts wearing "DEA" jackets need to be retrained into something useful&emdash;like driving submarines or directing rush hour traffic.
All those billions of dollars then can be directed to those folks, young and old, who are addicts no matter what that try&emdash;alcohol, drugs or cream pies. My guess is their numbers won't change much either way if drugs are legalized, a fear of many who think suddenly the entire 50 states will be stoned and worthless.
If I were President or Drug Czar here would be my platform.
(1) Legalize marijuana and set up entertainment zones in each city where pot could be smoked as long as it's done on the premises. The pot could be grown by anyone and would be subject to free enterprise markets (In Amsterdam there is so much pot available it is no more expensive than a head of lettuce or an apple). The only other place pot could be smoked legally is in the home. Anyone caught smoking pot in other places would be subject to stiff fines.
Hard drugs like cocaine and heroin would remain illegal, but at the same time I would form fact-finding commissions&emdash;made up of open minded experts, scientists and plain citizens from both sides of the issue&emdash;to come up with real facts on the pros and cons of each drug. Ecstasy, the current rage among young adults, is a prime example. Right now, those who take it&emdash;adults and teenagers&emdash;in moderate amounts consider it safe. Is it or isn't it? The American public deserves to know the truth, not propaganda.
The majority of the billions saved from the dismantling of the DEA would go into treatment centers for those abusing drugs and for special mandatory courses on the drug issue in our schools. Courses that deal with the truth and drugs in an open manner that kids will respect, otherwise it is worthless.
OK, I won't quit my day job, even though those are small baby steps to get a handle on this issue. I realize they don't have a snowball's chance of being implemented.
That's the way it is with drugs in the United States of Hypocrisy in 2001.
Big with capital A...
by ron hudspeth
There are now 4,112,198 of us. I take that back. There's more. Each day since I wrote this 360 new Atlantans have shown up. That's nearly 15 new human beings an hour. When I came to town, the old population sign at the Darlington was inching along at a million and something. Will the wild growth ever stop? Nope. This big boom town is headed for six million by 2010 and places like Macon and Chattanooga got to be nervous about being gobbled up. We oldtimers can sit around and reminisce all we want about the good old days when Atlanta was a "big little town" where everyone knew everybody and we ran wild in a party-friendly atmosphere that gave you a go-cup full of booze when you left one bar to hit the next. Those days are gone forever, pal... What we have now is a big-assed city full of one faction who live in the suburbs spending their lives moaning and groaning in traffic and their counterparts, just as strange, who fork out half a million or more to live stacked on top of each other in high rises and call that wonderful. Beats me. But there is a silver lining in the explosion. The massive infusion of Hispanics and Asians has made us a better place. They are hard-working honest people and have diffused Atlanta's black and white thing in a wonderful way. Blacks and whites can now look in the mirror and the reflection says maybe they weren't as important as they thought they were. May in the future race not be an excuse for anything in Atlanta. Enough preaching. There's one other great thing about Atlanta the giant. There's so many new restaurants and bars I'm gonna die with a smile on my face trying to get to them all.
St. Patty's turnaround
Smiles in Buckhead? Sure enough. St. Patrick's Day in Buckhead was a great day for an entertainment area recovering from a year of mostly bad news from punk urban cruisers to murders by Ray Lewis' gang. Tens of thousands, young and old, filled the village on a decent weather day (temperatures in the 60s) for the parade and pub crawling and many spots bars and restaurants had record days. It could be a turning point. The new Capital Grille, with spectacular rooftop views is nearing at the corner of Bolling Way and East Paces Ferry, and a new concept is headed to the former Otto's and Cobalt space. Million dollar condos are rising nearby and Buckhead in the coming years will go even more upscale and remain Atlanta's Beverly Hills... Meanwhile, did you read downtown's new slogan? "Downtown Live." Yea, right. After every Atlanta intown neighborhood fully blossoms with refurbished homes, quaint restaurants and shops, then downtown will finally have its chance to be where people want to hang out. Best guess is about 2020.
Here's Johnny
Great to see Atlanta's retired Mr. Nightlife, Johnny Esposito, working the tables at his son John Jr.'s new restaurant-bar, Esposito's, at 3455 Peachtree Industrial Boulevard in Duluth. It's a pretty restaurant with piano bar and a touch of the classy feel of wonderful after-dark ghosts of Atlanta pasts. Food's good too. May Gwinnett get out and pack it for the young chip of the great old block... How slick is slick? Well, don't recall two restaurants, aiming to be trendy and cool and hitting the mark any better than Cherry and Spice in Midtown. Most amazingly, they are within blocks of each other and after the same crowd. So far both are jammed... The disco Kroger is open again at 3330 Piedmont, but, sadly, there is no disco nearby and no people to wander into the place in the wee hours still dressed from Limelight's "Bare As You Dare" bashes. Oh, hell, I'm reminiscing again.
Yummy yum
Pete the Northside barkeep can smell 'em out better than anyone in the city and the other day he chauffeured me to Carver's Grocery on West Marietta Street for lunch. I can vouch that Sharon Carver puts out wonderful REAL Southern cookin,' and the old corner place, once a grocery store, is an atmosphere from another era&emdash;seven tables, all different and some with lawn chairs, not a single plate that matches, Marilyn Monroe in all her glory on the walls, and even assorted dry goods (need a blouse or a fly swatter?) for sell. A true Southern classic and half the fun for most Atlantans will be finding it... Lewis Grizzard was one guy who would have loved it. The other day (March 20) marked six years since his passing and it only seems like yesterday I watched as a twentysomething Grizzard, never before or since known as a fighter, reached over the bar at the rockin' General Apartment Towne Club bar on Peachtree and punched out a snotty bartender, who crumpled into a heap as if he had been hit by Muhammad Ali in his prime. Most amazingly, the club manager didn't throw us out but fired the bartender and bought us a drink. Told you this used to be a crazy town.