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Erykah Badu.   You may not have heard of her, but if you have, you”ll understand why Kelly and I didn’t question attending her  afterparty on Saturday nite at a downtown ATL club.   (For those who DON”T know, she is a very jazzy hip-hop artist, blending scat and jazz into the hip-hop genre.)

The invitation said 9pm, and being the white suburbanites we are, we arrived at the club at 9:05pm.   It was still closed.   A few well-dressed folks were milling around, so we hung out and waited, chatting up the other early birds.     (I was NOT one of the well-dressed ones…I had on jeans and a black Miles Davis  t-shirt…mor on that later.)   At 9:55 the GIANT security guys opened the doors, and began checking ID.   My sparkling smile let me thru w/o a check (it must have been that!) and Kelly and I went upstairs to the club.   We were early enough to get stools at the bar, so we settled in.   A DJ set up and began playing a really hot mix of old-school, hip-hop, trip-hop and euro rap.   Very nice.   We sipped our drinks and absorbed the surroundings.   I had been to the club before to see other shows, but punk bands bring out a very different crowd than Erykah obviously does.  
Continue reading “Hey, Dave Cappelle knows her” →

The will-call line snaked around the building and off into the distance.   Tom Waits.   Yeah..WAITS is the operative word.   But the crowd was of a common mind and passion; so many new friends were made in the long queue to the ticket window and the acquired taste that is Tom Waits.  

With just eight dates in odd stops like Asheville, Akron, and Louisville, the concert promotion seemed to be very low-key.   At 10:05am on the Saturday that the tickets went on sale, I logged onto the Ticketmaster site.   Rather than complete my sale (I had one ready to click), I hesitated as I was unsure of my travel schedule and decided to wait until Monday when I could verify I was in town.   Bad move. When I logged on early the following week, I was greeted with a SOLD OUT icon.   Damn.   I had underestimated the pent up demand for a Waits ticket.   Clearer heads convened over the next few days, and it was decided to undertake the challenge of getting face value tickets to the hottest concert since Cher played The Castro. The ensuing weeks were depressing.   What few tickets we heard of were 400 + dollars each,more than five times face.   Only days before the show, my friend Eric found a friend who had a friend who had a friend who couldn”t go, and was willing to sell two tickets for their face value.   We needed one more, so we decided to go anyway and hope we could find one on the street before the concert.   Security and “will-call only” sales made that dicey, but tenacity prevailed and I found a GA Tech student who stopped me while I was working the will-call line and said, “I have one, my girlfriend is sick”.   A LOT was said in that sentence.   Music to my ears.
Continue reading “Tom Waits…for TR” →

I saw this and couldnt resist.   I am about ready to “pull the trigger” on my PC and go MAC at home.   My business partner is even talking about converting (and that is a breakthru!)