No Man Is An Island

This past weekend I went back to Austin for a wedding, as well as Mooky's birthday. Boo to those of you in Austin who didn't come out to the Crown on Friday night. Mooky and I have decided to call ourselves engaged, so we are. Don't expect a wedding anytime soon though.

On Sunday I rolled back into Atlanta at nearly 10 o'clock. I was up late but managed to make work on time on Monday morning. That night I had my first real night out in Atlanta: Traci and I went to The Tabernacle to see Common and Q-Tip.

The Tabernacle is a music venue downtown that used to be a church. The space is big and open, with a pretty full bar, and an awesome horseshoe balcony with seating still in it. It's hard to park nearby for anything less than $10, but that was nothing compared to the drinks. First round: two 16 ounce cans of Bud and two Jaager shots in Dixie Cups, $26.00.

Come on Atlanta! This isn't New York, you know. We're way under the national average for household income, here!

I was really excited to see a hip hop show in Atlanta. The urban music scene is surprisingly slow here. For some reason, every radio station is country music, not rap. It's killing me, beacuse seeing hip hop music is one of the reasons that I moved here. Also, a lot of it is that Soulja Boy crap (which is everywhere right now, but even more here 'cause he's from around), and not guys like Q-Tip and Common, who, by the way, were really awesome. Q-Tip did some Bonita Applebaum, and Common hooked up us with a medley of Old School Superhits, including a couple of verses of Paid in Full. There's not so much thoughtful rap here, as there is Southern-style crap. It's copying the big stars from here, like Ludacris, and not big stars from here, like Outkast.

Next weekend the Roots are around for a big music festival, as is a shared stage between the GZA and Slick Rick, but the tickets are way out of my price range. besides, the festival is a three-day, campground, Eco-fest thing, which means stinky, rich white kids there to see the Killers and smoke pot out of apples. Unless Slick Rick has plans to piss on some white children, then no thanks guys, I left Austin for a reason.