Biloxxxi's Woodshed

I’ve always had a bit of a penchant for local history wherever I’m currently living. When I was younger, it was old houses in Tucker (a suburb of Atlanta). When I went off to college, it was Milledgeville. Milledgeville was the Capital of Georgia up until the War of Northern Aggression, so it had a ton of history to lose myself in. In fact, I even lived in a house that was built in the late 1800′s for a time. Now that I’m marginally grown up and living in the blood n guts of Atlanta, I’ve started to take a deeper interest in the history surrounding me.

Atlanta is often derided as not having many historical locations. This is due to two primary things: Our good friend Sherman burning all the cool stuff just to prove his point, and our own dumbass predilection for tearing down what’s remaining of the cool stuff to build new things that often start “free” and end with “way.” Nonetheless, Atlanta does still have a few gems. A quick visit to the Atlanta Time Machine will prove that. Today I’d like to share with you something that’s intrigued me for most of my life…

When I was a kid, my uncle had some mental issues. As such, he was committed to the Georgia Mental Health Institute (GMHI) for a little while. Now, don’t get too excited, this wasn’t like One Flew Over Cuckoo’s Nest. It was more like a hospital or nursing home than an asylum and he was allowed to leave for visits and things like that. Anyways, when we’d go to visit him, kids weren’t allowed in the building (or at least that’s what my mom said), so I’d have to wait in the car.

GMHI was located on Briarcliff Road near Ponce De Leon Ave. and the Callenwolde Fine Arts Center. It’s a bit of an odd area to drive by since you’re in this nice neighborhood area and all of a sudden there’s a huge stone wall and all you can see is a gate house and a medical building in the back. The health institute and its satellite buildings were closed in the 1990′s and recently purchased by Emory University. Emory got a ridiculously good deal on the property from the state, paying only $2.9 million for all the buildings and 42 acres in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Atlanta. The only condition: everything was purchased as is and believe me, it was in need of repair.

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The main building itself was built in the 1960′s and was pretty sterile looking, like most government buildings, but what always freaked me out about the place was this huge decrepit mansion that sat near the parking lot. This thing looked like something out of Casper: The Friendly Ghost or something. I had a morbid fascination with the place. Whenever we would leave, my mom would drive me all around the mansion so I could look at it. It was pretty intimidating for a 7 or 8 year old kid. It was massive, it was in serious disrepair, and it was right next to a mental hospital. That’s the kind of dreamcatcher nightmares are made of.

I’m sure my mom told me who the mansion belonged to or why it was even still there on the campus of a hospital, but I was young and it obviously didn’t register with me. I just couldn’t imagine anyone living in a house that big. Throughout the years, the mental images of that mansion stayed with me, lightly pecking away at my curiosity.

When I was about 25, I moved to Decatur, GA, a little town just over the Atlanta line and about two or three miles from GMHI. One day, my roommate and I were riding down Briarcliff Road and passed a group of buildings called the  Emory Briarcliff Campus. My roommate went to Emory, so I asked him what was there. His answer was, “Not much. The school recently bought it. It used to be a hospital or something.”

This piqued my curiosity and I decided to do some searching. After a quick call to my mom I discovered that it was, in fact, where GMHI used to be. I kinda forgot about the whole thing until last year when I purchased stock for a company researching an AIDS vaccine in collaboration with Emory called Geovax. Geovax’s headquarters were on the Emory Briarcliff Campus (they’ve since moved to a larger location in Smyrna, GA). Then I remembered that creepy-ass mansion…

The Candler Mansion was built by Asa Candler Jr., son of the founder of Coca-Cola, in 1920. It was built on a 42-acre estate with greenhouses and two swimming pools, one that was open to the public for a small fee. It featured landscaped gardens and the precursor to the Atlanta Zoo. Candler was a bit of an eccentric and had four fully grown elephants named, Coca, Cola, Refreshing, and Delicious on the property. He also had many exotic birds, A Bengal tiger, a black leopard, four lions, a gorilla, and numerous baboons. After one of the baboons got loose and attacked a neighbor, he was sued and subsequently donated the animals to start Zoo Atlanta in Grant Park.

In 1948, the estate was sold to the General Services Administration for a VA hospital, but nothing ever came of that. It was then turned into the DeKalb County Addiction Center which later became GMHI. The mansion fell into serious disrepair when the main building was built. Emory now owns it and it is now a national historic site.

This morning I ran across this Flickr Stream by a user named Sevensumerz. I don’t know how this guy managed to finagle a tour, but I’m envious. I’m trying to swing one myself, but it’s a tough road to hoe. Give this guy major props for some excellent work. Pay close attention to the external shots and tell me this place wouldn’t freak you were a kid. I don’t think it was boarded up back then either. It looks like Emory has done some work to stabilize the building, so hopefully it will be restored to it’s formal glory. Lastly, check out the Solarium and Ball Room. Insane, huh?

“Shots! Shots! Shots! Shots! Shots! Shots!”
Shots – LMFAO

Think back to yesterday. You probably don’t want to, because it was Monday, but something important happened yesterday. I wrote a blog post that is extremely relevant to your continued reading of this one. It chronicled my first day in Jacksonville for the Law Prom. I’ll now pause so you can go back and read it.

Saturday morning started with a headache. Much like a lot of my mornings these days, but that’s just so I have something to do at work. Believe me, getting rid of a hangover headache is indeed work. That’s not particularly germane to this situation, however. I rustled my happy ass out of bed and hopped in the shower. Then Jenna and I set out on a quest to find some chow to satiate the rumbly in my tummy.

One of her friends was out of town for the weekend and had asked Jenna to watch her dog. In return for this service, she prepared us some baked ziti. Mmm nom nom. Her friend evidently has a fairly generous cash flow, because in addition to her exquisitely furnished apartment, she had the coolest coffee maker I’ve ever seen. It’s called a Keurig Home Brewing System. It takes these little cartridges that you put in the top and hit go. A minute later you’ve got a piping hot cup of gourmet coffee. It’s a bit pricey at about $2 a cup, but as I sit here drinking coffee out of a styrofoam cup that tastes like asphalt scrapings from a motorcycle wreck, it seems like a shrewd investment.

After gnawing on some ziti, drinking a cup of that delectable coffee, and watching the tail end of Zoolander, I was about 85% back in the game. Situations like this call for a little hair of the dog that bit ya; a liquor drink. Fortunately, one of Jenna’s friends from the previous evening wanted to go to the bar for a bite to eat and a pina colada, so that worked out swimmingly. One Dirty Caucasian later, I was back in it 100%. Time to go Charity Balls deep.

We returned to Jenna’s apartment to get dressed up in our monkey suits and dresses, respectively. I would like to take a moment to brag about myself. I’ve got a really nice suit that I bought a year or two back and I purchased a couple of really nice shirts with it too. One of them I wear almost every time I don the suit, so I felt it was time to purchase a new dress shirt for this occasion. I called Jenna up and asked what color dress she was wearing. “Blue.” She replied. “Not sky blue, not navy blue, but regular American blue.”

“Terrific.” I said. “I can wear the shit out of some blue.” I headed off to the department store to find a suitable shirt. After a brief argument with the Men’s Dress Clothes attendant, I was finally able to explain that any shade of pastel anything would not work. I found a shirt in my size that I thought would suffice and purchased it for half off. Upon arrival in Jacksonville, I compared it to Jenna’s dress and it was the exact same color. The mountains win again!

In retrospect, a blue tie with a black shirt might have been a better mix of badass and eye-popping, but I have a severe penchant for over-the-top, and believe me, we were way over-the-top of blue. We’d crested the peak and were barreling, hell bent for leather, down the other side of blue. I thought we looked smashing.

The law prom itself was held at TPC Sawgrass (Tiger Woods’ home golf course and site of his recent infidelity speech). This is about a 20-25 minute drive from the area of Jax we were in. We’d decided not to get a hotel room at the course for the evening so our plan was to drive Jenna’s car out there and cab it back when we were drunk and pliable that evening. We’d combined forces with another couple to lower the cost of the cab fare back, which led to some hilarity later in the night.

We were one of the first to arrive, so we stood in the lobby and enjoyed our one free drink for the evening. This was possibly my only real complaint about the evening. The drinks were ridiculously expensive. $8 for a liquor drink, $5 for a 12 oz. beer. Those are Braves game prices. Jenna had had an epiphany earlier in the day that we should swing by the liquor store and pick up some of those one-hitter liquor bottles. Best idea since the spork. We figured we’d buy one or two drinks at market prices then switch to soda and add in our own libations. The only downside was I had to spend most of the ceremony with half a dozen miniature liquor bottles bouncing around in my jacket pockets.

There were some announcements which were of absolutely no concern to me, since I don’t attend the school, but I sat there while superlatives were awarded for “Most likely to follow ambulances” and “Most likely to have an ad for their firm on the back of a phone book.” You know, law dog type stuff. Jenna herself was up for “Most likely to be a Florida Coastal professor.” I don’t think she thought a whole lot of it, but it seemed like a pretty big honor to me. She didn’t win, but I think this is one of those things where being nominated is better than actually winning. Being nominated shows dedication to your cause, but winning just means you’re an uber nerd. Uber nerdom usually just results in a perpetual Michigan tan.

When the announcements finally ended, it was time to get down to the business of partying. We quickly downed our drinks and headed up to one of the hotel rooms to do some shots. I made a quick stop by the restroom and as I ponyed up to the urinal, I quickly realized what kind of evening this was going to devolve into. There was one guy standing a couple urinals down from me and as I was taking care of my business, another guy walks in and says to the guy peeing, “So what are you gonna do man?” Peeing guy responds, “I don’t know man. She’s trashed and she’s already yelled at me once.” Guy one says, ” Well here’s what we’re gonna do…” I chuckled to myself and they heard me as I turned to wash my hands. Guy one says, “See? That bitch already has guys in the bathroom laughing at her.” I told him not to sweat it and that I’d been there before as I washed my hands and headed for the door.

Outside the bathroom door, there was one incredibly drunk young lady, who may or may not have been crying. “It could be worse,” I thought. “It could be my problem.” Just then, Jenna came skipping around the corner with a lovely grin on her face and I counted myself among the extremely fortunate for being in the company of such a delightful girl for the evening. We wandered off upstairs to take shots with the movers and shakers of Florida Coastal. Tra la la la f’n la!

The evening sort of took a turn for the fuzzy around here. After a few drinks and some hilarious photos which I’m unable to show you because people are trying to find gainful employment, we went dancing. Going into the evening, I expected there to be bit more of this, but some days you’ve got it, and some days you don’t. For some reason, I just wasn’t really feeling the dancing thing. My vibe was off. Maybe it was the 11 year old daughter of some faculty member who thought it would be a terrific idea to bring her youngan to a ball full of drunk college kids (law school or no, they’re still college kids, and they still drink like I remember). It might have been the monkey suit. I don’t know.

One of the guys in our group, I believe his name was Brandon, was dancing up a storm and it was hilarious. He was quite eccentrically dressed and really looked more like the lead singer of the B-52s than a law student, but who am I to judge? I wear t-shirts with pictures of myself on them. The point is, if I ever need an aviary defense lawyer, I’m keeping this guy’s phone number on speed dial.

We partied in some other folks’ room and possibly got propositioned for a swingers party (I’m still processing the information on that one), but like all good things, the evening had to come to an end, but not before a bit more action…

We went to the front desk of the  hotel and requested a cab back to civilization. The concierge said it would be a short wait and that one of us should wait outside for it to come so no one else grabbed ours. I volunteered, since I figured it was a job I could handle. I was wrong.

As I waited outside, a van taxi pulled up. This was ours, since we had a group of five. Two other guys who were waiting hopped in it, so I went up to the driver and said “This is our taxi, it’s cool if these guys ride with us, but do you mind waiting a minute for my friends to get out here?”

He responded, “I’ll wait for a couple of minutes, but hurry it up. Where are y’all going?”

“Umm,” I said. “Back into town, I don’t really no where. I’m just visiting.”

“Well, you got two minutes.” He replied.

I stepped away and called Jenna and told her to rally the troops because our driver was an impatient SOB. A minute or so later, they turned up. One of the guys had to grab something out of his car that was in valet, so Julie told the driver it would be another minute.

“No.” He said.

“What do you mean no?” she fired back. “You’re gonna miss out on $50 with of fare if you leave. Just wait 30 seconds.”

The guy was a dick so I just told her to let it go and we’d get the next one. I didn’t really want to ride with that old bastard anyways.

She told the guy to beat it and one of the guys in the back of the taxi said something to the extent of,  ”Blah blah blah elitist bitch.”

My ears immediately perked up at this, and Julie went to town on that doucher.  She’s all of about five feet tall and just a little ball of fire. It was awesome. She cursed him up one side and down the other and I’m pretty sure I heard the words “fucker” and “mother” used copiously. I was about tapped out for the evening, but that little exchange gave me a nice memory to lay my head on that evening. Me thinks those guys got more than they bargained for.

We waited for the next taxi cab for no more than a couple of minutes and that driver was more than happy to make a quick $50 off of us. All in all, a delightful evening. Perhaps not the craziest I’ve ever had, but I’ve got a few nights that are almost impossible to top and I’m not even sure that I’d try to top them if given the chance. That being said, I think my first law prom was a resounding success. Maybe they have Charity Balls in PhD school and I can parlay these dashing good looks into an invite to Doctor Prom from the one Ms. Jenna.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the shit-show. This past weekend, I attended the Florida Coastal Law School Charity Ball, a.k.a. “Law Prom,” with one of my lady-friends, Jenna. You may remember her from the We Started One Letter Rappin’ and That’s How it Happened post. It’s a convoluted series of events that led to my being invited anyway, so I guess I should get that out of the way first (besides, I like telling the story). I’ll present the tales of the weekend in two chapters, since it’s quite lengthy.

So I actually met Jenna last June, the night before the One Letter Rappin’ incident. I was at Fontaine’s as per usual and she came in with a group of mutual friends. She’s a law student at Florida Coastal in Jacksonville, so she was in town visiting. We were introduced, chit-chatted a bit, no big deal. I didn’t think much about it until the next day when I showed up at Anna’s house to go to the Braves game for her birthday. There Jenna was again, oddly enough.

We had a blast hanging out that day and when she left for Jacksonville again, I added her as a friend on Facebook. We’d comment on each other’s statuses and that sort of thing, then when Christmas rolled around, I sent her a message. Since her parents live near me, I thought she might be home for Christmas. That was the case, so she gave me her phone number. It was all down hill from there. A constant stream of text-babies were made, culminating in an invite to Law Prom with this Bonnie Lass.

I left Friday for Jacksonville in my new truck. For the first time in my life, I own a vehicle with less than 100,000 miles on it. I intend on keeping this one a while. I burned five Iron Maiden albums to cd to entertain myself during the five hour drive. The drive itself was fairly uneventful, but I did notice that a lot of people in Florida like to leave the freeway at a high rate of speed and slam their cars into trees. I’m serious, I saw wreckers pulling cars out of the woods no less than three times during the trip.

I made it relatively unscathed and after some sightseeing, Jenna and I joined one of her friends for dinner at one of those faux-classy new-age Mexican joints. The food was good and the cold adult beverages were cold and adult, so you’ll hear no complaints from me. Whilst we were consuming our comestibles on the patio of this restaurant, we noticed a rather large contingent of middle-schoolers milling about in the courtyard area between the restaurant and some other stores.

Middle-schoolers by themselves are no real threat, but all these kids were dressed to the nines and even more disturbingly, all alike. All the boys were wearing black suits with white shirts and all the girls were wearing blue dresses. My first thought was that they were Heaven’s Gate reincarnated, but that seemed unlikely, since that cult essentially killed itself off. As we finished our supper, the kids seemed to be congregating by the patio fence near our table. Since I recently watched Lord of the Flies, I made sure to yell out that I had the Conch, but I believe the reference was missed. Kids these days just aren’t as cultured.

Julie, our other acquaintance, was the first to speak up. “Are y’all going to serenade us?” She asked of the girl standing nearest. “Um, no. We’re waiting for that table.” She responded, “Why do you ask?” (It should be noted that these dozen or so kids were all lined up beside the fence glaring intently at a large table of patrons.) “You’re all dressed alike and you’re grouped together like you’re about to burst into song.” (I’m pretty sure that she didn’t actually talk like this, but she’s from Pittsburgh, and their speech patterns just don’t translate to text well.)

This seemed to startle the girl, and she wandered off to the back of the group. They stood there for a few more moments until the patrons at the table noticed them, then the teens toddled back over to the fountain to sway awkwardly from foot to foot while they discussed how angsty their lives were.

God ‘tweens are creepy.

After a change of clothes, we decided to hit up some of the beach bars. The scene there is slightly different than I’m used to. I typically avoid the “fist-pumping” crowd, but that’s exactly what the scene was here. Guys in Affliction t-shirts with faux-hawks. They’re also all ripped, although that shouldn’t be viewed as an insult, since I’m a lazy narrow-ass. Basically, it looked a lot like the Caucasian Jersey Shore.

Probably the coolest thing about the bars are the size of the drinks. We walked into one bar and one of the other girls got the first round of drinks. Somehow, I wound up with a Vodka and Soda. Not my favorite, but it came in a FREAKING PINT GLASS! I was not aware that Large Farva was an available alcoholic beverage size. Totally tits!

My intent was to try and keep it between the ditches that night so I was in good shape for the actual Charity Ball on Saturday, but when you have pint sized liquor drinks at reasonable prices staring you in the face, even the best laid plans of men and mice go awry. Needless to say, we got liquored up. We danced, we laughed and we cried and we watched an endless stream of Persians hit on Jenna’s friend. It never gets old.

One more quick note before I sign off until Chapter 2. We got a taxi back over towards the apartments, and we dropped off Jenna’s friends first. The taxi cab driver told us we could pay with a credit card so that’s what we decided to do. This worked out swimmingly for Jenna’s two friends, but when it came time for me to pay, conveniently enough, the driver was out of imprint slips. This resulted in us having to go to the damn ATM so I could get cash and of course he charged me for that. I knocked it off the tip though, so take that, Taxi Man!

Stay tuned for Chapter 2: Night of the Living Law Prom…

Sometimes you get remembered for exactly the wrong reasons. Sometimes it works to your advantage and other times it doesn’t. For example, Ted Kennedy is remembered for his contributions to the U.S. Senate rather than for killing a girl while Tiger Woods will probably be remembered not for being the world’s greatest golfer but for cheating on his wife about 13 times. To a certain segment of our population, I’m remembered for one particularly infamous incident, even though I’ve done a million more memorable things both good and bad.

It was August 2005. I was ready to embark on my last semester of College. The week before classes start back, there’s a week when the Freshmen come in and kinda learn the lay of the land, if you will. This is also when the upper-classmen start coming back to town. Everyone parties in Milledgeville on Thursday nights because most of the school doesn’t have class on Friday. So, the first Thursday back at school is known as Black Thursday. Everyone goes downtown to watch the Freshmen get drunk and then get arrested. It’s like NASCAR. You watch it for the wrecks.

This particular Black Thursday, I think I went downtown about lunch time. So I was good and drunk by 3:00. It was my last semester of college, all my difficult classes were out of the way, and I was in a kick-ass rock band. I left a trail of destruction every time my right foot fell. I did stupid things and I got away with them. Not a bad life.

Anyway, Garr and Jennifer were having a going away party for some friends of theirs. Wiley and Andrew and a bunch of other folks were over at their house swimming and getting drunk. Just the usual. Roman and I had been hanging out together and we decided to venture over towards the party. While in route to the party, we stopped by Andrew’s house, right next door to Garr’s.

Andrew lived in a duplex sort of place. We knew the people that lived in the other part of the house and they sometimes hung out with us. They were cool enough, I suppose. On the porch of the house there was a large plastic owl. It stood probably about 2 feet tall and was really nothing special, just a stupid decoration. I picked it up and was messing around with it when Scott walked out of the house and joined us.

We all headed over to Garr’s and I just sort of assumed the owl belonged to Scott and Andrew because nobody said anything to me about it. I tucked it under my arm and carried it with me.

Aloha Mr. Owl

As the afternoon progressed, we got freakin’ hammered. I mean sloppy-ass drunk. I remember Wiley falling out of his chair once or twice and Scott may or may not have thrown up half a dozen times.

Now, I digress for a moment… Perhaps you’ve seen the beginning of Happy Gilmore, where Adam Sandler’s character humps everything or perhaps this Christoph Waltz gem? I always thought that was hilarious. I’ll get drunk and dry-hump things for the sheer humor of it. It’s all tongue-in-cheek and most people find it funny. Evidently that funny ends once a plastic owl gets involved.

I found our old friend Mr. Owl, walked up behind Wiley and pretended I was humping the owl. Not like going to town on it or anything, just giving it a bit of gentle loving. Somehow, this became the worst thing anyone has ever done ever. Never mind all the unspeakable evils I have seen go down in that house, I get remembered for this, like it was a good old-fashioned kitten massacre.

I added insult to injury by then giving that owl to Garr’s friends as a going away present. Once again, I made an ass of my self by assuming that they wouldn’t actually take it. I was wrong. A couple of hours later, Scott and Andrew’s neighbor showed up wanting to know where the hell his plastic owl was. Uh oh. By this time, I was long gone, so Garr had to track down his friends and get the owl back from them to return to the neighbor.

I was not popular that day.

Author’s Note: I only bring this story up because when the Midget-Town Story was being explained to Garr, he had to be reminded who I was. Unfortunately, this was the one incident that refreshed his memory, from five f’n years ago!

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. I’m sure you noticed. I don’t get all hot and bothered by it, because I don’t have a girlfriend. I’m more of a summertime kind of guy. Besides, in this economy, who can afford a girlfriend? Instead, I chose to spend my sweetheart money on High Life (The Champagne) and Goldschlager (The Clear).

Buda and I decided to head down to Fontaine’s and get some liquor drinks rather than our usual Sunday night Moe’s and Joe’s ritual. To make a long story short, we got a pretty good buzz going and ranted about guns, women, and taxes. You know, the usual.

I ventured back to Narnia and as I was stepping onto my front porch, I heard something scurrying to my right in the bushes. I looked over, thinking it was one of those God-forsaken squirrels that haunt my existence. To my surprise, it was a possum, a big old veiny bastard, climbing up the tree directly adjacent to my house.

“I’m gonna tag that sumbitch!” I thought to myself and looked around for something to throw at it. My first thought was a piece of a 2X4 laying near my steps. I picked it up and immediately thought better of it. The tree the possum was on stradles the fence between my yard and my neighbor’s yard. They park their cars behind their house and if that 2X4 skipped off the tree and smacked their BMW, I’d be up shit creek.

Evil Incarnate

Mr. Possum was snakin’ his way up that tree and I was weaponless. I hurriedly glanced around the porch for something, anything to peg him with. My eyes came to rest on a 3/4 can of Coca-Cola someone left on the porch a month or two back. I raced over to it, picked it up, and rushed back to the porch steps. I kicked open the screen door and reared back and hurled that Coke can with all might.

As I watched it flip end over end, spewing that brown nectar all over God’s creation, time seemed to slow for me. I flashed back to my youth. There I was, 10 years of age, bunting a triple in the bottom of the 6th to win the game for my baseball team. Another scene flashed in my eyes, I was 18, sprinting down the runway of the pole-vaulting pit and launching myself high into the air. I narrowly missed the bar, winning the County Championship for myself. My vision cleared and for the brief second that Coke can was in the air, I was the champion of sport. All the world was my oyster and I was gonna eat. Mmmm nom nom.

The possum was nearly to the safety of the branches when the Coke can struck him; a deft blow to his jowl region. He squealed in pain and the force of the blow knocked him from the tree. The Coke can bounced back into my yard and I heard the possum land in the neighbor’s yard with sickening thud. I’m sure I didn’t kill it, there’s no way I could be that lucky. He probably only fell about 10 feet and landed in the grass on the other side of the fence. But the knowledge that I scored a decisive win over a creature so foul was enough to send me to sleep last night with a mile-wide grin on my face.

Know ye this, Herr Possum: Whence the battle of Good Vs. Possum commences, I’ll be there on the front lines armed with an entire fridgepack of Coca-Cola. Abandon all hope vermin who darest cross into the realm of Narnia!