She Being Brand New

It had been a long weekend: three days of music from Athfest and three days of wearing a neon yellow plastic bracelet on my wrist. When I bought my ticket, I asked the guy to put it on tightly because I can't stand movement on my forearm, and now it was stuck there until I found a pair of scissors. More important than scissors though, what I wanted was a beer.

I meandered into my usual bar of that summer: Village Idiot. The thing that made Village Idiot unique was its chalkboard walls. Pieces of chalk in every color were strewn about the bar. By the end of the night, phone numbers and naked stick figures in sexual positions reminded the city that this was a college town. Every night the chalkboard would be wiped clean, only to be defaced again the next day. It was a comforting feeling about college, starting over every night. Being brand new every night.

Partially drunk I left my crowd and wandered over to the wall by the staircase. I picked up a piece of lime-green chalk and began writing. I quickly worked out a stanza of verses, dancing with the chalk without thinking.

I stepped away and took a sip of beer as I examined my work. As I wondered whether anyone would be able to decipher my drunken scrawl, a random sorority girl approached me.

"Oh my god, I love it!" She slurred as she cooed to me. She pressed her hands between her knees and jumped excitedly. "I am going to call my answering machine and read this into it so I'll be able to remember it tomorrow!"

As she dug through her purse for her phone, a man approached. It was obvious that he wasn't a co-ed. His age, his scruff and his thrift-store clothes revealed that he was a Townie, a member of the underground society that Athens doesn't advertise in its college brochure.

"That's hauntingly beautiful," he said. "Very dark, but beautifully written."

I was secretly thrilled. I turned around to thank him, but his plaid shirt and his hat was familiar.

I eyed him. "I know you. How do I know you?"

He pointed to my neon bracelet. "I just played in Athfest."

"Oh yeah, what band?" I ransacked my brain: Drive-By Truckers, Jucifer, Fuzzy Sprouts.

He was the guitarist for the Jennifer Nettles Band.

The man who plays Jennifer Nettles' own hauntingly beautiful lyrics. The same lyrics I would copy into my notebook while some T.A. rambled on about Classic Greek Mythology. She was my idol. I still remember her lyrics; I don't remember much about Classic Greek Mythology.

And here I was receiving accolades by an extension of her.

As soon as my girlfriend realized he was a quasi-celebrity, she pounced on him, working hard to take him home for the night. I stepped back and watched her pursue him while he gently side-stepped her advances. I took another swig of beer and looked back to my piece of the wall.

It would be brand new tomorrow, but it was pretty alright tonight.

Hrm

Celebrity sighting: Ludacris and Tommy Lee in the parking lot of Disco Kroger during my lunch hour.

Turns out he's the guy who ruined snowmen for children everywhere

Boyfriend came home from washing my truck for me (awesome) and handed me one of my Wachovia bank deposit envelopes I stash in the door of the truck. "I got Young Jeezy's autograph for you."

"Who?"

"You don't know who Young Jeezy is?" he asked, honestly shocked.

"No," I shrugged.

"He's a rapper. He's as big as TI," he explained slowly as if I was a two-year-old who speaks English as a second language.

"The only reason I know who TI is is because he got arrested at my Walgreens for trying to buy a machine gun!" Like, duh.

I picked up the folded envelope and studied the signature. I suppose it reads Young Jeezy, but not a single character looks like one from the English language. In an effort to make it legible, I squinted. "So where did you see Young Jeezy?"

"At the Cactus Car Wash. He was just hanging out there."

"So this famous rapper justs hangs out at the car wash?" I picked up the envelope again, trying to decide if the signature was in pencil or ink, and how much it would be worth on eBay. "How did you know it was him? Do you know what he looks like?"

"A black girl was freaking out when she saw him and said she didn't have the nerve to ask him for a picture and autograph, so I went with her."

"Ah," I laughed. "So you had to get confirmation from another race!"

***

At lunch today I decided to test the worth of my autograph. "So Boyfriend got me Young Jeezy's signature."

Dan paused, "Who?"

I think that answers my question.

Meeting Ty Pennington

Ty Pennington bought a scooter from my boyfriend. I don't even watch Extreme Makeover anymore (the show just won't end until everybody cries), but I made Boyfriend take my camera to work with him on the day Ty came and picked it up. Yes, his coworkers made fun of him.

Here is the bike while they were still building it.

Then Ty had them modify it 24 rear-view mirrors. Each mirror doesn't actually serve a purpose, and your lane-splitting days are over. Sounds narcissistic, but this kind of modification is pretty popular.

Ty and the final product.

When Boyfriend asked Ty if he could get a picture of him for his girlfriend (me!), Ty said, "Sure!" and opened his arm for Boyfriend to come stand with him. Then Boyfriend goes, "Not me. The bike," completely insulting him. Boyfriend took this picture and then Ty never spoke to him again.

Which is why this pic is so far away:



True story.

Fun Fact

T.I. and I shop at the same Walgreens.

Only he goes there for machine guns and I go there for birth control.

60 Seconds with Butch Walker

Sure I would let him spoon me... with a clean bill of health from the CDC. We'd lie on top of a bed and he would lay his free hand on the back of my thigh. He'd lean in and just talk to me. I'd wiggle my butt and press it into him and ask for the Katrina story again (not the hurricane).

In reality, I would wait until my number was called and I'd walk into a coffee shop in Little 5 Points. He would be standing at the end of the bar, beer bottle at his side. It would be the just us; the coffee shop was not open this afternoon.

I've met him a dozen times over the years. I've seen him perform double that amount. I've even interviewed him once. He's been around for every love and, more importantly, for every heartache. He and I go way back. Just don't ask him that, because he'll have no idea who I am.

He leaned against the bar. Next to him laid a small stack of CDs from people hoping he'd produce their bands; he welcomed their submissions.

I smiled and stuck my hand out. He looked at it before taking it.

"Hi, I'm Jamie." Out of habit, I studied his eyes for a couple of seconds. For the first time, they weren't bloodshot.

"Hey there. How are you?"

"I'm good. I brought some stuff for you to sign." I fanned out the 6 CD covers and the DVD cover. He was only supposed to sign one item—the new CD—but the line had died down and I hoped my forward thinking move of already having the cover art removed from the cases would not reach any objections.

"Okay cool," he grabbed the stack from me and began scribbling. "So did you like the show?"

"Oh I loved it as usual. I really like the direction you've taken, both musically and lyrically."

"That's awesome to know, thanks."

"Actually, I have a question for you."

"Oh yeah, what's that?" His head was still bent down, signing.

"The song 'Joan,' is it intentionally ambiguous?"

He stopped signing and stared at me, thinking for a moment. It was like he was pondering the possibility for the first time. "Yes... ambiguous," he began slowly. His face lit up either from understanding the question or from the recognition of the answer, "It is!"

I felt the need to explain myself, "Because, you know, you never really say whether the blood is hers or her boyfriend's. Did the protagonist know her or just lived in the apartment after her? There isn't an answer to these questions; it's ambiguous."

"I had a really difficult time writing that song," he explained. "I personally didn't know what was going to happen, so I left it open-ended. The result is what you've heard. I've never written a song that didn't have a clear ending before. It was a difficult decision to leave it open like that, sort of unfinished. Did you like it?"

"You don't know the drunken debates I've gotten into over your intentions as a writer with that song. I've argued both ways. Every couple of months I'll change my mind over something as small as a inflection in your voice."

"It's my only song like that. It was challenging; I feel my writing has grown from that experience. I'm glad it goes over well." He finished signing my assortment and handed it back to me.

"Well, it was nice meeting you," I stuck my hand out again (loser).

This time he accepted it a little more willingly. My gaze followed his heart tattoo from his wrist back up to his eyes. I still couldn't believe there wasn't an ounce of red in them. He caught my gaze and held it for a moment.

"Bye."

"Bye, Jamie," he smiled.

I walked past him and a lady offered me a piece of chocolate cake. Because that is what you get after meeting Butch Walker. I walked out the back door of the coffee shop into an alley where a guy was wearing green short shorts and had a wooden sword duct taped to him. I smiled, but not at the freak in the shorts. I smiled because I still had a bit of journalist inside of me: it's not all forgotten. I asked the question that no one else asked.