the Countdown to old age begins...

For my dad's 53rd birthday, I drove him to Augusta to see my brother and his family. We went shoe shopping, ordered pizza, drank beer and watched Al Green get the BET Lifetime Achievement Award. This was during halftime of a game between the Atlanta Falcons and the Colts. Afterward, we watched Harold & Kumar Can't Live Up to the Original, then tried to fall asleep on couches covered in microfiber suede while Sportscenter ran all night, like a looping highlight lullaby.

For my 30^th birthday, which is less than two weeks away, I have slightly different plans, which may still involve a road-trip to Augusta and microfiber suede—though only if I have a REALLY good time.

Saturday, August 30th, there will be a big-ass party beneath the Riverview Ballroom on Walnut Street, next to the somewhat dodgy, gray and maroon motel. It's called The Underground, when it's called anything at all, and this is where I hope to be surrounded by all my favorite people, who I hope will be surrounded by all their favorite people, who I hope will be introducing us all to interesting folks we haven't yet met.

There will be, like, a bunch of my favorite musicians, bands and other sentient noise-making devices... AND WE WILL GO UNTIL DAWN (if we please). Though I'm still awaiting some definites, I know that Nomenclature, Trendlenberg, Al King, Oh No They Didn't, Scott Baston & the News Architects, Oh Dorian, Aaron Irons, Doski Wo and Hank Vegas all want to be there performing for you. And maybe more.

But why? Well, it seems like a good time to celebrate ourselves, which would make an excellent excuse for me to have fun. And why not? We've got this big, beautiful, growing community of weirdoes who register semi- to full-bohemian on the strangeness scale. Plus Monica and Heatherly are going to be hitting milestone birthdays during that same stretch, and don't they deserve to have a bunch of drunk assholes scream-singing Happy Birthday at them too?

Of course they do. And what's better, you deserve to be there when it happens. You deserve to be able to say you were a drunk asshole, that you were singing shit that didn't even make sense at the time—that, in future hindsight, you were just having such a good time that you didn't notice how crazy you got. You deserve to feel like apologizing to people who will probably tell you not to worry about it because they were just about to call and apologize to you too, and then they'll ask if you've seen their keys because they can't find them and they had to sleep on the porch of their place because they passed out trying to break in while the church crowd was driving by. That's what you deserve.

In conclusion, I was raised to believe that Sunday is a day of rest, and I want to make sure that everyone has a damn good reason to still be asleep at 3pm on Sunday.

More details will be forthcoming, I swear. Just go ahead and mark the date, time and location. Saturday, August 30 until sometime Sunday, August 31 at the Underground (beneath the Riverview Ballroom). They'll be serving fried catfish dinner and such at 7pm if you want to come then.