merylinabarrel

So one week ago I was in Georgia. Originally I was just going to drive down there myself, but JJ put me in touch with another music director and a training director at a station up at Michigan State who also wanted to go, but didn't want to drive the entire way themselves. So we made plans for them to drive down to Athens, OH and then we'd all drive down to Athens, GA together and split gas and all that. They both turned out to be really cool people. Brandon is the MD at their station, so he does the same job as me and we had a really good time talking about all the different promoters we talk to and who we like and don't like. Autumn is the training director at their station, which I guess could be considered part of my job, but not really. But she was really awesome and became my buddy for the trip. I'm glad we all drove down together because I would have been really lost without them once we got there.

We drove all day Thursday and finally got there around 10:30 and drove right to this club called the Caledonia because we were getting there so late. JJ and crew were waiting for us there and there were going to be some bands playing. We couldn't find somewhere to park, so he found us in the car and hopped in to tell us where to go. It was funny to meet him for the first time like that, plus it's always a little odd when you meet someone in person after getting to know them online or on the phone. We were all, "Hi!" and "Hi!" then "So... where do I go?" I tried to get rid of any awkwardness really quickly and kept telling myself, "It's JJ, you know JJ, don't be weird," and then things were okay.

One of the people playing that night was this guy Benji Hughes who I would best describe as a mix of Stephen Merritt's voice, ZZ Top's looks and Wesley Willis' onstage manner. I like his stuff okay and you can hear some of his songs here, but Brandon LOVED him and after the show JJ corralled Benji over to us so Brandon could talk to him. He was nice and funny, but he was messed up, man. He also had this whole line about respect and how the bartender was disrespecting him and he was going to have a talk with him about respect. It was kind of hilarious. I also took a picture of them for Brandon's posterity.



We, along with this guy Nick, were all staying with JJ and his boyfriend Brian at their house. Nick is a music director at a community station in North Carolina and he's like 38 or 40 years old, but he acted like every 22-year-old I know, however you want to interpret that statement. He's known JJ forever, apparently, and he's an old person, so he got to sleep in the guest bedroom. I'm the favorite, so I got the couch and Autumn and Brandon both slept on the floor. We were all starving and exhausted that night so we just went and bought pizzas then went to bed.

The next day, Friday, was the best day of the whole trip. A bunch of us went to breakfast where everyone made fun of me for ordering poached eggs, then being told they didn't do poached and ordering basted, then hearing they didn't do basted either, and then finally gave up and ordered over easy. And it was at this all-night diner place, too, so they should have totally been able to make a poached or basted egg. Anyway, after that we split into groups for the Athens-wide scavenger hunt. My team was me, Autumn and Grace, an MD from St. Louis. The scavenger hunt list was a full page and had stuff like take pictures of all the giant ceramic bulldogs around town, successfully sell a CD to this surly guy at a used CD store, get a picture with a graduate at the University of Georgia arch, find a t-shirt advertising a frat or sorority event and get a handstamp from this seedy strip club outside of town.

My team got SO into the hunt and ran and drove around the whole town finding things. It was really fun, even though it was sweltering outside. We finally made it to our last stop on the list, which was a pool party at a hotel someone was staying at. JJ tallied up all our points while we swam and everyone was getting really competitive about it and talking trash about the other teams and bragging about how many points they'd gotten. After JJ's first count, we were the bottom group and everyone was giving us a bunch of shit. That didn't sound right, though, so then I sat with JJ and we re-added our score and we actually had the HIGHEST score and we took our turn to talk trash about everybody else. Then, just to make sure, JJ recalculated everyone's scores and another team actually had 50 more points than us. We were devastated. But it was okay. Here's Grace and Autumn fulfilling the requirement of taking our picture from the top of the city parking garage.



That night we went to another bar whose name I can't remember. They had this courtyard outside that we used for arts and crafts time. The whole weekend had a "Summer Camp" theme, so that's why we were doing things like scavenger hunts and arts and crafts. There were tables set up for t-shirt decorating, friendship bracelet making, those little bead things that you make into patterns and iron, keychain making and face painting. I am so good at making friendship bracelets, BTW, so I made ones for Autumn and JJ and then Autumn made one for me, too, which I'm actually still wearing. Karaoke was going on inside the bar so we made our way inside and joined the other campers there. I've never done karaoke before and I think it's kind of lame, actually, but we started looking through the book of songs and I saw that they had "Birdhouse in Your Soul" by They Might Be Giants and suddenly reaaaaaaaly wanted to do it, but I was too nervous.

JJ was signing up for a song and I told him I wanted to go, too, but was scared. And this is what JJ is great for. He told me that I definitely should do it and that I'd be great. Then he got me a slip to fill out and patted me on the back and got me another beer (Doug from Pirate had bought me and Autumn drinks earlier to apologize for being so competitive during the scavenger hunt... have I mentioned I'm 21 now?). It wasn't that much, but it was still really sweet and just the kind of encouragement I need to get over my anxiety bumps. JJ went first and did Styx' "Come Sail Away," then I came up after him and did my song. I was still soooooooo nervous and it was almost like an out-of-body experience because you hear yourself on the speakers about half a second after you actually speak, so it's like a weird echoy strangeness. I love that song so much, though, and I knew all the words and yelled the good parts and got people to sing along on the repeating chorus.

When I was done and holding out the "oooooooooul" in "Soul," everybody cheered and some guy in the audience yelled, "Great song choice! I like where your head's at!" and I yelled, "Thank you!" JJ and Autumn said I was great and some girl later came up to me and asked if I had been the girl doing karaoke earlier. "You rocked it, honey!" she said. I fucking loved all these people. There were so many good songs that night-- "Bawitdaba," "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go," "Coming to America," "Hotstepper," "Bobby Magee." It was so much fun and we were once again completely exhausted when we got home.

The next day was the big kickball game. For the last three years, Team Clermont has put on a Ws vs. Ks kickball game for all the promoters and stations. Ws and Ks are for the first letter of your station's call letters with Ws being the stations east of the Mississippi and Ks being to the west with a few exceptions. Canadian stations are Cs, which become Ks for the purpose of the game. Much like the scavenger hunt, was INSANELY competitive and people were taking shit and forming alliances all weekend, like when Meredith, one of the Pirate promoters got up to do karaoke and announced before her song: "I just wanna say, W is for winners and K stands for kill yourself." I played outfield for our team and only got up to kick once because we had so many people, but I made it a good one. I just kicked it really short, bunt-style toward third base and then ran like hell to first. It was going to be close, so I slid feet-first and ripped the shit out of my ankle. I was called safe and all the other Ws cheered my name because I am a total badass.

The Ws were down until the bottom of the last inning when Nick, old man Nick, hit a three-run homerun and we won the game. We freaked out and lifted him on our shoulders and all that. It was pretty sweet, I have to say.





A bunch of people went to Chuck E. Cheese after the game, but we opted for showers and naps. When I woke up, JJ had rented an episode of Mystery Science Theater ("The Horrors of Spider Island") because he is truly a man after my own heart. After that we had dinner and went to our final night out at the 40 Watt. And this, unfortunately, is where the trip takes a bad bad bad turn where I have to talk about drinking.

I don't think I've mentioned on here that I'm allergic to alcohol, but I am. It's mild to moderate where I can have a beer or two beers and be okay, but more than that and I will get very sick very quickly. I get hives on my chest and face and arms, my hands swell up and get really itchy, I get really hot and dizzy and I get throbbing headaches. So I'm basically forced to drink in moderation, which is good because I never get stupid drunk or get sick or anything. SO ANYWAY, we're at the 40 Watt and there are a couple bands playing and Meredith had gotten me a beer, which I was drinking very slowly. Then JJ and some other promoters were going to have shots and JJ wanted to buy me one for my birthday, which was the next day. I told him no and explained to everyone that I was allergic and probably shouldn't be drinking at all, but everyone pointed to the beer in my hand and was like, "But you're drinking right now." And I was like, "JJ, seriously..." and he was like "Come on! It's your birthday!"

I gave in, but I shouldn't have. I got the worst headache, I puked several, several times, my stomach was all queasy and I couldn't find JJ, but I found Autumn and told her I needed to leave. We went down the street to the diner where we'd had the poached egg debacle and I got hashbrowns and eggs, but I couldn't eat anything and I felt like I was going to die. I just cannot overstate how sick I was. Not drunk at all, just sick, sick, sick. We finally got ahold of JJ and got the car keys and Autumn took me home. I finally started feeling better on the ride back and it was only about 12:30 by this point, so I went to bed and got a full night's sleep while everyone else was up until 5. JJ felt really, really bad about the whole thing the next day and I let him feel bad for awhile, but then told him not to worry about it and I was fine.

We went out for breakfast the next morning at this fantastic restaurant and then raided the Team Clermont offices for a bunch of free CDs and t-shirts and stickers and such and then hit the road. The drive was a little quicker on the way back and we got to Athens around 9:30, but the Michiganders didn't get home until 3:30. Yikes on them. But, yeah, even with the 40 Watt episode, it was such a fantastic time and I'm so glad that I decided to go and meet JJ and all these people because in two weeks I'll quit my job and probably never talk to any of them again. The end.