ham fisted theatrics

At LAX on Monday morning the guy barking the line at security has rhyming patter: “Put it in the bin, or they’ll run it again! Then you won’t be on the flight: not ‘till tonight!” I am a huge fan of everyday showmanship so this guy is winning huge with me. He is winning huge with everyone around me in line as well: we are used to being confused and bullied at this part of the airport experience rather than being performed for in verse. I don’t care what your job is, if you have a shtick for how you do it, I want us to be friends. The tackier the shtick, the closer friends we will be.

The opening notes of “Skyway” by the Replacements come on as we’re boarding, part of the pre-flight music being piped in over the intercom. I am stoked, but then the vocals come in and I realize it is a decidedly schmaltzier, shittier cover. Dude, Delta: you are playing a cover of “Skyway” – you are so close to just playing “Skyway!” Go the full nine!

We receive videotaped safety instructions from the large-mouthed red-headed Delta lady. She’s kind of famous, huh?

I am in first class, a rare treat I take full advantage of by drinking like, three club sodas. I have the window seat and rather than sleeping I become engrossed in looking out the window during takeoff, because it’s cloudy this morning in Los Angeles but as soon as we break the low layer of clouds, it’s solid white below and blue above with hills poking up a ways away. There are some houses dotting the hills and I think how cool it would be to have one of those houses on a morning like this. You would really need to be in the part of your life where you could have a leisurely morning, though, or you’d feel guilty for rushing around looking for your cellphone charger and just trying to get out the door when there was an endless kingdom of immaculate cloud outside your window that you couldn’t really enjoy.

It turns out one of the guys who is in the commercial with me is sitting next to me. We don’t realize this until we’re in Atlanta de-planing. At baggage claim there are two Georgia Lottery storefronts and people are psyched about the Georgia Lottery, the storefronts are packed. We find the PA who is there to pick us up and follow him out to his car. Gucci Mane is playing on the radio. We are officially in Atlanta, where the PA says when it rains, it almost always rains around 2 or 3 PM, and then only for fifteen minutes, and it’s nice because it cools everything off.

They have put us up in a very nice hotel with iPod docks in the rooms and very carefully selected art covering the walls and constant throbbing techno everywhere that isn’t where you sleep. They still charge for wireless. I open my laptop and see that I have three different browser windows open from throughout the day of traveling where various places (the airport, the plane, the hotel) have all tried to charge me for wireless. I finally give in. To their credit, on receiving my payment and connecting me to the Internet, my laptop does not immediately start playing techno.

Among the art on my walls: a picture of the Stone Mountain Confederates. Donald is from Stone Mountain and he says there is a famous laser show that takes place at Stone Mountains. I’ve never been clear on whether or not this laser show actually incorporates these giant stone Confederates. I am betting it does, along with, inexplicably, the song “Sweet Home Alabama.”

After dinner I am going to go bum around the mall near my hotel. I am headed downstairs at 8:10, and not only is it not dark outside, it’s not even dusk. Georgia, admit to being strange. Waiting for the elevator I lean against a window and it’s hotter than fuck.

I mistakenly assume Buckhead, where our hotel is, is part of downtown Atlanta, but a PA will later inform me that it isn’t. I assumed it was because it’s tons of glittering new office buildings and futuristic hotels and condos that kind of shoot up out of nowhere. You’re driving along and it’s this wall of lush green everywhere you look and then all of the sudden, this superblock of brand-new skyscrapers just appears. Buckhead is like a megacorporation put their headquarters on a forest planet. It’s clean and strange, and pretty, particularly at sunset.

I catch the mall at a weird time: The place is cavernous and it’s just getting dark out but they haven’t turned on the lights inside the mall yet, so it feels dark and empty even if it's crowded and loud. The mall does not have a bookstore for me to kill time in. This makes it significantly less tempting to blow my per diem.

At some point back in my room I am thinking that as sad as it is, the story of Michael Jackson is just beginning. A great deal of the weirdest Elvis stuff, cult-wise, didn’t happen until he died. Jackson was such profoundly strange, universally beloved figure, there are bound to be some truly unbelievable things/beliefs that build up around the man. I sort of can’t wait to see what he’ll become in the public imagination.

(And I won’t apologize for still talking about it this long after the fact. I don’t think we should be self-conscious about talking about those week-old things the Internet’s accelerated news cycle has made us think are somehow already passé, and I think it’s kind of weird and sad I even had a moment of “This? Still?” I secretly hope that that accelerated news cycle brings about a counter-revolution of slow, considered, thoughtful stuff. Or if not a full-on counter-revolution, an underground market for things that are unapologetically long and untopical.)

In anticipation of his new album, Donald has released a new mixtape under his MCDJ name. It’s called FUCK YASELVES! I drew the cover art and am on several of the tracks, including a track from the upcoming album called “Starlight.” And it’s free! Download it here.

EDIT: Link to Donald's mixtape fixed.