[atari 2600]

I moved to Athens in October '89. My then-girlfriend moved up shortly after and the first show we went together in Athens was at the newly just-opened Georgia Theater. It was Valentine's Day (ah, how sweet!) 1990, and Camper Van Beethoven was playing with The Ordinaires from NYC opening.

I brought my dictaphone to the show because I didn't have a regular small cassette player. I would record on mini-cassettes (Chickasaw Mudd Puppies, Beggar Weeds, and Me'an Mills shows mostly...(I have none of these tapes now)) and then remove the magnetic tape and put it inside a regular cassette'a housing haha, but anyway, I dropped the recorder into my drink during maybe the second song of The Ordinaires. (I was still thinking about what had just happened). But that's not really what prompted me to write this rambling message.

Well, it's connected. Because right before that, I had went to the bar for my valentine and after turning away and getting my drink (or maybe it was the other way around) I collided right into Michael Stipe. I guess neither one of us was really looking where we were going or something. I just have always thought that was a little weird. Here I was...I had just moved to Athens and been there a few months and a few people told me Michael was around town sometimes, yet I had never sighted Stipe; I go to this show, and bam! the first time I ever see him in person, we run into each other like that. This is just one of many odd run-ins though...