Mike White

Everybody agrees

that the true golden era,

the one real unbroken idyllic shining

unsurpassed matchless most extraordinary time,

ended right before you moved to town.

You missed the national championship in 1980.

You missed the B-52’s on Valentine’s Day

at the house on Milledge across from the Taco Stand,

you missed R.E.M. at the church on Oconee.

You missed when Michael Stipe gained all that weight

and shaved his head like a monk,

you missed the year Peter Buck spent in his pyjamas.

You missed Kurt Wood’s record sale.

You missed that entire sweaty summer

when everyone slept with everyone else

because it was summer and they could

and nobody had AIDS yet. You missed downtown

before they built the Georgia Square Mall

and all the businesses left, you missed downtown

before all the chains took over.

You missed the Grit when it was in the old

railroad station. You missed all the parties

over all the years at all the different houses

on Barber. You missed croquet in the back yard.

You missed the house party where they served

hunch punch out of bathtubs on the front porch.

You missed Washington Street when it was an airstrip.

You missed Allen Ginsberg eating health food at the Downstairs,

you missed Bob Dylan shopping for records at Wuxtry,

you missed Hunter S. Thompson sneaking booze

past the Secret Service guys and secretly taping Jimmy Carter’s

speech on Law Day in ’76. You missed the Replacements

at the Georgia Theater, you missed Beck across the street

from the Georgia Theater, you missed Cab Calloway

at the Morton, you missed the heyday of the Hot Corner.

You missed at least five incarnations of the 40 Watt.

You missed Tight Pockets. You missed the Ultramod Compound.

You missed the party for John Waters at the Quality Warehouse,

you missed Deonna Mann’s sculptures made out of meat.

You missed so many Halloweens I can’t even get into it.

You missed the Olympics. You missed the Civil War,

you missed the Fables of the Reconstruction tour.

You missed midnight kickball games

on the lawn with all the roots on North Campus.

You missed sneaking beer into the old Alps Theater,

you missed when they actually used to show good movies

at Tate. You missed looking at magazines

for hours at Barnett’s. You missed skinnydipping.

In some sort of horrible oversight,

you missed losing your own virginity.

You missed all the trestles they tore down.

You missed that one brunch. You missed

both the summer festivals at Orange Twin :

you missed Bonnie Prince Billy and the Olivia Tremor Control.

You missed Pylon at Little Kings, you missed

seeing Neutral Milk Hotel play at somebody’s birthday party,

you missed basically the entire Elephant Six collective.

You missed that New Year’s Eve shindig

in the desacralized church where people were doing it

in the baptismal fonts and some guy

sprayed everyone with a fire extinguisher at four in the morning.

You missed the party where the floor collapsed

and the party where the floor came really, really close to collapsing.

You missed the Atomic and the Uptown

and Frijolero’s and Guaranteed and Marrakesh Express

and the Lunch Paper and the Engine Room and Blue Sky

and the Hotel Oracle and the X-Ray Café.

You missed the Star Room Boys and the Glands.

You missed the old menu, the cheap rents,

the way it used to be done with real spirit and real passion,

when people were here because they couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

You missed the old flickering broken heart of the city.

I hate to break it to you,

but you arrived too late.

It won’t ever be that way again.