Jared Bailey

The Founder Tells Why He Did It

In the beginning, working on Flagpole was a solitary late-night activity. I would get off from the 40 Watt in the wee hours of the morning and go home and write longhand articles and try to paste up ads on the small light table I had in my den. There was no Flagpole office, and I did not even own a computer. In order to type up the articles and complete the layout, I would go to Java, a combination print/ coffee/ bike shop located where the Go Bar is now. Rick Hawkins was the owner of Java, and he helped me with layout and made negatives of the finished pages that I would then take to Greater Georgia Printers in Crawford.

Besides Rick there were others at Java - people like Rachel Reynolds - who helped with the magazine. She had a lot of creative and artistic input that helped the magazine transcend my lack of journalistic skills. Since I was working on copy so late at night it helped that Java was open 24 hours, and that Vernon Thornsberry was there to keep the espresso flowing.

After a few months almost all the work for Flagpole was being done right there in Java, and there was a constant influx of creative people who helped me out. One of those was Dennis Greenia. Dennis had some magazine/ newspaper experience and was helping Rick with printing projects. Time has muddied my memory somewhat, but after working together there at Java for a year or so, I gave Dennis half ownership in Flagpole for all his contributions. It was Dennis who took my simple idea of a “music rag” and transformed it into a real magazine. Actually he always called it a newspaper, not a magazine.

Dennis and I put some equipment together and hired Rachel to help, and we got an actual office of our own in a loft in what was then Dixon’s Bicycles on Broad Street. Things started really happening then. The “paper” attracted creative people who were willing to review shows, write and illustrate articles, contribute photos and cartoons. I was able to spend more time at my real job at the Watt and let Dennis and his crew work on the day-to-day business of putting it all together. I was still around to help get a story or two and to write my weekly rambling editorial about whatever was pissing me off that week.

Those were pretty exciting days, and they flew by for the first five years. Somewhere in there the Pole had become more than just a music rag. Dennis added coverage about art and local politics. We had a whole string of incredibly talented contributors, and the magazine started to look really sharp and professional.

At that time I decided to let Dennis buy my half of the whole magazine for a very low price. Dennis did not have the money right then, but I went ahead and turned the reins over to him with a promise of future payment. I figured that I did not have time to really work on it, and the whole idea of starting it was so that there would be an outlet to promote Athens music. My mission was complete, and I put my creation in Dennis’ very capable hands. Years later the mantle changed again to the current owners. Now 15 years have passed, and I am still waiting to get paid for my remaining part of the paper. Does this mean that I still own half of Flagpole?

Whether or not Founder and Editor for Life Jared still owns half of Flagpole, he has gone on to a new career as AthFest Director and also Small Business Resource Coordinator for the Athens-Clarke County Economic Development Foundation, where he is the point of contact for anyone in Athens who wants to start a small business or expand an existing one.

A business meeting with Dennis always involved pesto pasta at Rocky’s.

Dennis Greenia

He Subverted The Dominant Paradigm

Twenty Years. Wow.

There are only a handful of people who were there when Flagpole was born.

I was one of them.

Back in the fall of 1987 Flagpole was just another job walking through the doors of Java Copies and Printing.

Java was (and still is) one of those ongoing Athens myths, legends and fables. The shop, run by Rick Hawkins (a.k.a. Rick the Printer), has existed in town since the 1970s (it still does). The first espresso machine was at the Print Shop on Oconee Street (the Gyro Wrap had the second one) and R.E.M’s first public show was at our Koffee Klub in April 1979, but I digress.

In 1987 I had returned to Athens and worked with Rick at Java. We sold coffee, repaired cars and bicycles, sold photo supplies and airplane parts, and we sold printing.

So, back to the birth of Flagpole - 20 years ago, in walks Jared Bailey. He was a co-owner of the newly revived 40 Watt Club. He was tired of buying ads in the Athens Observer and Athens Banner Herald only to watch them get everything wrong about the bands he booked and the music scene.

He wanted an alternative.

When he came by to talk to Rick and me, he was thinking about a more elaborate flyer than he had been doing. When he left he was thinking about a new music publication. Jared would handle the content and Java would do the production and get it printed.

Three other Athens music related businesses joined Jared to fund the first issue of Flagpole and an institution was born.

Of course at the time, it didn’t seem like it would survive at all. The printing schedule was erratic, but every month or so another issue came out. Then came an interview with Shackler (look it up) that caused quite a local stir (I seem to recall some naughty bits) and for a while it looked like Flagpole was finished.

By the end of 1988 I had left Java and was making my living as a freelance graphic designer. I took Flagpole on as another client. After a few issues, Jared took me on as his partner and I became Publisher. That was in 1989 and I guided the paper through many changes over the coming years.

There are endless stories and endless folks to thank and remember. Rachel Reynolds, Doug Hollingsworth, Jason Slatton, Steve Crawford, Cat Holmes, John Seawright and many more faces race through my memory. Somehow we created an institution that has survived us all.

I left Athens in 1997 and sold my shares of Flagpole to Pete and Alicia. Another decade has passed and I am very glad that Flagpole still walks the earth.

Now it is an Athens “Institution,” but I always remember the endless touch-and-go of inventing it week to week out of our collective joy, imagination, excitement and madness.

When Jared left Java 20 years ago with that first issue, we thought that would be the end of it. But a few weeks later he was back. Then he convinced me to join him. Then I convinced others to work on Flagpole for next to nothing. And we convinced the community to read it, to need it and depend upon it.

Flagpole is now another of the many myths, legends and fables of Athens.

It is 20 years old. Amazing.

Next year it can finally have a legal drink.

Cheers and congratulations!

Dennis Greenia was Publisher of Flagpole Magazine from 1989 to 1997. For almost 10 years he has been the Publications Director at Co-op America in Washington, DC (www.coopamerica.org). He regularly writes about politics, corruption and sweatshops at Daily Kos under the pen name “dengre” (www.dengre.dailykos.com).

Ort introduced Athens to new beers.

William Orten Carlton = Ort

Road Trips, Radio Stations And Zip Codes Entice Him

Dennis Greenia said come by, so I did. Imagine my surprise: there wasn’t an office. The space was shared with Classic Screen Print, so the Flagpole day started about 6:30 p.m. and ran through the weekend. David Leaptrot, God bless him, gave us the space, and I can remember the amazing way the magazine was turned out in such utter chaos. Now, it is turned out in a state of barely controlled chaos, which makes it all the more fun.

I sit here in Pete’s office seeing the couch I slept on once the office moved here. Sometimes I miss that couch. A lot of times I miss writing a weekly column and I ache to come back. When I manage to set up an office at home by shoveling out enough rubble, I will be back with a vengeance. But we weren’t talking about me: we were talking about Flagpole.

The first issue came about because the competing publication, Athens Nightlife, which became Classic City Live, only listed venues of its advertisers. Since the 40 Watt Club did not advertise there, that entire segment of the music community was truncated, as if it didn’t exist.

Jared Bailey stepped in and said, “We’ve got to do something. Hey, Brian,” he said to Brian Cook, “what shall we call it?”

“Hoist that up your Flagpole,” Brian said.

It’s difficult for me to realize what contributions this paper has made in the culture of Athens. I am convinced that it has been one of the springboards for much of the music scene that has existed in these 20 years. And with more to come.

It makes me think back to the features and articles no longer here. Of course, I instantly think of John Ryan Seawright and his “Ghost Fry” column. How I miss that man!

Flagpole fulfilled a great need. Much like when the Daily News was started in 1965. The flowering of the music scene has not come and gone. It is still being watered daily. It will continue to bloom as long as there is cultural space for it. There will continue to to be a garden. It’s been a privilege to have been associated with this magazine for off and on the past 20 years, and I’m looking forward to more.

Ort was a true Flagpole mainstay for years and years, grinding out his weekly column, taking off on road trips to buy old 45s and sample the local livermush and bring back the local beers. He was, in addition, Beer Editor for Flagpole and was singlehandedly responsible for introducing Athens to many of the brews we now take for granted and along the way educating us to the wide range of tastes possible in beer. Ort swears that, when he gets his house cleaned out and his computer assembled and his glasses fixed, he’ll be writing for us again.

Steve Crawford

He Started As Dope And Wound Up As Editor

It all began in the fall of 1990.

I walked into the Flagpole office one afternoon and was confronted by a surly young woman dressed in a black frock, shod in Doc Martens and capped with a long sheaf of pale blonde hair: Flagpole editor Cybele Lange.

She obviously thought I had the wrong address. The bike shop was next door.

“No, isn’t this the Flagpole office?” I asked meekly.

“Yeah, what do you want?” (I could tell she was warming up to me.)

“Um, I noticed that you don’t have any movie reviews in Flagpole.”

“Yeah?”

“I thought I could write some?”

“Great, let’s have them.”

“I don’t have any, yet.”

“Then why are you here? Come back when you have something. Goodbye.”

I went home, cowed but encouraged, and dutifully produced a feeble and fawning review of the Coen brothers’ Miller’s Crossing. To my surprise, it was in the next issue.

Publisher Dennis Greenia sensed something from that first article. Perhaps it was desperation, insecurity or some other character flaw that he knew he could exploit, but whatever it was, he pulled me aside and said he wanted more. The big papers published small encapsulated reviews of every film available for viewing, why couldn’t Flagpole?

Indeed. I saw no reason that it couldn’t be accomplished. But then I had no idea what I was doing.

Thus began my brief career as the original Movie Dope.

The name had a simple origin: a not so sly nod to “The Straight Dope” with the slightly slyer and more accurate insinuation that whoever sits through this many Hollywood films on purpose has got to be a little dopey.

Those who remember the early Dope may recall that I wasn’t so much of a film critic but more likely a smartass with a looming copy deadline. Luckily, few of those old issues still exist. Some friends remind me occasionally of nasty little lines I penned back then, but I prefer to remember the feeling I got from producing each issue, not the content.

Back then in the bad-old days of Flagpole - as Movie Dope and then as Editor - we weren’t winning awards or impressing people with our refined prose, we were winging it.

We chased after whatever whim hit us one week and changed course frequently.

We weren’t sure where we were headed half the time. We didn’t care. Maybe a few folks were reading, but we felt like no one was watching.

Steve Crawford graduated from Movie Dope to become Flagpole Editor from 1991 to 1993, then later did another turn as Movie Dope and typed the unforgettable assessment of A Clear And Present Danger: “The plot moved as slowly as a pound of cheddar through your grandfather’s colon.” After 10 years with the Augusta Chronicle, he now works in corporate communications at University Hospital in Augusta, GA.

W.M. Overend, Dennis Greenia, Rachel Reynolds, Alicia Nickles and Deborah Goldberg. Lisa May in front.

W.M. Overend

Hired For His Computer, He Grew Up At Flagpole

We walked a lot. In those days, there were no “offices,” just “the office.” Upstairs and downstairs. No doors. No privacy. When Dennis needed to talk to you privately, you took a walk. We couldn’t even go for coffee, because other than Java, there was no coffee place downtown. ERC was a couple of years away. So we walked. I had a tiny desk upstairs, tucked in a corner. For two years it was my personal Mac IIci that was the production computer. I conned my parents into buying it for me “for school” at the UGA bookstore, which is where all Flagpole computers were bought until Best Buy started carrying Performas in ’94 or ’95.

We had a black and white scanner that only worked with PC’s and a 300-dpi laser printer that cost almost $3,000 new. I’m not sure it ever got paid off before it was retired.

We went everywhere together. For three years I don’t think I ate a meal out with anyone who didn’t work at Flagpole. We ate at The Grit constantly, put our food on the trade account and used our few actual dollars for tips and for liquor at Georgia Bar. Thursday nights were “family night” at the Spring House: seven or eight of us there together gorging on all-you-can-eat BBQ.

Here was the kind of boss Dennis Greenia was: big weekly writers’/ staff meeting. Hillary Meister presiding. Maybe Crawford. I don’t remember. Rachel and I sitting there, waiting to answer layout questions about ABC (or its music-calendar predecessor), same argument brewing about who was going to write it and why we had to have it. Dennis comes down the spiral staircase, points at us and says, “I need to see you.” Somewhat ominous. He calls us outside. All he really wants is someone to go to the Roadhouse with. Sudden craving for cocktails. We ditch the meeting and head downtown. Sucked into the Barmuda triangle again.

We played pranks. Probably nobody else paid attention to them, but we thought we were hilarious. We got a water cooler at one point. Joe Greenia and I couldn’t stop coming up with ideas of how to fuck with it. One night we filled it with Kool-Aid. Another night we put two live goldfish in the tank and spent the whole next day daring the ad reps to “drink the fish water.” On one wall was a piece of country ham that we had laminated at Kinko’s at 4 a.m. one night. Up until the day Kinko’s moved from Baxter I could point out the spot where the hot ham juice squirted on the back wall of the place as we did the deed.

One night while we were pasting up the issue, I sliced my fingertip off with an Exacto blade. I’m looking at the faint scar now. I didn’t get stitches, just wrapped it up in a paper towel and kept working. Someone, maybe me, maybe Dennis, maybe Joe, tacked the excised portion of my finger to the wall with the offending blade. There it stayed, along with all of the other detritus of those ramen noodle days - the oft-used clipart, band posters, bad jokes and halftones. Years later I went back, right before the University started remodeling the building. The wall was still full of holes - tiny slits in the sheetrock - but my fingertip was gone.

Though scarred for life, W.M. Overend worked in writing and production throughout the ’90s, went on to law school, worked as an Assistant District Attorney and now practices law in Athens. He still enjoys the occasional water cooler joke.

Lisa May’s mission was getting the truck cranked and getting Flagpole out all over town.

Lisa May

Boot Camp Was Nothing After Schlepping Flagpoles

How is it that schlepping 5,000 newspapers around a small college town could feel like one of the most important things I ever did? I teach high school now. Served in the Army. Have a fairly fulfilling life. Yet my time with Flagpole still feels significant. Yeah, I wrote once in awhile. But somehow, the physical act of delivering and literally “taking care” of those little magazines was satisfying. And don’t let the title “Director” fool you. I was a glorified newspaper delivery boy. Well, girl, but you get the idea.

I don’t know how Dennis Greenia, and later Pete McCommons, as well, did it, but they inspired a kind of loyalty I’ve never seen before or since outside of a cult. It was like some kind of grand adventure, and we were fighting some noble battle against… I have no idea what. But we were. It’s almost impossible to describe what those years were like. The hot little office with the spiral staircase. The all-nighters. The drive out to the printer to pick them up in the deathtrap of a van that had to be hot-wired to start and could barely move once fully loaded. Becoming obsessive compulsive about fixing and straightening the racks around town. The backaches. Being just a nobody grad student, and yet getting to meet intellectuals, writers, poets, artists, musicians, politicians and Ort.

Did I mention Ort? How Dennis gave me the job of circulation but didn’t tell Ort he had given me the job? So I had to be the one to tell him I had his job? Ort felt protective of those little magazines, too. He didn’t take it too well.

How could so much drama be involved with delivering a bunch of magazines? It’s almost impossible to describe what those years were like. I learned a lot of things working at Flagpole. How to make do with no resources at all (a skill which served me well both in the Army and in teaching). How to get by without sleep. Dennis used to say, “Sleep is for sissies.” (Another skill that served me well both in the Army and in teaching. The kids hate it when I say that.) How to deal with Ort.

It was as close as I’ll ever come to the feeling of being in a band, or a gang - but without the music or violence. We were a loyal and dysfunctional family. But the magazine was at the center. There was a cause, man. Each one of us was personally responsible for keeping it alive. While what I did didn’t require anything but muscle, and anybody could have done it, I was glad I could help Flagpole grow during those transition years. By the time I had to leave, Flagpole was almost “respectable.” Okay, maybe not respectable, but it operated out of a building with air conditioning. When I left, my friends there gave me a going away party at Rocky’s that I’ll never forget.  I had never been made to feel that special in my life.  I had given my labor, yes for pay, but also out of a weird sense of love and loyalty to a group of people and to a symbol of what I guess I hold most dearly, what Flagpole represented to me: independent thought. Here’s to the next 20, Flagpole.

Lisa, Flagpole’s Circulation Director during 1991-1995, went into the Army, where she moved, emplaced and operated Patriot Missile batteries. For the past 10 years she has taught U.S. History and U.S. Government in Florida high schools and has been been active in her local teachers’ union. 

A new sign for the new building: (l-r) Matthew Greenia, Dennis Greenia, Pete McCommons, Hillary Meister and Alicia Nickles. Rachel Reynolds on the ladder.

Hillary Meister

Flagpole Opened The Door To The World Of Athens And Beyond

Dear Flagpole, Happy Anniversary! I remember the early years when you were just a wisp of a thing running out of an un-air-conditioned bike shop (when I came upon you). Try putting a magazine together when it’s 90+ degrees outside, the building you’re in has no windows and the little brown mice are vying for their own space. So here it is, all these years later and I’m late again on a deadline, writing past midnight just like the old days!

I was the music editor, and I used to joke that Flagpole was the chronicler of the life and times of a small, college town where you couldn’t throw a CD without hitting a musician or artist. The staff was small - Steve Crawford, Editor; Dennis Greenia, Publisher; founder/ owner Jared Bailey. My roommate, Lisa, was Circulation Manager: she even dressed up as a Flagpole box for Halloween one year. Pete came a few years later and shaped us up into a more formidable entity.

Early on I spent hours calling record companies proselytizing the music scene in Athens, asking to get on their mailing lists for records and CDs or to set up interviews with touring bands. For once we now had a chance to be counted among the other alternative magazines around the country who were all hastening an alternative press revolution.

At least, it felt like that - as if we were part of an uprising, battling against the established mainstays in press, music, culture, art, politics: our fearless leaders at the front lines of local battles, whether early bar closings or mayoral races. The battles were never-ending, and sometimes won. Athens was experiencing another golden era.

We were privy to secret shows either with R.E.M. or otherwise, special tapings, recordings or opportunities to get tickets to concerts and touring shows, which as a financially struggling college student, I might never have experienced: seeing Jeff Buckley perform or meeting Thom Yorke of Radiohead. There were opportunities to work on political campaigns or volunteer for community events such as the Twilight bike races. We even produced our own Flagpole Christmas records featuring local bands doing holiday songs as well as a spoken word cassette. Highlights for me include interviewing Robyn Hitchcock, Peter Buck, John Perry Barlow and Eliot Wigginton (before he was discovered as a child molester) plus dancing with Billy Bragg at the 40 Watt, seeing Love Tractor and Pylon, managing Trinket and seeing so many performances - all priceless memories.

Those were the days of fanzines and chap books, grassroots political organizing, a new environmental awakening, Flicker and the beginning of the Mental Health Benefits. Flagpole sponsored “Jesus Christ Superstar: A Resurrection” at South By Southwest in Austin, TX; Michael Stipe introduced Al Gore at a rally for then-candidate Bill Clinton at UGA, and twice-Mayor Gwen O’Looney greeted constituents at the 40 Watt Club on occasion. Flagpole opened a door for me to this world, and I must say I owe my liberal awakening to Greenia, who had an uncanny knack of being able to pick people apart to reveal their potential.

So, I am honored to have been part of Flagpole’s history. It introduced me to friends I still know and, wondrously, most are still bound to this tiny town. Mazel tov! Here’s to the next 20 years!

Hillary Meister was Music Editor of Flagpole from 1993 to 1995 and is now the Online Content Editor for Network Communications, Inc. (home and design and home improvement mags) and a freelance writer living in Atlanta.

Managing Editor Robin Littlefield (l) with contributing writer Molly McCommons.

Robin Littlefield

She Checked Syntax With One Hand And The Bank Balance With The Other

I started at Flagpole as Copy Editor in 1993 after my Athens Observer colleagues and I walked out en masse from that paper following a change in management. In other words, we refused to work without Pete. Pete got me the job at Flagpole, which was then next to Dixon’s Bicycles on Broad Street. I recall that I was paid $90 per week - with the added perk that we were allowed (grudgingly) to use the building’s sole bathroom at Dixon’s.

Anyway, you wouldn’t think I would have fit in with my Athens-hipster coworkers - and you’d be right! I was too naïve to notice, though, and before long, I was mis-fitting in with the best misfits in town. I performed my duties diligently for my new boss - although, frankly, I wasn’t really sure for the first year or so what my duties were or who my boss was.

Dennis Greenia was Publisher then, and he was sort of like the Godfather - and God help you if he asked you to take a meeting at the Globe with him. You’d stumble out into the Lumpkin Street sunlight three hours later, wondering how you had just agreed to write the entire upcoming “Election Edition” or “Local Music Special Edition” or “Green Issue” or something. After we upsized and moved the office to its current Foundry Street location, Dennis took several of us behind the building - one by one: Pete, Alicia, and me. And there, on the crumbling brick wall next to the railroad tracks, he made us members of the newly-formed “Management Committee.” (See? Very Godfatherly!)

Pretty soon, Dennis was out, and Pete, Alicia, and I were the management committee. I was already Managing Editor by that point, but I was put in charge of the company’s finances. Without slamming previous management… my Lord!

Still, Pete, Alicia and I faced the music and got us right with the IRS and the printers. One Friday afternoon, Pete remarked with relief that we had managed to steer ourselves “out of the ditch.” Alicia followed with “…and into the path of an oncoming truck!”

So it was an awful lot of work, but it was lots of fun, too - especially at the holidays. One Christmas, a co-worker found a tape of really annoying novelty Christmas songs in a really trendy dumpster downtown. Everyone at the office loathed this tape, so naturally Alicia and I insisted that it be played full blast all day every day throughout the Christmas season. The entire office was treated to such songs as the unintentionally menacing “Santa Mouse,” the trippy, freaky “Santa Claus’ Party” and the unforgiveable “It’s Absolutely Christmastime with Eloise.” So many Christmas seasons later, I still remember every song! (Actually, I don’t have a choice, because not only is track after gosh-awful track still burned into my brain, but I’m forced to rely on my memories because the tape itself mysteriously disappeared after just two seasons with us, i.e., we think Larry trashed it.)

Now, as I finish law school and prepare to take the bar exam, I’ve contacted my previous employers - including the daily papers - to inform them that the bar examiners will be calling to check that I possess the “appropriate character and fitness” to be a lawyer. When I called the Banner-Herald personnel director (a woman with whom I was on a friendly, first-name basis), I said, “Hey! It’s Robin Littlefield!” She said, “Hmmph. Well, I certainly don’t remember you, and I know everyone who used to work here.” Dang! In contrast, even though I haven’t worked at Flagpole for years, I’m in constant touch, and I’ve turned to Pete and Alicia at the lowest times of my life - when my marriage broke up, my father died, my mother got sick - because we were a family. No, wait: We ARE a family. Happy Anniversary, Flagpole.

Robin Littlefield worked at The Red & Black, The Athens Observer and The Athens Banner-Herald before becoming Flagpole Managing Editor from 1994 to 1998. She is now finishing law school in Oregon and studying for the bar.

Mayor Gwen O’Looney with Editor Richard Fausset and illustrator Daniel Fell, along about the time of Flagpole’s 10th anniversary.

Richard Fausset

None Of It Really Happened: An Anti-Reminiscence

I did not serve as editor of the Flagpole in the mid-to-late 1990s.

The paper you are holding in your hands is an illusion. If you are online, you are actually looking at a humorous snapshot of a kitten that appears to be removing the back of a personal computer with a screwdriver. Snap out of it.

Flagpole is a lie built on a myth. Immediately disabuse yourself of the idea that you are living in a small Deep South city that boasts a feminist flying trapeze troupe, a “Barcafecinema” (whatever that is) and a vegetarian restaurant that can make passable gravy out of little more than nutritional yeast and soy sauce. If you buy in to such balderdash, you are obviously very, very high.

There is no such man as Pete McCommons. That voice you hear when you call the office and ask for Flagpole’s publisher is generated by computer. Alternative weeklies are never run by guys with mellifluous Southern accents - even in the South. They are run by people who sound like Al Pacino’s character in Dog Day Afternoon. No alt-weekly publisher sounds like an aristocratic Foghorn Leghorn on barbiturates.

The writer you know as “Ort” does not exist. There is no beloved local eccentric with a near-infinite knowledge of low-power AM radio stations, novelty pop singles of the 1950s and the Sumerian roots of Lambic beers. That big, bearded man sitting at the bar next to you, giving off the wild-eyed vibe of a Russian mystic and prattling on about dry-hopping, is actually Michael Stipe.

Stipe assumes such ingenious disguises in order to mingle easily among the common folk. It is a custom he learned from his friend Abdullah II, King of Jordan.

Anyhow, back to me. I couldn’t have been Editor of the Flagpole in the 1990s, because the 1990s did not happen in Athens.

There was a 1980s, which you’ve probably heard about. This was the storied era when Athens’ hipsters - touchingly referred to by locals, back then, as “them queers”- sported asymmetric haircuts and made records that sounded like someone was holding a puppy’s paw over a Bunsen burner.

Then - poof! - suddenly everybody woke up, and it was 2002. Hello, Bubba Sparxxx!

With that said, Athens, don’t get your panties in an ontological wad. The Dairy Queen on the 1000 block of West Broad Street is real. The “game day condo” phenomenon is very real. UGA’s Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall may be rumored to be an antenna for channeling malevolent alien energy from distant galaxies, but that does not mean that it is not terrifyingly real.

If you insist that this newspaper does exist, then I will cop to having a vague recollection of the infamous bag of Flagpole hate mail. “Liberal idiot” rings a bell. So does a charge of “anti-jam-band bias.” Oh, and, of course, that old chestnut, “Niger [sic] Lover.”

In fact, I do have a weak spot for that uranium-exporting gem of a nation. In soccer, I always root for them over Burkina Faso. And I understand downtown Niamey is lovely in the springtime.

In spite of his denials, Richard Fausset was Editor of Flagpole from 1997 to 1999. He is presently Atlanta Bureau Chief for the Los Angeles Times and does not deny living near the Atlanta zoo.

Three Flagpole stalwarts: (l-r) Music Writer/ Editor Jason Slatton, Office Manager/ Writer/ Ad Rep Russ Hallauer and Writer/ Movie Dope/ Music Editor Marc Pilvinsky.

Russ Hallauer

He Dared To Say The B-52’s Sucked

I moved to Athens in August ’95. I wore a nice suit to interview with Alicia Nickles. I wanted a position in Flagpole’s advertising department. I had a spiffy business degree, but I had spent years as a roofer/ musician, not exactly sharpening my skills in the nine-to-five world. The dust on my diploma was getting thick.

The suit did the trick. Or, they were desperate. I got the job. The pay was dismal. The benefits package was an arrangement with The Grit for Flagpole employees to get a few free meals a month. Who needs health insurance when you can have a Golden Bowl and a few Staropramens, right?

As Classifieds Manager/ Receptionist, I opened the office, answered phones and greeted visitors from my desk in the lobby. Former Publisher Dennis Greenia had neglected to tell me that Flagpole’s Beer Editor often crashed at the office after a night of research. Nothing will wake you up quicker than opening the office on your third day at the job and finding Ort in his underwear.

Somewhere along the way, I moved upstairs and starting selling display ads. As an ad rep I met dozens of business owners and started to really learn about Athens. During this time, I also moonlighted as the writer for the fledgling ABC Flagpole music listings section. I wrote that the B-52’s sucked. That didn’t go over well. I wrote that many bands sucked. I pissed off many. I like to think that my stint in the editorial department led to standards being put in place that make ABC the reliable, objective listing of bands it is today.

My fondest/ blurriest memory is of a Flagpole holiday party. It was held in the office. The place was stuffed with politicians, musicians and business owners. Pete McCommons’ office had been taken over by guests and resembled a scene from Still Smokin’. One of my clients was not impressed, but I was determined to be an accommodating host to all our guests. I quietly pointed out to Cheech, Chong and friends that there was a huge window in Pete’s office that was open to the main party area. Maybe the bong could be taken upstairs to the production department in order to be a little more discreet. Such was life at Flagpole, the beauty of Athens in all shapes and sizes.

The people I met working at Flagpole are the foundations for my love of Athens. Most people would consider salary and benefits when reflecting on a past job, but those things are way off in the distance when it comes to my recollection of Flagpole. The crash course on being an Athenian was much more important. I have been thrilled to see Flagpole’s success over the years. It’s wonderful to see Flagpole employees raising families and knowing that they have more than Golden Bowls and Staropramen to live on these days.

Happy birthday, Flagpole. Here’s to many more.

Russ Hallauer was Office and Classifieds Manager, compiled ABC and sold advertising at Flagpole from 1995 to 1999. He is now a proud daddy of two, an account executive at Comcast Spotlight, President of Ghostmeat Records and an AthFest board member.

Ballard was always ready to play.

Ballard Lesemann

Almost There: Deadlines in the Cold, Dusty Basement

As I look back on my first few weeks as an official Flagpole writer, three things come to mind: red brick dust, Ort’s deep voice in the distance and the sound of Entertainment Editor Marc Pilvinsky’s shoes on the wooden staircase as he walked into the Flagpole basement on Foundry Street.

Barely qualified, save for an amateur local TV show called “Box Office Banter,” I began a six-year run at Flagpole as a replacement movie reviewer in the fall of 1996. Fellow musician Timothy Bracey had previously worked in the footsteps of Steve Crawford (the original Mr. Movie Dope) as Flagpole’s main film critic. I was eager and anxious to dive into the weekly routine of watching, summarizing and critiquing new releases and previewing soon-to-be-released flicks. In those days, I had no email or home computer, and no Internet access (at home or at the office) - just a stack of Preview magazines and a well-thumbed copy of Roger Ebert’s latest compilation of reviews for reference.

In the musty/ dusty basement I wrote my mini-reviews on a small, old Mac on Monday mornings as fast I could, usually surrounded by powdery dust from the brick walls (they’d crumble gently any time a big truck rumbled past on East Broad Street), stacks of demo tapes, manila envelopes, broken chairs and a large bench seat retrieved from the old Flagpole van. It was quiet, spooky and very cold down there. I liked it. The bumps through the ceiling from the hustle-bustle upstairs blended with the chatter and guffaws from the various editors’ offices and William Orten “Ort” Carlton’s occasionally bellowed “Hell-loooooo!”

I usually got into the basement to write around 9 a.m. on Mondays (I had from Friday evening to Sunday evening to catch all of the new opening weekend flicks). I think my deadline was at noon. By 11 a.m. or so, Pilvinsky would start his series of mild-mannered visits down the stairs.

“How’s it coming along?” he’d ask.

“Almost there!” was my ready reply. And I was, but I was always hauling ass to get that rough draft in on time. It became a relatively smooth weekly routine. Sweating over deadlines with weird noises in the background - that’s a big Flagpole memory for me.

Ballard was Music Editor during 2001 and 2002 while playing in various bands. He is now Music Editor at the Charleston City Paper in his hometown, Charleston, SC.