Hair Rock Weekend
Saturday marked the first ever Dock Rock (2005) at Joe’s place on Lake Lanier. Jess and I made the short drive from Alpharetta, she grading drawings from her Spanish class while I guided the Jeep up Peachtree Industrial. Reports of the expected crowd were varied — “It could be 8 people, it could be 50″ — and when we arrived it turned out that the former was more accurate. A bunch of Joe’s buddies (and a few of mine) were out on and around the dock, floating on tubes, parked under umbrellas, and in one case resting quietly behind a big pink bucket of ice water and beer. Seems about right.
Jess didn’t seem to mind being the only girl present, although her brother Jeff, who had been thinking of coming up, seemed unlikely to once he was informed of that fact. Before long we piled into Joe’s new boat for a cruise around the lake. Bob was driving rather erratically, which seemed strange since he’s pretty skilled with water-craft, so it was clear that they were on some sort of a mission. As the boat stopped so Joe could wave and whistle at a girl on an anchored boat nearby, their goal immediately became clear. They were, of course, looking for girls.
While the girl did wave back, she did not show any signs of jumping into the lake and swimming to our boat (surprising), and Bob eventually pushed the throttle forward and we made our way back to the dock.
Joe’s new boat is fun to ride around in, but in my opinion it’s hard to beat his 90’s-era Yamaha Waverunner. Most modern Jetskis/Waverunners are pretty wide, but 10+ years ago they tended to be rather narrow. In my opinion it makes it more fun to ride, but it’s also very easy to fall off of, particularly when you don’t have any speed. I’ve also only driven it with myself on it. So when Jess and I decided to try taking it for a ride, I figured we’d be in for a challenge. To say the least.
This summer Joe acquired a lift for the jetski, which makes getting on and off pretty easy — in theory you can do this without getting into the water (usually the technique is to push it out into the cove and climb on from the back). So we lowered the jetski down to the water level and I climbed aboard, started the engine, and then Jess climbed on behind me. The goal at this point is to give the jetski some gas and run forward, off the steadying arms of the lift out of the cove and into the lake. I pulled the gas trigger down and we eased forward off the lift before. Up until that moment, Jess hadn’t yet been in the water, but when we were about three feet off the lift the jetski started to list, promptly dumping us into the water. Good start!
Not easily discouraged, I climbed back on and Joe gave instructions for Jess to climb back onto it from behind me. If staying upright while going forward at a very slow rate of speed is difficult, it’s near impossible (for me) to stay upright while you’re not really moving and someone — even of Jess’s size — is trying to pull themselves up. In we went! To be fair, I was even having a hard time staying up by myself, so I took a spin around the channel to re-familiarize myself with the Waverunner before trying again.
Feeling more confident, I pulled back around to the lift where Jess climbed aboard again. Punching the gas, we pulled away and sped out into the channel, amazingly staying upright the entire time as we toured the lake. When I’m out by myself, I like to move from place to place, pausing every now and then to have a look around, but in this case I decided it best that we keep moving. Two dumps in the water were enough.
After a nice ride we cruised back to the dock and I contemplated how we might park gracefully without a third dunking. I decided I’d try to pull up onto the lift in hopes that we’d maintain enough speed to stay upright just until we got into position, which in retrospect was a ridiculous idea. As we approached I realized we were going much too fast to actually stop on the lift, and in letting off the gas to prevent ramming into the dock, I dumped us back into the water again.
Jeff was waiting at the dock to taunt us, but strangely declined an invitation to take the jetski out himself. Perhaps another time. I think Jess enjoyed her jetski ride, though. On the whole.
After a brief pull-up demonstration for reasons which I will not go into here, we moved up the hill for cheeseburgers and hot dogs off the grill, followed by a round of poker — Jess practically cleaned us all out, of course — and then some down time as the party started to split up. Several of them were going to The Boiler Room, a club in Gainesville. Among them was Chad, who modeled his blue suede shoes for the camera (photo above). I also managed to snap one of Jess between shots of Chad and Joe’s ridiculous vogueing.
On Sunday, fueled by an amazingly efficiently-served dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory, we went to see Chris Isaak at Chastain Park. I’ve been wanting to see him for several years now, and while there are more intimate/intense venues than Chastain, it was a really wonderful evening. The 50% chance of rain turned out to be just a chance, and the candles spread throughout the audience complimented his bluesy material beautifully.
Isaak is a remarkable performer, dressed in a blue, silver-sequined jacket and pants, affecting his best western drawl while holding court with the audience, quipping that he was at the venue much earlier in the day, before any of us were, “setting up all these tables.” Musically the show was superb with trademark falsettos, the show shifting from the full band to a moody acoustic set and back again, Isaak marching his guitar out into the crowd on a couple songs (naturally bringing back a rather eager fan for Scotty, his keyboardist, on one trip), sending two of his band members out to sample the eats from the candlelit tables another time.
My thanks to Joe for having us up to the lake, to Jess for being such a pleasure to be with, and to whoever the sponsors were that gave us fans at Chastain Park — it was a warm one.