Visiting the Happiness Factory

'Ark came up with the perfect New Year's plan, one that probably started percolating in August when we daytripped to Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi's fabulous Soul Stew Revival shows in New Hampshire and Cape Cod. Every year, they've been doing a special year-end show on their turf and so when the Fabulous Fox Theatre announced this year's Dec. 31 bill, it wasn't a hard decision to make to go.

We talked great EC friend and general sweetheart Susan, the Georgia peach, into meeting up with us for some extra goodness. So we all separately made our way to one of my least favorite cities.

To give some fairly earned props, the people were tremendously nice and we got some great advice and even history lessons when we asked questions about the area. And it IS the Coca-Cola capitol! We went over to the Coca-Cola factory, which is where this particular blog's title comes from, and got a brief history of the beverage and all the pop culture and memorabilia associated with it. Very cool stuff.

The funniest thing about the museum/tour is that there is much about Coke in glass bottles ... but who ever sees those? It must be about one percent of their actual manufacturing, since most Coke is in cans or plastic bottles. Park searches far and wide for the glass variations. Luckily 'Ark has one particularly good source at home.

One of the most fun parts, of course, is the tasting room which sports fountain drinks from Coke-related enterprises around the world. There was a bitter lemon drink called Krest that Susan really liked. But it was more fun to watch people drink the ones that didn't taste so good. Case in point: Italy's Beverly. Everyone's face puckered up in chagrin when the taste buds got a hold of that so-called beverage. 'Ark had to bribe me into tasting it, 'cause frankly why else would you after watching every single people who tried it bellow "Yuck!"

(Side note: While Googling a photo of said concoction, found this description in someone else's blog -- "Worst. Drink. Ever. I hope whoever concocted Italy’s Beverly was immediately fired and punched in the face.")

They top off the tour by giving away glass bottles of Coke -- my fave thing in the whole world to imbibe -- so at least we could wash that Beverly away. And then you enter the gift shop -- the music swells up ... ahhhhh ahhhhhhhhh! We couldn't get the M5s (the special aluminum bottles with glow-in-the-dark designs used in European clubs), but they did have Coke in aluminum bottles. The taste out of that was amazing! Funnily enough, it very quickly loses its fizz so you have to down it quickly.

One line for Varsity, the famous long-standing hamburger/hot dog joint. Over-rated!!! If you can't be bothered to even melt cheese on a burger, how good can you be? (OK, two lines.)

Then off to the Fabulous Fox (and it IS Fabulous) for the show. The Arabian courtyard-like auditorium reminded me a lot of Mexico at Epcot center with its rich blue sky and twinkling stars. But all eyes turned the stage for the Soul Stew Revival and once again the best couple in rock 'n' roll delivered!

Derek and Susan each played songs from their respective new albums to open the show, and they sounded fresh and exciting. They whipped up great versions of the Soul Stew standards "Sugar" and "People," but then came the surprises. A cover of the Allman Brothers "Dreams" drove the crowd in a frenzy just in time for midnight, when a netful of balloons were released upon us.

And then more shockers -- a batch of Beatles covers, "I've Got a Feeling" (which I somehow presciently predicted ... by accident ... before the show) and "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window." Even got 'Ark to finally enjoy "Hey Jude" by acting out the lyrics as though he was Jude and I was the song's narrator. My fave part: Actualizing "The movement you need is on your shoulder" and then shrugging shoulders like "what does that mean?"

We've been saying that watching Derek with his band is great, and seeing Susan with her band is too, but together it's 1 + 1 = 3. It's more like 11.

Suffered some physical and transportational ailments after the show, but it won't dim the memories one bit! I should take this time to also commend World's Best Boyfriend, especially since all the women I've told the story to since have been cooing about it. My flight out of Atlanta got canceled. Now 'Ark was already at least 90 minutes away from the airport heading back to Virginia, but he basically stayed where he was until he was sure I was on a plane and not stuck in Atlanta on my own. And he didn't tell me he was doing that, it wasn't until I did some calculations about his ETA on arriving home (yuck, math!) that I figured it out. Ain't nothin' like the real thing, baybee...