The 100 Guy

I’ve been a TV political news junkie since age 11, watching any available local or national news.

In 2003, I spent three memorable half days with former Attorney General Griffin Bell, recording a one-hour DVD distributed on his 85th birthday to his law partners at King & Spalding.

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson met at the 1775 Continental Congress in Philadelphia and became close friends. They survived disagreements on many subjects, but on one they were aligned:

Thirteen men gathered last week for a special dinner in Morningside Kitchen’s private back room to talk about a subject we rarely discuss: the impact our fathers had on us.

The first time I saw The Allman Brothers Band should’ve been when I was 13.

After nearly four years of producing The Atlanta 100 every week, we’re testing new designs. We’d like your input.

Three years ago, I bought three rows at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre, inviting 60 of my closest friends to a pre-party at Rhodes Hall for what many of us feared might be the last show of a musician whose voice, songs and music provided the soundtrack of my life.

When I was a legal reporter, my neighbor’s high-profile law firm was about to be exposed in a devastating story in American Lawyer magazine. He’d call nightly for media advice.

The Atlanta 100 team was in Seattle last week, as The 100 Companies served as premier sponsor for PRSA’s Counselors Academy. Thirteen members are publishing 100s in their markets – now stretching from Denver to Dubai, with The Houston 100 launching in late April.

Twenty years ago, we moved our staff into downtown’s historic Flatiron Building. Rents were cheap, parking was easy and sidewalks were empty at night. Like many businesses, we later moved offices to Midtown and then the Westside.

We bought seats on Row D at the Fox Theatre for Monday’s concert tribute to Col. Bruce Hampton’s 70th birthday – we’d been groovin’ to his bands since the mid-1970s – with no inkling we’d be seeing the “godfather of jambands” for the last time.

Twenty-five years ago Sunday, I looked out from my former AJC office and witnessed horror: swarms of rioters chasing and beating people in downtown Atlanta following the Rodney King verdict.

I still remember my high school civics teacher Dave Drake’s final exam question: “What does it mean to say America evolved in a Hamiltonian manner under a Jeffersonian banner?”

Did you have bacon and eggs for breakfast today? If so, thank the “Father of PR,” Edward Bernays.

Amanda and Thomas Schroder met as high school sophomores at a basketball game and have been inseparable since. They were present when UNC lost last year’s championship game on a last second shot in Houston.

I’ve always been semi-ashamed of an all-night caper I organized in college.

As AJC Creative Director in 1992, I was supposed to be, well, creative. My boss offered me an office, so I painted the drab white walls my favorite color: teal.

Forty three years ago this week Alex Cooley opened his Electric Ballroom, Atlanta’s legendary rock venue, in Midtown’s Georgian Terrace Hotel.

Like many native Atlantans, my first taste of pork barbeque was at Old Hickory House, which used to have 14 locations but now only has one, in Tucker.

In our first Atlanta Technical School bricklaying class, our teacher emphasized a fundamental masonry lesson we later thought analogous to humanity.

As mischievous 10-year-old boys on weekend nights, our only connections to the outside world were TV, radio or the telephone.

Yes, football’s just a game, but to a nine-year-old whose father bought season tickets in 1966, I was imprinted early as a deeply devoted Falcons fan – a condition I’ve endured for 51 years.

I proudly wore my Atlanta Falcons cap last week in Seattle – home of the Seahawks, whom our team soundly defeated on our way to Sunday’s Super Bowl.

While most of my media career was spent with mainstream daily newspapers, my first exposure was with Atlanta’s hippie newspaper from the 1970s, The Great Speckled Bird.

My dad wanted his five kids to be lawyers or doctors. “That way, you’ll be a professional, you’ll have a license and you can never be fired by anyone,” he’d remind us as we neared college.

Monday night, we were in one of my favorite cities to celebrate the launch of The New Orleans 100, our 10th member of The 100 Companies network sparked by SPR Atlanta’s 2013 launch of The Atlanta 100. In honor of this newest member, we attended – appropriate for the Crescent City – a fun party.

Twenty-two years ago, I launched a neighborhood newspaper, mailed to 10,000 homes and stacked in intown Atlanta stores and restaurants. I sat back, hoping my phone would ring.

I admire our world’s religions for different reasons.

Each Thursday in 2016 we delivered you a new issue of The Atlanta 100, yet next Thursday we will not, celebrating Thanksgiving. On Thursday, Dec. 1, we’ll deliver our first Gift Guide, then resume weekly issues December 8.

I’ve been a national election junkie since I was a child, staying up late to watch our nation’s quadrennial plebiscite. The only national campaign for which I actually volunteered was Jimmy Carter’s, our state’s homeboy. I even followed him to the convention.