R.M.J.'s SURGE Hunt 2003
R.M.J. recently took a trip to the holy land of SURGE fans, Atlanta! He visited our friends at Coca-Cola Headquarters and the World of Coca-Cola He shares a report and some great photos of his trip below:
This is a chronicling of my 9-day excursion to my ol' collegetown of Atlanta, GA., from the week of December 16, 2003. While I had many reasons for this particular trip, one of the primary reasons I returned to Georgia's capital was to pay a little visit to the World Of Coca-Cola Museum, and the Coke World Headquarters, the place where the concept of SURGE was first visualized... I am writing this report to let ya’ all know the happenings that took place. Here’s how it all went down…
Jeff, a fellow cartoonist/illustrator, SURGE fanatic and one of my longtime best friends, came and picked me up from my apartment in Macon… The trip from Macon to Atlanta was pretty brief, only an hour and some change. Once there, we got situated, and I reunited with a load of people I hadn’t seen since 1999. We sat and drew, caught up on old times, and traded artwork. I told ‘em about S.S.org, gave ‘em the address, and they LOVED IT (well, who wouldn’t, honestly?). I wanted to get in touch with other classmates from the past, and so we went to my old school, the Atlanta College of Art.
Now this was an unsettling surprise… 35 Lombardy Way... this is the place, but... where's the dorm?... Behold--my old dorm building was torn down! The High Museum Of Art (the big white building on the left) is going to be expanded, so they're making room for it. They’d built a newer dormitory nearby for the kids, but… once, I used to live there, in that very building… The relevance of this incident to this story is quite simple... That building was the birthplace of countless SURGE-related memories for my friends and I, many years ago… Nights of sipping cold ones by green lava-light, while incense lingers in my dark dormroom lair… Open-microphone nights in the dorm cellar with a big 2-liter bottle of good, sweet green ambrosia in one hand, and a mic in the other, a crowd of fellow students holding up lighters… In college, I had SURGE “drinking buddies”… We felt like beer-swilling, crotch-scratching, football-screaming alpha-males in my old dorm, except we didn’t scratch our crotches, we didn’t watch (or scream at) football, and we didn’t swill beer… We were alpha-males who drew pictures, watched animated films, talked about philosophies, painters of the past, and our own possible futures, rocked to techno, and swilled SURGE… It’s just gone now… I still have those memories, though… Wow… well, needless to say, after this sight, I REALLY needed a carbonated green pick-me-up in a can… Instead I went back to Jeff's and drew for a while.
Near the end of the week, Jeff and I geared up to visit the Museum and Headquarters. The whole trip to the Midtown Area, I have to admit, I had all the members of the S.S. forums on my mind... I wish you could've been on this little adventure with me. Anyway, our first stop was the Museum.
The World Of Coca-Cola (404) 676-5151 www.woccatlanta.com
I have been to the World of Coca Cola a few times before, when I was much younger. It's actually near the location of the pharmacy where Coca-Cola was first served, back in 1886. I remember everything in this museum being much bigger than it was this time around. I was planning to be all covert and sneak some snapshots here and there once inside, but thankfully, the attendant informed me that I could take all the photos I wanted. (That was cool.) There were the same old international red banners, red cans, red bottles, paintings of Santa Claus and his glass Coke bottle, red toy trucks, red antiquated drink machines, red, red, red. I like learning the history of Coke (and the product itself), but after a few minutes, the lack of anything fluoresent green in any room was starting to make me feel like a bull looking at a matador's crimson cape (that means I was getting MAD, 270... LOL... I joke.). I saw the "Bottling Fantasy" machine, a huge, glistening Dr. Seuss-like contraption with shimmering glass Coke bottles moving all around the room in a factory-like setting. After seeing this whimsical mechanism again, I took five or so minutes to try and find Willy Wonka instead. :P
The snozzberries taste like snozzberries!
Eventually, I arrived in the "Club Coca-Cola" Fountain Room. Man, this place has gotten smaller, or I'm just that much taller than before... This is a big, dark room, where there are eight futuristic vats of bubbling "soda" on the wall. When you place a cup in the sensor-area, it activates automated drink-dispensers for that specific drink that fire streams of soda THROUGH THE AIR, into a funnel-like area in front of your cup, which is promptly filled. There's neon and sound-effects a-plenty. It's pretty cool.
The neon signs and liquid vats light up when you put a cup on the sensor.
But I have seen all this before; I'm looking for something a bit more... green. On the opposite side of the room, there were the standard drink fountains. THIS is my destination. I was excited... If there's some SURGE, it would be in one of these fountains. I tried to walk calmly, although swiftly, ducking and dodging through the crowded area like a raptor in the tall grass toward an unsuspecting prey (heh heh), checking all the labels on each fountain, no... no... no... IT'S GREEN!-- no, just Mello-Yello... (*note: Oddly enough, there was no "Coke 2" to be found...) I then checked them all again... By now I'm hoping for salvation, and fighting off salivation. After a third scan of the fountains, the truth became clear... there was no SURGE...
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I checked the next room, "Tastes Of The World", with soda fountains dispensing drinks from around the globe. I looked them over as well, but still, nothing. There were the usual Unusual names and flavors abounding, but by now, I'm feeling like my brain's in a blender. No SURGE. Not even any URGE from Norway! Of course, they served our SURGE on tap back when I was last here, which was years ago. What is baffling to me is: If SURGE is still produced in syrup form today, as they've said to us all, then why wouldn't it at least be available in a fountain IN THE COKE MUSEUM, where "all things Coca-Cola" are recorded and displayed? Come to think of it, there was nothing green in the place except the occasional Sprite or Mello-Yello decal or T-shirt. I mean, looking around, I didn't see a single piece of SURGE memorabilia anywhere, and believe me, I WAS LOOKING. There was no mention of SURGE anywhere. I asked a uniformed staff member, a petit, curly-haired girl, about SURGE, and if it was anywhere in the building, even in souvenir form. She hadn't seen any. I asked her if she liked SURGE when it was around, and she said "kind of". ...After that, I think I might have scared her... She did promise me that she'd visit the site, though!
I took a snapshot with the big polarbear who always drinks a Coke on the Christmas commercials, then smiles and goes "Mmmmm". Sure, I was really upset, but I told the bear about it, and he said (get this) "I wish they'd bring SURGE back, too. I really don't like Coke ALL THE TIME." That cheered me up a little.
Me and my cool-ass pal.
With that, we headed downtown to the Coca-Cola H.Q... This is a pretty tall building, especially when you're standing at the base of it. I discovered I couldn't take pictures inside, so I left the camera with Jeff. I couldn't even get in contact with anyone but the front desk, but he was pretty helpful. I tried to convince him that I wasn't some crazed dude from off the street, trying to distribute flyers... well, actually, technically, I suppose I was... Nah, I was professional, as a representative of S.S.org... I asked him the standard questions (Did you like SURGE?... Do you want it back?... Will you check out this site?... Will you tell your friends and co-workers?... etc.) and he got a big stack of my flyers. He seemed sincere, and I have a feeling he didn't trash them after I left. I can only hope that word of our cause spreads even more throughout that building... Once outside, I took some photos up-close of the giant painted bottles in the window, and a ground-eye view of the building...
All Your Surge are belong to US.
So, to sum it all up, friends... there was no SURGE at the World of Coke, despite what I was told over the telephone while I was in Atlanta... But there is hope, as it will always spring eternal. You see, this gives me some planning time to again return to Headquarters in the near future (I got my point across to the receptionist... the front desk definitely knows who the hell we are NOW! There's a bunch of flyers on their BULLETIN BOARD at this moment.) To be completely honest, I'd like to organize a group of members from SaveSurge.org to meet someday in Atlanta for an official trip to H.Q., and a meeting with someone of importance... (who's interested?) But more importantly, I discovered something, something that is so meaningful, something that holds true even today, as we sit in front of our computer monitors, thirsty for a single beverage... I realized that the vitality, the essence, the energy, the lifeforce that is inherent in every can of SURGE is the same trembly, crazy, ecstatic feeling you get when you reminisce and reflect on all the memories you have had with it. It's great times with friends, seizing the moment, living like you've never lived before, living like you never will again, pure joy! I think that's why all you can do is scream "SUURRGE!!!"... nothing else can fully encompass the sensation. I want you to take a moment and really think about it, right now. Truthfully, it is a soda. However, it is simultaneously so much more. We know it is more than just a soda whenever we recall the countless good times with good friends, the times from ages past. We know it is more than just a soda when we remember how good it made us feel, how right the world seemed when we had that exuberant electricity in a can... We know it is more than just a soda when every good memory we can clearly remember somehow involves SURGE... We know it is more than a mere soda whenever we look at ourselves and our respective accomplishments, and the way we exercise our voices, our creativity, our rights, our very spirits, to resurrect a rush we have no reason to be denied. LOOK AT US-- Can any of you find a soda-saving website nearly as huge as this one? Can you name another beverage with this great of a following? Would you drive cross-country for any other drink? I didn't think so. Coca-Cola KNOWS this, and since they now know this, that is PROGRESS. We are making progress, all of us. Coca-Cola, if you are reading this, we love ya, you're just not giving US what we'd gladly, abundantly pay you for... At the Coke Museum, they played that old song all about Coke... "I'd like to teach the world to sing"... and something about "apple trees and honeybees and snow-white turtledoves"... Now, that's all well and good, but We are the ones who sing "I'd like to buy the world a SURGE"... We have just as great a craving as any other fan who lives for Coke, Tropicana, Soy Milk, Zima, Egg-Nog, beer, mineral water, or anything. And WE are doing something about it! That puts us well beyond any mere "fan". It's difficult to explain it, but I'm trying. We deserve our favorite soda, too, just like everyone else has theirs. Coke will have no choice but to see and hear us soon, and furthermore, RESPOND, because we're not stopping, and we're only going to get bigger and louder...
To conclude, I know there's no need for me to ask you to keep at it, as I am trying to do. I know you all will keep fighting the good fight. You all want SURGE too... if you didn't, you wouldn't be here, at this site, reading this article. I really wish my efforts in Atlanta had been more fruitful, but it is not over. We can't stop until... well... our thirsts are quenched! Let us continue in our fight to resurrect the Rush! Later, mammals...
~R.M.J.
Great work, R.M.J!
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