Talk of the Town - Goodbye, Charlie the Tuna October 23 2003

Deep-six the fish. Greater Atlanta, culturally lovelorn metropolis in search of an attraction, is obsessed with aquariums. A Big Tank think tank mentality, fueled by chambre de commerce brio, believes a glassy sandbar and gill will provide a tourist magnet to rival the one we already have, say, in the state-of-the-art Cyclorama opened during Grover Cleveland’s second administration.

Bulletin from the Department of Non Sequiturs: We’re landlocked. Hopelessly, dryly, 300 miles from a jellyfish sting, not-the-stuff-of-Beach-Boys-lyrics, away from the ocean. The polluted river dribbling ‘round town is a grim prototype for what local developers hope to achieve on a grand scale. And don’t even mention Lake Lanier. It’s fake — those islands used to be hilltops.

Making an aquarium Atlanta’s main attraction would be like having Paris host the John Wayne Cultural Center. Or London as headquarters of the World Dental Association. There’s just no logical connection.

And what’s boosterism’s answer to all this? “Hey, they did it in Chattanooga!” When is the last time anyone offered that as a rationale?

Which brings us back to dough, namely the lack of tourist revenue in a region that got its industrial start as the end of a railroad line, was barbecued by W.T. Sherman, and now hosts a downtown as exciting as sudden-death data processing.

What hope can there be for a region buried in smog, maniacally fouling what few natural resources it has left, sickening its residents in well-publicized cases of food poisoning ...

Wait, that’s it. We’ll put Atlanta on the map with germs! Dozens of other cities tout their rivers, restaurants and cultural merits. We’ll become famous as host to Big Bad Bugs.

At least that’s what I imagine someone said, over at the Centers for Disease (“The Word ‘Oops’ is not in our Mission Statement”) Control and Prevention. Which raises a question: Why is it Centers, plural? Baseball doesn’t have home plates. You can only have one center.

Anyway, the CDC has announced plans for a new tourist attraction. It’s sure to be an improvement over what they have now.

What? You’ve never visited the Global Health Odyssey? The CDC’s current museum has a dynamic moniker reminiscent of those cheery, revolving platform, corporate-sponsored exhibits the 7-year-old me saw at the 1964 World’s Fair. (“By the year 2000, pollution and traffic will be a thing of the past as clean, cloud-powered personal hovercraft soar above crime-free cities!”)

The CDC hasn’t announced the name for the new visitor’s center — scheduled to open in 2005 — but it’s supposed to include a replica of those real-life laboratories where researchers handle honest-to-goodness killer pathogens.

If they spare no expense and go the Colonial Williamsburg route, this could include scientist re-enactors in lab coats going about their pseudo-business. This is fine, but it still lacks the air of excitement that draws Americans to theme parks. We want higher roller coasters, faster rides and hotter hot sauce on the nachos supreme. Should we expect any less dangerous entertainment value from one of the nation’s leading health agencies?

Folks at the CDC want to make the new attraction, “a world-class destination that will be a must-see place for tourists,” and doubtless it will be — particularly among visiting research fellows from the Osama bin Laden Institute For Mass Destruction and Badly Produced Videos.

No one’s floated a name for the visitor’s center, but how about ToxinWorld? Several highlights come to mind:

- Spore-O-Rama. Thrill seekers participating in this tribute to flighty bacillus anthrax would experience spore release in a confined room, from the kind of business envelope normally sent to members of Congress by terrorists. Correctly guess the exact number of spores poofed into the air (Clue: It’s somewhere around 200 billion!) and you’ll be the first to receive penicillin. Supplies limited.

- Planet Botulism — Botox? Yotox! Sure, it’s the deadliest pathogen known, with artfully distributed quantities capable of wiping out an entire city, but botulinum toxin can also iron out the wrinkles of narcissists willing to endure mild facial paralysis in a vain attempt to pretend they aren’t going to die some day. Take a shot right in the kisser at an on-premises botox party and let the numbness begin. Long-term side effects not yet included.

- WMD Mystery Theater — You decide whodunit in this production of Dial M For Misinformation, a thriller ripped from the headlines. Did Saddam Hussein really have bioweapons, or was the CIA misled by garbled reports about really old Munster cheese in the former Iraqi strongman’s fridge? Proceeds will defray the $87 billion price tag for reconstruction of You Know Where.

- Dinner On Your Own — May we recommend the salsa and green onion? Call us with an update from the emergency room, if there’s still time.

glen.slattery@creativeloafing.com

Glen Slattery is under the microscope in Alpharetta.