Who knew fireplay, acrobatics and elaborate sets were requirements for being the best stripper you can be?
See more photos from the Exotic Dancer National Championships.
(Photo by TL Pixley)
Love and spring and street festivals — they all go hand-in-hand. This year’s Inman Park Parade and Festival brought the sun-hungry out in droves. And in costume. Check out more photos from the neighborhood festival.
DAN DEACON IN CONCERT AT THE MASQUERADE: He’s the one with the luminous green skull floating over his head. Do you realize how difficult is it to get to sleep at night with a luminous green skull floating over your head?
Check out more photos from this show.
(Photo by Matt Miller)
FROLICON 2009 AT A HOTEL NEAR THE AIRPORT: Contestants warming up for the Most Spankable Ass competition.
And you thought we made this shit up.
If you actually want to see more photos from this event, check out our Frolicon gallery.
(Photo by Joeff Davis)
PROTESTING CALIFORNIA’S GAY MARRIAGE BAN AT THE CAPITOL SATURDAY: He’s here. Get used to it.
(Photo by Joeff Davis)
I have a polite request of the organizers of the Cabbagetown Chomp & Stomp chili cook-off and festival: Please have more chili next year.
Unfortunately, this writer was among the many attendees of the Cabbagetown Chomp & Stomp chili cook-off who arrived too late to actually eat any chili. By the time I got there (2:30pm) all the chili appeared to have been eaten. I’m not mad, but I did go home and make chili afterwards.
Even chili-less, there was plenty to occupy me, including beer (of which there was plenty on tap), bluegrass music (which I suppose is where the second-half the of Chomp & Stomp come from), and sports. The bobbing-for-brussel-sprouts competition was nice – especially the MC’s deadpan comment to competitors reminding them its not necessary to immerse one’s entire body in water to grab the floating veggies.
It being hipster heaven, every second of the event is documented on Flickr.
BAR FIGHT: This season’s hot new look — leg warmers, shorts, and no shirt.
Creative Loafing and Sarah Palin’s doppelganger wish you and your gun-toting baby mamas a Happy Halloween. Check out more scintillating costume ideas for tonight from the L5P Halloween Parade and Netherworld photos.
And while you’re nursing your monster-themed-martini induced hangover tomorrow morning, check out all the photos from tonight’s Halloween parties on the Sideshow Atlanta photo blog. It’s the cure for what ails you.
(Photo by Joeff Davis)
ART FUSION 40 CELEBRATED WOODRUFF ARTS CENTER’S 40TH YEAR: Atlanta’s moneyed art patrons are notoriously conservative and uptight.
(Photo by Addison Hill)
SCANDINAVIAN FESTIVAL: Hanging with my gnomie
Oglethorpe’s Olde English ambiance seems an odd setting for Scandinavian culture. But if you’re into the lands of the Vikings or just couldn’t afford Taste of Atlanta tickets Saturday, there was Taste of Ikea. I mean, the 14th Annual Scandinavian Festival Atlanta.
Traditionally topped Danish hotdogs, Norwegian lefse and Swedish meatballs were some of the intriguing items on the menu that could be had after waiting in line for an eternity. Although, if you wanted a shorter line you could go for the Swedish pea soup. Intimate (read claustrophobic) classrooms paid cultural homage to each country as unfamiliar languages bounced around the walls.
And then there was Eric the Red in full Viking splendor and scary huge garden gnomes that attracted children like flies. Fun and educational for the whole family! Now we’re ready for a move to soon-to-be tropic aisle Iceland in preparation for global warming’s last stand.
(Photo by Stefani Byrd)
RICHARD MORRIS AND PIG AT NORTH GEORGIA STATE FAIR: “You tell that Obama guy that I don’t look anything like Sarah Palin.”
(Photo by Joeff Davis)
ARTIST SAM FLORES PAINTING LENNY’S: Pretty fancy. What’s next, guys? Doors on the bathroom stalls, perhaps?
(Photo by Alan Friedman)
PAT BERTOLETTI WINS KRYSTAL SQUARE-OFF AT LENOX: They’d never allow this sort of thing at Phipps.
Though it lacks the prestige of competitive hot dog eating (record: 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes), the implied anal torture of competitive jalepeño eating (record: 247 in eight minutes), or the incredulity of competitive cow brain eating (record: 17.7 pounds in 15 minutes), competitive hamburger eating is the pro-eating’s hot new sport.
Witness Saturday’s Atlanta Krystal Square Off qualifier at Lenox, where a crowd gathered to watch pro-eaters Krystal’s signature miniature burgers. The easy winner was Pat Bertoletti. The second-ranked eater in the world, Bertoletti consumed 66 Krystals in just eight minutes, earning him a spot at September 27’s $50,000 world championship in Chattanooga.
» See more pics at CL’s Side Show Atlanta
(Photo by Alan Friedman)
GOV. SONNY PERDUE AND HOUSE SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH: Amused to find out that they’ve suddenly become outsiders, reformers and agents of feminism.
(Photo by Joeff Davis. Galleries of Joeff’s photos from both party conventions can be found on his web site, Joeff.com)
HERE COMES THE (LAND OF THE RISING) SUN: John Lennon (Hidemasa Mabuchi) looks on as George Harrison (Hajime Kubo) wails at the Variety Playhouse.
Japanese beetles, and apparently Japanese Beatles, thrive in America because they have no natural predators here. The Silver Beats, a Beatles tribute band from Tokyo, opened their inaugural U.S. tour in 2007 at the Fox Theatre, and they returned Wednesday to play the Variety Playhouse.
Fans sang along as the band breathed surreal new life into the dusty classics, and heckling front-row frat boys had little effect. The Beats seemed immune to any ridicule because it’s hard to tell how seriously they take themselves. Covering such an iconic band is rife with pitfalls, and despite having the matching suits, shaggy bowl cuts and musical chops to carry that weight, their tongues never strayed far from their cheeks as they ripped through convincing Fab Four covers in rapid-fire succession. They stopped between songs only occasionally for some crowd-teasing banter in halting Japanese accents, and defused the hecklers with their disarming cheer and subtle sarcasm. The feisty Tadaaki Naganuma — Paul — responded to one upstart by teaching the crowd a Japanese word, which sounded a lot like “Eat us.”
Photo by Joeff Davis
The last public lynching in America took place 62 years ago near Atlanta, but the quest for justice continues.
Dorothy Malcom was seven months pregnant on July 25, 1946 when she, her husband Roger, and another couple, George and Mae Murray Dorsey, were lynched at Moore’s Ford Bridge near Monroe. Sixty-two years later, the unborn baby received a name – Justice Malcom.
The surviving members of the Malcom family adopted the name at the rally preceding the fourth annual re-enactment of the lynching Friday. The name reflects the need for justice in the last public lynching case in America, says Georgia Rep. Tyrone Brooks, D. Atlanta. The case remains unsolved.
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BUTCH WALKER AT CENTER STAGE FRIDAY: Walker reads a heartfelt letter of apology to his fans for his role in the 2005 Tommy Lee solo album, Tommyland.
(Photo by Perry Julien)
The American Cichlid Association’s annual convention and competition attracted hundreds of tropical fish hobbyists to the airport Hilton last weekend.
Like a dog show for fish, 350 cichlids vied for top prizes before being auctioned. The road to the top isn’t easy for cichlids, natives mainly in Central and South America, and Africa. They’re judged on body size and color, as well as how they present themselves. Fish have a tendency to hide, says Atlanta Area Aquarium Association co-founder Mark Barnett, and must be conditioned to swimming in a bare tank in a high-traffic area.
In addition to competition, the convention provided networking opportunities for cichlid connoisseurs. Cichlids, which includes angelfish, discus and tilapia, can be selectively bred and even hormone-induced turn particular colors. But there is no drug test for the show, Barnett says, not even for fishy competitors.
(Photo by Dustin Chambers)
“Portrait of Frank Sinatra as a Chinese Sage” wouldn’t be the first thing most people would think paint out old vinyl disc, but that’s what’s been so great about the Vinyl Show – New Street Gallery’s series of shows and silent auctions featuring work by local artists who let their creativity run wild on 12-inch vinyl canvasses.
Saturday’s show featured a variety of media, from paint and acrylic to the more unconventional – vintage porn, cut-outs of Dr. Seuss characters, plastic plants, feathers and cork. Some artworks carried messages of love and commercialism and were melted and decorated to the point the original disc was nowhere to be seen.
New Street co-founder Meshakai Wolf says the vinyl records are an easy, cheap way to level the playing field for artists. Despite the series’s knack for pulling audiences, Saturday’s show was the series’ and the gallery’s last hurrah. Wolf says he plans to focus on New Street’s record label and literary journal after the gallery closes. It’s time, he says, to move on from the financial struggle of maintaining a public gallery space.
(Photo by Dustin Chambers)
(Photo by Perry Julien)
More than 50 same-sex couples walked down the aisle at the Atlanta Pride Festival Commitment Ceremony Saturday.
Some couples donned white gowns, while others wore shorts and sneakers at the rather informal event. With partners exchanging rings and wedding vows, the event closely resembled a wedding ceremony. Couples received commitment certificates and danced to Etta James’s “At Last” – a wedding classic – at the reception.
After the interfaith ceremony, led by a religious leaders wearing rainbow-colored scarves, couples received private blessings in their preferred religious traditions.
For some couples like Ivy Nia and Shaun Everhart, the ceremony was a stepping stone to becoming legally married. Shaun says the couple is thinking of going to California “to make it extra-legal.”
For others like Joanna Camper, who drew a crowd before the event by dressing her partner Anissa in a headpiece with rainbow-colored ribbons and a hand-made shawl, the ceremony was a way to rekindle their commitment.
In a state where gay marriage is outlawed, the ceremony was symbolic rather than legal. But that didn’t stop couples from yelling, “We’re married!” at the end of what the Rev. Tessie Mandeville of Christ Covenant Metropolitan Community Church called a “subversive” ceremony that recognizes love under God without discrimination.
(Photo by Michelle Ye Hee Lee)
(Photo by Tara-Lynne Pixley)
