Fresh Loaf

JASON PYE: No tea and no sympathy for Republicans who neglected to complain about big government when Republicans were the ones growing it.

The Washington Independent’s David Weigel interviewed local Libertarian Jason Pye about mainstream Republicans piggy-backing on the Tea Party protests.

In Pye’s estimation, the participation of people like Newt Gingrich taints the tea party’s small government message:

“Bringing in someone like Gingrich takes away from the message,” said Pye, a Libertarian Party activist and writer who lives in the suburbs outside Georgia’s capital city. “It makes the people putting together the rallies look like pawns, for lack of a better term.”

Last November, we profiled Pye on our list of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People. He has since made us look bad for bestowing that honor upon him by showing up on lists of influential Liberatarian bloggers and writing a column for the Examiner. How un-un-influential of him.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Today’s Air Loaf features CL’s Chanté Lagon speaking with Andisheh Nouraee about some of those profiled in this year’s Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential list. From the unemployed dairy goat, to the bummed out cellist, to the non-racist guy with racist paraphernalia, we celebrate those who lack influence.

Air Loaf is broadcast weekdays on 1690 WMLB-AM at approximately 8:10 a.m., 12:20 p.m. and 6:20 p.m.

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Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People is Creative Loafing’s annual tribute to the Joe and Josephine Averages of the world who try, but don’t necessarily succeed.

Winners 11 through six will be revealed, one-per-day, until Wednesday, November 12, when the 11 Least Influential issue hits newsstands.

PAT LANZO: His latest bar sign name-drop's MLK's assassin. (Photo by Joeff Davis)

No. 6 — Pat Lanzo

Can’t convince people he’s not racist.

Pat Lanzo insists he’s not a racist.

“I believe people are equal,” he says, “As long as they earn their keep as well as me.”

Nevertheless, the proprietor of The Peach bar and restaurant in Paulding County says that people often mistakenly assume he’s a racist.

The main reason, he says, are the signs he posts outside his restaurant. “Damn Yankees May Have Taken Our Niggers But Not Our Guns,” said one. “Obama Gives Us Hope Dreams and Maybe A New Holiday — Thats My Nigger” read another.

“The minute someone says the N-word, you’re labeled racist,” he explains.

But his signs aren’t the only reason some people think Lanzo is racist.

For years Lanzo hosted a neo-Nazi music festival at The Peach. He also displays in his bar a mannequin dressed in Ku Klux Klan garb.

Is Lanzo’s klannequin a gesture of support for the violence perpetrated by the Klan against black people?

“I don’t support violence,” he says. “[The KKK] is part of history. The original form of the Klan was to run Yankees out of the South.”

Lanzo says he welcomes all people at The Peach.

LANZO AND HIS KLANNEQUIN: “The minute someone says the N-word, you’re labeled racist,” he says. (Photo by Joeff Davis)

“I have blacks that come into my restaurant that treat me as equal,” he say proudly, adding, “I’ve had to throw more white niggers out of my restaurant than black ones.”

He does not, he says, have any hate in his heart

“If I was gonna hate anybody, I’d hate my ex-wife.”

See all of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People of 2008.

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Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People is Creative Loafing’s annual tribute to the Joe and Josephine Averages of the world who try, but don’t necessarily succeed.

Winners 11 through six will be revealed, one-per-day, until Wednesday, November 12, when the 11 Least Influential issue hits newsstands.

SHANNON FELSOT: Can't keep her home from being burglarized. (Photo by Joeff Davis)

No. 7 — Shannon Felsot

Can’t stop her home from being burglarized.

In September, Shannon Felsot returned from a mid-afternoon visit to the gym to find her Southwest Atlanta home had been burglarized.

“I didn’t realize anything was wrong until I sat down at my computer and saw it wasn’t there,” she says. “They took all my computers, cameras, my TV, jewelry, pretty much what they could grab.”

A freelance graphic designer who works from home, Felsot’s stolen computers contained years of her work.

“It’s strange to think that someone bought my life for $20 on the street,” she said.

Though the burglary happened in the middle of the day on a busy street, and the thieves used her giant, green “herby curby” garbage bin to wheel away her possessions, no one came forward to identify suspects to police.

Felsot had a sense of foreboding.

“I just knew I was gonna get broken into again,” she says. “They already know what I have and they knew I was going to replace it.”

She was right.

Last week, her house was burglarized again. Her alarm system scared the assailants away, but not before they managed to haul her TV through a window and into some bushes outside her house.

Because her schedule is irregular, Felsot believes the person(s) breaking into her house live(s) or hang-out nearby, attacking her home when they see her leave the house.

She can only speculate, however, because Atlanta Police did not take fingerprints after the burglaries – as is department procedure.

“Me getting broken into is not that severe,” she says. According to Atlanta Police, residential burglary was up 23 percent citywide during the first half of the year — and 40 percent in the police precinct where Felsot’s home is.

Felsot expects to be burglarized again any day.

“I’m constantly waiting for the [alarm company to call].” (more…)

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Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People is Creative Loafing’s annual tribute to the Joe and Josephine Averages of the world who try, but don’t necessarily succeed.

Winners 11 through six will be revealed, one-per-day, until Wednesday, November 12, when the 11 Least Influential issue hits newsstands.

GEORGIA BIGFOOT: "The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it." (Friedrich Nietzche, 1844-1900)

No. 8 — Georgia Bigfoot

Can’t convince anyone he exists.

Pity Georgia Bigfoot.

He wanders our state’s forests in a lonesome purgatory of disbelief.

He has no friends. He has no family. And unlike his prodigiously pawed peers of the Pacific Northwest, he has comparatively few professional Bigfoot-seekers stroking his ego by attempting to track him.

Last summer it looked briefly like his luck had changed. His existence, it seemed, was about to be acknowledged, posthumously.

In August, Clayton County cop Matthew Whitton and former Clayton County corrections officer Rick Dyer claimed to have located the remains of Georgia Bigfoot in North Georgia.

The media was momentarily riveted, and Dyer and Whitton were reportedly paid $50,000 for their find by Bigfoot hunters.

A little late for him to fully enjoy it, it seemed, but Georgia Bigfoot had finally arrived.

Or not.

Dyer’s and Whitton’s manimal carcass was actually a monster costume covered in entrails, then frozen in ice.

When the Sasquatch-sicle finally melted, Dyer and Whitton were outed as hoaxsters. Whitton was fired from the Clayton County police force and the duo were sued for the $50,000.

Forgotten in all the media coverage, however, was the true victim of the hoax: Georgia Bigfoot himself.

Sure, the fact that the corpse was a fake probably means he’s alive, healthy, and wandering the state’s forests right now.

But this solitary, woodland-dwelling creature has once again, through no fault of his own, found himself trapped in the existential no-man’s land between greedy hoaxsters and a skeptical public.

What’s the point of existing if no one believes you exist?

See all of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People of 2008.

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Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People is Creative Loafing’s annual tribute to the Joe and Josephine Averages of the world who try, but don’t necessarily succeed.

Winners 11 through six will be revealed, one-per-day, until Wednesday, November 12, when the 11 Least Influential issue hits newsstands.

WILLIAM TELLULATER: Will.i.am.not.getting.any

No. 9 — William Tellulater

Can’t find anyone in Stockbridge to hook-up with.

William Tellulater (as in, ‘I’ll tell you my real last name later’) is a half-assed Henry County Romeo.

William claims to want have sexual relations with people in and around Stockbridge.

We think this because William has a Facebook group called “stockbridge” where membership is based on “Common Interest — Sexuality” and the group’s description is listed simply as “meet locals — hook up.”

Unlike most people trying to leverage the power of social media to find a mate, William includes no photos of himself smiling, laughing, flexing, or holding a beer bottle while leaning into a friend who is also holding a beer bottle. William does not tell you what kind of music (if any) he may like, what TV shows (if any) he watches, or whether he was elated or disappointed by Tuesday’s election results.

William doesn’t even reveal if he wants to have sex with men, women, or both.

All he offers is an e-mail address, and an open invitation to “hook-up.”

Not surprisingly, of Stockbridge’s more than 22,000 residents, only one has seen fit to join William Tellulater’s online hook-up club: William Tellulater.

See all of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People of 2008.

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Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People is Creative Loafing’s annual tribute to the Joe and Josephine Averages of the world who try, but don’t necessarily succeed.

Winners 11 through six will be revealed, one-per-day, until Wednesday, November 12, when the 11 Least Influential issue hits newsstands.

No. 10 — The Bum Bot

THE BUM BOT: Can't solve Atlanta's homelessness epidemic. (Photo by Joeff Davis)

Can’t solve Atlanta’s homelessness epidemic

The Bum Bot is a homelessness-fighting robot.

Its inventor, former military weapons engineer Rufus Terrill, built it by attaching a disused meat smoker to an electric wheelchair and armoring it with thick, black rubber.

Terrill steers the Bum Bot from inside his Midtown bar, O’Terrill’s, using a handheld remote control. He can see where the Bum Bot is going through a real-time video feed from a wireless camera mounted on its body.

He uses the Bum Bot, he says, to get rid of homeless people — to keep them from his bar or from camping on the property of a nearby day care center, of which he is on the board of directors.

The Bum Bot is armed with four weapons: a flashlight, a loudspeaker, the fact that it’s really creepy-looking, and a high-pressure water cannon.

As Terrill explains it, he, his patrons, and his neighbors are victims — not just of homeless criminals, but of a city that does not treat trespassing, theft, or vagrancy as serious problems.

The Bum Bot is Terrill’s attempt to address the problem on his own.

Does Terrill’s Bum Bot work?

Well, it’s really good at generating publicity for the bar. The Bum Bot has made Terrill a local media favorite, garnered him a sympathetic story in USA Today, and earned him a hilarious feature on The Colbert Report.

However, the Bum Bot is evidently lousy at tackling homelessness and the problems associated with it.

Walk or drive around O’Terrill’s at any time of day and you’re likely to see dozens of homeless men and women.

The Bum Bot’s fatal flaw is conceptual. Terrill is trying to attack homelessness by making homelessness unpleasant.

But being homeless was pretty damn unpleasant long before the Bum Bot came along. People don’t live on the street because it’s fun. They live on the street because they’re poor, running away from an abusive relationship, mentally-ill, or substance-addicted.

A steroidal Roomba might make someone get up and move from the spot where they were sleeping, but it’s not going to make anyone un-homeless.

See all of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People of 2008.

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Today begins Creative Loafing’s annual countdown of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People, a tribute to the Joe and Josephine Averages of the world who try, but don’t necessarily succeed.

Winners 11 through six will be revealed, one-per-day, until Wednesday, November 12, when the 11 Least Influential issue hits newsstands.

NO. 11 — JOSHUA RILEY: Can't sell SUVs anymore. (Photo by Joeff Davis)

No. 11 — Joshua Riley

Can’t sell SUVs anymore

It wasn’t that long ago that SUV brands like the Hummer, the Expedition, the Denali and the Suburban were kings of road in metro Atlanta.

Cheap fuel and easy credit made the behemoths affordable to millions of middle and working class Americans, while high profit margins and lax federal fuel efficiency regulations for large vehicles encouraged car makers to flood the market with them.

“2006 and 2007 were prime time for SUVs,” says Joshua Riley, a 20-year veteran of the car business. “Prime time.”

Today, he says, the SUV business has crashed.

“The Hummer is a dead model,” he says with no emotion.

How about the Suburban?

“The Suburban is a dead model.”

By dead he doesn’t mean they’re not running. He means they’re not selling.

People who want large cars, are now going with a sedan or a mini-van.

In his opinion, two things killed the SUV: volatile gas prices and tighter credit.

“Banks don’t want to loan money on them anymore.” Lenders are less sure of consumers’ ability to pay back large car loans, so they’re jacking up interest rates, thus steering buyers to smaller cars.

Riley says dealerships, including his own, are reluctant to take SUV trade-ins because they can’t easily turn around and sell them like they used to.

“I’ve had a Ford Explorer sitting here forever,” he says.

He estimates his income is down 50 percent from 2006. He can’t afford to go on vacation, go out to eat, or buy new clothes.

And what kind of car does Riley drive?

“A Toyota Corolla. I bought it used.

See all of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People of 2008.

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In November, CL honored Barbie Bandit male co-conspirator Benny Herman Allen III as one of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People.

Despite acting as the “inside man” during the infamous bank heist, Allen was little more than a footnote in the coverage.

Today’s AJC.com coverage of the Barbie Bandit sentencing hearing drives home the point:

Amid a gaggle of media jamming the courtroom, Staley ordered Miller to serve 2 years on the bank theft and drug possession charges with 8 years on probation.

Benny Allen III, the Bank of America teller who was their inside guy, was sentenced as well.

He was sentenced as well.

For how long? Who cares?

It’s not like he’s a white woman from Gwinnett County or anything.

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Atlanta fifth Least Influential Person and notorious online dater John Fitzgerald Page is back.

(photo by Joeff Davis)

Yesterday he posted a video guide to online dating on MySpace.

Before you ask, yes, he’s kidding.

Hats off to John. The video is very funny. I suspect, however, the people who make sport of beating up on him online will find something nasty to say.

Be sure to watch the final scene and the credits.

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Recent Creative Loafing cover star John Fitzgerald Page appeared on CBS this morning.

Atlanta’s 5th Least Influential Person got to tell his story to “The Early Show’s” Julie Chen, but only after a voice-over actor read painful excerpts of his infamous Match.com letters on-air.

“Any regrets about the e-mail?” Chen asked.

“No, I don’t have any regrets. I should be able to correspond with people as I wish,” was the reply.

Ugh.

Watch the full video here.

(Sombrero tip to Brooke Hatfield for sending me the link.)

(photos by Joeff Davis)

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In light of some of the comments I’ve read online about Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People, I want to clarify a few things. (more…)

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The countdown is over.

CL’s complete list of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People is now available online.

Enjoy.

Or don’t.

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Creative Loafing’s countdown of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People is a tribute to women and men everywhere struggling to meet the challenges of life in a modern American city.

The top five will be revealed online at midnight. It will also appear in the Nov. 8 print edition of Creative Loafing, which hits newsstands tomorrow.

No. 6 — Troy Bronsink

Pastor without a congregation

(photo by Joeff Davis)

Troy Bronsink is a graduate of Columbia Theological Seminary and, in 2006, was ordained in the Presbyterian Church.

He’s an intellectual who loves to think out loud and is an attentive listener.

He’s culture-savvy — not in the Perez Hilton sense, but in the art, music and politics sense. He’s as comfortable discussing Thom Yorke of Radiohead as he is Thomas the Apostle.

On top of that, he’s tall, handsome, with a pleasing, bright speaking voice.

You might think Atlanta area churches would be tripping over themselves to hire a pastor so evidently equipped to relate spiritually and culturally to young Christians.

But they’re not.

Bronsink is a pastor without a congregation.

He is part of what’s known as the emerging church, a Protestant movement reimagining church in a post-modern context with an emphasis on community-minded living. Despite his traditional seminary education, his collaborative, cooperative style doesn’t easily mesh with the Protestant church as it’s typically practiced in the South.

He’s not what he describes as a traditional, CEO pastor — “the person who can summarize it all, be the representative, the design guru, and the implementer.”

Bronsink envisions church as a “community meeting at the Lord’s table,” he says. “Jesus is the center, not just one person speaking on his behalf.”

He’s a roundtable man in a podium world and he’s having trouble finding a job.

He recently served as pastor of a Presbyterian congregation in an affluent northern suburb. They knew what they were getting in theory, Bronsink believes, but after several months it became clear to him many in the congregation simply weren’t comfortable with his approach.

“The notion of church being an open, collaborative and creative system, that is different to how religion has operated in the South,” he says.

It’s not that he’s too cutting-edge or ahead of the church, he ’s quick to emphasize. They just didn’t fit together.

Bronsink is confident that, over time, the number of Christians in Atlanta in sync with his religious approach will grow. The popularity of the emerging church in the North and West is bound to trickle South.

Until that time arrives, he’ll pastor in less formal settings and try to support his family with writing and church consulting jobs.

“I love encouraging people to have hope,” he says. “To live together in harmony and forgive each other.”

Visit Creative Loafing online at midnight for the top five on our countdown of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People. It will also appear in the Nov. 8 print edition of Creative Loafing, which hits newsstands tomorrow.

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Creative Loafing’s countdown of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People is a tribute to women and men everywhere struggling to meet the challenges of life in a modern American city.

The top five will be revealed in the next print edition of Creative Loafing, which hits newsstands Thursday, Nov. 8.

No. 7 — Bridgette Vassar

Can’t lure customers to her smoothie shop

(photo by Joeff Davis)

By day, Bridgette Vassar works as a software manager for a department store chain.

At night and on weekends, she works for herself.

In April she opened Silk: A Smoothie Café, a smoothie and dessert shop on the north edge of Decatur’s Oakhurst neighborhood.

Vassar’s vision is ambitious. She pictures Silk as part refreshment stop, part 18th-century French salon; a place where gym rats can stop in for a fruit smoothie spiked with protein powder, and others can sip wine, debate world affairs, or at least snicker at the Harper’s Index. Eventually, she plans to expand to multiple locations.

Before any of that can happen, though, Vassar needs to get over a big hurdle.

She needs some customers. Business is very slow.

“I thought, ‘I’ve got everything, and it’s ready, and the people will come.’ But this is not Field of Dreams. Getting people in here has been the biggest problem.”

Vassar blames the shop’s slow start on a number of factors.

“We didn’t have a well-developed marketing plan.” As a start-up without a well-established brand behind her, she explains, she has to work extra-hard to get neighbors to take a chance on her.

Location is also an issue. Oakhurst is a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood, but her shop is away from most of the foot traffic. She looked into renting spaces in pedestrian-heavy Little Five Points and Virginia-Highland, but could not afford them.

“I should know [if she'll stay in business there] within 18 to 24 months,” she says.

Judgment day may come sooner, however, as she recently found out that a Boise, Idaho-based coffee house and bistro, Moxie Java, plans to open its first metro Atlanta store on the opposite end of her retail strip.

“They have smoothies on their home page,” she sighs. “It gives me pause. I don’t think two places like that can survive here.”

Visit Fresh Loaf on Wednesday morning for No. 6 on our countdown of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People.

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Creative Loafing’s countdown of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People is a tribute to women, men and fish everywhere struggling to meet the challenges of life in a modern American city.

The top five will be revealed in the next print edition of Creative Loafing, which hits newsstands on Thursday, Nov. 8.

No. 8 — Taroko and Yushan

Bottled for our amusement

(photo by Joeff Davis)

Taiwan’s government will soon ban the export of whale sharks, the world’s largest fish.

“Thanks for nothing, jerks,” says Taroko. “And this helps me how?”

Taroko is upset because he, along with fellow whale shark Yushan, was sold by Taiwan to the Georgia Aquarium in June — after the export ban was announced but before it took effect.

The pair replaced the aquarium’s original whale shark duo, Ralph and Norton, both of whom died this year after less than two years in the aquarium’s captivity.

“Last year, everything was copacetic. I was freestylin’ in the Philippine Sea and inhaling fresh mackerel like a fat guy at Red Lobster,” Taroko says. “Now I do laps in a glass box waiting to die.”

“Hey, Bernie Marcus,” he says, addressing the Georgia Aquarium’s founder and benefactor, “what did I ever do to you?”

Yushan is no less frustrated at the turn his life has taken.

“It’s not healthy for us to be in captivity,” Yushan says. “My only hope is that the aquarium learned from the mistakes that killed Ralph and Norton.”

“Ask around. Aquariums just aren’t very healthy for large sea creatures like Yushan and me,” Taroko says. “Back in the day, I could dive 3,000 feet down into the ocean just for fun. If I tried that now, I’d bruise my head on a third grader from Lawrenceville.”

Both fish say they’re resigned to their fate. They know they’re never going to swim in the ocean again.

Their only request in their final months, they say, is for people to stop telling them how great it is to be in the Georgia Aquarium.

“Bernie Marcus compared the aquarium to the Ritz-Carlton,” Taroko says. “I’ve never stayed there, but I’m pretty sure the Ritz doesn’t use nets to find room guests.”

“They keep telling me how lucky I am that I live in a 6 million gallon aquarium,” Yushan interjects. “Hey, dickheads, I used to live in a 177 sextillion gallon aquarium. It’s called the Pacific Ocean.”

Visit Fresh Loaf on Tuesday morning for No. 7 on our countdown of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People.

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Creative Loafing’s countdown of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People is a tribute to women and men everywhere struggling to meet the challenges of life in a modern American city.

No. 9 — Lashay Butler

Not allowed to ask for help

(photo by Joeff Davis)

Lashay Butler lives on the streets of Atlanta.

The 33-year-old says her children and their father moved while she was out of town and did not leave any contact information. “My family always took care of me. Now I can’t get in touch with them,” she says. “I went to the police department and they said go to a shelter and give them your name. I went, but they said they couldn’t find them.”

The rest of the circumstances that led to Butler’s homelessness are less than clear. She won’t say where she was or what she was doing when her family left. And when asked if she has a substance-abuse problem, she paused and her first answer was a hesitant “No, not really.”

What’s clear, however, is that Butler needs help, from her family, from a friend or from a social worker. And until that happens, she needs help from passers-by.

She needs food. She needs money to buy food. But asking for money for food in parts of downtown Atlanta is a punishable offense, punishable by up to one month in jail, because the city passed an anti-begging ordinance in 2005.

“You can still get a dollar,” she says, but it’s harder since the ordinance. “People wanna call the police on you.”

Visit Fresh Loaf Monday morning for No. 8 on our countdown of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People.

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Creative Loafing’s countdown of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People is a tribute to women and men everywhere struggling to meet the challenges of life in a modern American city.

No. 10 — Benny Herman Allen III

Gets a lot less attention than his white, female alleged co-conspirators

(Photo courtesy Cobb County Sheriff’s Office)

Being white, female and at least moderately attractive under ideal lighting conditions has its privileges.

If something bad happens to you, say you go missing or you’re victimized in some way, you’re a lot more likely to have your face end up on the news than if you’re black or male.

When white Gwinnett County resident Jennifer Wilbanks went missing in 2005, the national news media came a-callin’ — even after it was clear she wasn’t kidnapped or killed but in fact was simply un-RSVPing from her own nightmare wedding.

Wilbanks is thoroughly unlikable, and because of her deceptions, a criminal. Yet the media still lapped her up.

Benny Herman Allen III deserves to be just as (in)famous as Jennifer Wilbanks.

A one-time bank teller, the 22-year-old is alleged to have been an “inside man” during the Bank of America robbery that turned Heather Johnston and Ashley Miller — two white, suburban strippers — into media sensations dubbed the “Barbie Bandits.”

Johnston and Miller became celebrities in both the tabloid and “serious” media. Miller’s mom was widely quoted saying her daughter had fallen in with the “wrong crowd,” while Johnston laughed her way through multiple appearances on ABC.

And poor Benny Herman Allen III?

His alleged role in the incident is a footnote. That he was released from jail with a bond paid for by a Cartersville outfit called Bond James Bond is the only interesting thing ever reported about him. And I’m the one who just reported it.

No one ever quoted his family members explaining he was just a good kid who fell in with bad strippers. He didn’t even get a catchy nickname. If Miller and Johnston are Barbies, why can’t Allen be Ken?

I mean, Alleged Ken.

Visit Fresh Loaf Sunday morning for No. 9 on our countdown of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People.

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Today begins Creative Loafing’s countdown of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People, a tribute to women and men everywhere struggling to meet the challenges of life in a modern American city.

No. 11 — Ahmed Salim

Would like to be able to park on the street in front of his mosque

(photo by Joeff Davis)

“I love Atlanta,” says Ahmed Salim.

Born and raised in Gwinnett County, the third-year engineering student at Georgia Tech hopes to work and live here for the rest of his life, he says, because it’s a growing, energetic place.

Kind and self-confident, Salim says growing up Muslim in a predominantly Christian community has never made him feel any less American. “I rode my bicycle in the street and played basketball,” he says. “I was a normal American kid.”

Someone once gave his sister a Bible for Valentine’s Day, an incident that makes Salim laugh when he tells it, but he’s never been made to feel unwelcome in a meaningful way, he says.

Until now.

He and some of his friends have noticed “No Parking Except Sunday” signs that line Peachtree Street and other busy streets. It’s a government policy benefiting Christian churches and church-goers.

Salim’s got no problem with that.

He would nevertheless appreciate it if the “No Parking” signs in front of the mosque he attends on 14th Street had an “Except Friday” caveat to accommodate the Muslim Sabbath. “Every Friday, but especially on the holiest days,” he says when asked how often he thinks his fellow mosque-goers would park on 14th Street.

On the holiest days of the Muslim calendar, Al-Farooq Masjid of Atlanta’s main and auxiliary off-street parking lots are often full, as are the side streets nearby.

“Ramadan is big. And the two Eids,” he says, referring to Eid ul-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan, and Eid ul-Adha, which commemorates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son to God.

“It would be convenient,” he says, adding, “The Muslim community here would feel very welcomed by it.”

Visit Fresh Loaf Saturday morning for No. 10 on our countdown of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People.

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Starting tomorrow morning, Creative Loafing will begin its countdown of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People.

Winners 11 through 6 will be revealed, one each per day, until next Wednesday.

On Thursday, Nov. 8, the top five will appear in Creative Loafing’s print edition.

To whet (or, perhaps, ruin) your appetite, here’s a link to last year’s list.

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