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Why is it just high-profile Atlantans featured in the 11 Least Influential? Where’s the recognition for all you normal people who feel impotent every day? Because we feel your pain, the CL team hit the Chomp and Stomp Chili Cook-off in Cabbagetown this weekend to ask everyday Atlantans about their moments of shame. From hung-over 5k races to a pantsing gone wrong, these urbanites bare all for your viewing pleasure.

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Don’t get us wrong, we take our job of highlighting the best of the city seriously. But equally important is shining the spotlight on those Atlantans who just can’t seem to get it right. Today being 11/11, we offer you the 11 Least Influential. From a police chief who can’t convince residents of decreasing crime to a quarterback who can’t maximize penetration, our annual list points out the lows … and lows … of 2009.

Continue reading “The 11 Least Influential”

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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With home births facing unnecessary hurdles in Georgia, Sebastian will have to be delivered at a hospital

Welcome to CL’s annual catalog of impotence: the 11 Least Influential. You’ll meet folks who tried to achieve an ambitious goal, but fell short (which happens to be the case with little Sebastian here); people who’ve devoted themselves to a personal mission in near-total obscurity; and ordinary Joes who can’t get anyone to pay attention to them. Every day until the full issue hits the streets on Nov. 11 (tomorrow!), we’ll bring you a new story of failure — some noble and heroic, others abject and pathetic.

Subject: Sebastian Hurst
Failing: Can’t be born at home

Sebastian Hurst hasn’t even been born yet — and yet he’s exhibiting a notable lack of influence. Of course, the root cause of Sebastian’s shortfall is hardly something you’d blame on a young man who’s still seven weeks away from the birth canal.

Like his mother before him — and two of her four siblings — Sebastian was destined to be born at home. Unfortunately, Georgia law makes it far too difficult for women to deliver anywhere but a hospital. In fact, it would cost Sebastian’s mom an estimated $1,600 to give birth at home. Delivering at a hospital, by comparison, is free. And because Sarah Hurst, a 20-year-old Cobb County native who works at a church nursery, subsists on a rather tight income, free is her only option.

“I wanted to be in a comfortable and relaxed environment,” Sarah Hurst says. “I wanted to have a home birth. I wanted to follow in my mother’s footsteps. And all of a sudden I can’t. It was hugely disappointing.”

(more…)

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Jay-Z's camp tapped Goose's talents as a producer, but ultimately passed on his tracks.

Welcome to CL’s annual catalog of impotence: the 11 Least Influential. You’ll meet folks who tried to achieve an ambitious goal, but fell short (or, in Goose’s case, more than made up for the difference); people who’ve devoted themselves to a personal mission in near-total obscurity; and ordinary Joes who can’t get anyone to pay attention to them. Every day until the full issue hits the streets on Nov. 11, we’ll bring you a new story of failure — some noble and heroic, others abject and pathetic.

Subject: Alex Goose
Failing: Can’t get any play from Jay-Z

Atlanta-based music producer Alex Goose has big dreams, and bigger gonads.

After being contacted this summer by a New York-based A&R rep working closely with Jay-Z, the burgeoning producer jumped at the chance to submit beats for the legendary MC’s album-in-the-making, The Blueprint 3.

He says the A&R rep was so impressed with his work for such Atlanta-based artists as Brittany Bosco and Danny! that he came to Atlanta to hear what the Goose was cooking. “He was telling me, ‘I’d love to get some of these [beats] to Jay, for sure,’” recalls Goose, who estimates he submitted 20 to 25 tracks for consideration. “A few months later he hit me up and was like, ‘Hey, I got word back from Jay that he didn’t really hear anything that he wanted to use for the album.’”

With such name-brand producers as Kanye West, Timbaland, the Neptunes and No I.D. getting first dibs at the highly-anticipated release, a virtual unknown just didn’t have the pull to earn himself a placement.

“You know it kinda sucks,” he says. “Jay would say, ‘It’s politics as usual.’”
(more…)

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Dominey can't get teetotalers to relax their death grip on state lawmakers

Welcome to CL’s annual catalog of impotence: the 11 Least Influential. You’ll meet folks who tried to achieve an ambitious goal, but fell short; people who’ve devoted themselves to a personal mission in near-total obscurity; and ordinary Joes who can’t get anyone to pay attention to them. Every day until the full issue hits the streets on Nov. 11, we’ll bring you a new story of failure — some noble and heroic, others abject and pathetic.

Subject: Todd Dominey
Failing: Can’t convince lawmakers to overthrow Sunday blue laws

Just think: Waking up on a day like today and craving some bubbly — and then sipping mimosas on your couch. Heading home from church and picking up a sixer of high-gravity beer. Sipping on newly purchased brandy while making a cake for your Sunday book club. All these freedoms could be yours — if you lived in a different state.

For 10 years, Virgina-Highland resident Todd Dominey, a 38-year-old software developer and Atlanta native, took a detour from his birthplace to live in Charleston, S.C. While he was there, the Palmetto State changed its state law to allow people to buy alcohol in stores on Sunday, ending decades of frustration for residents and tourists alike. When friends back home would rib Dominey about living in the sleepy state, he’d remind them that South Carolina was progressive enough to repeal the Sunday sales statute. Argument won.

Dominey lost a little freedom when he moved back to Atlanta. He learned to live with the ridiculous law that forbids liquor from being sold in stores — but not bars — on the Sabbath. Then a friend tweeted him a link to a 50,000-signature online petition seeking to overturn the ban on Sunday booze sales. Dominey added his name with the all-caps message “REPEAL THIS ARCHAIC LAW.”

So far, no luck.

(more…)

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There’s nothing Jaxson won’t do for fame. Unfortunately, fame has remained elusive.

Welcome to CL’s annual catalog of impotence: the 11 Least Influential. You’ll meet folks who tried to achieve an ambitious goal, but fell short; people who’ve devoted themselves to a personal mission in near-total obscurity; and ordinary Joes who can’t get anyone to pay attention to them. Every day until the full issue hits the streets on Nov. 11, we’ll bring you a new story of failure — some noble and heroic, others abject and pathetic.

Subject: Jonathan Jaxson
Failing: Can’t make it to the A-list

Jonathan Jaxson has been angling for fame since the tender age of 15. But even after tabloid television appearances, the launch of a celeb blog and stints as a publicist for fellow D-listers, the Atlanta-based PR rep just can’t get to the next level.

The 26-year-old’s futile attempt at fame began in 1999, when he reconnected with his estranged father on the talk show “Forgive or Forget.” A year later, he came out to his dad on a “teen secrets” episode of the “Sally Jess Raphael Show.” Jaxson allegedly became the head of publicity for the Backstreet Boys the same year, after winning backstage tickets to the boy band’s concert. And from there, the 16-year-old continued to network with celebs.

Relying on the fame-by-association theory, Jaxson ran the now-defunct celebrity gossip blog JJsDirt.com where he trashed his supposedly Hollywood “It” girl friends. In an attempt to score privileged information from the queen of all media, Perez Hilton, Jaxson sent the blogger sexually explicit videos of himself. In return, Hilton filed a federal defamation suit  after Jaxson claimed Hilton asked for those videos.

(more…)

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Welcome to CL’s annual catalog of impotence: the 11 Least Influential. You’ll meet folks who tried to achieve an ambitious goal, but fell short; people who’ve devoted themselves to a personal mission in near-total obscurity; and ordinary Joes who can’t get anyone to pay attention to them. Every day until the full issue hits the streets on Nov. 11, we’ll bring you a new story of failure — some noble and heroic, others abject and pathetic.

We begin with one of the latter. Enjoy.

Subject: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Failing: Can’t nut up enough to endorse candidates

One of the perks of being the sole daily newspaper for a major metropolitan city is that you can tell folks what to do. Where to eat. What movies to see. What books to read. And who to vote for. That goes double for a paper with a storied history of taking strong editorial stands on the issues of the day, such as Ralph McGill’s impassioned columns blasting segregation.

But what if, in giving an opinion — even a modulated, rational, well-argued one — you happen to say something some people don’t wish to hear. Horrors! We can’t have that. What if readers stopped subscribing to the paper? Oh, yeah, they’re already doing that… Perhaps it’s best to remove any opinion, insight, conclusions or point of view from the paper altogether.

(more…)

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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.

Editor’s note: This winner’s name/photo has been withheld out of respect for her safety.

In September, a local artist 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, the woman’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.

She came away with the incident with 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 a second time. 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, the woman believes the person(s) breaking into her house live(s) 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 the woman lives.

She 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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