Fresh Loaf

Depending on how these races turnout, they could either be celebrations or a wake. Roll the dice and decide which you’d like to attend.

• U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss and most of the state’s Republican usual suspects will hold court at the Intercontinental Hotel in Buckhead, the same place the incumbent Republican partied at on Nov. 4. Cash bar and what looked like good food were at that shindig. Believe it or not, there was hummus. The public’s invited and doors open at 7 p.m.

• The Democrats, including Chambliss’ Democratic opponent Jim Martin and Georgia Public Service Commission candidate Jim Powell, will be at Park Tavern. Doors open at 7 p.m. and it’s also open to the public.

• Manuel’s will undoubtedly be serving beer and wings. If this turns out to be the night Republicans Strike Back, you’ll want to be among friends.

If you know of any others, leave ‘em in the comments.

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By the time Georgia polls close at 7 p.m. tonight, we here at CL will already be snookered on Diet Coke and moonshine, liveblogging in this digital Utopia about all the races up for grabs.

CL Editor Ken Edelstein will hold court at Manuel’s, staff writer Scott Henry will report from Jim Martin’s party at Park Tavern, and senior writers Mara Shalhoup and Andisheh Nouraee will monitor results and send dispatches from undisclosed locations. I’ll be in Stepford — oops, Buckhead — at the Intercontinental Hotel where the Georgia GOP is holding its fete. If you have any questions you’d like me to ask lawmakers, leave ‘em in the comments or send me an e-mail here.

Here’s a good list of key states to watch and what time their polls close. Here’s a neat-o map of the United States that shows where the presidential race stands. Here’s a place where you can win $20 of Andisheh’s money. And here’s a picture of a kitten dressed as a pirate.

Be sure to return and join us in a liveblogging celebration of America and insomnia. And if you haven’t done so already, go vote.

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1) Four Women, featuring Kianga Ford, Jessica Ingram, Carrie Mae Weems and Deborah Willis, continues at Jackson Fine Art.

2) Take the dog down to Hotel Indigo for Midtown’s Canine Cocktail Hour.

3) Get your meditation on with Gen. Kelsang Mondrub while you sip espresso in Virginia-Highland.

4) Workshop your life into greatness while Greeting the Muse with CL’s Cliff Bostock.

5) Learn how to write about your rights at Manuel’s Tavern.

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It seemed like only yesterday we liveblogged the July 15 primary results. Since then, we’ve also covered a rainstorm, the sun rising, and the dude stocking our vending machine — all in real time. Next week I’m going to start wearing a camera on my head and documenting my therapy sessions.

Tonight, however, we stick to politics. CL Editor Ken Edelstein and myself will hunker down at Manuel’s Tavern in Poncey-Highlands to document the results of the undecided races, including the U.S. Senate Democratic runoff, the Fulton County Sheriff’s race and the DeKalb CEO contest. I’ll be closely watching the Clayton County elections, as folks down there have a lot hinging on who comes out victorious. (Click here to read CL’s runoff voter’s guide.)

Join us here around 7 p.m. BECAUSE FREEDOM DEPENDS ON IT©.

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1) Danielle Nesmith plays with Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at Ebenezer Baptist Church.

2) The Peruvian-American Association of Georgia hosts a night of culture, music and dances for Peru: Land of the InKas at Rialto Center for the Arts.

3) Willie Nelson and B.B. King perform together at Chastain Park Amphitheater.

4) Essential Theatre Power Plays Festival’s Valhalla and West of Eden close at 7 Stages.

5) Manuel’s Tavern hosts its Quarterly Art Show with more than 25 local artists.

(Photo by Tom Krebsbach)

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1) The Dirtbombs perform at Variety Playhouse.

2) David Sirota will be reading and signing The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington at Manuel’s Tavern.

3) Enjoy the showing of 21 as part of Flicks on 5th.

4) The Freshly Dipped Tour starring Hieroglyphics, Souls of Mischief, Pep Love, Casual, Blue Scholars, Musab, Tanya Morgan and Knobody comes to Masquerade.

5) E. Lynn Harris reads and signs Just Too Good to Be True at Outwrite Bookstore & Coffeehouse.

(Photo courtesy the Dirtbombs)

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As Mara Shalhoup reported last week in Fresh Loaf, Wall Street Journal Atlanta bureau chief Doug Blackmon will appear Wednesday Tuesday at Manuel’s Tavern (6-9 p.m.) to promote his critically acclaimed book Slavery by Another Name: The Re-enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. This, on the heels of Blackmon’s book creeping onto the New York Times Bestseller List.

To get psyched up for the appearance, here’s a video of Blackmon’s appearance on the always-excellent PBS show “Bill Moyers Journal,” which also includes on the link a full transcript of the interview if you’d like to read instead of watch. Here’s a key exchange, about Atlanta’s role in all of this (thanks to John Otte on ArtNews) …

BILL MOYERS: You say that Atlanta, where you live now, which used to proclaim itself the finest city in the South, was built on the broken backs of re-enslaved black men.
DOUGLAS BLACKMON: That’s right. When I started off writing the book, I began to realize the degree to which this form of enslavement had metastasized across the South, and that Atlanta was one of many places where the economy that created the modern city, was one that relied very significantly on this form of coerced labor. And some of the most prominent families and individuals in the in the creation of the modern Atlanta, their fortunes originated from the use of this practice. And the most dramatic example of that was a brick factory on the outskirts of town that, at the turn of the century, was producing hundreds of thousands of bricks every day.The city of Atlanta bought millions and millions of those bricks. The factory was operated entirely with forced workers. And almost 100 percent black forced workers. There were even times that on Sunday afternoons, a kind of old-fashioned slave auction would happen, where a white man who controlled black workers would go out to Chattahoochee Brick and horse trade with the guards at Chattahoochee Brick, trading one man for another, or two men.

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Former Gov. Roy Barnes, state Rep. Stacey Abrams and Red Clay Democrat Shyam Reddy will headline a “get-out-the-vote” fundraiser at Manuel’s Tavern this Thursday, 7-9 p.m. The event is hosted by the Vote From Home, a political action committee that wants to secure 10,000 early voters in Ohio to help turn the crucial state for Democrats in the November presidential election.

It’s free and open to the public. I may attend, which could be frightening, as I’ve been told Barnes and I look very similar.

UPDATE: The event is open to the public, but it’s not free. Tickets are $50, $25 for students. A spokesperson says Barnes will speak and it’ll be an informal affair.

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Doug Blackmon, who heads the Wall Street Journal’s Atlanta bureau, has made the New York Times Best Seller List with his historical expose Slavery by Another Name.

(A quick aside: Does anyone know the proper way to reference the list? Should “best seller” be two words? A compound? Hyphenated? Plural??? And is “list” capitalized? I just wasted 10 minutes Googling that, with no apparent resolution.)

Anyway … Blackmon’s book, published by Doubleday, placed no. 34 among best-selling non-fiction hardcovers. Go Doug!

Publisher’s Weekly called it “a groundbreaking and disturbing account of a sordid chapter in American history — the lease (essentially the sale) of convicts to ‘commercial interests’ between the end of the 19th century and well into the 20th.”

If you want Blackmon to sign a copy — or to help him celebrate his success — go to Manuel’s Tavern next Wednesday Tuesday (July 22) between 6 and 9 p.m.

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— There’s still election fall-out on the blogosphere. Atlanta Public Affairs gives their take on Tuesday’s winners and losers. And GriftDrift recounts the scene as Democrats gathered at Manuel’s Tavern on election night.

— But Random Atlanta makes one of the best points. All those candidates got out and littered the city with yard signs; how ’bout going back out and taking them all down?

— Over at My Urban Report, A.man.I gives his take on Jesse Jackson’s use of the N-word, and how Jackson told him a few months ago that he wants to ban the word. Guess since it’s not banned yet, Jesse still felt free to use it.

— Even as transplanted New Yorkers were dissing Atlanta and whining about the lack of pizza and bagels here, the intrepid Duane Moody was on vacation in the Big Apple and … got engaged at the top of the Rockefeller Center.

— So Maryk was fast asleep when he she was awakened by what she he thought was an owl on his her front porch. But no, wait, it wasn’t an owl. It was “some old Allman-Brothers-looking bum” smoking a cigarette on his her front porch. The bum had even lit all the candles on the porch. The full account is on Moisten Manapkin.

— For everyone who’s ever lost a pet, Dusty pays a sweet tribute to a cat named Queasy on Pork Tornado.

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I’ll be liveblogging tonight on the primary results — unless I manage to screw up using the software (because Thomas won’t be here to hold my hand). Should be fun … from Manuel’s … maybe from a couple of the candidates’ HQs.

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CL Editor Ken Edelstein, Senior Writer Andisheh Nouraee and I will be watching the idiot box tonight and typing away while Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama spar off in a battle to determine who will rule the most powerful country of all time for the next four years. Join us for “change,” “hope” and “experience.” Plus, some more “change.” Maybe a little “solution” in there, as well.

We’ll start the blogging experience around 7:32 p.m. The debate starts at 8 p.m. on CNN. Andisheh will blog from home with his fellow anarchists, Ken will be hunkered down at the top-secret clubhouse where the liberal media cognescenti gather, and I will be with the far-left lunatics who converge on Manuel’s Tavern in Poncey-Highland for beer and politics. Or in other words, it’ll be just another Thursday night at Manuel’s.

We’re stealing a page from Wonkette and some dude who writes about movies, and laying down the guidelines for the official Feb. 21 Democratic Debate Drinking Game! After the jump, the rules. Follow at your own risk.

(Photo courtesy of Ishkur.com)

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