PopSmart

1) The AVP Crocs Atlanta Open volleyball tour finishes its three-day stay at Atlantic Station.

2) Atlanta-based African-American Philharmonic Jazz Orchestra performs at Woodruff Arts Center.

3) Your last chance to gnaw on an oversize turkey leg: The Georgia Renaissance Festival finishes its final weekend of 2008.

4) Sweeney Todd closes the curtain after its last night at the Fox Theatre.

5) Steve Coffey performs at the Earl with the Rockin’ Pontoons.

(Photo by AVP/Holly Stein)

Derek Pressnall is a native of Dunwoody. Since landing in Omaha, Neb., several years back he’s been singing and playing guitar with glee-pop troupe and Bright Eyes cohorts Tilly & the Wall. FLOWERS FOREVER finds Pressnall making a dark departure from sunshine pop for an exercise in überart rock ‘n’ roll. This turn toward propulsive rhythms and textures is indulgent and cathartic and worth checking out Sat., MAY 31, based on the weirdness factor alone. $10. 9:30 p.m. Drunken Unicorn, 736 Ponce de Leon Place. www.thedrunkenunicorn.net.

(Photo courtesy Press Here Publicity)

1) Rene Arriagada’s Death Stencil and Blink’s Guardians of Our Memory open at Beep Beep Gallery.

2) East Atlanta Beer Festival parties all day at East Atlanta Village.

3) Driving Miss Daisy closes it final weekend at Academy Theatre.

4) Drink for a good cause at Draft on Taft in Midtown, with proceeds benefiting H.E.R.O for Children and the Georgia Innocence Project.

5) Flowers Forever performs at Drunken Unicorn.

We’d like to thank the record number of readers who have entered into our Summer Guide Contest for tickets/passes to 11 of the 111 best things to do this summer. (I say record number in that, it seems like a ton more than last year, which was my first year doing this, which will then count as the entire history of CL Summer Guide contests. So there.)

So consider this a final reminder of the deadline for the contest, which is today (Friday), 5 p.m. We’ll then gather up all the applicants and place them in a lottery system so complicated I probably couldn’t even explain it to people. (Although it might involve printing out the answers, wadding them up into balls of paper, and drawing from a garbage bag. We’ll see.)

We’ll announce the winner on Monday, June 2, in this here PopSmart blog. Until then, if you haven’t played the game, you have about two hours left. It’s really easy: Simply visit the Summer Guide online (either by clicking here or on the Summer Guide tile on our homepage), and scan through the 111 options, looking for hyperlinks on 11 of those coolest of cool events, and then filling out the form as described. We’ll take it from there.

Get crackin’.

Comedian BEN BAILEY rocks for two reasons – he’s funny as hell and he hosts one of the best shows on television, Discovery’s “Cash Cab.” Bailey will be at the Funny Farm for four nights, continuing Fri., MAY 30, and you don’t want to miss this opportunity to hear him wax intellectual on what balls and sideburns have in common. May 29-June 1. $15. Thurs., 8:30 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 8 and 10:30 p.m.; Sun., 8 p.m. 608 Holcomb Bridge Road, Roswell. 770-817-4242. www.funnyfarmcomedyclub.com.

(Photo courtesy Ben Bailey)

So much of Screen on the Green on Thursday night, with its showing of Jaws, felt familiar. There was the huge signature banner covering the monster screen. There was the crowd of picnickers camping out on the sloping grass, this time Centennial Olympic Park. There was the sort-of entertaining pre-screening music act, this time in the form of Athens’ Blue Flashing Light. There was, ultimately, a really cool community vibe that makes Screen on the Green one of my favorite Atlanta experiences.

But there were plenty of differences, some perfectly understandable, others irksome, others a little of both. For starters (and I should have known this given the persistent warnings), there was no outside alcohol permitted, which meant I had to trudge back to my car to drop off that awesome $6 bottle of Cabernet. I loved the cops’ response to my questioning why we could do this at Piedmont but not here: “This is a different park.” Indeed. Centennial Olympic Park is different in a lot of ways. For starters, the lovely view of Midtown is replaced by an almost equally lovely view of downtown. I’m no fan of Atlanta’s bizarro modern aesthetic — where the motif seems to be “20th Century Hodgepodge” — but almost anything looks good at sundown, including the skyline. But still, being forced to pony up $6 for crappy, plastic-bottled Budweiser seemed a ripoff from the get-go. Even more annoying was reliance on the CNN Center for on-the-go food. Am I the only one who misses access to places like Silver Grill? (Added travel note: I decided to use the MARTA train for the first time since moving here, and while I was bummed I wasn’t accosted by Soulja Girl, I LOVED the perspective it gives on the city. Lesson learned.)

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1) Nada Surf performs at Center Stage with the Republic Tigers.

2) AFL Bulletproof Fight Night gets rowdy at Philips Arena with mixed martial arts.

3) Buddy Guy opens the Atlanta Botanical Garden’s summer concert series.

4) Miya Bailey’s first solo art show includes his paintings, drawings and photos at City of Ink Tattoo & Art Gallery.

5) “Cash Cab” host and comedian Ben Bailey continues a four-day stint at the Funny Farm.

(Photo by Alicia J. Rose)

Well, the weather forecast for tonight’s Screen on the Green season kickoff of Jaws at Olympic Centennial Park looks free and clear (only about a 10 percent chance of rain), so the only question remaining is: Are you tired of Jaws yet?

I can’t wait to find out if I am. When Turner announced the Screen on the Green schedule, like a lot of folks I was a bit underwhelmed — not just at the inclusion of such modern films as Big Momma’s House but also the complete lack of a truly old-fashioned, black-and-white classic from Hollywood’s Golden Era. Perhaps the switch from Turner Classic Movies to Peachtree TV had something to do with the programming.

But as far as classics go, Jaws is certainly one of them. It’s also one of cable TV’s most oft-played movies, and has therefore desensitized viewers over the years. And remember how it was a staple on TCM’s “31 Days of Oscar” tile on their homepage? What gives with the Spielberg love? His E.T. the Extraterrestrial will also be shown at Screen on the Green (June 19). Could it have been some deal cut when he agreed to do the “Spielberg on Spielberg” interview last fall? No matter. It’s all good. (By the way, check out Curt Holman’s spot-on take on Spielberg’s more recent films last week in PopSmart.)

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Jayson had decided that he was homosexual while watching a Phil Donahue episode on the topic eight years earlier. He’d come home early from kindergarten that day because he’d gotten a stomach ache from worrying about whether his Hee Haw overalls were too outré for his peers. Jayson had been sent home from school fairly often over the years, including the first day of kindergarten when he’d become inconsolably agitated that the school wouldn’t change their spelling of his name from “Jason” to “Jayson.” He felt very strongly that he needed the extra flair to set himself apart from the other, obviously less special Jasons in the class.

– From Josh Kilmer-Purcell’s latest novel, Candy Everybody Wants. Kilmer-Purcell will read and sign copies of the book at Outwrite Books on Wednesday, May 28.

As a kid, illustrator and neo-pop artist Rod Whigham used to draw instead of doing his work. Now, as a comic book artist and art instructor, drawing is his work. Rod’s obsession with the undead is currently open for public delectation in Zombie Romance at Rabbit-Hole Gallery through June 22.

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