We’ll be giving you the access to the coolest shows, parties and festivals. You’ll be posting wicked photos to our website. And we’ll pay you. It’s an exceedingly symbiotic relationship.

If you think you’re down for the task or know someone who is, contact me at taralynne.pixley@cln.com. Send me some shots you’ve taken that pass for “nightlife photos” (i.e. you and your friends at a party, drinking in your backyard or wreaking havoc elsewhere) and you just might get picked to be CL’s photo ambassador to the nightcrawlers of Atlanta.

Email me with any questions but check out the Sideshow photo galleries first to get an idea of what we’re looking for. Don’t send me photos of your dog, your grandma or that artsy shot of a fire hydrant. Party pics, people.

You’ll have to forgive me if I wax a little nostalgic after watching the True Colors Tour’s opener of a two-night stand last night at Chastain Park. We all have our B-52’s stories to tell around here, so I’m sure hearing one from someone who didn’t live in Atlanta until that last two years probably won’t dazzle anyone. But they’re fun to tell anyway. But first, about last night … well, before that, here’s the True Colors credo, as pulled from its site …

The goal of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) equality is at the heart of True Colors. From day one, the tour has sought to raise awareness about the discrimination the GLBT community still faces and raise significant funds for the organizations that work everyday on their behalf. This year, the True Colors Fund of Stonewall Community Foundation has been created to enable increased and efficient fundraising for the tour’s national non-profit partners through various revenue sources.

The brainchild of the Human Rights Campaign and the tour’s headliner, Cyndi Lauper, the True Colors is an entertaining mix of music, comedy and wee bit of get-out-the-boat speechifying. And what was most impressive about the proceedings was how little pontificating was done, even considering comedian Rosie O’Donnell’s sour-grapes rant on her tenure on “The View.” Actually, Rosie was quite funny and more than a little melancholic as she recalled her late mother, and how the more things change, the more they stay the same. Her point: Teach your children well. Point taken, Rosie, who’s got four kids and brought at least some of them along for the ride. But she was at her funniest when she grabbed a chunk of her own flab in a righteous display of healthy body self-image and yelled to an absent Donald Trump: “I’m gonna rub some of this on his orange, bald head. Here, ya prick!” And if the crowd still didn’t dig her plus-size sexiness, she recalled how, when in Mexico, she was all the rage with the menfolk, one of whom explained to her, “Bone is for the meek; meat is for the man!” Good stuff.

I missed the opening act the Cliks, but got there in time for Tegan and Sara, a Canadian twin-sister singer-songwriter outfit that could otherwise be called the Indigo Twins as interpreted by Bjork (squared?). They were all cute and poppy and acoustic, and were predictably irked by all the dining going on in their midst. When the applause wasn’t as raucous as they’d hoped, Tegan yelped, “We know all of you are holding two glasses of wine, so … .” Good one, Tegan. I’m sure no one’s ever cracked that joke at Chastain, bless your heart.

Lauper popped up onstage in lieu of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” regular Carson Kressley, the evening’s MC, to give a little shout-out and to introduce Rosie. (Hey Carson, don’t quit your day job. The gay humor felt rented from a bad drag show, and only intermittently hit the mark. And that short-cropped ’do, all blond and sleeked back with product, made him look like Crispin Glover in a not-good way.) Lauper was funny even while delivering one of the tour’s basic points: “Voting for the American president is more important that voting for the American Idol.” Standing on a front-row chair, she implored in her best Brooklyn drawl, “Please vote. I’m not gonna tell ya who to vote for, but I’m gonna tell ya to vote.” She looked to her left, perplexed at a fan. “Am I buggin’ ya because I’m standing on your chair?” One sip off a front-row fan’s martini, and she was off.

Rosie followed, and then the B-52’s, which brought back so many awesome memories I wouldn’t know where to begin. You see, growing up in Tallahassee in the 1970s and ’80s, I had a severe case of Athens Envy, so bummed was I that I didn’t live in a college town that wasn’t the epicenter of alternative rock. (No, I was only five hours from it.) So my friends and I settled for loving the B-52’s from a distance, making them one of the staple bands for our annual beach-party weekend down on the Gulf Coast, “Rock Lobster” being the weekend’s anthem. Like I’m sure so many others, we even made a caravan trek up to Atlanta in the summer of 1990 to see them perform at Lakewood, with Ziggy Marley as the opening act, on their Cosmic Thing tour. (I even recall us trolling through Little Five Points, munching on Fellini’s pizza, grabbing beers from their pickel barrel and paying on the honors system, and buying those now-hilarious, positive-energy crystal necklaces. Good Lord!) And of course they delivered the goods in concert. They were so feel-good, the fans didn’t even get mad at each other. No pushing or shoving, no standing on a chair to block someone’s view. You just didn’t do that at a B-52s show.

In fact, I remember seeing them the previous fall, on that same album’s tour, at a free show down in Gainesville during the University of Florida’s homecoming week. There were like 13,000 people at the bandshell, and twice Fred Schneider proved how he could literally control the crowd. At one interval, he told people to stop crushing each other and spread out. They did, just like that, like Moses parting the Red Sea. At another point, just as Kate and Cindy were launching into that sweet-harmony intro to “Roam,” Fred noticed a fight break out between two dumb-asses. He halted the song, and scolded the two: “Hey, stop that! Or we won’t continue playing!” And they stopped, just like that.

Back in real time, the B-52’s looked pretty good for their age, with Cindy wearing her middle age naturally and Kate looking like she’s still putting up a bit of a fight. Fred’s close-cropped gray hair topped off his black-and-white shirt-pant ensemble, and he looked relatively trim. Keith Strickland looked positively ageless, like he’s drinking whatever Prince is drinking. Knowing they were doing one of those short/sweet sets, the deftly mixed in the oldies with the best of their surprisingly good CD, Funplex, including the standard-order, Kate/Cindy-harmony-laced “Juliet of the Spirits.” Throughout the set, all the thirtysomethings and above danced with glee, including my old buddy Joel, who joined me from Marietta for a mini-reunion of our own. (We’re both missing that beach-party weekend next week, Joel noted, so this was our beach party.) I spied a quartet of New Millennials sitting at their table, expressionless, while we all bopped around to “Private Idaho” and “Roam.” They didn’t seem to get it. But when “Love Shack” came on, they lit up. Ah, commercial radio.

Then came Cyndi, who turns 55 next week and even on close inspection looks at least five years younger. With her short-cropped bleach-blonde ’do, shorts/shirt/vest/tie ensemble, she marched up a Statue of Liberty prop and sang her heart out, delivering the hits with glee. But she caught the crowd delightfully off-guard with an acoustic rendering of her homage to wacking off, “She Bop.” Once again, she dropped down into the crowd with her chordless mic, threading right past us as she sang.

The whole gang came out for the encore, a blissfully appropriate rendering of Sly & the Family Stone’s “Everyday People.” Singing off-key was never so fun. (For me, I mean.) To top things off, Cyndi delivered the Tour’s eponymous song, and the night was over. It wasn’t like the old days, but it didn’t have to be. It was close enough. And I got the message. See you at the voting booth.

(Photos by David Lee Simmons)

2) Craig Seymour discusses and signs It Was All I Could Bare: My Life in the Strip Clubs of Gay Washington, D.C. at Outwrite Bookstore & Coffeehouse.

3) Harvey Milk performs at the Earl with Pride Parade.

4) Young Blood Gallery presents Samuel Parker’s The Road to Excess.

5) The Spill Canvas visits Masquerade.

(Image by Donna Mintz)

I’m not sure if anyone totally got into the “Beer’lympics” theme beyond our scrappy CL staff and volunteers, but it is nevertheless fun to watch our Copy Editor Russell McLendon wear a John McEnroe-like sweatband and a moustache that defies description (and gravity). All I know is we had a helluva turnout despite a persistent early-afternoon threat of rain. The range of brews, from domestic to important, major label to micro-brew, was jaw-dropping. And while most guys of a hetero persuasion must have loved all that tanned skin courtesy the ladies of Pink Pony and Cheetah, I couldn’t help but wonder if there is a chance to provide more beefcake for the other demographic next year. (Stay tuned; we love the cakes.) More than anything I was pleasantly stunned at how many people participated in the “cornhole” games. I mean, it was like watching shuffleboard in Boca Raton. Amazing!

But thanks for everyone who came out, all those who volunteered, and particularly Marketing Director Shana Langfur, who’s been in her new position for like, what time is it?!

For tons more photos from this year’s Beer Fest, visit www.SideshowAtlanta.com.

(Photos by David Lee Simmons)

(EDITOR’S NOTE: LOTS MORE PICTURES AFTER THE JUMP!) 

The Gallery at East Atlanta Tattoo’s group art shows continue to draw fans of the lowbrow style, the Monster Mayhem opening on Friday night proved. This show struck a particular chord, not only with the huge crowd that jammed the narrow gallery hallway and back-side patio but also shop/gallery owner Dirk Hays. “I’ve loved monsters since I was a kid,” says Hays, who poured over copies of Creepy and Eerie magazines growing up in Opelika, Ala. This is the fourth show at the gallery, which opened last September. Ideally, Hays would like to have four big seasonal shows with four smaller ones dropped in between. But considering attendance at these events have gone from 300 to more than 500 (at April’s Damn Dirty Ape show), don’t be surprised if they do more. “More and more people are coming to check out these shows,” Hays says.

The show was a happy mixed-bag of pop-surrealism, kitsch and color, once again tapping into a weirdly cool zeitgeist of the horror-movie culture that sprang from the 1930s movies and is revealing itself throughout this summer starting with Monster Bash at the Starlight Six Drive-In. The more than 50 artists blurred the lines between irony and authenticity at this show, particularly Buddy Finethy. By day the corporate artist for Mellow Mushroom, Finethy has a few other irons in the fire when he’s off the clock, including his Atlanta GI Joe Collectors Club. On Friday, he showed off his “Thinking Man’s Frank” acrylic on paper (pictured, at right), a making the tongue-in-cheeky connection between self-taught and more formalized art. Vinnie Blanco made a particular impression with his “Terror on the Beach” (pictured, above) in which two living-dead hot-rodders careen through a blood-splattered haze in their warped dune buggy, surf boards in tow. It’s alternately scary and hilarious.

“Nobody else is showing this kind of art work in Atlanta, and that’s the most gratifying thing I’ve heard from people who come to these shows,” says Hays. “A lot of the people that come here seem to appreciate this imagery, this lowbrow, pop-surrealist stuff. The monster theme is a big part of the lowbrow culture.”

The party outside was especially fitting, with a tatted-up bartender from Blastoff Burlesque making sure folks knew of their Aug. 2 Go West! show at Alcove Gallery, corn dogs courtesy of Pallookaville, and a heady mix of ska and rock tunes spun by Boss Jonezy from Southern Soul Sound System.

Monster Mayhem will be up on the walls through June 28. Gallery hours: Thursday-Saturday, 5-8 p.m. Next up: 4 on the Floor, featuring works by Jessica Elaine Blinkhorn, Dave MacDowell, Emma Mount and Brandi Read. The opening reception is Saturday, July 19, from 7-11 p.m.

(Photos by David Lee Simmons; for more photos, see the gallery below)

That’s history for you, especially when you’re young. Sometimes you only remember swatches of moments, and images. Four decades on, RFK seems to live on in a variety of those swatches. Like his speeches, whether on the campaign trail or after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, in which he did his level best to tamp down on the violence sure to come …

Kennedy, like his brother John, has endured a rather spotty interpretation on film (but for the excellent “American Experience” documentary). He was portrayed with surprising timidity by Linus Roache in the 2002 TV movie, RFK, which failed to capture but a lick of his charisma and depth of feeling. My favorite portrayal comes from Martin Sheen, who at various times has portrayed both brothers but was brilliant in the 1974 TV movie The Missiles of October, about the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. (I can barely remember how Steven Culp portrayed him in Thirteen Days, which was more a vehicle for Kevin Costner as a presidential aide than anything else.) Last year brought us RFK Must Die! The Assassination of Bobby Kennedy, which raises new questions about whether Sirhan B. Sirhan (still serving a life sentence in a California prison) actually pulled the trigger.

I’m a little embarrassed that I still have yet to see Emilio Estevez’s 2006 film, Bobby, about the people and events surrounding the assassination at the Ambassador Hotel, minutes after RFK had clinched the California primary and seemed the presumptive Democratic nominee. Reviews of the film ranged from tepid to negative, but there are some interesting scenes from the movie, mainly because they’re so deftly inter-spliced with real images of and words by RFK, including this clip.

The anniversary, of course, comes just a few weeks after Hillary Clinton’s bizarro rationale for remaining in the Democratic primary race, evoking his assassination “in June” to show how, hey, anything can happen in this wacky political world! Watching that clip, today, makes it even more creepy than when she first uttered her words.

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.)

And then there was the persistent corporate presence this time around, thanks to the switch from Turner Classic Movies (previously the least corporate of the Turner family members) to Peachtree TV and its presenting sponsor Pepsi. (If you didn’t know the latter, you are deaf and blind. Even then, you could’ve gotten bonked on the head by a Pepsi beach ball.) And what’s up with Peachtree TV’s host, Jeff “JJ” Johnson, who bordered on the “Everybody make some noise!” form of cheesiness. JJ, it’s just a picnic in the park. Chill. The same could be said for the switch to the pleasant bourgeoisie music vibe of Dave FM to the hyper-pop of Q-100, but that’s my own generational grumpiness. Considering how much younger the crowd seemed — could it be the proximity to Georgia State? — maybe Screen on the Green deserves a youth movement. The crowd also seemed even more mixed than in previous years, which already was impressive.

As the sun set, the park really started glowing, partly thanks to the lit-up trees, and at one point in a bad way: During what felt like a small misstep, the park’s lampposts lit up a few minutes into Jaws but were quickly switched off to the cheers of the crowd.

My wife and I had to laugh during the pre-screening commercials, which lasted almost as long as those annoying strings of trailers before a regular movie. The really funny moment came when they played a spot for the Piedmont Park Conservancy, with its lush montage of all the park has to offer, and will offer in the future. As if to say, “We’d like to remind you why you’re NOT here! Enjoy the movie!” Whatever, we get it. Staying off their grass now will lead to good things later. Thanks.

In yesterday’s post, I said that two scenes will decide whether we’ve grown tired of watching Jaws a bazillion times on cable TV — Hooper’s dead-man encounter and Brody’s first glimpse of the shark. Each time, the audience went nuts, in particular a disturbingly cute quartet of girls about 20 feet in front of us. The more they squealed, the tighter they clung to each other. Mission accomplished, Jaws! Now if we could just do something about the asshole group of college kids to our right, drunken, chain-smoking and talking like they were in a bar and not at a theater. When I politely (really) asked them to tone it down, they looked at me like I was, well, like a buzzkill asking them to tone it down. You can predict what happens next. That’s not what really pissed me off, though; it was their ability to smuggle that impressive-looking box of Franzia into the park. Cheers, dude!

Maybe it’s not such a different park after all. Memo to self: Wear a bulky sweater next week.

(Photos by David Lee Simmons)

I really like this series because they present a reality a theater-goer never gets to see — the harp-tuner tuning up a harp in an empty theater, the characters getting transformed into peeps from the 18th century. My favorite pictures from this series are the images of the chorus warming up. To me, these images are humorous and force you to contemplate what is going on. They remind me of Lee Friedlander, one of my photographic heroes. He did a series titled “At Work” that featured people in the 1980’s working at computers. Friedlander shot the portraits so that the computer screens could not be seen by the viewer and all one sees is the subject’s head, which forces the viewer to puzzle over what is going on. Those photos had the effect of showing the dehumanization of people as they work in front of computers, with their bland expressions and bored looks. To me, the chorus images have the opposite effect. Their animated expressions show the utter joy and focus these great artists bring to their work.

I owe a big thank you to Cristina Herrera and the Atlanta Opera for letting me photograph them in their most vulnerable state.

(Photos by Joeff Davis / slideshow produced by Tara-Lynne Pixley)