Hey y’all! Time for one of Pecanne Log’s most exciting features, our Run-Off Election Candidate Death Match. These aren’t endorsements per se, because the criteria used to determine a winner in each of the races below isn’t necessarily what we would use when entering the voting booth (which we did ages ago, because we thought it would be faster to vote early but did not take into account that a van full of senior citizens in velour track suits would arrive at the Fulton County government center minutes before us, on our pathetic one-hour lunch break). But if the following helps you decide, then we are so glad we have helped. Don’t forget to vote today, because no one ever remembers – and if enough of you write in Sid Mashburn for city council president, he might actually win!
Let’s start with the most important race – the one the New York Times cares about, solely because a black person AND a white person are running, in the South.
ATLANTA MAYOR: MARY NORWOOD VS. KASIM REED
Not only were both candidates pretty humdrum, they both had terrible campaign logos. Mary Norwood’s was completely uninspired. Did she even try to have an interesting, eye-catching logo? Does she have any intellectual curiosity that would lead her to at some point in the past two years to consider a semi-engaging visual design for her omnipresent candidacy? How could a person so ambitious for so long not care to strive for anything better than Times New Roman? No wonder the Mohammed K. Reed campaign stole all her yard signs. They are offensive to any Atlanta citizen who leaves the house in anything more that sweatpants. Mary Norwood’s logo is the elastic waistband of yard signs. read more…
So Alex Wan and…one of those white straight people…are in a runoff in which none of you will remember to vote. We’ve discussed Alex Wan’s good looks here before, but let’s get the superficial stuff out of the way for good and talk from now on about what’s really on the mind of us Disty Sixers when we think about the next person to carry our torch in City Hall. This question was posed to me today and it totally caught me off guard in its frankness and urgency: read more…
Holy crap! I didn’t even know these exist! I guess no one I knew in 1996 was fancy enough to have anything nicer than a giant collection of limited edition Olympic pins.
Here’s a slightly more affordable tortoise shell version.
Previously: All your Christmas shopping in one fell swoop
Oh, look, it’s October 29 and you still haven’t thought about your Halloween costume! And Halloween is on a Saturday night this year, so that’s a lot of pressure! You’ve probably spent the last month telling everyone that you are going as [insanely conceptual and timely costume joke idea] to get a rise out of your friends without actually having to exert the effort of putting a memorable costume together. It’s okay, though! We got creative for you, and all these costumes will please the locals!
- Paul and Annabelle from TBS’s old school “Dinner and a Movie“: This is a cop-out costume since all you have to do is dress like it’s the year 1999 and wear oven mitts or something, but everyone will appreciate it. Bonus points if you worked for TBS back then and got one of these Dinner and a Movie aprons.
- Hologram preacher: Yeah, you thought when you watched Will.i.am on CNN’s election night coverage that this was the first time hologram technology had been used like that in real life? But you were wrong! This has been going on for years at a megachurch in Buckhead and Alpharetta!
We don’t know if we feel more like Shepard Fairey or AP photographer Mannie Garcia, but we definitely feel like our iconic political design was ripped off! Look at what the Farokhi campaign is up to:
We came up with the idea to make a jack-o-lantern-embellished Blingee of Amir Farokhi’s headshot! It was us!
Previously: Bad call, Mr. Wheatley!
I haven’t even looked at gubernatorial candidate John Oxendine’s new cutting-edge animated commercial, but because some blogger helpfully posted screenshots so I get the general idea: it’s like The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but set at metro Atlanta’s most popular tourist spots.
Obviously, this is my new desktop background! A rat with human hands and gold jewelry at the laser show!
Well, the dust has settled on Creative Loafing’s endorsements, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still hurt by one in particular, and all the keying in the world of Thomas Wheatley’s previously-owned 2008 Honda Accord hasn’t made that hurt go away. Who does Thomas Wheatley think he is, anyway?! He doesn’t even live in Atlanta; did you know that? Yeah, he’s a suburbanite, yet he’s allowed to go on writing for Creative Loafing Atlanta! And then has the audacity to tell us who to vote for! WHY DON’T YOU GO WRITE FOR DECATUR METRO INSTEAD SINCE YOU LOVE IT SO MUCH, THOMAS WHEATLEY!!
And why does everyone call him “young Mr. Wheatley”? Thomas Wheatley was born in 1962, people! That’s not young at all!
Previously: Amore for Amir
I got this new theme for my Gmail because I was like, “A tree in a sunny field! That’s cute and uplifting!” But now I see it changes with the weather, and I’m depressed.
I WANT TO KNOW which one of you assholes got all sentimental and bid out from under me this awesome photo of Mrs. E. J. Karst operating on a little tweet at her homemade bird hospital in Atlanta. Who was it, hmmmm?
The last paragraph of the caption on the back apparently (I’ll never know for sure) says:
What a fine thing it is that some humans take such interest in helping dumb creatures. Why shouldn’t they when the Master once said that not even a sparrow falls to the ground without the Father knowing it.
Nowadays, bird hospitals are a dime a dozen, but back in the ’30s, practicing amateur avian veterinary in your basement made you a media darling.
The only further information I can find on Mrs. E. J. Karst’s venture is this little article from the February 1937 Popular Science in a section of the magazine that seems to highlight freakish and amazing things to happen in these United States:
The Atlanta Botanical Gardens is going to be combining my two favorite pasttimes on October 29th: beer and beards. Well, one beard in particular. The gardens will be hosting a pumpkin carving competition by some of Atlanta’s top chef’s during the annual Fest of Ale. Assuming no one gets drunk with the pumpkin carving tools this might even be an event Mamalikey and the wee one could come to!
The line-up of carvers includes Kevin Gillespie, Woodfire Grill and this season’s Top Chef (OMG!11! Love him and his big fluffy beard); Joey Bridgers, Babette’s Café; Victor Dagatan, The Ritz-Carlton, Buckhead; Andrew Miller, Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts Atlanta; and Alison Lueker, Sun in my Belly. They are totally going to get all Quick Fire Challenge on those pumpkins! Everyone will have 25 minutes to carve their masterpieces out of giant pumpkins. I hope Kevin carves the face of that guido, Mike Isabella, and then stabs it in the eye.
Admission for the event is $15 adults, $12 seniors and children 3-17, free to children under three and Garden members. Really though, this is a great bang for you buck. Not only do you get to potentially have Kevin let you touch his beard (no promises), but there is a beer school led by Hop City, beer tasting (most important), and scarecrows everywhere.
The Fest of Ale is from 5-10 pm, and the Pumpkin carving is 7-8 pm.
I have to admit, I have spent the last forty five minutes thinking about what lengths I would go to to score some beef. My desperation is growing, and now the specific demands for either a steak or potroast have waned and I am looking for anything with cow. If there is one thing that is not helping my cause it is the number of food blogs and websites in this city that are advertising the meat I cannot have. But, as I am tied to my chair for another hour and 13 minutes, meat pornography is the best I can get.
Grindhouse Burgers, why must you torment me so?! An unnamed source in my gchat queue even agrees: “I wasn’t even craving beef and I read that and was like BRING ME A HAMBURGER, SQUIRE!”
Kevin Rathbun is a goner if he comes anywhere within five hundred feet of my chompers. I can only imagine that the smell of steak and truffle butter eminates from him as he walks along Krog Street.
Med Grill (at 10th and Monroe) has a delicious dinner platter with steak and tasty sauce that I would rip into so fast right now. I am sharpening my teeth in preparation.
At this point, I will even settle for picking up some meat on the way home. I can’t promise it will make it as far as my front door and being cooked, though.
Beef, come find me! I need you!
If anyone knows of a good place to get meat before 5 o’clock and below Ponce, comment now.
Another thing I discovered when I was looking up W.H. Reed (the company that packaged those useless Golden Pheasant condoms from the last post) was the Atlanta Journal-record of Medicine from April 1909. There’s nothing to note in the text beyond the typical weird obsolete medical words used a hundred years ago, but the subject of the cover illustration was a little peculiar even for this sort of document:
Since I have to save up all my money for my Halloween costume this month, I guess I’ll go ahead and share with you the fantastic treasures I have uncovered that maybe someone else can take advantage of. I am going to immediately regret this, I just know it, but if you don’t buy them who will?!?!!?!?
Ugh, I would totally love to get this as a gift for someone who’s moved away to greener pastures, but the fact that I can see skin through the shirt kind of grosses me out (sorry, Alternative). Someone else buy this please and if I ever see you wearing it out I will buy you a drink. Or maybe you should buy me a drink. I can’t remember. read more…
Which men’s hair grooming product do you think Amir Farokhi uses?
Is that the sheen of Brylcreem or does he perhaps use a hair tonic? Whatever it is, it’s helped him achieve perfect Kennedy hair, something this country needs right now more than ever. read more…
Fact: I am getting married, and soon! So…I don’t know, I just felt like I should address why there hasn’t been any action here at Pecanne Log lately. Not for want of material, because I just went to the DHS Sell-Out Center this week and have so much to say/show about that that place. But if you don’t hear a peep around here for another few weeks, it’s because of getting married. And if you don’t hear anything for months, it’s because I died of swine flu on my honeymoon.
But do please know we just renewed the pecannelog.com domain name, so we’re in for at least another 365 days, y’all!!
Each year he gets closer and closer to The Big Chill.
After a hellish 12 days with no internet in my home, I’m back! It’s really difficult to blog at coffee shops, because there are too many distractions. Blogging is hard! We just make it look easy.
Here’s a vintage reminder for those of you sad about the tenuous fate of Atlanta’s pandas. We will always have Coca-Cola!
Someone wants to know:
Why doesn’t Atlanta feel like Gone With The Wind?
I went on a 4 day trip to Atlanta back in 2003. I enjoyed the city okay, but I didnt get that Old South feeling anywhere. I am from Richmond- so I am naturally used to a lot of Southern hospitality.
Anyways, I took a tour of the Margaret Mitchell home (its really a one level flat), and it was okay. The tour guide was nice. But I was dissapointed in how generic Atlanta seems to be. It seems like anyplace in the USA. I mean, I know its a big city.
But anyways, I was hoping for women in hoop skirts to say fiddle dee dee, and where was Rhett Butler? Stuck on the Marta?
Okay, just kidding.
But you know what I mean.
Atlanta felt like a cross between Washington DC and Chicago.
Anyways, Atlanta just didnt feel much like GWTW.
I hope maybe I can visit again and get that Gone With The Wind feelin’
Frankly, I think Gone With the Wind is kind of a snooze, but Mitchell has a point here that still holds true: “Scarlett had always liked Atlanta for the very same reasons that made Savannah, Augusta and Macon condemn it. Like herself, the town was a mixture of the old and new in Georgia, in which the old often came off second best in its conflicts with the self-willed and vigorous new.”
Also, to answer this tourist’s question, it stopped being legal for rich white men to buy and sell human beings to lace their daughters into their hoop skirts, and that’s when Atlanta stopped being like Gone With the Wind. Thank God.
Previously: “The story behind those fabulous Vera Bradley bags!”
This was only my first of many, many ballots I will forge for Creative Loafing’s Best of Atlanta ‘09, and look what I noticed:
Before I could even finish! Is the site prompting me to vote for him? Is it just a lucky prediction? Or has he garnered that many votes already? What does the smiley face mean? HOW DOES DEMOCRACY WORK?
(Sorry, Mark Davis, but we gotta stay tru to our roots and vote for T-Dubs. Bulldawgs 4 lyfe!)
We also want to encourage all our readers to vote for Miss Darrow’s vanity project, Burn Away, for best local arts website.
Pecanne Log won’t be campaigning for votes for any category because the shame of not winning after publicly admitting it’s important to us to have that kind of validation and recognition would be too crushing. We have dignity, you know! And last year we received some sort of consolation prize for making Thomas Wheatley a household name, and that’s enough, right? Here’s a photo of us at the award ceremony last year: read more…
Here’s something from the Atlanta Constitution in 1913 (from the book Gay and Lesbian Atlanta). The article was about Anthony Auriemma, “a professional female impersonator who contested Atlanta’s city ordinance banning cross-dressing.” Would that he were still around today, because Danni Lee Harris totally wouldn’t let “Chief Beavers” mess with him!
Auriemma was at at the top of his game back in these days as a vaudeville drag queen (primarily performing as Francis Renault after leaving Atlanta), traveling the country where he “enjoyed the attention of many bedazzled young men.”
(via)
Lots more on Francis Renault here at Queer Music Heritage with some fantastic photographs.
