Scanner : georgia

Take Him to Detroit: America's 11 Most Depressing Places

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:46:00 GMT

This really ain't Michigan's week, is it? First, some dumbass ex-Mayor was arrested for having an extramarital affair in the middle of the street. Then, we made a mean joke about the Detroit Free Press and it's sex advice column, complete with a newspaper headline that says, "Detroit Blows." Now, comes word that Business Insider is further driving down the state's property values by including two MI cities on its list of the most depressing places in America.

Cheer up and enjoy this sprightly little list...

11. Stockton, CA. Stockton actually topped the recent Forbes list of the 10 worst places to live in the country, which is somehow different than "depressing." At that time, we commented: "The cost of living has skyrocketed here, thanks to a hipster influx from other Bay Area towns and cities. Why this hasn't translated into economic growth for Stockton is beyond us. Perhaps that major real estate crash two years ago has something to do with it-- Stockton led the country in foreclosures in 2007. Bonus: The band Pavement started out here." It turns out that they Mayor has the town in an uproar for trying to unload his condo/apartment with a short sale.

10. Flint, MI. Business Insider calls Michael Moore's favorite city "an impoverished, depressing dump." In the 20 years since Roger & Me, no one claims the city has improved its quality of life, so we're going to have to assume BI is right to include it here.

9. Wichita, KS. Apparently, the only city with worse dating opportunities for young people is Kansas City, Missouri. And even though one of the scariest serial murderers in history, the BTK Killer, has been brought to justice, a cloud of dread hangs over the city like so many horrific tornadoes of the past... or something.

8. Alpharetta, GA. What the hell is Alpharetta, GA? "Alpharetta, a suburb of Atlanta, is the bank-failure capital of the U.S. Three banks based in Alpharetta--NetBank, Integrity Bancshares and Alpha Bank & Trust--failed in just 13 months. That's more than any other single town in America." Oh, that Alpharetta, GA....

7. West Palm Beach, FL. Business Week claims there really isn't a terrible place to live in Florida, while we insist all of Florida is terrible. If you want to live somewhere warm, move to a tropical island-- most people in FL just end up the source of hilarious news for the rest of the country. Speaking of hilarious, check out this bizarro ad for a company called Condo Vultures Realty. It's apparently real.

6. Kokomo, IN is not the place The Beach Boys told you-- not by any means. It has a staggering 20% unemployment rate (wonder how much that rises when you factor in the "real unemployment rate" in this country, which is somewhere around 15% now) and is likely to go down with the Titanic that is the nation's auto industry. If you ever needed a reason to move to Indiana... well, you won't find it here.

5. Mahoning Valley, OH. Really, this one's all about Youngstown-- formerly a great steel and mining community, Youngstown is now almost as violent as New Orleans or Brooklyn when the subway stops running. Check this out: "Car bombings were so frequent that they became known as 'a Youngstown tuneup.'" Can an HBO series be far off?

4. Yuma, AZ. Sporting highs in the 60's and 70's all winter long, it's no wonder many Arizonians have winter homes there. Somehow this hasn't translated into year-round employment for the sleepy town, which has jobless numbers rivaling (and often topping) a little place called Kokomo. You wouldn't know it from the Wikipedia page, but Business Week claims this is the unemployment capital of the country. Ouch.

3. East St. Louis, IL. Jesus Christ, who the hell actually lives in East St. Louis these days? GET OUT.

2. Inland Empire, CA. David Lynch's favorite place on earth-- need you hear anymore? It's also responsible for bringing down Lehman Brothers-- or, should we say, dumbassery is what's responsible for bringing down Lehman Brothers-- as they bought up a real estate company in the area shortly before the whole area's value dropped by an unfathomable 60%.

And #1... you knew it was coming, my Detroit friends, so let's get on with it:

1. Detroit, MI. Why is Detroit in such dire straits? Sure, the auto industry is all shot to hell these days (and probably permanently)-- but is that enough to make this the most depressing place in America? No, this figure is: "The average home price in Detroit is just $7,500 because no one wants to live there. The continuing catastrophe that is the US auto industry has reduced this onetime industrial behemoth to a nearly perfect picture of decrepitude. Last year when the murder rate dropped in the city, the mayor joked that the reason was that 'there is no one left to kill.'" The only thing wrong with this quote is the word "joked"-- everyone nodded knowingly when he said it. Then he went to jail for perjury... and it wasn't even big news because... no one cares about Detroit. Sorry, kids.

Via Business Insider.

Believe It Or Not, One of the Best Sex Advice Columns is Brought to You By... Detroit

Ex-Mayor in Michigan Arrested For Having Sex in the Street

Teenage Girl Sues Her Father For Grounding Her, Wins

Candidate for Gov. of GA Admits to Having Sex... with a Mule

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 01 May 2009 17:50:00 GMT

Back in 2005, radical right-wing protofascist Christian Neal Horsley admitted to FoxNews anchor Alan Colmes that he had, at the age of 11 in 1955, engaged in unlawful carnal knowledge with a mule. In other words, he raped a mule and confessed to the crime on live radio.

That hasn't stopped the scary-as-hell Georgian from announcing he is running for Governor...

NH: "Absolutely. I was a fool. When you grow up on a farm in Georgia, your first girlfriend is a mule."

AC: "I'm not so sure that that is so."

NH: "You didn't grow up on a farm in Georgia, did you?"

AC: "Are you suggesting that everybody who grows up on a farm in Georgia has a mule as a girlfriend?"

NH: It has historically been the case. You people are so far removed from the reality... Welcome to domestic life on the farm..."

All his opponents have to do to get rid of Horsley (oh, if only it had been an equestrian indiscretion!) is to send that interview out as a mailer for three days straight at the end of the campaign. Of course, Horsley isn't much of a challenger-- he's running on the Creator's Rights Party platform. And his campaign is going about as well as David Paterson's in New York. From Daily Kos:

"We're talking about the mule now?"

Yes, he says. The mule.

"A small mule?" I ask.

"No, a full grown mule," he says. "She loved me, though."

We both laugh, but I'm still trying to figure out the logistics. How big is this thing? The size of a horse, he says.

"All I had to do was give her an ear of corn." He laughs again. "She was a [prostitute] mule."

"How did you reach?"

"I don't know... I stood on something. The kicker is, as soon as I was done she pissed all over me. It was embarrassing. I never told anyone that before."

Not only that, but Horsley has had sex with men. He was in the Air Force, it was a cold night, yadda, yadda, yadda, he had sex with him, ahem, the way he did the mule. "It was gross," he says.

It should come as no surprise to our readers, all of whom have read stories here about right-wing hypocrites and their laughably ignorant world views, to learn that this is a man who has been linked to the murderers of abortion doctors, thanks to his involvement with the Army of God, and is known to express anti-gay views. He's also the modern-day equivalent of a Confederate traitor to the United States, since he advocates secession over the legalization of abortion and told an interviewer he would kill his Army-Sarge son if sonny boy was sent out to stop him.

Asked if he was ready to sacrifice his own son in a national insurrection, Horsley recounts a fight with his son where he almost killed him.

“I was one foot from killing my own son, or hurting him really, really bad,” Horsley told Krider. “If he would have attacked me again, I would have stuck him. Or cut him or sliced him or done something to stop him. That’s the point, you[r] hypothetical has literally already been worked out with me, and that’s what makes me different from the other candidates for Governor. They understand I’m not like no politician they have looked at, ever. I am prepared to do a John Brown. I’m not prepared to do an Abe Lincoln and talk out both sides of my mouth and try to get a majority together. I’m looking for the people who are prepared to go with me and take over the foundry, then set up shop and prepare to fight to the death. I’ll do it.” [Raw Story]

He is prepared to do a John Brown? Where is law enforcement when you need him? If we still have legalized executions in this country, why not put this guy on the list, for treason? Just kidding, that would be stooping to his level... or, should we say, "standing on something to get at him?"

Related:

Nevada Governor's Sex Scandal May Top Eliot Spitzer's

Politician Probably Should've Taken Down Scandalous Facebook Profile First

Cheerleading Coach In Hottest Nude Photo Scandal Ever

Top 10 Feminist Icons... From A Male (Part Two)

18-Year-Old Boy Arrested in Most Bizarre Sex Tape Bust Yet

Crush of the Week: Lisa Batiashvili

Brian Fairbanks — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:34:00 GMT

Lisa Batiashvili, the 29- or 30-year-old violinist from the nation of Georgia, played three shows with the New York Philharmonic over the weekend. By the time we heard of and fell in love with her, the available tickets were well out of our price range. That's the problem with going to see opera and classical music-- we'd love to see more of it, but we don't feel we're getting our money's worth at Madison Square Garden prices unless its practically an historic occasion.

Based on the reviews, we missed some stunning performances and, of course, a chance to gape at this very pretty woman...

The SF Gate glows about her new CD:

You have to have a gimmick to put out yet another recording of the Beethoven Violin Concerto, and Georgian violinist Lisa Batiashvili has two dandy ones: She plays the Beethoven without a conductor, "leading" the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen in a performance that, for all its rough-hewn muscle, is unified and full of rhetorical flair; and she includes an odd but fascinating curtain-raiser, a group of six orchestral miniatures by Georgian composer Sulkhan Tsintsadze. These pieces (written for string quartet and arranged by the violinist's father, Tamas Batiashvili) combine folk strains - dances, love songs - with a formal inventiveness that is striking. The performances muster plenty of rhythmic panache and lead nicely into a vigorous account of the Beethoven.

Among her concert reviews is this gem:

“It’s been a while since a debut at Tanglewood created quite the sensation that Lisa Batiashvili, an unheralded violinist from Asian Georgia in her mid-20s, set off Friday night. The audience all but tore the place down.”

That sounds like it was worth MSG pricing... next time, Ms. Batiashvili... or should we say, with a great sigh, Mrs. Batiashvili...

Batiashvili started playing the violin at the age of two... thanks to her father being a violinist (and her mother being a pianist couldn't have hurt.) Her career took off virtually overnight in 1991, when a London performance landed her a nearly-full world tour. Since then, she's played the Mostly Mozart Festival and several other major concerts, culminating in her much-hyped show of Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and Tchaikovsky last Thursday through Saturday.

This 24 minute, 38 second-long piece of Beethoven should give you an idea of what she's all about. Enjoy.

Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61/Allegro, ma non troppo

Photos and info via her website.

Related:

Bearded Man of the Week: Kris Kristofferson

Christina Ricci Was Born To Be A Porn Star

Sloppy Seconds: Michelle Obama Does the Unthinkable

Cloris Leachman Won't Wait For Her Entree, Wants You Now

10 Hottest Funny Women

Gay Bishop is About to Get All "Gay Bishop" on Your Ass

Emily Farris — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:33:00 GMT

Okay, perhaps "on your ass" was a poor choice of words, but V. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop who is better known as "the gay bishop" says he no longer rejects the identity and plans to take a lead in the fight over same-sex marriage.

Bishop Robinson, who lives in New Hampshire, believes that the church should simply bless a marriage and not be involved in the legality (Ed note: we agree). He will speak at Emory University in Atlanta tonight as part of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion's 2008-2009 "When Law and Religion Meet" lecture series. He plans to speak about the divide in the church caused by his election as bishop in 2003.

Related:

This Week in Gayness: Being Gay Is A Choice, Say Repuglicans

The Very Best Thing About This Inauguration...

"The Real World: Facebook" or Scanner Emily vs. The Mormons

[CBS Atlanta: Openly Gay Bishop To Speak At Emory]

[Image]

Ryan Adams: Hot or Not?

Colleen Kane — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 22:16:00 GMT

So Ryan Adams and Mandy Moore really went and did it. They tied the knot quietly yesterday in Savannah, Georgia. The coverage of this leads us to reflect, as usual, how much of a waffler Ryan can be in his looks (much like the quality of his music can vary wildly, as Scanner Brian has noted).

Sometimes, as above, he looks just darling. Maybe a jerk, but a jerk who might play you a song he wrote for you. OK, maybe he didn't write the song for you exactly, and it's a passive-aggressive song, but he's still easy on the eyes.

And then other times... egad.

Not a good look.

So, hot or not?

Related:

I Hate Myself For Loving You: Ryan Adams

While You Were Sleeping: Is This The Dumbest Woman in the World?

Top 10 Bands That Twitter

This Week in Gayness: How to Tell Your Boyfriend Is Closeted

Brian Fairbanks — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:12:00 GMT

When in doubt, blame Kenneth Starr. For everything, including bleach stains, if necessary.

Get involved each day of Freedom to Marry week.

Once again, meddling Senators are dooming New York's chances of gay marriage in 2009.

The same New York Times article linked above has been attacked by gay rights supports for "demonizing" their allies.

The Frisky has a list of 9 (alleged) signs your supposedly straight boyfriend is gay.

Even the Republicans in Hawaii are unanimously in favor of civil unions: the House just approved a bill giving same-sex couples the rights married couples have.

Supporters of a defeated hate crimes bill in Georgia aren't giving up.

Why does the right wing care so much that transsexuals have the option to select male or female on their Massachusetts drivers licenses?

Perez Hilton's Novelty Song

Homophobic Phelps Clan to Picket/Pick-On High School Students

This Week in Gayness: The Homophobic Celebrity Ad You Missed

So Lap Dances Aren't Acceptable at High School Basketball Games?

Emily Farris — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:13:00 GMT

When I was on the dance team in high school—the aptly named Fort Osage "Indianettes"—I was given the nickname "PT" for pelvic thrust(er). According to my fellow dancers, I couldn't even perform the fight song without a little extra pump from my rump.

Apparently it was nothing compared a dance routine performed at Jonesboro High School in Georgia.

After a recent performance by the school's dance team, all dance, cheerleading and band members in the school district must have their routines approved by an administrator and the dance team has been disbanded. Its coach has been removed as well.

Heh. We bet the principal got a boner.

Related:

Woman Steals Daughter's Identity to Become a High School Cheerleader

Nude High School Cheerleader Scandal is Disturbing for a Few Reasons

Want Revenge On Your Old High School?

Dare to Dream, Girls: High School Offers Pole Dance Demo

[Image]

While You Were Sleeping: Another American Cheater Unveiled

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:08:00 GMT

Bill Gates wants rich people to feel the pain, so he unleashed mosquitoes on them. Really.

"The Impaler," a self-described "Vampyre" who ran for Governor of Minnesota in '06 as the Vampyres, Witches and Pagans party (wha?) candidate, has been arrested for harassing his 16-year-old "vampyre hunter" ex-girlfriend.

Female bloggers in Sweden are fending off a company that's trying to bribe them with "beauty treatments." We'll take some!

Fuck Ticketmaster. Nobody can get Springsteen tickets, and now they want to form a monopoly?

Apparently, New York magazine has great success with linking its readers with its own hooker ads.

There's a new President, the world is constantly moving forward, but as usual, Georgia wants to crawl back into America's Puritan womb.

Kids are hanging themselves in school.

Michael Phelps may end up getting charged with drug possession or some other bong-incident-related offense.

And we always knew Barry Bonds was a cheater, but now we can prove it.

Related:

Tommy Lee's Drunk Pilot Is A Boob

Kanye Porn Update

While You Were Sleeping: Zooey Deschanel's Next Record

While You Were Sleeping: The NY Senate Seat Saga Ends?

While You Were Sleeping: What Men Think Women Think Men Want

Brian Fairbanks — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 14:08:00 GMT

Shots were fired at the motorcades of the Presidents of Georgia and Poland, although no one was hit.

A drag queen hosted a Miss Texas pageant, to the obvious horror of parents.

A boy in Florida was arrested for something heinous. No, we mean the reason he was arrested was heinous. Oh, never mind, you'll see:

Maybe the 13-year-old student at Martin County's Spectrum Junior/Senior High thought he was being funny by repeatedly and purposely passing gas during computer class.
His teacher, D.C. Carden, didn't bust a gut over the boy's breaking wind - not to mention his continuous turning off classroom computers - so he gave the boy a referral and sent him packing to the school resource officer for a little talk. "He subsequently informed me it was factual, and I informed him as a result of his behavior he was being charged with Disruption of a School Function,"

The boy was arrested for farting. He was released to his mom. No word on what he did in the car on the way home. [Blogs.Tampabay.com]

A teacher denied an inappropriate relationship with a young girl... until the girl was found in his closet. Whoops.

Hate crime is on the rise in Utah, down everywhere else.

A town near Barcelona is using solar panels atop gravestones to power itself.

They finally caught the Butt Bandit we warned you about.

11 Things He Wants From You, according to a male writer at MSN.

Boris Becker was dumped by text message. The woman in question was his fiancee.

And Madonna wants Britney Spears to move into her place... as some sort of ploy to get her back into Kabbalah... or something.

Related:

The Second Life Divorce Gets Funnier After The Split

20-Year-Old Teacher Strips For Her Students

While You Were Sleeping: Nude Photo Hoax

Sloppy Seconds: The Sheep Beauty Pageant

Cheerleaders "Streak" High School Football Game

Hot Teacher Caught After Three-Year Affair With Female Student

The Town Of Valentine, Nebraska Is Under Attack From The Butt Bandit

Sloppy Seconds: Phillies Fan Gives Her Team A Big Boost

Brian Fairbanks — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:29:00 GMT

Vietnam believes small chests are unhealthy and that thin people shouldn't operate motor vehicles. Believe it or not, this is a health initiative.

T.I. voted in Georgia, despite being a convicted felon and a guy we didn't think would ever show up to vote.

This top 10 list of "Things I Hate Absolutely Hate About Heteronormative Dating" doesn't always hit the nail on the head, but these entries we can agree with:

3. If you show emotion too early on or too much of it, you are needy.

8. If you have sex too early you ruined it.

9. If you don't have sex early on you are a prude.

The rest can be found here.

A man stole a male "enhancement" cream (in quotes because it doesn't do anything-- or so we've heard, we swear), tried it out in the store's bathroom, failed to satisfy himself, checked out the Barbie dolls, exposed himself in the aisle, and returned to the bathroom to try again. Yep, that's pretty much all there is to that story.

This guy is either drunk or a McCain campaign worker trying to muck things up.

That naughty Shakira... she made everything think she was pregnant, but it turned out it was just a publicity stunt for her new album. Blah.

And today's Miss CoEd at CoEd magazine is Erika Nicole, who really wants the Phillies to win tonight, so much show that she's willing to leak dozens of photos of herself in very little clothing to give the team a morale, um, boost.

Related:

Leryn Franco Makes Up For Missing Out On The Whole "Nude Olympians Craze"

...Shakira Allegedly Rocked Yacht With Two Dudes And A Camera

Hollywood Directors Lend McCain a Hand

Throbbing Hearts Can Get Kind of Messy

Sloppy Seconds: Which Olsen Twin Would Like You to Put a Baby in Her?

This Week In Gayness: Baton Twirlers Busted For "I Kissed A Girl"

Brian Fairbanks — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:32:00 GMT

Only 30-something percent of California voters are supporting the proposal to ban gay marriage there, but that doesn't stop the measure's wacky supporters from saying "elites" are denying the will of "the people."

Libertarian Presidential candidate Bob Barr is such a nice, well-rounded individual, he won't let anyone use the words "gay" or "lesbian" on his website. Even in a positive manner.

We used to think Canada was the sane, folksy antidote to our crazy U.S. culture, but not after this guy burst onto the national scene there:

David Popescu is running in the 2008 elections as an independent candidate as part of Canada's federal election. Popescu is well known for his radical christian point of view, and his strong opposition to homosexuality, abortion, and stem cell research.
"A young man asked me what I think of homosexual marriages and I said I think homosexuals should be executed," he said. "My whole reason for running is the Bible and the Bible couldn't be more clear on that point." (Toronto Sun)

Bigotry reigns in... Texas. A group of high school cheerleaders were suspended for a routine that include Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl." Lawsuit, anyone? (The school, of course, declined to define its pep-rally-song standards for anyone, even after this national news story.)

A transgender politician in Georgia, accused of fraud and deception in a lawsuit for running as a woman, won that lawsuit... but lost the re-election match anyway.

The lesbian mommas case heads to the Montana Supreme Court.

And the Mad Men of Madison are finally producing television ads geared for gays and lesbians, although don't expect an episode about it on the AMC series anytime soon.

Related:

HIV Outbreaks Started Much Earlier Than Previously Thought

San Francisco Street Fair Would Make The Marquis de Sade Proud

This Week In Gayness: Gay Leader Assassinated

This Week In Gayness: Discriminated By McDonald's

Gay Community Attacks McCain By Outing His Chief Of Staff

Dolly Parton for Vice President!

Go Have A Jolt Cola And A Sandwich, Kids, We Want To Have An Orgy

Brian Fairbanks — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:17:00 GMT

My, these middle school teachers sure seem to be getting laid a lot more often than we are. Unfortunately, the ones you're hearing about in the news are all sleeping with underage students or, in the case of those teachers at a school in Augusta, Georgia, with fellow staffers... during lunch...

According to News 12 in Richmond County, the school system has launched an investigation into whether Spirit Creek (damn hippies!) Middle School faculty engaged in noontime orgies:

The allegations include accusations that faculty members were having sex with each other here on school property during school hours.

The accused include teachers, members of the administration and a former school public safety officer.

"Wow. Wow. That's shocking. That's really shocking." Bonita Blocker's daughter is a seventh grader at Spirit Creek Middle School. "Anything like that should not be going on in the school system expecially with the testing scores that we're putting out here -- everything that thay do here should be concentrating on the children."

Is it wrong that we can't stop laughing about the above paragraphs? First, there's the image of teachers, administrators, and a safety officer unable to resist their sexual urges for each other, like that Peter Jackson movie Dead Alive, where the virus (or whatever it is) turns all the zombies, including a priest and a nurse, into sex fiends. Anyway, enough about that. What's even better is Bonita's reaction ("Wow." Pause. "Wow") and the use of the word "expecially" while discussing test scores.

People, you can't make this shit up. Read the rest of the madness here, but honestly, we've given you all you need to know.

Related:

Junior High Teacher Charged With... Oh My...

While You Were Sleeping: Which Hollywood Celeb Loves Anal Sex?

Hero of the Day: Dad Who Killed A Sex Offender Turned Home Invader

South African Lovers Pick The Wrong Place To Have Sex

Naked Women of Curling... 2008!

Mom Gets Five Years In Prison For Going Down On Her Daughter's Friend

While You Were Sleeping: Mischa Barton Can't Keep Her Clothes On

Sloppy Seconds: Stripper Shoots Boyfriend Over $150

Brian Fairbanks — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:09:00 GMT

A top Superior Court official in Cobb County, Georgia resigned after the following allegations were made public:

Sex in a judge's chambers, trysts at local hotels during business hours, obscene phone calls to female workers and a desire to see lesbian sex are among the many accounts of what was going on... for the past two decades.

A new study indicates the pill may lead women to make incorrect mating decisions. Hmm... no comment.

And Paris Hilton is being sued for

declining self-promotion for the first time in her life, TMZ reports that she's being sued for it:
Her 2006 "comedy" "National Lampoon's Pledge This!" was apparently so bad, even Paris wouldn't shill for it. Worldwide Entertainment Group says she got paid a mil — a mil, folks — to act in the movie and then push it on TV and radio. They say she didn't do the latter and so they're going after her in Federal court.

A stripper and another possible shooter wounded the stripper's (ex-)boyfriend over a whopping $150 debt.

Ha, ha: A judge in California allowed the state's colleges to deny entry to Christian students who learned about the Bible instead of evolution.

Obama supporter or just crazy idiot? An overzealous supporter sent Cindy McCain to the hospital today with a "crushing" handshake.

Wait, aren't Pam and Tommy Lee still together? Guess not.

And George W. Bush is sending US troops and sexy socialite Condi Rice to rescue Georgia from a ~~Soviet~~ Russian invasion.

The Greatest Dive Bars: The Clermont Lounge

Brian Fairbanks — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:30:00 GMT

We were in Atlanta over the 4th of July weekend to see Tom Waits play on his rare and limited-date US tour, for which we drove down from Brooklyn.

After the show, a cute and rather innocent female friend suggested, almost offhandedly, that we might enjoy this place called the Clermont Lounge...

Shrugging in surrender and still not entirely conscious after that intense concert, we staggered into the Clermont sometime after midnight on a Saturday night, expecting to have a few beers and collapse. Instead, we were met by perhaps one hundred and fifty people, many of them couples in their 20s, rocking out on the dance floor and enjoying what even we had to admit was a great DJ. At the bar, we ordered a couple of PBR's with accompanying Jager shots, seeing as how we were at a world-class dive/dump. The bright red neon light that adorned every inch of wall space took us back to our most drugged out New Orleans evenings... or even back to that Factory scene in Midnight Cowboy.

Anyway, we were settling in, marveling at the local characters... when it soon became clear why we'd been directed to this place...

With no fanfare whatsoever and to the complete dismissal of everyone on the dance floor, a large woman wearing a sumo wrestler's outfit stepped up onto the bar and almost immediately exposed her breasts:

Aside from the fact that this low-quality, dim-lighting camera phone shot is basically useless in a blog post, this at least gives you an exact replica of what we were seeing. It turned out were in Atlanta's oldest and longest running strip club, complete with some of the finest area talent: the next act was an elderly Chinese woman in a green dress who raced back and forth across the slim bar and flashed each customer indvidually. According to this page, the strippers have to put money in the jukebox themselves if they want some theme music to dance to.

The outside kind of looked like this, although not really:

Yeah, not really. Anyway, it's well worth checking out when you're in town... or, hell, driving from halfway across a Hemisphere.

More on the Clermont Lounge online at this link.

Related:

The Greatest Dive Bars: The Saturn

The Greatest Dive Bars: The White Horse Tavern

Top 10 Songs To Strip To, As Voted By Guys

Hold Your Horses, Baby

Sloppy Seconds: The Million-Dollar Strip Club Buy

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 20:54:00 GMT

Do you want your kids playing with Pregnant Paper Dolls? We guess so long as it's not Jamie Lynn Pregnant Paper Dolls...

Lies and attacks usually help: McCain now trails Obama by a mere three points nationally.

We'd say the woman who witnessed all of the following might actually win a case against her lawyer boss...

Paralegal Angela Robinson is suing renowned ambulance-chaser Richard Laminack for encouraging her to perform sexual acts on a witness, demanding sexual favors from employees, and trying to defraud Fen-Phen plaintiffs. [Business Sheet]

Instead of tying up the courts and expecting to buy an island with her settlement, Ms. Robinson is suing for a mere $55,000... mainly for wrongful termination.

Maybe they could've just waited for it to go out of business or be sold, since if the town gets a huge ovation for destroying it, no one must show up there after meetings, right?

Verne Troyer says his ex tossed him.

Brad and Angelina signed a multimillion dollar deal for their baby snaps.

Can you guess why a naked man may have been climbing down a chimney?

And finally, the town of Livonia, Georgia has bought the Cafe Risque strip club for a whopping one million dollars. However, they neglected something in the process...

The town of Lavonia could have used nearly $1 million to pay off the bond fund for a water treatment plant upgrade. Instead, officials bought Cafe Risque, which they have long tried to shut down.
Lavonia's mayor got a standing ovation when he announced the deal at a meeting earlier this week. Crews took down the signs advertising it and burned them in a large bonfire at the strip club site, near a major highway.

Americans: clean and safe drinking water is unimportant, but my Lord, anyone who trades it in for God-given bodies is to be praised to the heavens.

Florida businessman Jerry Sullivan opened Cafe Risque in 2001. The city went to court several times to close it, but Sullivan's lawyers argued successfully that nude dancing was a constitutionally protected form of expression.
Lavonia has since passed an ordinance outlawing adult entertainment businesses.

Via KIRO-TV.

Related:

Sloppy Seconds: What's Wrong With This Picture Of Brad Pitt?

Swingers Vs. Nudists In Florida (Of Course)

Male Mormon Missionaries Go Topless For The Hell Of It

CBS News Correspondent Embroiled In Career-Defining Sex Scandal

Catch a Glimpse of Mini Me's Mini Me in His Sex Tape

Iowa Strip Club Features 17-Year-Old Dancer, Claims Artistic License

"This Is The City's Response To A Penis" One of Many Classic Moments From Nude Gallery Raid

EXCLUSIVE: Toby Keith Worships Satan, Ted Nugent, And Lynch Mobs

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:57:00 GMT

Toby Keith, America's highest-rated terrorist, is sending the liberal blogs into a tither after his appearance on the Colbert Report last night.

And it isn't even for anything he said-- actually, it's for a song he's been singing for years and which was a smash hit single after 9/11, containing lyrics that most thinking people would find insane and dangerous had they not been avoiding country music radio since 1976...

Why Stephen Colbert, who out of character is a practicing liberal and would never be caught dead allowing a person like Toby Keith to get away with ruining what little is left of this country's well-being, should allow this guy to sing this song, "Beer For My Horses" (God, what a cheesy ass song, not even including its cultural ignorance) and not goof on him mercilessly is beyond us:

Grandpappy told my pappy back in my day, son
A man had to answer for the wicked that he'd done
Take all the rope in Texas
Find a tall oak tree, round up all of them bad boys
Hang them high in the street
For all the people to see

Yo, that's about lynching, okay? Not cool, Colbert! Why didn't you attack him on that? As Max Blumenthal pointed out at the HuffPo:

During the days when Toby Keith's "Grandpappy" stalked the Jim Crow South, lynching was an institutional method of terror employed against blacks to maintain white supremacy. According to the Tuskegee Institute, between the years 1882 and 1951, 3,437 African-Americans were lynched in the United States, mostly in the heart of Dixie. Felonious assault and rape (read: corrupting "the flower of white womanhood") were the two most frequent justifications for lynch mob actions.
Georgia was ground zero for lynch mob activity. Though most of the Peach State's victims were black, one of its most high-profile hangings claimed the life of a Jew, Leo Frank. Frank, a college-educated Northerner, was wrongly convicted in 1913 of murdering a 13-year-old girl after a show trial in which his prosecutor portrayed him to a grand jury as a bisexual pervert. Before the trial, one juror remarked, "If I get on that jury, I'll hang that Jew for sure."

You can imagine what happened to Frank and others like him, in Keith's glorious, Hitler-esque vision of the South. By the way, if Toby Keith loves lynching, then we can also correctly assume he worships Satan, who is a big fan of eye-for-an-eye anarchic lawlessness, and Ted Nugent, who is a racist pigporker and will kill us all with his 2,227 guns.

PS. Besides being a world-class shitbag, Toby Keith is also a talentless wanker we'd easily take in a fight, with a Guantanamo hood over our heads... bring it on, indeed.

Via the Huffington Post.

Where's Our Invitation To The Waffle House Wedding?

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:41:00 GMT

Like cutting room floor footage from a Werner Herzog film, there was a wedding in the Dacula, Georgia Waffle House parking lot. While we realize we never got around to reporting on this a few weeks back, we now have a valid reason for bringing it up again:

Photographic evidence...

The lucky couple, George "Bubba" Mathis and Pamela Christian - both 23 and employees at the Dacula diner located at the Ga. Highway 316/U.S. Highway 29 interchange - wouldn't have it any other way.

For years, the couple tried to marry on their Independence Day anniversary. But the bride was always scheduled to work. Instead of waiting any longer - she got the day off at the last minute; Mathis had to report for the morning shift - the couple of nine years decided to seal the deal at work.

The result was what a NASCAR tailgate might be like if Hank Jr. himself stopped by with all his rowdy friends: Loud and proud - country music, storytelling and plenty of Dale Earnhardt paraphernalia - and not an iota of pretentiousness.

That's true love, folks-- you don't care where you get married, so long as it's ASAP.

God bless ya Pamela and, uh, Bubba.

Via the Associated Press Video site.

This Week In Gayness: My Boyfriend Won't Put Out

Brian Fairbanks — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:50:00 GMT

If your Dad is a fervent anti-homosexual zealot, best not to brag to his face about having come from the Pride parade.

What, you thought they'd let gay couples on the revamped "Newlywed Game"?

A woman who worked in the Georgia General Assembly claims to have been fired after telling her boss she was "going to live as a woman."

Guess which reality show host is joining the cast of "The L Word" for Season Six?

According to Michael Ausiello of EW.com's the Ausiello Files (Entertainment Weekly online) Elizabeth Berkley, who flirted with the L word during her Showgirls days, is joining the Showtime hit for a multi-episode arc. [Lesbiatopia]

Today is the day our do-nothing Democratic Congress will finally do something: they're planning to take a peek at "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

Unsurprisingly, the Lesbos of Lesbos island lost their cast against the, um, lesbos of the world. Nice waste of paper, kids.

A Turkish honor killing (aka hate crime), in which a 26-year-old gay man was the victim, shows no signs of any future bright spots: apparently, as is the case in most honor killings, the family left their son's body to rot and the boyfriend has fled the country after warnings from his consulate.

In a Dear Mona column posted today on About.com, one guy asks "Mona" why his boyfriend can say "I still love you" while abstaining from sex and watching a steady stream of porno. Is it a porn addiction or the relationship itself that's the problem? Read the response here.

It's Time For Some Campaignin'

Brian Fairbanks — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:37:00 GMT

JibJab's latest video, skewering the '08 election...

New national polls show a crazy scenario: a third-party candidate is threatening to throw the election one way or another and even "safe" states from previous election cycles are in play. Sound familiar? It may happen again, people...

The latest Zogby poll indicates McCain holds a mere three-point lead in Texas, thanks to

Barr’s 6 percent and Nader’s 1 percent

The trick is... Nader didn't make the ballot in Texas. Whoops. Give that point to Obama (or not, it doesn't matter), and Texas is suddenly "Leans GOP" or even "Toss-Up." True, Obama only leads by 4 percent nationally (where even Al Gore commands a 7-point lead as the consensus candidate at the convention and Hillary Clinton is up by 8%), but percentages and national numbers are irrelevant, especially when he appears to take red states away from McCain, including Arizona, the Republican Senator's home state. (Side note: We seriously doubt Obama will win either, especially AZ. He would have to be winning those already, since he's enjoying a huge bounce right now, a bounce that will surely soften soon and tighten the race. A more realistic choice would be in another state entirely.)

Barr’s greatest impact this year might be in Georgia, where he is well-known and could draw a fair number of votes, especially as Obama works to ramp up support among the state’s sizable population of black voters, Buchanan said.
"Ordinarily, a Democrat can’t expect to do much good" in Georgia, Buchanan said. "But with Barr drawing off white Republicans, it could make a difference."

More on this story, via The Star-Telegram.

Racist Fake Obama T-Shirt Has Internet In Uproar

Brian Fairbanks — Wed, 14 May 2008 14:40:00 GMT

Musta been a whole heap of liars in the 90+% of the country that claimed they would consider voting for a black person.

Mulligan’s Bar & Tavern in Cobb county has printed up racist t-shirts featuring cartoon chimp Curious George peeling a banana, with “Obama in ‘08″ printed underneath and are selling them in the bar. This is one of the many reasons why I rarely set foot in Marietta and I feel sorry for those of you who have to live there.

Guess you won't be seeing Mulligan's on our list of the Greatest Dive Bars... or Obama in the White House?

Via Straight From The "A"

Republican To Steal Election For Obama By Running Against Him

Brian Fairbanks — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:06:00 GMT

In 2000, spoiler Ralph Nader, pretending to be a free-thinking ex-Democrat, helped throw the election to The Worst President in American History (™Doris Kearns Goodwin.) In 2004, John Kerry pretended to run for President, thus ensuring an easy re-election for The Worst President, who would've had no chance in hell otherwise.

Now, it's to the Republicans go the spoilers, with Jonathan McCain's shot at world domination threatened by none other than a Republican ex-Congressman and homo-hater...

Bob Barr, from the great ~~hate~~ state of Gawjya, will run as a Libertarian over the objections of the Republican Party, which has used spoilers against the Democrats for decades, much to the chagrin of clued-in liberals everywhere.

Most Republicans who asked him not to run "also said they understand why I'd run and why John McCain is not conservative and will not seriously tackle the growth in government power and spending," he said. "Some said they would vote for me if I ran, but for the sake of the Republican Party, they would prefer I didn't." [The Washington Times]

This is why the Republicans win and the good guys lose-- they know that all that matters is to win, at any cost, with the strongest general election candidate possible. Which is why they nominated John McCain, friend of the Independents and foe of the Commies, and why the Democrats finally figured this out, too, and nominated ~~Al Gore The Improved~~. No, wait, ~~John Edwards~~. Never mind.

Some fun facts about Bob Barr:

1) Has 36% name recognition with voters. By way of comparison, 84% of voters corrrectly identified Barack Obama as the guy from the Taliban.

2) May detract from McCain's vote total. The Washington Times notes the recent Zogby poll that found "45 percent of likely voters favoring Mr. Obama, 42 percent for Mr. McCain, 3 percent for Mr. Barr and 1 percent for Ralph Nader, with 8 percent undecided." Barr defeats Nader! We can see the Chicago Tribune headline now...

3) Led the impeachment against Bill Clinton. Of course, has made no move to apprehend the real criminal, George W. Bush. Partisan bastard.

4) Ironically, it was the Libertarian Party's ads attacking Barr for preferring continued government attacks on marijuana and an escalation in the wasteful War on Drugs that some say led to his defeat in 2002.

5) "Authored and co-sponsored the Defense of Marriage Act," "proposed that the Pentagon ban the practice of Wicca in the military," while nonetheless working with the dreaded ACLU to make sure the government leaves Americans to their private practices of possessing thermo-nuclear detonators and land mines. [Wikipedia]

In other words, he makes John McCain look like Ho Chi Min.