the moment

What a weird afternoon.

As part of my research for the travel book I'm writing, I found myself wandering around the half-deserted streets of downtown Atlanta today, on a mission to visit the New World of Coca-Cola© and Centennial Olympic Park. I worked in the neighborhood nearly a decade ago, so it was both refreshing to see how the hood has changed and dispiriting to see how far it still has to go.


Over in Woodruff Park, among the usual collection of makeshift sunglass stands that cover the area, I noticed one vendor selling obviously knockoff Barack Obama gear, including some hideous bright orange T-shirts with a poorly reproduced version of the image that appears to the right. Walking away from the stand, I nearly ran into a heavyset black man who was wearing a different shirt with similar messaging; it said: "My President is Black." (Really? Aren't we getting ahead of ourselves just a little?)

Back in my car, not five minutes later, I happened upon a small street corner protest outside one of the big downtown hotels. As I got closer, I realized it wasn't a protest at all but some sort of rally -- for John McCain. Yet the sign-wavers seemed completely devoid of any sense of pride or joy you might expect from a group of supporters. They were just a bunch of pissed-looking white folks. One middle-aged guy in particular had his jaws clenched up in a way that said, "Jesus, I hope I can make it back to Kennesaw before rush hour hits."

I'm not sure but I guess the "rally" had something to do with McCain's appearance here today.

And it was at that moment that the new Big Boi/Mary J. Blige song "Somethin's Gotta Give" came on my car radio, which includes an explicit endorsement of Obama.

Seriously, have we ever experienced an election like this before?

dawg gone!

And here's one more Blotter illustration.

The BF's baby sister starts school this week at UGA -- my alma mater -- but it was sheer coincidence that I chose an item from the police report involving a lost Georgia Bulldawg key chain. Really, it was.

Good luck, Mags! Go Dawgs -- sic 'em!

mane attraction

Here's a recent Blotter doodle that I enjoyed drawing. You know, I've been cranking out these weekly illustrations for Creative Loafing's crime report for six (or is it seven?) years now, and I've decided that my favorite illustrations are the ones that include a sort of hidden joke -- taking the actual text of the police report and reading something into it that may not be there on first glance. That was definitely the case this week. My editor nearly didn't get the joke. But then she did, and she loved it. (Whew!)

I also have a bad tendency to draw animals. Like, a lot. So I guess this one's guilty on both counts.

Here's the actual item, written by Lauren Keating:

SPLITTING HAIRS? A 24-year-old Decatur woman said she got the wrong type of hair from a salon about three weeks ago. She said she was supposed to get human hair woven in, but later found out that she actually got synthetic hair. So she called police. "The hair cost her $180 to put in, and now she is claiming that the hair won't curl." So the officer talked to the owner of the hair-braiding salon on Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway. "She claimed the hair is really human hair," the officer wrote. The Decatur woman was adamant about filing a police report, since she believes she received the wrong services. No charges filed.

the honeymoon's over

Here's a recent Blotter illustration that made me giggle. The item in the crime report involved a middleaged pair of brothers duking it out over a sausage.

This was a challenging drawing in part because I had to turn in three extra illustrations to cover for the weeks when the BF and I were on our honeymoon. The added deadline pressure made me churn out some interesting creations, I think, though I'm a lot more comfortable drawing on my normal weekly schedule.

And speaking of the honeymoon, the BF (should I now call him the Husband?) and I had a fantastic trip: Rome, Venice, Sienna, Florence, Pisa, Naples, Pompeii, Mykonos and Santorini over 19 days. I still haven't sorted through the 900 photos we snapped.