Scene & Herd - Move over T&A
It’s time for the Dong Squad
If there’s one thing I love about my job, it’s the opportunity I have every now and then to catch an eyeful of cock. I’m totally serious. I love man meat in my face almost as much as I love pro sports and barbecue.
So it was with great enthusiasm that I parked myself right in front of the stage for the Dong Squad’s all-male burlesque performance Saturday night at the Star Bar. While waiting, I passed my notebook around and encouraged fellow audience members to sketch, well, members. My favorite, which I’ve taped to my desk, is a penis with arms, legs and smile asking, “So what do I do now?” It was sketched by a woman wearing a T-shirt that read, “Behold the Power of Dick.”
Without exaggeration, I can say that it was the funniest, cleverest, most courageous comedy show I’ve ever seen. The show’s stars were not dancers, but a mix of musicians and people I recognize as L5P and East Atlanta bar regulars. Each act was introduced with a rhyme read by a gravelly voiced, mustachioed man dressed like an Oompa Loompa. A performer would then take the stage for a themed performance complete with a costume. For example, a fisherman-themed dance started with a man in a yellow raincoat and hat and ended with him in a G-string and harness. The Star Bar’s own Jim Stacy depicted, among other characters, a lazy road crew worker who spent what seemed like an eternity smoking a cigarette and standing impatiently before dancing erotically and erratically with “Slow” and “Stop” signs in his hand.
The part of the Dong Show that literally had me bent over laughing (and only laughing, you pervs) was called “Reggie St. Charles.” Starring Reggie Ealy, “Reggie St. Charles” was a burlesque rendition of the real-life man who stands nearly every day at the intersection of Briarcliff Road and St. Charles Avenue in bicycle shorts that show the outline of a penis, presumably his, extending halfway down his thigh. From the way Ealy walked, to the way he jutted his lower lip, to the placement of his prosthetic, Ealy’s performance was dead-on and the inspiration for the longest sustained hysterical laughter I’ve ever witnessed. As cute and charming as the Full Monty was, the Dong Squad is fall-down funny.
Speaking of smut: Last Thursday, I trekked up to Brookhaven’s MudFire Pottery Center to check out the Naked Raku show. The show, which is on exhibit until June 12, is named for the technique that artist Jan Lee used to create the work. Raku is a firing technique that often gives the pottery a scorched, cracked look. Lee’s raku is “naked” because she does not use any glaze. As far as I know, the show’s name has nothing to do with her state of undress at the time she made them, although really, with these artist-types, you can never tell.
Her pieces are, in a word, stunning. In three words, they’re very, very stunning. I’ve never before come across pottery with surfaces as engrossing as paintings before. Several of her pieces are white with black marks that look like electrical currents from Van der Graaf Generator. Some have heat patterns that remind me of textbook images of magma rivers pushing up from the Earth’s core.
When I quizzed MudFire co-proprietor Erik Haagensen about the artist, he told me that she started making her naked raku after 30 years of making functional pottery. “If you have any other questions,” he offered, “let me know and I’ll be happy to make up answers.”
Sacred jazz: On Friday night, I stopped by the fancy happy hour known as Friday Jazz at the High Museum. It’s like Fernbank’s Martinis & Imax, but livelier. The place was packed with couples and loads of single women. The jazz inside was provided by Beverly “Guitar” Watkins and friends. They played with a harder blues edge. So hard that at one point during the band’s rendition of “Sea of Love,” the drummer crashed his cymbal and it flew off his kit.
Upstairs, I saw the Glories of Ancient Egypt show, as well as African Gold, which featured lots of gold leaf-covered sculptures and furniture. “Golden Stool became a sacred symbol of the unity of the Asante nation,” said the text under one display. Thankfully, the stool they were referring to is furniture.
Under rug swept: The spirit of internationalism and interfaith cooperation popped up on Ponce de Leon Avenue last weekend as the St. John Chrysostum Melkite Church held a Mid East Food Festival and Oriental rug auction. Melkite Catholicism is native to the lands of the Eastern Mediterranean (Syria, Palestine, Israel and Egypt), hence its association with Middle Eastern foods.
Playing the role of “Wayne” in the food tasting with me was my girlfriend, Christi. We bought the $12 vegetarian meal, found a table, and began critiquing. I admired the hummus for its smoothness and almost nutty flavor. Wayne liked the heavy garlic taste, but thought it needed more lemon. Wayne thought that the falafel was a bit bland, but I liked it because it wasn’t too salty. We both agreed that the meal’s high point was the tabouleh. The parsley to wheat ratio was very high. Wayne described it as a garden in her mouth.
After the meal, we watched an oriental carpet auction, the proceeds of which benefited the church. Carpets that retail for $5,000, some nearly 100 years old, were auctioned for less than $1,000. I thought that the Persian rugs were especially beautiful, but that’s just the sort of thing a Persian would think.
The event also raised money by offering religious knickknacks for sale. Like Orthodox Christians, Melkite Catholics have a thing for ill-proportioned, two-dimensional pre-Renaissance depictions of Jesus and Mary.
I almost forgot. The interfaith cooperation part of the event was the parking. The Mormons next door loaned the Melkite Catholics their parking lot. At this point, I’ll take my glimmers of hope for humanity wherever I can get them.