Scene & Herd - Pop Claritin - It’s Spring
Again in Atlanta
A celebration dedicated to ditzy comic-strip legend Blondie’s devoted, bumbling, giant-sandwich-eating husband, the Atlanta Dagwood Festival has long been one of the city’s most popular annual community events.
Let’s try that again.
A celebration marking the symbolic start of spring, the Atlanta Dogwood Festival in Piedmont Park has, since 1936, been one of city’s most popular annual community events.
Ah! Much better.
This year’s festival was similar to ones of the recent past, only better because the weather was so friggin’ agreeable last weekend. I went on Saturday afternoon. Good American that I am, I MARTA’d to the festival, taking the train to the Arts Center Station and hopping on the festival shuttle bus that dropped people off near Piedmont and 14th.
Upon exiting the bus and entering the park, the first thing that caught my eye was Midtown’s most famous street character, Bob Jamerson (he calls himself the “Ambassador of Mirth”). As he sometimes does, Bob was wearing a lovely bridal ensemble. This one was sleeveless, accessorized with white elbow-length gloves, a gorgeous spring bouquet, a crown of white flowers, white-rimmed sunglasses, and a personal stereo strapped to his bicep. He looked hot.
After watching Bob mingle a bit with parents and children in one of the park’s playgrounds, I walked around and checked out some of the attractions. Radio Disney’s booth was swarmed by kids doing the “YMCA” dance, although several of them were actually doing the YYAA dance because the song “YMCA” moves a bit too fast for small children.
My favorite vendor was the Build-A-Bear Workshop trailer, where children could assemble teddy bears to suit their custom teddy bear needs. I didn’t even look at the bears, I was actually just enthralled by the trailer. It was bright yellow and emblazoned with the My Buddy-like catchphrase “Where Best Friends Are Made.” If you don’t know what I’m talking about, My Buddy was a popular 1980s Hasbro doll marketed to lonely, friendless children. My annoying neighbor had one. He also had a Baseball Kid.
What really impressed me about the trailer, though, were the decorative flags on top of it. From left to right, the flags read “Take Me Home,” “Name Me,” “Dress Me,” “Fluff Me,” “Stuff Me,” “Choose Me.” Park that trailer outside of Bulldogs or the Atlanta Eagle, and it’s ready for a totally different kind of build-a-bear workshop.
After vendor-gazing, I headed over to the park’s meadow for the Frisbee dog show. Saturday was “Advanced Freestyle,” which meant that the format was a bit looser than the usual toss-and-fetch. If you wanna toss multiple Frisbees, that’s OK. If your dog catches Frisbees and sets them on fire like a canine Hendrix at the Monterey Pop Festival, that’s OK, too. I’m not sure if it was part of his routine, but a young cocker spaniel mix ended his freestyle Frisbee-catch routine by peeing on the competition field’s corner orange cone. The audience applauded loudly.
Drivin’ ‘n’ buyin’: On the way home from the Dogwood Festival via MARTA, I stopped at the Georgia World Congress Center for the AJC International Auto Show. The first thing I did when I walked in was head over to the Hummers. I wanted to snap a photo of the Hummer on a stage with a cocktail-dressed car model so that I could run it with a caption like, “Would you like me to give you a Hummer?” Unfortunately, the auto industry is much more bashful about its sexism than it was when I was an auto show-loving kid in suburban D.C. The Hummer didn’t have any models, nor did most of the other cars. The GMC Silverado display had a good magician, but that probably wasn’t a showy gimmick. It was probably a necessity. These days it pretty much takes a magician to sell someone a GM product.The show didn’t have much in the way of prototypes or concept cars. It’s essentially a giant new car showroom, complete with price stickers and salespeople. The most popular car Saturday afternoon was the Subaru Tribeca. I suspect its popularity had something to do with the buffet offered to anyone willing to sit through the 15-minute sales pitch. Off the non-food-bribery cars, the Maybach was the most popular. From behind a velvet rope, crowds stood quietly, for several minutes at a time, just staring. I suspect that it was part admiration, part disbelief at the car’s $450,000 price tag.
High 2: Electric Boogaloo: For last Friday’s college night, the High Museum hosted a hip-hop-themed multimedia show called Art, Beats & Lyrics. The museum’s atrium was handed to visual artists and breakdancers. Among the visual artists with work on display were Dubelyoo, better known as the guy who draws the big-Afro dude in the Sprite ads, and Atlanta’s own Urban Medium, who, if I’m not mistaken, brought the people dressed in replica Star Wars stormtrooper outfits.One of the most interesting bits of the show was local artist Fahamu Pecou’s behavior. He wore dark shades, a T-shirt that read “Fahamu Pecou Is The Shit” and was trailed, whenever I saw him, by two people acting like bodyguards.
At first I thought he might be out of his mind, but then I saw his artwork, which consisted of fake magazine covers promoting himself. They were marked “Paid For By The Committee To Make Fahamu Pecou Officially The Shit,” so I’m pretty sure his behavior went hand-in-hand with his art as some sort of comment on fame.
Just Choppin’: On Sunday afternoon, I went to the Braves game to check out all of Turner Field’s fancy new upgrades. The biggest deal is the 85-foot high-definition TV screen, but my favorite is the new set of lights along the rim of the upper deck. Every time there’s a strikeout, two flaming balls roll across the display until they meet in a strikeout explosion.
I also like the new Tomahawk chop music, audible when catcher Johnny Estrada hit an RBI double. In an effort to make unabashed racist taunting more appealing to young baseball fans, the Tomahawk chant now has a hip-hop beat.
For more of Andisheh’s adventures, see Scene & Herd at www.andy2000.org.??