Just a Reminder: Stonewall Was a Riot

It is 1977. AIDS has not arrived and we are in our hedonistic prime. You take your perky white ass and pink lips to a club’s weekly dark room. “Tonight,” you tell a friend, “I’m gonna get me some Big Black Dick...

Talat Market: A Pop-up Favorite Gets a New Home

While many restaurants are reopening with full service, I wish I could tell you that things are returning to normal, but that’s clearly not going to happen anytime soon. We all know that besides the food itself...

Inspirations From a Drag Queen

There’s a problem with drag queens. Before I explain that, let me explain me. When I was five—in the ’50s—my mother took me to a psychologist in downtown Charlotte. I remember playing in a sandbox where I pr...

Takeout Standouts: Little Bear and Talat Market

You have probably noticed that Atlanta restaurant owners have for the most part not accepted Governor Kemp’s invitation to sicken and kill their staffs and customers by prematurely reopening. Somehow, they didn...

Fear of COVID-19 Brings Back Exacerbating Memories

Partly because the restaurant scene has disappeared and partly because I need something different in my writing life, this week inaugurates a column about becoming an old gay man. It will alternate or sometimes...

The Lazy Llama: Tacos, Tequila and TV

If you pursue education in journalism and psychology, as I did, you are cursed with a double dose of curiosity. You annoy a lot of people by asking a lot of questions. For example, during two visits to the new ...

Pit Boss: Lots of Sweet Memories and Sugary Sauce

A few days after I finished undergrad, I began five years of working for three newspapers in rural Georgia. I first moved to Elberton, where I was educated in virulent racism, church revivals, drunken murder, a...

Falafel in Buckhead, Shaking Beef on Buford

This week, I’m sharing first looks at Mamoun’s Falafel and Chom Chom Vietnamese Kitchen. Both are cheap and somewhat exotic – great for a date with someone you likely will never see again.   Mamoun’s...

Destination: Malaysian Cuisine

We are not rats in a maze in search of cheese, right? And yet I feel like a dumb rat in a learning experiment whenever I visit the maze called West Midtown. I drive and I walk in seemingly arbitrary patterns un...