Bright lights in the blogosphere

Have you ever speculated with friends about the superpowers you wish you could have?

If I recall correctly, flying, impossible strength and X-ray vision appeared on a lot of people's wish lists when I was kid.

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine confessed that his fantasy superpower-of-choice was the ability to anonymously induce spontaneous orgasms in all others, men and women, using only his thoughts. I suppose it's not the strangest or worst ambition someone could have, but his breathless enthusiasm, and the way he would always lean close and stare when he said stuff like that really freaked me out.

Another superpower I recall being quite popular was mind-reading.

Wouldn't life be so much easier and so much more interesting if you had access to everyone's deepest, most personal thoughts? Imagine how much easier dating, business negotiations and Pictionary would be?

Not much, actually, if the Atlanta blogosphere is any indication.

Thanks to the ever-growing number of blogs in and around the city, the deepest, most personal thoughts of hundreds of people are now easily discoverable. They can be delivered to your computer desktop in the font of your choosing.

Instead of displacing the traditional news media, challenging the mainstream news and entertainment media's backside – or foisting great-but-previously-undiscovered talents on the city – blogging in Atlanta is, by and large, a medium for self-expression.

At its best, self-expressive blogging connects friends and family members who are either too busy, or too distant, to see each other as often as they'd like. Personal blogging brings strangers together in unexpected ways.

Last year, when I posted on my personal blog about a fire that gutted my neighbor's house, I received donations of clothes for their children and gift cards worth several hundred dollars, from several people I'd met once at a bloggers' happy hour, and from one person I'd never met or spoken to.

At its worst, self-expressive blogging is a digital speculum that allows neurotic, self-obsessed people to cram their heads even farther up their own asses. I must have been born just after the Reveal Everything Online gene started appearing in every newborn American baby, because for the life of me, I cannot comprehend what drives so many local bloggers to "share" intimate and mundane information about their dysfunctional family relationships, their dysfunctional romantic relationships, the meals they've just eaten, and in one instance, a lost-but-not-forgotten foreskin. At times, it can feel like the only traditional news-media platform the Atlanta blogosphere is ready to replace is "The Maury Povich Show."

Though the Atlanta blogosphere is dim, there are enough bright lights out there for you to waste a good portion of any workday.

The following list of local bloggers isn't a definitive list of the best or a comprehensive review. It's a short list. We know there's more gender and ethnic diversity in the Atlanta blogosphere, but we picked bloggers who attempt to reach beyond their circles of acquaintances, by either doing something completely unique (I Saw It on Ponce, Peach Pundit), or doing something better than just about anyone else (Cable & Tweed, Peachtree Screed, Inside the Oversexed Mind of Gloria Brame).

All five of the people we profile devoted their lives to communicating with words before they had a blog. One is an author and poet, one a journalist, another a former attorney, one a marketing consultant, and one a Ph.D. working on a dissertation about 19th-century American judges.

If you think we missed some important local bloggers, we want you to comment on our blog, CLFreshLoaf.com, or maybe write something really bitchy on your own blog. With all the bitchy stuff we write about other people on our blogs, it would only be fair.

Erick Erickson

Peach Pundit

www.peachpundit.com

Joeff Davis

Why we love it: If Doug Monroe's Peachtree Screed is Atlanta's liberal Drudge Report, then Peach Pundit is Georgia's conservative ESPN. Every day its (growing) crew of 17 bloggers dishes up the inside-baseball-style dirt of the state's politics, from state congressional races to small-town political scoop. Peach Pundit is what the state's political power brokers read to find out what the state's other political power brokers are up to.

Blogger profile: Why did you quit being a lawyer to become a blogger?

"That's the question I get asked the most," says Peach Pundit's principal poobah, Erick Erickson. In 2005, he quit his job at Macon's prestigious Sell & Melton law firm and became a full-time blogger.

"It scared my wife," Erickson says. "She was a month away from giving birth when I told her I was gonna do it. Fortunately, it didn't induce labor."

He says he actually makes more money as a blogger than he did as a lawyer. "Lawyers in Macon don't make a heck of a lot," he explains.

Peach Pundit is not Erickson's paycheck. He's senior editor of the national conservative political blog RedState.com, described by some as Daily Kos for Republicans. Erickson started RedState in 2004 before selling it to Eagle Publishing, best known for publishing the books of Ann Coulter.

In retrospect, Erickson's decision to blog full-time seems obvious. "As a lawyer, I was doing a lot of political consulting and writing," he says. "Blogging was getting me some attention, so I decided to try it full-time"

Despite its conservative pedigree, Peach Pundit has fans of all political stripes, because reading it is like being plugged into the Gold Dome. Literally.

"I see legislators fighting it out on the blog sometimes," Erickson says, explaining that even though they don't always use their real names, he knows who they are because of the e-mail addresses they use when they comment.

The rivalry between House Speaker Glenn Richardson and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, two early favorites in the race to succeed second-term Gov. Sonny Perdue, is an ongoing soap opera on Peach Pundit.

And some of the conservative Peach Punditocracy's disgust with Sonny Perdue is almost as bad as what you find on liberal websites. At this month's state GOP convention, Peach Pundit encouraged convention-goers to walk out during Perdue's speech.

As someone who successfully transitioned from attorney to full-time blogger without actually sacrificing income, Erickson is already something of an overachiever in the local blogosphere. This month, he decided to push himself a little further by declaring his candidacy for Macon's City Council.

How does he assess his chances? "I'm running unopposed in a district that votes Republican," he says.

He doesn't expect City Council to interfere with his blogging. "They have Wi-Fi at City Hall," he laughs.

Dr. Gloria Brame

Inside the Oversexed Mind of Gloria Brame

www.gloriabrame.typepad.com

Joeff Davis

Why we love it: Because even though sexual content on the Internet is abundant, intelligent and thought-provoking, sexual content isn't.

Blogger profile: Author and sex therapist Dr. Gloria Brame has a favorite subject.

Anyone want to guess?

"A lot of people can't have honest conversations about sex," she says. "Through a blog, I can [facilitate conversations] in a friendly, low-key kind of way."

Brame has been talking about sex online since before there were blogs or even websites. She first started connecting with fellow kinky thinkers via a CompuServe message board in the late '80s and her Different Loving website.

Between then and starting her blog in January 2004, Brame authored two popular books, including the groundbreaking Different Loving: The World of Sexual Dominance and Submission and its follow-up, Come Hither: A Commonsense Guide to Kinky Sex. She also earned a Ph.D. in clinical sexology.

Brame is a sex therapist with an office near Athens, where she moved after living in Atlanta for about 10 years. Her blog helps her practice, she says, but that's not why she started it. "I like the blog better than my website," she says. "The blog is a more interactive environment. There's always something new."

Brame's blog is a mix of sex-related news, sex-positive ruminations, erotic art and humor. A lot of serious sex sites are dour. Brame likes to laugh. She recently posted a picture of a sex toy designed for people with foot fetishes – a life-sized woman's ankle and foot, with a vagina under the foot's arch. Brame's caption: "All I can say is that I wouldn't want to walk a mile in her shoes."

One of Brame's blog obsessions is highlighting scientific research into sex and human sexuality. "For the first time, we're developing scientific evidence proving and disproving theories about sex," she says. "Now we have research showing that testosterone plays a very important role in female sexuality. Fifty years ago, we didn't know that."

Though it's loaded with words, Brame knows the Web well enough to understand that what keeps viewers coming back is short posts with lots of pictures.

Every Friday, she posts what she calls an "erotic art show" on her site. It's the site's most popular feature. A recent erotic Friday featured stately Edward Weston nude photographs, and paintings that look like lost 18th-century copies of Hustler. "I get a lot of fan mail for that," she says. "It's usually, 'Holy shit, where'd you find this?'"

Doug Monroe

Peachtree Screed

www.peachtreescreed.com

Joeff Davis

Why we love it: Let's not beat around the bush. A lot of us at CL love Doug Monroe in part because we know him. He was an editor and columnist at CL, and many of us at the paper (myself included) consider him a close friend. But that's not why his blog is on this list.

Peachtree Screed is Atlanta's liberal Drudge Report. It's the website that Atlanta news junkies check in on several times a day just to see what's happening.

And he's a terrific essayist who accompanies the news stories he excerpts with insightful, witty opinions.

Blogger profile: Have a 10-minute chat with Doug Monroe about the city, the world or just the street you're standing on, and it's obvious why he is such a great blogger.

He's smart, opinionated and has a short attention span. He's like a living blog. "The Internet is like 'Masterpiece Theatre' for those of us with ADD," he says. "You can bounce between subjects so quickly, then, all of a sudden, half the day is gone."

And unlike younger bloggers, many of whom are transplants to the area, Monroe is a native who has lived here almost all of his 60 years. He has perspective on local happenings that few in this city have.

"My great aunt was Mayor Hartsfield's political secretary," he says. "As a kid, I'd always get excited about political campaigns, especially the ones against Lester Maddox. He was such a hateful person."

When he writes about Georgia Department of Transportation's lust to solve every transit need with tons of asphalt and concrete, he's writing from the perspective of someone who's seen what nonstop paving has done to the metro area. And when he writes about the pros and cons of light-rail transit linking Atlanta to its sprawling suburbs, he's writing as someone who used to ride the train from downtown Atlanta to Athens (yes, readers, such a train existed).

And unlike most bloggers, Monroe is a career journalist. Before he wrote Peachtree Screed on the Atlanta magazine website, he worked for United Press International and had a regular column in the AJC.

His love-hate relationship with the AJC is one of Peachtree Screed's most compelling features. He frequently criticizes the paper for failing to act as an effective watchdog of local politicians, for watering down content to appease suburban readers, and more recently, for treating employees badly.

Monroe is excited by the blogosphere's ombudsmanlike ability to keep the old media honest. "I enjoy picking on the AJC," he says.

But unlike some bloggers, he knows he cannot exist without the old media. "I also depend on them. It's a symbiotic relationship. There's very little original reporting on blogs. Blogging is a supplement to the [old] media. Not a replacement."

Ponce De Leon

I Saw It on Ponce

www.isawitonponce.com

Joeff Davis

Why we love it: I Saw It on Ponce's singular obsession reminds us that, while Peachtree may be Atlanta's main street, Ponce is Atlanta. Peachtree has the offices, the boutiques and the malls, but Ponce has rich and poor Atlanta, black and white Atlanta, and Whole Foods and gay-leather-bar Atlanta, all rolled up on one street.

Blogger profile: It is a little-known fact there are two Ponce de Leons.

One is a long-dead Spanish conquistador who accompanied Christopher Columbus to the New World and, later, searching for a mythical fountain of youth, led the first European excursion to what is now Florida.

The other Ponce de Leon is a pseudonym for an Atlanta blogger who wants to remain anonymous because he says he "enjoys the mystery of it." According to his online profile, his interests are "boating," "meeting new people," "staying young," "chicken & yellow rice," "traveling" and "general conquistadoring."

The second PDL looks a lot younger than the 546 years he claims on his profile. And he doesn't look much like a conquistador, either. He's, in fact, a marketing consultant in his mid-30s who's endlessly fascinated with Ponce de Leon Avenue.

PDL recently moved back to Atlanta after a stint in New York. He was shocked by how much the city had changed since he left. "Everything's condos and shitty apartments now," he says.

Everything except Ponce.

"Ponce keeps the local flavor. It's relatively unchanged," he says. "It hasn't succumbed to overdevelopment. It's not like Midtown with all those South Beach condos."

I Saw It on Ponce started in February with an ode to one of his favorite hangouts, the low-key, retro breakfast joint Java Jive. It has since evolved into a one-stop repository of Ponce-themed restaurant reviews, photographs, nightlife listings and news of the weird. The site was inspired, PDL says, by recurring "only on Ponce" moments he says he encounters when he commutes on Ponce.

"Naked man masturbating in the street." Only on Ponce.

"Credit Union inside police headquarters building robbed." Only on Ponce.

The street is so rich with character, PDL thinks, because it is the border dividing several distinct "pocket neighborhoods" – Midtown, Old Fourth Ward, Virginia-Highland, Druid Hills, Candler Park, Decatur. "It divides neighborhoods that are almost different worlds."

Though an explorer at heart, PDL believes his one-street focus is what keeps his page interesting. "Do one thing and do it very well," he says.

PDL's goals for I Saw It on Ponce include exploring the stretch that runs east of Decatur to Clarkston, raising money to put a 24-hour webcam on Ponce, and removing the middle-of-the-road crosswalk markers recently placed on the street.

"Who uses crosswalks on Ponce, anyway?"

Rich Vining

Cable & Tweed

www.cableandtweed.blogspot.com

Joeff Davis

Why we love it: Cable & Tweed doesn't tell. Cable & Tweed shows. Any schmuck can tell you he had fun at a show. Cable & Tweed goes to local rock shows, records them and posts the recordings as MP3s. C&T also scours the Internet for free (and legal) recordings by lesser-known bands about to play in Atlanta.

Blogger profile: Rich Vining says he created Cable & Tweed in January 2006 out of necessity. He needed a place to post all of his concert recordings.

After more than a decade of recording nearly every concert he attended ("When I go to a show, I take the gear. Why not?"), Vining, 28, had amassed a large personal archive of shows. Internet MP3 traders lapped up his recordings of well-known and touring groups, but the music-trading websites he contributed to at the time weren't necessarily interested in local bands.

Vining wanted to make his local concert recordings available to the public. He guessed that a blog format would not only be the most cost-effective for him (i.e., free), but that the relatively new technology would be the user-friendliest way to attract local interest.

He guessed correctly.

C&T quickly surpassed Vining's expectations. The site isn't just visited by Atlantans. It has quickly become a portal through which such Southeast bands as the Coathangers and Of Montreal can connect with fans around the country.

"When the Selmanaires [an Atlanta pop band] played New York last year, people told them they came to the show because of Cable & Tweed," he says. "I'm proud of that."

The name Cable & Tweed derives from Vining's twin passions. Cable comes from recording concerts; Vining picked Tweed because he's a doctoral student in political science at Emory with a focus on American jurisprudence. He jokes that, with the exception of a 2005 Supreme Court decision about digital file-sharing that mentioned Modest Mouse, his interests have never overlapped.

Vining recorded his first concert in high school, when he used a handheld cassette recorder. He still makes his recordings from the audience, only now he uses better gear: two small microphones perched atop a portable mic stand, feeding into a small hard-drive recorder. He prefers audience recordings to clearer, soundboard recordings.

"Soundboards sound nothing like the room," he says.

There is a downside, however.

Occasionally, Vining's recordings are marred by "that guy" or "that girl" – i.e., people standing next to the microphones speaking very loudly. "'That guy' is usually drunk and obnoxious," he says. "'That girl' is usually just screaming."

C&T highlights: Scroll down and click on his April 2007 archives. No place else will you find Anna Kramer, Of Montreal and Morrissey (recorded in Atlanta) on the same page.