SPORT: TGIF - Thank God It’s Fall

UGA Alum Julie Camp Gears Up For A

Time Honored Southern Tradition

It’s a beautiful, crisp fall day in north Georgia. Every good Southern girl worth her salt is putting on her finest red and black dress for the day’s main event. Pearls and heels are followed by perfecting those blonde locks before stepping out of the house. To a regular ‘ol person this Southern belle might look ready for church – and in a way she is. But church is on Saturday afternoons and the cathedral is Sanford Stadium…after all, Georgia football is a religion!

To a Dawg there is nothing finer in the land than a Saturday in Athens, GA surrounded by friends and family watching the greatest football team play the greatest sport on Earth. Everyone dresses their best to salute their boys, but no one is afraid to get a little dirty during the tailgate.

As a Dawg myself, I begin counting down the days till football season in June. And even though I now call New York City my home, I’m not the least bit ashamed to dress in full red and black to support my boys come fall!

So as we prepare for Georgia’s first game this Saturday against GA Southern, I’d like to ask everyone – no matter your “religion” – to join me in the time honored tradition of calling the Dawgs.

Goooo….Dawgs! Sic’em! Woof, woof, woof!

ART: Like A Rolling Thunder Tent Revival Revue

My brother always threatens to leave town. Like that would magically solve all his problems. What people like him fail to realize though is that wherever you go, there you are. I don't mean that in a Zen way either. I mean, you take your problems with you, especially if it's you that is the problem.

The weight of lies will bring you down
And follow you to every town
Cause nothing happens here that doesn’t happen there
So when you run make sure you run
To something and not away from
Cause lies don’t need an aeroplane to chase you anywhere
(The Avett Brothers, "The Weight Of Lies" from Emotionalism)

But running away....It does hold the hopeful mirage of a clean break, a fresh start where no one knows you. And all your wrongs can be made right or maybe never even existed. You can be the person you always believed you could be. The you that you know you are, but maybe nobody else can see. There is no possibility like that of a new place...and the story whose end has yet to be told. And besides, it's just a few tracks later on Emotionalism that the Avett Brothers sing that "all my mistakes, They brought me to you."

So, I guess you never know...

When he's not making music with his brother Seth, Scott Avett is painting. An exhibit of his work, in collaboration with husband & wife photography team Crackerfarm, is up now thru August 29 at the Envoy Gallery on the Lower East Side, NYC. The Avett Brothers The Gleam II is out now.

ART: If You Can't Keep Your Baby, We Can

7:14 pm. Welcome to Arkansas. Alex bought one of those white-trash lighters that have a half-naked guy on it, wearing ripped up jeans.

1:10 am. Mississippi state line.

sugar never was so sweet. day four.

8:30 am. I do believe this was the earliest we ever got up in a motel room, but it had to be done. This was Mississippi, and there's nothing like waking up in the Delta for the first time in your life.

Alex collected the breakfast bagels and coffee, Beth was doing Yoga, and meanwhile I was busy being paralyzed with the anticipation of seeing the land where the blues began. I guess if you woke up one morning and knew you were going to fall in love for life that day, you'd feel just about the same. How could you even turn a door handle or squeeze toothpaste on your toothbrush without your heart thumping up in your mouth?

Outside, the humidity hung heavy in the air, and the breeze smelled sweet and warm. We drove over a small, country road with an overcast, yellow sky above us just aching to let loose. The road was awkwardly patched-up and flooded on either side by deep green. Whole trees were smothered by vines, creating strange landscapes that looked like science fiction.

"One of these nights, you're sure gonna love me right

And I'll come and I'm gonna be your baby

All the rest of my life. . ."

Coahoma.

It seemed to be election time. The roadsides were cluttered with little colorful signs, demanding you vote for a whole array of bizarre governmental positions." Re-elect Scotty Meredith - Coroner", "Elect Alfonzo Buford - Constable Northern District", "Elect Ed Seals - Coahoma County Superintendent of Education", "Re-elect Rybolt - Constable", "Please elect Carolyn Parham - Tax Assessor Collector".

"If you can't keep your baby, we can" - billboard.

(Excerpted from Devil Got Religion. Mercedes Helnwein. (c) 2004)

Influenced by the blues and a lifelong obsession to see places with names like Arkansas and Mississippi, critically acclaimed Los Angeles-based Austrian artist Mercedes Helnwein has birthed such works as America Motel Project and a body of drawings described as "photo-realistic," "lucid fairy-tales," "strikingly bizarre," "haunting," "southern Gothic," "evocative" and "unexpected."

Whistling Past the Graveyard featuring new works by Mercedes Helnwein and hosted by Jason Lee opens at the Merry Karnowski Gallery in Los Angeles on August 30.

ART: "She Smiles"

Printmaking and collage converge in this piece by Louisiana artist Kathyrn Hunter. She offers "fine printed goods made with care in Bayou Country since 2003" on her site and in her Etsy shop.

SCREEN: Searching For The Wrong Eyed Jesus

I was driving thru Alabama a few Octobers back and a roadside church sign asked "Would Jesus Go Trick Or Treating?" My gut response was "Hell yeah! Why not?" Afterall, I come from NYC where all entities tend to co-exist rather peaceably. Just last Sunday, as a matter of fact, I went to 11am services at an Episcopal church that lives right next door to year-round Halloween shop.

Religion takes many forms in the South - from blues to BBQ, from snake handling to SEC football. The editor of one of my favorite Southern-based magazines soberingly brushed my photos off once as "quaint." I guess I tend to "search for the wrong eyed jesus." Maybe it's trite to be in the South and take photos of a rusty car, a weathered shack, a little white church, a field of cotton, a juke joint, a bluesman. If I can't do it up better than the Wms Christenberry or Eggleston why bother?

Maybe because even 50 years later there is a way of life that still exists despite everything else changing so rapidly that we barely have time to make sense of it all. On my next drive, I just might still find a woman in Hale or Perry county sitting on her porch making egg carton flowers. Maybe we could all use a little quaint right now. Can I get an "Amen?"