We are the champions

Last weekend, I covered a late-night pep rally for the paper. The football team had just won the 6A division state championship, and though I was moving fairly frenetically, I managed to take a few photos that I liked.

Sometimes I wonder if the world's so small

After visiting Mississippi, I made a list of characteristics my utopia would have. Here are my must-haves:

- warm all year long
- all my friends live on the same street
- great produce
- bikeable
- affordable housing
- near a body of water
- good movies come there
- has a front porch
- has a tree house in the back yard

Pretty sunsets (like this one in Las Vegas) wouldn't hurt either.

Cupcake

One time, Jay told me something (maybe it was me?) looked cuter than a kitten in a cupcake hat. I've never been so blessed as to see such a sight, but I am blessed enough that Neola made me a cupcake out of scratch. She used Guinness to make it, y'all.

I'm thinking of a dream I had

My stuff: David

Apparently there are still people around town in Jackson, Miss., who know David only as his comic-drawing alterego, Gorjus. He writes/draws/makes the zine The Sandusky Review and runs the blog Pretty Fakes and is all-around the very coolest.







David explains his favorite things:

1. zine stapler - I make zines with this.

2. Jerry Lee Lewis - Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On record - I wasn't allowed to have music growing up. This is the first 45 I ever bought. I paid $5 for it at a record store in San Antonio, and that was the start of my record collection.

3. Alabama license plate - I really love Alabama. A big part of where I grew up was loving football. It's a big cliche to say football is a religion in the South, but it's totally true. It's the great equalizer.

4. Animal Man comic - This page is the reason I became a vegetarian. I read this when I was 14, and it didn't take at the time, but it left a seed in my head. The character is talking about the ethics of eating animals. It's not much, and looking back, I think, 'Really? That's all it took?'

5. 307 - This is a badge from my 1967 Camaro. 307 was how big the engine was. I wrecked it in Starkville -- totally sober. My dad found the badge in his basement recently and gave it to me.

6. Polaroid Sun 600 - My main art in my 30s has been Polaroids. Of all the Polaroid cameras I use, this is my favorite. I don't know why. It doesn't really take the best photos of all of them. But it has traveled all over the country with me.

7. Rubber stamps - They were a present from a friend. At first, we used them for fliers for a band, but then I started using them with Polaroids a lot.

8. Kill Rock Stars bracelet - I used to wear a lot of jewelry. I bought this in the late '90s. The record label Kill Rock Stars sold it. I liked having a cultural signifier. It was a code. Wearing this in a small town, you're saying you're a feminist. You're not a racist. You like punk rock. You're a real person.

9. bullet shell - This is from my grandfather's funeral. He was in the army in World War II, and at his funeral, they did the 21-gun salute. He was the first person I was close to who died.

10. button - This is from 2008, when I went to Florida and worked with the Obama campaign. With the 2000 election in mind, they brought a lot of lawyers to Florida to answer questions, etc. We had no problems where we where. It was just an awesome public service exercise. I felt connected to a larger whole.

From the aisles of the Mississippi Grocery

I'm back in Mississippi for a few day, and already I'm re-finding treasures I'd forgotten, like drank and Crisco.

If you've never had waffles without syrup

Here's the video I made for Tyree Harris. Check out his album REALmatic. It's so good.

Tyree Harris - Memory Lane from Casey Parks on Vimeo.