If you're a black gay or lesbian with a predilection for Spock ears and a passion for college football, your ship has come in.
Atlanta will play host this weekend to a trio of events that would please even the most priggish diversity coordinator: the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game, featuring Georgia and Boise State, the DragonCon science fiction convention and Atlanta Black Gay Pride. They'll bring in more than 100,000 out-of-towners to form a most unusual cultural stew.
"Some people get weirded out by the costumes but they're not bad people," said Residence Inn valet Floyd Amos, who was working the same job last year -- the third time the events shared a weekend downtown. Amos was referring to the elaborate costumes worn by some of the DragonCon attendees, outfits that tend to be a bit foreign to your typical Crimson Tide or Tigers fan.
Though they lack common ground, downtown workers say the disparate groups tend to get along just fine, even when the traditional jock-nerd dynamic surfaces.
"You have the rowdy football fans heckling the people dressed up in their [fantasy] costumes," said Ryan Flanagan, a bartender at Meehan's on Peachtree Street. "But it's good-natured. I haven't seen any fights break out or anything."
Still, not everyone is crazy about this awkward convergence. There were unconfirmed accounts on Twitter last year of some tussles, but nothing major.
"I just hate them," wrote Utini420, a bespectacled "immortal" posting on the Steampunk Forum. "DragonCon is supposed to be the one damned weekend a year I don't have to endure their idiocy, their stupid game ... The football fans are a jagged shard of normal jammed into my convention of weirdness."
In the spirit of unity, not Utini, perhaps a DragonCon'er will dress as Muffit the dog -- or daggit, in geek-speak -- from "Battlestar Galactica" for this year's parade, held Saturday morning. At least he'd have something in common with the barking UGA fans who think mostly in canine terms, at least on game days.
While Black Gay Pride's official events are headquartered closer to Midtown many celebrants find their way downtown.
Even to Hooters.
"We get some black Pride, but not so much," said waitress Kristen King. "It's a very interesting mix."
So which group tips best?
"The football fans," said waitress Alex Henry. "They drink more."
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