Best Street Character

Long Dong Silver. Ponce de Le-Dong. Compression Shorts Man. Willie Terry is known by many names. For years, the street character has stood at the corner of Ponce de Leon Avenue and Briarcliff Road in his revealing tight shorts, cane in hand, smile on his face, waving at passersby. Not much is known about his life, but the lifelong Atlantan who no one really knows is someone nearly everyone knows. Thank you. less...

Every street character has something that sets him or her apart from the motley crew of men and women who walk Atlanta's streets. Baton Bob has his parade marshal outfits. Bicycle Shorts Man has his...well, you know. And Larkin Taylor-Parker has Sally and Aria, her tubas. Three or four days a week, the top hat-and-tuxedo-wearing 20-year-old Chicago native can be found belting out anything from Celtic music, protest songs, spirituals, big band tunes, and everything else in Candler Park and Little Five Points. When not playing the instrument, Parker spends some of her time advocating for and writing online about people living with autism (she lives with the disorder and is also dyslexic). Post graduation at Agnes Scott College, where she's studying history, Larkin plans to become a lawyer and help children with disabilities navigate the educational system. To Parker, who does indeed rock, we salute you. less...

After noticing him for the last few years, you might think the seemingly ubiquitous PRINCE DAWEED is a bit … off. Sure, he’s a fabulous dancer. But what person in his right mind leaps, bounds, gyrates and grooves on such a drab dance floor as Atlanta’s smog-filled street corners? We’ll tell you who: A person who’s at peace with himself, filled with joy, and just plain happy. Weird, huh? But honestly, it makes sense. You’d be in a perpetual good mood, too, if — as Daweed has confessed to CL — you spent all day getting pumped up on the Bee Gees, Hall and Oates, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, and Earth, Wind and Fire. less...

With his paid gigs and his slick website, “street character” is no longer an apt title for Baton Bob. He’s a full-fledged local celeb now. For God’s sake, the man has a better Wikipedia entry than Creative Loafing does. Of Bob’s street-character colleagues, none is more notorious, long-lived or as apparently well-endowed as WILLY TERRY, AKA BICYCLE SHORTS MAN. For 16 years, he has stood at the intersection of Briarcliff and Ponce, greeting passers-by with a smile, a wave and a glimpse of what appears to be an enormous penis visible through tight bicycle shorts. He’ll probably never be Baton Bob-famous, but last year, Terry appeared in an online documentary short (filmed by an Emory student named Dan Resnick) viewed more than 60,000 times. He’s putting the tube back in YouTube. less...