Since the Civil War ended, the victors who write American history have depicted the South as a bastion of ignorance, repression, and backwardness. The rest of the nation, even people who weren’t alive when the Civil War ended, feels free to stereotype, malign, defame, and put Dixie down, knowing that if Southerners complain about it, the Feds will send in the National Guard to bust out the firehoses and start spraying people.

The rest of the nation—AND DON’T YOU DENY IT—feels immeasurably superior to the South in all known indices of coolness.

The surest sign that a metropolitan area is “hep” and “with it” and “happenin’” and “rollin’ with the times” is if it bears all the classic marks of urban decay. You Yankees and West Coasters think you’re so “cool” and “fresh” and “keen” with your gang violence and your drug trafficking and your serial killers and your deviant sex.

Well, then, howzabout Atlanta? Where does it stand? Its metropolitan area is America’s ninth-largest, but does it have all the hallmarks of a huge, hip American city such as NYC or LA?

CRIME—Is there lots of it, especially the weird, imaginative kind?

DRUGS—Are there lots of them, especially obscure ones you’ve wanted to try for years?

SEX—Does the city permit tasteless public displays of human sexuality?

The answer to all these questions is a resounding, drawl-inflected YES. As unofficial capital of the Dirty South, the “Big Peach” is EXTREMELY dirty. It’s not as stupid and backward as you might think. It boasts all of the sociopathic dysfunction that distinguishes the coastal megalopolises.

Make no mistake—there are shiny, streamlined, futuristic, sparkling-clean parts of the city. There are also countless fine, God-fearing, clean-living, simpleminded folks down here in “The 404,” AKA “Da Foh-Oh-Foh.” But they don’t tell the whole story. There is dirt here—lots of dirt. There are places in Atlanta where all you can see for miles is dirt. Wouldn’t you like to see some for yourself?

So come on down to the ATL. Experience its violent crime. Observe its drug culture. Indulge in its sex. It’s just as dirty as you are, Yankees—even dirtier!

Here’s a quick guide to the best CRIME, DRUGS, and SEX the city has to offer…

CRIME!

Atlanta has hella crime. It has a grip of crime. Its murder rate soars 520% above the USA’s average. It is more violent than tried-and-true urban hellholes such as DC, LA, NYC, and Chicago. Don’t come preaching to us about crime—we do it better than any of y’all!

Here are some of the most sensational Atlanta true-crime cases of the past 100 years. After reading it, I’m sure you’ll agree that when it comes to crime, we got it goin’ on!

THE ATLANTA RIPPER—Presumed to be black for God-knows-what reason (some white people in Georgia are rumored to be a trifle racist), this serial killer preyed upon Atlanta’s ladies of the night a hundred years ago, slaying at least twenty of them. He was never caught.

WAYNE WILLIAMS—Convicted of the gruesome string of “Atlanta Child Murders” which terrified the town in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Twenty-nine of Atlanta’s black citizens, most of them children, were said to have fallen prey to the weird bespectacled loner who still denies any role in the killings.

ROBERT LEE BENNETT, JR.—Atlanta’s “Handcuff Man” who systematically tortured, burned, genitally mutilated, and unfairly insulted gay male prostitutes during a reign of Homo Terror in the 1970s and 80s.

JOSEPH P. FRANKLIN—A white supremacist who claims to have shot Larry Flynt. He was convicted of murdering an interracial couple in Atlanta because, well, they were an interracial couple.

THE OLYMPIC BOMBER—AKA Eric Rudolph, he planted a pipe bomb that detonated during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. He was suspected of bombing ATL-area abortion clinics because God told him to.

KHALID ADEM—He went to jail a couple years ago for circumcising his own daughter.

BRENT MARSH—Recently convicted for running a crematorium but failing to cremate the bodies, instead letting them rot all over the premises.

BRIAN NICHOLS—The six-figure-earning churchgoing man who, during a 2005 court hearing on rape charges, was able to overpower a deputy and fatally shoot his own judge, leading police on a thrilling, sexually charged manhunt in which crystal meth received passing mention.

EDWARD ELIOT KRAMER—Director of Dragon Con Atlanta, he was convicted of molesting two teenaged boys and then appealing for a suspended prison sentence because he has a skin condition and requires daily oatmeal baths.

STANLEY STREET—An Atlanta cop who also happened to be a serial bank robber.

DAVID ALLAN FREEMAN—Another Atlanta cop—this one an “Officer of the Year,” even—who also happened to be a gang drug lord.

PIERRE CARLTON—He sneaked INTO prison to serve another man’s time.

CHAD BRANT HAGAMAN—Thirty-year-old schizophrenic who lived with his mother and one day heard voices commanding him to attack a fourth-grader with a hammer.

JUSTIN & JOSHUA MOULDER—Teenaged brothers who taped up, painted, and oven-baked a puppy to death in 2006.

DRUGS!!

Atlanta is rumored to be a major drug-distribution center for the entire country. A friend of mine says that he heard it’s easier to score coke here than it is to bum a cigarette. Within a month of moving to the ATL, I was offered GHB, Ecstasy, mescaline, opium, cocaine, hydrocodone, tons of weed, and chocolate-covered magic mushrooms. Because I have two strikes on my record already, I refused all of it.

SEX!!!

My bitch is from Georgia. I can state as irrefutable, ineluctable fact that Southern girls are simultaneously more obedient and kinky than women anywhere else. Here are some more highlights of Atlanta’s wacky sex scene:

DONKEYMAN—Come rain or shine, he’s wearing Speedos and flaunting his giant package along Ponce de Leon Avenue.

BATON BOB—He shamelessly exhibits his undeniably homosexual orientation while dressed as a super-gay cheerleader and mincing down city streets.

THE CLERMONT LOUNGE—Fleabag motel and hipster hangout featuring a basement strip club with the oldest and skankiest erotic dancers in the industrialized world. It’s where old strippers go to die.

ZIRCONIA BISCAYNE—A government intern from the 1950s who, according to highly suspect rumors, is the South’s version of Monica Lewinsky. According to what is probably no more than an urban legend, she was the first person, male or female, to orally pleasure both ex-President Jimmy Carter and the slain Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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