Another Political Test
There is a link on twitter for a device which says “Try this short quiz to see which political party you side with.” This seems like a good way to wait for the rain to quit falling. Given the unsolved water issues in many parts of America, it will be interesting to see if this matter is addressed. Both thieves and robbers democrats and republicans are good at avoiding discussions of tough problems.
The test has a bit more nuance than many only facilities. A typical question is number one. “What is your stance on abortion?~ Learn more~ Pro-choice~ Pro-life~ Choose another stance.” After choosing an option, you go to the sliding scale to the left, and choose how important the issue is to you. It is a five point scale. The options are least, less, somewhat, more, most. It will be interesting to see how many superlatives a person can choose. The question given superlative importance by PG is “Should the military fly drones over foreign countries to gain intelligence and kill suspected terrorists?”
Several of the questions should have the option “my opinion doesn’t count.” “Should Congress raise the debt ceiling?” “Should we expand our offshore oil drilling?” Others discuss federal solutions to state issues. “Should the federal government allow the death penalty?”
There were 71 questions on the quiz. By the standards of political discourse, that probably qualifies as short. It was hosted by a website called isidewith. “We are not affiliated with any investors, shareholders, political party or interest group.” The results page has ads for the Norton antivirus product, and “click here to see arrest record”. The spell check suggestion for isidewith is sidewise.
According to this test, PG sides with green 95%, democrat 93%, socialist 70%, libertarian 57%, republican 21%. PG chose not to advertise the test on twitter, facebook, google plus, or smoke signal. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”
Tallulah Bankhead
The wordpress homepage had an eyecatching story about “Sex and Bristol Palin“. It seems as though the young lady has taken a vow of chastity until marriage. This is a bit like locking the barn door after the horses run off…and Levi is long gone anyway. It was the comments to this that got PG’s attention. Someone has named their blog “Tallulah Bankhead“. The concept of using a famous dead person as an online identity is not original, but Tallulah Bankhead has a big personality to live up/down to.
Miss Bankhead was born January 31, 1902 in Huntsville AL. She had a year-older sister, Eugenia. Their mother died February 23, 1902. Legend has it her last words were “Take care of baby Eugenia. Tallulah can take care of herself.”
The father of the actress was Will Bankhead. He was a prominent politician, who served as Speaker of the House of Representatives in Washington. Mr. Bankhead was on the short list of Vice Presidential candidates for Franklin Roosevelt, but was passed over. The Bankhead national forest and the Bankhead Highway are both named for Will Bankhead.
Tallulah Bankhead was an actress, radio show hostess, and personality. She went to London in the early twenties and became a stage sensation. Returning home, she became a Broadway star with “The Little Foxes.” She made movies, but saved her best public performances for the stage.
Miss Bankhead was known for being sexually active, with both men and women. Hattie McDaniel, who played Mammie in Gone With The Wind, was rumored to be one of her “friends”. Her introduction to Chico Marx went like this “Miss Bankhead.” “Mr. Marx.” “You know, I really want to fuck you.”. “And so you shall, you old-fashioned boy.”
One legend has Miss Bankhead at a dinner party with Dorothy Parker and Montgomery Clift. As might have been expected, the cocktail hour went on most of the evening. At one point, Mister Clift had his head in Miss Parker’s lap. “oh you sweet man, it’s too bad that you’re a cocksucker. He is a cocksucker, isn’t he?” Miss Bankhead replied “I don’t know, he never sucked my cock.”
Her most famous movie role was in “Lifeboat”, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Her co stars complained that she was not wearing panties under her dress. Mr. Hitchcock posed the question, is this a matter for wardrobe or for hairdressing?
In the fading days of radio, Tallulah was the host of “The Big Show”. She became known for her deep voice, and for saying “Dah-ling”. More than one guest got big laughs by calling her Mister Bankhead. After “The Big Show” ended, Miss Bankhead remained active on stage and television. She died December 12, 1968.
Miss Bankhead was a staunch Democrat, as is fitting for the political family she was raised in. During the McCarthy era, an actress friend of hers was accused of being a communist. Miss Bankhead made a statement of support for the actress on the radio, and then asked her, are you a communist? The actress said that her daddy was a republican, and so she guessed that was what she was. Miss Bankhead was horrified. “A republican! That’s worse than being a G-ddamn communist.”
This is a repost. Pictures are by Chamblee54.
Boring Words
PG woke up on a cold January morning, facing a day at the facility. Wrecklessly stumbling into facebook, the first thing to catch his eye was “Um, I’m not the only one who just saw the N-word on Sharon Needles’ FB page, right?”
Aaron Coady has been in the spotlight before. He is an entertainer, with an effort made to be edgy. Some find his act amusing. PG is not one of those people.
It is tough to say who is worse here. If Mr. Coady did indeed use a racial slur on facebook, then he is a poopyhead. If this is a hoax, then someone else is a poopyhead. If this is a Duck Dynasty-style publicity stunt, then a few people have been fooled twice.
There is also the pearl clutching that goes on whenever a PWOC utters a word that is reserved for the exclusive use of POC. Is anyone else bored by this? The judge in the Paula Deen case threw out the racism part of the lawsuit. Maybe, someday, people will find something else to be outraged over.
There is a writing challenge this week. The ides is to use the word whatever, as an adverb. The word should mean that something is useless. The adverb part is tricky. “Whatever floats your boat” qualifies, but is boring. Just like the n word.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
David Bowie
This is a repost. David Bowie is 67 today, and Elvis is ageless. Sarah Palin is obsolete.
A webpage called CaptainsDead has a download of a David Bowie concert, that can only be called a Christmas present. Most Bowie live recordings are pretty dull. While the Thin White Duke is renowned for his concerts, they tend to be live events, that depend on staging and costumes as much as music. This show, from 1974, is different. Focusing on material from “Diamond Dogs”, the sound he produces comes close to matching the studio sound, and in a few cases surpasses it.
The next move for Bowie in 1974 was the “white soul” sound of “Young Americans”. He is moving in that direction in this show, even while he lingers in the glitter apocalypse. This tour included a stop at the Fox Theater, the first Atlanta show for Mr.Bowie. On the way to Florida for the next show, the truck with the sets and costumes crashed into a swamp full of rattlesnakes. The show in Tampa was performed in street clothes.
Maybe it is time for a Chamblee54 tribute to David Bowie. It is six am, and PG has stumbled into a job. The time and energy required to write new material is not always available.
The first album by David Bowie that PG heard about was “Hunky Dory”. At the time, Mr. Bowie had generated some buzz by admitting that he fancies blokes, or some uber british expression for being queer. In time, this would be seen as more publicity stunt than brave confession. The RCA debut got some good reviews, but not much else.
The next year produced “Ziggy Stardust”, a concept album. At about this time he did a tour of the United States, with costumes and onstage antics that generated even more publicity. More and more people started listening, some in spite of his outrageous image, and quite a few more because of it. He broke up his band, the spiders from mars, and announced his retirement. The band learned about this while standing on stage behind him. Mr. Bowie, for all his genius, is not always a nice man.
In 1974 there was an album, “Diamond Dogs”, about the decadent urban life in the scifi future. A stage show based on this album…the source of the download mentioned above…marked a return to the concert stage. The next year gave us “Young Americans”, and the year after that “Station to Station”. Every year was a different sound and vision.
Meanwhile, the artist was not doing so good as a human being. According to all reports, he was doing mountains of cocaine. (There is a story of going to meet the parents of Ava Cherry, one of his girlfriends. He shows up at 3am, and does coke on the dining room table.) There was an interview in Playboy (or maybe it was Rolling Stone ) where the first thing he says is, don’t believe anything I say. He went on to say that he admired Adolf Hitler. Have we mentioned the physical appearance of David Bowie in 1975? He looked like he was dead, and nobody bothered to tell him.( By contrast, in recent photo collections of rock stars, Mr. Bowie looks pretty good for a man who is 63 y.o.)
This was the era of Rocky Horror show. At one point, Riff Raff sings (Tim O’Brien wrote the show, and gave himself some darn good lines ) Frank n furter, it’s all over, your mission is a failure, your lifestyle’s too extreme.I’m your new commander you now are my prisoner we return to transylvania prepare the transit beam While this may not have been directed at David Bowie, he took the hint.
We interrupt this David Bowie tribute with an emergency announcement. A person, reputed to be an entertainer, was seen using the n word on facebook. The screen shots have disappeared, and all we have is the word of the accuser. More details will be available as soon as anyone is interested.
So David Bowie saw himself at a dead end, and possibly a dead life. He moved into a little apartment in West Berlin, on top of a garage. Brian Eno offered his assistance, and a series of electronic albums was the result. The next few years saw rock and roll, dance music, and finally, crap. PG bought a Bowie album in 1984, the first time he saw it on sale, and was immensely disappointed. The last David Bowie album that PG got was a free cd that was given to people buying a magazine.
Around 1981, MTV was born, and radio was suddenly obsolete. A visual artiste like David Bowie was a natural for video. Unfortunately, many of these videos are not available for embedding in blogs. Ashes to Ashes was a staple of early MTV. Boys Keep Swinging , off the “Lodger” album, is a return to the gender bender Bowie of younger days.
David Bowie continued to do tours, and PG got to see two of the shows. In 1987, something called the “Glass Spider Tour” came to the Omni. (In a later interview, it turns out Mr. Bowie was extremely unhappy during this tour, and close to suicide at some points.) The Glass Spider was this mass of lighting effects that hovered over the stage, and was used to best advantage during “Scary Monsters”. The show featured Peter Frampton on guitar, and had a pack of dancers. (One apparent female took her drag off during the finale.) A good time was had by all.
In 1990, another retirement tour came to the Omni. This one had movies projected on a screen behind the stage, and featured guitar hero Adrian Bellew. The night had the feel of a contractual obligation. David Bowie is too professional to give a bad show, but this one did not have the fire of “Glass Spider”. PG had a new set of contact lenses, and his eyes were painfully dry most of the night.
This is a repost.
Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Tag some others who might enjoy this. You can’t use the band I used. Try not to repeat a song title. It’s a lot harder than you think! Re-post as “my life according to (band name)”Pick your Artist: David Bowie
Are you a male or female: The Bewley Brothers
Describe yourself: Quicksand
How do you feel:Always crashing in the same car
Describe where you currently live: Life on Mars
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Width of a circle
Your favorite form of transportation: Queen Bitch
Your best friend is: Young Americans
You and your best friends are: Kooks
What’s the weather like: Changes
Favorite time of day: Eight Line Poem
If your life was a TV show, what would it be called: Scary Monsters
What is life to you: Panic in Detroit
Your relationship: Fame
Your fear: Sound and Vision
What is the best advice you have to give:Somebody up there likes me
Thought for the Day: Hang onto yourself
How I would like to die: Ashes to Ashes
My soul’s present condition: Moonage Daydream
My motto: Andy Warhol
Horses On Drugs
This episode started out as a repost. Google and reality got in the way, and there is no telling where we will wind up. Pictures (except for the divas) are from The Library of Congress. Ansel Adams took these pictures at the Japanese Internment Camp, in Manzanar CA, in 1943.
Awful library books is one of the actors in this drama. It is a good waste of your time. (The link in the repost does not work, because Awful library books has a new web address.) On top of the shelf today is Lee the Rabbit with Epilepsy. Other uplifting volumes on the front page include Isn’t One Wife Enough?: the Story of Mormon Polygamy and When Cavemen Go Bowling.
The book that Awful Library Books chose to “weed” was Latawnya, the Naughty Horse, Learns to Say “No” to Drugs. The links in the original post no longer work, so google was enlisted to find a replacement. Believe it or not, this galloping tale has a wikipedia page.
The original book was targeted at African American youth. The author has daughters named Latawnya and Chrystal. The author has sued amazon, wikipedia, and urban dictionary.
A possibly illegal reproduction is found using the link. One of the comments tells a cautionary tale: ” It seems that many of these comments are viciously lampooning the work of a genius. I, however, see the visionary work of Mrs. Gibson. This insightful masterpiece presents the very real dangers of horse peer pressure. Just last week my daughter, Amber, was walking to school on a normal, idyllic day in suburbia. Then out of nowhere a Clydesdale galloped brazenly over to my precious princess and offered her a 40 oz bottle of Olde English 800 and a marijuana cigarette.”
Clydesdales have long been used to promote the products of the Anheuser-Busch company. When PG was younger, he worked on the mall maintenance crew at Northlake Mall. One day, the Budweiser Clydesdales made a visit. PG was given a shovel and bucket, and told to walk behind the horses.
One of the reasons for the drug problem is drug education. Many of these programs, while well intentioned, make the problem worse.
Courtesy of Awfullibrarybooks, we can see today “LATAWNYA, the Naughty Horse, Learns to say “No” to Drugs“. This uplifting story is about the afternoon when Latawnya goes out to play with her sisters Daisy and LaToya. Suddenly they meet four strange horses, Connie, Chrystal, Jackie, and Angie. They like to drink and smoke drugs.
The author of this tale was born in Mississippi, and lives in California. She says “Thank you, G-d”.
In 1986, there was an oversupply of cocaine coming into America, and new ways of using the product were needed. Someone had the idea of making crack. The media did its part, by running scare stories about the new drug sensation. “One puff makes your head feel like it is exploding”. The stories had the combined effect of scaring parents, and making crack cocaine irresistible to certain people. Crack became a part of the life.
The first time PG heard about oxycontin was a drug education flyer at work. It promised an overwhelming rush to the user who injected the substance. PG imagined the reaction of some of the druggies he had known to this promise…where can I get some?
PG is in the detoxed, old fogey stage of his life. Millions of others are not. When they read stories about horses who drink and smoke drugs, they learn to believe the opposite of what the drug educators tell them. Many will not live to be detoxed old fogeys.
2014 List of Banished Words
The new year is officially here. The frozen funlovers at Lake Superior State University have issued the 2014 List of Banished Words. They will twerk your fanbase, send the twittersphere reaching for the steroids, and set off the mister momageddon.
The winner this year is selfie. People have been taking self portraits in the bathroom for quite a while. The shampoo on the sink is embarrassed. It is only recently that the six letter name was coined. The name may fade away. The custom will be with us for a while, until the mirror explodes in shame.
Another case of a new bottle for old wine is twerk, twerking. As long as people have moved in time to music, the backfield has been in motion. After a recent awards show performance, we learn that this dancehall move has a name. What is even more amazing is the people screaming cultural appropriation. Some say an ethnic group invented booty shaking. Everyone else is a copycat.
The chosen phrases were presented in all caps. This is a trend that should be banished, but probably will not be. It does created extra work for slack bloggers. The remaining four independent banished phrases are hashtag, twittersphere, mister mom, and t-bone.
There are three categories for the remaining bw. Suffering suffixes are ___ on steroids, -ageeddon, and -pocalypse. Politics contributes intellectually / morally bankrupt, and obamacare. Sports gives us adversity, and fan base. There was no category for racism or religion. Photographs today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
The Number One Hit When I Was Born
This post went up for the first time on May 28, 2008. The meme of looking up the number one hit on your date of birth is making the rounds again. It is a good excuse for something to post on a slow day. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
There is a man known as XWinger. He sells Celtic music, promotes DimSum groups, and has a blog.
Once at his place I saw a link to a site that tells you what the Number One song was on that day. The arbiter of number oneness is Billboard Magazine.
The List goes back to 1892. On January 1, 1892, the #1 hit was “Drill, Ye Terriers, Drill” by George J. Gaskin. I imagine that before a certain date this would refer to sheet music, or maybe player piano thingies. Other big hits from the Gay Nineties include “The Fatal Wedding” (1894, George J. Gaskin), “Little Alabama Coon” (1895. Len Spencer) and ” A Hot Time in the Old Town”(1897, Dan Quinn).
When my daddy was born in 1916, the top hit was “M-O-T-H-E-R ( A Word that Means So Much to Me) by Henry Burr. When my mother was born in 1922, the top of the billboard charts was “Stumbling” by Paul Whiteman.
In October 1929, the stock market crashed to “Am I Blue” by Ethel Waters. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the big song was “Chattanooga Choo Choo” by Glenn Miller. Mr. Miller joined the Army after the start of the War, and toured with a band to entertain troops. On December 15, 1944, his plane disappeared in France. The number one hit that day was “I’m Making Believe” by the Ink Spots and Ella Fitzgerald. The Ink Spots played at the Domino Lounge downtown when I was a kid. I heard people say, “the Ink Spots have been around for a while”.
In 1954, this reporter was born. The number one hit that day was “Wanted” by Perry Como. Two years later, my brother was born to the sounds of “Heartbreak Hotel” by Elvis Presley.
One way to track the hits through the years is to pick a date and follow it. It should be noted that Billboard is the essence of “commercial”. On my tenth birthday, the big sound was “Hello Dolly” by Louis Armstrong. On the verge of the summer of Love, the big hit was “Something Stupid” by Nancy Sinatra and Frank Sinatra. At no time did the Beatles have a number one hit on my birthday. This attitude improved in 1969 with “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” by the Fifth Dimension.
The seventies continued the commercial tradition with “Joy to the World” by Three Dog Night. This was in 1971, the year they played a big show at Atlanta Stadium. The disco monster raised its glittering hand with “Night Fever”, by the Bee Gees in 1978.
As the eighties rolled in, I got a job and apartment, and music became less familiar. The first big May hit of the eighties was “Call Me” by Blondie. It was from a movie starring Richard Gere. The movie did not feature gerbils. The decade was not a total loss, as 1983 featured “Beat It” by Michael Jackson.
Moving into the nineties and oughts, my old fogey decrepitude is near total. Or is that the wasteland of pop music? By this time top 40 is all but extinct, am radio given over to all talk stations, and fm music so spread out that no one style of music is dominant. The number one hit on my birthday, one recent year, is “Bleeding Love” by Leona Lewis.
Of course, the leaders of our country don’t always listen. On May 28, 1915, the biggest song was “I Didn’t Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier” by the Peerless Quartet. And, on May 28, 1964, the number one hit was “Love Me Do” by the Beatles.
Chamblee54 
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