Not Getting To Perform
There was a new host for the sunday night poetry open mic, and PG thought it was time for a new stage name. Chamblee54 worked for a while. Piers Gaveston was going make his debut.
Java Monkey Speaks is a sunday night institution. The indoor/outdoor stage is the side pocket of a coffee house, in downtown Decatur. You come early, and hopefully get to read in the first half of the evening. This sunday, PG arrived late. He was way down the list in the second half. JMS has a strict 11 pm curfew, but usually everyone gets to perform. Time ran out for PG this night. His poem will have to wait until later. This sort of thing happens.
There was one poem in the second half that might have been shorter. It featured an angry young lady. She was shouting about the election. The entire performance was was fast paced, and loud. She would never slow down. Can you shout, and inhale, at the same time? It was a machine gun monotone. The poem went on, and on, and on, and on. Meanwhile, the clock was ticking. Poets saw their chance to perform going bye bye.
The lady said nothing that PG had not heard before. That is, before the shouting got to be too much, and PG tuned out. People who didn’t vote were bad. RuPaul is bad. Hillary Clinton is bad. Donald J. Trump is racist, which is worse than bad. PG agrees with much of the content, and least what was said. It is not what you say that counts, but the way that you say it.
The featured performer was long time JMS host Kodac Harrison. He brought his guitar. Some of his songs are medium tempo, with atmospheric guitar. Mr. Harrison uses silent breaks well, to set off the music. There is a beauty to this kind of pacing. The shouting poet lady might have borrowed some mellow from Mr. Harrison.
Downtown Decatur is a fairly progressive place. The preaching-to-the-choir excesses were excused. Some people enjoyed the young lady. One can only imagine the reaction of small town Pennsylvania folks to this performance. Maybe they would have been persuaded by the young lady shouting at them. Maybe they would have voted against what they see as their interests. Maybe the Hillary people should have called the Trumpers racist more often. That is a sure way to persuade people. Or is it? If you want to be heard, sometimes you have to listen.
There will be other sunday nights. Decatur is a straight shot down Clairmont Road/Clairemont Avenue, through all those unsynchronized red lights. To be fair, maybe the young lady did not know about the 11pm curfew. Pictures for this outpouring of ornery are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Protect Your Information
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Ten Things You Cannot Say
There was a post at listserve, Top 10 Things You Should Never Discuss Online. PG is going to take this as a challenge, and try to say something rude about all ten. November 19 was International Men’s Day, and World Toilet Day. Real men have lots of opinions. This is a repost.
01 Religion On the day PG was born, his father called the church choir director, at 6am, to sign PG up. The choir director, a gentleman named Ray Smathers, went back to sleep. PG thinks that Mr. Smathers had the right idea.
02 Origins of Man Gorillas and chimpanzees are embarrassed by people.
03 Politics A man is drowning fifty feet offshore. A democrat throws seventy five feet of rope, and then doesn’t tie it to anything. A republican throws twenty five feet of rope, and says that swimming to the rope will build character.
04 The Holocaust What Hitler did seventy five years ago does not justify dropping white phosphorous on children in Gaza today.
05 Gun Control A prominent politician in Georgia took some pills, and called his mother. The prominent politician said he was killing himself. If the prominent politician had used a gun, he would have succeeded.
06 Abortion PG has never had an abortion.
07 Race Relations PG does not like people who do not like PG.
08 Jesus Christ What Jesus worshipers call Jesus is a man made spirit, that has little in common with the historic figure. We know little about the man in Palestine two thousand years ago. The spirit called Jesus is a source of misery to PG.
09 Homosexuality If you have to ask, do you really need to know?
10 The Middle East If there was no oil there, would anyone care?
The Burning Of Atlanta
Around this time 152 years ago, Atlanta was on fire. General Sherman was preparing for his March to the sea, and wanted to destroy anything of value in the city. The fire is reported as being on 11-15 of November, depending on what source you use.
The November fire was the second great fire in Atlanta that year. On September 2, the city was conquered by the Union Army. The fleeing Confederates blew up a munitions depot, and set a large part of the city on fire. This is the fire Scarlet O’Hara flees in “Gone With The Wind”.
After a series of bloody battles, the city was shelled by Yankee forces for forty days. There were many civilian casualties. General Sherman was tired of the war, angry at Atlanta, and ready for action. This is despite the fact that many in Atlanta were opposed to secession.
Click here to hear a lecture by Marc Wortman at the Atlanta History Center. Mr Wortman is the author of “The Bonfire: The Siege and Burning of Atlanta”. The hour of talk is fascinating. This is a repost. The pictures are from The Library of Congress
About this time every year, there is a post about the burning of Atlanta. One of the sources is a lecture by Marc Wortman. If you have an hour to spare, this talk is worth your time. One of the stories told is the tale of Mr. Luckie.
“According to folklore, two stories abound as to how Luckie Street was named. The first is that its moniker came from one of Atlanta’s oldest families, and the other, probably closer to the truth, regales the life of Solomon “Sam” Luckie. Luckie, as it turns out, wasn’t so lucky after all. When General William Tecumseh Sherman first came marching through Atlanta in 1864, Luckie, a free Black man who made his living as a barber, was leaning against a gas lamp post in downtown talking to a group of businessmen. A burst from a cannon shell wounded him; he survived, but later died from his injuries. Folklore suggests that he may have been one of the first casualties of the assault on Atlanta during Sherman’s March to the Sea, and Luckie Street, an extension of the city’s famed Sweet Auburn Avenue, was later named in his memory.”
Marc Wortman wrote a book, The Bonfire: The Siege and Burning of Atlanta. The one star review, and comments to that review, are unusually detailed. Here is a selection.
“…People forget – or were never taught in school – that most Confederate soldiers descended from Revolutionary War patriots or were up-country poor sons of farmers. Many Confederate soldiers were relatively recent new arrivals to the U.S., semi-literate dirt poor immigrants from Ireland and Scotland who’d never had the chance to own even an acre of their own land in Europe. In the mix were well-educated, elite merchant business owning French Huguenot refugees of the Catholic Bourbon genocide of Protestants. These immigrants had nowhere else to go, 9 times out of 10 never owned a slave, and fought for the CSA to keep what little they’d hardscrabble carved out over a decade of arrival into the U.S.”
The War Between The States continues to be a source of controversy. After the Charleston church killings, many comments were made about the Confederate battle flag. (If you can’t talk about gun control or mental health, you talk about a symbol.) This led to discussions about the war itself. There were ritual denunciations of slavery, which was assumed to be the sole cause of the conflict. The fact that the vast majority of white southerners did not own slaves was dismissed.
The notion of autonomous states in a federal union was novel when the United States Constitution was written. The debate over federalism versus states rights continues to this day. States that want to legalize marijuana may be the next battleground. (Few are expecting secession over bong rights.) Many in the CSA saw the Union as being a conquering army, and fought to defend their homes. While slavery was certainly a factor in the creation of the CSA, it was not the only Casus belli. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Episode 34455
Episode 44455 of Bloggingheads TV was Glenn Loury and John McWhorter. PG knows that he will never get anything done while listening to these men. Every few minutes, something worth recording will be said. Video clips, or dingle links, will be used in this story.
The discussion centered on why America chose a hairpiece challenged man to be POTUS. John scored the first zinger. It is unfair to consider the Pennsylvania voter a moral troglodyte if he does not prioritize racism above all other considerations. This contrasts with a popular facebook meme: Trump voters may not be racist, but they do not consider racism to be a deal breaker.
This concept of equating anti racism with moral probity comes up throughout the show. John says that one problem with Mr. Trump is not that he is racist, but that he doesn’t have the decency to hide it. Is this decency, or a socially presentable fig leaf? And isn’t the appeal of Mr. Trump that he does not play these games, but says what he really thinks/what his supporters want to hear? The line between show biz, and governance, gets blurrier all the time.
The various incidents of anti minority violence, reputedly spawned by the Trump election, were discussed. Glenn talked about a Chicago incident, where a white man was attacked by a black group. The attackers were chanting “Don’t Vote Trump.” Glenn called the attack racist. Evidently, Dr. Loury has not gotten the memo that “black people cannot be racist.”
Glenn soon got into a full blown rant, shouting “GROW UP That’s why you lost the election because you thought name calling was a substitute for making political arguments.” This may be overestimating the intelligence of the voting population. You don’t win a reality show glamor contest with intellectual arguments about government policy. Hillary did make some sound arguments in the debates, only to be overshadowed by jokes about pussy grabbing. In the end, Mr. Trump got his majority of electoral votes.
Were the voters in the three MI-PA-WI states impressed by the moralizing hypocrites who denounced Mr. Trump as a pussy grabbing racist? The issues vs personality quagmire was repeatedly worked over, with Dr. Loury taking the uncomfortable position of defending Mr. Trump. It got so bad that Dr. McWhorter asked Dr. Loury Did you vote for that jackass?
BHTV is unique among podcasts. It has video cameras, so you see the squawking heads. It is not always a smooth process. At one point, the image froze. This was sixteen seconds after John said the n word, which may affect video transmission after all. If only it had ended in a, instead of er.
Dr. McWhorter is a professor at an Ivy League college. Unfortunately, when he is listening to Dr. Loury talk, Dr. McWhorter looks dumb. This does not have anything to do with the intellectual capacity of Dr. McWhorter, but rather the face he presents when listening. Instead of resting bitch face, Dr. McWhorter has resting stupid face.
John said the election was a referendum on pc. This is political correctness, not personal computers vs macs. This was a minute and a half after Glenn was ranting about the idiocy of #alllivesmatter vs #blacklivesmatter. Did this election really come down to what adjective goes in front of #___livesmatter? Glenn denounced the eagerness of the democrats to be heard saying #blacklivesmatter. To him, the democrats were “under the sway of a misguided, self absorbed, morally superficial movement.”
James Baldwin has been on Dr. McWhorter’s reading list. From this, he has opinions about “the lesson that white people need to learn about their whiteness.” Imagine, for a minute, a white man saying that black people need to learn a lesson about their blackness. That may have been what Glenn was thinking when he said that John was the “victim of your own racial narcissism.”
There was more disagreement today than usual today. In the end, they agreed to disagree, and moved on. A more confrontational person might not have done so. Maybe that is what is needed in america today. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Two Stories
Today’s production is two stories from 2008. PG walked down New Peachtree Road. This is Atlanta, where there are a couple of hundred roads named Peachtree. No one seems to mind that most of the peach farms are south of Macon. The peaches grow a lot better there. They fuzz comes in heavier, and the pits are pittier. One time Dagwood Bumstead asked why peaches have fuzz. His wife Blondie said, if they has arms they could shave. PG was walking down the road in the rain, with a freight train going down the tracks in a southern direction. This is forty percent of the ingredients for the perfect country and western song.
When PG was younger and drunker, there was a place on Clairmont Road called the Watering Hole. He would go there, drink beer, play pool, and have a good old time. As was the custom in such facilities, there was a jukebox. The patrons put money in the box and played the songs that they wanted to hear. A favorite was “you never even called me by my name” There is a little spoken part, where David Allan Coe talks about the perfect country and western song. This song must talk about rain, Momma, trains, trucks, prison, and gettin’ drunk.
New Peachtree Road has this gravel yard where the eighteen wheelers come and go. There was a big rig backing into place when PG walked by, and he may have heard the truck bump into a trailer. PG walked in the rain, between the train, and a big rig going bump against the trailer. The problem was, Mommas gone, PG doesn’t get drunk, and prison is way too much work. So much for the perfect country and western song.
The songwriter is Steve Goodman. He gave a show at the Last Resort in Athens GA, that a friend of PG attended. Mr. Goodman tells a story about performing on a train, during a series of concerts supporting Hubert Humphrey. It seems like Mr. Goodman had to use the restroom on the train. Now, in those days, the trains did not use holding tanks, but just ejected the matter by the tracks as they rode by. Mr. Goodman was told, do not flush the commode while the train is in the station. Mr. Goodman forgot the instructions. Mr. Humphrey said ” I am going to give the people of this country what they deserve”, Mr. Goodman flushed the commode, and sprayed the crowd.
PG told the Steve Goodman story another time. There was a comment.
Great to see your blog post that invokes Arlo Guthrie’s version of Steve Goodman’s “City of New Orleans.” Goodman often doesn’t get his due. You might be interested in my 800-page biography, “Steve Goodman: Facing the Music.” The book delves deeply into the genesis and effects of “City of New Orleans,” and Arlo Guthrie is a key source among my 1,080 interviewees.
The book also delves deeply into “You Never Even Call Me by My Name.” John Prine and David Allan Coe were key interviewees, and the book debunks the notion, promulgated by Coe, that Coe had anything to do with triggering the famous last verse of the song.
Finally, the Humphrey story actually stems from Goodman campaigning for Sen. Edmund Muskie in Florida in early 1972.
You can find out more at my Internet site . Amazingly, the book’s first printing sold out in just eight months, all 5,000 copies, and a second printing of 5,000 is available now. It won a 2008 IPPY (Independent Publishers Association) silver medal for biography. If you’re not already familiar with the book, I hope you find it of interest. ‘Nuff said!
Back to empathy for a minute. The word always takes PG back to an auditorium in Clarkston GA in 1971. PG was in his first quarter at Dekalb College. Today,the institution is known as Georgia Perimeter College. One of the selling points of college has always been the outside speakers that were brought to campus. This day, the subject was abortion.
A note on set and setting is appropriate. In 1971, New York state had legalized the abortion procedure. Roe vs. Wade was in the pipeline that would lead to the Supreme Court. That ruling would not be issued for another fifteen months. In the meantime, abortion was illegal in 49 states, including Georgia. The debate about abortions was not as politicized as today. The nomenclature of choice and life had not entered the vocabulary.
The Vietnam war was still being fought, although with fewer Americans in combat. The withdrawal of US forces took most of the steam out of the anti war movement. The modern spectacle of a person supporting a war, while claiming to be pro life, did not happen.
PG walked into the auditorium and found a seat. The lady began her presentation. After a few minutes of talk…she said something about a woman who was artificially inseminated with masturbated semen… the house lights were dimmed. A black and white film of an abortion was shown. It was noted when the fetus went into the vacuum cleaner attachment. The house lights were brought back up. They should have remained dim, as the woman was not kind on the eyes.
The closing part of her presentation was a song she wrote. She sang acapella. The song was written out of empathy with the not to be born baby. The song was titled ” My mother My grave”. PG left the auditorium, and went to world history class.
Look Better With Gray Hair
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He was discussing the danger of a ethics challenged Republican with charisma. The blunt truth is that elections are show biz. DJT oozes charisma, however yucky it may be. HRC has the charisma of a barking dog, that will not shut up. This is what happens when elections are a media event. ~ The demoze kept waiting for the electoral college to give them an election. Instead, they, and the country, get screwed twice in 16 years by the EC. ~ The demoze kept waiting for the electoral college to give them an election. Instead, they, and the country, get screwed twice in 16 years by the EC. ~ HRC won the popular vote, in an election for the electoral vote. If the election had been for the popular vote, you probably would have had more people voting. The strategies of the parties would have been different. There is no way to say how it would have turned out. 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God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand.” – Richard Feynman, American physicist ~ Creating a new account with email addresses from hotmail.com, live.com, gmail.com and trash-email-accounts will no longer be possible. We have to deal with hundreds of spambots a week which use these adresses. Please use an alternative email address or send us a mail. We set up your account manually. ~ Have you seen the video of Mary J. Blige singing to HRC about police killings? I rolled by eyes. I can only imagine how the laid off factory worker reacted. ~ Her supporters were a problem. Nothing about DJT was too horrible to spread. The truth was bad enough. ~ be careful you are making too much sense those who call out others do not like to be called out ~ Another thing to consider: There is a lot of information out there. Not all of it is true. There are things your “student” might find on google that disagree with the point your are trying to make. Google is a two edged sword. ~ @WernerTwertzog The only “safe space” is the grave. ~ It is better to argue with a cartoon than to elect one President ~ Mitt is jealous he didn’t get to run against Hillary. ~ NOTE: This email is a one-way, informational email. Please do not respond to this email. ~ Didn’t people say many of the same things about Ronald Reagan when he was elected? Maybe the difference was the internet echo chamber to amplify the hysteria. ~ *hands liberal america a mirror to aid in search for fault* ~ I thought there were going to be concentration camps for gays. That was a paranoid delusion. It turns out there was a gay Armageddon, though not the one I feared. ~ @jelani9 Had not fully appreciated until now how much the relentless American drive for optimism resembles abject denial.~ The electoral college is part of the problem. In all but a handful of states, your vote did not matter. If we elected POTUS based on popular vote, you MIGHT see increased participation. ~ one lesson of this election: don’t make predictions, no matter how obvious they seem ~ Pictures are from The Library of Congress. These men were soldiers in the War Between the States ~ selah
Chamblee54 
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