Java Speaks Turns 20
Java Speaks has a twentieth anniversary on Fathers Day. The event is now zoomed. People are encouraged to find the first poem they read as JS, and perform this poem at the anniversary.
Manley Pointer may be the only person who is better off online. MP creates graphic poems, and presents them with screen share. The graphic poems originally used public domain material for the words. MP decided to write his own words later. When Java Speaks came into the picture, MP had been writing poems for over two years.
There is a log on MP’s computer. “001 022816 read java edit022916” This was Oscar night, in 2016. The plan was to go to the show, see how things went, and come back to perform later. Before he left, MP put a printed sheet of poems in his pocket. Here are some accounts of that evening. (one two) Two of those poems are presented here today. (one two)
The original Java Monkey will never be recreated. An indoor/outdoor space, next to a coffee shop, the venue had zero creature comforts. The atmosphere was phenomenal. The idea was to get there before 7:30, work your way to the front part of the line, and try to get in the first half of the show. After the feature, the second half of the show saw fewer, and fewer, people in the audience. MP did not know this that first night, and wound up deep in the second half.
MP did not make it back until 0327, then began to appear semi-regularly. Something happened on 0417. MP was waiting to present a back-handed tribute to Charles Bukowski. The poet on stage said he had been a mess, until this woman came into his life. The poet then proposed to the lady, onstage, in front of God and the barista. Pandemonium broke out in the hall … people were cheering and crying. Cell phones appeared to make videos. Nobody wanted the moment to end, but eventually it did. The next poet to perform was Manley Pointer, aka piers gaveston, aka chamblee 54.
Java Speaks was created by Kodac Harrison. He kept the show going for many years. After the 2016 election, the show was facilitated by Theresa Davis.
One Sunday night, there was a slam. The action got a bit too hot. Java Monkey burned down. Java Speaks took to couch surfing. Then the pandemic hit, and the event went virtual. It will be that way for a while, every Sunday night.
Mrs. Dora Stainers
“Mrs. Dora Stainers, 562 1/2 Decatur St. 39 years old. Began spinning in an Atlanta mill at 7 years, and is in this mill work for 32 years. Only 4 days of schooling in her life. Began at 20 cents a day. The most she ever made was $1.75 a day & now she is earning $1 a day when she works. She is looking for a job. Her little girl Lilie is the same age she was when she started work, but the mother says, “I ain’t goin to put her to work if I can help it. I’m goin’ to give her as much education as I can so she can do better than I did.” Mrs. Stainers is a woman of exceptional ability considering her training. In contrast to her is another woman (this name was withheld) who has been working in Atlanta mills for 10 yrs. She began at 10 yrs. of age, married at 12, broke down, and may never be able to work again. Her mother went to work in the cotton mill very young. Location: Atlanta, Georgia.”
The photographs of Mrs. Stainers were made in March, 1915. The photographer was Lewis Wickes Hine. “Working as an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), Lewis Hine (1874-1940) documented working and living conditions of children in the United States between 1908 and 1924.” “In 1954 the Library received the records of the National Child Labor Committee, including approximately 5,000 photographs and 350 negatives by Lewis Hine. In giving the collection to the Library, the NCLC stipulated that “There will be no restrictions of any kind on your use of the Hine photographic material.”
The house that Mrs. Stainer lived in is long gone. 562 1/2 Decatur Street is across the railroad tracks from the Fulton Cotton Mill. With real estate agents demanding names for all neighborhoods, the area is known as the Old Fourth Ward. The building at 552 Decatur Street is A & R Welding.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Rituals
A few years ago, somebody filed a lawsuit about pre-game prayers. The idea was to have a minister say a few inspiring words, before a high school football game. Some people enjoyed this, others did not, and the other 95% just wanted the game to start. Did anyone ever become born again because of the prayer before a football game? This is a repost.
The Star Spangled Banner is traditionally played before sporting events. Many people think the last two words of that song are “play ball.” Playing this song has little to do with fighting wars, paying taxes, or making the trains run on time. It is a feel good patriotic ritual, and many people enjoy doing it. These people believe they are honoring a country that has been good to them.
A third empty suit ritual has been introduced. Football players are not standing for The Star Spangled Banner. They say it about racism, and police brutality. This gesture will do little to prevent people dealing with police, under circumstances that lead to violence. It is an empty gesture. This kneeling is considered by many to be a gesture of disrespect for the patriotic ritual of playing The Star Spangled Banner. Both sides in this dispute are correct.
The kneeling football players don’t care that they are offending people. They say that their intention is to protest police brutality, not to disrespect the flag. Many others don’t support racism, but want to honor a country that they love. Many, many others just want the game to start. Nothing good is going to come of this. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Dorothy Parker
PG first heard of Dorothy Parker in tenth grade. His friend Bob Gibson cut the poem Resume out of the literature text book, and carried it in his wallet. Mrs. Parker had been dead for two years at the time, with her ashes resting in her attorney’s filing cabinet. As the years rolled on, there were stories about the round table at the Algonquin hotel, and a poem about W.R. Hearst … “Upon my honor, I saw the madonna, by the door, in a niche, of a well known whore, and a prominent son of a bitch.” There was another famous comment: Re “The Cardinal’s Mistress” by Benito Mussolini, Dorothy Parker wrote one of my favorite bon mots: “This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.” Wikiquotes lists both of these items as “misattributed.”
It is now 2019, several years after the first DP post. Born Dorothy Rothschild, on August 22, 1893, Miss Parker did nicely without a middle name. Chamblee54 has featured Miss Parker several times (one, two, three, four.) Today, these four posts will be combined into one. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library” and The Library of Congress. If you want a list of clever sayings, google is your friend. The quote investigator has five pages of the alleged sayings of Miss Parker.
It was 5:25 pm. PG had not heard from either person who was supposed to be at his house at 5:30. While muttering things about unreliable people, he started to look at a writing contest. The idea was to write 100 words or less. The challenge was to produce a “a quick, honest and heartfelt response” to an image. The meme is seen below the fold.
The image has a quote. “I hate writing. I love having written. Dorothy Parker.” When PG sees words of wisdom, with a famous name at the end, his impulse is to check it out. When you search the wikiquote page on Miss Parker, and look for hate, love, and writing, you will not see the quote. 
There was one item in wikiquotes that made PG laugh. It was in the “Misattributed” section. “Upon my honor, I saw a Madonna. Standing in a niche, Over the door, Of the glamorous whore, Of a prominent son of a bitch.” Said to have been written in the guest-book of Hearst Castle, referring to the room occupied by Hearst’s mistress, Marion Davies. Parker always denied it, pointing out that she would never have rhymed “honor” with “Madonna”.” Nor would the entertainer.
When PG saw that quote, he knew that this piece would be longer than 100 words. Inserting quotes into a piece will bloat the word count every time. About this time the phone rang. His friends were in the front yard, being eaten by mosquitoes. PG put on a white shirt, and left.
Later that night, 99 sick well chosen words fell out of the fingers, and into the ether.
The quote is suspect. Wikiquotes does not show it, after a search for love, hate, and written. The image is probably manufactured. The image is a piece of paper, coming out of a vintage manual typewriter. The main text is one size. The author credit is another size. Vintage manual typewriters only produced one size of product. This one size is considerably smaller than either size in this image. The text in this image was produced elsewhere. This rendering of a bogus quote is then pasted onto a blank sheet of paper, seen merging from a vintage manual typewriter.
The other day there was a post here on the dotty subject of Dorothy Parker quotes. The departed dipsomaniac would seem to be a quote magnet.
One quote, that appears to be genuine, is about another quote magnet, Oscar Wilde. “A Pig’s-Eye View of Literature: Oscar Wilde If with the literate I am, Impelled to try an epigram, I never seek to take the credit, We all assume that Oscar said it.” (First printed in Life, (2 June 1927) p. 13 When you can give a source for a quote, the chances of it’s legitimacy go up tremendously.)
The original plan for this post was to do a wikiquotes search of the quotes in this post. This concept very quickly turned out to be too much work. The first paragraph of the original post has a clue.
PG first heard of Dorothy Parker in tenth grade. His friend, Bob Gibson, cut the poem Resume out of the literature text book, and carried it in his wallet. Mrs. Parker had been dead for two years at the time, with the ashes resting in her attorney’s filing cabinet. … there was another comment : Re “The Cardinal’s Mistress” by Benito Mussolini, Dorothy Parker wrote one of my favorite bon mots: “This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”
In the post the other day, it was discovered that the poem about W.R. Hearst was written by someone else. Which brings us to “The Cardinal”s Mistress”. Yes, that was written by Hitler’s BFF, Benito Mussolini. When he wasn’t making the trains run on time, he wrote a sappy novel. And the comment by Miss Parker is great. But did she really say it?
A blogspot facility called Heavens to Mergatroyd has the text from a New Yorker review of TCM. It is a delightful read. However, the landmark quote is not there. The spell check suggestion for mergatroyd is derogatory.
Wikiquotes calls the comment “misattributed”. “Quoted in The Algonquin Wits (1968) edited by Robert E. Drennan, and Try and Stop Me. As noted at Snopes, Drennan’s source seems to be a Parker review which does not seem to contain this quote. If Parker wrote this statement anywhere the primary source seems to have gone missing.”
Try and Stop Me is a newspaper column by Bennett Cerf. The link is to The Dispatch, Lexington N.C., October 12, 1962. Next to the column is The Dispatch Religious Activities, Directory of Churches. The pastor of First Baptist is David Hoke Coon, Jr.
While preparing this commentary, an effort was made to find the text for “Resume”. It is a bona fide quote, first printed in New York World August 16, 1925. While looking for the text, Google suggested a search for “resume dorothy parker analysis.” One result was sponsored by a politician, Michelle Nunn. Another had this to say. “We know that we’re being a bit obvious here. But check it out: almost every single line in this poem offers an idea for a different way to die. When it comes to wordplay, Parker’s not messi…” Maybe she meant to say messy.
BigO is a site with mp3 downloads. Most of them are concerts. PG found one exception. It was a 1960 interview, STUDS TERKEL WITH DOROTHY PARKER/BOB NEWHART – CHICAGO 1959/1960. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Dorothy Parker is somewhat of a legend. There were the funny sayings, a few poems and stories, and her life. Mrs. Parker was well known as a witty person during the twenties. She drank, a lot, and talked often of suicide. It was surprising to find a 1960 interview.
In fact, Dorothy Parker died in 1967, at the age of 73. By 1960, she was in decline, living at the Manhattan’s Volney Hotel. “Edmund Wilson … paid occasional painful visits to her at the Volney. (“She lives with a small and nervous bad-smelling poodle bitch, drinks a lot, and does not care to go out.”) … She was still revered, a legend, but she had also become a pathetic relic. Yes, “you might as well live,” but for what? And on what? Not only was she running out of old friends, she was running out of money, though uncashed checks, some quite large, were strewn around her apartment (along with the empty bottles), not helping with unpaid bills.”
There were some zesty quotes in the interview with Mr. Terkel. “I can’t call myself a critic. Honestly. I can only put down what I think and pray there isn’t a libel suit.” “I’m not a poet, you know, I just write verse” “The beat boys aren’t saying anything except look at us aren’t we great … I don’t think the beat generation is much worth worrying about. Very soon, in the very near future, they will be as forgotten as mah jongg.”
Towards the end of the interview, Mr. Terkel said “i know some people would want me to ask, did she really say all those things that she was quoted as saying” “… no, no, and it was a curse on me, it was simply awful the things that were attributed to me. I wouldn’t have minded if they had been good. I was, in effect, the shaggy dog of my time.”
Another quote magnet for the meme generation is Thomas Jefferson. PG saw yet another inspiring quote on facebook today. Mr. Google was consulted. It turns out the quote is real.
Thomas Jefferson to William Hamilton, 22 April 1800 is the source. Vice President Jefferson was going to be elected President later that year. It is not known what effect that had on the quote in the meme. “I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.” It is not known whether a twenty first century Jefferson would unfriends anyone who says anything unappealing.
Out Of Context
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Paul Jackson and team of scriptwriters assess legacy of Steptoe and Son, 50 years on
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Molten gold was poured down his throat until his bowels burst
Two controversies—over Nikole Hannah-Jones and Emily Wilder …
NYC psychiatrist defends ‘out of context’ fantasy about shooting white people
Following weekend violence, Atlanta police chief announces department restructuring
Progress Pride flag gets 2021 redesign to better represent intersex people
Christian Book Distributors drops its initials to avoid confusion with cannabis product.
Iran’s Hatred for Israel Isn’t Helping Palestinians
William Randolph Hearst receiving honorary degree from Oglethorpe University, 1927.
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strategic primer on Atlanta’s crime problem … briefing document from Atlanta’s …
Triple-homicide suspect Stephen Broderick jailed; wife, daughter … among victims
Hussman says he was ‘concerned’ about his core values of journalism and 1619 Project
Patriarchy, Critical Race Theory, and Christian Nationalism White American Jesus
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‘potential resolution’ to tenure controversy may not heal damage done at UNC
A trendy progressive ideology buckles under weight of its own paradoxes.
Don’t Worry White People, Democracy Ain’t Going Nowhere There’s no reason to fear …
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It’s not tenure battle that’s wrong with Hannah-Jones, it’s her poor scholarship
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Grim BLM Trade-Off – Fewer African-Americans killed by cops; more killed by civilians
For years I have spoken about what I consider to be worldliness of liberal churches
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Reading Park Police IG Report More Closely It doesn’t support the headlines.
Take The Near Impossible Literacy Test Louisiana Used to Suppress the Black Vote
knee shaming ~ repost ~ covid data ~ birthdae ~ tulsa riot
cahoots ~ 24 hour stream ~ maya forstater ~ bad faith ~ on having whiteness
ogelthorpe ~ neopronouns ~ harley strickland jr ~ Astrud Gilberto ~ jon del arroz
bj thomas ~ siobhan price ~ ru experienced ~ leave los angeles ~ palestinians
Social media scam is using the Baptist preacher’s name to advertise gummies, oil. “Scammers are attempting to trick you into giving your personal information or infect your electronic devices by using Dr. Stanley’s image.” ~ “Whiteness is a condition one first acquires and then one has—a malignant, parasitic-like condition to which “white” people have a particular susceptibility. The condition is foundational, generating characteristic ways of being in one’s body, in one’s mind, and in one’s world. Parasitic Whiteness renders its hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse. These deformed appetites particularly target nonwhite peoples. Once established, these appetites are nearly impossible to eliminate. Effective treatment consists of a combination of psychic and social-historical interventions. Such interventions can reasonably aim only to reshape Whiteness’s infiltrated appetites—to reduce their intensity, redistribute their aims, and occasionally turn those aims toward the work of reparation. When remembered and represented, the ravages wreaked by the chronic condition can function either as warning (“never again”) or as temptation (“great again”). Memorialization alone, therefore, is no guarantee against regression. There is not yet a permanent cure.” ~ THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS by FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE Or, How to Philosophise with the Hammer ~ As the Trial of Omar Mateen’s Wife Begins, New Evidence Undermines Beliefs About the Pulse Massacre, Including Motive ~ Bertrand Russell “For love of domination we must substitute equality; for love of victory we must substitute justice; for brutality we must substitute intelligence; for competition we must substitute cooperation. We must learn to think of the human race as one family.” ~ “Russell to Tell of His Beliefs About Morality,” New York Herald Tribune, Mar 21 1940, 28 Telegram indicating plans to issue statement soon ~ @chamblee54 @QuoteResearch “For love of domination, we must …” This quote is not on Bertrand Russell’s Wikiquote page. The only source google has is a magazine article, quoting Mr. Russell speaking at “The Herald Tribune Forum” ~ @QuoteResearch New Hopes for a Changing World (1951) by Bertrand Russell, Chapter 16: Ideas Which Have Become Obsolete Page 159 and 160 . . . If we are to live happily . . . b. russell haiku ~ @ItsGoneAwry “I only realized a couple of days ago that I’m a guy.” Then she goes on about how hurtful it is when people use her given name and biological pronouns. It’s been two days, lol. Anyway, a bio dude wouldn’t be this dramatic. This is full-on drama queen. ~ the following piece was written during a writing workshop. the prompt: when my mirror speaks – when my mirror speaks, it asks when the tv is coming back, i say it might be back during football season, but that assumes that the digital converter works, the mirror wants me to ditch that old tv, it is as deep and heavy as it is big screened and colorful, when i was in my black and white childhood, constantly trying to get horizontal control to work, a tv like this would be a dream, now that a flat screen digital tv, costs about as much as my nine inch black and white, costs about the same, not adjusted for inflation, my mirror does not understand this, it just knows it is above my work space, so i can see the tv behind me, i am still emotionally traumatized by super bowl 51, and had to disconnect the antennae to get the vcr to work, and i still almost never turn the thing on unless it is football season, and hope the falcons don’t tear my heart out agains, like they have done every year since i was 12 years old, the mirror knows none of this it is just a dumb piece of glass, with an chemical backing that reflects things, instead of letting me see through to the wall, maybe i should have broken the mirror that night in 2017, donald trump was going to be sworn in in three days, i would trade seven years of bad luck, if the falcons could have held on to their 25 point lead, but whatshisname was sworn in, and the falcons never recovered, maybe it is because of this mirror, but i doubt it, a mirror does not change events, it just reflects them backwards, unless it is a rear view mirror on a car, but this desktop mirror is not that important ~ pictures today are from The Library of Congress. ~ selah
So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed
When an author has book product, the author gets interviewed. This is how PG first heard of So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, by Jon Ronson. The act of using “the media” to promote book product is a curious analog to shaming. To have the exhibitionism on the wtf podcast, starring the shame-proof Marc Maron, is another item on an overloaded irony buffet. This is a repost.
Justine Sacco made an unwise tweet about AIDS and white privilege. She landed in South Africa to discover herself notorious, and unemployed. The tabloid press said Max Mosley was at a Nazi themed sex party. He sued the paper about the Nazi part, won a settlement, and boasted of being a player. The tabloid newspaper got caught in another scandal, and was shut down.
This being non fiction, Mr. Ronson goes all over the place. There is a $500 a seat weekend seminar on “radical honesty.” There are academics, of various levels of intelligence, who write about shaming, prison techniques, and other trivia. There is a company who floods the internet with flattering stories about you, so that the trash goes to page three of google. There are also more people whose lives were ruined by public shaming. One example is the rape victim who committed suicide after her cross examination.
The star shaming saga is donglegate. (spell check suggestion: congregate) Two young men at a tech conference made a tacky joke. A lady, Adria Richards, took a picture of the young men. Immediately, the picture was on twitter. @adrisrichards Not cool Jokes about forking repo’s in a sexual way and “big” dongles Right behind me.
In her interview with Mr. Ronson, Ms. Richards said she felt that the dongle joke jeopardized her safety. “Have you ever heard that thing, Men are afraid that women will laugh at them and women are afraid that men will kill them?” “People might consider that an overblown thing to say”… She had, after all, been in the middle of a tech conference with eight hundred bystanders” “Sure And those people would probably be white and they would probably be male.”
While researching donglegate, Mr. Ronson talked to some people at 4chan. There was a comment made. It went into the preview copies of the book, but not the final edition. This is part of the the publicity process. Someone took offense at this comment, and made an issue out of it. For more details see this story, File under ‘inevitable’: “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed” author Jon Ronson slammed by Twitter-shamers.
In all of these tales, Mr. Ronson’s name was spelled correctly. Some say there is no bad publicity. Whatever is said creates awareness of your product. There is a lot of awareness for SYBPS, and Mr. Ronson, right now. @jonronson Feeling incredibly sorry for #RachelDolezal and hope she’s okay. The world knows very little about her, her motives.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Picture #06662 is from “Second International Pageant of Pulchritude and Eighth Annual Bathing Girl Revue, May 21, 22, 23, 1927, Galveston TX.”
Deconstruction Poems
Deconstruction poems were originally known as blackout poems. Hard copy was used as a base, with words eliminated with magic markers. (“Let the phrases find you.”)
PG shifted to a digital format immediately. (one two three) People realized that “blackout” might not be appreciated by everyone. PG has heard the phrase deconstruction for a while, and does not know what it means. The phrases that find you are known as the Surviving Words. Sometimes these will known as selected words. Words that do not survive are known as Background Words.
The process described today uses GIMP. This is an open source image manipulation program. GIMP is available for free download, unlike better known programs. The process discussed here can probably be facilitated in other programs. PG works on a desktop PC. If you use a Mac, or a phone, you can figure this out as best you can.
This video shows how to make a deconstruction poem in seven steps.
Step One Chose the text that you will use
Open the Rectangle Select tool (R, Tools Menu)
Draw a rectangle around the text you want to use. Height should be five. or six, lines.
Width should be twice the Height.
Choose Crop to Selection (Image Menu)
Choose Scale Image… (Image Menu)
Enter 720 in the Width field. Click on the chain link, to the right of the Width field.
It should break open. Enter 380 in the Height field.
Step Two Choose the Surviving Words
Open the Rectangle Select tool (R, Tools Menu)
Draw a rectangle around one word on each line.
After the first word, hold down the Shift Key, while using Rectangle Select.
Using the Shift Key will add to the selection.
If you want to de-select a word, hold down the Control Key, while using Rectangle Select.
Select at least one word on the left edge of the image, and at least one on the right edge.
Step Three Make surviving words darker
Open Levels… (Colors Menu) Enter 128 in the Input Levels field.
This will make the Surviving Words darker.
Step Four Invert the selection
Choose Invert (Select Menu)
Step Five Blur the Background Words.
Select Blur → Gaussian Blur… (Filters Menu) Type 22 in the Size X field. Click OK.
Step Six Check poem for mistakes
When there is a mistake, hit Undo (Ctrl + Z)
Hit Undo until the Surviving Words are the original tone.
Open the Rectangle Select tool (R, Tools Menu)
To de-select a word, hold the Control Key, while using Rectangle Select.
To select a word, hold the Shift Key, while using Rectangle Select.
When you are through, repeat steps Three, Four, and Five.
Step Seven Export the image
When you are happy with the poem, export the image.
Choose Export As… (File Menu)
Give the poem a name, and click Export.
Q – Why are the poems scaled at 720×380 (pixels)?
A – These are the best dimensions for Twitter, on a PC. If the poem is taller than 380 pixels, Twitter will cut off part of the image. When posting for Instagram, the best dimensions are 720×720. Instagram is for squares.
Q – Are there any easier ways to access these tools?
A – GIMP allows the user to assign Keyboard Shortcuts (Edit Menu). If you look in the Menus, it will show keyboard shortcuts. You can also access Rectangle Select from the Toolbox (Ctrl+b).
Q – Are there any other ways to blur the Background Words?
A – Yes. Gaussian Blur was used today for simplicity. If you go in the Filters Menu, you will find thousands of ways to blur the Background Words. Artistic→GIMPressionist… is a popular option.
Q – Can I make the blurred Background Words lighter?
A – Yes. This is recommended for many blur options.
Open Levels… (Colors Menu)
Enter 128 in the Output Levels field.
This will make the Background Words lighter.
If 128 is not light enough, enter a higher number. The higher the number, the lighter the image.
Q – Where do you get the original source material?
A – Facebook and Twitter are options, as well as Screen Shots.
In Facebook/Twitter, click on the image. When the image appears by itself, right click on the image. Choose Save Image As…
That about does it. There are probably some details left out. Just make some Deconstruction Poems of your own. The beauty of DP is that you can usually knock one out in a few minutes. Sometimes, in a contentious/tedious facebook quarrel, you can drop a gnomic DP in the comments, and confuse everybody. Have fun, and don’t spill your beverage.
The Death Of Jimi Hendrix
The current episode of WTF podcast features Marshall Crenshaw, a Jimi Hendrix fan. He discusses reports that Mr. Hendrix was murdered by Michael Jeffrey, his manager. This is a repost.
“The rock legend Jimi Hendrix was murdered by his manager, who stood to collect millions of dollars on the star’s life insurance policy, a former roadie has claimed in a new book. James “Tappy” Wright says that Hendrix’s manager, Michael Jeffrey, drunkenly confessed to killing him by stuffing pills into his mouth and washing them down with several bottles of red wine because he feared Hendrix intended to dump him for a new manager, according to a report in the Mail on Sunday. In his book, Rock Roadie, Mr Wright says Jeffrey told him in 1971 that Hendrix had been “worth more to him dead than alive” as he had taken out a life insurance policy on the musician worth $2m (about £1.2m at the time), with himself as the beneficiary. Two years later, Jeffrey was killed in a plane crash.
These rumors have been around for years. Whenever someone famous dies under mysterious circumstances, people wonder why. If you google the phrase “was Jimi Hendrix…” the suggested searches are left handed, a hippie, black, and murdered.
Mr. Wright’s story is denied by Bob Levine, the United States manager of Mr. Hendrix. He says Mr. Wright waited until 2009 to tell this tale, and he did it to increase book sales. Mr. Levine is legally blind after suffering a stroke. Bob Levine and Tappy Wright are not friends.
“The Orlando-based Wright says the ex-manager (Levine) “wanted me to baby-sit him” because Levine’s alienated his family and staff. “Levine used to say, ‘If you don’t come through, I’m going to slag your book,'” claims Wright, who adds that he has a “signed and notarized” statement from Levine saying that “it’s about time somebody wrote the truth about Jimi’s death. He also did a video interview.” Levine denies Wright’s claims. Levine says he is legally blind from his stroke but has “people taking care of me.” Levine adds that he didn’t discuss Hendrix’s death in the video and has no recollection of signing the notarized statement. Asked why he chose to speak out about the book now, Levine says: “Tappy dared me. He said, ‘There’s no one left to challenge me.'” Adds Wright, “I’m just correcting the story.”
There is a story from an physician who was at the hospital when Jimi Hendrix was brought in.
“John Bannister the on-call registrar at the now closed St Mary Abbots Hospital in Kensington, said in an interview that the patient seemed to have “drowned” in a large amount of red wine.” The last paragraph of the Telegraph story is an amusing post script. “Bannister now lives in Sydney and worked as a doctor until 1992 when he was deregistered for fraudulent conduct.”
Everyone in this story is either dead or sketchy. Michael Jeffrey seems to have been a nasty piece of work. He was a former intelligence agent for Britain’s MI6 agency. There are reports of stolen money, numbered bank accounts, and gangster business tactics. Reportedly, Mr. Hendrix was busy getting new management. The last paragraph of the blog critics story is perhaps the most intriguing.
“Michael Jeffery reportedly perished in a plane crash over France in 1973. But his remains were never found. Eric Burdon, Noel Redding, and others believe he may have checked luggage but slipped away during the boarding process. Jeffery was due in London court the very next day to defend himself in several huge lawsuits relating to his embezzlement, money laundering, and fraud.”
Heather Has A Mommy And A Daddy
Heather Has a Mommy and a Daddy
Deep in the heart of Dullsville, at the end of a cul-de-sac, behind a lawn of scratchy brown grass dotted with giant plastic butterflies, three flaking cement deer, and a philodendron the size of Bob Hoskins though with fewer decorative parts, lives Heather Thompson. Heather has a mommy and a daddy. Heather’s daddy is an accountant. Her mommy is a homemaker. Before Heather was born they met, fell in love, and got married. “I love you very much and I’m having your child.”
Danitra is Heather’s best friend. One of Danitra’s dads is an empowerment facilitator. The other is an aura consultant. Danitra doesn’t know what they do at work, except they don’t need briefcases. Before Danitra was born her daddies met and fell in love, and after seventeen years spent discussing caring and support, handling acceptance, and negotiating intimacy, they had a commitment ceremony. “I love you very much and I’m designing the rings,” Danitra’s Daddy Mike said.
One day in school Heather’s teacher, Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez, tells the class to draw pictures of their families. Danitra draws two men, Julio draws two women, and Heather draws a man and a woman. Keanu points at the woman Heather drew, with squiggly yellow hair, a crude red dress and simple brown shoes. “This dad here’s got some ugly drag going on,” he says.
At lunchtime Danitra sits on the bench next to Heather and pulls a sandwich out of a brown paper bag.“Want to trade?” Danitra asks. “I’ve got grilled eggplant and goat cheese on marjoram foccacia.” “Um, I didn’t bring lunch,” Heather stammers, kicking her brown paper bag out of sight. “I’m … uh … on a diet.” “Diet?” Danitra asks. “Haven’t your dads told you not to buy into that patriarchal looks-based chauvinism? And anyway, what’s this then?” she asks, holding up the bag with “HAVE A SUPER DAY!” written in sparkle marker on it.
Julio, who was listening nearby, runs up and grabs Heather’s lunch. “Yeah, what’s this? It’s somebody’s lunch!” Heather jumps at the bag but Julio holds it out of reach. “You give that back!” Heather yells. “Try and make me!” Julio chides. He pulls Heather’s sandwich apart and drops it like it was electrified. He wobbles away, holding his stomach.
“Oh my God!” he cries. “There’s like dead stuff in there!” Danitra looks at the sandwich lying on the cement. “Is that MEAT? Is that like SPAM?” Claudia, sitting quietly at the other end of the bench, bursts into tears. “Heather’s eating BAMBI!” “It’s friggin’ Wonder Bread!” Julio scoffs. Keanu walks toward the bread and peers at it. “And it’s got LUBE all over it!” “You idiot, that’s MAYONNAISE.” “What’s mayonnaise?” “It’s like goat cheese for heterosexuals.”
“Heterosexuals?” Keanu asks. “Heather’s mommy and daddy are heterosexuals?” Heather starts to yell. “No! I don’t have a mommy and a daddy. I’ve got two daddies!” “Hell-OOOO!” Danitra says, drawing the word out to twelve syllables. “We can see your clothes!” “Um . . . “ Heather stalls, “then I’ve got two mommies.” “And we’ve seen you play baseball,” Julio answers.
Heather, unable to think of a response, sits on the bench and starts to cry. Danitra pulls a robin’s egg blue bandana from her pocket and dabs at Heather’s face. “Maybe your mom’s not really a woman,” Danitra offers. “Well,” Heather says, sniffing, “she cleans the house, and cooks, and does the laundry.” Danitra fumes. “We’re trying to establish that she’s female, not that she’s an idiot.”
“Maybe your dad’s not really a man,” Julio suggests.“Well,” Heather answers, wiping her nose. “He’s big and strong and he’s got a mustache.” Several of the children wonder what this proves but nobody says anything. “So let’s say you’ve got a mom and a dad,” Keanu says. “Then where did you come from?” “They went to bed together, and then I was born.” Some of her friends express further interest, but Heather doesn’t have a brochure. “Daddy put his thing in mommy — “
“Oh, man,” Keanu interjects. “Is that legal?” “HelLLLLO!” sings Danitra, who gets the word up to eighteen syllables this time. “We’re in CaliFORnia!”
“And nine months later I came out of my mommy’s tummy,” Heather adds. Several of the children wonder why they didn’t hire a surrogate with a vagina but nobody says anything.
Heather Has a Mommy and a Daddy, Part Two
One night there’s a dance at Heather’s school and her parents offer to chaperone. While Heather’s dancing with Danitra she sees from the corner of her eye her mom and dad moving onto the dance floor. She watches in horror as her mom just sort of stands there swaying, her gingham granny dress limply hanging to the floor. She grimaces as her dad starts chopping at the air like Jackie Chan being attacked by locusts.Occasionally their movements coincide with the beat. Heather runs to the bathroom crying.“Heather, don’t feel so bad,” Danitra says. “Lots of kids have embarrassing parents.” She starts to lead Heather out of the bathroom, then stops. “Um, maybe we should stay in here a while longer. They just started doing the Bump.”
One day the class projects are due. Heather brings in the model she’s made. It’s a lump of brown Play-Doh with ketchup poured over it and dotted with marshmallows stuck on with toothpicks. She sets it on the table as her teacher comes over to look.
“Why, Heather! That’s . . . nice! Very very nice!”“What the hell is it?” Tommy asks. “TOMMY! Heather’s parents had me over for dinner once. This is what they call ‘Salisbury steak.’” Heather bursts into tears. “NO IT’S NOT! It’s a VOLCANO! That’s lava, and that’s steam coming out.”
Danitra enters and places her project next to Heather’s on the table. “Why, Danitra, what’s this?” Danitra delicately removes the sheet protecting her project. “Versailles.”
Heather takes one look at the tiny replica of Louis XIV’s summer home, constructed by Danitra and her two dads out of two hundred cubic yards of teak plank, thirty square feet of gold leaf, sixty pounds of Italian travertine marble from the same quarry Michelangelo used, tiny topiary and functional miniature fountains, and cries even harder.
“Why did I have to have a mom and a dad?” Heather sobs. “Why can’t my family be like all the rest?”
Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez pulls Heather close. “Children,” she says,”every family is special, including those conforming to the rigid, stereotypical standard of male domination.” She starts to tell the class about her own family, including her hearing-impaired Hispanic mother, her height-challenged Israeli father, and her Gypsy recovering-substance-abusing brother-in-law and Armenian sex-addict half-sister, but stops, realizing the school year is only 4,074 hours long.
“Just because Heather’s parents are heterosexual doesn’t mean they’re slow-witted philistines, though there are strong correlations you don’t need a PhD in statistics to understand. But Heather is lucky to have a sweet mom and a wonderful dad and a dog named Molly and a hamster named Samson, and they all live together in a lovely house. They’ve got interesting avocado-colored appliances, carpet as long as your hair, and furniture that‘s by-and-large wood that must have taken them hours to assemble. There’s a big plastic sofa that turns into a bed, and a La-Z-Boy — ”
“A what?” Keanu asks. “A La-Z-Boy,” Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez repeats. “It’s a big vinyl chair that reclines.” “Oh, man!” exclaims Keanu, covering his face with his hands. “And I thought our Herman Miller reproductions were embarrassing!”
Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez continues. “But the important thing is, they’re a family. They’re a group united for a common purpose, where each individual is given a sense of empowerment and their shared bonds are formalized in a ritualistic manner.” “Oh,” the students respond in unison. Everybody hugs.
The story was borrowed from World Class Stupid.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Chamblee54 
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