On The Road Part Three
This is a repost from 2019. … In the last installment of this On The Road slackathon, Dean Moriarty (Neal Leon Cassady) and Sal Paradise (Jean-Louis Kérouac, aka Jack) were being obnoxious in Frisco. 71 years later, the Family Barber Shop was closing. In the next 13 days, MAD magazine announced plans to cease publication, and the thirteen star flag became a symbol of racism. The world is without redeeming social value. One answer is to go back 71 years, and see where the road takes us.
In chapter 3 of part 3, Dean and Sal are about to go to New York. First they are going to have 2 days of kicks in Frisco. Before this happens, a lady needs to tell Dean off. “Your have absolutely no regard for anybody but yourself and your damned kicks. All you think about is what’s hanging between your legs and how much money or fun you can get out of people and then you just through them aside. Not only that but you’re silly about it.”
Chapter 4 is wasted on a trip to jazz nightclubs in seedy neighborhoods. “Holy flowers floating in the air, were all these tired faces in the dawn of Jazz America.” Chapter 5 is where the story picks up again. A travel bureau helps D&S get a ride in a “fag Plymouth.” I read that line in amazement … that was something he remembered from reading OTR in 1984. The Orwellian synchronicity of it all. 1984 was just another year. Ronnie Reagan won a landslide re-election over its-his-turn Walter Mondale. America tottered on. I settled into a slack lifestyle. What I did in 1984 had little to do with a dystopian book … a book that everybody talks about, but few have read. One thing I did in 1984 was read OTR, and remember almost none of it 35 years later.
D&S are careening across the deserts and mountain passes into Denver. Along the way, they scared the fag Plymouth driver into prophylactic pansexuality. “At one point the driver said, “For God’s sakes, you’re rocking the boat back there.” Actually we were; the car was swaying as Dean and I both swayed to the rhythm and the IT of our final excited joy in talking and living to the blank tranced end of all innumerable riotous angelic particulars that had been lurking in our souls all our lives.” After a while, FPD hits on Dean, but can’t afford him.
“It was with a great deal of silly relief that these people let us off the car at the corner of 27th and Federal. Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” Once in Denver, D&S go looking for kicks, Dean’s father, and whatever else gone thing is the IT of the day. Cousin Itt shakes his head. Dean does connect with a beloved cousin, who has gotten religion. Beloved cousin no longer wants to associate with Dean.
Before moving on with OTR, this narrative has been interrupted for a youtube euthanasia emergency. Eighteen years after Dean/Neal went chasing kicks in the sky, bf Allen Ginsberg (Carlo Marx in OTR) wrote a poem about Allen’s butthole. This ode to shipping and receiving was recently indentured by a Tennessee entertainer. While looking for the text, google supplied a link to an Urban Dictionary definition of Allen Ginsberg. This UD page features an ad for Joe Biden.
D&S cavorted for a few days in Denver, and got out before they were, justifiably, arrested. “As the cab honked outside and the kids cried and the dogs barked and Dean danced with Frankie I yelled every conceivable curse I could think over that phone and added all kinds of new ones, and in my drunken frenzy I told everybody over the phone to go to hell and slammed it down and went out to get drunk.” Soon, they had a ride to Chicago. Through cruel fate, Dean was allowed to drive. “We had come from Denver to Chicago via Ed Wall’s ranch, 1180 miles, in exactly 17 hours, not counting the two hours in the ditch and three at the ranch and two with the police in Newton, Iowa, for a mean average of seventy miles per hour across the land, with one driver. Which is a kind of crazy record.” There should be a video game. Sit terrified in the backseat of a 1940’s Cadillac, while Dean Moriarty drives a hundred miles per hour, on the wrong side of the road, getting back on the right side of the road just in time to avoid a head on collision with a truckload of cattle. The telekinetic essence of the Frisco jazzmen can be recruited to provide the soundtrack. The death defying cattle will be played by Charlie Parker. Dean’s play by play filled in by Gene Krupa. “Sal, we gotta go and never stop going till we get there.” “Where we going, man?” “I don’t know but we gotta go.”
“Every now and then a clear harmonic cry gave new suggestions of a tune that would someday be the only tune in the world and would raise men’s souls to joy.Once there was Louis Armstrong blowing his beautiful top in the muds of New Orleans; … sending it out broadcast to rock the jazz world.” … Later the idea would be to jazz the rock world, before hip hop levels the playing field once again. … “Then had come Charlie Parker, a kid in his mother’s woodshed in Kansas City, blowing his taped-up alto among the logs, practicing on rainy days, coming out to watch the old swinging Basie and Benny Moten band that had Hot Lips Page and the rest — Charlie Parker leaving home and coming to Harlem, and meeting mad Thelonius Monk and madder Gillespie — Charlie Parker in his early days when he was flipped and walked around in a circle while playing.”
Thelonius Monk … thank g-d for copy/paste … lived longer than most of the players in this tale. I first heard of TM on the loudspeaker at Atlanta Stadium, when the announcer told of a Jazz Festival coming to the newfangled stadium. In his later life, Mr. Monk got as weird as his first name. Al McKibbon tells this tale: “He was also the bassist on Monk’s last album, made in 1971. At that time the two men toured with the Giants of Jazz, and McKibbon experienced more of the pianist’s eccentricities: “In Tokyo we were having suits made, because they do it so fast and all that. Monk had his measured lying in bed. He wouldn’t get up for them. … On that tour Monk said about two words. I mean literally maybe two words. He didn’t say ‘Good morning’, ‘Goodnight’, ‘What time?’ Nothing. Why, I don’t know. He sent word back after the tour was over that the reason he couldn’t communicate or play was that Art Blakey and I were so ugly.”
“Great Chicago glowed red before our eyes.” D&S delivered the vehicle to its owner. “It was now time to return the Caldillac to the owner, who lived on Lake Shore Drive, in a swank apartment with an enormous garage underneath manged by oil-scarred Negroes. We drove out and swung the muddy heap into its berth. The mechanic did not recognize the Cadillac. We handed the papers over. He scratched his head at the sight of it. We had to get out fast.”
After a visit to Detroit, D&S made their way to New York. Sal’s aunt said Dean could only stay for a little while, and then he would have to go. Dean needed to behave himself for a while. “Not only that, but a few months later Camille gave birth to Dean’s second baby, the result of a few nights’ rapport early in the year. And another matter of months and Inez had a baby. With one illegitimate child in the West somewhere, Dean then had four little ones and not a cent, and was all troubles and ecstasy and speed as ever. So we didn’t go to Italy.”
Part three of OTR ends here. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. The complete series has been published. part one part two part three part four part six part seven
Where Is That Place
This blog has an email address listed. It is seldom used. The host is a faded internet company that rhymes with booboo. Once proud email has become a spam magnet. The email address there is checked every once in a great while. Yesterday was one of those times. There was a surprise.
Friday, June 5, 2015, 2:52 PM
Do you know exactly where the Agora Ballroom was in the Georgia Terrace Hotel Also I am trying to locate photos of the following locations – Does you any that we can use? Please let me know ASAP – I am on an extremely tight deadline need photos by Monday morning if possible. Exteriors or interiors are great. Please let me know if you have any.
12th Gate Coffee House (located on 10th street in Midtown,) Club 112 (located at Lavista and Cheshire Bridge,) Lenny’s (either or both of their two locations in the Old Fourth Ward,) Great Southeast Music Hall (either or both of their two locations Lindberg Plaza or Cherokee Plaza,) Echo Lounge (located in East Atlanta,) Hedgens (located in Buckhead,) Agora Ballroom (located in Georgia Terrace hotel,) Muelenbrink’s Salon (located at the Underground.) Joeff Davis Photo Editor Creative Loafing
Thursday, July 9, 2015 11:12 PM
Hey I apologize for the tardy answer. I don’t use this email very often
The Agora was at the end of an alley off Peachtree. It was next door to the Ga Terrace Hotel, though not in the Hotel building itself. The ballroom was in a fire in the early eighties, and was torn down. I don’t have any of the pictures that you needed a month ago.
Friday, July 10, 2015, 11:49 AM
Thanks here is the piece we did: That was then, this is now.
Friday, July 10, 2015, 1:21 PM
Hey thanks for getting back to me. The article was cool, even without my contribution. This seems like a good excuse for a blog post. I have a some comments about some of the locations listed. For instance, my mother bought groceries at the Cherokee Plaza A&P every thursday for 37 years.. I would like to use your letters, and link to your article, in my post.
Chamblee54 has had posts about four notable Atlanta performance venues: 688 Spring Street, Georgian Terrace Ballroom, The Great Southeast Music Hall, and Richards. Two were on the list of requests. As for the other two, 688 Spring Street, home of Rose’s Cantina and 688, is now a doc-in-a-box facility, Concentra Urgent Care. The site of Richards, across from Grady stadium on Monroe Drive, is now the meat department at Trader Joe’s.
The CL article, That was then, this is now, is fun to look at. There are some good pictures. There are a couple of mistakes in the piece, which this post will try correct.
The Great Southeast Music Hall is the scene of many cherished memories for those of a certain age. The post linked here has more comments than any other Chamblee54 post. There are two google earth images, one for Broadview Plaza, and one for Cherokee Plaza.
In Broadview, (now known as Lindbergh something or another,) the Music Hall was in the corner of an L shaped building. The space is currently a part of the parking deck for Target. According to google earth, the Home Depot takes up almost the entire parking lot of the old shopping center.
In Cherokee Plaza, the space where the Music Hall was is the south part of a Kroger. CL says it was in the parking lot, which simply is not so. This parking lot is too small, which is one reason the Music Hall failed there. In the nineties, the A&P expanded, and took over the space occupied by the theater. In 1998, A&P closed their Atlanta operations. The stores were taken over by Kroger.
The third google earth image is for the intersection of Peachtree Street and Ponce De Leon Avenue. This is the location of the Georgian Terrace Ballroom. This was the setting of Alex Cooley’s Electric Ballroom and The Agora Ballroom. This facility was in a fire, and torn down. An annex to the Georgian Terrace Hotel was built. This annex is roughly where the Ballroom was.
One of the places CL mentions was Backstreet. A picture of Lang Interiors, on Peachtree Street at Sixth Street, is included today.This is the building that became Backstreet. This building was a series of nightclubs in the early seventies. Backstreet opened in late 1974. It was the premier chacha palace in Atlanta for many years. When the property became valuable enough to attract the money of developers, the city discovered enough violations to shut down the party. (1974 was somewhat of a golden age for Atlanta nightlife. The Great Southeast Music Hall, Richards, and Alex Cooley’s Electric Ballroom were all in operation in 1974.)
Club 112 catered to an African American clientele. The space had been many businesses over the years, with a Fred Astaire dance studio next door. Around the time Backstreet was getting started, the space was called the Locker Room. A drag show, featuring the Hollywood Hots, performed there. The Locker Room was a “private club,” and was able to stay open on Sunday night. It was the only place open on Sunday, and was packed. The Locker Room was owned by Robert E. Llewellyn, who was later convicted of having a business rival murdered.
The 12th gate was in the middle of the block, somewhere on tenth street. It was not on the corner of Spring Street. A seedy Jim Wallace gas station was nearby. This place was mostly before I went out much. There is a hazy memory of seeing the Hampton Grease Band there. After the show, Mr. Hampton walked up to me, holding a thumb and finger making a circle in front of one eye. Mr. Hampton asked me what sign I was.
By the time Lenny’s was in business, I was a retired drunk. I seldom went downtown after dark. Somehow, the party went on without me. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. This is a repost.
JD Vance
@JDVance1 “Praying for our friends in Israel this morning. Just an awful situation.” 5:57 AM · Oct 7, 2023. This tweet is how I found out about the attack on Israel. The war that followed is a historic tragedy, no matter which team you are on.
John David Vance is going to be the Republican nominee for Vice President. The odds are very good that he will be elected. Since he is 39 years old, he should have a long career.
@JDVance1 “As we watch this horrible situation in Israel unfold, Americans must face a stark truth: our tax dollars funded this. Money is fungible, and many of the dollars we sent to Iran are being used to now kill innocent people. This must stop. Israel has every right to defend itself. I wish our friends well, but most of all I wish they weren’t fighting against weapons bought with our money.” 6:44 AM · @JDVance1 “We didn’t give them money we just unfroze their money.” “They promised they’d only spend it on humanitarian supplies. I’m sure they’re very trustworthy.” “I’ll ignore the $400m pallet of cash delivered by the last Democrat administration.” Complete idiocy.” 1:31 PM
The initial reactions of people to historic landmarks can be revealing. It is noteworthy that Sen. Vance chose to talk about Iran. The money was earned by selling Iranian oil. It was frozen in western banks because of sanctions against the Iranian regime. It was Iran’s money. We did not give them anything.
As a private citizen, I am not obligated to comment on current events. When Al-Aqsa Flood started, I knew two things. Israel would exponentially retaliate, and lose most the world. The supporters of Israel would fight, using every trick of shady propaganda known to man. This was going to result in bitter, toxic arguments. I did not yet know the terms “hasbara” and “hannibal directive.”
Al-Aqsa Flood has already had a devastating impact on Palestine. There is a potential for greater conflict in the region, including war with Iran. A war with Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz, and shut down the world economy. It is telling that the reaction of Sen. Vance, on October 7, was to denounce Iran. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Opens Up on Why
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A young Richard Simmons (yes, that’s really him) in Fellini’s film Satyricon, 1969
Richard Simmons appeared in two Fellini films: Satyricon (1968) and The Clowns (1970).
Cory Hughes Interview – Was Israel Behind The Assassination Of JFK?
parliament of owls ~ meddle ~ atom heart mother ~ saucerful of secrets ~ dark side of the moon
@mattlcullen ~ @kingdwarfnyc ~ king dwarf ~ george carlin ~ msnbc
msnbc ~ Crooks ~ trump shooting ~ Elizabeth Christ ~ satyricon simmons
simmons satyricon ~ simmons ~ simmons satyricon ~ richard simmons ~ trump shot
first they came ~ elizabeth wurtzel ~ part two ~ Rachel Maddow ~ The Uterus Collector
google find me ~ maddow ~ maddow ~ uterus collector ~ leo dashboard
galaxie a15 ~ pcb ~ darryl cooper ~ simmons satyricon ~ richard simmons
@LiZaOutlives Liza Minnelli has outlived Dr. Ruth Westheimer whose many television appearances made her America’s best-known sex counselor. ~ Samsung Next, a corporate venture arm of South Korea-based conglomerate Samsung, is shutting down its office in Israel. … The departure comes due to the ongoing war in Gaza and amid calls for an embargo on Israel over human rights concerns in Gaza, which have led to a decline in confidence in the Israeli economy. Ratings agency S&P Global cut Israel’s long-term ratings and Israel’s GDP fell 5.7% in the last quarter of 2023. ~ Hello Melissa Manchester. This is the story about how I became a fan. One time during the Nixon Administration, Martin Mull opened for you at the Great Southeast Music Hall, in Atlanta GA. I was a fan of Mr. Mull, and knew little about you. The only thing I knew is that someone I know saw you on tv, and thought you were lousy. After seeing Mr. Mull (not the same Mr. Mull who repaired our TV in the fifties), I stayed for the headliner. You were terrific. I became a fan. I even went back to GSEMH to see you a second time, when James Newton Howard was in your band. And so we have lived our lives. Sadly, we recently lost Martin Mull. This prompted a comment to your facebook endeavor, which led to this comment. You and I are still going. I cannot say I have ever bought anything by you, but I still have the memory of seeing you perform all those years ago. ~ “has it ever occurred to you,’ he said, ‘that the whole history of English poetry has been determined by the fact that the English language lacks rhymes?'” —1984 ~ there is a Maddow-pants-on-fire story in the news cycle. I wrote about the story in 2020. If this slack blogger can easily see the problems with a story, why was MSNBC fooled? ~ The Uterus Collector Part Two Judge says Maddow, other MSNBC hosts made ‘verifiably false’ statements about doctor suing for defamation. This is how one outlet covered the latest Maddow-pants-on-fire story. At first glance, this is not newsworthy. However, curiosity got the best of me, and I looked into the story. I soon realized that I had written a blog post about the story.. When I hear that something I wrote four years ago might be relevant, my instinct is to look for it. Unfortunately, Google advanced search was not helpful. Even a post titled The Uterus Collector is missed by the algorithm, when searching for “uterus” at chamblee54.wordpress. . It is almost as if someone did not want me to find it. Fortunately, I have other methods for finding old posts. Here is what the chamblee54 post found. “The story broke with a report from Project South. The whistle blower was Dawn Wooten. video video Ms. Wooten, a single mother of 5, worked at ICDC (Irwin County Detention Center) until her hours were cut, after a dispute about Covid-19 infection. As is the case with many workplace stories, there are conflicting accounts.” … “The focus of the complaint is inadequate safety measures, taken with regard to Covid-19. “Priyanka Bhatt, staff attorney at … Project South, told The Washington Post that she included the hysterectomy allegations because she wanted to trigger an investigation. …” “If ICDC did not have the resources to provide adequate safeguards against Covid-19 infection, how are they going to have the resources to provide hysterectomies? … a hysterectomy can cost thousands of dollars and both ICE and the private companies that contract with the agency to oversee its detention centers notoriously provide dangerous and substandard medical care to cut costs and maximize profits.” There are more problems with TUC narrative, which you can see at the post. This post was thrown together by an old white guy with too much free time. Why was he able to see this better than a major news organization? ~ there is a legendary chain of male bonding. It goes from Oscar Wilde, to Walt Whitman, to Edward Carpenter, to Gavin Arthur, to Neal Cassady, to Allen Ginsberg. Or so the story goes. ~ @octopuscaveman If it was staged he didn’t go far enough. Fake your death, come back in 3 days and really rile up the voters. ~ pictures today are from The Library of Congress ~ selah
Electric Toothbrush
It was a hot July morning. Manley Pointer noticed a yard sale, and decided to go. After going up the path, and past the school, he came to the sale.
Most yard sales have a table with arcane electronic gear. There was something there called a router refresher. You plug it in, and the wifi is stronger throughout the house. Two electric toothbrushes were on another table. MP’s dentist has been harassing him for years about getting one. The sign said $5, quickly negotiated down to $3.
Walking home on the path, MP thought about the issues of the day. Today it was the stylistic similarities of hasbara to wokeness. The overblown rhetoric. The hypocrisy. The name calling. The flaky logic. The tendency to cut off people in the middle of a sentence, and start ranting. None of this leads to peace on earth, and good will towards men.
Getting home, MP took out the electric toothbrush. The bathroom was too small to have a convenient place to plug it in. There had been another electric toothbrush, which appeared to have a wall mount. MP walked back up the path, to see if he could exchange the non-mounting toothbrush for the mounting toothbrush.
Alas, the second toothbrush did not have a wall mount. What looked like a wall mount was another mysterious electronic device. MP went home, and put a brick on top of a cabinet to make the charger more accessible. The ET was not comfortable to use the first time. There will be other attempts. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Whitman To Ginsberg
“… I’ve slept with Neal Cassady who slept with Gavin Arthur who slept with Edward Carpenter who described sleeping with Whitman to Gavin Arthur. [The “Gay Succession”]” Allen Ginsberg was fond of his place in a line of gay succession. This is a repost.
A 1974 interview makes the same point about Whitman-Carpenter-Arthur, but does not mention Cassady-Ginsberg. Could anyone be telling stories? The Carpenter-Arthur connection happened in 1924, but is described in wonderful detail by Mr. Arthur in 1967. There are few details about the Arthur-Cassady link in the chain. As a BBC interviewer said to Mr. Ginsberg in 1994 “Both Bob Dylan and Jack Kerouac, I think, described you as a “con-man extraordinaire”. What did they mean?” AG: “Oh, maybe they were projecting their own goofiness on me.”
“Edward Carpenter (1844-1929) was a writer and gay mystic and lived in England all his life. Although ordained an Anglican priest in 1869 he soon renounced religion and became a Fabian socialist. Among his works on social reform is Towards Democracy (1883-1902), a long, un- rhymed poem revealing the influence of his friend Walt Whitman. He edited the first gay literary collection, Iolaus: An Anthology of Friendship”
Mr. Carpenter exchanged letters with Mr. Whitman. “Although Whitman was not a socialist, his writing had a profound effect on Carpenter, who made the long trip to America primarily as a pilgrimage to his literary and spiritual inspiration. He visited the poet for several weeks in 1877 and again in 1884. In 1906 he published an account of his visits to America, Days with Walt Whitman, writing a respectful, even somewhat glorified, portrait of his idol.”
“It was not until the 1966 publication of a memoir by Gavin Arthur entitled The Circle Of Sex that the intimate details of Carpenter’s visits were revealed. Arthur slept in bed with Carpenter … leaving us with our only description of Whitman’s sexual behavior, an area otherwise shrouded in mystery and controversy.” In later years, we learned that Mr. Whitman possibly spent a happy afternoon with Oscar Wilde. Mr. Whitman was also fond of cruising the Brooklyn Waterfront.
Gavin Arthur (born Chester Alan Arthur III; March 21, 1901 – April 28, 1972) is a key link in this chain. As often noted, he was the grandson of Chester Arthur. The elder Mr. Arthur was elected Vice President in 1880, and promoted after the death of James Garfield.
The younger Mr. Arthur was a piece of work. In the early 1920’s, Mr. Arthur dropped out of Columbia, got married, and moved to Ireland. Mr. Arthur somehow got to meet his idol, Edward Carpenter. At the time of this meeting, Mr. Arthur was 23, and Mr. Carpenter was 80.
THE GAY SUCCESSION “… is a document given me by Gavin Arthur in 1967.” The story goes into extravagant detail about the meeting between Mr. Arthur and Mr. Carpenter. One wonders how the elderly Mr. Arthur remembers all this 43 years later.
EC – “No, Walt was ambigenic,” he said. “His contact with women was far less than his contact with men. But he did engender several children and his greatest female contact was that Creole in New Orleans. I don’t think he ever loved any of them as much as he loved Peter Doyle.”
GA – “I suppose you slept with him?” I blurted out half scared to ask.”
EC – “Oh yes–once in a while–he regarded it as the best way to get together with another man. He thought that people should ‘know’ each other on the physical and emotional plane as well as the mental. … the best part of comrade love was that there was no limit to the number of comrades”
GA – “How did he make love?” I forced myself to ask.”
EC – “I will show you,” he smiled. “Let us go to bed.”
Mr. Arthur spares few details in what happens next.
Chester III renamed himself Gavin. After losing the financial support of his family, Mr. Arthur moved to San Francisco. For a while, he sold newspapers on the street. “And he delved deep into both astrology and sexology. Gavin took his star charts very seriously: When one self-administered reading told him he was heading to prison soon, he immediately drove to San Quentin and took a job as a teacher, the better to prevent going in as an inmate.”
“By the 1960s, Gavin Arthur had become a well-known and respected astrologer. In 1966, some Bay Area activists, cultural and political, began to plan a transformative event. They wanted to unite the cultural radicals of the Haight, and the political radicals of Berkeley. Those plans led to the Human Be-In. In order to have maximum astrological impact, its organizers asked Arthur to determine the most auspicious date. Arthur determined that January 14, 1967, would have the greatest impact.”
“I had a flashback to the time I spent with Ginsberg in Cambridge, MA, in 1982, when he told me that I was part of an erotic lineage that connected me to Whitman … a quick Google search identifies Arthur as ”a certain astrologer and San Francisco character, Gavin Arthur … gave lectures at San Quentin while Neal was a prisoner.” Another entry reports that he studied astrology with Ronald Reagan before Reagan started his political career.”
“In 1958, he (Neal Cassady) was arrested after being caught using marijuana at a San Francisco nightclub. He was sentenced for two years at San Quentin State Prison.” This was when Mr. Arthur was teaching at San Quentin. Mr. Cassady mentions him in two letters to his wife Carolyn. (For those who just got here, Neal Cassady was the model for Dean Moriarty in On The Road. Mr. Cassady also drove the bus “Further,” for the Merry Pranksters.)
August 13, 1959 from San Quentin to Carolyn Cassady “Last Saturday, “Uncle Gavin” Arthur, grandson of our twenty-first President who, Republican though he was, could hardly have been more conservative than is Gain underneath all his Occult Astrology, failed to show (again, for the third time in six weeks) to teach our class in Comparative Religion and Philosophy, about three dozen regularly in attendance, on account of a death in his group at the Global House, which he bought by selling papers on Market Street for ten years; so again it was my pleasurable duty to instruct the boys in Cayce-hood [Edgar Cayce]”
Septetmber 22 1959 from San Quentin to Carolyn Cassady “Uncle” worry-wart [Gavin Arthur] missed showing up for the class again last week and I hear, probably unfounded, rumors that it is to be discontinued, too bad if true, because it was fun to hear the old geezer expound, without at all remembering he had, on the very same things week after week. I mean his examples, and their wording were always so alike one could not only anticipate, but, with any memory at all, give in advance the exact sentence he would be about to pronounce: it was sort of a game.” Eight years later, the “old geezer” described a 1924 tryst in clinical detail.
San Quentin broke Neal Cassady. The railroad would not take him back, and Carolyn divorced him. “He, however, felt now he had utterly failed in his mission, and he knew he could never go back. He died inside; only his body survived. This he did his best to destroy. He no longer believed in suicide, but he did all he could to be killed. … He told me he swallowed handfuls of pills anyone offered, even not knowing what they were. Is this not an obvious death-wish? He admitted it was.”
During this down and out time of his life, Neal Cassady apparently connected with Gavin Arthur. In a 1974 radio interview, Allen Ginsberg recalls “That was already the ’60’s, but there was that atmosphere back in San Francisco, around Gavin Arthur, particularly. Arthur was a great friend of Neal Cassady, slept with him all the time, or whenever Neal had nowhere to go he’d wind up in Gavin’s house, sort of falling asleep, exhausted, in his bed.”
The Neal Cassady to Allen Ginsberg connection is well documented.
“A second, serendipitous event further spurred (Joey) Cain’s interest in researching Gavin Arthur. Cain found a used copy of Carpenter’s “Towards Democracy” in a used bookstore for $3.00. It had a lot of writing in it. Cain noticed the following lament among the notes in the book, “This is one of my Bibles, please return. This volume is the third I have had to buy, people being so dishonest about books.” Then he looked below and saw Gavin Arthur’s signature and address. The writing belonged to Arthur. The book in his hand had once belonged to Gavin Arthur. He went up to the cashier who said, “It’s a shame about all this writing in it.” Cain replied, “Let me pay for it first, and then I’ll tell you about this writing.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
The Uterus Collector Part Two
Judge says Maddow, other MSNBC hosts made ‘verifiably false’ statements about doctor suing for defamation. This is how one outlet covered the latest Maddow-pants-on-fire story. At first glance, this is not newsworthy. However, curiosity got the best of me, and I looked into the story. I soon realized that I had written a blog post about the story.
When I hear that something I wrote four years ago might be relevant, my instinct is to look for it. Unfortunately, Google advanced search was not helpful. Even a post titled The Uterus Collector is missed by the algorithm, when searching for “uterus” at chamblee54.wordpress. It is almost as if someone did not want me to find it. Fortunately, I have other methods for finding old posts. Here is what the chamblee54 post found.
“The story broke with a report from Project South. The whistle blower was Dawn Wooten. video video Ms. Wooten, a single mother of five, worked at ICDC (Irwin County Detention Center) until her hours were cut, after a dispute about Covid-19 infection. As is the case with many workplace stories, there are conflicting accounts.” …
“The focus of the complaint is inadequate safety measures, taken with regard to Covid-19. “Priyanka Bhatt, staff attorney at … Project South, told The Washington Post that she included the hysterectomy allegations because she wanted to trigger an investigation. …”
“If ICDC did not have the resources to provide adequate safeguards against Covid-19 infection, how are they going to have the resources to provide hysterectomies? … a hysterectomy can cost thousands of dollars and both ICE and the private companies that contract with the agency to oversee its detention centers notoriously provide dangerous and substandard medical care to cut costs and maximize profits.”
There are more problems with TUC narrative, which you can see at the post. This post was thrown together by an old white guy with too much free time. Why was he able to see this better than a major news organization? Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Cringeworthy Conversation
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hog wrestling ~ reggie jackson ~ christian cooper ~ Col. Douglas Macgregor ~ kamala
fp ~ ruin ~ fellatio ~ Bari ~ cecil render
Belkys Dominguez ~ catharine butler ~ dan stephens ~ barnett harden ~ victor jackson
tony sanford ~ pc ~ john astin ~ tomorrow ~ bari
risk ~ risk ~ hawkwind ~ tia ~ als
marta ~ ms ~ peter frampton ~ mahmood od ~ shiama
gray zone ~ hydrocholorothiazide ~ lives well lived ~ jamie farr ~ hawk tuah
theresa davis ~ Mr. Whitman’s ~ walt ~ Nathan Englander ~ Chris Adrian
@NathanEnglander ~ @NathanEnglander ~ diarrhea ~ diarrhea ~ letters
whitman in camden ~ story ~ Nathan Englander ~ story ~ @NathanEnglander
@NathanEnglander ~ diarrhea ~ preachers ~ fireworks ~ stormy daniels
pearl sandow ~ Feb. 16, 2023. ~ Lawrence K. Altman, M.D. ~ alvin bragg ~ fani
cafe ~ cafe brief ~ pc biz ~ backfired ~ @ori_goldberg
@ori_goldberg 1/ The IDF and Shin Bet have released Shifa hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiya after months of detention back to the Gaza strip. Israel’s government is in an uproar. This state of affairs demonstrates the depths of Israel’s unhinged mendacity. —> ~ Fiction Issue ~ @NYerFiction “New fiction by Sally Rooney, in The New Yorker’s annual Fiction Issue.” Back in the corner newstand days, the AFI was a lot of fun.. I miss dead tree magazines, and decided to go out and get a copy. Barnes & Noble was still open on Perimeter Center W. I had not been in a bookstore in a long time. They still smell the same. The price was going to be ridiculous, but it was time for a foolish extravaagence. The periodicals were against the western wall. I looked carefully in every section, but did not see TNY. A second examination of the magazine shelf yielded the same result. A lady said that some magazines were in a rack by the front. In the second rack we perused, TNY was for sale. The cost was $8.99, before tax. It was not the summer fiction issue. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress ~ @mtracey Presidents enjoyed functional immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts” between 1789 and 2023. Now, the Supreme Court has codified that immunity. This is largely thanks to the Special Counsel purporting to criminalize a massive array of “official” actions undertaken by Trump, such as conferring with Justice Department officials, conferring with the Vice President, and even Tweeting — under a cockamamie and newly concocted theory designed to specifically prosecute Trump. Given the clear excesses of this literal “conspiracy theory” proposed by Jack Smith, the Court has accordingly formalized a wide-ranging immunity for all presidents, even for future “official acts” which might be more narrow and concrete, and related to more straightforwardly “unlawful” conduct. So if the President has now been accorded King-like immunities for his “core Constitutional” acts, as well as far-reaching “presumptive immunity” for his “official” acts, the reason for this new monarchical standard ultimately stems from the heedless crusade of Jack Smith and the DOJ ~ but when you impose meaningful search parameters, the truth emerges: The charges against Trump are obscure, and nearly entirely unprecedented. In fact, no state prosecutor — in New York, or Wyoming, or anywhere — has ever charged federal election laws as a direct or predicate state crime, against anyone, for anything. None. Ever. Even putting aside the specifics of election law, the Manhattan DA itself almost never brings any case in which falsification of business records is the only charge. Standing alone, falsification charges would have been mere misdemeanors under New York law, which posed two problems for the DA. First, nobody cares about a misdemeanor, and it would be laughable to bring the first-ever charge against a former president for a trifling offense that falls within the same technical criminal classification as shoplifting a Snapple and a bag of Cheetos from a bodega. Second, the statute of limitations on a misdemeanor — two years — likely has long expired on Trump’s conduct, which dates to 2016 and 2017. So, to inflate the charges up to the lowest-level felony (Class E, on a scale of Class A through E) — and to electroshock them back to life within the longer felony statute of limitations — the DA alleged that the falsification of business records was committed “with intent to commit another crime.” Here, according to prosecutors, the “another crime” is a New York State election-law violation, which in turn incorporates three separate “unlawful means”: federal campaign crimes, tax crimes, and falsification of still more documents. Inexcusably, the DA refused to specify what those unlawful means actually were — and the judge declined to force them to pony up — until right before closing arguments. So much for the constitutional obligation to provide notice to the defendant of the accusations against him in advance of trial. (This, folks, is what indictments are for.) In these key respects, the charges against Trump aren’t just unusual. They’re bespoke, seemingly crafted individually for the former president and nobody else. ~ @Fritschner “Kennedy told the person, who was traveling to Asia, that he might enjoy a restaurant in Korea that served dog on the menu, suggesting Kennedy had sampled dog. The photo was taken in 2010, according to… metadata—the same year he was diagnosed with a dead tapeworm in his brain.” ~ On July 3, 1981, an article appeared deep inside the New York Times. “RARE CANCER SEEN IN 41 HOMOSEXUALS.” Very few people knew how big that story was going to get. The author, Lawrence K. Altman, is still writing for the NYT. ~ Tyler Mahan Coe (chaotic good) @TylerMahanCoe I know I’m supposed to ignore the trolls but it’s so difficult to do when I know they became the way they are from feeling ignored by their mommies … @chamblee54 If only they hadn’t been drunk the day she got out of prison … the tweet has been deleted. ~ Every night for a thousand years. ~ “I do not need to wash my hands every day!” The words were probably grumbled in many bars, ball games and bathrooms across the country. It is hard to identify a fatal organism when we cannot see it with our eyes. So it is difficult to get the masses to believe that some tiny microorganism can cause a miserable death. ~ “That whole damned war business is about 999 parts diarrhea to one part glory.” Looking for the source of that quote led to the research shown above. … “Intimate with Walt Selections from Whitman’s Conversations with Horace Traubel, 1882-1892.” ~ contestants on the Hollywood Squares would tape five episodes at a time. You would bring a blazer, and five ties. ~ I just listened to this wonderful show, with Jamie Farr talking to Gilbert Gottfried. Towards the end of the show, someone mentioned that Jamie worked with Milton Berle. The story about “just take out enough to win” was mentioned, without any context. Someone said, you must not have worked with Forrest Tucker. ~ “He sounded terrible and then he went to Waffle House and then was fine.” “He was reinvigorated by the Waffle House.””I want to know what he ordered.” ~ Seán Ono Lennon @seanonolennon I really don’t know what people expect from me when they insult my mother. The mind boggles. ~ true stable genius i074 i075 0718i 0718ii ~ zabriskie point ~ I drive by a sign everyday. “Nancy Creek Cemetary” The spell check suggestion is elementary. ~ @QuoteResearch Before you engage in a protracted argument on x-twitter please consider this comment from Cyrus Stuart Ching in 1948: ‘What’s the sense of wrestling with a pig? You both get all over muddy . . . and the pig likes it.’” @chamblee54 When clicking on this link, I found myself in an argument with google ads. Arguing with the algorithm is the modern version of wrestling with a pig. ~ Prompt If I Were a Photograph or Picture this – I confirmed that it was blow up, and not throw up. That moment I captured at Krystal left room for doubt. The lady who took my order asked if I wanted to take an art portrait of her. I thought I would let it slide, since I knew that art was slang for porn, and there was no lens strong enough to make the onion hamburger smell go away. But there was no film in my camera anyway, and you can take that at face value, or think that it is a cliche metaphor. I wanted to be kind to the lady, so I ordered a sack full of Krystalburgers, and prayed that I would be alive when I finished eating them. The happy krystal habit is not what it used to be. If only they had white castles in georgia, but you can’t have everything. I can always settle for the mystery meat at taco bell, my true idea of junk food nirvana. Meanwhile, the rain is coming down here, and I am going to continue to type until the call to action. Maybe I could have considered what I could have done to make a naked krystalburger mama look like something other than the way those hamburgers smell. In the old days, of the Krystal emporium on peachtree industrial boulevard, across from the frito plant, the management would not have tolerated a krystalburger princess asking a poet to take her art portrait, with or without the side of fries. ~ “He sounded terrible and then he went to Waffle House and then was fine.” “He was reinvigorated by the Waffle House.” “I want to know what he ordered.” ~ pictures today are from The Library of Congress ~ selah
Racially Motivated
A post on chamblee54 examined the local custom of changing street names. Towards the end, there was this sentence: “Some of these changes are racially motivated, while others are not. Some make sense, while most do not.” If you were to say this out loud, chances are good that someone would interrupt you, and say “Why don’t you say racist?” This is a repost.
The AP style guide took up this issue earlier this year. Here is what they say: @APStylebook “Do not use racially charged or similar terms as euphemisms for racist or racism when the latter terms are truly applicable.” @APStylebook “The terms racism and racist can be used in broad references or in quotations to describe the hatred of a race, or assertion of the superiority of one race over others. Our new race-related coverage entry on Stylebook Online offers details on when and how to use the terms.” You have to pay for the Stylebook online. God is in the details, and hiding behind a paywall.
@AnApeInKhakis “Remove nuance from journalism. If water’s not frozen, it’s boiling.” @beautypill “Yes, for example “You’re missing the point” and “You should go fuck yourself” both apply here, but critical differences in tone guide which one I should use to address your tweet.”
@Zigmanfreud “Yeah, the HUGE problem with this AP stylebook decision is that the people making the judgment call on what is “racist or racism” are so liberal & so PC that anything short of a white person apologizing for being born white (especially if they are a conservative man) would qualify”
@EvanDonovan “Yes, but when are they truly acceptable? Increasingly, newsrooms want attribution when that word is used. “Xxxxx has been under fire since making controversial comments last week. Yyyyy called those comments racist….”
This quotefest could go on all day. If you want to explore the racially/racist rabbit hole, go to an internet near you. More to the point, is changing a street name racially motivated, or racist? This statement applied to multiple street name changes. Often, race was not an apparent factor. We don’t know when the changes took place, or what government body made the changes.
Is this institutional oppression, or just government nonsense? Changing the street name is typical of the petty, separate-water-fountains nature of Jim Crow. Is the water boiling, or is it not frozen? At some point, the writer needs to think for them self. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Chamblee54 
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