What World Do You Live In LOL
This content was posted August 18, 2013. … It was a lovely sunday morning, until this graphic appeared on facebook. The all caps text proclaims “5 TIMES AS MANY WHITES ARE USING DRUGS AS AFRICAN AMERICANS, YET AFRICAN AMERICANS ARE SENT TO PRISON ON DRUG OFFENSES AT 10 TIMES THE RATE OF WHITES.” Somebody did not want “WHITES” to have peace of mind on this sunday morning. A facebook smackdown comment discussion followed.
Statistics, semantics, and rhetoric are a formula for disrupting a peaceful sunday morning. · Mass incarceration can ruin your whole day · See The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (massive documentation) · This should not be a race issue. The war on drugs affects all americans. When you make something a race issue, you make enemies of the white people who should be your allies. · I respectfully suggest you read the book or at least a precis before you opine on this issue Luther. You do not know the facts and your ignorance of them is painful to me. · Luther, what world do you live in? LOL
By this time I was very angry. The meme sucked on a number of levels. All caps text is considered yelling. The statistics are tough to believe, and probably misused. The semantics of the text are annoying. (Is alcohol considered a drug? If not, why not? Your liver does not know that it is legal.) The text has an insulting racial slant. One group is Adjective Americans, while the other group is “WHITES.” Two wrongs do not make a right.
The racial events of the last year probably multiplied the impact of the sign. The criminalization of some drugs has long bothered me. The fact that tax money is used to house drug criminals affects everyone. The disrespect for other laws that is created by the drug laws is a major problem. To have this seemingly blamed on “WHITES” is just a bit much.
Lets break it down. Is that per capita usage, or the totals consumed by the population? Is that the total numbers sent to prison, or the percentage of the population? Why were the handy numbers five and ten used? How was the data collected and tweaked? Were averages involved? If there were averages used, was it the mean, the median, or the mode? Were any inconvenient numbers ignored by the author of the “massive documentation?” How do we know that Michelle Alexander is a person of integrity? Who paid for the study? Is there another study that came to a different conclusion?
The statistics might be accurate. Black people are incarcerated more than white people. This is a problem for everyone. The people who are “out of town” suffer. The tax payers pay to support them. When the prisoners get out, they are going to be better criminals. The criminalization of drugs has too many problems to list here. While black people may be affected worse than white people, there is plenty of suffering to go around.
We should consider the divide and conquer tactics of racial dysfunction. The people that will benefit are the ones who support the war on drugs. This includes the alcohol industry, media that sells alcohol advertising, and the prison industrial complex. When WHITES fight AFRICAN AMERICANS, both sides lose. The war on drugs is as profitable as ever.
The facebook exchange was starting to get out of control. I wrote another comment, but chose not to post it. 1- I was a serious pothead for thirty years. All that time I was an outlaw because of the war on drugs. To suggest that I am at fault for this useless endeavor, or that I somehow benefit from it, because I am European American is appalling. 2- I was having a pleasant Sunday morning until I saw that horrific graphic. It pushes all my buttons. It is a sleazy use of semantics and statistics. It is in all caps, which is shouting. I do not have the time, or the interest, to read a book about this depressing subject. 3- If you consider alcohol as a drug, then the figures will probably be very different. 4- “Luther. You do not know the facts and your ignorance of them is painful to me.” Good Grief. 5- I have seen the damage done by the war on drugs except alcohol. I have quit using the one legal drug that is endlessly promoted in the corporate media. I do not need to read a book to know this. It is not my fault because I am European American. Pictures today are from Chamblee54.
©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
An Unusually Heavy Fog
0724-0925 – The path journal from last week, The Same Day As Jolene, was posted a few minutes ago. The walk today was misty, turning into light rain. Cold/hot weather is one thing. Wet is something else, and much less pleasant. The entertainment today was Manfluencer Andrew Tate And His Brother Arrested In Miami on Infamous. Emory Andrew Tate III is a shady piece of work. Much of his reputed income is from running these online cam shows. What financial institution is funneling the payments to him? Who are the wankers who send him all this money?
0725-0904 – The walk today was boring. I walked on neighborhood roads for 55 minutes, with nuisance level dizziness for the first 2o minutes. The entertainment was The Wannabe Pilot: Fish Swim, Birds Fly, and Randy Lies on Chameleon. A con man took people for a ride. One noteworthy grift was when he got a boyfriend/girlfriend … he was flexible … to take him to the airport. Once there, he would get on a payphone, and get another companion to come take him home.
0726-0911 – The walk went on for 43:09 today. The feet were just dizzy enough to let me know they were there. A few drops of rain fell. The show was Paul Albert Anka on The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan. As you might imagine, there are some quotes.
PAA “I always all of a sudden had a lot of money, you know, and I all of a sudden went out and bought custom shirts and nice suits, everything I didn’t have. But I never let the other go to my head. The only way that I really bought into it was I was really very active sexually. I said, “You know what? The money, the fame, I want what I couldn’t have as a kid.” And I was nailing everything that I could.”
PAA “They felt I was running dry. They didn’t know what the future was. I was disenchanted. And I said, I have 250000, 300000 in the bank. I want to buy everything back. They don’t believe in me. And nobody had the vision of where this was going. William. And I gave him 300,000. And I bought the publishing, the masters, which in today’s money would be millions of dollars.” PAA has been divorced three times. How much of that money does he still have?
PAA “The only thing I have over Paul Williams is I’m taller” · WPC “Um, a couple more things” · PAA “Take your time. I’m having fun. You can edit what you want.” · WPC “We don’t edit anything. We just have to bleep your f-bombs. We do bleep.” · PAA “But really, don’t bleep my f-bombs.”
0727-0956 – The walk went well, 39 minutes with no foot problems. I would have done more, but rain was on the way, and I do know to come in out of the rain. The first show was The Slow-Motion Implosion Of An Imagined Queer Utopia on Blocked and Reported. I listened to the complete episode, probably because it was a 22 minute preview of a premium show. Jesse and Katie were talking about some trans issues in England, which is not terribly interesting. The next nineteen minutes were spent listening to Michael Nesmith on Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast. Gilbert can be fun to listen to, if you are in the mood for an obnoxious New York Jew. The guest covered the standard issues … his mother inventing liquid paper, something about being in a band … right away.
I listened to the rest of this episode later. Gilbert mentioned that the Monkees sold 35 million records. Mr. Nesmith said that was a lie. The reason he knows that is because he made it up, in an interview with an Australian journalist. I then realized that I had heard this episode before.
0728-1021 – The walk today was a scorcher. I put in 54:21, with no foot problems, but made up for it with perspiration. The entertainment was Shawn Ryan: Trump’s Betrayal, Iran, Government Spying, Encounters With Demons, and Finding God on The Tucker Carlson Show.
Shawn Ryan Palmisano is a piece of work. His instagram account says this: “• Host of @shawnryanshow • Co-Founder @theglacierapp • Former Navy SEAL/CIA • 444 is my favorite number.” Of course, SRP says that he is off social media. TSNC: “Was it hard to get off? What was harder? Getting off caffeine and nicotine or social media?” SRP: “Yeah. Yeah.” Later, SRP said “I don’t even have social media apps on my phone. Told you I deleted them all.” Maybe that is what he meant.
SRP: “I just got back from an Ibogaine experience. didn’t go great. Um, found hell. And uh, I don’t want to go too far into it because I don’t want to have a meltdown on your show.” Idk what’s going on here. SRP says he gave up all his vices, and started going to a Catholic church. It would be interesting to check in with him in a few months, and see how all this is working out.
SRP: “It’s just everywhere you look, you know, everywhere you look is a lie. And the institutions are lying, the politicians are lying, the everybody’s lying. people are manufacturing narratives just to create controversies so they can, you know, boost their views. And I don’t know who to believe. I don’t know what to believe anymore at all.” … “Um, so there’s only one truth, I think that’s I’m just not really interested in anything else anymore because it’s all garbage. And it’s that, you know, black book right behind you, the Holy Bible. That’s the one truth. That’s it.” Whatever, bro.
SRP: “Now that they’re in there it’s like they want me to do shit.” You have to be careful when you say some things. “Do shit” is very similar to “douche it.”
0729-0958 The walk today was muggy. The feet were acting up, after a couple of good days. The entertainment was Eric Rudolph: The Olympic Park Bomber and the Largest Manhunt in American History on Gone South. Eric Rudolph was captured by a combination of good policing and dumb luck. … One of the tragedies of the Olympics bombing was Richard Jewell. He was falsely accused of the crime, and his life was ruined. The show mentions the media camping out by his residence. Mr. Jewell was living in an apartment complex on Buford Hiway. I drove by, and saw the tv station mobile unit trucks taking up the parking lot.
0730-0858 – Today’s walk went well. The feet were no problem, and 46:37 went smoothly. The only distraction was an old lady, whose large dog had to sniff the weeds every five feet. The podcast today was Is A Billionaire Bromance Capturing Our Media? on Question Everything. The subject today is Lawrence Joseph Ellison and Donald John Trump. One time LJE went to the White House, and did not have any ID. Security refused to allow him to enter. DJT came over from the oval office, and intervened to allow the plutocrat to enter. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in December 1942. “Chicago, Illinois. An unusually heavy fog in the early afternoon ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
The Lurid Digs Interview
This content was published July 20, 2010. … There is a site called Lurid Digs. (NSFW) It can be very, very funny. It is also filthy. 66 years ago, publishing pictures like this would get you sent to jail.
Chicken Fat Yellow Sofa in Ali McGraw’s Bathroom illustrates the LD feng shui. An aroused man is working on a hobby. LD ignores the talent, and comments on the “horrifying gay amateur interior” behind him. “The criminal offense, however, is that sofa — that goddamn chicken fat yellow, La-Z-Boy monstrosity. It looks like a big, sticky shammy mitten, and although some people I know would love to take a spin on the rough-tradin’, hooker-whoopin’ ShamWow Guy, that’s not where I want to relax on warm afternoons in Boca.”
I was *trolling* the internet one night, and landed at Lurid Digs. I saw a picture that might be fun to use, to illustrate a post about NASCAR. However, at the bottom of the LD page was some troubling language about copyrights. I decided to write LD and get permission, before he used any of their pictures. You can never be too careful.
The very next day, this arrived: “Hi Luther…Sure, you can use the credited pics. Also I’m available for ‘interview’ should you have any questions you like to ask…Cheers, David K Publisher Lurid Digs.” … An interview with the publisher of Lurid Digs! What a coup! I opened up a wordpad and started to think of questions. I edited them to a numerically proper twenty. The questions were sent to Lurid Digs. The reply arrived a few days later.
“Oy, too convoluted for me. But thanks anyway. (I was thinking of something much more simpler.) Cheers, David K.” As Scarlet might say, tomorrow is another day. The questions will make a fun post by themselves. … Sixteen years later, LD lives on at the wayback machine. @luriddigs.bsky.social last posted in 2023. This interior landmark may have run out of steam.
01- Are the models and decorators for Lurid Digs certified to be drug free?
02- What kind of strings do you use on your guitar?
03- Why do birds fly up in the sky, every time you walk by?
04- What can the argyle community do to fight racism?
05- If Jesus were to pose for you, would you put makeup over the holes in his hands?
06- Who asked Sarah Palin what she thought?
07- What impact does Lurid Digs have on global warming?
08- How much was the model’s bail?
09- Have residences been inspected by the fashion police?
10- Does Chenille ever go out of style?
11- Do the neighbors in the trailer park get suspicious when you do a photo shoot?
12- Why don’t we just go ahead and make murder legal?
13- Are humans as smart as dogs?
14- What do the youth of today want?
15- Why do people include the office disclaimer when sending out joke emails?
16- Is NASCAR rigged?
17- Who wrote the book of love?
18- If a model dies during a photo shoot, is he greeted in heaven by 72 virgins?
19- What do you put on pizza you order for photo shoots?
20- Do you ever play 20 questions? … Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken November 11, 1954. “Automobile accident” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
688 Spring Street
There was a comment at Chamblee54. “Steve Loehrer – So tell me what you know about Rose’s Cantina. I booked the music there from 1978-80 – Thorogood, Delbert, The Thunderbirds, The Fans, The Razor Boys and on and on. I was the one that did it. And I probably know you.” This blog has previously published features about the Great Southeast Music Hall, Richards, and the Georgian Terrace Ballroom. One more music venue post is not going to hurt anyone, and will be a good excuse to post some more pictures.
688 Spring Street is a nondescript building, located down the hill from the Varsity. At one time, a company called Southern Tailors made wine jackets there. It is currently a Concentra Urgent Care Center. In between, it was the site of two rock and roll nightclubs, Rose’s Cantina and 688.
House manager Rose Lynn Scott is quoted as saying “You know, we really aren’t sure exactly when it all started and ended … Honest to God, we weren’t paying that close attention.” I first knew about it around 1977, and really didn’t go very often. There is a running list for this post, and whenever a new band sinks into the mush, it is duly noted. Some band did “Love Gun,” which sounds remarkably similar to “Amphetamine Annie” by Canned Heat.
The punk rock revolution did not completely pass Atlanta by. A band called the Fans said they were making the pop music of the eighties. PG saw them twice at Rose’s, and they might be the only time he ever paid to get in. They were an impressive outfit, doing Velvet Underground songs. Later, they opened for Talking Heads at the Agora, and were pretty awful. In 1982, I shared an apartment with the drummer’s brother, his wife, a cable guy, seven snakes, a ferret, and a cat.
Back to the words of Rose Lynn, “It was a dive bar supreme and proud of it.” The stage was in the middle of the house, with a game room behind the stage. If you liked to shoot pool and listen to bands, this was the place. As for drinking, I might get a beer or two, but mostly got bombed at other spots.
In those days, I would go rambling from club to club, often accompanied by his friend Dinkson. One night, we stumbled in on a three piece band. They did a song called “Madison Blues,” with the guitar slinging riffs, and the bass playing the same notes over and over, never changing the look on his face. This was George Thorogood and the Destroyers.
One other night, I stumbled in on the last few minutes of a show by the Brains. They wrote a song called “Money Changes Everything,” that Cyndi Lauper did well with. The Brains were another great local band that never seemed to get a national audience. Another night, some old black man, possibly John Lee Hooker, was playing guitar.
Around about this time, I decided to either grow up, or take my childhood seriously. I wound up in Seattle WA. That wore off after a while. On the greyhound bus going home, I talked to a young lady, who said something about a punk rock club in the Rose’s Cantina space. This was 688.
A few weeks later, Iggy Pop did a week at 688. Here, through the miracle of copy paste, is the story. It isn’t plagiarism when you wrote it yourself.
At any rate, by the time I got back from Seattle, some brave investors decided to have a punk rock club at 688 Spring Street. Soon, Iggy Pop would be playing a week there. In the seventies, the bands would play for five days at the great southeast music hall or the electric ballroom, two shows a night, and if you were really cool you would go on a weeknight before it got too crowded. Soon after that, it was one night in town only, and you either saw it or you didn’t.
I had a friend at the Martinique apartments on Buford Hiway. There was someone living in the complex known as ZenDen, who sold acid. You would go to his place, wade through the living room full of grown men listening to Suzi Quatro, and purchase the commodity.
On to the 23 Oglethorpe bus, and downtown to 688 Spring Street. Before anyone knew it, the band was on the stage. Ivan Kral, a veteran of the Patti Smith Group, played bass. Mr. Kral sneezed, and a huge cocaine booger fell across his face. He was not playing when the show ended. … There was a white wall next to the stage, and someone wrote the song list on that wall. That list of songs stayed on the wall as long as 688 was open. “I want to be your dog” was on the list, as well as the number where Iggy pulled his pants off and performed in his underwear. Supposedly, in New York the drawers came off, but the TMI police were off duty that night.
The show was loud and long, and had the feel of an endurance event … either you go or the band does. Finally, the show was over, and I got on the 23 Oglethorpe bus. You got the northbound bus on West Peachtree Street. You could look down, from Fourth street, and see the Coca Cola sign downtown. Freeway expansion sent that section of West Peachtree to old road hell.
Twenty years after that, I worked in a building at that corner of Fourth and West Peachtree. If I had known about the future of working for Redo Blue, I might have jumped under the 23 Oglethorpe bus, instead of getting on it. The Coca Cola sign was long gone by then.
There was a band called Human Sexual Response. I caught their act at 688. They had three vocalists, wearing matching outfits, and sang a lot of lyric happy songs with cool harmonies. The problem was, I was not familiar with those oh so witty lyrics, and did not know what it was all about.
Kevin Dunn played guitar for the Fans. (He had an ad for guitar lessons on the bulletin board at Wax and Facts. It said that raising racing turtles was more profitable than playing guitar.) One night at 688, he performed with his band The regiment of women. They opened for someone, possibly the Plastics, who we will get to in a minute. So, this guy plays guitar and sings, and a woman plays a drum machine. No skin pounding drummer, but a lady who twisted the knobs on a machine.
The Plastics were from Japan, and did a killer version of “Last Train to Clarksville.” It was about this time that I got a job, and decided that I liked sleeping better than hanging out downtown.
One night, about 1983 or so, I made an exception. The band that night was Modern English. Before the show, I ate three z burgers from the Zestos on Ponce de Leon. During the show, the singer rubbed his stomach, and said to feel the music. About this time, the z burgers were making their presence known, and I could feel something, but it wasn’t the music.
The last show I saw at 688 was Hüsker Dü. The best guess is February 14, 1986. There was a totem pole, made of old TV sets, in the front part of the club. Here is the story.
Hüsker Dü means “do you remember” in Danish and Norwegian. I saw them sometime in the eighties. It might have been the metroplex, but it might have been the 688. There is a list of shows they played, and the metroplex is not on there.
I saw a show at the Metroplex the next night. The band is forgotten. The metroplex was a dark spooky building on Marietta street near the omni. The balcony was very dark, with everything painted black. I tripped over a bench. That was the high point of the evening.
688 was a different story. I saw a bunch of shows there, both as 688 and Rose’s Cantina. HD may have been the last show. I was well into the work/sleep lifestyle that preoccupied my life after a certain point, and just didn’t make it out much anymore. A friend won tickets to the show or he wouldn’t have made it. … I didn’t get into the show very much. HD was a trio, with the later-outed Bob Mould on guitar. For all of his musical skills, Mould is not much for onstage charisma. I felt that if I had been more familiar with their music, I would have enjoyed it more. Some bands you can see without hearing their records, where others need a bit of familiarity.
Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library The social media picture was taken January 14, 1951. “Intersection of West Paces Ferry Road, Roswell Road, and Peachtree Road, in Buckhead. … One photograph in a series commissioned by Mose S. Hayes of the law firm Barrett and Hayes. The Lane Brothers 1951 Assignment Book (page 15) indicates that the photographs were taken at “606 House Road,” (the photo of the victim) and the four photos of the accident scene were taken at the intersection of Peachtree Road and Paces Ferry Road. The negative envelope says that the scenes are in Buckhead and were taken on January 14, 1951. Total charge for the photographs was $21.00. This long view of the intersection shows a large Coca Cola billboard advertisement.” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Counter Clock Wise
This content was posted July 18, 2010. Sixteen years later, we are doing good to make it from the parking lot to the playground, about a quarter of the distance around the golf course. … I was putting the finishing touches on a blog post when Uzi called. He needed to go walking, and the weather radar said to go soon. An agreement was made to go walk around Chastain Park.
Typically, the men park between the swimming pool and the amphitheater. I decided to take a new route in, and went behind the amphitheater. I could hear sounds from the stage, and decided the crews were setting up a show. When I met Uzi a minute later, I suggested walking past the amphitheater, and hearing the sound check.
This involves a change in routine. Usually, we start out with a lap down Powers Ferry, around the golf course, and coming back north on Lake Forrest. This is clockwise. Starting out behind the amphitheater, however, meant starting the golf course circumnavigation down Lake Forrest, behind the Little League fields. The walk around the golf course was thus counter clockwise, which can be very confusing to a couple of old fogeys.
I was finishing a week where my computer had been down for 56 hours. I wound up getting into the yard sale videos. I surprised Uzi by not liking “Young Frankenstein,” which is universally praised as a work of genius. I thought YF was amusing and enjoyable, but not life changing. “Father of the bride” (the Steve Martin version) had provided more belly laughs.
When thinking of “Father of the bride,” I always thought of an incident years ago. The movie was playing at the I85 Drive In (RIP). The title was on the marquee, and the H fell off. The result was “Fater of the bride.” Reality is bad fiction.
One of the other movies I had seen was “Gallipoli.” At one point, the young men of 1915 Australia were being persuaded to go fight in WW1. One young man said, with regards to the Turks, “If we don’t fight them over there, they might come and fight us here.” This is much the same logic that is employed today in the Babylon war. Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library
The social media picture was taken January 12, 1951. “Mrs. Blanche Noyes and three other women at Georgia airport. … Mrs. Blanche Noyes (1900–1981), American pioneering female aviator who was among the first ten women to receive a pilot’s license, landing at “Park Air Field.” … four women standing in front of a Fairchild 24R-40, number NC28508, built between 1944 to 1946. Three of the women are wearing fur coats; all are wearing dresses and dark high-heeled shoes. The envelope calls the airfield “Paiair Landing Field,” not “Park Air Field” as written in the Assignment Book. This may be Parkaire Field in Marietta, Georgia.” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
The Fatal Song
This content was published July 4, 2011. … This uplifting story has been making its way through the culture. A certain onomatopoetic expression for animal waste is a key part of this story. It happens. In an effort to keep this blog family friendly, we will use gentle language.
Sammy the sparrow was going to be different, and stay up north for the winter. He didn’t see the point of flying a thousand miles south, just to turn around and fly back. · Winter arrived, and Sammy realized he had made a mistake. Sammy started to head south, but it was too late. A cold wind froze his wings, and he fell to the ground. It did not look good for Sammy.
Along comes a cow. She deposits a load of warm fertilizer on top of the sparrow. The warm matter thaws out his wings. Sammy has a new lease on life, starts to sing. Sammy is so happy. · A cat is walking through the pasture, and hears the sparrow singing. His claws pull the cowpie off of the sparrow. Before Sammy can get away, the cat grabs it, and eats the sparrow for lunch.
There are three morals to this story. Just because someone dumps on you, they are not always your enemy. Just because someone pulls you out from under the waste matter, they are not always your friend. And last, but not least, when you enjoy good fortune, keep your mouth shut. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the social media picture in July 1942. “Ola, Idaho. A member of the Ola self-help cooperative and his family at home.” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Annabelle
This content was posted July 21, 2014. … Annabelle is a song by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. It is quite lovely. Annabelle is the daughter, and the one bright spot in a hard life. This life of toil lasts until we are “gone to Jesus.”
I have had a tough time with Jesus. Rudeness, disrespect, verbal abuse, and humiliation have been landmarks on the journey. When you don’t agree with the plan for life after death, you wonder if the bad parts of Jesus are worth it. To me, the negatives overwhelmingly outweigh the positives. Just hearing a passing reference to Jesus can set me to brooding.
One day, I was driving past the oil tanks in Doraville, and heard “Annabelle.” The sadness that Jesus causes became overwhelming. Is it always going to be like this? When people talk/sing/act out for Jesus, is it always going to remind me of the pain? The Jesus worshipers have so much fun with their noise, that they scarcely notice the discomfort of others. They usually don’t care.
I see Jesus in the words and deeds of his believers. It has been a horrible experience. When you decide that Jesus was killed for being a trouble maker, and his death has nothing to do with what happens to you when you die … it takes away the one justification for all the abuse. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. John Vachon took the social media picture in November 1937. “Man on the street, Washington, D.C.” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Jokes For The Fourth
The credit/blame for these stories goes to JokesFunny.com.
What did one flag say to the other flag? Nothing. It just waved!
What’s red, white, black and blue? Uncle Sam falling down the steps!
What would you get if you crossed Washington’s home with nasty insects? Mt. Vermin!
What did a patriot put on his dry skin? Revo-lotion!
Which colonists told the most jokes? Punsylvanians!
What was General Washington’s favourite tree? The infantry!
Where did George Washington buy his hatchet? At the chopping mall!
What quacks, has webbed feet, and betrays his country? Beneduck Arnold!
Did you hear the one about the Liberty Bell? Yeah, it cracked me up!
What would you get if you crossed a patriot with a small curly-haired dog? Yankee Poodle!
What happened as a result of the Stamp Act? The Americans licked the British!
Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken in June of 1962. “Landers Motors, West Peachtree Street and North Avenue looking east” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Road Trip
This content was published June 1, 2019. Fake names are used for the actors. … The journey started tuesday morning, as the post-memorial day freeway carnage cooled off. PG made it to Uzi’s house in Sandy Springs by 10 am. By 10:30 they were on their way. I285 was the predictable madhouse, even on midmorning tuesday. It was a relief to get on the slightly less obnoxious I20. The destination was Raleigh NC. Uzi has a nephew in Raleigh, who will soon be moving to Massachusetts.
Uzi had been championing Cracker Barrel for a while. PG remembers the horror of the nineties, when CB was firing all the gay employees, or at least saying they were. When Pguzi got near Augusta, and could not pull directions to S&S cafeteria out of GPS … the first incident of a bad week for GPS … the deal with the devil was struck. After a CB sign was spotted on the interstate, lunch was going down. PG felt a measure of relief when he saw the merchandise. A pillow, with the big pink words “Just be fabulous” next to a pink sequin flamingo, was for sale as you walk in the door. This is probably a pride month olive branch, not to be confused with olive garden, or olive oyl.
PG started to drive after lunch, and drove the toyota hybrid all the way into North Carolina, with a brief side trip to Rowland. The farm where dad grew up is still there, on the Mckinnon Pate road. Pguzi got to the I95 welcome station after it closed at 5pm, and could not get a North Carolina map. This would prove crucial in the week ahead.
A few miles further up I95, nephew sent a text. “How is the ride going?” Since Uzi was driving, he gave the phone to PG. Type ok space so space far. Every time PG tried to hit the o key, p came on the screen. PG touched the screen in the wrong place, and another message came up. Then GPS, which refused all orders to shut up, started to give instructions for the S&S cafeteria in Augusta GA. PG hit the o key, and p appeared on the screen. What should have taken less than a second, if you were past the iphone learning curve, took twenty miles. Finally, somehow, nephew got the message.
Map-less navigation was clunky. Pguzi got on I40, then I440, which was correct. Someone remembered that the hotel was near Glenwood Road. The vehicle got off the freeway, and into a gas station. After a few tense moments, GPS coughed up the directions to the hotel. You go inside, and learn that the room temperature is set for 66 degrees. We will take care of that later. Ask GPS how to get to nephew’s apartment. Be patient.
Pguzi finds the apartment, where nephew is feeding his two month old daughter. PG sits and stares into space while others talk. A decision is made to go to dinner. Go driving around the area, looking at all the places that are closed. A place is still open, they go in, and see a steak house with $80 entrees. Uzi says he will buy. PG gets a salad, and nephew gets a slice of cheesecake.
Back at the hotel, the thermostat is on the wall by the entrance, not the ac unit. The temperature is set back from 66 to 72. The rest of the week was a cycle. The ac would run, and the room is too cold. Then the ac cuts off, and the room is too hot. This battle was a stalemate the rest of the week.
PG had a book to read, On The Road, by Jack Kerouac. PG had read it in 1984, thought it was pretty cool, and moved on. OTR is the story of Sal Paradise (Jack Kerouac) and Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady). Other famous people with declef names are Carlo Marx (Allen Ginsberg) and Old Bull Lee (William S. Burroughs). PG has seen and heard things in 35 years, and decided to give OTR another shot. PG read/blogged The Dhama Bums (one two three four) a few years ago. TDB was the follow up to OTR, and is a lot less fun.
Back to the comparisons. PG and Uzi are a couple of slack old gentrified redneck hippies. They are different people from Sal and Dean. Going to North Carolina in a Toyota hybrid, fussing about whether to listen to satellite radio or the thumb drive, is not the same as hitching a ride across Nebraska on the back of a flatbed truck. … Wednesday morning erupted in a barrage of sunshine across the fourth floor window. PG stumbled down to the breakfast buffet, and loaded up. Taking a cup of coffee upstairs, PG saw Uzi captivated by the Trump drama on MSNBC. The story today was a statement, with no questions, by Robert Mueller. Those eleven words, with politically correct computations and permutations, were endlessly repeated by the talking heads. At 9:59:40, some blow dry bird brain said we will know in one hour and twenty seconds.
The plan was for nephew, wife, 6 year old, and two month old, to meet Uzi, and caravan to an art museum. PG decided that this was not fun, and decided to stay at the hotel. What followed was a glorious morning. All alone, camping out in an air conditioned hotel. See what you see on the TV. Go downstairs, make a cup of hot tea, bring it upstairs, pour it over a cup of ice to get the best unsweet tea on God’s green earth. Read OTR. Take notes for this travelogue. Life is good.
Or at least better than chapter 4 of OTR. Sal has decided to hitchhike to Denver, and meet up with Dean. Carlo will be there to chaperone. As PG enjoys his iced tea, Sal is stuck in smalltown Nebraska. PG is writing it all down. When you write down Uzi, and try to read it later, Uzi looks like 421. All the magic of 420, with a useless digit tax added on for good measure. Meanwhile, Mr. Mueller is talking to a breathless nation. PG will hear much more, though it will tend to be the same basic details … Mueller resigns from DOJ, he could not indict DJT because you cannot indict a POTUS, repeat, repeat, repeat, skip the much needed rinse, repeat with the emotional volume turned up a few notches, repeat, repeat, repeat. It will take 67 senators to vote for impeachment, and remove numbnuts from office. You are not going to get 17 rethuglicans to vote to impeach pussygrabber.
12:25 PG is on chapter 5 of OTR. Sal is on the best ride of this life, a flatbed truck, going from Nebraska into Wyoming with an assortment of characters. There will be quotes from this when this gets typed, but that is getting ahead of the game. … not so fast cowboy. The OTR.pdf is the redacted version. Whole chapters are either paraphrased, or edited out. While there are other quotes available in copy/paste form, this narrative is going to depend on the booknook paperback that PG read 35 years ago. … That moment when PG quits looking at the google page for OTR quotes. One of the results advertised Road Trip Quotes: Top 50 Inspiring Quotes About the Road! Maybe the answer is to get away from the internet and write your own quotes.
That is part of the fun for Internet addict PG, in going inkpen and paper. A dollar store notebook, a home depot inkpen, and a plexiglass clipboard of uncertain origin. There is a computer downstairs that PG could use, but the thought of going completely analog for a few days has a lot of appeal. These notes will look completely different when they are typed … the medium is the message.
The idea hit to spend a half hour meditating. A picture behind the desk could be the mandala. The stupid phone has a timer. The rest of chapter 5 will be waiting, as will the swimming pool, McDonalds, and more. The meditation was a delight. The phone alarm is birds chirping, instead of the hard core buzz of traditional alarm clocks. PG had such a smile, he wanted to do it again.
The lady came to clean the room. PG took OTR to the pool. He finished chapter 5. Sal gets off the flatbed truck, and sadly realizes he will never see those people again. Meanwhile Uzi sends a text. “We will be eating at the Golden Corral tonight.” Raleigh is the home of GC, and we will eat at the flagship store. At 1:59, Uzi texts “Heading home.” PG replies “Ok so far.” This seven letter two space message took a few seconds on a stupid phone, but required an act of congress on a smart phone.
4:13 Uzi is back. He is listening to Randi Rhodes on a sputtering smart phone speaker. It sounds horrible. PG goes to the pool to read and write. … Sal has made it to Denver. Carlo and Dean have become a unit unto themselves, with numerous other people mad at them.
Dean is a mess. He is screwing his soon-to-be-divorced wife, and screwing a girlfriend at the same time, and having an intense thing with Carlo. Dean and Carlo were known to be bumping gooberheads at one time, maybe in 1947 Denver, maybe not. Whatever they did with their peckers, Dean and Carlo would get beamed up on benzedrine and have intense all night conversations.
Dean/Neal is part of a chain of faggotry. Walt Whitman screwed someone named Carpenter, who screwed someone named Arthur…. the grandson of Chester Arthur, a POTUS. Grandpa Chester had an impressive set of sideburns, and was VPOTUS when Garfield got offed. Mr. Arthur conducted the procedure with Neal Cassady, who did his homework with Allen Ginsberg. There is the son-of-a-dunwoody-housewife named Marcus Ewert, who claims to have lost his jailbait virginity to Ginsberg. This is the next level of the conveyor belt … Neal Boortz is fond of saying that Randi Rhodes is in love with him. Please, for the love of Hilary’s e-mails, please make sure that they used protection, and that a cross pollination between these two does not happen.
On page 38, chapter 7, there is a reference to sleepint stillness. It will be fun to see if this is intentional, or a typo in the signet edition of OTR … sleeping stillness, or anything like it, does not appear in the pdf. A more durable copy of OTR has been ordered from the library. It will be fun to see which version of OTR appears … There is no indication when this edition was printed. The best guess is the early seventies. The book cost $1.25 new, which was pricey for a paperback in 1957. The style of the cover design, and use of the phrase “the book that turned on a generation” indicates a Nixon era publication date. PG would have been clueless in either 1957 or 1972.
At the end of chapter 7, Dean is screwing a lot, and doesn’t have the time to work. Carlo keeps tagging along, saying he thought they were going to talk. Sal is broke, and going to sleep in the cool Denver air. … It is 4:47. Randi Rhodes will be on a couple of hours more. Maintaining your sanity can be tough. The idea that people enjoy listening to that idiot can make your head swim.
After a while, Pguzi is guided by faithful GPOS GPS to nephew’s apartment. Soon, the crew… nephew and three women … will head out to Golden Corral. … after dinner, Pguzi went into town, and walked around the state capitol looking at Confederate statues … before heading back to the hotel to see a movie about sharks. After PG tried to go to sleep, Uzi turned the TV to the drone of talking heads, telling you what to think about the Mueller statement.
Thursday starts bright and early. Pguzi went to nephew’s place, and the crew went to a pair of museums by the state capitol. PG was bored silly, but realized this was his one chance to see this museum. YOLO Back at the hotel, Uzi took a nap, while PG got into the hotel slack lifestyle.
OTR roars on. Dean is screwing as though his life depended on it, which it might have. Carlo tags faithfully along, waiting for a chance to talk to the busy boy. “He wrote of Dean as a “child of the rainbow” who bore his torment in his agonized priapus.” Sal leaves Denver, to go hang out in a ghost town. He misses Carlo and Dean, but realizes they would be out of place, “… rising from the underground, the sordid hipsters of america, a new beat generation that I was slowly joining.”
Thursday dinner was at a chinese restaurant, run by Filipinos. The attraction is the piano man, a non stop human jukebox. Pguzi went back to the hotel, and saw a series of tv shows about ghosts, and how to manage them in your properties. PG took his semi-annual hit of dope, and was a better person for it. The road trip adventure was slouching to an end.
Friday was checkout/back to town day. The trip out was a bit smoother than the trip in. One exception is when you left the air conditioned universe of the vehicle, and stepped into the blast furnace air of the gas station parking lot. The thumb drive got used, with Linda Ronstadt and Billie Holiday leading the way. Uzi decided to go through downtown, instead of i285, and it worked out very well.
The chamblee54 On The Road series is complete. part one part two part three part four part five part six part seven Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Dorothea Lange took the social media picture in February 1939. “Strathmore, California. From Wyoming and Missouri, eight years in California working in lemons “It’s easy for us because we haven’t got a bunch of kids to get drug around” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Repair Challenged Roidroids
This content was published June 21, 2024. … It was a typical thursday night in McMansion City. Manley Pointer took his brother, Laser, to Walmart. While sitting in the parking lot, MP listened to Rusty Sue, a drabblecast episode about killerbots. The story’s mcguffin had the cyborgs talking like characters in a b-movie western. MP listened with his eyes fixed on the mirrors, alert to any nefarious characters approaching his vehicle. Finally, the whole scene grew tiresome.
Carefully walking through the obstacle course of abandoned shopping carts, MP made his way to the retail facility. The human debris that one encounters at the Chamblee WM is only slightly less menacing than the repair challenged roidroids in the drabblecast. MP turned to look at the parking lot, and saw the sign turning on at the hemp store. But then the sign turned red, then purple, then blue, then green. The hemp store has a sign that changes colors every few seconds. Generations of mankind’s progress led to this moment.
Walmart is always a consumer wonderland. The loaves of bread were marked down to thirty six cents. It was time to go back to the vehicle and wait. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Arthur Rothstein took the social media picture in July 1942. “Hayti, Missouri. Cotton carnival. Oldest couple” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Doo Doo Diligence
0619-0934 · I got off the path, and settled down in front of the keyboard. I checked Low Light Mixes, and found a new mix, Just My Type(records). Today shows every sign of being a good day. The podcast was Tucker Carlson talking to Trita Parsi. The yt title was Neocons Move to Merge CIA & Mossad While Netanyahu Desperately Begs Trump Not to Leave His Side.
“Trita Parsi تریتا پارسی is an Iranian-Swedish international relations writer and political analyst who is co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He is also co-founder and former president of the National Iranian American Council.” TP became famous recently because of an article at The Free Press, EXCLUSIVE: Will the U.S. Deport Trita Parsi? I have not read EWTUSDTP because The Free Press has an aggressive pay wall.
On September 9, 2025, the IDF bombed Doha, Qatar. On September 10, 2025, Charlie Kirk died. September 11, 2025, was the 24th anniversary of September 11, 2001. This might be a coincidence.
Tucker had a delightful comment. “Bari Weiss … I got to give her credit … mid-level IQ, zero talent, very charming, relentless, great with people. She’s great with people and on the right side of the donors. And she has done, she has outperformed her ability. Like, I’ve never seen it. Like, America still is a land of opportunity for certain kinds of people.”
0620-1143 … The walk was good, even if my mood was not. There was very little dizziness, and I did a double victory lap. I also did a lap around school property at the top of the hill. There is major construction going on there, so the county is obviously going to do something with the building, even if the elementary school closes.
The podcast was Provoked. I appreciate the hell out of Scott and Darryl, for speaking truth when powerful forces want you to be silent. However, the content is much the same week after week. While I agree with almost all of what S&D say, my opinion does not count. The “special interests” who benefit from these wars have a lot of money and influence. I saw an item on x today, confirmed by grok, that facebook was deleting thousands of items critical of Israel. We may be in a runaway train going off a cliff, whether we like it or not. … I should be grateful walking back and forth on the path for 50:55, as I did today. The thought came to me as I was about to climb the driveway after my second victory lap … Thank you God for letting me do this. I don’t want to get bogged down in the implications of that sentence, but prefer to say it, go inside to an air conditioned house, put an ice pack on my knee, and write my path journal for today.
0621-1010 · The walk lasted 36 minutes, which means I finished. The feet were acting up. While I never doubted that I would make it to the buzzer, it was not pleasant. The podcast was a piece of work/story from The New Yorker. “The Readers,” by Ben Lerner, just dragged on and on. I was having doubts early, but decided to listen for one lap, then two, then till it was over. An author is going to a therapist. It is an issue that the therapist does not read his work. The author has open heart surgery, and writes a magazine article about it. Along the way, we learn that the author is married with kids. The therapist does not read his article, and this becomes a major issue … more important than his family, his heart, or anything else going on in the world. When the story ended I said “Thank God” out loud. Yesterday I said “Thank you God.”for gifting me a 50:55 walk. Today, I depersonalized Yahweh, and said “Thank God” for this horrible story coming to an end.
0622-1708 I did not do a normal walk today. I was taking someone from Buford to Northside Hospital Forsyth. We arrived at NSF at roughly 10:30, which is only 15 minutes late for the appointment. We are here in the lobby of one of the buildings at the Cumming pill hill facility.
I left Brookhaven at 0815, thinking that would be plenty of time to get to Jan’s house by 0915. (Not her real name.) I was only off by a half hour. My first sight of the house was what I expected, only worse. There was an abandoned trailer in the drivway, with a Bush Cheney bumper sticker. There were three gnarly looking cats. The weeds were out of control. There was a tarpaulin on the outside of the garage. When Jan finally came down, she started to tell me about how the person that was going to fix the garage didn’t do their job right. I said let’s come on, we have somewhere to be. … The trip over here was fine. Buford Dam Road is a lively Road, and we had plenty to talk about. We both went to DeKalb College in the early seventies, and we had stories about that.
1103 I’m at the corner of Quarry extension/Deputy Bill Cantrell Memorial Road and Ronald Reagan Boulevard. My strategy was to leave the hospital complex, take a right, and walk until the sidewalk ends. .79 mile later, I am at the end of the sidewalk. If I go back to the air conditioned building, that will be a 1.6 mile walk. The podcast was Do-Over. “A woman uses an AI simulation app to practice difficult conversations before she has them, and begins to prefer them to real life.” Under normal circumstances, I turn this off in under 5 minutes. Today is not normal, and I finished the show. Nobody got killed, so it’s a good story. My next podcast is going to be an episode by Gilbert Gottfried … GGACP Rewind: Mini-Ep #4: Pennies From Heaven and the Great Lon Chaney Jr. Here I am in redneck Georgia, listening to an obnoxious New York Jew. What could possibly go wrong. … Adam West said that Gilbert Gottfried would have made a great penguin. … The Sun kept peeking in and out of clouds when I started this walk. I thought it might rain, and then the sun started to come out, with the 20° increase in temperature that sunshine brings. At 11:22 Gilbert show is over, and I am back in pill hill hell. … It is 11:32 I am back in the air conditioned office building. I did 1.56 MI with very very little dizziness in my feet. · Hospital lobbies are great places for people watching. I am listening to Dave Smith and Candace Owens. It is apparently live, so I can’t scroll ahead. They’re talking about how the powers that be don’t want them to say what they’re saying, and that they tried to cancel them. They went on and started their own show, and had a bigger audience. Unfortunately I’ve heard both of them say this many many many many times. Dave and Candace are on the verge of violating the ultimate taboo … they are being boring.
0623-0959 · This was the worst walk in a while. The dizziness started on the first lap, and by the fourth lap I was having trouble walking. The podcasts were not much better. Chameleon gave us Mother of All Stories: A Daughter Falls Under A Spell. A mother with young daughters is involuntarily institutionalized, kidnaps the girls, and gets custody anyway. This pushes too many buttons. … The Case of the Mysterious Killer Clown is from
How It All Went South. A person rents a clown costume, and bumps off the mother of young kids. Many years later, evidence points to daddy’s secret girlfriend. I probably would have finished this if I had finished my walk.
0624-1035 · There was no walk today. I cut the lawns instead. The good news is absolutely zero dizziness in my feet. This is a long running pattern, and I find it puzzling. Of course, I don’t know what causes the dizziness. The doctor who admitted me to Northside Hospital last July hypothesized that it was neuropathy, connected to my funky L5-S1 disc. Whatever. … Since there was a raging gasoline engine at my feet, there was no podcast consumption. They will be ok without me.
0625-1138 · Today’s walk was the shit. The feet behaved well, and I did 40 minutes and could have done more. … When I was getting started, I noticed a dog burger on the sidewalk. This is fairly common on the path itself, where you scoop up the product, and a bit of dirt underneath. On concrete, some of the soft serve was sticking to the sidewalk. I got a bucket, scooped water out of the creek, and washed the fertilizer off as best I could.
The podcast was Question Everything, featuring Ashley St. Clair. She is one of Elon’s babymamas, and is currently doing a scorched earth media tour. AS (Her middle name is a secret) tried to get QE to not run this interview, which was recorded in front of a live audience. I was listening to this show while performing doo doo diligence on the sidewalk. That is a MAGA metaphor.
At one point AS said mannerism, but it sounded like maneurysm. Turns out that maneurysm is a real word, defined by the Urban Dictionary as “An aneurysm onset by an attractive man.” · @stclairashley “I am in possession of legitimate major airline boarding passes for migrants that quite literally have the name printed as “NO NAME GIVEN” 11:37 AM · Dec 21, 2023” This claim, along with many others, was mentioned on the show. The tiniest amount of investigation indicates that this is a lie. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in June 1940. “Truckers at Capital truck drivers’ comfort station on U.S. Highway No. 1. Bladensburg Road and New York Avenue, Washington, D.C.” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Midtown
This content was posted June 4, 2013. … The neighborhood along Peachtree Road has always been a great place to be a freak. For a long time it didn’t have a name. It is north of downtown, between Piedmont Park and Georgia Tech. Sometime in the early eighties, people started to call it Midtown, and the name stuck.
In the time after the War Between the States, this area was a shantytown called “Tight Squeeze.” It evolved into a pleasant middle class area. In the sixties, hippies took over. The area was known as the strip, or tight squeeze. Many stories could be told.
After the flower children moved on, the area went into decline. Gays started to move in, with the battle cry “Give us our rights or we will remodel your house.” Developers, worshiping the triune G-d of location, location, location, began to smell money. The neighborhood became trendy, then expensive, then more expensive. The freaks with money remain.
This content was posted August 4, 2009. … There is a nifty webcam up now. It shows the progress of 1010 Midtown, a high rise going up at 12th and Peachtree in midtown. The location of the camera itself is not certain. The most likely location is 999 Peachtree, on Tenth Street.
A glance at the image reveals a curve in the road, between the two glass boxes under construction. Atlanta does not have wide, straight boulevards extending to the horizon. It is said that Atlanta did not build roads, but paved the cow paths.
People of a certain age will remember this area as the the strip. The tenth street district was a neighborhood shopping area, up until the mid sixties. At some point, the old businesses started to move out and the hippies moved in. For a while, it was a festive party. Soon reality returned, and the area went into a crime filled decline.
The 999 complex is the neighborhood story in a nutshell. Before 1985, it was a block of small businesses. There was a hardware store, with the peace symbol set in tiles on the sidewalk. On Juniper Street stood the Langdon Court Apartments. They were named for my great uncle Langdon Quin.
Across the street was a Chinese restaurant, the House of Eng. A staircase on the side led to the Suzy Wong Lounge. Behind the building was an apartment building. It was one of the residences of Margaret Mitchell, while she wrote “Gone With The Wind.” She called it “the dump,”which was fairly accurate. The museum on that site would have amazed her.
I went to the House of Eng for lunch one day in 1985. I noticed that I was the only customer in the house, at 12:30 pm on a weekday. After finishing lunch, I knew why.
At some point, it was decided to build a high rise there. Heery was one of the equity partners, along with a law firm and an ad agency. The building was designed by Heery (duh).The ad agency folded before the building opened, followed within a couple of years by the law firm. Heery was sold to a British company. 999 Peachtree is now owned by Piedmont Office Realty Trust. … Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library “Dub” took the social media photograph February 2, 1950. “Shell service station Piedmont and 10th streets.”
©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
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