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
A Week On The Path
0612-0946 · Didn’t walk on the path today. I cut the front and back yard. For some reason, the feet never seem to mind this chore, and are never dizzy. My arms, back, and sweat glands disagree. · The white trash lawn is a beautiful thing. No chemicals are put on it. No team of Mexicans comes by the cut the grass, and blow away the leaves. There is little actual grass here, except on the north side of the lot. There the neighbor’s sod cheerfully grows past the boundary. I just cut whatever weeds grow here, and it looks all right. The weeds stay green in cold weather, unlike the designer lawns.
0613-0943 · I just got a fb message. “it’s hotter than Satan’s asshole at the moment” I replied “quit talking about President Trump” · I finished the walk. The feet acted up a bit, and the heat was getting to me. I drank two bottles of water in a half hour, which my primary doctor would hate … she is concerned about my sodium level. · The podcast today was Mr 10 Percent: The Suburban Dad Who Fleeced Global Soccer. The show is about a man named Chuck Blazer, who conned his way into power with FIFA, the notoriously corrupt organization that runs the world cup. I am sure Coca Cola has a profitable relationship with FIFA to get the WC in Atlanta.
ChuckBlazer.com is a blog that Mr. 10% published for a while. Blogspot still displays it. “Chuck Blazer takes fans with him on his many travels in the service of soccer at chuckblazer.blogspot.com.” A few posts down is Phil Woosnam’s Desk. Phil Woosnam, served as NASL Commissioner in the early, unprofitable days of North American Soccer. He was also the coach of the Atlanta Chiefs, the local NASL team. Somehow, Chuck Blazer got the desk, and ran his soccer kingdom from it.
0614-1112 · Today is flag day. As long as I remember not to say fag day I should be all right. The walk itself went well. Forty minutes, with zero dizziness. · “Luther’s tune buds”, the primary portal, did not work, and I had to use 215tws, the backup. I plugged LTB in, and they worked fine when I got back in. I will clean the contacts, and see if that helps. · It was another trial by error day with the podcasts. The first was “Fetal Attraction: The Reality Star And The Woman He Wished He’d Never Met”, from Chameleon. This was about a tv show. Hetero bachelors and bachelorettes were getting married. The show quickly became annoying.
The second was Alanis Morissette on Talk Easy, with Sam Frogoso. I was never a big AM fan, but thought she might have stories to tell. She quickly got on my nerves. The fact that the onetime little girl superstar is now undergoing perimenopause made me feel very, very old. On the business of underage talent dealing with the entertainment business legendary legal loopholes, AM said “they’re they’re literally climbing up your mom’s vagina to get the embryo to sign the contract”. When I heard that, I could not hit pause quickly enough.
The third show was “Constellation” a story from The New Yorker. I downloaded it this morning. It turns out to be the same one I did not like a few days ago. · I listened to music for a little while next, before turning on Something Rotten at Stanford, a banger from Death, Sex & Money. This man, who is still a student at Stanford, found some dirt on the school’s president. I only listened to 18 minutes, but will finish. He used the phrase “wantrepenuers” to describe people who want to make lots of money, but don’t really have any ideas about how to do it.
SRAR used the word wantrepreneur, and I got curious. First, I looked in the transcript to get the proper spelling. Google directed me to a podcast. “In this special Collab Week episode of Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur, eight founders answer one deeply personal question: What would you say in a voicemail to your younger self?”
0615-1020 · In truckdriver code, 1020 is a question the dispatcher asks the driver. It means “where are you.” · The walk today started off good, and ended rough. The dizziness started on lap 2, and seemed normal. By lap 6, I was wondering if I was going to fall down. The feet weren’t that bad, but the thighs felt like they were made of wood. The act of walking got tougher and tougher, to the point of wondering if I could make it up the driveway · The podcast was episode six, the finale, of the Deep Cover series about the boonie hat bandit. Keith gets out of prison, eight years after marrying his girlfriend. The daughters have their lives, after there mother essentially killed herself with chronic heroin addiction. Actually, this is ultimately a depressing story, that I am glad to finish. Keith is a glib conman. He says the toughest part is forgiving himself, which is one of those new age cliches that has a hollow sound here. It is not my problem to solve.
0616-1243 1312 · I was at the end of my victory lap when @kittypurrzog said something I had to include. Talking about straight women who don’t want to seem homophobic, she said they were “so open-minded their pussy falls out” · The walk went well, at least compared to yesterday. There was persistent low level dizziness, but it never moved past the nuisance level. I did 47:05, 11 minutes past the 36:00 buzzer. Luther’s Tune Buds were not working at first, but after multiple rechargings did ok. It may be time to replace them, maybe with noise cancelling that really works.
There were two podcasts today. 99 Percent Invisible had a show about Ivermectin. (Technically, it was a guest episode from Drug Story.) The show was firmly in the IVM-does-not-work-for- COVID camp. I would be interested to know who funded this episode. The second show was Blocked and Reported. This show used to be a Monday Morning Must, but is not as cool as it once was. Katie, the last lesbian, had a guest, Phoebe Maltz Bovy, aka The last straight woman. This led to the quote above.
0617-1038 1056 · The walk was uneventful, with nuisance level dizziness. The podcast was Deep Cover, a wednesday morning favorite. This week they are in Atlanta, instead of the gulf coast. I am always sensitive to nuance when people talk about us. Jed pronounced the second a of Atlanta, and said Buckhead was terribly white, but other than that did ok. The story was The Murder of Lita McClinton, Part 1: The Marriage. Lita was a black lady, from a prominent Atlanta family, who married Irish trash from Boston. Jim Sullivan inherited a liquor distributor company in Macon, and made a fortune. The couple was happy together until they were not. In the middle of divorce proceedings, the wife became unalived. There will be more to the story next wednesday. The remaining time was spent listening to Provoked, with Scott and Darryl. The show was recorded last week, when there were rumors of negotiations with Iran. Today, the MOU is allegedly ready to be signed.
0618-1036 · It was another 42 minutes on the path, with very mild dizziness. There is the cliche of insanity, that it is trying the same thing over and over, hoping for different results. That is what the morning walk is. · The podcast was Disgraceland. This is a show I have listened to for years, and it has ups and downs. Today’s show was one of the ups, even if the content was a downer. George Jones: Voices, Vices, and a Comeback for the Ages is about George Glenn Jones. I grew up looking down on country music, and have had different attitudes about it over the years. I cannot begin to understand the cult of GGJ. I even listened to season two of Cocaine and Rhinestones, which will tell you more than you need to know about GGJ and Tammy Wynette.
At one of his low points, GGJ decided that his best friend, Earl “Peanutt” Montgomery, needed to die. Peanutt (the tt is correct) had been born again. GGJ thought of all the times he had prayed, and it did him no good. This reminded me of my struggles with Jesus, and how prayer can make things worse. Anyway, GGJ took a shot at Peanutt, and missed. Peanutt is still alive, unlike GGJ. … Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Marjory Collins took the social media picture in August 1942. “New York, New York. O’Reilly’s bar on Third Avenue in the “Fifties” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Do You Condemn Hamas?
This content was originally published June 2, 2009. … George Tiller performed abortions. Bill O’Reilly denounced him on national television dozens of times. He was shot in church. In Little Rock AK, a man called Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad opened fire at a military recruiting center. Mr. Muhammad was a convert to Islam, formerly known as Carlos Bledsoe. William Long died as a result of the shooting. From Centurion: “Two killers, two victims. One murder gets twice as many national news stories than the other.“ There was a link to a site called newsbusters, with the motto : “Exposing & Combating Liberal Media Bias”.
This content was originally published June 4, 2009. … There is a post at Obsidian Wings. It is about the responsibility of those who denounce abortion in the most inflammatory manner possible. Certainly, there has been tons of purple prose produced by the anti abortion people. At what point does this translate into the murder of George Tiller? Much of what I have read this week has been along the lines of we denounce violence, but abortion is still horrible. When the bile monger is the Roman Pedophile Church, the hypocrisy scorekeepers have to work overtime to keep up. …
… The killing of Shani Fecht was the sort of “routine” killing that goes without notice. According to the AJC, the alleged killer said after his arrest “Can I ask you a question? Am I going away for a long time? If I do go away for a long time, I would like it [to] be in a hospital.” This alleged killer is Zeke Cordell, the 18 year old son of Mrs. Fecht. Who is supposed to denounce this killing? Those who advocate for the “right” of an apparently disturbed teenager to have access to a rifle? …
This content was originally published June 1, 2009. … The first and third commandments are very underrated, and much violated by Jesus Worshipers. At the very least, to take a text like the Bible and call it the word of God is a violation of the first commandment. The holy trinity business is another rupture of the first commandment. And when preaching results in ill will, that is a violation of the third commandment. The third commandment is more than God’s last name. I see G-d as being like the elements…earth, air, fire, and water. …
… I suffer from what I call “Jesus Fatigue”. Tired of the wrangling, tired of the personal attacks from those who disagree, tired of speculation about life after death, just plain tired. I realize that I have heard almost all of these arguments before, and they don’t make any more sense this time. Jesus Worship is a religion of beliefs rather than practices. These beliefs are based on a book, which is considered the “word of God”. This foundation tends to lead to these endless arguments, and the anger and alienation that comes with them. …
… I see Jesus in the words and deeds of those who believe in him. He is a spirit that lives in these believers. This spirit shares little more than a name with the Jew who lived in Palestine 2k years ago. The historic Jesus was killed because he was a troublemaker. His death and reputed resurrection has nothing to do with what happens to me when I die. As Jesus might/might not have said “Forgive them Father, they know not what they do”. Of course, Jesus did not have to deal with the likes of Evangelicals who believe that salvation can be found in gotcha arguments. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. John Collier took the social media picture in November 1942. “Untitled photo, possibly related to: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (vicinity). Montour no. 4 mine of the Pittsburgh Coal Company. Andy Piatenick and family.” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 Selah
Bag Of Limburger Cheese
0606-1153 · I tried something new for my walk today. Instead of doing laps on the path, I went to a nearby intersection, to look at a yard sale sign. I took a picture of the address, and went on my way. · The entertainment for the day was an episode of Provoked, with Scott Horton and Darryl Cooper. One problem with that show is they post it on Friday night, and then they don’t put the link up until Tuesday morning. I was looking for the link today, and I wasn’t careful enough. I downloaded last week’s show. I noticed that I was hearing some phrases from Darryl that sounded familiar, and I realized that I probably had screwed up. This happened to me one other time with Darryl. I was listening to Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem, his 27-hour history of the state of Israel. The media player on my phone does screwy things, and will cut off a show. I always make a note of where I am, for this reason. This time, I was listening to Episode 5, and when I went back to the show I went to episode 6. I wound up listening to about a half hour, before I realized what I had done. I wound up listening to that half hour twice. Unfortunately, that half hour was about the Nakba, an especially gnarly part to the Israel story.
0607-1030 · The walk went smoothly. The feet were acting up a little bit, but it never got beyond the nuisance level. The podcast was a show, Laundry Man: The Wild Ride of the Pig Butcher’s Banker. They were talking about this South African who went around to these various South Asian countries, and helped criminals launder money. He became quite rich as a result. One of the countries he worked in was Cambodia, which apparently has become a criminal state for hire, largely working with the Chinese Mafia. This money launderer had a yacht in the Persian Gulf. He got it out through the Straits of Hormuz the day before the war started. Did he have inside information?
0608-1100 · Just got back from my walk. The feet dizziness increased on the last lap, to the point where I was wondering if I could make it up the driveway. This is fairly unusual but not unheard of. I was starting my walk, I was put my
earbuds in. I noticed that my basic buds were not working, so I used the backup buds. The podcast today was Deep Cover. Today was the 5th episode of a show about a bank robber. He goes to trial, and pleads guilty to the federal charges. He thinks he can get a smoother sentence on the state charges, so he goes to trial. The trial does not go well for him.
0609-1118 · The walk went well I had to wait until 1009 to go because it was raining. My feet did okay, with a little bit of slight amount of dizziness on the second lap. I got over that quickly, and wound up doing an extra lap after the buzzer. I listened to two podcasts. The first one was The Truth, with dramatic reenactments of stories. The story was Let’s Not and Say We Did. Jeff has a ethical non-monogamous (ENM) marriage, where his wife and him are both going out with other people. Jeff goes out with Leslie. When it comes time to do the deed he just can’t … all he wants is his wife. Jeff and Leslie start cooking up stories of fake dates to tell wife Ingrid about. Jeff and Leslie wind up in a non-sexual relationship, by making up stories of fake girlfriends. Eventually it doesn’t work, and Jeff and Ingrid stay together. · I when I finished that show I was going to go to the media player, and Talk Easy had already started. Sam Fragogoso was talking to Nathan Lane. I’m sort of familiar with who Nathan Lane is, and he’s currently doing “Death of a Salesman” on Broadway. The idea of a fabulously gay man playing Willie Loman seems very modern.
0610-1045 · The walk went well today, with almost no dizziness. I only did 36 minutes because it was getting hot, and I was going to have to go somewhere soon. a The podcast was Provoked, with Scott Horton, Darryl Cooper, and guest Ken Silva. This is the episode I thought I heard the other day. The show was about the shooting of Donald J. Trump, in Butler PA. Mr. Silva has an unpleasant voice, and talks fast. I didn’t really get a lot of the details. There was a lot of screwing up by the law enforcement actors during that incident. Thomas Crooks shot DJT in the pinch of skin above the ear cartilage, with little damage and a splendid photo op. It’s understandable that some people could say it was staged, but in all probability it was real. There’s a lot of unanswered questions. Powerful actors want these questions to remain unanswered.
0611-1128 · Today’s walk was a doozy. I got a late start, and the summer heat/humidity was kicking in. My feet did ok, with a bit of manageable dizziness. · I went through four podcasts. I started with Theo Von talking to former CIA actor John Kiriakou. I listened to 40 minutes of this yesterday, and always enjoy John K. Today we had the bonus of listening to Theo Von say Kiriakou. · So I looked at the media player to see where I was, hit the wrong spot, and went back to the start of the show. I decided to try something else. · The second show was Gone South. I usually enjoy GS. Today they are talking about an innocent Black Man who was executed. I may want to listen later, but just wasn’t in the mood for that today. · The third show was “The Writer’s Voice”, from The New Yorker. “Constellation” was read by a man, with a hispanic accent. He was talking about his mother. Here again, some other time I might enjoy it, but not today. · I hit the jackpot with the fourth show. Billy Corgan, the main man of Smashing Pumpkins, has a banger podcast. Today his guest was Pat Boone. If I wanted to get annoyed by Pat Boone I could, but today I just wanted to hear him tell stories. The man can tell stories. One bit of TMI trivia is the news that Colonel Sanders carried a bag of Limburger Cheese with him everywhere he went. · Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in September 1940. “Mr. and Mrs. D’Anunnzio and their little girl, showing the condition of the roof in their house in the submarginal area of Rumsey Hill, near Erin, New York” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
The KKK In Atlanta
This content was published June 25, 2021. … @SpaceyG “Buckhead hasn’t been considered an Atlanta suburb since the head of the ATL Klan developed the Peachtree Battle-Peachtree Rd. area as one. When he sold some land to the Catholic Church (for Christ the King) he was relieved of his top Klansman duties.” This was news to me, though not terribly shocking. My google habit kicked in, and soon there were a handful of articles. There was a lot of disagreement over the specifics.
There was also a lot of oh-how-terrible posturing. This will be held to a minimum in this post. We are talking about the Ku Klux Klan. If you don’t know by now, they were horrible, horrible people. If you want to get worked up about it, go watch tv.
The KKK was revived in 1915. Birth of a Nation was one inspiration. Another catalyst was the Leo Frank affair. He was convicted of the murder of Mary Phagan, despite substantial evidence of his innocence. Mr. Frank was Jewish. The trial was the occasion for anti-Semitic hate speech.
Gov. John Slaton commuted the death sentence of Mr. Frank to life imprisonment, along with suggestions that the verdict would be overturned. A group called “The Knights of Mary Phagan” broke into the state prison, and took Leo Frank out. On August 17, 1915, he was taken to Marietta, and lynched. This happened where I-75 crosses Hwy 120 today, downhill from the Big Chicken.
“An itinerant Methodist preacher named William Joseph Simmons started up the Klan again in Atlanta in 1915. … On Thanksgiving Eve 1915, Simmons took 15 friends to the top of Stone Mountain, built an altar on which he placed an American flag, a Bible and an unsheathed sword, set fire to a crude wooden cross, muttered a few incantations about a “practical fraternity among men,” and declared himself Imperial Wizard of the Invisible Empire of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.”
The Klan initially did not do very well, until I.W. Simmons met Edward Young Clarke and Mary Elizabeth (Bessie) Tyler, a pair of promoters. They rebranded the Klan to fight against Jews, Catholics, and anything else people did not like. Clarke and Tyler had a knack for publicity, and got a lot of new members. The recruits paid a $10 initiation fee, with a substantial cut of that going to Clarke and Tyler. Soon, the money began to pour in.
These recruits were going to need pointed hoods. “Although it’s little morethan an unassuming office structure today, the Cotton Exchange Building on bustling Roswell Road has something of a haunted past. In the early 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan bought and used it as a manufacturing and distribution center for the group’s propaganda. Additionally, the Klan produced its robes, hoods and gloves there.” The Cotton Exchange building still stands today, a block north of the Buckhead triangle.
“On October 11, 1921, Elizabeth Tyler was entertaining a few friends in her elegant Atlanta home. … At 9:45 p.m., five gunshots rang out. Half an hour later, the telephone rang at the Atlanta Constitution. “I want to talk to a reporter … I just want to tell you that we got Mrs. Tyler tonight.” The assailants, who were never identified, hadn’t gotten anyone. All five bullets had missed.”
That was not the only trouble in paradise. The Klan leadership began to quarrel. I.W. Simmons was pushed out, replaced by Hiram Evans. Soon, Clarke and Evans were out. Imperial Kleagle Clarke was convicted of violating the Mann Act. Bessie Tyledr moved to California, and died in 1924.
The sources I found are unclear about a KKK real estate business. I.W. Simmons had plans for a University, and began to purchase property for it. There was also the Imperial Palace, at the corner of Peachtree and West Wesley. Here is what the Catholic church says:
“In 1916, an elegant white-columned, Greek revival-style mansion was built by Edward M Durant on the site of the Cathedral. In 1921, the house was bought by the Ku Klux Klan. The group met mostly in secret in the home with the intention of transforming it into their “Imperial Palace,” but by the 1930s had begun to unravel with the onset of the Great Depression. After the property went into foreclosure, the Church was able to purchase the land from the mortgage holder. The cost of the 4 acres of land and mansion was $35,000, quite a sum at that time but was chosen over other available locations due to the fact it was on public transportation. … On the Feast of Christ the King on October 31, 1937, the cornerstone for the Church was blessed and the dedication took place on January 18, 1939.” … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The social media picture: “Unidentified soldier in Union enlistedman’s uniform” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Tetragrammaton
The content was published May 6, 2010. … I foolishly answered the question “If you’re not proclaiming the Gospel, why not?”. My reasoning involved non agreement and good taste, and soon found myself in a fun filled dialog. After the third entry, someone named “Otternam” made this observation: “Zach, I was anon earlier, but I can talk now… chamblee is a troll, so don’t play too rough, ok? I can’t tell if he is Jewish or simply superstitious with the whole G-d wordplay… Id just cut to the chase and use the tetragrammaton” … This is a family blog, and the x rated evidence I could supply (re: am I Jewish?) is not conclusive in the modern USA. Readers will just have to take my word that I am a recovering baptist. In addition, I had never heard of the tetragrammaton. (Zach, the blog owner, used the phrase “decalogue of Exodus 20” to refer to the Ten Commandments.)
Tetragrammaton is four letters which represent the God of Israel. The four letters are YHWH. This is not a song by the Village People. The pronunciation is disputed, and some say it should not be spoken aloud anyway. Many say it is Yahwah, which sounds really cool with a southern accent. Yahwah come back now, heah. … At some point, YHWH degenerated into Jehovah, God, and Allah. The third commandment prohibits the improper use of sacred names, but that doesn’t stop very many people. The internet is not inhibited either, and a website for Tetragrammaton is in operation. … In 2026, another Tetragrammaton is a very fine podcast starring Rick Rubin.
This content was published May 11, 2010. … I left the job interview, and headed to the dmv. The man said to get a mvr, which is something you want to hear at the end of a job interview.The Department of Motor Vehicles is a place where you wait. It is not possible to get through in less than an hour. For emergencies like this, I keep a book in my vehicle. Today the book is Tales From Margaritaville, by Jimmy Buffet. I was at a yard sale once, in the hottest part of the summer. TOM was on sale for one dollar, and I was going to pass. When I got back to my bike, the creeping heat told me to go back up the driveway and buy that book.
The lady in front of me has a birth certificate from Miami, Florida. Why are Miami birth certificates so pretty, when the Fulton county thing I have is a negative image copy, ugly as sin? … There are two old ladies in line before the lady from Miami. They both have hair dyed some hideous shade of faux blonde. Whatever happened to letting your hair go white, and being proud of living that long? … So I got my number, and found a plastic chair that seemed clean. For the next forty five minutes, every time a number was announced, I would look up at the lightboxes above the booths. This did not make the number come up any faster. I soon realized that every time I had been in a government waiting room, my number got called, if only I waited long enough.
Back to the book, which was a series of short stories, told in easy to read sentences. The first story was about a bartender in Key West, who tried to drown himself in waist deep water off the shore. He heard the phone ring in his house, and he decided to go back and answer. It was the phone company, calling to say it was cutting off his service for not paying his bill. When that was over, he was so angry, he decided he wanted to live. … The next tale was about a young man who meets his rock and roll star hero, and winds up hanging out with him. The hero tells the young man there are rules for becoming a star. They were (in paraphrased, copyright dodging form) the bar owner is your enemy, some folks are elbows, and will always be like that, and stay out of police custody. The rockstar is telling stories that get wilder and wilder, like the time he was playing in Montana, the audience was breaking the Guinness record for drinking cheap beer, and his bass player and keyboard man are fighting on stage. Before this story was over, the number was called, and I got my mvr. How the story turned out will have to wait until the next waiting room.
This content was published May 16, 2010. … Sarah Palin recently spoke at the NRA convention in Charlotte NC. She told redneck jokes. · “Some of these animal activists are just … crazy. They think we’re killing Bambi’s mother. I love animals, but in Alaska, Bambi’s mother is dinner.” · “You’re a redneck if you’ve ever had dinner on a ping pong table.” · “You’re a redneck if you’ve ever had a custody fight over a hunting dog. Well, Todd and I haven’t, but we’ve got friends who have!” · “You’re a redneck if your honeymoon was a hunting trip. That was us!”
“You’re a redneck if you’ve ever used a fishing license as ID.” · “You’re a redneck if you’ve ever slept in the back of a pickup rather than pay for a hotel. · “You’re a redneck if you’ve ever said to your husband, ‘Honey, move the transmission so I can take a bath.’ · “And you’re a redneck if you think the last words of ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ are ‘PLAY BALL!” · “You’re a redneck if your daughter’s babydaddy calls himself a f*****g redneck on facebook.” · Thank you Matt Taibbi and the NY Daily News. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in March 1941. “Young girl lives in this shack with her husband who works at Fort Bragg. In a settlement near Manchester, North Carolina” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Broken Legs And Broken Promises
This content was published April 21, 2008. … It is monday after work, and slack rules. What energy I had is long gone. I started a nifty post about Truman Capote at lunch, but don’t feel like finishing it. Not to worry, Renegade Evolution has the answer. She displayed something called the blog&website Cuss-o-meter. Ren copped a 34.5% rating, which is not surprising for a sex worker. …
The first question to arise is, what do they call cussing? The seven words of Carlin? Anything referring to excretion, reproduction, or the eternal destination of your soul? I am not terribly offended by most profanity. I try not to use it, because it takes attention away from your overall message. Profanity is a social issue rather than a moral one. Certain words are not right or wrong, but when you use one inappropriately you betray a lack of respect for the listeners. There are words that offend me … like Jesus … that many see as their moral duty to say as often as possible. And this eagerness to profane a sacred name is a violation of the third commandment. (That is, the eagerness of Christians to scream his name as often and loudly as possible). … It is a matter of perception. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but ugly uses all five senses.
This content was published April 16, 2008. … I don’t know which Neil is uglier, Boortz or Young. Its a good thing Neil Diamond (The Jewish Elvis) is handsome. … There have always been mixed feelings about Neil Young. In 1972, after “Goldrush” and CSNY, his new album was greatly anticipated. I got “Harvest” the first chance I got, and thought that it sucked. A few more albums came out, some better than others. It did not help that some hipsters thought that Mr. Young walked on water.
Then one night in 1978, I went by a house, and was told to drive to the radio station immediately. Mr. Young had a show at the Omni that night, it was far from sold out, and there was a man with a shoebox of tickets in the radio station parking lot. Never mind that the seats were in Alabama, I was in the same room as Neil Young. … And he was great. There were huge comic book speakers, and these guys in star wars costumes swarming over the stage to adjust the equipment. Neil played VERY LOUD. Sometimes having seats in Alabama is a good thing. … There is something artificial about a studio arteest who cannot pull the weight onstage. Donna Summer comes to mind (Easter Sunday 1978). OTOH, a performer who pulls it off in front of an audience is real. That night at the Omni, Neil Young justified a lifetime of pretentious records.
This content was published April 14, 2008. … “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, … the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothings replaced them … And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. … And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Unless you live under a rock/Iraq, or have right wing ideas on permanent brain rot, you have heard about that comment from BHO. Quite possibly, you have heard more than you appreciate … unless you are looking for a reason not to like BHO, in which case you haven’t heard enough. If you are in the first category, just scroll through the text and enjoy the pictures. If you are in the second group, you might not like what I am going to say. You can still look at the pictures.
1- This was a secretly recorded speech made at a fundraiser. The fatcat party was in San Francisco, a factoid that delights the hate-O crowd. What sort of person donates to a campaign (possibly using another person’s money), so he can go to a private party and make a secret recording? And then take the “sample” and release it to the tittering internet.
2- My first reaction when I read this was that the smalltown folk have felt that way for a long long time. They loved guns and Jesus back when the factories and steelmills were wide open. 3- It is not just small town Pennsylvania that is “bitter”. (Folks seem to have a special problem with the word bitter. One “consultant” was quoted as saying it would have been better if BHO had said frustrated.) What about the guys that did a high five behind Jeremiah Wright when he screamed “God Damn America”? If anyone has a right to be bitter, it is the folks on the south side of Chicago, or any ghetto in America. And yes, they do cling to Jesus and Guns, as well as other nasty things.
4- It is not just America that is bitter and turning to religion. Palestine and Iraq are in the same boat. They feel like forces are working against them, and they might be right. People are turning to religion and violence as an answer to their anguish. They are being led down that wretched path by cynical clerics who exploit their unhappiness, and offer a solution through God. These clerics seldom strap on a suicide vest, just like Jeremiah Wright does not live in the projects.
5- This is not going to hurt BHO that much. The people who are upset are not going to support him anyway. A lot of people see the truth in what he says, and just might appreciate the fact that he was unslick enough to say something with a rough edge. He just might have known that Judas-with-a-taperecorder was in the house. 6- Batter Better Bitter Botter Butter. The only vowel that doesn’t work in that progression is O.
Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library Guy Dodd Hayes took the social media picture in April 27, 1941. “Convicts with broken legs in casts in bunk-beds at Dallas, Georgia prison.” … “Broken Legs and Broken Promises. These three youths who say they broke their legs to escape “Beatings and hardships” at the Dallas “Hell Hole Prison,” admit that conditions have improved since Warden Q.E. Worthington took charge in February, but charge the warden broke his own promise of no brutality by whipping Morris Brown “on general principles.” Left to right they are Buster Masters, 18, of Atlanta; Percy Mitchell, 21, of Macon, and Ed Pressley, 18, of Troupe County. Other prisoners are high in their praise of the warden for allowing radios, mail and sale of luxuries within the camp for the first time.” … “These three Georgia lads hamstrung themselves by cutting the tendons of their own legs to avoid being sent out on convict road gangs.”
©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
Lewis Grizzard
This content was originally posted April 23, 2012. … If you lived in Atlanta between 1980 and 1994, you heard about Lewis Grizzard. Some people loved him. Deacon Lunchbox did not. Lewis told good old boy stories about growing up in rural Georgia. Many of them were enjoyable. Lewis also made social and political commentaries, which upset a few people.
I have mixed feelings about Lewis. The stories about Kathy Sue Loudermilk, and Catfish, could make your day. His opinions about gays, feminists, and anything non redneck, could get on your nerves. The column for the fishwrapper upset me at least twice a week.
In 1982, Lewis (a first-name-only celebrity) wrote a column about John Lennon. Lewis did not understand why Mr. Ono was such a big deal. I cut the column out of the fishwrapper, and put it in a box. Every few years, I would be looking for something, find that column, and get mad all over again.
The New Georgia Encyclopedia has a page about Lewis, which expresses some of these contradictions. “If Grizzard’s humor revealed the ambivalence amid affluence of the Sunbelt South, it reflected its conservative and increasingly angry politics as well. He was fond of reminding fault-finding Yankee immigrants that “Delta is ready when you are,” and, tired of assaults on the Confederate flag, he suggested sarcastically that white southerners should destroy every relic and reminder of the Civil War (1861-65), swear off molasses and grits, drop all references to the South, and begin instead to refer to their region as the “Lower East.” Grizzard also wore his homophobia and hatred for feminists on his sleeve, and one of the last of his books summed up his reaction to contemporary trends in its title, Haven’t Understood Anything since 1962 and Other Nekkid Truths.
In the end, which came in 1994, when he was only forty-seven, the lonely, insecure, oft-divorced, hard-drinking Grizzard proved to be the archetypal comic who could make everyone laugh but himself. He chronicled this decline and his various heart surgeries in I Took a Lickin’ and Kept on Tickin’, and Now I Believe in Miracles, published just before his final, fatal heart failure.”
As you may have discerned, Lewis McDonald Grizzard Jr. met his maker on March 20, 1994. He was 47. There was a valve in his heart that wasn’t right. The good news is that he stayed out of the army. At the time, Vietnam was the destination for most enlistees. The bad news is that his heart problems got worse and worse, until it finally killed him.
Sixteen years later, I found a website, Wired For Books. It is a collection of author interviews by Don Swaim, who ran many of them on a CBS radio show called Book
Beat. There are two interviews with Lewis. 1986 1987. One was done to promote My Daddy Was a Pistol and I’m a Son of A Gun. This was the story of Lewis Grizzard Senior, who was another mixed bag.
If you listen to those interviews, you might change your mind about Lewis. The one-liners and country boy stories are still there. Daddy Grizzard was a soldier, who went to war in Europe and Korea. The second one did something to him, he took to drinking, and was never quite right the rest of his life. His son adored him anyway. When you put yourself in those loafers for a while, you began to taste the ingredients, in that stew we called Lewis Grizzard.
I still remember the anger that those columns caused … I have my own story, and know when my toes are stepped on. The thing is, after listening to this show, I have an idea of why Lewis Grizzard wrote the things that he did. Maybe Lewis and I aren’t all that different after all. Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken October 31, 1956. “Wrecked police automobile” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah
1 comment