From The Heart Of Atlanta To Tyler Perry
There is an old saying, what goes around comes around. When you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind. The thing is, it is not always obvious what is payback for what. Moreton Rolleston Jr. filed a lawsuit to have the Civil Rights Act declared unconstitutional. Forty years later, a Black man, built a mansion on the site of Mr. Rolleston’s home. The fact that this Black man earned his money by playing Black women, in movies, is icing on the cake.
When the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, Moreton Rolleston, Jr., owned the Heart of Atlanta Motel. He filed a lawsuit, trying to have the law overturned by the courts. The case went to the Supreme Court, which upheld the law.
The legal justification of the Civil Rights Act was a law giving the U.S. Government the right to regulate interstate commerce. Mr. Rolleston argued that this use of the commerce clause went too far. “‘The argument that this law was passed to relieve a burden on interstate commerce is so much hogwash. It was intended to regulate the acts of individuals.’ If the commerce clause can be stretched that far, declared Rolleston, ‘Congress can regulate every facet of life.'” (PG supports all citizens having the right to housing, education, etc. He also wonders if we are on a slippery slope. The government keeps taking more and more freedom away.) (The link for the quote no longer works.)
In 1969, Tyler Perry was born. From humble beginnings, he has been incredibly successful. His signature character is a woman named Madea.
In 1985, Mr. Rolleston was involved in a real estate deal that went sour. He was sued. In 2003, Mr. Rolleston was evicted from his Buckhead home. (Go here for details). In 2005, the propery was sold to Tyler Perry. When the source story was written in 2007, Mr. Rolleston had sued Mr. Perry several times, claiming that it was still his property.
Apparently, Mr. Rolleston , who was disbarred in 2007, is still alive.
HT Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub.. Pictures from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Big Hair Melt Down
It was six am on tuesday morning. Many say that tuesday is worse than monday, but PG is not a statistician. He feels the urge to contribute to the collective wisdom, but does not have an original thought. It is time to look in the archives, and find something to repost. A feature with the lurid title “Big Hair” is on the list.
It seems as though BH was written for trifecta writing challenge. Evidently, PG has been contributing for a year now. This might be the first totally recycled entry. What can be said to melt the hearts and minds of those judging this week? A winning entry would make a nice holiday present.
This monday morning post is written in response to the Trifecta Writing Challenge. The mission for today: “This weekend we’re asking you to write 33 words that will make us laugh or smile. Even a chuckle will do. We look forward to the communal spirit lifting. Good luck!”
Before thinking of what to say, PG put the pictures together. They are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”. The 33 words are about one of the pictures.
Buck Owens looked at the woman with big, black hair. She held onto her pocketbook with both hands. You don’t mean that. The man in the checkered suit looked ahead, but saw nothing.
East Is East
PG read East is East by T. Coraghessan Boyle. This is a 1990 copyright, and the author is now known as T.C. Boyle. Most people that know him say Tom. There are videos of him speaking, and some say how to pronounce his middle name.
EIS is a great story. A Japanese man is working on a boat, gets in trouble, and jumps off the boat. He swims to shore, and lands on a Georgia island. He has a series of adventures on the island, until he is captured by the authorities. Hiro, the Japanese man, escapes from confinement, and turns up in the Okefenokee Swamp. There is another improbable rescue, until he runs out of luck. He winds up in a hospital, with a lot of charges against him.
Numerous sub plots ensue. Some of the other people on the island are weirdos. The island is called Tupelo, and is apparently modeled on Sapelo. Hiro turns out to be a Japanese-American mix, with a baggage compartment full of issues. There are stereotypes galore, from the bungling federal agents, ditzy artists, angry blacks, and hungry insects.
Some english major has probably written a term paper criticizing the shortcomings of this book. That does not matter to PG. All he wants is a good story. EIE is a page turner. You want to get back to see what happens next. The improbable twists in the plot don’t matter after a while. EIE is a fun book. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Mick Jagger
There was a book at the Chamblee Library, Mick: The Wild Life and Mad Genius of Jagger. The work is credited to a man named Christopher Anderson, who has a slew of best sellers to his credit. The copyright was issued to “Anderson Productions.”
When you write about Mickie, you have to post a few videos. One of the first to come up is “Waiting on a friend.” This was the first video that PG saw on MTV. One night in early 1982, PG rode his bike to an apartment on Buford Hiway. While he was there, someone said hey watch this, music television. The video was a favorite that first winter of MTV, even though it wasn’t really that good.
Mick Jagger has been a part of many lives the last fifty years. The stones were conceded to be number two to the beatles, but stayed together longer. The era of rock concert as megaevent coincided with the reinvention of the stones, after the demise of Brian Jones. He did after all start the band. Mr. Jones had become too much of a druggie to be relied on, and was fired. The book says that Mr. Jones was drowned, by a construction worker.
Ok, we are three paragraphs in, and we have not discussed Mr. Jagger’s pecker. Most of the book is about this instrument of undetermined size. The book says Mick stuffed a sock in his pants before shows. Mick has screwed thousands of women, and more than a few men. Whether Mick is a top, or a bottom, is left to the imagination.
The phrase “fuck Mick Jagger” is seminal. One night, the B52s were playing at a toilet on Ponce De Leon Avenue called the Big Dipper. The venue was later torn down, the ground decontaminated, and an animal clinic built on it’s site. After the show, one of the girls (either Kate or Cindy, or maybe neither, since this story is possibly an urban legend) was hanging out in the parking lot. “Beulah” was running his mouth, as he liked to do, talking about his hero Mick Jagger. Finally, the B52girl had heard enough. “Fuck Mick Jagger, one day Mick Jagger will come see me.”
The book goes into excruciating detail about the stones story. Mick grew up middle class, and was close to his parents. He bit the end of his lip playing basketball, and sounded different. While going to the London School of Economics, he connected with Keith Richard, and found that they both liked Chuck Berry. The Glimmer Twins started to hang out together, and played a few gigs at a nightclub owned by Alexis Korner. (Mr. Korner opened for Humble Pie and Edgar Winter at the Atlanta Municipal Auditorium in 1972. He was ignored by the festive crowd.)
At this time, Mick had been introduced to sex by the other boys at his school. The first time with a woman was when Mick was an orderly at Bexley Mental Hospital. A nurse “yanked him into the linen closet where, surrounded by sheets, mops, and bedpans, Mick lost his virginity standing up”.
At some point Brian Jones came into the picture. Mick moved into a flat with Brian and Keith, and lived in picturesque squalor. At some point Mick and Brian bumped gooberheads, which left Mick confused. It is not known whether the lads could afford drugs at this point.
The story goes on and on. There are ugly moments, pretty moments, good songs written, lots of drugs, lots of sex. As Mick said in “Shattered,” “sex and sex and sex and sex and sex and sex and sex.” A few begin to wonder if he is capable of a one on one relationship, but those opinions don’t count.
One afternoon in 1978, PG was driving a truck in Decatur. He worked for a lady who did sampling projects, which means giving out samples to consumers. The product this time was Playtex Plus deodorant tampons. The truck was the rag wagon. There was an announcement on the last am rock and roll station in Atlanta. The stones were going to play the Fox Theater, and tickets were on sale now. The signal of the am station faded out at this point, with a gospel station preacher blocking out the rock and roll announcement. PG did not hear the location of the ticket sales. It turns out the tickets went on sale at the box office of the Municipal Auditorium, which was two blocks away from the rental facility of the rag wagon. Such is life.
In 1991, PG was walking to work and noticed an army of movie trucks. Mr. Jagger was appearing in a film, “Free Jack.” PG saw a scene filmed from his perch in the Healey Building, and stood behind a chair with the name “Mick Jagger” stenciled on. There were reports of a van rocking in Cabbagetown. On January 12, 1992, Georgia May Ayeesha Jagger was born.
Mick: The Wild Life and Mad Genius of Jagger is not a bad book. It is easy to read, and does not skimp on slime. The phrase “cringe inducing” is used several times, which may be the result of a focus group. It is not worth $27.00, or $29.99 Canadian. The publisher is Simon&Schuster. The dalliance between Mr. Jagger and Carly Simon is dutifully noted.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This ia a repost.
Duane Allman And The Coricidin Bottle
Gregg Allman appeared on Live Talks LA, selling a book, My Cross to Bear. Yes, he was coherent. Mr.Allman says something about going through rehab seventeen times. No one argues disputes that he has had an interesting life.
The chat has a few parts left out. Dicky Betts and Cher are not mentioned. The title of “strangest dude I ever met” goes to Jai Johanny “Jaimoe” Johanson, aka the black guy in the group. Gregg says he used to listen to stuff by Roland Kirk.
The story of Duane Allman learning to play slide guitar is good. Duane was sick. Gregg came to see his brother, who was playing the guitar in a new way. It seems the doctor had given him some pills called Coricidin. You take the pills out of the glass bottle, soak the label off, and you have a guitar slider.
When PG was a kid, his uncle was a representative for the company that sold Coriciden. There were boxes of samples in the house, which all came in the glass bottle. PG had not heard that name for forty eight years. The spell check suggestion is Coincidence.
Not everyone at amazon was impressed by the book. “the book was so damged the binding and jacket were ripped that a did not read the book and will not buy an more nick malick.”
The visual multitasking element for this repost was pictures from The Library of Congress. There are two group shots, broken down into smaller images. One is a graduating class of a nursing school at Georgetown University. The photographer lists the date as between 1905 and 1945.
The other image is a line of people waiting to vote. The well dressed citizens are in Clarenden VA. The date is November 4, 1924. Several carry signs for the democratic presidential candidate, John W. Davis. He was nominated on the 103rd ballot of the democratic convention, and lost to Calvin Coolidge.
Stone Mountain Oktoberfest
It was pride sunday, and PG had little desire to go downtown. A check of the innertubes turned up an Okterberfest event in Stone Mountain. This is the downtown part of the city, which the merchants like to call the village. It is not the park, or else PG and Uzi would not be interested.
The parking was in an open field, with the white tents across the street. The polka band was rolling out, or whatever those guys do. There could not have been more than twenty tents in the arts market. It was like the back alley surplus of the Duluth Fall Festival. The team was through in a few minutes. The sausages at the German restaurant did not have any appeal.
Fortunately, the town graveyard was nearby. There was a section of anonymous Confederate graves. Many of the other tombs had markers indicating that a CSA veteran was nearby.
A truck was going through the graveyard, with a man speaking on a loudspeaker. A trailer, full of people, was being pulled by the truck. PG said if he had known about that, he could have gone. Uzi said that there would have been a charge for the tour. PG would not have paid.
After a few cheerful minutes wandering amongst the dead, it was dinner time. There was a Piccadilly cafeteria on the way home. The health department gave them a 90 on the last inspection. No employees were in the restroom when PG washed his hands.
The Other Deadly Sins
PG was working on pictures. The phone rang. It was his friend “P”. Someone was using a loud machine to paint his fence, and “P” thought his dryer was broken. After hearing the story, PG asked “Is this what we have come to? It is pride sunday, we should be downtown, but instead we are talking on the phone about your dryer”.
“P” made a very good point. In his proud opinion, pride is just one of the seven deadly sins. The other six are feeling neglected. PG then looked up a blog post about things that come in seven. There, above seven holy virtues, seven goddesses, and seven dwarfs, were the seven deadly sins … envy, lust, gluttony, greed, pride, sloth, wrath.
Gay pride has devolved into a celebration of consumerism. It could just as easily honor gluttony, greed, or envy. Politically correct haters would love to cultivate wrath. Lust is an ongoing parade, with or without corporate maintenance.
Which leaves us with sloth, better known these days as slack. As any subgenius knows, slack is the most prized of these sins. Taking the train downtown does not further the pursuit of slack. Pictures were taken at the 2012 parade. They look very much like what you would see today. UPDATE
PG went to the Stone Mountain Oktoberfest on Pride Sunday. The polka band was loud and proud.
25 Things About Georgia
These daze, there is more media than messages. People need things to write about. One popular theme, at least in itp/otp, is lists about life in Georgia. A web facility that should know better, thought catalog, recently put out 25 Things You Need To Know About Georgia.
25TYNTKAG was written by Jeremy Populus Jones. He seems to be the CEO of something called GAFollowers. (@GAFollowers on twitter) From the fine print: “GAFollowers was created on a “strength in numbers” foundation, finding a creative way to use free online social networking sites to strengthen the “bond” between people in Georgia to help better form this state. … GAFollowers is one of the largest twitter accounts in the state of Georgia that spans nearly every corner of the region.”
These lists about Georgia life usally have a few common comments. There is the heat, the bugs, the traffic, the multiple Peachtrees, and southern accents. They seldom mention the shameless corruption, religious mental illness, rampant obesity, or racial pandemonium. Lets take a look at 25TYNTKAG. Mr. Jones will be in blue, and Chamblee54 in green. The photographs today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
1. The weather here is just as inconsistent as your ex-girlfriend. Not really. It gets cold in January, hot in July. Your ex-girlfriend is staying out of this.
2. We call all interstates in Georgia, “The Highway”. Most people use the number.
3. Only in Atlanta is everything named “Peachtree” without a single tree with peaches around. Peachtree is all over OTP.
4. Terio and Honey Boo Boo were born and raised here. You couldn’t do this without google. Terio is a chubby kid who dances. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
5. “Knuck if you Buck” is the song we will always get hype to no matter the age. Yuck.
6. White girls wear Nike shorts with big t-shirts covering their shorts. (How many can you spot?) Maybe there was a sale on big t-shirts at Walmart.
7. Zaxbys is what you eat. The TC comments said this is not accurate. They mentioned a certain spelling challenged company, that specializes in overpriced chicken sandwiches. At least the son of Mr. Zaxby doesn’t run off potential customers with his big mouth.
8. We call it a “rag” not a “washcloth”. Do people up north say a woman is on the washcloth?
9. Going outside at anytime during the summer instantly guarantees a minimum a 7 bug bites. This is mostly true. Who is counting?
10. In Georgia when someone ask, “Where you from?”, people usually reply with a county not a city. In Atlanta, when you say “Where are you from?” it is almost always somewhere outside of Georgia.
11. The speed limit is 65 mph but if you’re not going at least 80 mph you’ll be ran off the road. This is also true on surface roads. In hilly Atlanta, there are few places to pass on two lane roads.
12. In Georgia it’s not a shopping cart, it’s a buggy. Do people really say shopping cart? At Kroger it is a bascart. The stores have a bascart corral.
13. We get more inches of pollen in a week than inches of snow in a full year. Pollen season hits in early spring. It is rough for many people. The rest of the year gets relatively little pollen. There is a good ice/snow storm every ten years or so. This one is probably true.
14. You say Georgia, we say Jawja. Others say George-ah. To untrained ears they sound the same.
15. Sweet tea is our water. Very few people wash cars with sweet tea.
16. The night has been a success if you ended up at Waffle House. This is especially true if you are scattered, smothered, and covered.
17. In Georgia it’s necessary to look at the weather before picking out an outfit. Items this are a reason not to number lists. Just think of what you have to say, write it down, and hope it is not copyrighted.
18. We pray that we get snow during the winters. The people who pray for winter storms are merchants. They have an inventory of batteries, milk, ice, and eggs to sell.
19. We are the creators of, “Turn Up”. You can’t squeeze blood from a turnip.
20. Here in Georgia white girls can twerk. No Miley Cyrus. Ditto reaction to number 17. What was PG thinking of when he decided to do this post?
21. You will usually be 30 minutes away from just about every destination that you’re heading to. 22. There’s a Waffle House in walking distance of every Waffle House. These two have been combined, for obvious reasons. Do people proofread these lists before sending them out?
23. Any dark soda is simply called “Coke”. Many say Cocola, without the second syllable.
24. We pronounce it “Atlanna”. Whatever. Sometimes the second t is audible, sometimes not. It definitely is not the ATL, except to radio shouters.
25. Braves, Falcons & UGA are the teams we really care about. Tech fans may disagree. Ditto taxpayers, who don’t care is Rankin Blank gets a new stadium.
Plastic Improvement
There was a trash can, full of yard waste. After the sunday night rainstorm, it would have water in it, and be heavy to pick up. PG went to the street, intending to tip it over. The water would drain out, and it would be easier to dispose of the yard waste.
When PG got to the can, there was a pink plastic bag on top. Inside the pink plastic bag was a selection of dog droppings. This is not proper disposal procedure.
Perhaps the distributor was going to come back for the product. There is an alcohol use device called zombie. Do you mix Rover residue with rainwater, soaked in strands of ivy? When you add some legal drugs, is that a zombie?
Atlanta Streets Alive!
Atlanta Streets Alive! is an event where a street is closed to automobile traffic. The asphalt is taken over by people, dogs, and non motorized vehicles. Businesses along the way are open, and restaurants do a brisk trade. If you don’t get run over by a bike, you will probably have a good time.
The strategy was simple, Drive into town. Cruise around the hosting neighborhoods, one block away from the event. When you get a parking spot, take it. After avoiding a collision with a determined oncoming vehicle, PG made his way down Lanier Drive. A few feet away from Virginia Avenue, a prime parking spot appeared, as if by magic. It is almost like a reward for clean living.
The event was a quadrangular loop, going from North Highland, to Highland, to Boulevard, to Monroe, to Virginia Avenue. If one had a bicycle, the entire loop would have been easy to navigate. PG and Uzi were on foot. They made it as far as the de-Northification of Highland Avenue. When they got back to the car, they had gotten enough exercise.
SAA was a great counterpoint to the FLUX event, held the night before. PG saw one person that he knew at FLUX. At SAA, the one person he knew was Angel Poventud. While PG talked to Angel, four people that knew Mr. Poventud greeted him. Some people are more connected than others. While PG enjoys his quiet life in Brookhaven, he sometimes would like to know more people intown.
As the walk was going by the Plaza for the second time, a young man rolled by on a skateboard. His T shirt said, I know what I am doing. He had a beer in his left hand. He nearly fell off the skateboard. On the other side of Ponce de Leon Avenue, a three legged dog was in the parade.
After getting all that exercise, PG and Uzi were ready for dinner. The Piccadilly cafeteria is convenient and cheap, but there are issues. A few months ago, PG saw a server in the men’s room emerge from a stall after delivering a number two. He went back to the kitchen without washing his hands. On the way out to the parking lot, PG saw the report from the health department. The Piccadilly cafeteria, on North Druid Hills Road, got a score of 60.
Flux
Mr. Lion posted a message on facebook about the Flux night event. He wanted to attend, but didn’t have anyone to go with. PG saw this, and realized that he needed to get out of Brookhaven. Messages were sent, phone calls made, and an agreement reached to meet at a midtown parking lot at 9:00 pm. In a bit of murphy’s law denial, a vehicle left Piedmont Avenue, heading south, at 9:15.
PG is a nervous suburbanite, and had no clue where to park. Turning past the dome, the barricades and crowds were evident, as were the lines of cars going nowhere. An illegal one eighty turn later, PG gave up, and parked at the dome.
The two men were soon in another world. Castleberry Hill is a downtown neighborhood, reclaimed by the trendy and prosperous. The old brick buildings were swarming with culture vultures of all persuasions. PG wondered more than once where these mobs of bug eyed youth came from.
The first stop was an elderly brick building. For this night, it was crawling with murals, music, and machines that shot out cannonballs of smoke. People were posing in front of the well lit murals, which made it easy for PG to cop a leftover image or two. Mr. Lion got into a chat with a director of the collective, while PG dealt with the heat by photographing unsuspecting young ladies.
Mr. Lion is an elitist, but not a snob. PG is an anti semanticist, with an aversion to labelism. It was noted that calling yourself an non labelist was an act of labelism. But, as they say in Alabama, hypocrisy is usually the cheapest argument. Despite this existential eggshell walking, the Mr. Lion managed to keep up with PG, who was up to his usual mischief. With few dogs to photograph, the focus was on humans. There was lots of barking and tail wagging.
“Can I have a picture of your makeup” ” Sure” ” Can I have some attitude” ” What” “You call that attitude” “How can I have attitude if I am having a good time”
The streets were often crowded. In best Atlanta tradition, it was tough to know if you were going north, south, to heaven, or to hell. In an effort to not miss anything, several streets were covered twice. Finally, enough was enough. Mr. Lion managed to remember the side street that led back to the dome. It is part of elitism to always know where to go. A rat should always have a hole to crawl into.
Duluth Fall Festival
PG and Uzi have been to a slew of neighborhood festivals. Dickhater, Candler Park, Sandy Springs, even south of I20 to Grant Park. It was starting to get a bit predictable. Then Uzi suggested a ride up Buford Hiway to the Duluth Fall Festival.
The first steps were uncertain. PG turned into a parking lot, and almost did not get out. Finally, a trip down a side road yielded a parking spot, with a manageable hike to the festival. The walk to the first tent was short, compared to the walks up and down aisles. The DFF is as big as Candler Park and Sandy Springs combined, with a yard of carnival rides as a bonus.
It was a people watchers delight. Uzi noticed that, for all the much touted diversity intown, that Duluth had a much wider selection of human kind. There were people of color in abundance, speaking a variety of languages. There were people without color, in all their waistline busting glory. Walmart hit the sidewalks, with funnel cakes for dessert.
Finally, after the last aisle of tents had been navigated, PG piloted the vehicle to the swallow and suffer cafeteria. After all that walking, dinner was a welcome sight. Soon it was off into the world for another week of reality.
Chamblee54 
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