Sin
The post below went up seven years ago. It deals with a publicity stunt from the Catholic church, an updated seven deadly sins. The statute of limitations may have run out on this message. The traditional “seven deadly sins” were anger, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony.
The site linked above has a page, the seven deadly sins of Mohandas Karamachand Gandhi. The subcontinental fashion icon lists Wealth without Work, Pleasure without Conscience, Science without Humanity, Knowledge without Character, Politics without Principle, Commerce without Morality, and Worship without Sacrifice.
After 1,500 years the Vatican has brought the seven deadly sins up to date by adding seven new ones for the age of globalization. The list, published yesterday in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, came as the Pope deplored the “decreasing sense of sin” in today’s “secularized world” and the falling numbers of Roman Catholics going to confession. The new deadly sins include polluting, genetic engineering, being obscenely rich, drug dealing, abortion, pedophilia and causing social injustice. HT to Fox News .( aka the eighth deadly sin.)
One reaction is to wonder, what language was used for the list? Phrases like “obscenely rich” and “causing social injustice” can mean different things, and one wonders about the nuance behind the original expression. Now, Just about all of these “sins” can merit comments. Maybe the Catholic church is thinking of moving its headquarters to hell.
polluting We can talk about something where all have sinned, or who should throw the first stone. If you ride in a car, wear synthetic fibers, through away anything, use a less than perfect sewer system (or a functioning one on a rainy day with overflows), then you have polluted.
genetic engineering Here again, there are semantics galore. Much of the food we eat is tweaked by genetic breeding. This is something Euros get twitchy about, that doesn’t concern most Americans.
being obscenely rich This is one to wonder what the original Italian said. Compared to much of the world, a 900sf house is a palace. However, compared to many of the neighbors, it is lower middle class. Perhaps the emphasis should be on greed, selfishness, and how you gain this wealth. The tenth commandment says something about coveting. It is the forgotten commandment.
drug dealing Is there a distinction between legal and illegal drugs here? If you go by the damage that substances cause, then this rule will speak to bartenders and the clerk who sells cigarettes. Not to mention the media outlets who advertise cigarettes and beer, the legislators who condone these substances while prosecuting potheads, and a whole host of others. The legally based war on drugs is a disaster in this country. Do we really need to drag the Catholic church into it?
abortion. If Mary had gotten an abortion, would Christians worship a vacuum cleaner? Seriously, the Catholic Corporation has flogged this donkey, to great profit, for years. If you don’t want abortions, promote contraception and adoption. Catholics should find another gimmick.
pedophilia When you up pedophile in the dictionary, you see a picture of a Catholic priest.
causing social injustice Can we have a better translation of this?
This bonus repost is also from early march 2008. BHO was winning the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination, and the skeletons were coming out of the closet. As the struggle went on, BHO threw Jeremiah Wright under the bus, and got elected.
YouTube is an impediment to work. I was going to write some clever words to go with these pictures, but I looked at some videos first. All I wanted was the embed gibberish so I could show them to you, but YouTube has more videos. The only way to get rid of temptation is to give into it.
I am glad I got to see the videos of Jeremiah Wright. Friday I was hearing the tapes of him on the radio, and it was most discouraging. When I saw the video, I realized that he was just a loudmouth.
I worked for 6 years with a professional Jesus Worshiper. He was selfish, hateful, vulgar and loud. He frequently directed this anger at me. He used Jesus to hurt me, often over trivial matters. His voice sounded a lot like Mr. Wright’s.
Once, this Professional Jesus Worshiper shouted me down, and humiliated me, in the name of Jesus. When he was through, he picked up the telephone and told his friend ” I never felt better in my life”. People like that, and Jeremiah Wright, bring shame to Jesus.
One thing I learned while working with the Professional Jesus Worshiper was the importance of the audience. These hatemongers do not just talk to themselves. They need an audience. These audiences enable these poison spewers. To pray with a loudmouth who shames Jesus is morally equivalent to buying whiskey for an alcoholic. Barack Obama is that audience. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Peachtree Street
PG finished a book, Peachtree Street-Atlanta. The author is William Bailey Williford, and it was published by the University of Georgia Press in 1962. PG found this at the Chamblee library, and this is probably the best way to find this book today. (Reissued by UGA Press.)
How this road got the name Peachtree is a good question. Most peaches grow south of the fall line. The story goes that there was a Creek Indian village called Standing Peachtree, located where Peachtree Creek runs into the Chattahoochee. During the war of 1812 Fort Peachtree stood there.
There was a trail that ran from Buckhead to an intersection with the Sandtown Trail, at what is now Five Points. A short distance south of this intersection was a settlement known as White Hall. For many years, Peachtree Street south of Five Points was known as Whitehall Road. At some point in the last thirty years, a decision was made to change Whitehall to Peachtree. It did not help the rundown condition of Whitehall Street.
In 1835 Governor Wilson Lumpkin decided that a railroad that would be centered near the junction of Peachtree Trail and Sandtown Trail. The new town was named “Marthasville”, after the daughter of the Governor. Martha Lumpkin resides in Oakland Cemetery today.
The village was soon renamed Atlanta, which was a feminine form of Atlantic. Houses, churches, and businesses were soon built on Peachtree Road. In 1856, Richard Peters built a flour mill. To insure a steady supply of firewood, he bought four hundred acres of land, for five dollars an acre. The land was between Eighth Street, North Avenue, Argonne Avenue, and Atlantic Drive.
Another pioneer citizen with a large landholding was George Washington (Wash) Collier. Mr. Collier bought 202 acres for $150 in 1847. The land was between West Peachtree, Fourteenth Street, Piedmont Road, Montgomery Ferry Road, and the Rhodes Center. Much of the land was used for the development of Ansley Park.
In 1854, Atlanta entertained, for the first time, a man who had been President. On May 2, Millard Fillmore arrived from Augusta on a private rail car.
There was some unpleasantness in 1864, which we will not concern ourselves with.
In 1866, there was a shocking murder. John Plaster was found dead, in an area known as “tight squeeze”. This was an area of shanties, at the present location of Crescent Avenue and Tenth Street. A hundred years later, this was near “the strip”, Atlanta’s hippie district, also called “Tight Squeeze”.
As the nineteenth century rolled along, many mansions were built on Peachtree Street. The road was paved, and streetcars ran up and down. Automobiles came, and came, and came. An expressway was built in the 1950’s, and quickly became obsolete. One by one, the mansions were torn down and replaced with businesses and churches.
The book was written in 1962, when the party was just getting started. The High Museum was known then as the Atlanta Art Association. In June of 1962, a plane full of prominent Atlanta residents crashed in Paris, killing all on board. As a memorial to those people, the Memorial Arts Center on Peachtree, at Fifteenth Street, was built.
Another phenomenon which is not explained by the book is the custom of naming everything here Peachtree. There are countless streets and institutions named for a fruit tree that likes warmer climates. Atlanta has a one street skyline, that stretches from Five Points to Peachtree Dunwoody Road, almost at the city limits. PG lives a quarter mile off Peachtree, in Dekalb County, and has no idea why Peachtree is a magic word.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. and The Library of Congress. This is the annual repost.
When Walmart Comes To Target
display of a link on this page should not be considered an endorsment of the contents ~ Here is a story about Mr. Washington and one of his slaves. ~ Ten Facts About Washington & Slavery ~ Man smashes through balcony and attacks neighbour with plank of wood after he played Wham song ~ Thinking Critically About Social Justice ~ Fergie ~ Comic: Does Black Panther Pass the ‘Black Bechdel Test’? ~ Honoring Ancestors Through An Old Gullah Tradition ~ Nate Mask and Ryan J | Episode 19 ~ Lit &Bruised ~ facebook fallacious foolishness ~ @TFLN (425): Why do I feel so obligated to masterbate just because I’m single and it’s valentines Day… ~ @RossMcCaff Milo is selling supplements on Infowars. This is not a drill. ~ “the best endorsement I can give you is that I am very careful about what I put inside myself” ~ @Phil_Johnson_ If you can watch THE MOST ostentatious greedmonger on charismatic TV—a demonstrably false teacher who fits every detail of Jude 4-16 & 2 Peter 2—and nevertheless embrace him as a brother in Christ, you are woefully lacking in any kind of discernment. ~ The sign will be Billy Graham’s death– Benny Hinn ~ “A Babe in the Woods?”: Billy Graham, Anticommunism, and Vietnam ~ Things We Saw Today: The Alt-Right Loves Black Panther so Much They Want to Make It About Trump ~ Nolte: Pro-Trump ‘Black Panther’ Breaks Box Office Records without Breaking New Ground | Breitbart ~ 2 Timothy 3 ~ @nneomaanene So some white lady at the @Target in Roswell, Ga just told my mother to go back to her country for speaking another language on the phone! Trump’s America in the 30075 ~ When Walmart comes to Target. Two Women bickering in Target over Phone etiquette ~ Colorism in the Latinx Community! ~ with one email ~ Critical Performativity in the Field ~ repost ~ How ‘Strange Fruit’ Killed Billie Holiday According to an article linked in that story, ( Strange Fruit: the first great protest song ) Miss Holliday had a no-good husband who snitched her out to the authorities. Also, the arrest was in 1947, after she had been performing “Strange Fruit” for a number of years. While I have no doubt that Harry Anslinger was a gnarly piece of work, I think this article exaggerates his influence. (I should note that the same article says that Judy Garland was a heroin addict. While she certainly had a substance problem, I have never heard that it includes heroin. Google was no help with this one.) ~ The Strange Story Of The Man Behind ‘Strange Fruit’ The story of Abel Meerpol is worth telling as well. He later adopted the children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Also, the lynching that “Strange Fruit” was inspired by took place in Indiana. ~ Strange Fruit: the first great protest song ~ The Hunting of Billie Holiday ~ Billie Holiday Biography(1915–1959) ~ An ill-waged war against the war on drugs ~ Singer Billie Holiday was tormented by anti-drug squad ~ The Hunting of Billie Holiday & the Roots of the U.S. War on Drugs ~ Billie Holiday: The Tragic Life of Lady Day ~ #18: Strange Fruit – Voices of a Lynching Poet and songwriter Abel Meeropol wrote that lament after seeing a photograph of two black teenagers hanging from a tree. Strange Fruit was later made famous by Billie Holiday. But a third boy escaped being lynched that fateful day, 80 years ago, in Marion, Indiana. James Cameron was believed to be the only African American to have survived a lynching. ~ Billie and Lester against the world ~ Tallulah Bankhead And Billie Holiday ~ Negro & White Women, United, Travel to Petition Governor Talmadge to Free Mrs. Rosa Lee Ingram, Victim of Oppression ~ The Secret Auden ~ Johann Hari: ‘I failed badly. When you harm people, you should shut up, go away and reflect on what happened’ ~ Hector Black ~ Howard C. Stevenson ~ beer ~ George Zimmerman’s father: My son is not racist, did not confront Trayvon Martin ~ The Soul-Crushing Legacy of Billy Graham ~ Truman Capote’s Lost Novel Would Have Aired All His Dirtiest Laundry ~ Mueller Is Ending the Era of Impunity for Washington’s Foreign Lobbyists ~ Iggy Pop delivers the 2014 John Peel Lecture ~ Gunfire erupts in line for new Air Jordan sneakers outside Atlanta store ~ To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner. ~ @MedievaI_React When you’re on your 453rd selfie and you just start to accept you’re ugly ~ Rules of Conduct 1 Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language. PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK. 2 Don’t Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated. 3 Be Truthful. Don’t knowingly lie about anyone or anything. 4 Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person. 5 Be Proactive. Use the ‘Report’ link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts. 6 Share with Us. We’d love to hear eyewitness acounts, the history behind an article. ~ .@n8mask .@homegrownpoetry .@GoHomeRyanJ Listened to your show on .@litandbruised the North Carolina @WaffleHouse story may explain the snark about white people who like dancing more than deodorant I also got some multi tasking in, as the attached picture shows ~ The consumption of too much food for thought can lead to mental indigestion. ~ My parents watched “The Billy Graham Crusade” every time it was on Channel 5. The message was always the same. Another icon of my childhood is gone. ~ Is creating a meme the facebook version of thoughts and prayers? ~ People ~ who like to be seen denouncing racism love to hate the kkk. Nothing you say about the bedsheet boys is out of bounds. The truth is that the kkk has as much influence, and respect, as the bad guys in professional wrestling. The kkk is a fashion challenged version of the westboro baptist church. You have to wonder why people get so much enjoyment from trash talking the klan. Maybe this is a distraction for their own unresolved racial conflicts. ~ A couple of months ago, a miracle happened. The ac adapter to some computer speakers wore out. The ac adapter to a formerly router fit the computer speakers. This will never happen again in my lifetime. ~ “What causes such a leap in logic?” Facebook ~ Howard C. Stevenson 5:06 If you look at the neuroscience research which says that when we are racially threatened, our brains go on lockdown, and we dehumanize black and brown people. 11:46 JS: And think that you’re, “You don’t look — you don’t look like you’re …” It’s like they’re saying that “You don’t look right, so I guess I have the right to disrespect you.” … HS: Yeah, and that’s what we call, we call that racism. 1232 HS: Yes, Julian, Daddy meant white people when I said, “other people,” all right? ~ this is the poem from last night at java monkey:
these are the #signsofaneighborfromhell ~ dog tries to kill one more chicken
brimstone barbeque with a gnarly smell ~ cooked on a charcoal grill in the kitchen
sacrifice of goats while you are sleeping ~ has a personal relationship with jesus
horns on the head pointy tail squeaking ~ talking in tongues about his penis
she knocks to ask you for a cup of meth ~ grumpy postal worker with bad breath
big hair honey smokes marlboro butts ~ all the little boys have mullet haircuts
she lights the garden grill with her finger ~ fat children ask if are you a swinger
pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. ~ selah
The Cheesecake Miracle
The Cheesecake Miracle
President Barack H. Obama gave a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday morning. Some are not happy with POTUS giving a speech reinforcing the belief paradigm, and including phrases like “people of faith,” “word of G-d,” and “children of G-d.” The name used today, for a higher power is dog spelled backwards. This is a double repost.
POTUS is an American politician. A certain ritual invocation of the G-word is part of the game. BHO is probably a hypocrite when he says “You know he’s not saying it because it helps him advance, or because somebody told him to. It’s from the heart.” It will be a long time before a professed atheist is elected POTUS. It is part of the ritual.
There has been blowback to the speech. When a Democrat POTUS says something, the Republicans feel obligated to criticize. It is how the game is played. This is where we get to hear someone really important, like the former Governor of Virginia. “He has offended every believing Christian in the United States. This goes further to the point that Mr. Obama does not believe in America or the values we all share.” That is telling him!
So what values is the former Governor talking about? The first thing BHO called for is humility. “And, first, we should start with some basic humility. I believe that the starting point of faith is some doubt — not being so full of yourself and so confident that you are right and that God speaks only to us, and doesn’t speak to others, that God only cares about us and doesn’t care about others, that somehow we alone are in possession of the truth.” It is easy to understand why professional Jesus worshipers don’t like talk about humility.
The speech lasted 24 minutes. It was two sentences that ruffled feathers. “And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”
Perhaps the most ridiculous reaction, or reaction to a reaction, was at The Atlantic. Ta-Nehisi Coates is fond of high octane rhetoric. He is in rare form in denouncing the linkage of Christianity to slavery. “The “all too often” could just as well be “almost always.” There were a fair number of pretexts given for slavery and Jim Crow, but Christianity provided the moral justification.”
The embrace of Christianity by African America is not mentioned. Black people might be the most Christian population in our Jesus-mad country. There is a poignant irony here. Mr. Coates notes “(Confederate Vice President Alexander) Stephens went on to argue that the “Christianization of the barbarous tribes of Africa” could only be accomplished through enslavement.”
The feature at the Atlantic is illustrated by a picture of a Klan rally. As we mentioned before, the loyal opposition is going to criticize the POTUS. And some are going to lose their minds, and compare this criticism to a cross burning. This, as Mr. Coates might say, “gives you some sense of the limited tolerance for any honest conversation around racism in our politics.”
Pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Birds spray Xanax, on the compulsive joker,
Who is afraid of the punitentiery.
When you drink like a land based animal,
Hit men would be cheaper.
The subliminal message in the cheesecake only works for low perbole.
The world knows, and does not care.
Frank Ancona
The body of kkk big dog Frank Ancona was found in a Missouri river the other day. People who like to say rude things about the klan celebrated the news. It is safe to say that few of these people had heard of Mr. Ancona before his demise. This is a repost. Some of the links are not dependable.
PG saw the headline, and remembered a story from last year. Mr. Ancona was quoted in that story. He was trash talking another klan organization. He said the klan is a secret society that shuns publicity. Mr. Ancona has a knack for getting attention, which may be a reason he was killed.
The murder might be the result of a marital dispute. Mr. Ancona’s wife, and step son, are in trouble. Malissa Ancona had a legally unwise chat with a tv reporter, Exclusive: Malissa Ancona, Wife of murdered KKK leader, speaks only to News 4. A twitter account, @malissa72, is still up. The picture shows Mrs. Ancona kissing Mr. Ancona.
Prosecutor: KKK leader may have been killed because he wanted divorce. The St. Lous Post-Dispatch has been on top of the story. This report has an interesting passage: “Mark Potok, of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate organizations, said that Ancona’s group was “not very significant at all. This was one of the smallest groups out there.” Potok said the members received a lot of attention because they frequently handed out leaflets. He said he would be surprised if there were 40 members spread out among chapters in Potosi, Hayden, Idaho and Pennsylvania.
Ancona had been in a dispute with other Klan leaders, Potok said, who accused Ancona of being secretly Jewish and Malissa Ancona of being a Wiccan. Both were untrue, Potok believes, but the accusations are typical of the Klan world today, which consists of 29 different named organizations, “each one claiming to be the one true Klan and denigrating the others.”
People who like to be seen denouncing racism love to hate the kkk. Nothing you say about the bedsheet boys is out of bounds. The truth is that the kkk has as much influence as the bad guys in professional wrestling. The kkk is a fashion challenged version of the westboro baptist church. You have to wonder why people get so much enjoyment from trash talking the klan. Maybe this is a distraction for their own unresolved racial conflicts.
“…the Klan world today, which consists of 29 different named organizations, “each one claiming to be the one true Klan and denigrating the others.”” How did all these groups, that hate each other, get together for a national meeting? Do they call it the grand dragon con? Was this the meeting where they endorsed Donald Trump? That endorsement was reported by the Washington Post, and Rachel Maddow. Millions of Trump hating patriots accepted this news without a moment’s hesitation. The spell check suggestion for Maddow is Maddox.
If P.T. Barnum had ever said “There’s a sucker born every minute,” he would have been correct. The truth is, there is little evidence that he did. Here is a phony quote, about suckers, that is widely accepted as truth. There is a bit of synchronicity there. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
The Healey Building
A local blog recently had a feature about the Healey Building PG worked at 57 Forsyth Street for five years, between 1991 and 1995. This is a good excuse to write some text, and upload some pictures.
PG represented Redo Blue in an architect’s office on the fourteenth floor. His printroom was the third window from the north end, on the third floor from the top. There was a large window, on the west side overlooking Woodruff Park. A surprising amount of attention was captured by the gold dome of the State Capitol. At street level was Broad Street, home to a constantly changing array of merchants.
There were some sights coming in that window. On the coldest winter day in 1993, a music video was filmed on top of the Church’s Fried Chicken on Broad Street. On the week before the Super Bowl, The Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, and Martin Mull, kicked field goals in the park. When PG left town that Friday, a large, inflated rendering of Izzy, the Olympic mascot, was resting in the park.
It was not completely happy times. In April of 1992, a jury in California delivered an unpopular verdict. The next day, April 30, the streets downtown erupted. People in Rosa’s Pizza got a broken window, to go with their calzones. The next day, a notions shop on the Forsyth Street side had a sign in the window, “Black owned business”.
William T. Healey opened his office building in 1914. There were sixteen stories, taking the entire block between Broad, Walton, Forsyth and Poplar Streets. The firm of Morgan and Dillon designed the building. The original plan was to have twin towers, with the rotunda, and arcade, in the middle. World War One, and the death of Mr. Healey, put a stop to those plans.
The tower stood on the edge of the Fairlie-Poplar district. In photos of downtown, the Healey building, and the Candler building, serve as easily recognized landmarks. For many years, many bus lines ended on Walton Street, at the south end of the building. Hundreds of people waited there to change buses.That custom ended with Marta trains.
The Healey Building has many features that are no longer seen. The terra cotta details are too fancy for today’s buildings. The stairwells had a garbage chute. You could go to the garbage hole on any floor, and throw your trash to a receptacle down below. The building does not have a loading dock. A freight elevator pops up from behind a steel plate on the Forsyth Street sidewalk. This takes deliveries into the sub basement, where they are transferred onto the freight elevator.
Since 2001, the building has been Healey Building Condos
Pictures today are from Wendy Darling, The Healey Building, “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”, and Chamblee54. This is a repost.
More Talk About Racism
It is a cliche among certain pundits that this is not “Post Racial America.” No one seems to know what PRA would look like. PRA might be less noisy, with fewer odors, than the current model. The opinion that we do not live in PRA seems unanimous. After PG heard the denial of PRA one too many times, he began to wonder something. Who said America is Post Racial?
Mr. Google has 119 million answers to the question “who said america is post racial?” The short answer is nobody. The closest thing on the front Google page is an NPR commentary from January 2008. This was the early stages of the BHO run for the White House. The commenter said that the election of a dark skinned POTUS might usher in a post racial era in America.
This piece will not have any fresh opinions about race relations in America. That subject has been worn out elsewhere. If someone finds it to their advantage to denounce “racism”, there will be an audience. The truth is, very few people have ever said that America is Post Racial.
This is a double repost, on the subject that people can’t get enough of. If you can’t say anything good, you can always talk about racism. Pictures for this gloomy Saturday morning are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Some times you see something, and realize that you are being pushed over a line. Today’s straw, landing on the camel’s back, was a meme. It has pictures of a statesman-like BHO, and a goat smiling BS. The text was white comic sans letters, on a black background. “Regarding those who call Obama an illegitimate president because his father was born in Kenya, Bernie Sanders replied: “No one asked me if I was a citizen or not, and my dad came from Poland. Gee, what’s the difference? Maybe the color of my skin.” The comment was from a Las Vegas town hall meeting. Some things that are said in Vegas need to stay in Vegas.
No one denies that white people and black people often do not get along. Few deny that there is systemic inequality. The connection of “birther” speculation to systemic inequality is tough to see. Of course, the definition of racism is elastic, and can fit whatever situation the observer wants to critique.
Are we helping the cause of racial tranquility by making comments like that? Yes, it is foolish for “birthers” to whine about a birth certificate. But entertaining followers in a town hall debate does not mean you are going to be able to govern. Maybe BS should focus on his economic fantasies, and quit scoring cheap shots about racism.
The Color Of My Skin was originally published in February, 2016, when BS was taken seriously. As we all know, HDRC eventually got the Democratic nomination, only to lose to DJT in November.
Mr. Trump was one of the original “birthers,” or people disputing the Hawaiian birth of BHO. In the general election campaign, Democrats liked to say that DJT was a racist, with birtherism frequently given as an example. The many other unappealing parts of DJT, like crookedness and mental instability, were brushed aside, in the mad rush to scream racist. Some even went so far as to say that anyone voting for DJT was a racist. When the electoral votes were counted, DJT won.
#SignsOfANeighborFromHell
They invite me for dinner and I become dinner ~ Every time they have a party they rent an outhouse as a second bathroom & chain it to the telephone pole ~ While you’re in the hospital having heart surgery, he files a complaint with the city about your grass. ~ They were previously warned 3 times after killing chickens to keep the dog off your property. ~ The plywood skateboard ramp, held together with clothesline string and small 2x4s should have been the first warning sign. ~ When your company has to sleep on the couch because the busy prostitute who lives upstairs has a squeaky bed that is right above your guest bedroom. ~ Their kid rides a tricycle around your driveway screaming “Redrum! Redrum!” ~ The clothes on the clothesline are never theirs ~ The women wear daisy dukes with various NASCAR tube tops or tees. ~ They accuse you of not seeing it from their perspective, without even talking to you first. ~ You answer the door while drinking a beer. It’s a clean-cut man wearing a name tag and a back tie accompanied by a teenage wife and eight kids. He comes to the door to welcome you to the neighborhood toting the Book Of Mormon and says, “May we come in?” ~ Have a daughter who was just gifted a saxophone and has never had lessons… decides to wake up at 6am on weekends to “practice” ~ Their yard looks like a used car lot ~ They use your dumpster for all of the animals they’ve sacrificed. ~ Next door asshats own a beagle. In a metro city. Let it bark-howl outside for 30mins at a time. Think its fine because thats what dogs do, and I shouldn’t be working from home on a Saturday ~ When you go out to eat with them, they’ll disappear and leave you behind when it’s time to pay the check. ~ Have two stickers in the back window of their car: “Ask me about AMWAY!” and “Let me tell you about my personal relationship with Jesus.” ~ They’re so loud you started keeping score of who won the last argument ~ pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. ~ selah
Mardi Gras
It is fat tuesday again. For someone who lived most of his life in Georgia, it is just another day.
In 1990, PG went to carnival. He rented sleeping bag space in a house on Marigny Street, just outside the quarter. It was like nothing he had ever seen.
This was 14 months after PG quit drinking. If he had life to do over, he would have gone to Mardi Gras first. He did feel good about going through that much drinking without being tempted to participate.
By the end of the Rex Parade, PG was getting tired of the whole shebang, Mob scenes of drunks, in costume, can get old. PG has not been back.
Two years later, the Grateful Dead was playing at the Omni, and the camp followers were in the parking lot. PG would go on his lunch hour and observe. A young lady walked by, and PG said Happy Mardi Gras. She gave him a string of beads.
Five years after that, PG had a boss from New Orleans. He looked like the Grinch who stole Christmas. He also hated Mardi Gras. PG did not know this, and greeted him Tuesday morning with a cheerful Happy Mardi Gras. If looks could kill, PG would have dropped dead. This is a repost, with pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
The Georgian Terrace Ballroom
The Georgian Terrace hotel used to have an adjacent ballroom. The building opened as the “Lucky Strike”, featuring “Duck Pin” bowling. At some time, it became a 1300 seat ballroom. It was not the grand ballroom, where events for the premiere of “Gone With The Wind” were held. As time moved on, the ballroom became a music performance hall. PG saw shows there under four different business names. After the Agora Ballroom closed, the building was vacant, until a fire August 30, 1987. The site of the ballroom is now occupied by an annex of the Georgian Terrace Hotel.
The first show PG saw at this facility was in 1972. The name of the business is forgotten, as is the act that performed. A band, comprised of people PG went to high school with, played before he got there.
In 1974, “Big Time” promoter Alex Cooley opened “Alex Cooley’s Electric Ballroom”. (Alex Cooley died December 1, 2015.) The first show that PG saw was Dr. John The Night Tripper. A few months later, Capricorn artists Cowboy played, with a vulgar New York band named Mercury opening. Gato Barbieri played, with PG wondering how people could dance to that type of music.
Several major acts appeared at the Ballroom, mostly without PG in the audience. KISS played there in 1974, and photographs from backstage are in the embedded video. In April of 1974, Steely Dan was across from the Fox. In the summer of 1974, The Tubes played a week at the ballroom, with another heavily hyped show. On January 23, 1976, The Patti Smith Group played at the ballroom.
In 1975, Bruce Springsteen was on the covers of Time and Newsweek, and was receiving a promotional push unlike anything seen before. He played a show at the ballroom that summer, with a generous press party in the balcony. (At one unforgettable show Alex was caught off guard by a Bruce Springsteen request. “He asked if we could shut down the cash registers because they were making too much noise!… That’s the only time I ever did that.” Alex admits.)
PG attended two shows in 1975. Mckendree Spring opened for Fanny, while PG drank too many bourbon and cokes. In November of 1975, Juice Newton opened for Hot Tuna. Miss Newton seemed to be a bit pale, and performed “Get drunk and screw”. Hot Tuna was amazing. They went on stage at 10:55, and played, without a break, until 2:50. The drummer wore a shirt, mother fucking hot tuna. Few would argue that night.
In autumn of 1977, some brave soul opened a place called “The Ballroom” in the space on Peachtree Street. One night, PG went with some friends to see an act, Happy the Man. There seemed to be a bit of chaos in the management of the facility. The Great Southeast Music Hall loaned a few microphones for the show. When the show was over, PG walked out to a car, whose motor was running, with the driver asleep inside.
In the summer of 1978, the ballroom opened as The Agora Ballroom. Apparently, there is a music hall in Cleveland with that name, and they opened branch facilities around the country. There were some shows that PG did not attend. Todd Rundgren opened the facility August 19, 1978. On October 2, 1979, The Clash played. Pictures from the crowd appeared on an album by the band. On December 2, 1981, U2 made their Atlanta debut.
A few weeks after the opening, PG won tickets to an all Texas show. Marcia Ball opened, and a bored PG went to a neighborhood bar to drink beer. PG returned later, and stayed long enough for the singer with Asleep at the Wheel to ask the crowd, Are you stoned?
In November of 1978, PG called a radio station, and asked to be put on the guest list for Talking Heads . (For Talking Heads, and three links in the following paragraphs, the link is for a previous Chamblee 54 post about the show.) The first six people he called were busy, but the last one agreed to go. On the bus going home, a group of black men started to make unfriendly comments. At the next stop, a black friend of PG got on the bus, and went to talk to him.
A few weeks later, Tim Curry made his United States debut. Some record company invested a lot of money in him, and supplied him with an outstanding band. PG was wandering around the balcony after the first show, and saw Tom Waits sitting at a table. The bodyguard said no, that’s not Tom Waits, it is just someone that looks like him. At a bar, after the show, PG was raving about what he had seen, when a lady came up to him. What color are your eyes? They are brown, because you are full of shit. Soon, the 23 Oglethorpe was taking him home.
Somewhere in the haze of 78 and 79, Ultravox brought their synthetics to the Agora. A local band, First Blood, was more entertaining as the opener. PG drank a very large can of Foster’s beer, and floated through the proceedings. After the show, PG was invited to a party in Candler Park. On the way there, there was a horrific car crash on Ponce de Leon. At the party, friends of First Blood dissected their performance, between lines of coke.
One night, PG was enjoying drink specials at a neighborhood bar. He took a break, walked over to the Agora, and saw a few minutes of a show by Freddie Hubbard.
In early 1979, the B 52s were on the verge of stardom. (Here is a nifty feature about the Atlanta local music scene in those days.) The opener for the 52s was The Brains , yet another talented band that never made it big. At the table next to PG, a lady wore a dynamite World War Two army uniform.
Later in 1979, Ted Turner had an idea for a TV show, “Live at the Agora”. The first show was filmed in Atlanta, and featured Graham Parker and the Rumor. If they ever show that film again, and you see a crowd shot, that is PG wearing a white T shirt, with a white Agora iron on logo. Parker was a great musician, who had the misfortune to look like Big Bird’s nerdy little brother. If Graham Parker looked like Bruce Springsteen, he would have been a superstar.
In March of 1980, Lene Lovich came to the Agora. About a year later, Spirit played on Peachtree Street. The show was sponsored by a radio station, and tickets were $2.96. Despite the low price, and high musical quality, the balcony was closed, and only about a hundred people were at the show. PG thought this was odd, but little surprised him by this time.
The last show that PG caught at the Agora was The Ramones. Joey and the pinheads were past their prime, with only two original members playing. It was an all ages show, with alcohol served in the balcony. Downstairs was a festive party, with costumes and enthusiastic high school kids. The balcony was the same rock and roll drunks you had seen for years. The Ramones would have made a great oldies band, if they could have quit dying. This is a repost, with pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
The Great Speckled Bird
One day in the eighth grade, PG had a sore spot in his eye. They called it a stye. One afternoon, he got out of school, walked to Lenox Square, saw a doctor, and got some eye drops.
When he left the doctor’s office, there was a man, standing in front of Rich’s on the sidewalk, selling a newspaper. He had blond hair down past his shoulders. PG asked what the newspaper was. Mostly politics, he said. PG gave him fifteen cents for a copy of “The Great Speckled Bird”.
The Bird was an underground newspaper. It was so bad, it needed to be buried. If you are under fifty, you have probably never seen one. These papers flourished for a while. The Bird was published from 1968 to 1976. The April 26, 1968 edition was volume one, number four. This was what PG bought that day.
The GSU Library has a digital collection. Included in it are copies of The Great Speckled Bird. Included in this collection is edition number four. PG went looking for that first copy. He needed to be patient, for the GSU server took it’s time. Finally, the copy he asked for came up. It was mostly politics.
When PG saw page four, he knew it was the edition from 1968. “Sergeant Pepper’s Vietnam Report” was the story of a young man sent to Nam. It had a paragraph that impressed young PG, and is reproduced here. The rest of the article is not that great, which is typical of most underground newspaper writing.
A couple of years later, PG spent the summer working at the Lenox Square Theater. The number two screen was a long skinny room. If you stood in the right place, you could hear the electric door openers of the Colonial Grocery store upstairs. The Bird salesmen were a feature at the mall that summer, which not everyone appreciated. This was the year of the second, and last, Atlanta Pop Festival. PG was not quite hip enough to make it. He was back in the city, taking tickets for “Fellini Satyricon”. The Bird was printing 26 pages an issue, with lots of ads, pictures, and the distinctive graphics of the era.
Vol.3 no 26 June 29, 1970 was especially memorable. On page 17, there was a bit of eyeroll inducing polemic. PG was easy to impress. The first paragraph is the one that matters. “What is Gay Liberation? It is people telling the truth; it is me telling you the truth NOW, homosexuality is the CAPACITY to love someone of the same sex. Forget all the crap about causes (no one knows and we don’t care), “cures” (there aren’t any, thank god), and “problems.”The only problem is society’s anti-homosexual propaganda and the oppression it has produced.”
Stories about hippies, and the Bird, can be found at The Strip Project. This repost has pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
One Diamond Two Believers Four Monkees
JoemyG-d has been running videos of number one hits lately. Today, the numero uno is from 1966. It is by the Monkees, called “I’m a Believer”.
PG always liked the Monkees. They were the twelve year old’s band when he was twelve years old. There was an article in the Saturday Evening Post about the “Pre Fab Four”, and a classmate of PG said that he was disillusioned. Certainly no one was confused about the made for tv nature of the band. The rumors…which turned out to be true…said that the Monkees did not play the instruments on their debut album. Still, a seventh grader is easily amused, and the show was fun to watch.
“I’m a Believer” was written by Neil Diamond, aka the Jewish Elvis. Mr. Diamond played guitar on the Monkees version of IAB. (Michael Nesmith does a convincing imitation in the video. It is not known if he was wearing the green hat.)
IAB is part of the rock tradition of misunderstood lyrics. PG thought that Mickey said he “needed sunshine on my brain”. PG did not learn the truth for many years. One afternoon, he heard a band on the radio do IAB, and the lyrics were understood. What the song really said was, “when I needed sunshine I got rain. “
This is a repost, with pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. The video in the original post is no longer on youtube, but there was no shortage of replacements. The video used today is one PG remembers from the TV show.
The other video, with unfortunate sound, is from the second year of “The Monkees”. PG did not like Mickey Dolenz with frizzy hair, and quit watching the show. 13 is a year older than 12. The fall of 1967 found PG as an eighth grader, or “subbie”, at a grungy high school. This was the first year after Lynwood Park High School closed. A few people were not happy about integration.
The other video has the word believer in the title. (The middle of the word believer is LIE.) One afternoon, the disc jockey at WQXI said he was tired of playing that stupid song by the Monkees. Before long, the Monkees were replaced by the Partridge Family.
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