Chamblee54

Three years ago, PG saw a writers prompt. The suggestion was to write a letter to yourself when you were fourteen years old. A few days later, another one said to write a letter to yourself in twenty years. The result was Letter To Fourteen Year Old PG , and Letter To Seventy Eight Year Old PG. These two letters are reproduced here. They still read as though it were 2012, and an election is eminent. Out of a spirit of doing things the unconventional way, the letter to the seventy eight year old will come first. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
There was a suggestion at WordPress to write a letter to yourself as a fourteen year old, and another letter to yourself in twenty years. PG thought this was a cool idea. If the trackback went up on the WordPress site, then it might generate some traffic for this blog. It might even get the attention of Freshly Pressed , which has never featured Chamblee54.
It is like General Halftrack and the Pentagon. The Daily Post did not post a link to friday’s letter. The traffic went below one hundred hits on saturday. Now it is sunday, the clocks are set back an hour, and it is trying to rain. The letter to a seventy eight year old PG is a good idea, so here it goes. Once again, it is in first person.
Ok, so you are twenty years older. Or maybe you are not. The three main older people in this life were Mom, Dad, and Gran. They all died when they were seventy five, except for Mom, who made it to seventy six. Seventy eight might be pushing things a bit, considering the way things sometimes feel at fifty eight. The idea is to write this letter, and not worry about whether the destination will have an internet connection. You will change planes in Atlanta either way.
This is the sunday before the Presidential election, aka the day when a dictatorship doesn’t sound so bad. People in Georgia have their votes stolen from them by the electoral college, so we don’t have to choose between a war criminal and a liar.
There is a saying about holding your nose when you vote. The neighborhood precinct is the cafetorium of a school. Unless you are blocking the memory, you might recall going to classes in that building. Tuesday will not be the first time I have held my nose in that cafetorium.
This is the first year of the City of Brookhaven. I find myself choosing people on the basis of personalities, rather than issues. When it comes to the so called issues, the candidates seem to say the same things. This is true for the State House race, which is the other choice I will have. The repub is just plain gross. Mr. Bahhumbug has a bright future if he doesn’t get caught again.
There is no telling what the election choices will be in 2032. Assuming that the electoral college continues to facilitate the two party duopoly, you probably won’t have much of a choice. The takeover by the moneylenders should be complete by that point.
Since we are doing this in twenty year cycles, lets look back to some other elections. The first time I got to vote was 1972. Tricky Dick was a thief, and a war criminal, but George McGovern was a dummy. The problem for Tricky Dick was the second term syndrome. Most Presidents who are reelected for a second full term have horrible problems. While Mr. Nixon’s second term was not as bad as those of Abraham Lincoln or William McKinley, he did have his problems.
In 1992, it looked like Daddy Bush was sailing to victory. He won a war, and the Democratic candidate was Slick Willie Clinton. (From Tricky Dick to Slick Willie, Bebe Rebozo to Monica Lewinsky.) Ross Perot threw a monkey wrench in the electoral works by running as a third party candidate. This is a feature of the duopoly… when one party wins too many times, something strange happens.
It happened in 1912, when Theodore Roosevelt ran as a third party candidate, and Woodrow Wilson got elected. Within a year, the Federal Reserve Bank was set up. After the re-election of Mr. Wilson, we got mixed up in World War One. We can ignore the elections of 1932 and 1952.
There is one more election that should be discussed here, even though it is not part of the twenty year cycle. I was listening to a chat before the 2000 election. One person thought it was important to vote for Al Gore. This had been a dull election. George W. Bush was sort of an unknown quality, while Al Gore was not a terribly inspiring figure.
That is not how things turned out. W was allowed to serve, after Mr. Gore won the popular vote. Seven months after the inauguration, 911 kick started the twenty first century. The response of W was to start two self destructive wars. With the help of the demoze, there was a tax cut before the start of the second war. The economy may never recover.
So, it is good form to write a last paragraph to these things. It is an act of optimism to assume you will be here in twenty years. Living in the WMD age, the idea of thermonuclear catastrophe has always been present. The possibility of man making the planet unlivable is also very real. Maybe a dependable source of non destructive energy will be found in the next twenty years, to go with a dependable source of water for Atlanta. The future has always been dim, but continues to happen.

WordPress has this feature, the Daily Post. The idea is to get people to post more to their blog. PG already puts up material almost every day, but is generally open to new ideas. Today, the “daily prompt” is “Write a letter to your 14-year-old self.” It doesn’t say what part of your fifteenth year this should be, so PG is going for the weekend before the Presidential election. Yes, Forty Four years ago PG was fourteen. This will be written in first person.
Hey. It was suggested that I write a letter to myself when I was fourteen. The idea was to get people to write more. The thing is, I am already writing all the time. I post something to my “blog” every day. This can be suggestion number one… you don’t have to be part of a group effort to achieve something. Sometimes, you can do very well on your own. For a socially retarded person like me/you, that is not always an option.
December 31, 1988, was my last day as a beer drinker. Growing up in a teetotaling Baptist household, I never learned how to drink in good taste. When I did pick up the habit, I drank more than I should. After a while, I decided it was time to quit. I did it on my own, without going to AA. I never made a promise not to drink, I just did. That may be the one thing I have gotten right in my life. If I had not quit drinking when I did, there is a good chance I would not be here today.
I mentioned writing a blog. This is a one man operation, putting up stories and pictures in a magazine format. People look at it on machines that run through phone lines. There is more to it than that, but you will see this in about thirty years.
The 1968 Presidential election is on tuesday. This was between Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon, and George Wallace. People said it was the worst choice they could remember. You will hear that phrase every four years, and it is always the truth. It is more truth than either candidate says. Every four years, the choices get worse. This year, the incumbent President was half white, half African, and that the Republican challenger is a Mormon. Neither one is very impressive.
There was a state senator running for Governor two years ago named Jimmy Carter. You voted for him in the seventh grade straw poll. Well, smiling Jimmy was elected Governor in 1970. When his four years was over, he ran for President, and won.
You are in ninth grade now, and it is a bit better than eighth. Cross Keys is a stinky, dangerous place. They closed down Lynwood Park High before you were in the eighth grade, and the first year was wild. This is the first time you have to deal with Black people, but it will not be the last. Sometimes you get along with them, and sometimes you don’t. It is a part of life.
Puberty has not kicked in yet, and you are wondering if it ever will. Eventually, your body will grow some hair, but not nearly as much as most other men. After a while, you will learn to enjoy your body.
It is difficult to make and keep friends. It was true in 1968, and it is true forty four years later. After a while, you get used to being by yourself, but do wish you could have more close relationships. Well, it is better than having no friends at all, and there are people in that boat.
There is a war going on, and you think it is going to go on until you are old enough to fight. The good news is that the troops will come home from Vietnam in 1973. President Nixon dragged the war out as long as he could, and finally made a deal with the communists.
Advice from an old person is usually ignored by the young, so I will not even try. Even with all the disappointments, it is good to be alive in 2012. There were a few close calls. I somehow wonder how, and why, I made it this far. Some would not be happy with this life, and there are days when I am not. This is the only choice. There is speculation about other lives, but this is the only one to be certain of. Even though it might not be what some would want, this is a good life.
One more thing about living and dying before we go. You are still going to church. That lasts a couple of more years, and then you have the rest of your life. Don’t worry about the stuff they teach at church about life after death. It isn’t the truth. People will use religion as another reason to hate you. Deal with it as best you can. Just try to make yourself happier, don’t hurt anyone unless you have to, and things will be either all right, or not all right.

Obviously,there is something to be said for wanting to speak up, but not having anything to say. To prove that, I am going to talk about a word…esoteric. According to Wiktionary , esoteric is :”1. Having to do with concepts that are highly theoretical and without obvious practical application. 2. Understood only by a chosen few or an inner circle. 3. Confidential; private.”
The “E word” plays a role in a story from 10th grade English. We were discussing a story, “The Rocking Horse Winner”, by D.H. Lawrence. The story was, well, boring and obscure, just like most of what I have seen by Mr. Lawrence.
The summer after 10th grade I worked in a movie theater. The ushers wore ghastly yellow uniforms, and saw the movies over and over. When I started, the Lenox Square 2 theater was showing “Women in Love”, based on a novel my D.H. Lawrence. Glenda Jackson copped an oscar for her portrayal of Gudrun Brangwen, and young Larry Kramer was one of the screenwriters. It did not improve my opinion of D.H. Lawrence. If the censors had not touched “Lady Chatterly’s Lover” D.H. Lawrence would be forgotten today.
Back to 10th grade english. We were discussing this wretched story, and a girl raised her hand. Why would any author would write something so esoteric? The teacher had never heard of this word before, and was amazed to hear it.
The Lenox Square 2 theater was a long, slender thing with a small screen. This was in 1970, when the concept of the multiplex had not evolved yet. LS2 was under a grocery store, and when the automatic door openers performed their duty, you could hear the motors in the theater below. The movies the rest of the summer were Fellini Satyricon, The Christine Jorgenson Story, and The Landlord.
Back to esoteric…or did I ever go away? Before you can understand esoteric, you must plumb the depths of pedantic. “1. Like a pedant, overly concerned with formal rules and trivial points of learning. 2. Being showy of one’s knowledge, often in a boring manner. 3. Often used to describe a person who emphasizes his/her knowledge through the use of vocabulary; ostentatious in one’s learning. 4. Being finicky or picky with language.” Pedantic is an adjective that describes itself. This repost has pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives Georgia State University Library”.

Opinions are like assholes… everyone has theirs down there. They’re a part of life. The concept of scientific proof for opinions complicates matters. The use of malignant mischaracterizations, snide permission, and preferred pronoun privilege will help, to finance the unicorn ranch Bernie has promised to build. ~ Amy Vanderbilt said not to jump out of a window. ~ A pineapple is a symbol of hospitality. ~ ‘Modern Girl’ Carrie Brownstein Describes Finding (And Hiding) Herself In Music ~ music ~ Don’t Be a Racist for Halloween – Here’s Why Cultures Aren’t Costumes ~ reddit ~ 8 Sneaky Racial Code Words and Why Politicians Love Them ~ Which companies bankroll the candidates? ~ make galileo look just like a boy scout ~ I Don’t Discuss Racism With White People ~ A better title for this piece might be “10 signs that you are an asshole.” Most jerks (the term I prefer) don’t need a reason. ~ Instead of insulting a useful body part, why don’t we call unpleasant people “Trumps” ~ @LibtardLimbaugh Rush Limbaugh’s Libtard Brother From Another Mother & Proud Left Wing Nut Job ~ Politics is the entertainment division of the military industrial complex ~ The primary will be the only time people in Georgia have a vote. The electoral college effectively takes our vote away in November. It is interesting that none of the candidates are calling for reform of the way we choose the POTUS. ~ I realize that campaigning for political office requires money. My comment was a bit of recreational $nark. B$ can take a joke. Which is a good thing, because he is too ugly to fuck ~ “The alternative to grassroots support is a country run by wealthy interests.” I am not sure about that comparison. Hitlery can make more in one corporate blowjob than BS can in a month of grass roots support. BHO did not get a billion dollars for his reelection from five dollar contributions. While the concept of grassroots support is uplifting, the sordid reality is that we live in a bribe-ocracy ~ Johnny Ayahuasca @RealJohnnyAyaOn a Shamanic path. Minimalism, Ayahuasca DMT, machine elves, Consciousness, Synchronicity, Comedy, personal transformation ~ The secret of being a good leader is to have good players with you. ~ I. Ognib is a fine fellow. ~ Is this where the Ramones got their name? ~ No, Your Hardships Don’t Erase Your White Privilege ~ pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. ~ selah

1. The fattest knight at King Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference.
He acquired his size from eating too much pi.
2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.
3. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.
4. The teacher confiscated a rubber band pistol was confiscated from a student in an algebra class, because it was a weapon of math disruption.
5. No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.
6. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.
7. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.
8. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.
9. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.
10. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
11. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
12. A baseball cap and a beret were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. The beret said to the cap:
‘You stay here; I’ll go on a head.
13. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.
14. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: ‘Keep off the Grass.’
15. The midget fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.
16. The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.
17. A backward poet writes inverse.
18. In a democracy it’s your vote that counts. In feudalism it’s your count that votes.
19. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.
20. If you jumped off the bridge in Paris, you’d be in Seine.
21. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, ‘I’m sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.’
22. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. One turns to the other and says ‘Dam!’
23. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft.
Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can’t have your kayak and heat it too.
24. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, ‘I’ve lost my electron.’ The other says ‘Are you sure?’
The first replies, ‘Yes, I’m positive.’
25. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal?
He wanted to transcend dental medication.
26. There was the person who sent ten puns to friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did.
27. This is a repost. Pictures for this questionable use of technology are provided courtesy of “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.

another monday morning collections of facebook comments i was too discreet to publish, links to things i never wrote about, disclaimers, boilerplate, and pictures of country roads going nowhere ~ @postcrunk the cultural fetishization of virginity and the economic fetishization of brand new products are the same thing ~ #Junky is a book where you appreciate the privilege of leaving the story for your own life ~ ‏@SlavojTweezek @WernerTwertzog The hole, of course, is god. !~ sticks and stones may break my bones but words can also hurt me compliments make me uncomfortable i have social anxiety resting bitch face negative attitude jesus hates me i don’t believe you i am a wreck just go ~ I thought it was legal for two fruit crates to get married. ~ I don’t know if involving police is a good idea. Snitch is a worse insult than faggot. ~ Roseanne Barr? ~ are we keeping #carlyfiorina alive so we can harvest her brain? ~ foreplay ~ So far, Brookhaven government has been bad. Maybe Lysol could be our City Symbol. In no particular order, here is what I want to see: 1. Leave Pink Pony alone. 2. Secure the Greenspace at PDK. It would be OK to give the county a couple of acres on Clairmont to park their work vehicles. The rest of that lands needs to be a permanent passive green space. This is an opportunity that will not come back. Once this space is lost, it is lost forever. 3. Use vision and common sense while redeveloping the land around the Marta station. This is another one time opportunity that needs to be done carefully. I don’t have any thoughts on how to do this, except that we should be skeptical of the claims of developers. 4. The less commercial development the better. 5. Discourage the building of McMansions. Encourage the renovation of the existing houses. 6. Encourage the Police to be aggressive against bad drivers from outside the city. ~ @whitman632 The sheer magnitude of human insignificance is incomprehensible. ~ I hope no one takes their life after reading this post. Good intentions do not always lead to good results. ~ @BurnBrigettes @RISKshow @TheKevinAllison Why did the dead baby cross the road? he was trying to get to the post office use stamps dot com ~ I heard a teacher say that the best way to win an argument was to use statistics. The best way to get statistics is to make them up. ~ @ChrchCurmudgeon Hashtag unto others as you would have them hashtag unto you. ~ This is on top of my facebook feed right now.~ We never had any goals in Afghanistan. Our invasion was a knee jerk reaction to 911. The only other possible goal was to protect the heroin merchants, which has also been achieved. ~ @sullydish @robertwrighter ~ I believe a literary classic was written in Tennessee: 200 Yards to the Outhouse, by Willie Makeit and Betty Wont ~ In the immortal song “Hello Muddah Hello Faddah”, there is a scary line. “You remember Leonard Skinner He got ptomaine poisoning last night after dinner” Just Gimme Three Steps. ~ said it much better ~ libruls ~ what he said ~ @miragonz imagine how hard life is gonna be for the children of youtube celebrities ~ @AdviceToWriters Mere literary talent is common; what is rare is endurance, the continuing desire 2 work hard at writing. DONALD HALL ~ Maybe it is time to just admit that racism is anything that you don’t like, and is a meaningless all purpose insult. ~ @postcrunk thank god we’re the least religious generation ~ You’d rather pursue science than waste time contemplating metaphysics? That’s sad. Perhaps you knew that Newton was an alchemist, a philosopher, a historian, a theologian, and a warden of of the mint… and, in his spare time, a physicist and a mathematician. ~ 14 words: Candied lemon roasted brussel sprout and caramelized onion white pizza with roasted garlic sauce. ~ 33 characters left if you put this on twitter ~ the power went out and the machine opens in safe mode this is not the same as the old sm, where you could play games the only thing you can do in this sm is write there probably are other things to do but i am not going to look for them now ~ Eʟɛʍɛռtaʟ ɛaʀtɦ, tɦɛʀɛ’s օռʟʏ օռɛ ɖɨʀɛċtɨօռ , up ~ australian rupert murdoch is top trending topic he did not die he said usa needs a “real black” potus ~ The domain Whiteprivilege.com is listed for sale. Click here to inquire about this domain name. ~ Sedo LogoThis page provided to the domain owner free by Sedo’s Domain Parking. Disclaimer: Domain owner and Sedo maintain no relationship with third party advertisers. Reference to any specific service or trade mark is not controlled by Sedo or domain owner and does not constitute or imply its association, endorsement or recommendation. ~ Is Benghazi the best scandal the Repubs can dig up? ~ Maybe it is time for a discussion of how visible we want to be. Do you want to tell the commercial media that you are a “radical faerie,” with all the opportunities for misunderstanding that would involve? Or do we want to be a bit more opaque about it? Bear in mind, we don’t have memberships. You don’t join the faeries. (or not join, because someone said something you do not like) Anyone can call them self a “radical faerie.” Is it appropriate to call yourself a “radical faerie” when listing your qualifications? Maybe a “secret society” is more of the way to go.~ “He ain’t even from ATL! He just moved here and he just played y’all like sheep and pocketed sooooo much of your money.” That narrows it down to about 100,000 people. ~ @JamilSmith That Raven-Symoné used “Watermelonisha” as an example of a “black name” shows you how deep the internalized racism and self-hatred goes. ~ is “Black as a dice game at a church fish fry” racist? #Ebony magazine said it about #RavenSymone ~ Franklin Graham is the poster child for the dangers of nepotism ~ Quote Investigator has found no substantive linkage to Dorothy Parker. ~ I do not recommend Ian Curtis as a role model. ~ ‏@SlavojTweezek You have no more right to demand that I be consistent than I have to demand that you be interesting. ~ PROTESTER ~ Let me just be candid: My party is full of racists. ~ @ListofX Arguing which politician is more authentic is like arguing which lion is more of a vegetarian. #Clinton vs #Biden ~ I thought entitlement was a type of chewing gum. ~ publix takedown ~ White Women, Please Don’t Expect Me to Wipe Away Your Tears ~ 9 Ways We Can Make Social Justice Movements Less Elitist and More Accessible ~ EVERYDAY SELF-LOVE COURSE ~ synchronicity ~ Davis: What Hurts Me Most Is ‘When Someone Tells Me My God Doesn’t Love Me’ ~ pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. ~ selah