Religion And Perfume
Religion and perfume have several things in common. They are both fun to smell, but dangerous to swallow. A tasteful drop behind the ear is pleasant. Too much, and you will run from the room gasping for breath. Both are cheap products, sold in a fancy bottle, at a steep markup.
Before easy access to water, people did not bathe every day. To cover up the aroma of human existence, many used fragrances. This too is similar to the function of religion.
Perfume has been considered a feminine product. In a clever marketing move, a masculine scent was called cologne, and sold to men. Religion is gross to many people, so it is sold as faith.
Smell is a driving force in animal behavior. Ants used smell to communicate, and perform feats in numbers which would be impossible as individuals. Smells go directly to the brain, without filtering and processing like sounds, sights, and tastes. Religion is the emotional equivalent of odors. This is a repost. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
What Denomination Are You?
This feature was written in 2014. The link to the quiz no longer works. There have been changes in the laws, and attitudes, of our society. … The fbf put up a link to an internet quiz, What Christian Denomination Should You Actually Be a Part Of? As the reader(s) of this blog might discern, I am an acknowledged non christian. My favorite denomination is the twenty.
The first question is “What is the source of your beliefs?” The choices include scripture, uncertainty, conscience, and people who talk about scripture. This question presupposes the omnipotence of the belief paradigm. In other words, not everyone feels that what you believe is a big deal.
I have three “fundamental” beliefs regarding xtianity. God does not write books. Jesus has nothing to do with life after death. It is none of your business. Are these concepts an allergic reaction to years of christian noise, both joyful and joyless? Is it a weary soul talking common sense? Who came first, the chicken, or the egg? Do you really need to know?
The second question is “how is one “saved?”” This is a big deal to Jesus worshipers. The xtian obsession with life after death makes me want to run screaming. The seldom heard option offered here is “I don’t know/no opinion.”
One concept is that what happens to the dead is none of the living’s business. Maybe, if you have faith in God, things will turn out ok. When you devote every sunday morning to screaming about so called salvation, you advertise a lack of faith in God.
Third is “what are your opinions on war?” This is one of those contradictions. You just have to understand. An abortion is bloody murder. When Israel shells a school housing refugees, it is justifiable self defense. The reconciliation of beliefs and practices is a source of brain damage. This is not a spiritually uplifting practice.
In many questions, you must choose the least bad answer. This is typical. For what type of worship suits you, being home churched is not an option. For what definition of the trinity best describes your belief, there are no good answers. I feel that the concept of a triune God is a grotesque violation of the First commandment.
The first commandment says to have no other God before you. In Jesus worship, this one God expands to at least six: God, Jesus, Holy Ghost, The Bible, Satan, and Salvation.
There are a few more questions. There is a Catholic slant to this quiz, with emphasis on the Virgin Mary. There is the concept that authority in today’s church was passed down from the disciples. Hopefully, Judas was not included. Finally, there is a question about Gay marriage. Maybe this quiz was designed by a Catholic divorce lawyer.
The answer was probably as good as could be expected. “You should really be Non-Denominational! You’ve never understood why people get so caught up with labels, creeds, and institutions. For you, faith is what matters. You have a personal relationship with God and you’re not so worried about being a member of any specific group or sect. You enjoy Bible study, casual gatherings, and a church where everyone is welcome regardless of theological labels.”
Whatever. Why study a book that teaches people to hate you? Maybe the advertisers at this quiz are getting a spiritual return on their investment. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
The Funeral Of Elvis
This is a repost. I was going to write about some depressing subject. People that are not kind to each other. People in Israel and people in Gaza just don’t seem to get along. Either Donald John Trump or Kamala Devi Harris is going to be our next President. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
There is a saying, “if a story seems too bad to be true, it probably isn’t”. I tried to google that phrase, and got confused. Then he seemed to remember reading it in a column by Molly Ivins. Another google adventure, and there was this video. Miss Ivins, who met her maker January 31, 2007, was promoting a book. She sat down with a bald headed man to talk about it. I could only listen to 24:30 of this video before being seized with the urge to write a story. There is a transcript, which makes “borrowing” so much easier. This film has 34 minutes to go, which just might yield another story.
Molly Ivins was a Texas woman. These days there is a lot of talk about Texas, with Governor Big Hair aiming to be the next POTUS under indictment. Mr. Perry claims that his record as Texas Governor qualifies him to have his finger on the nuclear trigger. Miss Ivins repeats something that I had heard before… “in our state we have the weak governor system, so that really not a great deal is required of the governor, not necessarily to know much or do much. And we’ve had a lot of governors who did neither. “ It makes you wonder how much of that “economic miracle” is because of hair spray.
Texas politics makes about as much sense as Georgia politics. For a lady, with a way with words, it is a gold mine. “the need you have for descriptive terms for stupid when you write about Texas politics is practically infinite. Now I’m not claiming that our state Legislature is dumber than the average state Legislature, but it tends to be dumb in such an outstanding way. It’s, again, that Texas quality of exaggeration and being slightly larger than life. And there are a fair number of people in the Texas Legislature of whom it could fairly be said, `If dumb was dirt, they would cover about an acre.’ And I’m not necessarily opposed to that. I’m–agree with an old state senator who always said that, `If you took all the fools out of the Legislature, it would not be a representative body anymore.'”
We could go through this conversation for a long time, but you probably want to skip ahead and look at pictures. There is one story in this transcript that is too good not to borrow. For some reason, Molly Ivins went to work for The New York Times, aka the gray lady. In August of 1977, she was in the right place at the right time.
Mr. LAMB: And how long did you spend with The New York Times as a reporter?
Ms. IVINS: Six years with The New York Times. Some of it in New York as a political reporter at City Hall in Albany and then later as bureau chief out in the Rocky Mountains.
Mr. LAMB: Would you take a little time and tell us about reporting on the funeral of Elvis Presley?
Ms. IVINS: Oh, now there is something that when I’ve been standing in the checkout line at the grocery store and if I really need to impress people, I just let fall that I covered Elvis’ funeral. And, boy, people just practically draw back with awe. It may yet turn out to be my greatest claim to fame.
I was sitting in The New York City Times one day when I noticed a whole no–knot of editors up around the desk having a–a great scrum of concern, you could tell. It looked sort of like an anthill that had just been stepped on. And it turns out–The New York Times has a large obituary desk, and they prepare obituaries for anybody of prominence who might croak. But it turns out–you may recall that Elvis Presley died untimely and they were completely unprepared.
Now this is an enormous news organization. They have rock music critics and classical music critics and opera critics, but they didn’t have anybody who knew about Elvis Presley’s kind of music. So they’re lookin’ across a whole acre of reporters, and you could see them decide, `Ah-ha, Ivins. She talks funny. She’ll know about Mr. Presley.’
So I wound up writing Elvis’ obituary for The New York Times. I had to refer to him throughout as Mr. Presley. It was agonizing. That’s the style at The New York Times–Mr. Presley. Give me a break. And the next day they sold more newspapers than they did after John Kennedy was assassinated, so that even the editors of The New York Times, who had not quite, you know, been culturally aton–tuned to Elvis, decided that we should send someone to report on the funeral. And I drew that assignment. What a scene it was.
Mr. LAMB: You–you say in the book that you got in the cab and you said, `Take me to Graceland.’ The cabbie peels out of the airport doing 80 and then turns full around to the backseat and drawls, `Ain’t it a shame Elvis had to die while the Shriners are in town?’
Ms. IVINS: That’s exactly what he said. `Shame Elvis had to die while the Shriners are in town.’ And I kind of raised by eyebrows. And sure enough, I realized what he–what he meant after I had been there for awhile because, you know, Shriners in convention–I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a whole lot of Shriners in convention, but they were having a huge national convention that very week in Memphis. And they tend to wear their little red fezzes, and sometimes they drink too much and they march around the hotel hallways tooting on New Year’s Eve horns and riding those funny little tricycles and generally cutting up and having a good time. That’s your Shriners in convention, always something very edifying and enjoyable to watch. But they–every–every hotel room in Memphis was occupied with celebrating Shriners, and then Elvis dies and all these tens of thousands of grieving, hysterical Elvis Presley fans descend on the town.
So you got a whole bunch of sobbing, hysterical Elvis fans, you got a whole bunch of cavorting Shriners. And on top of that they were holding a cheerleading camp. And the cheerleading camp–I don’t know if your memory–with the ethos of the cheerleading camp, but the deal is that every school sends its team–team of cheerleaders to cheerleading camp.
And your effort there at the camp is to win the spirit stick, which looks, to the uninitiated eye, a whole lot like a broom handle painted red, white and blue. But it is the spirit stick. And should your team win it for three days running, you get to keep it. But that has never happened. And the way you earn the spirit stick is you show most spirit. You cheer for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You cheer when the pizza man brings the pizza. You do handsprings end over end down the hallway to the bathroom. I tell you, those young people will throw–show an amount of spirit that would just astonish you in an effort to win that stick.
So here I was for an entire week, dealing with these three groups of people: the young cheerleaders trying to win the spirit stick, the cavorting Shriners and the grieving, hysterical Elvis fans. And I want to assure you that The New York Times is not the kind of newspaper that will let you write about that kind of rich human comedy.
Mr. LAMB: Why?
Ms. IVINS: Because The New York Times, at least in my day, was a very stuffy, pompous newspaper.
Mr. LAMB: What about today?
Ms. IVINS: A little bit better, little bit better than it was.
Mr. LAMB: And…
Ms. IVINS: Has–has–it has a tendency, recidivist tendencies, though. You–you will notice if you read The Times, it–it collapses into pomposity and stuffiness with some regularity.
Mr. LAMB: Why did you leave it?
Ms. IVINS: Well, I–I actually got into trouble at The New York City Times for describing a community chu–chicken killing out West as a gang pluck. Abe Rosenthal was then the editor of the Times and he was not amused.
Mr. LAMB: Did–but did they let it go? Did they let it…
Ms. IVINS: Oh, no. It never made it in the paper. Good heavens, no. Such a thing would never get in The Times in my day.
POSTSCRIPT I found some pictures, marked up the text, and was ready to post the story. He decided to listen to a bit more of the discussion between Molly Ivins and the bald headed man. When he got to this point, it became apparent that he could listen to Molly Ivins talk, or he could post his story, but he could not do both at the same time.
Ms. IVINS: Oh, well, of course, I’m gonna make fun of it. I mean, Berkeley, California, if you are from Texas, is just hilarious.
Mr. LAMB: Why?
Ms. IVINS: Well, of course, it is just the absolute center of liberalism and political correctness. And it is a veritable hotbed of people, of–bless their hearts, who all think alike, in a liberal way. And, of course, I’m sometimes called a liberal myself, and you would think I would have felt right at home there. But I just am so used to–I’m so used to Texas that I found the culture at Berkeley hysterical.
The God Of Word
The facebook comment started with “Christ had so little regard for … ” I gave into the temptation to comment. “Are you talking about Jesus? Not everyone agrees that he was the Christ.” The internet showed mercy, and only one stranger replied. “I think the bigger picture is being overlooked for semantics here… ” Talking, in or out of vain, is a big deal here. This is a repost.
People like to express opinions about the teaching of Jesus. The source of 99% of these thoughts is the bible. It is a fundamental belief that “the bible is the word of God.” I have disagreed with this notion for a long time. This is not the same as not believing in the existence of God.
I started to type a facebook reply, and then thought better of it. Sunday afternoons are a gift, even if they are uncomfortably hot. It is too fine a day to argue religion on the internet. Before he stopped, one thought did occur to him. If the bible is the word of God, then maybe Jehovah is the God of word. If you saw a mushroom cloud rising over Brookhaven …
Christianism is a religion of beliefs, rather than practices. The idea of getting people to agree with your beliefs is key to the Jesus experience. Many of these beliefs are noted in the bible. It is as if people make a God out of a book. When these high powered thoughts are expressed, then the semantics can get overwhelming.
As for the teaching of Jesus, all we know is what the Council of Nicea chose to tell us. We don’t have very much. What we do have is conveniently selected to fit the agenda of the speaker. What someone says about Jesus tells us more about that person than it does about Jesus. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
UPDATE This post starts with by quoting a facebook post. The link no longer works. The former facebook friend … a person who I helped move twice … blocked me.
After George HW Bush died, the ffbf was trashing the former President, using the phrase “I am not going to whitewash history.” I commented that it would be better for his karma to be a bit kinder towards the former President. The ffbf did not like that, and blocked me.
Blue Tail Fly
Q: What does “Jimmy crack corn” mean, and why does he not care?—Matt, Columbus, Ohio
I was trolling stupidquestion.net when there was a convergence of stupidity. (The site does not exist in 2024.) All my life I had heard Blue Tail Fly, and been embarrassed. And there, in (pardon the expression) black and white, was someone who wondered the same thing.
It seems as though BTF started out as a minstrel song. For those who don’t know, minstrel shows were white people putting on black makeup, and imitating African Americans. That is another reason you seldom hear BTF today.
Dave Barry took a poll once to find out the stupidest song of all time. The overwhelming winner/loser was MacArthur Park. The combination of over the top show stopping, while singing about a cake left out in the rain, makes this ditty a duh classic.
In the spirit of corny convergence, the video is a karaoke version featuring Donna Summer. Miss Summer is a talented singer, who happened to connect with Giorgio Moroder. Lots of singers could have hit the big time by fronting those records. Donna Summer hit the jackpot.
For a proper post, there needs to be a third stupid song. This is not about stupid bands, singing about being D U M B. Even though they totally don’t belong, there is a video of The Ramones included. I saw the Ramones at the Agora Ballroom in 1983. This was after their prime, and before a homeless man caught the Ballroom on fire.
We still need a third stupid song, and I want to get this posted with as little research as possible. Just like some writer was once given twenty minutes to write a song, and he decided to do the worst song he could think of. The result was Wild Thing. I used to have a 45 of someone who sounded like Bobby Kennedy singing Wild Thing. Let the good times roll.
These four hundred and six hastily chosen words are a repost. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. This was downtown Atlanta in 1941.
Where Is That Place
This blog has an email address listed. It is seldom used. The host is a faded internet company that rhymes with booboo. Once proud email has become a spam magnet. The email address there is checked every once in a great while. Yesterday was one of those times. There was a surprise.
Friday, June 5, 2015, 2:52 PM
Do you know exactly where the Agora Ballroom was in the Georgia Terrace Hotel Also I am trying to locate photos of the following locations – Does you any that we can use? Please let me know ASAP – I am on an extremely tight deadline need photos by Monday morning if possible. Exteriors or interiors are great. Please let me know if you have any.
12th Gate Coffee House (located on 10th street in Midtown,) Club 112 (located at Lavista and Cheshire Bridge,) Lenny’s (either or both of their two locations in the Old Fourth Ward,) Great Southeast Music Hall (either or both of their two locations Lindberg Plaza or Cherokee Plaza,) Echo Lounge (located in East Atlanta,) Hedgens (located in Buckhead,) Agora Ballroom (located in Georgia Terrace hotel,) Muelenbrink’s Salon (located at the Underground.) Joeff Davis Photo Editor Creative Loafing
Thursday, July 9, 2015 11:12 PM
Hey I apologize for the tardy answer. I don’t use this email very often
The Agora was at the end of an alley off Peachtree. It was next door to the Ga Terrace Hotel, though not in the Hotel building itself. The ballroom was in a fire in the early eighties, and was torn down. I don’t have any of the pictures that you needed a month ago.
Friday, July 10, 2015, 11:49 AM
Thanks here is the piece we did: That was then, this is now.
Friday, July 10, 2015, 1:21 PM
Hey thanks for getting back to me. The article was cool, even without my contribution. This seems like a good excuse for a blog post. I have a some comments about some of the locations listed. For instance, my mother bought groceries at the Cherokee Plaza A&P every thursday for 37 years.. I would like to use your letters, and link to your article, in my post.
Chamblee54 has had posts about four notable Atlanta performance venues: 688 Spring Street, Georgian Terrace Ballroom, The Great Southeast Music Hall, and Richards. Two were on the list of requests. As for the other two, 688 Spring Street, home of Rose’s Cantina and 688, is now a doc-in-a-box facility, Concentra Urgent Care. The site of Richards, across from Grady stadium on Monroe Drive, is now the meat department at Trader Joe’s.
The CL article, That was then, this is now, is fun to look at. There are some good pictures. There are a couple of mistakes in the piece, which this post will try correct.
The Great Southeast Music Hall is the scene of many cherished memories for those of a certain age. The post linked here has more comments than any other Chamblee54 post. There are two google earth images, one for Broadview Plaza, and one for Cherokee Plaza.
In Broadview, (now known as Lindbergh something or another,) the Music Hall was in the corner of an L shaped building. The space is currently a part of the parking deck for Target. According to google earth, the Home Depot takes up almost the entire parking lot of the old shopping center.
In Cherokee Plaza, the space where the Music Hall was is the south part of a Kroger. CL says it was in the parking lot, which simply is not so. This parking lot is too small, which is one reason the Music Hall failed there. In the nineties, the A&P expanded, and took over the space occupied by the theater. In 1998, A&P closed their Atlanta operations. The stores were taken over by Kroger.
The third google earth image is for the intersection of Peachtree Street and Ponce De Leon Avenue. This is the location of the Georgian Terrace Ballroom. This was the setting of Alex Cooley’s Electric Ballroom and The Agora Ballroom. This facility was in a fire, and torn down. An annex to the Georgian Terrace Hotel was built. This annex is roughly where the Ballroom was.
One of the places CL mentions was Backstreet. A picture of Lang Interiors, on Peachtree Street at Sixth Street, is included today.This is the building that became Backstreet. This building was a series of nightclubs in the early seventies. Backstreet opened in late 1974. It was the premier chacha palace in Atlanta for many years. When the property became valuable enough to attract the money of developers, the city discovered enough violations to shut down the party. (1974 was somewhat of a golden age for Atlanta nightlife. The Great Southeast Music Hall, Richards, and Alex Cooley’s Electric Ballroom were all in operation in 1974.)
Club 112 catered to an African American clientele. The space had been many businesses over the years, with a Fred Astaire dance studio next door. Around the time Backstreet was getting started, the space was called the Locker Room. A drag show, featuring the Hollywood Hots, performed there. The Locker Room was a “private club,” and was able to stay open on Sunday night. It was the only place open on Sunday, and was packed. The Locker Room was owned by Robert E. Llewellyn, who was later convicted of having a business rival murdered.
The 12th gate was in the middle of the block, somewhere on tenth street. It was not on the corner of Spring Street. A seedy Jim Wallace gas station was nearby. This place was mostly before I went out much. There is a hazy memory of seeing the Hampton Grease Band there. After the show, Mr. Hampton walked up to me, holding a thumb and finger making a circle in front of one eye. Mr. Hampton asked me what sign I was.
By the time Lenny’s was in business, I was a retired drunk. I seldom went downtown after dark. Somehow, the party went on without me. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. This is a repost.
July 3, 1981
July 3, 1981, was another day before a holiday. The new President, Ronald Reagan, was recovering from gunshot wounds. There was talk of an era of conservatism, with possibly severe repression.
There was an article in the New York Times. RARE CANCER SEEN IN 41 HOMOSEXUALS. “Doctors in New York and California have diagnosed among homosexual men 41 cases of a rare and often rapidly fatal form of cancer. Eight of the victims died less than 24 months after the diagnosis…”
This was the media debut of AIDS. It would not have that name for a while. Almost nobody thought, on that summer day, just how bad AIDS would be. In five years it was obvious how serious AIDS was.
I was on another trip to the west coast. It was becoming obvious that this would be a vacation, rather than a relocation. He was riding a bicycle, with a milk carton overloaded with camping gear. Some kids told him to get saddle bags, and carry the weight lower. If you have the weight on top, you would lose control coming down a big hill. I did not listen to the kids.
On July 4, I left Patrick’s Point state park, about 300 miles north of San Francisco. Coming down the first hill on highway 101, the bike shook, shook harder, and flipped on its side. I was thrown off. The front wheel was bent beyond repair. I gathered my gear, left the bike behind, and got a ride into the nearest town.
I got a bus ticket to Seattle. That city was in an economic downturn, with less than half a page of help wanted ads. I found a auto delivery service, and got a VW bug going to Oak Ridge, TN. In a few days he was in Atlanta. A few days later, a temp agency came up with a job as a driver for a blueprint company. I worked for that company, in one form or another, for the next 24 years.
As for the gay men with Kaposi’s Sarcoma … in all probability, the patients mentioned in that article were all dead within a year. AIDS has become a dominating story in our time. At its worst, it was claiming 50,000 lives a year. With the advent of wonder drugs, the death toll has been greatly reduced. The impact of AIDS on American life cannot be adequately described. This is a repost.
Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. Lawrence K. Altman, M.D. had an NYT byline on Feb. 16, 2023.
The Nightclub
A picture turned up on facebook the other day. It was a flyer for a rock club at 2581 Piedmont Road called The Nightclub. The facebooker said “Found on the Strip Project’s page! I THINK the year is 1975…but…T Wesley Dean, can you help with this? Thermos played there”
Broadview Plaza had a strange design. It was at the corner of Piedmont Road and Lindbergh Drive, about a mile north of the park. BP was one of the first shopping centers built in Atlanta. BP was built on the site of Mooney’s Lake … “a summer swimming hole off of Morosgo Drive in Buckhead that was in business from 1920-58.” The design was unusual, having a row of stores facing Morosgo Drive, connected to a larger group of stores by an escalator. The downstairs portion was home to the Great Southeast Music Hall. The Nightclub was in the upstairs part, next to the escalator.
Peaches Records and Tapes was just getting going in 1975. PRT was a huge facility at the base of heartbreak hill on Peachtree. Rock stars put hand prints in cement in front of the store. One of the hand prints proclaimed DARRYL RHOADES IS GOD. Mr. Rhoades, backed by the Hahavishnu Orchestra, performed at PRT Halloween 1975. Mr. Rhoades had a big time playing his shit hits. (fecal dyslexia is rough) Shoplifters had a productive evening.
What does this have to do with The Nightclub? One afternoon, Peaches had a flyer on the checkout counter. The handbill had a coupon for free admission to the Roger McGuinn show. I went to this show. Jim McGuinn was the front man for the Byrds, before he changed his name to Roger. The show was fun to watch, with “Chestnut Mare” and “Lover of the Bayou” remembered 44 years later. Before doing “Eight Miles High,” Mr. McGuinn strapped on a guitar with christmas tree lights in the body. The lights flashed when the corresponding string was picked.
A few days later, Miles Davis was scheduled to play. Someone was going to take his parents to see the show. When they heard that Miles had gone electric, they decided not to go. I wound up with one of the extra tickets. Then Miles Davis decided not to perform that night. The substitute was Thermos Greenwood and the Colored People. Yes, that was the name of the band. The players, all white men, painted their faces different colors. The guitar player was green, the drummer was silver, and the bass player was red. TGATCP played what they called “cigar music.”
The Nightclub soldiered on for a while, and went out of business. This is what bars do. I did see one more show upstairs. Spirit played there Halloween 1977. One celebrant wore a Richard Nixon mask, with prison stripes. I improvised a beekeeper costume. A drunken young lady asked me what my costume was. “Are you going to catch bees in the men’s room, you freak? Before Spirit came on stage, someone sitting near me, said that the band was demanding their money before they went onstage. Spirit put on a rousing show. They’ve got a line on you. Pictures for today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. This is a repost.
Gene Talmadge
Former Georgia Governor Eugene Talmadge was famous for saying, to cheering crowds, “Sure I stole, but I stole for you”. I suspected an urban legend, and decided to see what Mr. Google had to say.
Eugene Talmadge was Agriculture Commissioner before he was Governor. He had some relatives on the state payroll. There was something funky going on with fertilizer. He bought a bunch of hogs, and sent them to Chicago, where he thought he could make more money. After a while, some people started to ask questions. His answer was “If I stole, it was for farmers like yourselves”. (This is on page 59 of “The Wild Man from Sugar Creek.”)
This was in 1931. The depression hit Georgia hard. The wool hat boys were in a world of fertilizer. Mr. Talmadge set himself up as the champion of the dirt farmers, and the enemy of the lyin’ Atlanta newspapers. In 1932 he was elected Governor. He was re-elected three times, but died in 1946, before he could serve again. He was replaced by two Governors.
The county unit system was one reason Mr. Talmadge kept getting elected. Each of Georgia’s 159 counties got a certain number of votes. Three rural counties were the equivalent of winning Fulton County. Mr. Talmadge boasted that he never won a county with street cars.
Mr. Talmadge’s campaigns were legendary. He would speak at the county courthouse, and plants in the crowd would scream questions, like “what about those lyin Atlanta newspapers?”. One of his favorite lines was “Yeah, it’s true. I stole, but I stole for you, the dirt farmer”.
My aunt went to work for the Trust Company of Georgia in the early fifties. There was a story told to new employees. It seems as though Governor Talmadge was in the lobby, after having a happy lunch. He had to use the restroom, and went to the corner of the lobby to relieve himself.
There is a statue of Gene Talmadge in front of the State Capitol. The plate at the base reads “I may surprise you, but I shall not deceive you.” This is a repost, with pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.”
He Lied
There is a discussion at Bloggingheadstv about the recent events in Baltimore MD. The featured speakers, Glenn Loury and John McWhorter, have been heard from before. This is a thought provoking discussion. If you are multi tasking, you might not get much done. The temptation to stop and take notes will be great. This is a repost.
At BHTV, you can create a sound bite, known as a dinglelink, when something gets your attention. This chat produced three dinglelinks. These serve to illustrate the points that are going to be made. There are other things that could be said, but most people have a limited attention span.
At 23:19, the men are discussing one of the witnesses to the Micheal Brown shooting. Dr. Loury starts to talk loud, and says “he lied.” This is a problem.
During the Ferguson fiasco, America was hit over the head with a lot of talk, often at top volume. There was the spectacle of a crowd of people walking into a funeral with their hands in the air. A great deal of the shouting was based on lies. If you question these lies, you can expect to be called a racist. The little boy said he saw a wolf.
If you think Dr. Loury gets worked up in the first clip, wait until he talks about the #Baltimoreuprising. Dr. Loury does not like the expression. He might have a point. The disturbance was a reaction from a population in pain. It was not the first step in a revolution.
One of the popular memes of this “conversation about race” is complaining about “media double standards.” Complaints about profit motivated media are popular with both liberals and conservatives. In the Baltimore banter, videos of white people misbehaving after sporting events are shown, and the stern voiced commenter wonders why the media does not treat these people as harshly as the Baltimore crowd.
With the #Baltimoreuprising hashtag, this media commentary goes up a notch. When drunken white sports fans act out, it is a riot. When poor urban people loot stores, it is the #Baltimoreuprising. There is no telling where this will end up.
The last clip shows Dr. McWhorter asking if poor people are going to demand, of their neighborhoods, “no more thugs.” It is apparent that Dr. McWhorter does not read the same people on facebook that others do. The word “thug” is now considered a racist slur. Instead of attacking the problem, twitter nation is attacking the word that describes the problem. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Bob Dylan Is 83
Today is Bob Dylan’s eighty third birthday. This tribute is composed primarily of two previously published pieces of work. Some people think Bob Dylan is a piece of work. Pictures are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library
Hibbing MN is a cold place. At least it can claim to be the birthplace of Robert Allen Zimmerman. That’s Allen, with an e, and double L, just like hell. The original initials were RAZ, which might be a good trivia question, or, with a silent W in front, radio station call letters. The problem is, he legally changed his name to Bob Dylan, with no known middle name. Those initial are BD.
On May 24, 1941, the curly haired wonder boi arrived. The world was a different place. Europe was in flames, and eyeing the young men of America as fresh cannon fodder. This was twelve years, eleven months, and eighteen days before I graced the planet. A twelve year old in Hibbing MN would have no reason to think of a newborn baby in Atlanta GA.
The first time I heard of Bob Dylan was probably at the record rack of Zippy’s dime store in Cherokee Plaza. There was an album of his greatest hits, and it came with a poster. The poster had a drawing of the man, with psychedelic waves of hair cascading in multi colored glory to the edges.
As I got older and stupider, I heard more and more Bob Dylan music. At the start of 1974, a tour was announced. The Band was to be the backing group. The circus came to the Omni, and was nothing special. Bob Dylan excels at writing, is ok in the studio, and blah on stage. Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter was at the show, and was said to look bored. Mr. Dylan was invited to the Governor’s mansion after the show, and talked to the Governor. A lot of people in Georgia were surprised that Jimmy would want to run for President.
As the Seventies went me-me-me-ing into sex and drugs oblivion, Bob Dylan regained both his writing touch, and love of the spotlight. The Rolling Thunder tour happened, he got back together with Joan Baez, divorced his wife, became born again, became more Jewish, counted money, and generally lived the life. I did my version of all that, without Joan Baez.
In the winter of 1991, America was consumed by war fever. Saddam Hussein had been elevated to next Hitler status, and had to be taught a lesson. One night, Bob Dylan played on a music awards show, and performed “Masters of War”. He played a discordant version of that ditty, with the result that few understood what he had said. By this time, Mr. Dylan had assembled a band, and gone out on the “Never Ending Tour”. A Bob Dylan concert had gone from being a special event, to being another name on the festival roster. Overexposure will do that.
On the last night of the Olympics in 1996, Bob Dylan played the House of Blues downtown. I won a pair of tickets in a radio station contest. The show was competent…they impressed me as being like a bar band that did a lot of Dylan songs, with a strangely authentic lead vocalist. The only song I recognized was “All along the Watchtower”, the Jimi Hendrix classic. Mr. Dylan got a cheer when he put his harmonica appliance on.
The aptly named dangerousminds has a link to a story about the recording of Blonde on Blonde. Bob Dylan was 24 years old, newly married, and had “sold out” i.e. started to play electric guitar. A bunch of Canadians known as The Hawks (later The Band) was touring with him. Barely a month after the release of “Highway 61 Revisited”, sessions started at a New York studio.
The New York sessions did not work, so a decision was made to go to Nashville. Al Kooper played organ, and served as a music director. A crew of Nashville players was recruited. A bass player named Joseph Souter, Jr. would become famous a few years later using the name Joe South. Kris Kristofferson was the janitor at the studio.
Most studios have bafflers, or sound proof room dividers, splitting the studio into cubicles. For these sessions, the bafflers were taken down, and the band played together as a unit.
The second session in Nashville started at 6pm and lasted until 530 the next morning. Mr. Dylan was working on the lyrics to “Sad eyed lady of the lowlands”, and the recording could not start until he was ready. The musicians played ping pong and waited. At 4am, the song was ready, and the record was finished in two takes.
I had marginal encounters with two of the players on this album. He met a lady once, who worked in an insurance office. One of the customers was Joe South. His driving record file was an inch thick.
Al Kooper had a prosperous career after his association with Bob Dylan. The former Alan Peter Kuperschmidt produced the first three Lynyrd Skynyrd albums, sold that contract for a nice piece of change, and lived happily ever after.
One night, Mr. Kooper was playing a show at the Great Southeast Music Hall, and PG sat in front of the stage. During a break between songs, PG asked his friend “what time is it?”. Mr. Kooper heard him on stage, and said it was 11:30.
There Is No I In Denial
There’s no I in denial. ~ What does a house wear? A dress.
What did the buffalo say to his son as he left for college? Bison.
I asked a Frenchman if he played video games. He said “wii”.
I ate a clock yesterday, it was so time consuming.
Why was Santa’s little helper feeling depressed? Because he has low Elf esteem
How many optometrists does it take to change a light bulb?… 1 or 2? 1… or 2?
Just read a few facts about frogs. They were ribbiting.
Want to hear a word I just made up? Plagiarism.
What did the hungry clock do? Went back four seconds!
Becoming a vegetarian is a huge missed steak.
Have you seen that new movie about trees in love? …Yeah, it’s pretty sappy…
I don’t like atoms, they’re liars. They make up everything.
I was thinking about moving to Moscow but there is no point Russian into things.
First rule of Thesaurus Club: You don’t talk, converse, discuss, speak, chat,
deliberate, confer, gab, gossip or natter about Thesaurus Club.
There is a new disease found in margarine… Apparently it spreading very easily.
People are making apocalypse jokes like there’s no tomorrow.
Need an ark to save two of every animal? I Noah guy.
What’s the advantage of living in Switzerland? Well, the flag is a big plus.
“I saw a documentary on how ships are kept together. Riveting!”
It’s so hard to think of another chemistry joke… All the good ones Argon.
Breaking news! Energizer Bunny arrested – charged with battery.
I’m off to Nairobi in the Summer. Kenya believe it?
A baker was caught bonking his bread loaves. They say he was inbread.
I enjoy using the comedy technique of self-deprecation – but I’m not very good at it.
This is a repost. Pictures are from “Special Collections, Georgia State University Library.”
Chamblee54 
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