Chamblee54

This content was originally published March 25, 2009. … In the early nineties, I had too much free time. On March 25 of one year, I looked in the fishwrapper, and found a list of famous people with birthdays. There was an unlikely trio celebrating that day. This would be (in order of appearance) Anita Bryant (1940), Aretha Franklin (1942), and Elton John (1947). All three have been paid for singing, and have a total of five husbands.
Several other people have arrived on planet earth on March 25. They include, in 1911, Jack Ruby, the alleged killer of Lee Harvey Oswald (d. 1967). 1918 produced Howard Cosell, American sports reporter (d. 1995). 1925 produced Flannery O’Connor (d. 1964). 1934 gave us Gloria Steinem. To make room for all this talent, Buck Owens died March 25, 2006. On August 16, 2018, Aretha Franklin was heaven bound, with Anita Bryant following December 16, 2024.
March 25 is after the spring equinox, and has been Easter. A few noteworthy events have gone down on this day. In 1894, Coxey’s Army departed Massillon, Ohio for Washington D.C. In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire killed 146 garment workers in New York City. In 1939 Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli became Pope Pius XII, to the delight of Adolph Hitler. 1955 saw the United States Customs seizing copies of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” as obscene. In 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono began their first Bed-In for Peace at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel.
HT and applause to wikipedia. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Marjory Collins took the social media photograph in February 1943. “New York NY Band in an Irish-American restaurant O’Reilly’s at Third Avenue and Fifty-Fourth Street, on Saturday night.”

This content was originally published February 5, 2015. … February 5, 1914, was the birth day of William Seward Burroughs Jr. For the rest of this piece, he will be known as WSB. This is both a handy abbreviation, as well as a touch of irony for Atlanta readers. WSB radio is a 50k watt clear channel am station, owned by the same media oligarchs that own the fishwrapper and channel two. The radio tv clusterfuck has long been the symbol of Peachtree Street white column respectability. Just to be clear/queer, from here on out in this feature WSB will mean a certain junkie writer, not welcome south brother/we’re so boring .
This is a good day for birthdays. Hank Aaron in 1934. Adlai Stevenson in 1900. Peg Entwhistle in 1908. The last one lived until 1932, when she jumped off the Hollywoodland sign.
A well thought of radio institution called “This American Life” has a show this week, Burroughs101. Actually, there is a class by that name, and there will be an exam at the end of the semester. The show is narrated by Iggy Pop. It begins with a warning. “A warning. The following program contains references to homosexuality, drug use, sex with aliens, violence, and kitty cats. What did you expect?” The show was originally cobbled together by the BBC, which might explain things a bit.
Iggy Pop did a show at the 688 club. I was in the audience. A man named Ivan Kral was in the band. When Mr. Kral came on stage, he blew his nose, and a white powder booger came out. The performance was not so much a concert as it was an endurance test.
TML has the lazy bloggers friend, the transcript. There are some lovely quotes. This show is not going to candy coat the bastard. This is a man who shot his wife while playing William Tell, and got away with it. As one non admirer says “I don’t just take the Burroughs myth with a pinch of salt. I view it as a unpleasant slug crawling across the lawn of literature. And I like to pour salt on it.”
Or this one. “Having used heroin yourself– I think used is a bit of an understatement. I was a heroin addict on and off for pushing a quarter of a century. For myself, I find the whole Burroughs myth pretty repulsive, actually. Because I understand what happened to me. I was an addict in waiting. I got my form prize or my English prize at The Naked Lunch. And a year and a half later, I was sticking needles in my arm. … You could be lying in some pestilential piss-soaked squat in the bowels of the city listening to some moron totaled on drugs drooling on and talking about Burroughs, because Burroughs was their Leon Trotsky. He was their Archbishop of Canterbury. He was the Pope. “
One of the questions of the early eighties was whether or not WSB was shooting up. Forget the nonsense about there not being any old junkies. Supposedly Ray Charles never really quit using heroin. So, in 1981, WSB was living somewhere in Manhattan, and it was a right of passage to go to the bunker and take heroin to him. Since he was the star, he used the needle first, which was an important distinction in those days … hiv did not have a name but was running wild through the junkie veins and queer buttholes of Reaganite America.
Howard Eric Brookner was a filmmaker, with wealthy Jewish parents. HEB worked on a movie about William S. Burroughs. When you hang out with Mr. Burroughs, it is considered good manners to take heroin. This became a problem for HEB. April 27, 1989, was HEB’s last day on the planet.
We don’t know if WSB got hiv or not. He made it until August 2, 1997, when a heart attack sent him to meet his maker. Contemporary Allen Ginsberg cashed in his chips earlier that year. In Washington, silly billy POTUS was getting knob jobs from Monica Lewinsky, who now gives TED talks by calling herself a social activist. WSB was a social activist, at a time when few would admit it.
The answer to your question is, yes, WSB was shooting dope in 1981. Somebody saw this as being an unhealthy situation, and arranged for him to move to Lawrence KS. This was his home until WSB went to live with Jesus, who was pissed because WSB didn’t bring him any smack.
So WSB was living the beat life, shooting dope, fucking boys, and just being a general mess. In his spare time he was writing books. Naked Lunch was busted for obscenity, and became his best known work. It is the first thing by WSB that I tried to read, making it to page twenty six before declaring the endeavor a hopeless waste of brain cells.
It is not known how much of Naked Lunch Dorothy Kilgallen read. She was called as a witness during an obscenity trial for Lenny Bruce. ” …There’s another book called The Naked Lunch which I couldn’t even finish reading, but it’s published, and I think the author should be in jail and he used– Q. Unfortunately we can’t do everything at once, Miss Kilgallen. Are you judging the non-obscene quality and the artistic quality of Bruce by the fact that The Naked Lunch is a book which, as of this date, is sold in the community? A. No, I’m not. I just mentioned it because you asked me for some books. Q. And The Naked Lunch is a book you found impossible to read, is that correct? A. Yes, I found it revolting. Q. What was revolting about it? A. Just the way it was written.”
Another expert witness to testify … to a BBC reporter, not a New York courtroom … is Marcus Ewert. A Dunwoody native, Mr. Ewert took literary groupiedom to ridiculous lengths with Allen Ginsberg and WSB. “We’re getting into bed, and I’m sticking my legs down under the covers. There’s this bump that my legs feel. And I’m like, “Oh, what’s this hard thing my legs are bumping against, William?” And he said, “Oh, that’s the gun.” I said, “Is it a loaded gun?” He said, “Of course it’s loaded.” You’d sleep with a lover with a loaded gun in your bed. That’s kind of a metaphor waiting to happen.”
Mr. Marcus is now a children’s book author. An Amazon reader says this about 10,000 Dresses. “I returned mine today and was appalled as I read the story to my son before reading it to myself. Kids need to feel safe at home, especially when dealing with gender non-conformity. I wish the author would have reconcilled the reactions of the family members. It is great to have stories out there addressing gender non-conformity in kids, but we have a huge responsibility to make sure they are sending the right message.”
The death of Joan Vollmer is discussed. This is the lady who was playing William Tell one night, with fatal consequences. Some say accident, some say intentional. The word uxoricide is used, meaning the act of killing one’s wife.
The cut up technique is discussed, as was how much WSB liked cats. WSB died, and people said nice things about him. — In 2010, I published Advice From An Old Junkie. In 2015, I found an audiobook of Junky, read by WSB. A two part post, Junky, and Junky Part Two, followed. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Timothy H. O’Sullivan took the social media picture in August 1863. “Bealeton, Virginia. Officers of 93d New York Infantry” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah

Today is the solstice. It is the end of 2025. The Julian calendar says that the end of the year is in another 10 days. One of the jobs for today is to put out my Solstice meme. This is the second year that I have done this. I have spent the week working on it, and have chosen a winner. I need to work on it a bit, and make sure I’m using the right font.
The winner is the picture of a Warrior Princess on a building in Little Five Points. I’ve been trying to find the original. Unfortunately, my record keeping is a mess. It is causing brain damage to find this thing. One of the problems is One Drive, the microsoft cloud. When I transfer files from one machine to another, the od sometimes loses the files. The original is in there somewhere.
The image was used in poem q007, Poetry Is Part Three. The line was “Masked And Made Flesh In Writing.” PIPT was something I found on twitter. People were trying to define poetry … a lost cause … and came up with some lines describing poetry. It was the raw material for a poem.
The Warrior Princess was chosen for the background. Then it came time to try out the fonts and color schemes. Black and white Comic Sans was the font. The inside of the letters was going to be dark gray, hexcode a0a0a0. The fence is going to be on the right side of the Warrior Princess. In real life, the Warrior Princess is at the far left end of the building next to a fence, with greenery growing in the barbed wire. Because this is a fantasy we’re going to put the fence on the right side.
The picture was taken April 7th at 1910. I was going to the Little 5 Poetry Bash. I got there early and went around taking pictures of graffiti. The Warrior Princess was in back of one of the theater buildings … probably not rag-a-rama, probably the one that has the Variety Playhouse, and not the one with 7 Stages. Whichever one it is, you have to pay to park there
Most of the other pics are from the The Library of Congress. I only have the details for one. … John Vachon took the picture in November 1938. “These men are both past sixty. Neither of them expect ever to work again. They ride freight trains from Omaha to Kansas City to St. Louis and back again. Omaha, Nebraska”. The other color image is from the Chalktoberfest. This event is held in Marietta, on the same day as the Pride parade downtown.

This content was posted November 26, 2024. … Thanksgiving was a time our family cherished. It was the only time all of us got together under one roof and mingled. Except for me. ~ I was the family embarrassment. They were Catholic, and disliked my way of life. I played guitar, loved Heavy Metal, and worshiped Satan. ~ All this explains why my family shunned me. In their eyes, I was the flaw of a nearly perfect gem, but in mine, I was the cream of the crop.
I should’ve known they had something awful in mind when they asked me to join them somewhere. They drove me to the very corner of the ranch. ~ “What the fuck are we doing back here,” I asked. My only reply was, “Shut up you blaspheming fool.”
At last we got to the destination. My father, mother, and sister were standing around, wearing funeral clothes. ~ In the middle was a shallow grave. “What’s that hole for?” I asked dumbly. “Take a guess you satanic fucker!” Was the reply from my father.
I felt a thud on my head. I hit the ground with a loud thlap. I turned in spite of excruciating pain to see my uncle wielding a shovel. ~ I touched the back of my head to find my fingers coated in blood. I suddenly grew light headed and passed out. When I woke up I inhaled dirt. ~ Luckily, my family didn’t know how to properly bury someone so I was able to dig myself out. I sat there and puked for about fifteen solid minutes.
When I got back, it was Thanksgiving night. through the window I could see my family, sitting there, saying grace like the sheeple they were. ~ Seeing them praying made my hate for them and all Catholics grow. It went from a smouldering, muddled anger, to a flaming, outrageous hatred.
I ran into the garage and found my uncle’s shotgun, sitting there, waiting for me, beckoning, saying, “Go ahead, make these fuckers pay.” ~ “Hi Mom!” I shouted as I pulled the trigger, I started laughing uncontrollably as I continued firing at my family until I was empty.
“WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!” My father asked, wounded, shot in the gut. “Wrong with me?” I asked calmly. “What’s wrong with you?” ~ With that I threw the gun away and dined. Not on Turkey, but on raw human flesh. It was the best Thanksgiving ever. ~ Twitter serialization by @creepypasta_txt. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Marion Post Wolcott took the social media picture in August 1940. “Bayou Bourbeau plantation, a Farm Security Administration cooperative, vicinity of Natchitoches, La. Three Negro children sitting on the porch of a house ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah