Skink–No Surrender
PG had Skink–No Surrender, by Carl Hiassen, sent to the Chamblee Library. It is another Hiassen book for young adults, like the previously consumed Scat. Skink–No Surrender was entertaining, if a bit unbelievable. Actually, more than a bit far fetched, but still fun to read.
At one point, the teenage hero, Richard, and his buddy Skink, go across the state in a borrowed vehicle. Skink injures his foot, and cannot drive. The fourteen year old Richard takes the wheel. This goes well until blue lights appear. It is Skink’s state trooper buddy, with a learner’s permit for Richard. The state trooper buddy is African American, which makes it ok.
Skink is a favorite character of Mr. Hiassen. A disillusioned former Florida Governor, Skink has one eye, lives in the wild, and eats roadkill. Richard is on the beach with his cousin, Malley, when they find Skink in a fake turtle egg nest. The character is trying to catch people who steal turtle eggs.
Malley runs away from home, not for the first time. She is with a seedy character that she met online. Richard and Skink take off to find her. The action moves quickly, if implausibly, until the conclusion.
The amazon one star customers have their say. Amazon Customer October 8, 2014 He must need money to write this boring garbage, i have enjoyed all of his books until this unfortunate catastrophe Kindle Customer January 4, 2015 Title nails it. I need 17 more words, the book doesn’t’ deserve them. Now 7 more words needed Don’t buy it
One afternoon, in Georgia’s worst parking lot, PG was on page 85, when something caught his eye. “Skink had scavenged a dead racoon on Highway 98. It had been struck by a vehicle with extremely large tires, and the furry ringed tail was the only way to know what kind of mammal it was.” PG had thought that mammals were big dumb animals, like cows and humans. It turns out that a racoon is a mammal. We also learn that sporange is a word that rhymes with orange.
Much of the action takes place in the Florida panhandle. This reminds PG of a story he heard a few hundred times, and can be told again. The family was going to Panama City, and stopped for gas near Ebro. The gas station man saw mom, and said “She putts me to mind of one of the Gilbert girls from De Funiak Springs.” Pictures for this post are from The Library of Congress. These pictures, with one exception, are soldiers from the War Between the States.
Sides With
The facebook friend posted a link: “I side 98% with Hillary Clinton.” The link was to a political poll. Not only were there a few dozen statements to consider, but you had to say how important the issue was. On many issues, the options did not fit what PG had to say. You choose the lesser of the various evils, which is the way politics works. (One difference was a state election when PG was in seventh grade. Governor Maddox was the Lester of two evils.)
Most of the questions made a bit of sense. One exception was “Should the federal government allow states to fly the confederate flag?” Exploitation of the St. Andrews cross by race haters is tacky, but is it the federal government’s business? There is a touch of irony here. The issue of states rights versus federalism was one of the causes of the War Between the States.
The poll caused a bit of brain damage. Too much thinking will do it every time. The headache got worse with the results. PG “sides with” Bernie Sanders 94% of the time. This is not surprising. PG may yet vote for BS, despite his hideous appearance, rude personality, and obnoxious supporters. The election will be in the cafetorium of the elementary school PG attended. It will not be the first time PG has held his nose in that room.
The good news is that PG “sides with” Rick Santorum 7% of the time. Ronald Dump Donald Trump gets 44% sideage. The rest of the repubs get mixed results, with Rand Paul doing best at 60%.
The results page has a popup ad. You are encouraged to give BS your email address, to help him fight the Trans Pacific Partnership. “Co-sign Bernie Sanders’ proposal to block the disastrous trade agreement designed to protect the interests of the largest multi-national corporations at the expense of workers, consumers, and the environment.” Whatever dude.
A few minutes later, a bizarre exchange took place of twitter.
@RichardDawkins You can’t see air. Air exists. You can’t see God. Therefore God exists. GENIUS!
@SlavojTweezek After heavy après-conférence, I have seen God.Therefore He does not exist. QED.
@chamblee54 why do people talk about seeing g-d? What about hear, taste, smell, and touch?
@SlavojTweezek SEEING is believing. Pay attention.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Conversations I Am Tired Of Having
There was a post a while back, 10 Conversations On Racism I’m Sick Of Having With White People. The original started at The Chronicle, but LiveJournal is kind of weird, so a mirror image will have to do. There are comments, at the sourced post, that illustrate some of the points covered today.
I got to thinking about “10 Conversations”, and a reply began to take shape. I started a list of conversations the I am tired of having, and before you could say affirmative action, there were a dozen items. Many of these incidents have involved people of color, or POC. Many others have not. Often, the ethnicity of the other person has little importance to the discussion. Therefore, the title of this feature will not be racially specific. This monolog will probably not go viral, or even bacterial. Washing your hands might be a good idea when you are finished reading.
Meetings where one person does all the talking The word conversation implies that more than one person says something. Often, this does not happen. One person will talk for a while. Before person two finishes a sentence, person one will interrupt them.
This does not work. When the other person is talking, shut up and listen. Don’t be thinking of your clever comeback, but pay attention to what the other person is saying. What the other person says is just as important as what you say.
Listening is not valued in our culture. It is seen as a loss of control, a sign of weakness. It is really a sign of strength. If you are weak, you don’t want to allow the other person to say anything. Have you ever heard anyone boast about the clever things that they say to someone? Of course you have, just like you never hear anyone talk highly about himself because he is a good listener.
My question is not an excuse to make a speech. Some people have an agenda. Whatever you say is an obstacle to the message they want to broadcast. When you ask a question, some people think you are handing them the talking stick, to do whatever they want. When your eyes glaze over, they plow on, in total disregard to your discomfort, and lack of comprehension. It is almost as if they are talking to hear the sound of their own voice.
I’m not talking to you. If you are screaming something, anyone with earshot can hear you. Do not get offended if there is a reaction to your words, especially if it is subtly directed at the person you are not talking to. This applies to the internet as well, where all of humanity is *privy* to your innermost thoughts. Keep the farmyard meaning of *privy* in mind when sharing your innermost product.
Conversations should be with people. If you are a business, and you want to tell me something, send me a written message. Please refrain from using robocall machines. I feel very foolish talking to a machine, especially one that doesn’t understand southern english.
You don’t have to shout. The amount of truth in a statement is not increased by the volume of expression. If you are standing next to me, the odds are I can hear you in a normal tone of voice. If you are across the room, come stand next to me, rather than shout across the room. If your normal tone of voice is shouting, then you have a problem.
The same principal goes to controlling your temper. When you choose not to control your temper, you show disprespect to yourself, and the person you are talking to. There is no situation that cannot be made worse by angry speech.
Privilege Racial polemic is getting more subtle these days. We are not quite post racial, although there are rumors of a PostRacial apartment complex in Dickhater. The phrase that pays these days is Privilege. This is always something owned by the group you do not belong to. Last summer, I heard this quote in a discussion, and nearly fell out of my chair.
From the N word to POC. Labels for groups of people can cause problems. I have expressed myself on the N word before, and don’t have much to add. As for POC, that is even sillier. Colored people is an insult, but people of color is preferred. I am sure some of you have a terrific speech to ‘splain this, but I am not interested. My neck may be red, but that is a color. PWOC is an insult to my humanity, whether you are talking to me or not.
This is getting longer than the attention span of many readers. It might be continued at a later date. This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Fear Of Dying
PG took his brother GP grocery shopping. While waiting in Georgia’s worst parking lot, PG read Fear of Dying, Erica Jong’s rhyming followup to Fear of Flying. On page 170, PG realized that he might not want to finish the book: “So, this is a story about heaven and hell. The hell of writing is self censorship. The heaven is the speaking of the truth. Women have a particular problem with this.”
Erica Mann Jong (born Erica Mann, with no middle name) does not have a problem with sounding pretentious. EMJ is a feminist, and a Jew, details that are obvious to anyone who reads her. Her saving grace is writing fun books. Her amorous adventure stories are finely crafted works. Even with the parking lot discovery, PG is only 27 pages shy of the end. This is due day at the library, so that may be that. (Roxane Gay might have a different opinion.)
FOD is about wealthy Jewish women that get old. Her parents and poodle die. Her old and wealthy husband has an anuerism. . Wealthy older husband does not need to know about his wife’s adventures on zipless.com. The readers are not spared.
EMJ is good at the book tour game. While promoting FOD, she appeared on The Diane Rehm Show. This is public broadcasting, complete with upbeat intro music, and a hostess from the Lois Reitzes school of non commercial announcing. EMJ began the show by saying “It’s wonderful to see you, Diane. And you — age cannot wither nor custom stale your infinite variety. You look fantastic.” Skype is good for white lies. Later, EMJ tries to explain that she is not exactly Isadora Wing.
JONG Connection, we don’t need fast sex anymore. We need slow sex in a fast world.
REHM In a relationship is what…
JONG We won’t be satisfied by a ZF.
REHM Exactly.
JONG Nothing — we never were, actually. People made much of it, but I, as, you know, the author, never, never liked that kind of sex, never. But I intuited that it was in the zeitgeist. And I remember thinking when people would write in magazine, if the Erica Jongs of this world had their way, women everywhere would hop from bed to bed to bed to bed. And I thought, but I’ve always been monogamous…. Sometimes when a relationship is breaking down, I get itchy, as does the man I’m involved with, but as long as the relationship is totally satisfying, I have always been monogamous. So people do confuse the fantasy in a book with the reality of the author’s life.
A few minutes later, the ladies have a disagreement.
REHM And now it does seem to me that what’s happened with this book is that you’ve gone through all of that. You’ve experienced all of that. You’ve put that behind you, and somehow now you are facing into the reality of your own, as well as Vanessa’s, mortality. And what I want to know is what are you afraid of?
JONG Well, you know, Woody Allen said, who blurbed this book, I’m not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.
REHM Yeah. I saw that, and I recognize that you’ve gotten lots of wonderful blurbs. Here’s one from Judy Collins, who was just on this program the other day. She says, fear of dying by Erica Jong is hysterical and touching, compelling and heartbreaking and makes me want even more to live joyfully forever. So I wonder because, you know, Erica, I’m not afraid of dying, and I would like to understand what it is that you think is making you afraid.
JONG I don’t think I’m afraid anymore. (EMJ makes choking sounds.)
REHM Erica is having a little problem with her throat. She’s just put a lozenge in her mouth. Let me give you time to relax and get your voice back, have a little sip of water …
JONG Endless book tour. In fact I am not afraid of dying.
REHM You’re not. Good, I’m glad to hear that.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Non-Racist Or Anti-Racist
There is a tasteful bit of white guilt porn on the innertubes. The video is from the Guardian, a British enterprise. Are you racist? ‘No’ isn’t a good enough answer. The transcript has 365 words, one for each day of the year. The word for today is and. The most recent tally shows 4,714,039 views on facebook, which does not pay royalties.
The talk is an exercise in semantics. Either you are non-racist, or anti-racist. The possibilities that you are a known-racist is not considered, as is the concept that attitudes about race are nobody else’s business. The speaker, Marlon James, instructs the listener that you MUST be anti-racist. Nothing else will do. This means that you must take some type of action against racism. What exactly you are supposed to do is not specified, but you need to do something.
Mr. James lists five points that the mythical non-racist uses to justify their non-ness. “I’m not a bigot. I don’t sing that ’n’ word when my favorite rap jam comes on. I didn’t vote for that guy. I’m not burning any crosses. I’m not a skinhead.” From these five nots, a certain lifestyle emerges. “What you end up with is an entire moral stance, an entire code for living your life and dealing with all the injustice in the world by not doing a damn thing. That’s the great thing about “non-”: you can put it off by simply rolling over in your bed and going to sleep. So why are you sitting at home and watching things unfold on TV instead of doing something about it? Because you’re a non-racist, not an anti-racist.” Or maybe you are an uncle-racist, and auntie-racist won’t let you do anything.
At no point is a course of anti-racist action suggested. Should you go block traffic on the interstate? Should you vilify a member of your community who expresses incorrect opinions on facebook? Should you go to the state capitol, and talk to your representative about laws you are not familiar with? Exactly what are you supposed to do? Will this action do more harm than good? Is this action any of your business? Do you know what you are talking about? Maybe the effect of your action is not important, as long as you are doing something.
The monolog takes a strange turn now. “Now, do this for me: take the “c” out of racist and replace it with a “p”. “I’m not a rapist. I’m not friends with any rapist. I didn’t buy that rapist’s last album.” All these things that you’re not doing. Meanwhile, people are still getting raped, and black boys are being killed. It’s not enough that you don’t do these things.”
Ok, so now we need to take meaningless action against rape, and black boy murder. Again, what are you supposed to do? There is also the matter of privilege. Is it really the white person’s business that black boys are shooting other black boys? And what are we supposed to do about this? Maybe you can say rude things about police. Whatever you do, say #blacklivesmatter instead of #alllivesmatter.
The video comes to a merciful end with the words “We need to stop being “non-” and start being “anti-”. Or take action against glamorous issues that have no effect on most people, but make you feel good to talk about. The Academy Award nominations have been announced, and not enough POC have been nominated. We can take action on twitter, as this tweet illustrates. #oscarssowhite that pointed hoods will be included in the swag bags this year.
The pictures today are from The Library of Congress. These details are from picture #06666, documenting “First Internation[al] Pageant of Pulchritude & Seventh Annual Bathing Girl Review at Galveston, Texas.” It was taken in 1926.
David Bowie
David Bowie is 69 today. Elvis is ageless, and Sarah Palin is obsolete. This Bowie tribute is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
A webpage called CaptainsDead had a download of a David Bowie concert. (It is here on “A Portrait In Flesh” (Full show L.A. Sept. 5th 1974)) Most Bowie live recordings are pretty dull. While the Thin White Duke is renowned for his concerts, they tend to be live events, that depend on staging and costumes as much as music. This show, from 1974, is different. Focusing on material from “Diamond Dogs”, the sound he produces comes close to matching the studio sound.
The next move for Bowie in 1974 was the “white soul” sound of “Young Americans”. He is moving in that direction in this show, even while he lingers in the glitter apocalypse. This tour included a stop at the Fox Theater, the first Atlanta show for Mr.Bowie. On the way to Florida for the next show, the truck with the sets and costumes crashed into a swamp full of rattlesnakes. The show in Tampa was performed in street clothes.
Maybe it is time for a Chamblee54 tribute to David Bowie. It is six am, and PG has stumbled into a job. The time and energy required to write new material is not always available.
The first album by David Bowie that PG heard about was “Hunky Dory”. At the time, Mr. Bowie had generated some buzz by admitting that he fancies blokes, or some uber british expression for being queer. In time, this would be seen as more publicity stunt than brave confession. The RCA debut got some good reviews, but not much else.
The next year produced “Ziggy Stardust”, a concept album. At about this time he did a tour of the United States, with costumes and onstage antics that generated even more publicity. More and more people started listening, some in spite of his outrageous image, and quite a few more because of it. He broke up his band, the spiders from mars, and announced his retirement. The band learned about this while standing on stage behind him. Mr. Bowie, for all his genius, is not always a nice man.
In 1974 there was an album, “Diamond Dogs”, about the decadent urban life in the scifi future. A stage show based on this album…the source of the download mentioned above…marked a return to the concert stage. The next year gave us “Young Americans”, and the year after that “Station to Station”. Every year was a different sound and vision.
Meanwhile, the artist was not doing so good as a human being. According to all reports, he was doing mountains of cocaine. (There is a story of going to meet the parents of Ava Cherry, one of his girlfriends. He shows up at 3am, and does coke on the dining room table.) There was an interview in Playboy (or maybe it was Rolling Stone ) where the first thing he says is, don’t believe anything I say. He went on to say that he admired Adolf Hitler. Have we mentioned the physical appearance of David Bowie in 1975? He looked like he was dead, and nobody bothered to tell him. (By contrast, in recent photo collections of rock stars, Mr. Bowie looks pretty good for a man who is 69 yo.)
This was the era of Rocky Horror show. At one point, Riff Raff sings (Tim O’Brien wrote the show, and gave himself some darn good lines) Frank n furter, it’s all over, your mission is a failure, your lifestyle’s too extreme.I’m your new commander you now are my prisoner we return to transylvania prepare the transit beam While this may not have been directed at David Bowie, he took the hint.
We interrupt this David Bowie tribute with an emergency announcement. A person, reputed to be an entertainer, was seen using the n word on facebook. The screen shots have disappeared, and all we have is the word of the accuser. More details will be available as soon as anyone is interested.
David Bowie saw himself at a dead end, and possibly a dead life. He moved into a little apartment in West Berlin, on top of a garage. Brian Eno offered his assistance, and a series of electronic albums was the result. The next few years saw rock and roll, dance music, and finally, crap. PG bought a Bowie album in 1984, the first time he saw it on sale, and was immensely disappointed. The last David Bowie album that PG got was a free cd that was given to people buying a magazine.
Around 1981, MTV was born, and radio was suddenly obsolete. A visual artiste like David Bowie was a natural for video. Unfortunately, many of these videos are not available for embedding in blogs. Ashes to Ashes was a staple of early MTV. Boys Keep Swinging , off the “Lodger” album, is a return to the gender bender Bowie of younger days.
David Bowie continued to do tours, and PG got to see two of the shows. In 1987, something called the “Glass Spider Tour” came to the Omni. (In a later interview, it turns out Mr. Bowie was extremely unhappy during this tour, and close to suicide at some points.) The Glass Spider was this mass of lighting effects that hovered over the stage, and was used to best advantage during “Scary Monsters”. The show featured Peter Frampton on guitar, and had a pack of dancers. (One apparent female took her drag off during the finale.) A good time was had by all.
In 1990, another retirement tour came to the Omni. This one had movies projected on a screen behind the stage, and featured guitar hero Adrian Bellew. The night had the feel of a contractual obligation. David Bowie is too professional to give a bad show, but this one did not have the fire of “Glass Spider”. PG had a new set of contact lenses, and his eyes were painfully dry most of the night.
Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Tag some others who might enjoy this. You can’t use the band I used. Try not to repeat a song title. It’s a lot harder than you think! Re-post as “my life according to (band name)”Pick your Artist: David Bowie
Are you a male or female: The Bewley Brothers
Describe yourself: Quicksand
How do you feel:Always crashing in the same car
Describe where you currently live: Life on Mars
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Width of a circle
Your favorite form of transportation: Queen Bitch
Your best friend is: Young Americans
You and your best friends are: Kooks
What’s the weather like: Changes
Favorite time of day: Eight Line Poem
If your life was a TV show, what would it be called: Scary Monsters
What is life to you: Panic in Detroit
Your relationship: Fame
Your fear: Sound and Vision
What is the best advice you have to give:Somebody up there likes me
Thought for the Day: Hang onto yourself
How I would like to die: Ashes to Ashes
My soul’s present condition: Moonage Daydream
My motto: Andy Warhol
Millard Fillmore’s Birthday
On January 7, 1800, Millard Fillmore was born. He had no middle name, so his initials were MF. He was POTUS number thirteen, serving July 9, 1850 – March 4, 1853. A member of the Whig party, Mr. Fillmore became President after the death of Zachary Taylor. This is the only death of a serving President not connected to the zero factor.
Whenever a President dies in office, there are conspiracty theries. In the case of Zachary Taylor, the body was exhumed in 1991. The investigation found that Mr. Taylor “had no more arsenic in him than you or I walking around in the environment today.”
“The details about how and why President Taylor died are still in dispute today. The president attended a ceremony at the site of the Washington Monument on July 4th on a reportedly hot summer day. He fell ill soon after with a stomach ailment after drinking iced drinks and eating a bowl of cherries. His doctors gave him relief medication that included opium and later bled the president. Taylor died five days later at the age of 65.
Officially, he died from cholera morbus, and today, the prevalent theory is that Taylor suffered from gastroenteritis, an illness exacerbated by poor sanitary conditions in Washington. There are other theories, including one where Taylor was poisoned by people who supported the South’s pro-slavery position. (In recent years, Taylor’s body was exhumed and a small, non-lethal amount of arsenic was found in samples taken from his corpse.) It was Taylor’s unexpected opposition to the expansion of slavery (he was from the South and was the last president to own slaves) that had caused an immediate crisis in 1850.”
Some naysayers claim that Millard Fillmore was the one to poison the President, but they are not taken seriously. Millard Fillmore served what was left of Mr. Taylor’s term. He is little known today, which makes one wonder why he was included in the history series American Douchebag. Which is not to say that Mr. Fillmore is completely forgotten.
@EdDarrell Happy Birthday Millard Fillmore! Born January 7, 1800. Fillmore as a young man? @fillmoremillard Thank you Ed! I was a handsome devil, wasn’t I? #Fillmore2016 @EdDarrell One story holds that when Fillmore toured England and Europe Queen Victoria said said was the handsomest man she ever met. @MonroeNumber5 Prince Albert must have loved that… Perhaps he wasn’t vain enough to let it bother him. @EdDarrell Or, more likely, Albert knew Victoria’s astounding love and devotion to him. Albert died 6 years later.
At one time, Johnny Carson thought jokes about Millard Fillmore were funny. A youtube search does not reveal any of these jokes. During a writers guild strike, Mr. Carson wrote his own monolog. “… astrology would no longer be used at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Employed instead, he said, would be “a channeler speaking through the spirit of Millard Fillmore.”
The rest of this holiday post is recycled. It was inspired by Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub, a fine blog. MFB is published today, six years after the original post. As you may have guessed, it is named for Millard Fillmore. MF was POTUS (and many POTUS are MF) between 1850 and 1853. The last whig to serve as POTUS (history does not record whether he wore one), Mr. Fillmore helped delay the War Between the States for ten years.
After he left office, Mr. Fillmore visited Atlanta GA in 1854, becoming the first POTUS to do so. A road in San Francisco was named Fillmore Street, and loaned the name to a famous concert hall. Johnny Carson made him a punch line to many jokes. And, there is the bathtub.
In 1917, with America mixed up in a European war, H.L. Mencken published a column in the New York Evening Mail. He claimed that the bathtub had been invented in 1842, and was a controversial device. (The first model was made of mahogany lined with lead.) President Millard Fillmore installed a bathtub in the White House in 1850, and greatly increased the acceptance of the invention. The story was a lie, but was believed without question by the (unwashed) public.
Recently someone found a letter, written by Alexander Stephens, the Vice President of the Confederate States of America. In 1860, the election of Abraham Lincoln was seen by many as a disaster. Mr. Stephens disagreed: “I know the man [Lincoln] well, he is not a bad man. He will make as good a President as Fillmore did and better too in my opinion.”
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. These details are from picture #06665, “Bathing Beauty Pageant, 1925, Huntington Beach CA”
Four Free Articles
You have reached your limit of 4 free articles this month. ~ Clinton and Trump in dead heat: what a horrible visual. ~ I believe everyone has something to teach us, if we are open. But part of the lesson may be disengaging from those who want only to teach but not learn or listen. ~ At the 52 minute point of #wtf show 667, Marc Maron says “That’s how selling out works for people with integrity” ~ You are the only one who really knows the story. Do what you think is best. If worse comes to worse flip a coin. ~ @WernerTwertzog if you do not answer my email within 48 hours, we are no longer friends. Unless you are dead, in which case it does not matter. ~ at 12:00 est I paused the chat to get more coffee i will not listen to the rest bc i don’t understand it ~ two wrongs always make a right ~ christians are good at marketing their beliefs ~ Comments are disabled for this video. ~ @avitable Nobody in the world works harder and has more dedication to her job than a stripper two days before rent is due. ~ Where is the next stop… murder Kroger, or the Clermont Lounge? ~ Futon Farmers of Atlanta ~ the band, or the bug spray? ~ Whatever you do, don’t call what I make “artwork” ~ was atty prostitution oops prosecution or defendant? ~ Three years for $20. That was a few years ago. ~ @WernerTwertzog No, Slavoj, I am unconvinced of the authenticity of your stigmata. ~ We Bet You Can’t Define These Difficult Vocabulary Words! There were twenty six words, with four multiple choice options. The words were used in a sentence, which usually provided another clue to the meaning. The words were: apathetic, inane, amorphous, inveterate, mendacious, abscond, fatuous, abstruse, noisome, hapless, indefatigable, dilatory, phlegmatic, laconic, panache, contusions, tome, conflagration, carouse, diaphanous, nonplussed, prurient, eclectic, hoi polloi, legerdemain, cajole. PG missed contusions and tome. ~ ‘I Didn’t Know That Was Racist’ – Are You Using ‘White Ignorance’ to Dodge Responsibility? Or maybe you don’t agree that your action/comment was racist. This is not an exact science ~ war between the states quiz ~ 15 words you should eliminate from your vocabulary to sound smarter ~ true or false quiz ~ pictures from The Library of Congress. ~ selah
Blackface Drag At Club Sheba
Mary Cheney became famous in a traditional way. Her father is Dick Cheney, former VPOTUS, hunting guide, and terrorist. Apparently Ms. Cheney felt the need for attention recently. She posted the following matter on facebook.
“Why is it socially acceptable — as a form of entertainment — for men to put on dresses, make up and high heels and act out every offensive stereotype of women (bitchy, catty, dumb, slutty, etc.) — but it is not socially acceptable — as a form of entertainment — for a white person to put on blackface and act out offensive stereotypes of African Americans?”
When it comes to getting people to look at you, Mary Cheney is not in the same hemisphere as RuPaul. By remarkable coincidence, there is going to be a new season of a cable tv show, about drag queens, hosted by RuPaul. The comments by Ms. Cheney were seen by RuPaul as an opportunity to promote product. The video is embedded above.
We are not going to discuss the moral calculus of blackface vs drag in this post. That’s what facebook, twitter, and comment sections are for. This blog does not have the intellectual gravitas as youtube comment sections. Mary Cheney and RuPaul are getting the attention they require.
The pictures today are from The Library of Congress. These ladies were participating in “Inter city beauties, Atlantic City Pageant, 1925.” There is something appropriate about beauty pageant pictures illustrating a discussion of the relative political correctness of blackface and drag queens. If you want a picture of Mary Cheney, go somewhere else.
This feature of this feature is a repost. The show was performed in 1979. I recently saw “Carroll.” He lives in Pennsylvania today, and has a beard nine inches long.
Reading about Shirley Q. Liquor brought back memories of a night long ago. A young man, who I will call Carroll, grew up across the street. In his spare time, he did drag shows. What I was expecting was Carol Burnett and Lily Tomlin, using his own voice. One Sunday night, free admission and a buffet was all I needed to venture downtown and see the show.
The venue was an unpretentious bar called Club Sheba. The clientele was mostly lesbians, many of whom were African Americans.
Club Sheba was located on Forrest Avenue. The street was named for Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate General who, some say, founded the Ku Klux Klan. Forrest Avenue late became Ralph McGill Boulevard, named after the former editor of the Atlanta Constitution.
As show time approached, I saw a table that had empty seats. I pulled back a seat, and a beefy lady informed me that she did not want a man to sit at that table.
The first act was what I expected. The reputation of Carol Burnett did not suffer, and Lily Tomlin was still in the closet. After the first act, I shot a game of pool with my friend, and went to the buffet for a second plate. A lady stopped me. ”You’re not supposed to get full”
I went back to the pool table. After a while there was a crowd standing around, and it was evident that a second act was going to start soon. I saw a black lady in the crowd making faces at me, took a second look, and realized that it was Carroll.
He did not use his voice this time, but lip synced to Grace Jones and Diana Ross. He wore blackface, and an afro wig. The crowd at the Club Sheba enjoyed this part of the show. Many of the Black Lesbians went to the stage and stuffed dollar bills in his faux bosom.
War Between The States
It is a truism that history is written by the winner of the war. This seems to apply to the naming of a horrific armed struggle in North America between 1861 and 1865. The most common name is Civil War. To many in the South, it is the War Between The States. To PG, WBTS is a better name.
In fifth grade, PG had to write an essay about the Battle of Atlanta. The essay was a device for teaching grammar. The contest was sponsored by the Daughters of the Confederacy . The phrase “Civil War” was not permitted. The acceepted name for this conflict was War Between the States.
The conflict started as soon as the colonies became independent from Great Britain. The South was an agrarian society, with slaves to work the fields. The north was becoming an industrial society, with a need for an independent work force. The north wanted high tariffs to protect her industries, while the south wanted to sell it’s cotton to Europe. Many were suprised that the Union lasted as long as it did.
Slavery was an important issue. The south wanted to keep “the peculiar institution,” while many in the north were horrified. There were economic reasons to keep slavery. Numerous compromises over the years kept the Union intact. This ties in with a central dilemma of the american experience … how much power to give to the states, and how much power to give to the federal government.
In 1861, eleven states left the United States of America. These eleven states formed a Confederacy, of more or less independent states. Between 1861 and 1865, the Confederate States of America fought a brutal war with the the United States of America. Very little about the conflict was civil.
PART TWO There was an armed conflict in North America between 1861 and 1865. The most popular name today is Civil War. According to the always helpful wikipedia Civil War was used during the conflict, but was not the only name. Other names include the War of the Rebellion, the War for the Union, the War for Southern Independence, and Mr. Lincoln’s War.
Evidently, the phrase War Between the States became popular after the conflict. This article from the North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission makes a case for WBTS. This phrase is more dignified than other southern oriented expressions like “War of Northern Aggression” or “The recent unpleasantness,” although not as much fun.
There was a debate in the US Senate, in 1907, over what should be the “official” name of the conflict. In a commentary on this debate, it is noted: ” I am struck by the reconciliationist tone of both excerpts. Compared with the intensity of the debate in certain camps today (2005) it is interesting to note that the senators who took part in this discussion back in 1907 did not see this question as decisive. Given that many were veterans they seemed content to concentrate on their shared experiences … In the background of the debate was the lingering issue of how to understand the relationship between the states and the federal government at the time of secession and at the beginning of Reconstruction. Our tendency today to refer to the war as the ‘Civil War’ is a reflection of the widespread belief that secession is illegal or at least not worth serious consideration.”
Pictures, of Union soldiers, are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Aunt Tiny
There was a political comment on facebook. The last sentence was “No wonder Georgia turned Republican after the Clintons sold poor people out.” The person making this comment was born in 1980, the same year Georgia elected a Republican to the US Senate. This person also was born and raised in Florida. PG thought of a smart comeback.
There was a famous video by the Fruitcake Lady. In the first part, a young lady asks who to vote for in an upcoming election. FL makes a face, and said “you’re gonna ask someone who lives in FLORIDA how to vote?” This is along the lines of a Floridian transplant explaining the Republicanization of Georgia. Unfortunately, the video with the Fruitcake Lady had been taken down for copyright infringement. The spell check suggestions for Republicanization: Recapitalization, Cannibalization.
PG wasn’t really doing anything, and was in the mood for a google wild goose chase. This led to an amazing article, Sweet as Sugar, Rude as Hell, My Lost Interview with Truman Capote’s Aunt. A writer for the fishwrapper went to a mobile home in Hudson, FL. He talked to Marie Rudisill, who was best known as Truman Capote’s “Aunt Tiny.” The meeting took place in 1997, and was not what the writer expected. A family friendly version of the meeting was published The journalist received a slice of fruitcake in the mail. Everyone concerned went on with their lives.
Marie Rudisill died November 3, 2006, after becoming famous as the Fruitcake Lady. As for the journalist: “When I left The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2009, I stashed 27 years of old newspapers, tapes and ephemera in my garage. Nothing is more depressing to me than those boxes of old newspapers. It’s my own private morgue — replete with the sickening scent of dust and roach pills…. When I finally mustered the courage to dig around, I found the Lewis interviews — as well as a cache of other recordings. Three of the tapes had Rudisill’s name scribbled on them. I was not quite ready to listen, though. I put them in a box and labeled it.”
In 1924, Truman Streckfus Persons was born in New Orleans LA. His mother, Lillie Mae (Aunt Tiny’s older sister) left here husband behind, and took the boy to Monroeville AL. They lived in a wild household. A neighbor was Harper Lee, who wrote “To Kill A Mockingbird.” Miss Lee was a close friend, as was Sook. This is Truman’s cousin, the fruitcake chef herone of “A Christmas Memory.”
After a while, Lillie Mae married Joe Capote, who adopted the boy. They moved to New York, where Aunt Tiny joined them. Truman was sent to military school. Everyone, except Lillie Mae, thought this was a terrible idea. The effort to butch up young Truman did not work.
Aunt Tiny wrote a book, Truman Capote: The Story of His Bizarre and Exotic Boyhood by an Aunt Who Helped Raise Him. It was published in 1983, a year before Truman died. “The book scandalized Monroeville — and Capote. He told The Washington Post: “If there are 20 words of truth in it, I will go up on a cross to save humanity.” Said Harper Lee: “I have never seen so many misstatements of fact per sentence as in that book.”
There is one story that sticks out…. “Rudisill breaks down just once during our interview. It’s when she recalls “the first time Truman ever had a sexual encounter with a priest.” She was living in Greenwich Village, having followed Lillie Mae and Truman to New York. “He was sitting on my doorstep when I came home from work, and he had blood all in his pants, and then he told me about this priest. And nobody, I don’t think anybody in the world ever knew that but me.”
There is more to the story. If you have the time, you might enjoy reading the full article. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Scat
PG turned off the canned noise, and opened a window. Sometimes the pitter patter of rain is the best background sound. It was christmas eve eve, and PG is trying to write a book report on Scat, a “book for young readers” by Carl Hiassen.
PG found Scat on the internet, pun intended, and had a copy sent to the Chamblee library. When he learned of the juvenile intention, PG decided to read until he got bored. Veteran Hiassenites can tell you this will not happen until the book is finished, and the blank pages appear. The spell check suggestion for Hiassenite is Whiteness.
One amazon one star review disagrees. jayess99 Is anyone else sick of adults writing like and about children? This book was great for about the first two pages, and then it morphed into a kid’s tale. Why don’t they advertise it as such? Because they want your DAMN MONEY, that’s why! They dont give a hoot if you actually like the book, they just want your money. Think about it – why else would he even write this dross unless he just wanted your money?
Evidently, there is a British version of Scat, with British slang substituted for American. Just a guy from France was not amused. “Since the book takes place in FLORIDA, even the most insulated British kid is going to know that people there speak American English and I would expect that British kids would find themselves puzzled at least, and those who wanted to read an *American* book would feel cheated by this Bowdlerized bastardized abortion of a book.”
Scat is similar to the adult books written by Mr. Unpronounceable. The plot is set in Florida, and has more twists and turns than the flying spaghetti monster’s beard. There is endangered Florida wilderness, dastardly criminals, well meaning ordinary citizens, and weirdos. There is a degenerate who listens to classical music, and has a macaw that speaks English, French, and German.
The story starts in the classroom of the biology teacher from hell… don’t worry, she has a heart of gold. BTFH leads the class on a field trip, only to be interrupted by a fire in the swamp. Mrs. Starch goes into a burning swamp to find an asthma inhaler, and does not come out for a few weeks. It should be noted that normal people do not go in burning swamps to find an asthma inhaler. Things happen in Scat that require a suspension of disbelief, but are necessary to advance the plot.
When a teacher cannot show up for class, there is a substitute. In this case, the fill in instructor is a weirdo, Wendell Waxmo has unusual methods. On Monday, he teaches page 117 of the book. On Thursday, it is page 329, and Friday features page 263. PG decided to skip ahead, and read the page of the day. Telling you what happens on these three pages is a good way to summarize the plot of Scat. This is using the “BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF.” It is a hard back first edition, Copyright ©2009 by Carl Hiassen.
Page 117 has a conversation with Nick and Marta. They are students of Mrs. Starch, who take an inexplicable role in the investigation after the swamp fire. Marta has seen the Prius that Mrs. Starch drives. Some strange man is driving. A classmate of Marta’s, Smoke, is in the passenger seat. Smoke, the son of the the tri-lingual macaw owner, is suspected of setting the swamp fire.
You probably think that Nick and Marta are a couple. You might be wrong, This is a book for young readers, and does not have the hanky panky that Hiassenites have come to expect. Most people in Scat have had bad marriages. Nobody seems to have sex. The only happy couple is Nick’s parents…. daddy just got back from combat duty in Iraq, minus his right arm
The Thursday class, featuring page 329, takes place on page 159. When you skip ahead to page 329, what you see will not make sense. The fourth and fifth words on the page are “Mrs. Starch,” which tells you the witch is still alive. Smoke, Marta, and Nick are present, along with a panther cub. When you look at this page when you are supposed to, it makes a bit more sense. This is when the various plot lines are hurtling towards a conclusion, and the reader is having too much fun.
On page 263, Twilley Spree is looking for a panther. Mr. Spree is another weirdo, albeit with lots of money. Out of nowhere, a pile of equipment and supplies appears. Someone is trying to dig an oil well, on land that belongs to the State of Florida. This is highly illegal, and is central to the plot of Scat. Twilley Spree decides to teach someone a lesson. What is the lesson, and who are the students? Spolier alerts are for babies. Pictures from The Library of Congress.
So this report has eleven paragraphs. If it is going to have rainbow text, there needs to be at least one more paragraph. Maybe we should consider spending $21.95 for Scat: Novel-Ties Study Guide. The “Most Helpful Customer Reviews,” which is also the only review, gives SNTSG four stars. lydia “I would recommend this study guide for Scat to other teachers. My only criticism is that the vocabulary activities are matching. Excellent literary analysis activities are included in this study guide. There are also extension activities that enrich the novel study experience.”
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