Chamblee54

Rick Perry, known by The Field Negro as Governor Big Hair, wants to be the next POTUS. Some people say he enjoys executions. As one popular story shows, this might be an asset. “Veterans of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s unsuccessful 2010 primary challenge to Perry recalled being stunned at the way attacks bounced off the governor in a strongly conservative state gripped by tea party fever. Multiple former Hutchison advisers recalled asking a focus group about the charge that Perry may have presided over the execution of an innocent man — Cameron Todd Willingham — and got this response from a primary voter: “It takes balls to execute an innocent man.” (One person thinks people are making too big a deal out of this quote. “Besides, it’s not like Texas is lacking for other perfectly good things to mock!”)
The case of Mr.Willingham is mighty controversial. Some say the Governor of Texas has little to do with who does or does not get executed, (There is a school of thought that the Governor of Texas is weak, with little ability to do much. If this is the case, the much touted economic miracle in Texas has little to do with the Governor.) Governor Big Hair did replace the chair of the Forensic Science Commission two days before a hearing about the Willingham execution.
Playing politics with executions seems to be a recent tradition for state Governors who want to be POTUS. In 1992, Bill Clinton went home to Arkansas to make sure that Ricky Ray Rector was executed. Mr. Rector had severe brain damage, and did not know what was going on. During his last meal, he put a slice of pecan pie to the side, and said he wanted to save it for later.
In 1999, George W. Bush was the Governor of lethal injection happy Texas. A lady named Karla Faye Tucker was scheduled to be poisoned. The Governor gave an interview.
In the week before [Karla Faye Tucker’s] execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. “Did you meet with any of them?” I ask.
Bush whips around and stares at me. “No, I didn’t meet with any of them,” he snaps, as though I’ve just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. “I didn’t meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like ‘What would you say to Governor Bush?’ ” “What was her answer?” I wonder.
“Please,” Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, “don’t kill me.”
Mr. Bush got lots of blood on his compassionate conservative hands during eight years as POTUS. BHO (who never ordered an execution) wasted Osama Bin Ladin, and a few women and children in Stanland. Governor Big Hair will probably get a few more Texecutions before next years election.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Here is one more quote: “Here in Texas we believe that juries are wise as Solomon when it comes to deciding who needs to die but dumb as posts when it comes to figuring out damage awards.”

The Base of All Metaphysics

And now gentlemen,
A word I give to remain in your memories and minds,
As base and finale too for all metaphysics.
(So to the students the old professor,
At the close of his crowded course.)
Having studied the new and antique, the Greek and Germanic systems,
Kant having studied and stated, Fichte and Schelling and Hegel,
Stated the lore of Plato, and Socrates greater than Plato,
And greater than Socrates sought and stated, Christ divine having studied long,
I see reminiscent to-day those Greek and Germanic systems,
See the philosophies all, Christian churches and tenets see,
Yet underneath Socrates clearly see, and underneath Christ the divine I see,
The dear love of man for his comrade, the attraction of friend to friend,
Of the well-married husband and wife, of children and parents,
Of city for city and land for land.

Recorders Ages Hence

Recorders ages hence,
Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior,
I will tell you what to say of me,
Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover,
The friend the lover’s portrait, of whom his friend his lover was fondest,
Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love within him,
  and freely pour’d it forth,
Who often walk’d lonesome walks thinking of his dear friends, his lovers,
Who pensive away from one he lov’d often lay sleepless and dissatisfied at night,
Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he lov’d might
secretly be indifferent to him,
Whose happiest days were far away through fields, in woods, on hills,
he and another wandering hand in hand, they twain apart from other men,
Who oft as he saunter’d the streets curv’d with his arm the shoulder of his friend,
while the arm of his friend rested upon him also.

When I Heard at the Close of the Day

When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv’d
with plaudits in the capitol,
still it was not a happy night for me that follow’d,
And else when I carous’d, or when my plans were accomplish’d,
still I was not happy,
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health,
refresh’d, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning light,
When I wander’d alone over the beach, and undressing bathed,
laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise,
And when I thought how my dear friend my lover was on his way coming,
O then I was happy,
O then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food nourish’d me more,
and the beautiful day pass’d well,
And the next came with equal joy, and with the next at evening came my friend,
And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll slowly
continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me
whispering to congratulate me,
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night,
In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast—and that night I was happy.

Are You the New Person Drawn Toward Me?

Are you the new person drawn toward me?
To begin with take warning, I am surely far different from what you suppose;
Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal?
Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?
Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy’d satisfaction?
Do you think I am trusty and faithful?
Do you see no further than this facade, this smooth and tolerant manner of me?
Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man?
Have you no thought O dreamer that it may be all maya, illusion?

Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone

Roots and leaves themselves alone are these,
Scents brought to men and women from the wild woods and pond-side,
Breast-sorrel and pinks of love,
fingers that wind around tighter than vines,
Gushes from the throats of birds hid in the foliage of trees as the sun is risen,
Breezes of land and love set from living shores to you on the living sea,
to you O sailors!
Frost-mellow’d berries and Third-month twigs offer’d fresh to young
persons wandering out in the fields when the winter breaks up,
Love-buds put before you and within you whoever you are,
Buds to be unfolded on the old terms,
If you bring the warmth of the sun to them they will open and bring form,
color, perfume, to you,
If you become the aliment and the wet they will become flowers,
fruits, tall branches and trees.

Not Heat Flames Up and Consumes

Not heat flames up and consumes,
Not sea-waves hurry in and out,
Not the air delicious and dry, the air of ripe summer,
bears lightly along white down-balls of myriads of seeds,
Waited, sailing gracefully, to drop where they may;
Not these, O none of these more than the flames of me, consuming,
burning for his love whom I love,
O none more than I hurrying in and out;
Does the tide hurry, seeking something, and never give up? O I the same,
O nor down-balls nor perfumes, nor the high rain-emitting clouds,
are borne through the open air,
Any more than my soul is borne through the open air,
Wafted in all directions O love, for friendship, for you.

Trickle Drops

Trickle drops! my blue veins leaving!
O drops of me! trickle, slow drops,
Candid from me falling, drip, bleeding drops,
From wounds made to free you whence you were prison’d,
From my face, from my forehead and lips,
From my breast, from within where I was conceal’d,
press forth red drops, confession drops,
Stain every page, stain every song I sing, every word I say, bloody drops,
Let them know your scarlet heat, let them glisten,
Saturate them with yourself all ashamed and wet,
Glow upon all I have written or shall write, bleeding drops,
Let it all be seen in your light, blushing drops.

City of Orgies

City of orgies, walks and joys,
City whom that I have lived and sung in your midst will one day make
Not the pageants of you, not your shifting tableaus,
your spectacles, repay me,
Not the interminable rows of your houses, nor the ships at the wharves,
Nor the processions in the streets,
nor the bright windows with goods in them,
Nor to converse with learn’d persons, or bear my share in the soiree or feast;
Not those, but as I pass O Manhattan,
your frequent and swift flash of eyes offering me love,
Offering response to my own—these repay me,
Lovers, continual lovers, only repay me.

Behold This Swarthy Face

Behold this swarthy face, these gray eyes,
This beard, the white wool unclipt upon my neck,
My brown hands and the silent manner of me without charm;
Yet comes one a Manhattanese and ever at parting kisses me lightly
on the lips with robust love,
And I on the crossing of the street or on the ship’s deck
give a kiss in return,
We observe that salute of American comrades land and sea,
We are those two natural and nonchalant persons.

I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing

I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches,
Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous of dark green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself,
But I wonder’d how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there
without its friend near, for I knew I could not,
And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it
and twined around it a little moss,
And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight in my room,
It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,)
Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of manly love;
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana
solitary in a wide in a wide flat space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near,
I know very well I could not.

To a Stranger

Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking,
(it comes to me as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only
nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass,
you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone
or wake at night alone,
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

This Moment Yearning and Thoughtful

This moment yearning and thoughtful sitting alone,
It seems to me there are other men in other lands yearning and thoughtful,
It seems to me I can look over and behold them in Germany, Italy, France, Spain,
Or far, far away, in China, or in Russia or talking other dialects,
And it seems to me if I could know those men I should become
attached to them as I do to men in my own lands,
O I know we should be brethren and lovers,
I know I should be happy with them.

I Hear It Was Charged Against Me

I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions,
But really I am neither for nor against institutions,
(What indeed have I in common with them?
or what with the destruction of them?)
Only I will establish in the Mannahatta and in every city of these
States inland and seaboard,
And in the fields and woods, and above every keel little or large
that dents the water,
Without edifices or rules or trustees or any argument,
The institution of the dear love of comrades.

Poems are from Leaves of Grass, Book V: Calamus by Walt Whitman.
Text is courtesy of Project Gutenberg.
Formatting of text, and pictures, by Chamblee 54. Calamus part one.
The Big Joy Salon/Benefit/Reading and Screening is Friday July 26, 2011, at 7:30 pm. The location is the Rush Center, 1530 DeKalb Avenue Atlanta GA 30307. This is an evening of enjoyment, centered around the product of the Late James Broughton. $5.00 suggested donation.

New Yorker recently published a fascinating account of the mission that offed Osama Bin Ladin. If you have a few minutes, it is highly entertaining. It makes BHO look like a fierce warrior POTUS, which will not make any difference to the tea party.  Soon after the appearance of this story, the nit picking began.
It came to light that Nicholas Schmidle did not talk to any of the Navy SEALS who were on the mission. (Mr. Schmidle confirms this here.) The article is full of fine detail. People began to wonder how he learned what he did.
Christine Fair knew Mr. Schmidle, and told a story about his reporting. He wrote a story about Pakistan. “Mr. Schmidle wrote that the men in attendance mostly spoke Pashto but “knowing Urdu, I could understand enough [of their Pashto] to realize that they weren’t rehashing the typical J.U.I. rhetoric.” That made the rest of the article immediately suspect. I knew Mr. Schmidle, and knew that his language skills in Urdu were functional at best and, even if he had superb Urdu skills (and he did not), this would not render Pashto comprehensible in the slightest.”
The official story is that the US forces found the safe house in Abbottabad by tailing Mr. Bin Ladin’s courier. Supposedly some torture was involved in getting the information, which is politically advantageous to report. The entertaining blog The spy who billed me has a different story.
It was good old fashioned bribery that found Mr. Bin Ladin. Saudi Arabia was paying Pakistan to keep Mr. Bin Ladin, for various reasons. A Pakistani officer outed Mr. Bin Ladin, and was well paid.
Not everyone believes the stories told at TSWBM. The comments are highly entertaining, and the source of some good stories. A senior Pakistani security official said “We don’t use toilet paper – we wash. But toilet paper is all this theory is good for.” Lets not shake hands on that.
The pictures today are Union soldiers,from the War Between the States. These images are courtesy of The Library of Congress.

Bloggingheadstv facilitates multitasking, among other crimes against humanity. Night after night, PG manipulates images while listening to pairs of people talk. This vessel has a feature called “amplifier”, where listeners are invited to send in clips from the conversations. There is a  contest to see which snippet gets the most clicks. Unspecified merchandise goes to the winner. Today, the winner is chamblee54.
The diavlog in question featured Ann Althouse and Rebecca Watson . (This conversation inspired a post by Chamblee54 ) Ms. Watson had been involved in an incident at an atheists convention, where a clumsy man hit on her. The incident sparked a blog controversy , with thousands of comments made. Ms. Watson said it was not her job to get men laid. Ms. Althouse said that there was money to be made.
PG heard this comment . He minimized his photoediting, went to the screen, found the comment, and made the clip. The comment was posted on amplifier, with the comment “Ann Althouse comes out as a capitalist”. A thousand clicks  later, and Chamblee 54 wins.
At the time of this announcement, PG was upset that another clip had not been mentioned. A certain neo conservative described someone as a total drama queen. PG said the man was talking about himself, and thought it was pretty funny.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress . There have been one , two , three BHTV tributes at chamblee54. UPDATE The email from BHTV arrived at high noon Thursday. The prize is an item from the Cafepress Store. The item should be worth $25.00 or less. PG chose a khaki hat, with the BHTV logo.

Football is just around the corner. The teams are busy with the pre season, and soon weekends will be full of hitting and drinking. Perhaps this is a good time to wonder whether football is worth the human cost. Especially now, with a national debate raging about the future of our health care. Football injuries keep hospitals hopping during the autumn.
This is a recycled post. There is a helping of hypocrisy here, as PG enjoys watching the hits. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Football season is here. While the games are fun to watch, the players are paying the price. Your health insurance premiums just might be affected.
Football is a contact sport. On every play, the linemen block other lineman to keep them from tackling a back. Someone gets hit on every play. Most of these hits are “clean” and cause only bruises. Some are “dirty”, and cause injuries. Even the clean hits can hurt someone.
It is estimated that 187,000 emergency room visits every year are due to football. What if an illegal drug sent 187k to the er annually? There would be a hue and cry to kill the pushers.
Knee injuries are especially prevalent. An estimated 45,000 knee operations are performed each year due to football injuries. Arthroscopy is a wonderful invention.
With all those helmets slamming into each other, head injuries occur. “The researchers found that there is approximately one catastrophic head injury per every 150,000 athletes playing, or 7 catastrophic injuries yearly. There were 0.67 injuries per 100,000 players at the high school level and 0.21 injuries per 100,000 for college level football players.” Often, the coaches get caught up in the do or die spirit of a big game, and don’t get the player the medical attention that he needs. “Football is a very macho sport. Athletes are taught to play through pain,” …“But concussions range in severity and symptoms, so all a player may experience is a headache several hours after impact. High school players need to be educated in these symptoms and encouraged to self report.”
Even cheerleading squads are reporting more injuries, due to botched stunts.
When you see the players in their youthful glory, you don’t think what they will look like after they quit playing. Many players know this, but the lure of today’s glory justifies the pain of tomorrow. The heroes of yesterday often walk with pain today.

Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

After Apple-picking
My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound 25
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it’s like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.





Putting in the Seed
You come to fetch me from my work to-night
When supper’s on the table, and we’ll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree.
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;)
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

Mending Wall
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
“Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, “Good fences make good neighbours.”
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbours? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbours.”
Poems written by Robert Frost. Text by Public Domain Poems.
Pictures from The Library of Congress .

A comment at a recent post mentioned “Jenning’s Rose Room, a classic poor white juke and dance hall … where Trader Joes now sits.” PG had been in that building when it was called Richards, and knew   stories. Pictures  are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
There is no telling what the original use of the building at 931 Monroe Drive was. It was across the street from Grady Stadium, and adjacent to Piedmont Park. The railroad tracks that became the beltline ran behind it. The parking lot was primitive, with a marquee sign built at some point. ( PG drove by that sign several nights and saw that  Lynyrd Skynyrd was playing. Somehow, he did not make it inside.)
There was another nightclub building on the hill behind JRR. One night, PG went to see a jazz band there, accompanied by someone who lived in a nearby house. After seeing the band, PG was led to a horse stable behind the bar. The horses were not well maintained … you could see the ribs sticking out. There is a story of a goat getting loose from the stable, and being chased out of the jazz bar during happy hour.
Jennings Rose Room was before PG’s time. There is a story that some men had lunch there, and made a bet. The idea was to hit a golf ball from the JRR parking lot, and putt it into a hole at Piedmont Park. A biscuit was used as a tee. The first shot went across the street, onto the field at the stadium. Eventually, the ball was hit across Tenth Street, onto a green, and into the cup.
At some point, Jennings Rose Room closed. A gay club called Chuck’s Rathskeller was opened in that location. A rock and roll club or two did business there. Then Richards opened.
The first time PG was in the house was after a Johnny Winter concert at the Fox. There were rumors of visiting musicians dropping by Richards to play after their shows. Mr. Winter was only onstage for a couple of minutes after PG got there.
The most memorable trip to Richards was during the summer of 1973. The headliner was Rory Gallagher, who was ok but not spectacular. The opening act was Sopwith Camel, one of the forgotten bands of the seventies. They performed a novelty hit, “Hello Hello”. Someone in the audience liked it, and paid them to do it again. The band wound up doing “Hello Hello” five times, and said that was the most money they made on a show in a long time.
Average White Band was making the rounds that fall, and had a show at Richards. A lot of the audience was black, and they hit the dance floor in unison when “Pick up the Pieces” was played. Fellow Scotsman Alex Harvey was in town, and joined AWB to sing ” I heard it through the grapevine”.
Muddy Waters played at Richards one night. The band did most of the playing, with Mr. Waters tossing in a few licks on bottleneck guitar. He might have sang a couple of times.
About this time, Iggy Pop played a few shows at Richards. One night, someone snuck up on him, and gave him a hug. It was Elton John, wearing a gorilla suit.
PG saw two more shows (that he can remember) at Richards. Soft Machine played in the winter of 1974. Larry Coryell played a show that summer, with the Mike Greene Band opening. PG got to talk to Mike Greene that night. The National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences ( who do the Grammy Awards) had a President named C. Michael Greene at one time. PG thinks this is the person he talked to that night, but cannot find confirmation.
Two friends of PG went, as their first date, to see Spirit at Richards. They were married a few years later. Towards the end of 1974, Richards was running out of steam. They advertised a New Years Eve show starring B.B. King, and sold high priced tickets. When the crowd showed up for the show, they found the doors locked. Richards had closed.
The next tenant for 931 Monroe Drive was going to be Cabaret After Dark, a gay club. There was a fire the night before the grand opening. The building was never used again. Eventually, a shopping center was built on the site.
UPDATE: Here is a article from the Great Speckled Bird about the Richards.

This is a repost from three years ago. (It was repeated  last year. ) Large Tony has a new blog, but doesn’t post very often. The house on Virginia Avenue is still there. The granite building by Piedmont Park is part of a restaurant. Paul McCartney played a show (not for free) in the field behind it.
On September 10, the last episode of As the world turns will be broadcast. This is episode #13,858. It was the first soap opera to be a half hour, instead of fifteen minutes.
Pictures for today are from The Library of Congress
One of my favorite blogs is Large Tony. He is going to retire soon, and will be missed. He stays with his Granny in the hills of Tennessee. Yesterday, he was talking about the time when he was up at Grannies house as a young boy. They got up early one morning to see the wedding of Charles and Diana. I dare say the bond between them is more genuine than the bond between Charles and Diana.
I saw an earth changing event at my Gran’s house one day. ( And why do people say Granny, or Nana, or Gran? Its not like I remember having a choice ). Gran lived in a little apartment in Mrs. Stuckey’s house on Virginia Avenue. This was a few years before Virginia Highlands was uber trendy. I was staying with her one summer day when I was ten years old.
We walked down to the granite house next to the golf course in Piedmont Park. Gran’s friend worked there. This was the summer of Beatlemania, and Gran’s friend made a point of telling me that she DID NOT LIKE THE BEATLES ” If The Beatles were playing for free across the street, I would not waste the energy to walk across the street to see them”.
Gran and I walked back to her apartment to see “As the World Turns”. The show was interrupted for a news bulletin. Walter Cronkite came on the say that a North Vietnamese boat had fired on an American boat in the Gulf of Tonkin.We did not know, at the time, that this was a world changing event.I doubt Gran ever thought much about it. But Congress used that incident… which turned out to be largely fabricated… to justify our sending many more troops to fight in Vietnam. That war was a world changing event. We are still dealing with the effects of that conflict.

PG and Uzi went back downtown Sunday, to see the rest of the Living Walls. The journey started at Paris on Ponce, an antique store across from Green’s liquor store. The mural had a few cars parked in front, and was a colorful assortment of shapes.
The next wall was on nearby Somerset Terrace. There was an open gate, with a freshly painted wall behind it. PG took a few shots, and was amused at the homeland security vehicle overturned by native americans. A man pulled into the lot, and told Uzi that this was private property. As it turns out, there is a mural on a building behind Somerset, on Angier Springs. Google says that this is the mural for the Living Walls project.
There were two murals in Little Five points. One was behind Junkman’s Daughter . PG looked for a place to park, couldn’t find one, and wound up driving through an alley that came out on Colquitt Avenue. PG didn’t know this alley was there, and considered driving through it to be a cool move. Uzi felt the need to go to Zestos, and get a chocolate ice cream cone. PG parked there, and walked across the street to photograph the mural in front of Criminal Records.
The next two were on Edgewood Avenue. The first was on the side of an apartment building, as Inman Park was morphing into urban pregentrification. PG drove by it, and was turning around in a parking lot when Uzi spotted it. The next one was on the other side of I75/85. Again, PG drove by, and Uzi spotted the image. PG found a *creative* parking spot, and went over to capture the mural. This was an impressive image, and had a vacant lot beside it, which made photography easy.
The next three were at the corner of Pryor Street and MLK Blvd. PG found an empty parking spot, and went out to capture the images. These were all adjacent to Underground Atlanta. A number of policeman were standing around, for some reason.
The next stop may be the high point of the afternoon. There is a large, brick hotel at the corner of Mitchell Street and Forsyth Street. At one time, when Mitchell Street went from the train station to the State Capitol, this was a fine establishment. Today, it is way, way past it’s glory days. To compensate for the ravages of time, someone painted a large aligator on the side.
When Uzi was a kid living in Cascade Heights, Peters Street was the way home. Today it is part of the Castleberry Hill neighborhood, which allegedly is making a comeback. The next stop was on Murphy Avenue, near the beltline, and the West End Marta station.
A few raindrops were coming into play by this point. PG drove to East Point, looking for one more mural, but never did find it. Dinner at the Piccadilly cafeteria on North Druid Hills road was next, with PG making it home as the serious rain started. Uzi was left to drive to his place in the storm.

PG is a sometimes reader/commenter of peach pundit . Friday, head peachpit Erick Erickson was a guest announcer on WSB radio. The station is now simulcast on an fm outlet, which was an important announcement on the show.
Mr. Erickson is getting to be versatile. A Macon city councilman, blogger, and CNN commenter, he was replacing Herman Cain. At the start of the show, he said he didn’t want to talk about the “Ground Zero Mosque”. Mr. Erickson proceeded to spend the majority of his time talking about that very issue.
After a while, PG decided to see if he could get on. After a string of busy signals, the phone rang. The call screener answered “the herman cain show”. She asked for a name, and PG said Chamblee54. She said that is not a name, so PG said Luther, which is his “real” name.
The screener asked what he wanted to talk about, and PG said water. Atlanta had a drought three years ago, and almost ran out of water. The screener said that the host has not been talking about that. PG asked if he could wait on hold while she asked the man if he could discuss water. A few minutes later, at 8:26, the screener said he could talk on the show, please turn the sound down on your radio. PG wished he could have talked to Belinda, the ace screener for Neal Boortz.
PG listened to Mr. Erickson rant about liberals for twenty minutes, while awaiting his turn. Finally, it was his turn to talk. Starting out by mentioning that he comments at Peach Pundit, PG quickly asked Mr. Erickson what we should do to ensure a secure water supply for Atlanta.
There was a bit of a chuckle, and the announcer said it would be easy to solve this problem. Just elect competent officials. If you want to get a good water supply for Atlanta, shave your legs, paint your face, and offer to show state officials a good time.
PG had a follow up question, on the lines of what specific you would want these newly elected officials to do about the water crisis. There was a clicking sound on the line, and suddenly no sound was coming out of the telephone.
This discussion shows a few things that are wrong with America. With the problems facing America, we should not have time to worry about an Islamic Community Center being built in Lower Manhattan. When the water shortage was getting worse, the hot topic in the local arena was the State Flag. Until our leaders…both elected and electronic…address serious issues, and put aside name calling about those who disagree with you, we are in a world of trouble.
After PG switched back to the speaker radio, Mr. Erickson was ranting about twenty somethings that don’t want to grow up. The question of what Mr. Erickson’s excuse for not growing up, as a thirty something, was not addressed.
PG was also hoping to talk about blogging. There is a saying, Blogging is talk radio without the busy signal. The cutoff was not the end of the comment, as it would be for most people. Pictures for tonights entertainment are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”
The commentary above is a repost. In the past year, Herman Cain has quit radio to run for President. After a good early showing, his campaign is running out of steam. Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann have much better hair.
Erick Erickson has replaced Herman Cain as the host of the 7 pm talk show on WSB. ( AM750 and now 95.5FM News/Talk WSB ) PG listened to EWerickson for a couple of minutes last night. He said BHO was trying to fund our economy on unicorn farts. This is the intellectual level of his show.

PG found Classic Television Showbiz while reserarching a recent feature about the late Sherwood Schwartz. The site is a treasure, with youtubes of classic tv shows, and interviews with “entertainers”. Somewhere in the sidebar was a link to a story about Tubby Boots.
Charles “Tubby” Boots was born around 1926 in Baltimore MD. He was a nightclub comedian. Mr. Boots weighed 375 pounds, had bleach blond hair, and often performed without a shirt. He wore pasties on his boobs, and would twirl them simultaneously in opposite directions.
The parts in blue are borrowed from Classic television showbiz. Tubby’s parents were a vaudevillian dance team called Boots and Barton. At the age of seven this youngster was clocking in at an astounding two hundred pounds, a constant target of ridicule in his Baltimore schoolyard….During his childhood, Tubby managed to witness a performance by comedy’s greatest cult icon, Lord Buckley … Tubby Boots recalled shortly before his death, “[Lord Buckley] was like a father figure to me. I met Buckley when I was seven years old when I was working at the Hippodrome in Baltimore, Maryland, and I was in awe of him. I saw his act every time he would come back to play the theater … I would sit in the theater all day and watch the shows. I’d stay out of school for the whole week – my mother would pack me a lunch – she knew what I was doing because I wanted to learn about show business. Buckley would do his hat-switching act. Every other show he would get me to do it with him. I’d hang out with him backstage, we’d go out for lunch or dinner, he’d sneak me back into the theater and I’d watch the whole stage show again. I started working nightclubs when I was eleven. I weighed 250 pounds and passed myself off as twenty-one. I got arrested in a strip joint and the police said: ‘We’re not going to throw you in jail but you’re not going to work in this town again – you’re too notorious.’ So they actually put me on a train and said ‘Where you wanna ticket to?’ I said, ‘New York.’ I didn’t run away – I was forced to leave. So when I got to New York I called Buckley and, pretending to sob, said, ‘My mama died in a car crash…my father was with her…’ Unbeknownst to me, he called my mother and told her, ‘He’s with me.’ So he got me a job at The Three Deuces, passing me off as twenty-one.” The Three Deuces was one of Manhattan’s major jazz holes in the thirties and forties, regularly featuring Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Lord Buckley was connected to the jazz world for most of his career, performing in their clubs and utilizing a great deal of the Black hipster vernacular in his act.”
Mr. Boots got a job as the emcee for burlesque shows, frequently in traveling carnival shows. He was doing well, when Lord Buckley called him from Hollywood. Supposedly, there was a movie job waiting for Mr. Boots. When he got to California, he found out otherwise. “Tubby became affectionately known as Princess Lily. “He used to call me Princess Lily but Prince Charles of Booth was my title. Buckley used to say: ‘Lil! You had the misfortune to be born with the beautiful body of a woman in the ridiculous body of a man!””
In 1959, Mr. Boots was in a bizarre accident. He was taking a bath, and the controls for the hot and cold water were in another room. Lord Buckley was handling these controls, and poured scalding hot water into the tub. Mr. Boots was stuck in the tub, and was badly burned. He spent a week in the hospital, and was not friends with Lord Buckley later.
After he recovered, Mr. Boots moved to Miami Beach. He performed in motel lounges for many years, and developed a following. Comedy albums were becoming popular, and Mr. Boots contributed “Thin my be in but fats where its at”. The albums were sold at his shows. The legend is that no copies exist that were not autographed.
The various search engines are sketchy about Tubby Boots. A comment or two refers to his death, but there is no date available. The Lady Bunny tells about going to see Mr. Boots in a supper club on Long Island in the eighties. Reportedly Mr. Boots did well during the comedy club explosion of the eighties.
PG saw a show by Tubby Boots. It was December 1974, at a dingy Atlanta bar called The Cove. PG was hanging out with someone we will call McClain, who liked the drag shows at The Cove. The bar was a former electronics warehouse, with a sign for Ballantines Beer by the front entrance. Ballantines had not been sold in Georgia for a long time, but the sign stayed. This was on Monroe Drive, behind Piedmont Park. Evidently, Tubby Boots was a friend of somebody, and did a show at The Cove one night.
If you can stand to look at the embedded video, you get an idea about his show. Thirty seven years later, PG can remember a few of the jokes. There was a one liner about an *African American* who took a shit, and thought he was melting. There was a routine based on the role Katherine Hepburn played in “Suddenly Last Summer”. My boy is not queeyer, he’s carnivorous. After a while, the shirt came off, and he twirled pasties from his boobs in different directions.
After the show, PG talked to a black friend, who did not want to meet the comedian. Meanwhile, Tubby Boots and McClain were making out. Before long, McClain came over to PG, and said he wanted to go somewhere else. Tubby Boots died in August, 1993. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

1 And G-d spake all these words, saying, 2 I [am] the LORD thy G-d, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3 Thou shalt have no other G-ds before me. 4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness [of any thing] that [is] in heaven above, or that [is] in the earth beneath, or that [is] in the water under the earth: 5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy G-d [am] a jealous G-d, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth [generation] of them that hate me; 6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. 7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy G-d in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. 8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: 10 But the seventh day [is] the sabbath of the LORD thy G-d: [in it] thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that [is] within thy gates: 11 For [in] six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them [is], and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. 12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy G-d giveth thee. 13 Thou shalt not kill. 14 Thou shalt not commit adultery. 15 Thou shalt not steal. 16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. 17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that [is] thy neighbour’s. 18 And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw [it], they removed, and stood afar off. 19 And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not G-d speak with us, lest we die. 20 And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for G-d is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not. 21 And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where G-d [was]. 22 And the LORD said unto Moses, Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven. 23 Ye shall not make with me G-ds of silver, neither shall ye make unto you G-ds of gold. 24 An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen: in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee. 25 And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it. 26 Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon. A The ten commandos are not meant to be believed. They are meant to be practiced.  B If you take away the religious whoopdeedoo, the ten commandos hold up as common sense rules for living. C If you ever meet someone who claims to practice all of the commandos, then you are dealing with a liar. D We are all G-d’s children. She gave you a heart and a mind. When in doubt, trust your heart. E The first commando is powerful and under appreciated. It does not include books about G-d, or the so called son of G-d. F There is an ongoing controversy about the public display of the ten commandos. Some say such displays violate the second commando. PG wonders if having a sign forbidding lying and stealing is going to work in a courthouse. G The third commando is more than G-d’s last name. It is about the proper use of a sacred name. In a perfect world, the word G-d would only be used for worship and respectful discussion. A “pledge of allegiance” to a nationalist symbol is not an appropriate use of a sacred name. H Sunday is too fine of a day to spend inside a church house. I When you are discussing religion, it is normal to be a hypocrite. If you disagree with someone, the easiest argument to scream hypocrisy. J Whenever possible, show kindness to your neighbor. K The text for Exodus 20 is courtesy of King James Bible Online. Pictures are by Chamblee54.