Chamblee54

It started as a rumor, and was quickly confirmed. Crazy Owl…a.k.a. Charles Emerson Hall…passed away April 4, 2011. He was my friend for many years. Many stories could be told, and here are a few. Here is the biography from his website, Crazy Owls Perch.
These few lines will introduce you to Crazy Owl, the author of this website. His life began August 5 1927 at 6:02 AM in Akron Ohio, USA. His mother named him Charles Emerson Hall.
In 1960 The University of Wisconsin awarded him a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree, He pursued a career in mathematical statistics and research methodology until 1975 when he predicted that a cancer epidemic would engulf one-third of the population by 1985. Thereupon he “dropped out” and went into the community lifestyle and ate organic food. In summer of 1987 he took the name Crazy Owl and accepted the Barred Owl (the original “Crazy Owl”) as his totem.
Sometime during these years he became interested in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM for short). In 1980 he started studying acupressure at the Acupressure Institute in Berkley California. Since that time he has been a Healer with TCM as the core of his practice. From 1985 to 1997 Crazy Owl taught TCM in The School For Gentle Hands in Atlanta Georgia. He had a clientele in Healing and a business in herbalism as well as students.
The School for Gentle Hands was in an old horse farm on Flat Shoals Road, just off I20 and Gresham Road. There is a subdivision there now, and the K mart is a Walmart. This space is a mile away from East Atlanta Village, and is an up and coming neighborhood now. When Owl moved there in 1985, it was run down. He had a beat up barn, a dirt driveway, and a pipe bringing county water in. Some government agency made him get a porta potty, a bright green facility with a lot of nicknames.
The School For Gentle Hands was about nine miles due south from my attic apartment. One of the events was the friday night sweat lodge. You drove down, found a place to park in the weeds, and walked down a hill to the lodge. Owl would start the fire, put the rocks in, and hope that someone was there to join him. I sometimes served as the helper, balancing the glowing rocks, on a pitchfork, while Owl held open the door to the lodge.
One friday, the sweaters were talking about the things they were grateful for. The previous friday night, I had been in a tacky bar in Tucker GA. Everyone except me chain smoked, while the band played “Melancholy Baby”. Seven days later, I was naked in a makeshift hut. I was grateful for variety in my life.
In those days, AIDS was on a rampage, and there was little that industrial medicine could do. Crazy Owl helped quite a few people. Some did well with his treatment, and are thriving today. He taught that AIDS was not a disease, but a condition, and that it could be reversed.
Crazy Owl was a traveling companion of mine in those days. For a while, it seemed like every time we went anywhere, it would pour down rain the entire time. On a pre Thanksgiving Wednesday, this turned into ice when we arrived at the valley in North Carolina. We woke up the next day to find ourselves in an ice crystal wonderland.
He is not on this plane of existence any more. As for what he expected, I honestly don’t know. This may be a surprise to some, but not everyone is obsessed with life after death. I suspect that he is going to be all right.
Update: Here is the story of his final days. The story of the Memorial Service is here.

There was a hearing in congress about carbon pollution. One of the reputed effects of this “global warming”. Before getting into the results of this meeting, one thing should be noted. If the problem is hot air, the last thing you want is a hearing before a committee in Washington D.C.
One of the talkers at this hearing was Richard Muller, the chair of a study group called BEST, for Berkley Earth Surface Temperature. BEST recieves funding from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, and was considered to be skeptical of claims regarding carbon pollution. To the surprise of many, Dr. Muller testified “We see a global warming trend that is very similar to that previously reported by the other groups”
Anthony Watts makes a few points about the testimony. It is said that “initial assessment is based on only 2% of the 1.6 billion measurements that will eventually be examined.”The people who don’t think carbon pollution is a problem are good at having things to say.
Yesterday, PG saw a movie about tornadoes. . This regards a scientific study, with the collection of lots of data. The idea here is to see what weather events are likely to result in tornadoes. There is a lot that is not known, and wading through mountains of data is an inexact science. The same could be said about the impact of carbon pollution.
The atmosphere of the earth is a marvel. It supports an amazing planet full of life. It has evolved into what it is over an estimated four billion years. The changes in the atmosphere have taken place primarily in the industrial age, roughly the last two hundred year. What took four billion years to build has been severely damaged in two hundred. If you crunch a few numbers , two hundred years compare to four billion years like one minute compares to thirty eight years.
Pictures today are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”

PG was minding his own business when the phone rang. Uzi wants to go see an IMAX movie about tornadoes. PG was underwhelmed, but wound up going anyway.
Getting to the facility at five minutes before showtime, the only seats left were on the second row. This means leaning your neck back to see the action at the top of the screen. There was a helpful announcement to the effect that, if you felt dizzy to close your eyes and look down.
The movie was about a team of scientists who chase tornadoes, so they can study them. There was an armored vehicle, that is designed to dig into the path of a tornado and take movies. The vehicle was parked outside, with the keys in the ignition. The sign said “Do not follow during adverse weather”.
Getting the device into the path of a tornado takes perseverance and *luck*. At about the point in the movie where you expect a climax, the tank does get to film a tornado. As fate would have it, it was in a field, and about all you saw was waving vegetation. There were no flying cows.
When the movie was over it was dinner time. PG drove towards Dickhater (spell check suggestion: Dishwater). There is a lively restaurant row behind the courthouse, but PG was not in an adventurous mood. Twenty five years ago, he ate at The King and I, and bit into one of those little peppers. The experience scarred him. They wound up at the Piccadilly cafeteria on Church Street.

Donors want data…Nonprofits measure impact…Experts watch and smile
Chekov in the bay…searching hard for some space fuel..Nuclear wessels
I bit a zombie…it was ironic but the…taste was terrible.
Learn from the Jedi…Discipline, control, respect…Dangerous muppet.
Packets of photons…Streaming by our planet’s sky…their address divine
Eat Theobromine…Drink methyltheobromine…Heliophobe, I.
Why kill Wash and Book?…Are they thinking what I am?..Firefly Zombies!
Pigeon overhead…fertilizer on the way…attorney beware
Don’t argue with a…Mobius strip because it…Will be one-sided
Take me to the black…I am a leaf on the wind…My Serenity
I am all around…Yet some can’t seem to find me…I am Internet.
Obsidian wings … The Library of Congress …attribute the source

The President gave a speech about Libya the other day. Overall, BHO is getting good marks for his sales pitch. There is one section of the transcript where you need to read between the lines.
“Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as President, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.”
The United States is conducting an air slaughter of people in Pakistan. Unmanned aircraft are flying over a neutral country, and sending expensive killing devices onto a defenseless population. We have not turned a blind eye to these killings. We are using state of the art images, to aim our weapons of mass destruction. We do not wait for pictures of the results before taking further action. Just as President I did not wait for a declaration of war from Congress.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

A blond and her boyfriend are out in the woods hunting when the boyfriend collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The blond takes out her phone and calls 911.
She gasps: “My boyfriend is dead! What can I do?” The operator says: “Calm down, I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence, then a gunshot is heard. Back on the phone, the blond says: “OK, now what?”
A Blonde is watching the news with her husband when the newscaster says “Two Brazilian men die in a skydiving accident. The blonde starts crying to her husband, sobbing “That’s horrible!!! So many men dying that way!! Confused, he says, “Yes dear, it is sad, but they were skydiving, and there is always that risk involved.”
After a few minutes, the blonde, still sobbing, says, “How many is a Brazilian?”
A blonde had just totaled her car in a horrific accident. Miraculously, she managed to pry herself from the wreckage without a scratch and was applying fresh lipstick when the state trooper arrived.
“My goodness!” the trooper gasped. “Your car looks like an accordion that was stomped on by an elephant. Are you OK ma’am?” “Yes, officer, I’m just fine” the blonde chirped. “Well, how in the world did this happen?” the officer asked as he surveyed the wrecked car.
“Officer, it was the strangest thing!” the blonde began. I was driving along this road when from out of nowhere this TREE pops up in front of me. So I swerved to the right, and there was another tree! I swerved to the left and there was ANOTHER tree! I served to the right and there was another tree! I swerved to the left and there was ….”
“Uh, ma’am”, the officer said, cutting her off, “There isn’t a tree on this road for 30 miles. That was your air freshener swinging back and forth.
One morning a blonde’s husband was watching the traffic report on TV. They were talking about some maniac who was driving along the highway in the wrong direction and disrupting traffic. He knew his wife would be on that highway on her way to work and he didn’t want her to get hurt, so he called her to let her know.
“Honey, watch out this morning, there’s a lunatic driving the wrong way up the highway” he said.
Sounding terrified, she replied “It’s not just one!”
On a plane flight from Seattle to Chicago, a blonde was sitting in economy class. About half way through the flight, she got up and moved to an empty seat in first class. A flight attendant who observed this, went over to her and politely explained that she had to move back to economy class because that was what her ticket was for. The blonde replied, “I’m blonde, I’m beautiful, I’m going to Chicago and I’m staying right here.”
After several attempts to explain to the blonde why she had to return to economy class, the flight attendant gave up. She went to the cockpit and explained the situation to the pilot and co-pilot. The co-pilot said, “Let me try.” He went up to the blonde and politely tried to explain to her why she needed to return to her seat in economy class.
But the blonde only replied, “I’m blonde, I’m beautiful, I’m going to Chicago and I’m staying right here.” Frustrated, the co-pilot returned to the cockpit. He suggested that perhaps they should have the airline call the police and have her arrested when they land.
“Wait a minute,” said the pilot. “Did you say she’s blonde? I can handle this. My wife is a blonde. I speak Blonde.” So he went up to the woman sitting in first class and whispered something in her ear.
“I’m sorry,” said the blonde, and she promptly got up and returned to her seat in economy class.
“What did you say to her?” ask the astonished flight attendant and co-pilot.
To which the pilot replied, “I just told her that first class isn’t going to Chicago.”
Two sisters, one blonde and one brunette, inherit the family ranch. Unfortunately, after just a few years, they are in financial trouble, and are down to their very last $600.00. In order to keep the bank from repossessing the ranch, they need to purchase a bull so that they can breed their own stock.
Upon leaving, the brunette tells her sister, ‘When I get there, if I decide to buy the bull, I’ll contact you to bring the trailer with the truck to me so we can haul it home.’
The brunette arrives at the man’s ranch, inspects the bull, and decides she wants to buy it. The man tells her that he will sell it for $599, no less. After paying him, she drives to the nearest town to send her sister a telegram to tell her the news. She walks into the telegraph office, and says, ‘I want to send a telegram to my sister telling her that I’ve bought a bull for our ranch. I need her to hitch the trailer to our pickup truck and drive out here so we can haul it home.’
The telegraph operator explains that he’ll be glad to help her, and then adds, it will cost 99 cents a word.’ Well, after paying for the bull, the brunette realizes that she’ll only be able to send her sister one word. After a few minutes of thinking, she  says, ‘I want you to send her the word ‘comfortable.’
The operator shakes his head ‘How is she ever going to know that you want her to hitch the trailer to your pickup truck and drive out here to haul that bull back to your ranch if you send her just the word ‘comfortable?’
The brunette explains, ‘My sister’s blonde.  She’ll read it very slowly… ‘com-for-da-bul.’
A blond was sitting at the local bar after work one evening watching the television. There was a news story on the tube about a man jumping off the roof of a ten story building. The bartender says “I bet $20 he will jump”. The blond says “you are on, I bet he won’t jump”. A few minutes later the man jumps and the blond starts to hand the bartender the $20 she just lost. The bartender confesses that the story was not live and he had seen it earlier in the day so he could not in good conscience take her money. The blond replies that he should take the money anyway as she had seen the story earlier in the day too and really didn’t think the guy would do it twice.
These reports were originally published at a Jesus Worship Forum.

The note from blogger central was explicit. If chamblee54 does not produce 600 words on the new and improved war in Libya, then his license is in danger. So, in no particular order, here goes.
1- There is no shortage of commentary on this mess. Most of it is more heat than light. It would be great if people quit comparing BHO to GWB, Iraq to Libya, or Qaddafi to Hitler. Liberal and conservative has very little to do with this. Everyone is, to some degree or another, a hypocrite.
2- Muammar Qaddafi is a name brand villain. There was talk of sending a hit man to Libya in 1985 to take him out. If that had happened, some no name functionary would have taken over, and things would be the same today. It is easy to aim your rhetoric aat a person. This was the case with Saddam Hussein and Yassir Arafat. The pain of the Palestinian people did not go away when Mr. Arafat died.
3- Who are these rebels in Libya? If they oust Mr. Qaddafi, might they not turn out to be worse?
4- The United States is broke. We spend over a trillion dollars a year more than we take in. We don’t want to raise taxes. We cannot afford another war.
5- There are reports that the government in Bahrain is just as bloodthirsty as Mr. Qaddafi. Of course, they are not led by a brand name villain, and they are friendly to the USA. We probably will not intervene there. Ditto Saudi Arabia, multiplied by 12 million barrels of crude oil a day.
6- The troubles are spreading to Syria. This is on the border with Israel. To the USA, Israel is the only country that really matters. An armed intervention in Syria would endanger the refugees from Iraq. There are over a million Iraqi refugees in Syria. A war would have refugees. Will Israel take any in?
7- This is not 600 words. It is more than nothing at all. If you can’t say anything good, you should say nothing at all. The pictures are from The Library of Congress .

This is a desecration of Satori in Paris, by Jack Kerouac. Parts one and two have already been published. Pictures are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”
20- Mr. K is riding a train to Brest, drunk as a skunk and needing a bath. He does the only thing that is appropriate, he starts preaching. There are so many obvious things to say about this, maybe we should just skip ahead to the next chapter. Or maybe not. PG is listening to a Grateful Dead download, and it is surprisingly good. So many of these concert tapes are from the over the hill days of this establishment. This show is from 1972, in New Jersey . At this time, PG was working at Northlake Mall, following the Budweiser Clydesdales with a shovel. This was also about the time when Jane Fonda went to Hanoi.
21- The train pulls into Rennes, and Mr. Noblet gets off the conveyance. Mr. K gets a flask of cognac, which he is left to drink by himself. This chapter is important because it fixes the date of the action as being 1965. PG was 11 years old in 1965, and played pop warner football. Bob Dylan played the electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival on July 25, 1965, and was condemned as a sellout. It is unlikely that Mr. K was aware of this, or of very much other than his supply of alcohol. The war in Vietnam was escalating at this time, which is one more reason to drink, as if Mr. K needs one.
22- Mr. K arrives in Brest. It is 3 am, and the only people on the streets are mean looking young men, who Mr. K is afraid of. He tries to stay away from them, and starts singing with a bunch of drunken sailors. He is quite a sight. Meanwhile, the free association that this writing exercise is supposed to cut loose…it just is not happening. PG just finished editing a picture of a police car, that was parked in front of a mountain of fertilizer. The welcome wagon had pulled over a careless driver, and the meeting was held in the parking lot of Lowes. This is the location of the Frito Lay potato chip factory, which moved on to greener pastures a few years ago. The Frito plant used to make the whole neighborhood smell like pork rinds, on the days when they cooked those, so that probably works out for the gendarmes giving those poor children a ticket.
23- There is not much action in chapter 23, just a bit of ramble on the concept of changing your name. It seemed like Mr. K, and his ancestors, had a variety of surnames, before settling on Kerouac. Now, PG has, until recently, been at peace with the name his parents gave him. ( Which is not PG, btw.) For some weird reason, his folks decided to call him by a short version of his middle name, which caused all mean and manner of confusion. Since PG had no shortage of insecurities, having a strange first name only added to the drama. Well, his first name is fine and dandy, his daddy isn’t using it anymore, so PG is in the process of changing to using his first name. Except to the drunk a few weeks ago, who said, do you want me to call you Cluether? This would be a great name for a detective, and if PG were to use this handle, he could never be said to be clueless. It is all something to think about.
24- Mr. K is regressing, and calling himself Ti Jean. This means something John, and it was somewhat of a childhood name. Anyway, he is alone, drunk, and scared in a foggy city at 3 in the morning. He finds a police station, and the policeman looks at his passport, and shook his hand. This agrees with the profile of the concierge of the download site. Your resident caveman: Netanderthalian .. I am a graphic designer and I really like to play dead … Political correctness is a poor substitute for the common sense. I’m an atheist and I am partial to Occam’s Razor. There are over 100 bands in my top 10 bands. Concierge is a cool word, besides sounding french. It was immortalized in the movie “the producers”. The man goes to a shabby apartment, and meets the concierge. When he leaves, he says thank you madame. To which she replied, I am not a madame, I’m a concierge.
25- There is some padding to the conversation here. The only action if for the police to take Mr. K to a small inn on Rue Victor Hugo. PG used to know a couple, whose last name was Igo. They had a dog named Hugo. Mr. Igo was a piece of G-d’s work, and he vanished for a while after his divorce. Mr. Igo was back later with a new wife, whose first name was Kay. Kay Igo was the shortest name in Tall Clubs International, only six letters. Mr. Igo, another John, like Mr. K., only much less literate, was still a nuisance. He volunteered to run a weekend for the Atlanta Sky Hi club, and ran out of town with the proceeds. It got rid of him, so it was probably a good deal all around.
26- Mr. K spends the night in the inn, without his suitcase. Maybe that was the story with Joseph and Mary, there was room at the inn, but their bags were on the next camel coming into town. The three wiseman did not bring gold, but a toothbrush. With books you never know how it is going to translate. Anyway, the next morning Mr. K wants a beer for breakfast, and the innkeep says he would sober up better with a good breakfast. Afterwards, Mr. K goes out in search of the lost valise. This Grateful Dead download is really good. It is about the time of the Europe 72 triple album, which was one of the first albums by them that PG enjoyed. The christmas break of 1972, PG’s friend Clam had a buford hiway apartment by himself, and him and PG stayed stoned the entire time. Europe 72 was one of the albums they listened to. The song playing now is Tennessee Jed. PG was playing this once, when his neighbor asked “do you like that?” When PG said yes, the neighbor said “you are a hick”.
27- Mr. K does not learn from experience. Once again, he is asking directions in a bar. A mailman does not know where the airline office is. This disturbs Mr. K, and compares it to giving an African tourist, in New York, directions to the Bowery, where he is murdered and dismembered by drug addicted punk rockers. Wait a minute, they did not have punk rockers in 1965. Never mind, said Emily Latella, who would come over from New Jersey to commit the foul deed herself. Bitch. However, Mr. K is persistent, and ignores all the bad vibes of a mailman who will not ring twice, and gets the directions to the airplane office from the bartender. This has not worked well in the past, but Mr. K is an optimist.
28- The bag will not arrive in Brest until noon, and Mr. K wants to get out of town. There is scenery there, but he does not have a hotel room, and there is no one to talk to. He can always drink by himself, and probably talk to himself, but he is waxing philosophical. Just like Michele Bachmann . She is a republican congresslady, who just says the darnedest things. “”And what a bizarre time we’re in, when a judge will say to little children that you can’t say the pledge of allegiance, but you must learn that homosexuality is normal and you should try it.””I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter. And I’m not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it’s an interesting coincidence.” “How did the pig get out of the pen? The swine flew” Miss Bachmann only said two of those three things.
29- Just before PG gets frustrated at the lack of action in this volume of typing, the pace picks up. Mr. K is in a bar, drinking away his last two hours in Brest. The barkeep takes bets over the telephone, which is how the place makes it’s money. So, Mr. K gets to chatting with the man, and before long is talked into meeting one of the Lebris (spell check suggestion: Debris, Celebrity, Bristle )family that still lives in Brest. He takes another bet, and talks about the Lebris gynecologist who loves the thighs of women. So, Mr. K is fascinated by now, and probably starting to be less drunk, and agrees to walk over to the restaurant where Mr. Libris can be found.

A few years ago, PG still had a job. The industry was crashing before his eyes, but PG never gave less than one hundred percent. One of the ways the company had of saving money was to order people to clock out, and take a full hour for lunch, everyday. PG used this time to look at the internet. One day, he stumbled onto Joe Bageant.
The blog was an eye opener. It was the sort of talk that PG enjoyed…that the biznocracy ran America, and the political parties were a sham. Liberal and conservative, black and white, gay and straight…these were useless labels, used by the ruling class to divide and conquer. Bageant said that the media view of America was a hologram, with no relation to reality.
After a while, PG got tired of reading Joe Bageant. Maybe it was the discouraging thought that the man was correct, but that there was nothing that could be done. It is the same realization that PG came to in 1986, with the Government importing cocaine to pay for an undeclared war, while declaring a drug war on it’s own citizens. You were either fighting a losing battle, or flying under the radar, while working for the emperor’s tailor.
Meanwhile, Joe Bageant kept on keeping on. His best days were behind him, and the excesses of his youth were catching up. He published a book, Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War. He taped an interview with dangerousminds to promote this book. This interview gives you a twenty minute look into Joe Bageant. You can listen to it while multi tasking.
One of the themes here is the tendency of working class people to do things against their best interests. In the 1860s, the south fought a gruesome war against the north. One of the major reasons was the question of slavery. The poor white people of the south fought, and died, for the ability of their snooty neighbor to own slaves. There was no good reason for white trash to die for the right of someone else to own slaves, and yet they did it. They believed they were “fightin for my rats”.
Joe Bageant took his last breath on March 26, 2011. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.

The screed below is a repost. This feature was the first time Chamblee54 used pictures from The Library of Congress. It is often said that opinions are like sphincters, that everyone has one. The talent discussed below is in the same boat…they produce mountains of  waste, which will not grow roses.
This is far from a comprehensive list. Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd, Jethro Dull Tull, and Led Zeppelin inspire similar fervor. The line that usually applies is “they put their pants on one leg at a time”. For the Red Hot Chili Peppers, substitute socks for pants.
The digital medium listverse posted a list of “10 Rock Bands You Either Hate Or Love“. What follows is a commentary by PG about these acts. If you are not interested in opinions, skip to the pictures.
10- Captain Beefheart and his magic band-There was a sampler LP by Warner Brothers around 1970 or so. Available only by mail order, the LP had songs by a variety of Warner Brothers artists. Captain Beefheart was represented by “Hiella guru”, which had a sort of catchy sound. A voice said something like ” Damascus estate”, which fit the overall dada sound of the band. Years later, a groupie wrote a tell all book about her youthful adventures. It turns out the voice said “The mascara snake”
In between the sampler LP and the groupie tell all book, Captain Beefheart played a show at the Great Southeast Music Hall, then located in Cherokee Plaza. PG liked to show up after the second set had started, and the ticket takers left the door open. The night CB played, PG mistimed his visit, and got to talk to a high school classmate, but did not see the show.
09-Metallica- There was a saying in “The electric kool aid acid test” ( which was not the origin of the phrase “drink the kool aid). The merry pranksters set off on a trip around america, and someone said “you are either on the bus or off the bus”. Those might not be the exact words, and they don’t sound as profound without the acid to drive home the emblematic attitude.
Getting back to Metallica, PG has never been on the bus for heavy metal. He heard a thing by Metallica on the radio that was pretty cool. He then read an interview, that made Metallica look like a bunch of alcoholic right wing jerks. They stagger all the way to the bank.
08-U2- Paydirt. The favorite band of millions, U2 can make PG switch radio stations faster than a used car dealer commercial. Incriminating evidence of Payola in the radio industry,the U stands for Ugh. The guitar player only seems to know one riff. If autos could run on Bono’s ego, there would be no energy crisis ever. Bono is a vocal Jesus Worshiper, with Episcopal churches having U2 services.
07-Aerosmith- These guys are famous today because they didn’t OD, despite the best efforts of Stephen Tyler. The simply are not that good. The rabbit is not the only thing that died.
06-Sonic Youth-PG quit being hip a long time ago. Once he saw a comment about Bono, and thought it was about Sonny. He does not know enough about Sonic Youth to have an opinion. For once, that is going to stop him.
05-Elvis Presley- There was a story about Elvis and Natalie Wood. She wanted him to be in a movie she was making, and he did a screen test. To the surprise of many, Elvis could act when he wanted to. The only trouble was, Colonel Tom Parker did not want him to do the film, and so it didn’t happen.
Elvis is an American phenomenon. He was the union of hype and talent. He was also watched over by Colonel Tom Parker, and never stepped out of the role that was chosen for him. Elvis also had the musicians gift for self destruction.
PG heard a racist rant about Elvis once, to the effect that Elvis stole his music from black people. Which only means that it was worth taking.
04-The Beach Boys-Like Elvis, The Beach Boys are tough to not like. Even Nancy Reagan was a fan, and Brian Wilson did not just say no. Maybe they became a self parody, but when they were in the early sixties prime, there was no one who could sing like them.
03-The Velvet Underground-The Velvets existed before recording technology could handle them. There recorded output sucks. The Andy Warhol days were essentially an audition for John Cale, Lou Reed, and Nico. All of them did outstanding work after the demise of the VU. When PG saw Lou Reed doing car commercials…
02-The Eagles- PG read the tell all book by Don Felder. This is a mean, selfish bunch. They made some good records, and did mountains of drugs. Eagles lyrics are endlessly quoted by people who are trying to appear hipper than they really are. Maybe they are elbowsters.
PG stood outside the Omni one night, trying to get a ticket to see The Eagles inside. One of the scalpers had a t shirt, with the phrase “DISCO SUCKS” in six inch tall letters. This negativity is what PG associates with The Eagles.
01- The Grateful Dead-PG has written about the Dead before. Lots of people think they are groovy. What is usually not said out loud is the “other ones”, who are not on the bus.
The Dead liked to be loose on stage. Sometimes, this translated into shows that were horrible. Many people, not indoctrinated into the cult of Jerry, went to one of these shows and decided that yes, they were dead, or at least smelled like it. This download ,from a 1991 show, is an example. Many of their later shows were more family gatherings than musical events.
Dead heads can also be a problem. Like some of the other units in this list, there are fanatic followers of the GD. Like many fanatics, they sometimes turn as many people away from the object of adoration, as the do towards it.

“Thinking hard about you I got onto the bus and paid 30 cents car fare and asked the driver for 2 transfers before discovering I was alone.” /// PG drove 25 miles in the rain to a party. When he got there, the driveway was blocked by a police car. PG went home. ///”The silence of the snow in the mountains will be roaring in the creek by my house in a few days.” /// Spring is the earth waking up. When this happens, the snoring of the planet stops, the forests do a few quick stretches, and the rivers run down the hall to piss. /// “I lift the toilet seat as if it were the nest of a bird and I see cat tracks all around the edge of the bowl.” /// Tonight was earth night, and people were told to turn their lights out for one hour. This was supposed to increase consciousness of the use of electricity, and the excessive lighting of the planet. Some idiot on the east west connector decided to drive with his headlights turned off, and his emergency blinkers flashing. This will not increase consciousness about the sad state of the planet. ///”Television crippled the imagination and turned people indoors and away from living out their own fantasies with dignity.” /// Maybe driving on the east west connector without headlights, in the rain, was this man’s idea of a fantasy. This is not a crippling of the imagination, but warping it into something dangerous. And it might have been a woman, as PG did not discuss pronouns with this driver. ///”Your heart is like a sea gull frozen into a long distance telephone call.” /// When this was written, long distance was expensive. Today, long distance is free if you use a cell phone. In both times, sea gulls are vile, nasty animals that the planet would be better off without. /// “That is the last place in the world where you want to be but you have to be there, like a movie, because it features you.” /// Just because everyone else is going crazy about something , this does not mean that you are required to have an opinion. You just might have more peace of mind if you practice this. /// “I could feel somebody inside of her looking out as if her body were a castle and a princess lived inside.” /// At a red light, PG was behind a truck, from Fayette County, that either had it’s high beams on, or which had especially bright headlights. PG drove at 30 mph until this idiot passed him. Behind PG at this red light was the person driving without headlights /// “Half-children are playing in the street below. Their voices travel up to us like a piano with half its keys missing.” /// Kevin Sessums (spell check suggestion: Possums) had a quote by Elizabeth Taylor. The item was off the record until she died. Within 24 hours of her demise, Mr. Sessums talked about the item. Her fingernails were still growing. /// “It is against the natural order of death for a trout to die by having a drink of port wine.” /// It is even worse for the trout to drink King Cotton Peach Wine.  It was so foul, it could not be sold outside the state of Georgia.




“I just spent the last half-an-hour watching a Japanese children’s program on television… We know what we like.” /// Mr. B, will you ever get over your Japanese wife? Even death does not seem to help. /// “I always considered my body to be more possessions than I ever needed and so everything else had to be simple.” /// Even if a car was simple, it would still need a parking space and a gas station. On the way home from his aborted party night, PG had to stop for gasoline.The golfer Jack Nicklaus once said, the two biggest wastes of time were getting a haircut and filling your car with gasoline. /// “Japan begins and ends with Japan. Nobody else knows the story. / … Japanese dust in the Milky Way.” /// Japan has a cruel relationship with atomic energy. First the bomb was dropped, then the tsunami washed out a peaceful nuke plant. It is strange to get a karmatic blowback from receiving a nuclear bomb blast. ///”Mouths that kissed in the hot ashes of Pompeii are returning” /// The are lining up at the return desk to get a refund. They were not the correct size. /// “The thing that she was looking at was inside of herself. It had a shape that only she could see.” /// If she went on a diet, then that shape would be smaller. If the diet was communist, then the people would own it. If Yoko Ono was a man, she still could not sing very well. /// “We have the power to transform our lives into brand-new instantaneous rituals” /// If this is true, then the Jesus Worship church could use a bit more imagination in the Sunday Morning get togethers. Or maybe they could team up with weight watchers, to combat obesity in the church. /// “I can see at a glance, though, that you are something like me. You’re not at home in the world.” /// Just because you pay the property taxes does not mean you are at home. /// “Her face had that soft marble quality to it that beautiful women have when they are suddenly awakened and are not quite ready for it” /// PG is not a beautiful woman, and is seldom ready to wake up. /// “She loves flowers but she doesn’t have any windows in her hotel room, so she grows them by candlelight.” /// She also loves wisdom, but does not know how to read. She learns by watching Fox news. “Her lips are so red they make blood seem dull, a useless pastime.” /// There is a lot of talk about Libya these days. It makes PG’s head hurt, because he does not know what to do. Not that the leaders of the world asked him. /// “Cobalt Necessity: It’s just one of those things. When you need cobalt nothing else will suffice.” /// This is a conversation with the reputed ghost of Richard Brautigan . Part one was posted a few weeks ago. Pictures by PG.