Traffic Disaster

On July 31, voters will weigh in on a traffic initiative. The idea is to raise the sales tax one percent, and use the money on a variety of transportation projects. Few will disagree that transportation in Atlanta is a disaster. In a perfect world, voting for this proposal would be a no brainer.
The first hint that something was amiss was the robocalls. A ringing telephone is an intrusive device that takes you away from what you are doing, at a time selected by the caller. When PG gets an automated sales pitch, his instinct is to hang up, and to never support the product being advertised in such a distasteful fashion. So far, PG has received two robocalls supporting the  initiative.
The second wave of phone calls uses live callers. (The fact that PG has an unlisted number makes these calls more annoying.) The live callers say they are taking a survey. There are only two questions to the survey, with none of the demographic questions that legitimate market research uses. After the questions, the first lady went into a sales pitch for the transportation initiative. There was a claim made, with no supporting data offered, that the new transportation projects would add 20,000 jobs to the metro area. PG did not believe that claim. The lady followed up by asking if there were any questions about the initiative.
That was the first live caller. When the second live caller hit, PG told her that she was turning him against the initiative. She said have a nice day and hung up.
PG considers himself a progressive, and would ordinarily support a proposal like this. The traffic in the metro area is nightmarish. For years, developers, enabled by corrupt governments, have built as if there was no tomorrow. The roads to service these new residents will be built later. This does not even consider the lack of a dependable source of water .
There is also the suspicion that the transportation program was as poorly planned as the efforts to get the initiative passed. This is perhaps unfair, since production and sales are usually two separate divisions. Still, these robocalls and “surveys” are an indication of the amount of respect that the planners have for the people. If this is how they sell the program, you can assume that the program will be operated with the same degree of arrogant disregard for the people.
This may be the last chance for the Atlanta area to improve the transportation quagmire, until the next time. While PG is not impressed by the proposed programs (and notes that almost nothing will happen in a three mile radius from his home), he wants to support this program. If he doesn’t get any more phone calls, it is possible that PG will vote yes.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.

Donna Summer

Donna Summer passed away today. Breast cancer claimed another soul.
LaDonna Adrian Gaines was born December 31, 1948, in Boston MA. As a young lady, she moved to Germany, and performed in a production of Hair. She married Helmuth Sommer in 1972, and kept the name, with a vowel adjustment, after the divorce. At some point, she met Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte. Lightning was about to strike.
Wikipedia tells the tale. “In 1975, Summer approached Moroder with an idea for a song she and Bellotte were working on for another singer. She had come up with the lyric “love to love you, baby”. Moroder was interested in developing the new sound that was becoming popular and used Summer’s lyric to develop the song. Moroder persuaded Summer to record what was to be a demo track for another performer. She later said that she had thought of how the song might sound if Marilyn Monroe had sung it and began cooing the lyrics. To get into the mood of recording the song, she requested Moroder turn off the lights while they sat on a sofa with him inducing her moans and groans. After hearing playback of the song, Moroder felt Summer’s version should actually be released. Although some radio stations refused to play it due to its suggestive style, “Love to Love You” found chart success in several European countries, and made the Top 5 in the United Kingdom.
The song was then sent to Casablanca Records president Neil Bogart in hopes of getting an American release. Bogart informed Summer and Moroder he would release the song (now called “Love to Love You Baby”) but requested that Moroder produce a longer version for discothèques. Moroder, Bellotte, and Summer returned with a 17 minute version and Casablanca signed Summer and released the single in November 1975. The shorter version of the single was promoted to radio stations whilst clubs (mostly gay) regularly played the 17 minute version (the longer version would also appear on the album). Casablanca became one of the first record labels to popularize the 12″ single format. By early 1976, “Love To Love You Baby” had reached #2 on the US Billboard Hot 100, while the parent album of the same name sold over a million copies. The song generated controversy due to Summer’s moans and groans and some American radio stations, like several in Europe, refused to play it. Time magazine would report that 22 orgasms were simulated in the making of the song.”
Miss Summer was the right voice, at the right time, and the right place. Disco music was a snowball rolling downhill, gaining recruits every Saturday night. Mr. Moroder was an electronic wizard, creating a compelling sound. Whether another singer could have created the magic that Donna Summer did is a good question. One thing is not in doubt: the Summer-Moroder team was a disco hit machine.
It was more than just the music. As JoemyG-d notes: “Donna Summer came to fame at a magical time in the development of popular gay culture. No longer were our bars exclusively confined to unlit, unsigned, shabby doorways on shadowy streets. Those places still existed, to be sure. But in the bigger cities, often to the tune of Donna Summer records, gay men, many for the first ever, proudly crowded into giant, glittery, celebratory, and gleefully unrestrained discos.”
Getting back to Wikipedia , “Summer had often talked about her early successful years as a period of confusion and anxiety. By mid-1977, struggling with the media’s titles of her as the first lady of love, she began suffering from depression and started having anxiety attacks. Summer has written in her memoirs that she had attempted suicide a few times. Her rapid rise to success, combined with some serious regrets about mistakes in her personal life, began to take its toll. During this time, she self-medicated on prescription medication resulting in an addiction. Following a nervous breakdown at her home in 1979, Summer went to a local church attended with her sister Dara and declared herself a born again Christian.”
It is probable that Miss Summer was part of a hit machine, and had little control over the direction that it took. Keep this in mind when you read the next part of this story. Remember all the happy times that her studio songs gave people.
On Easter Sunday 1978, Donna Summer gave a show at the Atlanta Civic Center. PG was in the audience. Someone had the idea to present Miss Summer as a Las Vegas style revue. There was a horn section, backup singers, and a big band sound. The punchy electronic sound of the records was not there. PG was disappointed.
There was a song, “Try Me, I Know We Can Make It.” In the studio version, Miss Summer hits a high note, and holds it for a while. In concert, her backup singers sang that part. Looking back, that just means that it was real. Today, they would play a tape, and no one would know the difference.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

Crazy Blue Protesting Lady

There was a post at Chamblee54 a few days ago, Fungus Grows Hugely On A Corpse. It had a video of a speech made at a city council meeting in Lincoln, NE. A lady gave a vivid performance. In the past few days, we have learned a few things about Jane Svoboda, aka the Crazy Blue Protesting Lady.
In case you didn’t notice, the lady has serious issues. According to the Lincoln Journal Star, “Svoboda lives at an assisted-living facility in Lincoln and is listed as a protected person, according to court documents. Her brother, Patrick Svoboda of Ogallala, is her conservator because she is incompetent, the documents say. He was unaware of the video’s popularity, but wasn’t surprised — he knew it would be a matter of time before she got in trouble somewhere.
He said he’s disappointed the video garnered such attention and jokes without the whole story. “To me, it shows how little society really cares about people with mental health issues,” Patrick Svoboda said. “She does have a very tender heart … but anything she says is certifiably schizophrenic … she’s not some crazy conservative.” He said her family has tried to get her help multiple times, but unless she harms herself or others, there’s not much more they can do.”
Miss Svoboda is a fixture around Lincoln. She has distributed hundreds of flyers, and often goes on the University of Nebraska campus. Her activity is chronicled in a blog, Crazy Blue Protesting Lady. As the video above shows, in cold weather she wears a bright blue outfit.
The blog has hundreds of her flyers. Most have an all caps headline, PARADISE ON EARTH. The sub headline says KINDNESS IS THE ESSENTIAL BEHAVIOR TO SUSTAIN LIFE. The flyers cover a wide range of topics, many of which seem a bit nutty. But then, most everyone has some ideas, or beliefs, that seem nutty to others. Many find great enjoyment in expressing those ideas. Apparently, there is a line that is crossed when you unintentionally make a viral video.
It should be noted that the target of her abuse, in this video, is homosexuals. Apparently, this is ok. If she had made a speech like that about Jews, or African Americans, she might be in jail. or dead. Even a crazy lady knows who it is safe to pick on.
There were two people behind CBPL in her viral video. The expressive young man has hired an agent. The other old lady gave a moving speech to the city council, which is embedded in this post. HT to aksarbent. Pictures for this feature are from The Library of Congress. The spell check suggestion for Svoboda is Bodacious.

Blonde Office

The world is in turmoil. People are killing people for no good reason. The government is run by liars and scoundrels. Religion is a dirty word. It is time for blonde stories . Thank you Funny Jokes. Pictures are from The Library of Congress
A married couple was asleep when the phone rang at 2 in the morning. The very blonde wife picked up the phone, listened a moment, and said ‘How should I know, that’s 200 miles from here!’ and hung up. The husband said, ‘Who was that?’ The wife answered, ‘I don’t know, some woman wanting to know if the coast is clear.’
Two blondes are walking down the street. One notices a compact on the sidewalk and leans down to pick it up. She opens it, looks in the mirror and says, ‘Hmm, this person looks familiar.’ The second blonde says, ‘Here, let me see!’ So, the first blonde hands her the compact. The second blonde looks in the mirror and says, ‘You dummy, it’s me!’
A blonde suspects her boyfriend of cheating on her, so she goes out and buys a gun. She goes to his apartment unexpectedly and when she opens the door she finds him in the arms of a redhead. Well, the blonde is really angry. She opens her purse to take out the gun, and as she does so, she is overcome with grief. She takes the gun and puts it to her head. The boyfriend yells, ‘No, honey, don’t do it!’ The blonde replies, ‘Shut up, you’re next!’
A blonde was bragging about her knowledge of state capitals. She proudly says, ‘Go ahead, ask me … I know ‘em all.’ ‘OK, what’s the capital of Wisconsin ?’ The blonde replies, ‘Oh, that’s easy. Its W.’
Q: What did the blonde ask her doctor when he told her she was pregnant? A: ‘Is it mine?’
Bambi, a blonde in her fourth year as a UCLA Freshman, sat in her US Government class. The professor asked Bambi if she knew what Roe vs. Wade was about. Bambi pondered the question; then, finally, said, ‘That was the decision George Washington had to make before he crossed the Delaware.’
Returning home from work, a blonde was shocked to find her house ransacked and burglarized. She telephoned the police at once and reported the crime. The police dispatcher broadcast the call on the radio, and a K-9 unit, patrolling nearby, was the first to respond. As the K-9 officer approached the house with his dog on a leash, the blonde ran out on the porch, shuddered at the sight of the cop and his dog, then sat down on the steps. Putting her face in her hands, she moaned, ‘I come home to find all my possessions stolen. I call the police for help, and what do they do? They send me a BLIND COP!’

Unfortunate Laws Part Eight

Here is part eight of state laws that some might find peculiar. Parts one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven precede this feature. Today will will look at Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia. These regulations are borrowed from Bored. Tennessee ~ “Crimes against nature” are prohibited. ~ Any person crippling, killing or in any way destroying a proud bitch that is running at large shall not be held liable for the damages due to such killing or destruction. ~ Driving is not to be done while asleep. ~ Dyersburg: It is illegal for a woman to call a man for a date. ~ Fayette County: You may not have more than five inoperable vehicles on a piece of property. ~ Giving and receiving oral sex is still prohibited by law. ~ Hollow logs may not be sold. ~ In Jonesboro, Tenn., a slingshot used to be classified by law as a deadly weapon. ~ It is illegal to catch a fish with a lasso. ~ It is illegal to use a lasso to catch a fish. ~ It is legal to gather and consume road kill ~ It’s illegal for frogs to croak after 11 PM. ~ Knoxville: In front of their buildings, all businesses must have a “hitching post.” ~ Lenoir City: When you pull up to a stop sign you must fire a gun out the window to warn horse carriages that you are coming. ~ Lexington: No one may eat ice cream on the sidewalk. Spitting on the sidewalk is prohibited. ~ Memphis: Illegal for a woman to drive a car unless there is a man either running or walking in front of it waving a red flag to warn approaching motorists and pedestrians. It’s illegal for frogs to croak after 11 PM. Panhandlers must first obtain a $10 permit before begging on the streets of downtown Memphis. It is illegal to give any pie to fellow diners. It is also illegal to take unfinished pie home. All pie must be eaten on the premises. ~ More than 8 women may not live in the same house because that would constitute a brothel. ~ Nashville: Males may not be sexually aroused in public. ~ Stealing a horse is punishable by hanging. ~ The age of consent is 16, but 12 if the girl is a virgin. ~ You can’t shoot any game other than whales from a moving automobile. ~ Oneida: An ordinance forbids anyone to sing the song “It Ain’t Goin’ To Rain No Mo’.” Texas ~ A city ordinance states that a person cannot go barefoot without first obtaining a special five-dollar permit. ~ Abilene: It is illegal to idle or loiter anyplace within the corporate limits of the city for the purpose of flirting or mashing. ~ Austin: Wire cutters can not be carried in your pocket. ~ Beaumont: Collegiate football is banned at Lamar University. ~ Borger: It is against the law to throw confetti, rubber balls, feather dusters, whips or quirts (riding crop), and explosive firecrackers of any kind. ~ Clarendon: It is illegal to dust any public building with a feather duster. ~ El Paso: Churches, hotels, halls of assembly, stores, markets, banking rooms, railroad depots, and saloons are required to provide spittoons “of a kind and number to efficiently contain expectorations into them.” ~ Galveston: It is illegal to drive a motor car down Broadway before noon on Sundays. ~ Houston: Beer may not be purchased after midnight on a Sunday, but it may be purchased on Monday. It is illegal to sell Limburger cheese on Sunday. ~ If two trains going in opposite directions on the same track meet each other, one can’t move until the other does. ~ If you went to church in Texas years back, you’d better be recognized. An old law made it illegal to go to church in disguise. ~ In Alamo a person found intoxicated must be given a large dose of castor oil by a local doctor…and failure to gulp it down will result in a fine. ~ In Corpus Christie it is illegal to raise alligators in your home. ~ In Dallas County it is illegal to own any realistic looking, phallic shaped, personal massager more than one foot in length. ~ In Houston you cannot buy beer after midnight on Sunday, but you can buy it on Monday. ~ In Kingsville, there is a law against two pigs having sex on the city’s airport property. ~ In Lefors, Texas it is illegal to take more than three swallows of beer at any time while standing. ~ In Mesquite, Texas it is illegal for kids to have unusual haircuts. ~ In Texas criminals are required to give their victims 24 hours notice, either orally or in writing, and to explain the nature of the crime to be committed. ~ In Texas it’s legal for a chicken to have sex with you, but it’s illegal to reciprocate. ~ It is illegal for one to shoot a buffalo from the second story of a hotel. ~ It is illegal to drive without windshield wipers. You don’t need a windshield, but you must have the wipers. ~ It is illegal to have an open container in a car. ~ It is illegal to have anything protruding from your bumper unless it is attached with a chain ~ It is illegal to milk another person’s cow. ~ It is illegal to urinate on the Alamo. ~ It is legal for a husband to beat his wife as long as he uses something no bigger than his thumb. ~ It is legal for the blind to go hunting as long as they have someone with them who isn’t blind. ~ It is legal to commit a homicide as long as you tell the person when, and how you are going to kill them. ~ In San Antonio, Texas, you can’t honk a horn, run a generator, have a revival meeting or do anything else that disturbs the neighborhood and the city has a four-member noise police squad to enforce the law. ~ In Texas any artificial constructed underwater barrier reefs must come with an instruction booklet. ~ In Texas, sixteen-year old divorced girls are prohibited from talking about sex during high school extracurricular activities. ~ It is unlawful for a person to consume an alcoholic beverage while operating a motor vehicle upon a public roadway, if the person is observed doing so by a peace officer. ~ Jasper: Dogs must be on a leash at ALL times. Fine of 100 dollars. ~ Lubbock County: It is illegal to drive within an arm’s length of alcohol – including alcohol in someone else’s blood stream. ~ Port Arthur: Obnoxious odors may not be emitted while in an elevator. ~ Richardson: It is now illegal to place a “for sale” sign on a car if it visible from the street. It is illegal to do “U Turns”. ~ San Antonio: It is illegal for both sexes to flirt or respond to flirtation using the eyes and/or hands. ~ Temple: No one may ride a horse and buggy through the town square. You can ride your horse in the saloon. Cattle thieves may be hanged on the spot. ~ Texarkana: Owners of horses may not ride them at night without tail lights. ~ The entire Encyclopedia Britannica is banned in Texas because it contains a formula for making beer at home. ~ There is an old law in Texas that states you are unable to tuck your pants into one boot unless you own ten or more cattle. ~ You can be legally married by publicly introducing a person as your husband or wife 3 times. Utah ~ A husband is responsible for every criminal act committed by his wife while she is in his presence. ~ A Utah legislator proposed a resolution urging that each TV weather person be required to provide an ice cream cone to every member of the state House of Representatives whenever the forecast was wrong. The resolution failed, perhaps on First Amendment grounds. In addition to normal charges, the woman’s name will be published in the local newspaper.The man does not receive any punishment. ~ Birds have the right of way on all highways. ~ In Monroe, daylight must be visible between partners on a dance floor. ~ In Utah when a person reaches the age of 50, he/she can then marry their cousin. ~ It is against the law to fish from horseback. ~ It is considered an offense to hunt whales. ~ It is illegal not to drink milk. ~ It is illegal to detonate any nuclear weapon. You can have them, but you just can’t detonate them. ~ It’s legal for restaurants to serve wine with meals, but only if you ask for the wine list. ~ Kaysville: You must have identification to enter a convenience store after dark. ~ Logan: Women may not swear. ~ No woman may have sex with a man while riding in an ambulance within the boundaries of Tremonton, Utah. If caught, the woman can be charged with a sexual misdemeanor and “her name is to be published in the local newspaper.” The man isn’t charged nor is his name revealed. ~ Provo: Throwing snowballs will result in a $50 fine. ~ Salt Lake City: No one may walk down the street carrying a paper bag containing a violin. ~ The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BAFT) bans the word “refreshing” to describe any alcohol beverage. ~ Trout Creek: Pharmacists may not sell gunpowder to cure headaches. ~ You’re not allowed to sell beverages containing more than 3.2% alcohol. Vermont ~ As in most dairy states, Vermont does what it can to discourage the use of margarine. For example, it’s illegal to use colored margarine in restaurants unless the menu indicates you do–in letters two inches high. Colored margarine can only be served in triangle shaped patties. ~ At one time it was illegal to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole. ~ Barre All residents shall bathe every Saturday night. ~ Call a Vermont court a “kangaroo court” or some similar moniker, and you might be looking at a $200 fine. It is illegal to defame a court. ~ In Vermont It’s against the law (not to mention impossible) to whistle under water. ~ In Vermont it is illegal to paint landscapes in times of war. ~ In Vermont, women must obtain written permission from their husbands to wear false teeth. ~ It is illegal to deny the existence of G-d ~ It’s against the law in Vermont for vagrants to procure food by force. Apparently if you have a good job and stable home life, it’s O.K. to procure food by force. Virginia ~ An old Virginia law was titled, “An Act to Prevent Corrupt Practices or Bribery by Any Person Other Than a Candidate.” ~ As in many towns, you need a permit to run a barbershop in Christiansburg, Va. But the wording of the town’s law indicates that the permit will be revoked if you’re caught operating without a permit. ~ A Virginia law requires all bathtubs to be kept out in the yards, not inside the houses. ~ Children are not to go trick-or-treating on Halloween. ~ Citizens must honk their horn while passing other cars. ~ Culpeper: No one may wash a mule on the sidewalk. ~ Dayton: A person of color may not be outside or within the city limits after 7 pm. ~ Driving while not wearing shoes is prohibited. ~ If one is not married, it is illegal for him to have sexual relations. ~ If you are intoxicated but not driving your car, but the person who is driving your car is intoxicated, both you and the driver can be charged with DUI in Virginia Beach, Virginia. ~ In Christiansburg, Va., it’s illegal to imitate a police whistle. ~ In Christiansburg, Va., it’s illegal to “spit, expectorate or deposit any sputum, saliva or any form of saliva or sputum.” ~ In Newport it’s against the law to tickle a girl under her chin with a feather duster in order to get her attention. ~ In Norfolk a woman can’t go out without wearing a corset. ~ In Radford, VA you are not allowed to spit, loogie, puke or urinate on the streets. ~ In Richmond, Va., you must buy a license for 93 cents to sell song books on the street. ~ In Richmond, Virginia it is illegal to flip a coin in any eating establishment to determine who buys a cup of coffee. ~ It is illegal to sell peanut brittle on Sundays. ~ It is illegal to spit on sidewalk. ~ Lebanon: It is illegal to kick your wife out of bed. ~ Norfolk: Spitting on a sea gull is not tolerated. A man may face 60 days in jail for patting a woman’s derriere. Women must wear a corset after sundown and be in the company of male chaperone. ~ Not only is it illegal to have sex with the lights on, one may not have sex in any position other than missionary. ~ Perhaps anticipating telemarketing, the town fathers of Albany, Va., have for years prohibited peddlers from using the telephone to either sell things or raise funds. ~ Police radar detectors are illegal. ~ Stafford County: It is legal for a man to beat his wife on the courthouse steps so long as it is before 8:00 pm. ~ Swearing at someone over the phone in virginia is punishable by a $100 fine. ~ There is a state law prohibiting “corrupt practices of bribery by any person other than candidates.” ~ There was once a law in Salem Virginia that made it illegal to leave home without knowing where you were going. ~ Victoria: It is illegal to skate down the sidewalk of Main Street. ~ Waynesboro: It is illegal for a woman to drive a car up Main Street unless her husband is walking in front of the car waving a red flag. ~ You cannot buy hardware of any kind on Sunday. ~ You cannot sell lettuce on Sunday, but you can sell beer, wine etc. ~ You may not have oral or anal sex. ~ You may not work on Sunday.

Thomas Jefferson Said What?

PG was wasting time with facebook when he saw a friend say “Damn I love this quote”. The passage being praised was “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Desmond Tutu.
The rhetoric alert started to flash. These days, the wolf and the sheep buy their clothes at the same Walmart. To hear some oppressors talk the talk, they are the ones under attack. It is tough to tell the good guys from the bad guys. Also, as the Kony fiasco showed, often you can make things worse by getting mixed up. Sometimes the best thing to do is mind your own business.
Ok, now that is out of the way. Some lines sound good, but don’t hold up to a bit of thinking. As for the veracity of the quote, Desmond Tutu may very well have said it. (or maybe one of his rivals said it, and Mr. Tutu copied it.) The quote has been attributed to Thomas Jefferson, Edmund Burke, Patrick Henry, and probably others. Almost no one has a source, for the quote, from the dead white guys.
There was a discussion in Prison Planet Forum about BHO, and his alleged good buddy Larry Sinclair. The signature line for one of the posts was that crowd pleaser, “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” Thomas Jefferson. All that needed to happen to get the party started was to highlight the quote, right click, and ask Mr. Google to help.
A post called MISQUOTING THE FOUNDERS did not mince words. “The only problem with this scene that has been repeated many times across the country is that Thomas Jefferson never said that, never wrote that, and quite possibly never thought it. Our aspiring politician had fallen victim to the perils of popular misattribution. You could fill a book with misquotes and misattributed quotes we hear repeated regularly today. Right now if I Google “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent” the entire first page of results wrongly attribute it to Thomas Jefferson. The quote and its many variants have been attributed in the past to Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke, but no record exists of the quote in any of their writings or contemporary accounts.”
On November 13, 1787, Mr. Jefferson wrote a letter to William Smith. The letter is full of zesty quotes. “What country before ever existed a century & a half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.”
A few lines above that, Mr. Jefferson said “God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion.” Twenty years after he wrote this, Mr. Jefferson was President. He probably did not want to deal with a revolution when he was President.
Getting back to the quote about tyranny, Martin Porter wrote an entertaining essay, A study of a Web quotation. He gives credit, or blame, to Edmund Burke. First, a list of different versions is presented. This is a clue that something is awry. The conclusion: “There is no original. The quote is bogus, and Burke never said it. It is a pseudo-quote, and corresponds to real quotes in the same way that urban legends about the ghost hitch-hiker vanishing in the back of the car and alligators in the sewers correspond to true news stories.”
Mr. Porter wrote a follow up essay, Four Principles of Quotation. These principles are:
Principle 1 (for readers) Whenever you see a quotation given with an author but no source assume that it is probably bogus.
Principle 2 (for readers) Whenever you see a quotation given with a full source assume that it is probably being misused, unless you find good evidence that the quoter has read it in the source.
Principle 3 (for quoters) Whenever you make a quotation, give the exact source.
Principle 4 (for quoters) Only quote from works that you have read.
If these principles were to be used, then there would be a lot less hotheaded talking on the intercom. Those who are trying to influence you to the justice of their cause will not want you to read this. Pictures for this feature are from The Library of Congress. These pictures are Union soldiers, from the War Between the States. When war is discussed, all inspiring quotes are in doubt.

Gene Talmadge

There is a quote making the rounds from Jack Murtha. It seems like some of his nephews have been profiting from the family ties. The verbatim is “If I’m corrupt, it’s because I take care of my district.” This appearance of impropriety is a gift to supporters of military adventure in Babylon. Mr. Murtha…a decorated Vietnam Vet…has been a vocal critic of the wars. His apparent ethical issues give war fans a convenient diversion.
This comment brings to mind a former Governor of Georgia, Eugene Talmadge. He was famous for saying, to cheering crowds, “Sure I stole, but I stole for you”. PG suspected an urban legend, and decided to see what Mr. Google had to say.
Eugene Talmadge was Agriculture Commissioner before he was Governor. He had some relatives on the state payroll. There was something funky going on with fertilizer. He bought a bunch of hogs, and sent them to Chicago, where he thought he could make more money. After a while, some people started to ask questions. His answer was “If I stole, it was for farmers like yourselves”. (This is on page 59 of “The Wild Man from Sugar Creek”.
This was in 1931. The depression hit Georgia hard. The wool hat boys were in a world of fertilizer. Mr. Talmadge set himself up as the champion of the dirt farmers, and the enemy of the lyin’ Atlanta newspapers. In 1932 he was elected Governor. He was re elected three times, but died in 1946, before he could serve again. He was replaced by two Governors.
Mr. Talmadge was elected because of the county unit system. Each of Georgia’s 159 counties got a certain number of votes. Three rural counties were the equivalent of winning Fulton County. Mr. Talmadge boasted that he never won a county with street cars.
Mr. Talmadge’s campaigns were legendary. He would speak at the county courthouse, and plants in the crowd would scream questions, like “what about those lyin Atlanta newspapers?”. One of his favorite lines was “Yeah, it’s true. I stole, but I stole for you, the dirt farmer”.
PG’s aunt went to work at the Trust Company of Georgia in the early fifties. There was a story that the new employees were told. It seems as though Governor Talmadge was in the lobby of the Trust Company, after having a happy lunch. He had to use the restroom, and went to the corner of the lobby to relieve himself.
There is a statue of Gene Talmadge in front of the State Capitol. The plate at the base reads “I may surprise you, but I shall not deceive you”. It remains to be seen what will be carved underneath a statue of Jack Murtha.
This is a repost. Jack Murtha died February 8, 2010. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”

Dark And Stormy Night

PG was looking at the search engine terms for his blog when he saw this… going down with janis opening line. It seems as though the phrase was used in a post about a political consultant. The opening line to that piece was Lisa Baron is a big, cavernous piece of work.
One good thing about this post is finding the exact quote about Janis Joplin. A lady named Peggy Caserta wrote about her life as the gf of Miss Joplin. According to How To Snort an Airplane, the opening line was “I was stark naked, stoned out of my mind on heroin, and between my legs giving me head was Janis Joplin.”
There isn’t anywhere to go from there but up. As it turns out, the intercom is full of people who supply good opening lines from literature. It saves you the trouble of reading the rest of the book.
Here are Top 10 Most Outrageous Opening Lines in Literature, in reverse order. Three quotes are included from the comments. Ten are from opening sentences, which advertises Filipino Cupid. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. .
THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY Douglas Adams 1979 “Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.”
NEUROMANCER William Gibson 1984 “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
1984 George Orwell 1949 “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
INVISIBLE MAN Ralph Ellison 1952 “I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination—indeed, everything and anything except me.”
NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND Fyodor Dostoyevsky 1864 “I am a sick man . . . I am a wicked man. An unattractive man, I think my liver hurts.”
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST Ken Kesey 1962 “They’re out there. Black boys in white suits up before me to commit sex acts in the hall and get it mopped up before I can catch them.”
TRAINSPOTTING Irvine Welsh 1993 “The sweat was lashing oafay Sick Boy; he wis trembling.”
FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS Hunter S. Thompson 1971 “We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like ‘I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive . . .’ And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming, ‘Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?’”
THE METAMORPHOSIS Franz Kafka 1915 “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.”
Orlando Virginia Woolf 1928 “He—for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it—was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor.”
Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen, 1813 It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
Lolita Vladimir Nabokov, 1955 Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
The Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger, 1951 If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.
A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens, 1859 It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way–in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
Moby Dick Herman Melville, 1850 Call me Ishmael.
Peter Pan JM Barrie, 1911 All children, except one, grow up.
The Hobbit JRR Tolkien, 1937 In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat; it was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort.
One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1967 Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.
Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy, 1873-7 Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Women Charles Bukowski “I was 50 years old and hadn’t been to bed with a woman for four years. I had no women friends. I looked at them as I passed them on the streets or wherever I saw them, but I looked at them without yearning and with a sense of futility. I masturbated regularly, but the idea of having a relationship with a woman—even on non-sexual terms—was beyond my imagination.”
The Bible author unknown Genesis 1: In the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth
Naked Lunch William S. Burroughs “I can feel the heat closing in, feel them out there making their moves, setting up their devil doll stool pigeons, crooning over my spoon and dropper I throw away at Washington Square Station, vault a turnstile and two flights down the iron stairs, catch an uptown A train… Young, good looking, crew cut, Ivy League, advertising exec type fruit holds the door back.”

Jean D. McKinnon

The first picture in this episode is a family portrait of the Quin family in Washington Georgia. The nine surviving children of Hugh Pharr Quin are sitting for the camera. Mr. Quin had joined the Georgia State Troops of the Army of the Confederacy at the age of 16, and after the war went to Washington to live with his sister. Mr. Quin was in the church choir of the First Methodist Church when he met the organist, Betty Lou DuBose. They were married January 22, 1879.
The original name of Mrs. Quin was Louisa Toombs DuBose. She was the daughter of James Rembert DuBose. His brother in law was Robert Toombs, the Secretary of State of the Confederacy, and a man of whom many stories are told.
In this picture, Mrs. Quin is holding the hand of her second youngest daughter so she will not run away. This is Mattie Vance Quin. She is my grandmother.
After The Great War, Mattie Vance Quin was living in Memphis Tennessee, where she met Arthur Dunaway. Mr. Dunaway was a veteran of the war, and was from Paragould, Arkansas. On July 23, 1922 her first Daughter, Jean, was born. This is my mother.
Mr. Dunaway died in 1930, shortly after the birth of his son Arthur. There were hard times and upheaval after this, with the family settling in Atlanta. There her third child Helen Ann Moffat was born on December 12, 1933. This is my Aunt Helen and my mother’s best friend.

Jean lived for many years with her mother and sister at 939 Piedmont, among other locations. She joined the First Baptist Church and sang in the choir. She got a job with the C&S bank, and was working at the Tenth Street Branch when she met Luther McKinnon. He was a native of Rowland, North Carolina. They were married October 6, 1951.
They moved into the Skyland Apartments, which in those days was out in the country. Mom told a story about Dad taking her home from Choir practice, and going home on the two lane Buford Hiway. There was a man who went to the restaurants to get scraps to feed his pigs, and his truck was always in front of them. This was a serious matter in the summer without air conditioning.
Soon, they moved into a house, and Luther junior was born on May 6, 1954. This is me. Malcolm was born May 10, 1956, which did it for the children. Neither of us had children, so that is where that ends.
The fifties were spent on Wimberly Road, a street of always pregnant women just outside Brookhaven. It was a great place to be a little kid.
In 1960, we moved to Parkridge Drive, to the house where my brother and I stay today. The note payment was $88 a month. Ashford Park School is a short walk away…the lady who sold us the house said ” you slap you kid on the fanny and he is at school”.
In 1962, our family followed the choir director from First Baptist to Briarcliff Baptist, which is where my parents remained.
In 1964, Mom went back to work. She ran the drive in window at Lenox Square for the Trust Company of Georgia until it was time to retire. She became a talk radio fan when RING radio started, and was a friend of her customer Ludlow Porch. She gave dog biscuits to customers with dogs.
During this era of change, Mom taught me that all people were good people, be they black or white. This was rare in the south. She later became disgusted with the War in Vietnam, and liked to quote a man she heard on the radio. “How will we get out of Vietnam?”" By ship and by plane”.
Eventually, it was time to retire. Her and Dad did the requisite traveling, until Dad got sick and passed away February 7,1992. Mom stuck around for a few more years, until her time came December 18, 1998. This is a repost.

Fungus Grows Hugely On A Corpse

Winter Wipe Out TV show had broken bones and manslaughter every minute.
Winter Wipe Out show is produced in Holland by gays, bis, and orgiers.
Why do gays like to see people perishing!
P-E-N-I-S goes into the anus to rupture intestines.
More a man does this more likely he’ll be a fatality or a homicider.
Getting pleasure while the other man passes away reverberates another homicide later.
UNESCO United Nations has gender and bio-ethics conferences combined.
Only gays go to gender studies.
Gays are the biogenerciders in hospitals.
Children can be eliminated.
The Feds said in the December 11th article the Lincoln Journal Star page six,
“Gays should not be employed in hospitals or any health occupation.”
Whitney Huston was found without clothes in a bathtub.
Every corpse found without clothes has a partner that did away with them.
Lesbians and gays rarely live past 40 years old
because it is common for a partner to do away with them or they self-inflict.
We want everyone to live as long as possible, to be 80 years old instead of 40 years old.
Don’t go gay, it’s not healthy.
Anus licking causes sepsis.
If not given antibiotics within a half hour they perish.
Have no gays in education.
A high percent of gay men in school grounds molest boys, partly because they don’t have AIDS yet.
Be on the side of the innocent boy who gets Fs and Ds a year after being molested.
Don’t allow hundreds of molestations a year with this Equality Ordinance!
Where are our school teachers that should be speaking about this today?
Hilary Clinton’s roommate 4 years in college was Eleanor or “Eldie” Acheson,
a gay woman, daughter of Dean Acheson.
To avoid going gay like Hilar—Clinton did, college students need single rooms and single gender dorms.
Going lesbian is not normal.
A college woman is seduced with illegal Rohypnal to go gay otherwise they think it is abhorrent.
Lesbian professors state, quote, wives are enslaved by their husbands, unquote.
All you married councilmen know this is not true and this is deranged thinking.
Have no gays in education.
The Canadian Gaëtan Dugas was the first person to get AIDS in 1980.
He depressed his immune system with pot.
He ruptured intestines as his partner became a corpse!
Candida a fungus grows hugely on a corpse!
AIDS is a candida of fungus disease.
Roman senators went to Roman baths to be promiscuous, gay, bis and orgiers,
then went to the Coliseum to see Christians get mauled and perish!
Do gays become sadistic, yes!
They cuss after coupling, don’t like the land they lay on and
80% of those who did treason by the year 2000 were gays.
Don’t employ gays in military, education, health or psychology.
They are the generciders, molesters, treasonist, deranged.
Gays not a behavior by the way—gay is a behavior, it’s not an identity.
Shoplifters don’t make good salespersons.
Gays behaviors aren’t needed for military, education, health and psychology.
Don’t encourage gays.
Do not harm gays.
Gays can transform [One minute]
I have—let’s see—gays can transform to be celibate to live to be 80 years old.
Gay persons want to adopt children.
California Board of Education said last year,
“Children in San Francisco had the worst scholastic spelling of all subjects all grade levels.
They cry all day and rape each other hetero without being told not to.”
Give us your molested children deranged by seeing only gays kissing.
Don’t ask don’t tell what you do in your bedroom and you’ll be respected for your work.
Read the book Nijinsky to understand the bisexuals always become insane.
A wedding dress is for a woman, not for a man.
Jesus was kissed by Judas, a homo, who tried to sabotage Jesus’s kind ideas.
Do you choose Jesus, a celibate, or Judas, a homo?
You have to choose!
Text is courtesy of discovery, filth, & mechatronics.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. HT to Pure Film Creative.

Lene Lovich

Lene Lovich was born Lili-Marlene Premilovich in Detroit, Michigan, March 30, 1949. She moved to England as a teenager, and met Les Chappell. He who played guitar in her band, and was her man.
As an art school student, she started to tie her long hair in plaits to keep it out of the clay while studying sculpture. Her recording debut was as part of an audience, when Chuck Berry recorded “My ding a ling”.
Miss Lovich played in several bands, before winding up on the Stiff label. She put out two albums that became popular in the USA, and did a tour. After a while, she retired from music to raise a family, and has made a slight comeback in recent years.
PG had the privilege of seeing Lene Lovich at the Agora Ballroom, Atlanta GA, in the winter of 1980. The opening act was The Romantics. The show was taped for broadcast on the NBC radio network, and Don Pardo was on hand to introduce the bands.
The Romantics were unknown to the crowd at the Agora that night. They came on stage wearing costumes that looked like the Beatles of 1963. Every song they did was a bit better than the one before, and they got a big round of applause when the set ended.
Don Pardo had quite a career. He was the house announcer on November 22, 1963, and was the voice of NBC when he interrupted a soap opera to announce that John Kennedy had been “cut down with assassin’s bullets”. During his career as a TV announcer, Mr. Pardo could not use profanity. That night at the Agora, he made up for lost time…every other word he said was a cuss word.
Soon, Lene Lovich (spell check suggestion:lovechild) and her band came on stage. She was not the typical sexpot rock chanteuse… A bit chubby, with her long hair tied in plaits. Wearing a long sleeve black dress, probably stolen from a convent, she provided fantasy for only the kinkiest. Les Chappell was there, with his shaved head, to stop any trouble before it started, and play guitar.
The material came mostly from the first two albums on Stiff records. ( At some point in the evening, someone…maybe Lovich, maybe Pardo…said “Be stiff”.) She introduced “Lucky Number” by saying ” We have a song that goes ah oh aih oh”. During an instrumental jam in that song, she cried out “We have an American on keyboards”. The American was Thomas Dolby, who would soon go solo.
The first encore was ” I think we’re alone now”, which had been a hit for Tommy James and the Shondells (spell check suggestions: shoulders, shovelfuls). Soon the night was over. Pictures are from the ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library” This is a repost.
UPDATE: This comment was left on facebook “Those first two albums are GREAT. I probably saw her on this same tour; Dolby was with her. I was a club on South Street in Philly. She looked like a freaked-out Teutonic barmaid, the St. Pauli girl gone goth (before there was goth). Somehow, the sight of her playing sax was hilarious, and the concert was a blast. I bought a recent Thomas Dolby CD a couple months ago. Sucked, as, alas, did Lene’s last one.

Eat Pray Love Chronicles Part Six

Bead 091 Wayan Nuriyasih, the lady healer, and Miss Gilbert are chit chatting. Tutti, the daughter of Wayan, is playing with a blue floor tile. She found it at a construction site, and would like to have bathroom with tiles like that. Miss Gilbert gets an idea.
This comment is for a youtube video, ELIZABETH GILBERT Talks About Eat, Pray Love. I’m from India and I can’t believe how fucking condescending the movie was on our country. Cmon we are the largest democracy in the world with fucking brilliant scientists from IITs. Its not all yogis and elephants you know! How’d Americans feel if the world only talked about how great Disneyland is…. no. America is great because of Clint Eastwood and Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin and Ernest Hemmingway. Don’t belittle another nation its easy but ultimately crowds your own vision.
Bead 092 Miss Gilbert has an idea. She goes to an internet cafe, and sends a message to her friends. The story of Wayan Nuriyasih is told… the divorce, the healing work, and the daughter who wants to be a veterinarian. Miss Nuriysih lives in a series of rented spaces, and every few months she has to move. The email asks for donations, to help Wayan Nuriyasih buy a permanent home. Soon, $18k has been collected.
Facebook is currently full of, among other things, a type of graphic art which can charitably described as commodity wisdom. Someone thinks of a funny / inspiring / motivational phrase, and pastes it in front of a picture. The only way you can share this thought is to copy the image. PG is fond of people who express their bright ideas in paste friendly text. The paragraph below is a happy exception to the overall trend.
[Image Description: A Willy Wonka meme, which shows Gene Wilder depicting the character of Willy Wonka, from the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, leaning their head on a fist and smiling at someone. This meme is used to convey a sarcastic comment. The text surrounding the Willy Wonka's face reads "So you think gay couples should be able to get married?" at the top, over Wonka's head. Below, it reads "Oooooooooh, thaaaaaanks." I created this meme using the program at MemeGenerator.net to convey a sarcastic response to what I perceive as an ineffective statement from President Obama on "gay marriage" in light of the latest developments in North Carolina and the passing of Amendment One, which got signed into the stated constitution, banning marriage between same-sex (in the conventional, sex-structure essential definition of "sex") couples. This legislation was written in such a way that it affects adoptive parents, foster parents, and single parents, and the families of all of such persons. It is an affront on a nation that ensures equality for all in it's Constitution.]
Bead 093 While the money is coming in, Miss Gilbert is spending time with Felipe. They talk about a wide variety of subjects, including the concept of Miss Gilbert taking a lover. One night, Felipe starts to give Miss Gilbert a good night kiss. She tucks her head into his chest, and allows him to hold her.
These quotes are from the twitter feed‏ @Kurt_Vonnegut. Apparently he is in a place with internet access. ~ Busy, busy, busy. ~ I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.” ~ Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops. ~ There is a tragic flaw in our Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president. ~ How embarrassing to be human. ~ Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile!
Bead 094 Ketut Liyer, the wise old medicine man, was the reason for Miss Gilbert coming to Bali. His company gets put to the side amidst all the excitement in her life. Miss Gilbert asks him what he thinks of romance, with the reply that he is too old. It seems as though the old lady, Nyomo, that Miss Gilbert thought was his wife, was someone else. Nyomo is the wife of Ketut’s brother, who helps out with running his household.
There was an online article, How Elizabeth Gilbert Ruined Bali. Ubud has been overrun by middle aged women seeking meaning for their privileged lives. There is a popular T shirt, with the slogan “Eat, Pay, Leave.”
Two filmmakers” I met from California tried to interview Ketut Liyer, one of Gilbert’s traditional Balinese healers in the book. Instead they were handed a copy of the book and directed to read aloud certain passages while Liyer listened.”
Bead 095 Miss Gilbert tells Wayan Nuriyasih about the $18k. She does not know how to react. An Indonesian bank account is set up to receive the funds.
In the Q TV interview, Miss Gilbert says that when you are childless, you are constantly expected to defend that choice. She wonders if perhaps it should be the opposite, and that those who reproduce should always be expected to defend that choice. To PG, the analogy is when you quit drinking, and people say that you have a problem with alcohol. This is odd. To not use an addictive substance is seen as “having a problem”.
Bead 096 Felipe is taken to meet Wayan Nuriyasih, and she approves. Felipe is taken to meet Ketut Liyer, who reads his palm and approves. An affair is suggested, but Miss Gilbert is not ready to make the leap. A solitary night is spent, and a paragraph about masturbation written. When Miss Gilbert wakes up, she is happy to be alone.
A movie was made from Eat, Pray, Love. Julia Roberts played Miss Gilbert. Miss Roberts is from Smyrna, GA. This is across the Chattahoochee River from Chamblee, if you throw in a few exits on I 285. Once, a young man said to his bf, kiss me where it is dark and stinky. He took him to Smyrna.
Bead 097 After making her dinner, Felipe told Miss Gilbert that it was time to go into bed. She agreed with him.
There is a saying, a environmentalist is someone who built his cabin last year. What follows is a comment from How Elizabeth Gilbert Ruined Bali. “Man, I have been in the past and soon will again be an expat living in Asia, and I can translate the sentiment of this article in one paragraph: “All of these tourists (who are not me) are totally ruining the (my) authentic experience of living here. It sucks that everything’s getting so commercial (I prefer it when the locals are quaintly impoverished, and there are no businesses around except for the ones that I like). All of these foreigners (except me, because I’m different) need to get out of here (so me and my friends can be the only super-special foreigners around. Also, nice caftan-wearing middle aged ladies are 10,000 times better than asshole foreigners who get drunk and puke on people’s doorsteps, start fights, INCITE RIOTS (like that British guy in Thailand), support violent criminal organizations by buying drugs and supporting the local sex trade, are condescending and rude to locals and just rude to other foreigners, and then think they’re superior to nice caftan-wearing ladies because they’re young and have a dick, which makes them cool like Kerouac instead of old and lame like middle aged people with vaginas.”
Bead 098 After the breakthrough with Felipe, Miss Gilbert goes on a road trip with another man. It was planned that wasy. Her friend Yudhi misses the highways of America, and wants to do a road trip. Of course, Bali is the size of Delaware, and the roads are horrible. Still, they rent a car, buy junk food, and drive around the island talking in what they think is cool dude slang.
It is funny what an audience will laugh at. This is from the Elizabeth Gilbert TED talk “. So that’s reassuring, you know. But it would be worse, except for that I happen to remember that over 20 years ago, when I first started telling people — when I was a teenager — that I wanted to be a writer, I was met with this same kind of, sort of fear-based reaction. And people would say, “Aren’t you afraid you’re never going to have any success? Aren’t you afraid the humiliation of rejection will kill you? Aren’t you afraid that you’re going to work your whole life at this craft and nothing’s ever going to come of it and you’re going to die on a scrap heap of broken dreams with your mouth filled with bitter ash of failure?” (Laughter) Like that, you know” TED audiences think it is funny for a hardworking author to die a bitter, lonely death. That is odd.
Bead 099 When Miss Gilbert gets back from her road trip, she gets in bed with Felipe, and does not leave for a month.
This is from the Elizabeth Gilbert TED talk And for me, the best contemporary example that I have of how to do that is the musician Tom Waits, who I got to interview several years ago on a magazine assignment. And we were talking about this, and you know, Tom, for most of his life he was pretty much the embodiment of the tormented contemporary modern artist, trying to control and manage and dominate these sort of uncontrollable creative impulses that were totally internalized.
But then he got older, he got calmer, and one day he was driving down the freeway in Los Angeles he told me, and this is when it all changed for him. And he’s speeding along, and all of a sudden he hears this little fragment of melody, that comes into his head as inspiration often comes, elusive and tantalizing, and he wants it, you know, it’s gorgeous, and he longs for it, but he has no way to get it. He doesn’t have a piece of paper, he doesn’t have a pencil, he doesn’t have a tape recorder.
So he starts to feel all of that old anxiety start to rise in him like, “I’m going to lose this thing, and then I’m going to be haunted by this song forever. I’m not good enough, and I can’t do it.” And instead of panicking, he just stopped. He just stopped that whole mental process and he did something completely novel. He just looked up at the sky, and he said, “Excuse me, can you not see that I’m driving?” (Laughter) “Do I look like I can write down a song right now? If you really want to exist, come back at a more opportune moment when I can take care of you. Otherwise, go bother somebody else today. Go bother Leonard Cohen.”
Bead 100 Good times must be paid for. Miss Gilbert comes down with a nasty bladder infection. Wayan Nuriyasih has the cure. After fixing the ailment, Miss Nuriyasih tells about some of the therapies she performs. It seems like some couples have a problem making babies, and it is very dangerous to tell a Balinese man that he is impotent. The solution is to have the woman go for treatment in a special clinic. Young men are recruited from the village to assist. The woman is soon pregnant, and everyone is happy.
This was found on facebook. I think the remains of the recent emotional cataclysm are gone. Got up, gave myself an amusing haircut, did some watering and transplanting on the Flats, and went for a long (by recent standards) run in the lovely morning. Clomped along, concentrating on the green, the growing, the flowering, the scented, and when I came to a particularly generous patch of sky, looked up and said, “Wow, And it’s all MINE.” I’ll share, of course. So, yeah, back to reasonably happy. Then a bird shat on me.
Bead 101 Felipe points out that Miss Nuriyasih has not bought a house yet. This might be a problem.
Maybe it is time to actually write something, instead of just pasting in text from facebook. There are someimes things to say. Just because you are tired of a project, and will be overjoyed when it is over, does not justify laziness. What if Christopher Columbus had taken that attitude when he was three fourths of the way to the new world. The native americans wish he had.
But then, this was on facebook, and fits in with the rest of this post. People who say “America, love it or leave it” have clearly never tried to get a residence permit in another country as an American. It’s not that easy! It will take me 5 years to qualify for a resident visa in Thailand, and I’ll have to pass a language test to prove that I can speak, read, and write Thai. I can, so bring it on. But People who claim USA is the best country in the world should try living in another one for a while first! Especially one where redneck English is not the national language! That is all.
Bead 102 Wayan Nuriyasih throws a party to celebrate Miss Gilbert’s thirty fifth birthday.
This was found on facebook. [Image Description:A yellow-shaded representation of the face of Malcolm X, a civil rights revolutionary fighter, with purple text to the left side of their face, reading, "Don't be in a hurry to condemn a man because he doesn't know what you know, or think as you think, or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today."]
Bead 103 The business of buying a house, or land to build a house on, is complicated. Buying property is a mine field of legal trickery in almost any country. In Bali, it might be worse. Even if the property is for sale, and the price is right, and the seller really has a title for the land, Miss Nuriyasih has to approve the taksu or spirit, of the land. At one point, she needs to go to a temple, to ask for guidance, but cannot enter the temple because she is having her period.
This is from the Elizabeth Gilbert TED talk Transcripts are the slack blogger’s friend. But, the tricky bit comes the next morning, for the dancer himself, when he wakes up and discovers that it’s Tuesday at 11 a.m., and he’s no longer a glimpse of God. He’s just an aging mortal with really bad knees, and maybe he’s never going to ascend to that height again. And maybe nobody will ever chant God’s name again as he spins, and what is he then to do with the rest of his life? This is hard. This is one of the most painful reconciliations to make in a creative life. But maybe it doesn’t have to be quite so full of anguish if you never happened to believe, in the first place, that the most extraordinary aspects of your being came from you. But maybe if you just believed that they were on loan to you from some unimaginable source for some exquisite portion of your life to be passed along when you’re finished, with somebody else.
Bead 104 Miss Gilbert is becoming comfortable with Felipe. She also decides that she does not want to live in Bali. The ex-pat lifestyle is not for her.
Seen and duly noted on facebook ~ Message to someone on okcupid who said they are looking for a partner in crime: “How perfect – I’m looking for a partner in crime too! See, I just killed these three hookers and I need a place to hide the bodies. Any ideas?” ~ When I’m feeling down or stressed, I can interpret almost anything as “proof” that I am unlovable (or that other people are unloving). But if I remember that my thinking will change when my mood changes, I can laugh at my moods and give myself some loving acceptance. Ironically, accepting the bad mood helps me move out of it. ~ Dear FB Buddies . . . Watch your wall. Tell your friends . . . Hackers are now on FB writing insults on your friends’ walls, such insults of which are made to appear as having come from you. You don’t know nor see it but your friends do. As a result, they have deleted you from their list of friends. I want to assure you that if you get something supposedly from me that’s offensive, it certainly didn’t come from me. Copy and re-post PLEASE ~ d racecard is a palindrome ~ PG, I came up with the ideaq for 911 and the Patriot Act. I gave the idea to a C.I.A. agent and the rest is history. This happened in 1986.
Bead 105 There is a ritual performed by Ketut Liyer. A baby is six months old, and has not touched the ground. This is the custom. At six months, there is a ritual, with prayer, chanting, and relatives wearing their best clothes. At some point, the baby’s feet touch the earth.
These comments are for the video Afternoon with Ketut Liyer. Once again Im balinese, tiang nak bali .. saya orang bali. This old man is a lier, I went there to his place in Ubud and He was trying to sell painting which is you can get ib local market for 30-40 US$ and this old guy Tried to sell for 200 US$, and whatever he said its bullshit. He said that me and my girlfriend will be rich n good business.And he said that Im a faithfull person in front of my girlfriend, in fact I have cheated on my girl friend for over than 4 times.please becareful with him ~ and we should believe in you, who cheated to your girlfriend for more than 4 times? :) ~ Ketut Liyer just a character the same like us, He just try to make people happy with what he said to you, he could be lying to, but whos care as long he said something good about you. Im a balinese and my family generation is BALIAN other said Priest or Shaman or Medicine man whatever you call,also we are the Blood of Bali King Sri Nararya Kresna Kepakisan, Never in my Family Generation teach us to read Hand Gesture or Line.
Bead 106 It finally becomes apparent to Miss Gilbert that Miss Nuriyasih is playing games with her. An ultimatum is made, and the property is bought within hours.
With Eat, Pray, Love winding down, PG is wondering what he will read next. The Chamblee library does not have the best selection, and requesting a book online seems like a lot of work. A facebook friend faced a similar dilemma, and asked for summer reading suggestions.
If you want “to be at the limits of what has been thought in relation to your discipline you should read Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Perspective, and try it in the original German just 2-3 pages a day. Then read Foucault. I cannot believe you have not read your Foucault. Discipline and Punish is a benchmark of the social sciences, he walks around prisons and writes poetry about their history and social functions/capacities. The Order of Things by Foucault is a master piece. ~ Look, Colin, Foucault hurts the part of me that does thinking. I do not have the capacity yet to read Foucault without a quiet screaming slowly starting in the back of my mind. ~ That’s because you have to relearn how to read. You approach thinkers like him like you would read a poet. You don’t examine them for their propositional truth claims so much as to the relationships they are making with the questions that arise or that you have, some of which there are no answers for because they are the very limit of what can be thought with the relationships we have, and some answers are practical.
Bead 107 Miss Gilbert and Felipe go on a vacation. The location is an island, Gili Meno. Miss Gilbert had been there before. This was during the first trip to Bali, which coincided with divorce trauma. This is where she first wrote in her magic notebook, and G-d wrote back to her, using her own hand. This is the same hand that played a prominent role in bead 096.
A man named Saint Anthony went on a spiritual retreat once. He was visited by angels that looked like devils, and devils that looked like angels. He could tell one from the other by the way he felt when they left. If he was happy, it was an angel. If he was angry or sad, it was the devil. PG has few illusions about the people who wreak emotional havoc because of Jesus.
Bead 108 Felipe tells Miss Gilbert that he needs to stay in Bali, because of his business. They will work something out.
Miss Gilbert later married Felipe. This shotgun wedding was forced on them by US officials. In this video, Eat Pray Love’s Elizabeth Gilbert on Q TV Miss Gilbert discusses the evolution of marriage. Historically, marriage has been arranged, for the benefit of the families involved. The concept of a man and woman choosing to marry, because of love, is a recent innovation. It is seen as dangerous by some, and divorce rates have increased as this custom has become more prevalent.
This comment was made about the Q TV video. “The 70′s misandry, man-hatred, and sense of entitlement have only mushroomed. Deeds and comments that were “radical” and “hateful” in the 70′s are mainstream today. Elizabeth Gilbert is the norm. Millions of American women would do the exact same selfish whore things if they had a large advance on a big book deal. This has always been true of women but even more so toady.”
This is the end of Eat, Pray, Love. Thank you for reading this. Parts one, two, three, four, and five were previously published. Pictures for this post are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”. Selah