Latest '08 Presidential Candidate Poll Results

Matt Towery of Insider Advantage’s Southern Political Report (who has yet to get the Share Your New Media memo and continues to employ un-embeddable video on his site. Heck, he’s yet to get any sharing media memo as there are ZERO sharing tools on the site from what I can tell) has the latest and greatest data on how the ‘08 Presidential candidates are playing down south… and elsewhere.

Matt’s poll results, and fabulous preacher-man hairdo, are here. Good news for Edwards and Thompson somewhere in there. Clinton and Giuliani strong, strong, stong in FL and SC.

Deeper analysis of I Know What Fred Did At The Debate Last Night is here. But I’m addicted to these gosh darn wacky webcasts. There’s something so ______________ about them. Fill in the blank with YOUR bons motes and priceless feedback.

NOTE: This post cross-posted at PP too.

Save The Porches!

The house/office (they're one in the same now to me) of my dreams is mostly a porch. A series of wrap-around porches really. I grew up with no A/C and have yet to really embrace it, except on the most sweltering days, such as some we had this last summer in Atlanta. A/C makes my nose drip. One reason I doubt I could ever go back to working for The Man is for the summers I've wasted shivering in sweaters in front of space heaters, trapped in ugly office buildings chilled to some environmentally insane 68 degrees.

I'd prefer my dream porches overlooking a pristine intercoastal waterway, with most of 'em also screened-in for summertime use down South. I always wonder at the lack of screened porches in high-density subdivisions and other forms of geographically-clueless architecture. Where are the folk gonna sit on a nice southern, mosquito-ridden summer night and yap and drink amongst themselves when they get claustrophobic from too much A/C-related enclosure? Or what if there was a long power outage in the middle of a sweltering summer? Where you gonna sleep if not on a porch cot?

In related matters, I was drawn to this article about post-Katrina housing build-back projects in Biloxi because it seems that whoever designed this house (in this case Brett Zamora from Architecture for Humanity) didn't immediately check all the dwelling's Southerness at the door. This house just looks "right." It looks inherently Southern. The delighted homeowner thought so too.

Ms. Parker and her children were drawn to the “Blox,” a design by Brett Zamore that reminded them of their old neighborhood, lost to the storm. “It looked cozy and comfortable, like something that would fit right into Biloxi,” Ms. Parker said. “And the porches! I’m an outside person. I love the porches.”

Full story here.

photo borrowed from The New York Times

"Some Will Rob You With A Six-Gun, Some With A Fountain Pen"

Marvelous, marvelous new blog from a thoughtful, literary, lyrical country Georgia gentleman who can craft a wonderful, poignant tale steeped in pure southern culture. I'm delighted and honored to bring you Paw Paw Bill. From an August entry, I Hear Woodie Guthrie Singing:

When my Daddy first took sick, one of my sisters stayed with him for a while. Daddy’s health went rapidly downhill after the death of his wife, my stepmother. My sister prepared my stepmother’s clothes to send to the Salvation Army, and after she began to find money, folding money, including $100 bills, tucked away in the pockets of jackets and in purses, she searched through everything carefully. My Daddy and his wife were survivors of The Great Depression of the 1930’s, and they hoarded things and stashed stuff in hiding places.

Before his death, Daddy had explicitly instructed me to take responsibility for his bank safety deposit box. He admonished me about my sisters, “You do right by the girls.” The day after his funeral, I phoned the lawyer to schedule a trip to the bank to clean out the safety deposit box. “Oh, I’ve already taken care of that,” the lawyer informed me. “There wasn’t nothing in it but some insurance papers and property deeds.” Some days later we had the reading of the will, and the lawyer presented me documents to sign releasing him from bond and waiving any claim whatsoever against him for any liability ever conceived by mankind.

I heard Woody Guthrie singing.

Full post here. And here's The Byrd's rendition of the Guthrie song quoted by Paw Paw Bill, from a 1971 rode-hard performance, back when young men were dramatic and fearless and beautiful and poetic.

Faulkner Was A Cartoonist

Who knew? Guess Mike Luckovich squirrels away such juicy tidbits, but not me. From Ole Miss' Center for the Study of Southern Culture (where, when I'm finished channeling Rupert and Ted, I hope to retire quietly for a civilized course of study; there or UNC's southern studies program. Have yet to decide between the two. But I've got miles to go before I rest with such academic indulgences)... Anyways, back to the quote at hand:

Prior to the beginning of his career as a novelist, Faulkner as visual artist was already bringing together some of the issues of sexuality he would probe so deeply in his fiction: the male “gaze” as a form of sexual objectification, the “blackness” of sexual mystery, the interaction of heterosexual and same-sex dynamics.

Not only does Faulkner explore multiple forms of sexuality throughout his work, he also studies their implications within various social, economic, and racial concerns. Quentin Compson’s obsession over decaying social standards in The Sound and the Fury is complicated by the incestuous desires seemingly designed to purify what he regards as sexual violation.

Read more prime yadayadayayda here. If you want to geek-out in what must surely be world's geekiest of literary geek fests, this year's "Faulkner's Sexualities" Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference is July 22-26, 2007. More info on that gem here. I can only imagine the sort who arrive at these sort of things, gauche rolly luggage in hand. And we wonder why Faulkner pondered female indifference too...

Snake Done Gone

When Bernita isn't stalking the halls of the Gold Dome, inspiring us with her amazing brand of politics, and her hilarious, dead-on writing, she's busy wacking monster rattlers in her gram's back yard. Now there's a woman who's not scared of Jack or shit! She recounted the adventure in an email:

My Grams and I were driving from town (Augusta) and I spotted it as it was headed into my cousin's yard. I wouldn't have cared but my cousin's house is the site of the big ol'e Ritter family high school graduation gala - got 6 of them graduating on Friday night. So a big cousin has to do what she has to do!! Hell that's my graduation present to them all.

I probably would have been scared as all hell if my grandma wasn't standing next to me and giving me tips. She's done the snake warrior thing a good many times in her day.

As Garrison Keiller once said, "Well, I reckon Southerners are fine people, and I've met plenty of good Southerners, but sooner or later they all get around to talking about snakes."

Now those are true words.

Because The Political Is Social

Seems Republicans have tried their best to ruin the social inherent in the political process (beats me why), so let's just put the social and the political right back where they belong - together at last!

Angela Trigg of Trigger ID has launched a killer social media site for ALL of us politically-minded bloggers and yappers around the South. Now this is my idea of money and time well spent.

What are you waiting for?!! Jump on in and join the (beta) political reindeer games at A Donkey and An Elephant Walk Into A Bar dot com. Meet you there!

Sorry Peach Pundit, AD&E has tons more bells and whistles. Was nice while it lasted though. I take only fond memories with me. (And yeah, that's a southern gal's kiss-off.)

24

We practically watched live, kinda sorta, as a killer tornado(s) ripped apart a school yesterday and killed children in Alabama. Then a few more people here in Georgia. Then I was shaken-up out of perfectly lovely sex-on-the-beach scenario (that was just a dream, just a dream) by yet another overhead, aerial clusterfuck from all the chopper action due to this horrible, catastrophic scene. (No, I am not going to rush out the door to go get the ghoul footage, although the scene is literally right down the street. That's what local news is for.)

Who needs a freakin' TV show? Jack Bauer can only dream about the level of death and destruction you can pack into a 24-hour time frame down south. And don't get me started on the Kappa Kappa Gimme All Your Money tarts up there in Acworth.

Jeezus Christ. I gotta get outta this town.

UPDATE: They say the driver of the bus that fell onto I-75 was "confused" by the lane situation and exits on Northside Drive and I-75. I've driven back and forth on this particular bridge for years; the signage and the lane situations STILL confuse me. Every single time. So imagine trying to navigate our DOT nightmare for the first time. People have now died trying.

Douglas County Giveth And Douglas County Sure Taketh Away

What's the price of consensual teen sex in Douglas County, Georgia? Is ten years at the Big House enough sin-washin' time for ya? Ten years. That's no joke. That's what high school football star Genarlow Wilson is doing right about now: ten years for getting a blow job from a gal who admitted prompting sex in the first place. From Wright Thompson at ESPN.com:

Once, he (Wilson) was the homecoming king at Douglas County High. Now he's Georgia inmate No. 1187055, convicted of aggravated child molestation. When he was a senior in high school, he received oral sex from a 10th grader. He was 17. She was 15. Everyone, including the girl and the prosecution, agreed she initiated the act. But because of an archaic Georgia law, it was a misdemeanor for teenagers less than three years apart to have sexual intercourse, but a felony for the same kids to have oral sex.

But hey, if Genarlow had just copped a plea deal ("taken his medicine") instead of insisting on a jury trial so he might somehow, someway not be branded a "child molester," he'd have had to serve only FIVE years! (And of course those upright, Bible-lovin' Douglas County prosecutors won't be ever labled "soft" on pervs that way either. Just kinda semi-limp. Makes you wonder what happens to their puffed-up little lawyerin' body parts during a good romp in the sack, eh? But I diverge...)

Barker (the prosecutor in the case) thinks five years is fair for receiving oral sex from a schoolmate.

If the world isn't falling out of their chairs laughing at our backasswater ways with the Milton County nonsense, then it is surely crying now. Shoot, even Erik The Republican over at Peach Pundit thinks this case is seriously extreme.

You can sign an online petition to help Wilson's case here.

Full ESPN story here. HT to Harley D.

The Mind Of A Cell Phone... And Other Mobility Issues

I blog what I know. Since I don't get out of The Deep South much, I blog mostly about that. What I don't know is the rest of the world. From the looks of this fascinating blog, Future Perfect, by a Nokia researcher, Jan Chipchase, the world is simply one big cell phone issue. In a way, this is the oddest blog I've come across yet -- for that reason.

I was particularly fascinated by the deep-fried, succulent no doubt, rat dinner in China. I can't say that one made me rush to see if I still had a current passport. And honestly, the rest of the world seems so strange, from this blog's perspective, that I don't know if I really want to leave my American comfort zone anytime soon. After all, I am continually offended by the sight of hijabs in my own backyard.

Maybe some of us just aren't made to go global. Do we always need to? Have to? Especially now that we can just click to a blogger passing through Tehran.

(Note to Jan: If I was a cell phone manufacturer, I wouldn't want to overlook the massive Praise Jesus culture that invades not only daily life here in The South, but our laws. Not when you could be offering the Heritage Doll wallpaper. See below.)

Speaking of cell phones, there's a delightful little fuzz going on over at the AJC about 24. As mentioned by Panda's Keeper, the best part of that show is Jack Bauer's cell phone. It takes numerous hits for team and country and still keeps at it, never faltering. Just like Jack. I want me one of those cell phones. Then maybe I too will be a better American. I love that show.

Rejoice, We Have No Choice

The totally wacked-out writer Michael Chabon has a little tidbit here about The Future. (It took me all of a month to get through his freakin' brilliant review of the Dark Materials trilogy.)

As a (American) parent this graph naturally stood out:

If you ask my eight-year-old about the Future, he pretty much thinks the world is going to end, and that’s it. Most likely global warming, he says—floods, storms, desertification — but the possibility of viral pandemic, meteor impact, or some kind of nuclear exchange is not alien to his view of the days to come. Maybe not tomorrow, or a year from now. The kid is more than capable of generating a full head of optimistic steam about next week, next vacation, his tenth birthday. It’s only the world a hundred years on that leaves his hopes a blank. My son seems to take the end of everything, of all human endeavor and creation, for granted. He sees himself as living on the last page, if not in the last paragraph, of a long, strange and bewildering book.

Heck, my 6-year old daughter believes she's going to sing and dance to High School Musical forever. And that one day Troy (the boy lead in HSM. They're all "Troys" nowadays) will kiss her - on the lips. I am not going to tell her otherwise. I don't want her growing up to marry Chabon's little weirdo either, as what kinda childhood ideals would he have to fall back on/impose on her?

If more singing and dancing, feminine ideals in other words, were perpetuated in Western culture, we might not be in some of the cultural pickles we're obviously in now. Blame it on men and their violent pessimism. I'm really starting to think that most literary giants, other than Jane Austen and Tolstoy maybe, are full of shite. And yeah, particularly Faulkner. (Like Jamie Foxx saying "nigger," I can say stuff like that since I'm a white Southerner. Same argument, eh?) Maybe Chabon needs to pull an alethiometer out of his ass.

I hope, with my help, my kid continues to sing and dance her little heart out, for life. She'd better; her first talent show is this Friday night. Sheeze, all of us women folk had better be practicing our all-American moves... really really hard.

This post put together by this song, naturally enough:

Blog A New Voice

Why is blogging so addictive? Why do we feel compelled to write and put ourselves out there almost every day? Because there has never been a forum, other than journaling of course and that's been private territory, that is remotely like blogging. It is, when done honestly and often, a deep journey into ourselves -- who we really are, what we mean to the world around us, and who we want to become. How we react, sense and perceive our reality, and, chiefly, the role our individual histories bring to the table. We test our sensibilities, ask for acceptance (well, sometimes) by soliciting comments from those around us who may or may not share our perspective.

Blogging is a discovery process. Narcissistic, yes, but vital to becoming the person we are really meant to be. The strong, avid bloggers keep at it because they simply love to write, and in doing so some of them are becoming genuine writers, not just neo-journalists and opinionists. It's fascinating to watch this process evolve; the poet, the sentimentalist, the dreamer, the realist, the cynic, the naysayer, the prophet, the teacher, the champion, the truth all begin to emerge in the person who is driven to blog. A voice is sculpted and crafted and turned over to an audience. A life's story begins to emerge.

I had the delight of discovering the beginnings of a couple of deeply original and inspired voices of genuine, contemporary southern culture over the last few days within a couple of key posts. One was from James. The other from Will Hinton. There's something critical and seminal in these two unpolished musings on the past King Day. Linking to such emerging voices is simply at the heart of why I started my own blog in the first place, why my own blog emerged from my history, and why I started the e-zine WaySouth in the nineties too. I know there is a strong, uniquely southern voice out there. And I for one sure don't want to miss a musing.

One note, I've disabled "comment moderation" here too to encourage more comments. Blogging without comments is the equivalent of drinking alone - why bother?

This post put together by Yo La Tengo, Beta Band and Cat Stevens.

Color Blind - It Can Happen

Will Hinton at Peach Pundit has an excellent post about what King Day means if you're a white Southerner. The follow-up comments are critical.

Write Your Damn Thank You Notes

MOMania, or Theresa over at the AJC, poses a timely question on her (fake) blog today: Do you make your kids write thank-you notes? You'd better believe I make my kid write thank you notes, particularly after Christmas, although I admit to getting slack, occasionally, when the slew of gifts comes in at the annual kiddy party come March. We've hardly gotten out all the Christmas notes when that CF rolls around.

Woe to the family that doesn't command the children to write thank you notes. That family will be talked about behind its back as the white trash it undoubtedly is all year long by the families that do write them. The practice of sending thank you notes down South, preferably on monogrammed stationary, is as sacred as bowing before the family portrait of Robert E. Lee every morning.

And no, emailing, blogging or YouTubing a thank you doesn't count, especially in my family as most of its members are too:

a.) arrogant
b.) drunk
c.) batty

to own or operate a computer.

Good Work If You Can Get It

To those who have asked, no, that new HBO show in the works, Buckhead Betty, has yet to hire me as a consultant. Although they are free to do so. And yeah, they should. They really should, especially since the creators aren't even real Southerners! Mon Dior. Read more here. Or here. Is there any other longtime Buckhead Something blogging besides moi? I don't think so. (Of course there's always Peachtree Screed, but he wouldn't know Samantha Jones from Sam Massell. In all fairness, he can tell you Vernon Jones from Vernon Jordan fastern' most folk. And hon, do NOT get him started on Dick Williams, Jim Wooten or Judith Miller.)

Who Polishes The Best Turds?

Or rather, who best polishes the simple turd? According to the Turdpolisher's blog description:

Turdpolishing is slang we TV photogs use for turning an utterly worthless story into something that sticks to video tape -- polishing a turd. Be careful or you'll get some on you.

A perfect case-in-point is a bit from this Turdpolisher entry, Got AIDS?, about trolling for news only the suits can use:

Can I tell you... the only thing worse than attending a poetry reading about AIDS is actually having AIDS. But it gets better, the poets are 11 years old. What do these kids know about AIDS, how one contracts it, lives with it, or prevents it? Luck was on our side...we were late. We got there just in time to shoot the winners getting their checks. But there's still that nagging need for a story tonight.

Having just produced a network shoot this past Saturday, I was reminded, yet again, of just how elaborate the T polish can be applied.

See this hardworking crew dress a set for instance. The crew used-up about an hour of good manpower time creating a curtain to block light so that they could pop-off a couple of interior shots, a couple of shots inside a filthy shack. Of course, you simply can't get a good shot with full sun blaring right into your lens, whether you're using a $150 DV cam from Circuit City or a customized Betacam, as this crew was using that can run you or your network 50K or more.

We were not there to do a story about poverty though, so the camera crew could light and frame to capture a "nice" setting anyway they saw fit, conveniently ignoring the ramshackle squalor our interviewees were living in. (Filth and grime and poverty? What's that to a feature story about overcoming anxieties!? But I diverge. I was just the hired hand on this one. The folks in NYC want a story about an anxiety disorder, that's what they're gonna get. It's not the place of a freelance producer to even THINK about contributing to the editorial direction. You show up on time, you smile and nod, and you ship the NY desk their tapes immediately. That's what they want from us folk on "the ground." Nothing more. Nothing less.)

So here's your case for "real" citizen journalism. And this does not mean just giving a newsroom of highly educated journalists a DV cam and a lesson on iMovie, as only when the stories bubble-up organically from the ground, by any means necessary I suppose, and then go straight up to the suits, and not the top-down method by which we're accustomed to receiving news, will turd polishing become less important. Only then will the TV news audience begin to recognize a genuine turd for what it often is -- the crap or non-news item or PC bullshit or outright lies (WMD) it often is.

And will the print folks ever be able to simply catch up? Should they even try to catch up with video? Should writing and video be mutually exclusive? Tune-in to the blogosphere to find out more. Exciting times we do live in, folks.

NOTE: Do not miss Turdpolisher's short story either, The Blond and The Klan. Hilariously underwritten in a loopy style perfect for capturing the sheer lunacy of a Louisiana local news station. Get this guy an agent!

Dixie (Deaf ) Darlin'

Oh maaaaahhh Gawwwd. I've found the perfect mate for, uh, GriftDrift? She's even a virgin! Can I get a broker's fee? Hilarious.

Makes Tony Soprano Seem Impotent

Quote du jour: "All Meech did was walk in the spot and panties got moist."

Wow! Know who Big Meech is, white ATL? You will now. Here's the kinda throwdown, hardcore, local reporting work we've been waiting for: exposing the moguls and the scenes behind the scenes of Atlanta's music industry, and veering into something very sinister called the Black Mafia Family.

Wanna know more? Mara Shaloup has a crack investigative piece, a year in the making, in three parts, the first part being in this week's Creative Loafing. This is some serious dirt folks, appropriately titled: Hip-hop's shadowy empire. Get reading. You can thank me (and PS) later.

(Why don't I ever get invited to these kinda parties? I adore champagne. And if you're a real writer, here's your New South material just waiting there in the gutter for you to reach down and pick-up.)

Put A Stake In It, That Southern Culture Is Dead

Faulkner's not dead; he was just passed-out drunk in his coffin all this time. Talk about dredging-up the past and going places maybe we just shouldn't be going... now some wretched Faulkner family member has sold a vampire script Faulkner wrote in his I'm Really Hammered phase, one that went on for over a decade, to a Hollywood producer. The producer seems deeply enamored, bless his heart, with that absurdist stereotype of some moss-ridden, Hazel Motes-y (or is that O'Conner?) "Deep South" naturally enough. From The Guardian:

Faulkner's estate has given the script to Lee Caplin, a producer who says he would like to set it in the Deep South. Little more is known but there is a revival of interest in adapting Faulkner's work to the screen. It is said Oprah Winfrey wants to make Light in August and Caplin is looking for a writer to adapt Faulkner's 1935 story Golden Land (the only tale he actually set in Hollywood) in the twisted style of a David Lynch film.

So Big Oprah and some fucktard producer who thinks that that drooling, fake gothicist David Lynch is no doubt a brilliant filmmaker are waiting in the wings to leech off the rest of the backwater vapors? Deep South is cool, eh? Most real southerners are so Deep South stupid they'd confuse Faulkner with Colonel Sanders, although he looks an awful lot like an aging Billy Bragg in the above snapshot. (He too likes the ladies much I hear.)

How about methed-out rednecks, mega-church mentalities, gated communities, ghetto culture, I Heart Bush stickers plastered on pickup trucks, fat developers in pink shorts on manufactured golf courses, Wal-Marts and NASCAR nowadays, you clueless Hollywood dickheads? Who'd want to film that crap?

Peach Buzzed Into A Stupor

Is Peach Buzz just not the lamest gossip site you've ever laid eyeballs on? They stumble on a catchy phrase/item about as often as I have a dinner-and-a-movie kinda date.

If you want the real poop on Amy Sedaris' journey southward try this from my pal Tom. He's got his finger on the pulse of Atlanta, when it's not on an Avid that is. (Or do you folks at Crawford use Final Cut nowadays? Either one, too much clicking and mousing for me. Blogging alone is almost more clicks-per-day than this bit of square-eyed Space can handle.)


Anyways... here's Tom's Take on Ms. Sedaris' visit:

So tonight was the night of Amy Sedaris' book tour stopping in Atlanta, at the odd time of 7:15PM at a suburban (Decatur) public library. All day I was mentioning this to friends, as I wanted to make sure Amy didn't come out to speak to a crowd of like 9 1/2 people plus the library janitor.

My wife and I pulled up with 15 minutes to spare and there was apparently some huge other event going on in downtown Decatur. Traffic a mess, no parking anywhere, people everywhere, and full-ish marching band of the doo-dah variety in the library parking lot playing "Louie Louie" etc.

We parked far away and walked and walked. As we got closer we saw this throng in a line of perhaps 700 people snaking around the band.

I asked someone walking toward us... what the heck is this event that someone has booked simultaneous with the small event we are here for?? "Oh, this is all for a book singing for someone named Amy Sedaris" was the reply. And as we got closer damn if half of those 700 people (600?- 1000? who knows) were clutching their copy of "I Like You".

We know this little library and there was no way 1/10 of those people were getting in. So we skipped to the side entrance and we walked into the 3- storey library proper as if we were there in "research."

We rode the elevators down to see if we could travel to the ground floor auditorium and sneak in that way but that elevator button was locked out. So we rode up, walked around some research space, then stepped into another crowded elevator to ride down again, this time Finding Amy (get it, ha) standing right beside us.

"We figured we'd never get in so we've decided to talk to you now" I joked. "Oh?" said the diminutive Ms. Sadaris, her mind seemingly elsewhere. Standing beside her handler, she sported a 50's-homage crisp shiny brown dress.

"The line you you; we'll never get in."

"There's a line?" she asked.

"Whoa jeez yes, you've not seen? It goes on forever," I said as I fired up my camera to show her digital-pix proof. (See above.)

She looked at my pix and countered, "Oh no, they aren't here for me," starting to look a little worried.

My wife looked her in the eye and said in friendly seriousness "They are here for you. It's a LOT of people. You should be at The Fox, not here." Suddenly the elevator opened on the restricted floor, as she got off she just said "What's The Fox?" as her handler blocked our exit.

So we didn't get in and I got no further pictures. But at least we saw her and talked however briefly and saw her real shock at what a sensation she, and her book, are becoming.

I'll bet when she sat in her Manhattan apartment putting this book together she never once said "this weird tome will be HUGE in the South."

Today's Post on (Crappy) Video

The Spacey Gracey Review For Nov. 17, 2006 - video powered by Metacafe