I Know That The Comments Will Go On

Can't really get the crystal ball fired-up over Celine The Intern's career prospects just up the road a'piece on West Paces, but this blog thread just won't quit. I won't let it!

Blogging May Raise Cholesterol, Temper, Attitudes, etc.

Our Atlanta media/politics phenomenon, Doug Monroe aka Peachtree Screed, is interviewed here regarding New Media, porn, aging, defiance, Internets, politics, you-name-it. Be sure to check-out his terrific, Atlanta-based blog roll.

My favorite part? That Pablo dude saying Atlanta Magazine was "stale." Ain't that the truth!

Every Day Should Be A Parade

Whole big 'ole slide show of parade photos from Rusty is here! Next year? The ATL Bloggers' huge-normous float. You heard it here first.

Nothing "Natural" on DNR Board

Let's count the envionmentalists on Georgia's DNR board!

If you can't find any here, then try counting the builders and developers instead. You'll find that more fruitful. Heck, there are two more dentists on the board than people who seek to protect our natural resources. What's with that? Might have to have one of my cellular chats with those dudes too, just for grins... and blogging purposes of course.

And of course, being a polite Southern lady, I'll be sure to invite them to the party for Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper on May 10th!


CITIZEN JOURNALISM MOMENT: Help me call some of these fine folks on the DNR board and invite them to River Revival!

A list of contact info for these folk is here. Another citizen journalism bonus point to see if any of these are also lobbyists.


DNR BOARD MEMBERS AND OCCUPATIONS
Per AJC, Oct 2006

William "Bill" Archer III, Lake Burton
Retired Georgia Power executive vice president; working as a consultant for the utility company on a three-year contract through 2009.

Earl Barrs, Cochran
Owner of Knapp-Barrs & Associates Inc., a Macon timberland management and investment company; also owns other land investment companies.

Jenny Lynn Bradley, Savannah
Community volunteer and former vice president of the Garden Club of America.

Warren Budd, Newnan
New York Life insurance agent.

William A. Carruth, Dallas
President of Aiken Grading Co., a land grading operation; also owns land development companies.

Cader Cox, Camilla
CEO of Riverview Plantation Inc., a quail hunting plantation on the Flint River; also owns a vegetable and timber farm.

Walter Hudson, Douglasville
President of Exxell Developers Inc. and Land Sales Inc., real estate development companies.

Mabel C. Jenkins, Millen
Retired.

Phyllis T. Johnson, Hazlehurst
Co-owner of Thompson Hardwoods Inc., lumber and wood products manufacturer.

Bob Rutland, Covington
Chairman and part owner of Allied Holdings Inc., a Decatur car-hauling business.

Loyce W. Turner, Valdosta
Former state senator, retired veterinarian, retired banker, farmer; runs a family foundation.

James W. Tysinger, Atlanta
Former state senator, retired sales industrial engineer from Westinghouse Electric Corp.

James Walters, Gainesville
President and CEO of James A. Walters Management Co. Inc., which provides management services for consumer finance companies. Managing partner of Walters Income Properties, which owns and manages commercial and office buildings, and shopping centers.

Tom Wheeler, Atlanta
Manager and principal owner of Wheeler/Kolb Co., a Duluth company that manages and leases shopping centers and office parks in the Southeast.


NEW MEMBERS SINCE OCTOBER 2006.
The following individuals replaced Sara Clark (Community Volunteer/League of Women Voters), Ralph Callaway (Callaway Gardens) and Jamie Reynolds (Developer):

Dr. David Allen, Atlanta (Oral surgeon)
Chair emeritus and founder, Oral Surgery Associates; Chair, Georgia Chamber of Commerce

Joe Hatfield, Baldwin
Chairman, Fieldale Farms Corporation

Dr. Gene Bishop, Dawsonville (Oral surgeon)
President, Health Service Centers


VACANT POSITION FOR GOVERNOR PERDUE TO FILL.
AT-LARGE BOARD SEAT PREVIOUSLY HELD BY SALLY BETHEA.

Shame, Sonny, shame. (All of the above are Governor appointees.)

Out 'O The Closet

OK... I'm gonna lay it out on the line here on the SGR: I have always been a Cat Stevens fan. And guess what? He's back!
Praise Jesus.

Let's Commit Citizen Journalism!

Got a couple of citizen journalism irons in the fire: One being micro... about the ludicrous water bills residents in the NW corridor, Underwood Hills and Berkley Park areas, are receiving from the City of Atlanta water department. Our condo association's has tripled since Dec. of 2006, blowing our entire budget for 2007. We are hardly alone.

One neighbor's absurd story is here on WXIA -- thanks to our e-organizing efforts to get some sunshine on this, uh, draining issue. Many many thanks to Jerry Carnes for paying attention to our issues here in intown Atlanta! You're the best. Keep up the work, 'cause we got lots more where than came from. (I'm shooting video of our condos' saga too, in hopes that some MSM will want some of that to supplement their own hard work.)

In other less micro matters... that marvelous Wilson Smith from What Is Going On in Lyons, Georgia, interviewed Sally Bethea from Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper a couple of days ago on his show/podcasts about her being fired from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Board. Sally's interview with Wilson is here.

Sally was on Governor Perdue's Office of Executive Appointments for this year's state boards and commissions, as she has been for the past 8 years.

But Sen. Tommie Williams (R-Lyons), the State Senate Majority Leader and Chairman of the Committee on Assignments, managed to jettison Sally from the list this Legislative session, saying that since she's also a lobbyist, for an environmentally-minded non-profit, she shouldn't be on the Department of NATURAL RESOURCES board, although she's been both since 1999.

So that kinda begs the question... is Tommie Williams now going to purge all state boards and commissions of their lobbyista? He should do unto others as he did to Sally, right? He surely is quite the ethically-minded politician, and obviously feels a burning need to clean house right about now... especially of those pesky environmentalists!

Wilson and I want to get a master list of the 300+ Governor appointees to state boards for 2007, and just run a quick lil 'ole check of names on that list by the list of registered state lobbyists -- just to make sure there are no other conflict-of-interest discrepancies he may have overlooked. If there are any conflicts, Wilson wants to interview them too!

So I called the Governor's Office of Executive Appointments (404-656-1776) yesterday to try to get me that list. A woman named "Celine" (she wouldn't give her last name) refused to give me the list, saying it wasn't "released to the public."

So I then called Josh Willis, a cool guy and very interested in social media, who's the Senate Majority Leader's Chief of Staff, and I proceeded to have a nice chat with him, mostly about high-speed access across Georgia. But he eventually said he didn't have The List, go figure, and referred me instead to the Lt. Governor's office.

At that point, I needed a nap! So I will resume trying to find The List today... so we can just make sure Sally Bethea isn't the only Governor appointee to a board who is also a lobbyist. Call me a silly girl, but I get the nagging feeling she's not the only one.

I think that Senator Tommie Williams, from Wilson's neck of the woods, just needs a little citizen journalism help in getting rid of EVERYONE on a Georgia state board with some of those pesky "conflicts of interest." So I'm so glad we bloggers and podcasters are here to help our Senate Majority Leader with this rather annoying little task, eh!?

Anything you can add to this, uh, effort and conversation, please lemme know.

UPDATE: Thanks to the cache of PP, and not the SGR, as of 1:45pm Friday, I have an UPDATE for ya:

Celine The Intern! Bless her heart. She’s got a great career in politics (or journalism) I must say. Young bulldog & excellent gatekeeper. I’d hire her in a sec.

The Governor’s Office of Executive Appointments, Celine’s boss in other words, almost immediately contacted me (on my cell too) as soon as this post went up on PP. (Thanks Erick!) They are going to fax me the list of names first thing on Monday. I’d get it now from ‘em, but I gotta run go be mom for the rest of this lovely day.

Enough name calling and blogging! Going to go commence weekend of fun.

I’ll get back on this list thingee first thing Monday. If anyone else needs The List sooner, then you’ll have to contact the office of Execu- Appointments (404-651-7735) yourself.

And see folks, Republicans and Democrats can work together! Even in this state.

Blogosphere's Strange Fruit

This is kinda strange and unexpectedly bizarre... to read Tania's account of how the piece of Emory grad school trash that broke-up her first marriage contacted her out of the blue, via her blog. Unbelievable.

Tania used to send me poems she wrote about the death spiral of that marriage for my now-defunct website, in the dot bomb days, WaySouth.com. (I miss that zine. It was so pretty; before websites were pretty.) You've never read anything so raw and seething and just plain soaked in pain and memory with odd spikes of hope as some of those poems. They're available in her book. I hope she won't mind me re-printing one here.


Why I Still Cry at Weddings
Tania Rochelle

I'd like to tell you it's because
I sense the priest is a pedophile,
or know the pianist beats
his wife because she stutters.
I want to say the church is too hot,
that the depiction of an angel
holding John the Baptist's head
like she's about to drop-kick it
scares me; that I'm whoozy
from the godawful heat
and the blood oozing from the lamb
in stained glass. I'd mention
bad dresses snatched from the backs
of closets, safe mauves, and pantyhose.
I could claim memories
of my own failed marriage, like tiny
glass shards in my fingertips, still hurt
when I press down, though I only
glimpse them in a certain light;
claim I've forgotten what it was like
to look at him the way
this bride is looking at this groom,
the way her father looks at her
mother, swept into the vortex
that is past and future all at once,
a shuffle of snapshots—first grade,
the goofy kid at the birthday party,
prom. But it's because her gown
says This is the ball,
and midnight is a long way off;
and because I'm in love again,
which is akin to believing
in my own immortality:
so much hope in one room.

I Know What Nancy Said

"But Mr. President, I've been reading the Spacey Gracey Review!"

ATL Web 2.0 Peeps - I Need Your Help!

Homies... Jim Long had a terrific idea: broadcast the Inman Park Parade live on Saturday (from Sas and Pauline's hot yellow Corvette-For-A-Day) over Ustream.tv or ComVu.com! It's such a visually-rich event too, and we can make a little ATL-based broadcasting his & herstory at the same time.

To make this happen, we'd need a video-enabled (3G) phone, and an operator for it. Info on those kinda phones here. I'll have my hands full with ridin' and wavin', minding kids and trying to keep my wig on straight. Publicizing the broadcast too.

Anyone out there who can participate, and has the cool toys to do so, get in touch with me at spaceygracey at bellsouth dot net.

Let's have some serious 2.0 fun with this parade on Saturday at 2pm!

BONUS: Pulver live on ustream.tv right now for some live inspiration should you need some of that!

Pauline and Sas To Parade This Weekend

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT: The perfectly delightful, wildly imperfect Inman Park parade is this Saturday at 2pm. The gals of TrueGritz are scheduled into the lineup this year... Look for their lemon-yellow Corvette. Or wigs, of course. Come have some loopy, loopy family fun and games this weekend!

Order of The Phoenix Looks Amazing

Further fueling my fantasy of being ravaged by Snape (Alan Rickman) and rescued, and ragaved some more of course, by Sirius Black (Gary Oldman). What a bodice-ripper those Harry Potters can be, if you use a little, uh, adult imagination. There's something for every age group, especially us goth-minded soccer moms, in these movies. They're like a super-charged, sci-fi Jame Eyre or Wuthering Heights really. Order of The Phoenix introduces Delores Umbridge too, although we already know her 'round here as Laura Mallory.




WABE WARNING: Lois Reitzes playing something "skippy."

Movie Screening Today At 5pm

If you can make it shortly, a former news colleague of mine, Linda Pattillo, will be screening her documentary, The Breast Cancer Diaries, at 5pm today at Landmark Midtown Theaters as part of the Atlanta Film Festival, now under way.

Please come if you can and meet Linda. Anything she's had her hand in is going to be absolutely first-rate, and the film features the photography of her husband, David Murray. I used to run film for David when he was shooting sports for some wire service back in the early 90's, the days when the Braves were winning every game in town, so I could get in free, and way up close, to all their playoff games. David is an amazing shooter, and one of the nicest, kindest people I've ever met. David' sister is the person who came down with cancer; the one who's story Linda will tell us, on film, at 5pm.

Hope to see you there.

Senate Leaders Who Hate (God's) Clean Rivers

Careful how you spell the name Tommie Williams, our Bible-waver of a State Senate Majority Leader who hates environmentalists who may actually want to, gasp, clean-up God's Great Earth and rivers... if you type in www.Tommy Williams dot com, you get Designing Menz -- ones who obviously adore that classic High Bordello style!

Hilarious. For a minute, my bad spelling had me really going there.

DNR Board Members

I just had to send this letter to the DNR Board about Sally Bethea from the non-profit environmental dot org, Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, being let go from their Board. Write back soon, DNR!

Dear DNR Board:
Are there members of the DNR Board who pressured Senator Tommie Williams’ Committee on Assignments to drop Sally Bethea from the DNR Board? As a blogger-journalist, video producer and taxpayer, I certainly would like to know who felt Sally shouldn’t be on the board alongside them.

And what are the backgrounds of all the DNR members? Where are all the others employed? Who do they answer to? Do you have a list of who they work for on your website?

Please send tons of great information when you can. We Atlanta bloggers alone will be sticking with this situation/story. It’s a good one! Lots of questions abound. And if anyone on the DNR board would like to do an on-camera interview, please let me know.

Sincerely,
Grayson D.
President
WaySouth Media, Inc.

Of course, if Sally Bethea was fired from this particular State office's board for being a paid lobbyist (in her case for a non-profit), as Tommie Williams has claimed was the reason, even though she's been a lobbyist and on the DNR board since 1999, shouldn't all lobbyists sitting on ANY State office board now also be fired? Surely there are others out there. DOT maybe?

Take TV Stations And "Burn 'Em To The Ground"

(Sorry @newmediajim, hate to embed your nemesis on the SGR, but I love that hand-wave thingee he does.)

Gone and Done It Now

I am sooooo pissed with the Georgia State Senate and their leader from Lyons, Georgia, Tommie Williams, that I can't see straight right now. They fired a fine person, Sally Bethea, from the Board of Natural Resources on Thursday.

Why? Because she also lobbied for good, clean, viable drinking water for Atlanta, and for clean, viable rivers. And oh yeah... one other reason she was fired... she asked too many "tough" questions in board meetings. From the AJC today:

Bethea, who rankles some of the board's other members with persistent questions and strong opinions particularly on water quality issues, said she viewed her role as advocating for a healthy environment.

"I represent the people of this state who want clean air, clean water, quality of life, and you can't sit still on that board and not ask questions and not ask about potential problems, " Bethea said. "Certainly there are some good people on the DNR board who care about Georgia's environment, but the dominant voices are the voices of the growth industry who will stop at nothing to make money off Georgia's natural resources."

The full AJC story is here. My initial reaction to the news is here in Peach Pundit, where I first read about it. And the video promo I just made for Sally's organization, Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, is here.

This makes it more urgent and more critical then ever that you folks come to the fundraiser for UCR on May 10th... now more than ever does the organization need your help; not just to help clean and protect our rivers, but to protect decent, good, environmentally-minded people from our Republican-controlled Legislature.

Unbelievable...

Folks, the Chattahoochee is it. All she wrote. That's all we've got for drinking water. If we let it deteriorate into pure filth, then that's what we live with, drink, and play in -- pure filth. Like we weren't living with the filth already down there at The Gold Dome.

Help us Obi Wan Wilson... you're our only hope. Help us Obi Wan Wilson... you're our only hope. Help us Obi Wan Wilson... you're our only hope. Help us Obi Wan Wilson... you're our only hope. Help us Obi Wan Wilson... you're our only hope. Help us Obi Wan Wilson... you're our only hope.

Shit... Stormtroopers... gotta run!

The YouTubed Campaign

Here's Joe Trippi, who's now joined the Edwards' campaign, on how YouTube will impact politics and political campaigning. This vid-politics stuff is my crack! Check out PrezVid for more enabling "product." (Full disclosure: I've started the YouTube initiative for the James Marlow for Congress campaign.)

Click To Play

Jeff Jarvis of PrezVid interviews Joe Tripp at the Radio Television News Directors Association/National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas.

Help Save Our Books... And Teresa Weaver

The AJC seems to think that as people migrate to the Internet, they won't be needing books. And thus they won't need a mighty fine literary pages editor, Teresa Weaver, either. Nothing could be further from the truth.

First off... I just started yet another new book, The Glass Castle (mavelous) just this afternoon. Imagine that. I read almost as much as I'm on the Internets, which is a hell of a lot. There's NEVER been a time in my life when I wasn't reading at least 2-3 books at a time. But bully for me.

What really, really pains me good about the AJC's decision to give-up on books is their decision to let go of the book editor, Teresa Weaver. Now that just makes me madder than a hornet. I want to personally go slap that She Who Must Not Be Named (Jule-ee-duh Wallace) silly for this one clueless-decision alone.

Here's where it gets personal... the first editorial I ever published was green-lighted by Teresa when she was on the op/ed pages at the AJC. (Since the AJC's archives were not cached on the Internet back then, I can't link you to it, although if I wasn't so lazy I guess I could create a PDF... maybe later.)

It was an essay really, not so much an editorial; one not unlike the latest memoir-of-a-really-wacked childhood work I'm reading today. At the time I wrote that first essay, I was organizing my (first and only) rather tres she-she wedding... all by myself as I had "the only mother in America" completely and utterly disinterested in a daughter's wedding details.

I wrote about how I once tried to engage my loopy mother in some girly-girl chit chat about dress styles and champagne cocktails, and she (Mom) merely sang opera to me over her end of the phone line, while screeching periodically at her numerous "damn cats" while she shooed them off her porch with her broom, way far away, so it seemed, out in the pine woods of South Carolina. Mom had never organized a damn thing in her life, and she wasn't going to, poof, suddenly morph into Martha Stewart just for her only daughter's Big City wedding. The thought of even driving to Atlanta scared the bejeezus out of her anyway.

I gave-up on trying to interest Mom in wedding planning, and merely let her attend the event au natural where she entertained the guests marvelously with her unique, loopy freestyle babble about growing organic eggplants and teaching illiterate country folk's kids South Carolina history, which she knows like the back of her long, elegant, aristocratic hands, even though she ignores her thoroughly blue-blood upbringing too, and is far more comfortable in her life as a peasant.

Come to think about it, Mom was never at all interested in my wedding or my lame attempt at marriage, and she hasn't really said much to me ever since the marriage failed, although I know it (the failure) hurt her more than it hurt me. She might pretend that divorce doesn't exist, but at least she never once lectured me about my gross shortcomings as a wife. For that alone I am immensely grateful for her MO of total disengagement.

To this day, writing that first essay helped me begin to work through a lifetime of confusion about my mother's, uh, detachment from the minutia of my life, and to come to terms with it and begin to learn to accept my mother for... well, for whatever she is! And "normal" she never was -- and never will be.

Teresa Weaver green-lighting that essay gave me the encouragement and the impetuous to begin to be whatever I was really meant to be; to start exploring, seriously, my own artistic inclinations, should I ever stumble across any. I started a blog about my life because Teresa Weaver once used to publish my essays. She thought they were interesting enough to print, and thus she gave me that desperately needed stamp of, yes, mainstream approval I required to move forward with non-fiction writing, no matter the platform.

Today, I can't stop reading, and that too is often because of a book Teresa reviewed at the AJC. But more importantly, on a deeply personal, visceral level... because of Teresa Weaver, I will never stop writing.

And now I've got to stop because I'm trying really hard not to cry in front of my kid... but others are able to do more than shed sentimental tears; there's a petition to Help Protect Atlanta's Book Review circulating online. Please sign when you can.


HT: PS

Kid Power Radio

Adults aren't the only ones having a blast creating original media... so are the kids. Here's Kid Power Radio, with your host, Max. Max is nine. Yeah!

Old Media Recreates

Saw Jay Bookman playing pinball at Manuel's last night... begging the question: Do you get a Pulitzer if you get to Level IV?

Paris' Threat

Some mean boy said on his blog that I can't tan. Can so, dammit. And I never fake bake:

The Road To Twitter Farm

I just discovered a new band via someone's Tweet. And the artists made themselves a new sale. I trust my Twitter Farmers. Then again, I loved the title alone of one of Guards of Metropolis' songs: Have You Found Your Yoko Yet?

(Yes... long time ago.)

Beach Party Tonight

Yeah, well being Atlanta and the end of the General Assemmlee and the 5th anniversary of Being Amber Rhea, I've a feelin' the party will be the Redneck Literati Assisted Living Home (Manuel's) tonight and, sadly, not on some beach.

This post put together by, uh, somekindacountryfuckweirdshit. And it's not even 10am. Can't say I've EVER had the slightest urge to listen to the Violent Femmes since, say, 1984 or so. But there's something kinda harmonic strangeness afoot. Gonna go dig through the stacks, rest, and brush-up on those pagan rituals.

Pretty Is As Pretty Does

My kid did something a bit, uh, odd. She took the entire contents of her recent packet of school pictures (you know the kind: the ones whereby some (who?) bad photography farm is allowed to access our wallets through some mysterious, uncompetitive process designed to entice us with their ludicrously over-priced packages of cheesy, posed prints, no digital product available, of our grammar school little darlings) and set them out all over her room, to be gazed upon... chiefly by herself I must assume.

Don't think I need to go overboard on the "love yourself first" message, eh?

Our Great (Political) Avoidance

Like most, I've been mentally fumbling about to find my way through the horror and the aftermath of the VT massacre, to work through the ensuing conversation about guns and derangement, sanity and rage and insanity, and cold-blooded mass murder. I think I may be able to begin to clear a path through the debris, with help from this one line alone... from The Economist:

"Instead of a debate about guns, America is now having a debate about campus security."

Slap Me If I Ever Get a Mini Van

This is hilarious! Somebody's been there (with kids), done that.

The Gatekeepers Are Gone. Sing Halleluia!

Jeff Pulver reflects on his live Internet show yesterday:

So the innovation here is the ease-of-use associated with creating a new TV show where you no longer need anyone's permission to be live on the net. Ustream.tv makes this a reality in 5 minutes or less. No longer does a show have to get green lighted in order to be seen. The gatekeepers are gone. It is now up to each and every show producer to fine their audience, service their audience and grow their audience from the ground up.

Full post here. As I mentioned on my call-in, this hour-long live production was easily the least stressful live environment I've ever been in. The tension alone created by a massive (and it's always "massive") old media effort to do anything live could fuel Atlanta's horrendous traffic conditions for days.

I know I could really thrive and flourish in a live broadcasting world where one is NOT perpetually being screamed at by droves of bosses and suits over an earpiece from some DC/NYC headquarters to make it all happen as that magic, live second approaches.

Dog Bowls For Humans

Call me elitist, I sure don't mind. I simply do not know, nor care to associate with, people who buy crap like plastic troughs for eating chicken wings. I don't even allow chicken wings, and their accompanying stench, into my house.

I was married once. ONCE. I did my time in chicken wings and sports hell. Never again.

Show's Over But Only Just Begun

Boys Gone Live is now over. But freakin' A.... they (we!) just made broadcast history. We just shifted the paradigm like... outta the ballpark!!! I gotta go mix me some more metaphors and think about what just happened...

Boys Gone Live

Life During Wartime

Jim Long, network camera-slinger, often mentioned here on the SGR as a mentor, new best friend, and all around wild and wacky dude, has been on the VT massacre scene since the get-go. He's been Twittering comments throughout the crisis, but now surfaces from the chaos long enough to post this blog entry about covering the aftermath at the point of media contact -- a total new/old media convergence, in the midst of the expected clusterfuck.

BONUS FEATURE: Jim tempts Rosenblum into yet another of their now-infamous, new media pissing matches! Who will survive the Sat. Truck Wars??? Tune-in to the SGR to keep up with all the Web 2.0 drama and excitement of everyday life in the new wild, wild west!

Photo credit: Jim Long

Shhhhhh... Don't Tell

First off... you didn't read this here, OK? Me agreeing with Michelle Malkin that is. But she nails this one to the door.

HT: JK

Escaped Scandal? Ha!

Obviously the good folks at the L.A .Times are way behind the Katie scandal curve if they think she "escaped" anything with her tattered reputation still about her. The Enquirer told me just yesterday she's gone on a total booze-fueled fury!

Prepare The Bonfire: Neal's Up Next

Totally ROFL-able

Ugly Bobby is on fire lately! This line alone just set me to a'howlin': "John Mayer. Sheryl Crow once removed. Like I'm supposed to believe in the guy fucking Jessica Simpson."

Full enchilada of the plain ugly truth here. (Something weird with WordPress though.)

OH HURL ME GOOD: Lois Reitzes kicks off her panties, and the morning, with yet another... marchy thingee for Second Cup. Gawd... she, not Boortz, outta be hauled before the FCC for aesthetic corruption of OUR public airways.

AJC Brings Home Pulitzer Gold

Congratulations to the AJC's Pulitzer Prize winners! Will they lead and inspire us then be booted out the door for their efforts? Hard to say. But rest assured, we'll be tuned to all the drama still to come.

I began writing essays and commentary about ten years ago, because the work of several women commentator-journalists, editorialists, authors and broadcasters led me to have a go at it. I'd read and watched their work for years, then had me one of those Well hell, I could do that too moments.

The Top Five for me was always, in no particular order: Bailey White, Susan Stamberg, Cokie Roberts, Eleanor Cliff and Cynthia Tucker. Right now I'm so proud of Miss Cindy Tee I'm about to burst. She'd no doubt cringe at the thought, but I don't care.

The blogosphere wasn't created in a vacuum, so HTs all around to the women journalists who have blazed a true path for the rest of us.

While Rome Burns...

At least someone's had a good time. Tania & entire family went to Costa Rica. Scroll on down there at the SCD for a quick fun photo break from our ATL-based misery.

Welcome To The Blogosphere!

Oh dear. If I wasn't such a bitter, shrivel-hearted, cynical, little hate-monkey, I'd about start crying right now. There are times when booze is sent directly from God to sooth the savage in writers, although of course we know it mostly inflames it to ludicrous proportions, but whatever... I just hope there can be some comfort found somewhere, bottom of a bottle, EAYC, friend's really nice beach house, that sorta thing, for these good folk. Whatever it takes.

I might have to drink some for you, AJC. You deserve to see me toasted for all the pain you're being put through right now. Damn. Damn. Damn. This is truly ugly.

If it'll help some, just contact the SGR and I'll write-up really nasty, particularly vile and whiny entries about Jule-ee-uggghhh, or She Who Must Not Be Named, or heck, whoever you guys want! And you can just leave all the ugly comments you want here too, if you feel you need to just vent a little.

The blogged word is powerful... you too will see. In time of course. Right now, just have another round. Let it out.

Bless their hearts...

River Revival Party Promo

Click To Play

You're invited to the 2007 annual Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper River Revival party! May 10th, 6:30pm at the Park Tavern, Atlanta, GA. More info at: www.ucriverkeeper.org.

See you there!

Gee Grayson, How's YOUR Day Been?

I'm sorry... even I can get really really really frustrated sometimes and feel reduced to playing the "sexism" card. I sent this letter to some media (male) folks today, since they're the ones in charge after all. Am I just getting desperate or what?

Dear ______________:
Last night I was standing in a group of white men over 55; every single man there was being paid to blog/write/blow wind. I was the only one also writing and blogging like my life depended on it, in this rather established, Atlanta-based media elite cabal with:

a.) a vagina
b.) no paycheck

And for chrissake… I even video blog too! I’m really trying very hard not to get too discouraged or too desperate here, but I sure hope you at _____________ will add my blog to your blog roll. Any crumbs from the white male media power structure you can toss my way would be GREATLY appreciated.

Cheers,
Grayson
BLOG: http://spaceygreview.blogspot.com/


Seriously, it was so bad now that I think about it, I'm acting like a total girl and almost crying.

Party That Must Not Be Named

So I go to this Party That Must Not Be Named tonight, although the (not yet branded) name is blazed all over the place in lights overlooking, uh, a certain park in Atlanta associated with the Olympics, but I've been told beforehand not to blog about it by a certain Power That Really Wantstobee, and all I can say is... Thank you Jesus for sending us Tom Houck, who also showed up at Party That Must Not Be Named. That Tom Houck will remind anyone outside of a coma of just what being old school is all about, and why anyone with just a wee bit of genuine flare and flavor about 'em has enormous cultural value still.

Chiefly, Tom's just plain-ass bawdy fun and loads of excellent gossip, an Atlanta civic treasure if you ask me (or dare attempt to censor me). If it wasn't for him, Party That Must Not Be Named would have been one completely packaged poseur yawner. Basil tea martinis are pretty to hold in your hand, but when it gets down to it, nothing substitutes for plain rowdy-fun behavior, a way with the ladies, and excellent southern partisan political bullshit.

All these cute new southern musicians and artists and utterly flavorless young writers are all just too precious on paper, and what person under 30 doesn't want to buy something glossy in which to read about 'em in (as long as they can read about it on their cell phones that is)?

Honestly, all I really have a hankerin' to really read about lately, from that good 'ole southern POV, would be a day in the, current, life of, say... Bill Campbell! And who would know best to tell that tale than the South's finest, our best longterm man-about-town... Mr. Bi-Partisan Houck.

Sometimes, even I wonder if southern culture altogether shouldn't, finally, just be put in a museum... alongside the flag. Catch it if you can I suppose, no matter how processed the packaging could turn out to be.

My Little Pony

Whatever keeps 'em in the barn and not at the mall, I'm all for. Even if I have to go on welfare to keep paying for it.

APS Direct Marketing Crap

Something really annoyed me yesterday. Imagine that. When I opened a "newsletter" from the Atlanta Public School system (APS) branded APS Family Matters, out fell a shower of direct marketing pieces of paper trash!

I HATE being direct marketed to with crap I don't want or need. It's a waste of everyone's time and effort, except for the company getting a check from someone to WASTE our time with commercial promotional crap stuffed into envelopes supposedly containing information about our public school system and our children's education.

Here's a list of what fell out of the "newletter" yesterday. Flyers for:
1.) Vonage
2.) Snapfish
3.) Pepboys (do they even teach shop anymore in public schools? Always wanted to take shop.)
4.) http://www.ordermydish.com/ (dish tv broker thingee)
5.) ADT Security Systems
6.) Proactiv Solutions (acne treatments, but they can't even spell!)
7.) Tutor.com (APS kids might actually need this service.)

Also hiding in this entire envelope of commerical crap flyers was the itty bitty APS 4-page newsletter, with the alleged main meat of the newletter being a flimsy, seven graph "Letter from Dr. Hall" (APS Superintendent). Heck, I crank out 7-graphs of total yaya every morning here before 8am! I sure don't waste money mailing it, either.

The entire dubious content of the envelope was "brought to you by 1st Hour Communications, LLC."

I think I'm going to pay an e-visit to the 1st Hour Communications site, and have a talk with their President and COO, Scott Keller... and also call-up the APS communications office this morning. Jeez.

FOLLOW-UP: I had a very nice chat with Teretta Scope, head of Communications for APS about this issue. I asked why they felt the need to send flyers for junk around to APS households when anyone can send out an (Internet) newletter nowadays for virtually nothing.

Ms. Scope patiently explained to me that a lot of APS households don't have or use computers, meaning they are too low income to have computers I must assume.

So APS does business with these direct marketing companies, gives them our APS household mailing lists and data, in exchange for flimsy "newletters?" Allowing a company out of Colorado to pump promotional literature for a bunch of commercial crap we don't need into low income families' homes? Flyers for stuff we don't need to spend supposed non-existent disposable income on in the first place if those without computers are so darn needy and poor that they don't have computers in the home!?

Go figure the logic of that...

I say... no matter what the income level of an APS household, virtually ALL of 'em have at least one cell phone. APS: send your communications through the darn phones!

Of course someone will just clean up pumping dubious "newsletters" through cell phones at some point, when APS might could just figure out how to "communicate" with all their households without using these outside direct mail companies to do so.

As if any low income family here in the APS will ever benefit from the profits made by these marketing companies' public school system scamming techniques anyway. At least an Atlanta-based direct marketing company might have some incentive to give back to our always-desperate school system at some point in the game.


But a company out of Colorado? What's in it for them, other than APS just handing over our household data in exchange for a silly, glossy four page "newletter?"

It's a simple piece of paper you can just put in every child's backpack!!!

Or just start a blog. Jeez...

Meet James Marlow

A candidate for Georgia's 10th Congressional District.

Meet The New Boss

Nothing like the old boss, either. I'm convinced we'll all be working for Amani one day, especially if he was to get together with Amber and Rusty. Shoot, as a company they'd have that James Cox Kennedy dude and all the rest of those Cox nespots sellin'-off their PJs right and left!

Amani just gets it. He's so good, heck he's Web 3.0. Not only does he manage to beat Cox Enterprises to the turn-around-the-product punch, he slips in handy video production tips at just the right places. (Unless you're Mark Winne, never go barging into any place of business with "cameras blazing," as Amani mentions. That's a very basic video etiquette tip to live and work by, for you citizen journalism newbies and wannabees.)

Thank me later and enjoy.

Click To Play

Funny, those AJC reporters and editors seem to be popping-up on indie Atlanta blogs everywhere. Are we scheduled for a total indie media convergence here in Cox Country?! My my my...

NOTE: A feature about Amani and MyUrbanReport is due out in the old school (AJC) Thursday. Will link to that when it happens.

PodCast Pickle

Knew I should have gone to PodCamp NYC. Could have gotten my photo taken with the Podcast Pickle. Dammit all.

Photo courtesy of Chris Brogan.

What Is Going On?

Wilson Smith's What Is Going On? radio show out of Lyons, Georgia had me back in March for more yadayadayada. Brave man. This time I turn-up the southern accent full blast to rap about all things New Media. And Erick at Peach Pundit, Nicorette, Blog For Democracy, Hillary's fake southern accent, YouTubing mistakes, Technorati rankings, and of course Grift's gambling "issues." (As if we really knew anything about that. No matter, Wilson and I just like to make stuff up.)

As I told Rusty, "It's Wilson Smith's world. We're just Twittering in it." Thanks for Twittering the podcast, Rusty. Most kind of you.

"You're Running A Blog Not A Democracy"

Take 'em out back and shoot 'em... Anonymous Trolls (ATs) on blogs, that is. The blogosphere is all a'twitter (lower case twitter, not upper case Twitter) about a call for greater civility in the blogosphere: codes of ethical conduct , rules, regs, ethics badges, pledges, notices of of honor codes one chooses to abide by -- or not. That sorta thing.

Jeez, I go off the grid for four days and the conversation changes... not one iota. Might just stay off longer next time.

I agree that ATs are the worst of the worst slime who live under rocks. They annoy me to no end too, but I can't say I've had a terrible problem with ATs. Only once were they an issue anyways, when I foolishly left Anonymous Commenting up on the SGR right after Neal Boortz had blabbed (and blogged) about this very blog while on-air. Even then, I just deleted the stream of really vile comments. Didn't have any kinda ethical or moral dilemma about doing so, either. As the great Rusty T says, "You're running a blog, not a democracy."

So I can't really get all fired-up over masturbatory debates about should anonymous commenters be allowed or not, not to the degree of this NYT article today at least. Then again, I'm hardly as popular as BlogHer, so I don't attract their kinda attention, good or bad. (And if you do read this blog, you'd likely come to the conclusion that I tack to the "no such thing as bad press " end of the PR spectrum.)

For the record, I do not allow annonymous comments here. That's merely a coward's MO, and hardly worth protecting, in my book. Also, the registration process is so daunting on Blogspot, that most ATs lose interest at the thought of having to register and use a nom de plume just to cuss me out. (I laughed my butt-off though when someone was such an AT, and thus too cowardly to leave a post on my blog, that they instead left an anonymous post about me on someone else's blog! Now that's slime so low no microbe could even get under.)

Anyways... here's the NYT article again. It features gals from BlogHer.com, a site I once tried to post what I thought was a fairly reasonable (I didn't even use profanity!) comment, but of course I got slapped on the hand and lectured to about "rules" on personal attacks when I decided to speak my piece about the (dubious) professional choices of a certain BlogHer blogger. (She once worked for Edelman PR.) Women really are annoying with all their nicey-nice rules and such. And that was, naturally enough, the last time I visited BlogHer.

Then again, no one really likes being called a "stupid illiterate cunt" and things of that nature for too long. And women are often targeted for particularly vitriolic comments in the blogosphere. Still, I kinda like the creativity displayed by a certain Atlanta-based, male photographer who commented here (anonymously, of course, other than noting his profession 'cause I guess he felt it/he was special) that I wrote like a "drunken five-year old."

If I ever met-up with that dude, I'd let him buy me a drink just so I could toss it in his face. Just like a boozing kid, eh? But no, I didn't delete the "drunken five-year old" comment. It's on some post somewhere in here for all the world to judge -- both me and the commenteer.

Frankly, if some of these pro-guidelines folks had come of age before the blogosphere with, say, David T. Lindsay as one's snark guru, as I did, they'd know perfectly well how to wield and weed the vitriol -- in just the perfect places, for maximum impact. Or for at least some damn flavor. And Lordy Mercy how most blogs need not so much a lot of rules and regs, but instead just a whole lot more old-fashioned... style and flavor.


The plan is proceeding as, uh, planned... Mahhhh-ster. (My advice? Always do the accent.)

Marlow In The NYT

Well, dang. A story about James Marlow's run for the 10th Congressional from Georgia is picked-up in the New York Times. And the dude's been on the campaign trail for what... about 24 hours now? He's already got a media buzz edge on any others out there, R or D.

I wonder what role technology will play to give Marlow the votes he needs to win? Since he actually knows how to turn on a computer, unlike most Georgia cracker politicians, chances are it will put him totally in the driver's seat for this interesting race.

Let's Conversation! With The AJC

Who's Acting Now?

This is sooooo, uh, old school politics, masquerading as new. Trying not to giggle too much. You can supply your own expletives.

Obama or Edwards? Look To Their Vids

Obama is as flimsy as a sugary confection. Just pumped up with pretty, lite, nothing much, generic rhetoric. "The Seinfeld Campaign"-- as this dude says here. Like some kinda "lifestyle coach"... whatever the f that is.

Now Edwards on the other hand, that dude can lay it out a lot thicker, richer, and deeper. Sign that damn union card! With a rebel yell almost. Watch here. (BONUS PRODUCTION NOTE: vid-bloggers, hear how critical good audio is to this otherwise very simple clip. It's the audio, stupid. Me being the biggest stupid with audio sometimes.)

And keep a bookmark on PrezVid, my guru Jarvis' pet political project. Yes, all media bloggers need a political project we can lean on. Marlow might just be the one for me.

Now of course I gotta go see this. Hate when I remind myself of oldies I (secretly) loved. Shhhh... don't tell. (And yeah, we used to actually dress like that. Some of us.)

Quick-Mix suggestion: Run the "Rebel Yell" track under the Edwards' union hall speech for an extra power hit.

Let's Play Masonic Trivia!

My kid's school was, rather obviously, built by Masons. Proud MF-ers aren't they? Plaques and cornerstones to themselves all over the place. They've likely buried odes and poems to their greatest in the walls somewhere.

The school building is 90-years old this year. While I understand A - D - AUG - 1927, can anyone tell me what A - L - 5927 is all about?

Announcements

Whew... they are starting to pile up on me, so lemme knock out some right now for you. Get your calendars at the ready...

1.) Social Media Club Atlanta is Wednesday April 4 at 6:30pm at Earthlink. Details here. RSVP as soon as you can.

2.) Slim Chance and the Convicts are playing Smith's Olde Bar this Wednesday April 4, opening for Wayne "the Train" Hancock. It will be an evening of real roots oriented country music. Showtime is 9PM Sharp, and the cover is $12 adv. & $15 at the door. Welcome to the Redneck Underground. (Slim also was our first ever TG musical guest. What a legend!)

2.) Deja Blue, the TrueGritz kinda sorta house band, will be playing 3X this spring! Now where else can you hear "(Blaming It All On The) Lights of Broadway" as a bluegrass, kickass tune? Only with Deja Blue. According to Mark, their upcoming shows are:

• Saturday, April 7th, @ 8:25 pm: we'll be performing a set for the WRFG "Georgia Grown" Bluegrass festival ( A.K.A., Peach Blossom Festival) at the State Farmer's Market, Exhibition Hall. Bands will be playing from 11:00 am to 10:00 PM. Definitely a slice of life. We'd love to see you there.
• Thursday, April 19th, @ 9:00-ish, we'll be headlining at the Red Light Cafe. Come early, bring your acoustic instrument, and jam before the show. (NOTE: Pauline Ashley-Wilkes threatening to sing backup vocals at this pre-gig event.)
• Saturday, May 12th @ 8:00 PM, we are performing at the Red Top Mountain State Park. Great camping opportunity!

3.) Tania keeps (monogamous, romantic) hope alive here.

4.) James Marlow kicks-off his campaign for Georgia's 10th Congressional tomorrow, Tuesday April 3. Disclosure: I'm going to be supporting this campaign, so if you don't like hearing about it, too bad, leave a comment.

5.) Caroline Monroe has her biggest Athens, GA gig to date, coming up April 26 at 8 p.m. at The Melting Point. Support the South's most gorgeous country music new voice.

6.) Save the date for the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper annual River Revival party on Thursday, May 10th at Park Tavern at Piedmont Park. This is an awesome party with dancin' and Dames A'Flame and food and booze and bluegrass, and also a fundraiser to help keep Georgia's rivers, and our drinking water here in Atlanta, clean. I'm on the host committee again too, so if you buy tickets online, please list me as your host committee member.

Thanks!

Yawn

APC announces our annual gala's keynoter... drum roll not necessary because it's... Dan Rather. Dan Rather? WTF? Guess Atlanta still isn't ready for the future of journalism, just accolades to the past. Too bad. I have zero interest in purchasing an overpriced ticket now. Hell, if it would have been, say, Michael Rosenblum (see below entry), I'd have bought a whole freakin' table. Just to have a blogger posse drink too much and throw grapes at the podium while they thought no one was looking.

Shootout At Old vs. New Media Corral

Why do we hate consultants so? Because they have no street creds.

Nowhere is the distrust and dislike more apparent, or more transparent, than this little set-to between Jim Long, an old dog cameraman frequently sited on the SGR who just oozes street creds, and this new media consultant type, Michael Rosenblum, a dude who's busily making millions hawking VJ and branding concepts to old media such as the NYT... with rather dubious consequences.

Mostly Rosenblum is busy pissing all over the history and the craft of broadcast production and photography in his eagerness and greed to not only disassociate old media from itself, but also to relieve it of lots of its hard-earned cash in the process.

Some of the old timers are sick and tired of Rosenblum's big deal, call it professional jealousy if you will, and have called him out on it. 'Bout time. As if Rosenblum ever slung a thirty pound Iki in his life chasing a Class IV for 48 hours straight before even so much as a nap or a meal. It's a little more than "a kid and a DV cam" to commit genuine broadcast journalism.

Seems like Rosenblum would surely know that, because as he says in my pretty little comments place (see below): "I (Rosenblum) actually quit my job as a producer at CBS News and started shooting my own stuff ... in Afghanistan, the Middle East, during the Gulf War for MacNeil/Lehrer, Uganda, Kenya, and lots of other interesting hot spots. Now I don't have the track record Jim has, nor would I claim to, but I think I have earned my credentials."

Yet seems even Long and Rosenblum have come to some sort of mutual, totally wary, understanding here.

I just want to be there with my DV cam to tape a bunch of road dog union camera guys beating some candy-ass consultant's butt with their Beta cam battery packs. After all, those suckers weigh-in at about 10 lbs. each. Now there's a fine use for old media!

Beware the Web 2.0 snake oil salesmen and their bs, folks. I get all kinda nonsense forwarded to me by well-meaning folks about how "I too can learn to blog!" For only $900. per weekend seminar.

Spare the bullshit and just do it. And don't forget to ask for their street creds up front if you're hiring a "new media" type.