HAPPY LEAP DAY!!

Marietta Museum of Hilstory's Men's Restroom

(ppsssttt! That is a picture of yankee General William Tecumseh Sherman on the wall above the urinal).

"Ready, Aim..."

Labor in the Park

If you look at the above picture with one eye you will see Senator Clay pounding that light pole deeper into the ground. Did the city downsize the parks department's maintainance personnel again?

WARWHORES

WARNING! Many people are going to the movie theater with the intention of seeing the popular movie WARHORSE and by misleading advertising are getting into the theater that is showing WARWHORES.

WARHORSE is a wholesome war movie about killing and a horse. WARWHORES is a movie about two funny reckless American prostitutes. The movie starts out in Tijuana, Mexico, where the two prostitutes interact with a horse on stage. They witness a gangster/drug related killing and have to flee because a cartel is after them.

Then to add interest to the movie they jump onto the wrong truck and is dumped on a plane and then dumped again in the middle of a desert in the Middle East. Through a chain of bumbling errors they unintentionally become American spies. They literally pump information out of high ranking military officers and then, being the whores they are, sell the information to the U.S. government.

They bungle things up much like Lucile Ball and her friend Ethel did on the I LOVE LUCY Show. There are rumors floating around saying it may win some Oscars.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! John Severin (1921-2012)

John Severin died Febuary 12th, exactly two weeks ago. John was one of the original five founding creators of MAD Comicbook and was the first to leave MAD I personally thlink that John complemented MAD - he was very good with accentuated body language, check the Tarzan story below (MAD #6). John was also considered an expert on military uniforms of any time period and was also excellent drawing ethnic features on the people he created on his drawing board. As far as I know, he spent his last professional years at CRACKED humour magazine, but did also contributed to other magazines.

The D-DAY story was in TWO-FISTED Comic #27.

He was a good artist. The only thing I know about his personal life was that comicbook coloror specialist Marie Severin was his sister, she also worked for EC Comics - the last I heard she worked for MARVEL.


Two samples of John Severin's EC comic art:

I'll Think of Something, Check Back Later!

We Are a Commodity

It is a fact. The rich get richer and poor get poorer. That reminds me of the above cartoon.

Who Do I Think I Am? Part 98

Parts of an email received from a distant relative in Texas and the last paragraph by me:

“Michael James “Mike” Smith b.1858 AL married 1rst Ida Virginia Moreman Jan 10, 1880 in Collin County Texas. After they married they went back to Mississippi where some of his family were. They had 2 sons John Franklin and Jesse James.

He brought Ida and the boys back to Collin County, Tx on the train left them with her family and returned to MS to bring household good and farm equip back to TX. They never heard from HIM AGAIN. HE NEVER RETURNED so they didn’t know if he had been killed or just run off.
After we started our research we found his brother Felix Smith’s Granddaughter in Newton County MS.
She told us the Mike’s brother Felix said that Mike and his younger brother Oliver had gotten into trouble by lynching a black man. They came to the Felix’s house to fill their guns and they told him they would never be caught alive and they were leaving and he never heard from them again. When we called his Granddaughter she vividly recalled this story and knew who our MIKE was… After 10 yrs of searching we found Mike Smith in the Indian Territory in OK in 1900. He had met up with the Gadberry’s and the Trammell’s in TX.

He married the 17 yrs old daughter of Jacob Van Buren Trammell and Cynthia Addington and her name was Idella Olive Trammell. We found their marriage license in Denton County TX.”


Then I put in my 2₵:
Idella Olive Trammell (1871-1930)’s, parents, as mentioned above were Jacob Vanburen “Van” Trammell and Cynthia Ann “Tennie” Addington. Van’s parents were Jacob B. and Polly Hogshead Trammell, my g-g-g-g grandparents. That makes Idella Olive Trammell Smith my first cousin, 3 times removed and her husband Michael James “Mike” Smith my cousin-in-law.

Good Old Boys Meeting Feb 21, 2012

1st Step of The Great Locomotive Chase

Look! There is Fess Parker looking out the corner 2nd level window!

My Thoughts on Today; FAT TUESDAY

First of all, HAPPY FAT TUESDAY!!

Some of us non-Catholics may not know what Fat Tuesday is. If I understand it correctly, before you know what Fat Tuesday is, you need to know what Ash Wednesday is. Ash Wednesday is when good Catholics go to their church and the priest puts an ash cross on their foreheads to signify that they are now in the annual Lent period.

If I understand Lent correctly, it is a time to give up something you like a whole lots. If you like chocolate candy bars with nuts in them, during the Lent period you give it up. If you love beer, then you give up beer. I’m sure people are expected to give up than beer and candy bars.

Back to Fat Tuesday. Today is also the day for Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans and other places. I suppose that is like the day it is on, Fat Tuesday – it is getting a good fill of what you crave most the day before you go into the Lent period. That makes sense why men hold up signs during the Madi Gras festival saying “Show me your tits!”

President Obama has recently been at odds with the Catholic Church. Now, is his chance to do damage control repair. He could take his presidential limousine to New Orleans today and cruise around with his hands holding a sign outside the dark-glass window saying, “SHOW ME YOUR TITS!”

HAPPY PRESIDENTS' DAY SALES!!

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! MAD's Competition

In MAD Comicbook #17 editor Harvey Kurtzman used his competition's own names to poke fun of them. It was like swinging a double-edge sward. All 11 of them tried to mimic the work in MAD, even PANIC, MAD's sister at EC Publishing. Kurtzman always said jokingly that "Imitation was sincerest form of flattery." Artwork was by Wally Wood.

Bang!

House Bill 981: Georgians would be allowed to carry concealed weapons in bars, public schools, most government buildings, college campuses and other locations under a sweeping gun bill filed in the House. – ajc.com.

You know, they have a point. What if it is hunting season and you are sitting in a waiting room of a public place like at the hospital or outside the principal’s office to talk about your child and suddenly a 10 point buck is galloping down the hall (it happens, I saw it on American's Funnyest Videos)?

Or maybe you are visiting a mental hospital and suddenly an inmate pulls out a gun? Remember, they will have the right to have a concealed weapon too. With this new law, you can pull out your gun too out and defend yourself!

Also, under this bill it would be illegal to disarm anyone during a states of emergency. That means if a group of anarchists broke into the capital and held a gun to the head of every elected official there and threaten them if their terms were not met, I think that would qualify as a State of Emergency, it would be illegal to disarm them.

Creating Atlanta and Then Distroying It

Yesterday we went to a lecture at the Marietta Museum of History on “Atlanta, the Unexpected City” given by Rob Hill.

Rob Hill and his father run the real estate firm Hill Corporate Partners of Atlanta. His trade is real estate and his heart is in the history of Atlanta, which he has done well at discovering and explaining how things in Atlanta came to be.

His power point execution onto a big screen showed how first Atlanta came to be as a meeting of three railroad tracks. First called Terminus, then Marthasville, after the daughter of then Governor Lumpkin, Atlanta roads led to and from the railways. He showed early Atlanta maps to explain what he was saying.

Did you know why Marietta Street in Atlanta is so wide? It was not to accommodate the traffic, but was designed to have a wide open space between a certain household and the post office. The household was owned by a man who owned the land in that area who wanted a clear space between his house and the post office. When he had mail, the post master would have some type of visual signal outside alerting him to come get his mail.

When Sherman came to Atlanta they more or less ran all the civilians out for a while. He and his troops occupied the city for several months. During this time there were many photographers of the Matthew Brady breed that came to capture history. Now those pictures are available, many at the library of congress. In his studies of these pictures, Rob found background details that were unnoticed by the naked eye, showing good human interest stories as part of his lecture. For instance, in one picture is a paper sign nailed to a wall telling of a benefit dance and concert. This sign was sponsored by the invading Yankees. The funds raised were to go to a surviving widow and the 6 children she was left to raise. Imagine the enemy helping out the enemy! The lady they were helping was Southern, a part of the enemy they were there to squash. Rob's personification of the sign brought the story to life.

Another picture of vast piles of rubble in Atlanta showed several Union soldiers clustered around something. Zooming in, he could see they were surrounding something with holes or openings. With some research he found it was a contraption to show illuminated pictures, a forerunner of the View Master. And why would soldiers, hundreds of miles from their homeland be cluttered around a machine to look at a box with pictures? What kind of pictures? Do you think they were waterfalls? No, Rob showed an example of the kind of pictures that was shown in those contraptions – they were scantily clad women; the forerunner of the adult XXX store.

At the top of this post is a famous picture of the Slave Auction company on Whitehall Street in Atlanta. There is a Union soldier sitting on the curb out front. Rob stated this photo was partially staged. When he zoomed in on the soldier you could see he is a black soldier, which proves it is staged. Sherman had no black soldiers in his command.

Rob Hill also had pictures to explain the reasoning behind the creation of Underground Atlanta.

It was an enjoyable and educational hour.

If This Wall Could Talk

A month or so ago I decided I wanted a picture of this wall. I thought if it was sun shining in the morning the wall would be too dark in its own shadow however, if I took the picture in the afternoon the sun would be too harsh. The best solution would be to take the picture on a cloudy day. Now, all I had to do was to be on that side of town on a cloudy day, which finally worked out.

This wall holds many memories. This stone wall was the western border of the Marietta High School Football Stadium for generations. There have been people slipping in the football game over these walls (with pulling and pushing help); people falling off this wall; people slipping over this wall to skip a class; and more I’m sure. If this wall could talk.

Once I remember during a football game with Roswell in 1960 two Roswell boys dared anyone to come down and fight them and we all up on the stands jeered them and dared them to come up – with all the jeering and aging on one of us lost his balance and fell on the ground right in front of the Roswell thugs. I honestly do not remember what the outcome was, but I think it was probably a happy ending.

If this wall could talk – but wait! What if it could talk but it only spoke the Cherokee language? Or for reason some strange reason it spoke only Latin? Or even worse, proper English – then we would never understand what it is telling us.

Bill Rampley

Our friend Bill Rampley has left us. He died Monday, February 13th. Just a few weeks ago, he was very much alive. Bill crammed a lot of living in his life with various careers such as Lockheed, actor, private investigator and bouncer to name just a few.

He starred in the pilot TV show “SOUTHERN COMFORT”, see the link below.
Also below is a video of clips showing Bill at recent local gatherings.

Bill’s Mother died in late December 2011. I’m glad he at least outlived her as that is the natural order. It could have easily been the other way around.

With his sincere and personable demeanor, Bill had many friends that will sorely miss him.









and

My Heart, My Valentine to All

My Heart Before


My Heart After

Speaking of hearts, here is my real heart. Really! It is the before and after pictures of my heart when they put a stent in. That was a few days short of ten years ago.

Ten years ago we celebrated Valentines Day by having dinner at Outback Steakhouse. Other than the steak I was fond of their onion loaf that was oozing in grease. The next morning while running my arm and jaw started hurting. I quit running and walked home. The next day we were doing household chores, which included bending over the clothes dryer. When I bent over and straighten back out I noted that something was wrong. We decided to go to the ER at Kennestone Hosptial. The staff checked me over and told me I had a heart- attack. I told them they were mistaken. My only reasoning was that “I don’t have heart-attacks”. They looked at my heart on a monitor hooked through a tube going in my thigh and sure enough, they were right, it was a heart attack.

The next day or so they took me to Piedmont Hospital and put some stents in.

And I am still here typing. Happy Valentine’s Day!

So Long Whitney Houston (1963-2012)

Saturday we went to a home show in Duluth, Georgia, to get some ideas about our bathroom project. Our GPS navigator Jill gave us the scenic tour. We went through the John’s Creek area of nice homes and rolling hills and by The Country Club of the South.

I noticed at The Country Club of the South all drives going into the area were gated. I told Anna that is where Whitney Houston used to live. I thought to myself of the times Whitney and her spouse Bobby Brown had domestic problems of violence and drugs and called 911. How did the emergency vehicles, fire trucks, and police cars get through the gates? Whitney died near the same time I was thinking about her and her problems.

Later we learned that Whitney was found dead at the Beverly Hills Hilton. My first thought was “drug overdose”.

She was a great singer. I think her gospel singing upbringing taught her to develop her musical talent – it is a shame the gospel upbringing didn’t teach her other things about life.

She had such a lovely heartwarming smile it is shame that it will be nevermore. Last night on the news they showed a lot of pictures of Whitney – and a good many of them she looked lit or high.

The bad thing about people who develope reputations of being dope addicts – they are not allowed to die a natural life, I’m sure many actually do die natural life having heart-attacks, cancer, and all other natural forces that take lives – but the public will remember how they made the news and are sure that is what caused their deaths. What will Whitney's legacy be?

Where Is Everybody?

The world was scheduled to end in the early hours today. Are we the only survivors? Well, no, the Marietta Daily Journal was in our driveway. That means that the world didn’t end or we of this household and the Marietta Daily Journal carrier are the only survivors.

On the other hand, in the 1700s, an adjustment was made to the calendar, which shifted the dates a day or two, so maybe Nostradamus and the makers of the Mayan Calendar didn’t take that into consideration when doing their prediction. So, the end of the world may be delayed a day. Wait! If Nostradamus could foresee the end of the world couldn’t he also foresee the date change on the calendar?

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! WONDER WART-HOG double feature

This is from THE BEST OF Fearless, Fighting, Foulmouthed WONDER WART-HOG, drawn by Gilbert Shelton and written by Bill Killeen. I indentify with the art of WWH some, because it is close to the style of comics I drew in high school* - the syle is raw. This is a two part story, WONDER WART-HOG MEETS THE MOB which is continued - each is 4 pages. Gilbert Shelton, from Texas, first contributed his Wonder Wart Hog to HELP Magazine and THE REALIST. Later he collaborated with Skip Williamson, Robert Crumb and others to make UNDERGROUND COMIX. By this time he has taken his art to a new level (like high, man) making the art more elaborate with his THE FURY FABULOUS FREAK BROTHERS. So, anyway, back to our story today: Take it away Philbert!

*my audidence were two, maybe three people. The only surviving person still reads CHICKEN-FAT. In fact, that is just about the count of CF's readers.

How Did They Do That?

We noticed this shopping cart high up in a tree at a strip shopping center across from Town Center in Kennesaw. Somebody was creative.

This Day in History, February the 10th

1776 "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine, published. It looks like we need a refreshment course.




1932 "Mickey Mouse" & "Silly Symphony" comics syndicated. I had a hard time finding a Silly Symphony cartoon that did not smear the stereotypes images of minorities.




1958 Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire" reaches #1 on the country and r&b charts, #2 on the pop chart




1966 Julian Bond denied seat in Georgia legislature for opposing Vietnam War. So much for letting the people chose their own representative for their district. Also, when Jullian was a college student he went to the spectator balcony on the 2nd floor overlooking the representatives hard at work, and a representative saw him and called for the guards to “remove that colored boy”.



1967 Lester Maddox inaugurated as Governor of Georgia. Believe it or not, Lester’s administration hired more minorities than any governor before him.