What's So Funny?

 

Vulgarity for the Rich

 Back when there were land lords and the wealthy, it was considered vulgar to pay taxes (true).

Father of Underground Comix

 

This Underground Comix cover is by Harvey Kurtzman, the creator of MAD Comics. 

 

MAD Comic’s byline is/was TALES CALCULATED TO DRIVE YOU MAD.

 

Underground Comix artists give  Kurtzman credit by saying he is the father of Underground Comix.

 

Kurtzman, in his true fashion, said he demands a blood test.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! MAD's #8, THE LONG STRANGER

 Story editor Harvey Kurtzman, drawn by Jack Davis

click on each page to make things readable and hopefully seinse.

Memories

 

On TV I just heard a local traffic report of a wreck on Bolton Road  in Atlanta.  It brought back memories.  I knew Bolton Road well.  I worked for Sinclair Refining Company and their building was one block off Bolton.  

Do you know there is an elaborate ghostly  pet cemetery  on Hollywood Road, near Bolton Road?  Also do you know there was a Dairy Queen on Bolton Road.  My memory also reminds me Mr. Coffee, an elderly Sinclair co-employee lived on Bolton Road.  Mr. Coffee was old then so well…

There was also a Sinclair Service Station on Bolton Road and that is what I am building up to which occurred in 1967, just a couple of months before I married Anna.

There was a Burger King on nearby Marietta Blvd.  One day I was sitting in my little red Triumph eating my Whopper and a dump truck backed up, did not see me and the bottom of his load landed on my hood and when he started forwarded his truck bed bottom caught something on my car and drug me and my little red toy sideways across the parking lor.  I tooted my little shrill horn until the driver realized he was about to kill me and stopped.  Afterwards the company the guy worked for agreed to pay all damages to my little sports car.

Which they did (we thought).  After I thought all were fixed and I signed papers saying so, my transmission started acting up.  It was 4 in the floor.  Sometimes it would  clamp up on a gear when shifting.  Sometimes, when parked, it was hard to wiggle it out of reverse. 

Then one day on Bolton Road at a red light, when the light change I could not get the thing in first to take off.  I forgot how I did it but somehow I got it to the Sinclair Station.  The owner said he could fix it, for me to make myself comfortable and he would have it fixed in no time.  He was drunk as a coot.  What choice did I have.

I had a seat in his show room and I heard him in the bay singing, banging, cursing, banging, and hollering  “Mother Fucker”! a few times.  Then told his helper, “I see the problem, go in there, get one of the coat hangers and bring to me.  The helper did as he was told and drunk did something with the coat hanger and the car was fixed.  He didn’t charge me much as I remember.

I’ll have to ride down Bolton Road and see how it has changed, its about 53 years since the Triumph incident.

 

My Early Playground

 

This O.M. picture on the second block of Atlanta Street was on Facebook yesterday.  Based on the car, this picture was probably taken in the late 1950s.

Next door to right, out of the camera’s range was a Standard Station, owned by a man named Hardage, I think.  His brother was a manager of a Krogers on Fairground and Clay Streets.  To the right of the Standard station  is Latimer Apartments.  My friend Van Callaway and his parents lived there.  Across the street Donna LeVann and her parents lived in an apartment there.  To the left was the Sears and Roebuck Store.  The building was an auto parts store.  I remember they handed out little black caps with their name on them.

 

Behind the auto parts store was a car junk yard.  Which was my solo Disneyland, sort of.   This was in the 1940s, my preschool days. I played in the old junk cars, some upside down, some sideways, and some bashed in.  They were my spaceships.

 

Playing by myself, making up adventures of rusty car parts as I came across them…. Those were the days.

Pork Belly Politics

 

DAYS in a Daze

 

The makings of the Soap DAYS:

 

Director:  Action:

Nothing.

Director:  Where is everybody?

Cameraman:  The writers wrote them out; sent them on trips.

Director:  Huh?  How?

Cameraman:  Eric went to Africa to help out with an epidemic;  Sandy went back to her home in France; Christian is going to prison;  Will & Whathizname their name left  for a new job in another state; Bo killed,   Gabi & Rafi Hernandez went to Mexico to save their mother, Hope, who knows,  John Black is in a coma, Whathizname is chasing his tale; Victor too old and grumpy to do nothing but sit around and complaoin and Hope’s daughter killed in a car explosion but they never found a body, so is she dead or not?   and the whole acting staff imploded itself, gone!  Poof!  The writers created   them into this world and they now they deleted them.

The payroll has been cut, that is what the producers wanted wanted isn’t it?

No more human interaction, no more human friction.  No more exciting stories.

Never more.

 

Or time proportions have different rules in soaps.  I have seen heated conversations last two weeks (without a pee break).  So, we might just be between the period of the last sentence and the new sentence.

The Teachings of Trump

 

MONDAY FUNNIES!! CHICKAMAUGA! Civil War Battle in N. Ga.

 SUNDAY FUNNIES!! had to step aside yesterday and bow its head in respect for the memory of Super Dog Willow.

Chicmauga was a huge battle in the Civil War.  As far as casualties go it was second on to The Battle of Getteysburg.  Abe Lincoln's brother-in-law a Federal General was killed in this battle.  It is near Dalton, Georgia, a big park.  You should go see it sometime, it is very interesting.

Story by EC War comics editor Harvey Kurtzman and History and art by Georgia born & cornfed, Jack Davis.

As always, click on image to make it bigger and more interesting.

Thank You Willow

 

Willow died one year ago today. 

The only problem is nobody told Willow.  In the past year she has cold-nosed the back of my bare leg; licked my fingers in the dark; lie in the shadow under the table, in front of where I sit and gently paw my foot; looking at me sadly;  make gnawing sounds;  pant to make it look like she is smiling and enjoying life; whine; sneeze; and letting little little farts.

I never actually see her near me but I can sense her in my peripheral vision.  She is there alright.

When I walk daily, I sense she is near, walking per our selected pace beside me, stopping to smell something and then catch up with me.

Thank you Willow for not leaving yet.

 

Matter of Princple

 

Obama is Black

 

Arnold Guest, how old?

 

Bo Gentry said today on is my old friend Arnold Guest’s birthday.  He is one of the few “O.M.s” s that knew all native Mariettans over a certain age, who their mamas were, and what they had for supper last night.  I am sort of a recluse, or hermit, and if I hadn’t talk to Arnold in the past couple of weeks he would call me.  In his head he must have had a index file of when he talked to someone last, he didn’t want to lose touch with anybody.   He loved us all, regardless of politics.  Happy Birthday Arn!

If Arnold had lived, how old would be be?  The way I figure , about 180 years, about the same age as Marietta.

Zelda & F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Grove Park Inn in Adheville

 

I am reading GUESTS ON EARTH by Lee Smith.  It takes place in an hospital for the insane in Asheville, North Carolina.   The mental hospital, John Hopkins Hospital, had as one of is patients Zelda Zayre.  Interesting name, both given and sur names starts with Z.  Zelda married F. Scott Fitzgerald (true) and was killed in 1948, in a fire at the hospital, her and a bunch more (true).  The story is told a first person girl, probably under ten.  I don’t know how much is researched and true and what is not.  Maybe I’ll read a good explanation someplace. 

What I like about the book it gives good tours of Asheville.  They take the inmates out on picnics and outings.  They go to different famous mountains, parks, and markets or whatever.

One place I just read was Grove Park Inn.  Grove Park is where Zelda and F. Scott meet at times.  I think the book implied that he had a permanent room there, to be near Zelda. 

Once on a tour with the Greyline Tour Company at Grove Park the tour guide or docent pointed to a room window overlooking the entrance where you check in.  He said at one time that was F.  Scott Fitzgerald’s room.  He was in a position to see who was checking in.  If he saw a beautiful sexy woman checking in he went to the lobby to put  his charm on her.

So!  The Grove Park part I just read.  As I said, Several years ago we took a tour of Ashville with the Grey Lines and these are most the pictures of Grove Park I took.

The below pictures are not of the Grove Park Inn but the Grove Park Mall in downtown Asheville.  The ugly gargoyles were meant to look like people who did not pay their share of the construction of the construction costs, but the guide said it looks like them, in an ugly way.

 

Dancing With Boobs

 

Sometimes being invisible I can overhear some interesting conversations.  Remember a month or so ago I was lying in a recovery room and two nurses was gossiping about a third co-worker who wasn’t there to defend herself?

Well, about a month later, yesterday, I was in the same recovering  room with my eyes closed just day dreaming.  Then two nurses near me were talking about various things and one of them brought up that her 15 year old daughter is developing, ahem!  You know.  She also said her daughter wants a bra that will make her look, you know, flat, because she takes her dancing seriously and it is better to be straight down to be a good dancer.  Bu she also wanted a color bra.  One of them said if she wanted to hide them, like she didn not have them, why should the color matter?She also mentioned that her daughter’s friends are still flat.  Then one of them went on to say she was flat until she had her first child then she began to develop.

Then one of them said “they are only good for one thing.”  And the both laughed and agreed and walked off.  I wanted to jump into their conversation and ask by one thing did she mean for milking or for male to er-you know.

Bump Trump!

 

SUNDAY FUNNIES!!! The PIRANHA CLUB

 

click on image to enlarge.

The Sweet Little Ghost

 

The person that told me this honestly believed it.  I believe in “seeing is believing”  and since I haven’t seen it, well…:

There was a young girl riding her bike near her home.  She was run over by a car, which killed her.  Her ghost has made appearances since.  People say they have seen her and heard her in what the sewing room was working on a sewing project.

In time the family sold the house and another Marietta prominent family bought the house and some say they sewing project was still going on.

My friend who told me this is related to the family that moved in.  They had a pool installed in the back and had a pool party, which my friend was invited.  During the party around the pool one time he excused himself to use the bathroom.  The bathroom he chose to use was above the patio and pool area. 

While he was using the bathroom someone by the pool was playing with an inflated pool ball and knocked it through the opened window.  He was going to get the ball and toss it back outside.  Just as he was reaching for it an invisible force hit the ball against the wall and it bounced back from the wall, and it happened again and again.  My friend said it was an odd feeling seeing a ball take movements of its own like that.

That was then.

Years later the family sold the house and moved on.  The house, near the hospital, was bulldozed and replaced by a medical center. 

One time he had a procedure done at the new medical center he told a technician of the mysterious spirit and the technician said he had heard of some of the highly technical electronic machines had did some crazy things for no reason.

There you have it!

Blow fish Vs Dolphins, Universal Harassment

 

I came across this in a UNCLE JOHN’S BATHROOM Book a few days ago.  This is not word for word, I did not take notes, so maybe I cannot be accused of plagiarism.

A Blowfish survival mechanism is if attacked he can blow himself up and release a poisonous gas that will either kill or paralyze his attacker…. Most of the time.

Unless the attackers are a gang of “teenage” Dolphins.  They are immune to the Blowfish poison.  They “have a little fun” with the animal, which is horrified.  The slush the Blowfish releases actually gets Dolphins high.   So they play with the Blowfish, get it more irritated so it will release more of the stuff that gets them high.  It is like a game to the Dolphins and like a moment of terror for the Blowfish.

 

It reminds me of a bunch of teenage gang members picking on an old man in Long Beach, California, once that I watched while waiting on the light to turn.

There is something naturally universal and evil about harassing.

Answer: Whar is a Growl or Hiss?

 

On JEOPARDY there is a intelligent lady who is the show often, well, as often as they have some type of champion playoffs.  She is smart. 

She has a strange delivery of her answers.  As soon as she gives her verbal answer she displays the meanest, wickedest, sharp teeth with a wicked smile.  You almost expect her to hiss or growl each time.

Another thing she does when she gives her answer, she seems to hyperventilate.

I would love to pay for her time (if I was wealthy of course) and carry her around to some of my relatives and make small talk.  Like, my cousin might say, “Where did you say you are from?”

And she opens her eyes very wide, hisses, and delivers, “New Jersey!  Why?”

Then, after shocking everybody around her, I would chuckle and tell my cousins I was just having a little fun, she is not really like that.

And she snaps at me, and say, “Not like what? “

The Bopie Twins Detective Agency

 

Before I transferred to the Marietta Post Office I was a time keeper/Posta Data technician in Atlanta.  There were about 30 of us working around the clock.

When a person returns from called-in leave such as sick leave or Emergency leave they have to report to the time keepers’ office and sign in.  That means we got to meet all the odd birds.

There was a young man who was a carrier.  He had a nervous breakdown on his route and ran around tossing loose mail up in the air and dancing (they said).  He did not lose his job because he may have been provoked.

His Home town is Columbus, Georgia.  Keep that in mind.

We have been watching  lately MINDHUNTERS, a NETFLIX series.  It is about a crew in the FBI, not fully known about, that has their offices in the basement at the FBI Headquarters in Quantico, Virginia.  This crew, maybe of 4 or 5, or maybe 6 (it keeps growing) go to prisons to interview mass or violent murderers such as Charles Manson (I know, Charlie is not charged with murdering, he is charged with enticing or maybe even inspiring murderers).  The sites and the people are realistically prepared.  I think they used actual locations, I recognized the streets of Atlanta. 

They were trying to catalog their habits so maybe their actions could be predicted and therefore preventable.

At one point elderly women living alone in Columbus, Georgia were being murdered.  They went to Columbus. 

A memory popped in my head of the nutty ex-carrier, who changed to being a clerk.  He was from Columbus.  He called in one timed on emergency leave, and said he would be at his home in Columbus.  The time he was out a woman was murdered in Columbus.  I told my late friend-coworker Chuck about it and we were not sure what to do.  Finally we talked to someone with authority and he looked over the guy’s leave records and decided it was only a flute or a coincidence, that was the only time.  He was harmless.

We did what we thought was right, even if it meant we had to get in his personal life a bit.  No harm, no foul.

Back to the MINDHUNTER series they are now in Atlanta studying the Atlanta Child Murders.  Good series.

HAPPY LABOR DAY!

 

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! EC's KING OF THE GREY SPACES