Reading And Such

Over the last month I have picked up my reading pace again. I finished three books.

The last one completed was the one I enjoyed the most and that was Stasiland by Anna Funder. It appealed to me because of my interests in the former East Germany and the Berlin Wall. The book is more about the East German secret police known as the Stasi than it is about the Berlin Wall but you cannot write about East Germany without the wall being a central figure so there was plenty of interesting details that I learned from this book about the wall that I didn't know before.

One of the other books that I read was No One Left To Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton by Christopher Hitchens. My exposure to Hitchens had been his essays and watching appearances of his before he died and he and I share the same views on religion. This was the first book of his that I had read and while it was interesting and I mostly agree with him about Bill Clinton it wasn't all that great of a book. I don't believe in criticizing a person for their sexual desires and so much of this book focuses on just that. Hitchens does write about other criticisms he has of Clinton but there was too much time spent on his alleged affairs because I don't really care about that. I will have to give Hitchens another chance by reading some of his other books.

Lastly, the other book was Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse In The Age Of Show Business by Neil Postman. This book which is a critique of the television industry and what it does to society originally came out in 1985 and it is even more relevant today in the age of television and the internet. The basic idea is that television is bad for you and makes you dumber by watching it and that I agree with. I gave up all television years ago because I just cannot stand the shows and the ways news is presented today. My take on television news is that they spend more time giving opinions on the news than actual reportage of the news thus I read all my news. In the age of fake news and living in real life Idiocracy this book is a must read for its sanity. There may be all kinds of technological innovation in our lives but damn I feel like we are getting dumber and meaner as a society day by day.

Next up for me on the reading list is a Japanese book called Almost Transparent Blue. I enjoy Japanese literature and film so I am looking forward to starting this book this week.

And Such

I've been exploring the discography of the band Chumbawamba. They were mostly known for Tubthumping but their music was highly political. They were actually a bunch of anarchists so that's interesting and they made other good music than just their hit song. The two albums I have liked the most are Anarchy and Never Mind The Ballots...Here's The Rest Of Your Life. If you need some inspiration during these dark political times I suggest giving their music a try.

Music For The Deep End of the Ocean

I

n the early 2000's when my career and life were stressing me out I became interested in meditation. I do not know if I was ever successful at achieving any type of higher level of consciousness or insights, but I was able to relax.

 
I would meditate with music playing and sometimes with incense burning to help set the mood. One of the albums I regularly listened was 1984's The Pearl by Harold Budd and Brian Eno that was produced by Daniel Lanois. 

 
The Pearl is an ambient album that reminds me of floating in the ocean and staring upwards at the sky. Listening to it with closed eyes is like letting the music become the warm ocean water washing underneath your body as you drift aimlessly in the waves.

I stopped meditating for the last ten years or so because I could not make time for it or I just felt as though I did not need it any longer. Sometimes life takes us away from the things we need so that we can experience other aspects of life and that is what happened to me. Eventually or rather hopefully we return to the things that are good for us so now I am returning to meditation.

That return to meditation is what reminded me of The Pearl. I had long since forgotten this music until one day it reentered the forefront of my mind like an errand I had forgotten or a friend that had disappeared and then returned. Listening to it today, it still has the same peaceful calming effect that it did all those years ago.

Time slows down and then evaporates listening to this music, everything takes on a shade of blue and whatever was bothering me is lost in the deep end of the ocean of my mind.

My favorite track on the album is Late October followed by the title track The Pearl.

West End Girls

 

The Pet Shops Boys during filming of West End Girls.

 

The summer of 1986 was coming to an end as I was riding in the back of my father's van with my brother and two cousins. The radio was playing the latest hits from a station I liked called KZ 106. We were coming into the city of Chattanooga and the air was thick with smog; that summer had been miserably hot and stifling when on the radio came the new number one song in the country, West End Girls by the Pet Shop Boys.

I heard it as a thirteen year old boy and thought, 'this is different and I like it.' There was something in the lead singer's voice that my ears picked up on that I identified with. I knew I was gay and my early teen gaydar was hearing something I liked.

That song and that moment has since been frozen in time in my mind. I can't hear that song today without going straight back to that polluted day in Chattanooga.

1986 was the year of the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion that I watched live on television because I was home from school that day because of snow. It was the year of the Chernobyl explosion in the Soviet Union which still fascinates me today. Senile Reagan was President, cold hearted Thatcher was Prime Minister and Gorbachev was beginning to open up his country with glasnost. AIDS was still spreading like wildfire and was still largely misunderstood. I was in middle school, my parents were separated and this period to me felt dark and gloomy.

I was the nerdy gay kid in the gifted program living in the country thirty miles from Atlanta. I had already learned to never expect too much from the world, my parents had made sure of that. I had a girlfriend, but I was secretly eyeing all the boys in school and had many crushes hidden in my closet. I was starting to become fascinated by cities, distant places and like most teenagers music was where I escaped. I watched MTV every afternoon after school and every night listened to the Atlanta radio stations like Z-93 and Power 99. Radio and MTV were exciting and creative back in those days.

Scene from the music video.

 

Watching the video for West End Girls set on the streets of London you can see that gloominess that I associate with that time. It might have been gloomy but still it felt exciting to me. And seeing the faces that were behind the music of West End Girls confirmed my feelings that this was the music of my tribe and where I belonged.

This wasn't the shiny pop music of Madonna or Wham! and it wasn't about love or sex or partying but instead was about a city, that city being London. This song felt different to me. It felt different much like INXS from that same time period felt and sounded different to me when compared to what was dominating the airwaves at that time.

Little did I know at the time but the version of the song that would become a radio hit and launch the Pet Shop Boys wasn't the original version. The song had been previously recorded in New York in 1983 and then released in 1984. The original producer was Bobby Orlando who was well known for producing club music in the 80s.

The 1984 version of West End Girls became a hit in the gay clubs of San Francisco and Los Angeles. That club success however didn't translate to radio airplay.

The 1984 single cover for West End Girls.

Not seeing much success with the Bobby Orlando version of West End Girls it was recorded again and re-released in the fall of 1985 and that is the version that would reach number one in the U.K. and the United States.

I prefer the Bobby Orlando version though I also love the 1985 radio hit version too. The Bobby Orlando version sounded much more like a club song of the time, has a darker sound to it and the vocals are delivered in a more spoken/rap manner than sung.

The song resonates with me because of the lyrics that are about dissatisfaction, alienation and the overall mood of the song is dark. There was plenty of dissatisfaction to go around in U.K. society under Margaret Thatcher and her reforms to the public sector in the 80s. Thatcher made life miserable for many, many people much like Reagan.

"In a West End town, a dead end world
The East End boys and West End girls..."

This world and I have changed a vast amount since 1986 for better and worse, but I still love this song.

Hamilton Gardens On Lake Chatuge

Photo by me, September 2017.

In the garden more grows than the gardener sows. - Spanish proverb.

So on a warm September day I came to this small garden in Hiawassee, Georgia to walk and see what grew and what was in bloom. I expected not to find much in bloom knowing this garden is at its most showy in the spring. My expectation was met but even walking the wooded path next to the water was enough to enjoy.

Hamilton Gardens is a small garden tended to by volunteers pocketed into a spot next to the Georgia Mountain Fair, a lodge and on the banks of Lake Chatuge.

Lake Chatuge with its fancy sounding name is in the far reaches of North Georgia and as the water recognizes no artificial line on a map it covers portions of North Carolina too. Chatuge was created in the early 1940s to control flooding and to produce emergency power during wartime operations in World War Two. The fancy name it bears I had often wondered if it were French but like many places in these mountains it is named after a Cherokee Indian village that had been there.

The Stovall Mill Covered Bridge

Photo by me, September 2017.

On a piece of bottom land lying between Lynch Mountain and Grimes Nose in White County near the Habersham County line and in the community of Sautee Nacoochee flows Chickamauga Creek. Highway 255 crosses Chickamauga Creek just beyond Penny Lane and if you are traveling east on 255 you should look to the right very quickly or you might miss an old covered bridge that's in terrible disrepair.

This is the Stovall Mill Covered Bridge. The mill and dam that once accompanied the covered bridge were washed away in 1964. The old bridge that has been standing here since 1895 was replaced by a concrete bridge a few yards away in 1959 and the road has been straightened out and paved since then too. So the old Stovall Mill Covered Bridge sits there off to the side of the road in the shade trees collecting graffiti from the locals on dark nights.

Brasstown Bald

 

Brasstown Bald in the fall as seen from the parking area near the summit. Photo by me, October 2013.

Fall begins today so in the spirit of the coming cooler weather, brilliant colors and more time spent in the mountains I thought today would be a good day to write about Georgia's highest mountain, Brasstown Bald.

Brasstown Bald is an interesting name for a mountain. You wouldn't generally think of brass when you think of mountains and how it came to be called that name in English was a mistake. Prior to being settled by Europeans this area was already inhabited by the Cherokee tribe and they referred to the area as "place of fresh green." The word sounded like the English word for "brass" and so a misunderstanding lead to the unique name. The "bald" is commonly used to describe an area on a mountain with a view of three hundred and sixty degrees.

The road leading up the parking area at the gift shop/office. Photo by me, April 2014.

To get to the top of the mountain there are two ways: you can drive to near the summit and then take a shuttle operated by the U.S. Forest Service from the gift shop and office (cost $5 per person for a round trip ride) or you can hike to the top via two different trails from two different directions.

 

A large inflatable Smokey The Bear welcomes you to the parking area. Photo by me, October 2013.

I have never hiked to the top of Brasstown, though I would like to do that one day, and have on my visits driven to the gift shop and taken the shuttle.

The geographical background on Brasstown Bald is that it is part of the Appalachian Mountain chain that extends from North Georgia into southeastern Canada. Brasstown rises to 4,784 feet above sea level in elevation. It is located in far northeastern Georgia and straddles both Union and Towns counties. The next highest mountain in the state is Rabun Bald at 4,696 feet above sea level in Rabun County.

 

The visitor's center at the summit. Photo by me, October 2013.

 

Once you arrive at the top of the mountain either by shuttle or by foot you are dropped off at the visitor's center which contains a museum and observation tower.

Quilts and bears, oh my! Photo by me, October 2013.

 

Photo by me, October 2013.

 

Photo by me, October 2013.

Stuffed bears, Georgia has a sizeable population of live ones, on display along with some beautiful quilts in the museum.

 

Photo by me, October 2013.

There is even a train on display. This is a replica of the steam locomotive train the Climax that was used in the mountains in the logging industry. You can learn more about this train here. 

A suspicious looking forest firefighter. Photo by me, October 2013.

He's harmless. Photo by me, October 2013.

These two displays were great with the animatronics. They look crazy and might even scare your kids when they begin talking, moving and those eyes they have.

To be isolated atop the highest mountain in the state, the museum is quite good and filled with historical items and informational displays about the mountain and the area. This would be the highest museum in the state. They also show a short film about the mountain and it is interesting to see how harsh the weather can get this high into the sky.

But of course the main reason to visit Brasstown Bald is for the view.

 

Photo by me, October 2013.

 

Photo by me, October 2013.

Photo by me, October 2013.

Photo by me, October 2013.

Photo by me, October 2013.

For a first time visitor, I recommend going to Brasstown Bald in the fall when the leaves are at peak typically during the month of October, but this can vary from year to year. Brasstown is an interesting attraction any season, but expect the largest crowds during the fall. You will find it much less busy during the winter when the trees are bare and the landscape is mostly gray but visibility is often the best on a crisp winter day. During the summer it is a nice way to escape the summer heat but visibility may be limited by the haze. In spring it is a good way to see two seasons at once when the valleys below are turning green from the new spring leaves while the mountain tops are still locked in winter hibernation.

In winter and the early spring it is advisable to check the weather conditions atop the mountain before planning a visit. Snow and ice is more common than one might think and you can find the mountain road closed at the base or that the shuttle is not in service to the summit from the gift shop. I speak from experience, I have been up to the mountain in the second week of April only to find that the shuttle was not running due to ice and snow. You can of course always still make the hike to the top as the trails are never closed.

 

Ice and snow cover the mountain laurel and trees at one end of the parking area. Photo by me, April 2014.

Snow and rain fall on the distant mountain tops. Photo by me, April 2014.

 

The summit of Brasstown Bald hidden the clouds and snow as seen from the parking area. Photo by me, April 2014.

This is how it looked in the second week of April 2014 when the shuttle was not running. It was completely deserted and the top of the mountain was shrouded in the clouds. The wind that day was howling and it would have been a rough day atop the mountain if I had decided to hike up beyond the parking area near the summit, which I didn't.

I hope you have a great fall enjoying the leaves, the cooler weather and hitting the trails.

Link to the official U.S. Forest Service page for Brasstown Bald. Streaming web cam from the top facing north.
Streaming web cam from the top facing south.

Tigerlily: This Star Fell Down

Iremember the 1990s in a way that others may not. I remember it in two halves: there is Pre-Cobain and Post-Cobain. For me the most important person of the 90s wasn't Bill Clinton or any other politician but Kurt Cobain. I don't believe any other person had a greater cultural impact on that decade than Cobain. His rise to fame and his tragic suicide set the tone for how I remember the 1990s. I'll never forget being so excited for a band in my life and I'll never forget that afternoon a month after my birthday in 1994 that his body was discovered in Seattle and the world changed.

Tigerlily was released in 1995 and was the fist solo album of Natalie Merchant after leaving the band 10,000 Maniacs. It was the best album Post-Cobain in the 1990s. While Nevermind was the best album of the entire decade, Tigerlily was the best album for the rest of it. I spent more time listening to this album than any other album then and I still listen to it regularly twenty-two years later.

In 1995 I had moved into a loft in an 1920s former automobile factory. It had walls of windows that were the original factory ones and I would sit and listen to this album and look out that wall of windows on Ponce de Leon Avenue in Atlanta. I loved to sit there on gray winter days and look out to the east over Green's Package Store and the Clermont Hotel. Tigerlily took me places in my mind that I could never voice but I knew I felt.

Cobain may have been the one to sing, "I miss the comfort in being sad," but Merchant was the one to sing damn you liar you betrayed me and I'm not going to forgive. This is an album full of sadness, fear, doubt, anger, betrayal, deep love that clings to your bones and tiny slices of hope. This is an album filled with mourning about failures and maybe represents the disillusionment of Generation X - that we weren't going to be as happy and successful as our parents. All of these things were the 1990s and how Generation X lost their innocence.

There is a confrontational tone to this album and it isn't about giving up, nor giving into indifference but telling the truth no matter how evil and ugly it is and that is why I love it.

River City Rock

In early August of this year I visited Louisville for the first time in twenty years. It was a city I lived in the middle 1990s. I had worked for the transit authority for a brief time then worked as a radio personality for two different radio stations there. As with most radio stations we didn't play local music and played popular commercial music. Even though I was living in Louisville I wasn't connected to the local music scene except for maybe seeing ads for performances in the Leo or seeing a flier at the local music store ear X-tacy. I was more aware of what music was coming out of Seattle at that time than Louisville.

Before my return to Louisville I started researching bands that were from Louisville during the 1990s. I wanted to see what I had missed out on during that time and find a way to mentally connect with the feel of the city when I lived there that I couldn't recollect from my own memories and photographs of the place. That is when I discovered Slint.

I had considered myself a person with fairly eclectic and expansive musical tastes and knowledge. Somehow I had missed out on this band. This was a band that developed a cult following, a legend steeped in mystery and produced what many consider one of the most influential rock albums of the 1990s. This was a band too that had broken up in 1990 and released their last album in 1991, but had somehow become this critical darling.

I listened to their last album titled Spiderland and I understand why this band was so loved. These guys were in their late teens to around twenty years old and had made this important music in a basement in Louisville. Somehow, I had missed out an important piece of a city I had lived in. I would have been in Louisville at the time some of these guys were bouncing around in different bands post Slint and I had no idea about them.

This is hypnotic and shoegazing rock and many refer to the music of Slint as "math rock." Their music features repetitious guitar and drum rhythms that are so beautiful with complex time signatures. The lyrics often border on bad poetry written by angst filled teenagers and given their age at the time it is understandable. The music is the better part of the band and the vocals are often either whispered or screamed and were written mostly at the last minute during the recording session of the album in Chicago.

If you go to a quiet room, close the door, turn down the lights, put on your headphones and listen to Spiderland you will hear great music. It is the best way to fully appreciate this music because I imagine it is impossible to enjoy any other way. This isn't music for a bright sunny day at the beach, but more for dark rooms and focused thinking. This music brings to mind the images of Louisville in the 90s with all of the old architecture it has, the decay it had then and the isolation of the city on the banks of the Ohio River. This was before widespread internet usage so cities then had a much more distinct identity especially in terms of arts and culture.



There are only six songs on this album, but I enjoy all of them. My favorite from the album is Don, Aman. The song has whispered vocals by the drummer combined with guitar playing that ranges from contemplative to blaring. As for the rest of the album I rank them in this order: Nosferatu Man, Good Morning Captain, Washer, Breadcrumb Trail and For Dinner.

If only this band could have stayed together in the 90s they might have made more great music and reached a much wider audience besides music critics and musicians. Slint did reunite in the 2000s, but seeing these guys in their 40s playing this music is awkward and I think their music from Spiderland is best left in that time capsule shrouded in the mystique of what might have been.

There is a documentary on the band that was released in 2014 called Breadcrumb Trail. It can be hard to find, but it is excellent and reveals much about the band, their creative process, and what happened to them.

So if you are in the mood for dark, brooding, and beautiful rock music spend time in Spiderland.

All You Can Eat

Over the summer I have been revisiting the discography of k.d. lang. I had forgotten how much of her music I have enjoyed over her career.

She never fit into the country music genre in which her career was first marketed. Here was this quirky lesbian making music for a country audience that then and even still today isn't largely accepting of artists that aren't straight men or straight blonde women.

Fortunately for k.d. her incredible voice and talent defied most any label you could try to place on it and she has made some wonderful music that still is worth listening to today.

After shedding the country music label and going to a more pop/mainstream sound she broke new ground with her 1992 album Ingenue. It produced her most memorable hit, Constant Craving. Thanks to this album and that song in particular she found herself a new and more accepting audience for her music and for her life.

In looking more in depth at her music I want to skip ahead to the 1995 album, All You Can Eat. I found myself returning to this album several times over the last few months and enjoying how fresh it still sounds today.

All You Can Eat might be her most pop sounding album out of her entire discography and you see her songwriting become more playful, less restricted and definitely more open and happy about her life.

This album is all about love and sexuality. In interviews promoting the release of the album k.d. would say that the title of the album was about taking in and embracing as much of life as you could until you were full. At the time she had moved from Los Angeles back to her native Canada saying that she never fit into the whole Hollywood celebrity lifestyle and was full of that scene.

The opening song on the album is If I Were You. This song is written from the perspective of a person wishing they were someone else; someone more popular and loved and how they would live that life and how great it would be if they were that person. This song features a nice bouncy bass beat and her fine vocals gliding over the top like a smooth breeze. It is a nice medium tempo song to open the album and set the tone for a pleasant listening experience. It's the kind of song you could listen to over brunch on a sunny day.

Maybe is the next song and it delves into the thoughts of a person questioning their relationship with someone and questioning themselves. The song explores all the possibilities of many scenarios of what is and isn't possible and continues to use the word "maybe." She sings, "it could be disaster but no maybe it won't?" I envision someone relaxing at home in the evening over a glass of wine asking these questions of themselves. This could have been easily interpreted as a negative song but with her delivery k.d. actually makes this a kind of neutral to positive sounding song. This song is for me about that fear of the unknown of the beginning of stronger feelings for someone as you get to know them better.

The themes of uncertainty and love continue with the next song and introduces sex, You're Okay. This song is the foreplay part of sex leading up to the next song, Sexuality. You're Okay opens with the line, "I am rocked with paranoia for I have brought myself  before you nakedly awaiting your okay." The song continues on with the person wondering if they are coming on too strong to their object of affection. The person then decides well if you are okay with this situation then I am okay with it too so let's get it on. To me this the strongest song on this album and I could hear it being released even today and being a hit song. Lyrically and musically this song is her best on this album.

Sexuality is the next song on the album and it is the crescendo that the first three songs were building up to. k.d. said in an interview I watched of her on The Tonight Show that she liked to make music that you could listen to while driving, dancing, eat and having sex. This would be the song that you get undressed to and have your sex to with it playing in the background. At the time I remember this being a radio hit and the video too was in regular rotation on VH-1 and MTV. This was intended to be the biggest hit song on this album. She opens the song with a seductive tone inviting the listener to "come on, come on, come on," and you know where this song is going. There are a few lines in this song that could be perceived as political in the ongoing struggle for same-sex equality and shedding rigid ideas about sex such as, "kiss away the ones who say the lust you feel is wrong, not how bad could it be if you amuse yourself with me, now how bad could it be...sexuality," and "release yourself upon me and free the lines of chastity." These lines aren't as direct as a Madonna song about sex but a more subtle and nuanced song about it.

The next song that follows is Get Some. This song is about going out and getting that love you crave. It encourages the listener to take a more active role in finding their happiness. This song is more upbeat and uptempo than the previous songs on the album. It marches along to a brisk beat and a confident vocal. It isn't the most interesting song lyrically but is something you could listen to while needing some motivation as it at times feels like an anthem.

Acquiesce is next and it ponders the morality of love and sex as if someone is testing the boundaries of a relationship. This is the song for a complicated relationship that a person might find themselves involved in. After we are heavily involved with someone and thinking about the faithfulness of your partner or a self-examination of your own morals and faithfulness this is the territory this song lives in. The song title could be thought of as knowing something isn't morally acceptable but going with the flow and allowing whatever it is to happen anyway and how we live with our decision. Stylistically this dark song is beautifully arranged and her vocals are smooth like velvet.

You are on the sofa leaned back with your feet up and comes This. It has that lazy sound about it that isn't going to challenge you to get up and dance but maybe instead take a long sip of your coffee. This song comes and goes and you might not even notice it as it plays. You could be leaning back on your seat on the train with your eyes closed as you zone out and This relaxes you. It is a soothing song about answering your partner's question about your love and reassuring them that this is love and you are going to give them all of you. As k.d. sings, "believe in this," you feel that sense of security and peace of stability. The overall feeling I get from this song is satisfaction.

World Of Love is a spring day with flowers exploding and vibrant colors popping across the landscape. This isn't one of my favorite songs on this album but it isn't necessarily a bad song either. It borders on romping and prancing and comes across as too happy like an over caffeinated bunny rabbit. This song for me is filler and the one I am most likely to skip.

On the song Infinite And Unforeseen she gives her best vocal performance on the album. This is k.d. lang singing from her heart. This song strikes a melancholy and reflective tone with the strings at the beginning. With the somber sound of this song I can't decide whether the surprises she sings about are happy ones of finding unexpected love or rather the bad surprise of finding your love coming to end. I suppose you could interpret it either way.

A funky bass groove and drums opens up the last song on the album, I Want It All. This song makes a nice end to the journey that this album takes you on through uncertainty, love and sex. The conclusion here is that she wants it all whether it is good or bad that she isn't afraid to take her chances on love and what all comes with it. The album ends with a positive and optimistic outlook.

Ranking the songs from how I enjoy them from most to least I would settle on this order: You're Okay, If I Were You, Maybe, Sexuality, Acquiesce, Infinite And Unforeseen, This, Get Some, I Want It All and World Of Love.

This is a remarkable album with plenty of pop and sophistication from the sultry voice of  k.d. lang. It is an easy album to get into and still enjoy twenty-two years later because it has a timeless sound that you couldn't tell came out all the way back in 1995. Just as she wanted you can do pretty much any activity while listening to this music and still feel relaxed. It is good music for lounging in your pajamas on a Sunday morning or commuting on the train at the end of long day at the office.

Dispatch: The Ugly Landscape

Photo by me, January 2017.

"I just want to scream hello," sings Eddie Vedder in the the Pearl Jam song Elderly Woman Behind A Counter In A Small Town. I thought of screaming hello as I stood atop Turkey Mountain in the Cohutta Wilderness of the North Georgia mountains yesterday. The light was fading, the clouds were dropping and it was so quiet that it had a creepy feeling. I have been in the middle of nowhere plenty of times in my life, but something was off.

Earlier, out chasing down a waterfall in a remote location miles down a dirt road in the shadow of Rich Mountain I had gotten the creepy feeling then too. I had arrived at the trailhead or what I thought was the trailhead as I had limited information and was out of cell service range to verify my information. I turned around and left. It takes a lot for me to bail out of a situation in the wilderness or in the city for that matter, but sometimes you just get that feeling that something is wrong and you trust your intuition.

I have been spending a fair amount of time in the mountains since October of last year. I have been out on the trails, looking at the sweeping vistas, hunting down waterfalls and traveling the rough roads. Some of the attraction has been the peace and some of it has been finding new places that I had not seen before. However lately I have been more on guard and alert up there thanks to the uptick in violent incidents around the country since the election. You can sense that the people up there do not like people like me and there has been the occasional odd and accusing look.

I have not felt like this since the early 1990s. I feel like a target.

You can figure it out after you have up there long enough what areas are safer and what areas are a little more dangerous. Some places give me bad feelings like how I feel whenever I cross into Alabama and step back in time. You know the percentages of encountering rednecks are higher in some areas than in others and some of those rednecks are on the lookout to fuck with an outsider.

Driving down one dirt road through beautiful bottom land that had probably once been a corn field, but was now grazing land for horses, I spotted a sad relic, an ugly scar. A flagpole in the middle of that field flew the Confederate battle flag. You do not see that flag as much now as you did when I was kid, but when I do see it, I know I am around people that not only disagree with me but hate me. The Confederate battle flag is not a welcome sign saying hello but is a warning sign.

Photo by me, January 2017.

Photo by me, January 2017.

Photo by me, January 2017.

Photo by me, January 2017.

There was another warning sign browsing the shops of downtown Blue Ridge. I went into one shop that was selling Reagan/Bush tee shirts. They were not tacky in their design but were actually nice shirts and seem to be well made. This was not some grungy place that sells live bait and beer but was a tastefully done shop with dim lighting like one might find in Banana Republic. The Reagan/Bush shirts were folded nicely on a display front and center as you walked into the door. They were not to be missed and were meant to make a not so subtle gesture to customers. I looked around and could not find any shirts for Clinton or Carter or Obama or Kennedy. I got the hint that my kind was unwelcome. It is absurd that anyone would want to willing go back to the Reagan/Bush years of the 1980s, much less want to wear a shirt proclaiming such nonsense.
 

Looking at the county maps from the 2016 election will tell you who these people voted for and what their beliefs have proven to be. Like that rolling dark cloud in the sky they want to sweep in a period of darkness into the hearts of America and spread their fear like the wind.

Rural America went from a live and let live mindset from when I was a child to an ugly, mean-spirited, conservative, regressive and scared landscape. They may not always bash your head in or vandalize your property but are more subtle in their dislike of you and your kind. Whether it is the odd look, being purposefully seated at the isolated table, away from other patrons, downstairs and in the far back corner of a restaurant in Blue Ridge or the whispers - they make sure to remind you that you are not welcome.

I am strong enough to say fuck them and I will fight until I am dead. In this new era of conservative politics I will need to keep looking over my shoulder a bit more often. It won't keep me from enjoying the mountains, but I am damn sure more careful about it than I have been in a long time.

The Carousel On The National Mall

Walking along the National Mall in Washington there is so much to see from museums to massive monuments it would be easy to overlook a carousel tucked into a shady area on the periphery.

Photo by me, July 2015.

I was walking back towards the Smithsonian subway station after a long, hot July day on the mall when I noticed the carousel. I didn't have much time or energy left so I took a quick photo because I have a fondness for carousels. I wish I could have taken a spin on it or gotten a closer look but it was closed for day when I passed.

I am fond of carousels because they are beautiful with bold colors, can have intricate carvings and designs, display a level of craftsmanship that is rare to find these days and they are a simple thrill ride that doesn't require you to be jostled by a roller coaster or thrown into the air at some insane speed.

This particular coaster is unique in that it features four horses per row on which to ride. No other carousel of this type has been built since that features four horses abreast that jump.

The carousel has been located on the mall since 1981 but it was originally built for an amusement park in Maryland. The Allen Herschell Company were the builders and they constructed this carousel in 1947.

Atlas Obscura has more photos of this carousel and a bit more on the history of it too.

The Auchumpkee Creek Covered Bridge

Photo by me, April 2015.

T

raveling the back roads is the way to see what a place is really about. You slow down and often stop on the back roads which isn't something you do whizzing down an interstate highway where all you might see are advertisements, gas stations and hotels. Whatever hidden secrets a place might have, be it natural or man-made will remain hidden from you on the highway. Unless we slow down and pay attention in everything we do we often miss the truth of a place and the same applies to people too. In the modern world, we sacrifice truth and understanding for speed and convenience.


You Ain't From Around These Parts
On a trip from Atlanta to a town in South Georgia, I decided to take the back roads and not take Interstate 75. One place that I passed through was Upson County. Upson has no interstate highways just the regular roads with lower speed limits, stop signs and traffic lights. Upson is one of those places you wouldn't normally pass through or go to visit unless you had some specific reason to be there, much like Paulding County was when I was a child.

The county hasn't changed much for decades and it has had the same amount of people living there since 1940. In 1940 the population was 25,000 people and in the latest census from 2010 the population was 27,000. 

 

A Storm Is Coming
In the third week of June 1994, a tropical wave would form off the coast of Africa and by the end of June, it would form a tropical depression off the southern coast of Cuba. Two days before the United States would celebrate independence day Tropical Storm Alberto was gaining strength in the Gulf of Mexico.

On July 3rd, 1994 it would start raining in Upson County and it would rain every day except one until July 15th. When the rainfall was finished it would rain a total of nearly seventeen inches (16.86 inches officially) and over twelve of those seventeen inches would come in only two days.

You can imagine what that amount of rain would do to the ground and to the creeks and rivers.

The nearest river gauge on the Flint River indicates flooding when the water level reaches 18 feet. Alberto shattered all the records and that gauge hit 45.73 feet.

On the nearby Auchumpkee Creek which is normally a lazy creek only a few inches deep swelled under the unrelenting rain became a river and carrying debris such as trees decided to dismantle the wooden covered bridge that had stood there since 1892.

Tropical Storm Alberto which made landfall in the Panhandle of Florida moved straight up into Georgia and right through Upson County then stopped and then proceeded to do a loop and cross the county again before finally sauntering off into Alabama and dying there.

Alberto would kill thirty-one people in Georgia alone.

By Chance A Bridge

Photo by me, April 2015.

I came across the Auchumpkee Creek covered bridge by chance. I was driving down U.S. Highway 19 through the rolling hills covered in pine trees and the sporadic fields south of Thomaston in southern Upson County when I saw a sign for the bridge.

These are the surprises you find on the back roads. A sign with an arrow pointing a direction to something interesting that you didn't know existed and you find yourself changing your plan to see that thing. I wouldn't normally go out of my way to see a covered bridge but if I happen on one I will stop, take a few photos and admire the craftsmanship and beauty of the bridge.

Covered bridges fall into the same category as lighthouses for me. They are objects that have been highly and unnecessarily romanticized in popular culture for no good reason. They represent the past and some mythical idea that life was better then. When I see covered bridges and lighthouses I think of terrible prints hanging on bathroom walls in some country themed restaurant or some elderly relative's kitchen wall. The Bridges Of Madison County is a perfect example of this romanticizing of covered bridges.

Photo by me, April 2015.

Photo by me, April 2015.

When the original covered bridge was built in this spot in 1892 cotton and peaches were the main ways to make a living in Upson County. The American Civil War was only twenty-seven years in the past and plenty of people that had been alive during it were still around so it had not much faded into history yet. The bridge would last one hundred and two years before Alberto born in a distant sea would flood the creek it was built over and take it down.

After the flood of 1994 when federal relief funds were funneled into Upson County they decided to rebuild the bridge. It took $200,000 and to bring in a bridge builder by the name of Arnold Graton from New Hampshire but the new covered bridge was finished in 1997.

Photo by me, April 2015.

Photo by me, April 2015.

The area around the bridge is a park now. It is a pretty spot on a side road off a federal highway in a county in the middle of nowhere. It is far from the interstate, a modern reconstruction of the past in a place that has turned its back on the modern world. It is worth seeing if you pass it traveling the back roads of time.



*Rainfall statistics used were from the National Weather Service reporting station in the county seat of Thomaston.

A Kaleidoscope Of Colors

Photo by me, April 2014.

Located on Fraser Street in the Summerhill neighborhood of Atlanta is this mural of wonderful color. I like murals that are this colorful and make you take notice of them. You cannot pass by this mural and not take notice of it. It is busy piece of art that has so many interesting aspects to it.

Photo by me, April 2014.

Dissecting this mural takes some work and I'd be the first to admit I am probably interpreting it wrong. In the center is a tree and maybe it is the tree of life. To the right of the tree emerges a woman and to the left of the tree emerges a man with a hairy chest. Both the man and woman are facing robots or some type of technology. The woman is facing one with treads like a machine and arms like that of a back hoe. The man is facing a robot or creature with a television head on a spring like a jack in the box and it has eight legs. There are also other large humanoid figures painted into this mural and animals too. I see birds, lions, maybe a fox and a snake. They appear to be doing battle against one another in some sort of colorful jungle.

Photo by me, April 2014.

The artist of this mural goes by the name 3πMan. Despite some searching around I couldn't locate an artist by that name. This mural was completed on August 16, 2013.

It is one of my favorite murals because it provides so much color to an area of Summerhill that is full of empty and dead parking lots. In a sea of asphalt is this vibrant beauty.

Six Years I Waited

Pardon me, but it is Fleet Foxes day! Nothing will exist for me today but the new album, Crack-Up.

My favorite band from this century released their first new album in six years. My life has seen a great many changes since the last new Fleet Foxes album, I nearly died and everything else but my love of this band never subsided.

Those harmonies! My ears.

This band and their music reside deep in the tissues of my heart. Their music carries such a significance with me that I would never publicly discuss some of the reasons why on a blog but damn that 'magic.' My mind listening to their music instantly goes to mountains, deep forests, fresh air and the rest is too privately tragic to share while sober. It is the old story of heartbreak.

Was the wait of six years between albums worth it for me now that the new album has landed full and wide?

It is intricately beautiful music that at times veers over the cliff into self-indulgence only to save itself from crashing onto the jagged boulders below. Some of the abrupt changes during some of the songs are like watching an action movie with jump cuts that are so quick and disorienting that you become dizzy and you don't know what the hell just happened.

A look at the song titles and I sense that this album is taking itself too seriously and the names are borderline preposterous. I feel like I have downloaded one of those chill/lounge/downbeat albums where I don't really know any of the artists but they sure have cool sounding names.

I Am All That I Need/Arroyo Seco/Thumbprint Scar opens the album with mumbling vocals that are lulling you asleep before it jerks you awake at the one minute mark. Oh yeah, now I'm excited because there is a new album from Fleet Foxes. This song sets what for me is the theme of this album and that is a series of unfinished sketches from a person suffering from multiple personality disorder. At times, I don't know what the band is playing, where it is going with these songs and the whole thing is incongruous.

Cassius begins and ends with the most unnerving sounds and I am reminded of Portishead's The Rip (especially at the 2:12 of the Portishead song). I didn't think I would ever have Fleet Foxes remind me of a Portishead song which by the way is one of my other favorite bands of all time.

Naiads, Cassadies opens like a Doors song. I was hearing strains of The End for a moment there. The song then drifts off into this peaceful song that floats into the territory of Sunday morning background music.

Third Of May/Odaigahara is easily the most accessible song on an album that is a more mature and dark version of Fleet Foxes of years gone by. Third Of May comes launching at you like a horse bolting out of the gate at the Kentucky Derby. This is definitely the Fleet Foxes I remember and it almost feels like it could have fit on a previous album.

Kept Woman is another song that one can easily like. It has the luscious harmonies you expect from the band and overall takes on a somber tone. But..the awkward lyric of, "you rose to be ossified." I know what ossified means and most people probably do too but using it in a song sounded so forced and unnatural. I listened to that lyric several times and I had to suppress my laughter. This was one of those moments where the band was teetering on the precipice of the cliff and almost plunged down toward the sharp rocks below.

If You Need To, Keep Time On Me feels like a pretty piece of filler music like a puff pastry or flowery wallpaper. The song title keeps repeating over and over and isn't going anywhere.

Mearcstapa features the prettiest guitar lines of music on the entire album in the middle of this song. I have listened to this song several times and I keep going back to that guitar solo and can't shake my feeling that it sounds like something from Radiohead's Kid A album. Maybe it is Everything In Its Right Place that I am hearing?

On Another Ocean (January / June) is an okay enough song that begins well enough but never goes much of anywhere. Then it gets cute and adds a saxophone at the end of the song as it fades out. This an example of where a producer should have stepped in and said this is beyond trite.

Fool's Errand is where this album gets back on the tracks after some bewildering turns down some blind alleys. We get some straight-forward music and some serious singing again. The piano at the end centers this album and gives you hope that the band does care whether you like their music and this just isn't some kind of inside joke they are playing on their audience.

I Should See Memphis begins and I feel like I am watching fuzzy old home movies on a film projector. Then comes the American Civil War references and I'm thinking oh dear god this is getting silly. Did he really just sing Manassas and Appomattox? Oh yes, he did and damn it guys this is stupid.

Crack-Up gives us one last chance to soar on the harmonies like eagles over the mountains and to remember what we enjoyed about this band on previous albums.

This is still Fleet Foxes, but this album feels like it was half written using random words out of Encyclopedia Britannica and the other half was one unsatisfying masturbation session in front a mirror for the band. I know bands evolve over time and that's to be expected - I still love Goldfrapp after all these years and they've never made anything close to resembling Felt Mountain ever again. Yet Crack-Up is more of a mashup of songs with pretentious titles. What I missed most from this album was what made me fall in love with them years ago and that was honest and beautiful music.

I'm all for artists taking risks, but it would seem Fleet Foxes didn't think taking six years between albums was a big enough risk for them. Instead, they decided that musical risks were needed too and I would agree, if I felt like they were remaining somewhat true to their earlier sound. This album is so schizophrenic that it feels both simultaneously unfinished and somehow overthought. Crack-Up tries too hard to impress.