Sunday, November 29, 2009

Friday, November 27, 2009

Mags

The new Sports Illustrated (with Alabama's Mark Ingram on the cover) has several pieces worth reading. Austiin Murphy has a good feature on the Muck Bowl, the nasty annual showdown between Belle Glade and Pahookie High. Phil Taylor has an interesting column on the absence of white running backs in college and the pros. Also, there's a great photo of Artis Gilmore when he was with the Kentucky Colonels and a short flashback article about Gilmore's emergence as an ABA star. And for those of you haven't had enough of the Michael Oher story (he has), there's more in this issue. All in all, a magazine worth reading ... even with the Tide on the cover.

Words

Dalton-raised writer recalls the old days in her new book. From the Chattanooga Times-Free Press.

The environment

An interesting commentary on the swirling climate change controversy. The writer leans Green but even he is aghast at the misuse of science and questionable tactics of the Al Gore Fan Club.

Back in the day ... spook shows

I just finished the non-fiction book "Ghostmasters" by Mark Walker.
It's about the old traveling "ghost" or "spook" shows that used to play in theaters across the country. Their heyday was probably the 1940-50s but many were still out on the road into the late 1970s.
I saw one of these shows in Summerville when I was a kid. I wish my memory on this night was better. There are a lot of details I've forgotten, including the name of the show.
But I do remember that the movie they featured was Roman Polanski's "The Fearless Vampire Slayers."
Also, they did some skits with monsters threatening the crowd. Unlike in the old days when this kind of stuff was done during "blackout," the show I saw utilized strobe lights to give the monsters an eerie, threatening look.
The show came at the end of the spook show cycle (early-mid 70s) and I'm sure it was a low budget affair, but I remember a good, lively crowd and having a ball myself.
Anyhow, if any of y'all have a similar story to tell I'd love to hear it.
Write me.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Words

Edward (Eddie) Lee writes some of the goriest, most shocking horror lit around, particularly in his small press books and stories. His more mainstream novels, published by Leisure Books, are supposed to be the PG 13 version of the daring author's stuff.
But "Brides of the Impaler," a late 2008 Leisure release has plenty of shock value. While the gore and violence is limited -- by Lee's bloody standards -- there's enough of both to jolt most readers. There's also a ton of sex, some of it pretty rough, but it's not just gratuitous grappling. It's key to the plot, which features a modern day attempt to resurrect the most famous vampire of all, Vlad the Impaler, better known as Count Dracula.
The story is set in New York City, where a young woman has recently moved in with her boyfriend in an old church facility he slickered away from the Catholic Church and converted into a ornate home.
Everything looks great for the young couple, that is until a menacing spirit which resides in the house begins to grow stronger.
The story sharply contrasts the lavish lifestyle of New York winners like the protagonists with a band of desperate street women who offer their deadly services and their souls to a dark power.
"Brides of the Impaler" is as effective as it is lurid and if there's a sequel -- the opportunity for one is definitely there -- I'd read it.
Also, I wouldn't be surprised to see this one done on the big screen as well.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Flicks

I've been watching a lot of westerns lately. Maybe the recurring theme of winning justice has special appeal.
Three of them worth mentioning are Ramrod, Rough Night in Jericho and The Halliday Brand.
Ramrod is a complicated story (for a western) about a bitter, scheming daughter (Veronica Lake) battling her father and his chosen son in law with the help of the brave, but-not-so-bright Joel McCrea.
It's a rugged story with some brutal action and good performances. I was surprised at how much I liked Don DeFore (Mr. B on Hazel) as a flamboyant gunman.
No new ground is broken here, but director Andre de Toth delivers a focused, cracking picture.
The Halliday Brand is one of the uglier westerns I've seen. It looks like it was shot in a garbage dump. The lean budget is in evidence everywhere.
Also the casting has some serious weaknessess.
Joseph Cotten is too old (and too civilized) to play Ward Bond's outlaw son. It's a major flaw, as is Bill Williams' nothing performance as Cotten's brother. I'm not a Betsy Palmer fan in this one and Viveca Lindfors is terribly out of place as a half-Indian love interest.
Ward Bond is pretty good though.
That said, The Halliday Brand is worth seeing for its sharp assessment of anti-Indian racism. That theme dominates the film and the story doesn't pull many punches.
The film's central conflict -- the hard-nosed, bigoted father and the reckless, rebellious son (Cotten) -- is played out with gusto right up to the unsympathetic ending.
I expected Rough Night in Jericho to be one of those 1960s westerns with Dean Martin winking at the camera most of the time. But Dino keeps it professional, as do George Peppard, the lovely Jean Simmons and the great character actor John McIntire.
Sure enough there are some of the usual genre absurdities. I love Martin shooting the stagecoach reins out John McIntire's hands from a hundred yards away. And how about George Peppard firing his rifle into a stagecoach within inches of his lady love's face? (Apparently ricochets are of no concern.)
Goofiness aside, there a lot to like here.
Peppard and Slim Pickens, playing a villain in this one, engage in a nasty, brutal fight with Slim wielding a horsewhip.
McIntire is spot on as the aging ex-lawman and Peppard's pal and business partner. Their relationship is a highlight.
Also of interest is the byplay between Martin and Peppard. They quickly size each other up as potent threats, but also recognizing that in another day and time they might well have been friends.
---
All three of these films are worthwhile for genre fans, with The Halliday Brand being the most flawed but also the most interesting in some ways.

Your Sunday tune

Springsteen from back when we were both young.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Words

OK, it's not the NY Times Review of Books, but the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly (cast members of Twilight on the cover) has a couple of groovy pieces. Check out "The B Movie King," a look at Roger Corman's fabulous career. Also, there's a swell column from Stephen King. The author offers his ultimate music tape mix and there are some beauties on his list, including a few by favorites of mine like James McMurtry, Richard Thompson and Rodney Crowell.
That stuff may be available at the mag's web site. If not, buy it.

My Sunday column

I've had much better weeks but was fortunate on Saturday morning to have a massive dose of perspective smack me right in the snoot.
My daughter's pre-school teacher encouraged Rowan to come to the annual Veterans Day parade in downtown Dalton. We staked out a good spot near the county courthouse and I was pleased to see a pretty good turnout -- though still far smaller than the event deserves.
The parade was outstanding in a Mayberrian way. The Northwest, Southeast and Dalton High bands performed (thanks guys!) and added a lot to to the show. There were pretty girls and clowns and church floats and lots of smiling kids. The Shriners, God bless 'em, were out in full force with their motorcycles, trick riding vehicles and classy classics. (Eldorado convertibles!). The Shriners made such a big impact, it was easy to forget for a moment that they are the foot soldiers in a vast international Freemason conspiracy to conquer the world.
Also on hand, probably assigned by the Vatican to keep an eye on the Freemasons, were the Knights of Columbus, who made up for their lack of numbers with sartorial splendor, including at least one stylish purple plumed hat.
And then there were the vets, both a small group of active soldiers back home after being wounded overseas. They were the stars of this show, greeted warmly at every appearance. Looking at them, knowing something about what they have sacrificed and have been through hit home.
My daughter waved her little U.S. flag and almost every veteran who saw her smiled and waved back at her. Daddy loved it even more than she did.
Our veteran veterans, soldiers who have toiled in other wars, made their appearances and once again the crowd tried to let them know how much they were appreciated.
Of course there isn't enough we can do to repay any of these warriors. But for a few sunshine-bathed minutes on perfect Saturday afternoon some good and decent people in Dalton tried to pay a little of its overdue debt.

Monday, November 9, 2009

The jihad

Brave men lop the head off a school teacher. All in the name of religion.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

My Sunday column

I graduated from Chattooga High School in 1980. It was a good school and to this day several of my closest friends are my former classmates.
That’s why the story I read this week had me shaking my head.
It seems the new principal, an ex-military, by-the-book type engineered one of the lamer stunts I’ve seen in recent years.
The principal, with the support of his superintendent, personally lopped four pages out of the schools yearbook because of pictures he found offensive.
So what were the students doing in those controversial photos? Drinking brown liquor? Bagging dope? Robbing a Kangaroo?
Hardly.
Mostly they were just acting like doofus teenage boys — playing basketball, mugging for the camera.
Maybe it was the fact that many of the boys were shirtless in the pictures that drove the powers-that-be into a scissors-slashing frenzy, but I’ve got news for them. That’s what boys do when they play ball.
Were they really good pictures?
Not really.
Were they artsy and classy?
Not so much.
Were they enough to justify an overly sensitive bureaucrat taking a blade to a $50 yearbook that was already paid for?
Evidently.
The publication’s contents had been OK’d by the yearbook adviser, since retired, who had been overseeing the yearbook for the better part of three decades.
He was OK with the photos and is angry that the book he and his students worked long and hard on was defaced by the current group of educational apparatchiks running the gulag school system.
(Note: For the record, the yearbook adviser is a former teacher and an old friend of mine. I have not talked to him about this story.)
This story reminds me of a few of my own scrapes in the halls of ol’ CHS.
We had a librarian who would take a pair of scissors to the annual Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. She chopped out the offending bodies of all the young ladies who dared to bare on the creamy white pages of America’s most popular sports weekly.
The weird thing is she wouldn’t just remove the entire pages or just pull the issue entirely, she would painstakingly cut out the offending photos, leaving us to grandly imagine what tawdry images they must have been.
This is the same librarian who later accused me of running a bookie service out of the library. I got sent to the office on that one, but assistant principal Fred Toney — yes, that Fred Toney, the former Southeast basketball coach and Phoenix High principal — laughed off the accusation.
Coach Toney wasn’t so jovial my senior year when I violated a rule that apparently the bosses took a lot more seriously than I realized.
Only a few weeks from graduation — after an embarrassingly incident-free four years of education — I was caught by “Coach” in the hallways ... AFTER THE BELL!!!
Apparently this was considered an act of anarchy by the higher-ups. Later, in the office, I was told to assume the position.
Now don’t get me wrong. I really liked and respected Fred Toney but something about that situation didn’t sit right.
OK, I was in the hall AFTER THE BELL!!!!! by about five minutes and for this — at age 17 — I was supposed to let a grown man whack me in the posterior with a wooden board.
Nope.
Not gonna happen.
After I declined to bend and grin, I was told that I would submit to the punishment or I would be going home on suspension.
“OK, I’ll go home.”
Coach Toney was not happy and loudly made it clear to me how unhappy he was. I still declined to be paddled.
That’s when the coach did a very smart thing. He sat me down and gave me a speech — emphasizing how personally disappointed he was in my behavior. It was brutal.
That speech was a heck of a lot worse punishment than a paddling would have been, and I left the office a chastened young man. (I also had to pick up trash after school for the next three days.)
It’s amazing the results that reason and respect — two-way respect — can have on a young person.
Better even than a pair of scissors.

Jimmy Espy is executive editor of North Georgia Newspaper Group. Also, you can visit him at Espysoutpost.blogspot.com
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MMA

The Big Russki delivers.

Friday, November 6, 2009

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Buffett

Warren B. adds trains to his toy chest.

Beer

Is the good stuff getting even better? Stronger beer OK'd in more states.

Honduras

He ain't happy, he's your Big Brother.

NFL

Blast a receiver, go to the Pro Bowl, blast a defensive back and you are the dirtiest player in the NFL. Just ask Hines Ward.

Monday, November 2, 2009