Marietta: The Big Chick-Chick

Jaylan Brown and I do not have a lot in common.  He is a very talented professional basketball player, which means he is a lot younger, taller, and richer than I am

However, we are both graduates of Wheeler High School, blessed be thy name.

There is something else.

Earlier this year, somebody made a video about Mr. Brown, and it exposed something else we have in common.

We both survived the mean streets of Marietta, Georgia.

The video's narrator said this:  “Jaylen Brown grew up in Marietta, Georgia, considered one of the most dangerous and unsafe cities in the world. The chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime in Marietta is one in 28, and the area has a crime rate that is higher than 77% of the state’s  cities and towns of all sizes.”

Marietta, aka "The Big Chick-Chick", aka "The M", aka "Mayberryetta" aka "Mayretta", aka "Mare-etter,"  is a hard, bitter place.

It is a place where the workers at Chick-fil-A never say, "My pleasure."

It is a place where Burger King doesn't care if you want it your way because you will get it the king's way and you will like it.

It is a place where mothers took their young impressionable sons to witness a special appearance of Jayne Mansfield (who Jack Parr once introduced as "Now, here they are, Jayne Mansfield") at the Grand Opening of a Thrift City.  One mother (mine) reported that she was drunk. Jayne Mansfield, not my mom.

Yes, I am OG (Old Guy) Mariettan.  Back in "the day", Marietta would have young boys riding on bicycles with banana seats in tenement housing known as "Beverly Hills," popping wheelies and seeing who could spit the furthest.

Teenagers would join gangs called "youth groups"  that met in local churches, and they would go to church on Sunday morning and Sunday evening.  Some of these youth groups had "youth choirs" and would break out into song, sometimes on key.

Marietta is located in Cobb County, the only county in Georgia named after a salad. Other towns in Cobb County are Smyrna (pronounced "Smir-nah"), Kennesaw (pronounced "Kenny-saw"), Mableton (pronounced "MaybaTON"), and Acworth (pronounced "Ack-wert").

On top of the video comes an article written by Rodney Ho of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about Brett Butler, not the baseball player.

Brett Butler, not the baseball player, is a comedian that I went to high school with, although that is a misnomer.  We went to the same school, but were only in the same building together for one year- my seventh and her ninth-grade year.  It gets a little complicated, but her class went to school in the morning while mine went to school in the afternoon in a glorious experiment called "split sessions".

Brett somehow became a hilarious stand-up comedian and eventually had her own situation comedy called "Grace Under Fire".  I'm sure the TV people saw her as a pretty Chicken-fried Roseanne.

To make a long story short, Brett has hit hard times, and friends have started a GoFundMe page to help raise $15K to help her avoid eviction.

What caught my eye was Ho quoted from a 2003 interview with Butler in which she said,  “Marietta reaped none of the cultural benefits of Atlanta. I didn’t like it. I couldn’t wait to leave.”

Two things:  1) I'm sorry Marietta didn't live up to Brett's high cultural standards, and 2)  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution loves to poop on Marietta, particularly after the Braves moved to Cumberland Mall.

I wish Brett Butler (not the baseball player) the best.  I hope she makes a comeback and reconsiders her hometown.

Despite all of this negative publicity about Marietta, I'm happy to say people are still moving here.  We have several Starbucks, The West Cobb Diner, and three Chick-fil-A restaurants within a three-mile radius of my house.

On top of that, we haven't seen Elvis in a year or two.

Father's Day

 

 This is dedicated to all my fellow Dads out there

The Dads that mow the yard every week.

The Dads that sat  (or slept through) all of the movies aimed at getting a dad and his kids to the movies to spend twenty dollars on snacks. In mu case, it was "The Pikachu Movie". It was my most expensive movie ever.

The Dads who taught their kids to respect their mother

The Dads who taught their boys to respect girls

The Dads who taught their girls to respect boys.

The Dads who taught their kids to succeed.

The Dads who taught their kids how to deal with failure.

The Dads who are honest with their kids

The Dads who went to church with their kids.

The Dads who taught Sunday School with their kids.

The Dads who went to church camp with their kids.

The Dads who keep up with their children's schedule. These are the Dads who take their kids to the million and one activities kids have to day. 

The Dads who coach sports.

The Dads who teach their kids how to do things with their hands.

The Dads who teach their kids some manners.

The Dads who teach their kids to show some respect.

The Dads who are not afraid to tell their kids that they disagree with them.

The Dads who understand that nobody how cool you think you are, you are really not that cool.

The Dads who get along with their In-Laws.

The Dads that understand their place in their wife's world.  It is:  Children, then her Parents, then the dog or cat or both, her siblings, then her friends, then her husband.

The Dads who know where the true power lies in the house. It is with Mom.  It is part of the trade you made so you can hold the remote control.

The Dads who know how to tell a joke.

The Dads who know how to take a joke.

The Dads who try to control their temper.

The Dads who teach their kids one valuable lesson:  90% of success in life is just showing up.

The Dads who teach their kids that even a stopped watch is right twice a day.  

The Dads who teach their kid how to throw a curve ball. 

The Dads who understand only  a couple of  the "Star Wars" movies are any good.

The Dads who keep New Balance in business. Or like me, they now keep Skechers in business.

The Dads that taught their kids to drive. Lord knows I couldn't.

 

 

.

Oh, Atlanta

 

"Oh, Atlanta. I hear you calling"

 

Is it just me, or is Atlanta becoming a bit of a drag?

Neal Boortz used to say, "Atlanta is a pearl in a sea of grits".  While the rest of the Deep South was fighting newfangled ideas like air-conditioning, Atlanta ran headfirst into Modern Times!  "Yes, all men are created equal! Don't put your company in Birmingham, put it in Atlanta! We have a snazzy airport! We have a swinging nightlife in Buckhead (don't ask where Buckhead is-just drive around and you'll find it).  We love money!"

They brought their money to Atlanta. They brought their families, too, all from the North.

I was in eighth grade when they escorted Lynn into our class. They said she was from Massachusetts.  Her last name ended in a vowel.  We had seen people from Massachusetts on TV, of course.  But here was a real live kid from Massachusetts sitting in one of our desks at East Cobb Junior High School, Henry Nettles, Principal.  

There was a whole mess of them that year. Kids from Indiana. Kids from Ohio. Kids from Illinois. Kids from Minnesota.

They all, generally, said the same thing.  Everything sucks down here, and everything was better where they were from.

But they all stayed. Soon, even more, moved to Atlanta, and it has created this large metropolitan area that's only known for having Real Housewives.

We have more people here than we can handle.  I wish someone would get on TV and say, "If you thinking about moving to Atlanta. Don't. We're full.  We don't need another person coming down here telling us how better it was up there.  We don't care that you can't get a good pizza slice at 3:00 in the morning. You should be in bed. Gah."

All of these people cause the number one problem in the Atlanta area: traffic.

I can't describe the traffic in Atlanta except to say you will have, at minimum, one near-death experience a week.

Drivers in Atlanta take it as an insult that you might get to your destination before they do.  Therefore, speed limits and traffic lights are mere suggestions.

Add to this a new season of Hell in Atlanta called "Street Racing".

There's a group of young people that thinks the  "Fast And Furious" movies are documentaries. They block off whatever street they can find and do all sorts of car shenanigans like drag racing and donuts (where the car makes a circle and the driver says "wooooooooo" very loud.)

Supposedly, Atlanta is going to wag a stern finger at the racers and maybe send a nicely worded letter to their mothers.  

But, Atlanta has another big problem: Crime.  You can't go a day without hearing a report about somebody getting shot in Atlanta.  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution just two days ago reported that homicides are up 58 percent in 2021 over this time last year. 

WXIA-TV reports that "The victims are overwhelmingly in the 18 to 32 age group, with more than 50 percent of shootings victims falling in that age range".   

Stating the leadership in Atlanta has been AWOL is a nice way of putting it.  The current mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, who appeared to the pretty popular, has decided against running for re-election so she can take a job at Wal-Mart or Walgreens or something.  Waiting in the wings Ta-Da: Kasim Reed.

Having Kasim Reed announce he was running for mayor was greeted with the same enthusiasm as if Jeb Bush announced he was running for President again..  Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

Kasim Reed was not the most ethically challenged mayor in Atlanta history. That belongs to Mayor Bill Campbell, who single handily turned downtown Atlanta into Gatlinburg for the Olympics.  But, Mayor Reed was up there.

There were a lot of issues involving city contracts and finances. Plus, there was a little thing about using the police to clear a path for him going to a speech like he was the King of Georgia.

I'm not sure if Reed has any plans to address traffic, street, or crime.  I'm not sure there's anything he could do.

It would be nice if he tried.

Three Topics

 

 

 Gather around kids and let Uncle Alan discuss three topics because none of them can carry a blog post by itself.

Topic One:  The Lab Leak

Remember when our recent unpleasantness started?  There was a lot of talk about the origin of the virus.  The most popular view was the source was a “Wet Market” in Wuhan, China, that sold bats and pangolins.  

(I am a college graduate, plus I watched “Mutual Of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom as a kid and had never heard of pangolins until last year.)

The theory was this virus was from these animals and made an animal to human transfer.  To think otherwise made you a racist.

U.S. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas (I’m pretty sure they have bats in Arkansas, not sure about the pangolins) offered up a theory that it came out of a lab the Chinese government had in Wuhan, that (talk about coincidence) work with viruses.

Cotton had two problems.

 
One, he was a Republican.  Two, he has a Southern accent.  (That I know they have in Arkansas).  Therefore, anything he said could not be correct, but it also had to be evil.

Our ever-diligent new media started saying that this is saying “the people of China” created Covid. This would cause the great unwashed (white Republican southerners) to do mean, ugly things to people with an Asian background.

Well, here we are sometime after, and our news media is saying, “Wait, you know that theory that Covid could have come from a lab leak?  Well, that may be true after all?  I mean, who would have thunk it?”

Even Dr. Fauci, hallowed be his name, has conceded Covid could have come from a lab leak.

I’m not sure why it took us so long to get here.  We’ll find out one of these days. Maybe.  Don’t count on it.

Topic Two:  Ellie Kemper

 

When I saw Ellie Kemper was trending on Twitter, I first said, “Who is Ellie Kemper?”  Then I remembered that she played Erin on “The Office,” and they kept trying to hook her up with that dreadful Ed Helms.

Twenty years ago, Kemper won a beauty contest held at an organization that had some uncomfortable history.  Somehow, and I was lost on how, Kemper was responsible for this history.  
 
One thing that was good about this story is that I learned more about Ellie Kemper.
 
Until last week, I thought Kemper was a cute All American girl type that was the ninth banana on a show that ended eight years ago.  To be fair to Kemper, she did star in a Netflix show, but I don’t know anybody who has seen it.

The important thing about Kemper is her last name: Kemper.  Her family is one of the wealthiest families in Missouri that doesn’t own a Clydesdale.  She graduated from Princeton and was a working actress in New York for years. Not precisely a breeding ground for Alt-Right sugar mamas.

Fortunately, the story petered out before it could ruin Kemper’s career.

Topic Three:  He’s BAAAACK

I thought Hillary Clinton was one of the worst losers I had ever seen in my life. But I have to hand it to Donald Trump. He makes Clinton look gracious.

Trump has spent a considerable amount of time fighting his loss to President Biden.  The problem is it is way too much, way too late.

I thought all of his big baby pouting ended on January 6, 2021, when his trousered apes attacked the Capitol.

Most people would have hidden in shame.  However, you don’t marry a super-model that is much younger than you and then carry on with a porn star if you are capable of shame.

This week brought news from Mar-a-Largo that Trump is telling people he expects to be “reinstated” as President in August.

How this happens, he hasn’t explained. There is no “do-over” clause in the Constitution. There is no “reinstatement" clause.

If you remember, back in March Trump was "supposed" to be "reinstated" as President. When it doesn't happen in August, I guess he'll announce he'll be reinstated for Christmas.
 
Since the election, there has been a lot of dumb stuff coming from Trump.    This is the dumbest.