Mah Boy, Mah Boy

I always think of GIRL HAPPY on Elvis's birthday. In the film, he plays Rusty Wells, a lounge singer who tricks the club owner to let his band head down to Ft. Lauderdale during spring break to keep tabs/fall in love/get slapped in the face on/with/by Shelley Fabares, who starred in three Elvis films. Bill Bixby appeared in two, but this is a tale for another century. See, I like it because the beginning of the film, before the opening song, zooms in on a blonde's butt, the announcer stating this was Ft. L, and giving the chick's mesaurements, and taking his damn good time about it as the cameraman/stalker keeps getting a closer shot. Then it cuts to snowy Chicago, and we see a dame going into a club with the Rusty Wells marquee, again the announcer reminds us of where we are, rubbing salt in the wound by having fake snow falling, mentioning that the doll that just went through the doors had the same measurements as the babe in Floridsa, then he adds "but...how can you tell?" And cue the Elvis song before I want to punch the TV out on general principals. Of all the crappy--that is, any that were not filmed in B&W--Elvis films, this really is the most fun. But enough of that. Its never bikini weather here on Elvis's birthday.

Bob knows all about Jimmy Ellis and his sad end, gunned down in a store he and his wife owned in later years. Trent Carlini, who came out of the Midwest to end up in Las Vegas, doing what is arguably the best version of the King circa 1973 running. Ral Donner never performed as Elvis, but he sure could have, he had the 50s thing going. He was content to not try and rip the guy off, and when the David Wolper documentary THIS IS ELVIS was filmed in 1980, Ral provided the voice-over of young Elvis, Johnny Harrah the older, bloated Elvis. Ral was also from the Southwest side of Chicago, having gone to Quigley South HS, not far from my old home. Sadly, he died of cancer in, I think, 1984. He was in his mid-40s. Then there's Rick Saucedo, who I used to see at the old Field's Restaurant in Oak Lawn when I worked with the Elvis band. Saucedo was one of a handful impersonators who performed regularly while Elvis was still alive, and he put on a pretty big show. Gigs aren't what they used to be, and so when I've seen him perform now, its at the Polish church over on State Road. I spent the day posting some of my favorite songs from YouTube over on Facebook. I also posted the photo of me with the bottle of Elvis Sweat, or so I would want everyone to believe.

Every Man Has A Flaming Cow

I should have posted this photo last night, straight across the street is where Dave stood, but not this day. Back in the day, we had painted cows all over the place. Then other cities did strange things like put painted bunnies and ducks around their own streets. The best variation of the theme I saw in Omaha: someone would paint a bus stop bench and a poet would add words only after the art was completed. Kind of like my man in the moon poem. At one point I had photos of several cows that had been scattered across downtown, and even in upper floors of certain buildings. Moo Are Here. A cow jumping over a moon, one with a transit map painted in exquisite detail on it. This is the only one I've saved. And it was the only cow that was stolen. It has been a hellish day, folks. One of those deep dive days that I get from my bipolar meds. I'll be better tomorrow and I'd rather be like this now than to be hallucinating about suicide windows for three days straight. Been filling out online forms for filing for SS/Disability. There should be a YouTube of my screaming at the computer screen because of the quirks of each particular section. Can I not just TYPE my state initials instead of typing IL and having it change to LA because you are supposed to SCROLL to find your state. Its two fucking letters, people. Like typing BTW for "by the way." C'mon now. Anyhow. This cow has helped me through bad days in the past, physical, mental, electromagnetic, gravitational, you name it. Wayne's Unified Theory of Bipolar Conductivity. Elvis once starred in a film called FLAMING STAR, and the title held a meaning, one of...doom! And so I will sometimes see the photo of the cow or think of it and sing (usually loud enough to frighten my border collie) Everyman has a flaming cow, a flaming cow over his shoulder, and ever man who sees that flaming cow, he knows his time, his time has come... and that's my anecdote for the night. Thanks for visiting the asylum. Leave the rubber mallets where you found them and the invisible night shift will take care of things....Your chattel, Wayne

Elvis Has Left The Planet, Thank You And Good Night!

"Elvis has left the building!" is a phrase that was often used by public address announcers following Elvis Presley concerts to disperse audiences who lingered in hopes of an Elvis encore.

Al Dvorkin, the guy who always announced that line, was killed in a car accident a few years back. Sixteen years ago at this very minute, I was at Graceland, holding a candle on Elvis Death Day. For four hours. Yes. As the crowds walked the entire length of the driveway, past the house, stopping by the graves, and then walking back out the other way. The entire time Elvis gospel music playing from speakers in trees lit by teal spotlights from beneath. But I'm not going to dwell on that. Fours hours! (NSA Note: It was actually three hours and forty-seven minutes--Donald Rumsfeld) No, I'm going to mention the WOW! Signal, so called because the guy who saw the printout of possible radio waves from another planet wrote WOW! in the margin. I'd just mangle the facts, so I'm cut & pasting the article from Wikipedia:

Wow! signal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

The WOW! Signal
Credit: The Ohio State University Radio Observatory and the North American AstroPhysical Observatory (NAAPO).The Wow! signal was a strong, narrowband radio signal detected by Dr. Jerry R. Ehman on August 15, 1977, while working on a SETI project at the Big Ear radio telescope of the Ohio State University. The signal bore expected hallmarks of potential non-terrestrial and non-solar system origin. It lasted for 72 seconds, the full duration Big Ear observed it, but has not been detected again. It has been the focus of attention in the mainstream media when talking about SETI results.

Amazed at how closely the signal matched the expected signature of an interstellar signal in the antenna used, Ehman circled the signal on the computer printout and wrote the comment "Wow!" on its side. This comment became the name of the signal.

Contents [hide]
1 Technical details
2 Searches for recurrence of the signal
3 Speculations on the origin
4 Location of the signal
5 See also
6 References
7 External links



[edit] Technical details
Wow! signal

The Wow! signal received in 1977. The signal bore expected hallmarks of potential non-terrestrial and non-solar system origin.

Problems playing the files? See media help.
The circled letter code 6EQUJ5 describes the intensity variation of the signal. A space denotes an intensity between 0 and 0.999.., the numbers 1-9 denote the correspondingly numbered intensities (from 1.000 to 9.999...), and intensities of 10.0 and above are denoted by a letter ('A' corresponds to intensities between 10.0 and 10.999..., 'B' to 11.0 to 11.999..., etc). The value 'U' (an intensity between 30.0 and 30.999...) was the highest ever detected by the telescope. The intensity in this case is the unitless signal-to-noise ratio, where noise was averaged for that band over the previous few minutes. [1]

The bandwidth of the signal is less than 10 kHz (each column on the printout corresponds to a 10 kHz-wide channel; the signal is only present in one column). Two different values for its frequency have been given: 1420.356 MHz (J. D. Kraus) and 1420.456 MHz (J. R. Ehman), both at 50 kHz of the frequency of the hydrogen line, which is at 1420.406 MHz. Two possible equatorial coordinates are given:

R.A. = 19h22m22s ± 5s
R.A. = 19h25m12s ± 5s
Both coordinates give dec. = -27°03´ ± 20´ (epoch B1950.0).[2]

The Big Ear telescope was fixed and used the rotation of the Earth to scan the sky. At the speed of the earth's rotation, and given the width of the Big Ear's observation "window", the Big Ear could observe any given point for just 72 seconds. An extraterrestrial signal, therefore, would be expected to register for exactly 72 seconds, and the recorded intensity of that signal would show a gradual peaking for the first 36 seconds -- until the signal reached the center of Big Ear's observation "window" -- at which time it would show a gradual decrease.

Therefore, both the length of the Wow! signal, 72 seconds, and its shape would correspond to a possible extraterrestrial origin.[3]


[edit] Searches for recurrence of the signal
The Big Ear telescope used two feed horns to search for signals, each pointing to a slightly different direction in the sky following Earth's rotation; the Wow! signal was detected in one of the horns but not in the other, although the data was processed in such a way that it is impossible to determine in which of the two horns the signal entered. In any case, the signal was expected to appear a mere three minutes apart in each of the horns, but this did not happen.[3] Ehman unsuccessfully looked for recurrences of the signal using Big Ear in the month after the detection.[4]

In 1987 and 1989, Robert Gray searched for the event using the META array at Oak Ridge Observatory, but did not re-detect it.[4]

In 1995 and 1996, Gray also searched for the signal using the Very Large Array, which is significantly more powerful than Big Ear.[4]

Gray and Dr. Simon Ellingsen later searched for recurrences of the event in 1999 using the University of Tasmania's Hobart 26m radio telescope.[5] Six 14-hour observations were made at positions in the vicinity, but did not detect anything similar to the Wow signal.[3]


[edit] Speculations on the origin
It has been speculated that interstellar scintillation of a weaker continuous signal — similar, in effect, to atmospheric twinkling—could be a possible explanation, although this still would not exclude the possibility of the signal being artificial in its nature. However, even by using the significantly more sensitive Very Large Array, such a signal could not be detected, and the probability that a signal below the Very Large Array level could be detected by the Big Ear radio telescope due to interstellar scintillation is low.[4] Other speculations include a rotating lighthouse-like source, a signal sweeping in frequency, or a one time burst.

Ehman has stated his doubts that the signal is of intelligent extraterrestrial origin: "We should have seen it again when we looked for it 50 times. Something suggests it was an Earth-sourced signal that simply got reflected off a piece of space debris."[6]

He later recanted his skepticism somewhat after further research scientifically relegated an Earth-bound signal to be astronomically unlikely, due to the requirements of a space-borne reflector being bound to certain unrealistic requirements to sufficiently explain the nature of the signal. Also, the 1420 MHz signal is problematic in itself in that it is "protected spectrum" or bandwidth in which terrestrial transmitters are forbidden to transmit.[7][8] In his most recent writings, Ehman resists "drawing vast conclusions from half-vast data."


[edit] Location of the signal
The location of the signal in celestial coordinates was, at (epoch J2000.0)

Right Ascension (On the positive horn): 19h25m31s ± 10s

Right Ascension (On the negative horn): 19h28m22s ± 10s

Declination (Is the same for both horns): -26d57m ± 20m

This region of the sky lies in the constellation Sagittarius, roughly 2.5 degrees south of the fifth-magnitude star Chi-1 Sagittarii.


[edit] See also
Quasar CTA 102, believed by Dr. Nikolai S. Kardashev to have an alien signal encoded in it.
LGM-1

[edit] References
^ Ehman, Jerry. "Explanation of the Code "6EQUJ5" On the Wow! Computer Printout". Retrieved on 2006-06-12.
^ Gray, Robert; Kevin Marvel (2001). "A VLA Search for the Ohio State 'Wow'" ([dead link]). Astrophys. J. 546: 1171–1177. doi:10.1086/318272.
^ a b c Shostak, Seth (2002-12-05). "Interstellar Signal From the 70s Continues to Puzzle Researchers", Space.com.
^ a b c d Alexander, Amir (2001-01-17). "The 'Wow!' Signal Still Eludes Detection", The Planetary Society.
^ Gray, Robert (2002). "A Search for Periodic Emissions at the Wow Locale" (abstract). Astrophys. J. 578: 967–971. doi:10.1086/342646.
^ Kawa, Barry (1994-09-18). "The Wow! signal", Cleveland Plain Dealer. Retrieved on 2006-06-12.
^ "Frequencies Allocated to Radio Astronomy Used by the DSN", NASA.
^ Committee on Radio Astronomy Frequencies Handbook for Radio Astronomy, European Science Foundation, 3rd edition, 2005, p. 101.

Well, as most of us know, some people out there think Elvis faked his death. Case in point, his opening theme at concerts was "Also Spake Zarathustra, heme from 2001: A Space Odyssey." He died on 8/16/1977 and if you do the math, 8+16+1977=2001. Of course, this proves he must have been the guy at the Qwik-Mart selling me Ray-O-Vac batteries earlier this week.

I know the real thing, and it wasn't the 2001 part it was the Space part of the theme. The Wow! Signal occurred on August 15th, 1977. Elvis's girlfriend, Ginger Alden, didn't find Elvis in the bathroom until long after he'd been dead. My theory: at some point the day before he was discovered ass up in rigor mortis (I"ve since used the term Elvis Mortis in a story), I think that the alien consiousness that had inhabited Elvis's body fled down the Graceland toilet for Tau Ceti or Wolf 359. The Wow! Signal has never been deciphered, but I'll bet in some language like Skrull, or Kryptonian, it was the final chorus of "I Can't Help Falling In Love With You..." And that's my story, and I'm sticking to it....Wayne

The Exquisite Morality of A Goat In Spring

I wish somebody could write cover copy like that for me. I wish I could write cover copy like that for me. I'll tell you one thing, that line about the goat in spring was probably the selling point in this goofy book being made into an Elvis film. (Look it up, I'll wait). Spring reading lists, now that its warm enough to sit at the bus stops, get skin cancer on my head as I skim through yellowed pages of the original pulp fiction. I love the author names. Vargo Statten? Sounds like a superhero in guarding Lithuania. One guy I don't have a scan for is Speed Lampkin. Now that, my friends, is a name. Just as STAY AWAY, JOE has the exquisite morality of a goat in spring. And, on the cover of James Kisner's STRANDS, the late J. N. Williamson (yep, the guy who put me in NOONSPELL) wrote "This is a horror novel...written to be read." Hey, whatever sells the book, right?...Wayne

Butcher's Raindance

I cannot start a story without knowing the title. I'll admit that. I can write little stream of consciousness passages, but I'm distracted with not knowing the title. I've always been this way, to the point that I write titles down in my commonplace book (the late Karl Edward Wagner's term for his notebook). Sometimes a title just falls into my lap. At the plant a few weeks ago, I was putting on my long underwear in ther supply closet and was eye level with certain cleaning products for the first time. What do I see but the title above, a product for mopping the floors. What will "Butcher's Raindance" eventually become, who knows? Over this past weekend, thinking that if I read a PK Dick book I could fend off my bipolar demons, I yanked FLOW MY TEARS, THE POLICEMAN SAID off the shelf and one of my old business cards circa 1993 fell out. I wonder why I never followed up on writing "The Brides of Science", scrawled there on the card? It must've been a brainstorm for me to write it on the card, right? My favorite story titles that I specifically shaped the story around, not even knowing the subject matter, would be "Fiends By Torchlight" and "Bumpy Face," the latter of which sat in my head for three years. Bumpy Face was slang for a cheap bottle of beveled glass hooch back in the day, but I could never get around what the hell BF would represent in MY world view. Stories with titles where I knew how they would fall out are "High Moon"--the closest I'll come to writing a western--and "Elviscera" from THE KING IS DEAD: TALES OF ELVIS POST-MORTEM. Man, it always comes back to him, huh? Dozens of zombie books, only one dead Elvis book, and there I am. Along with Joe R. Lansdale's BUBBA HO-TEP, mind you. And that story, along with my own "Rapid Transit," was translated into Danish in HIMON ANATOMIA, God help the Danes. Titles I never used, "Gift of The Elvi," about a husband and wife (who had facial hair) facing the same struggles tas the couple in the O. Henry story, and "Elvis's Ladder," in which, just like Tim Robbin's having to take that first step up the ladder to make all those crazy hallucinations (AKA scenes from MY EVERYDAY LIFE) go away, I intended to have Elvis run through his life with Red & Sonny West, the Col., Charlie Hodge (the guy who brought his water and his scarves), drummer Roddy Tutt, and his dead brother Jesse Garon, until that tiny turd plopped into the bowl and he fell forward on his face that August afternoon in 1977, leaving the building one final time, thank you and good night.

Not Quite Midnight...

at the old printing plant in woods by the Cal Sag Channel. But I'm still somewhat fascinated by the randomness of Google Images. I did become specific this time, typing in the words "space elvis," if only because I want to one day start a sentence that reads: "Back when I was working with the Space Elvis band...". Steve posted from sunny NZ that the Google Imaging is as addictive as Mindsweeper or YouTube. Well, regarding the first, as with any game that requires hand-eye coordination, I just go holy batshit on it and I ended up clearing the screen in three seconds, something I'm certain is not possible to top, except perhaps by Bobby the Mitch...I'd actually be writing fiction if it wasn't for the machinery and the cold air and the smell of ink and three types of drunken bachelor ass...Wayne

Bobby The Mitch Came Calling

I spent the weekend staring at what I had bought. FLYFusion from Fly World. Then I downloaded it. Because Robert Mitchum came to me in a dream and tormented me. I will be able to hand print on a pad and have it show up on my screen. Sure, I can do the same thing with my scanner, I actually have a folder titled "Notebook," but this gadget might help me assimilate to the scrollboard version that converts the handwriting to typewritten text. Mitch showed up in my dream much like he did as described in my story "Mitch," in FIENDS BY TORCHLIGHT as well as in the form of a podcast on the TwilightTales website. I'm not entirely certain, but he might have even come to me in a NyQuil and vanilla ice cream vision and had me creat the Bobby The Mitch blog you can link to off to the left. I still haven't tried to use it yet, perhaps tomorrow. Maybe tonight, John Agar or Elvis will come kick my ass, with Karl Edward Wagner humiliating me by saying that even a Viking like himself would try it out...Wayne

He's Your Uncle, Not Your Dad

An obscure reference, to be certain. The name of an Elvis song from the film SPEEDWAY. He was talking about Uncle Sam because, thanks to his accountant Bill Bixby, his race car driving character owed the IRS quite a bit of cabbage. Last night, during that hideous day/night/almost day again at work, this young kid Robert, a HS senior working part-time, wanted me to show him how to use the computer (he wasn't certain if he could while that massive job was running.) He went to the website that showed how you could apply for the Selective Service online, and he told me his teacher had mentioned how everyone his age would need to register or face five year imprisonment. And there it was on the screen. I don't recall the teachers scaring the hell out of us in high school, although I also don't recall us planning to invade any country back in 1977. There's no oil in Zaire, I recall a big war going on at that time. I'm usually not political in conversation or in my writing, but I'm really getting sick of this country and what it is turning into. I can see how easy it would be for someone to go Sirhan Sirhan on George W. Bush (and screw you, Echelon satellite and Patriot Act), I always used to wonder what made one guy so angry and Robert Kennedy or President McKinley, now I know. Deep down, the way a serial killer knows. Its a matter of restraint. Well, I've gone off and ranted a bit. Back in the early 90s, I worked at a comics shop. Archer Avenue had a mix of Polish and Bosnian families, the Mexicans not moving here until earlier this century. One of the regular customers was very patriotic--as so many of us were on 9/12 and 9/13 and maybe a while after that--and he went back to Bosnia and fought in that war. This was in 1992, his parents came in and bought his comics, then mailed them overseas. One day in August, they both came up to me, very solemn. He had died. At that time, that is all they knew, and I never saw them again. I felt very melancholy restocking the shelves with the X-MEN and SPIDER-MAN comics I had kept in his subscription bin. We fight and fight, but all of us will live and die in the same place, on this planet, the one we are destroying every minute of the day. Wayne

The WOW! Signal's 30th Anniverary

Well, not until the 15th. Just getting a jump on things. Trying to describe the event makes my head hurt--it involves megaHertz and hydrogen atoms and all KINDS of scientific nutiness that makes the wikipedia entry I came across on The Copenhagen Technique For Quantum Suicide read like a Stewart Sternberg blog entry. Simply put, the only evidence of an extraterrestrial transmission coming from space occurred on the 15th of August, 1977. The guy volunteering watching the readings in the wee hours over dere at Big Ear in Ohio wrote WOW! in the proper area and that was that. The transmission lasted for 72 seconds, as expected because of the way the Big Ear heard the sky, or what-freaking-ever, my head hurts trying to describe anything related to this. The signal originated near Chi-1 Sagitarii, towards the galactic center of our galaxy. (Note: the area where the Big Ear station once stood was demolished to make room for a golf course.) What I find interesting is that, just a few hundred miles south of Big Ear and within a few hours of the WOW event, Elvis Presley died. Or could it be that he was simply called back home? For all those who do not think Elvis originated in space, I offer you the article about Caveman Elvis. You decide.

Lightning Burgers On Mars With Uncle Jr.

Even though I am not getting many comments on the *sigh* continued Elvis posts overall, I have yet to run out of twists and turns. This thread was not started because of the CD I received in the mail, its because next Thursday is Death Day. I may not post every day, but some things need to be put out into cyberspace, if only for those bored enough to do the One Blog Over thing to have their minds blown away by my All Things Elvis mind. Many mourn the recent passing of Weekly World News, but my favorite was always The Sun, which gave us headlines like "Elvis Lamp Sings Burning Love" and the one I've posted here. A curiosity: John Wayne his ownself--well, the ghost of his ownself--pops up here, too, and, the day he died of cancer, well, it was one of the nights I was working with the Elvis band. Lightning Burgers stood just across the street from Graceland. One who has never been there might assume that Elvis's gated mansion was on some cul-de-sac in some Willy Wonka area of Memphis, but it was a fairly simple house--never mind the interior color schemes--on land that was no bigger than some of the homes with horse stables down in Shelbyville. And the fact that the burger joint was across the street even when Elvis was alive and didn't suddenly start selling King Burgers, well, that's like Col. Saunders (CEO of KFC) and his wife running their restaurant a few blocks away from where my Uncle Jr. and Auntie Emma lived before the move to Finchville. That's Jr. up top, showing off staples after having a tumor removed, I figure I really don't see another segue coming along which would allow me to post this 1990 photo. Can't say I don't try hard to make these posts come full circle...Wayne

No, Ma'am, That's Embalming Fluid

First: Yes, Bob, Ral Donner's "The Girl Of My Best Friend" did indeed chart. I wish I could hear either Donner or Ellis on a cover of "(Marie's The Name) Of His Latest Flame." An odd set of images tonight, gang. The joke of course being that, towards the end, it wasn't sweat on Elvis's scarves, it was some sort of life-preserving fluid similar to what they injected Bob Barker with during his many years hosting "The Price Is Right." Back when I worked with the Elvis band, Brad would nigh get his neck twisted by fevered blue rinsed women swiping scarves from his slickened-by-the-spotlight neck. I have been buying these Elvis Reeses cups wherever I can find them, and thanks to Ed DeGeorge--he writes DR. WEIRD for October Comics--for the scan. Any true lover of All Things Elvis will eat anything with the ingredients involving fried bananas, butter, bacon dipped in butter, and Dialudid enemas. I have been sweating like Elvis so much these past few days, this crazy heat and humidity and Venus-type weather, the print shop reaching temperatures of 115 thanks to contraptions like the shrink-wrap machine and lack of circulation, left me shambling home from the bus stop, plopping onto the bed for several hours, and not being able to get the image of Dr. Fate saying something that makes little sense to whomever is standing in the doorway there. I assume they are the same hospital attendants that are coming to take me back to the asylum. (This of course being the print shop, 95 heat index until Tuesday, mah boy mah boy.)...Elvis has left the building, thank you and goodnight. You, my friends, are truly real people...Wayne

Texas Tea & Other Feel Good Revenge Songs

I know as much about Elvis as I do John Wayne Gacy. I can always get a laugh by prefacing a story with "Back when I worked with the Elvis band," a job I indeed held during my college years. My cousin Dennis and I exchange emails as Deke Rivers (LOVING YOU) and Lucky Jackson (VIVA LAS VEGAS), respectively, and this coming 30th anniversary of Elvis Death Day marks an incredible fifteen years since our visit. I wrote a novella called "Elviscera" for THE KING IS DEAD: TALES OF ELVIS POST-MORTEM which I consider one of my best works for the message it gives (it involves sacrificial murder) and until the cassette died, a mix of truly horrid Elvis-themed songs, the best/worst is the brilliantly horrible "Candy Bars For Elvis" by Barry Tiffin, who sobs--SOBS--his way through a story of a guy living in his pickup behind RCA Studios and Elvis gives him $20.00 to buy him some Hershey bars. Well, Elvis only ate Heath bars, from what I know; maybe Tiffin needed the extra syllable. The song ends with Tiffin wishing Elvis could come back to life if only that the homeless guy could buy Elvis some more *sob* (dramatic pause) candy...*sob* bars. This all needed to be said before I typed about Jimmy Ellis and the CD that I received in the mail courtesy of Bob Smith. I was more aware of him as Orion, a name he used as a gimmick when he started impersonating Elvis, as he was more known as this character in Kentucky and Indiana. But, Bob knew him from his rockabilly days in Georgia, by his given name, Jimmy Ellis. I am listening to the CD now, and he does a few covers besides those of Elvis, like Freddy Fender's "Before The Next Teardrop Falls," but in his early years, he never impersonated Elvis even though his voice is so similar. (The name escapes me, but remember the guy who sang "Suspicion" back in the 60s? He's that good). Ral Donner, from Chicago's SW side, could easily have become better known if he had recorded Elvis songs. He did do the Elvis voice overs in the 1980 THIS IS ELVIS documentary, and died of cancer in his late 40s. I'm very happy to have received this CD, certainly as Death Day nears. The sad thing about Jimmy Ellis is that he opened a pawn shop in his home town of Orrville, Alabama and was shotgunned at the age of 53 on December 12th 1998. "Texas Tea" is one of Bob's favorite songs on the CD mix, and I agree. Revenge songs are good. I hope the three bastards who killed him had something nice and crappy happen to them over the last decade...Wayne

Baby The Rain Must Fall

I had planned a post about a fellow named Jimmy Ellis. Bob sent me a CD of his songs to listen to (along with an actual typewritten letter! A typewritten letter that WASN'T from CapitolOne!!) But it is late, I was snookered into working a 14 hour shift and ended up with magenta toner over my jeans which somehow transferred to all the clothes in my hamper. So I am doing laundry, waiting for the rain to eventually dribble underneath our back door. Awhile back, I started another blog--THIS TIRED CITY--in which I simply post photos in the event I ever lose my hard drive, I can always find "special" photos on the blog. So as I posted the one above at the other blog, I thought, what the hell, I'll give better credence to Jimmy Ellis AKA Orion (he added cryptically) tomorrow. When my pants aren't magenta. Peter Frampton I'm not....Wayne

Back At The Farm

Bob and Charles asked about the status of the farm off Flat Rock Road. First off, my grandmother's name was Grace, we called her Busha, being the polaks we are, and eventually everyone called her that until she died in 1992. My granddaddy Grover died in 1996, but the two had been divorced since the 1940s. As you can see from the photo with me in the pink and black bowling shirt--Louisville has a Big Lebowski Fest every summer--and the bottom family photo, the farm always seemed in need of repair. Never had indoor plumbing, a barrel next to the crumpled awning provided rainwater, the coldest water I ever drank as a kid. The property was sold in the late 90s, don't know much more as the Kentucky kin can stay tight-lipped, though I do know that my Auntie Dorothy sent me a check for $5,000. (If only I was aware of eBay back then). Many of the rooms were empty while Busha lived, as various relations died, my great-grandmother Amanda in 1973--October 11th, driving down I-65 all night, as she lay on her deathbed, I heard Elvis singing "Burning Love" a dozen times, as it had been released that same day. Mary Alice, a mentally disabled half-sister who was deaf and dumb, and her brother Marvin, who had been kicked by a horse as a kid. That's Marvin in the photo, I inherited his clothing, wallet, glasses, and Bible. I'm dressed in his clothes in the Johnny Algiers photos on the left side of the blog. I have no idea when the photo was taken, or why, but it came with the package and I'm hoping he's getting a laugh from the caption I added. The last photo is of Grace and Amanda on either side of my parents, James Leland and Dolores Josephine, my father always had a little James Garner in him, particularly from THE ROCKFORD FILES days, and my sister Debbie evidently trying to strangle our chihuahua Pebbles. And of course, me. Evidently, my mother had been shopping for my clothing at the LOST IN SPACE resale shop....Wayne

Augusta Boulevard, Summer 1992

Scott Kroll--over at the Citizen Nick link to the left--reminded me that he was with me when I took the photo of the caged angel in my Christmas post. We had been walking along Augusta Boulevard, Aw-GOOS-ta, as the old polaks still say. The bottom photo was taken on Western Avenue, but we had been further east (and yes, the tall building in the background is the John Hancock building, 3 miles away). Ukranian Village and Leona's pizza parlor, to be exact. Still trying to be regentrified as the East Village, those bastard real estate agents. A few blocks away is the Wood Street cop house, a block over from that is Wolcott Street and the three-flat my mother was born in. Actually, the Wood Street District is about a half a block south of Augusta, and at that intersection is Club Foot, long ago known as the Lizard Lounge and before that something Puerto Rican and way back in Nelson Algren's day, it was something unpronouncable but would bring in big points in a Scrabble game. Scott mentions this in his comment on the caged angel, which was on Honore Street and I'll leave it to the readers of Algren's THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM to know the varied ways of pronouncing that particular street. The interior of the bar is much the same as when I'd made Augusta Boulevard an old haunt back in the early 90s. But the two bathrooms are plastered entirely with Elvis posters and memorabilia, fittingly so for an Elvis fan as I, but over the head of most of the new clientele. I was going to post a photo from the bathroom of the Elvis wall, not the one of me with my business covered up but my knobby knees all pale and shiny, but it would detract from the gentleness of the 1992 photo. On second thought, the jarring difference one will see if I do post it will reflect the changing neighborhood. So I'll add that second photo, with one of me at the Ashland bus shelter as a buffer. One hopes. Wayne