Mouthin off...

(This is the long overdue posting of my long ass response that I wrote {and sent to the appropriate people} to an editorial in the Mercer Cluster, which stated we have no music scene and then blamed it on the lack of bands and venues. While I agree we have some work to do, my belief is that what we lack is fans. Wow. That's probably all I had to write... whoops. If you feel like reading three pages of my ranting, get down on it.)

Mr. Brown, Editors, et. al,

Loved the April Fools Day stories. Good satire. It is unfortunate that Eric Brown's piece about the Macon music scene wasn’t conceived in a similar vein. It would’ve been closer to the truth if it had been.

It’s disingenuous for Brown to name Nomenclature and then say they moved away and think that’s an accurate or even adequate description of what’s happening here, as if the only good band left town. The problem here is folks here don’t look for local music so they don’t know that there is anything good.

So what Brown accidentally illustrates is one of the major and generally unaddressed causes of our chronically sick music scene: uninformed opinions have become the prevailing wisdom, having spread like a fungus that colors public perception so that it becomes a "reality".

In other words, one of the reasons our “music scene sucks” is because so many people think our “music scene sucks”.

Just as it is hard for a “dirt-poor college student” to “create an award-winning venue”, it’s hard for a dirt-poor musician to bust his and/or her butt when no one’s showing up because they’ve already decided that there isn’t a music scene worth supporting. (The musicians, however, continue to.)

To avoid making this a totally subjective argument about taste, just look at one of this year’s Bearstock posters. The bulk of the opening acts are local, spanning a variety of styles and sounds, and there were many more from which to choose. The bands that made the cut (and most of those that didn’t) all play frequently, so the real question is why didn’t Eric Brown know that they existed?

Until recently there haven’t been enough fans to support local bands to make it a financially reasonable prospect for venue owners to showcase more local talent, which means the scene wasn’t very visible. But that’s changed. All the good venues—limited as they may be—book a healthy dose of local bands.

Even though local bands sometimes suck at promoting their shows—whether humility or laziness—they do play often enough that, if you’re looking for live local music, by now, there are no good excuses not to have seen Floco Torres, Citizen Insane, Trendlenberg, Rolybots, Al K!NG, Oh Dorian, Abby Owens, Magnificent Bastard, City Council or the dozen others I could name.

UNLESS… A#1) you’re scared to frequent the venues where they play, or B#2) you don’t actually like music enough to go see someone that doesn’t already have an album on a major label.

So now the question is: Do you REALLY want more “interesting and experimental” bands? If so, forget about learning an instrument and starting a band, as Brown suggests, just be “interesting and experimental” yourself. Be adventurous enough to see what already exists.

Folks like to compare Macon to cities with a thriving scene, but they forget one of the most crucial elements: FANS! In places like Athens and Atlanta, people will go see music for the sake of seeing music. And then… then the bands have to work to steal attention away from other bands. Our bands compete against prime time TV and the hordes that only go out to get drunk and get some booty.

Brown asks: “So how to fix this problem?” My response is stop being a part of the problem. If you look for good local music, you’ll find it. You’ll become a patron of the Hummingbird and the Capitol where regional and national acts play. You’ll know that the biggest strides in the local music scene haven’t been made by The Refuge (though I love JJ Weeks and his crew) or at Jittery Joes (where I sit typing this). It’s in the cracks and crevices downtown, like the Golden Bough, the Macon Venue Project, Envy and the 567 Cafe, or even uptown at Rivalry’s, the Shamrock and CJs.

Honestly, I don’t even like all the music here, but I don’t have to. I support what I like and try to be nice to everybody else. There is enough going on here that that’s all you have to do. It isn’t a charity. It’s like anything else, you might suffer through some crap to get to the good stuff, but regardless of how well it matches what you like, there is plenty to choose from—far more than most think.

I’m not trying to invalidate everything Brown wrote or even to take jabs at him, but I believe there are some serious issues to address before the blame is aimed at a supposed dearth of musicians or venues. Remember, we’re all still driven by very simple market realities: supply and demand. There is a dearth of demand. That’s what must change next.

Or maybe we just need to admit we’re not really THAT interested in local music, that we just want bands like The Flaming Lips and Death Cab for Cutie to play Macon so we don’t have to drive to Atlanta. If that’s all this is about then we’re just displaying a fundamental misunderstanding of music business, and the problem remains the same. Those bands don’t play here—not because there aren’t local bands to open up (see who’s opening for Gym School Heroes and Chester French) or because there are no venues (we have spaces so small they only fit 30 to those big enough to hold thousands)—but because they cost tens and tens of thousands of dollars for a performance.

And really, that’s only a problem because “no one” pays to see live music here. Ludacris didn’t sell out the Coliseum and Dwight Yoakum couldn’t even fill the much smaller City Auditorium. Our problem is the absence of real music fans, and the money they generate, which funds it all.

I used to think like Eric Brown (and scores of others)—it’s Macon, not me. Then I became the nightlife writer and later the editor of The 11th Hour, and watched what happens here. I'm now the publisher of Georgia Music Magazine, which is housed by the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, a tourist destination that should be treated like a blessing to this city but is, instead, ignored by locals and the officials they’ve elected.

But it isn’t all bleak. For the past three years, I've been on the board for Bragg Jam, a music festival which is hitting its stride. I’ve been a part of the Bearstock selection committee for the past two years and think it’s about to cement its place in the community. More people are warming up to live music here.

To push it more, I helped start The Local 478, which tries to facilitate growth in local music scene with showcases and concerts. With the help of local musicians, I'm putting together Monkeywrench Music Club, a multifunctional space where bands who can't get booked elsewhere can play, where bands who have nowhere to rehearse can rehearse, where they can get their mail, copy flyers, burn CDs and meet other musicians. This summer, we're going to release the first wave of albums on Random Family Records, a record label whose roster is entirely made of local talent.

You can see why I might be a little sensitive about this, but beyond my obvious bias, I hope you see the much deeper lesson: if you’re looking for good local music, you can find it. I have. And with that, I’ve found a lot of great people, crazy stories and the kind of fun I never thought possible here. All I had to do was look.

I agree with Brown when he writes, “By creating a closer community of bands in the Macon area, you can guarantee a better music scene…” I agree because I’ve been watching it happen for the past couple of years, and I hope that now that you all know it exists, you’ll support it. That’s the piece we’re really missing now.

To that end, I would be honored to introduce Eric Brown and the Cluster editorial staff (and anyone else who is interested) to a wide spate of the talented musicians ranging from indie rock to hip-hop and all sorts of stuff I can’t begin to classify. We’d love to see you be a part of building this music scene because I truly believe that history is about to repeat itself in Macon, that there are some names in the lineups around town that will eventually join the list of celebrated Maconites.

See it for yourself. Come out to Rivalry’s this Friday night to check out three of the best bands in Macon, swing by the show at Monkeywrench on Saturday, April 11, or wait until Bearstock and see even more in action. If you still feel like the scene is “far away” then it’s just a matter of your taste being bad. (Just kidding… no I’m not.)

the real reason why I left the 11th Hour

It's exactly as I said in the paper: needed more time with my family and wanted to try something new. When Mike Donila agreed to come aboard, I figured it was a good time, just because I knew they'd have a great guy with tremendous talent.

What I'm doing next?

Don't know exactly. I'll report back when I do. In the meantime, I plan to get my soapbox fix here, just like it was before I got in with the paper, regardless of whether or not anyone is reading. It'll give me something to do until I get busy again.

Sitting at Jittery Joes, I picked up the Telegraph and a familiar feeling swept over me: anger and hopelessness. (That's a wee bit of an exaggeration.) The lead story is a good one about the service delivery strategy, which I firmly believe is an issue with greater importance than most folks would suspect, though the headline itself is stupid. Next to it, a national story--like just about any you can find on Yahoo or Google--about Obama's reversal on stem cell research.

Below the fold, which is a weird no man's land since it is the front page but on the half most folks ignore when they're weighing whether or not to buy it, a story about how the Macon Police Department and Bibb County Sheriff's worked together with several other agencies to crack a meth trafficking ring. THAT IS FUCKING HUGE!

But because it's the (nee' Macon) Telegraph, it goes below the fold. That way, people can keep bitching about how the police don't do anything, going on about how bad crime is here and all that. It goes below the fold, beneath a national story that--while important--has less impact on our daily, local lives.

If the next biggest local story was about the birth of 39 puppies, instead of 39 arrests made in conjunction with the drug ring bust, I could see it below the fold.

Bah.

I said it was familiar, and I mean more like de ja vous. Before I started writing for the 11th Hour, I was upset by an issue of The Telegraph that put a headline about Wesleyan's endowment above a story about the way in which poor folks were gonna get screwed by state tort reform.

But, Chris, one is very local, and the other is a statewide issue. Yeah, but in this case, the tort reform law sort of flew in without much notice--or at least much ruckus from poor folks who would no longer be able to sue doctors beyond a preset limit, etc--and it seems like that would be the story you want to roll with. Wesleyan, which is a fine institution and all that, only has a few hundred students. There are THOUSANDS of broke people in Macon.

Do you see where I'm going?

Well, you will. Because I'm gonna bitch and moan for a while. (Just not all of it today.)

Design Matters

{Note: this is a preview of an article going in tomorrow's paper because the public meeting is tonight and you really ought to be there. Newton Chapel at Mercer, 7pm}

Design Matters: Interface is all in yo face!

by Chris Horne

"Macon is an amazingly beautiful city," Scott Page says. And he doesn't seem to be blowing smoke just because he and his company, Interface Studio, are responsible for the master plan that will guide the College Hill Corridor into its early golden age.

"I work in a lot of tough neighborhoods. I work in a lot of neighborhoods that haven't seen investment in decades, in cities that are 60% vacant. Those are the kind of problems we're used to," he continues. "Macon certainly has its challenges, but considering what there is to build on, Macon has a lot more than a lot of other small cities."

From its introduction, the College Hill Corridor Commission (CHCC) has threatened to change the scope, feel, function and coolness factor of downtown Macon by reuniting it with its closest student body, Mercer. On Wednesday, November 19, Interface will have a big public meeting where they promise not to reveal much of anything.

Why? They want to hear from the community before they set their plan in stone.

"When people did a master plan in the past, it showed the city from 3000 feet up and it showed where everything was built and it was very, very rigid," Scott says. "Those were also the days when you had a mayor—or a king, in some cases—lording over the landscape. These days you've got neighborhood groups and banks and foundations all over the city who have their own agenda."

Those agendas are good things too, especially as he means it, because they reflect the involvement various community members and organizations have taken in the improvement of the downtown district as well as its Intown brethren. There are some in the city affectionately calling downtown "everybody's neighborhood", and that's starting to grow from slogan to reality.

That said, it's going to be a chore trying to balance all the wants and desires that we (the people) have accumulated for this city and in particular this area. But at this public meeting, they are inviting the community to further overwhelm them with even more of that very input. That's how they're going to build their plan.

As Scott says, "Our objective is to put together a living document that everyone can get behind with some pragmatic short-term ideas as well as long-term ideas to get people talking."

They aren't drawing up plans for one big home run idea or multi-million dollar project. There will be suggestions in the master plan—which isn't due until January—that can be implemented immediately. They're building this plan believing it'll actually be used in the very near future. That's pretty bold considering the stacks of unused plans collecting dust in non-profit and government closets all over the city.

"We want to keep momentum going," Scott says. "Cities have always evolved. What we try to do when we put together a plan is remember it is a set of ideas for one point in time. We're building on the things that have been done in the past and we're planning for a hopeful future—but, in five years, the plan should be re-evaluated."

They believe the Corridor can draw in young professionals and the creative class, as well as retain (and get more out of) the people that are already here. According to the Interface website, they're lending their vision to a master plan of the Wicker Park/Bucktown area of Chicago, which is—if you don't already know—very hip. One element of "the city" that they hope to enhance with the help of Land Strategies is to make the Corridor friendlier for pedestrian and bicycle traffic.

"The entire community seems to be behind becoming more walkable/bikeable. Before (the gas price spike), you'd hear a lot of lip service about making cities more walkable and bikeable, but now it's gotten easier to convince people to restore priority to peds and bicycles," Mark says.

Doing so in Macon would physically connect downtown with the area to and around Mercer, which then could be developed with specific stopping points along the way. To hear Scott and Mark talk, one of the biggest obstacles they usually face was taken care of before they even stepped foot here. That is, getting the community—its leaders and affected citizens—to buy in. If this continues, the chances of their ideas becoming realities increases greatly.

"We're looking at this with fresh eyes. I think not being from Macon gives us that perspective," Scott points out. Then asking if we're responsible for the Thriller Dance that he saw on YouTube, he admits he showed it around the office to which his co-workers remarked, "Macon's so cool!"

With any luck and their help, that just might become our motto.

the Watercooler: Post-Electoral Fallout Shelter

Post-election thoughts

I didn’t know ANYTHING about the constitutional proposals for forest preservation through property tax reduction (passed with 68%), school districts using money for community development (barely passed with 51.5%), and the creation of special Infrastructure Development Districts for underserved areas (barely failed with 48.4%). Since you can’t research these things in the voting booth, you have to go on the wording, which is why I imagine the forest thing passed (“tax reduction”) and infrastructure development districts failed (“underserved areas”). It’s a bummer because I imagine there were millions who made their vote that way, or worse. Second place for Most Discouraging/Disgusting goes to the fact we had several major officials who ran unopposed. Of the 56 districts up for election in the Georgia State Senate, only 19 of them were contested—two by write-in candidates.

Let gay people marry

In solidarity with protests in 50 other states, gays and straights came out Saturday afternoon for a rally on the steps of City Hall. It’s a shame they had to. It’s hard to believe that this country continues to blindly stumble down a path of civil rights mistakes (e.g. – treating blacks, women and gays like they aren’t as human as white men, etc) but I suppose as long as we can find a scapegoat for our disappointments, we’ll keep it up. As weird as it is, I can’t think of a more compelling argument than that posed by a former Sportscenter anchor. If you missed Keith Olbermann’s comments on his MSNBC show, just go to YouTube, especially if you support the ban.

Honky paranoia

Well, “the blacks” didn’t riot. But, wasn’t Cecil Staton staffer/provocateur Zach Johnson just trying to be pro-active? Maybe but he was buying into paranoia and fear, not reality. One conservative blogger, a Johnson defender, wrote: “We all know half of America will burn if Obama loses, see e.g. O.J. Simpson verdict, Rodney King verdict, major sports team wins throughout America, etc.” Half the country?! That’s clever but false logic. For starters, referencing damage after the Ellis election, Johnson’s email reflected concern that the riots would come in victory or defeat. Secondly, the context for the Rodney King verdict is totally different. Oh and there were no riots after the OJ Simpson verdict.

No one was worried that McCain’s supporters would riot if he lost, though during his boo-laden concession speech, it certainly seemed like a possibility. Look at Denver, CO. In the late 90s, the city erupted after their sports teams brought home four championships in football and hockey. Their population is 70% white and 5% black. Black people, like all people, have more than one reaction to major news, good or bad. I mention it now because I’m hoping hindsight teaches us something.

Krok Floats

While I’m banging on conservative commentators… I received an email about a video of 940AM’s vocal yokel Chris Krok at a pro-immigration candle vigil. In the video, Krok makes an ass of himself squirting candles with a super soaker yelling something about his water being justice. He is, not counting the cops there to keep him from a beating, alone in the video.

Progress…

We’ve had proposals for curfews and requests for the National Guard. The Mayor has convened with the pastors of black churches, with law enforcement officials, with anyone who has a stake in the community and half an idea about solving the violent crime problem facing Macon. And we’re still having a couple shootings a week, coupled by home invasions and carjackings. Now, the City of Macon is partnering with Campus Clubs and Upward Unlimited for a basketball program. As “an athletic outlet” and “a safe and secure environment”, this is the first promising move I’ve seen thus far.

Lighter notes

• According to the Telegraph, because the Cherry Blossom Festival doesn’t send me press releases, the 2009 CBF Queen is Rachel Cozart, a Westside High senior. Liz Fabian writes, “Cozart will reign for the next year with her court of four princesses who were named as runners-up in the contest that judges the girls on the basis of poise, beauty, interview skills and knowledge of the festival and local community.”
• Did you know that there’s a Georgia Commission on the Holocaust? Well, there is and this is the 14^th year that they’ve held a statewide art and writing contest called “What are the Lessons of the Holocaust?” It’s open until March 19, 2009.
• Not only has the Mercer basketball team upset the University of Alabama, but the Mercer student body has a “more engaged educational experience than students at its peer institutions and at Georgia’s public universities” according to the results of the National Survey of Student Engagement. No word yet on where local colleges rank (or totally don’t rank) on Playboy’s list of party schools.

And…

On Tuesday, November 11th...

Al Tillman was elected as the next Macon-Bibb NAACP President.

1st Vice President: Gwen Westbrook

2nd Vice President: John Thomas

3rd Vice President: David Booker

Secretary: Linda Flagg

Treasurer: Gloria King

my weakness is Kentucky Muscle

It never dawned on me that I'd need to do a follow-up to this Louisville trip—nothing more than a wink and a nod in that direction—but I never thought I'd encounter something like Kentucky Muscle.

After my last blog, milady and I went for a walk. There in the middle of a park, in 50 degree weather, a clean-cut muscular white guy who was so artificially tanned that he looked like C. Thomas Howell in Soul Man stood shirtless and flexing. Two women in matching black outfits chit-chatted with a bystander. C. Muscle Howell smiled and laughed, taking his time putting the shirt back on. I couldn't figure it out. Several scenarios raced through my head, but none fit. Not even the suspicion that it could be the Louisville version of bum fights.

Well, an hour or so later, once we'd finally found a place to eat—that city was three times as big and almost as dead as Macon on a Saturday afternoon—we enter the convention center next to our hotel. Louisville has a system of skywalks that run through its hotels and parking garages, the Louie Link, and given the dropping temperature, it seemed like our best bet.

That's when we saw this poster for Kentucky Muscle.

My brain went off like that closing montage in The Usual Suspects. Everything made sense in the confines and contrived logic of bodybuilding, starting with the shirtless dude and leading through all the super bulked-up guys I'd casually noticed but not noted out around the city. We peeked into the auditorium where they were setting up for the night's events, like peering behind the Wizard's curtain... or, into the Ultimate Warrior's dressing room. A huge black dude stalked the sidewalk with a leather backbrace belt thrown over his shoulder, like he might need it at any moment for a spontaneous lifting competition, like he might have to pick some motherfuckas up.

I soon traded my girlfriend for the college football-loving mathematician that rode up with his girlfriend and us to this conference. We went to a sports bar to watch LSU eventually lose to Alabama. Along the way, I intentionally lead us back to the convention center so I could see what Kentucky Muscle was up to then.

Competitive Arm Wrestling. It was like TV, but live. It was like Sly Stallone in Over the Top, but better. One match was stopped three times because the two dudes couldn't stay clasped together. So the ref brought out "the strap" to bind their hands in mortal combat. Oh, man. Talk about exciting. I looked at The Math Guy and back at myself. We were each wearing sportsjackets and didn't fit any weight class there. Dudes were either hopelessly scrawny and dorky (observers) or massive and titanic (the bodybuilders and their peers). It'd only be a matter of time before they figured us out.

As we exited, a woman walked by in a short skirt. She was pretty and pretty normal looking except her thighs were enormous slabs of ripped meat. Rocky couldn't have boxed those sides of beef. She reminded me of the line Jean-Claude Van Damme had on SNL a few years ago: "I can crack a walnut with my butt."

(Speaking of Van Dammage, check out this trailer for his new movie, JCVD. Got to see that shit.)


Finally, when I went to find the poster for Kentucky Muscle so I could post it, I also stumbled on a page with pics from the "after party" they had. Wow. I don't think Heather Gore is related to Al.

Louie, Louis: a retrospective of on-going events

There's a guy behind me who reminds me of the line that Bob Goldwaith had in Scrooged about the flatulating butthead. I wish he'd shut up. He has a voice like the host of Inside the Actor's Studio, and he knows it, so he's giving a memorial pontification about how time marches on and you lose touch with people. I'm going to poke out his eyes and see if he wants to tell me about that.

Sorry. He just said the word "magnesium" and I almost lost it.

Right now, I'm in a Borders in Louisville, Kentucky, an otherwise happy fourth wheel at the South Atlantic Modern Language Association Conference. This is what your professors do when you aren't looking. They leave the state and talk to other professors about the minutia that they've spent years studying. And frankly, I love it. These folks spend all their free time thinking and learning and debating stuff so I can get the 30-minute version in a panel or lecture. It's a great system. It is America at its finest. (Thank you, Barack!)

At the Baylor University Press table, they're hocking books like, Sacred Terror: Religion and Horror on the Silver Screen, and Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero's Visions of Hell on Earth. AND… there's a 40% for being at the conference. Those are easy to like—who wouldn't?—but I got all hot and bothered when I saw Quoting God: How Media Shape Ideas about Religion and Culture. I swear, y'all, if I had the funds… While that's rad and all, dig on some of the lectures going on here.

Love and Failure in the Rough South of Larry Brown.

Gothic Pleasure: Joanne Baille's "The Moody Seer" and John Keats' Lamia.

Defining the Margin as Affirmation: An Example of Empowering Cultural Difference and Effective Learning.

"Yon Fart Doth Smell of Elderberries Sweet": South Park and Shakespeare

"You Taste of America": Talledega Nights, Deliverance, and Southern Studies

"For the Sake of the Song": Townes Van Zandt and the Ballad Tradition

Bootlegging Narratives in the LAWS Corpus

A Sorority Girl Gone Bad, Bootleggers, and Thieves Like Us: 1930s Southern Noir in Print and Film

The Artist's Coda in Cormac McCarthy's The Road

And… Everyone Poops: Children's Literature and the Bathroom

Some of these I've already missed and can't experience, but the rest are pretty much on my agenda. Though just barely. See, Louisville is not only home to the University of Louisville, but also a beautiful River Walk and magnificently restored historic buildings in their downtown area, which happens to be exactly the area I'm in right now. Though I haven't found a copy of the LEO (the Louisville Eccentric Observer, their free paper), I can tell they've got plenty to write about. According to their website, they were a bi-weekly for the first three years of their life and then went weekly. We're in our sixth year, but we're not in Louisville, either. Wow. We're not in Louisville. Never would've thought I'd make that comparison. (It ain't that big a place, y'all.) There are blocks of new construction, like Fourth Street Live! which is some hellish food court/mall thing, that must be pretty appealing to tourists. It's not that bad, I guess. The two-storey Borders is cool.

Anyway. We stopped in Nashville, my first non-Macon love, and had dinner at Rotier's. It'd been about two, maybe three, years since I had one of their famed grilled cheeseburgers and an order of hot fingers. Milady correctly noted the hint of lilting nostalgia in my voice as I pointed out some of my favorite things. Lord have mercy, what a place. And then we moved along.

By the way, the Hyatt sucks ass. That's where we're staying. It costs for Wi-Fi. A single liter of water costs $4.75. Not Fiji or something nice. Fucking Pepsi Co-Aquafina bullshit. And for a bowl of seasonal fruit? $9. They're charging $7.50 for a pot of coffee and $13 a day to park. Meanwhile, there's an Econolodge down the street with more amenities. I know because I'm picking up the free Wi-Fi from them right now.

Oh hell no. That's it, bubba! He just said, "To the winners go the spoils." Where's my fucking spork?

Jimmy Carter will do anything for $200

The only thing standing between me and a giant piece of cake was the poet professor Kevin Cantwell. And he wasn’t really standing in my way, just off to the side enough that I could talk to him and stare at the cake. My landlord, Dr. Mary Wearn, stood on the other side, framing it. As they spoke and I nodded, I wondered if the autumnal brown frosting tasted as caramel as it looked.

As I finished up the cake, which initially barely fit on the little clear plastic plate, my lady meandered over and I randomly blurted out that I’d conned my way into the Jimmy Carter speech at Mercer. A ‘con’ because I was with ‘the media’—and yes, Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin is correct, there is a ‘liberal elite media’ and a ‘regular liberal media’. Kevin even snickered when I said, “I snuck in as the media.”

He tried to cover saying, “I’d love your job. I’d love having your job, but I wouldn’t want to do it.” And I agreed that I love having my job but I don’t like doing it. Then I sort of groaned because that piece of cake was really too big for one man. Even a man like me.

Sitting in the Willingham chapel at Mercer, next to friend and former editor/occasionally-current editor Jessica Lanier Walden, I listened to Jimmy Carter speak, as I thought to myself, “Holy shit! That’s Jimmy Carter!” Off and on, I had other thoughts, but it usually went back to the whole, “Like whoa! Jimmy Carter!” feeling.

Jessica’s dad and uncle helped get Jimmy Carter elected with a big assist from Southern Rock, which was the musical equivalent of Jimmy Carter. That is, as Jimmy represented a progressive South both proud of its culture and embarrassed to the point of change of its bigotry bands like the Allman Brothers represented a turn from the politics of prejudice as they embraced their storied roots. Like it or not, there was no throwing the baby out with the bathwater in the South, and because of that delicate little bridge, guys like me can wear the snap-button western shirts of our fathers and not be ashamed.

While this prodigal former president basically gave the abridged “History of Jimmy Carter” (like a thoughtful, narrative resume), the most important thought to cross my mind is how overvalued something like experience is. And conversely, how overlooked something like tone is.

The best thing a great leader ever does is with the strength of their personality, not necessarily their brains. Boil it down, the most beloved leaders of any time were really just mascots that we looked up to. Granted, in many cases, it has something to do with their experience and their smarts, but to lead well means setting a tone. It means saying, “We’re going to end racism,” or, “We will be a peace-building nation,” or whatever—not necessarily, “This is how we’re going to end racism,” or, “This is how we become a peace-building nation.” It is about projecting an idea before plans.

I’m not trying to be an advocate of style over substance. I just think that the reason we, the people, pick leaders—elected and anointed—is that we want someone to look up to, someone who’ll help us know what to feel and how to act. And truthfully, there are so many people who know how shit works that it doesn’t take a genius to be president (e.g. – 2000-2008); it just takes someone who knows how to pick (and listen to) smart, stable people with whom they can be surrounded.

That said, Jimmy Carter probably is a genius. Driving away from his speech, I again took note of the dropping price of gas, rejoicing in that way about the next time I need to fill up—almost excited by the prospect now that it’s well below $3/gallon. Then I remembered the stupid Myspace bulletin/email forward that went around accusing gas companies of inflating the price to a point when people would consider the mid-$2 range cheap. It made me think I’d fallen for something, especially when I thought about the energy crisis Jimmy Carter presided over.

Back then, he made predictions and proposals that could’ve kept us out of this, instead, the price of gas dropped again and people kept driving like there was no tomorrow. That was during a time when the suburbs were really about to flourish because people could afford to drive an hour, if they wanted, to and from work. That’s one reason our communities devolved into satellite pockets of paranoid people revolving around an abandoned core. If gas had stayed high, we’d be driving electric cars by now. Maybe the same has happened here. Gas is still expensive—more than 2.5 times higher than when I started driving 14 years ago—but it doesn’t feel that way because it sat so close to $4 for so long. So, we’ll pile back into our SUVs and shit soon enough. But the hybrid kind, just in case, right?

My favorite portion of Jimmy’s visit was the Q&A at the end. Though pretty much every question was good and thoughtful—the first one was a personal request for guidance in resolving tension between a student’s Muslim friends and her friends in the armed forces—there was one question that seemed capable of derailing his charm as the “cute”, liberal grandfather figure. (*Note: I heard more than one female gush at how “cute” Jimmy Carter is.)

Echoing Carter’s Jesus name-dropping, a gentleman stood up and said, “I’m asking this as a practicing Christian”—and you knew it could mean trouble. It’s so easy to like Jimmy Carter because he’s a walking contradiction—at least in accordance with our modern stereotypes—as a Southern, evangelical Christian liberal. Anyone who has read his memoir-heavy books—or old, white, Baptist civil rights activist Will D. Campbell’s “Brother to a Dragonfly”—should know that the social history of the South isn’t as cut and dried as folks like to make out to be. For every bloodthirsty clan member, you had someone like Carter’s mom who crossed over racial taboos “with impunity”. Well, most liberals like him as long as they don’t have to think long about him being an evangelical, and most evangelicals like him when they don’t have to think long about him being a liberal. And that’s why I liked the way he handled this particular question.

To paraphrase the question: “I, a practicing Christian, want to know how you can justify all the attention you give to saving the 300,000 kids who die from starvation and disease a year when abortion has killed millions of babies.” It was poised in a way that would either make Carter a hypocrite, or would ruin his rep with one of the aforementioned groups. For me, it just cemented the high opinion I have of him.
He said, in essence, that he doesn’t like abortion—never has—and he doesn’t think Jesus Christ would either, but as president he obeyed the law and instead decided to focus on reducing the demand for abortion. That’s why we have WIC. He figured a pregnant woman in dire straits would be less inclined to abort a child, in order to avoid bringing a baby into a bad situation, if the government made it easier for the infant to be more properly nourished. Basically, he viewed abortion the right way: recognizing it as a choice that no one makes for fun and trying to eliminate the reasons for using it. Having explained it that way, I loved him even more.

It is not that hard to find Southern Christian radicals, but it’s getting harder to find them in my generation or younger. The progressive Christians are too “Christian” to be radical. The radicals are too liberal to put stock in a faith tradition. And Southerners are being simultaneously assimilated into the larger culture, or dumbed down in the effort to financially capitalize on the resistance of some to be homogenized. In other words, most Southern folks who are too smart to fall for Larry the Cable Guy are eschewing their accents to avoid being associated with dumbasses, and for some of the dumbasses, being educated means having outgrown your raising. There aren’t many choices in between for the native of the American South now that fewer choose the path that Jimmy, the Walden brothers, Dr. King, and Will Campbell took.

I don’t know how to end this tirade, so I’m just going to say that I’m getting ready to attend my first Lamar Memorial Lecture Series talk. It’s something Mercer has done for ages, bringing in an academic who talks about the South. I’ve been collecting the books from it for about three years, but now I get to be at one. Monday and Tuesday, November 3 and 4, Paul Harvey, Ph.D.—not that Paul Harvey… Good day!—will be presenting his lectures around the theme “Moses, Jesus and the Trickster in the Evangelical South”. And I am stoked about that. It sounds so interesting. One of his talks will be “Religion, Race and Southern Ideas of Freedom,” and the other will be “Jesus of the South.” This is so up my alley that it isn’t funny.

And neither are balloons, but that’s for another time.

a dude surfing a wave of lava

A month ago, maybe six weeks ago, I was eating at New China Buffet 8, reading The Watchmen, and contemplating the end of days. Whether it was the doomsday comic or the hodgepodge full belly, I don't know, but I wasn't feeling real swell about my place on the planet. When the check arrived, I snapped open the fortune cookie with one hand and ripped out its lovely guts, a ribbon of white paper sunshine that read: "You do not have to worry about your future."

Instantly, I felt better. Whoever put that fortune in my cookie had done me a service that day. It was the best part of the Sermon on the Mount, without the preachiness, in a simple sentence. Gloom be gone. I was cured. I slipped it in my wallet, where it remains today, and stopped worrying about my future because I don't have to. The fortune cookie made it so.

In the time since, I've been busier than I've probably ever been with the only possible exception being when I had three jobs: waiting tables, working as a youth minister and running an after-school program when my shift at the daycare was done. I was younger then and was ate up with free time because all my friends—including my girlfriend—had moved away, and I hadn't yet moved in with The Establishment, a Scotch-swilling former Marine who joined the National Guard for a reason to keep guns in the house.

Yeah, so for the past month or so, I've been crazy busy. With extraordinary help from Macon State faculty (like, so much help that the word help doesn't seem sufficient for describing what they did)—Drs. Braun, Whiddon and Young-Zook—Macon got its first ever writers' conference. Two weeks leading up to that, I spent three nights at the Georgia State Fair emceeing various events, including the kazoo world record attempt (about which I've already blogged). And of course, we've put out two issues of The 11th Hour, meaning two deadlines which I met with sporadic success. All the while, I had that reminder in my wallet that I am not required--by grand decree of the stars over China--to worry about my future. That was pretty handy.

Having emerged from this period, which really stretches out before Bragg Jam in terms of increased civic activity, without burning out, I now look at things very differently. The same energy I expended at the bar with the intention of forgetting why I was going to the bar is finding another path. Like water does. It has to go somewhere, and this is where it's heading. Somewhere.

This city. It still amazes me. The other day, I saw a guy driving a big honkin' tractor down Vineville in the afternoon. He was wearing purple nurse scrubs.

Tuesday night, I was at City Council again because knowing things has become important to me and there are several things that go uncaptured by the daily or the news stations (or by The 11th Hour). Like the woman who stood up before council to ask that the city government stop harassing and oppressing her. She labeled herself a freedom fighter and a slave. Everything else she said bubbled and spun in waves of non-sequiters and tangents. It was funny for about twenty seconds, and then it was just sad. Earlier in the day, I was reading about the argument between members of the Bibb County Commission on how to help Riveredge Mental Health Facility, who lost $1.5 million from their budget because the State of Georgia is stupid and cruel.

And the more I think about the way the Bibb County government runs, the angrier I get about them. I'm meeting with them all this week whether they're running for office or not. I'm asking them all the same questions to be fair. What I want to know, though, is what good are they for the city of Macon, which contains two-thirds of Bibb County's population. They only seem concerned with the people of unincorporated Bibb, and for too long, the citizens of Macon have been fine with that. Well, it pisses me off.

Then I got a call from a friend who'll remain nameless because I didn't ask if I could make this tidbit public. She went to the Joshua Cup--you know, the Christian coffeeshop that refuses to let our paper in their store because they're so much more like God than we are—and she asked if she could hang posters for "All That Jazz", an event that raises funds for educational programs at The Tubman Museum. The owner balked, saying he'd have to think about it because they have to be careful about what they allow in there and he'd seen that movie about Bob Fosse and he wasn't sure if he approved of that.

Yesterday, I stood in the back of the Library Ballroom, a completely restored and absolutely gorgeous historic building that once housed Macon's first public library. At the front, NewTown Macon was giving its annual update on its progress, talking about the millions they've invested in downtown and how it has helped bring millions and millions more in development projects. I left, with my boss Brad, before they handed out their "Partners In Progress" awards because we were pressed firmly against deadline with pieces to our puzzle still missing.

Turns out that Bragg Jam won the "Creating a Sense of Place" award and the praise was directed at Brad. The superintendent of the Bibb County School System, Sharon Patterson, was there to present the award and she said—we watched the video online—"Come on up, Brad, and let us talk about you some." The room was silent; hardly anyone had seen him leave. The camera panned wide, and heads turned right and left, trying to catch a glimpse of this elusive do-gooder to no avail.

Today, I went to pick up the papers for my route, which is significantly smaller than its ever been. No one was at the printer's place. While I waited for someone to show, I drove over to Macon State to deliver the cooler and sandwich board sign that we borrowed for the conference. The Dean of Student Life and the Director of Student Life, from whom we borrowed this, were walking away as I was walking in. I thanked them for their kindness, and the Dean told me that she saw a student this week who said that, because of our lil' conference, she'd decided to become an English major. That was pretty sweet.

After I grabbed my stack of papers, I hit the road. Briefly. Then I went to New China Buffet 8 to eat. It was exactly 4pm and the dude wanted to charge me $3.50 more to eat there whereas a minute earlier he wouldn't have. Fuck them. I went to Golden Corral instead and read from Mark Leyner's "Et Tu, Babe" until it hurt to eat any more banana pudding.

I don't know if I had a point.

This I sent to the Telegraph today.

Dear Editors,

Your cynicism hurts us all. I write this as Chris Horne, a product of Macon—not the supposedly embittered kazoo emcee and not as the editor of the local free weekly. My beef is as a resident. Growing up here, I learned to begrudge it because everyone around me did. Living in Nashville, Detroit and Atlanta removed the blinders. When I returned home, I found an incredible city full of amazing people. This even though much hadn’t changed besides my perspective.

Yes, the headline hurt, but it made me laugh too. “Macon blows kazoo record – again.” The Telegraph never ceases to amaze me when it comes to how out of touch it can be. And then to hear that Kenny B and Charlie E, the supposed saviors of local talk radio, were mocking the attempt—can’t say I’m surprised. You have earned your reputation as “the (Used to be Macon) Telegraph”. You might not be able to help the handcuffs that corporate throws on you and you certainly can’t help the shrinking staff, but you can help your perspective. Sometimes, that’s all that matters.

Example: Name an event in Macon that was labeled a failure when it brought in nearly 800 people from all walks of life to pay to do something as seemingly pointless as playing a kazoo for nothing more in exchange than civic pride. You can’t. And the year before, in the rain and the mud, there were 2,000+. No, neither effort landed us a Guinness World Book Record, but for me, there was always only one reason to do it: to bring this community together without regard to social, political, racial or economic lines. And having stared back at both crowds, I say both times we succeeded.

I made that point—that this was about community—to Ashley Joyner, the Telegraph reporter. And I also answered her questions about why I thought we weren’t even close to the record. Of the four or five factors that I gave, she chose this: “‘Macon gets down on itself so easily,’ said Chris Horne of the 11th Hour, an event sponsor.”

I stand by my statement, but I want to add an addendum: How else could the city-at-large feel when the biggest mirrors being held up to it by the local media offer such an ugly and often inaccurate reflection? I know there are many obstacles outside of the Telegraph’s control: the Internet generation, transient reporters with no incentive to become invested, the stumbling economy, etc. But this isn’t about “doing more with less”; it’s about appropriating the right perspective.

No, Macon didn’t “blow” the kazoo record again—Macon came together in spite of it. Besides, you hum into a kazoo; you don’t blow it.

Chris Horne
571 Cherry Street
Macon, GA 31201

Let the public apologies begin

I woke up naked, but wrapped in a blanket, awkwardly positioned on the couch and racked with guilt from the moment my eyes opened. I was still drunk and would remain that way until nearly 3pm. If I could bottle that feeling and slap a picture of that moment on the label, I wouldn't have to try to answer "How was your birthday?"

My favorite woman on the planet made it apparent pretty quickly that she was thinking of quitting my fan club. As she described the last hour or two of my night, I realized two things: 1) I don't remember the last hour or two of my night, and 2) I may have alienated everyone I like, or at least those were still there when I blacked out.

Here's what I don't remember but have been told. At some point late, I left my own party. I was called on the phone, which I answered, to return and said I was only to show up at 550 Blues instead. When Doc Brown found me, apparently I yelled at her and then ran down Riverside Drive in an attempt to avoid getting in the car.

Does anyone really miss The Power of Chris Compels You? I don't. All day Sunday, I didn't miss him. I'd sobered up just before Moms showed up with my grandparents for dinner. I nearly fell down three times, but otherwise managed to keep my hangover out of the way.

More than that, I just feel like an asshole. A lot of great musicians and friends came out, and though I know I had a good time with everyone for a while, I feel like I took a giant metaphorical piss on some of them. I never meant to and right now, I'm not sure how to fix that.

Then again, I always felt guilty after a binge like that, which used to be a weekly event. The problem, I think, is that I'd forgotten that people buy you drinks on your birthday. One extremely kind and generous gentlemen bought me five drinks in a row. I'd actually brought my own flask bottle of SoCo because I didn't have the cash to drink all night on my dime. I wasn't expecting anyone to buy me things. But they did and so I got hammered, hard.

Highlights that I recall:
A1) Heather Kemp (aka Oh Dorian) sang a song she wrote for me. It was sweet and referenced some tough times that we wiggled through together, which is why I say Heather sang it. She's good people and I miss her.

B2) Trendlenberg (aka Justin Cutway) sang a very Trendlenberg version of Bon Jovi's "Blaze of Glory" at my request. It may have been the very best that Bon Jovi ever sounded... and that's saying a lot since "Slippery When Wet" was the first tape I owned (given simultaneously with Whitesnake by my uncle Danny).

Everything else--the blackout excluded--was one big highlight. All I'd wanted was to be surrounded by my favorite people, and as the date got closer, I got worried. I know I'd burned some bridges with a couple of years' worth of bad behavior and wondered if anyone still liked me enough to drink with me. And I knew that some of the folks who did would be out of town for the Labor Day weekend. To my utter surprise, the place filled up pretty good with friendly faces and new friends.

The cherry on top was the music. I wish I could've put 300 people in that room just so 300 people would have to witness a little sampling of what we've got going on here in Macon. There was such a selection and such variety. And it was all so damn good. I just shake my head when I think about how much we've all grown up in the last five years. It's amazing that it's coming together like this, that we're coming together like this.

One of the dudes dressed like he stepped out of Breakin' (I can't remember his name now) came to the Center for Revolutionary Studies way back when Roger, Clark, Camo, myself, and perhaps a couple others were really trying to put together a big concert down at Luther Williams Field where all the talent was supplied by local bands. We had just enough music to do it for a few hours and were desperately trying to figure out how to put something like that together.

It never happened, but the fact that we're all still kicking around like this means something to me. Roger--with Tagg and Dirty--finally has built a nightlife scene that responds. What Clark is doing with Nomenclature and recording is nothing short of awesome. While I don't remember what dude's name is, he and his buddy are about to debut themselves as The City Council.

Now I'm rambling. Sorry.

The point is thank you. Thank you for the birthday wishes. Thank you for coming to the party. Thank you for playing at the party. Thank you for being in this city. Thank you for being yourself in this city and making it safer for other weirdos to do what they love in this city. Thanks for helping me grow up a little so there's still a chance I can really contribute to what's going on here.

I hope this is the last public apology I ever have to me.

the Countdown to old age begins...

For my dad's 53rd birthday, I drove him to Augusta to see my brother and his family. We went shoe shopping, ordered pizza, drank beer and watched Al Green get the BET Lifetime Achievement Award. This was during halftime of a game between the Atlanta Falcons and the Colts. Afterward, we watched Harold & Kumar Can't Live Up to the Original, then tried to fall asleep on couches covered in microfiber suede while Sportscenter ran all night, like a looping highlight lullaby.

For my 30^th birthday, which is less than two weeks away, I have slightly different plans, which may still involve a road-trip to Augusta and microfiber suede—though only if I have a REALLY good time.

Saturday, August 30th, there will be a big-ass party beneath the Riverview Ballroom on Walnut Street, next to the somewhat dodgy, gray and maroon motel. It's called The Underground, when it's called anything at all, and this is where I hope to be surrounded by all my favorite people, who I hope will be surrounded by all their favorite people, who I hope will be introducing us all to interesting folks we haven't yet met.

There will be, like, a bunch of my favorite musicians, bands and other sentient noise-making devices... AND WE WILL GO UNTIL DAWN (if we please). Though I'm still awaiting some definites, I know that Nomenclature, Trendlenberg, Al King, Oh No They Didn't, Scott Baston & the News Architects, Oh Dorian, Aaron Irons, Doski Wo and Hank Vegas all want to be there performing for you. And maybe more.

But why? Well, it seems like a good time to celebrate ourselves, which would make an excellent excuse for me to have fun. And why not? We've got this big, beautiful, growing community of weirdoes who register semi- to full-bohemian on the strangeness scale. Plus Monica and Heatherly are going to be hitting milestone birthdays during that same stretch, and don't they deserve to have a bunch of drunk assholes scream-singing Happy Birthday at them too?

Of course they do. And what's better, you deserve to be there when it happens. You deserve to be able to say you were a drunk asshole, that you were singing shit that didn't even make sense at the time—that, in future hindsight, you were just having such a good time that you didn't notice how crazy you got. You deserve to feel like apologizing to people who will probably tell you not to worry about it because they were just about to call and apologize to you too, and then they'll ask if you've seen their keys because they can't find them and they had to sleep on the porch of their place because they passed out trying to break in while the church crowd was driving by. That's what you deserve.

In conclusion, I was raised to believe that Sunday is a day of rest, and I want to make sure that everyone has a damn good reason to still be asleep at 3pm on Sunday.

More details will be forthcoming, I swear. Just go ahead and mark the date, time and location. Saturday, August 30 until sometime Sunday, August 31 at the Underground (beneath the Riverview Ballroom). They'll be serving fried catfish dinner and such at 7pm if you want to come then.