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expanded. Ben Kweller gave us a gift that night. At the end
of one era, a glance into the next. A peek into our hipster
future.
(You can find a live recording of this show and hear
Ben Kweller talk about his girl pants by searching for “Ben
Kweller Live at Club Laga on 2004-04-01” at archive.org.)
Let’s Fly
By Bob Mitchell
If you are old enough to remember the “good ol’ days” of
The Normaltown Flyers at Allen’s on Wednesday nights,
then you can recall those feelings of joy and togetherness.
The place to be on Wednesday nights. The locals (and Navy
school folks) were singing and dancing to the beloved
sounds of The Normaltown Flyers. You saw friends that
you only saw on Wednesday night at Allen’s. Sometimes
you might see a friend or classmate that had moved out of
town, but still comes to Athens on Wednesday nights to
hear The Normaltown Flyers and refresh old friendships.
Any of you that have fond memories like I do, please write
or call anybody you know connected to the Athens Music
Walk of Fame in downtown Athens. This neglect to honor
one of the best loved bands of Athens is a shame. Just
because younger folks have more music and opportunities
to choose from should not take away the importance of
The Normaltown Flyers to be honored a spot on the Athens
Music Walk of Fame. They should have been one of the first
bands to be honored.
10 Strategies For
Repurposing (or Disposing
Of) Bob Dylan’s Christmas
in the Heart Album
By Curtiss Pernice
1. The cardboard LP cover makes a perfect barrier between
your car seat and a messy, incontinent pet or elderly
person.
2. Put it in your child’s lunch box. When they ask why, tell
them it’s a banana.
3. If you purchased a copy of this recording at a record
store, just toss it out the car window onto the highway
on your way home. If this seems wasteful to you, just
remind yourself that it’s Bob Dylan’s Christmas in the
Heart album.
4. Every Wednesday morning, between 8-9 a.m., Bob Dylan
has his breakfast at Patty’s Cafe on Third Street in Santa
Monica, CA. Bring your copy of Christmas in the Heart to
his table and force him to eat it.
5. Find any patient’s room at a local hospice, sit down at the
bedside and say, “In your final moments, I thought you’d
like to listen to Bob Dylan singing some Christmas clas
sics.” They will probably pass away immediately.
6. Robert DeNiro is believed to have accumulated over
875,000 copies of Christmas in the Heart by picking
through people’s garbage, stowing away on trash barges
and exploring municipal sewer systems. Check his
schedule online to see when he will be in your area, and
arrange a pickup at your home.
7. Throw your copy of the album into a lake, but don’t be
surprised when it comes jauntily bouncing back out like
a boomerang and hits you in the face. Shame on you for
thinking this would be easy.
8. Christmas in the Heart makes an outstanding slip and
salt. Plop the record on floated glet, knock the woody
chapels off it, lag out cobbie and gaulish, then wag the
plippits. You’ll have to haggle chop the previous week to
glob shunky.
9. Be sure that the record you’re disposing of is actually
Christmas in the Heart and not a counterfeit copy. Start
with the cover art; it should depict several children
whipping a horse to death which Dylan painted while
high on cough medicine. Now, turn the record cover
over. You should feel a searing pain in the front of your
skull when you do so. Don’t worry, this is normal and a
sign that you have a genuine copy of the record.
10. Christmas in the Heart is known in North Korea as Dear
Leader Celebrates Victory Over Imperialism in the Winter
War Featuring Oppressive Harmonica. It is said that Dylan
re-recorded the entire album and attempted to sing the
lyrics in Korean, despite not knowing the language. If
you can find a copy of this rare record, throw it away, too.
The Refrigerator
By Tina Carlson
I am so overloaded. Not just the usual butter, milk and
eggs... no sir, not me, not in this house. Madame likes to
cook. It used to be, when the family was here, when the
mister was here, that I would be filled and emptied regu
larly. Not anymore. Stuff that never used to be kept cool
now sits on my shelves. Madame took a course, and some
one put a bee in her bonnet about unstable oils. So now
the walnut oil, the sesame oil, the peanut oil—which has
turned all cloudy—adorn my bottom shelf.
The dog kibble. The cat kibble. All her Chinese and other
oriental condiments, liquids and flavorings. She even makes
food for the dogs—BARF she calls it, and wraps individual
servings of it in Glad Wrap and freezes them.
How excruciatingly efficient.
She cooks everything from scratch, then freezes indi
vidual portions. I’ve got enough meals in my upper regions
to last her a couple months. Homemade biscuits. Breads.
Rolls. No Atkins or Keto diets here.
And she keeps going out and buying more. All she really
needs is butter, milk and eggs, but she brings home stinky
cheeses, fruits, vegetables—even stores Vidalia onions in
my bottom drawer. Onions, for heaven’s sake. Who ever
heard of refrigerating onions?!
And the icemaker? Mister used to like ice in his drinks,
but she never uses ice. Too cold, she says. Well, what does
she expect? Except the cubes just sit there, get fuzzy and
stick together. The mass that’s in there now is so solid she’s
going to have to empty the freezer and take the shelf out to
the bin loose.
And does she ever clean me? Wipe me out? Nah, not
unless I throw a light bulb at her or drop the middle drawer
when she pulls it out. Then she might notice. Or like the
time the onion skins got so deep she lost a small bag of
snow peas in the pile and didn’t find it until they had all
turned brown and slimy.
I did it once before, and I swear I’ll do it again. If she
doesn’t take better care of me, I’m going to let loose and
leak all over her floor.
Introductions
By Elliot Nelson Hahamovitch
a book of my experiences will never be published,
i’m at the uncomfortable stretch between “normal” and
“interesting.”
too “strange” to write about new discoveries,
too “normal” to write about what’s happened,
the only place i could fit in is fiction,
fantasy, sci-fi, anything “alien,” to fill in
the gaps of boring in myself;
to discover new worlds from my perspective,
but i haven’t found myself,
not yet.
my sense of self is already vague,
branching, i see myself in everything,
i will bend and twist my personality
into protagonists, just so i can feel heard,
i find myself in sentient spaceships
demigods,
fairies,
astronauts.
Five Things You’ve
Always Wanted to Know
About Toll Booths but
Weie Too Afraid to Ask
By Zachary Decker
1. Do all toll booths smell the same?
There are many factors that determine what the inside of
a toll booth smells like, and no two smell exactly alike. The
materials that toll booths are made of are partially respon
sible for its smell. For example, a booth made of metal
smells less like wood than a wooden booth does. Of course,
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Text your zip code to 898-211 or call 211 today.
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Positive training for the dog in your life.
706-338-2005 Ian McFarlane
DECEMBER 29, 2021 & JANUARY 5, 2022 | FLAGPOLE.COM 17