Newspaper Page Text
Page 12
Flagpole Magazine
October 23, 1991
William Often Carlton = ORT.
Special Correspondent For The Flagpole.
A lot of things crammed into a little
space. This week, it’s my turn to get both
political and musical.
First things first. You wanna know how
I feel about the whole Clarence Thomas
thing? It was a fiasco. One or the other of
them is lying, and I believe Ms. Hill totally.
All the credentials in the world, all the hard
growings up, and all the breaks and attain
ments do not an honest person make, and
I feel like we have a dishonest one sitting on
the Supreme Court as of this week. You
asked me, I told you. I think he is qualified,
yes...but not to fill the seat of the likes of
Thurgood Marshall. I said once before. I
think we need someone with a minimum of
20 years' trial experience to fill that particu
lar vacancy, and I stand by it. No, I do not
trust the son of Pin Point, Georgia, and I am
deeply saddened by his appointment. I
think he will cheapen the Supreme Court.
That's what I believe and I stand by it.
The deeper dilemma: President Bush
has picked Mr. Thomas in order to attempt
to overturn Roe vs. Wade. Wait and see.
Hey, nobody in their right mind is willy-nilly
pro-abortion — the issue is not whether
abortion is right or wrong: it is whether a
woman should obtain her abortion legally,
from someone unquestionably medically
qualified, or else be forced to go to some
clandestine cuttery where anything could
happen. Before abortions were legal in this
country, a lot of women seeking to end
unwanted pregnancies died...it is that
simple Wealthy women left the country to
have abortions in distant nations that so
allowed, the poorer ones were forced to
bear their unwanted babies in silence or
else seek the knives of back-alley carvers of
no repute Sure, the ideal is celibacy, but
let's be real we cannot expect that of our
selves when even our Bishops are found
guilty of sexual improprieties, now, can we 7
Let's be real We’re talking Freedom To
Choose, not that the choices are good
Think about it It is especially true that it is
not a man’s decision to mai*e, since men
cannot get pregnant That choice should
be left to the women, and it should be just
that a choice I want to see Roe vs Wade
left standing as is — or at worst, let each
state decide
The Civic Center. I remain unconvinced
that we actually need the damned tnmg, but
if we build one, let it be one that utilizes the
existing buildings. Recycling them would
be a great gift to give future generations. I
stand with Mr Stipe, who unmumblingly
supports the KressCox plan, and I think it is
the best of the three—unmistakably. We've
already spent over a million bucks, let’s
make this thing work. What say, folks?
How about them Braves? As I write
(Thursday night, October 17th.), we've just
walloped Pittsburgh. All those Keystoners
shoulda drunk more Iron City and rooted for
the Pirates louder, but to no avail. We
trounced them, on their home turf, and
without apology. Now let's go for — and win
— The Big One. Whoop it up once for me.
The Texas killing. Seems like we've got
quite a few people out there who are poten
tial "time bombs’ just walking around loose.
This is to be expected. Ir an era when we
have a bona-fide recession (if not a down
right depression) going, mental health is
often the first
place to be cut,
along with li
braries. Don't
people realize
that what we
need to fight is
bureaucracy
and that mental
health and edu
cation and li
braries are
three of the stupidest things to short-sheet?
Hey, toss out the last-hireds in the grounds
crews, on the steno pools, in middle man
agement! Make cuts in administration, nix
raises for awhile, reduce work weeks to 35
hours, allow those who can afford it to take
one day a week off without pay, induce a
few longtimers to take early retirement. Use
the backsides of paper before throwing it
away, use inter office memos instead of
mailing letters to offices down the hall, use
recycled stuff ail of these will work if imple
mented! Maybe someone oughta get off
their butts and make suggestions where
such are due
Back to Texas This town frustrates me
something fierce, but I doubt I’d ever get to
the point of wanting to off every 3rd pers‘on
for some imagined (or real) slight There are
folks in this town I have no use for and I'm
sure the reverse is true, but I still haven't
been forced to buy a gun nor to "mark" my
car hood nor unlist my home telephone,
although I’m almost never handy to answer
it...and I won't until I have to. Charles
Whitman, the Texas Tower sniper of 1966,
was found to have had a brain tumor: wasn’t
it a temporal lobe one? That would stand to
reason simply because he didn t. As for
George Hennard, Jr., I don't know what his
excuse was, but I think he probably did too
much bad acid when he lived in Austin or
else he was still a-sea all these years later... I
suppose we’ll find out, and probably by the
time you read this, if you do.
Gamble Rogers. You may have been
around long enough to have seen him when
he played The Last Resort or, more re
cently, Friends. Gamble drowned Thurs
day, October 10th., while tempting to
rescue a fellow from Ontario who was swept
offshore at Flagler Beach, Florida. The
Canadian had probably never heard of
Gamble: they died together; it was just the
way his last story
should have gone.
He was 53 A
native Floridian in
astate full of trans
plants, his stories
were legend and
won him the love
and respect of
wide audiences
most of them con
cerned his mythi
cal Oklawaha County and the folks who
lived there. His home in the real world was
St. Augustine, a city noted for its long
standing folk club tradition, its abundance
of serious old-hippie types, as well as its
outstanding architecture — and the preser
vation thereof He was quite at home there,
and his untimely passing will create a hole
that, like his smkhole-in-the-fourlane story,
can never be adequately filled
There is a secession effort underway in
Florida right now The southeastern section
of Hillsborough County, tired of having to
spell something that long, longs to form its
own government The area, centered in
Ruskin and including Apollo Beach, Gt-
bsonton, Balm, and Wimauma. is primarily
agricultural, producing (among other truck
crops) tomatos for everyone's wintertime
vable The locals rightly claim that the folks
in skyscrapers in Tampa (seat of present
Hillsborough County) don’t speak their
language, and they are mostly right Florida
has only 67 counties, compared to Georgia's
159 (and once 161), so another one couldn’t
hurt. The last county formed was Gilchrist,
in 1925. Its seat is Trenton, by the way
Hardee County, wherefrom all my family
hails, was created in 1920 and named for
former Governor Cary Hardee. My kith and
kin have been in Floridasince before Gamble
Rogers’ — my first ancestor went south
from the wiregrass region of Georgia in
1811, while Florida was still a mighty
sparsely-settled territory. I hope the Ruskans
manage to secede: I wanna see them call
their tomato-growing cutoff Oklawaha
County, although it is a piece offent-from
the Oklawaha River, to use a true Florida
cracker saying. Gamble Rogers was far
closer to the tomato-growers than the sky
scraper-sitters, and it would be the ultimate
way to honor him. It's a pretty name, too I
wonder if Governor Lawton Chiles is listen
ing, like he does nearly every night to the
Larry King Radio Show?
Music. Udderudderly amazes me. They
have the same sort of musical naivete that
hallmarked Pylon at the beginning and led
to Pylon being described as "naive artists of
the first water’ by some noted critic. The
two bands are really not stylistically similar,
but that's unimportant. Udder's primitivity
shakes me, and I hope it doesn't manage to
refine itself Their three-person dramas-in-
song-form are unique to everything I've
ever seen and heard of, and I hope they
continue to expand this format. This music
is truly bas-relief. Big things can come of
people like these who dare to be originals,
however accidentally they designed it I
hope they keep it up and stay rough
Next week, I’ll try to cram in a late-
breaking story about Little Rock's two-
newspaper Mexican-standoff-situation
Does the Democrat (est. 1850) succeed in
kneeing the Gazette (est 1819) to the
ground, or will some Orwellean rescue take
place 7 This is nothing like the competition
between the Daily Citizen News (est. 1950)
and the Evening Equator-Zenith (est. 1817),
folks I'll keep you posted
Speaking of which, I'm gonna rock myseif
to a little sleep, dear reader(s) Maybe it'll
all look better in the morning, maybe I will,
and maybe nothing will change See you
(and myself) in the funny papers. More next
week as plots thicken, along with the gravy
Add flour. (30 )
Udder udderly amazes me...
Big things can come of
people like these
who dare to be originals,
however accidentally they
designed it.
Homelessness is a scary thing
MASQUERADE
N THURSDAY
- 3-1
at
the
Automatic for the people”
40 Watt
TICKETS
AVAILABLE AT:
40 WATT
THE GRIT
WEAVER D's