Douglas Brinkley vs. Don Young "I Pay Your Salary" Heated Exchange

 Here is some info on this knucklehead congressman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Young

Why is it that congress people get to sit up high and look down on the people testifying? I think it should be the other way around. Or if not that then everybody on one level.

Everybody Knows He's A Crackpot! Doug Brinkley Responds To Congressman D...

More Pictures Of Kirbyville Texas Taken In 1996

The Last Picture Show

The Last Barbershop.

 When we lived in Kirbyville, Texas in 1952/53/54/55 the town had

a population of 1444. We left and they then had 1440 people.

I seem to remember the town had 5 barber shops. I also remember a blacksmith shop. Long gone.

There was nothing much to do in Kirbyville back then but go down town and watch them cut hair. And maybe see a train carrying pulpwood pass through town.

The Last Drug Store

The Last Main Street

In 1954 I once lay down on the top of this building and ate mulberries off the tree that grew

overhead. I think of it as a Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain type memory.

The Last Hardware Store.

 My memory of this place from 1952-53-54 is of a

brightly lit top flight hardware store. I bought rope there for calf roping. I remember they had

ropes for sale in all sizes. This store had a great smell of leather and wood as I remember.

Another view of The Last Picture Show.

This is not Larry McMurtry's Archer City, Texas picture show but it is much the same thing.

Click on the name Larry McMurtry in the Label Box below to read about the time I met him

in his Washington D.C. Georgetown bookshop named Booked Up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirbyville,_Texas

Occupy Tampa Mic Checks Walmart On Black Friday

Occupy San Diego Mic Checks Walmart on Black Friday

Occupy Xmas - Black Friday (Del City, Oklahoma - Wal-Mart) November, 201...

More on this protest in the post below this one on my blog.

Occupy activists arrested at Wal-Mart

Occupy activists arrested at Wal-Mart

http://www.kfor.com/news/local/kfor-occupy-activists-arrested-at-walmart-20111128,0,173666.story?track=rss

It was only a matter of time. Buy  Local!

Late Summer, Early Fall By Sam W. Hawkins A Novel About Kirbyville, Texas In 1950.

Someone just sent this book to me and I just finished reading it. It is a novel set in Kirbyville, Texas in 1950.
Here is some information about the book.
http://www.amazon.com/LATE-SUMMER-EARLY-FALL-Friendship/dp/144158241X

And here in the link below is more information and the book and the author.
http://digitalproducer.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=921303

Click on the name Kirbyville Texas in the Label box below to see more of my posts about Kirbyville with pictures from the early 1950s and some others the way it looks now.

More Pictures Of Kirbyville Texas March 1996

Here are some pictures of Kirbyville, Texas taken in March of 1996.
Main Street is no longer the bustling and thriving street it once was in the 1950s. See my post below this one about how Wal-Mart has killed the main streets on many small towns in America.

Click on the name Kirbyville Texas in the labels box below to see many good pictures of Kirbyville Texas back in the 1950s.

Wal-Mart Killed All The Small Towns In America. The Main Streets Are Now Ghost Towns With Empty Stores Or Old Stores Filled With Antiques

Woods Drug Store Kirbyville, Texas March 1996.

Palace Theater Kirbyville, Texas. 1996.

Rear View of Woods Drugstore Kirbyville, Texas 1996.

I hate Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart has killed off the old main streets of many small towns in America. What once had thriving main streets filled with businesses and Mom and Pop stores are now deserted and have become ghost towns because of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart moves in and wipes out all stores large and small in a 50 mile radius.
And young people don't even know what a mom and pop store is. They look puzzled and say, "What's a mom and pop store?"
Here is one report and his view of this.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/92271/is_walmart_destroying_small_town_america.html

And below is another article on this subject.
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2003/3045walmart_iowa.html

Below is a link to the locations of 11 Wal-Marts near Kirbyville Texas.
http://www.walmart.com/storeLocator/ca_storefinder_results.do?serviceName=&rx_title=com.wm.www.apps.storelocator.page.serviceLink.title.default&rx_dest=%2Findex.gsp&sfrecords=50&sfsearch_single_line_address=kirbyville+texas
Now take a look at what Main Street in Kirbyville looks like now as of 1996.

Meridian Mississippi 1909 And 1930 Old Meridian Mississippi Postcards Real Photos

Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

The two postcards above were post marked 1909.

The two pictures above are of a Barnum and Bailey Circus train in Meridian Mississippi 1930.

Natalie Wood And This Property Is Condemmed 1965/1966 Filmed In Bay Saint Louis Mississippi And New Orleans

Click on the link below to read all about this movie.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061089/

The small Mississippi town mentioned above(click on the picture to enlarge and read it)was Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi.
   I have written much more on this blog about this movie including original photographs taken on the set in New Orleans. Click on the label Natalie Wood below to read my other posts about this movie and what happened to the old railroad car Miss Alva.

Orin Andrus

Orin is one of the lucky people who got to read his own obituary. He was reported dead in 2 newspapers.  But he was alive and well and is back living in Key West, Florida. Be sure and link on the correction. Orin got to read all the nice comments people wrote about his passing.
http://pqliving.com/remembering-a-gentle-giant/

http://keysnews.com/node/10372

Sam Kosko

I saw Sam yesterday. He told me about this article that had been written about him.
http://wmahsj.org/2011/09/29/people-we-pass/
There is much more to Sam than appears in the article above. Sam is very clear headed and very intelligent. He doesn't use alcohol or drugs. Pan handling and playing his uke down at Union Station in Washington, D.C. is his job. That is what he calls it. He told me that he will have to work on Thanksgiving. The take is very good this time of year. The day before Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving are prime days for panhandling. Same for the days before Christmas and Christmas day.
And here is a link to an article about the Poe Toaster in Baltimore that mentions Sam Kosko.
http://welcometobaltimorehon.com/encountering-the-poe-toaster

I suggested to Sam that he panhandle and play his uke outside the metro station at the baseball stadium. That worked out very well also.

When I first met Sam he was sleeping outside in the winter in a sleeping bag at a bustop outside of McDonald's in Arlington, Va.
  He would come inside in the morning and sit in a booth a appear to be sleeping. Finally he was told to leave because he smelled so bad.
  But he has cleaned up and that manager has left and he is no longer banned from that McDonald's. But he spends most of his time outside Central Library in Arlington on weekends and goes to his job at Union Station during the week.

Recently some social service agency found him a room in N.E. D.C. where he can sleep this winter.

I have written about Sam before on this blog. Below is what I have written before about Sam Kosko.


I have a friend here named Sam who plays the ukulele. He is homeless and plays his ukulele and also pan handles down at the train station in D.C. Union station is a good place to pan handle even though someone stole his ukulele when he went to the bathroom even though he had asked someone to watch his stuff while he was gone.



I was told he did right well the two days before Christmas panhandling outside Union Station. He got 180 dollars each day. $360.00 for two days is not bad. Some gave him 5 dollars some gave him ten dollars and even a few twenties. Churches took up collections and put them in envelopes. The little children would put their one dollars or so in also. Then someone would deliver the envelopes to Sam and hand them to him.

Sam has dirty clothes and long hair. He really looks the part. He also has a sad expression on his face. Very rarely does he look people in the eye. He keeps his head and eyes lowered. Sam is a very smart well educated person. He has worked before but now he lives on the street. He keeps his possessions in a storage unit. He pays for the storage unit each month but does not have an apartment or a room. The homeless in Arlington get food every day from local churches. They had a Christmas meal from 2pm to 4pm yesterday at a church here in Arlington. Sam was there I was told by someone this morning.



Sam has been banned from several places where he would go to get warm. One of them is the library. They have a rule that you cannot sleep in the library. They warn the sleepers once and then ban them the next time they catch them sleeping.



I first saw Sam last year sleeping out in the cold in a bus shelter. He would sleep in his sleeping bag all night and then later come in the McDonald's and go sit quietly in a booth and go to sleep. They let him do this for a long time. I finally went over and struck up a conversation with him. I was surprised to find he was so well read and well educated. And he has talent also. He is quite good on the ukulele and is a good singer as well.

But the people that come in McDonald's finally complained that he smelled bad and he was told to leave and not come back. So he stayed outside in the cold.



Last year there was also a woman who slept out there in the bus stop shelters. She finally drove Sam away because she would not stick to one shelter. She kept moving back and forth to the one across the street and leaving a big mess which Sam said attracted rats. So he left and now sleeps somewhere down near the Central Library. He takes to metro into Union Station each day and comes back in the evening.

I went looking for him today down by the library but he was not there. I feel he must be down at Union Station doing his thing.



A-SPAN helps the homeless in Arlington, Va.

http://a-span.org/HBMP.html

Life Is Like A Game Of Poker

Life is like a game of Poker. Some people win, some people lose, and some people just stand around and watch.

 You have to play to win but you may lose. It is safer to just stand around and watch.
Some people just kibbitz.

"English actor Joseph Crowell reported that the game was played in New Orleans in 1829, with a deck of 20 cards, and four players betting on which player's hand was the most valuable. Jonathan H. Green's book, An Exposure of the Arts and Miseries of Gambling (G. B. Zieber, Philadelphia, 1843), described the spread of the game from there to the rest of the country by Mississippi riverboats, on which gambling was a common pastime. As it spread north along the Mississippi River and to the West during the gold rush, it is thought to have become a part of the frontier pioneer ethos."
The above quote is from the wikipedia page on poker linked below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker

Babe Stovall - The Ship Is At The Landing

I used to see and hear Babe Stovall playing around the French Quarter in New Orleans when I lived there in 1965 and 1966 and when I went back on visits in the 1970s.

Once in 1971 or so I was on Madison Street in the French Quarter very early in the morning when it was just daylight and no one was on the streets. I saw Babe Stovall rounding the corner on Chartres Street and said "Hi Babe". He must have been up all night playing a house party. He said "How're you doin?" I told him I was tired. He asked how old I was. I said I was 31. He said, "When I was 31 I could piss over the tops of these buildings". And off he went. I have never forgotten his remark. Thanks Babe.

Babe Stovall - Dirty Mistreater

Go you Youtube on this video to read some good comments on Babe Stovall.

Larry Borenstein, Lee Friedlander, E.J. Bellocq

Some talking by Larry Borenstein in the video above but no music or singing by Babe Stovall.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babe_Stovall

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Borenstein
Some of these websites like wikipedia above fail to mention that it was Al Rose and Larry Borenstein that found the E.J. Bellocq negatives and later sold them to Lee Friedlander who first published them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_J_Bellocq

After Bellocq's death in 1949, two New Orleans antiques dealers, Larry Borenstein and Al Rose, found Bellocq's glass-plate negatives in his desk drawer and purchased them. When noted photographer Lee Friedlander saw these glass negatives in 1966 he bought them and printed them for the world to see.

Excellent profile of Larry Borenstein in the link below.
http://www.rightwaywrongway.com/index.php?name=Sections&req=viewarticle&artid=65&page=1

And a very good article in the link below.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/fts/neworleans_200105A04.html

JFK Assassination And The Texas Book Depository And The 6th Floor Museum

http://www.jfk.org/go/about/history-of-the-texas-school-book-depository

In 1967 I wrote to the Department of the Interior telling them they should make a museum out of the Texas Book Depository. Below is the letter I received in reply. Click on the photo to enlarge and read the letter.

Stephen King Writes Time Travel Novel About The JFK Assassination 11-22-63

By Allison V. Smith, for USA TODAY On location: Stephen King spent a lot of time in Dallas at the 6th Floor Museum, where Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots that killed JFK.

http://www.wbir.com/news/article/191319/141/Stephen-King-evokes-horrors-of-history-in-112263-

http://www.stephenking.com/promo/11-22-63/promo_page/

I am surprised someone hasn't written a time travel novel about the JFK assassination before this one. Maybe they have and I just don't know about it. I suppose many people have thought of writing a book about going back and trying to stop the assassination from happening.

If you did go back in time trying to stop the JFK assassination would be like a nightmare. The Secret Service would not believe you if you told them. They would just arrest you. And you could not get to the grassy knoll and the 6th Floor of the Texas Book Depository both at the same time.

Many unexpected things could happen to keep you stuck somewhere like in a dream making it unable for you to get to the scene on time.

  If you tried to get the Secret Service not to take the bubble top off the limo they would ignore you since it was JFK that told them to take it off that day.

  And certainly one good way to end the book would be for you to be shot by the Secret Service while attempting to stop the assassination. They could then get rid of your body and history could continue unchanged.

Bishop James Pike And Philip K. Dick

Bishop James Pike and Philip K. Dick.

James Pike was an inspiration for the character of Timothy Archer in Philip K. Dick's book, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer. They were friends, and Pike officiated at Dick's wedding to Nancy Hackett, step-daughter of Maren Hackett (1966).


The link below is about Bishop James Pike. He died in the Judean desert in 1969.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Pike

Heavy D Just Died....Heavy D And The Boyz Used To Stay At The Washington Plaza Hotel In Washington D.C. Where I Worked

http://www.spin.com/articles/heavy-d-rip-hear-his-legacy-15-tracks

Heavy D and the Boyz used to stay at the Washington Plaza Hotel in Washington D.C. when I worked there in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
  They were always well behaved and never caused any trouble. They would drive down from New York City where they lived and check in the Washington Plaza Hotel when they had a gig in D.C.
  But I do remember the last time they came they arrived with bullet holes in their car. Seems they had a shoot out on the way down. Nobody was hurt. I think they had to uphold a reputation as a bunch of bad rappers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/arts/music/heavy-d-rap-star-dies-at-44.html?_r=1

MARTY ROBBINS Maybelline 1956

This song is from the 10" Columbia Records LP mentioned in the post below this one. Marty Robbins first LP. Rock'n Roll'n Robbins. It first came out in 1956.

LONG TALL SALLY by Marty Robbins 1956 From The Columbia 10" LP Rock'n Roll'n Robbins

The above song is from the 10" LP Album on Columbia Records. It was Marty Robbins first LP. 1956. See pictures of it below. A friend of mine found this 10" LP last Saturday at the local Civitan Flea market at the parking garage over Route 66 next to Washington and Lee High School in Arlington, Va.

World Boxing Association Event 8-27-1976 At The Shoreham Hotel In Washington D.C. Howard Cosell Was The M.C. Every Living Heavyweight Champion Except George Foreman Came And I Got Autographs From Joe Frazier And Muhammad Ali

The Shoreham Hotel Washington D.C. 2500 Calvert Street N.W.

You can find the photo described below by clicking on the link below and clicking on Events.

http://www.miltonwilliamsphotography.com/captionsevents.html

Row 1. Box 3. I AM THE GREATEST!!! said Muhammad Ali at the WBA 55th Annual Convention at the Shoreham Americana Hotel in Washington D. C. as Howard Cossell looks on. Heavyweight Boxing Champion Muhammad Ali, 2/25/64 to 3/22/67 (stripped of his title by the WBA and others for refusing military service because of his religious beliefs) - 10/ 30/74 to 2/15/78 and 9/15/78 to retirement in 1979 - First heavyweight champion to hold title 3 times in boxing history. Photo by Milton Williams c. 8.27.1976.

The above photograph of Bob Dylan and Ali was taken in another place at another time.

Joe Frazier just died. He was 67 years old. I got his autograph when I worked at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington D.C. in August 1976.
   He was there for a big World Boxing Association Event. Howard Cosell was the M.C. More than a 1000 people came to the event held in the large Regency Ballroom. Every single living heavy weight champion was there except George Foreman. The ones who came that I remember were Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis,  Jersey Joe Walcott, Ken Norton and Floyd Patterson.
I saw all these champions lined up in the hallway outside of the Regency Ballroom waiting to go in.

Joe Frazier and Muhammed Ali in line waiting to go in the event. Click on these photos to enlarge them to view them better. Photo by Joe B. Stewart

The above photo is of a young Joe Frazier.
   I got Ali's autograph in the Lobby of the Shoreham Hotel the next day. He was standing in the Lobby all alone. No one else was around. I said, "Hi Champ. Can I have your autograph?" He signed his name on a small piece of paper which I handed to him. Then I said "I saw you had your picture taken with Bob Dylan." He nodded yes.

Above is the Muhammad Ali autograph that he gave me in the Lobby of the Shoreham Hotel in 1976.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heavyweight_boxing_champions
The night of the event after it was over I saw Joe Frazier sitting with two pretty young women one on each side of him on a couch in the hallway off the lobby. I went up to him and said hello. I told him my daughter has asked me to get his autograph for her. I told him I had told her I was going to get Ali's autograph and my daughter said "Get Joe Frazier's autograph too". The two women both said "Yes". I got Joe 's autograph and gave it to my daughter.
   Howard Cosell was a great M.C. for the event. He joked and traded insults with Ali. Cosell told Ali "I knew you when you were a kid in Louisville,Ky. stealing bicycles".
 Two photos below taken after the event. Both are of Ken Norton. I look on.

VENICE ITALY Bridge of Sighs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_of_Sighs

When we were passing through The Bridge Of Sighs in 2007 the line was very crowded and one of our fellow tour members freaked out for some reason and yelled he could not take it and bolted back in the other direction.

Wimpy's Was The Name Of The Campus Coffee Shop At Mississippi Southern College Back in 1958 Through 1963

That is Wimpy above with Popeye and Olive Oyl from 1937.

The logo above is from a restaurant chain in the U.K.

When I was a student at Mississippi Southern College in Hattiesburg, Mississippi the college coffee shop was called Wimpy's after the character Wimpy in the Popeye comic strip.
http://www.studentprintz.com/activities-hub-abuzz-1.896960
 Wimpy was always smiling and shown eating a hamburger.
Here is a link with a photograph of the Wimpy's at Mississippi Southern College around 1958 or so.
http://goldeneaglesusm.homestead.com/Mississippi_Southern.html
Here is the wikipedia entry on Wimpy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Wellington_Wimpy

I have a good friend named Jerry who weighs over 400 pounds. He can eat(and does eat)more hamburgers than Wimpy. He reminds me very much of Wimpy. Always laughing and always smiling and always eating one hamburger after another at McDonald's. He had two of the new Daily Doubles yesterday at McDonalds.