Southern Bookman

Farewell, Roy Clark

Roy Clark at first gained recognition as a crossover TV personality whose citified country humor and instrumental talent appealed to TV variety show audiences.

Like Glen Campbell, Clark rose to stardom in Los Angeles with an urbanized country sound that reflected the migration from the farm to the city. Clark, who gained widespread fame as the host of the long-running country-fried hit "Hee-Haw," died this week of pneumonia in Tulsa, Okla.

While Clark's musical performances brought him appearances on 1960s TV variety shows, he also developed a comic personna of the canny Southern bumpkin, similar to those  of Andy Griffith or Jim Nabors. Clark's rubbery facial expressions guaranteed laughs.

Later, Clark reverted more and more to cornpone hillbilly humor as the host of the long-running "Hee Haw," along with the dynamic Bakersfield singer Buck Owens. Clark and Owens' "picking' and grinnin'" routine always made me cringe, as if I were watching the black actor Stephen Fetchit act out black stereotypes in 1930s movies.

While the "Hee-Haw"  act's broad humor was funny enough, it depended on demeaning Southern stereotypes. I was chagrined that such wonderful musical talents as Clark and Owens stooped to such condescending work. Owens apparently hated the bit.

While Clark was funny, his self-deprecating comic act overshadowed his immense talent as a singer and guitar/banjo player. Clark's musical talent compared to Campbell's, and he could have had a similar singing/playing career without the clowning.

Well, people loved "Hee Haw," as white audiences once loved "Amos and Andy."  Such broad, corn-shucking humor was long a staple of country acts. Even Hank Williams had such a comic in his band. Minnie Pearl built a durable career out of country humor. 

Clark had stage presence, and his comedy touched millions. Yet, his delivery of songs like "Yesterday When I Was Young" and his virtuoso instrumental performances made me wish that he'd concentrated on his music.

 

 

Georgia's shameful incentive package for Amazon

Georgia's outrageous incentive plan for Amazon treated owner Jeff Bezos like the king of the universe. Perhaps he is. 

Bezos, the richest man in the history of the world, received lucrative packages from New York City and Crystal City, Va., to establish Amazon outposts there.

But J-Bez rejected an even more lavish package of perks offered by the state of Georgia, which struggles to give its teachers pay raises, limits funding for health care and eagerly enacts welfare programs for wealthy white men.

The Peach State's $2 billion gift bag for Amazon included a private airport lounge for Amazon execs, a publicly funded private academy for Amazon workers and some kind of special Amazon car on MARTA trains, according to The AJC. The outlandish package is again bringing Georgia national ridicule, including an incredulous New York magazine article.

Despite the grandiose Georgia offer, Amazon rejected Atlanta for a headquarters site outside of Seattle. Perhaps Georgia's offer was so fantastical that Amazon refused it out of an uncharacteristic sense of corporate shame.

Amazon likely realized that accepting the Georgia deal would have brought an outpouring of protest in Atlanta even greater than that now erupting in New York City over the incentive package that lured the company to Long Island City in the borough of Queens, best known as the home of Donald Trump, Archie Bunker and the New York Mets.

In a rare occurrence, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal joined in condemning the Amazon incentives given by New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio and New York Gov. Andrew "Amazon" Cuomo. Rupert Murdoch's WSJ and Fox News even united with New York socialist and U.S. Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in opposing the Amazon deal.

Even more heated opposition would have risen in Atlanta if Amazon had accepted Georgia's package. Surely Fortune 500 companies that have made Atlanta their headquarters for years without such governmental largesse would have howled at the special airport lounge and free parking offered Amazon. 

Imagine the ire of Coca-Cola, Southern Co., Home Depot and UPS execs. Longtime prominent Atlanta company Delta Air Lines has a special club at the airport for its most frequent passengers, who must pay for the privilege. Delta, which is likely to get a tax break on jet fuel in the current legislative special session, presumably doesn't receive free space for its lounge. The Amazon lounge would put Delta at a competitive disadvantage to other airlines used by Amazon execs.

The offer of a special academy providing college-level courses and lifetime learning to Amazon employees is outrageous. Georgia students have to pay tuition to attend the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Georgia State and other universities. They need to receive high grades to be eligible for Hope scholarships. Many Georgians aren't even accepted by flagship state schools. Yet Amazon employees would have received unlimited free access to higher education, and a boost to career advancement.

If the Amazon academy paid better salaries, it would draw top professors from Georgia and Tech, depriving students at the state schools of the best educational opportunities.

The state-funded academy would give Amazon an edge over other corporations in attracting top talent. Amazon's monopoly on the best workers would cripple efforts to develop high-tech startups.

Out of all the offered perks, the special Amazon car on MARTA trains was the most ludicrous. The AJC report was vague on details. Such a plan seemed more the ill-conceived product of some bureaucrat's overactive imagination  than a well-thought-out proposal.

Already suffering from overcrowding, each MARTA train apparently would have had to include a special Amazon car, subsidized by the transit system's sales taxes. Would the special car have been off-limits during rush hours or when trains are packed for sporting events? How would the car have been used in "distributing" Amazon products? The plan doesn't seem very efficient for home deliveries, already provided for the company by the postal service.

Outgoing Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has refused Medicaid expansion, claiming it would be too expensive for the state. Apparently his administration had no qualms about wrecking the state budget for Amazon.

 

Amazon jilts Atlanta, as Nashville receives plum

Not only did Atlanta lose to New York City and Northern Virginia for Amazon's new headquarters. The Seattle capitalist giant chose Nashville over Atlanta for a new regional operations center.

Why Nashville, which has repeatedly rejected mass transit that Amazon professes to love? Atlanta has MARTA and a new commitment to regional transportation. Atlanta has the world's busiest airport, and, according to its civic boosters, a highly educated tech workforce. Go Dawgs!

Atlanta has.....the ignominy of losing out to Queens.

Music City boasts the hip factor that Atlanta has been losing. The Tennessee capital also has a site under construction for Amazon, while Atlanta's downtown Gulch project is still undecided.

The Georgia GOP legislators'  rash decision  to cancel Delta's fuel tax break probably played a role in Amazon rejecting Atlanta, along with the presumed new Gov. Brian Kemp's shotgun ads and support of "religious freedom" legislation.

But Tennessee is also controlled by GOP conservatives. Far-right loony Marsha Blackburn was recently elected as U.S. senator in Tennessee. She makes Kemp look like Abraham Lincoln.

Nashville over the last few years has become one of those gilded cities that receive frequent national media attention for its food, hip stores and bars, and cool neighborhoods. It's a boomtown, drawing thousands of new residents.

While Atlanta also keeps attracting newcomers, its national hip factor has lagged. Kemp, with his ham-fisted efforts to claim the governor's office over Democrat Stacey Abrams and blatant voter suppression tactics while secretary of state, has generated national derision for Georgia.

Who lost Amazon? Atlanta will be better off without having to pay millions in tax incentives to Jeff Bezos, and will be spared from rising housing costs, worsening traffic and other disruptions.

But Nashville looks to be gaining on Atlanta's status as the Southeast's leading city.

 

Farewell, Stan Lee

Spiderman, the Incredible Hulk and the Fantastic Four entered my comic book universe late.

I'd grown up in the DC world of Superman, Batman, the Green Lantern and, my favorite, Aquaman.

Marvel Comics grew popular just as I was crashing into adolescence. I recall reading another Marvel series: "Kid Colt, Outlaw," in my childhood years before the company's superheroes arrived.

While I loved Superman, Superboy, Batman and Aquaman, my favorite comic book characters were the combat hero Sgt. Rock and his Easy Company, who foraged across an idealized Europe during World War II. I also read a Dell Comic series that featured adventures of Tarzan and the Lone Ranger.

I was always surprised years after my comic book years at the retroactive critical acclaim given to Marvel editor Stan Lee and his artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. I liked the Marvel books fine, but they always struck me as second rate compared with the stylized DC comics and their Superman/Batman mythical worlds. 

Peter Parker was just another mixed up adolescent like me. I was dazzled by the Fortress of Solitude, the variations on the Krypton origin story, how the space boy's rocket was found by Ma and Pa Kent, Superman's Lois Lane, the battles against Lex Luthor, the crazy effects of red kryptonite. I also loved the recurring Batman characters and themes, and the futuristic illustrations of Gotham City, the Bat Cave and Batmobile.

Lee, who died this week at age 95, created a lineup of characters whom critics believed had more literary depth than the other comic book heroes. Spiderman, the Hulk and Thor reputedly were more nuanced, showing fears and insecurities. The Marvel books also went into "metafiction" techniques such as inside jokes, self-referencing and so on.

I suppose it all went over my addled pre-adolescent head. I found the Marvel books entertaining, but nothing special. I even found the artwork crude and the stories boring. They were sort of like "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" movies.

While the acclaim given Lee is overblown, he was one of those strange American success stories, translating a new-era talents into worldwide fame.

Remembering the poets of World War I

World War I's shocking death toll is reflected in the high mortality rate of its poets.

So many poets linked to the war didn't survive: Wifred Owen, Edward Thomas, Isaac Rosenberg, Rupert Brooke, Guilluame Apollinaire, John McCrae, Charles Sorley, Joyce Kilmer. The poems that brought them posthumous fame were often found in their mess kits, uniform jackets or inside the books they had carried with them to the front.

Two famous English poets who did survive: Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves, enjoyed long lives, witnessing another world war, the deprivations of the 1950s and the freedoms of the swinging '60s.

Graves's "I Claudius" was one of the first BBC/PBS popular hits. His academically dubious study of myth and poetry, "The White Goddess," was a bible for 1960s new age mystics. Graves drew upon his war experiences for one of the best memoirs of life in the trenches, "Goodbye to All That." The book is one of the most striking accounts of soldiers' difficulties in returning to civilian life. 

On Sunday, the 100th anniversary of the end of the war, Emory's Michael Carlos Museum sponsored a special program on the World War I poets and how they were influenced by classical literature. The three Emory professors who read poems and gave commentary were fine, but I would have preferred a pure reading of the poems and letting them speak for themselves.

I was not convinced that Homer's "The Illiad" and "The Odyssey" were the major influences on Owen, Brooke and the others. The men killed in World War I were products of one of the last generations steeped in Latin and Greek, and I wondered if they read the classic works in their original languages rather than in translation. I believe that their most recent translation of Homer would have been Alexander Pope's from the 18th century. 

But the lecturers ignored the influence of the English pastoral tradition, although it was mentioned that one posthumous poem was found in a copy of Houseman's "The Shropshire Lad," an English pastoral hallmark. But Houseman was also a classical scholar, so his book found on the poet also showed the importance of Greek and Latin authors.

But the English poetic tradition was the World War I poets' main lodestar.  The upper class, Oxford-educated poets intimately knew the work of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Sidney, Milton, Pope, Blake, Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Arnold, Tennyson, Hopkins, Kipling and Hardy. 

Poets like Brooke and Sorley who died early in the war remained faithful to the traditional English iambic pentameter line and expressed the noble sentiments of English history and culture.

Owen, who died five days before the armistice of Nov. 11, 1918, strained against the metrical tradition and refined upper-class style, presaging modernism with his sardonic irony and use of the vernacular. His work rejects the traditions of valor and English certitude. 

The armistice was signed in a rail car in France's Compiègne Forest at 5:45 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918. But the killing continued for another six hours, until the armistice took effect under the agreement at 11 a.m. Paris time, noon in Berlin.

In many ways, the war never ended. The great war's poems will last until war stops forever. 

 

A charming afternoon with Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright, Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins

That old Rodgers and Hammerstein tune was right after all: There's nothing like a dame.

Four is even better, especially when the dames are Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins.

Director Roger Michell's delightfully low-tech film, "Tea With the Dames," captures the four great ladies of the English theater as themselves, seated at a table enjoying conversation, laughter, tea, and a bit of champagne.

Old chums Plowright, Smith, Dench and Atkins, arrayed before a stationary camera, share gossip, jokes, laments of aging and career triumphs and regrets.

As they laugh and banter with each other, small jewels of theater lore glitter. Atkins vividly describes how she suffers from stage fright. The closest they come to performance is displaying some of their vocal exercises. Their conversation is interspersed with video from some of their celebrated performances as young actresses.

Oliver, the domineering Shakespearian actor and director of the British national theater, looms over the conversation. Each of them gives anecdotes about the difficulty of working with the demanding theater titan. Video shows some of his noted performances, including starring in "The Entertainer" with Plowright and playing Othello in blackface.

Along with Oliver's lauded portrayal of the aging comedian Archie Rice in "The Entertainer, " he's shown playing Hamlet and Henry V.  Plowright remembers writing a fan letter to him as an adolescent girl, and how she thought his signature on the return letter was authentic until she learned when married to him that his secretary stamped his responses to fans.

Smith is the most forthcoming, with memories of visiting Oliver and Plowright's home when their children were small. She also remembers filling in for Plowrightt to comfort Olivier during one of his breakdowns. Plowright recalls the excitement of her marriage to Olivier, before characterizing it as "hell."

Looking back at their younger days, Plowright mentions that none of them were considered great beauties. Yet they glow with glamour in the excerpts from their early performances. As Plowright says, they excelled at creating the "illusion" of theater.

Now blind, Plowright most poignantly shows the ravages of old age. Also in their 80s, Smith, Dench and Atkins laugh about the roles they still receive, and how the acting techniques they considered revolutionary in their youth are now disparaged by a new generation. In their youth, they also mocked older stars.

Reluctantly discussing her starring role in the TV hit "Downton Abbey," Smith disparages the series and discloses that she's never watched it. Dench draws gibes for her recent starring turns in James Bond films and other projects.

Their stories are charming and bittersweet. With their beautiful accents and perfect English, they would be captivating reading the phone book.

 

Georgia secretary of state win vital for Democrats

While Stacey Abrams' battle for the Georgia governorship draws national attention, state Democrats can take control of the secretary of state's office and curtail suppression of minority voters in future elections.

Incumbent Secretary of State Brian Kemp's voter suppression tactics glare in the national spotlight as he claims a narrow win over Abrams in the governor's race. As Abrams vows legal action over the counting of remaining absentee and provisional ballots, the importance of the secretary of state's office in overseeing fair elections rises. 

As Abrams forges onward, Democratic Secretary of State candidate John Barrow is headed to a runoff Dec. 4 against Republican Brad Raffensperger. If Barrow wins, the former congressman would have the power to curtail Kemp's voter suppression policies and increase the number of Democratic voters.

A Barrow victory would ease the pain of a Kemp win without a runoff.  Meanwhile, the Democrats made major inroads in the state, most notably Lucy McBath's impressive win over GOP incumbent Karen Handel in the suburban 6th congressional district. Handel beat Democrat Jon Ossoff in a nationally watched race in 2017.

The party also cut into the GOP's dominance in the Georgia Legislature. Locally, I was pleasantly surprised by incumbent Jen Jordan's victory in the Georgia Senate's sixth district and Democrat Betsy Holland's win over GOP incumbent Beth Beskin in the 54th House District.

After Jordan won a special election in the sixth district against a divided Republican field, state political observers expected her to lose to Republican front-runner Leah Aldridge. The GOP thought it had safely gerrymandered the district, but Jordan took advantage of shifting suburban demographics with an energetic campaign and local connections as a University of Georgia law school alum. Jordan also crafted a successful constitutional amendment to equalize  property taxes for Atlanta schools.

Holland's support in intown neighborhoods of Lenox Part and Morningside and new city areas around Emory gave her a solid win over Beskin, who lost support of Democratic members of Atlanta's legislative delegation and was unable to capitalize on her sponsorship of a successful constitutional amendment to cut property taxes for senior citizens.

These gains brighten Democratic hopes for the future even if Abrams fails in her effort to overcome Kemp. A Barrow win would further strengthen Democratic plans to make Georgia a blue state.

 

 

Democratic blue wave fizzles

The Democrats won the House, but Donald Trump keeps gloating.

Why not? He now has a huge cushion in the Senate to counter any Democratic moves against him. The GOP looks to control the Senate for years. Conservative judicial nominees and Trump cabinet stooges will have an easier path to confirmation.

Trump's re-election campaign is in high gear. In contrast, the Democrats have a woebegone list of Senate scolds, doddering political has-beens and media flashes-in-the pan who don't win elections. Tim Kaine was listed as a Democratic possibility in a Politico article. Tim Kaine? If he's nominated, the White House might as well be rebranded as a Trump hotel.

Looking at the prospective Democratic presidential candidates named by Politico, I was excited by one only- Andrew Cuomo, New York governor. I don't like Cuomo, but he's a political street fighter who could mix it up with Trump.

The rest of them - Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, etc. - make Mike Dukakis look like FDR. 

Meanwhile, gubernatorial candidates Andrew Gillum in Florida and Stacey Abrams in Georgia and U.S. Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke in Texas are the latest Democratic national media darlings who excite the MSNBC pundits but fail to win.

Gillum, Abrams and O'Rourke decried Trump and the GOP's lies, racial slurs and buffoonery and tried to run "positive" campaigns. They lost. 

One of the worst moments was seeing MSNBC's yellow checkmark of victory flash besides Martha Blackburn's name in the Tennesee Senate race. The state once represented by Al Gore Sr. and Jr., Estes Kefauver and Howard Baker elected an ignorant, bigoted Trump suckup as U.S. senator. Martha Blackburn gives me heartburn.

The Trump re-election clock is ticking. Do the Democrats even know what time it is?

 

 

 

Abrams looks to the future, Kemp the past

Stacey Abrams will overcome the burden of Southern history if she wins the Georgia governor's race on Tuesday.

Abrams' quest to become the nation's first black woman governor against Brian Kemp's reactionary campaign has resounded with historical echoes.

Scholars of the South - such as Vince Dooley, who shamefully appeared at Donald Trump's fraudulent rally for Kemp this weekend - know the themes of progress and regression that course through W.J. Cash's "The Mind of the South," Henry Grady's "New South" proclamation and C. Vann Woodward's "The Burden of Southern History."

Kemp represents the region's legacy of white male supremacy and suppression of minorities, crudely asserted in his TV ads and  preposterous attacks on Abrams.

Refusing to give up his control of elections as Georgia's secretary of state, Kemp has resorted to the systematic intimidation of black voters reminiscent of Jim Crow days.

While Kemp follows the legacy of racist politics espoused by Georgia's Gene Talmadge and South Carolina's Pitchfork Ben Tillman, Abrams represents the the region's progressive tradition.

Both strands of Southern populism have battled for political control since the end of the Civil War. As Birmingham imploded with violent white opposition to the civil rights movement, Atlanta enhanced its national and international standing as "the city too busy to hate."

Kemp wants to return Georgia to its segregationist, racist past. Abrams wants to set Georgia's future as a place where people of different races and sexual orientations can feel free to pursue their dreams.

"With high hope for the future..."

To counter my dread over the election, I returned to Lincoln's writings.

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and First and Second Inaugural Addresses stand inviolate against today's degraded political discourse. 

History again calls upon the nation. Will we take another step toward the republic Lincoln envisioned? Or will we succumb to the fog machine of lies and hatred?

Along with Lincoln, I turn to Doris Day. "Que Sera Sera."

Many believe the election could herald the start of another Civil War.

I hope our better angels prevail, as Lincoln appealed for in his first inaugural address.