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Access Atlanta > Blog > Archives > 2007 > July > 03
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Carter Center serves up tall Fourth tales
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Family cookouts, grilled hot dogs, a lazy summer afternoon — that’s how most people spend their Fourth of July. But the Carter Center is offering a different way to celebrate the nation’s holiday.
Want to hear how “The Star-Spangled Banner” almost didn’t happen? How about the true story on the origins of the mysterious ink blot on the Declaration of Independence? A group of professional storytellers will gather at the Carter Center at 2 p.m. today to fill in those blanks for an event it’s calling “A Flag-Flying Tale-Tellin’ 4th of July.”
When Buzz contacted Audrey Galex, a DeKalb County storyteller, about the ink blot story, she wouldn’t betray her storyteller’s instincts.
“I’m not going to tell you the whole thing,” she said. “It would give it away.”
She would leave some cryptic clues, though. The ink-blot story involves a stable, dung and some unlikely characters who “made the ultimate sacrifice for the country,” she said.
Galex is a member of the Southern Order of Storytellers, an Atlanta-based group of professional tall-talers who put on events throughout Georgia during the year. She said she didn’t have to go to school to learn how to tell stories.
“I went to school at my grandmother’s kitchen table,” she said.
Feriel Feldman, the group’s president, will emcee the event. She did give Buzz a preview of the story behind the national anthem’s creation, but she was still discreet.
Feldman did reveal something about the anthem that may shock those who’ll sing the anthem today.
She said our venerable national anthem is actually based on the melody of a British bar song.
“Can you imagine?” she said. “It’s so complicated and difficult to sing. Those British.”
SMELL THE BLESSINGS
Debra B. Morton doesn’t place messages in a bottle. She puts blessings in them.
Morton, the wife of Bishop Paul Morton, pastor of the Greater St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church in Decatur, is introducing a new fragrance. God, she said, inspired her.
“I was riding down Peachtree, and I heard in my ear, ‘blessings in the bottle,’ ” Morton said.
Morton, the wife, said she is the first pastor to create and market a fragrance. But there’s hardly any item left that hasn’t been packaged or sold by pastors and Christian retailers.
The televangelist Bishop T.D. Jakes has produced a Grammy-Award winning CD, a stage play and a line of books. New Birth Missionary Church in Lithonia, the largest church in Georgia with 25,000 members, produced its own credit card. Christian retailers routinely produce T-shirts, licence plates, wrist bands and coffee mugs. It was only a matter of time that some pastor would market a fragrance.
Morton said she also was inspired by the aftermath of Katrina. She co-pastored a New Orleans megachurch with her husband that was destroyed by the hurricane. The couple relocated to Atlanta, and she began playing around with the idea of a fragrance that would inspire people.
“The message I’m saying [with this perfume] is that in the midst of all this calamity from the past and still facing us, there are blessings still around us,” she said. “Blessings aren’t just what money can buy. I realized that when I escaped Katrina with my husband.”
Morton’s blessing will cost $69 per bottle. She said she’s negotiating with boutiques for distribution. It can be purchased, however, at blessingsinabottleonline.com by the end of this week, she said.
NEED A LAUGH?
Speaking of fragrances, one hilarious Web site said it’s time “to wake up and smell the lawyers.” At power-of-attorneys.com/StupidLawsuit.htm, people can go and look up some of the most frivolous lawsuits ever recorded.
Most people have heard of the man who recently lost a $54 million lawsuit against a dry cleaner for losing his pants. But Reid Kanely, a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter, who wrote about the stupid lawsuit said there have been plenty of others that are just as outrageous.
Buzz’s favorite: the man who sued a beer company because, despite what their advertising claimed, his luck with the ladies didn’t change after he drank their beer.
CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS
Actress Gloria Stuart is 97. Conductor Mitch Miller is 96. Actress Eva Marie Saint is 83. Actress Gina Lollobrigida is 80. Playwright Neil Simon is 80. Singer Bill Withers is 69. Actress Karolyn Grimes (Zuzu in “It’s A Wonderful Life”) is 67. TV talk show host Geraldo Rivera (below) is 64. Percussionist Ralph Johnson of Earth, Wind and Fire is 56. Singer John Waite is 52.
Contributing: News services
If you have a tip, call 404-526-2749. Or fax 404-526-5509. Or e-mail: buzz@ajc.com.
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Punchline’s charging a C-note to see who?!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hickory dickory dock. Would shelling out $100 to see Andrew Dice Clay be too much of a shock?
That’s not exactly how this foul-mouthed, politically incorrect standup comic’s joke goes, but $100 is how much the Punchline is asking today and Wednesday to see him, more than even Jerry Seinfeld charged at the Fox Theatre last year.
You might remember that Clay was once relevant — in 1989, when he sold 6,500 seats at the Omni. But his star fell fast. By 1993, he was doing a shot at the Roxy, which seats about 1,000. He has since more or less disappeared, save for a VH1 reality show earlier this year chronicling his attempt at a comeback.
Attempting to justify the $100 price tag, Punchline co-owner Chris DiPetta said, “You get to be 20 feet from him, or 2 feet from him, not 300 feet. He wanted to do something in a very intimate setting and charge monster money for it.” The price, he noted, was “Dice’s choice, not ours.”
In fact, DiPetta said he doesn’t think the Punchline has ever charged that much for a comic in its 25-year history.
Clay has sold out in other cities at that price, DiPetta said, but because the Punchline show is during the holidays, there are plenty of tickets available. (To sell out, Clay needs to sell 540 tickets over two shows.) In fact, the club is often dark around July Fourth because people would rather be outside at family barbecues or checking out fireworks. “I’ve known him for 25 years,” DiPetta said. “He’s always been a great comic. I’m as curious as anybody how this will turn out.”
Clay still books 3,000-seat theaters, especially in the Northeast, but he hasn’t done a show in Atlanta in several years.
Rival Funny Farm manager Marshall Chiles, who saw Clay at the Omni back in the day, said when he heard the price, he said, “That’s whack! But then I thought about it. His core group will pay that. Now, are they in town July Fourth?”
Off the cuff, Clay, on 790/The Zone’s “Mayhem in the AM” Tuesday morning, offered half-price seats to people who called the Punchline by 3 p.m.
5 DAYS WITH R.E.M.
As the band prepares its latest album, Athens-based R.E.M. has been holding a five-day “working” rehearsal in Dublin, Ireland, open to fans. According to blogger John Madden, who saw one of the rehearsals, “the band has gone to great pains to remind people that it’s a rehearsal, and therefore not actually a show. They have even projected the words ‘This Is Not a Show’ on the backdrop, and Michael Stipe says so every couple of songs.” He said guests included Bono and the Edge from U2, plus staffers from the band’s Athens office. The band played mostly new songs but included a few older, lesser-known cuts such as “Letter Never Sent” and “These Days.” More details are available on the band’s Web site, www.remhq.com.
CLUB’S SWAN SONG
The final day for Buckhead Village’s best-known nightclub, Tongue & Groove, is Saturday as development continues to turn the area into what developers hope to be Atlanta’s answer to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, Calif. The club is planning a special private friends-and-family party from 7 to 9 p.m. for old-timers to stop by and say goodbye. Then it’s party as usual from 9 until closing, with admission ranging from $10 to $20. Co-owner Michael Krohngold told Buzz he hopes he’ll be able to announce a new location for the club in the Buckhead vicinity by Saturday.
And for those still seeking a nightcap in Buckhead Village, two veteran bars are sticking around for the time being: Irish pub Fado and Park Bench.
RANDOM BITS
When ABC announced this year that it was filming a pilot television comedy based on the Geico cavemen, the original news reports said the setting would be modern-day Atlanta. But Buzz recently viewed the not terribly funny pilot and discovered the producers moved the cavemen to Norfolk, Va. An ABC spokeswoman had no explanation for the shift. Maybe they just wanted an ocean view …
Ruben Studdard is doing a full 75-minute show gratis before the fireworks Wednesday at Centennial Olympic Park. His manager, Cedric Evans, told Buzz the Season 2 “American Idol” winner is maintaining his diet/exercise regimen he began last year at Duke University and is down about 105 pounds from his peak.
HIGH FIVE
TV Guide’s top cult shows of all time:
1. “Star Trek”
2. “The X-Files”
3. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”
4. “Farscape”
5. “Lost”
— TVGuide.com
CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS
Talk show host Montel Williams is 51. Country singer Aaron Tippin is 49. Synthesizer player Vince Clarke of Erasure is 47. Actor Tom Cruise is 45. Actor Thomas Gibson (below, “Criminal Minds”) is 45.
Contributing: News services
If you have a tip, call 404-526-2749. Or fax 404-526-5509. Or e-mail: buzz@ajc.com.
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