Going Postal May 12 2005

It’s no wonder

Thank you for the excellent article focusing on the struggles with the current state of Atlanta nightlife (“Live tonight! Atlanta nightlife battles back,” May 5). Scott Henry’s piece was well researched and executed. I am an old veteran of the nightlife scene here intown as both a former restaurant/bar operator and as a frequent patron of other establishments.

I am a firm believer that a vibrant nightlife scene is vital to any city. It is what makes a city a city. Think about the great cities of the world - New York, London, Paris - they all share amazing restaurants, nightclubs, music venues and the like. Atlanta may be smaller in scope than those places, but it sure has an equally great nightlife.

Despite the constant pressure from the city, a nightlife scene is indeed hanging on in Atlanta, but it seems to be in the crosshairs of a conservative and out-of-touch City Council. It seems like a whole sector of business is being penalized for traffic, parking and crime problems that really aren’t entirely its fault. No wonder property values are on the rise OTP (and new businesses are opening out there).

- Jonathan Sheer, Atlanta

Pay with plastic

One cannot blame the Bush administration (Humbug Square, “Deadbeat nation,” May 5). The credit card companies continue to offer the middle class, underemployed, senior citizens, college students and the fiscally irresponsible these “great offers.” We judge people by the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, and which swim, tennis or golf community we live in. So we go out and “charge” what we want.

It is the same no matter which side of the House or Senate you sit on. The changes have to come from the grassroots, and obviously we are not ready to do that. Wait, that will come when we are in debt and cannot legally get out of it. Buy now, pay later, and maybe you too will win the lottery.

- Liz Mote, Acworth

If it ain’t broke ...

I have been trying to figure out a way to incorporate some of Mary Grabar’s suggestions about Java Monkey Speaks (Going Postal, “Unwelcome,” May 5). We have been holding the event for almost four years now, and only seven events have featured a poetry slam. We have a weekly open mic, and anybody who signs up can read. The owners have told me the most consistent night for entertainment at Java Monkey is Sunday night. The biggest crowd for entertainment they have had, since opening, was for the Championship Slam held April 10. One of the good things about the location is that the entertainment has its own space, away from commerce and conversation.

Grabar wants us to have more conservative-friendly poetry. I am always open to improvement(?), so I have given this some thought. First, I don’t want to censor poets and I want the event to be “open.” I thought about telling people that no poems with liberal perspectives would be allowed, but that would be censorship. I thought about having a quota, where only so many poems with liberal views would be allowed, but that is also censorship. I thought maybe we could have a “conservative only night,” but that would be exclusive and I don’t want to exclude anybody. The Java Monkey owners are the only ones who support the event financially and they are currently building bleachers so we can accommodate larger crowds. The owners don’t want to exclude anybody. I’m racking my brain and I just can’t think of a way to please Mary Grabar that doesn’t include censorship or excluding people. I want to keep it open. I guess if it ain’t broke, there is no need to fix it.

- Kodac Harrison, Atlanta

In response to Mary Grabar’s letter in Going Postal, I would like to set the record straight. Mary Grabar has had no contact with Poetry Atlanta and has not been excluded from anything supported by Poetry Atlanta. She declined to read or share her own poetry at the invitation of two poetry groups, so claiming that she’s been excluded by any organization is ludicrous.

I am not a member of the executive board of Poetry Atlanta, as she claims. I am a member of the community board, and yes, it was me who spent countless hours writing the grant that got the funding not only for the slam team, but for other projects that we do for the entire community - another instance of Mary not doing her homework. I suppose I should be flattered that I am apparently part of the “clique of the poets in power” in Atlanta, but her penchant for twisting fact into fiction is more disturbing than anything else.

As for my personal attacks against her, Mary Grabar chose to write her scathing, inaccurate column about the Java Monkey slam and those who read at open mics in general. Just as she would silence the “radical left-wingers,” she would like to silence my personal opinion by portraying it as a “personal attack.” Nice try, Mary. It’s more a case of “she can dish it out, but she can’t take it.”

This is a very bitter, unhappy artist taking her frustrations out on other artists. She should apologize to the owners of Java Monkey because her comment about their business is beyond the pale. This is an unveiled attempt to try and influence the owners to ban Java Monkey Speaks, which, by the way, Creative Loafing has voted best place to hear spoken word year after year.

No one’s excluding you, Mary. You’re doing that quite nicely on your own.

- Collin Kelley, Atlanta

Response to Mary Grabar’s letter

OK, I realize that the pissing match between myself and Mary Grabar probably became tiresome to everyone else a good five or 10 minutes ago, but when accused of denigrating someone’s heritage, I, like any liberal 1) interrogate myself and my motives, leading, in this case, to 2) getting my blood up.

To (admittedly sarcastically) point out that a person is not due sympathy for the blood running in his veins, whether Slovenian, or, as in my case, Anglo-Saxon, cannot possibly amount to an “attack on ethnic heritage” (Going Postal, “Unwelcome,” May 5). Not even in the most painfully uptight left-coast drawing room, much less here. To pretend otherwise (particularly while revealing your own class bias with the word “street” used as an ad hominem insult) is just plain dishonest.

Grabar’s broader objection to tax dollars funding ideological content would extend to the NEA, the CDC and apparently, the White House-patronized “mainstream” media, to name a few problematic agencies off the top of my head. If she wants to take on this kind of government funding, she doesn’t have to throw a pity party to do it.

- Owen Talley, Athens

Response to the original

I was shocked that CL published conservative Mary Grabar’s article - perhaps in the name of free speech, for which Grabar claims great fondness (Creative Loathing, “Shouts and gestures,” April 21). Surely it is progressives who have long been champions of civil liberties, and conservatives who have historically undermined them. Thanks to recent right-wing media consolidation and court takeovers, it is not conservatives who currently lack public forums. Grabar’s article is part of widespread right-wing efforts to gain control of all forums of expression.

Java Monkey Speaks, the poetry open mic that she attacks, is consistently open to all views. As a regular there, I know that host Kodac Harrison doggedly refuses to censor, and has even offered a featured spot to Grabar, who has refused. Also horrifying is her attack on public funding of its poetry slam team. As she laments, arts funding is especially scarce these days, for which Grabar can thank her own Republicans!

Why do artists tend toward liberal views? This is why funding has been cut so! Art has to do with looking deeply at life, with thinking, feeling and questioning. Rarely does this result in advocating racism, sexism or imperialist domination. As Grabar describes it, contradicting her politics, art “enable[s] us to see what is universal in human nature, what connects us all.”

Among many ironies, Grabar complains of demagoguery. True, not all poetry presented at Java Monkey Speaks is “high art.” But without censorship, many styles and views abound. The beauty of an open mic is not the overall level of poetry, but the overall level of human expression. Occasionally there is a “rah-rah” mentality at Java Monkey, a nonthinking response. But the winners of the slam team for demagoguery are, without a doubt, currently and historically, the backward, racist, reactionary thinkers: the Hitlers and the Bushes.

- Louise Runyon, Decatur

I hope that Mary Grabar is not one of your top candidates for the position of ombudsman. I found her essay stale and, in certain aspects, hysterical and silly (Creative Loathing, “Shouts and gestures,” April 21).

Grabar complains about the level of political thought espoused at poetry slams, but her own “political” analyses offer the “conservative” equivalent. And, puh-leeze, if one wants sophisticated political discourse or poetic subtlety, why look for it at a slam?

She does not advertise well for the Ph.D. She certainly would not add value to Creative Loafing.

Also, am I the only person who does not view this kind of tripe as “conservative” politics?

This thumb pointing down.

- Opal Moore, Atlanta

Just ask

I think CL really needs to find better roving critics. The critic who reviewed the JK2 opening at the Alcove Gallery a couple of weeks ago sucked (Scene & Herd, “The night Reba came to Philips,” April 28). The writer’s reviewing and writing styles are terrible, noncoherent, and told us nothing of why the show was or wasn’t worth seeing.

First, he reviewed Justin [Kauffmann]’s work by saying it resembles that of another artist, R. Land. Maybe the writer should have talked to the artist or anyone who knows the artist and he would have discovered that Land’s work has been an influence on Justin’s work as well as many other artists’.

The writer also asks the question about Joshua [Krause]’s work, “What was it about?”

Why don’t you find out? Go up to the artist and ask and answer your own question, instead of looking like a jerk who’s just trying to get something off his chest? If you’re going to be a critic, actually critique the work for what the artist is trying to say or doesn’t say. You did neither.

This writer should learn to write like a professional first. High school journalism 101 writers can do reviews better than this person, who’s being paid by a reputable paper.

- Daniel Kershner, Atlanta

Eyewitness

I was enjoying your publication’s “Road trippin’” piece (Southeastern Music Issue, April 14) until reaching the Patti Smith item (“She Looked Like She’d Been Trampled by Horses”). It reports that Smith was opening for Bob Seger when she spun off the stage and broke her neck. It says further, “The exact venue has been lost, but given Seger’s popularity at the time, our money’s on the old Tampa Stadium.”

To set the record straight: Smith did her accidental stage dive while on the same bill with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, not Seger. (I believe, in fact, Smith was the headliner.) And the venue was the late, hardly lamented Curtis Hixon Convention Center, not Tampa Stadium. I wuz there.

- Mike Tierney, Decatur

Freaky

Cliff Bostock: Considering the damage that the crack epidemic left on American society, to hear that a bunch of stupid gay people are getting their freak on with this new drug crystal meth, if they want to die that way, go for it (Headcase, “Meet in the middle,” April 21). If people are out there having unprotected sex with these freaks and end up with HIV, so be it. After all, these are choices that these people are making, including your friend.

I, for one, am sick of hearing that people who are informed or could be informed are making these types of decision with their life and you want us to feel sorry for these fools. As Mr. T says, “I PITY THE FOOL,” but it is their choice to make and if they want to play with their lives in this fashion, let the good times roll. Don’t trouble your readers regarding these freaky thrill seekers. Let them play, get high and fly and freak as you go if they want. If they die, they die and you will know why - they are just freaky!

- Connie Jones, Atlanta

What can he do for me?

I just read your piece on the pope (Fishwrapper, “The vipers who embrace the holy man,” April 7) and I found it very interesting. I also have a problem with the way Christians today pick out those pieces of Christ’s teachings that benefit them most and conveniently ignore or dust over those they find restrictive or guilt-inducing.

In fact, I heard an interesting sermon Sunday that had something to do with this. Our pastor began by discussing how so many people use Christianity as a means to elevate their mood, as a sort of high. They have this mentality of, “Ask not what I can do for Christ, but what Christ can do for me?” So many people share these sentiments, in fact, that many pastors and priests have given in to them. They preach watered-down, pleasant sermons that won’t step on anyone’s toes.

As far as the pope goes, no one is really going to pressure the pope to sugarcoat his messages. They will, however, simply leave out or misconstrue the parts of those messages that cause them discomfort or guilt when they are recalling them to themselves or others. It is sad how misunderstood and misrepresented Christianity has become.

- Ashley Phipps, Bismarck, N.D.??