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Verbena - "La Music Negra" (2003- Capitol Records)...Great hard alt-rock (similar to The Toadies) My Photographs You like photos? I love taking them. Click here, if you wanna see some of my work
Is a photo missing on an older entry? Click here to find it at Photogra!  The Other Links Favorites and Rings are now here!
The life you save might be mine!
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Monday, Sept. 29, 2003 - 7:24 p.m. Lease woke up feeling under the weather, so she used a rare sick day to stay home today. I decided to burn a vacation day to stay home with her. Our governor (Little Big Man) has started making non-union employees use up all of their stored vacation days anyway We used to be able to store up to 2 years worth for long vacations or whatever, but now is making employees use all but 5 days worth by the end of the calendar year. Not me for now, but I am sure it is on the way. I have about 4 weeks worth in the bank, so today won�t even dent that anyway. So, what did we do today? Lease spent the day in sweats, feeling punk. She watched a bunch of old television shows. I painted the west first floor of our house. Fun. It took me 6 hours from start to finish. I had to do some serious scrapping (plenty of loose paint), sweeping, and paining 2 coats, of course). The concrete foundation walls on this side of the house will need some professional attention down the road. Someone had slapped some Sacrete� over the crumbling areas before we moved in, and this has only sped up the disintegration of the underlying wall. Nothing that needs to be repaired at this time (the walls are very think, and I cleaned up the Sacrete� and slapped a heavy coat of paint on the exposed wall). But, like I said- it took me 6 hours to complete the job. That didn�t leave me much time to work on the 250+ photos that still need editing. For that reason, I just worked on a small portion that we took at the only place in the whole city of Memphis where were made to feel unwelcome: The National Civil Rights Museum. Wait a second- why were we there? Because it is the location of Dr. Martin Luther King�s assassination, the old Lorraine Motel. It was converted into the Civil Rights Museum a few years back, and since it is located in Memphis, we wanted to take the tour, too. And because it is the history of our country, whether you are black or white. Several problems, though: B Smith�s "With Style� television show was filming an episode of her show at exactly the time we arrived. That means we had to wait about 30 minutes to get inside, and only after we agreed to allow our images to be filmed and that we wouldn�t look at the cameras or talk to B. Um, ok. No problem. Hardly know her, and I am not a celebrity stalker anyway. We couldn�t take our camera into the display area. And not because of the t.v. filming going on. They just don�t allow cameras inside. Ever. I have been to many museums in my life, and I can�t recall ever having to check my camera. No flash? Sure. But no camera? Never. The woman who took my camera was one of the rudest people I have come across in a tourist site in my life. She yanked the case from my hand, and then w, hen we returned to claim it, and she questioned us about whether we had gone across the street to the other displays. We hadn�t, but we were short on time, so we just skipped it. She said ,�You really need to see what�s over there�. What was that- a display of evil white people from this country�s history? A 3-dimentional diorama of slaves, hung from tall trees? I think I know the sorry history of how blacks were treated as slaves and in the civil rights era. They spent plenty of time teaching us that back in school. Remember- we aren�t from Mississippi- the school system didn�t try to cover up the facts. Only after Lease told her we were running late did she retrieve my camera. Rude, and she was a racist, if I ventured a guess. Anyway�Here is a photo of the original Hotel Lorraine sign, with upcoming events on the marquee:
Notice the name of one of the bands , playing at an upcoming event? The Headshots? How twisted is that? This photo is kinda hard to see, but I�ll post it anyway:
This woman has been living in the motel since Dr. King was shot. She has also been protesting the Civil Rights Museum since it was in development, over 15 years ago. She sits in a lawn chair and gives anyone who drives into the parking lot a dirty look. Seems she thinks the whole thing is just a money-making tourist trap. I will agree with the money making part ($9 bucks to get in, and took all of 40 minutes to view the displays and watch a short film), but protesting the museum? Seems silly to me. Maybe she is just one of those people who lives to protest. I think she takes donations from visitors who stop and listen to her spiel (we didn�t), and that is how she pays for her �room� at the motel. Strange stuff�. Here is the spot where James Earl Ray shot Dr. King. The wreath was originally placed there the next day, and there has been one on the balcony ever since.
I guess it was worth the time, rude employees be damned�. The Photogra album is now public: The Chicago Bears die in their new stadium in less than 40 minutes. I am a sucker for sports, even if the Bears really aren�t a professional team anymore. Later, all�..
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