Monday, August 31, 2009

is gonna be on the air with Wally & Dave on WTBC Friday morning talking to Jim Lancaster,owner of Playground Recording Studio in ValP,about the new European release of Jimmy "ORION" ELLIS' version of GEORGIA PINES.
We'll also talk to Dothan's Mike McCarty,Beaches of South Walton Artist of the Year 2009 along with some other friends.
http://www.myspace.com/orionjimmyellis
I'm contacting you four because y'all are my top choices for phone-in guests for Wally & Dave's Morning Show on WTBC http://WTBC1230.com
Friday morning, Sept. 4 @ 8 A.M.

I need phone numbers from each of you so Big Dave can call you around 8.

We want to interview Jim about the European release of the Jimmy Ellis/Beaverteeth version of Georgia Pines.

We want Buddy to talk about the longevity of Georgia Pines as, in the words of the Europeans, "The Hymn of the South".

We want to talk to Mike about his work with Buddy and about his current status as Beaches of South Walton Artist of the Year 2009.

We want to talk to Phoebe about her Daddy's new record and possibly her opinion about Shelby cutting the duet of Jerry Lee and Jimmy Ellis www.myspace.com/orionjimmyellis doing
SAVE THE LAST DANCE FOR ME.

Any suggestions will be appreciated and I'd sure love to hear from each of you.

best,
rr http://robertoreg.blogspot.com

Sunday, August 30, 2009

enjoyed TAKING WOODSTOCK. Just seeing the cars,the clothes and the furniture again was well worth the price a ticket. http://www.filminfocus.com/focusfeatures/film/taking_woodstock/videos

Friday, August 28, 2009

is running late to get to Bama's Greekfest because he successfully downloaded a YouTube video of Beaches of South Walton Artist of The Year 2009, Dothan's own Michael McCarty! THIS IS THE FIRST VIDEO I EVER PUT ON YOUTUBE, AUGUST 28, 2009!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kcb-McVilIA

Thursday, August 27, 2009

is looking forward to seeing his son @ GREEKFEST tomorrow evening in the Bryant Hall parking lot with Az-izZ, Keller Williams, Robert Earl Keene and moe. An old man like me is able to appreciate all those perfect sorority play pretties that'll be on display & rockin' tomorrow night out to the UA.
http://crimsonartstickets.universitytickets.com/user_pages/event.asp?id=405&cid=61
Here's the link to the footnote in Canaan's edge about your Mother
http://books.google.com/books?id=uAa2Znbml_sC&pg=PA821&lpg=PA821&dq=%22mrs.+hugh+underwood%22&source=bl&ots=Ocey6wsnV0&sig=V2DcdvdvFoMInSSaqKXZnBgBDEc&hl=en&ei=fIOWSqW5MsuOtgfD7vS-Dg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3#v=onepage&q=%22mrs.%20hugh%20underwood%22&f=false

Not sure where end note 189 is found in the book but all this is rotten to me.

I despise this son of a bitch and any thing that anyone can do to give him HELL pleases me.
http://www.taylorbranch.com/

best,
rr

Monday, August 24, 2009

got to visit the Hank Williams Museum in Montgomery today. The big thing I took away from visiting Hank's museums in Montgomery & Georgiana was the magnificent love people all over the world have for this Alabamian. He truly had a gift from God which he generously shared with the rest of us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Xu71i89xvs

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Read about it @ my blog ZERO, NW FL http://robertoreg.blogspot.com
The Europeans call GEORGIA PINES "The Hymn of The South."
Wilbur is STILL A STAR with the Northern Soul crowd in the U.K., Australia & New Zealand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwq-S2vTPM4
is stoked about next month's European release of GEORGIA PINES performed by Jimmy "ORION" Ellis, Jimmy Louis & Beaverteeth. These recordings were done as far back as '72 but were recently digitally remastered and remixed in Germany in Valparaiso. Here's Wilbur singing GP last year @ the Norman Andrews memorial. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YpVtW4cKvo
Hey Roberto!
Glad you're still stirring it up.
I've departed Russian & Finland, took a short detour to Australia, and have found myself in the heart of the Niger Delta in Africa - Warri, Nigeria. Warri was a major slave portal to the New World. Human cargo brought to America by Dutch, Portuguese, and English slave traders. A huge percentage of slaves to the Caribbean and the Low Country of the US were from this region. The foreign slave traders have been replaced by the foreign oil companies, making just a few tribal leaders rich while most of the rest are miserable.
Send me Michael Hartzog's e-mail address. I've been trying to get in touch with him. I saw you posted a comment from him.
Thanks,
Jim Hodges
Hodges James

Friday, August 21, 2009

can't believe he's switched brands of beer. I've quit drinking Milwaukee's Beast but the problem with this new stuff it makes me have to go "wee-wee" all the time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tqsC4Y0vvc

Thursday, August 20, 2009

read John Archibald's column in the B'HAM SNOOZE this morning comparing Bill Blount to Antwon Womack & laughed so loud you could hear me in Gordo. ARCHIBALD deserves a prize for this one.
http://blog.al.com/archiblog/2009/08/archibald_words_cant_set_them.html

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

read the conclusion of Alistair Cooke's AMERICA (1973) this evening & the text was so powerful and so profound that it shook me. I googled Alistair on YouTube & lo' and behold there was Alistair on the screen repeating word for word the conclusion of his great book.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RmmhUejouY&feature=related
MUCHAS!!!!


I showl hope you unnerstand, Miz K, how much you help me to reflect upon life.

"To love oneself is the beginning of a life long romance."
Oscar Wilde

All I can think of is how I ended a chapter of SNAKE DOCTOR http://snakedoctor.blogspot.com

I guess this sums my respect for your race...
(a.k.a. THE CARTEL, The Female Race, etc.)


Grover needed to smoke some reefer.

Opening his unlocked front door, Grover reached up to the
foyer closet’s door casing. Pulling down his little tin box, he
returned to the front porch, pulling the cord on both ceiling fans
as he strode across the cypress planks toward his green porch
swing. After checking the horizon to see whether the coast was
clear, Grover Moss, known affectionately to his friends as “Fur
Trader,” leaned back and took a hit off the pipe he made from the
antler of a twelve-point he’d killed at Ft. Rucker almost 40 years
before.

After five tokes of his favorite blend, Grover gazed out over
his grassy field and accessed his progress.

“Boy, I miss that dog. I’m gonna have to find a little Zero
soon.”

It was lonely without his dog. Walking back to the front
door, Grover reached inside to the corner bookcase that held his
photo albums. Returning to the swing, he poured over the pages
looking for pictures of his beloved pit bull. Sure enough, he
found photographs of Zero, but he also found more than he was
looking for. Grover found the pictures of Florrie. There she
stood, a Southern angel, in that aquamarine bathing suit her
mother sewed wearing Grover’s Wekiwahatchee High School class ring
on her left hand.

Keeping with his morning’s horrible memories of Zero’s death
in the enormous jaws of Old Tom, and the gas explosion on
Tustennuggee’s riverfront, Grover thought of monsters again. Only
this time the monsters weren’t giant flesh and blood, red-eyed
reptiles. These monsters were made out of strong emotions. These
were green-eyed monsters; disturbing feelings Grover could not
deny.

He was still in love with her.

“How in the hell could this happen?” Grover asked himself.
“What kind of bond could connect me to a damn woman I haven’t seen
or heard from in twenty-seven years? I’ve got to get over that
cunt. Man, I need a drink!”

Back on the swing with a cold bottle of India pale ale,
Grover looked at Florrie’s picture once more and it hit him. There
was his answer in full living color: so simple, so plain and
simple. Her hands! Grover’s whole world was right there in
Florrie’ s fingers!

Suddenly, stoned and rocking in his porch swing, Grover
Milton Moss, Esquire, made a miraculous discovery. Now he
understood the monster; not Old Tom but his other monster.
Grover’s monster was the thought of never being touched by Florrie
again in his lifetime. Here Grover found his greatest fear and as
any redneck knows, the best thing to do when scared is to go ahead
well armed. At that moment, Grover completely embraced the
unrequited love he held for his old girlfriend, Florrie Walker.

“Good God, this feels good” Grover yelled.

It felt good to have Florrie on his mind. Those thoughts were
more precious than gold. For the first time in almost thirty years
Grover fully grasped the joy and virtue contained in the
recollections of his youthful love with that beautiful woman.Memories
of Florrie were his most important possession, and the
determination to become the man worthy of Florrie's affection now
consumed Grover's soul.

best,
rr

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

enjoys watching Jimmy Page & Jeff Beck on YouTube. Here's the scene in the 1966 movie BLOW UP where Beck destoys his guitar by smashing its neck into his Marshall amp.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHNL5_2LspE

Monday, August 17, 2009

found out about an hour ago that Blount will plead guilty tomorrow afternoon at 1:30 in the Federal Courthouse in B'ham. Read the comments on this link. They are hilarious. It hit the Internet at 4:46 and before 5 o'clock there were 30 comments. I haven't read one from one of LaLa's supporters. That should be rich when that occurs!
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2009/08/blount_expected_to_change_plea.html

Sunday, August 16, 2009

got to meet Chips Moman @ the Wiregrass musicians mural dedication back in June so I was glad Chips was invited to be a special guest in Memphis for Elvis Week yesterday & the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the FROM ELVIS IN MEMPHIS sessions. Chips was responsible for getting Elvis to cut "In the Ghetto", "Kentucky Rain", and "Suspicious Minds" in '69 which was the first time Elvis had been back on the charts in seven years.
http://www.gomemphis.com/news/2009/aug/14/chips-moman-gives-a-little-more

Saturday, August 15, 2009

finally watched the video of my son Christopher's trip to Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar & Morocco. Haven't figured out how to download his images from the WalMart discs but got to see 35 minutes of stills and about an hour of video & it was the best. In Gibraltar & Tangiers, he was retracing his Grandpa Register's footsteps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lh4g_2eILII

Friday, August 14, 2009

remembered that CHUKKER NATION was proclaimed in August '69 by John Little while watching a telecast of the Woodstock in the Chukker.I also reminisced about the time I drank beer with Joe Cocker & Felix "Flaco" Falcon in my '62 Chevy Impala as I drove them to the airport from the Stafford Hotel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQYDvQ1HH-E

Thursday, August 13, 2009

sez look @ the May/June 2008 issue of Dothan Magazine to find a nice article about Inez's Styling Salon. I've gotten a little rusty on Dothan but I believe that Inez's is located on the south side of the Fortner Street Extension after the intersection with Woodland.
http://www.dothanmagazine.com/prev_2008_june.html
wants to know if anybody knows this cat who wrote STEEL MAGNOLIAS. His name is Robert Harling and he was born in Dothan in 1951. That movie always reminds me of Inez's.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EjNa8Ukg_0

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

wants all the Wiregrass catz to check out Ann Howard's (Nip's oldest daughter) Nip & Ernie's facebook page & contribute your reminiscences because THE BOOK is being written as we speak!

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=111946794692&ref=mf
I shot out a request last night for reminiscences & I don't think I've ever had a greater response in almost 5 years of blogging which proves to me that Dothan's Nip & Ernie's was a Southside sandwich shop that left an impression on all who darkened their door & the memories y'all shared with us show what a warm spot that old place still holds in our hearts.

Nip Howard's family lived near us on Pinecrest & we grew up with Ann, Linda (DHS '67), Bobbie (DHS '71?) & Carl (DHS '75?).
Mrs. Howard ruled the roost at Nip & Ernie's so we always TRIED TO BE on our best behavior.
After we started drinking in the 10th grade, we stayed away from Nip's because of Mrs. Howard.

Ernie Edwards was in the DHS Class of '40. He was one year behind my Daddy. His daughter Paula graduated with me in '68. She came to Bama with all of us but she wasn't aware that I came along with the Dothan crowd. I'll never forget meeting her on campus during our senior year & she was so surprised that I was going to Alabama.

My brother Bill can give a detailed account of life at Nip's. He & Carl were the same age so Bill & Carl spent many of their elementary school days hangin' around Nip's eating chili dogs & looking at funny books.

Bill & Carl also learned a lot of life's secrets while snooping around Linda's new Corvair.

By the time Bill got in high school he had no problem going to Nip's everyday for lunch.
As Bill says of the DHS campus, "I walked off that son of a bitch like I owned it."

Bill was Mose Saliba's Audio Visual Aide Assistant so their day started during first period with taking the coach's order's for double cheeseburgers (with extra Thousand Island) or for a couple of chili dogs. The Big O always tuned 'em up good for Dothan High's coaches at Oscar's Drive-In on North St. Andrews.

Lunch found Mose & Bill accompanied by whoever had the balls to leave school for lunch at Nip's. At the appointed time the party of four DHS Tigers entered to find their table already fixed with 12 chili dogs, two orders of fries and two pitchers of tea.



My most vivid memories of Nip & Ernie's are of us packing that place after Young Junior ball games & having fights in the parking lot. Seems like I remember a real good one where Glenn Jackson cleaned Wayne "Cowboy" King's plow.

My personal Nip & Ernie's nightmare occurred after a Young Junior ball game one night.
The place was packed & I asked Denny Steele to pass me my milkshake so he picked it up and coughed one up & spit it into my milkshake.

Denny and I had a little history. One day after lunch at Young Junior, Denny asked me to come over to his locker & he cold cocked me as hard as anyone ever has in my whole life. I deserved it & when I got my vision back (I never fell down) I looked at Denny & said, "I'm sorry." & he didn't hit me again, so anywayzzzzzzzzzzz...

I was well aware of the damage Denny could inflict...

I refused to take my milkshake and I told Denny,"Buy me another one or we're going out in the lot & I know you'll whip my ass but I'm taking a plug out of you tonight!"

Denny bought me a fresh milkshake.

Let me hear from you before I blast my Nip & Ernie's stories...

best,
rr
sez all you Wiregrass catz needz to check out the Nip & Ernie's facebook page and be sure to leave your comments.
The BOOK is being written!
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=111946794692&ref=mf

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

NOW
Every One Can See Now That Babbs Was Not The Gleef @ WOODSTOCK!
text & images courtesy of http://skypilotclub.com


40TH ANNIVERSARY OF WOODSTOCK

Everybody knows now that time flies like an arrow but fruit flies like a banana, ana banana fee fie fo fama, obama, and the big Four Oh is building up all around us, I'm acknowleging it but saving my big guns for the fiftieth. Here is a little ditty I composed to assuage the demanders of a Woodstock story:

Me and the Gleef

by Ken Babbs

(My rap and the gleef's rap are both on the sound tapes from the scene, but the new DVD starts with the gleef talking, I've already quit, before the first camera got rolling, so he gets a great closeup, out in front of everthing, coverage, his moments in history.)

The release this year of the three disc set of the Woodstock movie has brought to the fore a misunderstanding that for forty years has been part of Grateful Dead lore.
I've been asked many times, why was I such a gleef up on the stage at Woodstock and I always reply, "That wasn't me, that was some other gleef."
Now, for the first time everyone can see who the gleef is that was talking over the microphone when the Grateful Dead started to play.
A tremendous thunderstorm had just roared through, tearing the canvas top off the stage, covering the floor with six inches of water and shorting out all the electrical power: the lights, the musicians' amplifiers and the PA system.
I was onstage at the time, leaning on the organ, talking to Pigpen while the techs attempted to make sense out of chaos. Finally one microphone, in the middle of the stage, close to the edge, was working.
Pigpen, as he always did when the Dead were messing around, not yet ready to play, said, "Tell them a story, Babbs," knowing once they heard my voice booming out of the loudspeakers, they would immediately come forward and take over.
I told the audience how all of us, forty people and four buses, stopped at Yellowstone on the way out and bathed in the hot waters, just like the people of old, for it was a sacred place, where everyone came in peace, all beefs and differences put aside, and now, I said, Woodstock has emerged with the same spirit, and you can take that spirit of unity with you out into your daily lives.
I backed off the mike, the band began to play Lovelight, then another voice came out over the loudspeakers.
This is where the Dead portion of the DVD begins, after I've quit talking, so I'm not in the DVD. I am on the audio tape, however. Cosmic editing. I didn't make the cut. One camera starts filming and the sequence begins with the gleef on the stage, no one knows who he is, he arrived from no one knows where.
Dark piercing eyes. Black Prince Valiant haircut. Closecut beard shaping his mouth. He's on the center mike, telling everyone there is a third coast, it is on a huge lake in the middle of the country, it has a magnificent beach, and while he's babbling, with a single spot lighting his face in a beautiful camera closeup, Michal Lang is saying off camera, "wWho is that guy, get him out of there," so I lit up a joint, walked up to the gleef and handed it to him.
He took a big hit, passed it to me, his back was to the edge of the stage, I gave him a little nudge and he disappeared into the unkown from which he came.
The Dead tore into a fantastic 38 minute Lovelight with all the stage lights gradually coming on and all three cameras working, a tremendous addition to the Woodstock DVD.
Well, forty years before the DVD came out, the audio tape of the dead playing was already circulating through Deaddom, and the listeners, unable to see what was going on, assumed that I was the gleef, and ever since, Deadheads have been asking me, why were you spouting that lame phoney baloney stuff over the mike at Woodstock?
I no longer have to defend myself. The DVD has vindicated me. Everyone can see for themselves that it was some other gleef. I no longer think of him as a gleef. He has a name and I remember him now with fond affection: Third Coast.

feels that repairing a breaking & entering on an unoccupied dwelling is simple: bubble gum, bondo, caulk & deck screws. With an occupied dwelling it's best to replace everything with a new door jamb,casing & strike plates. Making everything good as new makes Big Mama feel more secure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuaOdKc2YL8&feature=related

Monday, August 10, 2009

had two wonderful conversations today with another superb artist from Alabama, Tom Bradford who is visiting Tuscaloosa. He'll be sending me some images soon to share w/ y'all. Tom was one of the first people I met when I came to Tuscaloosa in '68. He painted the Sistine Chukker.

http://www.topsail-island.info/wordpress/index.php/islander-tom-bradford/

Saturday, August 08, 2009

sezzzz that if you'd like to know what his Daddy went through during WWII, you oughta look at the CATCH 22 videos on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTx1QOpETvo
wants to contact the family & friends of First Lieutenant Clyde Reeves, Dothan High Class of '39, who was killed in action over Sardinia on June 14, 1944. Lt. Reeves is buried in the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery in Nettuno, Italy.

http://57thbombwing.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=53337

http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/sr.php

Friday, August 07, 2009

I swear I never will use the W word again but unfortunately when you Google the W word you get some hitzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&q=%22wartdinger%22&btnG=Google+Search

Thursday, August 06, 2009

got a big package of stuff in the mail today from 2009 Beaches of South Walton Artist of the Year Michael McCarty. By Sunday, ZERO, NW FL, will be filled with images of some of the most inspired artwork you will have ever witnessed. Michael says that the image of the reel-to-reel playing a Les Paul on the front of ARS's RED TAPE is his favorite of all the album covers he has created.
http://www.beachesofsouthwalton.com/Artist_ofthe_year2009.aspx

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

found out tonight that Stevie Ray Vaughn was "discovered" by David Bowie & Jackson Browne after SRV & Double Trouble played a gig @ the 1982 Montreaux International Jazz Festival in Switzerland. Stevie Ray had booked that gig on the recommendation of Jerry Wexler who first heard Double Trouble on April, 22, 1982, at a showcase performance in NYC organized by Charlie Watts, drummer for the Rolling Stones.

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

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

was wondering where that bad odor was coming from over at our apartments in Northport. Well, somebody found a decomposing body next to them yesterday afternoon. The good thing is our big brown & yellow four by eight FOR RENT sign with our telephone number was prominently featured in the crime scene video that just aired on the 6 O'clock News.
Like Big Jim Folsom always told 'em,"Make sure you spell the name right."

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20090804/NEWS/908039942/1007?Title=Decomposing-body-found-in-Northport-Monday

Monday, August 03, 2009

thinks it's just so SUPER COOL that the cops serving his juvenile warrants have to first read the Miranda rights to the boy's MAMA!

http://www.youthadvocacyproject.org/pdfs/Miranda%20Outline%2006.08.pdf
The Current TEPPERS Renovation Timeline is JUNE 2008!!!!

http://www.freedomfoundation.org/FF2_Teppers_Timeline.pdf


It's astounding, time is fleeting
Madness takes its toll
But listen closely, not for very much longer
I've got to keep control

I remember doing the TIme Warp
Drinking those moments when
The blackness would hit me and the void would be calling
Let's do the time warp again...
Let's do the time warp again!

It's just a jump to the left
And then a step to the right
With your hands on your hips
You bring your knees in tight
But it's the pelvic thrust that really drives you insane,
Let's do the Time Warp again!

It's so dreamy, oh fantasy free me
So you can't see me, no not at all
In another dimension, with voyeuristic intention
Well-secluded, I see all
With a bit of a mind flip
You're there in the time slip
And nothing can ever be the same
You're spaced out on sensation, like you're under sedation
Let's do the Time Warp again!

Well I was walking down the street just a-having a think
When a snake of a guy gave me an evil wink
He shook me up, he took me by surprise
He had a pickup truck and the devil's eyes.
He stared at me and I felt a change
Time meant nothing, never would again
Let's do the Time Warp again!

Sunday, August 02, 2009

was sitting at the bar @ J. Michael's when this cat sat down next to me & said,"You know me and you wrote about me on your blog." He looked familiar but I was so scared I couldn't recognize him.After he told me he went to Young Jr. for the seventh and eighth grades and then transferred to Girard, I recognized him. It was Denny Steele! Great to see him after 45 years and he didn't punch me out for writing about him.

http://www.jmichaelsrestaurant.com/