A Word on Words

In his latest book, author Roy Blount, Jr., puts the English language under the microscope.

November 13, 2008Despite frayed nerves and his fears that flawed voting machines would ruin another presidential contest, author Roy Blount, Jr., was his typical dry, comical self during an Election Day telephone conversation from his Massachusetts home. Having voted at 7:30 a.m., he confessed, “I can’t stand to listen to anybody talk about it anymore. I just want it to be over.” Blount talked about his latest book, Alphabet Juice, which offers amusing ruminations about the origins, meanings, and distinctive sounds of select words. Blount will discuss Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, Tinctures, Tonics, and Essences; With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory on November 18, 6:30 p.m., at a charity event hosted by Alabama Booksmith at the Doubletree Hotel.

Black & White: As a Georgian, were you excited when Jimmy Carter was elected president?




Author Roy Blount, Jr., will be signing his new book at a charity event benefitting WBHM. See below for details. (click for larger version)

Roy Blount: Yeah, I was sort of astonished and bemused. I just never expected anybody from Georgia to get elected president. I liked Mo Udall in the primaries. But when Carter got nominated, I was for him. I wrote a book called Crackers, which was largely inspired by my surprise that the leader of the free world was, all of a sudden, a white guy from Georgia. When we were watching the nominating convention, my brother-in-law Gerald, who is from east Texas, jumped up and hollered, “We ain’t trash no more!”

You once compared Democratic presidential candidate and philanderer Gary Hart to former Alabama governor Big Jim Folsom because of Folsom’s habit of kissing women on the campaign trail.

I never met Big Jim Folsom, but I heard a lot of good stories about him. Supposedly, he was at an air show with a bunch of French people. The Alabama National Guard had some kind of trick-flying formation. And all of a sudden a bunch of them ran into each other and exploded. There was an awkward pause and Folsom said, “Well, kiss my ass if that ain’t a show.”

Until I found it in Alphabet Juice, I was not familiar with the word “swive.” [Blount writes: "As early as the beginning of the fourteenth century, this was the most common slang term for 'to do it with someone.' It's a good one, too, smoother—might even say more suave—than the F-word."]

“Swive” is a good word, I think. It has a kind of nice force to it. It’s like “swing.” Most of the “sw” words, like “swing and swag and swagger,” are kind of groovy. A word that starts with “f” is often harsh.

You recount film critic Pauline Kael’s review of Reds, where she wrote that Warren Beatty’s character was “pussy-whipped,” and you told her that the New Yorker would never print such a word.

I suggested she change that to “uxorious,” and she just rolled her eyes. [Kael eventually described Beatty's character as "timid."]

Do you recall any particular arguments with editors regarding words you were defending?

I remember I went down to Mansfield, Louisiana, to interview the mother and the football coach of [Major League pitcher] Vida Blue because I was doing a story about him for Sports Illustrated. And I talked to his mother, and then I went and interviewed his old football coach. The coach said, “Well, Vida’s left-handed but if he got in a tight, he could throw with his right.” The editor wanted to change it to: “If he got in a tight ‘spot,’ he could throw with his right.” I said, “No, no, no! It’s got to rhyme!” I finally talked him into it, but he just didn’t see why. [The editor] thought that would be confusing: “Nobody’s going to understand. They would think that we inadvertently left out a word.”

You once wrote: “Rush Limbaugh is like Dom DeLuise trying to do George Wallace.” Have you ever met Limbaugh?

[Laughing] I’d forgotten that, but I’m glad I said it.

No . . . We don’t travel in the same circles. I haven’t listened to Rush in a long time. He reminds me of all these people of my ethnic background that I have, to some extent, justly scorned. In my formative years, I felt embarrassed by all the white Southern men who were holding forth in various mean-spirited and dismissive ways. I realized that I had some kind of connection to that heritage and I needed to just separate myself from it and explain it to some extent and all that. But suddenly, when people like Rush Limbaugh came along, basically saying the same thing—except a little less crudely, I suppose—that really pissed me off.

Do you think Al Franken would make a good senator?

Well, I haven’t been following his race. I know Franken a little bit. It’s strange for a comedian to aspire to be a senator, of course. But [former Republican House Majority Leader] Tom DeLay was an exterminator, wasn’t he? And, I hear, a good one. &

Admission is $35 and includes a signed copy of Alphabet Juice. The evening’s proceeds will benefit WBHM 90.3 radio. The Doubletree Hotel is located at 808 20th Street South; 933-9000.

Heartburn by the Number

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Heartburn by the Number

By Ed Reynolds

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	Competitive eater Takeru Kobayashi. (click for larger version)

September 18, 2008

Takeru Kobayashi is a veritable eating machine best known for his six-year reign as champ in the annual July Fourth Nathan’s Coney Island hot dog-eating contest. Revered as one of the greatest competitive eaters of all time, the slender 30-year-old Japanese native, a member of the International Federation of Competitive Eating, will be in Birmingham on September 20 to compete in the Alabama qualifying round for the Krystal Square Off World Hamburger Eating Championship. Five amateur local eaters will be selected to challenge Kobayashi and other pros as they attempt to move on to the finals in Chattanooga on September 28, where the top prize is $50,000. The Birmingham competition will be at Legion Field at 1:30 p.m. before the UAB vs. Alabama State football game. Registration for amateurs (at least 18 years of age) wishing to compete will be at 12:30 p.m. at the stadium’s Blazer Village.

Kobayashi is a three-time Krystal Square Off burger champ, with a personal record of 97 Krystal burgers consumed in eight minutes. Kobayashi also holds records for wolfing down bratwurst sausages, lobster rolls, rice, and cow brains, respectively. For more information on the Krystal Square Off go to www.krystalsquareoff.com/blog.

Mayor on the Defense

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Mayor on the Defense

Mayor Langford and the City Council’s advisory attorney butt heads.

By Ed Reynolds

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August 21, 2008

Birmingham City Council President Carole Smitherman was not particularly thrilled during the August 12 council meeting when Councilor Miriam Witherspoon initiated a discussion about the recent cancellation of the Women’s Empowerment Expo, a women’s conference scheduled for the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex on August 2. Two weeks earlier, Smitherman had presented Mayor Larry Langford with a gold-painted olive branch at the July 29 council meeting as a symbol of their commitment to work together. Less than a week later, the council and mayor were again at odds because Langford refused to sign off on a council-approved expenditure of $8,967 for the event. The expo was subsequently canceled.

Though insisting that the council did not go through proper procedure to obtain city money for the event, Langford readily admitted that he would not go along with the expenditure because the conference’s organizer is Donna Dukes, who once worked for Patrick Cooper, Langford’s 2007 mayoral opponent. During the campaign, Dukes sought witnesses to determine whether Langford was still living at his Fairfield home, which would have placed him in violation of residency requirements for holding office. (Cooper challenged Langford’s election in court, but a judge dismissed the case. Cooper appealed the ruling but eventually withdrew the challenge.)

Councilor Witherspoon asked the council’s legal advisor, retired Judge J. Richmond Pearson, to explain why the mayor was wrong in refusing to sign a check for the funds. Pearson said that Langford was violating his administrative duties by not approving the expense based on “one of the oldest writs known to the law . . . To give you a simple example of this, if you walk out into the hall to the Coke machine and it says 25 cents, if you put 25 cents into the Coke machine, the Coke machine is due to deliver you a Coke. It doesn’t have the right to think about it.” Pearson said that Langford should have performed his mayoral duty “without thinking” regarding the approved expense, and added that the mayor had exercised “a second veto option, which he does not have under the law.”

Langford took issue with Pearson’s assessment: “First of all, there isn’t a judge on the planet can make me sign my name to nothin’ I don’t want to sign it to. . . . He can turn around and give you the authorization for someone else to sign it. If that’s what [a judge] wants to do, let him do it. But let’s tell the whole story, now. [The council] passed an ordinance setting out what people are to do to get public money. And let’s be clear, this is the taxpayers’ money, not ours. . . . This particular person [Dukes] did none of those things. . . . First of all, I wouldn’t have signed it anyway—I made that very clear—not for this particular individual. But the fact of the matter is, I couldn’t have signed it because not a single [requirement] of this council was followed by the person you gave that money to, pure and simple. But if you give money to someone, they have to file the appropriate papers to get that money. And if they don’t do it, I won’t sign it.”

Pearson: “First of all—and I know you can’t always believe what you read in the paper. But from my knowledge, the mayor [has said] that he had personal reasons for not executing this document, number one. And number two, the mayor does not have the right to block the decision of [the council] . . . [The mayor could] veto the bill when it’s up for a vote of this council. But once the council passes it and it becomes law, it’s not up to the mayor on something that is non-discretionary. It’s not up to him to decide, ‘Well, I’m going to make them jump through a tire backwards.’ You can’t do that. You were thwarting the will of the council, and I’ve said all I need to say on it.”

Langford: “Now, the contract was brought to me three days before this supposed event was to take place. I knew nothing about it until three days prior to it. . . . And the bottom line being, had the proper paperwork been filled out, I would have known about it before then. Now, [addressing the council] I’ve never tried to mince any words about it. If someone stalked you and your family and I know it’s true, I’m not going to sign it for them either.”

Pearson: “My opinions are purely advisory, and hopefully helpful. Now, I would say respectfully to the mayor, in the way this manner was handled, I believe you could be personally liable. And I don’t think you want that to happen, and I wouldn’t want that to happen to you. Not only would you be required to sign it—or not only could a judge authorize somebody else to sign it—I think any damage that emanated from your failure to sign it, that you would be personally liable and not the city.”

Langford: “What damage was done? They didn’t have the conference. How do you even know there were 300 people [scheduled] to be over there? You don’t know any of that. . . . When there’s any court in this country who can tell me to sign something I have a disagreement with, then we’ve really got a problem in this country.”

Pearson: “Well, your problem would be that you’d be in jail.”

Langford: “Well, I’m willing to do that, if that’s what it takes, judge. Suppose some judge told me I had to sign an order to kill somebody and I know it’s wrong?”

Councilor Steven Hoyt then admonished Langford for failing to carry out his mayoral duties. “I think we have a responsibility to empower all Birmingham citizens. . . . We don’t [vote against a request] because someone comes before this council [that we have] some issues with. . . . Mr. Mayor, in the spirit of cooperation, I think we have to put things in perspective. . . . We’ve got bigger issues in this city than to be dealing with who brought forth what and what they did. . . . At some point we’ve got to move on. We’re Christians. We forgive and we move on. And that’s how we do things in this city.”

Langford said he would have”no problem” with the council reviewing the expense to allow another party to okay the funds so that the women’s conference can be held at a future date. Smitherman, however, did not let the issue go away without scolding councilors for discussing it publicly. “I respect every councilor’s right to have a presentation and to talk about what they want to talk about. But this should have been talked about at another forum. This is not the place to talk about this. Now, if we’re going to start communicating with each other better, it’s certainly not to get on the internet or on the TV, before the newspapers or whoever is here writing.”

• • •Reached for comment two days after the council meeting, Women’s Empowerment Expo organizer Donna Dukes said, “I followed the procedures I was told to follow.” In response to Langford’s use of the word “stalking” to describe her investigation into his residency, Dukes laughed. “I have never harassed or stalked anyone. And anyone who knows me and knows my family and my background and the work that I do in the community as well as the fact that I’m a born-again Christian—and have been one since I was eight years old—understands that I would never do anything like that.”

Dukes plans to hold the conference at a later date. “The expo is a free event for women, providing services that are direly needed by these women. We have over 300 women who are anxious to attend it and I believe that God is going to provide the rest of the funds that we need.” &

Space Station Spotting

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Space Station Spotting

Up above! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s a very expensive blip in the sky . . .

By Ed Reynolds




The International Space Station. (click for larger version)

August 21, 2008

Every 90 minutes, the International Space Station (ISS) orbits the Earth approximately 220 miles above the planet. If you have even a passing interest in NASA’s ventures, it’s worth spending a few minutes on select evenings for a glimpse of the space station as it passes overhead. It’s fascinating to be able to sit in your backyard and know that the brightly lit object is home to astronauts from various countries living aboard what Arthur C. Clarke once imagined in his epic novel, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

In 1995, the United States began sending space shuttle flights to Russia’s Mir Space Station (which is roughly a quarter the size of the ISS), allowing American astronauts to experience long stays. In 1998, construction of the ISS began. Since November of 2000, it has continually been inhabited by astronauts and cosmonauts, with occasional visits by scientists from other nations, as well as high-rolling billionaires who buy trips to the ISS from the Russians, for approximately $20 million per journey.

Due to its solar panels, the ISS is so bright that there’s no need to drive away from city lights to spot the craft. Some sighting opportunities are better than others. The NASA web site (tinyurl.com/5oojy3) details when and where to look and indicates how many degrees from Earth’s horizon the space station will appear as well as it’s highest point during the flyover. On an ideal evening, the ISS will appear in the western sky, with a high point at 45 to 60 degrees. It is visible for only one to four minutes

One note: in typical government fashion, the info on the NASA page is less than clear. On Wednesday, August 27, for example, the site lists the Space Station as being visible at 4:56 a.m. from “Approach (DEG-DIR): 43 above S.” This means the Station will become visible at 43 degrees above the horizon if you are looking South (90 degrees would be directly overhead). The site also lists the maximum elevation the Station will reach during each sighting, which in this case is 53 degrees. &

Shelley the Playboy

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Shelley the Playboy

A local radio legend is honored by his peers.

By Ed Reynolds

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September 18, 2008

Legendary Birmingham radio personality, radio station owner, and advertising executive Dr. Shelley Stewart will be honored on October 2 at the Cahaba Grand Conference Center. The evening will be MC’d by WJOX talk show host and longtime Stewart friend Paul Finebaum, with a performance by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. An assortment of Shelley’s pals will offer memories of the man once deemed “a pioneer of radio” by the Smithsonian Institute.

President of Birmingham advertising and communications firm O₂ Ideas, Stewart also manages the Mattie C. Stewart Foundation, a nonprofit organization named for his mother. The foundation, which will benefit from the evening’s proceeds, seeks to reduce school-dropout rates and promote literacy, and has produced the documentary Inside Out, which includes reflections of of who failed to achieve high school diplomas.




Shelley Stewart (click for larger version)

Born in Birmingham in the 1930s, Stewart’s life changed drastically at age seven when he witnessed his mother’s murder at the hands of his ax-wielding father. Stewart was forced to survive alone at a very young age, eventually seeking refuge in a horse stable with permission of its white owners. He later moved in with a white family in the Birmingham suburban area now known as Crestline. A memoir, The Road South, tells the story of his odyssey from childhood poverty and neglect to that of wealth and immense success. Ten years ago, as he celebrated 50 years of broadcasting, Dr. Stewart told Black & White: “I went to black schools, of course . . . but after sunset, I was living and socializing with whites. I’m not saying I was less subject to prejudice than other blacks—I remember Mr. Clyde [the head of the family with whom Stewart lived] one time knocking a man to the floor for calling me a nigger—but I did learn that all white people weren’t the same. As a young black boy, that was a revelation to me. The way I came up gave me a fairly unique perspective on both blacks and whites—our commonalities as well as our differences.”

Stewart did not hesitate to challenge old friend Richard Arrington in the years following Arrington’s election (which he achieved with Stewart’s support) in 1979 as Birmingham’s first black mayor. A decade after the election, Stewart began to differ with Arrington and his political machine, the Jefferson County Citizens Coalition, over how the organization wielded its power. When Arrington’s tenure as mayor ended in 1998, Stewart remarked, “I saw that government in the city of Birmingham was getting to be about dealing with personalities rather than issues. That impedes progress, whether it’s Bull Connor or George Wallace or Dick Arrington that’s doing it . . . when you’re talking about power politics in Birmingham, you have to conclude that everything has changed, and yet nothing has changed. The people still have a boot on their neck, and the fact that the color of the foot in the boot has changed doesn’t make it any better.”

• • •“I’ve known Shelley forever,” said Paul Finebaum with a laugh during a recent interview. “I met him briefly when I came to town . . . When I was just writing [for a living], he’d have me on his show. Early on, we did quite a few shows, trying to bridge—like Shelley always did—the two Birminghams. He really was someone who had an open mind, unlike a lot of people from the past. We really had a lot of fun together. Then, when I started [hosting a] radio [show], we’d have him on. Which was really kind of weird, to do a show that was following Rush Limbaugh everyday, and then having Shelley on.”




Shelley Stewart, in green, with James Brown in the early 1970s. (click for larger version)

Finebaum continued: “I remember in the mid- to late- ’80s, and even into the ’90s, he broke with Arrington quite a bit. I found that to be pretty remarkable. But Shelley didn’t care. I think that’s why he was successful. Some people who are pushing a specific point of view always play the party line or company line, and that’s what separated him from the pack.” &

An Evening with Shelley the Playboy; October 2 at the Cahaba Grand Conference Center (former Healthsouth location on Highway 280); Tickets are $150 each; reception at 6 p.m., dinner at 7 p.m. Go to www.shelleytheplayboy.com for more information.

The Juke Joint

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The Juke Joint

An authentic blues experience lies only a few miles west of Birmingham.

By Ed Reynolds

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August 07, 2008

(Photographs by Mark Gooch.)

In the backyard of Henry Gipson’s Bessemer home sits a tin-covered shack, a relic of a by-gone cultural phenomenon: the juke joint. Known as Gip’s Place, the ramshackle club was packed on a recent Saturday night when the legendary Sam Lay, former drummer for Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Bob Dylan, and Paul Butterfield, played guitar and sang. Patrons sat at tables drinking beer from coolers at their feet, munching on fish fried in a kettle in the yard. A middle-aged woman with a cigarette seductively rolled her hips to the music, garnering almost as much attention as Sam Lay.

Henry Gipson, or Gip as most know him, grew up in Uniontown, Alabama, more than 80 years ago. He worked at the Pullman Standard railcar company in Bessemer for 25 years, then began digging graves for a living. He now owns Pine Hill Cemetery, some 15 miles west of Birmingham, and still digs the graves himself with a backhoe. Sitting in a chair on the dusty stage late one afternoon strumming an electric guitar, he reflected on the years spent at his blues joint. “I’ve been fooling with this here for about 50 years . . . It wasn’t built like this at first,” he said. “It wasn’t until Lenny and Hank started coming. They put the tin top [roof] up there. I used to have just a net around it. It wasn’t as big as it is now.”

A Colt 45 Malt Liquor sign illuminates a wall plastered with posters advertising decades-old shows from the chitlin’ circuit. Next to the stage is an upright piano. Tinsel and Christmas lights are strewn about for decor. Gip’s Place draws a mixed race clientele comprised mostly of the over-40 set. “I don’t want too many young people down here, ’cause you know how they act,” he says with a slight grin.




In the corner of the stage, a pair of instruments and guitar amplifier await the next set. (click for larger version)

The aforementioned Lenny Madden and Hank Moore are a pair of blues fanatics who discovered Gip’s Place in the late 1990s. Both white, their visits to Gip’s weekend jam sessions were an anomaly in the predominantly black neighborhood. Eventually, other members of the Magic City Blues Society learned of the place, and then cars began to line the street in front of Gip’s home on Saturday nights. Gip recently celebrated his 86th birthday at his backyard club. “I think we’ve celebrated his 86th birthday about three years in a row now,” noted Moore. “I don’t think even Mr. Gip knows how old he is.”




A gravedigger by day, Gip’s proprietor Henry Gipson digs the night life in his backyard shack on Saturday nights. (click for larger version)

Another frequent attendee is Earl Williams, a 56-year-old hairdresser and guitarist whose résumé includes tours with rhythm ‘n’ blues greats Johnny Taylor and Latimore. “When the whites started coming around, [some neighbors] thought they were watching some of the guys in the neighborhood . . . They thought [the white patrons] were the FBI!” says Williams, howling with laughter at the notion. “I’ve always hung around Gip’s. I love to jam. That’s my place I like to go play for free. I get a chance to let my hair down and be me. I can try whatever I want to try up in there. It’s just a brotherly-type thing, you’re just doing it for the love of music.”




A local band opens for blues legend Sam Lay on a recent Saturday night. (click for larger version)

Williams began coming to Gip’s at age 10 to learn to play guitar from the regulars. “Gip would do everything he could to lure good players to come up there. He’d be out there barbecuing, and he might have a little corn whiskey,” he recalls. “He’d have three or four grills going. He’d have a raccoon on one, he’d have a goat on one, a whole pig on another. He loves music, and he don’t want to do it for a profit. He ought to have a cover charge, but he can’t come to terms with charging people money.” &




For the audience at Gip’s, the music is the focus. (click for larger version)

To find Gip’s Place, take I-20/59 South to Exit 112 in Bessemer. Turn left, under the interstate, which will put you on 18th Street heading south. Go one mile, across the railroad tracks, turning left on Carolina Avenue at the “T” intersection. Go one block and turn right on 19th Street, then go four blocks and turn left on Dartmouth Avenue. Drive 1.2 miles to a right on 33rd Street. Go two blocks and turn left and then immediately right. Go up the hill two blocks to Avenue C. Turn right and drive a couple of hundred feet and you’ll see Gip’s, a dilapidated shack in the backyard of Henry Gipson’s home that sits beside the big curve in the road. Gip’s is open a couple of Saturday nights each month. Contact the Magic City Blues Society at www.magiccityblues.org for info on upcoming events at Gip’s. As the good folks from the Blues Society are fond of saying, “Don’t worry . . . the neighborhood is safe.”Additional info, and two recordings by Mr. Gip, can be found at www.myspace.com/gipsjukejoint.

The Night Owl

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2008-06-26 Features

The Night Owl

For 14 years, the gregarious owner of Marty’s bar has welcomed the late-night crowd.

By Ed Reynolds

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Marty Eagle: “We have one rule in this place—and it’s enforced—and that’s ‘Be nice or be gone.’” (Photograph by Mark Gooch.) (click for larger version)

June 26, 2008

Tucked away on a seldom-traveled street near Five Points South, a neighborhood bar and grill named Marty’s has been a late-night destination for 14 years. Aside from Lou’s Pub in Lakeview, few Birmingham bars have such a well-known public face, and none have owner Marty Eagle’s knack for making newcomers instantly feel like regulars. Eagle rarely forgets a face and will usually offer a handshake and warm grin each time you stop by.

Eagle’s friendly, upbeat attitude comes across in the DVD presentation available for purchase through the bar’s web site that provides a step-by-step guide to prospering in the nightclub business. In the introduction, Eagle climbs out of his sports car, unlocks the bar’s front door, looks into the camera, and says, “Hi. If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you how to find happiness.”

Eagle is equally forthcoming in person. Rather than guard the lessons learned from his 20 years in the bar business, he has chosen the role of nightclub ambassador. “For me, being in the after-hours business, the more people that are [working in bars and restaurants], the better my business is, because bar and restaurant employees get off work late. That’s the niche I went after—all the bar people and musicians and the late-shift workers from UAB. Two or three in the morning is when their happy hour starts. Those people are not coming in all stupid and drunk. They’re coming from their jobs to have their happy hour drinks.”

The aforementioned DVD offers tips for bookkeeping, choosing music (both recorded and live), hiring top-notch bartenders, avoiding lease problems, and dealing with drunks. “Yeah, that’s the biggest thing you’ve got,” Eagle laments. “You’ve got people drinking, and some people don’t drink well. You’ve got to try to manage them. When you come in here, you have a good time. But if somebody is interfering with the rest of the people having a good time, they’ll be asked to leave. My place is so small, when somebody acts up or acts out, you can feel it all over the room. We have one rule in this place—and it’s enforced—and that’s ‘Be nice or be gone.’ It’s real simple. Has no color, no gender, no nothing.”

Local musician Bob Barker, who has performed at Marty’s often over the years, has always been impressed with Eagle’s finesse in handling difficult customers, which are surprisingly few for an all-night bar. “As soon as somebody’s enjoyment is being hindered by somebody else’s over-enjoyment, Marty takes care of it,” Barker explains. “And if he wasn’t able to do it every time, you’d end up with a problem bar.”

Operating at odd hours sometimes invites the extraordinary. “Being open late at night, you don’t know who’s coming to the door,” Eagle admits. “I had a go-go dancer come in and get up on a table, and she looked like she was pretty lit up—but she wasn’t rude. I was trying to figure out how to get her down without any problem. And I just walked up there and I held out my hand and she put her hand in mind and I helped her down and I said, ‘It’s okay now, you’re off work.’”

• • •Born in Pennsylvania, Eagle spent his adolescence in Brooklyn. Even then, he found nightspots irresistible. “In New York, you only had to be 18 to get into a bar to drink. So, of course, I was sneaking in at 16,” he says. “I just always liked bars.” He learned to bartend at a club located on the Maxwell Air Force Base while serving in the Air Force in Montgomery. “That’s how I got to Alabama. I was in the Air Force and I worked on airborne electronics,” he explains. “But I didn’t want to do that forever, I didn’t want to crawl around a plane. When I got out, I went to this vocational school in Montgomery and got a job there as a computer programmer. I got hired by a company that was a subsidiary of IBM. Then I went to Dallas and I was a contract programmer; I would fly out of Dallas in all directions to wherever the job was.”

He got his first Birmingham bartending job in the early 1970s. “The first guy I worked for here was Ace Kabase. You know where Charlemagne Records is? That used to be a bar called the Trail’s End. There was a one-way mirror at the top of the long, steep stairwell to the second floor. If somebody bounced off the walls too many times walking up, we didn’t let them in.”

Eagle’s first venture as a business owner was Leo’s, a combination cafeteria, hot dog stand, and lounge in the Bank For Savings building downtown (not to be confused with the Leo’s later located near Fourth Avenue and 18th Street South). “I lost my ass there. Different things happened that I never recovered from,” he recalls. “It took me about a year to catch on to the various ways I was being stolen from. So, it was kind of my college education. I got back into computers to make a little more money and then I opened the Eagle’s Nest in 1980 [at the site currently occupied by The Derby bar on Sixth Avenue South near Avondale]. The Eagle’s Nest was an early-hour joint. Around midnight during the week, we’d close and go to somebody else’s joint. I leased the space from a guy in the vending machine business who owned a bunch of little bars like that, all run by different operators. After about five years I was doing well enough that he walked in and wanted to double my lease. And I said, ‘Well, screw you, man.’ I should have planned it a little different, but I was a little hotheaded and I just dumped it, and it took me a while to get back into the business on my own.” After nine years, some of which were spent bartending at the legendary Norm’s on Green Springs Highway, Eagle opened Marty’s in 1994.

• • •On a tiny corner stage, Marty’s offers live music, of all stripes, seven nights a week. Compared to many other bar owners, Eagle takes an unusually strong interest in the bands he books, often auditioning them first at another club or even at a band’s practice space. He pursues his interest in music outside of the club as well. When not overseeing the day-to-day workings of Marty’s, Eagle takes a train to New Orleans and makes the rounds of the city’s landmark jazz clubs such as Snug Harbor. His love of jazz led him to provide a Sunday night residency for the late pianist and fellow nightclub owner Jerry Grundhoefer. “I had Grundy in here on Sundays after Grundy’s went out of business. He ran the jazz night, and nobody else could hold it together like he could. Somebody had to be the disciplinarian. And none of the others wanted to discipline any of the other people. But Jerry wanted a good show, and he did it right.”

When asked about his favorite bands, Eagle laughs and replies, “What I really like is whatever’s coming up here this weekend. I try to get in good shows. I like a variety of music. If I was on the coast and my customers were changing all the time, I could get by with one really good band for a season. Whereas, here I have a lot of regulars, so I’ve got to keep it fresh for them.” He added that an after-hours cover charge on weekends has an added benefit: “That $5 is a good way of weeding out [drunk] jerks late at night.”

Customers winding down after a night of drinking can order from Marty’s grill, which serves hamburgers, patty melts, and corned beef sandwiches from 11 p.m. until dawn. “I’m mainly in the bar business,” Eagle says. “You’ve got to have food to help people get sober, or if they get hungry, to keep them from leaving your place and going to another place just for a bite to eat. Because once they’re gone, they may never come back.”

• • •Diners at one of the handful of white-tablecloth restaurants on Southside may have noticed a solitary, black-clad diner at the bar with his head buried in a book—that’s Eagle starting his workday. “I like to read a lot, and books are only alive when they are being read. Most books are just gathering dust,” he explains. Marty’s maintains a free lending library that consists of several shelves of paperbacks. “People tend to bring me a box of books from time to time. The library has been self-sustaining for 10 years now. People will notice that the library is low, and someone will drop a box of books outside.”

“This is not a big place. My friends probably say I micromanage it or something,” Eagle says with a laugh. “But I enjoy it. It’s hard to explain. Just like you might enjoy loading up the golf clubs and going to the golf course. I get pleasure from it as well as it being work at times. There’s ugly moments, rolling in the street with idiots that you have to throw out or something like that.”

When asked if he’s content running Marty’s for the foreseeable future, he replies, “As long as it plays out all right, I’m good with it. You know, somebody might walk in one day and just have to have it. And I might let ‘em, then take a break and go open another bar.” &

Marty’s (www.martysbar.com; 939-0045), at 1813 10th Court South, is open 365 days a year from 4 p.m. to 6 a.m.

Budget Cuts

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Budget Cuts

Low-cost pet sterilization now available locally.

By Ed Reynolds

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June 26, 2008

A new non-profit facility is offering low-cost spaying and neutering procedures for dogs and cats, the goal being to reduce the number of stray and abandoned animals by means other than euthanasia. The Alabama Spay/Neuter Clinic in Irondale will provide services to animal rescue organizations and shelters as well as individual pet owners. It is not a full-service veterinary facility; sterilization and any necessary rabies vaccinations are the only services offered. Though a permanent, 8,500-square-foot building with four surgical rooms is under construction, services are now available in two temporary operating rooms inside the clinic’s double-wide trailer.

“We are in the high-volume spay/neuter business,” explains clinic director Mark Nelson. “The only way we can ever hope to come close to adopting out all the healthy animals that are coming into shelters is to drastically reduce the number of animals coming into shelters. Right now, about one out of ten healthy animals are adopted out. There are just not enough homes . . . The only way you can stop the overflow in shelters and the subsequent euthanasia of healthy animals is through an aggressive, high-volume spay/neutering program, and the only way you can do that is by having very aggressive pricing.”

The clinic currently has one full-time medical team that can perform 30 surgeries per day. The facility is open Monday through Friday, and appointments are requested. It is modeled on services offered by the Humane Alliance based in Asheville, North Carolina, which has spayed or neutered more than 200,000 animals since 1994. “The Humane Alliance is the best that I’ve seen at doing this,” says Nelson. “They have something called the ‘national spay/neuter response team,’ kind of a wing of Humane Alliance. They actually go in and help train veterinary teams in other clinics on the best, most current procedures for doing high-volume spay/neuters. The Humane Alliance helps nurture organizations such as ours. They’ve helped open between 30 and 40 spay/neuter clinics around the country the last three years . . . They’re a non-profit as well, but for lack of a better description, it’s almost like a franchise.”

The Alabama Spay/Neuter Clinic will make available pediatric spay/neutering procedures, with a minimum weight and age requirement of two pounds and two months for healthy animals. Though some veterinarians may disagree with the practice of sterilizing very young animals, Nelson says that doing so significantly decreases the chances of having certain types of cancers in a pet. “Say a female dog never has a litter of puppies, her chances of having breast cancer is almost zero,” Nelson explains. “If they have one litter of puppies, it increases maybe twofold. After two litters, it really doesn’t matter. The same with male dogs with testicular cancer.”

The Greater Birmingham Humane Society (GBHS) also practices pediatric spay/neutering. “Until we don’t have any unwanted animals, I can’t think of a better way to do it,” says Jacque Meyer, the GBHS executive director. “And the mortality rate is very, very low with pubescent spays and neuters.”

Meyer is excited about the clinic. “I think it’s the greatest thing to hit Jefferson County. We need one in every city. They need to put me out of business.” &

The Alabama Spay/Neuter Clinic, 956-0012, www.alabamaspayneuterclinic.com, is located at 2721 Crestwood Boulevard, across the street from the Irondale Post Office.

Curfews, Cars, and Clothes

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Curfews, Cars, and Clothes

In response to the city’s continuing rise in deadly violence, the mayor and other officials have turned their attention to combating curfew violators and sagging trousers.

By Ed Reynolds

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July 24, 2008

A rash of fatal shootings in Birmingham during the weekend of July 4th—including two in the Five Points South entertainment district—prompted city officials to focus not on the city’s underfunded and short-staffed police department but on curfews, sagging pants, and the confiscation of vehicles to mitigate Birmingham’s reputation as one of the most dangerous cities in America. According to Mayor Larry Langford and city councilors, parents are primarily to blame for the city’s crime woes. At the July 8 City Council meeting, Langford, who has insisted time and again that parents have a greater role than the police do in combating area crime, trotted out his well-worn tale about how stern his own mother was. “My mother had a curfew: ‘Have your butt in this house by the time those street lights come on or I will kill you,” shared the mayor. “She didn’t need the police or nobody else, and I’ve got the scars on my back to prove it!” To further illustrate how far local parenting standards have sunk, Langford added that he recently spoke at Birmingham’s Family Court regarding gun violations. He opening his speech with a prayer. “I said to the group, ‘Let’s repeat the Lord’s Prayer.’ But the mayor was shocked at what he found, “I am not making this up,” said Langford. “Neither the parents nor the children could give you the opening verse!” Councilor Roderick Royal addressed proposed legislation directed at parental responsibility that includes outlawing the fashion, popular with many black youth, of positioning jeans well below the level they were designed to be worn. Royal blamed the “culture of violence, all this sagging [pants] and all this different music. . . . And this culture is not good for us because it’s a gang culture. And all you have to do is turn on BET. Now, I don’t let my children watch BET. I don’t want them to literally think that this is the way people are supposed to behave, walking around in the middle of the street with their pants around their ankles and after every step they’ve got to pull them up.” Langford then played a DVD containing footage from a city-owned surveillance camera of a July 5, 3:30 a.m. shooting outside Banana Joe’s in Five Points South. A 16-year-old has been charged with killing two men and wounding two others. The incident followed a “family-style” holiday festival earlier that evening that was sponsored by the Five Points South merchants association. Langford noted that there were five police officers standing near the club’s parking lot entrance and that after being ejected from the club for fighting, the perpetrator walked past the cops to retrieve a gun from his car and then walked past the officers once again before opening fire in a small crowd some 60 feet from the police. “He shot them with a .40 caliber Smith & Wesson handgun,” said the mayor. “But he had four semi-automatic weapons in the car. And one of the semi-automatic weapons was lying on top of, of all things, a Bible.” Langford told the council that though their investment in surveillance cameras had paid off, “all the cameras in the world and all the cops in the world will not stop us from killing each other. Only mamas and daddies can do that!”

Under Birmingham’s existing curfew ordinance, no one under 17 is allowed on the street between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., Sunday through Thursday, and midnight to 6 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. After lamenting that many of today’s youth not only had no respect for the police or any authority figure but also showed no fear of them, Langford strongly urged the council to stiffen fines for curfew violations. Where an initial curfew violation currently results in a written warning to the parent, Langford wants a $500 fine. A second offense would entail a $500 fine instead of the current $25 fine. A third offense currently results in a $500 fine, but a parent or legal guardian may additionally face incarceration for six months. The mayor did not address the issue of how a parent is supposed to force a teenager strapped with several semi-automatic weapons to stay home if the child is not inclined to do so.

• • •On July 12, three dozen police officers responded to a report of a disturbance at a youth club near the 4th Avenue Civil Rights district. At a July 14 meeting called by the Council to discuss the proposed city budget, Langford said that this latest event prompted him to speak with Governor Bob Riley about a bill currently sponsored by state representative Linda Coleman that would allow Class One municipalities such as Birmingham to take possession of any vehicle in which a gun is found, even if not in the possession of an occupant, but for which the proper permit cannot be produced. Langford warned, “Whoever owns the car, forfeits the car. You tell me what these teenagers love better than their cars. Nothing. And if necessary, you better frisk your friends before you let them in your car. Otherwise you run the risk of losing your car.” The mayor added that the legislation will have difficulty passing state approval “because of the love affair we have with guns in Alabama.”

At the July 15 council meeting, an obviously weary Mayor Langford referenced the events of the previous two weekends. “This past weekend—as if we didn’t have enough trouble at the Banana Joe’s establishment—at the L.R. Hall Auditorium we had to dispatch 36 police officers down there because these children were out there in mass numbers, and we got reports of windows in businesses being shot out. First of all, I’m not in favor of gun control, I just want gun responsibility. . . . These children got guns like you would not believe. And they want to use these guns!”

Langford also had a couple of requests for future gun violators. “If you just must have a gun and violate our ordinances, please have a Lexus, so we can get our officers some better comfortable cars to drive,” he pleaded. “And if you’re going to have an SUV and carry that mess, please put a couple of those little TVs in it so that when we pick you up and take you in, you can just watch television all the way to jail. If you’re just going to act a fool, we may as well tell you right now, ‘Give us the good stuff!’”

Mayor Langford, however, was reluctant to embrace the proposed ordinance forbidding sagging pants that Councilor Royal referenced the previous week. Langford asked the council not to approve the proposed legislation, as it falls under parental responsibility. “I don‘t want to look at somebody’s nasty little underwear, to begin with,” admitted the mayor. “I don‘t find anything enticing about it that makes me want to roll down the window and say, ‘Go brother!’” Langford said parents must take responsibility, not government. “We cannot legislate ourselves out of this mess. Now, I know that when I was a kid I had a big Afro—all you could see were my eyes and teeth. And kids are gonna be children. We’re not trying to take away the youth of a child. But as far as when your child leaves your home and has that little nasty underwear showing, you knew it [and failed to stop it].”

The council is scheduled to vote on increasing fines for curfew violations at its July 22 meeting. The vehicle confiscation ordinance must first be approved by the state legislature. &

The Merry Prankster

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The Merry Prankster

Baseball legend Jimmy Piersall, who will throw out the first pitch at the Rickwood Classic on May 28, still calls ‘em as he sees ‘em.

By Ed Reynolds

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May 15, 2008
In his second autobiography, The Truth Hurts, former Major League baseball player Jimmy Piersall opined, “Probably the best thing that ever happened to me was going nuts. Whoever heard of Jimmy Piersall until that happened?” Though he had won two Golden Glove awards for his fielding prowess, Piersall was not well known until he had a nervous breakdown. He was noted for clowning around to entertain fans as well as for his quick temper, but after having a series of violent outbursts, the Boston Red Sox sent him to their Birmingham Barons farm team in 1952. In Birmingham, he once shot an umpire with a water pistol while at bat, then went to the dugout roof behind home plate to heckle the ump for ejecting him. After he was thrown out of several games, the Red Sox organization removed him from the Birmingham team and placed him in a Massachusetts mental hospital.Piersall’s life was chronicled in the movie Fear Strikes Out, based on his book of the same title. Anthony Perkins starred as Piersall and Karl Malden played his father, a man who relentlessly pushed his son to Major League success. Diagnosed as bipolar, Piersall began using lithium to address his mood swings. He’s been taking it successfully for nearly four decades.




	Jimmy Piersall’s 1967 Topps baseball card. (click for larger version)

Piersall will attend the Rickwood Classic on May 28 to throw out the first pitch and sign a few autographs. During a recent telephone conversation, he spoke of changes in baseball, the presidential election, and broadcasting with the legendary Harry Caray. At age 79, Piersall sounds as mischievous as ever. When I thanked him for his time, he replied, “Well, that will be $500 [laughs] . . . I hope I gave you enough bullsh**, because I’m getting so old I don’t always remember things like I used to.”

Black & White: What memories do you have of Birmingham when you were playing here in the early 1950s?

Jimmy Piersall: I was a kid when I was in Birmingham, I was about 20 years old. It was the turning point in my life in baseball. The fans were great. The African-American fans used to sit in right-center field and they’d really cheer me on. We had a great year there.

Were you diagnosed as bipolar before you were sent down to Birmingham?

There were no problems when I was in Birmingham, I was high-strung. I remember I shot a water pistol at the umpire at home plate. . . . Hey, there used to be this clothing store called Blach’s and if you hit a home run, you got a free suit!

You once said that you wound up being more successful than those who said you were crazy.

I always said the best thing that happened to me was going nuts. I got recognition. Every writer said I’d never play again, except for one. I wrote the book Fear Strikes Out, then they did the movie. Karl Malden played my father. When I was playing for the Angels, I got to know him, he looked just like my dad. I got to know Edward G. Robinson. He told me, “Don’t change your ways,” and I guess that’s why I got in so much trouble, because I didn’t [laughs].

You eventually started taking medication for your unpredictable behavior.

I’ve been taking lithium for about 35 years, and it sorta slowed me down. I don’t know if I could have played ball as well if I was taking it at the time, but I do know it’s helped me though my life. I take three a day, and I advise other people to take it if needed. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in taking that stuff.

I’ve read conflicting accounts about your 100th home run. One is that you ran the bases in reverse, starting with third, and the other is that you ran the correct order but facing backward.

[Laughs] I ran facing backward in the correct order. That was the only thing I really planned. Everybody used to write that I was “zany,” but I would say, “Yes, but I’m not an alcoholic like most of you writers.” They were real drunks back then.

Did the umpires allow players to get away with more back then?

In those days, we would go to the mound [when batting, to confront a pitcher who hit them with the ball] and the umpires wouldn‘t throw you out. The game has gotten very dull because the umpires got too much control. The umpires don’t want you to breathe on them. Fans like to see umpires being argued with. When we played, I can remember umpires telling me, “Look, you’ve got two minutes for your act. Now get outta here!”

Any thoughts on the presidential race?

We’re in deep sh** no matter who gets in. They’re liars. They make up all this sh** and they never follow through with it.

Hasn’t it always been that way, though?

Yeah, it’s always been that way. JFK was a favorite of mine, I used to play golf with him when he was a senator. He didn’t have to worry about helping people that were giving him all that money. He had all the money he wanted from his dad.

Did you know Joe DiMaggio? Because if you did, that makes two guys you knew who slept with Marilyn Monroe.

I had an opportunity to work with Joe when we were both in Oakland. I was in sales and doing a little coaching. Joe was in public relations for Finley [legendary maverick Oakland A's owner Charlie Finley]. . . . Joe was a very quiet man. Very, very, very quiet man. You always wondered how he married Marilyn Monroe, he was so quiet. I used to say he must have the biggest dick in the town. [DiMaggio] was a great player. When I was a kid, I’d watch him when he’d hit against Bob Feller and go five-for-five in Yankee Stadium . . . In those days, I never worried about autographs. I used to walk down along the dugouts when they were hitting at batting practice just to be able to see their faces so that when I was listening to it on radio I could know how they looked. Today, they’ve got the television, which is a great help.

You had an interesting broadcasting career working with Harry Caray, didn’t you?

The [Chicago] White Sox general manager offered me an audition with Harry, so I worked three games with him, and boy, they liked it and they gave me a contract and I worked with Harry for seven years. It was really a great experience because Harry taught me an awful lot about radio. He said to me, “You know the game, say it.” Harry and I were working for the last place team for three years, and a great writer for the [Chicago] Tribune, Mike Royko, was putting together a show and he asked Harry and I to go on. All of a sudden, Royko says to me, “Why are these wives trying to get you fired?” The wives were going to the sponsors to try to get me fired because I was telling the truth. I said, “Well, they don’t know anything about that. They’re a bunch of horny broads.” If you ask people in Chicago now, they’ll say we’re the best announcers they ever had together, because we’d be needling each other. One time I said to Harry, “Did you pay your alimony, Harry?” And he said, “Yeah . . . Did you take your pills today?” because I was all excited about something. [laughs] He was a great baseball man. He knew the game. Some of these analysts today are right, but they talk too much. They go on and on. The game is on the field, not in your mouth . . . Baseball makes a life for a lot of people. Even though they are having trouble with the steroids, I can’t understand how the government can [get] involved in that stuff. . . They’ve already made new rules, and they’ve already set up situations where they would catch them. And it hasn’t hurt baseball attendance . . . baseball fans are great fans. It’s an easy game to understand. Soccer is so tough to understand. The only ones who understand it are the ones who play it. It’s great for kids. I think that’s why baseball is losing so much talent because they don’t have as many kids playing Little League and Pony League.

Were there any chemical boosts similar to steroids when you were playing?

We had greenies. They called them “greenies,” they were uppers and downers. You can say one thing: I didn’t need ‘em, I’ll tell you that! [laughs] As soon as I got out of bed in the morning, I was hopped! I didn’t take nothin’. If I had taken lithium, I don’t think I would have been as good a player. Because I had my own way of playing and my own knowledge of the game and knowing how to play the game and knowing how to think the game.

Did you really climb the backstop behind home plate one time, as Anthony Perkins did in Fear Strikes Out?

No, no. That was in the movie, Hollywood did that stuff. If I had thought of it, I would have done it. [Laughs] That was a terrible movie. They rewrote the whole book. The book is very accurate and makes sense.

I’m guessing you were not as nuts as Perkins portrayed you?

Well, Anthony Perkins was a fag. He was a nice guy, a great actor, but he was a fag. I’m the only guy that ever had his part played by a fag. And I have nothing against fags, either [laughs]. &

The Rickwood Classic will be held Wednesday, May 28, 12:35 p.m., at Rickwood Field. Admission is $9. For details call 988-3200, or visit www.barons.com.