forgive me, martin
 I probably couldn't have picked any better locations to spend an MLK weekend if I'd tried--and I didn't try.
Saturday day and night we spent in Savannah which was a notorious slave port, and which still bears the remmants of its ancient slave dungeons.
Sunday, we moved on to Atlanta, the Hub of the Civil Rights movement, and the home of Dr. Martin Luther King. (So I guess we symbolically followed the path to liberation).
In Atlanta, we checked the paper for the time and location of the big MLK parade. But then I think we came to the conclusion that none of us really wanted to stand in a huge crowd, in frigid temperatures to watch a bunch of marching bands go by. So instead we opted for some eating, drinking and shopping in the Little Five Points district. We had seen an ad for $1 Sushi the night before and we wanted to check that out, especially after being (financially) spanked by the tourist traps of Savannah.
Like I said, it was bitterly cold on that MLK Sunday, so me, Rachel, and Mariel were walking at a very brisk pace along Euclid Street, looking for the Sushi joint. As we were going along, a black man in an orange ski cap popped out in front of us on the sidewalk and began to peddle his wares.
"Excuse me, folks," he said. "I'm selling these sticks of incense here to raise money for the local battered woman's shelter. They're only a dollar for a pack and every sale gives money to the women's shelter."
Now sometimes I can be very generous and appeasing with questionable street vendors and bums. But there were two things that immediately turned me off about this guy. 1) He was obviously lying about the women's shelter thing. and 2) He practically tackled me on the side walk giving his little speech. I had to kind of back peddle and go around him to get away.
"So how bout it? the black man said.
"Maybe, later," I said and kept walking.
I thought my dismissal was polite enough, given his aggressive and rude vending tactics, but the battered woman's shelter fundraiser man wasn't through with me.
"Maybe later?" the black man said. "Why don't you just tell the truth? HMM?? Why you got to lie? HMMM?? Don't give me this, 'maybe later' bullshit, when you just mean, 'NO"
By now we were twenty-five yards away from the battered woman' shelter fundraiser man, but he just kept increasing his volume so his harangue would reach me.
"I MEAN DON'T INSULT MY FUCKIN' INTELLIGENCE!! YOU JUST TELLIN' ME A GODDAMN LIE--MAYBE LATER!!! MAYBE LATER, MY ASS!!!YOU JUST A GODDAMN LIE!!"
The fact that I was being called a liar by a guy who was obviously a professional liar started to make my blood boil. I felt tempted to scream something like, "SHUT UP, YOU STUPID FUCKING NIGGER BUM!!!"
But since I was only about a half mile from Dr. Martin Luther King's place of birth and it was the day when all of America was supposed to be honoring him, I bit my tongue and walked on.
(Eventually we found the dollar sushi place. It turned out that only this weird kind of sushi that I'd never heard of before was a dollar. But the normal kind was just buck-fifty, so that was okay. I guzzled down four heinekens and Rachel had an equal number of Vodka tonics.
While sitting in the Sushi place getting sloshed, I had two great ideas. 1) They should make a Che Guevarra edition of the Heinken bottle. It already has the red, five pointed star on the label--having Che on the bottle would increase Heineken's sales at least 600% in all the Hipster neighborhoods.
2) Mc Donald's should produce a blockbuster movie based off its 1970s commercial characters: the hamburgler, Mayor McCheese, the Grimace, and, oh yeah, Ronald. The movie should be a psychedelic rip-off of the Wizard of Oz where a kid eats a magic Big Mac and then gets transported to Mc Donald's world. This would resonate powerfully with the gen xers, (as well as the gen yers who go in for all the other 70s shit: Bruce Lee, Blacksploitation, Scooby Doo, etc.
This would take Mc Donald's off the defensive (after the Supersize movie) and let it regain its place as a powerful, and unapologetic cultural icon.
I don't have the will or the patience to write a Mc Donald's movie script, but just remember, when you first see the trailers in the theatres--you heard about it here first.
5:23:42 PM 
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