Greetings From Trumpland!

 

Greetings from The Democratic People's Republic of Trumpland!

 

Achtung! I've been living in Atlanta, the capital city of the Old South, for just over four years now. How time flies in the God made state of Georgia. That said, here's a selection of amusing pix from our time here thus far in the USA.

 

 

This was our drum (house) in the hyphenated city suburb of Virginia-Highland (population 7,800) from September 2012 to May 2015. My nickname for this quaint Nordic style bungalow was "Amityville" because it slightly resembled the creepy Satanic house from The Amityville Horror book and film. As for the hood itself, Virginia-Highland was an old hippy area of the city that had been slowly gentrified by wealthy incomers from neighboring Buckhead. Thank Heavens we moved to grungy Grant Park. "VaHi" was a bit too straight, white and hyphenated for little old me.  

 

 

Here's a shot of yours truly with a shopping trolley (or cart as they say out here in Trumpland). We didn't have a car at the time and brought it back home from Trader's Joe's on our first ever shopping trip in the locality. A neighbor, some white, well-to-do, middle aged female, spotted us ghetto walkin' up the road and was moved to comment, "Don't you guys have a car?" We didn't have the heart to tell the poor woman that we were merely replicating English gypsy style behavior in the USA. 

 

 

And another shot with a shopping trolley. I brought this little red ryder all the way home from "Staples" (an American office supply store) on "Ponce de Leon" (a great big road full of Liverpool potholes) with an office chair inside of it. I didn't bin either trolley down the side of the road, I hasten to add, and returned both to their rightful places of business (after a few weeks interval).

 

 

I do miss the cold granite walls of the old joint in Virginia-Highland.  Even though it got a wee bit drafty in the winter months, they did add some degree of character to our first proper home in the USA. The stone walls also brought to mind "Gasoline Alley," Dad's 17th Century cottage in Oxfordshire that backed onto a 20th Century mechanic's yard owned by the "Pratt" family. That fading memory aside, I'm blooming glad that we moved out of Amityville. The place was dinky, claustrophobic, the ceiling too low, and one could often hear the upstairs neighbors bonking away in their bedroom. I did resist the urge, dear reader, to bash away at the ceiling with a broom...

 

 

Sitting on the chair from Staples in the old office in Virginia-Highland. I finished my first book in this very room. Note the 1950s steel tanker desk. I paid $330 for this metallic monster from a ritzy antique market called "Paris on Ponce" just down the road from HQ in VaHi. Thankfully, I didn't have to haul it home (they had a chap to perform that hefty chore). This was probably the last bargain to be bagged at Paris on Ponce. The mark up on "mid-20th Century antiques" has been quite substantial ever since, and the place is a bit of a 21st Century rip off these days.

 

 

On a trip to Target in Atlantic Station's retail district, I noticed that a craphatted mucker from ye olde days of the TA is doing rather well out here in the U.S. of A. His Action Man picture on the packaging had me convulsing with fits of laughter in public. Bear Grylls the face of Gerber compact multi-tools... Hmm, how appropriate. 

 

 

Hello, I must be going, as old Groucho Marx used to say. My fortunes are on the up in Trumpland, and I've got a lot of deadlines for VICE.

 

Toodle pip! 

 

 

The Male Trailing Spouse.