I can be your favorite veteran today, if you like.

Otherwise, if you know someone who received an “Honorable Discharge” from the United States Armed Forces, then remember them today while you are enjoying your life.

Veteran’s Day is a day of honour.

For the record, you can thank me for your “free flow of oil at market prices.” My 11 months in Saudi Arabia during the Logistician’s War, Operation Desert Storm preserved cheap gas for all of you Hummer drivers in the suburbs reading this.

Ahhh… the air South of the Fertile Crescent in 1990-1991 was always so refreshing…

My message to you on behalf of The Rootdown Group in the waning days of 2008 is “move Intown, and sell your Hummer.” If you seek the help of a professional real estate agent with field grade expertise in Intown Atlanta and Decatur who is a trained logistician, then give me a call!

This next paragragh about logisticians parallels today’s real estate mission in an apt way. What do I mean by that? I mean that there are far too few Intown Atlanta real estate agents dealing in facts today and their numbers, and their practices and their languishing unsold inventories prove it.

Read on..

…Logisticians are a sad and embittered race of men who are very much in demand in war, and who sink resentfully into obscurity in peace. They deal only in facts, but must work for men who merchant in theories. They emerge during war because war is very much a fact. They disappear in peace because peace is mostly theory. The people who merchant in theories, and who employ logisticians in war and ignore them in peace, are generals…”

I’m the Intown Insider now, 13 years after my service as a logistics officer in the United States Army.

Never made it to General…

and I am not sad, nor am I embittered, for the record. Those emotions left me when I got my honorable discharge!

I believe that it is time for a few failed metropolitan Atlanta real estate “generals” to step aside and let a logistician and his team get some real estate on. That will bring more joy to all in this season of uncertainty. These are things that I just know…and I have an honourable record of service to prove it.

In closing, on my website today, please join me in honouring my three favorite fellow United States Army veterans, Faron Young, Elvis Presley and Jimi Hendrix.

Faron Young - The Hillbilly Heartthrob…The Singing Sheriff…singing young, young Willie’s “Hello Walls.”

Elvis - from the film, GI Blues…

Jimi - a 9:55 Machine Gun with The Band Of Gypsies in 1970. Heavy…

Be all that you can be today. The Rootdown Group is at your service.

It does not take very long for Seth Godin to come along with a book nowadays.

I just obtained my copy of his new book Tribes and I’ll be reading it over the next few days. Regardless of his frequency, his books are always on point, always readable and entertaining, and always on my bookshelf.

I just know that after reading the highlights of Tribes, and after watching this video, I believe very truly that no one cares about me.

In the video, Seth answers the question: “Is social networking good for business? If so, what types of businesses?”

The video is hosted at American Express’ Open Forum site, which is loaded with good stuff for small businesses and marketers.

Good marketing matters to me because my daughter expects the utmost professionalism in my real estate practice.

Obviously, the shameless display of cuteness below is just one of my “good marketing” tactics.

Thanks to all of my clients and friends who exchange ideas with me, who refer business to The Rootdown Group and who truly make my world go ’round.

Thanks for going out of your way for me.

“In The Year 9595, I’m kinda wonderin’ if man is gonna be alive,
He’s taken everything this old Earth can give,
And he ain’t put back nothing…”

Rather prescient for a couple of 60’s singers, don’t ya think?

Watch this Zager and Evans classic performed on some long forgotten TV soundstage circa 1969…

I love Jerry Reed. My Mom and Dad loved Jerry Reed. He was a funny dude, a gracious Southern gentleman and he could play the guitar just like ringin’ a bell. Watch this playing here with Mr. Chet Atkins…

 
He died a few days ago, probably because he smoked too many cigarettes & and ate too much fried catfish.

He went to Intown Atlanta’s O’Keefe High School - a Westside institution back in the mid-20th century. Georgia Tech’s campus took over the land, but he was one of us!

He was a movie star too - reports have called him a “good old boy” actor. I’m reporting that Jerry was one of the coolest guys on the planet. Here’s what the AP reported:

“…As a singer in the 1970s and early 1980s, Reed had a string of hits that included “Amos Moses,” “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot,” “East Bound and Down,” “She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)” and “The Bird.”

In the mid-1970s, he began acting in movies such as “Smokey and the Bandit” with Burt Reynolds, usually as a good ol’ boy. But he was an ornery heavy in “Gator,” directed by Reynolds, and a hateful coach in 1998’s “The Waterboy,” starring Adam Sandler.

Reynolds gave him a shiny black 1980 Trans Am like the one they used in “Smokey and the Bandit.”

Reed and Kris Kristofferson paved the way for Nashville music personalities to make inroads into films. Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson and Kenny Rogers (TV movies) followed their lead.

“I went around the corner to motion pictures,” he said in a 1992 AP interview.

Reed had quadruple bypass surgery in June 1999.

Born in Atlanta, Reed learned to play guitar at age 8 when his mother bought him a $2 guitar and showed him how to play a G-chord.

He dropped out of high school to tour with Ernest Tubb and Faron Young.

At 17, he signed his first recording contract, with Capitol Records…”

RIP Jerry - you are one of the very, very best guitar players who ever lived. One more video, with Mr. Glen Campbell…

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Coming to a sold out Atlanta Tabernacle on October 1st, 2008…

The hardest working band in the rock and roll business…The Raconteurs.

Here’s a preview of what you can expect - I’m already ticketed so I know what’s coming, but here’s a preview of this band, live on the wonderful Jools Holland show from the BBC with Consolers of the Lonely. Stick around with this video until about 2:45 in and then you’ll see some major fretboard work from Jack and Brendan. If you love classic rock and roll, then do not miss this October 1st show - they are up there with Radiohead and My Morning Jacket as the finest purveyors of modern classics.

OK, I shall setlle the argument right here and right now. I’m attracted to the legendary ladies of Fanny, but Freddy’s legacy is beyond compare.

I’m not talkin’ mortgage crisis stuff here, I’m talkin’ rock and roll.

Fanny are the Godmothers of Chick Rock. That’s right - read about ‘em here…

The Godmothers of Chick Rock

OK - you know Freddy. Freddy Mercury. His band Queen were the top performing live act worldwide in the 1970’s. They kept it going in the ’80’s too, until that Flash Gordon soundtrack came along. Personally, that’s when I quit listening, then I returned to their classics…I still love this band - I saw the redux version with Paul Rodgers 3 years ago and they certainly rocked.

In the current mortgage controversy, neither Freddie nor Fannie is a winner. However, today - you win because you are watching obscure rock videos on a real estate website … A welcome break.