In The Pipeline

Is it the first time Thomaston has ever been mentioned in a national best seller?

This month a tv series is running on Netflix staring Jeff Daniels as Atlanta real estate broker Charlie Croker. Based on the book “A Man In Full,” Charlie faces bankruptcy when political and businesses interest collide as he defends his empire from those attempting to capitalize on his fall from grace.

In the book by Tom Wolfe, page 75, Charlie is jetting to his plantation in south Georgia and someone on the plane looks out into the dark and says “Those lights down there must be Thomaston,” it’s impressive that Tom Wolf did the research to know that T-Town was in the flight path.

The acetate disc was still warm when the engineer from Capricorn Records walked into the Athens FM station where I was gearing up for my 10 pm to midnight album rock show. It was hot off the Allman Brothers session in Macon and I was told it was seven minutes or so long, an instrumental written by Dickey Betts. Capricorn loved us because they loved the college music market, and we were able to help them launch a lot of product. The engineer was an Athens boy who loved his mama’s biscuits, so he shared lots of breaking grooves with us and was able to make his mom’s breakfast.

Years later, that Athens FM was sold, moved to Atlanta and is now 104.7fm, the pop Christian station “The Fish.” After all the zany stuff we said on that frequency as college rock jocks, it needed to be washed in the blood.

It is the first time I have ever seen someone in person one week and the next week their character turns up in a comedy sketch on “Saturday Night Live.” Who is ex-presidential candidate/U.S. Senator from South Carolina, Tim Scott. He was stocking up on Master’s merchandise in the pro shop at Augusta National.