Hee Haw Atlanta
by E. Noel Preston, MD

   It's almost the Fourth of July and Atlanta is about to embarrass itself again on national television. Other cities like Boston and New York and Washington, D.C and even usually tacky Miami will have splendid, inspiring, fabulous Fourth of July celebrations, but Atlanta will probably have its usual red-neck conglomerate garbage dump affair at Lenox Square. Other cities will have symphony orchestras or military bands in bright uniforms playing patriotic music like "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean" (when was the last time you heard anybody play that here in this town?), but we will have some guy who looks as if he's just finished pouring asphalt play rock and roll music on his steel guitar while some fat, beer-bellied bozo attempts dancing with his seven-year-old daughter on the tarmac. The TV crews will interview various citizens from Bumpkinville who ride in on MARTA and ask them if they liked the show, who will have to stop and think about it for a moment before saying "yayuss, it was real purty," and the whole thing will be an enormously boring waste of time. Some of the TV stations might simulcast some recorded patriotic music in time to the fireworks, but other than the guy with the steel guitar, the music won't be a live performance.

   The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra still performs at Chastain Park for an audience that pays dearly for the privilege, and once upon a time we had live music at the Lenox Square Fourth of July celebrations too -- we had the FORSCAM Band from Fort McPherson, or the Atlanta Pops Orchestra. Maybe there are budgetary concerns -- Fort McPherson is on the hit list for base closings, and the Atlanta Pops, if it still exists, can't be expected to play for free. There are expenses for any musical group, like cleaning the tuxedos or uniforms, transportation costs for the performers and their instruments, sheet music rental, as well as paying the musicians for their time. But Atlanta has hundreds of high school bands. We have the Atlanta Youth Symphony Orchestra, the DeKalb Symphony, the Gwinnett Philharmonic, and the Atlanta Ballet Orchestras. We have the bands from Georgia Tech and Georgia State. With all the money the sponsors spend on the fireworks, why can't they spend just a little more so we can have some live music? I want to hear "The Stars and Stripes Forever," the "Washington Post March" and "America the Beautiful." I'm tired of hearing "I'm Proud to Be an American," and nobody but Bruce Springsteen should sing "Born in the USA" anyway. Today's "patriotic" songs are more aggressive than noble, more selfish than heroic, and the ones who sing them look and sound more like petty thieves and thugs than they do patriots.

   If you took ten cents of the profit off every hot dog, soft drink, popcorn or candy bar sold at the concession stands, if you added one more sponsor, or if you asked the sponsors to contribute less than 2% more than they do now, there should be plenty of money for a real old fashioned Fourth of July Band Concert. And then Atlanta would look good. The sponsors and Lenox Square would look good. And the rest of the nation would think we looked good too. 

   But until that happens, I'm watching PBS.

E. Noel Preston, M.D. is a pediatrician in solo practice in Peachtree Corners. 6063 Peachtree Parkway, Suite 202-A, Norcross. (770) 448-1553. More information can be found at www.PeachtreeCornersPediatrics.com

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