He blacked my eye and he kicked my dog

The late Levon Helm performing the Grateful Dead's TENNESSEE JED... it's got trumpets! It's a carnival!

You know you bound to wind up dead...

TENNESSEE JED - Levon Helm (from "Electric Dirt")



Off to Atlanta (not Tennessee) for a long weekend, see you all when I get back... hopefully I'll return in time for Occupy Greenville General Assembly on Sunday (3pm) at the indispensable Coffee Underground. We will be discussing the upcoming film series, so be there or be square!

I woke up a-feeling mean
Went down to play the slot machine
The wheels turned round and the letters read
Better head back to Tennessee, Jed

Thursday Links and general notice

Being unemployed means having time to watch my beloved Elizabeth in old movies like "Rhapsody" (1954) with Vittorio Gassman.




Emergency unemployment benefits are running out for South Carolina, however, since as of last month our unemployment rate is lower than the national average. Not exactly sure how that works.

I had some car trouble last week, but I now have a rebuilt transmission and I am ready to rock and roll.

~*~

Timely Linkage:

Corporations Wrote a Law Requiring Climate Denial be Taught in School. Tennessee Just Passed It. (Treehugger)

One Author Tackles Trayvon Martin and the Deadly Legacy of Vigilantism (Colorlines)

You Sank My Battleship: Etch-A-Sketch Gaffe Buries Romney’s Momentum (Politicus USA)

To the meat eaters: PLEASE be careful eating Gulf Coast shrimp! (Southern Beale)

Paul Ryan’s Budget Includes $3 Trillion Giveaway To Corporations, The Rich (Think Progress)

And most worrisome: Supreme Court's Health Care Ruling Could Go Many Different Ways (Huffington Post)

~*~

At left: Amusing and totally true cartoon by David Horsey.

As we see, the Republicans and the Tea Party continue their open war on the people, without interruption. And they aren't even sorry for attempting to destroy the world.

I dunno about yall, but I can't wait for the War Crimes Tribunal.

~*~

And that reminds me... we have a BRAND NEW POLICY here at DEAD AIR: Whenever rude Tea Party idiots show up here and try to defend the evil, selfish, immoral Rich Criminal Pigs currently attempting to ROB THE PEOPLE? I print a new Tea Party cartoon. Obviously, they need one.

I once tried to politely explain that blogs are the equivalent of one's HOUSE and LIVING ROOM and therefore, you should not be rude and insulting to your hosts. I have finally realized that THIS IS how they act in their friends' living rooms! They are thoroughly rude and probably fart, burp, pee on the rug and insult people. NOW I get it.

Why did I ever expect them to understand an analogy intended for civilized people? My mistake!

Friday noise

Eons ago, I used to write record reviews for FOCUS ROCK ENTERTAINMENT (screen capture of old publication here! Only image I could find online!). They paid me in t-shirts, movie and concert tickets, tote bags and other crap nobody else wanted, and records. RECORDS. Lots and lots of vinyl, some of which I still own because I can't bear to part with it.

One of the records I reviewed was VOLUNTEER JAM, which contained this major kick-ass song from the Charlie Daniels Band, jamming beautifully with members of the Allman Brothers Band and the Marshall Tucker Band. (The song ultimately emerges as more Allman than Daniels, but with Charlie's signature holler.) The rest of the album is also very good, but as I wrote then, this song shoots the record right into the stratosphere. (And I'm STILL right.) Yes, you heard that smoooooth Dickey Betts gee-tar before you even saw him.

Look how young everybody looks! Ain't it good to be alive and be in Tennessee?!?

Birmingham Blues - Charlie Daniels Band/Volunteer Jam (live)



If you have never heard of Mike Bloomfield, you should have. He passed away in 1981, and I sobbed my little heart out. A member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band as well as Electric Flag, he also provided great music for one of my favorite movies, Medium Cool.

I don't know who is singing, but it's that amazing, stinging guitar noise I want you to hear! This song is credited to Robert Johnson himself.

The video has some good visuals of Chicago (beloved home of Bloomfield and Butterfield), and contains shots of some of the more famous venues they played in.

Sweet Home Chicago - Mike Bloomfield (live)

ALERT: New photo ID law makes it harder to vote in SC than anywhere in the USA

At left: Delores Freelon has lost the right to vote in the next election because she can't meet requirements of SC's new photo ID law in time. 178,000 South Carolinians without state-issued photo IDs will have their voting rights rescinded under the new law.

You can listen to Delores' story here.

Thanks to Becci Robbins and the South Carolina Progressive Network for the information in this post. (And if you'd like Facebook updates from SCPRONET, click here).

Excerpted from SC Prog Blog (link above):

The National Conference of State Legislatures has identified seven states as having the most restrictive photo ID requirements for voting: Georgia, Kansas, Texas, Indiana, Wisconsin, Tennessee and South Carolina. All require voters to show a photo ID, but states vary in what kind and how hard it is to get.

» In Georgia, if voters are already registered, they automatically get a new photo ID voter registration card.

» In Kansas, voters can use a driver’s license from out of state, any accredited college ID, or government-issued public assistance cards. Voters over 65 may show expired ID.

» In Texas, you can get ID to vote with your concealed weapons permit, your boating license, insurance policy or beautician’s license. Or you can vote a provisional ballot if you will incur fees in order to vote. Voters over 70 are exempt.

» In Indiana, those without a photo ID get their provisional vote counted by claiming the fees to get the required documents were a burden.

» In Wisconsin, voters can use any state driver’s license, Social Security card or student ID.

» In Tennessee, a driver’s license from any state allows you to vote.

» In South Carolina, voters must produce a birth certificate to get the state-issued photo ID required to vote. No exceptions. (If you vote a provisional ballot, that won’t count unless you present your state-issued photo ID within three days.)

Numbers are hard to project, but it is clear that some of the 178,000 registered South Carolina voters who don’t have their papers in order will not be able to vote in the next election.

Even though there are no cases of the kind of fraud this law is purported to prevent, our cash-strapped state will spend at least the $700,000 supporters say it will cost to implement. Opponents say it will cost two to three times that much to educate poll workers and the public about the new law.

...

The governor has said you can’t put a price on the sanctity of the vote.

She should tell that to Delores Freelon, a Columbia resident and registered voter who won’t be able to vote in the next election because she has a Louisiana driver’s license and can’t get her birth certificate from California in time. What about the sanctity of her vote? What about Ms. Kennedy in Sumter, whose birth certificate lists her first name as Baby Girl, meaning she’ll have to go to court to get her papers straight in order to get a photo ID? Or Larrie Butler, who was born at home in Calhoun County in 1926 and is being told he needs records from an elementary school that no longer exists in order to establish a birth certificate?

Stories like these are coming in from around the state. The SC Progressive Network, which for 15 years has been advocating for voting rights, is fielding calls from people with questions about the new law or having problems meeting the ID requirements.

The lucky ones will still get to vote, but only after jumping through hoops and paying fees at various state agencies. Some will have to amend their birth certificates by going to court, at considerable cost. People without a car, a computer or short on money are simply out of luck. The disenfranchised will be primarily seniors and the poor. Many of them will be people of color who have voted all their lives.

...

This quiet whittling away of the vote is no accident. It is, in fact, the point. It’s the pattern being repeated in GOP-controlled legislatures across the country.

In South Carolina, we have a brief chance to challenge this law. Because of our state’s history of disenfranchising people of color, ours is one of seven states that must get pre-clearance from the US Dept. of Justice (DOJ) before new voting laws can go into effect. Once the state attorney general files the case, DOJ has up to 60 days to consider whether the law suppresses the minority vote.

The SC Progressive Network is gathering statements to forward to DOJ documenting voters’ experiences. We need volunteers around the state to help find citizens who will have a hard time meeting the new voting requirements. If you want to help, call the Network at 803-808-3384 or see scpronet.com for details.

SC Progressive Network
PO Box 8325 • Columbia, SC 29202
803-808-3384
email: network@scpronet.com

If you can help in any way, we would all appreciate it!

Odds and Sods - End of Year edition

From the Orange County Register, Pastor Rick Warren floats angelically... next up, he WALKS on water, too!

~*~

Lots of stuff to check out! I hardly know where to begin.



First, on the Pastor Rick Warren follies, as I have come to regard them...Mona Charen, right wing crackpot in good standing, offers the following (quite amazing) observation:

What particularly outraged gay rights activists was a comment Warren made in a TV interview when he compared two homosexuals getting married to a brother marrying a sister or an adult marrying a child. Those were not the most felicitous comparisons and probably unnecessarily hurt the feelings of gays and lesbians.

And yet, the point Warren was making was a valid one. Once you abandon the traditional definition of marriage to suit the feelings on an interest group, by what principle do you stop redefining marriage? Gays and lesbians argue that their same-sex unions are loving, committed relationships. Fine. But there are, or could be, other loving, committed relationships involving more than two people. Supporters of gay marriage say this is a ridiculous slippery slope argument.

But consider the name that many gay activists have adopted. You no longer see gay and lesbian alone. Instead, the new terminology is LGBT — lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. Lesbians and gays say that without gay marriage, they cannot fully express themselves as they really are. But what about bisexuals? I ask this not to poke fun or to hurt anyone’s feelings, but in all seriousness. How does gay marriage help a bisexual? I assume that if you are bisexual, you believe that you need to have sexual relationships with both men and women. If you are a bisexual man married to a woman, don’t you need to break the marriage bond to express your bisexuality? If you choose to express just the homosexual side of your bisexuality, then aren’t you gay? Likewise, if you choose to express only the heterosexual side, how are you a bisexual? Why is bisexuality not a recipe for infidelity? As for transgender people who believe that they are “assigned” to the wrong sex, their sexuality seems a deeply complicated matter. According to Wikipedia, the term “transgender,” which is always evolving, today encompasses “many overlapping categories — these include cross-dresser (CD); transvestite (TV); androgynes; genderqueer; people who live cross-gender; drag kings; and drag queens; and, frequently, transsexual (TS).” We are now in the realm of a multitude of sexual deviances.

Well, as a bisexual, let me say that I don't see why I am thus COMMANDED to infidelity. Huh? (I wrote about some of these issues in my piece on Bisexual Invisibility.)

The common-sense reason bisexuals are in favor of gay marriage is in the event that we fall in love with a same-gendered person (rather than an opposite-gendered person), we would probably like to marry them.

Is that really such a complicated matter?

And Mona has unwittingly let the cat out of the bag, hasn't she? This ultra-scary GENDER CONFUSION (of Mona's) and her pearl-clutching fear that people's sexual identities are just spewing out all over the place--unrestrained, every which-way, chaos reigns!!-- is the real problem. BARBARIANS AT THE GATES, seems to be Mona's almost-hysterical message, and if we grant them the right of gay marriage, everyone will be changing sex all over the place. ((((screams!))))

If all of this bothers Mona, we must be doing something right.

~*~

I didn't know that the author of The Bitten Apple had been a student of Hugo Schwyzer, whom she says was always very open to her as a right wing student. This granted her the necessary freedom to listen to his opposing views respectfully; she did not feel she was under siege. Her process is fascinating:

One of the reasons I disliked my creative writing professor last quarter was because he was so blunt in saying how “hateful” and basically stupid conservatives are. Being liberal in your politics does not necessarily mean that you are open-minded. He asked the class one day, “Are there any really religious people in here?” Obviously, I couldn’t raise my hand, because I would be such a killjoy, so I just shut up and let him talk about how there is “no big guy in the sky” and how “a 2,000 year old dead guy is not going to come back from the dead.” I was pissed. My voice was silenced. One of the reasons I like Obama is because he does not automatically deem the other side stupid, ignorant, or hate-filled.

Several months ago, while I was taking that creative writing class, I realized exactly what made me so upset about that professor. It wasn’t entirely his politics, to be sure. I reflected upon my own journey from being a fundamentalist, Mel Gibson type Catholic into a relatively socially liberal feminist, thanks largely to the women’s studies course I took back in spring 2006. Hugo, my professor and mentor, was and still is much more liberal than I am. Regardless, he always accepts me at whatever stage I am at in my spiritual journey. He accepted me when I was a staunch pro-life, anti-gay marriage 19-year-old student. He was empathetic with me when I was contemplating losing my virginity, knowing how much my virginity meant to me. And he accepts me now. Had I had a women’s studies professor who merely wrote off the conservative perspective, I likely would not have been receptive to the class and might not have embraced feminism to the extent that I have today. In order for me to break out of my ultra-conservative worldview, I needed someone to empathize - but not necessarily agree - with my position at the time.

Also check out her post on Jessica Valenti's upcoming book, The Purity Myth.

~*~

Palmetto state native Eartha Kitt (from whom Madonna stole "Santa Baby," right down to the baby-talk phrasing) has passed on. She was a fabulous singer, but baby-boomers undoubtedly remember her best as Julie Newmar's replacement as Catwoman on the old 60s Batman TV show (featuring hizzoner, Adam West).

In addition, Majel Barrett Roddenberry has also died.

Unfortunately, Nurse Chapel never got to bed the enigmatic Mr Spock, but we were all rooting for her!



~*~

A CALL FOR ACTION ON TRANS RIGHTS IN TENNESSEE:

For Immediate Release: Dated December 27, 2008
Another Transgender Woman Shot in Memphis

On Christmas Eve, a Memphis television station reported the shooting of Leeneshia Edwards in Memphis. She becomes the third transgender woman shot in Memphis in just six months. At last report, Leeneshia is in critical condition. We extend our hopes and prayers to Leenashia for a speedy recovery.

We also ask for anyone with any information about this latest crime to call Memphis Crimes Stoppers at (901)528-CASH.

The shooting of Leeneshia Edwards helps shed light on a disturbing trend in Memphis. Transgender women who work in the sex industry in order to survive are now being targeted by a pervasive culture of violence.

The indifferent attitude of law enforcement towards the February 16, 2006, murder of Tiffany Berry, and the February 12, 2008, beating of Duanna Johnson by Memphis Police Department officers, has sent a message that the lives of transgender people are not important. This has fed the culture of violence that has permeated the second half of 2008, and is exemplified by the July 1 murder of Ebony Whitaker, the July 28 murder of Dre-Ona Blake, a two year old girl who was killed by the man who had previously been charged with the murder of Tiffany Berry, but was allowed to walk free for two and a half years, the November 9 murder of Duanna Johnson, and now the shooting of Leeneshia Edwards.

This open season on transgender people in Memphis and elsewhere, regardless of whether or not they engage in sex work, must come to an end right now.

Read the rest of the press release at Questioning Transphobia. And to donate, go to Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition.

~*~

I watched a boat-load of movies over the holidays... most chosen by the intrepid Mr Daisy, who knows I am too exhausted to rub two brain cells together while I am busily toiling in the Christmas retail trenches. He chose some great movies, but my favorite was The Good Shepherd (2006). It brought back that strongly-paranoid Cold War vibe that many of us were raised with. Directed by Robert DeNiro, lots of critics found it long and tedious, but I found it tightly-wound and terribly unnerving, like the old Mission Impossible TV show could be, at its very best.

Trailer:




Hope everyone has great plans for the New Year!

Homeschooling parents apply for political asylum

Not sure what I think of this. Since when is homeschooling a partisan political position, worthy of protections? Hmmm.

This is hitting several of the right wing blogs, including World Net Daily. These are the kinds of immigrants they approve of!


Christian News Wire reports:

HSLDA Files Political Asylum Case

Contact: Ian Slatter, Home School Legal Defense Association, 540-338-8663

PURCELLVILLE, Virginia, Nov. 18 /Christian Newswire/ -- A homeschooling family who recently fled Germany has filed for political asylum in the United States. "The persecution of homeschoolers in Germany has dramatically intensified," said HSLDA staff attorney Michael P. Donnelly. "They are regularly fined thousands of dollars, sent to prison, or have the custody of their children taken away simply because they choose to home educate."

Uwe and Hannelore Romeike formerly of Bissingen, Germany along with their five children made it to the United States in August of this year. The family has settled in Eastern Tennessee where they have been warmly welcomed by local homeschool supporters and are being assisted by HSLDA.

Uwe Romeike, a music teacher, and his wife Hannelore, are grateful for the support they have received from HSLDA and American homeschoolers.

"The freedom we have to homeschool our children in Tennessee is wonderful. We don't have to worry about looking over our shoulder anymore wondering when the youth welfare officials will come or how much money we have to pay in fines," said Mrs. Romeike.

"We have received so much love and support," said Mr. Romeike. "Our children are no longer homesick. They are so happy to be homeschooled here. We left family members, our home, and a wonderful community in Germany, but the well-being of our children made it necessary."

"By supporting a political asylum application we will be able to shine the light of truth on this real and ongoing problem. A successful application will provide a path to safety for German homeschool families escaping persecution," said Donnelly.

HSLDA, with support from the Alliance Defense Fund, has hired immigration attorney Will Humble of Houston, Texas to handle this groundbreaking case.

For more information about Germany's persecution of homeschoolers, visit www.hslda.org/germany.

Why is homeschooling more worthy of asylum than trying to get a decent job in the USA? Is this dad employed? (Of course, with all his new right wing droogs, he will likely get a pretty good gig.)

I am continually amazed by which immigrants get the green light and have their causes championed, and which don't.

Van Robert Ault 1956-1996

Photo of Van from Our Faerie Ancestors, used with tremendous gratitude!

~*~


One thing I loved about the TV show SIX FEET UNDER, was Nate's continuous apparitions of his father.

When you know someone very well, you know what they would say. You just know. Other times, you are dying to know.

I remember wishing Van a happy belated birthday, the same week as the People's Temple disaster. (He had attended the church a couple of times, pronouncing it "odd.") "Oh honey, those poor people! I can't bear it!" And those words echo, as I watch the TV shows chronicling the horrific events of 30 years ago. And I miss him, the one who couldn't bear it.

Missing my friend, one of the touchstones of my life, is almost impossible to write about. I have tried several times. What can you say about the sort of individual who is simply LARGER than life? An amazing, dynamic, theatrical personality who was a fountain of love, ferocious wit and unending generosity? I can say: he took me in when I had nowhere to go, fresh off a Greyhound bus from the midwest. He shared his home with me. He gave me the beginner's course in San Francisco 101, what to watch out for, who to trust, who not to trust. I couldn't have functioned there without him; my guide, my mentor for the city.

He was my best friend.

But I find I can't describe him accurately. He was just too big for words. His eyes were bright green, like a cat's. (If you dared ask him if they were contacts, he would mimic slapping you; they weren't.) He was 6'4" and struggled with keeping weight on his whole life. I met him when we were both 15 and he was already full-grown but weighed only 135 lbs. People gaped at him; the word gaunt barely covers it. He took me to the Chattanooga Choo-Choo restaurant in Tennessee and Glide Memorial Church and the I-Beam in San Francisco. He took me to gay bars and introduced me to the first drag queens I had ever seen in person. We danced late, late into the night at discos. He showed me porn and than ran it backward: "Watch how THIS looks!" and then hooted and squealed.

He was either the president or vice president of the official Supremes fan club. He would be mad at me for not remembering which. I have a photo of him with Mary Wilson, and on the back, his trademark scribble: "Don't I look like I'm coming?!" Yes, he did.

In short, I adored him. And I can barely write this. One of the major losses of my life, this beautiful person.

~*~

"What are THESE?" said the naive girl from the midwest, leafing through Van's wallet. There were several colorful, plastic membership cards to the popular San Francisco bath houses. "Do you take baths there?" asks naive, unaware Daisy.

"Well I suppose you could!" he winked at me. "But I don't know anyone who does!" I asked about the sexual protocol of the bath houses, and he told me everything.

~*~


Left: Van wrote several new-age books in the 80s, and was on the staff of MAGICAL BLEND magazine. (I'm not sure if it is still publishing or not, but can't locate a decent web page.)



By the 90s, I had moved to the south, the same place he had escaped from. He tried to talk me out of it. "It's changed, Van, really," I said on the phone.

"Not nearly enough," he sniffed at me. He called it "Baptistland" and would sing made-up lyrics to the tune of Bruce Springsteen's "Jungleland"--down in BAP-TIST-LAAAAAND! Always, always, making me laugh.

I attempted to tactfully approach the subject of the bath houses, the MATH, the sheer MATH. Mathematical probabilities. I got sick when I thought of it, got a headache.

I couldn't tell him that, so I just asked: "Are you worried? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he said. And then he sent me a sparkly pagan greeting card assuring me that he was okay, while also informing me that he was HIV positive. "Constant changes," he added, signing his name.

Constant changes?

I wept, but composed myself before calling. "You calling to see if I'm still here?" he asked, acidly.

I shot back, "Maybe I am, what's wrong with that?"

"Don't lose that sass, sister-woman!" he ordered, laughing.

I've tried not to.

~*~

An actor (as well as writer), he liked to make phone calls 'in character'--invariably pretending to be other people. For my phone calls, it was Baptist preachers. In his best televangelist voice (which was remarkably authentic), he would shout into the phone at me: "I'm calling from Bloody Jesus Baptist Church, and would like to ask you to ATTEND THIS SUNDAY. Are you SAVED?" He changed the name of the church each time, and on at least two occasions, actually faked me out. He would chuckle, then gloriously guffaw, if he had actually fooled you. He did it to everybody. I heard him call a friend on the phone and pretend to be Laurence Olivier.

"He won't call me back, but betcha he calls LARRY!" he said to me, after hanging up.

~*~

(deep sigh) I love you, dearest Van. I missed your Scorpio birthday, because it has taken me since November 11th to write this coherently. Last year, could not manage it at all. I promised myself, this year. This year, I will write it.

Van's apparition says to me, "Don't take that stuff too seriously!" then muses, "If I'd had the internet, honey? I'd put it to some excellent uses!"

And the apparition adds, "Try not to waste your time, okay? Just don't waste it."

I won't. I promise, I won't.


~*~

When I left the Bay Area, he made me a mix tape. "This will make you think of me, and you can take it everywhere you go and think of---(((here he sang a deep baritone C)))---MEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!"

And I did.

This was the last song on it.

Lena Horne - Believe in yourself (from "The Wiz")



Believe in yourself, as I believe in you.

Isaac Hayes 1942-2008

Left: Isaac Hayes, from the WASHINGTON POST.

~*~

They say this cat Shaft is a bad mother!

Well, he really was.

Isaac Hayes dead at 65

ASSOCIATED PRESS • August 10, 2008

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) -- Isaac Hayes, the baldheaded, baritone-voiced soul crooner who laid the groundwork for disco and whose "Theme From Shaft" won both Academy and Grammy awards, died Sunday afternoon after he collapsed near a treadmill, authorities said. He was 65.

Hayes was pronounced dead at Baptist East Hospital in Memphis an hour after he was found by a family member, the Shelby County Sheriff's Office said. The cause of death was not immediately known.

With his muscular build, shiny head and sunglasses, Hayes cut a striking figure at a time when most of his contemporaries were sporting Afros. His music, which came to be known as urban-contemporary, paved the way for disco as well as romantic crooners like Barry White.

And in his spoken-word introductions and interludes, Hayes was essentially rapping before there was rap. His career hit another high in 1997 when he became the voice of Chef, the sensible school cook and devoted ladies man on the animated TV show "South Park."

"Isaac Hayes embodies everything that's soul music," Collin Stanback, an A&R executive at Stax, told The Associated Press on Sunday.

The first of his records I ever heard was called "Hot Buttered Soul", the name he later assigned his trio of female backup singers.

The album "Hot Buttered Soul" made Hayes a star in 1969. His shaven head, gold chains and sunglasses gave him a compelling visual image.

"Hot Buttered Soul" was groundbreaking in several ways: He sang in a "cool" style unlike the usual histrionics of big-time soul singers. He prefaced the song with "raps," and the numbers ran longer than three minutes with lush arrangements.

"Jocks would play it at night," Hayes recalled in a 1999 Associated Press interview. "They could go to the bathroom, they could get a sandwich, or whatever."

Left: SHAFT album cover.

Next came "Theme From Shaft," a No. 1 hit in 1971 from the film "Shaft" starring Richard Roundtree.

"That was like the shot heard round the world," Hayes said in the 1999 interview.

At the Oscar ceremony in 1972, Hayes performed the song wearing an eye-popping amount of gold and received a standing ovation. TV Guide later chose it as No. 18 in its list of television's 25 most memorable moments. He won an Academy Award for the song and was nominated for another one for the score. The song and score also won him two Grammys.

"The rappers have gone in and created a lot of hit music based upon my influence," he said. "And they'll tell you if you ask."

Hayes was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.

As a 14-year old, my favorite song from the SHAFT soundtrack was Ellie's Love Theme, a sweet, lovely piece of music I later taped (long after the vinyl wore out) and used as walking accompaniment, with my walkman and headphones. I listened to it for over 30 years. I have included it below.

At the risk of sounding ancient, can I pause to say I am still amazed you can find ANYTHING on the net? I was thrilled to find this old piece of music again! It's also wonderful to be able to share this private pleasure with all of you here. Just take a listen to the delicate beauty and elegant, early-70s cool of that composition.

A self-taught musician, he was hired in 1964 by Stax Records of Memphis as a backup pianist, working as a session musician for Otis Redding and others. He also played saxophone.

He began writing songs, establishing a songwriting partnership with David Porter, and in the 1960s they wrote such hits for Sam and Dave as "Hold On, I'm Coming" and "Soul Man."

All this led to his recording contract.

In 1972, he won another Grammy for his album "Black Moses" and earned a nickname he reluctantly embraced. Hayes composed film scores for "Tough Guys" and "Truck Turner" besides "Shaft." He also did the song "Two Cool Guys" on the "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America" movie soundtrack in 1996. Additionally, he was the voice of Nickelodeon's "Nick at Nite" and had radio shows in New York City (1996 to 2002) and then in Memphis.

He was in several movies, including "It Could Happen to You" with Nicolas Cage, "Ninth Street" with Martin Sheen, "Reindeer Games" starring Ben Affleck and the blaxploitation parody "I'm Gonna Git You, Sucka."

Left: South Park character CHEF, from the Comedy Central network.

In the 1999 interview, Hayes described the South Park cook as "a person that speaks his mind; he's sensitive enough to care for children; he's wise enough to not be put into the 'wack' category like everybody else in town -- and he l-o-o-o-o-ves the ladies."

But Hayes angrily quit the show in 2006 after an episode mocked his Scientology religion.

"There is a place in this world for satire," he said. "but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry toward religious beliefs of others begins."

Co-creator creators Matt Stone responded that Hayes "has no problem -- and he's cashed plenty of checks -- with our show making fun of Christians." A subsequent episode of the show seemingly killed off the Chef character.

Hayes was born in 1942 in a tin shack in Covington, Tenn., about 40 miles north of Memphis. He was raised by his maternal grandparents after his mother died and his father took off when he was 1. The family moved to Memphis when he was 6.

Hayes wanted to be a doctor, but got redirected when he won a talent contest in ninth grade by singing Nat King Cole's "Looking Back."

He held down various low-paying jobs, including shining shoes on the legendary Beale Street in Memphis. He also played gigs in rural Southern juke joints where at times he had to hit the floor because someone began shooting.

We'll miss you, Chef.

But mostly, I'll miss the ultra-cool cat who wrote/conducted/produced this:

Isaac Hayes - Ellie's Love Theme (SHAFT soundtrack)



Resquiat In Pace.

April 4th

Left: In 1968 MEMPHIS, Tenn "Before" by Ernest Lee.



Excerpt from Martin Luther King, Jr's Letter from a Birmingham Jail, April 1963:

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.


I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with an its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

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Listening to: U2 - Pride (In the Name of Love)
via FoxyTunes

Fred Thompson in Greenville, SC

Republican presidential candidate (and actor) Senator Fred Thompson stopped by the Market Deli on Wade Hampton Boulevard in Greenville, South Carolina, this evening. His canned-conservative political speech was pretty boring, although he was very personable and dryly funny in that down-home Tennessee manner of his. The crowd included a lot of Bob Jones University people, seeing as how the school is less than a mile away. A sign outside the deli instructed us to keep Christ in Christmas.

Everyone was exceedingly polite and well-behaved; there was certainly NO fervor matching the huzzahs, wild applause and carrying-on that greeted Ron Paul's November Greenville visit. Senator Thompson droned on about being committed to the war on terror, reminding us that the terrorists "don't mind if it takes 100 years," causing me to think, please God, let us NOT be at war for 100 years. He spoke fondly of Secretary Condoleezza Rice, promised to preserve Israel (a shameless grab for the BJU vote), made a few folksy jokes, and referred to God several times. (The first thing he would do as president, he said, is get down on his knees and pray.)

I took some great photos, and was momentarily far more thrilled to be so close to a LAW AND ORDER star, than a Senator or presidential candidate.

Yes, I admit it!

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Listening to: Etta James - Don't Lose Your Good Thing
via FoxyTunes