Charles Farley
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Goodbye, and Good Riddance

9/29/2021

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Leonard Pitts Jr.

“If you want to leave, take good care, hope you make a lot of nice friends out there.” — from “Wild World” by Cat Stevens
This is for those of you who’ve chosen to quit your jobs rather than submit to a vaccine mandate.
No telling how many of you there actually are, but lately, you’re all over the news. Just last week, a nearly-30-year veteran of the San Jose Police Department surrendered his badge rather than comply with the city’s requirement that all employees be inoculated against COVID-19. He joins an Army lieutenant colonel, some airline employees, a Major League Baseball executive, the choral director of the San Francisco Symphony, workers at the tax collector’s office in Orange County, Florida, and, incredibly, dozens of healthcare professionals.
Well, on behalf of the rest of us, the ones who miss concerts, restaurants and other people’s faces, the ones who are sick and tired of living in pandemic times, here’s a word of response to you quitters: Goodbye.
And here’s two more: Good riddance.
Not to minimize any of this. A few weeks ago, a hospital in upstate New York announced it would have to “pause” delivering babies because of resignations among its maternity staff. So the threat of difficult ramifications is certainly real. But on the plus side, your quitting goes a long way toward purging us of the gullible, the conspiracy-addled, the logic-impaired and the stubbornly ignorant. And that’s not nothing.
We’ve been down this road before. Whenever faced with some mandate imposed in the interest of the common good, some of us act like they just woke up on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall. “There’s no freedom no more,” whined one man in video that recently aired on “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah.” The clip was from the 1980s, and the guy had just gotten a ticket for not wearing his seatbelt.
It’s an unfortunately common refrain. Can’t smoke in a movie theater? Can’t crank your music to headache decibels at 2 in the morning? Can’t post the Ten Commandments in a courtroom? “There’s no freedom no more.” Some of you seem to think freedom means no one can be compelled to do, or refrain from doing, anything. But that’s not freedom, it’s anarchy.
Usually, the rest of us don’t agonize over your intransigence. Often it has no direct impact on us. The guy in “The Daily Show” clip was only demanding the right to skid across a highway on his face, after all. But now you claim the right to risk the healthcare system and our personal lives.
So if you’re angry, guess what? You’re not the only ones.
The difference is, your anger is dumb, and ours is not. Yours is about being coerced to do something you don’t want to do. Like that’s new. Like you’re not already required to get vaccinated to start school or travel to other countries. For that matter, you’re also required to mow your lawn, cover your hindparts and, yes, wear a seatbelt. So you’re mad at government and your job for doing what they’ve always done.
But the rest of us, we’re mad at you. Because this thing could have been over by now, and you’re the reason it isn’t.
That’s why we were glad President Biden stopped asking nicely, started requiring vaccinations everywhere he had power to do so. We were also glad when employers followed suit. And if that’s a problem for you, then, yes, goodbye, sayonara, auf wiedersehen, adios and adieu. We’ll miss you, to be sure. But you’re asking us to choose between your petulance and our lives.
And that’s really no choice at all.
(Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for the Miami Herald, 3511 NW 91st Ave., Miami, Fla., 33172. Readers may contact him via e-mail at lpitts@miamiherald.com.)
©2021 Miami Herald. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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Stones On Tour Again!

9/28/2021

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Keith Richards: I recognize power when I see it. And there's something incredibly powerful 
about the blues—the raw blues. But then, there isn't 
a piece of popular music 
probably that you've heard that hasn't in some weird way been influenced by the blues. Even the most inane jingle or rap song—it's all influenced by the blues. I think it's probably the original musical form in the world, when it comes down to it. - Esquire
Photo by Lorenzo Agius

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How to Reduce the Crackpot Gene Pool

9/15/2021

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Thank You, Jimmy Reed!

9/9/2021

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It was Jimmy Reed's birthday this week (September 6, 1925--August 29, 1976), and it reminded me of what a major influence he was on everyone from the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, the Animals, Van Morrison to the Grateful Dead, Elvis Presley, Johnny and Edgar Winter, Jimmie Vaughan, and, yes, even Bill Cosby, all who covered at least one of his many songs at one time or another.
I believe he is the one true link between country blues and rock 'n' roll.  Basically, what he did was to electrify the blues in a very straight-forward, simple-beat way that was understandable and accessible to most everyone who heard him--then and now.
But what I recall most about Jimmy Reed, aside from the classic, mesmerizing songs like "You Don't Have to Go," "Ain't That Lovin' You Baby," "Honest I Do," "Goin' to New York," "Big Boss Man," and so many more, are the late night, early morning rocking sessions with my newborn, first son, who, due probably to a tough birth, but more likely to his nervous, inexperienced, first-time parents, had a hard time sleeping those first few months of his life.  And the only sure-fire way to put him to sleep was for me to rock him in an old thrift-shop rocking chair to the steady, insistent, heartbeat of my worn, scratchy "Best of Jimmy Reed" album.
So thank you, Jimmy Reed!  Not only for my sleep, but also for my sanity and the abiding sense of just how compelling and powerful the blues can be.

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I Ain't Studdin' Ya

9/2/2021

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I can't tell y'all exactly why I have for so many years been enamored by Bobby Rush.  There are certainly better blues vocalists than Bobbyrush, as he calls himself in one full-throated gasp.  And while not known as a great musician, they're not too many left who play the blues harmonica better than he does.  His song writing is clever and true-blues country, but none of his tunes have been huge hits.  And yet...
And yet...
There are no better showmen working in the blues arena today.  Even though you might have to warn a female friend what to expect, his raunchy, off-color show--replete with sexy, gyrating, dancing girls--is always delivered with a distinct wink and a nod.  Bobbyrush is just letting you in on one of his slightly dirty jokes.  And if your female friend can't take a joke, even if it is a bit offensive, then maybe just a friend is what she should remain.
Most of all, gladly Bobbyrush harkens back to a bygone era of minstrel shows (in which he was once briefly a performer), vaudeville, Harlem night clubs, chitlin' circuit juke joints, and southern soul Saturday nights when rural Black folks gathered for a romping good time.
It's all recalled in his new book, I Ain't Studdin' Ya:  My American Blues Story: the hard work, the persistence, and the everlasting desire to please an audience.  It's like sitting around after a gig reminiscing with good ol' Bobbyrush about the good ol' days, as well as the bad.
Most of all it's fun!  No matter what he had to go through to get where he is today, "the undisputed King of the Chitlin' Circuit," you can tell by this book and by every single performance that Bobbyrush is all about one very inspiring thing:  unselfishly sharing his contagious happiness and joy with being alive, still kickin', and out there again on a sweltering, southern Saturday night having a rambunctious, rollicky good time until it's time to sober up and go to church on Sunday morning.
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    Charles Farley is an author who lives and writes in Huntsville, Alabama.

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