George Johnson - none of you would know him I imagine. I knew him working at General Motors in the early 70's. "You can afford no hot rod so long as you HAVE to drive it to work every day." That guy could sure build a '40 Ford, I'll tell ya.
Last edited by JackRyan; 07/22/20.
""Mute the Greeniacs. Open the pipeline. Bury the Russians." - JPR - 2022
Well, that's not a "riff" in any true sense - it is a memorized solo - and in my estimation he was a showy fellow who played some flashy wailing guitar at times, but have heard many, many, many better solo players.
I certainly admire many of those named here by others, most of whom have been prominent in our society and lives, and some of whom simply have been well-known by one of us.
In my case, it is impossible to name all that I admire - they have streamed through my life as buddies when little kids, fellow students from 1st grade through graduate schools, athletic team mates, co-workers, colleagues in teaching and leadership, fellow musicians, and many not known personally but who have lived to high standards and created examples of excellent human lives.
George Herbert Walker-Rodman Carver, the guy that invented the peanut.
I had few handful of those tonight, I realize that preparations A-G failed but we sho glad he finally he kept at it, maybe not the anaphylactic freckle kids....choke artists.....
Funny y'all bring up Bill Cosby. I used to admire him. He was the first black tv star, he played a secret agent on ISpy back in the sixties. He was a good actor and was good in the role. He also did great comedy records. He did a comedy sketch where the American Revolution was a football game. The American general and the British general did the coin toss at midfield. British general lost.
"Americans, you can hide in the woods and wear buckskin for camoflage. British, you have to stand in a row and wear red coats."
He was a comic genius and really smart. I remember reading Playboy magazine in the late sixties, there would be Bill Cosby at the Playboy Mansion, two or three stacked blondes hanging on his arm. He was getting more ass than Sinatra, meanwhile, his wife was back at home in Philadelphia.
Back in the sixties it was unusual to see interracial sex. I was in Georgia and a black guy dating a white girl wanted to keep it real secret or something real bad could happen. So Cosby was really out there, banging all that stacked white ass, of course he was in California or New York, not Georgia.
I was shocked to find out that he was the master of the date rape drug. Freaky. I don't think it was necrophilia, I think it was a power trip. As rich and famous as Cosby was, still an occasional girl would say "No." Couldn't say "No" if she was unconscious.
And almost all the gals who accused him, and I have seen at least fifty, out of fifty about 47 are white.
You guys have named off some truly great Americans, but if you use the yardstick of self made men starting with nothing...how can you not recognize Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton (although Al is a Cherokee, not an African). I mean really, they have taken a total line of bullschidt, and parlayed it into real money. Jesse Jackson's extortion racket of American business is a classic in entrepreneurship, that eclipses such greats as Ponzi, Madoff and Jim and Tammy Fay Baker and Jimmy Hoffa.
Well this is a fine pickle we're in, should'a listened to Joe McCarthy and George Orwell I guess.
When I was 17, I got a job pouring concrete for a 40 year old black man named Slim. Slim had a white wife. It was just the two of us doing all of the flat work in a subdivision. Basement floors, garage floors, front stoops, and patios. We'd prep 2 or 3 lots for a couple of days and then pour and finish them. On the days that we poured, his wife Susan would come in the afternoons and run a troweling machine. It was huge to have her help so we had 3 machines running, especially when it was hot. This guy taught me how to work hard and the two of them treated me like a son. Slim was the hardest working black man I ever met in my life.
Another guy is my cleaning guy. I hired Big Mike 18 years ago to clean my office. He owns a cleaning company with about 10 employees and they clean offices. He personally cleans my place. He put his kids through college and they're all respectful kids with well paying jobs. I've met his wife and sons a few times when they were helping Dad out to get the jobs done. I never knew, or cared, what his politics were until 2004. One day he backs his van up to the front door to clean, and he's got Bush / Chaney bumper stickers all over the back of his van. That's when I found out he's a Conservative Republican. He's a good guy.
"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." Ronald Reagan