Michael1942's Blog

I got the subject of this email from a CD by Ry Cooder I was just
listening to.  Ry Cooder is a great guitarist, composer, singer, and an
unapologetic progressive.  He had a CD titled “Election Special” that
poked fun at the Republicans, and on his last CD (“I, Flathead”), had a
song titled “Pink-o-boogie” about J Edgar Hoover. The one I’m listening
to now is called “My Name is Buddy” and it’s about an animal trio of
labor organizers–Buddy Red Cat, Lefty Mouse, and Reverend Tom Toad (J
Edgar makes an appearance and is a pig).  Each song has a story that
goes along with it.  For the song “One Cat, One Vote, One Beer”, the
story goes:

Lefty Mouse: “Making people think they got a say in things is the
biggest trick ever been worked on the citizen man.  You sure wouldn’t
put up with all their well-known greasy numbers if you didn’t set store
by your little vote.  It goes to show how the plain folks of the world
will believe and trust, just because they been raised to think someone’s
smarter than they are.”

“Lefty gets hopping mad round election time,” says Buddy.  “I say, take
a drink.  Let’s realize we ain’t going to be counted, and that’s the
flat truth.”

“Us folks couldn’t even vote at-tall, back South, in the old days. The
Klan ran the voting, backed up by police and government and everybody.”
says Reverend Tom.  “Now, elsewhere, is another sort of a Klan running
things, only they look regular–no white sheets.”

“They’re called RepubliKlan,” says Buddy.  “Hey Mac, three more over here.”