I Can't Play the Guitar with My Teeth
[br /][em]This week, and this week only, Blue America PAC is offering Grayson supporters a chance to win a Jimi Hendrix platinum album plaque – if you contribute now. I’m going to let Blue America explain this one itself:[/em][br /] There is no other member of the House like Alan Grayson. Blue America works hard to try to change that -- by helping elect other members as brilliant, as fearless, as values-focused, as principled and as strategic as Grayson. But they don't grow on trees. As Alan said recently:[br /][br /] “Wall Street is running our economic policies. The big oil companies have been running our energy and environmental policies. The military-industrial complex runs our foreign policy. It doesn't have to be that way. https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/jimi?DU&amount=20.14&recurring=48~4ca022de}"] In 2010, the Koch Brothers spent more money on media attacks against Alan in Alan's Central Florida district than in any other congressional district in the country! ][br /][br /]Grayson pointed out over the weekend that "many Americans believe that the top 1% is responsible for the rising tide of inequality in America, which is swamping and drowning the other 99%" [but] "the top 1% is not the problem ... The top 0.1% is the problem. In 1960, the top 0.1% had less than 8 percent of our national wealth. Now it’s 22%, and rising. Those who have a net worth of $20 million or more now own almost a quarter of everything that one can own in America ...[br /][br /]"Our equal society -- black and white, men and women, young and old, English-speaking and Spanish-speaking, and now straight and gay -- [link:https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/jimi?DU&amount=20.14&recurring=48~6930aa8d}"] our equal society is what made America famous. ] A light unto the nations. And year after year, that light of equality gets dimmer and dimmer. We can rekindle it. Or we can let it flicker and die. [br /][br /]"It’s up to you. It’s up to us.”[br /][br /] [link:https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/jimi?DU&amount=20.14&recurring=48~b0993718}"] So what does that have to do with Jimi Hendrix's unique skill set? ][br /][br /]I [[em]Blue America PAC Director Howie Klein – ed.[/em]] met Jimi Hendrix in 1967, before he went off to England and formed the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Musical talents like Jimi don't grow on trees, any more than political talents like Alan Grayson do. I watched Jimi -- he was Jimmy James then -- play guitar at a John Hammond, Jr. show, at a tiny NYC club, the “Cafe Au Go Go.” I asked him to come and play at my college, at Stony Brook. He said he was leaving the next day for England, but that he'd play at my school when he got back. The following March he was back -- on his first U.S. tour as the “Jimi Hendrix Experience” -- and he remembered his promise to me and played at Stony Brook, one of his first shows. Later, I spent some time with him in Morocco. Then I saw him, for the last time, at the Isle of Wight Festival. Felicitously, and much later, after he had died so young and so tragically, I became the President of his record label, Reprise. [br /][br /]During my years at Reprise, I was given hundreds of gold and platinum record awards, when our releases reached sales plateaus . [link:{external_url~https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/jimi?DU&amount=20.14&recurring=48~e26e5699}" target="_blank">There was never one I was more thrilled to have gotten than a platinum award (for sale of one million copies) for Jimi's debut LP, “Are You Experienced?[br /][br /]Grayson's "Republican Health Care Plan" speech on the floor of the House was his [em]Are You Experienced?[/em] moment. That's why it was my natural instinct to offer to give that rare, collectible platinum award -- RIAA-certified, of course -- to an Alan Grayson contributor.[br /][br /] [link:https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/jimi?DU&amount=20.14&recurring=48~0155cc32}"] That's our Blue America "contest" this week. Just contribute -- any amount -- to Alan Grayson's reelection campaign on this page [click HERE] and you may be the lucky, randomly selected donor who gets the Jimi Hendrix plaque, as a thank you gift from Blue America. ] (In fact, if you want the plaque but can't afford even a $10 contribution at this moment, send a post card to Blue America at PO Box 27201, Los Angeles, CA 90027 and let us know you want the award; you'll be included too.) [br /][br /]We are all in this together,[br /][br /] -- Howie, for Digby and John[br /][br /] --------------------[br /][br /]A Jimi Hendrix platinum album plaque. OMG-OMG-OMG!! So what do you say? [link:https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/jimi?DU&amount=20.14&recurring=48~ae5dd93d}"] Are you in? ][br /][br /]Courage,[br /][br /]Rep. Alan Grayson[br /][br /][em]White-collared conservatives,[/em][br /][em]Flashing down the street,[/em][br /][em]Pointing their plastic fingers at me.[/em][br /][em]They're hoping that soon my kind will drop and die.[/em][br /][em]But I'm gonna wave my freak flag high, high. [/em][br /][br /] - Jimi Hendrix, “If 6 Was 9” (1967).[br /][br /]
