Blue State Blues, Bluer Than Blue, and The Massachusetts Job Fair

A Massachusetts employment organization has canceled its annual job fair because not enough companies have come forward to offer jobs.

Richard Shafer, chairman of the Taunton Employment Task Force, says 20 to 25 employers are needed for the fair scheduled for April 6, but just 10 tables had been reserved. One table was reserved by a nonprofit that offers human services to job seekers, and three by temporary employment agencies.

Shafer tells the Taunton Daily Gazette the lack of employers means the task force won't have enough money to properly advertise the fair.

The task force has been organizing the job fair nearly every year since 1984.

Shafer says the cancellation reflects the current economy -- even though things are getting better, companies are still cautious about hiring full-time workers.

Why would Massachusetts companies be reluctant to take on new workers?
Obamacare?
Threat of new taxes?
They're in a Blue State?
Card Check has not yet been defeated?
Uncertainty?
The Fed printing money?
The White House seems determined to punish success?
Regulatory Hell?

Pick one.

Here's Michael Johnson, singing a late '70's classic.

Tater Red's

One tenth of the survivors of my high school graduating class (North Sunflower Academy, 1979) had a reunion in Memphis during Thanksgiving. 
That means there were three of us. 
One of the high points was a visit to Tater Red's Lucky Mojos and Voodoo Healings on Beale Street. 

It turns out that Tater Red is none other than Leo Allred, another graduate of North Sunflower Academy.  Leo was two or three grades ahead of us at NSA.   

That's Leo on the left, then my friend Tricia's popular dress with Tricia inside it, then me, and my friend Henry is on the right.  Those are autographed drum heads on the ceiling.  Posters and autographed Blues/Rock memorabilia are on the back wall.  The aura coming off my forehead is not a sign of balding, but of my entry into Blues-Rock Geek Heaven. 

Tater Red's has now joined John Evans' Lemuria Books as one of my favorite places in the South.  Leo sells a unique assortment of T-shirts, books, stickers, guitar picks, autographed memorabilia, bizarre Mojo spells, curses, amulets, icons and posters and just...stuff. 
Imagine the polar opposite of a generic suburban Starbucks, Best Buy, or Target. 

Do you need a Mojo Hand?  Leo has them for sale. 

How about an authentic Voodoo doll?  Tater Red's is the only place to go. 

If you can't imagine why anyone would want a Mojo Hand or Voodoo paraphernalia, just listen to Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Lightnin' Hopkins for 30 years and get back to me. 

Do you need an Aquarian Tarot Deck, one that you've sought for years, but have never seen for sale in Dallas/Fort Worth?  And do you want to purchase it at a 33% North Sunflower Academy Graduate Discount?   Leo is your man. 

Hey, very few people still believe in any of this stuff.  But you're from the Mississippi Delta, you also know that you can't be too careful.... 

....and if you grew up on a Mississippi farm that was exactly halfway between Highway 61 (as in Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited") and Highway 49 (as in Howlin' Wolf's "Highway 49" - "I'm gonna get up in the morning, hit the Highway 49"), it's not every day that you'll get a chance at a Photo Op like this one. 

You can hit this link to read a glowing tribute to Leo, his love of music, his friendship with Stevie Ray Vaughan, and everything else that's great about Leo Allred's wonderful patch of Beale Street real estate in Memphis, Tennessee.  This was written by Robert Tooms of AmeriBlues News and it just might be the best tribute to a NSA graduate ever written.  Here's an excerpt:

This paragraph by Robert Tooms of AmeriBlues News turns out to be copyright protected, Dang it.  Therefore I can't copy and paste it, and I'm not about to re-type the whole thing.  Trust me.  Hit that link.  Read some more about Leo and his store.  Then go to Memphis.  Go into Leo's store, fully prepared to be amazed.  Note to Robert Tooms: turn off the copyright protection on your website, and more people will spread your writing around.

Sorry to put you through all of that.  Hope you'll hit that link anyway.  It's good stuff with great (copyright protected) pictures.

Leo, it was great seeing you again.  You growed up good ! *

The pics of Tater Red's merchandise came from the stores's website.  The picture of the store exterior came from Flickr. 
* The "You growed up good !" quote was originally directed from Leo toward Tricia's red dress.

"T For Texas" - Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jimmie Rogers, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash

I've been listening to a lot of Lynyrd Skynyrd for the last week.  Here they are someplace in England, doing Jimmie Rodgers' "T For Texas".  This is pure, undiluted greatness.  This is where the soul of man never dies.  This is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. 


If that's not enough, here's Mr. Jimmie Rogers (of Meridian Mississippi) doing the tune that he wrote sometime in the 1920's.



And here's Waylon. There's no video, but you should be grateful all the same.


HELLO AMERICA ! ! ! I'M JOHNNY CASH ! ! !



These videos are posted as part of The Whited Sepulchre Outreach Ministry to those who don't get enough good music. 

The Thrill Is Gone

Please play this while you read.



Here's Jack Kelly writing about how The Thrill Is Gone. A brief excerpt:

The low point came when Mr. Obama professed not to know whether Elizabeth Birnbaum, the woman he appointed to head the Minerals Management Service, resigned or was fired. No one expects the president to don scuba tanks and plug the hole himself. But he at least ought to know what's going on with his own people.

"He came across as a beleaguered bureaucrat in damage control," wrote Craig Crawford of Congressional Quarterly.

Here's Maureen Dowd, a former worshipper of The Obamessiah:

It’s impossible not to feel sorry for President Obama, pummeled by the cascading disasters, at home and abroad, unleashed by two war-mongering oil men — plus scary escalations by Israel, Iran and North Korea. (Dick Cheney’s dark influence is still belching like the well. BP just brought on a new public relations executive: Anne Womack-Kolton, who served as Cheney’s campaign press secretary in 2004 and worked in W.’s White House and at the Energy Department.)

Well, actually it is possible to avoid feeling sorry for the Messianic muttonhead.  I know a lot of  people who accomplish the feat every waking hour. 
If you like, you can go here for a similar column written by Newsweek's Jonathan Alter.
IMAO, what we're dealing with is the inevitable disappointment in the leadership style of someone who has been given the toughest job in the world, but who has never even had to deal with the heavy burdens of running a Whataburger night shift. 
What kind of competence were they expecting?     
I hope you're enjoying the B.B. King/Eric Clapton jam.  (That's a much younger, less bald Phil Collins on the drums, BTW.)

I found this in the comment field of the New York Post article up at the top:

Bush has been out of office for almost 2 years and you're STILL crying about him.
Did Reagan ever blame Carter for the mess he left?
Did Carter ever blame Ford for Nixon? For ANYTHING?
Did Nixon ever blame Vietnam on Kennedy or Johnson?
Did Kennedy blame Ike or Truman for the Cold War and the Cuban Missle Crisis?
Did Truman blame FDR for WW2?
Did FDR blame Hoover for the Depression?
Or did these men focus on the issues instead of acting like a child and pointing fingers?

Well, they probably did.  But I don't have time to research it. 
It's been a year and a half, and the guy and his minions still can't speak  to the media without saying the phrase "what we inherited".  What they're doing is "more of the same". 

I hope you'll listen to King and Clapton all the way through to the end.  The last minute of that video is like listening to Zeus talk to Thor.  Great stuff.