I've been taking it easy this holiday season. Relaxing, trying to recharge the ol human battery for the coming onslaught of just plain stuff.

Hooking up with family and friends... celebrating the last days of this thousand years. And I come home after a wonderful night out with two of my dearest friends, where we watched the four AIRPORT movies while getting fairly tanked... JOE PATRONI IS GOD! And I check my email... phone messages...

And the Lone Ranger and the man behind the music, feel and funk of SUPERFLY have both slipped away from the land of the living.

What a total buttload of uncoolness.

Ok... So I hear some cynics in the cheapseats saying bunk like, "Well what have they been doing latelly?"

Well, it's like this...for me anyways...

Ya sit down... ya pop in an old LONE RANGER tape... or just happen to hear 'giddiyup giddiyup giddiyup yup yup giddiyup giddiyup giddiyup yup yup..." and thinking... wow... I share the same air as the LONE RANGER.

With SUPERFLY... well it's a bit different. You see... for years now in my life, I have sat there and listened to that bad muther reach in and pump my heart to his damn fly beat... and my cortexes were firing away buzzing... "Man... If I ever get a chance to hear Curtis play... I'm there!"

I had this same feeling when Cab Calloway died. Somehow... the world I lived in became whole shades greyer when I realized I'd never get a chance to scream "Hiddy Hiddy Hiddy Hoooo!" back at Cab... and then wait for his response.

With Clayton... I never got to meet him... at least to my knowledge... But I was already mourning the fact that Tonto had left long ago. However... At least now I can comfort myself that the Lone Ranger and Tonto ride again... but on a channel I just can't get yet... And if you turn that dial to AM... you'd hear a funkass beat and Curtis waning away!

A FATHER GEEK note! Harry you did meet the Lone Ranger. It was the last time I got to meet him and it was in 1974 or 5 in Dallas at one of Joe Bob's big big old comic-film-science fiction summer shows. BUSTER "Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers" CRABBE was there, so was HENRY "Fu Manchu" BRANDON, JIM "Red Ryder" BANNON, DUNCAN "Cisco Kid" RENALDO, BJO "Ms Star Trek Fandom" TRIMBLE, JACK "Mr. Comicbook" KIRBY, and KIRK "Superman" ALYN. CLAYTON MOORE was the last of that great group to die, they're all gone now. If you remember The Lone Ranger had to wear sunglasses around to capture the look of the man because somebody had just sued to prevent Clayton for ever appearing anywhere as THE LONE RANGER, a character he had developed over a 30 year period, a character that was CLAYTON MOORE. It was like when Disney Inc. sued CARL BARKS to prevent him from ever doing a painting of Uncle Scrooge, Huey, Dewey, & Louie, Grandma Duck, Gyro Geargoose, or the Beagle Boys... all characters he had created (drawn and written) and that had made the Corp.(not him)a fortune. Life is weird sometimes. "Hi Ho, Silver... Away!!!"