Omni Hotels stopped payment on the check. I said I would not accept their money after they turned the microphone off after a few minutes of my performance. The fact they would censor my words was so appalling, that I didn’t want their ‘silence the truth’ germs to get on me. So, I donated all of the funds to charity. So, basically, they fucked with my kids.
It wasn’t enough that my “too true for these ears” show got people within the ranks fired. This multibillion dollar corporation, with interests worldwide, whose president happens to be a ‘close personal friend of George W. Bush and reads the Bible every day’ yet seems to have missed the part about forgiveness, actually took money out of the pockets of a non-profit organization that I have dedicated much of my own time and money to, the West Memphis Three.
I know he isn’t going to take that money and enroll in an Evelyn Wood speed reading class. He is just going to keep on trying to read the Bible every day, but stay on the same page, where Cain kills Abel, over and over again. A good thing that Bush has friends like him. He will need somewhere to stay after he is evicted from the White House.
It is sickening that corporate America has been soldered onto what is American freedom, justice and the Constitution. Whoever controls the money, controls what is being said. I am sad this corporation has no dignity, that they just have to be petty about what was their ‘mistake’ to begin with. If they wanted to have no controversy, no ‘message,’ no meaningful entertainment, why the hell tap me? If they didn’t know who I was, then that was their fault. If you hire 2LiveCrew for your daughter’s confirmation party by accident, you still have to pay them even if you unplug the sound system during “Me So Horny.”
Luke Skyywalker would never stand for that. You’d be fishing all the hand held mikes out of the pool, trying to avoid electric shock. I don’t want the money, but it would help people desperately in need. It would assist a justice system that is caving in onto itself. It would help set free three young men, who are nothing like me, straight, white, Southern, innocent, to live their lives as even the slowest reading God would have wanted them to.
If I am to be blamed for my words, then I am happy to be guilty for what I say. I am also very strict about how I conduct business, and the way this incident has turned itself inside out made me not want what I call their ‘blood money.’ It didn’t mean that I wouldn’t give it to those who deserve it. It does not exempt them from payment. It cannot stop me from continuing on educating, illuminating, participating, congratulating others.
I will jump gender/ race/ opinion/ partisan/ sexuality/ class/ Mason-Dixon lines all in the name of freedom. I see that very few people will do that, and that is ok for now. Most don’t understand understanding. I won’t live long enough to see a world that does, but someone who reads this might.