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07/08/2026

ONCE UPON. A. TIME. UNCLE REMUS. Was. A Friend of Mine

He wasn't allowed inside the building where his own face was on the screen.
That's not a metaphor. That's exactly what happened to James Baskett on the night of November 12, 1946.
Let's back up.
A year earlier, Baskett showed up to a Disney casting call for a bit part — a butterfly with maybe a few lines. He opened his mouth to read, and Walt Disney stopped him mid-audition.
"He's my man," Disney reportedly said.
Forget the butterfly. Baskett walked out with the lead role in Song of the South — Uncle Remus, the warm-voiced storyteller who anchors the whole film. He also lent his voice to Brer Fox, and stepped in for Brer Rabbit in one key scene. Disney later called him "the best actor to be discovered in years," someone who worked "almost wholly without direction."
And when Baskett sang a little tune called "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah"? He didn't just perform a song. He created a piece of American pop culture that's still instantly recognizable eight decades later.
Then came premiere night.
Five thousand people packed into the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. Walt Disney took the stage to speak. Child actors smiled for cameras on the red carpet.
The man who carried the entire film — whose voice and face were Uncle Remus — wasn't in the room.
He couldn't be.
Atlanta was segregated in 1946. Not a single hotel in the city would rent Baskett a room. Not a single theater door was open to him. The star of the movie was locked out of his own celebration, and the only reason was the color of his skin.
Atlanta's mayor sent a telegram, gushing about Baskett's performance. Some newspapers printed a softer story — something about "radio commitments" keeping him away. The real reason was far less complicated, and far more shameful.
The film itself was controversial from day one. Protesters lined up outside theaters. Critics argued for years about how it handled the post-Civil War South. But amid all that noise, there was one thing almost nobody disputed: James Baskett's performance was something special.
Walt Disney didn't let it go. He wrote directly to the Academy, pushing for Baskett to be recognized. Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper joined the campaign.
It worked.
On March 20, 1948, James Baskett walked onto the stage at the Academy Awards. Ingrid Bergman placed an Honorary Oscar in his hands — awarded "for his able and heart-warming characterization of Uncle Remus, friend and story teller to the children of the world."
He became the first Black man in history to win an Academy Award.
He had less than four months left to live.
On July 9, 1948, James Baskett died of heart failure. He was 44 years old.
His grave in Indianapolis carries a line pulled straight from his own character — words spoken by Uncle Remus himself: "Not in your day, nor yet in mine, but once upon a time..."
Disney has never released Song of the South on home video in the United States. The film sits locked in a vault, unavailable, almost as if the studio would rather people forget it existed.
But here's what can't be locked away:
A man wasn't allowed through the front door to watch the world celebrate his own work.
Then he was handed the highest honor his industry had to offer.
Some stories don't need a moral spelled out. They just sit there, uncomfortable and true, refusing to be tidy.

07/08/2026

https://youtu.be/UcVOYPUL5S4?si=H9n-WFIn9PwotrAT
T B. Blues

This video is presented as an historical reference by Empty Set Gro...

07/02/2026

Gary Busey turned 82 today, and for anyone who remembers him as Buddy Holly in "The Buddy Holly Story" (1978), the birthday feels larger than another Hollywood date. It feels like a reminder that before the strange interviews, before the reality TV clips, before audiences learned to laugh at his unpredictability, Gary Busey was once one of the most electric serious actors in American movies.

Born on June 29, 1944, in Goose Creek, Texas, Busey did not first chase fame through movie cameras. Music came first. He had rhythm before he had close-ups. He played drums, built his early identity around sound, and carried that musician’s timing into every room he entered. In the 1960s, he was already performing in both music and acting, playing drums in The Rubber Band and later working around Leon Russell, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson.

That is why his Buddy Holly role did not feel like a costume. It felt like a man walking into a song he already understood. Busey did not simply act like a rock and roll singer. He threw his whole body into the performance. The grin, the glasses, the nervous fire, the way music seemed to shake through him, all of it made Hollywood look at him differently. The Academy noticed too, placing him among the Best Actor nominees at the 1979 Oscars.

For a while, the road looked wide open. He had that wild face, that rough voice, that dangerous spark that made him impossible to ignore. He could be funny, scary, wounded, tender, or explosive without seeming polished. After "A Star Is Born" (1976), his screen life kept growing. Then came "Lethal Weapon" (1987), where he looked like trouble had taken human form. Later, "Point Break" (1991), "Under Siege" (1992), and "The Firm" (1993) kept his face in action-movie memory.

But Gary Busey’s life changed in December 1988, not on a set, not under lights, but on a motorcycle. He crashed, suffered a devastating head injury, and later described the damage in language that still sounds painful to read. His skull was split. His brain had to survive what his public image never fully explained. Hollywood saw the behavior afterward. Viewers saw the oddness. Jokes came easier than compassion.

Years later, Busey tried to explain the invisible part of that accident. He said, "I was shaken by an invisible guide, and only my essence went. That's your soul. Your soul is housed in the caliber of your spine." In another reflection, he said, "I felt trust, love, protection and happiness like you cannot feel on Earth. It’s the feeling the angels live in." Whether someone believes every word or not, those lines show how deeply the crash rearranged his inner world.

That is the part often missed when his name is reduced to a meme. Brain trauma does not always announce itself politely. It can change speech, impulse, mood, timing, and the way a man moves through a room. Busey’s eccentricity became entertainment, but behind it was a survivor trying to live inside a body and mind that had been violently interrupted.

He kept working. He kept showing up. Sometimes he seemed larger than the scene. Sometimes he seemed lost inside it. Yet there was always something strangely alive in him, as if the same raw current that once made Buddy Holly feel real had never completely left. In a later interview, he offered one of his famous word definitions, saying, "Truth stands for Taking Real Understanding To Heart. Your heart holds all the truths and the heart is your spirit."

At 82, Gary Busey is not just an Oscar-nominated actor, not just a Hollywood wild card, not just a reality TV personality. He is a musician who became a movie star, a star who became a punchline, and a man who survived something most audiences never truly saw.

He is still here, and that matters.

05/15/2026

Brilliant no notes Eric Church

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