Whole Lotta' Shakin'-Croman & Pals-westport-90's-Kansas City

Croman 90's. The week before this taping, I had been grabbed by a couple of Kansas City Mo. Police officers along with several rent-a-cops (which I prefer to refer to as ''oinky boys''), and with hand cuffs locked behind my back - so I couldn't break my fall - was driven head-first into the sidewalk. Around this time, a gang of jealous bar owners in K.C., too cheap to negotiate with me but too proud to overlook the fact that I was showing them up on a weekly basis (though they still had plenty of business, despite their placement of sophomoric bands on their outdoor decks) engaged in a campaign against me, which culminated in the violence by cops working off duty for bar owners alongside security guards employed by the same. So in this video, the crown of my head had a bump which made my hair not fall in place in the usual way. Plus I had been up all hours that week filing law suits against the city and Westport Merchants Association, just grabbing sleep whenever I could, so I probably rolled straight out of bed and headed straight to work, here. This was a humid hot night, too (summer, in mid 1990's). The lead cop in charge and main perpetrator in that incident of brutality was Howard Carney. Around that time, City Hall, which was arguably under favor by the Westport bar-owning gang, was preparing to implement an ordinance for Westport - which exists to this day. The ordinance selectively prohibits sidewalk entertainers to use amplification during prime business hours, yet loopholes have allowed bar owners to skate around the rule for their outdoor decks, themselves. The city had announced on television, and at meetings, that the ordinance, though passed, would not be enforced until later that year, terming it a "grace period." The city claiming, in the channel five-aired story, it would eventually expect bar owners to comply by the folllowing year. During the so-called grace period, cops became less and less respectful of even the well-recieved sidewalk entertainers. K.C.'s then-mayor Emanuel Cleaver, who happens to be a member of the same ethnic group as Howard Carney the violent cop, along with Carol Coe, Chuck Webber, Michael Hernandez, Jeanie Robinson and others (who masqueraded locally as "civil rights champions"), all voted for the oppresive policy. All of the city council members I noted above were later convicted in other scandals, some serving prison sentences. In the start of this video, I had just played version of "Cats In The Cradle." During the performance my country-fied friend, and tipping audience member - had provided the holding down of the strings at second fret, the entire song (not easy to do, and something he did on more than one outing), thus, the exclamations of "Jethro" and "human kapo," applause for song and the feat, along with laughs, as the video starts!

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Music

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