#privacy #EFF #surveillance #blues #history #LittleWalterJacobs
Privacy is becoming ever more difficult to maintain, and not just online. So I decided to start the year with a true story from actual history about the virtue of being proactive in its defense. It happened before the internet existed, but people spied on each other back then anyhow. Sometimes they were successful. Other times? Not so much. As always, we can learn frommthe past.
Little Walter Jacobs is widely considered to be the greatest blues harmonica player of all time. He is certainly the most imitated. At one point in history he quit his job playing harp in the Muddy Waters Band, put his own band together, and went on tour. At one point in the tour, the rest of the band was sitting in a hotel room drinking and gossiping. In the adjacent room, Little Walter was "entertaining one of his fans." Today this is called "banging a groupie". Language among musicians has become so coarse these days. But, oh well.
The fan in question was making a lot of noise. I mean she was *loud*. A debate ensued among Walter's drunken bandmates as to what they were hearing come through the wall. Was he fucking her of giving her head?
One side of the debate maintained that since harmonica players give the best head, and Walter was the best harmonica player ever, he was probably giving her head. The other side cited the band's frequent roadside piss breaks. Oh, come on, we've all see his dick. It's enormous. The guy's built like a donkey. So, nah, he's not giving her head. He's fucking her.
The debate continued for several rounds as the debaters got drunker and the fan got even louder. Finally they couldn't stand it any more, and decided to sneak down the hallway and peer through keyhole to see for themselves.
So they took off down the hall, tiptoeing tipsily and (presumably) shushing each other along the way.
Be quiet, he'll hear us coming, not over the racket she's making, became the new topic of debate, followed by more shushing each other. Even though it was just next door, it must have taken them a while to get there. Drunks never move as fast or as gracefully as they think they're moving. Eventually they reached the door.
Legend does not relate how they decided which one would do the actual keyhole peeping. It's easy to imagine much shushing as they went. Maybe they drew straws. I don't know. I wasn't there. I was a child at the time and lived in another state. I can't even testify that the story is even true. It sounds plausible, even likely, and it's certainly been told often enough times.
Whoever peeped the keyhole saw that Walter had put a piece tape over it and that was as far as he could see. Walter knew these guys. He knew this would happen sooner or later, so he engaged in a little prophylactics. It not only worked, it became the stuff of legend. As my grandma used to say, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."
James House-Lantto (He/Him)
Alex Excrement-getter
Stefan NH6SP
Jae AKA J4
Ramin Honary
Nils Weisensee
Espere Camino
Levka
balkonsolar
-rb