Have you ever seen Ray Charles perform live?...

… Neither has he!!!

Was listening to a little Ray Charles yesterday, and I remembered a tidbit about his life that I am aching to share with you now.

For the uninitiated, Ray Charles is an African-American singer/songwriter who passed away in 2004 at the age of 73.  His commercial success peaked in the early 1960’s, when he recorded his biggest hits- “Georgia On My Mind”, “What’d I Say”, and “Hit The Road Jack.”

In 2002, Rolling Stone ranked Charles number ten on its list of the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time”, and number two on their November 2008 list of the “100 Greatest Singers of All Time”. Long Island native, borderline midget, and perennial drunk, Billy Joel, once said, “This may sound like sacrilege, but I think Ray Charles was more important than Elvis Presley.”

And he was blind as a fucking bat.

Which isn’t a big reveal.  I think people who are familiar with Ray are also well aware of the fact that he is stone blind.  It’s not like the come-to-Jesus-moment I had last year when I found out Elton John was gay.

Ray began to lose his sight at the age of five, not long after witnessing his brother’s drowning.  His eventual blindness by the age of seven however was medical, not traumatic, and most doctors agree glaucoma was the culprit.

And here’s a creepy fact: He had one eye taken out when he was seven, and the other when he was 14.

Although I really admire the fact that he was able to overcome his disability and become one of the greatest artists of all time, there is something about him I admire even more.

Ray Charles had 12 kids with 10 different women.

Isn’t that just fucking spectacular when you think about it?

People often tell tales of athletes who father kids with multiple “baby mamas”, but they are doing it with unlimited resources- both financially and visually.  Ray was fucking broads… 2 at a time, I suppose… And he was doing it with non-professional-athlete-type money AND without the ability to see.

He had a string of relationships with members of his backup singers, the “Raelets”.  So much so that it led to a joke: “To be a Raelet, a lady must first let Ray.”  He had an affair with one Raelet, Pat Lyles, only to take up with her mother, Mae, with whom he had a child… Which is stone fucking cold.

Going back to that creepy fact about both of his eyes being removed… There had to be a time back in his prime-fucking-days where, in the throes of passion, Ray’s dark glasses came flying off.  I doubt he had one of those straps that kept his glasses in place, like the one I wear when I waterski.

So that means that at one point an unsuspecting Raelet got overly aggressive in the sack, and as Charles’ glasses slid off, this young lady was essentially staring into 2 empty pits of despair in the middle of Ray’s face.

My wife has a tough time maintaining focus if I don’t clip my nails… This sonofabitch created a scenario where his sexual victims essentially would stare into the Ark of the Covenant, but he was still banging them by the dozen.

Here’s another dubious feat… Ray Charles became a heroin addict at the age of 18, and he was a committed yet fully functioning dope user for the next 17 years. Heroin made Ray erratic, irritable, manic, withdrawn, and mistrustful, and it nearly killed him. Yet he continued to maintain an exhaustive touring schedule, and he never missed a gig or recording date.

Again… While it is admirable that Charles was able to be punctual while banging horse, I think it is exponentially more impressive that a blind guy was able to find (and then poke) a vein for 17 fucking years.

I have 4 martinis, and I can barely find my own mouth.  This blind cocksucker spent the better part of 2 decades shooting up with the efficiency of a phlebotomist at your local Quest Diagnostic.

Not to give up on my original vein of blind guys who fuck… There is no modern day equivalent of Ray Charles, but Stevie Wonder is undoubtedly the next name that jumps to mind when you think of legendary African-American blind musicians.

And Stevie Wonder had 9 children by 5 different women.

Which isn’t Ray Charles-like numbers, I know.  But keep in mind- After being seriously injured in a 1973 car crash, Stevie Wonder would permanently lose his sense of smell, and temporarily lose his sense of taste. Which means that he really is just a walking pair of ears at this point.

So how exactly do these 2 blind mice do it, and why the fuck aren’t they ever forced to wear condoms?

I guess the easy answer to the condom question is that the ladies in question are willing to carry a kid in order to ring the register with child support down the road, but I think there is something else also.

Even though both Ray and Stevie were more than proficient tickling the ivories, I suspect they would really go the charity route when trying to weasel their way out of wrapping it up.

I could picture Ray on the end of the bed pretending to struggle with opening the condom package until his quarry just relented out of frustration.

I also like to picture Wonder walking out of a motel bathroom with both his balls “mistakenly” tucked into the scumbag*, with an “Aw shucks!” look on his face (¯\_(?)_/¯), and his seeing-eye-vagina charitably giving him the green light to raw dog.

Or maybe Stevie just told them that condoms are bad luck, and that he was “very superstitious“.

Either way, it’s Friday, so if you need an excuse to raise a glass this fine fall weekend, maybe propose a toast to these 2 legendary blind cocksmen, who more than made up in swimming semen for what they lacked in sight.

Take a report.

-Large

* scumbag was originally a colloquial term for condom, and first appeared in volume nine of the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry in 1939… People forget that.