Best Rant

Anyone who has heard Ray Hill's Prison Show on KPFT, a sort of lonely hearts' club call-in show for all those folks who've got loved ones locked up in the big house, knows something about the loud-mouthed activist. The political gadfly has been biting at the backside of prominent uptight Houstonians for decades. Whether he's holding a political rally in a naughty nude club or marching at the library for gay rights, he's always fighting for the underdog. For the past few years his political harangues have taken shape in a series of theatrical monologues in which he recounts the historical struggle for gay rights in Houston, a subject the passionate, flamboyant man knows a good deal about. Out since the soda-shop days of the 1950s, Hill has seen it all, from the shadowy cruising on Main Street and the burgeoning bar culture in Montrose to the fight for the repeal of the sodomy laws in Austin. Thanks go to Hill for his raging rants that won't let us forget how precious are our civil rights.