ACLU lawyer finds material in his caseload
Sunday, May 28, 2006
BY JENNIFER WEISS
Star-Ledger Staff

Ed Barocas spends his days defending people's rights as the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey.

But when the Montclair resident is not writing legal briefs, he's often creating song parodies highlighting the very same issues.

Barocas, 38, is a civil rights attorney responsible for shaping and supervising the New Jersey ACLU's caseload. He has championed free speech and religious freedom.

Long a fan of music, Barocas wrote his first song parody while a student at Rutgers University. Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a death sentence against the author Salman Rushdie, inspiring Barocas to write a tune called "Rushdie's Being Shadowed" to the tune of Cat Stevens' "Moonshadow."

Barocas, who plays guitar, has written letters to songwriters in recent months asking them if he can use their songs in future recordings and performances. Many agreed, Barocas said, but Paul Simon and Bruce Springsteen declined through attorneys.

He stopped writing parodies in the years after he completed law school at George Washington University, but was "reinvigorated" when he joined the ACLU.

He has written songs about the Abu Ghraib prison saga, former Gov. James McGreevey's gay sex scandal, the U.S. government's slow response to Katrina, safe sex, reality television and the recent appointments of John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court and John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations.

His songs aim to be the melodic equivalent of pelting a subject with rotten tomatoes. As he listened to a recording of his rap song "My Name Is ... Dick Cheney," Barocas burst out laughing after a line in which his Cheney admits killing JonBenet Ramsey and missing teen Natalee Holloway.

"That is one of the lines that makes me laugh," Barocas said. "That is not P.C."

Much of Barocas' material is not politically correct, but he is firm in his support of the right to free speech.

He said he enjoys injecting humor into the nation's most sensitive debates, from terrorism to the handling of threats, to the treatment of prisoners and the leaking of privileged information. He wants people to think about their rights, he said.

"I understand that some of my songs are about controversial issues and that making light of those issues makes people uncomfortable," Barocas said. "Frankly, I don't shy away from making people uncomfortable and think that at times it is important to do so."

One subject he said he does not touch is child abuse, in part because one of the most "significant" cases he worked on early in his career involved Megan's Law.

Most other topics are fair game, in his songwriting and his legal work.

His cases include a successful lawsuit against a Nutley swim club that turned away nonwhites and an ongoing legal dispute between a Somerset County activist, Bob Flisser, and the borough of Flemington. Flisser was arrested last August for planning a candlelight vigil for fallen American soldiers without first obtaining a permit.

Barocas said he always was interested in the type of work he now does and had dreamed of being a legal director for the ACLU.

"The reason why I was attracted to the ACLU is because it is about allowing individuals to flourish," he said in a recent interview at his Montclair home.

Barocas and his band performed at an ACLU fundraiser at a Montclair church in January. Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the ACLU of New Jersey, gave the sold-out crowd a warning: "I basically said, 'There's material here to offend everybody,'" Jacobs said.
The performance went so well the event might be back next year "by popular demand," she said.

"Ed's viewpoints are not ACLU viewpoints," said Jacobs, who characterized Barocas as an empathetic person and amazing legal talent with a sharp wit and "huge heart."

"There's overlap, but there's also not overlap," Jacobs said.

Lately, Barocas, who has FSH muscular dystrophy and uses a motorized wheelchair, has been rehearsing and recording with brothers Dave and Jeff Gellis, with whom he connected through the Web site Craigslist. Both are former musicians for the band Blood, Sweat and Tears.
Together, the three men are Eddie B. and the G-Spots.

Dave Gellis, who also was formerly a lead guitarist for Meat Loaf, said he occasionally disagrees with the lyrics Barocas writes.
"I think Dick Cheney is cool," Gellis said. "I know that everybody thinks he's in bed with Big Oil and everything, but I truly believe he has the best interests of the country at hand."

While "Weird Al" Yankovic may be the most famous name in the modern world of song parody, Barocas said he would prefer to emulate parodists Tom Lehrer and Mark Russell as he continues to hone his craft.

"I hope they laugh and enjoy it," Barocas said of people and his music. "If a message gets across, all the better."