I’m known as blksista on the pages of DailyKos, Jack and Jill Politics, and Booman Tribune, among others. If you don’t readily know who I am, you probably heard that I wrote a series of blog articles about the drowning of New Orleans, my birthplace. It took a long time for me to find my voice blogging, and these articles basically made my rep on DK.
I finally realized that I wanted my own blog to continue to talk about New Orleans, black people, culture, gossip/public intellectualism, politics, Buddhism, journalism and ethics, looksism, cooking, fiction, history, womanism, writing, race, fashion, music and other topics of interest during this rather fractious time in American life and the life of the Republic.
Finally, I would like to say that I have a patron saint of blogging, and that, for all intents and purposes, is the late Steve Gilliard. I discovered Steve’s blog while I was living on 132nd Street in Harlem, New York between 2003-2005. Through him, I got a real introduction to New York politics. We talked privately online here and there, but I never got to meet him. I’m sure we even passed by each other while at I-HOP without knowing it. I am so sorry he is gone, because he would have truly enjoyed seeing Obama in the White House, although I think that he could have been disgusted regarding our FBP’s capitulation to Big Pharma and the Republican Agenda. I know that I could never be as audacious or as knowledgeable as Steve was during his short career, but he did teach me a few things. One: to be yourself and two: to say what is real. Then you’ll never be alone.
If you like my work, if you like visiting This Black Sista’s Page, and if you can contribute $5, $10 or more, I may be able to weather some crises and stay afloat. You can use your bank account, Visa, MasterCard, AmerEx with the PayPal button to the top right.
I was actually looking for a video studio version of “Can’t You See?” from 1974′s Back to Oakland, which, next to their debut album, is one of my favorites from Tower of Power. It’s possibly their masterpiece, really. Instead, I picked this piece out of the air. Who are these guys? This is Francis Rocco Prestia on bass, David Garibaldi on drums, Lenny Pickett on sax, and Jeff Tamalier, guitar. They are performing and demonstrating their crafts at Bass Day ’98, starting on the one.
And here is the band are in full force, just last November.
People think that creative people live in a vacuum, and that we don’t know each other. (Like the Imagist poet Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) didn’t know the singer, actor, scholar and ex-football player Paul Robeson? They even performed in a silent film together in Europe.) These showcases like Bass Day are opportunities, like the proverbial jam sessions late into the night at clubs, where people can see and respond to and interact with the geniuses on a one-to-one level.
Prestia especially is an acknowledged bass god. Not to say that the rest of these guys aren’t slouches (Garibaldi! Pickett!) But it was great to see them without the famous horn section, and getting their praises and appreciation from peers, serious fans and students.
For all you gospel lovers…she got her start in church, after all.
Again, sorry that I haven’t been on this death and that of Johnny Otis as well only a few days later last week. Johnny Otis helped to give Etta her start. But I have a lot on my plate at this moment.
A public viewing will be held Friday in Inglewood for R&B legend Etta James, with a private memorial service Saturday, a family representative has announced. James died last week at age 73.The viewing will be held at Inglewood Cemetery Mortuary from 5 to 10 p.m. in the Manchester Chapel.
The Rev. Al Sharpton will preside at Saturday’s funeral for Etta James, the legendary singer’s family said Tuesday.
James died Friday of complications of leukemia with her husband, Artis Mills, and sons Donto and Sametto James by her side.
A public viewing is set for Friday evening at the Inglewood Cemetery in Inglewood, California, the family said.
The funeral at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Greater Bethany Community Church City of Refuge in Gardena “is private for immediate family and friends,” according to spokeswoman Rachel Noerdlinger. Plans are being made for “limited media access.”
Who else is gonna be there? It promises to be big, that’s for sure. And Sharpton will be in top form. Imagine when Aretha makes her transition. There will probably be three preachers there officiating. Chicago Detroit will have to have at least three days of mourning declared. However, this is Los Angeles County, San Fernando Valley and Orange County. LA-LA Land. Things are just a bit more casual here, although the amount of flowers (which the family also encourages) will probably take up space all the way up to the altar and even in the foyer. I just wish that the family would consent to the proceedings being shown with a live streaming and given to certain websites.
According to reports, the funeral will include celebrity performances, but the lineup is currently being kept under wraps.
Although the funeral will be a private affair, the public is invited to the viewing on Friday. The chapel itself can seat up to 200 people, but Nancy Ellington, a receptionist at Inglewood Cemetery Mortuary, tells E! News that the number of attendees they’re expecting is “undetermined” at the moment.
“We’re just going to do our best to accommodate everyone who comes in for her viewing,” she says. “Huge is putting it mildly.”
The outpouring of love for the late “At Last” songbird has been massive. Adelewrote on her website yesterday, “What a lady Etta James was. She was the ultimate original. Her voice was breathtaking and her songs are reflections we all recognise in some way or another.”
And this one immediately above came from Thulani Davis’ feed from a Texas friend of hers.
What gets me is that yesterday, very right-wing ChristianSouth Carolinians were willing to excuse a man, Newt Gingrich, whose third wife was sleeping with him before his second marriage was officially over.
And after Marianne Gingrich became ill with multiple sclerosis. This seems to be a pattern with Gingrich and his first and second wives. When his first wife Jackie was diagnosed with cancer, he began an affair with Marianne.
That mistress-now-wife Callista Bisek Gingrich was a Roman Catholic.
Now, all yall who are even lapsed Catholics know what the Church says about this kind of thing.
Newt Gingrich is now a Catholic. Callista converted him to Catholicism.
Is that what it takes these days to convert people to Catholicism?
Newt claims that he’s been forgiven by the Almighty, and that this is old news, and that the media manipulated his second wife to speak.
A guy with Gingrich’s track record would do best not to make extravagant, grandiose claims or indulge in chest beating in public, but he’s done that and more. To argue that this is what politicians always do is not dealing with reality—or with a set of ethics.
Much calmer and moderate individuals should seriously check out the behavior—past and present—of this man who wants to be president of the United States.
My question is, does Callista think that his conversion renders him cheat-proof? And that he would never leave her? Especially since they’re going to the White House?
What happens when Callista falls ill with some life-threatening disease?
We haven’t heard of the same BS upsetting/besetting the Obama household, not that they haven’t had their marital differences. But Obama going around chasing tail like a Clinton or a Gingrich, or a Spitzer or a Cain?
No way.
So now we know what these unreconstructed Republicans want. They want to take Obama out with the nastiest bottomfeeder guy ever, and then unleash him and his retrograde policies on the entire nation.
The graves of Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong and his wife Lucille at Flushing Cemetery, Flushing, NY. And yet the man is "alive" some 41 years after his demise (Courtesy: Wikipedia)
Kalamu‘s NeoGriot turned me onto both of these films, although I’ve already seen Satchmo on educational TV in California long ago.
Apparently, the recent move towards making some silent films like The Artist and Silent Movie is not something new. This is a trailer from a silent film called Louis that was released in 2010.
If you can imagine Louis Armstrong as a little boy of six, playing Indian, hankering for adventure on the streets and dreaming of his first trumpet, then this is your movie.
The boy who plays the young Louis Armstrong is Anthony Isaiah Coleman. The website for Louis is here. Yes, the soundtrack features Wynton Marsalis on trumpet, as well as his music and that of composer and pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk. This year, Louis makes its European debut at the London Jazz Festival in mid-November at The Barbican. As with its New York and Chicago openings, there will be a jazz band accompanying the film.
I am touched by this trailer; if only the real Louis could have seen this. The screen urchins look well taken care of compared to what Louis and his friends must have really looked like as street children. But through all the homages to Chaplin, and to silent film melodrama, and to Storyville, it gives one a clue about his beginnings: what kind of little boy he must have been, and how he came to be a genius as a human being and as a musician.
And then from fantasy to reality with Satchmo. This 2000 documentary is assembled from the pieces on YouTube and hopefully, without infringing on the copyright. Even when the public largely moved away from Armstrong’s music, and discovered be-bop and hard jazz and the beginnings of jazz-rock, he remained steadfast in his interpretation—and enjoyment—of the idiom.
I was thrilled to hear about this on Tuesday. I’m sure hundreds of thousands of other Wisconsinites were thrilled as well. The last time I heard they wanted to have a little over 750,000 signatures to make it right.
But 1.9 million signatures makes it spectacular.
When the election is certified, it will mark the first time in Wisconsin history that a sitting governor will be recalled.
The marquee outside of the Orpheum Theatre on State Street, Madison, WI during what I call the February Uprising. Now, that particular movie is proceeding slowly but finally towards its ending (Courtesy: HappyPlace.com)
“This represents the most participated in and major recall effort in American history,” Ryan Lawler, vice-chair of United Wisconsin, said at a Tuesday news conference in downtown Madison. “This represents a threshold so overwhelming that it is beyond legal challenge. It’s a crystal-clear indication of how strong the appetite is to stop the damage and turmoil that Governor Walker has caused Wisconsin.”
Organizers had to collect 540,208 valid signatures to recall Walker.
The petition drive to recall Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch also exceeded the required minimum; 845,000 signatures were collected to recall her.
Organizers on Tuesday also announced they had more than enough signatures to recall four Senate Republicans: 20,600 to recall Scott Fitzgerald of Juneau; more than 21,000 to recall Pam Galloway of Wausau; more than 21,000 to recall Terry Moulton of Chippewa Falls; and over 24,000 to recall Van Wanggaard of Racine.
The number of signatures collected to recall Walker rivals the 1.2 million votes the governor received in his 2010 campaign. Forty-six percent of the 2010 electorate signed a recall petition for Walker, Lawler and others at the news conference noted.
Oh, I’m sure that Governor Walker’s supporters (including the Koch brothers and Fox News) would like for people to believe that this is only liberal Wisconsinites who are handing in their signatures. Or that they are fraudulent. On both counts: I don’t think so.
Well, there is always a first time for an Internet scam. The chart below IS a scam. I was scammed. I’ve removed my original comment about this chart after a frequent commenter below suggested that it may not be what many people think that it is.
The correction, from Dem leader Pelosi‘s office, is this one:
We quickly discovered the source of the discrepancy: Whoever put the chart together used the date for Jan. 20, 2010 — which is exactly one year to the day after Obama was sworn in — rather than his actual inauguration date. We know this because Treasury says the debt for Jan. 20, 2010, was $12.327 trillion, which is the exact number cited on the supporting document that Pelosi’s office gave us.
However this error happened, it effectively took one year of rapidly escalating debt out of Obama’s column and put it into Bush’s, significantly skewing the numbers.
Using the corrected figures does mean that, superficially at least, Democrats have a point. The debt did still increase more, on a percentage basis, under Bush than it did under Obama. But other problems with the chart and its methodology undercut even this conclusion.
PolitiFact uses time ranges, public debt vs. gross debt, and debt vs. debt as a percentage of GDP to come up with they believe is the true estimate.
Reagan: Up 14.9 percentage points George H.W. Bush: Up 7.1 percentage points
Clinton: Down 13.4 percentage points George W. Bush: Up 5.6 percentage points
Obama: Up 21.9 percentage points (through December 2010 only)
So by this measurement — potentially a more important one — Obama is the undisputed debt king of the last five presidents, rather than the guy who added a piddling amount to the debt, as Pelosi’s chart suggested. Of course, all this goes to show that statistics can be used — and misused — to bolster almost any argument.
Unfortunately, that’s true. Next time, I’ll go to Snopes.com or look on Google to see whether charts like these are dealing with a full deck.
However, I’d also like to add that Obama, truly, is dealing with a recession/depression that was brought on by the last sitting president.
This has appeared about three or four times on my Facebook feed; approximately 7,000 people also like this chart. But it’s a phony, and Pelosi should know better. It makes Dems seem to be grasping for the high ground when we already occupy it.
And immediately above, this is the video of that particular bit of a song made famous by Al Green, before he met with those hot grits and later, the ministry.
Later, Angry Black Lady via TalkingPointsMemo introduced us all to two more previous Obama croons, one when he sings a bit off Aretha’s “Chain of Fools,” and another when he’s singing the first line of Dionne Warwick‘s “Walk on By.” The first was recorded during the 2008 campaign, and the second, after he became president in 2009.
Hey, the brother is at least on key, but I wouldn’t advise him to quit his day job.
I think our president is beginning to wake up from four years of trying to out-Republican the Republicans. At least, I hope so. High Clintonism only worked for its time, not this time. And even then, it was a bankrupt strategy, resulting in the rise of K Street, and of NAFTA sucking our jobs out to China, Thailand, India, and Malaysia. Even Bill Clinton regrets signing NAFTA. I only hope that Obama is going to do something in his second term, and for that, we also need a change in Congress. The fewer Baggers in office, the better.
Why do I believe that the president is a shoe-in? Because the Republican candidates, in comparison, look positively pathetic, retrograde, nasty, bigoted, mean and stupid. Those televised debates are really showing their asses (literally) to the world.
Just one month after Fantasia had a baby with boyfriend Antwaun Cook, a pal close to the former American Idol winner exclusively tells RadarOnline.com that he’s been cheating on her — even before she was pregnant!
“Antwaun has been cheating on Fantasia all along, just like he cheated on his wife with Fantasia,” the source said.
“She was silly to think he’d remain faithful but it was wishful thinking, I guess. She purposely had this baby with him hoping he’d be a devoted father and boyfriend.”
But the source exclusively tells RadarOnline.com, it’s not happening. Not only has Antwaun cheated on Fantasia with other women, but he’s even went crawling back to his estranged wife, Paula Cook, asking for another chance.
“He tries to get Paula to take him back all the time, but she wants nothing to do with him,” the source revealed.
“Fantasia knows that Antwaun cheats, but she just turns a blind eye hoping for some fairytale turnout.”
[...]
“[Fantasia] kept this [baby] to keep him,” the source said.
RadarOnline.com reached out to Fantasia’s manager, who had no comment on the allegations.
Jeez. And what’s happened to the Mahalia! movie? Will she be returning to the set soon?
The double tomb of Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King at the King Center, Atlanta, GA. How will you commemorate their lives today, or even this week? Not by shopping, I hope (Courtesy: TravelPod)
They are going to fix a quote on the new memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The one to which Maya Angelou particularly took umbrage. The correct quote from the Saint of the Sixties is, “Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.” The quote on the memorial is, “I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.” King did the “drum major instinct” speech some months before April 4, as if he knew he was drawing closer to his date with death. All the previous ones where he spoke of death, and what he would like to have at his funeral were dress rehearsals.
I still don’t like the King Memorial in Washington. To me, it does not resemble him at all. King was a little man who had a lot of “looks” in photos over his life, but he didn’t look at all like this thing. King, as he grew older, always had a well-fed look, nurtured by food on the road, potlucks, rubber chicken fundraisers and restaurant dinners, and his buttoned-up collars tended to emphasize his double chin, but his face was actually longer.
The statue also makes me think of the Sphinx in Egypt, with King emerging from the slanted rock like the Sphinx’s weathered and blasted face emerging from its shelf-like headpiece, and from the sand. Questions, questions. It makes me wonder whether we are getting the real King rather than a made-up one enclosed in a commercialized legend. The real King was a complicated guy, and I know that there were some days he wished that he hadn’t started anything, but I do think that he would not have approved of this statue. And not just on aesthetic grounds. I could see him insisting on something way more substantive and lasting, and essentially formless. Like the shape of the human spirit.
That’s why I show the tomb upwind where he and Coretta repose. This is his true memorial. But people will insist on certain folks being larger than life when they were, basically, just like them.
When the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock steps up to the pulpit on Sunday, he’ll face a crowd of thousands in a worship service that marks no religious holiday and is rarely recognized outside the United States, but rivals Christmas and Easter as one of his congregation’s biggest days of the year.
Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday has become a worship day across denominations in American churches, but at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King honed his oratory and found his spiritual fervor, the day takes on additional importance.
As he fields guests and television cameras, Warnock will honor the past and thrust his congregation, which sits down the street from the site of King’s first home and the original Ebenezer building where he preached, into the struggles of the present.
“We don’t want to just place King in biblical or historical perspective, but we want to give voice to the values he trumpeted in relationship to the issues facing us today,” said Warnock, who has been the senior pastor for six years. “We are not a museum.”
The fight for human rights should never be consigned to a museum. Or to one day of observance. Or relegated as just another shopping day. Any day is a day for reflection as well as summoning courage and purpose for self and for others, and taking action.
Me, I am going to an afternoon celebration at the Overture here in Madison that will feature the Reverend C.T. Vivian, an aging and but eloquent speaker in Albany during the civil rights era. In my estimation, he ranks with the octogenarian Reverend Joseph Lowery in speaking truth to power. And I will listen, remember, and later, act.
Remember that Martin King became less of a single-issue leader, than a leader embracing all struggles, particularly on behalf of the poor with the Poor People’s Campaign, and for the right for black garbage collectors to unionize in Memphis. Let me repeat that. For black people to unionize to redress grievances against the city of Memphis. To unionize.
Got that, Wisconsin? Got that, America?
These are issues that still have relevance today because the work is still not over.
First of all, the composer of the Doc Martin theme is Colin Towns. Whenever the show comes on, I turn up the volume on my headphones to catch every nuance. I love it.
Towns is 63, and began his career as a composer and songwriter when he was a 13-year-old pianist playing at weddings and birthday parties in London’s East End. Eventually, he became a session musician in the business. During his tenure as a keyboardist in the jazz-rock Ian Gillan Band, and its successor, Gillan, in the Seventies and early Eighties, Towns was drawn to composing. By the time Ian Gillan decided to become lead singer of Black Sabbath, Towns had launched his own separate career. He has expanded this interest into producing soundtracks for films, commercials and for television series. He is not as well-known here in the States, but he is on demand in Britain and in other parts of Europe. He has scored for Doc Martin, Brother Cadfael, and Cold Blood. His film soundtracks have included Albert Schweitzer, Double Zero, Mon Ange and Essex Boys. He has released several jazz albums under his own label, Provcateur. Last fall, Towns was performing with his band, Mask Orchestra, at the famed Ronnie Scott’s Club.
I was checking earlier this week about anything on Eddie Long, but it didn’t come until Thursday—-when I wasn’t checking. Can you believe this video commercial above that is running in the Atlanta area? Apparently he showed for the New Year‘s services and proclaimed that he was back.
Reports from the Service say:
-An unemployed woman placed a single dollar on the altar, as people were presenting their offering. After finding out that she was jobless, Long reportedly asked the congregation if anyone could provide her with employment.
-The bishop also reportedly asked the church’s permission to offer all of the money on the altar to the same woman for a down payment on a house.
What?
What stagecraft. If Long could do that for her, then why not for all those parishioners who got gypped from that investment scheme touted by Ephren Taylor? I mean, seriously, let’s get real. Let’s get really for real.
I think this is yet another scam, reminiscent of the unnamed parishioner who shot him a stack of bank notes last year. More from Williams:
His appearance at the Watch Night Service at the Lithonia, Ga., seems to mark his formal return. Although church officials could not immediately be reached for comment, Long preached at the Empowerment Service on Wednesday night on kingdom alignment.
After a month-long absence, Long first appeared on New Year’s Eve preaching from his pulpit with his usual fiery style, saying:
2012 is here! Shake off the remorse, shake off the depression, shake off the financial burden, start using your hands again and reconstructing! God is more about your future than he was about your past. I’m still your pastor. You’ll still receive my direction. You’ve given me some weeks to take care of some family business.
I think that it’s way too soon for Eddie Long to return to New Birth, if at all. Plus, trying to show off Vanessa’s presence in the church audience to the world, despite the fact that everyone knows that they’re divorcing—sheesh! This profoundly stinks to me. Is her appearance going to improve the haul in the collection plates that will pay for the divorce? Is that why the school that New Birth recently closed kept the money and didn’t warn the parents what was coming? Like Valentine Michael Smith in Heinlein’s sci-fi masterpiece, to me, it all smells of wrongness.
Did Vanessa really want to be there, and for him? Far more skeptical folks would say flat out that she was paid, but it may be a bit more complicated than that. This is weirdness to which people going through a divorce could relate.
I only know for sure that I wouldn’t. I would not. Hell, no. Better pray for this woman to recover completely from the vampire’s kiss. All the camera shots couldn’t mask the fact that hundreds are missing from the seats that once were filled up and down with parishioners.
Come to think of it, some of that footage looked rather questionable. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of it came from previous celebrations before things got bad for Long and New Birth, as well as new video from this new year, and it was spliced together. Full parking lots seen from the air in the face of declining membership? There is something wrong with this picture.
This was on the audio loop over at the local Starbucks, and immediately, my heart just went mooshy, mushy. Both Clapton‘s and BabyFace‘s renditions are really good—-they were symbiotic together—-but Eric’s got me this morning. I had to stand with my coffee and listen to the song to the very end before I could leave on this frosty day with snow on the ground.
Although “Change the World” is better known as an unplugged acoustic track, a rare electric performance of the song was featured on Babyface‘s 1997 live album Babyface MTV Unplugged NYC, with Clapton on co-lead vocals, playing his namesake signature Fender Stratocaster guitar. There was also another electric cover of this track, released the following year, with Nathan East on electric bass.
In the song, the performer expresses his desire to communicate his love to an unnamed woman. This love, he fears, will go unrequited without a drastic change in his life.
Sounds like that love for Pattie Boyd Harrison, but I don’t think she’s the muse in this one. I think it’s Sheryl Crow. That seems to be his particular story: unrequited, unconsummated yearning. Old Slowhand has been around, but he’s settled down and married once more, to a young American woman, Melia, who has given him three daughters.
Lyrics? Why not.
If I could reach the stars I’d pull one down for you Shine it on my heart so you could see the truth
That this love I have inside is everything it seems
But for now I find it’s only in my dreams
CHORUS:
That I can change the world
I would be the sunlight in your universe
You will think my love was really something good
Baby if I could change the world
If I could be king even for a day
I’d take you as my queen I’d have it no other way
And our love will rule in this kingdom we have made
Till then I’d be a fool wishin’ for the day
CHORUS:
That I can change the world
I would be the sunlight in your universe
You will think my love was really something good
Baby if I could change the world
Baby if I could change the world
CHORUS:
That I can change the world
I would be the sunlight in your universe
You will think my love was really something good
Baby if I could change the world
Baby if I could change the world
Baby if I could change the world
I can forgive him a few transgressions but not all; namely, his disgraceful dissing of immigrants to Britain’s shores that led to accusations of racism on his part. (A few other Brit rockers, like David “married to Iman” Bowie, have also complained about the transformation of their former haunts and neighborhoods, much like Americans here. Even the recently departed Christopher Hitchens ominously groused about the Muslims who now inhabit his former Jewish neighborhood, implying in Vanity Fair that Britain was encouraging some kind of nest of terrorists in its midst; that they were some kind of fifth column.)
My answer to those complaints are, they are here because you were there. And the more that they are integrated into British society rather than resisted, the better for everyone all around. As late as 2007, Clapton refused to revise his previous statements, and reiterated his support for British racists like Enoch Powell. So that’s what B.B. King is singing and strumming with? Methinks he’d be better off changing his inner world.
Yet, it’s a beautiful song. And except for that mess upwind, Clapton’s quite an impressive guy. Enjoy.
The Bardavon 1869 Opera House in Poughkeepsie will mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day Jan. 16 with a screening of a documentary that explores racism and the workplace.
Dark Girls will be shown at the historic theater as part of the MLK Day Family Celebration. A question-and-answer session with filmmakers Bill Duke and D. Channsin Berry will follow the screening.
Duke is a Poughkeepsie native and has appeared on Broadway. He has also appeared in numerous motion pictures, including Car Wash, American Gigoloand X Men: The Last Stand. Duke has also appeared on television, in Lost, Cold Case and Battlestar Galactica.
The reporter got it wrong. The documentary isn’t exactly about racism in the workplace. It’s about color prejudice within the black community, an attitude which stigmatizes dark-skinned black women.
The tickets, according another short New York Times article regarding activities in Westchester County, will range between $10-$50. Expect about the same rates for the other locations above.
Visit the Dark Girls website to order your tickets ahead of time, if you can. For larger venues, there may be a few tickets left, but I would check with the theatres’ box office first by telephone.
I don’t care what anyone says. That it was “all in fun.” That it “separates the men from the boys,” even though young women were also included in beatdowns, and possibly even worse. No, hazing is a crime.
CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann met the parents, Robert and Pam Champion, in Orlando, Fla., where they made their first visit to the hotel parking lot where their son died after a hazing ritual.
Champion Jr. was a 26 year old drum major in A&M’s famed marching band, and he was allegedly pummeled by his band mates.
“There’s no way around it. It was wrong,” Pam Champion tells CBS News.
[...]
Champion family attorney Chris Chestnut says he has now spoken to “a lot” of the people who were there on the day, more than 10 potential witnesses.
Some of the students tell Chestnut they were also hazed that night, but none as severely as Champion. They say he was singled out, possibly because he was both a vocal opponent of hazing and a band disciplinarian, and gay.
“It may or may not have been” his sexual orientation which saw him singled out, says Chestnut, allowing only that it is a “possibility.”
Champion’s mother says her son “wasn’t defined by his sexual orientation. He was just defined as being a child going to school, trying to get an education.”
I don’t believe it; folks had better stop making excuses. Just leave open that possibility like a wound that won’t heal. Expand on that one. Get really to the root of the matter. Students and band members may have suspected that Champion was gay, and they may have resented him for that. I mean, I can imagine the rationale, just who is he to be telling me what I’m doing wrong? Then, he was older. He may have been his mom’s child, but he was an adult, way past 21. Strike two. He was also above them because he was a drum major and was charged with enforcing discipline. In other words, these guyswould have todefer to him. And he’s not considered a real man, too? Bet you that they didn’t like all that.
Yvette Carnell over at Your Black World is hoping that it ain’t so, that it surely ain’t so about what happened to Robert Champion. Because the development lays open not only sexuality but homophobia within the black family, within black institutions. Nobody wants to think the worst, that an oppressed people will oppress and perhaps kill its own, just like the Klan would lynch some poor brothers for absolutely nothing, but it happens more times than people realize. And because some people are expendable within the family and the community, others will just brush off the incident’s importance or hide the deed under another name.
Just like FAMU tried to do for the sake of its reputation and that of its marching band, but really its administrators.
But just because I wasn’t on that bus doesn’t mean that I haven’t witnessed how some straight black men react when in the company of black men who they know are gay. Talk tolerance all you like, but the interaction, especially among younger men who are jockeying for position among other young lions, is frosty at best and openly hostile at worst. I’m certainly not impugning all black men, but I’ve been in the room enough times to hear the chuckles and sneers when a gay guy approaches, so the whole “you’re playing into a stereotype” line won’t work with me. I’m part of the family, in more ways than one.
I’d like to think that maybe Champion had a strong support system at FAMU which included his band members, that insulated him, at least to some degree, against that sort of thing, but that’s difficult for me to imagine considering that his fellow band members were the same folk who allegedly beat him to death (with friends like that…). It is more likely, especially considering that Champion’s sexuality is just now surfacing, that a few people knew for certain that Champion was gay while most others just suspected. Or maybe he hid it well enough that this comes as a surprise to everyone. There’s no way to be sure, but at the press conference, the attorney for the family of Robert Champion said that Champion wasn’t defined by his sexuality. I’m just hoping that turns out to be true. I’m just hoping his sexuality didn’t contribute to his death.
Get the whole lot on a witness stand, where they have to swear to the Divine, and we will see whether that is true or not.
Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan has been suspended indefinitely from MSNBC, according to a statement from that network’s President Phil Griffin. An Associated Press article on CBSNews.com blames reaction to Buchanan’s latest book Suicide of a Superpower for his ouster from the cable network, as well as a campaign by the advocacy group, Color of Change.
The former Nixon aide has long courted controversy. In April of this year he said that President Obama’s path to the White House was the result of “Affirmative Action all the way.” In 2009, he asserted that the U.S. “has been a country built, basically, by white folks.”
MSNBC’s Griffin apparently believes, however, that Buchanan’s newest work has crossed a line. Suicide of a Superpower came out in October and features chapters with titles like “The End of White America” and “The Death of Christian America.”
The AP quotes Griffin as saying, “Because of the content of the book, I didn’t think it should be part of the national dialogue, much less part of the dialogue on MSNBC.”
And the national dialogue could do without this white supremacist, neo-Fascist twaddle. I’m sure Buchanan will be able to find a home over at Faux Noise, where they traffic in code words, dog whistles, veiled threats, race baits and other outrages that belong in the dustbins of history. And he’ll be well-paid for it, especially when the election year of 2012 really gets underway.
Restore Our Future was recently found to have raised over $12 million during the first six months of 2011. Uncontrolled and unfettered, PACs can raise a passel of money and create ads far beyond the auspices or expectations of a nominee’s national campaign, so I’m sure that the President will be facing some very personal as well as political attacks next summer and fall. These attacks should be viewed as nothing less than racist half-truths, thanks to smear veterans like McCarthy.
New York, NY – African-American civil rights organization ColorOfChange.org today responded to MSNBC’s decision to indefinitely end Pat Buchanan’s time on air. Over 86,000 ColorOfChange members called on MSNBC to end their ties with Buchanan.
“ColorOfChange.org welcomes MSNBC’s decision to indefinitely supend Pat Buchanan,” said ColorOfChange.org Executive Director Rashad Robinson. “However, it’s time for MSNBC to permanently end their relationship with Pat Buchanan and the hateful, outdated ideas he represents. We appreciate this first step and urge MSNBC to take the important final step to ensure that their brand is no longer associated with Buchanan’s history of passing off white supremacy ideology as mainstream political commentary.”
ColorOfChange.org launched their campaign calling on MSNBC to fire Buchanan after his appearance on white nationalist radio program The Political Cesspool, where he promoted his latest book. The Political Cesspool describes itself as representing “a philosophy that is pro-White … We wish to revive the White birthrate above replacement level fertility and beyond to grow the percentage of Whites in the world relative to other races.” The show has a reputation for being racist, sexist, anti-gay, and anti-Semitic. In calling for his firing, the group also cited a long history of bigoted rhetoric from Buchanan.
Color of Change was joined by CREDO Action in its drive to oust Buchanan; together the two organizations garnered 275,000 petition signatures. CREDO Action had called for Buchanan’s firing several months earlier than Color of Change’s activities. Since the Color of Change campaign began, however, Buchanan has been missing in action on MSNBC’s weeknight political shows, including those helmed by Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews. Color of Change, with 800,000 members, calls itself the nation’s largest online political organization.
Companies targeting black folks using commercials is nothing new. But for weight-loss products?
Janet‘s may be the sexiest one, but Charles is playing it strictly for laughs to get the guys getting up and getting it going. And Jennifer? Well, before and after always tells the tale, but this new version—-of Jennifer’s final weight—-is so dramatic and transformative I know that it has startled and motivated a lot of black women to get up offa that thing. Plus, her efforts got a write-up before New Year‘s with Good Morning America.
On the left, Hudson in 2004, at 23, on “American Idol.” On the right, Hudson now, 30-years-old and 80 pounds lighter. She sings The Four Tops’ “I Believe in You and Me” as Weight Watcher’s slogan: Believe, Because It Works, appears behind her.
Hudson became the spokesperson for the weight loss program in 2010. Her commitment to getting fit also led her to walk away from the lead role in the Oscar-winning film Precious. In her new book, I Got This: How I Changed My Ways and Lost What Weighed Me Down, Hudson writes that after putting on pounds for “Dreamgirls” (which won her an Oscar) she ”wanted to try a role that had nothing whatsoever to do with my weight.”
Frankly, I think that she did right to walk away from Precious, not that the role would have been detrimental to her career, but because Hudson is too glamorous-looking to play downtrodden. I’m glad that she’s kept off the weight, but I would also like to see her get some more roles as a result of showing how lovely she is now.
Thin equals capable? No, I’m not convinced of that, because there are a lot of incapable, thin actresses (workers) in Hollywood (and elsewhere) of whatever color. Thin merely enhances Hudson’s drawing power, and extends her life health-wise. Remember the early, unnecessary deaths of Mia Amber Davis, and most recently of Heavy D, deaths that could have been avoided if they were less sedentary and weighed a little less.
We all don’t need to look like human stick figures; actors and actresses need to be thinner because the camera is merciless and shows every little physical demerit. We just need to eat smaller portions and move more. Even if it is walking briskly around the block after lunch and after dinner.
This Facebook poster came from Julian Lennon‘s Facebook feed. He’s come up with some great ones in the past and probably will in the future. One could say that Julian is a work in progress.
Yes, this is the son of John and Cynthia Powell Lennon. The Jude of “Hey Jude,” Julian is now 48. He’s engaged to Lucy Bayliss, a model. He’s seriously embarked on another career, photography, although he still records sporadically. His most recent album is Everything Changes.
The poster doesn’t suggest that a serial killer is a genius. However, think about guys like The Bird Man of Alcatraz, who basically trashed his life with criminal activity, including murder. But Robert Stroud had an IQ of 134. And in Leavenworth Penitentiary, he became a self-taught ornithologist who contributed much to avian pathology.
We are all capable of great things, and of being great ourselves in our little lives.
Two-time Olympic champion Lee Evans was released from Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley two days after undergoing surgery to remove a tumor in his brain. He plans to remain in the area for a month to recover before returning home with his wife to Nigeria, sister Rosemary Evans said Thursday.
I’m sure that Evans has all of our best wishes and prayers for his continued recovery to pursue his dream. And a few contributions could help, too. See below for the PayPal link.
His day in the sun: then 21-year-old Olympic gold medal winner Lee Evans (center) wearing a black beret and flanked by Olympic silver and bronze medalists Larry James and Ronnie Freeman at the Mexico City 1968 Olympics (Courtesy: The Runner's Vibe)
But the situation is made far worse by the fact that Lee Evans, after four decades teaching and coaching at schools ranging from the University of South Alabama to Nigeria, doesn’t have health insurance. This has meant, according to Lee’s sister, Rosemary, that he has been terribly mistreated during his hospitalization. Rosemary said to me, “I heard his doctor in the hall and I heard him say he wished [Lee] had been transferred somewhere else because he didn’t have insurance…. Lee is in intense pain. Not even morphine is helping. He hasn’t eaten in several days, yet there was no IV in his arm when I first went into his room. He’s lying in his filth and nothing is happening. If family members aren’t vigilant… If we aren’t vigilant, I don’t know what would happen.”
Lee Evans came from Overfelt High School in East San Jose, California. Overfelt is where I finally graduated from high school, the third and last high school I attended in four years. (And it was not because I was a troublemaker at school, either.) At the time, returning to California from a conservative parochial junior high school in New Orleans, I was afraid of matriculating at Overfelt, which opened its doors in 1962, because I found that it had a reputation within the school district, even at other public middle and high schools. When I began my junior year at Overfelt, most of what had happened had faded into history, as students graduated, went to college, moved away, or dropped out and/or went to work.
The Seventies simmered but it was fairly quiet. In comparison, the mid-to-late Sixties saw Overfelt on fire just like at San Jose State, where Evans joined Tommie Smith and John Carlos as Olympics-bound track stars. Black kids wore black vinyl jackets in imitation of the Panthers in Oakland. Black girls got rid of the hot comb and grew out their hair into large Afros. Some black students and their parents were calling for recognition of a black students’ union as a club on campus and for the insertion of a black history and culture curriculum. Overfelt became a football and track power as more blacks and Latinos joined the JV and senior varsity ranks and produced. (NFL quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Jim Plunkett also came from Overfelt, but transferred in his junior year to James Lick High School.) Unfortunately, blacks also fought with whites and with Latinos in mini-riots on campus–which is really what scared me–and were distrustful of the police in the East Side community.
Of the latter, the distrust has not changed at Overfelt, so I’ve heard, particularly with the rise of gangs. My youngest brother, who graduated in 1986, once called the high school “an armed camp.”
So brother Spartans and “Speed City” sprinters Evans, Smith and Carlos, were admired as older brothers and neighborhood heroes for representing Overfelt, East San Jose, San Jose State and black people to the world. Sport was still considered a way into educational opportunities and eventual economic betterment, but it also gave some a sociopolitical platform with which to talk about what was really happening in their communities.
(Sorry, but this video appears not to be working on this or the other couple of sites where it is located. CNN does not possess or support any longer or has not yet put up the video of Kimberly’s feat this past December. When I find one that works, I will post.)
Other than very short announcements on African American blogs like Your Black World and News One, accompanied by this video from CNN, this is the only information given about this girl’s record-breaking exploit on Google. I guess blonde teenagers navigating the world n a sailboat is more newsworthy…or black girls becoming pregnant in junior high by some older black guy and having to go on welfare.
This is good news. This is very good news.
Let thousands of black girls take heart and achieve their goals, no matter how lofty, and make the impossible possible!
I’ve got a few hundred “friends” (real friends and relatives) on Facebook that occasionally send me some great cartoons, “posters,” and photos with quotes, political and otherwise.
So I’ve decided to inaugurate yet another feature called “That Cartoon From Facebook.”
Normally, I would present the cartoon (photo, poster) and which group or individual (if possible) sent it along to me, with a small bit of commentary.
Let’s say I immediately identified because the questioner is a black woman.
This cartoon comes from The Other 98%. Who are they?
Our economy & our democracy are being hijacked by an Elite 2% that is selling out the American dream. Help us change that at http://other98.com/
The Other 98% is a grassroots network of concerned folks fed up with the status quo in Washington. We seek practical solutions to the many challenges facing America. We stand against those bankers, CEOs and lobbyists who have hijacked our democracy to serve themselves at the expense of everyone else. We are everywhere. And we are hopeful.
Interested? Follow that link to find out more about this group.
Well, here I am on the third day of the New Year. Frankly, it feels like Monday, when Monday itself felt like Saturday. Whatever. Next year, the holidays fall on a Monday, so I won’t be thrown off course like this time.
I thought that I would start out with this short but sweet little documentary about how our calendar came about. Sorta refresh our memories about stuff we supposedly learned in grade school but forgot. This filmmaker, Jeremiah Warren, puts out these mini-histories, observations, blowing up things in slow motion, and wry comedies on film for the attention impaired. The calendar history is only one of 35, but it is the newest. He’s made The History of Audie Murphy and The History of Nicola Tesla, which was the official selection of the SXSW film festival last year. His oeuvre is here at Vimeo.
As for me, I’ve got the misnamed tummy flu, something that has been going around our department store, and is possibly doing some damage where you live and where you work. I still have chills and a persistent headache, and of course, the runs. I’ve called in sick, and rightfully. I’m staying in bed and in between writing, copping some zees and sipping some herb tea. And watching some dumb-ass Republicans in Iowa talk trash about how they’re going to unseat Obama.
I’ve tried to find videos from other European countries, Asia and Africa, especially in English, but no go. At least, not yet. However, when you’ve seen one fireworks celebration, after a while, you’ve seen them all.
The mood was festive in the South Pacific island nation of Samoa, where, for once, revelers were the first in the world to welcome the new year, rather than the last.
Samoa and neighboring Tokelau hopped across the international date line at midnight on Thursday, skipping Friday and moving instantly to Saturday. The time-jump revelry that began at 12:01 a.m. on Dec. 31 spilled into the night.
Samoa and Tokelau lie near the date line that zigzags vertically through the Pacific Ocean, and both sets of islands decided to realign themselves this year from the Americas side of the line to the Asia side, to be more in tune with key trading partners.
Get ready for your lives, people. It’s a do-over. Despite heartbreak, predictions of disaster, torture, poverty, fear, and despair, let’s hope and pray for the best for ourselves and everyone else. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. It will get better.
(Gotta go to work, but I will be back in the early evening.)
Written in Barbados in January 1980, ‘Happy New Year’ was originally intended for a musical about a New Year’s Eve, one of Björn and Benny’s many attempts to get started with a more ambitious piece of musical drama. They even pitched their idea to comedian John Cleese, of Monty Python and Fawlty Towers fame, hoping that he would want to write the book for their proposed musical. Cleese turned them down, however, and the songwriting team scrapped the project. It would be another three years before Björn and Benny finally started writing what was to become their first full-length musical, Chess (a collaboration with Tim Rice).
Back in 1980, however, they were still quite fond of the New Year’s Eve concept, and in February they began recording ‘Happy New Year’ for the upcoming album. It seems there were even plans for making the track a single at one point, for shortly before the November release of the Super Trouper album, a promo clip was made for ‘Happy New Year’. Festive scenes were filmed in conjunction with the making of the album sleeve, after which the ABBA members’ actual performance of the song was filmed in director Lasse Hallström’s apartment. These latter sequences underscored the song’s wistful reflections on what the future may hold, thereby providing a marked contrast to the party scenes.
This video was made in the same year. Its relative clarity and production values can be attributed to the fact that Agnetha Faltskog was fearful of and hated air travel to perform with ABBA on world concert dates. Thus, ABBA relied on video promotional clips to promote their music on other cable and experimental TV entities around the world came into being in the early Seventies and early Eighties before the rise of MTV.
Ulvaeus and Andersson have been successful in recreating themselves as composers and lyricists for the stage and for other performing venues, including films. They work as both collaborators and singly. Currently Benny Andersson tours with an Orkester, a band of 16 musicians as well as two singers, who perform his original songs and compositions. The Benny Andersson Orkester is said to be wildly popular in Sweden after releasing three albums. Ulvaeus and his wife Lena Kallersjö, a noted Swedish rock journalist, lived for several years in the U.K. setting up and running an IT company; they have now resettled in Sweden.
More bad news for Eddie Long and for New Birth. The walls are tumbling down. From The Root:
Atlanta‘s New Birth Christian Academy students are now scrambling for a new place in which to learn after they were informed that their school will be shut down Jan. 4.
The school, founded by the controversial Bishop Eddie Long, fell short of funding estimates and enrollment for the year. The school board sent a letter to parents informing them of the closing, which will affect 221 students from pre-K to grade 12 and 20 teachers.
“We have operated New Birth Christian Academy for several years with substantial deficits in hopes that the national economic climate would change; however, that change never materialized,” said the letter, signed by Carlton Donald, the board’s vice chair.
Tuition at the school ranged from $5,253 for New Birth members to $6,198 for nonmembers, according to the school’s website.
Art Franklin, a spokesman for New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, said that the closing had nothing to do with the allegations against Long. At least one parent begged to differ.
“I don’t believe that,” she said to WSB-TV, which did not disclose her identity. “I believe that this last straw with the divorce, the sealed settlement, it just does not look good. I really believe that people continued to take their children out as each allegation unfolded month after month.
“Just like the parishioners have suffered, the children are now suffering,” said the parent, who is also upset that the school gave such short notice.
More well-heeled private schools charge far more than the New Birth academy per year. However, imagine how this impacts a family that is probably living on one income in this tenuous economy, and over five thousand dollars a year for tuition is still a lot of money to them. Then, compare how it would be for well-heeled parents (who would pay $12-$25,000 per year or more) to find out that their child’s school is shutting down practically overnight, the pupils forced to find schooling elsewhere. Whether in furs and bling or in designer teeshirts and jeans, these parents would be pounding on the doors of the school demanding their money back and filing lawsuits accusing New Birth the school administrators and trustees of fraud.
The DeKalb County school district runs a nearby charter school called Leadership Preparatory Academy for children in grades K through 5, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. No doubt, there are other parochial, private and public schools in the area, but will they be able to absorb them all? What about the older children in junior high and in high school? While Donald claims that New Birth will assist parents in placing their children elsewhere, many doubt that the administrators will truly lend any helpful hand, if they were so close-mouthed in revealing the school’s true state of affairs.
Again, the whole episode looks very fly-by-night, but it looks a lot like the secretive and unaccountable manner in which Long has been operating for over twenty years. I doubt that the closure is truly temporary as Donald writes in his letter to the parents, but permanent.
Disillusionment with and distrust of New Birth and with Bishop Eddie Long is continuing to affect parishioners and supporters alike.
The long death of the ministry of Bishop Eddie Long continues.
The coroner’s office found that Dwight Arrington Myers, better known as Heavy D, died of a blood clot in his lung. He also suffered from deep leg vein thrombosis and heart disease.
The blood clot was “most likely formed during an extended airplane ride,” said Craig Harvey, chief of the Los Angeles County department of coroner. The rapper had recently returned from a trip to London.
Initially, it was reported that the rapper and actor suffered from pneumonia, and that the illness may have been the cause of his death. A toxicology report found the presence of medication in Heavy D’s system, but it was at a therapeutic level.
“He was treating himself with cough syrup,” Harvey said. “But it was not contributory [to his death].”
Experts tell people to get up and walk around during plane flights, especially hours-long flights, for fear of a clot forming in the legs and traveling to the lungs and heart. (You should stand up and walk around during the day at the office as well. Just sitting at the computer does you no good either.) But nobody thinks about this kind of thing until it is too late. I wouldn’t be surprised that Heavy D needed two seats in order to travel, and stayed there all the way back to the States, except for occasional trips to the rest room, particularly if he had had an alcoholic drink or two. And if so, that wasn’t good.
The more morbid and crazy among us may say that Michael Jackson may have killed the 44-year-old rapper. After all, Heavy D had been invited to perform at a concert to commemorate Jackson in London. Nope. There is nothing at all to that nutty angle. When brother slimmed down in the Nineties to start up his acting career, he should have stayed thattaway. Heavy D’s last bit performance was in Eddie Murphy‘s Tower Heist as a courthouse guard.
Despite whatever Heav’s brother said in interviews about the rapper’s general health and frame of mind, Heavy D also suffered from heart disease from eating large and not exercising. He may or may not have known about this; like high blood pressure, heart disease may go undiagnosed for years. In other words, his weight (way over 300 lbs.) also contributed to his death. From CNN:
How a blood clot actually forms in the legs (Courtesy: Wikipedia)
DVT occurs when a blood clot forms in a deep vein, usually in the lower leg, thigh or pelvis. It can happen to anyone, but there are many risk factors that increase the chances of developing the condition.
Among those factors is obesity, and Heavy D was known for being overweight.
PE is the most serious complication of DVT and happens when part of the clot breaks off and travels through the bloodstream to the lungs, the CDC says.
People may recover from having a small clot, but a large one can stop blood from reaching the lungs and is fatal.
I knew Heavy D was not that kind to be abusing drugs; throughout his career, I never read about him having a problem, and I would have been surprised if this had emerged from the autopsy. Dwight Myers seemed to be a regular human being who was interested in being in the world and of the world. His lyrics, his music–the guy was definitely a lover and not a fighter. His last Tweet was, “Be inspired!”
But food is an addiction and is like a drug. You may dig those ribs now, but they sure may contribute to an early death just like any overdose. I mean, my health scare earlier this year made me a believer. Put down the extra plate, not just during the holiday season, but thereafter. Vary your meals at home, and try to stay away from eating at fast food joints and restaurant chains where they cook food down to its bare nutritional levels and load it with salt. Buy square or smaller plates rather than round ones. Why? Because you can put a lot less food on a square plate than a round plate and make the portions appear larger. Round plates have grown two inches bigger in the last few decades, and they are even larger in restaurants. Make a date to take a walk after you’ve had a big dinner at home or a big nosh at Chili’s. You may find that you can go to sleep and digest your food better and faster than if you had simply lain around and watched TV that evening. Those are the small ways in which you can begin to save your own life.
I’m very sorry that Heavy D is gone, and I’m even more sorry that it all could have been preventable. Rest in peace, bro.
Chaka herself shot this over the bow of her Facebook stream this Christmas Eve evening, mainly because of its quality, so I am sure that others are also grooving on this lovely walk back in time that looks as if it happened in the early 1990s. This is big Luther, as opposed to svelte Luther, and this is also a slimmed down Chaka Khan at one of her very best. This summit of Old School voices seems to have occurred on the old Warner Bros. channel on a holiday program showcasing black music talent.
Nonetheless, Christmas 2011 is coming, and will shortly be at an end. Enjoy every meaningful moment tomorrow and everyday thereafter. Remember to be merry through all those holiday rituals. And above all, love yourself and each other.
This is possibly the only music on The Ramsey Lewis Trio‘s second volume of jazz interpretations of Christmas songs and music isn’t laden with strings. Additionally, this is an original Ramsey Lewis composition.
It features Eldee Young on bass, Steve McCall on drums, and Ramsey Lewis on piano. I am guessing that Lewis is also playing a xylophone or vibraphone that introduces the piece and dubbed separately, because no personnel is listed as playing them, according to Discogs.
Ramsey Lewis in 2009 in Seattle WA (Courtesy: Wikipedia)
This may be easy listening music for us geriatrics or Quiet Storm devotees, but it certainly is some interesting stuff, made interesting by the eclecticism of the musicians no doubt. The album, alternately on either the Chess, Cadet or Argo labels, is quite rare–found on either audio cassette or mono LPs. There have been persistent requests that the record be remastered and reissued on CD.
Of the personnel: Eldee Young died in 2007 at the age of 71 from a sudden heart attack in Bangkok, Thailand. The double bass player was only one year away from splitting creatively from Lewis’ line-up at the time More Sounds of Christmas was produced. In 1968, Young and drummer Isaac “Red” Holt, another Lewis alum, formed Young-Holt Unlimited. Their only Top 100 hit was “Soulful Strut,” which charted at number three in 1969. Young-Holt Unlimited tried to duplicate their initial success, but they couldn’t, and the group–actually a trio with pianist Ken Chaney–broke up in 1974. Eldee Young and Red Holt eventually reunited with Lewis in 1983. Red Holt, born in 1932, is said to be still active as a drummer.
Chicago-born Steve McCall was a hard-bopping and free jazz drummer throughout the Sixties and Seventies. McCall later became an expatriate in Paris and in Amsterdam and afterwards went back and forth performing as a sideman between Europe and the States. He played with the likes of avant garde jazz men like Anthony Braxton; then he moved back to the States to work with Dexter Gordon, Gene Ammons and Henry Threadgill. McCall died of a stroke in 1989 at the age of 56.
The indefatigable Ramsey Lewis is now 76 years old, and he’s on hiatus from touring until the holidays are over. (And no wonder: Lewis has seven children, fourteen grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.) He has assembled an electric quintet under the rubric, “The Sun Goddess Tour”, that includes Henry Johnson, Tim Gant, Charles Heath and Joshua Ramos. The tour is to promote his current album, Ramsey, Taking Another Look. Of course, he is playing all of the crowd favorites, including “Sun Goddess,” in his performances. Ramsey Lewis’ website (and appearance dates) is here.
By the way, egg nog. You know that stuff is deadly, especially when it is made right. Here’s a good recipe for egg nog right below, from the website EggNogAholic.com. And drink responsibly, folks.
6 eggs separated
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. salt
2 cups milk
1/2 cup rum
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. cinnamon (optional)
Whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, salt and vanilla until light yellow and creamy. Add rum and milk. Cover and refrigerate for several hours. Refrigerate the egg whites, as well.
When you are ready to serve your eggnog, whip the heavy cream in one bowl and the egg whites in another bowl. Both should be beaten to stiff peaks form. Then alternate folding in egg whites and whipped cream to the eggnog mixture.
This eggnog is rich, thick and delightfuly creamy. You can use less whipped cream and more milk, it’s a matter of taste. Garnish with nutmeg and cinnamon if desired.
Our men and women in Iraq are coming home as I write, thanks to the Iraqi people. Sorry, President Obama, but even having a token force there looked like an occupation. These people don’t need us; let them take care of their own country. I am glad that our men and women in uniform are coming home, and I would infinitely happier if their compatriots in Afghanistan could come home, too.
We don’t need to be in any more wars; we need to focus our energies on our country and ourselves.
This song by Marvin Gaye was released during the Vietnam War era, about a year before American combat forces finally left South Vietnam, and the POWs were also released. The idea for such a song came to lyricist Forest Hairston, who had seen yellow ribbons being tied to trees in honor of MIAs and POWs outside of their families’, relatives’ and friends’ homes. Marvin, who had been looking for a holiday song, immediately took to Hairston’s efforts, adding his voice and melodies and revising Hairston’s track. Later, Gaye took the tape recording to Hitsville West, Motown’s West Coast studios at the time and produced, arranged and completed the song in one take, it is said, with The Funk Brothers.
Putting it all together for Hairston and Marvin was easier than having the song released. As usual, Berry Gordy balked when it appeared to him that he was going out into left field, eschewing the formula he adhered to. Gordy was nervous about having it released as a song specifically for American troops in Vietnam. He and other execs feared that its sensitive and potentially political nature would turn off fans and customers. However, it did appear on the first of several compilation of holiday songs by other Motown singers and groups, likeChristmas in The City. Some reports claim that it was never released as a single; others believe that it was. Happily for those who feared its impact, the song failed to chart in 1972.
By 1990, some six years after Marvin was killed, R&B radio stations were playing “I Want to Come Home for Christmas,” in a reconsideration of his work, especially after Marvin’s complete song collection was made available. Some critics have labeled it a holiday song “masterpiece.”
I’d give anything to see
a little Christmas tree
And to hear, hear the laugher
of children playing in the snow
To kiss my baby, under the mistletoe.
But I can’t promise my eyes this sight
Unless they stop the fight
Cause I’m a prisoner of war
Lying here in my cell, hoping
my family is well
Wish they wouldn’t worry so much about me
Just try to get us home, in time for the
Christmas tree.
Listen, oh yeah, ooo, I want to see
snowflakes fall
I want to see Santa Claus
Ooo, I want to hear jingle bells ring,
want to hear jingle bells ringing
But I can’t promise my eyes this sight
unless they stop the fight.
Ooo, ooo, ooo . . . If I can’t make it home in time
I know you’ll be keeping my spirit bright
By wearing my name and trying to stop this fight
Ah, but I’d give anything to see you
the family. . .
and that little Christmas tree.
Ooo, I want to see snowflakes fall
I want to see Santa Claus
Oh, I want to hear jingle bells ringing
Yes, I want to hear jingle bells ringing
Ooo, I want to see snowflakes fall
I want to see Santa Claus . . .
(Vocal/Music Fade Out)
Of course, the song is from the point of view of a prisoner of war–a pilot or soldier taken captive by enemy forces. But most soldiers are prisoners of war, whether they are actually imprisoned or not. And particularly with the Iraq War II, soldiers were forced to do not one or two tours of duty but several. Many were/are walking wounded and were ill-equipped. And soldiers may not be wounded physically, but emotionally. Sometimes the simplest thing: of seeing your parents, your siblings, your wives and husbands and children again may be the best holiday present medicine a human being can receive. Life is precious.
So again, I am glad that our people are returning home. Let’s make it possible for them to be healed from this awful experience, and to get the schooling and the jobs and the homes to be productive citizens. And I hope that we think too of those who cannot return.
Some Saturday Love: Prestia, Garibaldi, Pickett, and Tamalier of "Tower of Power" Do "Squib Cakes/What Is Hip?" With… http://t.co/yQ61HXHD9 minutes ago
UW-Madison interim Chancellor David Ward says it's clear the university needs to review its off-campus alcohol guidelines in the wake of an alleged alcohol-fueled, sexual assault scandal that led a top athletic department official to resign earlier this month.
To quote soon-to-be-recalled Republican Gov. Scott Walker at the end of a telephone conversation with a man he thought was the corrupt, right-wing billionaire David Koch: “Thanks a million!”
WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney’s troubles bring to mind a pop-psychology bestseller from a few years ago called “He’s Just Not That Into You.” Romney has endured rejection all year. Even the inadequate Herman Cain and the orange-haired reality star Donald Trump at one time polled better among Republicans than camera-ready Romney.
LONDON (Reuters) - Police arrested four current and former staff of Rupert Murdoch's best-selling Sun tabloid and a policeman on Saturday in a probe into suspected payments by journalists to officers for information, police and the newspaper's publisher said.
GIGLIO, Italy (Reuters) - Salvage crews preparing to pump thousands of tonnes of diesel fuel and oil from the wreck of the Costa Concordia cruise ship off the Italian coast suspended work on Saturday after heavy seas made conditions unsafe, officials said.
At least 12 people were wounded by gunfire -- including a 10-year-old girl -- on the city’s South and West sides since about 8 p.m. Friday night, according to Chicago police.
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Victoria Azarenka became the first Belarusian to win a grand slam singles title when she claimed the Australian Open title with a crushing 6-3 6-0 victory over Russia's Maria Sharapova on Saturday.
Three people were injured after their car rolled over on the ramp from the Kennedy Expressway to Irving Park Road on the Northwest Side, authorities said.
A 32-year-old pedestrian was hit by a car early Saturday morning near the intersection of Grand and Ogden avenues in the West Town neighborhood, according to police.
(Reuters) - The United States and Canadian women's soccer teams booked their spots in this year's London Olympics with semi-final victories at the CONCACAF qualifying tournament on Friday.
The young male, tracked with a GPS unit, is believed to be the first gray wolf in California in decades, raising hopes that the endangered species may once again thrive there.
A look at the clemency applications of felons who were pardoned reveal that many contained personal appeals from friends of Gov. Haley Barbour and major Republican donors.
Twitter’s announcement that it would agree to block certain messages in countries where they were deemed illegal prompted outcry, argument and even calls for a boycott.
The qualities of the bombastic, take-no-prisoners candidate are the same ones opponents cite in concluding that Newt Gingrich is too hot-headed and undisciplined to win the nomination.
The collapse of the prosecution of a Marine for a civilian massacre in Haditha, Iraq, follows a trend by the military of an unwillingness to second-guess fighters in fog-of-war cases.
Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s failure to conduct required gas leak surveys on nearly 14 miles of its distribution system in eastern Contra Costa County - including one Danville neighborhood ignored for two decades -...
State Senate district lines drawn by a citizens' commission must be used in this year's elections, the California Supreme Court ruled Friday in rejecting a Republican group's request to put the new boundaries on hold...
Winter has returned to Muir Woods, a famous redwood forest only 11 miles from the Golden Gate. The first rains of the new year produced new life in Redwood Creek, which flows through the woods. Even a handful of...
Twitter Inc. has played a central communications role in protests from Egypt to Wall Street, but the microblogging service became the target of an uprising this week after announcing a new way to censor individual...
San Ramon-based Chevron's fourth-quarter earnings fell amid losses for its refinery and retail operations, although for the full year of 2011, the energy giant said Friday that it posted record profit.
The state Supreme Court ruled Friday that Senate districts drawn by a citizens' panel must be used this year, even if the Republican Party's referendum to overturn the panel's maps gets enough signatures to reach the November ballot.
After losing every game last year, Independence High in East San Jose is undefeated in pink shoes; Nobody yells “sissies!” when they take the floor and opposing players actually think the shoes are cool.
The Rev. Toris Young has a history of fraud -- he was on parole for a 2006 fraud conviction when he pleaded guilty last year to new bank fraud and identity theft charges. But this week, he pleaded guilty to...
Rev. Jessie Williams, Jr., passed away on Sunday, January 22, 2012 at the age of 85. He was born in Burnside, LA. Rev. Jessie Williams Jr. He was baptized and ordained by the late Rev. E.J. Thompson at St. Mark's...
The US defence secretary says he is concerned about a Pakistani doctor arrested for providing intelligence for the US raid that killed Osama Bin Laden.
The United States has taken over the leadership of the troubled blood diamonds monitor, known as the Kimberley Process, in a move seen as the last chance to restore the credibility of the body set up to prevent the sale of gems linked to conflict and human rights abuses.
Stephen Slevin was driving along a rural highway in southern New Mexico in August 2005 when traffic police pulled him over and arrested him on suspicion of drink-driving, along with a string of other motoring offences.
Scrambling to capture next Tuesday's Florida primary and regain his momentum in the Republican nomination race, Mitt Romney fiercely courted the state's crucial Latino community yesterday while at the same time accusing Newt Gingrich, his main rival, of misrepresenting his position on immigration.
Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, learned to his cost last night that he is not alone among Republicans vying for the presidential nomination able to conjure righteous indignation when it matters. Mitt Romney showed a debate audience here that he has quite the talent for it too.
Allen Stanford's mother says she will not stop fighting to prove her son's prison beating left him too damaged to defend himself against fraud charges.
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