Wendy Jane's Soul Shake

All I’m going to say about this artistic video and get-up-to-get-down song by Janelle Monae and Erykah Badu, is just what these two fab ladies croon:  …the booty don’t lie…

Enjoy!

I love discovering tunes from my friends–this one from my lovely Brit pal, Karina, who remembers dancing to this in her living room in Birmingham way back in 1978.  The singers, Althea and Donna, were just teenagers when this song hit #1 on the charts.

nah pop no style

I strictly roots…

SOURCE:  www.youtube.com

Many of us have been fixated the past two days by hero Charles Ramsey, the man who rescued Amber Barry, her daughter, and two other young women that had been kidnapped a decade ago, and who were being held against their will next door to Ramsey.

We’ve been humbled by Ramsey’s down-to-earth goodness, his eagerness to do the right thing, and his response to whether he’d accept the reward for finding Barry.  “Give the money to them, I have a job and a paycheck. “  Ramsey even pulled his paycheck from his back pocket to show Anderson Cooper of CNN during  an interview recapping the rescue.

We’ve laughed, too.  We laughed at Ramsey, calling Anderson, “bro,”  at his calling the 911 operators morons, and his telling-it-like-it is delivery of how the rescue happened.  On Facebook, all kinds of video clips, including an auto-tune remix version of a Ramsey interview are being put up.  And all kinds of commentary on him are being shared there as well.

Some of us are laughing with him, and yet, some on Facebook are afraid we are laughing at him, mocking him for his flamboyant oration of how this major news event unfolded.  A few friends on FB who are black are stating that they’re disappointed in some of the chatter from the black community that says Ramsey is “taking black people down a notch or two, making blacks look bad,” with his over-the-top recaps.  I’m glad my friend Warren spoke up on his Facebook post about Ramsey’s heroism, his everyday genuineness that’s hard to come by these days.  He felt like people were acting much like the time folks from the black community were ranking on Gabby Douglas’s hair after she won her gold medals at the Olympics.

One thing Warren, who is also a writer, and I agreed on, was that Ramsey is a great storyteller.  I just got back from attending a Writers’ Conference in Boston this weekend, and in one of the workshops the teacher spoke about bringing place and people alive on the page through writing.  He used a Tolstoy story as an example on how details can reveal a person’s character, and evoke a sense of place.

All I could think of when I listened to Ramsey describe, detail by detail, his rescue efforts, is that this guy is like a good writer.  He is a keen observer of detail, and so when he tells us about the mailman putting Ariel Castro’s (the kidnapper’s) mail in Ramsey’s mailbox by mistake, and how after returning the mail to his neighbor he jumped on his bike to McDonald’s, then afterward while sitting in his front room looking out the window hearing a woman’s scream that sounded like a car had hit her kid, and how he went outside with his half-eaten Big Mac, and saw a woman motioning to him from next door, and how he had to fight to get the door to his neighbor’s house off because Ariel had it all torture-chambered up, and when he tells us his neighbor was someone he “ate ribs with and listened to salsa music,” with, and he describes Amanda’s dress:  white tank top, hair up in pony tail, nice tennis shoes, mascara, and that she didn’t look like someone who was kidnapped, I was right there with him.  I could see his Cleveland neighborhood, the easiness of how his day started on his front porch, and the tension that built-up and exploded all around him during the courageous rescue and subsequent 911 call.

For me one of the deepest things Ramsey said was, “I ate ribs with him…”  It’s like he was signifying the ribs as breaking bread with your neighbor, like that’s how close they were–they ate ribs together.  I would be honored to get to meet Ramsey, to me a humble hero, and most engaging storyteller.  Like I said to Warren on his FB post, “I’m a vegetarian, but I’d eat ribs all day long with Charles Ramsey.”

SOURCE:

www.youtube.com  CNN Interview Anderson Cooper with Charles Ramsey

Who doesn’t remember those two cute little tweens, Chris Kelly and Chris Smith, or “Mac Daddy” and “Daddy Mac” of the rap duo Kriss Kross? They were all the rage when their hit Jump came out in 1992.  These young Atlanta, Georgia natives also introduced to the world their own trademark style of wearing their jeans and shirts backwards.  It’s said that Chris Kelly never stopped wearing his pants backwards, it was just a way of life for him up until his untimely death this week at age 34.

Strangely, I had included a line about Kriss Kross in my April 19, 2013 Facebook Poem of the Day (poems I create using others’ Status Update posts).  Here’s the poem.

4/19/2013

the world is a vast and diverse place

restless. ready for a road trip

Brooklyn bound! surrounded

by Waterbury’s finest

life is a donut. take a bite.

I want the gold one!

wow…maybe I do need

to write a book

I’m not that big on material stuff

I think I prefer a snowstorm

kriss kross will make you…

so nice,posted twice

kriss kross will make you…

ahhhhh…that’s the Facebook I

know and love

Poem Contributors: Lisa C, Deb K., Amie, Jay, John J, Heather P, Warren (2x), Nancy S (representing Boston), David H, Les, And Chachi

And, now, in honor of Chris Kelly and Kriss Kross, put your pants on backwards and…JUMP!

listen to this:

now, watch this:

now, comment below.

thank you.

Source:

www.youtube.com, Brad Paisley featuring LL Cool J, Accidental Racist

www.upworthy.com, http://www.upworthy.com/stephen-colbert-wins-late-night-television-with-his-hilarious-critique-of-brad-paisleys-racist-song-5?g=2&c=upw1, posted by Rebecca Eisenberg

I don’t know about the fellas but according to the ladies on Facebook, 9 out of 10 women, white and black,  give Justin Timberlake’s new album their seal of approval.

Just bought the CD and the first song, Pusher Love Girl, makes me understand why my friend Tanisha didn’t want to leave her car while listening to the baddest white boy in R n’B (according to one Youtuber).

Enjoy…

Bunche Beach

I know what you’re thinking, but I didn’t end up paddle boarding on a former segregated Florida beach intentionally just so I could write this blog post.  It was a coincidence.  What happened was… [Read more...]

Seventeen and underage, I remember being in this club Farmer’s in my hometown of Waterbury, Connecticut.  At Farmer’s my girlfriend and I were in the minority, just like black guys and girls were in the minority, definitely not always by choice (read: selective doorman policy), when they frequented my disco haunt, Nite Life.

Inside Farmer’s that night, was a black undercover detective, I think that’s what he was, that, or a policeman.  He frequented Nite Life, so I knew him, and had chatted with him a few times.

He told my friend and I that we shouldn’t be there.  That it was dangerous for us to be there.  I didn’t pay much attention to him.  Sure, I had heard stories from friends, black and white, that perhaps less than desirable people hung out at Farmers–that there were drug dealers, and I don’t know what else, but when you are young, you’re invincible, and don’t want to listen to hearsay or some middle-aged man talk to you about supposed danger.  A few black friends and acquaintances of mine from high school were there.  And, like everyone else packed inside the spare space, I just wanted to dance and have a good time.

Then, Parliament Funkadelic’s One Nation Under A Groove came on, and I made my way out to the dance floor.  It seemed the anthem wouldn’t ever end. As danger dissolved under funketeer angel wings, I wished it never would.

Today we go from last week’s Passover post of “Let My People Go,” to my bad mash-up of an Eggo commercial slogan.

My friend Peet, comic strip artist, (check out his Hey Mailman series here) posted this super cool animated  LEGO piece of Michael Jackson dancing.  The video was created by Annette Jung and originally posted on vimeo.

Lego Dance by Annette Jung from Talking Animals on Vimeo.

And if that is not enough MJ for you, my friend Susan sent me a link to this New Yorker article that lightly probes on the psychological matters that may have led Michael to become who he eventually ended up becoming, while speaking about a recent biography on Michael: “Untouchable: The Strange Life and Tragic Death of Michael Jackson,” by Randall Sullivan.

Though I think I heard the book does not give much new insight into Michael’s life, and that the biographer didn’t talk to too many people close to Michael, I still would like to read it  because I’m always interested in how the media portrays Michael.  And, as you know, I have a passion for him as the entertainment icon that he was, and am saddened for myself, and for all of those that admired this great talent, for his loss–his actual loss of life, and the life he was losing while still alive.  Wow, deep. I should have written this biography.

___________

SOURCES:

http://vimeo.com/60169112 , Annette Jung, MJ LEGO

www.newyorker.com, The New Yorker, The Pale King, Michael Jacksons Ambiguous Legacy, by Bill Wyman, December 24, 2012

I found this song on Holy Soul’s tumbr post.  It’s from guitarist, Shuggie Otis’s 1974 album of the same title, Inspiration Information.

And doing my go-to search on Wikipedia, I learned that Shuggie is the son of rhythm and blues pioneer and bandleader, Johnny Otis.  I also learned that Shuggie wrote one of my favorite 70′s tunes, Strawberry Letter 23, that became a hit when the Brothers Johnson recorded it after hearing it on Shuggie’s album.

A reclusive soul, after this album’s success, Shuggie refused a few offers–one, to work on an album with Quincy Jones, and another to tour with Billy Preston.  This, coupled with his slowness in putting out another album at this time, caused Epic Records to drop Shuggie from his contract.

He seems to have fallen off the professional radar for some time after that, but did re-establish a cult following of his Inspiration Information album in the 1990′s, due to the emergence of acid jazz.  Prince and Lenny Kravatz were big fans, and David Byrne re-released the album in 2001.

I was glad to read that Shuggie and Sony Music will be releasing a double-CD on April 20, 2013.  It will be Inspiration Information, some live performances, and previously unreleased material.  I look forward to having a good listen, and getting to know this artist’s work.

Enjoy!

SOURCES:

www.wikipedia.org

www.youtube.com – Legacy Recordings VEVO

holysoul.tumblr.com

www.shuggieotismusic.com