We will miss you

Television writer and blogger David Mills, who was known around the blog world as Undercover Black Man, died yesterday in New Orleans. David was 48.

Read more here

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta

The thing about Lady Gaga, real name Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, is that she is a great singer. I'm not sure if most people know that since she is known for her outrageous costumes. I'd really like to see Gaga can the over-the-top attire and showcase her singing. But her gimmick is working so I doubt she'll drop it. Check Stefani out below before she was Lady Gaga.

What happened after the quake

A while back during the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti I made a comment, on CactusRose's blog I think, hoping that at some point the PBS show Frontline would do a report on why it took so long for aid to get to the people of Haiti. Well my wish has been answered. Airing tonight, on most PBS stations, Frontline looks at that very issue. It airs at 9pm here but check your local listings for the time in your area.

Brittney advances to Final Four

She's 6-8 , a freshman playing for Baylor and she can dunk. Her team beat Duke last night 51-48 to advance to the NCAA Women's Final Four. Her name is Brittney Griner and Brittney had 15 points, 11 rebounds and 9 blocked shots last night against Duke.

It looks like Brittney and the Baylor University women are going to play the undefeated UConn women on Sunday night. That is likely going to be the best game of the entire NCAA tournament, men's tournament included.

Go Brittney!

Police out of control

A guy robbed a bank, in Florida, then after running away from the bank he approached a car that was waiting in line at a Wendy's drive-thru and car jacked the car. In the car was a mother and her two kids. Police then located the car and fired 42 shots at the car killing the robbery suspect and critically wounding one of the kids in the car, a two year old boy. The mother was also wounded.

Does anyone think the police acted in a reckless manner? And if you think they did do you think any of the police will ever be charged with a crime?

If history is a guide the police officers involved might get a slap on the wrist, you know the routine, desk duty for a few weeks and them back to work. There really needs to be Federal oversight of police in this country.

Happy Birthday Mariah!

Mariah is 40 today

I don't know what to say about Mariah. She spent the first part of her career distancing herself from being a Black artist. Then when things got a little rough she 'came home'.

She's dabbled in acting, sometimes with good results and sometimes bad. Although, speaking of bad, I think it's time we forgive her for Glitter. After all she was going through a nervous breakdown at the time. And lately she's given some decent acting performances.

Anyway, Mariah really set herself up well though with her first hit Vision of Love. I'm not sure that she will ever top that. It is a classic as far as I'm concerned. Happy birthday Mariah.

Flashback Friday: Sly and The Family Stone

Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)

If You Want Me To Stay

Failed Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's desperate cry for attention

No one is really talking about Sarah Palin these days. Sarah Palin jokes don't count. So in an effort to get her name in the news she decided to Tweet her Tea Bagger followers and incite them to shoot politicians. She tweeted "Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!". Of course she was referring to the passage of the Health-Care Bill and that Tea Baggers consider that a loss for them.

The Tea Baggers were then directed to go to Palin's Facebook page where they saw a graphic containing cross-hairs placed over the districts of Democratic congresspersons.

Some people find what Sarah did to be disturbing in that she seems to be inciting violence. And I agree she does seem to be calling for violence against those politicians that supported the Health-Care Reform Bill.

But I'm thinking that most Tea Bagger don't even know how to get online much less find a Tweet or a Facebook page. So maybe Sarah needs to find other ways of communicating with her idiot Tea Bagger followers, like buying time to run commercials on re-runs of Hee Haw.

March is Women's History Month: Dorothy Dandridge

Dorothy in Carmen Jones (1954)

Dorothy in Cow Cow Boogie (1942)

Dorothy, The Nicholas Brothers, The Glenn Miller Orchestra in Chattanooga Choo Choo

Read about Dorothy here

Favorite?

A friend asked me what my favorite food is. My answer was that I don't have a favorite food. There are foods that I like a lot like lobster, White Castle's hamburgers, real New York pizza, Haagen Dazs Rum Raisin ice cream and a few other things but none that would qualify as my favorite food.

My friend seemed to think it odd that I don't have a favorite food. Is it? Do you have a favorite food?

We're waiting....

A while back crazy racist Tea Bagger (is 'racist Tea Bagger' redundant?), drug addict and radio host Rush Limbaugh said that if the Health-Care Reform Bill passed he'd leave the country. He mentioned Costa Rica as a possible destination. Although I guess he didn't do his research on Costa Rica since they have Universal Health-Care there.

So Rush, when are you leaving?

The Tea Baggers show their true colors (again)

So the Tea Baggers claim that they are protesting because the government in Washington has gotten out of hand. They say that Washington has forgotten about the Constitution. They say they are against the wasteful spending.

But yesterday they showed what they are really against. While (supposedly) protesting the health-care reform Bill they called Rep. John Lewis, who is African American, the N word. They also called Rep. Barney Frank, who is gay, the F word. They spat on Representative Emanaul Cleaver, who is African American.

So it seems that what Sarah Palin's Tea Baggers are really against are African Americans and gays.

Many have tried to portray the Tea Baggers as a new political movement when really Tea Baggers are just a bunch of angry old racists.

We Are The World amateur edition

A woman, Lisa Lavie, saw a bunch of people who posted videos of themselves singing on Youtube and contacted them asking if they would sing part of We Are The World and send the clips back to her. They did and she edited them together. This is the video and I think it's better than the recent We Are The World that the celebs did recently for Haiti.

Flashback Friday: Arrested Development

Tennessee

Mr. Wendal

NCAA March Madness

I'm not really into college basketball, anymore. I used to be really into women's college basketball but since I don't have cable I can't see any of the games. While the men can be seen on any given Saturday from February until March, and the men's tournament is on CBS for two straight weeks, women's regular season games and the NCAA tournament have been relegated to the boondocks of cable TV that is ESPN2.

I hear male sports journalists put down women's basketball all the time. They talk about how unpopular it is. But is it any wonder that it's unpopular when it is basically invisible on TV. Even the newspaper sports pages only give it cursory coverage. ESPN2 and ABC are owned by the same company, Disney, so why doesn't Disney put the woman's tournament on ABC? ABC sucks as it is so the ratings can only be helped right.

Anyway, I know that UConn is the favorite this year, and rightfully so, but I'm pulling for Rutgers and Temple. If they make it to the finals then I will get to see them play since at least they show the women's final game on CBS.

Happy Birthday Vanessa!

Vanessa is 47 today

From her 1988 debut album

Original Laptops

Noisettes - Never Forget You

The Good Wife is good TV

Michael Boatman

If you want to check out a really good television drama with a relatively diverse cast then watch the CBS drama The Good Wife. The show stars ER's Julianna Margulies. The cast also includes Joe Morton, Michael Boatman and Archie Panjabi who plays Kalinda Sharma who I think is the most interesting character on the show.

Archie Panjabi

The Good Wife airs at 10:00pm tonight on CBS. If you check it out let me know what you think.

March is Women's History Month: Tammi Terrell

Tammi Terrell (April 29, 1945 – March 16, 1970) was a Grammy Award-nominated American soul singer, most notable for her association with Motown and her duets with Marvin Gaye.

Born Thomasina Winifred Montgomery in Philadelphia, she entered the music business at the age of 13, regularly performing live. In 1961, she was signed to the fledgling Scepter Records (later Wand Records), recording under the name "Tammy Montgomery".

After coming to the attention of James Brown, she recorded one single apiece for Brown's own Try Me record label and, in 1964, Checker Records. The year after that, she was spotted by Berry Gordy while playing live, and signed to his Motown label.

Initially Terrell recorded solo, with only moderate success (she had a pair of R&B Top 30 singles in 1966, "I Can't Believe You Love Me" and "Come on and See Me").

From 1967 onwards she recorded a series of duets with Marvin Gaye, producing hits with Ashford & Simpson written tunes such as "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" and "You're All I Need to Get By".

However, Terrell's success was to be short-lived. On October 14, 1967, while in concert at the homecoming for the Hampton Institute, Hampton, Virginia. she collapsed on stage (Ogden Hall) in Gaye's arms. She was rushed to the hospital, and she was later diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. From then on her health deteriorated.


Gaye and Terrell's first duets album, United, contained two tracks which featured Gaye's vocals overdubbed onto previously recorded Terrell solo songs. The second, You're All I Need, relied upon the use of overdubs to complete the album, as Terrell had fallen ill; six of its 12 tracks were Terrell solo recordings overdubbed by Gaye to create duet tracks.

Gaye later told his biographer David Ritz that Terrell was no longer able to record and that Valerie Simpson recorded most of the female vocals on the final Gaye/Terrell duet album, Easy. (Simpson and her husband, Nickolas Ashford, are quoted as denying this in a book written by Terrell's sister Ludie Montgomery.)

Terrell died from a brain tumor at the age of 24. Marvin Gaye reacted to her death by taking a four year hiatus from concert performance and went into self-isolation. In addition, Gaye's classic album What's Going On, an introspective, low-key work which dealt with mature themes released in 1971, was in part a reaction to Terrell's death.

Read more about Tammi here and here

Content from Wikipedia

Health-Care Redux

If Obama and the Democrats can't pass the Health-Care Reform Bills this week then both the Party and the President are in serious, serious trouble. And so are all of the uninsured people in this country.

Lolo tops the world, again!

Track star Lolo Jones defended her Track and Field indoor 60 meter hurdles World Championship crown by winning this years championship in Doha, Qatar yesterday.

Lolo also set an American and indoor championship record running the race in 7.72 seconds (the third best time in history). Lolo is the first woman ever to win the World Championship in this event in successive years.

It looks like Lolo's 2010 season is off to a great start.

Congrats Lolo!

Flashback Friday: The 80's British R&B invasion

Marion is back

Former world class sprinter Marion Jones is returning to the sports world after serving time for lying about using performance enhancing drugs to the feds. Reports say she has signed to play with the WNBA's Tulsa Shock this coming season. When did the Shock leave Detroit? Anyway she, according to reports, will make $35,000 to play.


As someone who loves track & even field I used to be a big Marion Jones fan. But I knew a long time before her eventual downfall that there was something seriously wrong in Marionville when she married former shot putter C.J. Hunter. And I was right because not soon after that C.J. was busted for using performance enhancing drugs. Things didn't go much better when she dated former sprinter Tim Montgomery. He also was investigated for using performance enhancing drugs and later jailed for check fraud and dealing heroin.

So when Marion finally fessed up I wasn't that surprised.


Anyway, I believe in second chances. So I'm hoping Marion has a lot of success playing in the WNBA. She was one of the best basketball players in the nation during her college days at North Carolina. She's 34 so she could have five or six years in the WNBA. I wish her luck.

American Idol where is the diversity?

I first watched American Idol several years ago during its first few seasons. During those years the show was incredibly diverse. There where Black people, Boricuas, Asians, Mexican Americans, people of Middle Eastern decent, Hawaiians, people of mixed ancestry and more. it was great. American Idol was the most diverse show on network TV.

Fast forward to last night. The ladies were performing and out of eight women there was one Woman of Color. A Black girl who I think is about 16 or 17 years old. The rest of the women were White.

Last night's contestants

I don't know the ethnic make-up of the men since last night's show was the first I watched for more than 5 minutes. But I just have to wonder after auditioning thousands of women from all over the country how it is they could only find one Woman of Color to make it this far? Or is this some sort of intentional thing done to get a ratings boost? Did they do some sort of focus group thing and found that people had a problem with so much diversity?


What ever the case I am really disappointed that a show that was so wonderfully diverse now looks like almost every other show on network TV.

March is Women's History Month: Charlayne Hunter-Gault

Award-winning journalist, author and school desegregation pioneer Charlayne Hunter-Gault was born on February 27, 1942 in Due West, South Carolina to Charles and Althea Hunter.

Because her father, a chaplain in the United States Army, was often re-assigned, Hunter-Gault and her siblings attended schools in California, Indiana, Ohio, Georgia and Alaska.

Hunter-Gault graduated third in her class from Atlanta's Henry McNeal Turner High School in 1960.

Backed by a group of black businessmen and accompanied by fellow student Hamilton Holmes, Hunter-Gault applied for admission to the segregated University of Georgia. Initially denied admittance, she enrolled at Wayne State University in Detroit, but Constance Baker Motley of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and a group of Atlanta lawyers won her admittance to the University of Georgia in January of 1961. Hunter-Gault transcended the expected racial hostility, served a summer internship with the Louisville Times and graduated with a B.A. degree in journalism in 1963.

Charlayne in the University of Georgia yearbook (third row from top, second from left)

That same year, Hunter-Gault accepted a job as an editorial assistant with the New Yorker magazine. She won a Russell Sage Fellowship for a year and then served as a reporter and evening anchor for WRC-TV in Washington, D.C.

She returned to print journalism by accepting a post with the New York Times in 1968, establishing the newspaper's Harlem bureau. In 1978, Hunter-Gault joined PBS's McNeil-Lehrer Newshour where she served as national correspondent and filled in as an anchor. She joined NPR in 1997 as chief correspondent in Africa. In 1999, Hunter-Gault became the Johannesburg, South Africa bureau chief for CNN.


Hunter-Gault has received numerous awards for journalism including two National News and Documentary Emmy Awards and two George Foster Peabody Awards. She has been recognized by the National Urban Coalition and the American Women in Radio and Television.

Named Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists, Hunter-Gault has written articles for Essence, Ms., Life and Saturday Review.

Her courage as a pioneer integrationist has been chronicled by Calvin Trillen and recognized by the University of Georgia, where a hall is named for her and fellow student Hamilton Holmes.

Her autobiography, In My Place, was published in 1992. Hunter-Gault's exploration of modern Africa, entitled New News out of Africa: Uncovering Africa's Renaissance, was published in 2006.

Hunter-Gault is the mother of a grown son and daughter and currently lives in South Africa with her husband, banker Ron Gault.


Content: HistoryMakers

What's next for Gabby?

Imagine you are a college student and a rookie actress. You go for a role in an independent film. You get that role and you are then nominated for an Academy Award. Wow, right. Well all of this has happened to actress Gabourey Sidibe. Unfortunately Gabby didn't win the Oscar for Best Actress for her role in Precious.

But then you might wonder, what next? Considering Gabourey's obese figure what kind of roles can she expect to be offered?

Let's face it there is already a shortage of good roles for Black actresses. And leading roles are even harder to come by. And good leading roles even harder. So where does that leave Gabourey? Will we even ever see her again in anything like a leading role? Or will she be a one hit wonder and disappear from film work all together?

Though it's impossible to say what if anything will come next for Gabourey I really can't imagine that we'll be hearing a lot from her in the future. Can you?

Alicia Keys on Oprah yesterday

Alicia Keys performed on Oprah yesterday and I think it was one of her best TV performances. Check it out.

Flashback Friday: Change

March is Women's History Month: Carmen De Lavallade

Dance luminary Carmen De Lavallade was born on March 6, 1931, to Creole parents in New Orleans, Louisiana. De Lavallade was raised in Los Angeles, California by her aunt, Adele, who has the distinction of owning, the Hugh Gordon Book Shop, one of the first African American history bookshops on Central Avenue.

Her cousin, Janet Collins, was the first African American prima ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. De Lavallade discovered her talent for dance early. In 1945, she began studying ballet with Melissa Blake, and at the age of sixteen, upon graduation from Thomas Jefferson High School, she was awarded a scholarship to study dance with the renowned Lester Horton.

In 1949, De Lavallade became a member of the celebrated Lester Horton Dance Theater, where from 1950 to 1954, she enjoyed the status of lead dancer. During this time, De Lavallade continued to study dance and to become proficient in ballet and other forms of modern and ethnic dance. Lester Horton insisted that she study other art forms including painting, acting, music, set design and costuming. De Lavallade began studying ballet privately with Italian ballerina Carmelita Maracci and later acting with Stella Adler.

In 1954, De Lavallade made her Broadway debut in House of Flowers, and that same year, Alvin Ailey, the founder of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center School, moved to New York City to partner with her in that production.


During that engagement in 1955, De Lavallade met and married dancer and actor Geoffrey Holder. With Holder, she completed her signature solo, Come Sunday, to which he suggested choreographing to a black spiritual, sung by Odetta Gordon.

In 1956, De Lavallade danced as the prima ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera performances of Samson and Delilah, and Aida. Also in 1956, she made her television debut in John Butler's ballet Flight, and in 1957, she appeared in the television production of Duke Ellington's A Drum is a Woman.

In pursuit of also an acting career, Lena Horne introduced her to the executives at Twentieth Century Fox, and between 1952 and 1955, she appeared in several films including Carmen Jones with Dorothy Dandridge. In 1959, she starred in Odds Against Tomorrow with Harry Belafonte. De Lavallade also appeared in several off-Broadway productions, including Othello and Death of a Salesman.


By the early 1960s, De Lavallade was a principal guest performer with Alvin Ailey's Dance Company and on the company's first European tour in 1962, the billing was De Lavallade-Ailey American Dance Company.

In 1964, she danced with Donald McKayle and in 1965 appeared in Agnes deMille's American Ballet Theater productions of The Four Marys and The Frail Quarry.

In 1970, De Lavallade joined the prestigious Yale School of Drama as a choreographer and performer-in-residence. She staged musicals, plays and operas, and later became a professor and member of the Yale Repertory Theater. Between 1990 and 1993, De Lavallade returned to the Metropolitan Opera as choreographer for Porgy and Bess and Die Meistersinger.

De Lavallade resides in New York City with her husband, Geoffrey Holder.

Find out more about Carmen and her husband in the film Carmen and Geoffrey which is available on dvd. I've seen it and it's really interesting.

Content from The HistoryMakers

The wild blue yonder

So have you heard about the air traffic controller at New York's Kennedy airport that brought his kid to work? Well this ATC employee didn't just bring his son to work he let him do a little work. Apparently the kid was on the radio communicating with pilots and giving them directions such as they were clear for take-off.

On the recording of the incident that I heard none of the pilots questioned why a kid was giving them instructions. They seem to take it in stride which tells me that maybe this isn't the first time an unauthorized person has been in the control tower working flights.

So what if some terrorist hacked into the ATC communications system? Would the pilots not question them and just take direction then too?

A film to see: Skin

I saw the film Skin starring Sophie Okonedo recently and was pleasantly surprised to see a film that takes a very different angle on race. The film is about a girl who appears Black but was born to White parents. The story follows the family's efforts to have their daughter classified as White by the government and the difficulty that brings to her in life. This takes place in South Africa and is based on a true story.

This film is a must see for many reasons. The acting is understated and the story is not formulaic as you might expect. Skin was in limited release this past fall so you may be able to see it on dvd by now.

Ebony covers Sade

On newsstands March 9th

Two4er Tuesday: Blu Cantrell vs. Carolina Chocolate Drops

Blu Cantrell - Hit 'Em Up Style (the original)

Carolina Chocolate Drops - Hit 'Em Up Style (the cover)

Then and Now: Shari Headley

Remember Shari Headley from the movie Coming To America (1988) starring Eddie Murphy? Well here she is in a photo taken back then, below, and on the bottom is a photo taken of Shari, age 45, this past weekend. She still looks amazing!