ABC made the mistake of giving Richard Pryor his own show in 1977. The Richard Pryor show lasted four episodes before they figured out that America wasn't ready for what Mr. Pryor had to say.
Pryor is inherently funky, but this clip is interesting because it features his take on what a Black "Death Metal" band might sound like. But as someone in the youtube comments section pointed out, this ain't no Death Metal--it's way too funky. The jam is funky, but what you really want to see is the ending where Pryor shows us why the band is called Black Death. Interesting, especially when you think of the tenuous relationship he had with his White audience (think: Chappelle.) And look close, you might see Sandra Bernhardt acting a fool.
Sadly, Eartha Kitt just passed. I remember her playing Catwoman on Batman back in the day. She growled and purred and clawed and even looked like a cat. Although she fit right in with the campiness of the show, it was clear that she owned that role long before she ever put on the costume.
Unfortunately, I didn't know much more about her than when she starred with Eddie Murphy as his oversexed boss in Boomerang.
"Maaaaaaaaaaaaarcus." I can still hear that voice in my nightmares.
But last year my wife bought Rhino Records' Hipster' Holiday record (which is an awesome album--especially considering the fact that I can't stand most holiday music) that features Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby."
I loved the song (people who heard it already are like "uh duh") and it made me appreciate how talented Ms. Kitt was. I've heard a couple other people sing it, but it's the same thing as Catwoman: she owns that performance.
Her voice and demeanor are similar to Nina Simone, except more playful, less angry(!) and melancholy. But they both could mesmerize an audience with an almost otherworldly presence.
I don't know if y'all have seen the J'Adore commercial with Charlize Theron, but it's one of the funkiest I've seen in a while, and not just because ole' girl strips down to her draws (!). Playing in the background is one of my favorite songs, "A Funky Space Reincarnation," from one of my favorite albums of all time, Marvin Gaye'sHere My Dear.
Here My Dear is one of those albums you got to know just because the story behind it is so good. Marvin was married to Anna Gordy, sister of Motown founder Berry Gordy. They got married when Marvin was young, although Anna was seventeen (!) years his senior. Things were okay for awhile, but in the late seventies, after years of drug abuse and infidelity, Anna called it quits and asked for a divorce. When it came time to divide up the assets, it turned out that Marvin owed a bunch of back taxes and he was effectively broke. So the judge decreed that Marvin would make an album and give part of the proceeds to Anna (why does that sound like a dumb Seinfeld episode?).
Marvin said at first that he was going to be spiteful and put together some trash, but his genius (and probably pride) wouldn't allow it. He put together one of the funkiest, most personal recordings you'd ever be blessed to hear: Here My Dear.
It's nothing like What's Going On, with it's clarity of purpose and beauty. It ain't smooth babymakinmusic like I Want You or Let's Get It On. No, this is a unique picture into the soul of a man tormented by his own pain, need, and immaturity.
Besides the three versions of "When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You," the title track is followed by a song titled, "I Met A Little Girl," which is for real cold because it's all about the seventeen year old girl, Janis Hunter, who he later ended up marrying. But besides all of the emotional rawness of the album, there are some cuts on there, like "Time to Get It Together," and "Anger," that are worth listening to just because they are funky and brilliant.
And I'm not sure what Marvin was smoking at the time, but on "A Funky Space Reincarnation" he entices a paramour by telling her to try some smoke he got from Venus and how magnets will help his "love rise." It's about the strangest song you'll ever hear on a Motown label--and one of the funkiest. Peep:
1. My internet, that I was technically (actually) not paying for, got disconnected.
2. I got about the worse cough I ever had in my life.
3. People's children keep showing up at my job, wanting to be taught things.
4. I've been saving up money to buy that brand new senate seat I saw on eBay.
So, if you're wondering what Al-Palin is up to these days, check out this news clip. And is that a turkey being slaughtered the background? You betcha! Not for the squeamish.
Uh hello, infidels, remember us? Axis of Evil? The ones with the totally awesome videos?
If you missed it, your President-elect, Barack Obama, just got called an "abeed al-beit" by Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri. That means house slave, if you're wondering. Now, before we call Al Sharpton and start the cave sit-in (by the way Al's got his own problems), we have to take a second to absorb the significance of this moment.
The President of the United States just got called a house slave.
Wow.
That
is
freaking
amazing.
See, Whitefolks, that's what happens when you elect a Black man to be President. Before you know it, the leader of the free world is calling himself a mutt, Italians are joking that he's got a suntan, and terrorists are laughing behind your back. Welcome to the family!
And far be it for me to make light of the threat of Al-Qaeda, but I've been more concerned by the threat of Al-Palin.
Please take that away.
Plus, you know Obama can't take this personal. Until he won there was still a lot of Black folks saying that he wasn't really Black.
C'mon now, you know I was just playing.
And Al-Qaeda is just trying to make sense of this paradigm shift that Obama has brought into the world. The conflict with the West has been framed as being about race and religion, but now the enemy is a Black man with a Muslim father. That confuses things. The house Negro thing is a pretty sophisticated play--especially eluding to Malcolm X--but ultimately nobody's going for it. We know house Negroes:
Yes.
Yup.
Check.
Misathink yes.
I know, I know. But: yes.
Obama ain't one of these cats. This week Neobama ran a background check on a former President, hired a Black man to head the Justice Department, and made John McCain beg for a job. That's field Negro behavior.
You mad, ain't you? For real. Just admit it. You maaaaaaaaad.
I read this article in Slate today that talked about Obama and how his new website is going to be like a kind of Facebook for citizens. It will have public comment feature that will allow people to write in and express their opinions. He has promised that he won't sign any non-emergency piece of legislation before he listens for four days on the website. That may or may not be a mistake, but it shows how Obama's work as a community organizer has helped his approach towards dealing with the public.
Bush and those guys could paralyze the nation, but they didn't know how to call people to constructive action. One of the things that people love about Obama is how just his presence makes them want to do something.
It's like we're all tenants in the building and the old super was an incompetent crook and the new old super looks like he might be an incompetent crook. Obama comes in and organizes a renter's strike around the table of a thickly bespectacled grandmother. We all pool our money and buy the building back. And at the end we all get together and have a barbecue? You know that story? Well, that was the election. Now we're entering the second part of that story. Now Barack is our new super and Ms. Coleman's shower head is broken and Mr. Johnson still doesn't have heat in his living room and everyone knows that Mrs. Banks' son is selling marijuana out of her apartment without her knowing. And where is that new Super!
We're not there yet, but I can feel it coming. Perhaps Obama has banked on that too. He knows that the traditional methods of disemminating information, particularly the cable news, have a tendency towards sensationalism and know much better how to titilate and frighten, than how to inform.
Mr. O knows that even though the press has celebrated his election, the press is still the press. They're not eating if they're not feasting on someone else's carcass. (I know because I used to be a(n) (in)credible journalist, by the way.) Besides, the media is going to want some kind of pay back for all the favorable attention. They're going to want to see something happen. Preferably, something dramatic and something that will get the tenants riled up again.
During the campaign, Obama effectively used his technology networks to get around the drama construction and to help people feel involved. If he does the same with the new government site, it will allow citizens to give their support and to have a new type of relationship with the White House. Maybe people would start getting the crazy idea that the White House is our house, not some politician's.
But I wonder how much of this project will be real and how much of it will be perception management. This network will be important in advocating for his agenda, but another important reason for this kind of network to lay the financial and logistical groundwork for (aghast!) the next campaign. (Haven't you heard that it has already begun?)
Personally, I'm glad Barack was able to win the way he did, but it's hard for me to get excited about all of the money that he raised. If he could do it, someone else could also do it. Someone else with a great deal less character could be extremely dangerous. I always wonder about Biggie's words: Mo' money, mo' problems.
And although I appreciate his caution with the press, the thing with him announcing his VP by text message signaled that he didn't feel the need to talk to the news media. Like he was cutting the press out and taking his message right to the "consumer." That sounds like a smart business model, but not necessarily democracy. Democracy can't exist without a free press to inform the electorate. Without a sceptical press that has critical access to this popular figure, the whole Obama network thing seems more like a cult.
Obama has shown that he has the power to shut out the press at will, but if he wants to be successful, especially in the long term, he's going to have to be much more transparent than any president in the last few decades. Bush taught the American people a lot of bad lessons about what a President can and cannot do. Basically, the President can do whatever he feels like and is under no obligation to tell you jack. I know Obama's different, but one of his first actions is going to have to be one of his most painful: reining in executive power. And the only way to do that constructively is to let the press shine some sunlight into that office and expose how much damage the executive branch has done to the balance of powers over the past decade. Obama is going to want to close the door and fix it himself, but he's got to restrain the impulse and not shut the press out, no matter how irritating they may be.
I don't want this blog to turn into a whole Obama/Stan thing where I just talk about him all the time. Besides, Misstra Knowitall has many interests (see them on the top right of the page?) and I didn't help get out the vote or canvas or knock on any doors or drive old ladies to the polls or any of that, so I can't even act like I helped get him elected (besides my vote). Plus, I thought that the election thing would be the end of this very compelling story line. Now that he's President, I figured everything would go back to normal.
But, no. We got to know Obama as a candidate and now we get the distinct privilege of getting to know him as an actual President. That didn't dawn on me until I saw him in his press conference today.
...and by the way, the price of the package is going up.
The press conference made me nervous because I wondered how he might perform with all the pressure he was under, but then I remembered that this dude is, in the words of Phife Dog, "like Jordan on the mic--want to gamble?" And that's an understatement. Jordan only played basketball. Even though he was great, he didn't change the game like Obama already has. Obama hasn't just changed the game, he's changed The Game. He's like the Neo of racism.
Slow your roll.
Only a brother as smooth as him could be so brilliant and biting and funny when one of the reporters asked him about what kind of dog the Obamas were going to have at the White House. Everyone wants to know because when you live in the White House you have to have some kind of domesticated animal. Hopefully not a dog like Bush's psycho dog, Barney, who tried to maul a reporter's hand the other day, but something.
The pet is our reminder that these are actual people who live in this White house and that they are supposed to have some kind of normal life. So, what of the Obama dog?
What I love about our President-elect is that he laid out his criteria for the new dog thusly: It's got to be hypoallergenic because of Malia's allergy and he would prefer it were a shelter dog, which means it would probably be a mutt, "like me," he says--perfectly deadpanned. That was a deadly moment. That was a Dave Chapelle moment.
Yeaaah!
All the (mostly White) moneypeople behind Barack didn't know whether to laugh or act like they didn't hear him. He gave a hint of a grin that let everyone knew it was okay, but there was that Moment. And I love that he is totally aware of how jarring it is for the American people to hear that their President is a mutt. A damn mutt.
This red pill is shiznit!
Oh, but why did he have to start snapping on Nancy Reagan like that? I swear I seen Rahm Emmanuel slapping him five when they walked off stage.
You mad, ain't you? For real. Just admit it. You maaaaaaaaad.
