BreakingNews**R&B Legend Ray Charles Dies in California at 73 (Photo)..
by NewsRoom/Reuters
R&B Legend Ray Charles Dies in California at 73
7 minutes ago - Reuters
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Ray Charles, who battled childhood poverty, blindness and heroin addiction to help create soul music and become one of America's most enduring musicians, died on Thursday at the age of 73, his spokesman said .
Charles died at 11:35 a.m. at his Beverly Hills home of complications of liver disease. Family members and his manager were present, said Jerry Digney, his longtime publicist.
Gangster rappers are not what they seem. They do not represent "black culture" any more than the Mafia represents Italian-Americans. Ignorance of the Afro-American tradition is their specialty. Black hoodlums and rappers twist Malcolm X's saber-rattling slogan, "by any means necessary."
The black dropout rate can be as high as 50% in urban areas. We feel fear and pity for those young black men who have been taken in by the slim dream of becoming athletic stars or rappers. How, pray tell, will you succeed in life, young man, since you dropped out of school and are functionally illiterate?
"By any means necessary."
They are fresh meat unaware that their time for being mashed on the hot grill of society is coming soon. They have followed the wrong "black culture."
These young black men assume that the anti-intellectual stance and the misogyny that they hear screeching from rap recordings is purely black. It is not, by a long shot. It has, in fact, nothing at all to do with Afro-American thinking, which has been focused on education and honest self-betterment since the end of slavery.
This other "black culture" is purely and deeply white, its roots going back to the 1800s. The anti-intellectual stance entered American life as a way of rejecting Europe and elevating the so-called common man after the War of 1812, which was fought with Britain and stirred great hostility toward Europe and European things.
Refinement was out. The point was to be an American, not a European. The worst of the early figures in American popular art appeared between 1833 and 1856, in fictional tales growing out of the life of Davy Crockett. Like a gangster rapper, this folklore character had no sense of fairness and fought without any rules other than winning. This Crockett also bragged himself into exhaustion. He opened the way for rappers when, in an 1837 story in "Davy Crockett's Almanac" he said, "I can walk like an ox, run like a fox, swim like an eel, yell like an Indian, fight like a devil, spout like an earthquake, make love like a mad bull, and swallow a n----- without choking if you butter his head and pin his ears back."
So when you next see some gold-toothed Negro strutting with a microphone, cursing, bragging, expressing hatred for women, realize that he is not doing anything black at all. He has fallen for the lowest version of white culture and, like the ignoramus he is, has absolutely no idea about his roots at all. Just like Davy Crockett, he should be wearing a coonskin cap.
TRIPOLI, Libya (Reuters) - Muammar Gaddafi (news - web sites) said Sunday he regretted that former U.S. President Ronald Reagan (news - web sites) had died without ever being tried for 1986 air strikes that killed dozens of people, including the Libyan leader's adopted daughter.
"I express my profound regrets over Reagan's death before he appeared before justice to be held to account for his ugly crime in 1986 against Libyan children," Gaddafi told the official JANA news agency.
Reagan ordered the April 15, 1986, air strikes in response to a disco bombing in West Berlin that killed three people, including two U.S. servicemen. Washington blamed Libya for the blast.
Libya said more than 40 people died in the strikes on Tripoli and Benghazi. The targets included Gaddafi's home, where his 15-month-old adopted daughter died.
Reporting Reagan's death, JANA simply referred to him as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's partner "in the unsuccessful American-Atlantic (NATO (news - web sites)) aggression" on Gaddafi's home.
Libya, which recently emerged from international isolation over its alleged support for "terrorism," has been promoting better ties with the United States since agreeing in December to dismantle its programs of weapons of mass destruction.
It was not immediately clear if Gaddafi's comments would affect the progress in relations between the two countries.
President Bush (news - web sites) suspended sanctions against Libya in April, allowing U.S. firms to buy Libyan oil and invest in its economy. Tensions between the two countries were highest under Reagan, who recalled his ambassador in Tripoli after angry crowds sacked the U.S. embassy in 1980. The United States imposed an embargo on Libyan oil in 1982 and U.S. oil companies pulled out.
In January 1986, Reagan moved to isolate Libya further after accusing Gaddafi of sponsoring international terrorism and harboring the Palestinian Abu Nidal guerrilla group, blamed for attacks on airports in Rome and Vienna the previous month.
Reagan announced new economic sanctions against Libya banning trade, loans and travel to Libya by U.S. citizens.
Tensions culminated in a military confrontation in March 1986, when Libya fired missiles at U.S. aircraft during U.S. military maneuvers in the Gulf of Sirte. The United States responded by attacking Libyan patrol boats and a land-based missile site at Sirte.
Army Issues Order to Stop U.S. Soldiers from Leaving
by NewsRoom/Reuters
Army Issues Order to Stop U.S. Soldiers from Leaving
Jun 2, 12:57 PM (ET)
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army has issued orders preventing thousands of soldiers designated to serve in Iraq or Afghanistan from leaving the military even when their volunteer service commitment ends, officials said on Wednesday.
The latest "stop loss" and "stop movement" orders, broader than others issued previously, were a further sign of increasing stress on the Army as the Pentagon strives to maintain adequate troop levels in the two conflicts.
Lt. Gen. Franklin Hagenbeck, the Army's personnel chief, told reporters it would be wrong to see the move as a symptom of desperation but acknowledged that the Army was "stretched."
The Army issued the orders for active-duty soldiers and reservists in all units that will deploy outside the United States for future missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hagenbeck said the orders were open-ended, and could be in place for several years while the Army reorganizes itself into smaller, more-interchangeable units. The orders were meant to protect the cohesiveness of deployed units by keeping together soldiers who have worked and trained together, he said.
The "stop loss" order means that soldiers who otherwise could leave the service when their volunteer commitments expire, starting 90 days before being sent, will be compelled to remain to the end of their overseas deployment and up to another 90 days after they come home.
A "stop movement" order blocks soldiers from shifting to new assignments during the restricted period.
The Army previously has issued such orders covering some troops in the two conflicts. Since the attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, some 45,000 soldiers have been affected by such orders, Hagenbeck said.
ALL-VOLUNTEER MILITARY
Critics argue that preventing soldiers from leaving the military at the end of their contractual obligation was a breach of trust, and undermined the concept of the all-volunteer military.
Without "stop loss," the Army would be forced to continuously replace thousands of soldiers in deployed units as their service commitments expired, Hagenbeck said.
"The rationale is to have cohesive, trained units going to war together. What you don't want to have happen is to walk out on the battlefield and meet each other for the first time and shake hands. And that's happened to me and all my predecessors, and we cannot do that. That puts soldiers lives at risk," Hagenbeck said.
Troops were eager to go to places like Iraq and Afghanistan, he said. "Soldiers want to go do this. This, by and large, is why the joined the Army," Hagenbeck said.
Army spokesmen were unable to give a figure for how many soldiers would be affected beyond saying it would be in the thousands.
The Pentagon has already taken steps to meet its plans to keep the total of 138,000 troops in Iraq to the end of 2005.
About 20,000 troops in Iraq were ordered to remain three months beyond their promised departure date. The Pentagon is moving to Iraq 3,600 soldiers from South Korea, where they have guarded against aggression from North Korea. And the Army is considering deploying units that until now have merely played the role of "enemy forces" in training exercises in the United States.
The Very "UnFunky Bunch" ...... Media "Giant?" VIACOM
by NewsRoom/NewsPost.com
YOU CAN'T FIRE ME, I QUIT: KARMAZIN
By TIM ARANGO
June 2, 2004 -- Mel jumped before he was pushed.
In recent weeks, Viacom President Mel Karmazin realized he was being cut out of the company's succession plans — and decided to vacate his post rather than wait for the board of directors to formalize a succession plan, according to sources.
"Sumner never intended for Mel to be his successor," said one source close to the company.
Relations between Viacom chief Sumner Redstone and his former top deputy are so frigid that Karmazin never told his boss directly about his decision to resign as president of the media giant, which is home to CBS, MTV, Paramount and Infinity Broadcasting.
Last week, Karmazin sent word to Redstone through an intermediary that he had decided to leave his post, and Redstone never sought to keep him at the company, Redstone said yesterday in a conference call.
"I heard about this indirectly from another executive," Redstone said.
Once Karmazin's exit was a done deal, David McLaughlin, a longtime Viacom director and head of the corporate governance committee, ran interference between the two, sources said.
In a statement yesterday, Karmazin said: "After more than 20 years with the company, for personal and professional reasons, I have decided to leave Viacom and pursue other challenges."
In making the announcement that Karmazin was leaving, Viacom triggered a new political battle at the company — naming CBS chief Les Moonves and MTV honcho Tom Freston as co-chief operating officers.
Redstone said he will leave his post within three years, and either Freston or Moonves will likely replace him.
Asked when he last spoke to Karmazin, Redstone related a story about attending a recent staff meeting in which Mel expressed frustration for Viacom's lagging stock price.
"I said, 'Don't blame yourself,' " Redstone told reporters yesterday.
Despite a long-running feud between Redstone and Karmazin, Redstone said yesterday he never had any major disagreements with his president.
"To my knowledge there were no problems between Mel and me," Redstone said.
Nevertheless, Karmazin is leaving under a clause in his contract that stipulates he be paid out the balance of his deal if Redstone overrules him on matters of strategy.
Karmazin will leave with a boatload of cash — about $25 million in salary, deferred compensation and bonus for the remaining two years of his contract.
In addition, he'll hold on to all his stock options. He holds nearly 11 million shares, including options worth close to $400 million based on current stock prices.
Karmazin signed a new three-year agreement last year.
While negotiations were under way, many had speculated differences between him and Redstone were irreconcilable, but the two ultimately patched things up.
For years, Redstone hesitated to push his deputy out because the company's stock price was soaring and Wall Street was in love with Karmazin.
But lately the stock has floundered — suggesting to some that the time was finally right to show Karmazin the door.
In recent public comments — most recently at the company's annual meeting on May 19 — Redstone failed to back Karmazin when asked about the company's succession plans.
International probe nets Ringling Bros. performer "Spanky"
MAY 26--Meet Spanky the Clown. The 23-year-old Ringling Bros. performer, also known as Thomas Riccio, was just nabbed on kiddie porn charges. Arrested last week when the circus pulled into Fayetteville, North Carolina, Riccio was charged with ten felony counts after a search of his computer turned up images of young children participating in lewd acts. Investigators were led to Riccio as part of a large international child porn probe, dubbed Operation Falcon, that has already resulted in about 100 U.S. arrests. Riccio, denied rouge in the below left mug shot, is being held in the Cumberland County jail on $150,000 bond.
May 25, 2004
Buffalo Police raided a day care center in Buffalo and discovered crack cocaine while children were still inside. Police have made an arrest and are still investigating at the scene.
Buffalo Narcotics detectives raided 442 Northhampton Street, east of Jefferson Ave. at 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday. They found a day care center inside, with the owner operating the "Taking Time Out For Kids" day care center, but now that person is under arrest, charged with alos operating the home as a crack house.
Four children were removed from the home by police; they were at the day care center when police arrived to execute warrants. 26-year old Bernette Pearson, the operator of the day care center has now been arrested and charged with felony possession with intent to sell crack cocaine.
Police say they found an eighth of an ounce of crack inside the day care center in the refrigerator, with an estimated street value of $3,000. Those who came to purchased drugs may have used them in the kitchen of the house, in plain view of the children.
"It's been about a three week investigation we had going from an anonymous tip," said Lt. Thomas Lyon. "And we were able to develop enough information to obtain the search warrant for this residence."
Area residents say the house has been operating as a day care center since earlier this year, and has been seeing much traffic lately.
MADONNA has axed three gigs in Israel — after terrorists threatened to kill her and her kids.
The singer was terrified by a blitz of poison-pen letters.
Madge “freaked out” when she learned of a terrorist plot to kill her two young children if she performed in Israel.
She first planned to defy the extremists but cancelled after the unnamed Palestinian group mentioned details about Lourdes, seven, and three-year-old Rocco in a series of threatening letters.
A source said: “The notes were unbelievably scary. Madonna is a strong woman but she freaked out when her kids were mentioned.
“At first she was prepared to go on stage anyway and hire extra security.
“But she was not ready to take chances with her kids — they are her whole world.”
The threats were sent to the singer’s offices in Los Angeles.
They became more frightening as they displayed in-depth knowledge of the star’s closest aides.
Worried ... Madonna holds Rocco yesterday
The source added: “It became clear that these people were not messing around — they even knew intimate details like who her personal staff are.
“She thought she was being targeted because of her Jewish Kabbalah religion. But this group were threatening her because she represents many things they hate about the West.”
Madonna, married to Brit film director GUY RITCHIE, has not performed in Israel since her 1993 Girlie Show.
She had booked three dates in September at the Tel Aviv stadium — including a televised concert on September 11 to mark the third anniversary of al-Qaeda’s attacks on America.
Madonna’s people last night insisted the Israel leg of her Re-Invention tour has been cancelled because the singer wants to concentrate on Europe.
But insiders say nothing except this security alert would have stopped her travelling to Tel Aviv.
48 Catholic congressmen warn bishops on bigotry
By Alan Cooperman, Washington Post | May 20, 2004
WASHINGTON -- Forty-eight Roman Catholic members of Congress have warned in a letter to Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C., that US bishops will revive anti-Catholic bigotry and severely harm the church if they deny Communion to politicians who support abortion rights.
The letter's signers, all Democrats, include at least three House members with strong antiabortion voting records.
"For many years Catholics were denied public office by voters who feared that they would take direction from the pope," they wrote. "While that type of paranoid anti-Catholicism seems to be a thing of the past, attempts by church leaders today to influence votes by the threat of withholding a sacrament will revive latent anti-Catholic prejudice, which so many of us have worked so hard to overcome."
The three-page letter, dated May 10, was sent to McCarrick because he heads a task force of US bishops that is considering whether and how the church should take action against Catholic politicians whose public positions are at odds with Catholic doctrine.
McCarrick's spokesman, Susan Gibbs, said he would not comment on the letter. She said the seven-member task force is "listening to many different voices" and will grant the 48 House members' request for a meeting. "They will be heard; it just hasn't been arranged yet," she said.
A few of the nation's 300 Catholic bishops have caused a political furor this year by threatening to withhold the Eucharist, which Catholics believe is the body and blood of Christ, from presidential candidate Senator John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts., and other Catholic officials who vote for abortion rights.
On May 5, Bishop Michael Sheridan of Colorado Springs issued a letter saying that ordinary parishioners should not receive Communion if they vote for politicians who support abortion, euthanasia, stem-cell research, or gay marriage.
McCarrick made clear last week in the Catholic Standard, the Washington archdiocese's newspaper, that he does not agree. "As a priest and bishop, I do not favor a confrontation at the altar rail with the Sacred Body of the Lord Jesus in my hand," he wrote. "There are apparently those who would welcome such a conflict, for good reasons, I am sure, or for political ones, but I would not."
Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, and Representative Nick Lampson, Democrat of Texas, circulated the letter among the 73 Catholic Democrats in the House. It was not circulated among Republicans or in the Senate, because it arose from meetings that began last year among a small number of Catholic Democrats in the House who wanted to talk privately about faith and public service, DeLauro said. "This was not about politics. It was about us and our church and our own faith," she said.
In their letter, the Democratic House members said they "firmly believe that it would be wrong for a bishop to deny the sacrament of Holy Communion to an individual on the basis of a voting record. We believe that such an action . . . would bring great harm to the church."
Noting that the Supreme Court has ruled that women have a constitutional right to choose an abortion, they said that members of Congress "who vote for legislation consistent with that mandate are not acting contrary to our positions as faithful members of the Catholic Church."
Israeli Forces Fire on Crowd in Gaza, Killing 8 (Children Shot In The Head)
by NewsRoom/Reuters
Israeli Forces Fire on Crowd in Gaza, Killing 8
May 19, 8:29 AM (ET)
By Cynthia Johnston
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Israeli forces opened fire on a protest march in a besieged Gaza refugee camp on Wednesday, killing eight Palestinians and raising the death toll in Israel's heaviest raid in the Gaza Strip in years to 31.
Some witnesses reported seeing helicopter gunships launching missiles while others said tanks fired shells into a peaceful crowd of thousands, sending people fleeing in panic, some dragging bloodied comrades with them.
"I saw bodies dismembered, blood everywhere," one witness said as smoke rose from the scene.
Medics said eight people were killed and at least 50 wounded in the strike, which raised the two-day death toll to one of the highest in three and a half years of conflict. The Israeli army had no immediate comment.
The marchers had been surging toward the Tel Sultan neighborhood, the focal point of Israel's sweep into Rafah for the stated purpose of hunting militants and uncovering tunnels used to smuggle weapons across the border from Egypt.
Earlier Wednesday, Israeli forces killed four Palestinians and demanded the mass surrender of militants. The army said it hit gunmen. Palestinians said the dead, aged 14, 19, 24 and 37, were all civilians.
Bodies piled up in a flower freezer converted into a makeshift morgue after overflowing the Rafah refugee camp's main hospital where staff strained to cope with the dead along with dozens of wounded in two days of Israeli military assaults.
Rafah residents flooded the hospital, looking for loved ones among the wounded. "Did you see my brothers, the three of them who were in the rally?" cried one person. "Where is Ahmed?" a woman shouted.
Soldiers in the Tel Sultan neighborhood, a militant stronghold, called on loudspeakers for armed militants to come out waving white flags of surrender or risk demolition of family homes. Troops searched house to house amid clashes with gunmen.
The raid has raised an international outcry because of Israeli threats to flatten hundreds of Rafah homes to widen an army-controlled security corridor along the border with Egypt.
Palestinian witnesses said Israeli forces were summoning all male residents over 16 to come out and assemble in a local school. The army said it was after militants, not all males.
Some residents said they had heard of neighbors being shot at by troops after emerging. The army said some militants were firing wildly from rooftops while other men surrendered. Neither of these reports could be confirmed.
SHARON REVIVES GAZA PULLOUT PLAN
Amid the bloodshed, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon worked to revive his Gaza withdrawal plan, which aides said may be presented for cabinet approval as early as next week.
Violence has worsened in Gaza since Sharon proposed evacuating troops and Jewish settlers in a plan backed by most Israelis and the United States, but rejected by his right-wing Likud party in a referendum earlier this month.
Militant groups want to claim as a victory any pullout by Israel from territories it captured in the 1967 Middle East war, while the army is determined to smash them first.
President Bush called the Gaza bloodshed "troubling" but, addressing Jewish-Americans in a tight election campaign, told the powerful pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC that Israel "has every right to defend itself from terror."
Before the raid, thousands of Palestinians loaded bedding, furniture and clothes on donkey carts and rickety trucks and fled, fearing their houses were earmarked for demolition.
The Rafah assault drew U.N. and European Union condemnation. Thousands of Palestinian houses have been razed since the Palestinian uprising began in 2000, U.N. figures show.
Military officials said there were no plans for any systematic demolition during the operation.
The army said its forces destroyed the house of a militant who killed a pregnant settler and her four daughters in a May 2 ambush in Gaza. The attack contributed to the rejection of Sharon's Gaza pullout plan by his own rightist party.
An army spokesman said troops flattened five buildings from which militants had fired on soldiers and a sixth was blown up when a bomb being prepared by a militant detonated prematurely.
P-Funk Take Flight With Outkast, Prince, ODB, Chili Peppers On Board
03.22.2004 2:19 PM EST
"ODB is clever like Sly Stone." — George Clinton
George Clinton, the galactic arbiter of all that is funky, has been tearing roofs off with various permutations of his Parliament/ Funkadelic collective since the late 1960s. Over time, he has watched jazz, rock and alternative stylists absorb his teachings. But over the past few years he has become increasingly convinced that hip-hop artists are most qualified to pass the torch of funk to the next generation. That's why he recruited some of the top rappers in the game to contribute to a forthcoming album and TV special.
Outkast, Busta Rhymes, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Scarface, Too Short, JT Money and Jamal are some of the rappers who will lend a hand to the forthcoming P-Funk Allstars album, H.L.D.Y.H.T.B.B.Y.A. (How Late Do You Have to Be Before You're Absent). The LP is scheduled for release on Clinton's C-Conspiracy label in October and will include songs like "Snot and Booger" and "Yesterday Ja Vu." Rockers slated to contribute are Tommy Lee and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Anthony Kiedis and Flea; P-Funk alums like bassist Bootsy Collins, keyboardist Bernie Worrell and guitarist Michael Hampton are on board as well.
Clinton's relevance to hip-hop isn't just second-hand. He hung out in a Detroit studio with Eminem when the rapper was 15, and was at Dallas Austin's place in Atlanta when Goodie Mob and Outkast were recording in the early '90s. "When Outkast and Goodie Mob started happening, it was like watching my kids make it," Clinton said.
The last George Clinton and the P-Funk Allstars album was 1996's T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M. (The Awesome Power of a Fully Operational Mothership). Since then, the group has toured regularly with various members, but legal disputes with Mammoth, their former label, caused them to remain in recording limbo for years. This month, the band was finally granted legal permission to release new material, a representative from Clinton's management said. Some of the songs on H.L.D.Y.H.T.B.B.Y.A. were recorded for an album Mammoth never released, and the rest were done over the last few years.
According to Clinton, one of the sessions' most amusing moments came when ODB contributed to a song that also features Busta Rhymes (Clinton declined to reveal the song's name). "ODB is clever like Sly Stone," he laughed. "He did his thing, and everybody was waiting for him [to finish], and he said, 'OK, I'll be right back.' He had wrote the words down on this wrinkled piece of paper. So, when he didn't come back, I picked up the paper — and he had said everything that was written on there." Clinton laughed, and continued, "He was so slick. He was finished and he knew he was finished. He wasn't planning on coming back."
But Clinton said his musical highlight was working with Prince on a track called "Brother Can You Pare a Dime?" Even though the pair didn't work in the same studio — they collaborated by phone and mail — Clinton said they vibed as if they were together. "We really connected on that one," he enthused. "It was the funkiest thing I ever heard him play. He took the stuff I had 'P'd on, and then he 'P'd on it, and it was spectacular."
On October 30 and 31, a galaxy of P-Funk alums — including Clinton, Collins, Worrell, Hampton, horn player Maceo Parker and others who have beamed in and out of the ranks over the years — will gather in Los Angeles to record a two-hour TV special called "P-Funk Nation Celebration: History of Parliament/ Funkadelic and Influences."
For the show, the funkmasters will again be surrounded by stars. Outkast, Prince, Lenny Kravitz, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Macy Gray, Snoop Dogg and Raphael Saadiq have already signed on to join the band for Parliament/ Funkadelic classics like "Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker"), "P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)" and "Dr. Funkenstein." Other artists who agreed verbally but haven't yet signed contracts include Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys, Smokey Robinson, and Rolling Stones guitarists Ron Wood and Keith Richards, Clinton said. Clinton's management is currently in negotiations with several networks to air the program, which will be directed by Reggie Hudlin, who wrote and directed "House Party." "He said he went to Harvard just to learn how to do movies so he could actually film the P-Funk story," Clinton said. "We met him in the '80s, and we've been working on getting something like this together with him ever since."
After the TV special, Parliament/ Funkadelic will embark on a global trek they're calling the Final Landing of the Mothership Tour. It will be their first tour in 18 years to feature many of the original members, but don't call it a reunion. "This is something we planned to do a long time ago because of planned obsolescence," Clinton said. "We all wanted to go out and do other things, but the idea was always to do Parliament/ Funkadelic again together at some point. Now, the thing is to be able to put the show on with the technology of today and do all the songs of then and some of the songs we've had since then, and show people that it's all part of the Mothership story."
Clinton also said that, despite the tour's title, it won't be the last. "This is actually the beginning," he said. "All the rest of it has been rehearsals."
I started playin (keyboards) for The Parliaments with George, Billy Nelson, Eddie H., Stacey P., (drummer at the time) and later Tiki Fulwood, Grady Fuzzy, Raymond, John Jenkins , (who took Calvin's place for a while)....in 1967...I Just Wanna Testify.!....I would love to be a part of this gig..... what a lineup.......Thanks for sharing this....Billy C.
Columnist Jeff German: Vegas has new crime element: Israeli mob
Jeff German's column appears Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays in the Sun. Reach him at german@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4067.
•••
WITH ITS FREE flow of cash and high-stakes gambling, Las Vegas has always been an attractive target of opportunity for organized crime.
For years the traditional La Cosa Nostra dominated street rackets here and even managed to gain hidden interests in casinos on the Strip. We were considered an "open city" for more than two dozen of the nation's Mafia families.
Today Las Vegas still is considered fertile ground for organized crime, but as the mob's influence has waned because of stepped-up pressure from law enforcement authorities, other criminal groups have risen to prominence on the streets.
In recent months authorities have discovered that Israeli organized crime syndicates have set their sights on Las Vegas. One ranking crime figure was overheard a year ago by lawmen on court-approved wiretaps describing Las Vegas as "wide open" territory.
"They're really trying to rear their ugly head in Las Vegas," says Sheriff Bill Young, who has detectives assigned to a joint federal drug task force investigating the Israeli crime connection here.
The Israeli syndicates are involved in traditional rackets, such as loan sharking, extortion, money laundering, prostitution and illegal gambling.
And they're just as violent as the Mafia. Two of the biggest families, one based in Jerusalem and the other in Tel Aviv, currently are involved in a bloody war over control of street rackets in Israel.
But unlike the Mafia, the Israeli crime groups are far more sophisticated and have far-reaching international tentacles. Key members of the groups have homes in multiple countries and make most of their money importing cocaine and the club drug Ecstasy (MDMA) from Europe into the United States. Las Vegas has been the site of some Ecstasy deals, drug task force affidavits revealed.
The booming Strip nightclub scene in Las Vegas, where Ecstasy is popular, has become not only a favored playground for the rising stars of the Israeli crime families, but also an ideal climate to conduct their illicit business.
Drug Enforcement Administration agents, who have taken the lead in gaining a handle on the Israeli mob's growing influence here, say crime family members have cultivated ties with local casinos, members of the legal community and Israeli-born business people, some of whom are being shaken down for money in protection rackets.
"In my opinion, law enforcement still doesn't have a full understanding of the presence of Israeli organized crime figures here," one member of the federal drug task force says.
But the increased scrutiny -- which has taken agents around the world and prompted unprecedented cooperation with the Israeli National Police -- has begun to bear fruit.
On April 6, following an investigation that began in Las Vegas, a federal indictment quietly was unsealed in Los Angeles charging several suspected Israeli crime figures who have ties here with conspiracy, extortion and money laundering. These figures, agents allege, are members of the Jerusalem crime family known as the "Jerusalem Network."
The indictment received no publicity in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, but it clearly has significance in the ongoing local efforts to keep tabs on the Israeli mob.
The biggest fish named in the indictment is Gabriel Ben Harosh, the reputed 39-year-old jet-setting No. 2 man in the Jerusalem Network, which authorities believe is run by Itzhak Abergil, who recently was ordered to leave Israel amid the rising mob bloodshed.
Ben Harosh, who is represented by Las Vegas lawyer David Chesnoff, was taken into custody in Toronto and is awaiting extradition.
Though investigators describe Ben Harosh in sworn affidavits as a "high-ranking member of an Israeli organized crime syndicate," Chesnoff says his Moroccan-born client is a legitimate businessman.
"He's a multimillionaire who owns one of the biggest construction companies in Israel," Chesnoff says, adding that this client is looking forward to fighting the charges against him.
Another key defendant in the case is Hai Waknine, 32, a suspected crime family associate who has a beach front home in Los Angeles. DEA agents believe Waknine collects debts and launders money for Ben Harosh.
Over the past 14 months local agents secretly have watched Waknine and his entourage of bodyguards and associates live in the fast lane during numerous trips to Las Vegas. Waknine is regarded as a high roller at several casinos, including the Venetian, Paris and the Palms.
On one trip in 2003, drug task force affidavits say, a member of Waknine's entourage was arrested by Metro Police on drug charges at the Palms after a prostitute Waknine reportedly brought with him from Los Angeles had overdosed and was rushed by ambulance to the hospital. Police seized a container filled with liquid GHB, a date rape drug, from the associate during the incident. Chesnoff defended him on the charges.
After the prostitute recovered, DEA agents learned through wiretaps that Waknine had instructed her to take a large sum of cash to Ben Harosh in Spain.
One of the more intriguing defendants in the Los Angeles case is Sasson Barashy, a 47-year-old alleged Jerusalem Network member who is now in custody in Israel, where he has a lengthy rap sheet.
The Los Angeles investigation took off after local DEA agents discovered in January 2003 that Barashy was living at a home in Summerlin with his wife. At the time he was a fugitive from Israel in a well-publicized criminal case involving a $60 million bank embezzlement and extortion plot allegedly pulled off by the Jerusalem Network.
Telephone calls coming in and out of the Summerlin home were secretly monitored by agents, who found that Barashy was in steady contact with a who's who of suspected Israeli crime figures, including Ben Harosh and Waknine.
Calls were made to associates in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Miami. There were plenty of international calls as well. In one two-month stretch, according to drug task force affidavits, more than 350 calls were made to associates in Israel, Morocco and Spain.
In the ensuing months, through wiretaps and physical surveillance, agents stayed hot on the trail of the activities of the group, documenting, among other things, efforts to extort cash from a luxury car dealer in Beverly Hills, launder money through lawyers in Miami and set up drug deals in various parts of the world.
Through it all members of the group were not afraid to maintain a high profile in Las Vegas. In April 2003, for example, Barashy and Waknine hosted a lavish Passover seder, live band and all, at Bally's.
Their days of celebrating may be over for now.
But with so much "open territory" for the taking, the odds are that other family members will be more than willing to keep the party going.
You shouldn't call Prince's new album a comeback (Photo)
by NewsRoom/VillageVoicecom
Rock&Roll&
by Robert Christgau
The Small Paybacks
No, you shouldn't call Prince's new album a comeback, but musicology will do just fine
May 3rd, 2004 12:00 PM
Baby maybe I'm a star.
(photo: Steve Parke)
dozen years ago I ended an account of Prince's epic hissy fit against the Corporation Briefly to Be Known as AOL Time Warner by supporting his demand that the slavemasters let 450 of his unreleased songs out of the can. But by 2000, when Prince launched the NPG Music Club, where a claimed 400,000 fans would pay $25 to frolic among the artist's musical leavings, I'd changed my mind. Prince's late Warners music is far more inspired than it's made out to be. But he's proven too self-involved to quality-control the self-released albums with which he now marks time and clocks dollars between major-label releases, of which the remarkable if over-reported Musicology "comeback" is merely the latest.
In 1996, Prince ditched Warners and by year's end had gone to Capitol with Emancipation, three CDs' worth of blessed excess that never peaks like a pop album should. Having credited the self-released Soul to New Power Generation in 1998, he was backed by Arista on 1999's high-generic Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, where pro forma cameos failed to produce the hits Clive Davis banks on. The Columbia-backed Musicology comes four and a half years and two self-released studio CDs later. Although the latter were augmented by two more three-disc sets—in-concert One Night Alone . . . Live!, outtakes-stuffed Crystal Ball (special bonus album also included!)—the timing is unworthy of the hoopla: Rolling Stone lead review, Time feature review, Newsweek feature, and an Entertainment Weekly cover piece preemptively entitled "Comeback? I Never Went Anywhere!" But hoopla is what corporations are for.
Without question the long, hyperbolic label dispute damaged Prince's star power. But the built-in limitations of that power ought to be equally clear. His heroic campaign to become the first black rock star since Jimi Hendrix never took his hard-earned status to the next level of meaning, the one achieved by Springsteen and Bono and even Madonna (even King of Pop Michael Jackson, who made his obsession with childhood resemble a cause). Famously reclusive, he shunned interviews. Sex was his great theme, but his view of it remained frustratingly polymorphic—designed for stimulation to the exclusion of edification. Sly-like, he worked with musicians of many races and both genders, and as of Purple Rain was publicly biracial himself. Yet this one-man rainbow coalition barely had it in him to come out for brotherhood; apocalyptic, incoherent, or mushy, his rare political lyrics were always poorly informed. So his multitude of dedicated fans never much cared about what he represented. Instead, they cared about what he was. They cared about his talent—his musical talent. Musicology—good title.
Early on the music's attraction was all the things he proved belonged in one place—Prince's rainbow was aural and his listeners knew it. Here were funk beats and rock beats, blunt come-ons and sly metaphors, dinky keyb hooks and killer guitar solos, and a singing voice that was an array of voices—smooth pop, sweet croon, deep soul, funny funk, casual speech, unreal shrieks and coos and basso profundos, harmonies to die for and falsetto to knock your fillings out. But though in the '90s these elements often recombined effectively, always their sound was big, full, slammin'. Musicology is noticeably spare and controlled. This development gratifies its admirers, and rightly so—as long as it's added that spareness is only a precondition. If Prince has made music like this before, it must be on his website.
The lead track, first single, and MTV staple "Musicology" establishes his method. It's a straight James Brown rip—Jimmy Nolen guitar, understated bass curlicue, syncopated tom, daubs of organ and faux horn, irregular backup vocals, with every sound, presumably including the thugs and munchkins, provided by Prince himself. The back-in-the-day lyric claiming JB, Sly, Earth, Wind & Fire, old-school rap, and bands-not-turntables might render this unspontaneous multitracking a contradiction, but hell, he contains multitudes, and he loves playing with himself. "Illusion, Coma, Pimp & Circumstance" is just as lean and more out—the patched-in guitar fills startling yet right rhythmically and harmonically, the scratches an extra contradiction. The requisite "Life 'O' the Party" adds femme vox and femme sax to Prince's one-man singing group and ersatz horn charts. That's an uptempo trifecta through track four, interrupted by one of three synthed-up ballads where he loses his mental toughness. And then, having gotten our attention and assent, this lifelong tease slows the pace, permanently—without materially harming the record. Pleasant shocks lurk near the surface and go against the flow of the quality material, and almost everything packs payback: apt rock guitar turning into apt tasty guitar (lick me); vocal calculations that could only have been improvised (right?); godfathered horn charts, some live (Maceo!).
As for the lyrics, who cares? Track two isn't about a dirty dog and an evil rich white woman, it's about the Meters gone pomo. And though the confusion of "Cinnamon Girl" suits its doomed attempt to blur "color lines" where the confusion of 2001's Rainbow Children made the same goal a travesty, its doomed appeal to the good book reminds us that Prince is now a Jehovah's Witness, which bodes ill for his significance. Better, although hardly as newsworthy as EW pretends, is his conversion to monogamy, which yields the yearning eros of "On the Couch" ("Don't make me sleep . . . ") as well as one about resisting a female fan that has Garth Brooks written all over it. But better still is the musicology itself. The rock star mantle implies obligations we shouldn't give up on just because Prince hasn't made the most of them. But James Brown just ignored them, and that hasn't stopped him.
MIAMI (Reuters) - David Bowie on Thursday scrapped a concert in Miami after a local stagehand was killed in a fall before the performance began, the rock star's publicist said in a statement.
Details of the accident at the James L. Knight Center, or of the stagehand's identity, were not disclosed, but the statement said police were investigating.
"A statement was read to the audience after the accident, informing them that refund or postponement information would be available shortly," the news release said, adding that Bowie and his tour personnel were "deeply saddened" by the accident.
Bowie is on the second North American leg of his "A Reality" concert tour, which ends June 5 in New Jersey. The tour is being promoted by Clear Channel Entertainment, a unit of Clear Channel Communications Inc .
Fourth HIV Case Found in California Porn Industry
Tue May 4, 2004 06:06 PM ET
By Gina Keating
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A fourth adult film performer has tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS but the case is unrelated to an outbreak that virtually shut down pornography production last month, an industry health care official said on Tuesday.
A transsexual actress who goes by the stage name Jennifer tested positive for HIV on Tuesday and had last performed a sex scene on Feb. 27 with two male actors who have since tested negative, according to Sharon Mitchell of the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation.
The foundation runs an HIV screening program that tests porn actors every three weeks for sexually transmitted diseases and issues certificates that allow them to work.
The actors involved in the latest case will be tested again to rule out any possibility of further transmission of the deadly virus, Mitchell said.
"This is an open and shut case of genealogy," she said. "We think it's contained."
Last month, HIV infections of three other porn stars prompted a 60-day shutdown of adult productions that employ 6,000 people, including about 1,200 performers. The suburban San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles is the hub of the U.S. porn industry.
Last month's HIV outbreak prompted calls for unprecedented inspections of the multibillion-dollar industry and mandatory condom use -- a proposition that critics said would drive the industry underground or out of the state.
California Assemblyman Tim Leslie, a Republican, has said the HIV outbreak showed that the industry's self-regulation measures are failing.
Leslie is promoting a bill that would require testing of actors for sexually-transmitted diseases two weeks before every film shoot. The bill, which state lawmakers were expected to approve in a committee vote on Tuesday, also would bar infected actors from performing.
Blowfly, the original dirty rapper, returns to South Florida stages and exposes his nasty shtick.
By Bob Weinberg
photo: Josh Prezant
If you’re looking for Clarence Reid, Miami Jai-Alai is a good place to start. Attendance is sparse on this particular Friday afternoon, as I wend my way around the vast, labyrinthine building, trying to find the right snack bar at which I’m supposed to meet the legendary Miami R&B artist and producer who also inhabits the outrageous, X-rated persona of Blowfly. As Reid, he penned the huge 1970s hits “Clean Up Woman” and “Rockin’ Chair.” As Blowfly, the caped and cowled performer, he cuts pornographic parodies and scatological send-ups of pop and R&B tunes such as “Hole Man” (to the tune of Sam and Dave’s “Soul Man”) and “My Baby Keeps Farting in My Face” (to the tune of “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head”); his 1980 single “Rapp Dirty” is considered one of the earliest rap records, and Blowfly grooves have been sampled by everyone from Puff Daddy to the Wu-Tang Clan. And for decades, Reid has been endearing himself to employees and patrons of Miami Jai-Alai; everyone here seems to know him.
“Yeah, he’s always around,” confirms an attendant working in the Crystal Card Room, where players rhythmically toss poker chips onto a green felt table.
“I sure do know Clarence Reid,” exclaims 45-year Miami Jai-Alai veteran Beverly Hill, who works behind the counter at the cafeteria and offers to help me track him down. She leads me into the darkened fronton where a few spectators dot the stands. We scan the seats but come up empty. I’m beginning to think maybe I’ve been stood up when we emerge into the snack bar at which I started my search some 20 minutes ago, only to be warmly greeted by none other than Reid himself, sitting at a table with Tom Bowker. A writer, manager and drummer, Bowker is largely responsible for bringing Blowfly back onto South Florida stages after a 20-year absence.
Sporting a black leather baseball cap, a short-sleeve black warm-up jacket and a light growth of whiskers that peeks through his lined, tobacco-colored face, the 59-year-old Reid is nursing a sore throat that has reduced his voice to a raspy croak. He blames his condition on a certain act he performed on a woman with whom he says Bowker set him up, his warm, brown eyes sparkling with humor and mischief beneath the brim of his cap.
A Halls cough-drop wrapper sits on the table next to Reid’s black, zippered briefcase, and Reid’s uncertain whether he will be able to make a cameo at Tobacco Road tonight, as he had promised. Bowker gets a call on his cell phone from someone who has heard a promo on the radio for the Blowfly appearance, but clearly he’s concerned about the health of the man in whom he has not just a business interest, but for whom he appears to have very real affection.
“Everybody goes, ‘Tom brought you back to life!’ ” Reid declares, adopting a high-pitched voice, which he does throughout our conversation to indicate incredulity or that a woman or child is speaking. “I usually work every place in the world except Florida.”
Last year, Bowker was writing a story for Miami New Times about the Rev. Carlton “King” Coleman, another legendary R&B figure who resides in Miami, when he first interviewed Reid, who had been greatly influenced by the older Coleman’s risqué rhyming. “I realized, once I got him, I’d have to do a piece on him, as well,” says Bowker, who’s wearing a T-shirt with a cartoon of the costumed Blowfly. “So I finished my interview and I had my piece down, and I’m like, ‘You haven’t played here in 21 years?’ And he’s like, ‘I don’t have a band.’ I go, ‘You want one?’ ”
Skeptical at first, Reid came out to hear Bowker’s band. He giggles in a high-pitched wheeze, recalling his initial doubts: “Yeah, right! This is gonna be lots of fun.” Then, as if still in disbelief, he adds, “These bitches can play!
“We did a little sit-in thing,” he continues. “One of the black guys, about a million years old, comes over [imitating a toothless old man]: ‘Man, them ain’t no crackers. They ******s disguised as crackers, not because they can play — ’cause white boys can play; The Beatles can play — but it ain’t easy to play funk.’ … There’s a lot of blacks can’t play funk, trust me.”
Blowfly’s first South Florida performance in two decades took place in November at Alligator Alley in Oakland Park, where he put on an impromptu show after attending the Fort Lauderdale Sound Advice Blues Festival to see his old friend Solomon Burke. Accompanied by his guitarist, Chris Chavez, and festival performer Otis Taylor’s rhythm section, Blowfly picked up where he’d left off some 20 years back. Even without his mask and cape, the original dirty rapper still managed to offend a significant portion of his audience, chasing all the women out the door with his song “Burnin’ Pussy.” Reid gleefully recounts that a woman, bypassing the foul-mouthed singer, instead, berated Bowker, wagging a finger and telling him, “Naughty, naughty, naughty! You’re disgusting!”
The band’s next gig was an important engagement at Miami’s I/O in December — Bowker’s bachelor party. Bowker and company ascended the stage just 12 hours before he was scheduled to swap vows with his bride. After a raunchy intro from King Coleman, Blowfly came out dressed as Santa Claus and engaged in an X-rated exchange with dancer Michelle Morrill. “I want you to take this candy stick and lick it while it lasts,” he told her. “If it tastes a little funny, it’s because it’s been up this bitch’s ass.” Then, it was on to a set of filthy favorites, such as “Hole Man,” “****ting on the Dock of the Bay” and, appropriately for the season, “Jingle Bell Cock,” as well as more-recent material such as a spoof on R. Kelly with “I Believe My Dick Can Fly.”
The next morning was a rough one for Bowker, who still was taking care of last-minute wedding details at 5 a.m. Coleman would be performing the ceremony, while Reid was scheduled to sing “The Wedding Song.”
“He was cool,” Reid says of Bowker, laughing, “but I could see that eye, ‘If this part-******/part-German get up there and say something, I’m gonna kick his ass!’ I said, ‘You better be worried about King Coleman. I’m used to doing this ****.’ ”
Despite his outrageous persona and language brinier than a sailor’s underpants, Reid professes never to touch alcohol or drugs, but that didn’t prevent his showing up late for the wedding. But he was a model of propriety compared to Coleman. “King made a very unusual ceremony,” Bowker reports. “He couldn’t get my wife’s name right. Her name is Lai Wan Chang, and he said, ‘Lai Chu Wong,’ ‘Ching Chong.’ He finally said, ‘Ching, Chong — what’s the difference?’ And Ching Chong is my wife’s aunt, so that’s a 40-pound difference.”
The making of Blowfly
Reid discovered early on that a salty tongue would take him far. Growing up in rural Georgia — the heart of the Bible Belt where blacks lived in mortal terror of the Ku Klux Klan — in the 1950s, he asserted himself in the only way he could. At age 7, Reid was pulled out of school and put to work when his grandfather died of cancer. Six days a week at 5 a.m., he had to harness the mule — who was none too happy about the arrangement — and work in the fields until the bell rang at noon. Then, he had to feed all the animals before he could even think about lunch, if he had time to eat at all.
“So, as my revenge, I would think up nasty songs,” he relates. One of his earliest efforts was a parody of Ernest Tubbs’ “Walking the Floor Over You,” to which he ad-libbed, “I’m jerkin’ my dick over you.” His grandmother overheard him and compared him to a blowfly, an insect that lays eggs in dead flesh or open wounds. Somehow, the name just stuck.
“Black women said, ‘You’re a dirty little bastard! We’re gonna hang you up!’ ” he says in high-pitched, agitated imitation. “The white girls loved it.”
Reid also realized early on that he’d have to get out of his virulently racist surroundings to make his future. Recognizing his talent, an older white lady gave him money, assured him that she’d take care of his mother and sent him on his way. Before he was even in his teens, Reid hit the road, cracking up motorists who’d give him a ride and eventually deposit him in Florida.
At age 13, Reid found work at a Morrison’s Cafeteria in West Palm Beach. A manager was impressed with the young man’s ear for harmony, as he directed the other workers who would sing in the kitchen, not to mention his songwriting ability. He sent Reid to see Miami R&B producer Henry Stone, who put him to work in his Tone Distribution warehouse packing records. Reid’s undeniable talent opened the doors to the studio, as well, and he recalls lending a hand on the arrangement of the garage-band classic “96 Tears,” which became a No. 1 song in 1966: “A guy come down here from New York, worked with ? and the Mysterians,” Reid remembers. “ ‘Listen to this. It’s a horrible lyric.’ I said, ‘Yeah, but you gotta understand: You got some people out there they call the LSD crowd. They’ll love this ****.’ ”
At the same time, Reid was fronting the R&B group The Delmiras, who recorded several singles for Stone’s Alston label, one of which, “Nobody but You Babe,” reached No. 7 on the Billboard R&B chart in 1969. With his music career taking off, Reid quit the warehouse and toured the chitlin circuit, performing with the likes of Big Maybelle, James Brown and Sam and Dave.
Still, he maintained his connection with Stone. With his songwriting partner, Willie Clarke, Reid penned a number of songs for Miami-born teenage R&B singer Betty Wright, including the 1971 million-selling smash “Clean Up Woman,” an infectious tune that all but defined the Miami sound with its bouncy rhythm and indelible guitar riff. Based on the strength of the record and another million-seller, The Beginning of the End’s “Funky Nassau,” Stone formed TK Records, home to KC and the Sunshine Band and Anita Ward (of “Ring My Bell” fame).
Reid penned another huge hit for Stone, Gwen McCrae’s “Rockin’ Chair,” which went to No. 1 R&B and No. 9 pop in 1975. “ ‘Sexy baby, good lovin’ daddy, let me be your rockin’ chair,’ ” Reid quotes. “That’s an old phrase that comes from the old people when they want to talk about ****in’ and don’t want their kids to know it. ‘Mama, you ready to rock?’ ‘Yeah, daddy, put me in your rockin’ chair tonight.’ ”
Still, the Blowfly within wouldn’t allow him to linger in the shadows of double-entendre. A few years earlier, the underground LP The Weird World of Blowfly surfaced with hilariously obscene parodies such as “Hold On, It’s Running” and “Spermy Night in Georgia.”
In 1977, Blowfly again created a buzz, this time with the title track to his album Porno Freak, which hopped on the porn bandwagon, giving shout-outs to Linda Lovelace and Debbie Does Dallas in an early rap style. A record-store clerk was actually arrested for selling Porno Freak, which had been banned in Alabama.
Naturally, Stone couldn’t risk his reputation by releasing such scandalous material, so Reid developed his own Weird World label to put out Blowfly records. In fact, TK didn’t release a Blowfly single until 1980, right before the label went under. The song was “Rapp Dirty,” a tune Reid says he cut in 1970, but Stone didn’t release until 1980 to capitalize on the monster popularity of The Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight.”
“And it sounds like I’m copying their ass, when I had that **** recorded before they even knew what condoms were,” Reid says. “I was ahead of myself. Like talkin’ dirty: Two years from now, everybody [will] be into it.”
Getting paid
Of course, one of the advantages of being ahead of the curve is reaping the rewards when everyone finally catches up. Reid digs into the black satchel on the table and pulls out a tattered Manila envelope containing a thick sheaf of blue paper, royalty sheets from EMI. There are 26 pages dedicated to one Puff Daddy song which samples Reid’s “You’re So Complete.” Ice Cube’s “What Can I Do?” has netted Reid $54,000 for its samples of “Rapp Dirty,” and he also gets paid for each of the two remixes of the tune. Jurassic 5 also sampled “Rapp Dirty” for its song “Quality Control,” and the Wu-Tang Clan dipped into the Blowfly groove book for its track “Uzi (Pinky Ring),” which borrowed from his tune “The Incredible Hulk.” Allegedly, Eminem included a Blowfly sample on a track, and Reid is currently suing for compensation.
“First thing I wanted to know was how I get paid,” Reid says of his early days as a songwriter, noting that he has been a member of American performing-rights organization Broadcast Music Inc., or BMI, since 1959. “You don’t have to be a genius to make a lot of money. You have to be a genius to keep it.”
Now, with Bowker’s assistance, Blowfly is poised for a comeback. Although Reid had to cancel his Tobacco Road appearance, Blowfly and the band are heading up to Orlando, and will be playing shows at Lake Worth’s Bamboo Room and Miami’s Churchill’s this week. For the former gig, Blowfly and the band will be preceded by the South Florida garage-rock trio The Heatseekers, who have opened shows for the nasty rapper at Alligator Alley and I/O.
“The audiences have been totally mixed,” the band’s drummer, Chuck Loose, observes. “Generally, there’s a younger group of 20-something punkers and rockers, some middle-aged blues fans and audiophiles, a few older African-American gentlemen or couples — usually dressed to the T — and a smattering of curious onlookers. I think potty humor is something that pretty much crosses most age boundaries. Maybe the people who go there not knowing what to expect get a little upset, but I think, generally, the audience knows what they’re in for. I think the younger crowds definitely are less inhibited or shocked by his stuff. … I mean, how shocking can ‘****ting on the Dock of the Bay’ be in the era of Jackass: The Movie?”
“We grew up with 2 Live Crew’s ‘Pop That Coochie’ and ‘Me So Horny,’ ” says Nastie, the raw-voiced promoter who booked Blowfly, as well as 2 Live Crew, as part of his six-day Miami 420 Music Festival already in progress at Churchill’s. “All that came from Blowfly. It’s already in [young audiences’] minds, they just don’t know it.” Nastie also relates that if he booked Blowfly by himself at Churchill’s, the show would probably tank, and so he’s comfortably ensconced him within a lineup of local and regional acts. But he also sees Blowfly as just a step away from blowing up big if he’s promoted right.
Perhaps sensing something in the Zeitgeist, EMI UK is putting out a best of Blowfly compilation, and Bowker hopes the band will be able to go to Europe to promote it. As for heading back into the studio, Bowker notes, “We’ve had some label interest, but we’re just waiting for the right situation.”
He also says they might work up a Clarence Reid show — as opposed to a Blowfly show — which might open some doors to places where the X-rated material might not fly. The division between the clean and profane hasn’t caused Reid to second-guess his choices for a long time. In fact, he says, when he first started performing as Blowfly, an older man in the audience reproached him for holding back. “ ‘You gotta make up your mind,’ ” Reid says the old man told him. “ ‘I know what you’re doing; you’re respecting the ladies. **** them!’ ”
Since, Reid has decided to be as nasty as he wants to be. And though he possesses a fine, soulful voice, he says he was never tempted to try to make it as a straight-up R&B performer.
“I think Blowfly was older than Clarence Reid,” he says, recalling his origins as a foul-mouthed kid with a satiric bent. “When you walk in [a club] and somebody’s singing [he croons], ‘Sincerely, oh yes, I love you.’ But when you walk in and I’m talking about, ‘Sincerely, you know I wanna butt-**** you,’ [shouts in horror] ‘Ahhhh!’ They look around. Some of them say they don’t like it or pretend they don’t like it: ‘You’re disgusting!’ Still, them same mother****ers be there.”
Blowfly performs Thursday at the Bamboo Room, 25 S. J St., in Lake Worth. The Heatseekers open at 9 p.m. Tickets cost $10. Call 561/585-2583 or visit www.bamboorm.com. Blowfly will also perform Friday as part of the Miami 420 Music Festival at Churchill’s, 5501 N.E. Second Ave., in Miami, along with Skunkape, Nature’s Fury, Agent 99 and others. The show starts at 10 p.m., and Blowfly goes on about midnight. Tickets cost $10-$15. Call 305/757-1807 or visit www.heynastie.com.
Contact Bob Weinberg at bweinberg@citylinkmagazine.com.
Liner notes
1. Clarence Reid was born on Valentine’s Day 1945 in Cochran, Ga.
2. Reid was sued by ASCAP president Stanley Adams for his parody “What a Difference a Lay Makes.” Adams had penned the original song, “What a Difference a Day Makes,” and was infuriated by the nasty cover version.
3. Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and members of Fishbone backed Blowfly during an extended gig at Club Lingerie in Hollywood, Calif. The results were captured on a 1991 documentary and soundtrack album titled The Twisted World of Blowfly.
4. Blowfly released a holiday album in 1999 titled Blowfly Does XXX-mas and featuring such favorites as “I Saw Daddy Suckin’ Santa Claus” and “Dick the Hos.” Fa-la-la-la-la …
Alleged Vendetta
Memo Raises Questions About Prosecutor's Role in Case Against Michael Jackson
April 29 — ABCNEWS has exclusively viewed documents that raise potentially troubling questions about the investigation into the child molestation allegations against Michael Jackson as the "King of Pop" prepares to face his arraignment on the charges brought by a grand jury.
Jackson, 45, faces seven counts of performing a lewd act upon a child for alleged inappropriate conduct with a now-14-year-old cancer survivor who spent time at his Neverland ranch. Last week, a grand jury hearing evidence in the child molestation case against him decided to indict him and he is scheduled to be formally arraigned Friday in Santa Barbara county court.
Jackson has professed his innocence and claimed the allegations against him are false. He and his defense have said that Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon has a vendetta against him and is determined to convict the pop star legend at any cost — a charge Sneddon has denied.
ABCNEWS has seen documents — including a memo apparently written by Sneddon himself — that will likely add to the controversy about the district attorney's role in the case.
Alleged Personal Stakeouts and Investigation
A memo that bears Sneddon's name and is dated last November says Sneddon personally investigated aspects of the case against Jackson. Jackson defense sources told ABCNEWS that Sneddon took on parts of the investigation that are almost always handled by police investigators or junior prosecutors.
According to the memo, Sneddon drove to Los Angeles and met alone with the mother of Jackson's alleged victim in a parking lot behind a federal building. The memo says that Sneddon took pictures of the office of a private investigator who worked for Jackson. Sneddon, the memo claims, handled all these matters by himself, without the presence of a law enforcement officer or an investigator. Sources close to Jackson told ABCNEWS that Sneddon also executed his own stakeouts.
In addition, a Santa Barbara County police report says that Sneddon met alone with Jackson's alleged victim's mother on another occasion.
Linda Fairstein, a leading sex crimes prosecutor, said this alleged personal sleuthing by Sneddon was unusual.
"It's way too personal. It's way out of line," Fairstein told Good Morning America. "If he does any substantive parts of an investigation, he may become a witness in the case."
Fairstein added that Sneddon's close involvement in aspects of the investigation could be grounds for a mistrial and gives Jackson's defense team ammunition to attack the prosecution.
"It lets these very talented defense attorneys take him apart before the jury and explain that it's not his place to do that," she said. "He creates trouble in and out of the courtroom for himself by taking on that role."
Legal experts also believe jurors are more likely to question the case against Jackson they sense it is motivated by a personal grudge from the district attorney.
Citing a gag order in the case, Tom Sneddon declined to comment on the memo and charges of a personal grudge against Jackson. He has said the evidence will speak for itself in court.
The specific charges that the grand jury decided to bring against Jackson are under seal, but will be revealed publicly when Jackson is arraigned Friday. He remains free on $3 million bail.
Reported by ABCNEWS' Jessica Yellin on Good Morning America.
Meet Elizabeth Lyvers and John Robert Gray (Photo)
by NewsRoom/SmokingGun.com
APRIL 27--Meet Elizabeth Lyvers and John Robert Gray. The dimwitted Kentucky couple was arrested Sunday for felony child abuse after taking pictures of Lyvers's two-year-old son smoking pot. The pair was nabbed when an employee at the convenience store where Lyvers, 24, and Gray, 20, dropped off their film called cops after seeing the offending images. According to Bardstown police, one photo shows Gray holding a pipe to the child's mouth while an unidentified man--who is being sought--lights the pipe (after his arrest, Gray acknowledged that the device contained marijuana).
Lyvers's son--and a one-year-old fathered by Gray--were removed from the couple's home by state child welfare officials. The below mug shots were taken by the Nelson County Sheriff's Department. Along with the abuse charges, Lyvers and Gray have one other criminal headache: their central Kentucky home was robbed yesterday while they were bunking at the local lockup.
Youngest Pointer Sister Faces L.A. Drug Charges
Tue Apr 27, 4:19 AM ET By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The youngest member of the original hit-making Pointer Sisters was charged on Monday with cocaine possession, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said.
June Pointer Whitmore, 50, was arrested last Thursday with two other people outside the Hollywood apartment of her older sister, Bonnie, but was released on bail.
Bonnie Pointer, who left the group in 1978 to pursue a solo career with Motown, was not charged in the case. Whitmore has not performed with the Pointer Sisters in more than three years, their lawyer, Martin Singer, told Reuters.
The two remaining members of the original lineup, Anita and Ruth Pointer, previously obtained a court order barring their younger sibling from the group and asserting their exclusive rights to the Pointer Sisters name, Singer said.
He said Whitmore was kicked out of the group because of repeated substance abuse problems that prevented her from making several appearances.
Anita and Ruth Pointer, who now perform as a trio with Ruth's daughter, Issa, are currently en route to Belgium for a tour, Singer said. He said they were in Montana last week recording a DVD when Whitmore was arrested.
Details of Whitmore's arrest were sketchy. But a spokeswoman for prosecutors said she and her co-defendants were confronted by police officers who responded to citizen complaints and found them in possession of cocaine and cocaine pipes.
Whitmore is charged with one count of cocaine possession and a lesser charge of possessing an illegal smoking device. Although conviction carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison, Whitmore would be eligible for a California program that allows first-time offenders to have their record expunged if they complete drug rehabilitation.
The original Pointer Sisters trio produced a string of hits in the late 1970s and early '80s, including a cover of Bruce Springsteen (news)'s "Fire," "He's So Shy" and "Slow Hand."
Legal representatives for Whitmore were not readily available. No arraignment date has been announced.
Word of the Stockholm Syndrome has begun to leak. People in the know are starting to pay attention, and ears across the globe are beginning to perk up. Some may think this is simply some side project that will be like most side gigs: good, but never great. Well some people are wrong. Part of the confusion with "some" people is that this is no side project; this is a full-fledged band, one that's poised for big things. What we find with the Stockholm Syndrome is a decade-plus relationship between bassist Dave Schools of Widespread Panic fame and Mr. Jerry Joseph, one of the most under-appreciated songwriters and performers of our day. These two musicians have been kicking it down for quite some time, and when they set forth to put this band together they certainly were not fooling around.
Stockholm Syndrome :: Bahamas
Keeping things dark and dirty, Schools and Jerry elected to go after a man by the name of Eric McFadden, who just so happens to specialize in black magic guitar and mandolin mayhem. Along with Eric they nailed down Wally Ingram (Jackson Browne, Sheryl Crow, Tracy Chapman, and many more including extensive work with David Lindley) on drums and classically trained German keyboardist Danny Dziuk, who has recorded and played with Jerry in the past.
With these five highly acclaimed musicians in place the band went down to the famous Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas to record their first album. I was lucky enough to get a preview copy of Holy Happy Hour (due out on Terminus at the end of June) and it instantly comes across as a monster of an album. One would expect high things from this crew, but what was put down far surpasses my own personal expectations, and has fed the fire that burns as I await my first live consumption.
On May 7, in Berlin, Germany, the world at large gets its first taste of the Stockholm Syndrome. As the band prepares to set off on a 13-date European tour before returning home for a few shows on the East Coast to begin their American leg, I was lucky enough to catch up with the men behind the Syndrome. While Dave Schools spoke from his home in Athens, Georgia and Jerry Joseph finished up a few solo dates in the Pacific Northwest, I picked their brains a bit, trying to get at the heart of the beast. Come along as we begin to write the first chapter of the story of Stockholm Syndrome.
Dave Schools and Jerry Joseph
By Michael Weintrob
Schools: Well obviously Jerry and I have known each other for over ten years, and we sort of conceived this idea--I guess it was really like fall of 2002 maybe. We played at a friend's wedding and called ourselves the Stockholm Syndrome because we thought it was a twisted take on our relationship, that hostage/kidnapper thing. And Wally was there, and Danny Barnes as well. We asked Wally to sit in with us and Wally has sat in with Panic a couple of times, and Jerry and Lindley have a long-standing relationship. So that was in place and I had known Eric for a long time, he played on the fist Slang record, and we knew that he was great. And his trio had played with the Jackmormons a few times last summer and fall, so that was another mutual person that was in place. And then Danny Dziuk had worked with Jerry on this album called Oil which came out in Germany on Ulf Tone, so that was the one I had to take Jerry on his word, but I heard Oil and thought it was great and met Danny briefly when Jerry and I were touring Europe last winter. Danny had sat in with us in Berlin and did some amazing stuff, so everybody threw their hats in the ring as it were.
THE SOUND OF THE BAND
Jerry Joseph :: Bahamas
Jerry: We have these highly creative players and wanted to see what happened when we put it all together really.
Schools: We sort of new what they were all like individually, and we knew what we wanted to get. But my production technique is a little more organic. As many times as I've gone into a production with a specific sound for the band, or even a song in my head, it's usually cooler to just see what happens on the spot and sort of take your cues from that and you can bend it and shape it a little more. But it always roughly comes when you're cutting a track with the whole band; there is kind of a direction that is already suggested. And I thought it would be really cool with this band since we had such very little rehearsal time to really let the talent meld together. And everybody was really on their best musical behavior. Nobody was showboating, everybody was adding to the project. Everyone knew how under the gun we were time-wise and how lucky we were to have that studio, Compass Point, with that engineer Terry Manning getting it all on disc. So it was really cool for me as the producer to get these live takes and maybe go back and listen after a take or two and then sort of suggest a couple more takes with these few things in mind. And that's basically how that worked out, everybody really brought their individuality to bare, but that individuality was tempered with solid team spirit.
HOLY HAPPY HOUR
Compass Point Studios :: Bahamas
Jerry: I think it's pretty ****in' good, a cohesive album. It could be guilty of a little genre hopping, but the songs just sort of wrote themselves, at least the stuff that Dave and I did. I think it sounds great, and the songs are cool. I think the playing is really good.
Schools: I think it's an amazing record. It's sort of a Whitman's Sampler, stylistically. Which is kind of a rare thing these days. Bands tend to market themselves very narrowly, probably because it helps the record label. And Jerry was worried a little bit about it, you know we got seven or eight tracks done and every one of these tracks sounds like it could almost be a different band. And I looked at Terry Manning one morning when I came in early to do some cleanup work with him and I said, "You know, do you think this is a problem?" And he looked at me and he goes, "No, you know I wish more records were like this. Think about the records that we love." Terry and I both share a really immense love for the The Beatles and that sort of British Invasion rock. In that era anything goes. Not to compare ourselves to The Beatles, but just the variegated styles that are represented on the record I think it's refreshing. It just got a five star review in the German Music Express, which is like their big music magazine.
FAVORITE SONGS OFF HOLY HAPPY HOUR
Jerry Joseph
By Michael Weintrob
Jerry: My favorites are "American Fork," "One In My Hand," and I think "White Dirt" has some of the best lyrics I've ever written.
Schools: I really love "One In My Hand" because that was the first song Jerry and I wrote for this record together. I wrote it on keyboards, he made me play keyboards and he was playing bass, so that is kind of neat. It's a real studio song, it's very ethereal, and has a lot of different instrumentation and some very serious background vocal work. I love that, and I think the other song that is my favorite on the record is "Shining Path." I think that is sort of the direction of the band. That sort of sinister, post-apocalyptic, European anthem sound. I think that is a really, really successful track on the record, and it should be because it took John Keane and I three days to mix that one. That and "American Fork" were the two... in fact everything about "American Fork" was difficult.
STOCKHOLM SYNDROME VERSUS FROM YOUR OTHER BANDS
Jerry: It's got keyboards. I think it's pretty different from the Jackmormons in many ways really.
Dave Schools :: Bahamas
Schools: Panic is sort of a democracy; It's like a headless democracy. There's no clearly defined leader, it's a melting pot of ideas. Just because you play bass doesn't mean you can't suggest a drumbeat. And just because you play drums doesn't mean you can't record an acoustic guitar track. And that works really well for Panic, but especially with this band, really never having played together before, someone had to take the reigns. And Jerry and I did that, and I wound up being sort of the go-to guy as far as the reigns went. Everybody has freedom of expression in the band, don't get me wrong, it's not an autocracy or anything, but the buck does kind of stop with me and Jerry. It is different, and I think when you are in the business of creating things, I think that every new experience that is different from what you do, or you are best known for doing, every time you can gather some new experience from some other field of endeavor, it just refreshes everything that you do. Like going out with Gov't Mule made me return to the Panic arena with a whole batch of different ways of looking at things and listening to things. And I know this was important to Jerry, and I think everybody in the Stockholm Syndrome digs the fact that what seemed to be just a recording project became a band really fast.
EUROPEAN CITIES
Danny Dziuk :: Bahamas
Jerry: Europe is a really great place to develop a band. When we came up with the whole idea for the band both Dave and I knew we loved to travel, so why not develop the band in Europe? There aren't as many expectations based on our other bands. And Europeans have a bit more of an open mind, and are really attentive. It seems to be less about selling drinks and more about the music. And overall it's just a dream come true really.
And the last time we played just me and Dave there were some really cool shows. Paris and Hamburg... Berlin and Barcelona are my two favorite cities in Europe. And we all have a connection to this club in Switzerland Muehle Hunziken, it's like the ****in' coolest club in Europe. The promoter guy is a really interesting artist and he designed the place himself. It's kind of like the House of Blues if it wasn't a chain. He made the art that's in it. I've played there a number of times and I'm really looking forward to that. This place in the Bastille [Paris] is supposed to be really cool, La Scene. So you know the whole thing is sort of a wet dream of me and Dave's. "Let's have a band and we'll start in Europe. See how it goes and get our sea legs or whatever." So I think that will help determine the sound of the band.
Schools: Well, venue-wise I know the place Fabrik in Hamburg is the place Jerry had played with Vic Chesnutt, and he thought it was really cool. Apparently the place in Paris is really cool. Cities I love--I love Paris. I'm psyched to play the Milky Way in Amsterdam, Panic has played the Borderline in London, that's sort of a damp rock cellar, it's really small and really cramped, and if there's a crowd in there it's really cool. That's the great thing about these clubs, it doesn't take much to make them feel really cool and packed, and in your face. It's going to be a good litmus test for this band.
TOURING EUROPE VERSUS TOURING THE STATES
Wally Ingram and Eric McFadden :: Bahamas
Jerry: The food's better. People are more polite. They have more of a sense of fashion, and we have to apologize a lot for being American.
Schools: Well obviously the venues are smaller. And crowds, especially for a singer/songwriter like Jerry, they're very respectful. They want to sit and smoke their cigarettes and listen to the words. They are very reserved until the end of the night or the song is over. And when an American crowd invades a tiny little nightclub in Germany it's a bit weird because you have all these Americans up front that are used to vying for space and getting real excited and everything, and that's great. But then you see the local Germans in the back hovering around the bar, pressed up against the walls, standing on chairs, intently trying to listen as the crowd sings along. It's just different, it's a different culture and they look at things in a different way.
SONGS
Jerry Joseph :: Compass Point Studios
Jerry: The song "White Dirt..." There are two things to it. Literally "White Dirt" is... Well, in the South I find things to still be sort of segregated by choice as opposed to by law. Like when you go to gas stations some of them are geared towards a white clientele and some are geared towards a black clientele based on the forties of Saint Ide's or menthol cigarettes and whatever kind of weird stereotypes. But the black gas stations often have this white dirt that they sell in a bag. It's white clay and you eat it. Black people in the South eat it, and I don't know if white people eat this, I could totally be making a stereotype, but they eat it for two reasons, one it acts like kind or a Pepto-Bismol kind of thing, and also I heard they would eat it because it absorbs, and when you are hungry it kind of fills your stomach. So they sell this stuff in the stores and it's called white dirt. So that's where I got the title, but usually I write titles and then the song that follows doesn't really have anything to do with the title. "White Dirt" was something I wrote as a title, and then it was just sort of a heavy fall for me, I had a lot of weird death and **** going on. So the song is more kind of...whatever, my personal drama.
Schools: We obviously recorded "Couldn't Get It Right" with a single in mind. It was something we had thought about doing, it's helped break bands in the past, to re-cut a classic single. And we searched long and hard for the right song. It wasn't a perennial favorite, but people remembered it from 20, 25 years ago. And that was one that got routinely, "Ohh yeah, I hadn't heard that song in 25 years, I love that song." So we sort of pressure-washed it a little bit, jumped up the tempo and sort of modernized it a little bit, and I thought it was very successful.
Jerry: The single is "Couldn't Get It Right." And it was remixed by Dennis Hearing who just did the new Modest Mouse record and is doing the new Elvis Costello record, did all the Counting Crows and stuff like that. So he did the mix for the single, I think it's already out in Europe. So that is definitely the radio song.
ERIC MCFADDEN
Eric McFadden
Jerry: Everything we've heard Eric do, he seems to be able to fit in with a lot of different types of musical genres. He's a really original sounding player, and he's a sweetheart. Most of the reason we picked people was based on their talent and ability to play outside of the box. But basically it's also who we like as humans.
Schools: I've always known Eric as a great guitar player, and he's also a great mandolin player. Stylistically he does that Flamenco **** great. And he can adapt it to the electric guitar the same way Santana adapted Latin jazz scales to the electric guitar, and the rock arena. What I discovered about Eric despite having known him for about ten years on this project is that his ear is impeccable. And he is a chord library, so in other words he knows a lot of theory and stuff like that. Which makes it really easy for he and Danny to work together because Danny is a classically trained keyboardist. So they can work the colors and the textures out so incredibly quickly, so it was a real boon to the session. So that was what really surprised me about Eric because I just never knew about it, but I guess it goes hand and hand because Flamenco is not exactly easy to learn, or easy to play, and I guess there is a good bit of theory and classical studying that goes along with it.
DAVE ON JERRY
Schools: He can take **** better than anyone I've ever seen in my life. He's got a great sense of humor, a big old black sense of humor just like mine. We go off on these tangents, just these ill tangents that would turn most people's stomachs, and you know we're off laughing in the corner and we've lost everyone else. But that's the other thing; Eric and Wally are both sick dogs too. So the humor quotient--it's a band full of damn comedians.
JERRY ON DAVE
Jerry: He's a smart guy. I think he tends to be more thoughtful than a lot of people I work with. Philosophically and musically we have a lot similar tastes. He’s kinda like me; we buy a lot of records and listen to a lot of different stuff. And hopefully when we boil it down to the common denominator we tend to end up on the same page.
MATERIAL
Jerry: We have the framework for a bunch of songs. That's kind of the thing we're most excited about, making the next record. And we're definitely pulling from my back catalogue; I've got something like 250 songs. I'm kind of leaving it up to the band to pick the ones of mine they want to do. And I think for each person we are hoping to have everyone front a couple of songs a night. Eric has a pretty big catalogue of songs, Danny Dziuk has an endless amount of songs; they're all in German. Dave has Slang stuff and Panic to pull from. I don't think there is any kind of rulebook we're going with. We certainly want to get into a position where we can do two or three nights of music and not repeat stuff. That's definitely one of the things we get from the jam band world, we're not going to do a "show," with the same songs every night, mostly because I think Dave and I would go ****in' berserk. I think we want to introduce new music every night to get the catalogue up there.
Dave Schools and Eric McFadden :: Compass Point
Schools: Well you know the last thing we want to be is conceived as a butt rock band, although we could do that. What we're really looking to do is get the songs across. And that was a big part of my production job on the record, making sure this isn't a guitar jam band, and that it's also not like a singer/songwriter/storyteller band, and that it's not just a jam band in general, or any kind of band that people think they can pigeonhole. Maybe it's that we want it to be a band in the classic sense of the word, where everybody is intelligent in the band, and everybody has a unique personality and a strong ability to bring that personality to the forefront, but also has the maturity and temperament to not do so. And to understand that here is your little hole, fill it. So you're probably not going to hear a lot of extemporaneous noodle jamming, you might, but it might be like a ten-minute metal jam if that happens that night. You just don't ever know. The mystery to us is that we just don't know how deep this stuff can go. We've barely scratched the surface of what this band is capable of making this record. I think it's just going to be surprise after surprise in Europe.
THE FUTURE OF STOCKHOLM SYNDROME
Jerry: The whole plan was to have a band with legs. So we have two things we want to do: continue to make better records as we go along, and in Dave's words, "To play anyplace that has electricity" and just being able to play around the world.
By Dan Whitcomb
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pop star Michael Jackson, bristling at photographers "lurking behind bushes" at his rented Florida mansion following his indictment, pleaded with the media on Friday to leave him alone.
Jackson, in seclusion at the 12-bedroom central Florida estate of time-share magnate David Siegel while he awaits an arraignment, asked for privacy in a written statement posted on his Web site.
"As I release this statement there are helicopters hovering above my residence, reporters staking out and photographers lurking behind bushes, running rampant around my compound," Jackson said.
"I am respectfully requesting that media organizations please respect my privacy and that of my children," he said. "I greatly appreciate your cooperation."
The 45-year-old entertainer was indicted on Wednesday by a Santa Barbara County grand jury investigating accusations that he molested a young boy.
Because Santa Barbara County prosecutors went to great lengths to keep the grand jury secret and the indictment was sealed, little is known about the exact nature of the charges.
But the grand jury was known to be probing the same accusations that led to charges against Jackson last December: seven counts of lewd acts on a child under 14 and two counts of plying the boy with alcohol in order to seduce him.
Jackson pleaded innocent to those charges, calling them a "big lie," and his lawyers have said he will prove his innocence to the indictment in court. He is expected to enter a "not guilty" plea at a court hearing on April 30.
Also on Friday news organizations covering the case, joined by Jackson's lawyers, asked the California Supreme Court to strike down a strict "gag" order imposed on the parties by Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville.
"The protective order bars those who are most knowledgeable about a criminal case that has garnered intense public interest from speaking to the public about the case, cutting off the best sources of truthful, timely information," the media attorneys said in a written petition.
Reporters have chafed at the extraordinary secrecy employed by Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon in the Jackson case, which has kept almost all of the evidence out of the public eye.
The four attorneys representing Jackson in the case sent a letter to the California Supreme Court that they joined in the petition and would file a brief early next week.
A former Moonlite BunnyRanch prostitute who accused Vince Neil of assaulting her is suing the former Motley Crue frontman, the Nevada brothel and its owner. The lawsuit filed last week seeks unspecified damages of at least $20,000 for lost wages and other costs stemming from the July 10, 2003 incident.
Neil, who has a home in Las Vegas, pleaded no contest earlier this month to misdemeanor battery in the incident. He was fined $1,000 and ordered to complete anger management classes.
Andrea "TrixXxie Blue" Terry claims in her lawsuit that Neil grabbed her by the neck, pushed her against a window and pulled her to the floor after she and another prostitute refused to have sex with him until he paid $4,000 for each woman.
The lawsuit claims brothel owner Dennis Hof was negligent because he didn't call police and because the "panic button" in her room wasn't working.
Hof told the Las Vegas Sun he believes Terry made up the story. Neil was at the brothel in the tiny community of Mound House at Hof's request. He was signing autographs a day after he performed with Poison during a concert in Reno.
Hof said Terry should have known Neil would not have to pay for her services. "We don't charge celebrities, we pay the girls ourselves," Hof said.
A judge has ruled that witnesses before the grand jury in the Michael Jackson case can talk to defense attorneys as long as they do not disclose what happened during the grand jury proceedings.
The ruling Friday by California Superior Court Judge Clifford R. Anderson allows attorneys to ask witnesses what they know of the case, as long as they don't inquire about what the witnesses saw in the grand jury room, what questions they were asked and how they answered them.
Prosecutors charged Jackson in December with seven counts of committing lewd or lascivious acts upon a child under 14, and two counts of administering an intoxicating agent to the child. The district attorney has taken the case to a grand jury to seek an indictment. Jackson denies the charges.
Anderson also rejected a request by news organizations including the Associated Press for advance notice of court hearings involving the grand jury, such as a series of recent hearings on whether tapes made by Jackson private investigator Bradley Miller must be handed over to prosecutors.
The judge said there was a "clash of rights" between the defendant, attorneys, grand jurors and the media. But he said the grand jury's right to investigate in secrecy outweighed the public's right to know about the proceedings.
During Friday's hearing, news media attorney Theodore Boutrous repeatedly criticized the secrecy surrounding the grand jury proceedings. He noted that many witnesses have been sneaked into the building where the grand jury is meeting, sometimes covered in blankets to hide their identities.
"The government is not supposed to smuggle people in and out of court," Boutrous said. Prosecutor Gerald Franklin said such measures were necessary to protect the identities of witnesses.
After 36 Years, Bobby Short to End Gig
(AP, 04/19/2004 3:49 PM)
By Nekesa Mumbi Moody
Bobby Short , who became an elegant institution with his performances at the swanky Cafe Carlyle for 36 years, will end his run on New Year's Eve.
"I'm not retiring. I intend to keep on working," Short, 79, told The Associated Press by phone Monday. "But the drill of five nights a week for 20 weeks at a time is something that no longer appeals to me. It's too much."
Short has been performing since age 12, when he became a vaudeville entertainer. But his sophisticated cabaret act, in which he sings the songs of Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin and others, made him one of New York's treasures and a member of the social elite.
Short, who was hospitalized a year ago because of a "weak spell," said he realized the rigors of his act were too much about two years ago.
"I began to think, `What am I doing here?'" he said. "I couldn't have a better showcase than the Cafe Carlyle, but it does restrict my life."
Short's last date at the home-away-from-home of the fabulously rich will be Dec. 31. He still plans to continue touring, though he is interested in doing far more leisurely things, such as traveling and visiting friends: "There's no shortage of things to do when I'm not working, and working deprives me of the many things I love to do."
Short, who played himself in Woody Allen 's 1986 movie "Hannah and Her Sisters," has been a fixture at "A list" events in New York for decades. His panache kept him on best-dressed lists even in years when his bank account was slim, and he was one of very few blacks ever named to the Social Register.
Short said he won't rule out performances at the Carlyle after he retires from there, but is interested performing at other venues
AIM Working to Contain HIV; Search for Second-Generation Continues
By: Scott Ross
04-13-2004
VAN NUYS, Calif. - Veteran performer Darren James was diagnosed as HIV-positive today, and Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation (AIM) went immediately into motion to make sure that the virus is contained, quarantining 12 women who have been identified as first-generation performers, women who have slept with James since his last negative HIV result.
Performers who have slept with members of the first-generation are also quarantined, technically voluntarily, and AIM is working to identify other performers in that generation as well.
Darren James
First-generation performers must wait 30 days, the amount of time it could take for HIV to appear in measurable quantities, before taking another PCR-DNA and RNA HIV test. If those tests come back negative, the first-generation performers will be declared “clear,” and they will no longer be quarantined.
The current list of women that have worked with James since his last negative test and are under a voluntary quarantine is as follows: Jocelyn (3/19/2004); Lauren Roxx (3/24/04); Annie Cruz (3/29/2004); Vanesca, Persia, Miss Arroyo (3/30/2004); Kayla Marie, Jessica Dee (4/07/2004); Skyler Banks, Patrice Petite, Candy Ray, Desiree Clark, and Kayla Marie again (4/08/2004).
Second-generation performers will be quarantined until the first-generation performer that they worked with is clear.
Veteran performer Mark Ashley, who became of member of the second-generation when he performed in a scene with Patrice Petite, is on the sidelines until May 8.
“I walked off a set today as soon I heard about this. I went down to AIM to take care of it,” Ashley said. “I was doing a dialogue scene today and I was supposed to do a sex scene tonight, but I canceled it. “
Ashley said he understands why AIM suggested the quarantine, which is technically voluntary.
“I didn’t even know it was voluntary, I thought it was mandatory,” Ashley said. Who the **** is going to work with you anyway? I would encourage other performers in the same the situation to honor the quarantine.”
Besides Ashley, other performers known to be in the second-generation are: Carlos Mendes, Mark Anthony, T.T. Boy, Sean Michaels, Julian St. Jox, Mark Davis, Conrad Taylor, Duane Commings, and Marco T.
An unknown male that works under either Sol or Shane is also believed to be in the second-generation.
Judy Starr is the only woman identified so far as being in the second-generation.
Mitchell says that the list will likely be much larger considering the number of women in the first-generation and that identifying performers in the second-generation is next obstacle to overcome for AIM to overcome. “We know the transmission is evident from men to women and with so many women we’re very, very, concerned about the second generation,” Mitchell said
Mitchell says that Cherry Boxxx Pictures, Red Light District, VCA and Playboy TV have declared a moratorium on production until the second- and possibly third-generation has been identified.
"Some people are taking the option not to shoot until the list is complete and I think that's a good idea," Mitchell told AVN.com.
Records the show that James’ last negative test was on March 17, 2004. Prior to that, his last negative test was on Feb. 25, 2004. He stopped performing immediately after his AIM test came back positive, and immediately went in for confirmation tests, the results of which came back today.
“He did nothing wrong. He isn’t a bad guy,” Mitchell said. “He acted responsibly and was very cooperative.”
AIM will provide his follow-up care and any treatment that James seeks will be provided by AIM or one of their non-profit affiliates.
James is also eligible for the AIM scholarship program so that he can pursue vocational training or a college degree. James isn’t legally barred from performing, but for all intents and purposes his career in front of the camera is over. “We know that in the straight world people don’t typically work HIV-positive unless someone agrees to work with them with a condom, knowing their status,” Mitchell said.
This is the first time a veteran performer has been diagnosed HIV-positive since Tony Montana in 1999.
People attempting to enter the adult industry are occasionally found to be HIV-positive. In fact, one aspiring male talent was diagnosed last month before having ever worked in adult.
GAYS Flock To SanFrancisco To Get 'Married' ....(Pictures) !
by NewsRoom/SFexaminer.com
By Adriel Hampton
Staff Writer
ahampton@Sfexaminer.com
Published on Monday, February 16, 2004
Hundreds of gay and lesbian couples were turned away from City Hall Sunday after waiting hours to wed after city officials said they did not have the resources to process any more marriage licenses. Couples vowed to camp out on the steps of City Hall in hopes of getting the chance to exchange vows Monday morning.
In what one City Hall staffer described as "trying to shove an elephant through a pinhole," the County Clerk's office scrambled to process more than 400 marriage license applications Sunday for couples lined up through two floors of the building. Officials expect to have processed 1,600 licenses since Thursday.
Couples from around the state and nation have rushed here to participate in the first gay marriages after Mayor Gavin Newsom declared last week the state Family Code that limits marriage to heterosexual couples unconstitutional.
Lined up outside City Hall Sunday without hope of filling out an license until Monday morning, couples were polite, but bordered on frustration.
Several yards from the City Hall entrance, Erin Lewis held up sign declaring the line "Camp Wanna Be Wed." Signs declaring the happening "San Francisco 2004 Marry-in, Feb. 12-?" adorned lampposts.
Lewis and her partner, Molly Hollis, left Saturday at 6 a.m. from Austin, Texas, and had waited since early Sunday morning for a marriage license.
"We aren't going back home without it," Lewis said.
City staff worked over the holiday weekend to process as many same-sex marriage licenses as possible before The City is forced into court to defend the constitutionality of the policy. The county clerk's office, with only six computers for handling the licenses, normally issues about 30 per day.
Officials issued tickets to 320 couples who weren't processed Saturday, and allowed them first into the building early Sunday, along with 80 couples who began lining up in the pre-dawn hours. Hundreds more were turned away. Sunday afternoon, another 40 couples were allowed into City Hall and deputies asked dozens more to disperse. In the mid-afternoon, scores of couples continued to wait in line for service Monday morning, when the clerk's office hopes to process another 400 licenses. Enforcement of anti-camping laws outside the building appeared unlikely.
A volunteer from Under One Roof, a Castro retail store that funds AIDS prevention, passed out biscotti to waiting couples. Many shared food, bottles of water and called for pizza. Some set up in lawn chairs for the long wait, while others mournfully headed home. One man hung an "I approve" placard on a statue of Abraham Lincoln.
"They are talking about dispersing this line, but we're not going anywhere," said Suzy Bikakis.
Many camped out due to the threat of licenses being halted. Two conservative family groups sued San Francisco in two separate actions last week in an attempt stop marriages. A judge refused to immediately halt the marriages Friday, but the cases return to court Tuesday.
"The mayor clearly has picked a fight, but it's the city attorney's position that it's a fight worth fighting," said Matt Dorsey, spokesperson for the City Attroney's office.
About 40 Muslims protested the weddings Friday, silently holding signs quoting the Koran. The Archdiocese of San Francisco also issued a statement expressing disappointment with Newsom's actions. Across the street from City Hall Sunday afternoon, a handful of protesters held signs condemning homosexuality and left when rain began to fall.
Newsom's bold move comes as Massachusetts legislators struggle over a state Supreme Court decision to legalize gay marriage and President Bush considers an anti-gay marriage amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Polls show the national citizenry sharply split on same-sex marriage equality. Last week, state Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, introduced a bill that would legalize same-sex marriages in California.
Leno presided over more than 100 same-sex marriages over the weekend and gay marriage advocates Saturday rallied in Sacramento in support of his proposed law.
Wedding bells ring Castro's cash registers
By Ethan Fletcher
Staff Writer
efletcher@examiner.com
Published on Monday, February 16, 2004
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Merchants in the Castro District were not only celebrating the first gay marriages in San Francisco history, but also counting their earnings after a lucrative, historic Valentine's Day weekend.
Many small shops in The City's mostly gay quarter received a boost from wedding-delirious revelers. Adding to the profit-friendly environment was a Saturday Valentine's Day, a long President's Day weekend, beautiful weather and an annual gay gathering.
Ellen Sinaiko, co-owner of the small café La Mediterranee at Noe and Market streets, said that while the restaurant is always packed on Valentine's Day, Saturday was something special due to Mayor Gavin Newsom's historic opening of the floodgates for gay marriages in San Francisco.
"It was busy all weekend. Friday lunch was good, Friday night was standard good, yesterday brunch was nonstop and last night was out of control," Sinaiko said. "There definitely was an extra buzz [because of the marriages]. It's all anyone can talk about."
Indeed, denizens in the Castro could be overheard talking about such topics as conservative backlash and the possibility of gay-marriage in Massachusetts. At one point, two men in a red convertible drove down Market Street honking, holding a sign saying "just married," and one store had "Have a Happy Homo Honeymoon" lettered across its front.
Brian Shonkwiler, working at Not Just Flowers at 18th and Castro streets, said that beginning Thursday, it was the single biggest weekend in the flower shop's nine-year history.
"It was really great, it's the best we've ever had," he said. "It was the gay marriages in combination with Valentine's Day, the long weekend and the beautiful weather.
"People were spending lots of money -- big money," he added. "Normally you get people trying to barter with you, but this weekend it was like, nope, my price is fine."
Shonkwiler said that 90 percent of Sunday's business, normally slow after Valentine's Day, was marriage-related purchases.
"It was fantastic, I couldn't have asked for a better Valentine's Day -- they were very supportive of our store."
Down the street, Geoffrey Douglas, the owner of Faerie Queene Chocolates, said business was humming on the busiest holiday of the year for sales. Sitting behind the chocolate laden counter, sporting rainbow suspenders, Douglas claimed sales were up about ten percent due to the marriages.
He also said that local merchants were benefiting from the annual gay gathering of the International Bear Rendezvous in San Francisco. Although the more manly, straight-laced "Bears" tended to shun the chocolate shop -- because it is too "foofy," he claimed -- Douglas said sales were brisk.
"Nobody is going to get laid on Valentine's Day without a box of chocolates," he said.
To prove that gay couples were not just holding hands over the weekend, Jessie Vanciel, a salesperson at adult novelty store Phantom on Castro Street, said business was up 50 percent.
Other beneficiaries of the hot weekend were the Castro bars and clubs. Enrique Jiminez, a bartender at the dance club The Pendulum, said he saw at least eight newlyweds celebrating in the ultra-packed 19th Street establishment Saturday night.
It was the best weekend of the year at Castro Village Wine Co. on 19th Street, according to salesperson Rob Messick.
"A lot of pink champagne, a lot more than last year," Messick said of weekend sales. "Lot's of tuxedo-clad people."
im sorry but all this bull S***t is not in cluded in the bible,GOD said man shall share the rest of our lives and dedicated it to women beautiful women. CUT THE CRAP PEOPLE
BANG YOUR SELVES
BUT PLEASE??
DON'T GET GOD INVOLVED IN THIS
P.S
BURN YAR ASS IN HELL.
Listen, skypilot, who cares what the Imaginary Friend of your declining boutique religion has to say on anything. He does not exist. What relevance do ancient fairy stories for a bunch of nomadic, desert dwelling goat herders have today? None, except for the emotionally weak and/or mentally unstable. Get a life.
im sorry but all this bull S***t is not in cluded in the bible,GOD said man shall share the rest of our lives and dedicated it to women beautiful women. CUT THE CRAP PEOPLE
BANG YOUR SELVES
BUT PLEASE??
DON'T GET GOD INVOLVED IN THIS
P.S
BURN YAR ASS IN HELL.
Drama@The Canadian Border For P-Funk (The Show WILL Funk On!) ..
by TFSnewsRoom
Drama@The Canadian Border For P-Funk (The Show WILL Funk On!) ..
Canadian Border Officials Boarded The P-Funk Busses,Did A Thorough (7 Hour)
Search With Dogs & Although No One Was Arrested,They Decided To Let
ONLY Blackbyrd, Rico, RonKat, Belita, Kendra, PeaNut and GC Into The Country. & The crew got
in except for Citrus.George Clinton Tells TFS News Correspondent 'Atomic Dawg' "I have a Power Trio".
They are playing 2 to 3 hour shows to Great Response...Inspight Of Playing In Numerous Countries,
The "On The Ground" Canadian Border Situation Can Sometimes Get Dicey,Any Hint Of Past Drama "No Matter How Minor" Can Lead To One Being Denied Entry Into The Country..Ironically The Whole Band Got In On Last Years Run Through Canada (Including Boogie...LOL! 'Inside Joke'),We Are Awaiting Another On The Ground Report From Western Canada...Stay Tuned
Prince Shows His Hits At Opening Night Of Musicology Tour
by NewsRoom/AP
Prince Shows His Hits At Opening Night Of Musicology Tour
LOS ANGELES — It was a strange case of déjà vu: On the opening night of his Musicology tour, the former Purple Wonder took the stage at the Staples Center to the same words that ushered him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame two weeks ago. Four video monitors facing the crowd replayed Alicia Keys' heartfelt introduction, and the audience exploded as her last few words faded: "... the one and only, Prince."
The tour, Prince's first nationwide trek in six years, has been billed as the last time he will play many of his hits. But Monday's set, surprisingly, kicked off with the title track from his new album, also called Musicology. The song served as a warm-up for the almost three-hour-long concert that followed: Prince, clad in white with a red tuxedo jacket and hat, used the song to brush off his dance moves. He then wiped his face with a handkerchief, brushed off his shoulders and gave a coy look into the audience.
"Los Angeles!" he shouted. Ticker tape and purple streamers fell from the ceiling as the band burst into "I Would Die 4 U," which was followed by short bursts of well-known songs from Purple Rain (most of the evening's hits were performed in abbreviated versions, with crowd-participation sections and searing guitar solos). A truncated version of "When Doves Cry" slipped into "Baby I'm a Star," which led into a brief jam on the song's riff; Prince capped the song by tossing his hat into the crowd and grinning at his fans.
The strings of hits were broken up with lesser-known tunes, the first of which was "Shhh" from 1995's The Gold Experience. But then the deluge continued with a brace of songs from early in Prince's career: "D.M.S.R.," "I Feel for You" and "Controversy." Interestingly, several key words in these songs were changed to convey religious, rather than sexual, connotations. As the band wrapped up the medley with a jam, Prince announced, "We do not believe in lip-synching: This is real. This is real music by real musicians."
Unlike many of Prince's earlier tours, the Musicology stage set is spare: It features a metal tube that doubles as both an arch and a fireman-style pole, a short guardrail on one side of the stage adorned with the "NPG" logo, and a circle of beads hanging center stage. Even the light show is minimal, consisting mostly of spotlights. There isn't much to see besides Prince himself, which seems to be the point.
"God," the moody B-side to "Purple Rain," was the palette-cleanser before a mellower stream of hits, which included a soulful version of "Nothing Compares 2 U." Then the beaded curtain dropped, completely surrounding Prince at center stage for "Insatiable"; even the funky "Sign O' the Times" was slowed down to suit this down-tempo section of the show.
Not until 1981's "Let's Work," with shout-outs to "old school" members of the crowd, did the party atmosphere resurface. "U Got the Look" took it even higher, as approximately 20 members of the crowd were ushered off the floor to spend the remainder of the show onstage with the band. Prince took this opportunity to slip in a new song, "Life 'O' the Party," during which he slyly directed the comment, "I ain't never had my nose done," to the Tinseltown crowd.
"Soul Man," the Sam & Dave hit later popularized by the Blues Brothers, was the only cover of the night. By this point, the band was hamming it up with the fans onstage; one girl even found herself playing a cowbell. "Kiss" and "Take Me With U" made for a crowd-pleasing end to the set, especially when one of the fans onstage tripped and fell when Prince called her to the mic to sing with him. "Too many trips to the bar!" he laughed.
The encore provided a change of pace along with the only costume change of the night: Prince, now wearing black pants and a sleeveless black turtleneck, sat on a chair and gave stripped-down performances of "Forever in My Life" and "Little Red Corvette," almost coming to tears before playing "Sometimes It Snows in April."
He was then joined by the full band for a version of "Purple Rain" that was a show in itself. Introducing it with "I love playing this song," he donned his famous purple symbol-shaped guitar and capped the song with a screeching solo. He then laid on the stage to touch the hands of his fans and called "One more!" over and over again before vanishing down the fireman's pole, while the band played on.
Child Spotted Sprinkling Drug Over Friend's Lasagna
by NewsRoom/AP
Boy, 5, Brings Bag of Marijuana To Elementary School
Child Spotted Sprinkling Drug Over Friend's Lasagna
POSTED: 5:34 am EST March 23, 2004
UPDATED: 7:13 am EST March 23, 2004
MIAMI -- Police say a 5-year-old boy brought a bag of marijuana to school and was sprinkling it over a friend's lasagna at the school cafeteria before a monitor intervened.
Police say it is unclear whether the kindergartner at Gratigny Elementary School even knew he was carrying the drugs on Monday.
The lasagna was confiscated before the other boy had a chance to eat it.
Initially, the boy, who had tried to hide the bag with his feet when the monitor approached him, "may have said it was oregano," said Mayco Villafana, spokesman for Miami-Dade County Public Schools.
"The boy is not going to be charged," Villafana said. "The focus is on the child's environment and what issues could have led to a child having a bag of marijuana in school."
The family of the kindergartner who had the marijuana is under the scrutiny of school police and state child-welfare authorities.
School police took the matter to the state attorney's office and in addition to speaking with the boy's family, police are looking into whether an older friend asked the boy to hold the plastic bag. The case was also referred to Florida's Department of Children and Families, Villafana said.
After speaking with police, the boys were allowed to return to their kindergarten class. Both sets of parents were contacted about the police inquiry. No names were released.
Couple's 4-year-old son brought crack cocaine to a Head Start
by NewsRoom/Indystar.com
Parents still sought in drug case
Police find toddler who also disappeared on Monday after the couple's 4-year-old son brought crack cocaine to a Head Start program.
By John Tuohy and Terry Horne
March 23, 2004
The parents of a pre-schooler who brought crack cocaine to school were believed to still be in hiding this morning, but police said they have found a toddler who disappeared with them on Monday.
The toddler was found at an apartment complex in the 4400 block of North Shadeland Ave. about 11 a.m., police said.
Police believe that the couple, Kenneth Lee Green, 24, and Andrea D. Jackson, 23, might be armed, said Sgt. Roger Tuchek, of the Indianapolis Police Department.
A search of the couple's home in the 400 block of West 41st Street on Monday turned up handgun and rifle rounds, shotgun shells and a bulletproof vest in addition to scales and some suspected marijuana.
The search for the couple began after their 4-year-old son brought a bag of suspected crack cocaine "rocks," worth as much as $7,500 on the street, to the Head Start program at 3637 N. Meridian Street.
A teacher recognized the white clumps as possible cocaine and called police.
"Obviously, these parents aren't going to get any Parent of the Year awards," said Tuchek.
"This could have killed these kids," he said. "A lot of kids were put at risk."
According to court records, Jackson was wanted on a warrant for failing to appear in court on a 2001 theft charge. Green had been convicted of carrying a firearm without a license in 1999, and of resisting law enforcement and marijuana possession in 1997.
Police said Child Protective Services took the 4-year-old and two older siblings, 6 and 7, into custody. The toddler was described by reports and police alternately as 11 months old and 20 months old.
Tuchek said child welfare workers are investigating claims of child abuse against the parents.
A 3-year-old California girl died after she ate some cocaine she found around the house in 2002, and last month, her father pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter. The Associated Press reported the man's girlfriend found the child in his room, suffering a seizure. The girl died 11 days later from seizures and cardiac arrest.
After police arrived at about 8:30 a.m. on Monday, they seized the drugs and interviewed the boy. Then they got a search warrant for his parents' home, in the 400 block of West 41st Street.
The police presence startled parents picking up their children from Head Start, a federally funded early-childhood education program.
"This is a real good school, so something like this is very unusual," said David Lewis, 36. "I'm thinking the child just picked up the wrong backpack and the parents didn't notice."
James Gandolfini
"The Sporanos" star James Gandolfini may be one of the most popular guys on TV, but his personal life is something of a mystery.
With the fifth season just under way, I recently spent a few days in New Jersey, where the show is filmed, looking for insight into his personality. Boy, was it a shocker!
THE SCORE
I hit paydirt at The New Skyway Diner in South Kearny, N.J., where I learned that Gandolfini had made moves on a woman named Marilyn Torres, 39, who was working there as a waitress at the time.
I arranged to meet her for a cup of coffee, and when the exotic beauty with sparkling brown eyes, long dark hair and full lips walked in, I immediately saw the attraction The Sopranos star must have felt for her.
What she told me nearly made me spit out my drink.
Pick up a copy of this week's Star Magazine to learn more about James Gandolfini's secret life.
HOG-WILD SHAQ STICKS HARLEY DEALER WITH $130,000 BIKE
Shaquille O'Neal
Basketball superstar Shaquille O'Neal is the Biker from Hell! That's how an outraged motorcycle dealer feels about the Los Angeles Lakers' 7-foot-1 superstar.
The hoop legend is a real Harley hog for ordering a custom-built $130,000 chopper -- and then never paying the bill, the dealer charges in a supersized lawsuit.
What's worse, the Daytona Harley-Davidson dealer says he's stuck with the bike, because it was specially designed to fit the hoopster's hulking 340-pound body!
"You can't just walk into a shop and get a king-sized bike," said Daytona Harley- Davidson owner Bruce Rossmeyer. "It took us a year and a half to build, and every part was handmade."
The burgundy chopper was constructed to meet Shaq's design requests, including a Superman logo -- like the one tattooed on his arm -- painted or hand engraved into the chrome and titanium bike 34 times.
But the dealer charges there's one detail the big guy overlooked -- paying the $130,000 tab, which is less than half the $300,000 Shaq reportedly earns per game.
An insider told The ENQUIRER: "The dealership didn't have any reason to think Shaq wouldn't pay them. He bought a custom-made bike from them once before and even took his first riding lessons there.
"Last September, when the bike was delivered to Shaq's home near Orlando, he absolutely loved it and didn't have a single complaint.
"They made every effort to get Shaq to pay so it wouldn't have to come to a lawsuit, but it got to where he wouldn't even return their calls," said the insider.
Shaq's spokeswoman did not respond to The ENQUIRER's request for comment.
But the insider disclosed the bike shop finally had to take drastic action. "The dealership had no other choice but to go to Shaq's house and take back the bike."
Whitney Houston's publicist released a statement Monday that her client had entered an undisclosed drug rehabilitation center. As Whitney battles her addiction, some Hollywood stars are weighing in on the situation.
Melanie Griffith, who went through rehab to battle her own substance abuse problems, thinks beating an addiction is tough for anyone -- celebrity or not.
"I think it's tough for everybody. It's really tough," Melanie told Access Hollywood's Shaun Robinson.
When asked what advice she had for Whitney, Melanie said: "Just do what she's doing. It's great that she's doing that. "
Paula Abdul, a friend and someone who battled her own eating disorder demon, hopes Whitney can rebound from rehab.
"I do know Whitney and Bobby both. I wish them the best," said Paula. "I love her. I love her voice and I just want her to be healthy and happy."
Paula's sentiments were reiterated by tennis great John McEnroe, who has publicly admitted to his past drug use.
"I'm glad that she's decided to do that... She's such an incredible talent that it would be great to see her straighten herself out," McEnroe told Shaun.
Former Hollywood madam, Heidi Fleiss, walked the long road to recovery after she was legally forced to enter rehab for an addiction to crystal meth.
"It's all about you. If you want to stay sober, you're going to stay sober," she said.
"Taking Lives" stars Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke talked briefly to Access at the premiere for their new film.
"It's difficult for anybody to go through anything like that," said Jolie of Houston. "I'm sure in some ways she gets a lot of love sent her way and in some ways she gets a lot of scrutiny."
"It's hard for everybody. Life is tough. She'll take care of herself. She's a smart lady," added Hawke.
While Whitney is in rehab and her husband is incarcerated, their 11-year-old daughter Bobbi Christina is staying with Grandma Cissy Houston. Assuming Bobby and Whitney stay together, is there a possibility they could lose custody of their daughter? According to matrimonial lawyer Gary Newman, the chances are slim.
"Often welfare can become involved if someone notifies them. They will do a examination of the home and the various individuals to determine the suitability of the temporary placement," Newman told Access. "It would be a rare occurence where neither Bobby or Whitney would be given the right to raise their child."
Buckethead's Hand Puppet Says Goodbye To Guns N' Roses
After fours years as a member of Guns N' Roses, during which time the band canceled more shows than it played and released no original material, guitarist Buckethead has had enough.
The eccentric musician, who wears a fried-chicken bucket on his noggin and talks only through a hand puppet, has walked out before but has always returned to the fold. This time, however, it looks permanent. At the end of last year, Buckethead became fed up with Guns' inability to complete an album or tour and stopped working with them, his manager said.
Buckethead appeared on the green carpet at the Grammy Awards last month and was introduced by Parliament/Funkadelic bassist Bootsy Collins as a member of Guns N' Roses, but by that time Buckethead had already told Guns frontman Axl Rose he no longer wanted to be in the band, the manager said.
Guns N' Roses are scheduled to headline the Rock in Rio festival in Lisbon, Portugal, on May 30. It is unclear whether the band will have a new guitarist by then. Guns N' Roses' label would not comment on Buckethead's departure.
The guitarist will now focus on numerous projects, including two solo albums — Population Overdrive and Cuckoo Clocks of Hell — which are due this summer. In addition, a group called Col. Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains, which features Buckethead, Primus bassist Les Claypool, Guns N' Roses drummer Brain (ex-Primus) and legendary funk keyboardist Bernie Worrell, will release a debut studio album this summer (see "Buckethead's Brains On Hold During GN'R Tour, Claypool Says").
The record was mostly recorded last year in Northern California at Claypool's home studio, Rancho Relaxo, and includes the songs "Buckethead," "Tyranny of the Hunt," "The Big Eyeball in the Sky" and "Hip Shot From the Stab."
"There are slices of all of our worlds," Claypool said. "We're talking about four pretty strong personalities, so you can hear Primus with Buckethead flailing over the top and Bernie Worrell's monster tidbits over the top of what we're doing. It's unbelievable."
Half of the Col. Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains album will be instrumental. The band has played various live improvisational shows, but this will be the first time audiences will hear the band performing structured material.
"It's not as chaotic as you would think," Claypool said. "You'd think, 'OK, here come these four guys and they're just gonna start flailing,' but Brain is a very structured player, so everything tends to be very groove-oriented."
Also on Buckethead's plate are shows and recordings with his recently reunited high school band, Deli Creeps, which features a singer named Maximum Bob, drummer Pinchface and bassist Tony.
And Buckethead will likely join bassist Bill Laswell, Brain and others for a show as Material at this year's Bonnaroo festival, which is scheduled for June 11-13 in Manchester, Tennessee, according to the guitarist's manager. The festival may also feature a reunion of Praxis — a band featuring Laswell, Buckethead, Collins, Worrell, Brain and DJ Flip — who haven't played together in five years.
Buckethead will start a solo tour Wednesday (March 17), opening for Particle in Austin, Texas. Dates run through April 15 in Atlanta.
N.Y. Police Arrest Courtney Love on Assault Charge
Thu Mar 18
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Rocker Courtney Love (news) was arrested in New York early on Thursday after throwing a microphone stand into a nightclub audience and hitting a man on the head, police said.
Hours before her arrest, Love, 39, known for her sensational, erratic behavior, bared her breasts on the CBS "Late Show with David Letterman."
A police spokesman said Love was charged with assault and reckless endangerment after the 2:30 a.m. incident at an East Village nightclub. She was scheduled to appear in Manhattan criminal court on April 19, prosecutors said.
She threw a microphone stand into the audience and a 24-year-old man was injured in the head, police said. The name of the man was not released.
The arrest came hours after a burst of outlandish behavior on Letterman's show. Walking onto the set singing "Danny Boy," Love jumped up on Letterman's desk and, with her back to the audience, declared, "Oh, Drew, you've had it," and pulled up her blouse. She was not wearing a bra. Her exposed skin was pixilated by the camera for TV viewers.
Actress Drew Barrymore (news) famously performed a similar stunt on Letterman's show for his 48th birthday on April 12, 1995.
"Thank you very much. That's very sweet of you," Letterman said to Love, laughing. "They're gonna lose their liquor license."
"You know, I haven't shown my boobs in so long," she said after climbing down from his desk. When he tried to ask about the drug possession charges pending against her in California, she turned around and flashed Letterman again.
At one point during the rambling and sometimes incoherent interview that followed, Love started to pull her shirt up again facing the camera as Letterman pressed her about her legal troubles.
When Letterman asked, "Are things going well, or not?" she replied, "Yeh, they're going great! Handcuffed in the bedroom, handcuffed outside, doesn't matter." Later she joked, "I used to be a porno star" and asked Letterman, "Do you think I'm, like, whacky and stuff?"
"Are you whacky?" he asked her back.
"OK, but is that against the law?" she said.
"No, it's not against the law. It's not a good idea, but it's not illegal," Letterman said.
While performing a song from her new album, "America's Sweetheart," Love took off her guitar and hurled it across the stage.
Love, frontwoman for the defunct rock band Hole and widow of Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain, had appeared in court in Beverly Hills, California, on Tuesday for a hearing to determine if she will be tried on drug charges. The hearing was postponed but not before she had disrupted proceedings and was admonished by the judge to keep quiet.
Love has pleaded not guilty to illegal possession of the prescription painkillers oxycodone and hydrocodone. The charges stem from Love's Oct. 2 trip to a local hospital for what police called "a medical emergency."
Asked on TV Wednesday night by Letterman if drugs were involved in her arrest, Love replied, "Yeh, one expired Percocet and one Ambien." Percocet is a narcotic analgesic that contains oxycodone. Ambien is used to treat insomnia.
She faces two charges in a separate case stemming from her pre-dawn arrest the same day outside a boyfriend's home, where police said she was breaking windows.
Love was set to play another Manhattan concert on Thursday to promote her solo album "America's Sweetheart."
LOS ANGELES - John 'J.J.' Jackson, who in the 1980s helped usher in the music video era as one of the first MTV on-air personalities, has died. He was 62.
Jackson, a longtime radio station disc jockey, died of an apparent heart attack Wednesday while driving home from dinner in Los Angeles, friends and radio industry colleagues said Thursday.
"I talked to him like two days ago. J.J. was in a great place," said Mark Goodman, a longtime friend who also worked with Jackson as a 'VJ' when MTV launched in 1981. "It's incredible, so incredibly sad it happened like this."
In a statement, MTV said Jackson's love of music and good humor helped set the tone for the cable music network in its formative years.
"He was a big part of the channel's success and we are sure he is in the music section of heaven, with lots of his friends and heroes," the statement said. "He will be greatly missed."
Jackson's career in broadcasting began in radio. He first gained prominence while working at WBCN in Boston in the late 1960s, then moved in 1971 to Los Angeles where he took on the afternoon radio slot at KLOS.
In the late '70s, he worked as a music reporter for KABC-TV, then it was off to New York and MTV, where his musical knowledge, hewn over years in radio, helped ease his transition to a new format for music, Goodman said.
"It was a great experience for him. He came in already knowing and being successful," Goodman said. "We were all thrust into the spotlight and he was able to take the things that happened at MTV with stride."
After five years at MTV, Jackson returned to radio in Los Angeles, including a stint hosting a nationally syndicated show on the Westwood One Radio Network. Most recently, he was hosting an afternoon slot at Los Angeles' KTWV.
"All of us at The Wave (KTWV) are saddened by the news about J.J.," said Samantha Wiedmann, assistant program director for KTWV. "He was a warm, kind person whose track record in the industry speaks for itself."
Goodman said Jackson had been divorced for some time. He had a daughter and two grandchildren in the Bahamas, Goodman said.
Forget about rock-star decadence: The drunkest, druggiest person at CBS Records in the 1980s was the president of the company.
In his memoir, "Howling at the Moon: The Odyssey of a Monstrous Music Mogul in an Age of Excess," Walter Yetnikoff freely admits that his heyday at the record label was a haze of alcohol, cocaine and sex. Somehow, though, the rehabbed exec has been able to vividly recall his clashes with artists and industry rivals.
Among the assertions in his book:
"Mick Jagger liked to [bleep] with me," says Yetnikoff, who recalls trying to woo the Rolling Stones to his label in a Parisian restaurant. "We were both bombed - or at least I was. You could never tell with Mick. He liked to give the impression of inebriation while retaining control." During one tense deal, Jagger called him a "mother[bleepin'] record executive" and they almost came to blows, but Yetnikoff says "the gods came through, the deal got done."
He calls Michael Jackson "a world-class whiner" who confessed early on, "I never liked the way I looked." The incipient King of Pop refugee used to whisper in his ear at awards ceremonies: "I have to tinkle. Can you take me to the potty?" Jackson once called to ask if Yetnikoff could block Quincy Jones from getting a Grammy for "Thriller" because "Quincy didn't really produce the record, I did. Quincy has a enough Grammys."
Yetnikoff argued with "pretentious" Paul Simon for months over the final album Simon owed CBS. Finally, Simon announced, "I've decided to put a series of Elizabethan sonnets to music." Yetnikoff responded, "For a teeny tiny little squirt, you've got a big mouth." Simon eventually left CBS for Warner Bros.
Bruce Springsteen "reeked with sincerity," and was so pious, Yetnikoff anointed him "Saint Springsteen."
He nicknamed Dan Rather "Danny Doo Doo," because he was jealous of the respect company executives accorded the CBS anchor.
Before David Geffen came out, Yetnikoff taunted the bisexual mogul by asking if he'd teach Yetnikoff's girlfriend how to pleasure a man.
The former mogul has warmer words for Barbra Streisand, though he recalls Streisand as "a nervous flier" who wouldn't board a plane "until the pilot came down and expressed his endless admiration for her talent."
Anyone who has a bone to pick with Yetnikoff might want to take it up with him tomorrow night at the book party that Billy Joel is throwing for him at the home of Doubleday/Broadway Books publisher Stephen Rubin.
BreakingNews**LIGE CURRY Takes a 1 Year Leave Of Absence From GC&PFAS
by TFSnewsRoom
BreakingNews**LIGE CURRY Takes a 1 Year Leave Of Absence From GC&PFAS..ToMountAMassive JAMBAND Tour!
BreakingNews**Lige Curry Takes a 1 Year Leave Of Absence From
GC&PFAS..To Mount A Massive JAMBAND Tour With STARR CULLARS & THE ENTERPRISE.......
Their Tour Starts In Jast A Coupla Weeks & Will Be Concentrated
Initially In The West,NorthWest ,& Rockies..
Lige Tells TFSnews "With The Tour Starting Very Soon Obviously These
Plans Were Laid Long Before The Latest PFunk Personnel Revelations" & He Wishes Everyone
Good Vibrations & Please Come Check Out
"STARR CULLARS & THE ENTERPRISE" In A Town Near You..
Look For TFS To Be In The House On Many Of These Dates...
Tour Dates Soon @ TFS..
SIERRA VISTA, Ariz. -- A garbage truck was stopped carrying more than two tons of marijuana north of Huachuca City, a Department of Public Safety official said.
The truck had been driving erratically late Tuesday, said DPS Sgt. Steve Tritz.
"It got my attention," Tritz said. "He was driving slow and failing to signal."
The driver, who identified himself as 28-year-old Brian Rivera Martinez, said he didn't know how to drive the truck.
When a drug-sniffing dog arrived, it alerted authorities to possible narcotics. DPS officers found 4,112 pounds of marijuana bundled in the area where trash would be carried.
Martinez and passenger, Michael Trejo Duran Sr., 38, were arrested on suspicion of transporting and possessing marijuana for sale.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Modern-day slavery is alive and well in Florida, the head of a human rights center said Tuesday as it released a report on people forced to work as prostitutes, farmworkers and maids across the state.
Human traffickers bring thousands of people into the United States each year and Florida is believed to be one of the top three destinations, along with New York and Texas, according to the Center for the Advancement of Human Rights at Florida State University.
Although there have been several prosecutions of human trafficking in Florida, no one knows how many people in Florida are under the control of traffickers, said Terry Coonan, the center's executive director.
In south Florida, federal prosecutions have indicated hundreds of farmworkers were victims of human trafficking, and a forced prostitution ring identified as many as 40 young women and girls brought from Mexico. The center also cited a case of "domestic servitude" in southwest Florida.
But the problem is not limited to those areas or those industries, according to Robin Thompson, director of the research project.
"All you have to do is look where cheap labor is required and where there is a potential for labor exploitation, which pretty much can put you anywhere in our state," Thompson said.
The center organized a "working group" of advocates and law enforcement officials to study the issue. The project was funded by a federal grant under a 2000 law designed to increase protections for victims of human trafficking.
The center's report emphasized that not all victims of human trafficking are illegal immigrants. Many enter the United States legally but because of their poverty or inability to speak English are exploited by traffickers.
And some victims are Americans, Thompson said, pointing to the homeless, addicted and runaways as potential victims for traffickers.
"The greater the awareness, the more likely these cases will be reported and prosecuted," Coonan told reporters. "This is almost an invisible crime because the victims are kept out of the public eye. We need to crack this code of silence."
P-FUNK crashes a Goverment Mule Party ! (Pictures)
by TFSnewsRoom/RobKrall
P-FUNK crashes a Goverment Mule Party !
I was pumped up for weeks anticipating The Wizard of Woo sitting in with The Mule but when the time came I was not ready for the insanity that took place...Just about everyone has seen Bernie with Warren on the Deepest End CD so we all knew what to expect...
I first set was just plain Mule but covering Zappa's "trouble everyday" made it one smoking set... Then the break came and I knew it was time for Bernie..
The band came out after a very short break and right off the bat they are introducing Bernie as "one of the family" and went right in the Hottest Tighest SCO MULE any Warren fan has ever heard, Bernie's presence has lifted the band to another level, Matt is hitting the drums harder and faster, Warren is streching the strings to the max and working his pedals like a mad man, Bernie starts wailing on the keys right away and the crowd goes nuts....
Right after Sco Mule Warren promises us " we are gonna have some fun this evening" then WARREN INTRODUCES MIKE HAMPTON ON THE GUITAR, I could not beleive what is happening, Warren Starts Strumming Maggot Brain and Bernie and Danny key in, I imediately become covered in goose bumps and realised I HAVE BEEN WAITING 11 YEARS TO SEE WARREN AND MIKE PLAY TOGATHER, Just has the tears start to break on my face and I am expecting Mike's first notes to be played on Maggot Brain, his amplifier quit !!!
So Warren takes the first Guitar notes then Bernie steps up and gives us one of the 1970's Maggot brain Keyboard into's !!!!! tears begin to flow again ( they are feverishly trying to replace Mike Hampons amp.
Now Mikes Amp is working and he is playing Maggot brain and I never seen a happier look on Warrens face in my life,, ( not to mention, I have honestly never seen Mike or Bernie look more Happier on stage either)
The Maggot Brains tends to fade in and out as you can tell they are just feeling out the tune...But the entire club is in shock , this is truelly a momment in rock and roll history...
Warren and Mike manage to tighten it up real good and Matt is doing a stellar job on the drums..Twards the end it look like they struggled again on finding a ending ( but only a true pfunk fan with hundreds of maggot brains under there belt could tell)
So Maggot Brain is over and I am thinking what are they gonna play next?
Warren again says " I wanna bring a special guest to the stage" I am thinking, who the hell could it be? its COREY GLOVER !!!!!
The place goes nuttz !!! We got the entire Mule band with WOO, KID FUNK, and Mr. Glover, they start into a very funky number ( I am thinking Pfunkjazz knows this tune,lol)Warren and Mike start dueling again, nothing but smiles from every end of the club...Corey is givng us some funky blues type vocals...
After this tune Mike splits and its just Bernie and Corey with The Mule, they go into a tune like " talking bout a revolution" what started off slow ( for mule fans) tuned into one of the most moving tunes of the night, Corey can sing like a opera singer, truelly amazing...
After Talking bout a revolution Matts starts his drum solo and as Corey is leaving the stage starts yelling "CHANGE THE WORLD FOLKS, CHANGE THE WORLD"... Bernie also exists and Matt does another inpressive drum solo....after the solo it was back to straight Mule with the encore being SoulShine with a added "talking bout a revolution" rap on Warrens part at the very end...
Definitly one for the history books...now I got TM Stevens and Vernon Reid to deal with tomorrow nite !! ( actually tonite now,lol)
I will never bad mouth new jersey again...
one more thing, after Corey and Bernie leave, MURUNGA comes out for the rest of the show ( he joined Matt during the drum solo)His Bongo was miked up real nice and was very audible...A very nice touch to a perfect evening !!!
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - Fear of catching bird flu from eating chicken has prompted some people in northwest Cambodia to resort to eating rats, a newspaper reported Tuesday.
Rats have been fetching good prices in Battambang province during the last two weeks, according to Rasmei Kampuchea, or the Light of Cambodia.
The newspaper said villagers catch the rodents in nearby rice fields and sell them for up to 35 cents each to market vendors, who resell the meat for about 20 cents a pound.
"I started selling rat meat over two weeks ago when people became afraid of eating chickens for fear of getting infected with bird flu," Chhun Sarom, a 38-year-old vendor, was quoted as saying.
Cambodia is one of 10 Asian governments that have confirmed outbreaks of bird flu. The virus has killed 14 people in Vietnam, six in Thailand and tens of millions of chickens across Asia. Health experts say eating properly cooked chicken poses no danger to people, but the outbreak has chilled demand for chicken throughout the region.
There have been no reported human cases of bird flu in Cambodia, but three cases of the virus were confirmed in animals near Phnom Penh and at a zoo south of the capital.
More than 25,000 chickens, ducks and swans have been culled in Cambodia in an effort to stop the disease from spreading.
Chhun Sarom said he sold up to 130 pounds of rat meat a day. Mao Say, 50, told the newspaper that she and her four children catch about 18 pounds of rats in the rice fields daily.
People eat the rat meat with rice or as a snack while drinking alcohol.
Meet Little Taj Smith,He Was Conceived After A
P-Funk Show In The Mid-West,Upon Hearing That
We Here At RawFunkRecords,TheFunkStore.com & The P-Funk AllStars
Decided To Give Him Some "Welcome To This P-Funky World"
Gifts !,Including An Autographed (To Him) Michael Hampton DVD,
CD, Garry Shider CDs & Other Funky Stuff !
Keep It Funky Taj !.Mom & Dad We'll Be Watching !
Pioneering Southern rap combo Goodie Mob will return this spring with its first studio album since 1999. Due April 27 via Koch, "One Monkey Don't Stop No Show" is the combo's first without principal member Cee-Lo Green and its first since Khujo Goodie lost his right leg in a severe automobile accident in June 2002. As usual, production was handled by the Organized Noise team.
"We wish Cee-Lo much success, but one monkey don't stop no show," the group says in a statement. "The Goodie Mob is a movement comprised of thousands of fans, in the streets. This is real trill music; it's down south southern cookin'."
New York: Mike Tyson, who earned more than $US200 million ($257m) during his professional career, had $US5553 left in cash on December 31, according to papers filed with the US Bankruptcy Court.
Tyson, who filed for bankruptcy protection in August, also had $US174,000 in property and equipment and more than $US10.2m in liabilities at the end of 2003.
The former world heavyweight champion reported earning $US720,018 and spending $US85.50 in December, and earning $US5.68 and spending $US22,000 in November.
Tyson hasn't fought since knocking out Clifford Etienne last February, earning $US5m for the fight. He has a 50-4-2 career record and became the youngest heavyweight champion in 1986 at the age of 20. He lost his undisputed title to James "Buster" Douglas in 1990 and spent three years in prison after a 1992 rape conviction.
Tyson regained the World Boxing Council and World Boxing Association titles in 1996 with victories over Frank Bruno and Bruce Seldon. He lost the WBA title in 1996 to Evander Holyfield and was disqualified in the rematch for biting Holyfield's ear.
An adviser to Tyson said the boxer might fight in May or June in an effort to pull himself out of debt, the New York Daily News reported on Monday.
That 'JackAss' Nelly's PIMP JUICE Is A Hit (Steppin' Fetchit Lives!)
by NewsRoom/Bevnet.com/The"MinstrelTimes"!
Editor's Note: TheFunkStore.com Is A Conservatory
Of Black Awareness,UpLiftment & Higher Consciousness..This 'Pimp Juice' Is A Scurge
To Any Black Person With Pride Being Propogated
By 'Others & Their House Negroes' For Profit,Take PRIDE In The Fact That History
Will Not Be Kind To These "Lost Souls" & They WILL Drown In Their Own Shyt !
*********************************************
Nelly's Pimp Juice Cracks A Million In 3 Months
By Nolan Strong
Rapper Nelly's energy drink, Pimp Juice, has racked up over a million sales in just over three months.
After being named "Best Energy Drink" by Vibe magazine and snagging The People's Choice of Best Energy Drink in respected trade magazine Bev-Net, Nelly is aiming to distribute the drink via the Internet.
"The demand was growing so rapidly from the fans, that we needed to create a system of placing the product into their hands immediately," said William Wooten, co-President of Fillmore Street Brewery, the company that produces the drink. "The Internet allows us to pass on value directly to the consumer without a middleman while delivering the product to their home or work."
The controversial energy drink, which was threatened with boycotts because of the name, struck deals with Tower and Musicland. Both music chains will sell the drink.
Nelly will promote the drink at a string of appearances during the Superbowl weekend in Houston, Texas, which includes a Superbowl performance.
In related news, Nelly hit the recording studio to start working on his third, untitled album, which he hopes to have in stores by June.
