The Associated Press
Wednesday, November 20, 2002; 3:20 PM
LOS ANGELES Actress-rapper Queen Latifah was arrested early Wednesday for investigation of driving under the influence of alcohol, a California Highway Patrol official said.
The 32-year-old hip-hop star was driving in North Hollywood when she was stopped about 3:15 a.m. for making an unsafe lane change, officer Alex Delgadillo said.
"Once she has made contact, they found that she was under the influence," he said. "It was a routine arrest."
The artist, who was driving a 2003 Cadillac Escalade, presented a valid New Jersey driver's license bearing her given name, Dana Owens, and then failed a sobriety test, Delgadillo said.
Latifah had a supporting role in this year's romantic comedy "Brown Sugar," and is one of the stars of the upcoming movie "Chicago."
She won a Grammy Award for best rap solo performance for the single "U.N.I.T.Y."
Jimi Hendrix Musicians & Admirers Plan Bash For Late Guitarist's 60th Birthday
November 20, 2 p.m. ET, Launch
Seattle will have a purple haze this weekend as the city and the Experience Music Project (EMP) celebrate what would have been Jimi Hendrix's 60th birthday. The bash, which is co-sponsored by the family-owned Experience Hendrix LLC, takes place Sunday (November 24), and will feature performances by blues great Buddy Guy; Hendrix's Band Of Gypsys (with the original rhythm section of bassist Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles); former Earth, Wind & Fire members Sheldon Reynolds, Larry Dunn, and Johnny Graham; guitarist Eric Gales; guitarist Kenny Olson of Kid Rock's Twisted Brown Trucker band; and others.
In addition to Sunday's concert in the EMP's Sky Church auditorium, the Fender Musical Instruments Corp. will present the Hendrix family with an exact recreation of the guitarist's famous white Stratocaster (the original is in EMP's collection).
On Tuesday (November 27), Hendrix's actual birthday, EMP will present a special screening of the new DVD Blue Wild Angel: Jimi Hendrix Live At The Isle Of Wight in its JBL Theater.
LAUNCH asked Cox--who in addition to the Band Of Gypsys also replaced bassist Noel Redding in the Jimi Hendrix Experience--what he thought Hendrix would be doing musically if he were still alive. "I get asked that question quite often, and we were gravitating toward more, like, 'The Rays Of The New Rising Sun.' We were gravitating toward classical music, I think. We would've taken those modes into a classical vein. And then he had thought about perhaps maybe going to Juilliard, and there's no telling. (He) always talked about it."
In addition to the DVD, Blue Wild Angel is also available in single- and double-CD sets.
Grammy-winning R&B singer D'Angelo (real name: Michael Eugene Archer) had to be subdued with pepper spray yesterday (Nov. 18) after he resisted arrest on misdemeanor charges of aggressive driving and other counts, police said. Chesterfield, Va., police said they went to D'Angelo's suburban Richmond home after an alleged confrontation with a woman at a gas station on Sunday. The singer allegedly cursed at the woman and spit on her after he cut her off in his luxury SUV, police said.
D'Angelo, 28, allegedly resisted police as they attempted to take him into custody shortly before noon yesterday and had to be subdued with the irritant spray, Maj. James B. Bourque said. The artist was released on his recognizance pending a Jan. 15 appearance in Chesterfield General Court.
In addition to the driving count, he is charged with assault, curse and abuse, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest, all misdemeanors, Bourque said.
Two years ago, D'Angelo received a Grammy for best male R&B vocal performance for "Untitled (How Does it Feel)" from the album "Voodoo," which also won a Grammy for best R&B album. Released in February 2000, the Virgin set topped both The Billboard 200 and the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.
Michael Jackson said he made a "terrible mistake" by holding his young son over the railing of a fourth-floor balcony at a Berlin hotel to show fans who wanted to see the child. The incident shocked the worldwide audience who later watched the scene on video. German and U.S. television news programs repeatedly broadcast footage of the reclusive pop star's brief appearance yesterday (Nov. 19) at the Hotel Adlon.
The boy had a white cloth over his head as Jackson held him with one arm around his waist over the edge of the hotel's iron balcony railing. The child, wearing a baby blue jumper, was the singer's third and youngest, Prince Michael II, according to a spokesperson for the Bambi entertainment award ceremony, which Jackson is attending in Berlin.
Last night, Jackson issued a statement saying he had gotten carried away when fans below the window asked to see the baby. "I made a terrible mistake," he said. "I got caught up in the excitement of the moment. I would never intentionally endanger the lives of my children."
Dozens of fans had gathered outside the hotel, just opposite Berlin's landmark Brandenburg Gate, and security had to remove some from the lobby. Several carried banners, including one that said "Save the Kids," with drawings of children's faces, a reference to Jackson's philanthropy.
Jackson, wearing a bright red shirt, smiled and waved to the fans, at one point tossing a small white towel to the crowd below. The singer then went inside and retrieved the toddler, using one arm to hold the boy out over the iron rail. Fans cheered as the pop star appeared with the child, but Jackson quickly retreated into his hotel room.
Little is known about Prince Michael II. People Magazine reported in August that he is six months old. The magazine, citing an anonymous friend, said the boy was not adopted and did not identify the mother. The singer also has two children with ex-wife Debbie Rowe: a 5-year-old boy -- also named Prince Michael -- and a 4-year-old girl, Paris. The couple divorced in 1999.
In Berlin, Jackson was taking a break from a California courtroom where he testified last week in a $21 million lawsuit claiming he backed out of concerts. He arrived in Berlin to pick up a Bambi for life achievement. Today, he is to attend a benefit for homeless children and a charity auction where he will put a jacket and hat on the block.
Singer Rick James, publicly confronting allegations that he recently sexually assaulted a 26-year-old woman at his home, appeared on Friday outside his lawyers' office in Los Angeles to say he is the victim of a financially motivated smear campaign. As previously reported, police went to James' home in California's San Fernando Valley Nov. 11 with a search warrant to investigate the allegations.
A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department confirmed that detectives were looking into allegations that James sexually assaulted the woman, but declined to provide further details of the case.
"Once the smoke has cleared the air, everyone will find out that these are just false allegations," the braided-haired entertainer said. "I feel good, I'm working on albums. I'm trying to be a father to my son and leave all the drugs alone."
His attorney, Steffeny Holtz, said the performer was cooperating with police who were investigating "allegations of battery being made by a former guest at his residence."
James and his lawyer said his fame, personal access and his criminal history -- he served two years in prison for a 1993 conviction on charges of assaulting two women -- made him an easy target for opportunists.
"I'm in a fish bowl, and sometimes you can pray to God all you want, and I do a lot of that, and sometimes the wrong people enter into your space, and they're money-hungry and greedy," said James, who wore a charcoal-colored suit, open-necked shirt, and purple-tinted sunglasses. "The police have been very, very helpful in this," he said. "They, like I, would like to get to the bottom of this and find out exactly where this is coming from."
The self-styled "King of Funk" made a comeback bid in 1996 after serving two years in prison for separate attacks on two women -- one at his home in the Hollywood Hills and the other at a luxury West Hollywood hotel, while under the influence of cocaine.
He released an album in 1997, but suffered a stroke in November 1998 caused by a condition known as "rock'n'roll neck," brought on by whiplash-like motion of the head and neck on stage.
Ben Harper Got And Gave Tips During Filming Of New Motown Documentary
November 15, 6 p.m. ET, Launch
Ben Harper got--and gave--some tips during the making of Standing In The Shadows Of Motown, the new documentary about the studio musicians known as the Funk Brothers. After joining the troupe earlier this year at the Royal Oak Theatre outside Detroit for renditions of the Temptations' "Ain't Too Proud To Beg" and Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through The Grapevine," Harper circulated from musician to musician, slipping each one a little something to express his appreciation and regard.
Percussionist Jack "Black Jack" Ashford recalls to LAUNCH, "I was over packing my stuff up, and (Harper) walked over to me and said, 'Here, take this, man. I want you to have this. Get the fellas some coffee.' So I said, 'OK, thanks.' Then I told the other guys what happened, and (drummer) Uriel (Jones) said, 'He gave me $100 to go get some coffee, too.' He did that with everybody."
Standing In The Shadows Of Motown opens Friday (November 15) in theaters nationwide.
'You have to put in a support structure, like a tent pole'
BY ALEV AKTAR
DAILY NEWS FASHION EDITOR
The strangest sight in court? It's Jacko by a nose.
Michael Jackson's nose is no longer Invincible. In fact, when the King of Pop showed up in a California court, it appeared to have collapsed.The singer was photographed testifying Wednesday in Santa Barbara with a swollen face and surgical tape covering what's left of his snout.
In fact, the Gloved One looked so scary that his former plastic surgeon denied any responsibility.
"Dr. Steven Hoefflin has not done any of Michael Jackson's nasal surgery since 1998, and had advised him against any further surgery," said Karen Cotton, lawyer for the Santa Monica doctor. "We have no information or knowledge about anything that Michael has done recently."
Jackson showed up late for a second day of testimony yesterday in a $21 million breach-of-contract lawsuit filed by a promoter of two millennium concerts he missed. This time, the bandage was gone.
His lawyers complained about the presence of the pool photographer who snapped Wednesday's shocking photo. The judge refused to bar the lensman, who later told reporters he was asked in a private meeting to try and be less intrusive.
Reconstructing events
The closeup shot of Jackson, which Web services reported were among the most viewed on the Internet, sent the plastic surgery community into an uproar and fueled speculation that Jackson's nose was bandaged from a reconstructive procedure.
"Clearly, he had some sort of nasal-tip disaster," said Dr. Gerald Imber, a celebrity plastic surgeon based in Manhattan. "What probably happened is that he had some sort of support put in there and the tissue broke down. Now, it looks like he has skin grafts or something to close it up. A collapsed nose is very unusual I've never seen one, and I've done 15,000 rhinoplasties."
Dr. Harvey Zarem, a prominent cosmetic surgeon in Santa Monica, also said it looked as though Jackson's nose had disintegrated.
"You have to put in a support structure, like a tent pole," he said. "This could have been a restoration of the tip using cartilage, bone or plastic."
While plastic surgeons were horrified by the state of Jackson's nose, dermatologists said the rest of his face is not much better.
"I don't think there's anything he hasn't done," said Dr. Dennis Gross, a Manhattan-based dermatologist and the founder of M.D. Skin Care. "It looks like he has Botox in his forehead, he's definitely had plastic surgery on his eyes, and look at his broad, perfectly squared-off chin.
"I think he's had a permanent lightening procedure using a sister compound of hydroquinone that's not legal in the U.S.," Gross added. He said that if Jackson has the skin disease vitiligo, as the singer claims, the depigmentation most likely would be uneven.
Dr. Pat Wexler, a Manhattan-based cosmetic dermatologist, suggests the entertainer also has tattooed eyebrows and eyeliner.
But Wexler says it's unfair to place the blame squarely on Jackson.
"Doctors have an obligation to do what's anatomically and esthetically correct," she said. "Occasionally, someone has to say no. It's not that hard. It's just two letters."
Singer Rick James is under investigation by police for an alleged sexual assault of a woman at his home. James, 50, best known for his 1981 hit "Super Freak," had a search warrant served on his Woodland Hills, Calif., home on Monday night. Police said a 26-year-old woman claims she was sexually assaulted by James over the weekend.
"They are allegations of a sexual nature," said police Capt. Jim Tatreau, who said James has cooperated with police.
James was convicted in 1993 of assaulting two women. The first attack occurred two years earlier when he restrained and burned a young woman with a hot pipe during a cocaine binge at his house in West Hollywood. He was free on bail when the second assault occurred in 1992 in a hotel room. James was sentenced to more than two years in state prison. A jury acquitted him on a torture charge.
In 1997, the singer released a new album, "Urban Rapsody," but a year later he suffered a stroke that derailed a comeback tour. James performed in Los Angeles as recently as May.
Hopefully,this isn't true!! I thought that Rick had finally gotten his life back together.In 2003,he plans to release a new CD and do a reunion tour with Teena Marie.
Tip Of The Bottle To My Knee-Grow Who Passed Away Last Week MR.EDDIE CALIFORNIA..RIP!
by Daryl Moon
Tip Of The Bottle To My Knee-Grow Who Passed Away Last Week MR.EDDIE CALIFORNIA..RIP!
Eddie Started In Da' As Game As A
Roadie For The Space Gypsies !
He Went On To Become Ricks Right Hand Man
Especially On The Road..
He Will Be Missed !
With Respect:
www.TheFunkStore.com
Veteran Motown Musicians Emerge from Shadows
5 minutes ago
By Dean Goodman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Everyone can name a few artists who recorded for the legendary Motown Records label: Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, The Supremes, The Jackson 5,
The Four Tops, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight & the Pips, The Commodores and Smokey Robinson.
But who actually played on the songs? Whose bass line rumbled through "Bernadette" from the Four Tops? Who's playing that rattlesnake tambourine on "I Heard It Through The Grapevine," Gaye's best-known hit? Who kept the beat on "Cloud Nine," the Temptations' cautionary drugs tale?
The Funk Brothers, that's who. A core of 13 anonymous studio pros who helped invent the vocabulary of modern R&B and pop music. They played on more No. 1 hits than the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley (news) and the Beach Boys -- combined.
But when Funk Brother Joe Hunter hears a radio playing Marvin Gaye's "Pride and Joy" or Martha & the Vandellas' "Heat Wave," he knows better than to tell anyone that he's the pianist.
"If you do, they look at you like you need psychiatry," Hunter told Reuters in a recent interview. "I never like to embarrass myself."
His story, and those of his colleagues, is finally getting told in a documentary that opens on Friday in North American movie theaters, "Standing in the Shadows of Motown."
The film is the brainchild of Allan Slutsky, a professional musician who wrote an award-winning book about late Funk Brother James Jamerson in 1989 and worked full time for the next 11 years trying to raise the money for a film about Jamerson's colleagues.
"I wanted to see the guys get some glory while they're here," Slutsky said. "Instead of the usual black situation where black musicians die in the gutter and then posthumously they get an award."
"BROKE AND UNKNOWN"
Seven of the Funk Brothers are dead now, and others are in poor health. Jamerson, regarded as the first virtuoso of the electric bass, died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1986. But Slutsky said he really succumbed to a broken heart, "because he knew what he had done, and he knew nobody out of Detroit and the musicians' community knew what he had done."
Jamerson's bass lines were replicated note for note on such diverse tunes as "Cool Jerk," the theme from TV's "Barney Miller," Hall & Oates' "Maneater" and the B-52's "Love Shack." Yet he got no recognition, much less payment, for them.
"He was broke and unknown, and it just ate him up," said Slutsky, who noted that Jamerson was extremely well paid by Motown during the late 1960s.
The film is an attempt to let Jamerson's surviving colleagues go out in style. Indeed, the Funk Brothers -- or their estates -- will receive half of any profits. Slutsky also hopes the musicians will get work out of it, just as the Oscar-nominated documentary "Buena Vista Social Club" reinvigorated the careers of the featured Cuban performers.
It would be one of the greatest comebacks in music history. In 11 years, Slutsky made at least 1,000 pitches to prospective financiers around the globe. No one was interested.
In that time, a few more Funk Brothers died, including keyboardist and band leader Earl van Dyke, in 1992. When Robert White, the guitarist behind the riff on "My Girl," died in 1994 after routine heart surgery, Slutsky was devastated.
"The only good thing to come out of Robert dying is it pissed me off so much that there was no way I was gonna stop after that," he recalled.
REUNION CONCERT
The funding eventually came through in 2000 courtesy of a chance meeting with a high-tech mogul, and filming started with music documentary veteran Paul Justman at the helm.
Licensing fees for the 30 Motown songs used in the movie would have swallowed the $2.7 million budget, but Slutsky said Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. arranged a deal for $300,000.
The movie revolves around a concert filmed in Detroit over six days, when singers such as Joan Osborne (news), Chaka Khan, Bootsy Collins and Me'Shell NdegeOcello performed Motown gems backed by the reunited Funk Brothers, who had gone their separate ways after Gordy moved Motown to Los Angeles in 1972.
It also includes rare footage from the Motown archive, interviews and some re-creations of comical anecdotes relayed by the spry musicians.
Some people have questioned why Motown singers like Wonder and Diana Ross did not perform. Slutsky said he approached everyone, but was turned down.
Four Tops lead vocalist Levi Stubbs would have done it "in two seconds," Slutsky said, but he was battling cancer at the time, and his rough-hewn voice has since been ravaged by a stroke. Similarly, every major musician who has ever raved about Motown was asked to participate.
"And I thought that these people would be clawing at each other just to play with these legends. And you know what? Nobody gave a crap. And that blew me away."
Either way, the focus is still clearly on the Funk Brothers, eight of whom were alive during the film. Two have subsequently died -- drummer Richard "Pistol" Allen in July, and keyboardist Johnny Griffith on Nov. 10.
Unbeknownst to Slutsky, Allen was dying from cancer, and fellow drummer Uriel Jones needed quintuple bypass surgery. Days after completing a hectic shooting schedule that sometimes involved 18-hour days, both were hospitalized.
"They really risked their lives," Slutsky said. "The reason they did it was because they knew their entire lives were on the line. So they weren't going to give up until they had laid down their groove."
Way back in the 1950's when I first tasted politics and journalism, Republicans briefly controlled the White House and Congress. With the exception of Joseph McCarthy and his vicious ilk, they were a reasonable lot, presided over by that giant war hero, Dwight Eisenhower, who was conservative by temperament and moderate in the use of power.
That brand of Republican is gone. And for the first time in the memory of anyone alive, the entire federal government the Congress, the Executive, the Judiciary is united behind a right-wing agenda for which George W. Bush believes he now has a mandate.
That mandate includes the power of the state to force pregnant women to give up control over their own lives.
It includes using the taxing power to transfer wealth from working people to the rich.
It includes giving corporations a free hand to eviscerate the environment and control the regulatory agencies meant to hold them accountable.
And it includes secrecy on a scale you cannot imagine. Above all, it means judges with a political agenda appointed for life. If you liked the Supreme Court that put George W. Bush in the White House, you will swoon over what's coming.
And if you like God in government, get ready for the Rapture. These folks don't even mind you referring to the GOP as the party of God. Why else would the new House Majority Leader say that the Almighty is using him to promote 'a Biblical worldview' in American politics?
So it is a heady time in Washington a heady time for piety, profits, and military power, all joined at the hip by ideology and money.
Don't forget the money. It came pouring into this election, to both parties, from corporate America and others who expect the payback. Republicans outraised democrats by $184 million dollars. And came up with the big prize monopoly control of the American government, and the power of the state to turn their ideology into the law of the land. Quite a bargain at any price.
SINGING and songwriting legend Joni Mitchell can't stand Madonna.
"Madonna has knocked the importance of talent out of the arena," Mitchell tells W magazine.
"She's manufactured. She's made a lot of money and become the biggest star in the world by hiring the right people."
Sadly for fight fans, the feeling is not mutual.
"Wow," said Madonna's rep, Liz Rosenberg. "What can I say? Madonna has always been a huge fan of Joni Mitchell's. I don't know what to say. I'm sorry she feels that way. Madonna speaks frequently about her admiration and worship of Joni's talent. Wow. The feeling isn't mutual."
Madonna isn't Mitchell's only target in the bombshell interview. The "Parking Lot" singer also doesn't care much for David Letterman.
"Letterman treats musicians like the armpit of the [entertainment] industry. He tags you on at the end [of his television show], never talks to you - while he talks to the dimmest actress."
A rep for Letterman would say only: "The feeling isn't mutual."
As for everyone else, Mitchell - who claims she is leaving the music industry forever because the "business is repugnant to me" - had this to say:
* "David [Geffen] is almost like my mother . . . David seems to have an inability to see me fresh. I'm fond of David. Though I don't know why . . . It's a strong combative relationship. He was money motivated, I was art motivated. He took advantage, but he took advantage of everybody - that's the nature of the business."
* Regarding contemporary artists: "As long as they look good, they can pitch-correct them now - they can interior-decorate their music. The artists don't have to play anything - they can cheat, buy songs and put their name on them, so they can build the illusion that they are creative."
* On the music business: "[It is] the most corrupt one of all. They try not to pay you whenever possible. Part of me wants to spill the beans, but it doesn't seem to be effective . . . They're not looking for talent. They're looking for a look and a willingness to cooperate. And a woman my age, no matter how well-preserved, no longer has the look. And I have never had a willingness to cooperate."
* Regarding her 1995 reunion with her daughter Kilauren Gibb, whom she had put for adoption over 30 years ago: "I have a wonderful relationship with my daughter and my grandchildren. [After the reunion], for a year or two, it was difficult. Now we're hummin' . . . We don't have the scar tissue that's frequently built up between mother and daughter."
* On Hollywood: "There is nothing duller to me than a room full of stars. There is too much effort, straining, and they're all exhibitionists. I need a climate of affection. You're not going to find a pocket of affection in a room full of stars."
Pallbearers wearing white unlaced Adidas carried the body of slain Run-D.M.C. star Jam Master Jay from a funeral service today (Nov. 5) at which he was remembered as "the embodiment of hip-hop." A funeral cortege of white stretch limousines and luxury SUVs was lined up outside the Allen A.M.E. Cathedral in the rapper's native Queens, N.Y. Inside, bandmates Joseph "Run" Simmons and Darryl "DMC" McDaniels eulogized their friend, whose real name was Jason Mizell, as a great man and groundbreaking musical force.
"Jason helped build hip-hop, and his job is finished," said Joseph Simmons, now an ordained minister, wearing a broad-brimmed black hat and clerical collar. "He just couldn't leave without drama." The funeral came six days after Mizell was shot to death in his Queens recording studio by a masked assailant. No one has been charged.
A who's who of hip-hop attended the service. LL Cool J, Chuck D of Public Enemy, Queen Latifah and hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, the brother of Joseph Simmons, were among the mourners. Many in the church and among the crowd outside wore the white Adidas and black leather that Run-D.M.C. turned into a fashion trend in the 1980s.
McDaniels brought the overflow crowd of 2,300 to its feet with his eulogy, getting in a dig at anyone who would call the slaying just another example of rap violence. "Jam Master Jay was not a thug," he said. "Jam Master Jay was not a gangster. Jam Master Jay was a unique individual. He was the embodiment of hip-hop."
Surrounded by more than a dozen funeral wreaths -- including one in the shape of twin turntables -- McDaniels then rapped from the band's song "Jam Master Jay," with the audience joining in at the end to shout out the slain DJ's name.
A heavy police presence included officers on surrounding rooftops. Elsewhere, police continued to search for the man who put a single bullet in the 37-year-old Mizell's head last Wednesday.
Mizell was married with three children, and had campaigned against drug use. He was a role model for many in the neighborhood where he grew up and met Simmons and McDaniels, and his violent death puzzled family and friends. "Let's try to work for the good that Jay was working toward," said McDaniels. "Peace for everybody."
Mizell's body had been brought to the church in a white, horse-drawn carriage encased in glass. After the 90-minute service, it was taken for burial at a Westchester County cemetery.
A day after Run-D.M.C.'s Jason "Jam Master Jay" Mizell was laid to rest in Queens, N.Y., the surviving members of the group -- Joseph "Run" Simmons and Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels -- were joined by hip-hop artists and music executives to formally announce the establishment of The Mizell Children's Fund.
With Mizell's widow, Terri Corley-Mizell, the coalition of artists and executives -- which includes Island Def Jam Music Group co-founder Russell Simmons, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, Island Def Jam Music Group CEO Lyor Cohen, Chuck D, Doug E. Fresh, and the Beastie Boys' Adam Horovitz, among others -- plan to raise funds for the Mizell family and aid in the capture of Mizell's killer.
Joseph Simmons also announced that the group has officially retired. "As a tribute to the positive legacy of Jam Master Jay, we started together and we want the Run-D.M.C. legacy to always reflect the three of us together," he said.
Mizell was shot to death last Wednesday in his Queens recording studio. He was 37.
NYC Medical Scare: Two Being Treated At Area Hospital For Bubonic Plague
(New York-WABC, November 6, 2002) Two patients at a New York City hospital have been diagnosed with a dangerous disease not seen in this region in decades. Eyewitness News has learned that doctors at Beth Israel Medical Center are caring for the two people who have the Bubonic plague. Jim Dolan reports from Beth Israel with more.
Update: Man Still Critical, Officials Stress No Need for Concern about Plague in NYC ...| Interactive: Learn More About The Bubonic Plague, Including Symptoms, Risk Factors and Treatments.
Watch Dr. Jay's Explanation of the Plague
The Bubonic plague claimed millions of lives in Europe and Asia in the Middle Ages. Now sources confirm for Eyewitness News the presence of the plague in two patients here in New York City. The pair is a married couple from New Mexico who were in the city on vacation.
Doctors tell Eyewitness News that a microbiology test confirmed their fears that the couple was indeed suffering from the Bubonic plague. The couple has been isolated to prevent the further spread of the disease.
Doctors say while the female patient is out of danger, her husband is in extremely critical condition. They say he was admitted with a fever of 105 degrees. High fever is one of the symptoms of the Bubonic plague.
The couple is from a rural area of New Mexico. Just days ago, while visiting New York City, they called a doctor complaining of flu-like symptoms. But even over the phone, the doctor thought it was more than that.
Dr. Ronald Primas, Beth Israel Medical Center: "He actually was very sick. He had a fever of 105 degrees. He was just sweating profusely and extremely weak."
The doctor rushed the couple to Beth Israel Ttuesday night. As a precaution, they were placed in isolation.
The symptoms for Bubonic Plague include:
High Fever
Swollen Lymph Nodes, Usually In The Groin
A Purple Hue To Those Nodes
Sweating and confusion ensues as the fever grows worse.
The 53-year-old man and his 47-year-old wife are from Santa Fe, New Mexico. This is one of the few places in the nation where the plague occurs with some regularity.
The city and state health department were joined by the Centers for Disease Control in their investigation into how the couple contracted the disease. The state health department in Sante Fe, New Mexico, where the couple lives, tested rodents on their property this summer. Apparently many of those rodents tested positive for the Bubonic plague. When the symptoms appeared, they were here in New York on vacation.
Doctors say they believe the couple was infected in their home state after sleeping in a sleeping bags that had been outdoors on their property for several weeks. Those sleeping bags are now being tested.
Officials say there are 20 to 30 cases of Bubonic plague in the U.S. each year. If caught early, the disease is very treatable, but it is often mistaken for a cold. If treatment is delayed, the plague can, of course, be fatal.
Singer Barry White Planning for Kidney Transplant
Thu Oct 31, 6:51 PM ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Soul singer Barry White, battling kidney failure, is resting comfortably while doctors conduct tests to find a suitable transplant donor among his eight children, a spokesman said on Thursday.
The 58-year-old entertainer was hospitalized last month for kidney dialysis, but he is now at home and undergoing dialysis ever other day on an out-patient basis as his condition improves, White's manager, Ned Shanker, told Reuters.
"He's doing really great. I was with him last night, and things are going really well," Shanker said, adding that the hefty singer has been dieting and has gotten his high blood pressure under control.
He said tests were being performed to determine whether any of White's children would make a suitable organ donor to provide a kidney to their father for a transplant.
"He's got eight kids," Shanker said. "They're doing tests. I don't think we're going to be doing a nationwide search (for a kidney). I think we've got it pretty well covered."
White's label, the Island Def Jam Music Group, disclosed in September that White was undergoing dialysis for kidney failure caused by a history of high blood pressure.
The singer, known for his rich bass vocals and musical love-maestro persona, has provided "the mood" for countless candlelight dinners and late-night trysts with such ballads as "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe," and "You're the First the Last, My Everything."
By MURRAY WEISS, PHILIP MESSING, BRIDGET HARRISON and ALY SUJO
REQUIEM FOR A DJ:
Fans set up a shrine yesterday outside the Queens studio where Jam Master Jay was gunned down, complete with a tribute scrawled on a sneaker.
November 1, 2002 -- Police fear more violence could follow the execution-style shooting of hip-hop pioneer Jam Master Jay, and rushed to protect a young protιgι of the fallen Run-DMC star.
Sources said a rapper known as 50 Cent, who was discovered by Jay and recently signed a million-dollar contract with Eminem's label, was under police protection following the Wednesday-night shooting.
Cops were also guarding other music-industry figures who may be targeted following the killing of 37-year-old Jay, whose real name was Jason Mizell.
"They're going to guard them whether they like it or not, with or without their permission," said one source. "There won't be any murder wars here."
Last night, sources said the slaying may be linked to the 1999 murder of another Queens rapper, Freaky Tah, whose real name was Raymond Rogers.
The triggerman in that murder was from Albany, as is one of the women who was in the studio at the time of Jay's shooting.
And 50 Cent was shot three times in a May 2000 attack in Queens. He had been stabbed two months earlier.
"Cops are going to provide protection to a few people who they believe could be on the unfriendly side of this story," said a source. "This is a revenge kind of thing."
Cops were looking into several previous shootings for clues into the murder of Jay, who was killed by a bullet to the head in his 24/7 Jamaica, Queens, recording studio Wednesday night.
Police believe he probably knew his killer.
The rapper's family gathered yesterday at his Queens Village home to mourn, as friends, including Darryl "DMC" McDaniels, paid their respects.
"The family is confident that the circumstances that led to this event are being investigated and handled in an efficient and professional manner by capable law-enforcement personnel," they said in a statement.
The hip-hop community has been decimated by violence, including the tit-for-tat slayings of rappers Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., whose murders are unsolved.
Hip-hop insiders said Run-DMC was never associated with the violent style known as gangsta rap.
Cops said they were also looking into other recent cases of violence related to the hip-hop world, including shootings in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and a gunfight outside a West Village rap radio station.
They said Jay's killer was buzzed in to the studio by someone inside who may have known him, raising the possibility the rapper was set up. There were six people in the studio at the time.
The gunman went up a flight of stairs to a second-floor landing and entered a lounge area where the rap star was sitting on a couch with a close associate, 25-year-old Urieco Rincon, and a female rapper. The three were playing video games. Cops said the room smelled of marijuana.
Cops said Mizell was shot at close range on the left side of his head, leaving powder burns. Rincon was shot in the leg.
Meanwhile, police sources said they were investigating threats against 50 Cent, a 26-year-old former boxer whose real name is Curtis Jackson.
Mizell discovered and recorded 50 Cent several years ago, before his record was picked up by Eminem.
Sources said gang intelligence units specializing in hip-hop violence had talked to California and Florida cops and determined that the young rapper's life could be in danger.
Aerosmith Remembers Jam Master Jay
November 1, 8 a.m. ET, Launch
Among those mourning the death Wednesday (October 30) of Run-D.M.C.'s DJ Jam Master Jay are the members of Aerosmith. The groups have been friendly since Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry joined the rap trio in 1986 for a hit remake of "Walk This Way," and Run-D.M.C. spent the summer and early fall on the road with Aerosmith, closing each night's show with a joint performance of "Walk This Way."
Aerosmith released the following statement: "We were greatly shocked and saddened by the news of the untimely death of Jam Master Jay. When we were down and out and in the depths, Jay and Run-D.M.C. came along and said, 'Come play on our record.' Run-D.M.C. and Jam Master Jay's gift to the world was a new kind of music for a whole new generation, and their gift to us was a piece of ourselves back. Jay was scratching before anyone had the itch and still at the top of his game when we played with him this summer. We will hear him every night when we play 'Walk This Way.'"
Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton tells LAUNCH that the collaboration remains one of the most significant moments in his band's 30-plus year career. "I'm still amazed that this many years later people ask about it. I'm amazed, yet it makes perfect sense. To me, it never felt like...It felt completely natural for a couple of white guitar player-singers to go and do a record with a rap band. It just seemed like a logical progression to me, so I didn't think of it as this startling breakthrough, but that's the way a lot of people really look at it. I think the rest of the band really had no idea that it was gonna be that big."
Aerosmith is expected to pay tribute to their slain friend when the Boston band performs Friday (November 1) at the Cricket Pavilion in Phoenix.
Jam Master Jay Shot Dead
Thu Oct 31,12:55 AM ET
By Marcus Errico
Jam Master Jay, the turntable wizard behind iconic hip-hopsters Run-D.M.C., was gunned down in his New York recording studio Wednesday night, according to the trio's Website.
The deejay, whose real name was Jason Mizell, was laying down tracks in his studio in the Jamaica section of Queens when two men buzzed in about 7:30 p.m. Upon entering, they opened fire on Mizell, hitting him in the head. A second shot struck an unidentified man who was with Mizell.
Both Mizell, 37, and his 25-year-old companion were rushed to a nearby hospital, where the rapper was pronounced dead. The other man was being treated as of press time.
The shooter and his accomplice remain at large, according to police. No word on motive.
Founded in Hollis, Queens, in 1982 by Mizell and his two rapping buddies, Joseph "Run" Simmons (the brother of Def Jam mogul Russell) and Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels, Run-D.M.C. became arguably the most influential hip-hop outfit of the 1980s.
The group made rap mainstream, registering hip-hop's first gold record, first platinum album and first Top 10 single. The costarred in the seminal rap movie Krush Groove. They were the only rap act invited to play Live Aid. And they were also the first rappers to make MTV, thanks to the megaselling Aerosmith revamp, "Walk This Way," which fused the seemingly incompatible rap and rock genres and made Run-D.M.C. a household name in both urban and suburban homes.
Mizell manned the turntable, scratching tunes behind the raps of Simmons and McDaniels. Aside from "Walk This Way," the trio's top hits included "You Be Illin,' " "It's Tricky," "My Adidas," "King of Rock" and "Sucker M.C.'s."
"People that put rap down ain't listening to what we're talkin' about," Mizell once said of their critics. "They think we're just ghetto kids braggin', but we're handin' out a lot of information on what the world is like."
After a run of platinum-selling albums--Run-D.M.C., King of Rock, Raising Hell and Tougher than Leather--the group struggled with personal issues. Simmons was accused of rape and McDaniels battled alcoholism. The rape charges were eventually dropped and McDaniels got sober, but Run-D.M.C.'s 1990 release, Back from Hell, failed to match their earlier success.
After finding God, Run-D.M.C. came back with the all-star collaboration Down with the King in '93. But then they went into hibernation for the rest of '90s, occasionally popping up to decry the growing violence in hip-hop.
They re-emerged in 2001 with Crown Royal, and earlier this year released Greatest Hits. The also toured with Aerosmith (news - web sites) over the summer and early fall (segueing between sets with "Walk This Way"). The two acts were set to play two dates together next month, in Indiana and Kansas.
Run-D.M.C. publicist Tracy Miller tells the Associated Press that Mizell had performed on Tuesday in Alabama, and the trio was slated to perform in Washington, D.C., on Thursday at the Washington Wizards game.
"He was a great producer, a hard worker," Miller tells the AP. "He's a family man."
Tom Dowd, a legendary record producer and engineer who worked with Aretha Franklin, Eric Clapton, and a host of other stars spanning jazz, soul and rock over 50 years, has died in south Florida at age 77. Among the numerous hits he had a hand in was Derek And The Dominos' "Layla," the rock classic featuring the dueling guitars of Clapton and the late Duane Allman.
Dowd died yesterday morning (Oct. 27) at a nursing home in Aventura, Fla., after fighting a respiratory disease for two years, his daughter, Dana Dowd, said. "His contribution to music was immense. He covered so many genres over so many years and touched so many lives. He loved what he did," she said.
Dowd worked at Atlantic Records for more than 20 years before becoming a sought-after independent producer in the mid-1960s. The roster of artists he recorded with included jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, engineering "Giant Steps" and "My Favorite Things," and Charles Mingus.
Soul diva Franklin was one of his personal favorites; their pairing was responsible for the hit "Respect." Dowd also record such R&B luminaries as Wilson Pickett, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, and James Brown in Florida and Memphis for Atlantic.
His relationship with Clapton was one of his most enduring, lasting from the British guitarist's days with Cream through Derek And The Dominos and his later solo successes. Clapton called him "the ideal recording man" in a 1996 interview.
He also produced the Allman Brothers Band in the southern rockers' heyday. Their "Live at Fillmore East" was probably the recording he liked most that he had worked on, he told Reuters in 2000. Dowd, who worked out of the famed Criteria Studios in Miami for many years, also recorded Neil Young, Rod Stewart, and Lynyrd Skynyrd's anthem "Freebird."
He was considered a pioneer in the studio and is credited with introducing the first eight-track recording machine into a major studio in 1957. In later years, he lamented what he thought was the sorry state of the modern pop music industry he saw as lacking in real talent and overly driven by commercial interests. He was recently honored with a National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Lifetime Achievement Award.
Whitney Houston's New Album Leaked One Month Early
by DRUDGE/Reuters/Variety
Whitney Houston's New Album Leaked One Month Early
It's all over the Web: Whitney Houston's new album, Just Whitney... It was leaked in its entirety sometime over the weekend to lots of Web sites and downloading services. It can be burned onto CDs, distributed for free and will likely turn up on street corners before the end of this week.
The record industry, in other words, is about to sink like the Titanic. Houston was paid $100 million by Arista Records last year in a new deal that includes this album.
Interestingly, at the same time, Santana's new album, Shaman, which Arista will release on Tuesday, also seems to be all over the Internet. (Maybe Arista has a problem somewhere in its company with disgruntled employees.)
What a situation though for Houston. Her album is not due to be shipped until Nov. 26, and the version available on the Web may not be the finished one. The Web version offers only 10 tracks plus a bonus remix of "Whatchulookinat." That's a pretty short album any way you look at it.
But what's even more interesting is that the album, which I downloaded last night (thanks to mp3delivery.com), is good -- really good, if you like Whitney Houston's brand of bland admonishments mixed with terrific vocals. There's nothing daring here, nothing that catapults Whitney into the league of Aretha Franklin or Gladys Knight.
The album does have at least three or four potential hit singles, starting with a power ballad called "On My Own," which recalls Houston's signature hit "I Will Always Love You." You won't want to, but I guarantee you'll be singing along with it in the car in traffic very soon.
Also in the plus column are a mid tempo R&B number called "Love That Man," a real Top 40 song called "Dear John Letter," and two duets -- one with Santana called "Tell Me No" and another with her husband Bobby Brown entitled "My Love."
One more track, the catchy "Unashamed," fills out a theme that Houston offers lyrically that she's empowered, independent and ready to take on the world. You might think the lady doth protest too much; Just Whitney... may be the most melodic answer the National Enquirer has ever received.
On the mediocre side, at least upon first listening, are "One of Those Days," "Things You Say" and a turgid remake of the forgettable "You Light Up My Life."
But if you like Whitney Houston, you're going to love Just Whitney... Despite all the rumors and gossip about her health, her drug problems, weight, marriage, etc., Houston's trademark voice sounds as good as ever on the best songs here. They may not be particularly deep tracks, or even well produced (nothing is as good as Wyclef Jean's "My Love Is Your Love"). In fact, all the songs sound a little rushed. And I don't think there's a need for two versions of "Whatchulookinat." But marketed properly with good videos, the bulk of the songs should be hits.
The bigger question though is what happens when an entire album is available for free in a mass form a whole month before its release date. Even if Arista were to pounce this morning on the Web sites with cease and desist orders, one would think the damage was done over the weekend.
A fan stabbed at a concert featuring rap artist Nelly has died, while another remains hospitalized. It was the second time in recent months that violence has erupted at an area musical event, Chula Vista, Calif., police said. Faitamai Taunuu, 30, died Saturday of multiple stab wounds he suffered in an attack during the concert Friday night, said Lt. Richard Coleson. Another fan, Sean Bowers, 27, also was stabbed. He was hospitalized in good condition as of yesterday (Oct. 20).
Police charged Hank Carl Banegas, 26, and Steven Francis TeSam, 42, both of Alpine, Calif., with investigation of murder and attempted murder, Coleson said. An unidentified 16-year-old boy, who has been detained in a juvenile facility, was charged with conspiracy, he said. Banegas, and his uncle, TeSam, an Indian tribe official, were being held without bail.
In August, at the Beat Summer Jam 2002 concert in Irvine, Calif., about 15,000 people fled after a fight broke out during LL Cool J's set and spilled onto the main stage. Nelly and Ja Rule were scheduled to headline but never took the stage. One person was hospitalized but there were no arrests.
TeSam is chairman of the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians, which operates a casino in Alpine, about 30 miles east of San Diego. Telephone messages left with tribal vice chairman Bobby Barrett weren't immediately returned.
By Andrew Marra, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 21, 2002
Kid Rock's tour bus was pulled over and scoured for drugs on Florida's Turnpike just hours after the rap-metal singer performed in suburban West Palm Beach.
He and his band weren't on the bus when it was stopped for a top-to-bottom search, including the "celebrity bedroom," according to a police report. Officers said they found a marijuana cigarette and a small amount of cocaine.
The St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office charged Kevin Joseph McMahon, 36, of Lebanon, Tenn., with drug possession. He identified himself as Kid Rock's personal assistant, according to an arrest report. He was released from the St. Lucie County Jail Sunday on $16,000 bond.
Kid Rock had kicked off the Aerosmith concert Saturday at the Coral Sky Amphitheatre. The bus was pulled over about midnight a few miles south of the St. Lucie-Indian River county line by a sheriff's detective and the Florida Highway Patrol.
According to a sheriff's report, authorities had been tipped by a motorist who said drugs were aboard. No one was available Sunday at the sheriff's office or the highway patrol to elaborate.
The only other person on the bus at the time was the driver, who said he was headed to Nashville. The band had flown to Nashville after the show, he said. The driver and the bus were allowed to leave after the search.
According to the report, a small amount of cocaine was found on McMahon when he was patted down. A drug-sniffing dog found a package of rolling papers, a marijuana joint and $3,717 in cash in a silver metal briefcase, the report said.
The dog also tracked down a marijuana pipe, rolling papers and a marijuana cigarette in a black bag in the bus's front storage compartment, according to the report. No other drugs were found.
McMahon told the detective that the drugs and paraphernalia were his, and he admitted to using cocaine occasionally and smoking marijuana on a daily basis, according to the report.
FunkStore Note : If It Was'nt For MALLIA FRANKLIN
These Muggz Would'nt Even Know SonnyBoy ..
FunkGetStronger !
***************************************
As always, my apologies to Rickey Vincent for the format of this review...
"THE MUSIC"
---------------------
I had a great time listening to the music at this show!
It was a diverse combination of styles that all fit into the scope of Soul-Patrol. All of the music that I heard last night had a clear sense of historical perspective that was also pointed at the future!
DANNY WEIZMANN http://www.dannyweizmann.com/
Huh?
Who dat?
Well.
This group was something like a "white version of Kid Creole and the Coconuts".
They played in a diverse set of styles ranging from Jag band, Reggae, Bobby Darin/Frank Sinatra Style Vegas Schlock", Disco, Funk, Jazz and more.
(It was some GREAT stuff)
They even did a cover version of the great 1970's Classic Soul song "PILLOW TALK" - Sylvia Robinson. And how ironic that was for me since I had just been on the phone talking with Soul-Patrol's own Al Goodman (of Ray, Goodman and Brown/Moments) about the recent fire that consumed the Sugar Hill Records studio (more on that one later).
Other songs included.
The Girl From Hollywood High
Disco Sunday in Central Park
El Morocco
This is a super talented group of individuals from NYC, in a ntshell, here is how I would describe their sound..
* "Santana, Graham Central Station eque, Hard Driving Latin/Funk/Rock/Soul"
* "Tower of Power Without Horns"
* "Fronted by two ladies (reminding me of Minnie Riperton/Jessica Cleaves), singing positive music, with SERIOUS DOO WOP STYLE HARMONIES"
Folks, this is a group that in my opinion should have a BIG FUTURE.
Very talented.
Very personable on stage and off.
All original Songs Including:
Envy
Joga
To Love and Be Loved
Pretty
Good to You
Devour Me
Saved Up
Stay tuned for more on this group, right here on Soul-Patrol.Net Radio
Of course, SONNY BOY was the reason why I had traveled 2 hours from NJ to attend the show.
They DID NOT DISAPOINT!!!!
For those of you out there who are already familiar with the CD "URBAN MISFIT from the Soul-Patrol.Net Radio broadcast at: http://www.soul-patrol.net/misfit.ram
or from the CD itself this set of songs will be quite familiar to you
Intro
Soul Junky
Sometime
Heaven
Devil's Got You High
Haters Gone Be Haters
If You Ever Lose Your Faith
Super Flyan
Like Collard Greens
Sheldon Riser was totally free, loose and animated on the stage.
In fact I would suggest to you that he has got a commanding stage presence.
His guitar playing ranged in style from Bobby Womack to Prince.
His singing was quite soulful with a whole lotta gospel influences.
Needless to say I loved the music, however I am not exactly "unbiased" at this point with regards to Sonny Boy
I will say that Sheldon needs to work on his "microphone technique" a bit (he isn't exactly Joe Tex with the microphone stand.....lol)
"THE PEOPLE"
---------------------
I arrived on the scene around 8pm and observed the street scene prior to going inside. As I got a little closer to the club I saw a familiar figure standing next to a familiar SUV, which was double parked directly in front of the club. It was none other than SONNY BOY leader Sheldon Riser. Shel immediately greets me and we hug each other. He asks about Mike and I tell him that "Mike isn't coming, he just called me on the cell phone and told me that our server had just crashed and that he had to restore it.". Shel then points to the SUV loaded with equipment and says to me.
"THIS IS THE PART THAT NOBODY LIKES TO DO, BUT THIS IS HOW I STAY IN SHAPE."
(my mind immediately flashed back to the late 1970's when I was a part of a DJ crew and remembered how much I hated lugging equipment, tables and crates of records around, as well as to the Soul-Patrol East Coast Convention where I found myself doing much the same thing..lol)
He then proceeds to grab a rather large piece of equipment and yank it out of the vehicle on to the ground in a single burst of energy.
I said to him.
"Where are your fellow bandmates."?
Shel said.
"I dunno."
I said.
"You need some help with that stuff bro."?
Shel says.
"Nah, this just goes with the territory."
After Shel finishes unloading the vehicle, go inside and he arranges the equipment in a safe place and we go back outside, we talk outside for a few minutes and he then drives off to a location "uptown" to change his clothes for the show, when he is due to hit the stage at 10 pm.
Folks.
THIS IS THE REALITY OF BEING AN INDEPENDENT ARTIST
Sonny Boy has.
* No "road crew"
* No "management"
* No booking agent"
* No "publicist"
* No "record company"
* No "wardrobe person"
What Sonny Boy has is some "GREAT BLACK MUSIC FROM THE ANCIENT TO THE FUTURE MUSIC", and Sheldon Riser performing ALL of these tasks on the night of the show, in addition to entertaining the audience.
In the six month that I have known Sheldon Riser, he has become something like family to Mike and myself.
I like this guy so much that I am probably unable to even write about him objectively anymore at this point.
At this point I observed some of the members of Danny Weizman who had been going thru their sound check while we had been inside and spoke with them..
We had a friendly conversation.
It was now 8:05 pm and they were nervous, wondering when they should go inside. The show was supposed to start at 8pm and their leader had told the club owner that he wanted to wait to start until "some people came in.."
I walked downstairs and took a seat inside. The band went on at 8:15 and by the time they finished their 45 min set, the joint was now full with a crowd that was a funky and eclectic 50/50 mix of Blacks and Whites! After this the crowd would change to a 95 percent Black mix, but there would be considerable "churn" in the crowd as each succeeding band came on. In total I would say that there were around 300 in attendance for the evening
This was interesting only because it was it was the first of what I would observe as a never ending series of "rotating crowd mix" through the course of the evening.
During the set, I notice another familiar figure enter the room.
It was Kregg Ajamu, Soul-Patroller and more importantly, the promoter of the proceedings for the evening. Kregg is busy "working the room", greeting people, handling business, etc.
Eventually he makes his way over to where I am sitting and greets me.
Kregg hands me a small plasic bag from Radio Shack and says.
"Hold on to this, these are the fuses for Sheldon's amplifier."
Then he tells me to get up and he proceeds to introduce me to some of the people in the room, including:
Jose Ivey - Urbanvoyeur http://www.urbanvoyeur.com/
Members of the band Everyanything (who are set to take the stage next) http://www.everyanything.com/
and others who are already quite aware of Soul-Patrol, such as...
Darrell McNeil and Wayne Livingston from the Black Rock Coalition (BRC) are there. http://www.blackrockcoalition.org/
Many of these people are artists who are handing me business cards, promotional CD's and flyers.
Some of the people there are broadcasters/journalists, such as:
Brotha Shine of WHCR -FM http://www.whcr.org/
Mark Copeland of WFDU - FM
Everybody there is all about promoting something!
In short what the crowd has now turned into is an eclectic mix of artists who are also all about taking care of their own business.
I LIKE THIS QUITE A BIT, BECAUSE THESE ARE PEOPLE WHO HAVE ALL RECOGNIZED THAT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS TO ASSUME INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR OWN FUTURE!!!
"THE ONE"
---------------------
There were probably somewhere in the neighborhood of around 20 Soul-Patrollers in attendance, including the familiar names of: Cheryl Page, Charles Duke, SESpruiell, thenayeski, Greg Villepique, Tobias and others whose names escape me at the moment.
Many of the Soul-Patrollers had travelled a great distance to be at this club, which is in quite an inconvienent location. BIG PROPS to all who attended because they wanted to make sure that they showed TANGIBLE SUPPORT for the music of Sonny-Boy (including buying CD's DIRECTLY FROM THE ARTIST).
Needless to say I was quite proud...
Kregg Ajamu also served as the stage announcer for the evening. At each oppurtunity, in addition to promoting just about everything under the sun , he also promoted Soul-Patrol and our new magazine to the crowd. He told them that it was imprtant for people to go to the Soul-Patrol website and sign up for the magazine because it was going to be an important communications vehicle for Black Music.
This event took place on the Far East side of Manhattan on 1st. Avenue between 10th and 11th streets.
This is the area where the East Village, the Bowery and Alphabet City sort of converge and it's an area that "little black boys from Brooklyn" are usually not very familiar with, far from good subway service. It's kind of a "no man's land" where "art, music, fashion and political bohemian lifestyles" converge and are reflected not only by the eclectic street scene outside of the Izzy Bar, but also by the diversity of the musical performance as well as the people I observed inside of the club.
The club itself was quite uncomfortable, but it was also the little "funky kind of place" where LEGENDS are born...
There is no "ONE" for me to speak of.
That is because the "ONE" is something that is still evolving.
What we have here is the birth of a musical/artistic/fashion scene that is currently underneath the radar of the "mainstream media".
* It has a great INDEPENDENT MUSIC SCENE
* It has a great INDEPENDENT FASHION SCENE
* It wants to make POLITICAL/SOCIAL STATEMENTS
* It has it's own INDEPENDENT MEDIA OUTLETS
* It has a LANGUAGE and a STYLE that is all it's own
In short, it is the next great cultural movement for the next generation of Black folks.
The people in the club are the cultural, political, media, fashion, music, etc "tastemakers/influencers" of the future.
Another point to be made here is that it's not just happening in NYC either.
There are pockets of similar activity taking place in Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Atlanta and other places around the country as well.
Here are some quick analogies from last night to the scene of the late 1960's.
* Sonny Boy - "Hendrix/Sly Stone"
* Everythang - "Santana"
* Black Rock Coalition - "SDS"
* Kregg Ajamu - "Bill Graham"
* Soul-Patrol, Brotha Shine, Mark Copeland, Urban Voyeur, etc - Rolling Stone
I don't want to take these analogies too far, but you get the idea..
(HISTORY ALWAYS REPEATS ITSELF)
Ultimately it is going to end up changing the face of the ENTIRE MUSIC SCENE, and quite possibly save the ENTIRE MUSIC INDUSTRY from itself.
HOWEVER THIS MOVEMENT NEEDS TO BECOME UNIFIED!!!!!!!!
This is what is going to eventually replace the "SELF HATING/GENOCIDAL KNEE-GRO STATUS QUO" that dominates the "CLEAR CHANNEL/CATHY HUGHES OWNED AXIS OF MODERN DAY KNEE-GRO ENTERTAINMENT".
However, it hasn't quite decided yet how/if it's going to unify and move forward. As I stated earlier, there was an ever-changing group of people in attendance.
Each particular band had their own following.
These followings only seemed to mix with each other on a superficial basis.
As each band left the stage, most of the crowd also left the club, to be replaced by a different set of similarly attired (and "nappyheaded") people.
ALL OF THESE PEOPLE NEED TO WORK TOGETHER, IF THEY DON'T THEY RUN THE RISK OF BEING SUCKED INTO CORRUPT VORTEX OF THE NOW FLOUDERING STATUS QUO OF THE "CLEAR CHANNEL/CATHY HUGHES OWNED AXIS OF MODERN DAY KNEE-GRO ENTERTAINMENT".
All of this makes up for a diverse mix of incredibly talented and resourceful people who have NO MONEY.
Of course it's all pretty easy to talk about issues like "corruption in the music industry", when you aren't on the receiving end of that corrupt money.
The potential for the corrupting of this movement exists because the key pieces of the movement because while they may all be likeminded in thought, they aren't yet likeminded in action.
Whenever they make the decision to become "likeminded in action", they will be well positioned to DESTROY and REPLACE the Status Quo, which not only includes that "EVIL KNEE-GRO RADIO AXIS", but also the band of "NYC BLOODSUCKING/CULTURE BANDIT CLUB OWNERS", that are hovering just above with their plans to co-opt and enslave these artists and their movement.
OOPS.
(I guess I wasn't supposed to say that, because now I guess I can forget about getting any free passes to get into SOB's or BB King's in the future?)
These club owners are in a position to RIP OFF the movement, simply because what this movement lacks are BLACK OWNED VENUES where their talents can be showcased and the proper focus can be brought to bear.
This would help to enable the kind of UNITY needed to fuse all of this activity together, harness the incredible energy/creativity and insure it's longevity...
Of course this is something that will change over time.
Question is when it does, will it be too late?
Stay tuned.
______________________________
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* 10/2003 FREE ISSUE http://www.soul-patrol.com/magazine/
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WASHINGTON The Boy Emperor picked up the morning paper and, stunned, dropped his Juicy Juice box with the little straw attached.
"Oh, man," he wailed. "North Korea's got nukes. Sheriff Musharraf was helping them. Al Qaeda's blowing stuff up again. The Pentagon's speculating that the sniper might really be Qaeda decoy teams trying to distract the law while they plan a bio-blitzkrieg or a dirty bomb attack on the capital. Tenet's broken out in hives about the next 9/11. Powell spends all his time kissing up to the Frenchies. Saddam's ranting about a river of American blood. Jebbie's in a world of hurt. The economy's cratering. At least Karl says our war strategy will open up a can of Election Day whoop on Congressional Democrats.
"This is not the way my new doctrine was supposed to work. We are supposed to decide who we pre-empt and when we pre-empt them. The speechwriters called it an Axis of Evil, but it was really just a Spoke of Evil. Condi and Rummy said once we finished off Saddam, nobody would mess with America again. But everything's gotten fuzzier than fuzzy math. Some people are actually talking about my doctrine leading to World War III!!! Karl says that would be bad."
The Boy Emperor was starting to feel bamboozled by his war tutors. He needed a fresh perspective. There was a guy on TV with a round face and deep voice running around Provence, London and Berlin, where he suggested Schrφder resign. He was pre-eminent on pre-emption. The Boy summoned him to explain the Bush doctrine.
"Do I know you?" he asked his visitor.
"I am the chairman of your Defense Policy Board," an amused Richard Perle replied. "I am an adviser to Rumsfeld, a friend of Wolfowitz's and a thorn in Powell's medals. Je suis un gourmand, Monsieur le President. I have always dreamed of opening a chain of fast-food soufflι shops based on a machine that would automatically separate eggs, beat the yolks and combine them with hot milk and sugar, add the desired flavorings, whip the whites until stiff, fold them into the mixture and bake in individual pots without human intervention. Then conveyor belts would bring the glass-enclosed ovens to the table and patrons would get to see their meals rise. I've never found investors smart enough to realize the dazzling ingenuity of the Perle Soufflι Doctrine. Meanwhile, I'm killing time trying to get your foreign policy to rise. I'm known as the Prince of Darkness."
"Why?"
"I persuaded Reagan to ignore the weak-kneed, striped-pants set at the State Department and buy every weapon in sight until the Evil Empire was scared stiffer than a perfectly executed meringue."
"But why are we going after a lunatic in Iraq for planning to make a bomb and not a lunatic in North Korea who already has bombs?" the Boy asked.
"At the end of the day," Perle replied, his voice dripping with patience for his student, "Iraq is an easy kill."
"But if North Korea can deter us by brandishing a nuclear weapon," the Boy pressed, "why can't we deter Saddam by brandishing a nuclear weapon?"
"You must puncture the soufflι before it rises," Perle instructed.
"Why are we mad at North Korea for flouting its international agreements when we flout our international agreements?" the Boy wondered.
"You cannot make sublime crκpes suzette without a fire," Perle lectured.
"Didn't you insist that Saddam and Al Qaeda were linked?" the Boy persisted.
"We made that up," Perle shrugged. "You have to be imaginative, as Audrey Hepburn was in `Sabrina' when she offered to make Bogie a soufflι out of saltines and eggs. As the Baron told Sabrina: `A woman happily in love, she burns the soufflι. A woman unhappily in love, she forgets to turn on the oven!' "
"Huh?" the Boy said. "Tony and Colin told me to stop talking about `regime change' and instead say, `War is a last resort,' and stop talking about a `pre-emptive strike' and instead say, `War is not imminent.' "
"They're sissies," Perle said, his lip curling with an epicene disdain. "You cannot deliver the sashimi unless you use the blade."
The Boy Emperor was more befuddled than ever.
"Get me Condi!" he yelled. "And a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."
FALLS REIGN OF TERROR FED ON RACE HATRED, BIGOTRY, VIOLENCE
by Niagara Falls Reporter
FALLS REIGN OF TERROR FED ON RACE HATRED, BIGOTRY, VIOLENCE
By Mike Hudson
Sept. 24, 1980. It was a day when evil of the most vile and unspeakable nature roamed the streets of Niagara Falls. And before it was over an innocent man lay dead in a pool of his own blood, the victim of a madman whose hatred would ultimately drive him to kill as many as 13 people.
Of all the "unsolved" homicides languishing in the cold case files of the Niagara Falls Police Department, the murder of Joseph Louis McCoy that warm September morning is unique, not only because the killer's identity is widely known, but because it was part of a racist rampage so shockingly violent it made headlines around the world.
By all accounts, Joe McCoy, 43, was an easy-going man, well liked in his Pierce Avenue neighborhood. Born in Evalda, Ga., he moved with his family to Niagara Falls in 1943 and attended school here. After a stint in the Air Force, he got a job as a custodian at the Niagara Community Center and attended church at St. John's AME.
Sandy Perry, then director of the community center, described him as a "gentle person, a former boxer and the kids respected him for the help he gave them."
"Joe don't bother no one," said one female neighbor, in shock following his senseless murder.
A black man, McCoy, like many others, had been following with uneasy interest a series of killings that had begun in Buffalo a couple of days earlier.
On Monday, Sept. 22, 14-year-old Glenn Dunn was sitting in a stolen car outside a Buffalo supermarket when he was approached by a young white man, who produced a gun and shot him in the head. Buffalo police chalked the killing up to an incident of gang violence for all of 24 hours until the next attack, on Tuesday, Sept. 23. In a near carbon copy of the Dunn slaying, 32-year-old Harold Green was shot in the head while eating his lunch in a car at a fast-food restaurant in Cheektowaga.
The case was big news in Niagara Falls, as Green's sister, Mary Tucker, was a longtime area resident who worked at the Community Mental Health Center at Memorial Medical Center. Green would linger in the hospital without regaining consciousness until he died the following Sunday.
Again, the shooter was described as a young white man.
The killer didn't wait long to claim his next victim. That very night, just hours after the Green shooting, Emanuel Thomas, 31, of Buffalo was killed by three shots to the head as he was crossing the street near his home.
Spent shell casings found at the scenes of all three murders showed that the same weapon, a .22-caliber semi-automatic, had been used in each. In each case the victim was black, and in each case the killer was white.
All this must have been on Joe McCoy's mind that morning as he walked north on 11th Street. As he approached Cleveland Avenue, a young white man with longish blond hair and carrying a brown paper bag "came out of nowhere," according to one witness. The bag contained a .22 semi-automatic. McCoy took two shots to the head and never knew what hit him.
One witness, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he was walking about a half block away from the scene at the time. A close friend of McCoy, he told reporters, "As I got closer, I knew who he (McCoy) was and I couldn't cross the street."
The suspect fled east on Cleveland Avenue on foot, the witness added.
NFPD Officer Ward Drew was the first policeman on the scene. He had been driving down Cleveland Avenue when he was flagged down by a passer-by.
"I just missed him," Drew told a reporter.
Four men had been fatally shot in a little more than 36 hours and tensions rose in the black communities of Niagara Falls and Buffalo. The hysterical press dubbed the maniac the ".22-Caliber Killer." Fear escalated on the night of McCoy's murder when the body of a young black man was found in the Lower Niagara River, and Niagara County Coroner James Joyce immediately released a statement that the body was X-rayed "from head to toe," and no bullets or bullet fragments were found.
Niagara Falls Police Chief Anthony Fera Sr. urged residents to "remain calm," while at the same time acknowledging that fear was rising in the black community. City police detectives reported numerous calls from people who said they were afraid to leave their homes.
James Caldwell, a Cleveland Avenue resident, told reporters of an incident that occurred at the Airco Speer factory, where he had worked as a crane operator for eight years.
"They think they're funny," he said. "Walking around with their hand in a brown paper bag. They're just horsing around, but I'm real afraid some innocent person is going to get hurt. I see somebody come at me like that, I just might do something back. I might go to jail for hurting somebody, and all for nothing."
Bloneva Bond, a member of the Niagara Falls Board of Education, said it was the first time she'd ever been afraid in her own neighborhood.
"You can't help it," she said. "You think, who's next?"
A young black man showed up at the offices of the old Niagara Falls Gazette and left a note with the switchboard operator downstairs. The note was signed "Black People" and contained a warning.
"To this so-called cousin of Sam. You have killed enough of our Blackmen. We are seeking you out and will find you. And we will not be fair to you, either."
The "Sam" referred to was David Berkowitz, the convicted "Son of Sam" killer who terrorized New York City in 1977.
Community Center Director Sandy Perry said he believed the killings were racially motivated. "I think they're related to the rising economic problems in Western New York," he said. "In bad times, racist propaganda affects the least stable people. If the killer is caught before he does more damage, we may be able to contain the community. If not, I'm afraid we're going to have racial tension."
Niagara Falls police reported having to "rescue" a white man walking downtown carrying a brown paper bag with a handle sticking out of it. He had just purchased a hacksaw from a local hardware store when he was set upon by a number of black men, police said.
Black leaders publicly accused area police agencies of not doing all they could to bring the killer to justice.
It was only going to get worse.
On Oct. 8, a black taxi driver, 71-year-old Parler Edwards, was found in the trunk of his car, parked in Amherst. His heart had been cut out and carried from the scene.
The next day, another black cabbie, 40-year-old Ernest Jones, was found beside the Niagara River in Tonawanda, his heart ripped from his chest. His blood-soaked cab was found later by police, three miles away in Buffalo.
Perhaps unwisely, police began to speculate in the media that the killings were being done by a group of individuals. One did the stabbings, and two or more others did the shootings with the same gun, they guessed. In one public brouhaha, police in Niagara Falls clashed with those in Cheektowaga over a proposal to hypnotize witnesses in the case.
Another attack occurred on Oct. 10 at a Buffalo hospital. A black patient, Colin Cole, was recuperating from an illness when a white stranger approached his bedside and snarled, "I hate ******s."
The arrival of a nurse saved Cole from death by strangulation, but his windpipe had been broken and the description of the assailant matched that of the ".22-Caliber Killer."
Then things got quiet.
For the time being, no more incidents presented themselves here. But as far away as Cleveland and Rochester, the shooting deaths of black men were examined to see whether they were part of the pattern.
People questioned whether the shooting that year of National Urban League President Vernon Jordan in Fort Wayne, Ind., was connected. And, at the same time, the nation was riveted by the news of the killings of 28 black children in Atlanta, Ga.
But no one was prepared for the horror to come.
On Dec. 22, in midtown Manhattan, four blacks and one Hispanic were stabbed in broad daylight on crowded city streets in less than 13 hours. All but one would die of his wounds.
Again, the killer was described by eyewitnesses as a young white man.
The horror then shifted back to western New York. On Dec. 29, when Wendell Barnes was fatally stabbed in Rochester near the bus terminal, authorities saw a connection to the Manhattan slayings.
The next day in Buffalo, Albert Menefee survived a stab wound that nicked his heart and, on Jan. 1, 1981, Larry Little and Calvin Crippen survived separate attacks on the streets of Buffalo. All three men would later be able to identify their attacker.
On Jan.18, 1981 -- 21 years ago this week -- a young white soldier named Joseph Christopher was arrested at Fort Benning, Ga., and charged with the slashing and stabbing of a black GI there.
A search of a hunting camp his family owned in the Southern Tier of New York State turned up a sawed-off barrel and stock from a Ruger .22-caliber semi-automatic rifle, as well as quantities of .22-caliber ammunition. The murder weapon itself was never found.
A check of Christopher's whereabouts the previous autumn showed he had enlisted in the Army at Buffalo on Nov. 13, arrived at Fort Benning six days later, and taken a leave on Dec. 19, returning Jan. 4. Cops also found a bus ticket recording his arrival in Manhattan Dec. 20. Christopher was charged in Buffalo with the Dunn, Green and Thomas murders.
In New York City, indictments were returned in two of the five stabbings.
In Niagara Falls, he wasn't charged in the murder of Joseph McCoy, despite overwhelming evidence against him. Law enforcement officials will tell you today that Christopher's Erie County convictions saved Niagara County the cost of a prosecution.
Christopher was found mentally incompetent, but the ruling was reversed and he faced trial in April, 1982.
After 12 days of testimony, he was found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to 60 years to life in prison.
Like Charles Manson more than a decade before, Christopher's aim had been to start a race war between blacks and whites.
Unlike Manson, Christopher had very nearly succeeded.
In a 1983 interview with the Buffalo News, Christopher said he was a part of a larger conspiracy, and claimed credit for the deaths of 13 men.
"I was ordered to kill. Who ordered me to kill? Who set up the conspiracy? I don't know," he said.
"It was just a collection of people. I can't explain it... I was a soldier. They drafted me and ordered me to kill. One tin soldier, you know," he continued.
The original investigators on the case have stated they doubt Christopher was responsible for the 13 murders he claimed to reporters. In particular, retired Buffalo Homicide Chief Leo J. Donovan was reluctant to attribute the two dead cabbies, whose hearts have never been found, to Christopher.
"We've never come up with any evidence that he did (kill 13 people), and he's never explained where or how," Donovan said in 1993.
That lack of closure in a number of the cases -- including McCoy's -- has remained troubling for many in the black community.
"That was not just an isolated incident," said Henry Louis Taylor Jr., director of the Center for Applied Public Affairs Studies at the University of Buffalo. "Those acts were symbolic of deeper tensions that still exist in Buffalo. If you don't see the connections, you don't understand the source that feeds these criminal acts."
In a 1990 interview, 10 years after the killings, Barbara Banks, publisher of the Challenger newspaper in Buffalo, put it more succinctly.
"This is not one thing that happened, a madman who shot some black folks and now it's over," she said. "It reminds black people there is a double standard. It reminds them of where they are. They can still be killed and not receive total justice. Some of these cases have never been solved."
Twenty-two years later, such is the status of Joe McCoy's case here in Niagara Falls.
Various authorities offered many insipid explanations for Christopher's sadistic killing spree.
A New York psychiatrist said it was because he had a homosexual urge towards black men.
In Buffalo, they said it was because a black man turned him in for wearing a pistol, an event that ultimately forced him to give up a prized gun collection his father had left him.
Joseph Christopher died in prison of a hopefully painful cancer in March, 1993.
Ironically, one of the chief witnesses in the case against Christopher, Calvin Crippen -- who survived a New Year's Day, 1981 knife attack while waiting for a bus at the corner of Niagara Street and Hertel Avenue in Buffalo -- was himself sentenced in 1993 on a charge of cocaine trafficking to 13 months in prison. He said at the time he didn't believe his brush with death had anything to do with his subsequent trouble.
Joseph Christopher. You can look him up on any of the Internet's many "Serial Killer" sites. His legacy is one of race hatred, murder and fear.
May he rot in hell.
Joe McCoy. A quiet man and former boxer. A veteran of Korea whose work with neighborhood children made him a beloved figure here in Niagara Falls.
Michael Jackson's Former Brother-In-Law Lists Family Oddities
by LAUNCH
Michael Jackson's Former Brother-In-Law Lists Family Oddities
October 12, 4 p.m. ET, Launch
Michael Jackson and his family practiced a bizarre ritual in which they sacrificed a live monkey. This is just one of the allegations made by sister LaToya Jackson's former husband, Jack Gordon, who has penned The Jackson Family: The True Story Of The Most Powerful Family In The Music Industry. The book comprises the oddities Gordon claims he witnessed when he was brother-in-law to the "King Of Pop."
According to Gordon, the Jackson family was in the backyard of their Encino, California, home in 1986 when the monkey-burning ritual occurred. "They asked me to leave, and to never talk about it again," he told the New York Post.
But the strange allegations don't stop there: Gordon claims that he frequently witnessed Michael physically abusing his pet chimpanzee, Bubbles. "I saw him punch him, kick him in the stomach. The chimp was on the ground crying. Michael used to say, 'He doesn't feel it. He's a chimpanzee," he said.
As for Michael's failed marriage to Lisa Marie Presley, Gordon says, "He paid Lisa $15 million to marry him, with the promise of a music career."
Gordon also touches on Michael's ever whiter appearance, claiming he witnessed the singer inject himself "with some kind of fluid, after which Michael would say, 'I'm getting lighter, I'm getting lighter.'"
John Branca, a lawyer representing Michael Jackson, reports that all of Gordon's accusations are "pure fantasy."
Jack Gordon and LaToya Jackson married in 1989 and ended their relationship in 1997 amid allegations that he physically abused her
LOS ANGELES (AP)--Actress Teresa Graves, who starred as a sassy undercover cop in the 1970s television police drama ``Get Christie Love!'', died Thursday in a fire at her home. She was 54.
Firefighters found Graves unconscious in a bedroom, said police Sgt. Henry Miller. She was taken to a nearby hospital, where she died.
The blaze began shortly past midnight at Graves' 1,600-square-foot home in Hyde Park, city fire spokesman Brian Humphrey said. Firefighters found the rear part of the home engulfed in flames.
Graves started her career as a singer with the Doodletown Pipers. She later turned to acting, appearing regularly on ``Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In'' in 1969 and 1970.
She had supporting roles in several films during the 1970s, including ``Black Eye,'' ``That Man Bolt'' and ``Vampira.''
On ``Get Christie Love!'', which ran during the 1974-75 season, she played the first black woman hired by a big-city police department.
Graves left acting in the mid-1970s in favor of religion.
The fire appeared to have started in a 200-square-foot enclosed patio that was added on to the original home, Humphrey said. Smoke alarms inside the home were functional, fire officials said.
Rush To Be Inducted Into Canadian Music Industry Hall Of Fame
by LAUNCH
Rush To Be Inducted Into Canadian Music Industry Hall Of Fame
October 4, 2 p.m. ET, Launch
Rush will be inducted into the Canadian Music Industry Hall Of Fame in February. The trio of Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart is being honored for its 30-plus-year career, which includes 22 albums, eight Juno Awards (the Canadian equivalent of the Grammys), a lifetime-achievement award from the Hollywood-based Musician's Institute, and Order Of Canada honors from its homeland. The Hall Of Fame ceremonies will take place in Toronto.
Also being inducted into the Canadian shrine with Rush will be Bernie Finkelstein, manager of Bruce Cockburn and other Canadian artists, and also the founder of Canada's oldest independent record label, True North Records.
Currently touring to promote its latest album, Vapor Trails, Rush plays Saturday (October 5) at Foro Sol in Mexico City.
Muppets Snip Snoop Dogg
Fri Oct 4, 8:00 PM ET
By Bridget Byrne
No, Virginia, Snoop Dogg won't be pimping Miss Piggy for Christmas.
The hard-core, cuss-crazy Diary of a Pimp videomaker and Doggystyle rapper has been excised from the final cut of the latest Muppet adventure, A Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie, to air on NBC in December.
What's that, Virginia? What was Snoop doing in the movie in the first place, you ask?
Despite describing him as a "talented artist," flacks at the Jim Henson Company confirmed this week that Snoop won't make it to air. While producers had taken heat for their casting choice (especially on the talk-radio airwaves), they denied caving to protests.
"Because of production reasons, about half an hour of footage originally planned for use...including a brief appearance by Snoop Dogg will not be appearing in the final cut," a statement from the Henson Co. said.
But according to the Los Angeles Times, it wasn't that simple. Henson "insiders" say execs had extra incentive to cut the Snoop footage when they realized he's in another title due out this fall: The aforementioned Diary of a Pimp, brought to you by your friends at Hustler.
Directed by the Dogg, the unrated video flick boasts the talents of adult stars such as India, Taylor Saint Claire and Nikki Fairchild. Dogg stars in Pimp as the bossman of several hos. Another porn thespian, Chelsea Blue, costars as a journalist who investigates Snoop's lifestyle. (See? Pornos do too have plots!)
Snoop calls Pimp semi-autobiographical.
Snoop could not be tracked down Friday for comment on his Muppet demise, but one of his chief critics was more than happy to talk.
Najee Ali, head of the Los Angeles-based Project Islamic Hope, claims he brought about the Snoop-Muppet edit by threatening an NBC boycott. (On Friday, NBC deferred all comment on the matter to Henson officials.)
Ali argues the rapper is unfit for family television fare.
"I grew up watching the Muppets. They are very precious to me--those memories of watching [them] as a child," Ali said Friday. "Now I have children and want them to feel that way, too...There are plenty of other hip-hop artists that they could have chosen rather than this guy [Snoop Dogg]. He was the very worst choice."
Ali says he shares credit for making Christmas safe for the Muppets with conservative radio show host Larry Elder and Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, both of whom also called for Snoop to be snipped.
A Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie is a parody of classic Christmas movies like Scrooge and It's a Wonderful Life.
Muppet star Kermit has the James Stewart-esque role, as a good guy (er, frog) trying to save the Muppet Theater, a venue threatened with destruction by a greedy banker, played by Joan Cusack.
Reportedly the dodgy Dogg filmed a brief scene in which he exchanged a line with Kermit backstage at the theater. It was later decided the bit "did not advance the storyline," prompting its removal, according to the Henson Co.
Kermit's other human costars include David Arquette, as a rookie "angel" sent to help the it's-not-easy-being-green amphibian, and Whoopi Goldberg, as Arquette's "godlike" boss.
Still more famous faces expected to make cameos in the two-hour movie are William H. Macy, Kelly Ripa, Carson Daly, Rachel Hunter and the cast of NBC's medical sitcom Scrubs.
No word if any of those celebs have been edited out because they "did not advance the storyline."
Peter Gabriel has moved back the start of his Growing Up -- Live tour by eight days due to technical troubles relating to the show's production and creation of its sets.
The tour, which was supposed to start with a Nov. 5 performance at Atlanta's Philips Arena, will now kick off with the previously announced Nov. 13 show at Chicago's United Center. A second United Center show has been added for Nov. 14.
The Atlanta date and a Nov. 8 stop in Columbus, Ohio, have not been rescheduled, but new dates for a Nov. 7 Cleveland's Gund Arena show and a Nov. 11 stop at Washington, D.C.'s MCI Center have been set for Nov. 19 and Nov. 24, respectively. Original tickets will be honored at the newly rescheduled shows.
The tour is in support of Gabriel's album "Up" (Geffen), his first non-soundtrack album in 10 years.
Here are Peter Gabriel's updated tour dates:
Nov. 13-14: Chicago (United Center)
Nov. 15: Minneapolis (Target Center)
Nov. 17: East Rutherford, N.J. (Continental Airlines Arena)
Nov. 18: Philadelphia (First Union Center)
Nov. 19: Cleveland (Gund Arena)
Nov. 21: New York (Madison Square Garden)
Nov. 24: Washington, D.C. (MCI Center)
Nov. 25: Boston (Fleet Center)
Nov. 26: Uncasville, Conn. (Mohegan Sun)
Nov. 28: Montreal (Bell Centre)
Dec. 2: Toronto (Air Canada Centre)
Dec. 3: Auburn Hills, Mich. (Palace of Auburn Hills)
Dec. 5: Denver (Pepsi Center)
Dec. 8: San Diego (Sports Arena)
Dec. 11: Los Angeles (Staples Center)
Dec. 12: Phoenix (America West Arena)
Dec. 14: Oakland, Calif. (Oakland Arena)
Dec. 15: San Jose, Calif. (Compaq Center)
NEW YORK The five largest music companies and three of the USA's largest music retailers agreed Monday to pay $67.4 million and distribute $75.7 million in CDs to public and non-profit groups to settle a lawsuit led by New York and Florida over alleged price-fixing in the late 1990s.
Attorneys general in the two states, who were joined in the lawsuit by 39 other states, said that the industry kept consumer CD prices artificially high between 1995 and 2000 with a practice known as "minimum-advertised pricing" (MAP).
The settlement will go to all 50 states, based on population. Consumers may be able to seek compensation.
Under MAP, the record companies subsidized ads by retailers in return for agreement by the stores to sell CDs at or above a certain price.
"This is a landmark settlement to address years of illegal price-fixing," New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said in a statement. "Our agreement will provide consumers with substantial refunds and result in the distribution of a wide variety of recordings for use in our schools and communities."
The companies, including Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, Bertelsmann's BMG Music and EMI Group, plus retailers Musicland Stores, Trans World Entertainment and Tower Records, admitted no wrongdoing.
The companies have not practiced the pricing agreement since 2000. At that time, they agreed in settling a complaint by the Federal Trade Commission that they would refrain from MAP pricing for seven years.
Former FTC chairman Robert Pitofsky said at the time that consumers had been overcharged by $480 million since 1997 and that CD prices would soon drop by as much as $5 a CD as a result.
In settling the lawsuit, Universal BMG and Warner said they simply wanted to avoid court costs and defended the practice.
"We believe our policies were pro-competitive and geared toward keeping more retailers, large and small, in business," Universal said in a statement.
Previously, the companies said that MAP was needed to protect independent music retailers from rising competition from discount chains such as Wal-Mart, Circuit City and Best Buy. They had slashed CD prices, below cost in some cases, in the hope that once consumers were in their stores they would buy other, more expensive products.
The music companies said that MAP did not directly help them because it didn't affect wholesale prices. Retailers added that they needed support to keep prices up because their rents, particularly for stores in malls, were higher than the discount chains.
Lately, several record companies have cut prices on some CDs, particularly for new acts, to counter the continuing industry slump. Album sales are off nearly 11% this year compared with the same period in 2001, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Courtney Love, Universal Settle Legal Dispute
Mon Sep 30, 3:28 PM ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rock music star Courtney Love and Universal Music Group on Monday settled a long-running lawsuit with both sides claiming victory in a dispute that highlighted the battle between musicians and record labels over artists' contracts.
Pop stars like the Eagles' Don Henley believe the record companies routinely miss paying them millions of dollars in royalties due to flawed accounting and arcane language in record contracts.
Love, lead singer of the rock group Hole and widow of Nirvana's late lead singer Kurt Cobain, had been one of the most vocal critics of music industry accounting, and her case had come to symbolize the artists' cause.
Despite the settlement, Love vowed to continue the fight.
"I plan to continue my advocacy of artists in Sacramento (California's state capital) and Washington, where this belongs," she said in a statement.
Financial details of the settlement were not disclosed, but Universal Music Group, the world's No. 1 record company and part of Vivendi Universal, waived rights to Love's future records -- a key concession sought by the singer.
Love and members of the Cobain estate granted Universal Music Group, or UMG, permission to release new Nirvana records featuring previously unreleased songs and compilations of the group's old hits -- a major victory for the music company.
SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT ... MONEY, TOO
Cobain was the lead singer of alternative rock band Nirvana before he committed suicide in 1994. In the years since, he has become a rock icon, making songs from the band's CDs like 1991's smash "Nevermind" highly valuable for Universal as part of "Best of" CDs or sets of old CDs.
Already, Universal is putting together a new CD of the band's material that is scheduled to be ready for the upcoming holiday season. It is said to feature a never before released Nirvana song called "You Know You're Right."
Along with winning rights to future records, Love gained ownership of several past Hole songs, and UMG agreed to waive re-recording restrictions on some earlier Hole songs. Hole CDs include "Live Through This" and "Celebrity Skin."
But as part of the deal, UMG received a "royalty override" on some of Love's future records, meaning it will get a small percentage of their revenue.
Love is currently recording a new album, and the first single is set to be released in January in the United Kingdom by Poptones Records.
Finally, Love may now release a Hole video or DVD with distribution handed by UMG.
A spokesman for Universal declined to comment beyond the news release announcing the settlement, and Love's attorney Barry Cappello, was not immediately available.
The deal prompts a bigger question for the industry, however, which is whether the artists who are complaining about the record companies' practices have the musicians best interests at heart or just their own.
In her statement, Love said the record stars, "must all work together through lobbying and collective bargaining to create the opportunities that have been lacking in our careers."
She is not the first outspoken recording star to settle with the labels.
In June, country music pop trio, the Dixie Chicks, agreed to end a dispute with Sony Corp ( news - web sites).'s Sony Music Entertainment that dealt with similar issues. The Dixie Chicks' deal paved the way for the release of their album, "Home," which topped album charts when released earlier this month.
The Recording Artists Coalition, which is led by Henley, is currently seeking legislation that would impose penalties on the record companies for faulty accounting. The group has waged its most vocal campaign in California, where it has addressed state lawmakers in hearings on the issue.
Attorneys general in 41 states and three U.S. commonwealths yesterday (Sept. 30) announced a $143 million settlement of price-fixing charges against the five major U.S. distributors and retailers Trans World Entertainment, Tower Records, and Musicland Stores, Billboard Bulletin reports.
In an anti-trust lawsuit filed in August 2000 in federal court, the states charged that the companies from 1995-2000 had conspired to inflate the price of CDs, costing consumers millions of dollars. The suit claimed that the majors and retailers illegally used minimum advertised pricing (MAP) policies to raise CD prices; this resulted in a reduction of discounting and competition among music retailers, the suit says.
In the settlement agreement, the distributors admit no wrongdoing. Universal Music & Video Distribution (UMVD), BMG Distribution, WEA, and EMI Distribution (EMD) issued statements saying they believe MAP policies were legal but that protracted litigation would be prohibitively expensive. Tower and Trans World also contend their innocence but say they too wished to avoid costly litigation. Sony Music Distribution and Musicland had no comment.
Under the settlement, $67.38 million in cash will be distributed to the settling states. This will be used to compensate consumers who overpaid for CDs during the 1995-2000 period, as well as to pay settlement administration costs and attorneys' fees. In addition, 5.5 million CDs, valued at $75.7 million, will be distributed to public entities and nonprofit organizations in each state to benefit consumers and promote music programs. According to the agreement, the companies will pay artist royalties on the CDs.
Insiders say UMVD's cash payout will be approximately $18.8 million, followed by $13.65 million for WEA, $12.7 million for BMG, $12.5 million for Sony, and $6.5 million for EMD. The retailer defendants together are to pay just over $3 million.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) brought a separate action against the distributor defendants that was resolved in May 2000 with decrees requiring the parties to cease using MAP policies. The FTC did not obtain monetary relief and did not address price-fixing among retailers.
Drowning Pool vocalist Dave Williams' death was due to natural causes and was not drug or alcohol related, as had been widely speculated. On Aug. 14, the 30-year-old frontman was found dead in a bunk on his tour bus. The band was in Manassas, Va., en route to the following day's Ozzfest stop in nearby Bristow.
"The news is in. The toxicology report came back negative," writes the band's tour manager, who along with a guitar tech, found Williams' body. Posting as "Shawdog" on the band's official Web site, he adds, "'Nothing found' and this is the truth my friends." A toxicology report confirmed that the singer died of a heart problem. Further tests were ordered after an autopsy conducted soon after Williams' death proved inconclusive.
In a prior post, the tour manager had adamantly denied reports that Williams had choked on his own vomit, emphasizing that there was no way to immediately tell the cause of Williams' death, as he "looked like he was sleeping" when he was discovered. "The band and crew were not up drinking like frat boys, taking drugs etc.," Shawdog wrote of the band's overnight travels to Manassas from Noblesville, Ind., where Drowning Pool had played the night before.
"We were watching DVDs and I even shut Dave's bunk T.V. off at 5:00 a.m. to the sound of his snores," Shawdog continued. "It's no secret Dave loved to drink and enjoy life but this was not the night of hardcore parties... Dave was not a pot head -- did not do heroin, etc."
Drowning Pool was touring in support of its Wind-Up debut, "Sinner," which has sold more than 1.2 million units to date, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The single "Bodies" hit No. 6 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks tally last summer.
An image of Venus captured by the Galileo spacecraft
Scientists in the United States say clouds high in the atmosphere of the planet Venus contain chemicals that may suggest the presence of life.
Venus: The facts
Second planet from the Sun
Similar in size and mass to Earth
Thick, poisonous atmosphere of carbon dioxide and sulphuric acid
Greenhouse effect keeps the surface hot enough for molten metal to flow
Space probes have never found any sign of life on Venus, which has an extremely hot surface and an atmosphere that contains a mixture of poisonous chemicals.
But Dirk Schulze-Makuch and Louis Irwin, from the University of Texas, say the Venusian atmosphere is "relatively hospitable" and may be home to large numbers of bacteria.
"From an astrobiology point of view, Venus is not hopeless," the scientists claim after finishing their research, reported in the New Scientist magazine.
However, most astronomers remain sceptical and the general consensus is that life on the Earth's closest neighbour would be impossible.
Oddities
Using data from the Russian Venera space missions and also the US Pioneer Venus and Magellan probes, the researchers have been studying the high concentration of water droplets in the Venusian clouds.
Nasa's Magellan mission ended in 1994
They noticed oddities in its chemical composition that they say could be explained by the presence of microbes.
The scientists found hydrogen sulphide and sulphur dioxide - two gases which react with each other, and are not seen in the same place unless something is producing them.
They also say that - despite solar radiation and lightning - the atmosphere contains hardly any carbon monoxide, suggesting that something is removing the gas.
Bacterial life
The researchers told the New Scientist that "bugs living in the Venusian clouds could be combining sulphur dioxide with carbon monoxide and possibly hydrogen sulphide or carbonyl sulphide in a metabolism similar to that of some early Earth bugs".
Past missions to Venus
Nasa's mission Magellan orbited the planet for 4 years before plunging into its atmosphere in 1994
Nasa's Mariners 2, 5 and 10 also visited Venus
Soviet missions have landed several spacecraft on Venus
Chemical analyses of rocks indicate a composition similar to that of volcanic rocks found on Earth
They also believe the temperatures of Venus was once much cooler and there could have been oceans on the planet.
"Life could have started there and retreated to stable niches once the runaway greenhouse effect began," Mr Schulze-Makuch says.
But most scientists are sceptical.
They say that tiny droplets of water are not enough to support life.
Alleged 'Bumfights' Video Makers Arrested in Calif
by DRUDGE/Reuters
Alleged 'Bumfights' Video Makers Arrested in Calif.
Reuters
SAN DIEGO - Two men who allegedly paid street people to fight each other as part of the Internet video sensation "Bumfights" have been arrested in San Diego, police said on Tuesday.
The arrests of Las Vegas residents Zachary Bubeck, 24, and Ryan Edward McPherson, 19, followed a three-month probe by the La Mesa Police Department into the "Bumfights" tapes, Lt. Raul Garcia said. La Mesa is a suburb of San Diego.
Bubeck surrendered on Monday and detectives arrested McPherson in La Mesa two weeks ago, Garcia said.
Police said they were still looking for two other Las Vegas residents, as well as others who may have been involved in the production of "Bumfights."
Producers claim to have sold more than 300,000 copies of "Bumfights" over the Internet for $19.99 each.
"Bumfights, Vol 1" -- touted by its producers as "the fastest-selling independent video" featuring "drunks" and "crackheads" -- shows bedraggled men engaging in fistfights and acts of self-abuse, such as running headlong into steel doors and leaping off bridges.
Police say the "Bumfights" producers persuaded street people to fight for the camera in exchange for cash payments, food, liquor and hotel rooms but warned the participants not to tell authorities about the remuneration.
One person broke his leg during a taping session in La Mesa, and producers threatened another witness in the case, police said.
Bubeck and McPherson were charged with conspiracy, solicitation of a felony crime and illegally paying people to fight.
They are due in court on Oct. 10 for a preliminary hearing.
Producers Apologize for Jokes in 'Barbershop'; Jackson Wants Scenes Cut
CHICAGO Jesse Jackson says he's pleased the producers of "Barbershop" have apologized for the film's barbs about Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and others, but still wants the jokes cut from future DVD and video editions of the hit movie.
The producers, Bob Teitel and George Tillman, told The Associated Press on Monday that they had apologized to Jackson on behalf of everyone involved with the film.
"I completely did not mean to offend anyone," Tillman said.
But Jackson said they must go further and remove those scenes from the video, DVD and cable versions.
"The apology is a step in the right direction," he told the AP, but added that he will "keep appealing to them" to do the right thing.
Barbershop," the No. 1 film of the last two weeks, has been a surprise box-office hit. It stars rapper/actor Ice Cube as the inheritor of a barbershop on Chicago's South Side. Cedric the Entertainer plays an old cantankerous barber who jokes about King's alleged promiscuity.
The character also says other blacks refused to give up their seats to whites in the segregated south, but that Rosa Parks got the credit because she was connected to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He also directs an expletive at Jackson.
The character is immediately condemned by others in the barbershop for being disrespectful.
"The producers and writers, we wanted one individual in the shop saying something funny and we wanted everyone to disagree with that person," Tillman explained.
However, Jackson said he had spoken to King's widow, Coretta Scott King, and son, Martin Luther King III, as well as the Parks family and other civil rights leaders and that they "feel highly insulted" by the jokes.
He accused the filmmakers of "trying to turn tragedy into comedy."
But he said "the apology is an admission and a recognition that they knew they were wrong."
Teitel said he was not aware of calls to have the scenes removed from future editions of the film and so had not considered them yet.
Director Malcolm Lee, whose films include "The Best Man," and "Undercover Brother," called the brouhaha "a little silly."
"I think if they want to protest movies, there are a lot of other movies to protest that do a lot more damage to the black community," Lee said. "There are strong images and more egregious affronts to (blacks)."
R. Kelly's Brother: I Support Him But Won't Take The Fall
Embattled R&B singer R. Kelly attended a status hearing in his upcoming child pornography trial in Chicago on Friday (September 20), but this time he was joined by his younger brother, Carey Kelly.
Rumor has it that Robert Kelly's defense attorneys are looking to argue how it could be Carey Kelly and not R. on the sex tape at the center of the criminal investigation, and thus cast doubt on the charges against the singer. That rumor was taken seriously enough that prosecutors subpoenaed an episode of "The Judge Mathis Show" in which Carey Kelly had appeared, apparently to evaluate the resemblance on videotape between the two.
While Robert Kelly's defense attorneys won't discuss strategy, Carey Kelly is concerned. He told the Chicago Sun-Times that he had heard his brother's attorney say on the news that it could be him on the tape (Ed Genson, Kelly's main criminal attorney, denied making such a statement). "The person on the tape is not me," Carey Kelly told the Sun-Times. "If need be, I am willing to take a lie detector test to prove that it is not me. I feel that my character is being damaged."
Carey, who toured with his older brother from 1990 to 1996, also said he wasn't willing to sacrifice his reputation as a defense tactic. "No dollar amount in the world would get me to do that," he told the paper. "I've got kids. Not a dollar in the world could buy my soul."
Outside of speculation that Carey Kelly could be used as a defense ploy, defense strategies so far have revolved around two points R. Kelly saying that it's not him on the sex tape, and his lawyers saying that the girl on the tape was of age. Chicago authorities have said she was 14 at the time the tape was made.
Besides his younger brother's appearance, Kelly's camp characterized Friday's hearing as "no big deal." The prosecution passed along 1,000 pages of evidence, which they declined to describe. Kelly's passport was also officially turned over to the court, even though it had technically been given up at his last hearing on August 30.
The Cook County state attorney's office said the prosecution hopes to finish its side of discovery at the next hearing, which could allow a trial date to be set soon, pending any motions the defense has to make regarding suppressing evidence or excluding witnesses.
Kelly, who is due back in court November 1, was indicted on 21 counts of child pornography in June . He pleaded not guilty to all charges later that month.
'J. Lo Cheated On My Son,' Says Judd's Dad
September 20, 8 p.m. ET, Launch
Jennifer Lopez's steamy relationship with Ben Affleck allegedly began even before the singer-actress was divorced from choreographer Cris Judd. Judd's father Larry Judd told the National Enquirer that Lopez had an affair with--and later divorced Cris Judd for--Affleck.
Affleck and Lopez had met on the set of the movie Gigli, which began production five months into Lopez's marriage to Judd. "She was leaving the house at 5 a.m. and she wouldn't return until after 10 p.m....Jennifer was spending more time with Ben, and Ben made Cris feel unwelcome," said the elder Judd. "Then in May, she told Cris that their marriage was over and she would be seeking a divorce. Jennifer did not conduct herself as a married woman, and Ben did not respect the fact that she was my son's wife."
Lopez's ex-father-in-law also told the Enquirer: "Overnight, Jennifer cast my son aside and turned her back on her marriage vows."
Larry Judd also alleged that his son's relationship with Lopez began before she broke up with her erstwhile boyfriend Sean "P. Diddy" Combs.
MS might be sexually transmitted
From the Science & Technology Desk
Published 9/19/2002 12:05 AM
LONDON, Sept. 18 (UPI) -- Building on a longstanding theory that multiple sclerosis is triggered by an as-yet-undiscovered virus, a British researcher has assembled evidence from dozens of different studies he claims support his hypothesis MS might be transmitted primarily by sexual contact.
A number of experts contacted by United Press International questioned the validity of the data used to support the theory, however.
"This is a new way of looking at multiple sclerosis -- it provides a testable hypothesis," Christopher Hawkes, a neurologist at London's Institute for Neurology and the expounder of the idea, told UPI.
"It's a sensitive subject, because if you had MS and you had a perfectly respectable upbringing, respectable life, with just one or two partners before you married, you wouldn't like to think it had the same stigma as something like syphilis," Hawkes said.
Sufferers of multiple sclerosis progressively develop scarring of the myelin, the protective sheath that covers the nerves. The condition leads to muscle weakness, blurred vision, slurred speech, tremors and other symptoms. MS affects as many as 500,000 people in the United States. There is no known cure.
Hawkes' research turned up four small MS epidemics that occurred on the Faroe, Orkney and Shetland islands and in Iceland following large influxes of Allied troops during World War II. This suggests sexual activity between women on the islands -- who previously had lower rates of infection -- and troops from geographic regions with higher rates of infection led to the outbreaks. There are questions about the accuracy of some of the relevant statistics, however.
Hawkes suggested -- as have other researchers -- that because the human T-Cell lymphotrophic virus-1, or HTLV-1, has been shown to cause a disease with symptoms quite similar to MS, a viral agent might be at work and might be transmitted sexually.
Among the studies cited by Hawkes are one done in Kashmir, India and another in Thugbah, Saudi Arabia, where extramarital sexual relations are thought to be relatively rare. Both showed extremely low rates of MS.
In contrast, research shows increased MS rates in western countries following the introduction of birth control pills and less use of barrier methods, beginning in the 1970s, he said.
"There is absolutely no data to support (this) hypothesis," Lauren Krupp, a neurologist and co-director of the MS center at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, told UPI. "For every point that the author raises to support his argument there is a very strong counter-argument," she said. "The specific kinds of things you would look for to support his argument aren't found in the existing data in the literature."
Krupp, who also is a spokeswoman for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, cited a study -- also used by Hawkes -- of 13,000 married couples with one spouse contracting MS but showing no evidence of a higher rate of transmission to the other spouse.
Hawkes responded he thinks susceptibility to the disease is higher at younger ages and some studies of couples do show five times the rate expected in the general population. In addition, he said, in tropical spastic paraplegia, the disease caused by HTLV-1 -- which is known to be sexually transmitted -- transmission among married couples is relatively low. The same may be true for MS.
He acknowledged, however, that a virus, if it exists, also might need to act along with genetic susceptibility -- generally thought to be a key ingredient to developing the disease. "I say let's have a look at it rather than talking it into the ground. ... You've got to keep an open mind because nobody has the answer on MS," Hawkes said.
Although there may very well be a viral agent, or multiple viral agents, Krupp said, increased rates following higher levels of troops in isolated communities could be explained by viral transmission that was not necessarily sexual -- something Hawkes agrees is possible.
Graeme Stewart, an immunologist at Westmead Hospital in Sydney, Australia, told UPI, "The sexually transmitted infection hypothesis in multiple sclerosis is of low credibility."
Hawkes theory will be published in the October issue of the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.
--
Reported by Joe Grossman, UPI Science News, in Santa Cruz, Calif.)
Though Snoop Dogg's sixth studio album will feature collaborations with Jay-Z, Redman and the Neptunes, a dis track aimed at Suge Knight, Kurupt and former ally Xzibit is likely to garner the most attention.
On "Pimp't Slapped," from Paid Tha Cost to Be Da Boss, Snoop tells his former Death Row Records boss, "You just need to start rhymin'/ 'Cause you're the biggest star on your label/ And them other n---as are just crumbs off my table."
The track, which surfaced on a DJ Kay Slay mix CD, also includes the lines: "A lot of n---as should have said it/ F--- 'em, but I'm gonna say it for 'em/ Stop it, pop it, rewind it and play it for 'em/ Suge Knight's a bitch and that's on my life/ Your rappers and artists tell 'em shut it up/ 'Cause I'll f--- every last one of them up/ Especially Kurupt/ See that's my lil' homeboy, so he knows what's up."
"Pimp't Slapped" appears to address the same frustrations Snoop aired to a Los Angeles radio station earlier this year about his West Coast counterparts picking on Jermaine Dupri rather than dissing Knight on record. While the song addresses X, ("I'm not Xzibit/ You can't pull my ho card"), it doesn't mention Dr. Dre or Eminem, the other players in the Dupri feud (see "Eminem, Xzibit Call Dupri 'Cockeyed Midget' On Answer Track").
Snoop, who was involved in a brief face-off with Knight at the BET Awards in June (see "Ja Rule, Missy, B2K Win, Suge And Snoop Exchange Words At BET Awards"), last dissed the rap mogul on "Death Row Is Bitches," released on his Web site and on mix CDs.
Elsewhere on Paid Tha Cost to Be Da Boss, due November 26, Snoop shares verses with Jay-Z, Redman and Nate Dogg and raps over beats from the Neptunes, DJ Premier, Just Blaze and West Coast newcomers Jelly Roll and Fredwreck.
Snoop recorded a track with rocker Lenny Kravitz (see "Snoop Dogg (A.K.A. Snoop Scorsese) Talks Next LP"), but the rapper's spokesperson said Tuesday he was not sure it would make the track list, which is still being finalized.
The Neptunes-produced "From Tha Chuuch to Tha Palace" is the album's first single and features Snoop boasting of his rhyme skills. "I still got the gin and juice in hand," he raps in the track. Diane Martel (Eve, N.E.R.D.) will direct a video for the song at the end of September in Los Angeles.
Other tracks on Paid Tha Cost to Be Da Boss include "You Got What I Want," "Suited N Booted," "Boss Playa," "Wasn't Yo Fault" and "Lollipop."
WASHINGTON Participants in this month's Congressional Black Caucus conference say the defeat of two black House members in bitter primaries not only suggests a widening rift with Jewish Democrats, but trouble within the Democratic Party itself.
"People were talking retaliation," said Ron Walters, the director of the African American Leadership Institute at the University of Maryland, of last week's CBC events in Washington. "They were saying [presidential hopeful] Sen. Joe Lieberman is dead in the water, and so on and so forth."
The anger is emanating from reports that several outside Jewish special interest groups took a particular interest in defeating Reps. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., and Earl Hilliard, D-Ala., by fueling the campaigns of their respective Democratic primary opponents with thousands of dollars and an interest in seeing the incumbents defeated for their long-standing support of Palestinians.
Both incumbents lost in stunning defeats.
McKinney blamed the Jewish lobby and the Democratic Party for her Aug. 20 primary loss by 16 percentage points to Judge Denise Majette, who is also black. The five-termer had sparked the ire of the Jewish community with her outreach to Arabs, particularly after the Sept. 11 attacks, and her support of Palestinians in light of terrorist bombings in Israel. She received ample financial support in her campaign from Arab groups.
Hilliard, too, is a fervent supporter of Palestinians, and lost in June 56-44 percent to opponent Artur Davis, who is also black and was supported heavily by Jewish special interest dollars.
"When you unseat two black candidates, it's not a freak thing, it's a strategy. It took black candidates by surprise, and it's made them very angry," he said. "Why the leadership of the party didn't do anything, that's the big mystery."
Political observers say McKinney was the only one to blame for her own defeat. She alienated the Democratic Jewish community after Sept. 11 when she slammed former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for returning a $10 million check to a Saudi prince who had linked the attacks to America's Mideast policy. McKinney wrote the prince a letter criticizing Giuliani and asking for the money back to give to poor black communities.
Others say McKinney just didn't speak to black voters in her district anymore, while Republican voters who could vote in the primary crossed lines en masse to help defeat her.
"There is a wide variety of reasons as to why that defeat might have happened," said John Norton, spokesman for the Democratic National Committee. Norton said the party does not get involved in primaries, but in this case, "We would never pin it [defeat] on a group of outsiders who are wed to a particular issue."
Despite the building case against McKinney, political analysts agree that Jews, though traditionally loyal to the Democratic Party, have been moving further to the right since President Bush took office. The president's support of Israel, combined with his "compassionate conservatism," has done a lot to soften their attitudes against Republicans in the last year.
"Jews are clearly moving in a conservative direction, particularly at city and state levels," said Murray Friedman, head of the Center for Jewish History at Temple University and author of What Went Wrong: The Creation and Collapse of the Black-Jewish Alliance.
Jewish-black relations have been "waxing and waning" since the '60s, he said, and tensions uncovered in the Hilliard and McKinney races "are just a continuation of that."
Friedman said past anti-Semitic rhetoric against Jews by visible members of the black community like the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and the fact there was no clear support for Israel by black members on recent resolutions in Congress, have exacerbated this growing rift between the two traditional allies.
"It's not helpful to have this rift out in the open -- this spells trouble for the Democratic Party," said Rich Galen, who is Jewish and a Republican strategist. He says if black voters follow through with plans to retaliate against the party for not doing more to save McKinney and Hilliard's seats, it could be disastrous. At the same time, he said, Democratic Jews may be wondering where the party was when black lawmakers were making statements against Israel.
"It all ends up spelling trouble for Democrats," he added.
Walters said the party has gone on double duty to quell the anger among blacks, who are by a vast majority Democrats. He doesn't buy that McKinney had lost support among the black voters in her district, but blames Republicans and Jewish outsiders, and a lack of support from the party.
"I just don't know why the Democratic leadership didn't step up and wrestle this to the ground," he complained.
A handful of CBC members have approached the leadership, not to blame them for their members' losses, but to request meetings, even a retreat, to help ease the growing tensions between the Jewish and black factions within the party, staff members said Tuesday.
Fred Turner, a spokesman for Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., said his boss "has been talking to his colleagues, both black and Jewish, to make things better. We have to remind people that there is quite a bit of shared history between the two groups."
Eric Smith, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, who met recently with CBC members on the matter, said there was definite agreement to clear up the tensions that exist. "He acknowledges that it would be good to continue the discussion."
Enigmatic R&B artist Prince is preparing to grace fans with a three-disc document of his spring North American One Nite Alone tour. "One Nite Alone... Live" will initially be available to members of the artist's NPG Music Club, but is expected to be given a wider release sometime this fall.
The tour in support of his self-released album "The Rainbow Children" featured Prince and his New Power Generation band revamping a lot of his older material to create an organic, jazz-influenced sound that fit in with the new songs. "One Nite Alone... Live" comprises takes from many shows and after-show performances on the tour, with guest performers such as George Clinton and Musiq appearing on some of the set's tracks.
The box, which will come with a 48-page book of photos from the tour and liner notes with contributions from band members, is to be the first official live album of Prince's 25-year career. For details on the official NPG Music Club, visit the group's official Web site.
Here is the full track listing for "One Nite Alone... Live":
"Rainbow Children"
"Muse 2 the Pharaoh"
"Xenophobia"
"Extraordinary"
"Mellow"
"1+1+1 is 3"
"The Other Side of the Pillow"
"Strange Relationship"
"When U Were Mine"
"Avalanche"
"Family Name"
"Take Me With U"
"Raspberry Beret"
"Everlasting Now"
"One Nite Alone..."
"Adore"
"Wanna B UR Lover"
"Do Me, Baby"
"Condition of the (Interlude)"
"Diamonds & Pearls"
"The Beautiful Ones"
"Nothing Compares 2 U"
"Free"
"Starfish & Coffee"
"Sometimes It Snows In April"
"How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore"
"Anna Stesia"
"Joy in Repetition"
"We Do This"
Medley: "Just Friends (Sunny)"/"If You Want Me To Stay"
"2 Nigs United 4 West Compton"
"Alphabet St."
"Peach (xtended jam)"
"Dorothy Parker"
"Girls & Boys"
"Everlasting Now (vamp)"
New Internet 'worm' on the loose
From the Science & Technology Desk
Published 9/16/2002 3:21 PM
PITTSBURGH, Sept. 16 (UPI) -- Computer security specialists at the CERT Coordination Center said Monday the latest Internet worm targets the popular Apache Web server platform and could be used to launch attacks against Web sites.
As with last year's "Code Red" episodes, the Apache/mod_ssl worm -- also called linux.slapper.worm and bugtraq.c worm -- looks for vulnerable computers in which it can place copies of itself, said Marty Lindner, team leader for incident handling at CERT, part of Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute.
Unlike last year, however, the Apache worm's search generates far less traffic than the logjam that slowed the Web's overall performance during Code Red, Lindner told United Press International.
"System administrators should be looking out for traffic that matches the criteria described in our advisory," Lindner said. "If they see it, they should investigate their machines and make an independent assessment of whether they've been compromised or not."
Such monitoring is vital, Lindner said, since an infected server will advertise its presence, not only adding its resources to the worm's network but also notifying hackers in general to its vulnerability.
The worm bases its attack on a known vulnerability in an older version of the Secure Sockets Layer program many Web sites use to protect sensitive transactions. For now, the attack affects systems using SSL with Apache on the Linux operating system, Lindner said, but the "sophisticated" worm could be adapted for Windows-based machines.
Kevin Nixon, senior director of security business strategies at Exodus, part of the Cable and Wireless global telecommunications conglomerate, told UPI systems running Apache and SSL on the AIX operating system -- very similar to Linux -- also might be vulnerable. Although Apache is a popular Web server program, the possible impact on secure data is uncertain, he said, since many Apache servers handle mundane duties, such as looking up domain names.
Data available to companies that provide critical Internet-related functions show the worm is not very active, Nixon said. Such a low profile could be an intentional action by whoever wrote the worm, he said, as opposed to being an indication of a limited number of affected systems.
A worm, unlike most computer viruses, spreads without any assistance from unwary users. Code Red infected hundreds of thousands of systems, trying to flood the White House's old Internet Protocol address with bogus information requests, but computer engineers created a new address to avoid the denial-of-service attack.
Examination of the Apache worm has yet to reveal what site might face an attack this time, CERT's Lindner said. The number of affected systems also remains to be determined, so researchers are unsure how large a DOS attack the worm might be capable of, he added.
Computer security specialists are analyzing the worm's activities to see if a specific sector of the economy, such as banks, is more at risk, Nixon said.
Patches for the SSL vulnerability are available at the openssl.org Web site, Lindner said. Companies should give their information technology departments the time and resources to properly check for the problem and install the fix, he said.
If computer operators believe their system has been affected by the worm, CERT recommends a set of actions outlined at cert.org/tech_tips/win-UNIX-system_compromise.html. System administrators also should keep an eye out for updated information from CERT and its industry collaborator, the Internet Security Alliance, Nixon said
Jackson dismisses Founding Fathers
By Steve Miller
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
EAST LANSING, Mich. The Rev. Jesse Jackson yesterday told about 600 Michigan State University students that America's democracy was 37 years old, not 200-plus, and that "democracy as we know it did not begin in Philadelphia, where a bunch of white men wrote the laws."
"These men's wives were not allowed [to vote], these laws were made at a time when only white men had the right to vote," Mr. Jackson said, noting that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the commencement of "true democracy."
Speaking at the Jack Breslin Student Events Center, Mr. Jackson also used his platform at what organizers called a "Rally for Peace" to continue his criticism of Republican leaders, focusing on President Bush.
Any military action in Iraq, he said, at this point would violate U.N. and international law.
"But Mr. Bush says, 'All right, I'll go to the U.N.,' then he tells them that unless you follow me, I'll call off trade with your country," said Mr. Jackson, a frequent critic of the administration.
"America is a great nation," Mr. Jackson continued. "But we only represent 6 percent of the world. English is a great language but it is a minority language Jesus didn't speak it. We are a great nation, but we have to be of service, we do not have to be superior.
"Most people on this globe are yellow, black or brown, non-Christian, female, young, poor and don't speak English."
Mr. Jackson made the stop here as he returned home to Chicago from a Friday rally in Washington to protest the Bush administration's policy of investigating and detaining people. He accused Mr. Bush of wanting to "rule the world."
The event here was poorly attended after student organizers predicted a crowd of 6,000. The group provided 2,000 free tickets to students and booked the arena area of the center, which has a capacity of 15,000.
Mr. Jackson was also targeted by a group of protesters, who said that Mr. Jackson is not the person on whom to spend university funds. About a half-dozen students stood outside the Breslin Center under a hand-carried sign that read "Jesse Jackson Protest Squad."
"To bring Jesse Jackson, a left-wing extremist, to this campus to talk about peace, is not what we need," said Craig Burgers, who chairs the Michigan State University chapter of Young Americans for Freedom. "He represents political corruption at its finest."
He noted that Mr. Jackson's speech was supposed to be about peace.
Mr. Jackson holds an honorary doctorate from the university, where he spoke at graduation commencement in 1988.
In his hourlong speech yesterday, Mr. Jackson also noted that the United States has a history of supporting political despots.
"We supported the shah of Iran, and we drove the Islamic revolution into being," Mr. Jackson said. "They saw us as allies of oppression. We supported the Taliban we gave $6 million to the Taliban. The Taliban was our ally until September 11."
Mr. Jackson also disparaged the nation's economic order, using the university's labor force as an example.
"You see them out there every day, planting flowers, keeping the place clean," he said. "But they are the working poor. And the cost of a loaf of bread is the same for them as it is for anyone else."
The labor force at Michigan State University is unionized, with all employees making above the minimum wage.
For Keith Richards, there's little sympathy for the devil.
Especially when his name is Mick Jagger--these days otherwise known as Sir Mick.
In an upcoming interview in Mojo magazine, the Rolling Stones' gnarled guitarist blasts his longtime bandmate (and frequent sparring partner) for accepting knighthood and says it was so unbecoming of "His Satanic Majesty" that it nearly derailed the band's vaunted 40th anniversary tour.
"It was enraging, I threatened to pull out of the tour--went berserk and bananas," Richards tells Mojo.
Not that the 58-year-old musician was hoping for "Sir Keith," mind you.
Richards says the idea of Jagger being knighted filled him with "cold, cold rage at [Jagger's] blind stupidity," since it stood in stark contrast to the rebellious "Street Fighting" music and hedonistic rock 'n' roll lifestyle the Stones charted during their heyday in the '60s.
Jagger, one of several Brits on Queen Elizabeth II ( news - web sites)'s birthday honors list in June, was recognized for his "services to popular music." He joined a growing roster of pop-star knights that includes Paul McCartney and Elton John. Other famous Brits on the queen's list this year included directors Trevor Nunn and Jonathan Miller and artist Peter Blake.
While Richards admits expressing dissatisfaction with Jagger's decision, not all the Stones share that sentiment.
"Blimey, some of the people who had those medals, or whatever you call them, are horrendous, so Mick certainly deserves one," drummer Charlie Watts tells the magazine.
Watts, however, adds that Richards should have received the honor of knighthood, as well, despite his antipathy for such things, because, as the grittier half of the Glimmer Twins, the the craggy guitarist cowrote all the Stones' classics with Jagger.
"If Paul McCartney got one, Mick should have got one. But if Mick got one, Keith should have been offered one, and that would have really been something else," says Watts.
Jagger hasn't exactly been a model for chivalric behavior, with a 1967 arrest for drug possession and his inveterate womanizing, fathering no less than seven children by four different women.
Richards, meanwhile, isn't holding out hope of joining the knightly ranks.
"I doubt they thought of offering me one," says Richards. "Because they know what I would've said...They knew I'd tell them where they could put it."
In any case, it looks like Sir Mick and plain old Keith have managed to avoid any serious jousting. As planned, the boys kicked off their tour last week in Boston to a sold-out house and stellar reviews. The Stones won't stop rolling any time soon, either. A greatest hits package is due out November 1, after which the rockers will continue their trek through Australia, Japan, Europe and--if all goes according to plan--perform their first-ever shows in China.
