I have a long but wonderful list of people to still tell you about, regarding my journey last month to Jamaica. One of them is the mysterious Kingston based Selecta, Lenny Roots. The German Lennart Tacke introduced me to him and I hung with Mr Roots as he put together this educational mix tape in a peaceful …
Well, the next shoe has dropped in the MSU/USA gymnastics sexual molestation scandal. Dr. William Strampel, 70 y/o, the MSU supervisor of serial molester Dr. Larry Nassar, has been arrested. Strampel came under scrutiny earlier this month, as reported by the Wall Street Journal on 3.20.18. The Journal noted that Stampel, MSU’s Dean of Osteopathic …
Last Tuesday night, I took my daughter Jillian to see the Sacramento Kings play the Dallas Mavericks. She had never seen an NBA game, and the tickets were cheap for two lottery teams playing a game with absolutely no bearing on the playoffs. The Mavericks won 103-97, but the evening was most notable in that …
Facebook does have a monopoly. As evidenced by how it bought out Instagram, its only threat. How it is grooming the 3rd World with Whats App. How it demolished a MySpace that was the last hope of independent musicians after the internet turned out to be the destroyer of worlds, that gave us Donald Trump …
On Saturday March 24, 2018, millions upon millions of people joined the March for Our Lives event that was happening in cities all over the country and even in other countries where participants marched in solidarity. I joined the Seattle march. We were marching in solidarity with the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School …
Wow. I didn’t think anything like this existed. Understood only a few pre-1970 Tonight Shows survived. This must be one of em. It conveys the improvy (im-Pervy?) flavor of the rat pack just about better than anything I’ve seen. Dean still makes me laugh out loud, even when it’s Schtick I should’ve seen coming for …
This is how stupid people are when they debate the complexities of music appropriation. People are questioning Bruno Mars for cultural appropriation based on race, when he is half Puerto Rican and was trained to destroy pop music with real instruments by his Puerto Rican father. I would love for one basic ass bitch of …
Rex Tillerson said Russia is behind the nerve agent attack in England. Fired the next day. Russia hacks the RNC and doesn’t leak the goods through its front Wikileaks, and the Republican controlled Intelligence Commitee says there is no collusion. That’s the news…Today. Nothing to see here. Says lobotomized Uncle Sam, washing the shame down …
On March 6, 2018, Chicago’s fabled classic rock station, WLUP (97.9), announced it was being acquired by Educational Media Foundation (EMF). Since 2014 “The Loop” has been operated under a local agreement with Cumulus Media. However, as part of a bankruptcy filing last month, Cumulus withdrew plans to buy the station, and so the search …
BJ DjSticky AKA Bluejay Hankins has been trying to get a new press release out of me for weeks. We polished one before I left for Jamaica but it was missing something. He needs a KILLER press release to the reach the estimated 1000 DJs that matter in the global Roots Reggae & Dancehall universe that …
This clip of Dean Martin is amazingly good. If only he was always this funny when drunk. If it’s an act, it’s a great act. Note his outfit: years before Miami Vice he is wearing Don Johnson’s trademark white jacket. Note also Bob Hope’s seeming indignation. It’s hard to say whether Dean was truly in …
I finally know the Truth! My parents got their DNA tests back and through my Mother’s Puerto Rican side I am not just a little bit African, I am a melting pot of many African tribes including Bantu, and portions of what comes up simply as Nigerian, the tribes of Senegal, the Congo, and the …
It was a little surprising that Billy Graham got a full state funeral treatment for his memorial: lying in state in the US Capitol, flags across the nation lowered to half mast, and President Trump attending the funeral service in Charlotte, NC. Perhaps it was to be expected, given the current coziness between Trump and …
As a Capitalist pig I have to admit a terminal cancer our economic system is that we still have gun companies after selling ourselves 300 million guns. We have enough guns to arm every baby in this country. We have enough guns for everyone, and enough ammo to till each of us 100s of times. …
Eating from your yard tip~Jerusalem Artichoke is a hardy beast that grows over 7 feet tall with yellow rebeckia flowers. You can harvest the tubers after the first hard freeze, but I think they taste better in the spring. The women I got them from sliced them raw onto her salad. They are also good …
The Fall of the United States from its temporary seat as the world’s greatest Superpower, can be boiled down to two simple facts, which reveals a terminal defect of the two party system. It’s like a self destruct button. The last Democratic presidents are among the most intelligent, eloquent, and well educated Presidents in the …
My friend Jordani Sarreal is putting together a music publishing and copyright workshop that is so incredibly timely for me. As publishing and the ownership of our albums is increasingly in our own possession, rather than Record companies, most of us have no idea what to really do in 2018. I will be attending her workshop and …
Just today, Yahoo! broke the story of federal documents identifying an extensive list of NCAA schools and players that have been involved in the recent recruiting scandals that have been investigated by the FBI. You can find their post here: https://sports.yahoo.com/exclusive-federal-documents-detail-sweeping-potential-ncaa-violations-involving-high-profile-players-schools-103338484.html One reason I’ve preferred professional sports to the NCAA is that the former make …
“What The President Said,” a new protest song by David Poe and Sister C, features voices from the Women’s March and the LAX protest. The song challenges a president who many believe is imperiling American ideals with outrageous falsehoods, divisiveness, brinkmanship and incompetence, aiming to pander to base voters before midterm elections this November and …
Though the Reverend Billy Graham passed away Wednesday morning at 99 years of age, his failing health had taken him from public view for the last few years, and it was almost more of a surprise that he had remained a resident of our earthly realm up until then. For those younger than a certain …
Last week, Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air interviewed Finn Murphy, whose memoir, The Long Haul, was published last year. The interview was so entertaining that I immediately downloaded the book, and I was not disappointed. From its title and cover, one might think that the book would be a celebration of the open road …
In these four high-profile cases, adults covered up sexual crimes. The Catholic Church moved priests. The Boy Scouts kept their Perversion Papers secret. Penn State preferred profits over boys. As the gymnastics’ story has already unfolded at Molestation State University against female gymnasts, there will be an expansion to female co-eds, making the travesty more …
I am playing on Roots FM and getting interviewed… Things you learn live on the air. Selecta (Ras Isachar) introduces me to Kingston as a friend of Jamaica and the left handed guitar player then plays “No Woman No Cry.” Is this the real life? This just happened: I just played 3 songs live on …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsvZ46UfOYs
Without really intending to, we seem to have low-key ‘done’ Sundance this last week, mainly via the ewaitlist, which is cool fun. Of the headline grabbing films, we saw The Tale, (with Laura Dern, Jason Ritter and an eleven year old Isabelle Nélisse) which has amazing parallel times and lines storytelling. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4015500/ I can’t tell …
Lady Bird, the coming-of-age movie set in Sacramento, CA, has a stubborn disinclination to satisfy normal expectations. Whenever you expect the story to follow a certain path, it goes somewhere else, and whenever you think you know its characters, they always find a way to surprise you. This lack of cliche, along with the movie’s …
In the wake of the latest school shooting in Kentucky, a Wild West shoot out between student and teachers is not far away. No matter what side of the political spectrum you are on, we are all living in that kind of America. Theories that having more guns will keep us safe are going to …
The Democrats are rolling out their latest weapon after the State of the Union address. Here comes Joe Kennedy Jr. part 3. He is actually the grandson of Bobby. Here are some stats. He might be worth 55 million thanks to inheritance bankrolled by his name sake, he is technically an (unoppressed) minority because he …
To be honest, I do not think social media is good for humankind. The internet had a chance to inform us, but this world has us in a tiny box where we fight like giant fire ants. This is mass manipulation and coercion on the grandest scale. …and for What? For What? To sell more …
Fans of the movie AIRPLANE, I had NO idea that it was taken from this obscure film ZERO HOUR. This is interesting if you are a fan. It IS the same movie, just not (intentionally) funny. Even has the “Looks like I picked the wrong week” line in it. It’s shot for shot in some …