Out On The Stoop is my exploration about things to know, talk about or experience these amazing times. The Stoop mantra is Think, think, it ain't illegal yet.
I was pleased with the audio text video. But I wanted more. Not much more. Because some of the things to share really need an image.
Or maybe me taking the time to figure out how to descript a very visual image.
That time thing is tough.
Yes, you can talk about comic book in a purely audio format. You can talk about the history, the cultural force that affect them and much more.
But what if the comic book character in question was not popular?
Almost everyone has their vision of Batman, even if they have never touched or seen the comic book.
But what about the being known as Fantomah? I can describe her literally being two faced but taking a look at a bit of a cover image saves a lot of time.
This version was created using a service called Headliner. You can upload the audio and image. They will do the transcription and then combine all into a audio-Text video with an image.
I know there are spelling mistakes. I made a poor choice of background and text color. On Twitter it is much smaller so it is hard to read.
On this day it seems time to come back to the stoop. Never a good idea to type in anger and I was really angry for a long time. I still am, but I've coaxed it back into the chamber of invisibility. I've soothe it and fed it some ice cream.
I've told it humans will be ok in the long view of things. I've held my anger as we read books of magic and fantasy. I've given it a carrot spinach potassium boost. Maybe too much Hop Woo's Soy Soaked Chicken.
I've let my anger watch that scene from Luther where Alice does what needs to be done.
(Spoiler Alert: Don't Watch if You Haven't Seen the Series.
P.S., this is a rough scene, beautifully written and acted but harsh like real humans. The UK accents can't cover-up everything so, yeah you have been told.)
Alice is straight up crazy but the girl has got style.
And she deals hard. Alice does what some of us wish we could do to the bad people of the world.
We don't because there wouldn't be anybody left breathing. I think we intellectually know this and millions have watched Alice give a listen to her uninhibited side that says "F-ck it, remove the problem."
I hear you Alice, but no, no we can't go down that road. We have to find another way.
As I type this I think there has been another school shooting. Damn.
A.O. Scott from the NYT has an essay about the death of adulthood. I don't agree with all of it but I don't disagree with some of it.
I haven't given up comic books. I'll read anything that has print and if that happens to be a YA book yeah, what's it to you? I shouldn't read Neil Gaiman's Sandman? Cuz if I have to choose between reality TV and old school Doom Patrol then it is the Doom Patrol all the way.
On this day I have to learn not to be so defensive about my choices.
Some days it is hard to listen to what passes for conversation and debate. There are some mean, ignorant SOB/Bs in the world. But you can't allow them dominion either.
So on this day I keep working on the projects that I think could help myself and others. I'm trying to reduce the amount of unnecessary yakity yak and engage with people who have some sense. A lot of people have been de-friended or digitally kicked to the curb. Others I'm giving a wider bit of distance.
I want to be thoughtful. I want be respectful. But there is that teeny tiny part that is keeping a side eye on Alice. Keeping an side eye on the Alice in all of us; which can be exhausting.
On the archiving tip, I think I'm going to hang out a bit more at the BBC 1914 website where they are reviewing events in that year. The site is 1914 Day by Day. You might find me in the cartoon section. Hmm, the podcasting section looks tasty too.
If you are a person in the U.S. and you don't have bouncing and behaving hair then this video might interest you. If you are a person that has no need of a tanning salon you might find the video redundant to what you moms and grannies told you but it doesn't hurt as a refresher to the basics.
To my friends and acquaintances who have the ability to partake (but not the desire) to patronize tanning salons you might want to watch this video as well. Cuz the Los Angeles Sheriff Department has been known to go nutzo-crazy and they don't care what color your skin is -- they will beat you silly. Not being hyperbolic. Not at all. Documented.
This is a video from comedian Elon James White for the ACLU that was uploaded around 2011. It is a basic primer on what to do when the police approach you and you know to your bones you haven't done anything wrong.
Now this video is telling you the truth about your legal rights. Elon also implies some common sense concepts like keeping your hands in sight of the officer. Answer only the question otherwise keep your mouth shut.
This will not necessarily stop you from being beaten or killed but it might slow up the cops from doing it. It might give you additional time to have the cops get distracted by somebody else running their mouth. But honestly, if they have a quota to fill or you get a nasty SOB then none of this will matter. It is the roll of the dice.
This use to be a fella thing but seeing how we have now have gender equality in getting the hell beat up by law enforcement I'm just passing it along.
Or the other woman who was dragged out of her apartment and left naked in the hall. The police went to the wrong address for a disturbance. Actually, the whole family went to jail on that one, including the child they were sent to protect.
I feel helpless. When I feel helpless I look for help and assistance, resources and a place to reassure myself that it is getting a little bit more crazy than I anticipated the 21st century to be. This is nothing like the science fiction books I read as a kid.
I don't have my flying car. No neighborhood hydroponic garden. No vacation on the planet of my choice. Not to mention my high speed train line across the world.
It is a fair week. No drama. No deep pain. Way too much to do and I am mastering the art of trying to find ways not to do half of it.
I've keep a steady pace on posting poetry videos to Twitter and by extension Facebook. I normally don't post unless I have some thing to say. This is counter to my day to day activities when I can't shut up. In case you haven't heard it is National Poetry Month.
Understandable if you didn't know. Whole lot of blovating going on.
I got slam poets and traditional reading the book poets and a cowboy poet and I can't for the life of me find enough middle age dames that read poetry on video. Young ones, old ones, black ones, Asian ones and a few I don't dare classify.
Freaking ought to let the poets take over CNN for a weekend. The book
readers and the explicit ones and the ones that we bring back from old
audios and videos files.
Anything to get their minds off the black box.
I recorded this dude, eh excuse me, poet and author Christopher Merrill at the L.A. Times Festival of Books 2014.
It is dense and there is a love of language. It isn't the kind of poem you whip out during a poetry workshop. You have to be quiet to tune into it and enter that world.
Which is why most folks don't have time to take in a verse or two.
Hence, my need to post poetry videos and video poems on Twitter. Because I should be working on my EAD final. And planing my next steps for vacations and trips I want to take.
And work on de-cluttering.
And find a new audio book to listen to as I sleep. I really liked the BBC Issac Asimov Foundations Series.
And, and, and those suckers keep pileing up and I got other stuff to do as well.
It is better to have things to do than to feel like you have nothing at all. That leads to people offing themselves.
Never a good thing. Nope.
So I'm going to work on my project. It will be okay. I know basic HTML. I understand enough XML to rack the stuff up and have tutorials coming out of my skin. I'll get right to it.
I loved Creamsicles, not to be confused with Dreamsicles. Personally, I can swing either way. One has ice creme and the other has ice milk over a orange sherbert shell. I was reading a health magazine and pointing out to a friend that "You know, no matter what you do you are gonna die."
His response was" You have the power to determine if you die sooner or later." And barring mad men and accidents that is true.
For the record, I am not advocating eating crap foods all day and all night. Veggies are essential. Water. Cut back on the sugar in all form. Be thoughtful in meat consumption.
You can plan for tasty and health. You can have Creamsicles without the yutz. This is Erika from a Little Insanity.
But really, we are gonna die. Before I go I will have another Creamsicle or a slice of Cherry pie.
I'm not proud but I'm ain't stupid either. The point of life is to live it.
How did I come to such a decision?
I met a woman who knew she was going to die. I spent some time with her teaching her to use the Internet. Often when I visited she would have a container of Ambrosia near her bed.
One day I read the ingredients, it was filled with sugar, artificial sweeteners, gunk and imitation marshmallows.
In my head I'm thinking "This mess will kill her."
In actuality, it was one of the few foods that she could eat without bring it back up. The woman did die but not from the pseudo Ambrosia.
Still, I'd be willing to list it as a minor contributing factor.
On a hot day with the sun beating down and life if good I see nothing wrong with my tongue and lips wrapped around the popsicle of my choice. Now some days that will be a 100% fruit ice bar. Or it could be shaved ice with some flavor on it.
One day I hope I could be that person that can take eat an olive and be completely satisfied. Behold, it would be enough and I would be in a state of grace.
Except that I am not that person and will never be that person. Ice on the tongue. The smile of lemon blossoms in the air. The patterns of clouds in the sky. Sucking on some sherbert.
Maybe it is how and what we decide to consume. I will give it more thought.
It has been too long since I've written a proper poem. I'm hanging out with the poets to find my voice that was shelved for a reason I can't remember. It might have been a job or a man.
I can't remember. Once of the things that I like about spoken poetry and poets is that there is a lot of risk taking. Can you say the words? Will they understand. Will the spirit of the poem come through.
This first poem is in memory of David Stillwell entitled REM Revelation.
Sometime you just have to let things happen. This is CaLokie with Don Kingfisher Campbell riding shotgun on Glory Golden Oldie.
This is my day 19 and 20 videos for National Videoblogging Posting Month.
This is video by artist/vlogger Margaret Fabrizio. I guess the main take away from the video that I got was to go ahead and live your life to the best of your abilities.
I'm trying to strip away the filters that bind me to in-action. I need reminders like this to keep on moving forward.
Margaret has her website where you can view more videos, check out her art work, quilts, her collages absolutely rock; I love collage art so I am extremely biased but this is good stuff.
She has music for listening or downloading.
Margaret is starting to making me feel like a first class lazy bone couch potato. Definately give the site and her YouTube channel a visit.
People underestimate the meaning of family and community. We are separated by body but we have connections to dozens of people, real and imaginary that we don't know.
When we hear of their passing we take a moment to say "Damn, really? I liked that person." Not that is not a bad thing to say.
It is far better to say that than "They can't dig deep enough to bury that SOB!"
Rue McClanahan lived to be 76 years old. Had a job on one of the best sitcoms on television as the sassy Blanche on Golden Girls. Reminded all of us that there is a chapter two, three and seven if you are willing to turn the page.
K.T. Oslen is another good old girl who sings the way that Blanche would appreciate. I think Rue would like it too. Yes, there are those among us who have fell for Silver Tongue and Gold Plated Lies but we scraped the dust off and kept on moving to better days.
We don't expect to go down this way but we will. With certain types of celebrities we know and don't know the real person.
Those of us who grew up with Gary Coleman knew he was a child actor. We knew that he got shanked in life by the financial mismanagement of people that should have known better or made an effort to do better.
To be honest, we culturally laughed at him. Sometimes we were confused at his attempt to earn a living. Some of us understood that he was doing the best he could under impossible circumstances. I think maybe his adult life was spent trying to find a place where he belonged.
But I don't know that. It is the Spackle I mental apply when don't know the totality of this man's life. I hope his last days were peaceful and happy.
I can count the number of times I have recommended a marching band rendition of a song. This would be a first. But any music video that has a token homage to Swamp Thing is jake with me. And yeah, give the fellas .99 cents cuz this does have medicinal qualities.
I just got finished reading Taddy's post about someone who was mistaken in their belief they had no value. Then he linked to a damn fine post by Jennifer Michale Hecht about two other folks taking the deep six plunge and she is imploring people not to leave ahead of their time.
I want to put in my two cents but I can't sing. You wouldn't want me too either. I leave this to OK Go and the Notre Dame Marching Band.
Where was I? Oh, yeah. Poets, hell no - defy tradition.
Writers - are you kidding me? You don't even have to write; transcribing the idiocy and wackiness of these times will keep you in gravy for years to come. You do have to remember to come up for air. Exercise. Talking to real people who are not afraid of human to human speech is good. Veggies, eat more veggies.
Creators - see above.
Those that have people that love them beyond measure and/or those same people are under 21 years of age. Not an option for you and you know it.
And no, you can't take them with you.
People who think that there is no one that loves them or could love them. I would say that you haven't met the person yet. Hang on, hear me out. You might never meet that person until you love the one within yourself.
If you loved yourself, you wouldn't want you to come to any harm. See how this works? Yes, the pain can be great but love is greater than pain. If you can love enough until you find someone one that can help you deal with the pain that is all that anybody can ask of you.
Hang on until you find the help that you need.
Depression is a powerful hateful monster. You might not be able to do this yourself. Counseling, watching the entire series of Babylon5 or a road trip far, far away from home could give you the space to find and embrace your spirit.
Let me be blunt; this is not the time to go. The ding-a-lings and non-thinkers are gaining traction because those with half a lick of brain are getting disappointed and downhearted.
If you can read a book, paper or electronic, you can't go. Seriously. We need all the cognitively functioning people we can get.
This is the front seat of the roller coaster of life. Yell, laugh or move forward peeping out from time to time behind your hands. Hold on to the bar babe, this too shall pass.
Tenured Radical had a post on the 2009 conservative march in Washington. If you follow the link you will see two men holding a flag. I also encourage you to read her full post. When I see the fabric that is called the “Confederate flag” I have very specific emotions. They are visceral. I feel fear inducing recollections based in historical facts and events. No, this is not about bashing white people.
First A Bit of Historical Context
One of the learning skills impressed upon me as a teen was to know what a word or concept really means. For the benefit of our overseas readers, I want to give a brief summary about what has become to be known as the Confederate flag. This is photo is the first actual Confederate Flag, 1861 from the Smithsonian Institute.
This is not the flag that gets people blood red upset. In fact, most Americans would probably confuse it with an early version of a American or Union flag. It is most certainly not a Union flag. When I look at it I have no immediate attachment, fear or hatred of it. It is a historically valuable object created at the time of the separation of the southern states during the Civil War. The history of that war is painful but it is a part of my collective American history and it is exactly where it belongs, protected in a museum.
Rebel Flag
This is a Rebel flag. It is not a true Confederate flag; it is a latter day variation of the third Confederate flag from 1865.
During World War 2 some of the southern solders brought along the Rebel flag to show pride in their country and to represent their state. Other states and countries were doing the same thing. After World War 2 southern college students began bringing the flag to football games. The Rebel flag became a southern cultural icon, so I have been told. One that African-Americans at the time were nervous about but that is a story for another time.
White Southerners believed that their exclusive culture was being threatened, and the flag became a symbol against civil rights. The segregationist Dixiecrat party of 1948, who ran Strom Thurmond for president, took on the Confederate flag as its symbol. Anti-Civil Rights sentiment ran strong in the South, which was once again feeling imposed upon by a distant federal government. The conflict was on again.
The Rebel flag was embraced by the Klu Klux Klan and every anti-civil rights and hate group from here to Georgia and all points beyond. It was used to support intimidation, threatens fire bombing and murder. The victims were not just African-Americans but Jews, women and European-Americans. It was used as a rally banner to defend southern land from any group that tried to challenge the Jim Crow laws and system of segregated government.
The rest of the country was in no way exempt from this type of behavior by the way. In some respects, they did dirt worse than the South.
The points that the Segregationists wanted understood was that they resented outsiders coming into the South to dictate change. They felt that they had a regional system that worked for them. Southerners felt race relations and integration was a state’s rights issue, not a federal concern. Segregationists felt they were defending their American rights of self-governance and expression. They felt that the federal government was overreaching it jurisdiction.
Is any of this sounding familiar? In a 2009 sort of way?
Greg Zotta’s perspective on the right to display the Confederate flag.
Other Points of View about the Contemporary Usage of the Rebel/Confederate Flag
Rev. Ryusho has the same questions I have, why bring that flag to DC?
Tension between NAACP and South Carolina Conservative Action Council on Confederate flag. You should view the video or read the text of the news story.
Fox The Poet uses the Rebel flag as a jumping off point for one of his poems.
Historic Culture Clash
I have tried and continue to try to understand the conservative point of view to the various issues of the day. There are legitimate concerns about the budget, corporate financial malfeasance, health care and repairing and developing new infrastructures.
That damn flag make it almost impossible to have those conversations. You see, that Rebel flag is a part of my history too. A part of my heritage. The blood soaked one. The one stained in humiliations and screaming voices too numerous to count. I can’t speak for Native Americans, Latinos/a or Asian-Americans, but I bet some of them ain’t feeling the warm fuzzes for the Rebel flag either.
When I see the Rebel flag at a conservative march on Washington or at healthcare protests that tells me I am not invited. In fact, it might be detrimental to my health and longevity to attend. I have history to back me up on this particular theory of mine. I have no desire to test it out in real life. It is scary enough reading blog posts and comments that damn me to hell for breathing.
I am not advocating suppressing any groups history or culture. I’m all about the solutions. Got any?
Resources:
For more information about the History of the Confederate flag visit the American Studies Department of the University of Virginia historical overview.
There was an urgency of somebody or something trying to get my attention. I kept hearing Van Morrison’s Inarticulate Speech of the Heart in my head. Well that and various other song lyrics about pain, love and the search of redemptive peace. Finally, I heard Anne Sexton’s name. I had not thought of her for years. I loved her poetry when I was a teen. I remembered how Anne used words that were her tethers to her world. A world where madness dominated her life and yet she created solid, beautifully crafted poems.
Who Was This Woman?
Anne had been a fashion model. She was a wife and mother. And a poet. This woman advanced what could be thought of as topics for poems. Topics that were profoundly personal. Her work moved the reader, not stylized structures or academic approval; although she had that too.
For every box they searched to constrict her value she found a way to express herself. Her poetry were confessional in the sense that she didn’t necessarily clean it up for public consumption. She was not vulgar. There was craftsmanship in her work. Anne wrote her poems as she experienced her life. Engaging and painful.
Trying to explaining her importance is complicated. Anne Sexton had a mental illness. There is no dispute about that fact. The illness has been described as manic-depression in some of the biographical summaries I’ve read. There may have been early family based abuse. I’d guess that there is a possibility that she might have also experienced undiagnosed post-partum depression.
Anne had a great deal of needs that couldn’t possibly be filled or properly treated at the time. Yet, in the middle of all her chaos, Anne created a fine body of work.
Musician Crystal Cheatham has also heard the whispers from Anne:
Most of all I think I understand how much she truly needed her husband and later told him she had exchanged that neediness for what she thought it was in the first place, love. You see what I’ve discovered is that Anne’s writing is not brilliant because she was crazy. It was brilliant because she was honest.
Another thing to consider is the environment of the late 1950s-1960s with specific defined roles for men and women. When she was was not writing, teaching, performing she was creating the source material for her work. Anne burned through friends, love affairs and hospitalizations. It was not an easy life.
At the Eleventh Stack. Don writes about what Anne faced as a poet and a woman:
I can’t begin to imagine the courage it took for this lone woman to stand up and confront her madness in a public way at a time when most did not want to hear. The cusp of change was rapidly approaching and perhaps the single greatest accomplishment of Sexton’s life was to bring these issues, with the help of psychoanalysis, into the public forum to be engaged, debated, and addressed.
Anne Sexton committed suicide in 1974. Suicide has many surviving victims trying to make sense of what seems to be a senseless act. At Louisey's blog Letting Go, Recovery in the Sunset, she remembers the anniversary of her own mother’s death. She posted a copy of Anne’s poem, Why Death? maybe as a way of saying she will never understand but Anne did and this is how it was articulated.
Why Is Anne Sexton Important?
I have always remembered the feeling of being stunned reading her poem “For My Lover, Returning to His Wife.” It wasn’t just the topic but the honesty of admitting that the character in the poem knew she was a transitory value. It was painfully lyrical. It was honest and made me a part of an unspoken understandable depth of loneliness.
At The Unfolding Moment MoonRabbit gives us a glimpse into her creative process in creating art. The example she displays incorporates poems into the the mixed media pieces:
…Other poems have been burning in my consciousness. I search my journals for lines that connect…With colored pencils in various shades of brown and olive, I begin to add text to the diptych. Text becomes texture as I use the words to fill in a space here, to visually extend a line there. If Mary Oliver’s key ideas are the centerpiece of this work, then Adrienne Rich provides the anchor—I carve a slice from her lines and lay it repeatedly across the shape that encloses “breath,” so that breath/spirit and words/communion are intertwined and interdependent.
So Anne and other poets can help mixed media artists find new mediums to incorporate into their work? Yes, I guess they can.
I wondered about Anne Sexton today and Woolf and Plath. The strong women, well not so strong. The beautiful women who wrote, who were brave and in the end stumbled. They felt they weren't loved enough, weren't understood and they couldn't take one more bit of bad news. The sky opened, it start to rain and for woolf, she just let herself go in the river after sitting down to write her husband a note that she didn't wish to be his burden. His heartache maybe but not a burden. I understand that. 67 days later I get it.
For More Information About Anne Sexton and Her Work
This is one time I’d like to suggest you go low tech and visit a public library to get one of her books. If you can download an e-book version that will work as well.
Having said that, for a quick biographic sketch you can’t do wrong visiting Anne Sexton's page at The Poetry Foundation. There you will find not only biographical information but links to some of her poems and a listing of her work.
You should also check out the Modern American Poetry site with a section that contains Anne’s biography, cultural influences and essays about her career.
Do you have a favorite poem of Anne’s or a memory she invoked?
Gena Haskett is a Contributing Editor at BlogHer where this post originally appeared.
Koko Taylor sang about life, stories and adventure though the Blues. She carried forward a long tradition of telling the tales via music. Her life as a Blues musician had to be exciting, tragic and an on-going lesson in humans and humanity. Musically, she came up on the rough side of the historical fence of the 50s, 60s and 1970’s.
The passing of Koko Taylor was spoken with a whisper compared to David Carradine um, unintentional departure. No disrespect intended. Mr. Carradine was a spirited individual who had a life filled with stories, adventure and lawd knows he was one of a kind. I don’t think you could do a movie about his actual life on the other side of the cameras. Not sure this is how he planned to go out but there you go. There is life and there is the alternative. You are working on one and the other sneaks up on you.
I first heard Koko Taylor over the radio. I was reading one of my computer magazines. This song came on the radio and forced me to put it down. The name of the tune is Insane Asylum.
“When your love has cease to be, there is no other place for me, if you don’t hold me in your arms, I’m rather be here from now on.” It was like being hit from all sides and nobody else was in the room. As soon as I could I bought her CD of her greatest hits. Pure gold each and every tune.
I’m not well versed in the history of the Blues. I have songs I like, mainly the story songs. I’m still looking for the one that goes, “my new silk pajamas are crumpled on the floor, there’s crumbs in the bed and what is wrong with you? What I want to know is, is something going on?”
I digress. It isn’t just about the song, or the delivery of the song. It is the connection with other people. Koko explains about her inspirations, like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, her process of writing and what it can do for an audience.
Tis a time for weeping but that is only a part of the Blues. You can weep and jump for joy at the same time. So lift up your glass of Cherry Coke and groove for the next nine minutes or so to a bit of Let the Good Times Roll + I’m A Woman.
Koko, blessings on your new tour and I hope you meet up with old friends and family.
For those of you that don't know a young lady, Aisa McGowan, was murdered last week by a stalker. The stalker used YouTube and Facebook to harass her. The man killed her in her classroom at a Detroit college and then killed himself.
You can get the story at What About Our Daughters. There is also a post up on Feminsting and Whose Shoes Are These Anyway. Before her death, Aisa recorded a video and was talking specifically to the haters. She was trying to explain what hate does to you, why she is doing the videos (just to have some fun) and if you don't like them move on. Aisa was confident, strong and our daughter on the journey.
This is one YouTube video I will not post at the moment because it hurts and breaks my heart. You can see the video if it is still up on WAOD or YouTube. I posted on another blog that if folks were open to it I would like to help create a response video. Or what other idea can come forth.
I was thinking we could do something like a photo/video/audio something to let people know that we will not be silent and we will not hide. It could be like a video/photo montage.
We need to tell the haters we will not hide our light, our minds or souls. We need to let the world(s) we occupy know that we mourn our sister and if M$M doesn't care about brown skin sisters being slain then we must do what is right.
We need to teach the young ladies how to defend themselves on-line and we need to bring our older sister women into techno-consciousness.
I don't know if this can be done or even if there is a will among us to try. I can only put it out there and see where the idea is gonna go. Hit me in the comments if you are interested.
Eartha Kitt was fierce. In mind, body and spirit she was a hell of a woman. I mean that in as a honorific statement. She survived childhood neglect and abuse. Eartha survived a lot of misfortune, and, by her own admission, gave a bit of misfortune to others. Eartha triumph in her chosen profession during one of the most racially contentious times in United States history.
Eartha at 40 something years old looked damn good in a cat suit. Which is probably when I was first introduced to Eartha Kitt, as Catwoman on the 1960s live action Batman. That purr, growl and that look of mischief. Her voice, both spoken and her singing voice cannot be imitated.
Later, I learned of her history. She was in deed a character or, as the young folks say today, “she was a hot mess.” In her 81 years on the planet she had ups and downs. Eartha made mistakes but come hell or high water she survived her detractors. Miss Kitt always found a way to get off the floor and get back to the stage where she belonged.
A person of persistence and endurance with a good chunk of humor and sensuality mixed in for spice. I couldn't choose just one clip so to begin this tribute let's look at a little ditty from 1962 called I Want to be Evil.
There was a time when by necessity and being blackballed in America Eartha spent time performing in Europe. In the late 1970s she came back to America and reclaimed her place in the entertainment industry.
But she did return to Europe often. Eartha had disco hits on the UK charts. I had no idea that she made music videos. This is a reveling rendition of I Don't Care.
Finally, this is Eartha, at 81 years of age on the BBC program Later, Live singing Ain't Misbehaving with Jools Holland on piano. In the middle of the interview there is a moment where a clip of one of her early performances is played. Eartha explains that she basically is a shy person.
I believe her that when she was not on stage that was probably true. But it is a hard sell when she proceeds to rock the house with this Fats Waller tune.
I think Heaven just got to be a little more interesting place. St. Pete is looking over her chapter in the Big Book and scratching his chin. She gives him one of her purrs. He tells the angels to open up the gate and personally escorts her in to her new digs. Rock on Eartha!
Mr. Levi Stubbs of The Four Tops has made his transition from this world to the next. I was struggling to find an appropriate tribute song. The events of the day seem to keep me in an hovering state of rage. When I heard of Mr. Stubbs’ passing the song came right to me.
From the 1970s this is a slide show of how four men worked, sang and loved together for 40 years.
I always liked this song and the instrumental version, Still Waters (Peace) as well. My past is ebbing away and parts of me as well. It is better to look forward I supposed. I'm looking forward to the end of the election for sure.
And if a certain gentleman gets elected then indeed still waters run deep and we will have a new national model for developing our own still waters cuz it gonna get rough.
If the other guy wins then we will indeed need to find our own personal still waters. Gotta find out if there is any U.S. territories on the other side of American Samoa?
Then again, I hear British Columbia is kinda cool but might be a little too close to Alaska than I would feel comfortable visiting at the moment.
I know a few of y'all are talking New Zealand but I'm thinking the whole planet might be a little pissed at us at the moment. I ain't too happy with some of my fellow Americans either. But that is for another post for another time.
If you would like more information about The Four Tops check out the following:
