God is everywhere, even on a coffee cup. The Rev. Lyman Liggens served as Minister of the Warren AMC Church in Toledo, Ohio from 1968 into the late 70’s. Among his many achievements was having the foresight to use the institution of coffee cup to promote his cause, a trend that was just picking up steam in those days. Hope your Sunday is filled with soulful cups and lots of cobbler!
You know I think almost anything with an afro has groove to it but how these overstuffed lumps o’ rubber afro power came to symbolize the quality of groovin’ must be attributed to the fact that they were made for the apple pie American Greetings Corp. Vintage 1972, when everyone had a groove.
Female model makes ultimate sacrifice for her country.
Can we discuss how excited this male model was to get this gig and how depressed he’s been ever since?
Although she also came in white this black version, Mego’s bendable answer to Barbie, rode the wave of 70’s blaxploitation heroines like Friday Foster, Cleopatra Jones, Foxy Brown, Christie Love and my fave, Velvet Smooth. I love when colloquialisms are bent into names: Dinah-miiiiite!!
Not sure how long the kitsch factor will remain high on this now that MJ is back in the center of the Pop Culture eyeball with his upcoming tour but this candy bar is one of my favorite pieces of MJ memorabilia I own. I recently worked with one of Michael’s nephews, Taj, and he told me the family used to eat these.
I know you are all watching the Oscars tonight but you weren’t invited to the White House anyway so no conflict.
Trust me, I’m happy about “Boogie Wonderland” being in da House. I wish it was the incarnation of Earth Wind & Fire in the photo the Washington Post used that was there too.
Definition of “Journalistic Kitsch”: Use photo that is 35 years old despite fact that group is still together.
I hope the same kindness is shown toward me the next time I’m in that paper.
Anyone who knows me knows I love reality tv. I am SO not ashamed to admit that. Just like I wasn’t ashamed to admit I LOVED the internet in 1991 when everyone around me thought it was dorky and useless. I like reality. I’ve dedicated my life to trying to live the best one I can.
I love reality shows about creative process like Project Runway and Top Chef. But bottom feeders like “I Love New York” seriously steal my heart. I loved loved LOVED that show and its star. And I loved loved LOVED two contestants on it even more, Chance and Real, the two brothers who came in 2nd and 3rd on Season 1.
Soft spoken Real and firecracker Chance were fascinating because even as as they were vying for the heart of a lunatic the love and respect between them was always apparent. And they were hysterical. But trust me, any time one of them brought up their band, Stallionaires, there wasn’t a brain cell in my head that thought it would be anything more than ok.
I live for combining hi and lo culture. I have no interest in the middle, the safe zone where mediocre talent whose of-the-moment work clogs pop culture like sludge from the Exxon Valdese. I love to take the very top levels of art, music, technology and design where style and innovation live and jam them together with what’s happening at the bottom, where passion, guts and a bizarre take on art rule. Many people think reality tv falls into the lo category. Maybe that’s why I love it. And maybe that’s why I jumped at the chance to meet Chance and Real when my friend, Steve Lindsay, who I met in 1985 when he asked me to co-write the Dance Fever theme, told me he was managing them.
I would have written with Stallionaires if they were the worst band in the world just to meet them. But guess what, they’re FANTASTIC! As is brother #3, Love, who joins them on their spin-off ‘Real Chance At Love’ that debuts on VH-1 in November.
I haven’t been this happy with collaborators in a long time. Not only are they just as rough and tumble, spontaneous and untrained – i.e. fearless – as I am, they are incredibly musical, hooky and full of spirit to boot. And interested in news ways of doing everything – from the music itself to the mediums it will live on. And they’re very, very fast. No nudging notes around on a grid until everything snaps into place as stiff as a corpse. It’s not about precision; it’s all feel all the time, just the way I like it. And we’re all indie, which means no pansy ass decisions by producers or entertainment conglomerates to dictate our fate. We live or die by our own sword.
And then there’s this. When Love, Chance and Real were 11, 12 and 13 they were discovered by Paulino DeCosta, the percussion maestro of Earth Wind & Fire, the band that discovered me when I wasn’t much older than Stallionaires are now. My obsession with percussion came from watching Paulino. They’re equally obsessed with percussion because of him.
I wish I could leak the record we just finished, “Does She Love Me?”, but it’s the first single and theme song to their VH-1 series so I have to play by the rules and wait til the show airs. It’s an eternally happy song like “September”, my first Earth Wind & Fire hit. You’re in a good mood from the downbeat and you can feel the writers’ joy in every beat.
I know some people won’t understand how I went from The Color Purple to this reality universe. But for Bubbles & Stallionaires it’s all about people being all they can be and experiencing genuine joy as they do it. It’s the same basic story.
I’m not the type who stays on a ship that sails the same course every time it sets out to sea. I get bored, I fall asleep and I’m outta there. Thank you, Stallionaires, for slipping me a big, fat happy pill because I’m way onboard.
I loved Issac Hayes. Who didn’t I guess? He was totally innovative, his own man, one of the most classic soul songwriters in history and a MASSIVE influence on me. “Soul Man”, “Hold On, I’m Comin'”, “B-A-B-Y” not to mention ‘Shaft” and “Bumpy’s Lament”! First Black composer to ever win an Academy Award, busting it open for Black composers for all eternity. How much better does it get?
Those chains and wild pantsuits, a soul fashion icon of the highest proportion. A total individual following his own path. This photo of him holding the Bubbles’ ceramic he owned, Mr. Issac Hayes #7, is about my favorite photo of my work ever taken. I loved how he autographed it ‘To “Allee”‘, as if I was the one who wasn’t real and Bubbles was who really mattered.
I finally got to meet Isaac Hayes when he came to the opening of The Color Purple, my musical that opened on Broadway Dec. 1, 2005. I stumbled over Stevie Wonder, Tina Turner, Sidney Poitier, Chris Rock, Oprah, you name it, to get to the one who really mattered to me.
Isaac Hayes was the kind of artist I adored, not content to do the same thing over and over again just writing songs, recording them, going out on the road and starting the exact same process all over again. That bores me. As far as I can tell Isaac Hayes followed his heart, stretching his limits and going places few if none had gone before and looking sharp all the while. A master at reinvention, he dug deep into his hot buttered soul and made music that soaked into the very fabric of humanity. He shall, of course, live forever. I’m only sorry I never got to share a meal with him on that plate.
