Sunny Brooklyn will be Sunny Bavaria. This is where we'll be...
12/27/06
12/25/06
Farewell JB
James Brown had been one of my very first celebrity interviews. It was 1985, just before 'Rocky IV' came out and he came out with 'Living in the USA'. He was ranting and raving and yelling out James Brown shouts, his extravagant wife next to him and modest European me was utterly impressed how much self-assurance and egomania one single living being could muster up without coming across as completely mad. Well, my friend got the mad part a few years later, when JB had just finished a photo shoot with him and got impatient that it took Wolfgang and his assistant so long to pack his photo equipment, so he chased them off his poperty with a shot-gun.
Years later when I had just moved to New York in the late 80s the Godfather of Soul was incarcerated for dancing the Good Foot for a bunch of police officers after they had followed him in a wild car chase. A friend of mine produced Maceo Parker's first album back then. But times were hard for Maceo without the steady gig as part of the JBs. One afternoon he stopped by unannounced in my Chinatown appartment. He knew I had a very decent alto sax, so he asked, if he could borrow it. He had run out of money, needed to repair his own horn and was up for a sutdio gig with Mtume. He brought the sax back a week later and offered to give me a cut of his studio fee. Which I of course declined, since I was now the proud owner of an alto saxophone sanctified by a week's worth of Maceo playing on it.
The last time I saw James Brown was some years ago at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Which of course was a grand evening, now forever in my repertory of pop veteran stories.The next time I saw Maceo was in Biloxi Mississippi where he was the star member of Prince's band.
11/24/06
Bury KKKramer
Do we really have to feel sorry for those racist celebrity millionaires, who use valuable airtime to save their careers with some petty 12-step moments? Can't we just hate and bury them? Remember, they're not your friends, even if they feel all so familiar. Michael Richard's been caught on anti-semitic and racist rants before. Not to talk about his blackface performance up on YouTube right now, which in itself should've been reason enough to drive him out of Hollywood, so he can spend the rest of his days in some honky town. Why should we allow bigots like Richards, Mel Gibson, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Paris Hilton "to heal"? And what's media whore Al Sharpton's problem? Of course he'll get more air time out of "helping Kramer repent". But if he'd have any integrity he would have refused to even take Richards' call. Oh, and if you have any inclinations to feel sorry for Jerry Seinfeld, whose Holiday DVD payday was probably severely reduced by Richards' lynch mob antics, don't forget that this is the guy who bought himself a whole building on 83rd Street to house his collection of Porsche's.
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Watch Kramer's Laugh Factory rant
Watch Kramer in blackface
Read about Kramer's anti-semitic rant
11/7/06
Micro-Lending
I just became a micro-lender. I have invested in a Taxi business in Uganda and a market stall selling sunglasses in Mexico. The lending institute is called Kiva and is run by a few idealists out on the West Coast, who broker interest free micro-credits through their website. So far they had a 100% payback rate. After Muhammad Yuns and his Grameen Bank in Bangladesh won the Nobel Peace Prize Frontline World ran a feature about Kiva.. Which gotten them so much interest that they had to limit the amount you can invest, so they don’t run out of projects to support too soon.
Funny how one picks the projects to invest in. In the report they said that African projects get the most response, since there’s such great interest right now. Agricultural projects of course go well. The Taxi business needs their loan for a new engine, because their Toyota mini-bus always breaks down. Seemed urgent, but hasn’t gotten that many responses yet. I guess, because nobody likes cab drivers. Same goes for the rental businesses in the program, sicne everybody tends to see their landlord as the enemy. And the sunglass business? Hey, style can be essential too.
Well alright, I picked that one for sentimental reasons, because it’s in Queretaro, where I went for one of my first hard news stories, covering the civil war in Guatemala and Queretaro was the town, where the rebels and the government held some meetings to discuss peace.
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Become a micro-lender at Kiva.org
11/3/06
11/2/06
Oaxaca Crisis
The situation in Oaxaca continues to heat up. Last Friday three people including New York journalist and activist Brad Will were shot dead by members of government backed death squad (see photo below). The crisis started, when Oaxaca governor Ulises Ruiz quelled protests after he allegedly stole the last election outcome in his state. A raid on a teachers' demonstration in the local Zocalo started riots, which still go on. Brad was a videographer for Indymedia, training fellow activists in documenting police abuse during hairy situations. He had established Indymedia branches in Latin America and had been beaten once while documenting an attack on homesteaders in Brazil.
In the US there were 15 demonstrations protesting his death. The gunmen are still on the loose. In a recent development the Zapatista are mobilizing for Oaxaca. In a speech in
Chihuahua City Subcomander Marcos announced the Zapatista rebels' total support for the people of Oaxaca and summarized the situation: "As of today, the federales have killed at least three people, including a minor; left dozens injured, including several Oaxacan women; and detained dozens, who have been illegally held in military prisons." Mexico seems to be falling back into the pre-democratic days of 1970s and 1980s Latin America.
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Brad Will's last report, when he filmed being shot
Brad Will sings at the Change You Want To See Gallery
Mexican report on Will's death and the crisis in Oaxaca
A memorial site for Brad Will with a letter of support signed by a.o. Tariq Ali, Noam Chomsky, Mike Davis, Eve Ensler, Danny Glover,Michael Moore, Mira Nair, Arundhati Roy, Alice Walker and Howard Zinn.
11/1/06
Bruno
Of course the signing of 'Bruno' was the inevitable consequence of Borat mania. Universal won a heated bidding war, paying 42 million $ to Sacha Baron Cohen for the movie rights to his third alter ego, flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion reporter Bruno. Judging from his interview with pastor Quinn in Little Rock/Arkansas who specializes in gay conversion, this might be at least as funny as Borat. Which starts to suffer from over-exposure, Borat's Letterman appearance being the tipping point.
The best jokes are of course still written by real life. A gay man has claimed that he had had a three year sexual relationship with mega-church founder Pastor Ted Haggard, who is both Bush's spiritual advisor and the evangelical spearhead against gay culture. Could of course be just an election ploy.
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Watch Bruno interviewing the dear pastor on the Ali G. Show
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