Canada’s Little Richard

Bet you don’t know who Jackie Shane is.

I didn’t know... until Toronto-based music writer David Dacks (an occasional commenter here at UBM) reached out.

Jackie Shane was a popular performer in Toronto’s R&B clubs during the 1960s. He was openly gay, and his flamboyant stage persona invited comparisons to Little Richard and Esquerita.

David Dacks worked on a radio documentary called “I Got Mine: The Story of Jackie Shane” for the CBC, Canada’s national broadcaster. This one-hour documentary airs today... and you can hear it streaming live on the Web at 3 p.m. Eastern Time.

[UPDATE (02/28/10): This was a great show! Turns out you have a couple more chances to hear it today. It’s re-playing at 3 p.m. in each time zone. So follow this link and look for “Inside the Music” in the “Listen Live” directory.]

Jackie Shane had only one hit single – “Any Other Way” (1963). To hear it on my Vox blog, click here. And to see the man in action with your very own eyes, check this:

Elvis Mitchell interviews Chris Rock

Been writing for the past few weeks, so I haven’t gone to the movies... or even felt like going to the movies. Which means I haven’t seen “Good Hair,” which opened nationwide last week. But I intend to.

My man Elvis Mitchell interviewed Chris Rock on his radio show, “The Treatment,” last week. I love listening to these cats shoot the shit.

Click here to hear a 3½-minute excerpt on my Vox blog. If you want to stream or download the entire half-hour conversation, follow this link to KCRW.

Thomas Sowell is nutty as fuck.

Today provided a double dose of right-wing black brainiacs from the Reagan era.

Prof. Walter E. Williams was substitute host on “The Rush Limbaugh Show.” And fellow economist Thomas Sowell was his guest via telephone.

Williams and Sowell are friends going back 40 years almost. Super- intelligent cats, no question.

But check out what Tom Sowell said when asked about President Obama’s plan to address America’s schoolchildren next Tuesday.

You heard about that, right? Obama will give a start-of-the-school-year pep talk to the nation’s kids. And conservatives are attacking him for it.

Why? Well... click here and listen on my Vox blog.

Can you believe it? “Hitler, Stalin, Castro...”

Poor Barack Obama. He’s living a nightmare, caught between right- wingers who depict him as a socialist dictator... and “progressives” who want him to actually be one.

Jesse Lee Peterson is nutty as fuck.

Jesse Lee Peterson, the favorite Negro of right-wing talkers such as Sean Hannity, made a career out of hating on Jesse Jackson. Now he’s more than happy to hate on President Obama.

Have you seen this mushmouth motherfucker on Fox News? I expected to see more of him since President Obama took office.

Well, this week he’s guest-hosting for John Ziegler on a local L.A. radio station. Click here to hear a 1½-minute excerpt from yesterday’s show, which Jesse Lee began by rehashing the Skip Gates drama.

Kenya believe it?

The so-called “birther” movement – an Obama Derangement Disorder in which people believe Barack Obama was born in Africa (not Hawaii) and therefore his presidency is illegitimate – has gone international.

It’s being pushed by a right-wing Israeli talk-show host via Internet radio. She is American-born Tamar Yonah.

Today, Yonah talked about the latest “birther” juju: a supposed copy of Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate. (Even Karl Rove thinks it’s fake.)

Click here to hear a 5-minute excerpt from “The Tamar Yonah Show.”

A sellable moment

On Gayle King’s satellite radio show today (via the “Oprah Radio” channel), Henry Louis Gates said he’s not ready to put the Cambridge cop confrontation behind him.

“I want to use what happened to me to bring the public’s attention to racial profiling,” Prof. Gates told Gayle. “I wanna make a documentary for PBS or HBO or someplace on racial profiling, on this kind of arbitrary and unacceptable behavior on behalf of the police force.”

A documentary, Skip? Really?

Meaning it’s now in the professor’s interest to keep this thing cooking in the media? To not squash it?

If so... too bad for President Obama. Because, for however long people talk about the arrest of Skip Gates, they’ll remember how Barack Obama said the police “acted stupidly.” Doesn’t matter that Prez is trying to pull those words back.

On my Vox blog, I’m streaming part of that Skip Gates interview from “The Gayle King Show,” as replayed on L.A. talk station KFI during the popular “John and Ken Show” this afternoon.

Included in this clip is some sassy commentary from John and Ken... which will give you an idea of how this story is reverberating throughout Talk Radio Land. And not just among partisan right- wingers, because John and Ken aren’t that.

Anyway... click here to listen.

Hating on Michael

You know it wasn’t all love today for MJ. In Right-Wing Talk Radio Land, some professional provocateurs sank their teeth into the dead body of Michael Jackson on the occasion of his memorial service in Los Angeles.

Along the way, they brought up O.J. Simpson, Tawana Brawley, Sarah Palin and sundry other agenda items.

I’m streaming a few snippets on my Vox blog, for purposes of historical documentation.

Click here to hear a 5-minute excerpt from today’s “John Ziegler Show.”

Click here for a 6½-minute dose of Michael Savage (pictured above).

Click here for 3 minutes of “The Mark Levin Show.”

And in a business full of cunning hams, there is Bill Cunningham. Just look at this gaping asshole.

To hear Cunningham soiling a live performance by Stevie Wonder, click here.

Thankfully, Rush Limbaugh was on vacation.

Bootsy remembers Michael

You might be all Michaeled out by now... but here’s a talk-radio artifact I must pass along. Because I’m still that much of a P-Funk freak.

Friday afternoon, Bootsy Collins appeared on Bill Cunningham’s radio show in Cincinnati to reminisce about Michael Jackson.

Cunningham, if you don’t know, is a right- wing talker with a national reputation. (Hannity stole his line “You’re a great American” from Bill Cunningham.)

Now dig: Tonight on Cunningham’s nationally syndicated weekly broadcast – “Live on Sunday Night, It’s Bill Cunningham” – the host dumped all over Michael, repeatedly calling him a “drug addict” and saying his death was getting too much media coverage. As opposed to those “tea party” protests. (I swear to God, he brought up the tea parties!)

Cunningham wasn’t popping that shit when Bootsy was in the studio on Friday. Click here to hear a 13-minute excerpt on my Vox blog.

That conversation reminds me to mention, proudly, that I was in Cleveland in 1997 to witness the induction of Parliament-Funkadelic and the Jackson 5 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (I got within a few feet of Tito.)

Anyway, follow this link if you want to stream or download all of Bootsy’s appearance on the Bill Cunningham show.

‘Where were you when you heard the news?’

There’s a generation of African-American culture writers – journalists, critics, authors – who owe their professional success to hip-hop. They documented that cultural revolution in real time.

But those writers, now in their 40s, grew up on ’70s soul music. And they kept an ear on the larger world of pop.

For that generation, the passing of Michael Jackson has an impact greater than the loss of James Brown, Richard Pryor... any other entertainment icon you can think of.

These black writers have childhood memories of Motown 45s and LPs. Jackson 5 records were probably among the first they bought with their own money. Maybe they unwrapped one or two under the family Christmas tree.

Their high school and college years coincided with the nuclear blasts of “Off the Wall” and “Thriller.” They rode along on Michael’s entire journey as contemporaries. And so Michael belonged to them.

Two such writers – Harry Allen and Michael Gonzales (pictured above) – shared their thoughts and feelings about Michael Jackson on the radio last Friday. This happened on Harry Allen’s weekly program, “Nonfiction,” on New York’s WBAI.

I’m streaming an 8-minute excerpt on my Vox blog. Click here to listen.

If you want to stream or download the entire hourlong show, follow this link to the WBAI archives and look for the June 26 episode of “Nonfiction.”

Alex Jones is nutty as fuck.

Ever heard of Alex Jones? He’s a right-wing conspiracy nut who believes that “global elites” orchestrated 9/11.

He also produced a video called “The Obama Deception” (viewed more than 1.5 million times on YouTube), which argues that Barack Obama is a tool of the New World Order.

Well... on a nationwide radio talk show Monday night, Alex Jones said that the swine flu virus – the one kicking Mexico’s ass right now – might very well be a “race-specific designer bioweapon.”

Jones and another conspiracist, name of Steve Quayle, hit that “race-specific” speculation rather hard, in fact, on “Coast to Coast AM”... a show more often devoted to discussions of UFOs, Bigfoot and guardian angels.

This bothered me. You know people like to believe any ol’ bullshit. They don’t need to be encouraged by their radio boxes.

On my Vox blog, I’m streaming a 3½-minute excerpt of Alex Jones on “Coast to Coast.” Click here to listen.

Elvis Mitchell interviews Jenny Lumet

Couple of weeks ago, Elvis Mitchell interviewed screenwriter Jenny Lumet on his radio show.

She’s the granddaughter of Lena Horne, the daughter of Sidney Lumet, and she wrote the critically acclaimed new movie “Rachel Getting Married” (directed by Jonathan Demme).

Ms. Lumet probably has a decent shot at an Academy Award nomination.

I haven’t seen “Rachel Getting Married,” but I was well entertained by Jenny Lumet’s conversation with Elvis. Click here to hear a 3-minute excerpt on my Vox blog.

To stream or download the complete half-hour interview, follow this link to KCRW.com.

Elvis Mitchell interviews Steven Bochco

TV producer Steven Bochco – the man who used to sign my paychecks – was the guest last week on Elvis Mitchell’s radio show, “The Treatment.”

Bochco’s latest drama series, “Raising the Bar,” is a hit for TNT. But his place in history is due to two police shows – “Hill Street Blues” (my all-time favorite drama) and “NYPD Blue” (which I used to write for).

Click here to hear a 1-minute excerpt in which Bochco places “Hill Street” in the social context of America in the early 1980s.

You can stream or download the complete interview by following this link to KCRW.com.

‘Obama is for killing babies!’

Guess who said that on the radio today? (Easiest. Question. Ever.)

Who else but America’s favorite clown, Rush Limbaugh? Good thing I have a sense of humor, because it was hilarious to me when he said that.

I thought Limbaugh might be one of the right-wingers today who’d get mad at John McCain for blowing the final debate. Instead, Limbaugh says McCain whipped Barack Obama’s ass, but the media is brainwashing America into thinking otherwise.

Evidently Rush’s plan for the next two and a half weeks is to insist that John McCain can still win this election... and to crank up his insane anti-Obama rants to 11.

Hence the baby-killer remark. (Hey, if the “Obama-is-an-Arab” thing doesn’t stick, you gotta dig deeper.)

Click here to hear a 30-second sound bite from today’s Rush Limbaugh show.

Rush Limbaugh is coming unglued.

Or maybe he’s sniffing glue.

Or else he is so convinced that Barack Obama will be our next president, he can only lash out with impotent rage.

Limbaugh ended his show today with a spittle-flecked rant against Sen. Obama and the Democratic leaders in Congress.

Rush actually called Obama “you little squirrel.” (Well, at least he didn’t call him a monkey.)

Click here for a 2-minute blast... and savor Rush’s voice-cracking anguish.

Spike Lee does theoretical physics?

Prof. Ronald L. Mallett is a physicist at the University of Connecticut. And one of his areas of study is time travel.

Which makes him the coolest black genius in America.

Spike Lee announced last month that he’ll co-write and direct a movie based on Mallett’s book “Time Traveler.”

Ronald Mallett was a recent guest on George Noory’s radio show, “Coast to Coast.” He talked about how Spike got interested in his story.

I’ve got a 7½-minute excerpt streaming on my Vox blog. Click here to listen.

Ward Connerly on Barack Obama

Last Friday night on KFI, my favorite L.A. talk-radio station, prominent black conservative Ward Connerly chatted with Joe Hicks, KFI’s token black host (who is usually relegated to Saturday nights).

The subject was Barack Obama.

With all of the African-American talking heads on cable-news shows this election year, I had not heard two black conservatives discuss among themselves their opposition to Obama on ideological grounds.

Although I support Obama, I think this conversation speaks well to the diversity of political opinion in 21st-Century black America.

Click here to hear an 8-minute excerpt on my Vox blog.

Russerted out

Lookit, I enjoyed and respected Tim Russert’s work like most TV news junkies. And I made known my shock and sadness when Mr. Russert died last Friday.

But goodness gracious... MSNBC is still devoting hours upon hours to memorializing the man.

After Russert’s funeral today, perhaps the cable news network will return to doing news. I think Tim would have wanted it that way.

I mean, wow... they really gave him the “full Reagan.” Johnny Carson didn’t get this kind of love when he passed. Walter Cronkite probably won’t either.

I hear that Pope Benedict XVI saw MSNBC’s funeral coverage today, then he told his College of Cardinals, “Don’t make that kind of fuss over me when I go.”

Too much, I tells you!

It’s left to me to restore some cosmic balance.

If you watched the “Meet the Press” tribute on Sunday, you saw one of Tim Russert’s greatest hits – his withering interrogation of David Duke about the scope of Duke’s knowledge of the Louisiana economy. (Duke was running for governor at the time.)

Let me tell you, David Duke, America’s best-known bigot, was quite delighted to receive some attention during NBC’s shivah.

Duke talked about it Monday with his friend and fellow ex-Klansman Don Black on Black’s Internet radio show.

I’m streaming a 6½-minute edit on my Vox blog. (You ain’t surprised, are you?) Click here to listen, if you can tolerate the sound of two neo-Nazis sucking each other’s ding-a-lings.

Duke actually boasts that “I beat Tim Russert!” in a “Meet the Press” rematch. And Don Black is all like, “They scareda you, man! They can’t fuck wit’ no David Duke!” Or words to that effect.

Anyways... R.I.P., Mr. Russert.

Party like it’s 1988

This afternoon on Jersey City’s WFMU, there’ll be a three-hour celebration of the year 1988.

Included in the discussion will be culture bloggers Michael Gonzales, Donnell Alexander and Invisible Woman... each of whom has blogged about 1988 today. (Cool!)

The show is Billy Jam’s “Put the Needle on the Record.” Go to the WFMU website if you wanna live-stream it.

I don’t recall ’88 as a great year culturally. The R&B charts were dominated by names like Keith Sweat, Al B. Sure!, Johnny Kemp and Cheryl Pepsii Riley. The passage of time has not been good to these people... or their music.

But 1988 was the year all the major record companies started investing heavily in hip-hop artists. Record executives finally were convinced that rap music wasn’t a passing fancy. This investment brought forth the Golden Age of Hip-Hop.

Living Colour also exploded on the scene in 1988, creating a flurry of interest in “black rock.” (Remember 24-7 Spyz?)

Personally, I remember ’88 fondly because that summer I traveled to Minneapolis – at the Washington Times’s expense – to do a story on the music scene there. From all over the Midwest, young Negroes with talent had moved to Minneapolis hoping to be discovered.

Everything seemed possible then.

UPDATE (05/09/08): I caught the first hour and the final half-hour of this show. It was kinda cool. Very hip-hop-centered.

But there was no Invisible Woman and no Donnell Alexander, and that disappointed me.

I’m a connoisseur of talk radio, and Billy Jam’s show is amateurish by the standards I’m used to. I don’t know if he considers that part of the hip-hop aesthetic or what. But I left behind that college-radio vibe when I graduated from college.

On the positive tip, guest callers Bill Adler and Lisa Cortes were entertaining and informative on the subject of hip-hop’s glory days.

Rush Limbaugh vs. pissed-off sista!

On Rush Limbaugh’s show this morning, a black female caller – Lisa from Atlanta – jumped in Rush’s shit for something he said yesterday.

(I don’t often hear black callers on the Limbaugh program. It’s always interesting when I do.)

Rush and Lisa went at it Rock-’Em-Sock-’Em style for almost five minutes. Lisa kept her composure and her sense of humor... but Rush got flustered, and he resorted to name-calling. He called her a “mush-mind” and a “racist.”

Let’s go to the audio clips!

We’ll start with a 1½-minute bite from the Wednesday show, so you know what Lisa was talking about.

Limbaugh described the ultimate goal of his “Operation Chaos” campaign (in which he urges Republicans to register as Democrats and vote for Hillary in the primaries).

Click here to listen.

Now, to hear the full 5-minute Lisa call from this morning, click here.

Lisa, you are the absolute hotness!

Elvis Mitchell interviews Charles Burnett

First, let me thank photographer Wolfgang Borrs for allowing me to use this portrait of filmmaker Charles Burnett.

Burnett is a longtime hero of the black independent film movement. His 1970s student film “Killer of Sheep” has been hailed as an American masterpiece.

His “To Sleep With Anger,” released in 1990, was a highlight of the New Black Cinema.

My man Elvis Mitchell interviewed Charles Burnett last week on his radio show “The Treatment.” Follow this link to KCRW.com and you can stream or download the complete half-hour interview. (It is also available as a free podcast at iTunes.)

I’m streaming a 4½-minute excerpt on my Vox audio stash. Click here to listen.

Embedded below is a trailer for the 2007 re-release of “Killer of Sheep.”