A shot of Groucho Marx, with a John Lennon chaser

“How do you tell an inferior train? Does it come from the wrong side of the tracks?”

“I imagine that this place [New York City] is like London must have been in Victorian days when Britain was at the height of its power.... The American empire is now what the British Empire used to be.”

Yup, the ol’ Marx-Lennon gag. It never goes out of style.

I’ve been into Groucho since the age of 13 or so, when Channel 20 in Washington, D.C., showed a bunch of Marx Brothers classics one week. (“Horsefeathers” was my fave.)

There’s a vast mp3 repository of episodes of Groucho’s old radio quiz show, “You Bet Your Life,” at The Internet Archive. You can download them for free.

I’m streaming an episode from March 1950 on my Vox audio stash. Click here to hear it. There are grin-inducing wordplays and ad-libs aplenty.

I also happen to be a huge Beatles fan. So I’m streaming a 26-minute British radio interview with John Lennon from 1975. Click here to listen to that. Lennon talks about being hounded by the U.S. government because he liked to hang around with radicals like and Jerry Rubin and Bobby Seale.

You can purchase a download of this interview via iTunes or eMusic. Just search for artist name “Capital Radio” and the track titled “John Lennon.”

Remember the ‘New Zoo Revue’?

Not like this you don’t...

Allan Pinkerton, friend of the Negro

I’ll admit it: Black people complain about white folks too much.

We rarely pause in our hectic lives to remember the righteous white men and white women of decades past. Whites who, by the standards of their day, stood up or spoke out on behalf of African Americans when there was no “liberal media” to congratulate them for it.

I will rectify that oversight on this blog by acknowledging, with gratitude, some long-dead Caucasians as “friends of the Negro.” Some of them you’ve never heard of. Some you have, but you didn’t know they had a doggone thing to do with black folks and the struggle.

Such is the case with Allan Pinkerton, who founded Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency 150 years ago, and whose name looms large in the history of American policing. (Pinkerton’s, Inc. is still in business.)

Allan Pinkerton’s claims to fame – and to a bit of infamy – had little to do with black people. As bodyguard to President-Elect Abraham Lincoln, Pinkerton is reputed to have foiled an assassination plot in 1861. (Pinkerton wasn’t responsible for Lincoln’s personal security when the President finally did get whacked.)

Pinkerton was the Union Army’s spymaster during the Civil War. Later, Pinkerton pursued notorious outlaws such as Jesse James.

Mr. Pinkerton created tools of modern law enforcement such as the mug shot, and originated the techniques of undercover investigation and surveillance.

The infamy came as the Pinkerton Agency evolved into, basically, a secret police force for hire… private muscle for the robber barons of the Industrial Age. The agency provided strikebreaking as a service. And Pinkerton agents infiltrated labor unions in order to subvert them.

What’s not commonly known about Allan Pinkerton is that he had been an abolitionist. In fact, he was friends with the radical abolitionist and insurrectionist John Brown. Supposedly, Pinkerton once told one of his sons, in regard to John Brown: “Look well upon that man, Willy. He is greater than Napoleon and just as great as George Washington.”

A Scottish immigrant, Pinkerton had been active in the U.K.’s working-class “Chartist” reform movement, which might explain his sympathy to the black cause.

Here is what James D. Horan wrote about this aspect of Allan Pinkerton’s life in Chicago in his book “The Pinkertons: The Detective Dynasty That Made History” (1967):

JAMES D. HORAN: During [the] busy, formative years of building his business, Pinkerton was away from home for long periods, chasing bank robbers, tracing missing persons, solving murders, supervising his growing guard and security force, and personally attending to every trivial office detail. It was his wife, Joan, who managed the large family in the clapboard house on Adams Street, between Fifth and Franklin streets. …

Many years later, in a moving letter to his wife, Pinkerton… described her as a woman of great courage and enormous devotion to her family. He might have added that she was also a woman of infinite patience. In addition to the duties and responsibilities of raising her family almost singlehandedly, she continued to hide and feed the many runaway slaves who crowded her attic, cellar, and kitchen.

When prominent abolitionists were in Chicago, the house on Adams Street was one of their first stops. The free Negro leader John Jones, whom Pinkerton always called “my good friend,” was a frequent visitor, as were the emissaries from John Brown and Frederick Douglass, who were assisting slaves to reach Canada.

When Pinkerton wasn’t home, it was Joan who took and passed on the messages of the Underground [Railroad] and who, when her own home was crowded, sought out neighbors, friendly to the abolitionist cause, to feed, hide, or clothe the frightened runaways. …

By 1858, Pinkerton was one of the most rabid abolitionists in Chicago. … As Lloyd Lewis observed: “While Pinkerton’s right hand caught lawbreakers, his left hand broke the law. …”

Pinkerton didn’t leave behind an inspirational tract or philosophical pamphlet detailing his motives…. [But] as he said in Spy of the Rebellion: “I detested slavery…. This institution of human bondage always reclined [sic] my earnest opposition… believing it to be a curse to the American nation….”

Grace Jones on UBM-TV

The 1980s weren’t much for music (in my humble opinion). But the decade got off to a hot start with three superb albums by Grace Jones: “Warm Leatherette,” “Nightclubbing” and “Living My Life.”

Produced by Chris Blackwell, these LPs boasted a world-class session band – including Sly & Robbie and Wally Badarou – plus extraordinary good taste in song selection.

(You should be in possession of the double-CD compilation “Private Life: The Compass Point Sessions,” which includes a buried treasure from this period – Grace’s reggae version of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire.”)

French visual artist Jean-Paul Goude shaped Grace Jones’s image during this time frame. I’m not crazy about the way he fetishized her blackness. But Goude created a mesmerizing video document of Grace in her prime. It was called “A One Man Show,” and it’s on YouTube in bite-sized pieces.

Which I place before you now via UBM-TV.

For me personally, the only downside to watching Grace perform “Private Life” and “Demolition Man” and “Walking in the Rain” is the realization of how quickly the last 25 years have gone by.

UPDATE (06/19/07): Now that they’ve been replaced in my Video Bar, here’s where you can find those fragments of “One Man Show” on YouTube: part 1 (with “Warm Leatherette” and “Walking in the Rain”); part 2 (with “Feel Up” and “La Vie en Rose”); part 3 (with “Demolition Man” and “Pull Up to the Bumper”); and part 4 (with “Private Life” and “My Jamaican Guy”).

Bonus MBP: ABC News

Remember hearing about a D.C. administrative law judge who’s suing a Korean dry cleaner for a gazillion dollars because they lost a pair of pants? That guy is Roy L. Pearson, Jr., and his case has come to trial.

But when ABC’s “World News” teased its report on the lawsuit Tuesday night, it didn’t show video footage of Roy Pearson.

It showed video footage of former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry.

Oopsies!

Click here to see the video for yourself.

This screw-up was first reported last night by Brent Baker at NewsBusters.org.

This morning, ABCNews.com posted the following correction:

“Tuesday’s 6:30 pm, ET feed of ‘World News’ mistakenly used video in the program’s open of DC council member Marion Barry instead of Roy Pearson. We immediately recognized the error and corrected all subsequent feeds of the broadcast. We are deeply sorry for this mistake and apologize to Mr. Barry, Mr. Pearson, and to our viewers for the error.”

My thanks to Calvin Padgett for pointing me to TVNewser, which also blogged about this doozy of a Misidentified Black Person.

Jackie Robinson speaks (to Satchel Paige!)

“I remember the great stories that they told about Satchel Paige. Used to walk three men just to get at Josh Gibson, to challenge the greatest hitter, I think, that baseball has produced.”

Here’s one for the baseball fans.

I recently learned that Jackie Robinson, who became an enduring culture hero by breaking Major League Baseball’s color line, hosted a syndicated radio show after his ballplaying days. It was called “Jackie Robinson’s Sport Shots.”

For 3 minutes at a time, Robinson interviewed not only athletes but entertainers such as Johnny Mathis and Frankie Laine.

Most intriguing to me was a conversation with Satchel Paige, one of the greatest pitchers of all time. Robinson had been Paige’s teammate on the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues.

Click here to listen to this 1960 chat between two legends of American sport.

And if you’re really into this sort of cultural artifact, you can own a bunch of “Jackie Robinson’s Sport Shots” on mp3. They’ve got ’em for sale at The Authentic History Center.

Another classic TV title sequence

This one goes out to justjudith. (And to anyone else who has made that big move.)

Name this singer, win a prize.

If it ain’t one addiction, it’s another.

I put my blogging addiction on hold for a long weekend and returned to my poker-playing addiction. (Did pretty decent, too.) Even the drive to Laughlin, Nev., across vast stretches of nothing was semi-therapeutic.

My most longstanding addiction was to P-Funk music. George Clinton’s funk mob cast a spell on me 30 years ago, and I turned into a hardcore collector of anything related to Parliament-Funkadelic. (Most precious of all, a few pieces of original artwork by album-cover visionary Pedro Bell!)

This addiction culminated in a slender but potent little paperback I co-wrote with Larry Alexander, Thomas Stanley and Aris Wilson back in 1996, “George Clinton and P-Funk: An Oral History.”

I’ve got an extra copy laying around, and I’d like to give it away. (I’ll even autograph that bad boy.) So… time for another contest.

Begging the pardon of RJ Smith and Dougfp, I am disqualifying them from this particular contest. Not because they’ve each won twice already, but because I think they probably know this one.

The rest of you who want to play, just click here, listen to the track, and identify the singer.

The first person to put the singer’s name in the comments section will win the P-Funk book.

UPDATE (06/12/07): A quick winner. Cheers to Chris for identifying the singer of “Cocaine Blues” as Rev. Gary Davis, a tremendously influential blues and gospel guitarist. Want to hear more? Click here for “Cross and Evil Woman Blues.”

Both tracks – and many more by Rev. Davis – are downloadable via iTunes and eMusic. “Cocaine Blues” is from the CD “Blues & Ragtime”; “Cross and Evil Woman” is from “The Complete Early Recordings of Reverend Gary Davis.”

MBP of the Week: Philadelphia Inquirer

Gladys Cook has sung for 59 years in her church choir in North Philadelphia. So when the church paid tribute to “Mom Cook” on Sunday, the Philadelphia Inquirer was there.

The newspaper published a feature article about Gladys Cook yesterday.

And it printed a photograph of somebody else, misidentified as “Gladys Cook.”

As a good Christian woman, I’m sure Mrs. Cook will forgive the Inquirer for screwing up her moment of honor.

I, on the other hand, will merely add this to my roster of Misidentified Black People, and wonder how a paper can devote 19 paragraphs to a person and get the picture wrong.

Here is the correction the Inquirer ran today:

“A photo caption with a story yesterday about New St. John Baptist Church choir member Gladys Cook misidentified Williemae Jones, another member of the choir, as Cook. A photo of Gladys Cook appears above.”

UBM – The Early Days (cont.)

Here’s more of my August 2005 back-and-forth with commenters at American Renaissance, a white nationalist website where I used to dwell for cheap kicks.

I neglected to mention last time that this particular thread was set off by a Washington Post article about a white hip-hop deejay called “The Pumpsta,” who was prone to yell “Kill whitey!” into the microphone at his parties… parties which catered to “large groups of white hipsters.”

Most American Renaissance types consider The Pumpsta to be a “self-loathing white zombie” and a “spoiled little white self-hating automaton.” Perhaps he is. Or maybe Pumpsta’s just trying a tad too fucking hard to draw attention to himself. Whatever. I could give less than a damn either way.

But I did avail myself of the opportunity to take the AmRen conversation to a deeper place:

UNDERCOVER BLACK MAN: I find the “White N*gro” concept a minorly curious phenomenon in American cultural history. I’m not talking about white appropriation of black cultural styles, which is a larger, deeper and more fascinating subject, going back 175 years — when Thomas D. Rice dressed himself up as “Jim Crow” [pictured] and originated the uniquely American art form of blackface minstrelsy. The appropriation story is currently embodied in Eminem.…

Consider the ultimate examplar of American “White N*gro”-ness — bandleader Johnny Otis. The son of Greek store-owners, John Veliotes grew up around black folks, was inspired to pursue a career in music after seeing a Count Basie concert, and became a legendary rhythm-and-blues artist.

But that’s not all. He married a black woman, and in recent years he founded a black church. … Whatever the white nationalists among you may think of him for doing so, Johnny Otis at least wasn’t a dilletante.

GIMMEBACKMYCULTURE: I’d like to attend a party where Amren’s posters were in attendance. This particular thread’s responses are very impressive and insightful and beneficial to the discussion. It’d be an enjoyable get-together and the tribal thump-thump-thump of hip-hop “music” would nowhere be heard. Someday I hope. (By the way, why do blacks comment on a bulletin board where they’re really not wanted?)

Eminem truly is a cultural tragedy. This wigger nauseousness is as deplorable as it is depressing. The anti-racism brainwashing that American tv&film has contaminated this culture with is deadly epidemic now. …

I only wish Americans would tune out and — at least for a moment — consider the deadly reality of antiracism. But this society is so celebrity-mad, oprah is a billionaire and Sam Francis died a pauper.

UNDERCOVER BLACK MAN: GimmeBackMyCulture pa(ren)thetically inquired: “(By the way, why do blacks comment on a bulletin board where they’re really not wanted?)”

Well, sir, I do so just to prove that I can sit at any lunch counter I want to. And also because the American Renaissance wing of white nationalism fancies itself as upholding standards of civil discourse and objective thinking, thus why wouldn’t a black person’s point of view be welcomed? (And I do feel welcome here, and, in gratitude for that, I endeavor to be well-behaved.) …

Now, back to the subject at hand. Apart from this attention-craving young man called the Pumpsta, I sense a great deal of resentment here to the fact that many young whites are attracted to hip-hop music. Well, it’s the same as it ever was.

For those among you who believe that black people have contributed nothing to America besides out-of-wedlock babies, high rates of crime and a drag on the collective IQ, here is one indisputable fact:

Black Americans, generation after generation after generation, create modes of cultural expression which are then whole-heartedly taken up by their white neighbors… and by peoples all over the world.

“Let the white kids enjoy black music,” said Sam Phillips, the white man who owned Sun Records and released music by B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf and Junior Parker (not to mention Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis).

When GimmeBackMyCulture says he wants his culture back, which culture does he mean? He must not mean the music of Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones, who worshipped the Mississippi Delta bluesmen.

American funk bands of the 1970s — who made the blackest, most ghettofied music of their era — find their most enthusiastic audiences today in Japan and the Netherlands.

And is there a whiter country on earth than Denmark? Yet Copenhagen — called the “Jazz Capital of Europe” — provided a nurturing home during the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s to such black American expatriate beboppers as Oscar Pettiford, Dexter Gordon, Ben Webster, Kenny Drew, Duke Jordan, Horace Parlan and Thad Jones.

How many of you know about the rich, long-flourishing jazz scene in Poland? Check this out, from the Polish website www.culture.pl:

“The tradition of Polish modern jazz takes its origin directly from relating to the American classics. During the 1950’s and 1960’s, Polish musicians reached for records of Charlie Parker and Dizzie Gillespie, of hard-bop quintets (The Jazz Messengers and Julian Cannonball Adderley), as well as for the records of bands led by Miles Davis and John Coltrane. It would be difficult to overestimate the influence of the radio programmes of Willis Conover, broadcasted by the Voice of America, on the development of jazz in Poland.”

Indeed, Conover, who was white, is considered the most influential disc jockey in the history of the Voice of America (the U.S. government radio service that was aimed at folks behind the Iron Curtain). Conover was famous overseas as a symbol of “the American way of life.” And he became that by teaching his listeners about the music of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford, Sidney Bechet, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum and Ella Fitzgerald.

Now, this has nothing to do with addressing the pathologies of the black underclass. I just wanted to make the point, objectively, that you can’t talk about an “American culture” without accepting that black people have shaped it, and will continue to do so.

RISORGIMENTO II: … Never once have I denied that Blacks have influenced White American music. Good and bad. … You, however, can’t get yourself to admit that Whites have also influenced Black music. Because you are a Black racialist. Admit it. (otherwise none of this “Black influenced White”, or “Blacks did it first” would matter to you).

You are proud of your people’s (positive) accomplishments. And I can’t fault you for that. So long as it’s based on solid facts and not myths, or outright lies, to build your self esteem. Go for it. …

When it comes to Music my tastes are not based on Black or White. Apparently, you would be surprised to know that I consider the two greatest saxophonists that ever lived to be John Coltrane and Grover Washington Jr.. Washington was not only an incredible talent, but he was a genuinely nice person, who didn’t carry a Black chip on his shoulder, unlike Miles Davis, who was an out and out racist.

I considered Jimmy Hendrix to be the greatest rock guitarist, and not because he was Black (I was at Woodstock and saw him play), until Stevie Ray Vaughn came along and blew me away. IMO, he is the greatest guitarist that ever lived, for numerous reasons, none of which is because he was White. …

The problem is, due to all the Afrocentric balony, it’s hard to tell or trust what’s true in Black history. Liberal forces both Black and White, who consider self-esteem the most important aspect when teaching Black students, that the lines between truth and fiction have purposely been blurred.

Due to racial tribalism, and liberal social conditioning that sees any form of White pride as the ‘racist bogeyman’, you cannot tolerate White’s who are openly proud of their peoples accomplishments, and so you feel the need to come to this site to set us White folk straight about the superiority of “Black” music on White America and Euro Culture, with not so truthful, and exaggerated spin. …

Sorry, but we are educated people who know how to research and check facts. As the old saying goes, “You can fool all of the people some of the time, and you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool the folks at American Renaissance.”

UNDERCOVER BLACK MAN: To Risorgimento II: … I was going to let you have the last word. But then you wrote this:

“You cannot tolerate White’s who are openly proud of their peoples accomplishments, and so you feel the need to come to this site to set us White folk straight about the superiority of ‘Black’ music on White America and Euro Culture, with not so truthful, and exaggerated spin.”

The problem with much of what you write — aside from your unsure grasp of the rules of punctuation — is your reliance upon the “ad hominen,” in both senses of that term. That is, appealing to emotion and prejudice rather than reason, and attacking the character and motives of your opponent rather than his ideas.

Nothing I have written during this exchange betrays an intolerance of white racialists. Notwithstanding my occasional attempts at ironic wit, what have I done to deny or minify the vast technical and cultural achievements of white men?

I am grateful to white men every time I step onto an airplane, as something like 95 percent of commercial airline pilots are white males. (And you won’t see me accusing the airline industry of racism or agitating for “more brothers in the cockpits!” Maybe everybody who’s currently an airline pilot is supposed to be an airline pilot, and all the people who aren’t airline pilots — who lack the skill sets, desire and temperament to perform that task — they ain’t supposed to be airline pilots. Shoot, even Brother Jesse’s got enough sense to leave that one alone.) … White men have much to be proud of…

Therefore, your characterization of me as an intolerant black racialist is simply an appeal to the prejudices of your fellow whites. But I’m less upset by that than by your repeated accusation that I am “not so truthful,” or that certain information I present is “not true.” You may challenge my interpretations, but not my command of the facts. …

I have not striven to exaggerate the impact of black music on white culture, nor to argue the “superiority” of black music. I have been clear-headed and precise with my language in putting forward a proposition:

Black Americans, with characteristic flamboyant expressiveness, have repeatedly innovated new musical forms (banjo music, ragtime, blues, bebop, funk, hip-hop) which whites become enchanted by and absorb it into their own way of life, and this happens to such a degree that the rest of the world defines American culture in large part by these black cultural expressions.

Is this a racialist exaggeration? Or is it a proposition supported by evidence? I have presented a variety of facts, large and small — some of them new to you, no doubt — to support my case. The impact of bebop on Poland’s musicians; the adaptation of banjo music from black slaves by white entertainers….

Meanwhile, you say again and again that “music is a compilation of many influences,” which is saying nothing at all. ALL culture is a compilation of many influences. But if you think Guy Lombardo’s influence on Louis Armstrong is equivalent to Jelly Roll Morton’s influence on Bix Beiderbecke, you are missing the big picture.

I’ve provided a way for you to understand why millions of young white kids rap along to Snoop Dogg. It’s the same cultural story being played out once more. The same as the 19th-century white minstrels “blacking up,” the same as young whites in the Jazz Age doing the Charleston (a black folk dance that became a nationwide ballroom craze), the same as Beat Generation white kids embracing the slang of black bebop musicians in order to be “cool,” the same as a young Brit named Brian Jones calling himself “Elmo Jones” and trying to play slide guitar like a Delta bluesman.

Whites are (and apparently will always be) particularly enchanted and intrigued with black art and black style. They want that as an element of their way of life.

Flip Wilson on UBM-TV

Let’s pour a little off the top in memory of Flip Wilson.

His NBC primetime variety show in the early ’70s was a huge hit, and occasionally it was quite hip. You’d see cutting-edge comedians such as Richard Pryor and George Carlin, but also titans of old-school show biz like Jack Benny and Lucille Ball.

There are some tasty bits floating around on YouTube. Blogger’s Video Bar pulled up the sampling you see in the upper right corner.

The Muhammad Ali clip seems to show off Flip’s quickness as an ad-libber. But the black-and-white clip is a special treat – a 1965 “Tonight Show” appearance in which Flip absolutely kills Johnny Carson (with a very old joke).

For more of Flip Wilson’s laidback ’60s nightclub act, click here to hear a routine called “The Bat.”

UPDATE (06/16/07): The Muhammad Ali/“Geraldine” clip is here. The black-and-white Johnny Carson clip is here.

Getteth whitey!

I have a hypothesis about America’s attachment to guns. Might be bullshit, but here it is:

The U.S. Constitution has a Second Amendment – and Americans developed such a need to “keep and bear arms” – because of black folks. That is, white people’s fear of being slaughtered by black folks.

They had reasons to fear this.

I never knew about South Carolina’s Security Act of 1739. What that did was, it required all white men to be armed on Sundays.

Why that day? Because slave rebellions tended to be planned for Sunday, because on that day Negroes were “best able to get together,” as Benjamin Brawley, an early black intellectual, wrote in 1921.

I tell you, the World Wide Web is a wonderland for autodidacts such as myself. You can stumble over knowledge at every turn.

When it comes to slave rebellions, most Americans probably have heard of Nat Turner. Many black Americans know the name of Denmark Vesey too. And well-educated black Americans are hip to “Cato’s Rebellion,” which took place in South Carolina in 1739.

But as Brawley described in his landmark book, “A Social History of the American Negro,” blacks in America have plotted violent revenge against their oppressors since the 1600s.

The entire text of Benjamin Brawley’s “Social History” is now in the public domain, and can be downloaded here for free, thanks to Project Gutenberg.

Here is Brawley’s overview of “Early Insurrections”:

BENJAMIN BRAWLEY: The Negroes who came to America directly from Africa in the eighteenth century were strikingly different from those whom generations of servitude later made comparatively docile. They were wild and turbulent in disposition and were likely at any moment to take revenge for the great wrong that had been inflicted upon them.

The planters in the South knew this and lived in constant fear of uprisings. When the situation became too threatening, they placed prohibitive duties on importations, and they also sought to keep their slaves in subjection by barbarous and cruel modes of punishment, both crucifixion and burning being legalized in some early codes.

On sea as well as on land Negroes frequently rose upon those who held them in bondage, and sometimes they actually won their freedom. More and more, however, in any study of Negro insurrections it becomes difficult to distinguish between a clearly organized revolt and what might be regarded as simply a personal crime, so that those uprisings considered in the following discussion can only be construed as the more representative of the many attempts for freedom made by Negro slaves in the colonial era.

In 1687 there was in Virginia a conspiracy among the Negroes in the Northern Neck that was detected just in time to prevent slaughter, and in Surry County in 1710 there was a similar plot, betrayed by one of the conspirators.

In 1711, in South Carolina, several Negroes ran away from their masters and “kept out, armed, robbing and plundering houses and plantations, and putting the inhabitants of the province in great fear and terror”; and Governor Gibbes more than once wrote to the legislature about amending the Negro Act, as the one already in force did “not reach up to some of the crimes” that were daily being committed. For one Sebastian, “a Spanish Negro,” alive or dead, a reward of £50 was offered, and he was at length brought in by the Indians and taken in triumph to Charleston.

In 1712 in New York occurred an outbreak that occasioned greater excitement than any uprising that had preceded it in the colonies. Early in the morning of April 7 some slaves of the Carmantee and Pappa tribes who had suffered ill-usage, set on fire the house of Peter van Tilburgh, and, armed with guns and knives, killed and wounded several persons who came to extinguish the flames. They fled, however, when the Governor ordered the cannon to be fired to alarm the town, and they got away to the woods as well as they could, but not before they had killed several more of the citizens.

Some shot themselves in the woods and others were captured. Altogether eight or ten white persons were killed, and, aside from those Negroes who had committed suicide, eighteen or more were executed, several others being transported. Of those executed one was hanged alive in chains, some were burned at the stake, and one was left to die a lingering death before the gaze of the town.

In May, 1720, some Negroes in South Carolina were fairly well organized and killed a man named Benjamin Cattle, one white woman, and a little Negro boy. They were pursued and twenty-three taken and six convicted. Three of the latter were executed, the other three escaping.

In October, 1722, the Negroes near the mouth of the Rappahannock in Virginia undertook to kill the white people while the latter were assembled in church, but were discovered and put to flight. On this occasion, as on most others, Sunday was the day chosen for the outbreak, the Negroes then being best able to get together. In April, 1723, it was thought that some fires in Boston had been started by Negroes, and the selectmen recommended that if more than two Negroes were found “lurking together” on the streets they should be put in the house of correction.

In 1728 there was a well organized attempt in Savannah, then a place of three thousand white people and two thousand seven hundred Negroes. The plan to kill all the white people failed because of disagreement as to the exact method; but the body of Negroes had to be fired on more than once before it dispersed.

In 1730 there was in Williamsburg, Va., an insurrection that grew out of a report that Colonel Spotswood had orders from the king to free all baptized persons on his arrival; men from all the surrounding counties had to be called in before it could be put down.

The first open rebellion in South Carolina in which Negroes were “actually armed and embodied” took place in 1730. The plan was for each Negro to kill his master in the dead of night, then for all to assemble supposedly for a dancing-bout, rush upon the heart of the city, take possession of the arms, and kill any white man they saw. The plot was discovered and the leaders executed.

Sing Along with Milch

You broke my mood ring,
You broke my mood ring,
You made my mood ring sweat.

The things you’re doing,
Those things you’re doing,
Other women don’t even know about ’em yet!

On Sunday night, following the “Sopranos” series finale, HBO will premiere “John From Cincinnati,” the new David Milch drama.

If you’ve ever watched “Hill Street Blues,” “NYPD Blue” or “Deadwood,” you know David Milch is one of the finest writers in the history of television. You probably know some other colorful facts about him, too. (Big-time gambler, former heroin addict, youthful protégé to Robert Penn Warren…)

I’m about to tell you something you don’t know.

When I worked for David Milch in the mid-1990s, he told me he’d written a song in the ’70s called “Mood Ring.” The song was recorded by Root Boy Slim & the Sex Change Band.

I was quite familiar with Root Boy; he’s a boogie-rock legend in the D.C. area. Born Foster MacKenzie III, Root Boy Slim attended Yale, as did Milch. From stories I’ve heard, both of ’em were wild as fuck. It was Milch who told me MacKenzie used to perform as “Prince La La.”

(From the Root’s Wikipedia entry, I now see that he and Milch were fraternity brothers. Along with George W. Bush!)

Anyway, I asked Milch whether he was pulling my leg about “Mood Ring.” He’s not a credited co-writer on the song. David told me it’s true; he wrote those lyrics.

So, by way of wishing my old boss well with the new show, I share with you one of his hidden early works. Click here and enjoy “Mood Ring.”

Does Canada have an immigration problem?

As the U.S. body politic hashes out the immigration issue, things can get rough. Like yesterday, when Ann Coulter weighed in against the rising tide of color with a column titled “Bush’s America: Roach Motel.” Even Lawrence Auster, that prophet of civilizational doom, called Coulter’s title “vulgar and arguably racist.”

(Turns out Coulter wasn’t comparing Mexicans to loathsome insects. She was making some point about taxation. But, hey, she knew exactly what she was doing.)

How about a shift in perspective? About 12 percent of the U.S. population is foreign-born. In Canada, 18.8 percent of the population was foreign-born as of 2001.

Why don’t we hear any wailing and teeth-gnashing from up north about the threat posed to white civilization by blacks, mestizos and Asians? Canada’s got more than 300,000 African immigrants; more than 120,000 Jamaicans; some 54,000 Haitians; more than 116,000 Mexicans and Central Americans; 84,000 Guyanese; 322,000 immigrants from India; and more than half a million Chinese.

How is Canada dealing? Is immigration a hot-button issue there? I decided to ask some Canadian political bloggers, on the right and the left. My questions, in a nutshell, were these:

1. What social problems, if any, have come with Canada’s immigrant influx? Crime? Gangs? Inter-ethnic conflict? A drain on social services?

2. Is there any political movement to restrict immigration? Any public discussion about the racial dimensions of immigration? Concern that the character of the Canadian nation will change if too many non-whites are let in?

3. What’s your personal take? Is large-scale immigration good for Canada, bad for Canada, or neutral?

I only heard back from one conservative, who happens to be the son of non-white immigrants. Victor Wong (who blogs as The Phantom Observer) says this: “There’s no real national movement up here on restricting immigration. Many of the people who vote conservative are immigrants themselves, so it’s seen as counter-productive.”

Canada’s big immigrant-related issue, according to Wong, has to do with “accreditation.” “Our immigration policies so far encourage the intake of trained professionals (physicians, engineers, etc.) The trouble we have is that the licensing bodies for those professions don’t automatically recognize the migrant’s educational background. Hence our migrants often wind up in menial jobs instead of the ones they’re trained for.

“The licensing bodies are under provincial jurisdiction while immigration is a federal responsibility,” Wong explains, “making it rather difficult to get everyone to agree on what gets recognized and what doesn’t. That’s what’s on the agenda at the moment.”

Over on the left, a blogger known as Canadian Cynic graciously posted my query and invited his readers to respond. Some of their comments are below. I’ll share more in the coming days. (If you don’t wish to wait, you can read the entire thread here, on Canadian Cynic’s blog.)

Keep in mind these are left-wingers, so they’re ideologically prone towards pro-immigrationism. (One commenter didn’t appear to believe in borders at all.) They’ve provided very interesting insights, and I am grateful to them.

M@: [A]s a middle-class white male from Ontario, I’m not sure how correct my assumptions are. Anyhow:

1. There are parts of Toronto with significant populations of working-class or poorer immigrants. I believe immigrants from the Caribbean and east Africa are the largest groups here. Crime is indeed a problem in these areas, and gangs are becoming more of a problem too. However, there are also huge sectors of immigrants from east and south Asia who have, for whatever reason, more easily assimilated into Canadian society.

I often hear that immigrants are a drain on social services and society in general, but I’ve seen no evidence of it. … And while there is the typical white resentment about “outsiders” taking over “our” country, I think the average Canadian sees immigration as a neutral or positive thing. (It helps that so many Canadians are immigrants or have immigrant parents, of course.) …

2. I think that in general, the right is more sympathetic to ideas about limiting immigration, but that is by no means a major plank in their platform. There is some discussion about the racial dimension of immigration, and some concern that Canada will be negatively affected by immigration. But I don’t know if it’s widespread, or just among the relative minority of ultra-right wingers.

I think that with such a large and vocal immigrant population, political parties are required to actively court immigrant and ethnic voters. You might be interested to know that in the last century, the dominant political party (the Liberals) had periodic amnesties for illegal immigrants, and even had their MPs [Members of Parliament] go to the docks to greet immigrants arriving on ships. The Chinese community in Ontario was staunchly Liberal-supporting throughout the century because of it.

A more recent example of pro-immigration feeling is the restitution the current (Conservative) government paid to Chinese immigrants in the first half of the century, who were forced to pay a tax to enter the country based solely on their race. While there were (and still are) plenty of arguments about what should be paid and how, I don’t remember hearing anyone say that paying the restitution was a bad thing.

3. Great for Canada. Keep ’em coming. Morally, economically, and socially, immigration makes Canada better.

EDWIN: 1. I remember some problems with Vietnamese gangs – maybe 20 years ago, and today as already mentioned some Jamaican gangs. My wife went to school where there were something like 80 nationalities with 90 languages present. She doesn’t remember any particular problems.

Anyway the big thing in the news these days is the [1985] Air India bombing – Sikh violence. We have also had some nasty white violence out Victoria way involving school kids – though I don’t know if it was racially motivated.

2. Canada had fairly lenient immigration rules from around the ’70s through the ’80s. They are long gone now. I wish they would come back.

FERDZY: Well, as the person who went to the school with 80+ nationalities, and 90+ languages, I guess I should chip in.

I was born in 1961, so I’m old enough to just barely remember a sea of white faces in kindergarten. Mind you, probably 70% of them were the kids of recent Italian and Portuguese immigrants. (… [T]here was a huge wave of immigration from Italy after WWII. Toronto has the largest Italian population in the world outside of Italy.)

A few black faces popped up in grade 3 or so. Then, we moved to the white-bread suburbs (Scarborough, a.k.a. Scarberia) for a couple of years, because my parents were under the impression that we kids needed a yard. Fortunately, they snapped out of that fairly quickly and we moved back to Flemingdon Park just in time for it to become the multicultural nexus of the world.

The face of Toronto completely changed between the time I started school and the time I left. On the whole, the transition was relatively peaceful. There was some ugly racist talk and acts against “Pakis” (Pakistanis) during this time. (I’m sure there were plenty of other ugly talk and acts too, but these were the ones that looked like having any kind of critical mass.)

These incidents were treated as serious and disgraceful by the press, which I am sure helped in suppressing them. That and the fact that although Toronto was still very white, it had a very significant population of immigrants who remembered very well being treated as “dirty furriners” when they had arrived not so many years earlier.

I think this has been another factor in the transition from a homogenous and conservative society to a multicultural, more liberal one: each group has arrived in small enough numbers that they can’t cause a “this side and that side” schism in society, but there have been so many groups who have arrived at such a steady pace, that as Canadian society absorbed them, it was transformed. …

There are the usual right-wing blow-hards with the usual right-wing bigotry and rants. My general impression is that they are so far behind what’s already happened as to be pretty much irrelevant. It’s pretty clear that the Canadian character HAS changed already – it’s way too late to go back. I think most of us think that’s a good thing.

I’ve been talking a lot about Toronto, because that’s where I grew up. The same process has been happening in all of Canada’s major cities. Rural Canada is still pretty old-fashioned. There’s a certain amount of grumbling there, I think, but again, too little too late. They’ve missed the bus. We’re a completely different country than we were 30 years ago.

And, even there, the faces of small towns across the country are changing as recent Canadians start to branch out from the major cities, and the process begins anew.

I don’t want to paint too idealistic a picture here. Canada has always had and continues to have serious problems with racism. Our treatment of First Nations people has been execrable. It improved a bit from the ’70s through the ’90s as some progress was made with land claims, but with a Conservative government back in (hopefully temporary) power, things are deteriorating again. And I’m sure any member of the black communities that have been in Canada from before confederation has some hair-raising tales of dire racism.

PALADIEA: I personally love the fact that there are people [from] around the world in Toronto. A while back they did a whole series in the Globe and Mail about the day (2010 or 2012) when Toronto will be 51% minorities.

It really wasn’t that big an issue with anyone except far right wackos...

THE SEER: The British did not have to import a minority to divide and conquer Canada; there was a minority in place. The ultimate issue in Canada is not race but language…

ARIANNA: The Seer has an interesting point – the English and French in Canada have been beating up on each other as long as we’ve both been here. I’m guessing this has contributed to immigration not being such a big deal because we were so busy with our own internal ‘ethnic’ bickering.

Also, what I keep seeing coming up as an issue in the States is people freaking out about immigrants not “learning the language” – I haven’t seen this as an issue here really, probably in large part because we’ve been fighting about language so long and in large part everything here is bilingual English-French, which helps in two ways. Firstly, it means a larger percentage of people speak an official language of the country – many developing nations were former French colonies, after all, and secondly, most Canadians are used to language accommodation and don’t freak out at the sight of a language other than their own.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

Rubix89: Greatest genius in human history!!

I just came across a YouTube video that made me laugh so hard, I can hardly believe it. Probably the hardest I’ve laughed in 10 years.

There’s a guy out there called “Rubix89.” Only 18 years old, if you can believe his profile page. What he does is, he’ll take a piece of standup comedy audio and lay it over some Japanese animation. But he edits the anime so the characters’ actions and mouth movements match the comedian’s words.

The effect is a joyful short-circuiting of the viewer’s brain.

This particular clip uses the voice of the late Mitch Hedberg, one of my favorite comics. Yeah, perhaps my familiarity with Hedberg’s “Doubletree” routine pumps up the hilarity quotient for me. You’ll have to check it out for yourself and tell me whether I’m trippin’ or whether Rubix89 is TOTALLY FREAKING AMAZINGLY BRILLIANT!!!

Apparently many YouTubers concur with the latter assessment, because Rubix89 is ranked No. 31 on YouTube’s roster of most-viewed “directors” of all time.

Without further ado, here’s Rubix89:

UBM – The Early Days

Children often ask me, “Mr. Mills, when did you adopt the Internet persona of Undercover Black Man?”

And after they un-ass a little pocket change, I generally tell ’em a bullshit story involving the CIA or the Republic of New Afrika. Thus imparting a valuable life lesson: Never trust nobody.

Now, I feel like revealing the truth.

I’d acquired the habit of reading American Renaissance, a white nationalist website that offers daily links to legitimate news articles on race, ethnicity, political correctness, etc.

AmRen also has very active discussion boards, which I especially enjoyed. The white readers of American Renaissance reminded me of black folks; race is damn-near all they want to talk about. They’re obsessed with it.

I felt motivated, after Hurricane Katrina, to de-lurk and join their online discussions. Pseudonymously (like many other AmRen commenters).

I called myself “Undercover Negro,” but AmRen’s content filter bounced my first comment back at me. I tried again as “Undercover Black Man,” and the comment was accepted.

(You see, the website – in keeping with the courtly manners of its founder, Jared Taylor – maintains a language standard. To wit: No racial slurs. Apparently “Negro” can carry a derogatory taint.)

Anyway, I hung out on the AmRen boards for months. To give you a sense of the kind of back-and-forths I got mixed up in, here’s an edited exchange from August 2005. (The full thread is archived here.)

I have not corrected any typos or misspellings. But I have broken up some large paragraphs to make it easier to read.

RISORGIMENTO II: … As for this “Black music thang”, I hate to point out the NOT so obvious. That the liberal propaganda machine in the media and at liberal education centers, fall all over themselves to give Blacks far more credit then is historically accurate, just to build up their self-esteem.

Every year during the racist “Black” history month, we are overwhelmed with an never ending and ever growing list of “new” revelations of history and inventions that boggle the mind. In short, Whites didn’t “invent” anything they didn’t “steal” from the original inventors, who were Black. …

The White trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke, revolutionized and rejuvenated jazz during it’s early years. Early Black jazz bands would travel from all parts of the country just to listen to him play, to study and copy his style. Where they influenced? Of course they were!

But we are being sold a bill of goods in which the Bix Beiderbeckes, the Jerry Leibers and Mike Stollers, the Carol Kings and Gerry Goffins, and the Linda Creeds are written out of the history books to create yet another false Black racialistic view of reality.

And how did White technical inventions (soon to be announced as “Black” technical inventions, stolen by Whites) in the music industry influence Black music? From radio, television, record players, LP’s, cassettes, CD’s, movies, to Electric guitars, amps, keyboards, pianos, organs, valve trumpets,. ect, ect.,…

UNDERCOVER BLACK MAN: Beiderbecke rose to prominence as the star soloist in the Wolverine Orchestra. The Wolverines got their name because they played Jelly Roll Morton’s “Wolverine Blues” so often. Jelly Roll Morton was black. Therefore, without black music, where would Bix Beiderbecke be?

Risorgimento II also asked: “And how did White technical inventions (soon to be announced as ‘Black’ technical inventions, stolen by Whites) in the music industry influence Black music? …”

It might interest you to learn that the banjo originated in Africa, and was transplanted to America by slaves. Even the word “banjo” is likely of African origin.

Not that that’s any big deal. But it is ironic, given that the banjo today is so readily associated with white (dare I say “hillbilly”?) music. Also, the xylophone (and thus its New World descendants like the marimba and the vibraphone) is believed to have originated in Africa. I will grant you that the Africans didn’t invent electricity.

Risorgimento also proclaimed: “We are being sold a bill of goods in which the Bix Beiderbeckes, the Jerry Leibers and Mike Stollers, the Carol Kings and Gerry Goffins, and the Linda Creeds are written out of the history books to create yet another false Black racialistic view of reality.”

Dude… Leiber and Stoller, written out of the history books?? “Smokey Joe’s Café” — a revue based on their R&B hits — ran on Broadway for five years! Carole King was just on “60 Minutes,” reminiscing about her early R&B songwriting days. And every fan of Philly Soul that I know — and that’s plenty — was heartbroken when Linda Creed died of cancer 20 years ago. Black folks aren’t the ones who will forget her. …

RISORGIMENTO II: … No Black Jazz bands, no jazz song called the ‘Wolverine Blues’, nor Jazz itself, would have existed without the influence of White men’s genius and inventions. …

IF [the banjo]’s origins are (Black) African, we can be sure it wasn’t “brought over”, as slavers would not have let their slaves boarding ships go home to fetch their Banjos. But rather a crude instrument made here in America by slaves to recreate crude musical instruments familiar to their African roots….

The modern Banjo as is popular today due to modern technical innovations created by Whites…. The White introduction of tuners, steel strings in the 1850’s, the addition of frets in 1878, to “Earl Scruggs who worked out a highly syncopated three fingered style using the thumb, index, and middle fingers. Within a short period this style took off and ever since has led the banjo revival.”

The Banjo you see today is a far cry from the three stringed “banjo” that may have been used in (Black) Africa.

That all being said, and knowing it’s not the popularity of the “Banjo” among today’s Blacks that make it a “big deal”, because it not exactly popular among most Blacks. But more the need to have something that has Black racial origins that you can claim as all your very own in a world that is so completely dominated by White creativity and innovation.

I sympathize. The tremendous inventive and creative genius of Whites in High Technology, Industry, Exploration, Arts, Sciences, Medicine and Music, just to name a few, is so overwhelming, it’s beyond calculation, and requires the construction of great libraries just to begin to comprehend the almost endless contributions.

So if you want to claim the “Banjo” as black African, please take it, it’s yours! …

UNDERCOVER BLACK MAN: … Gee, when you put it like that… I do indeed wish that I, too, could derive a sense of personal worth from the accomplishments of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. Alas, I must content myself with sitting here and strumming my banjo. …

I know it’s not much compared to the polio vaccine or the steam engine, but the banjo is a highly significant instrument in the development of American popular and folk musics. I’ve even seen it said that black banjo styles led in part to the development of ragtime, which then led to jazz.

In any event, the banjo serves as a vivid, indisputable example of how Africans contributed to the American culture. …

According to bluegrassbanjo.org (not exactly a hotbed of Black Power rhetoric): “The banjo, as we can begin to recognize it, was made by African slaves based on instruments that were indigenous to their parts of Africa.” The site even quotes Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in 1781: “The instrument proper to them (i.e., the slaves) is the Banjar, which they brought hither from Africa.”

So Risorgimento II, when you tell me, “If you want to claim the ‘Banjo’ as black African, please take it, it’s yours!”… see how ignorant that sounds in light of easily established facts?

But that’s just the beginning. In the mid-1800s, blackface minstrel shows — burlesques of “Plantation N*gro” song-and-dance styles, performed by whites — became “the most popular form of public amusement in the United States,” according to the Library of Congress. And the banjo, of course, was a key musical element of minstrel shows. …

I consider this the earliest example of white fascination with (and imitation of) black art and black style. The selfsame phenomenon can be seen with hip-hop today, just as with disco music 30 years ago, Delta blues 40 years ago, bebop 50 years ago, and ragtime 100 years ago.

The flamboyant expressiveness of black folks leads to all these musical innovations, and then whites are so enchanted by it, so intrigued by it, that they absorb it into their own way of life. …

SBUFFALONATIVE: While Antonio Stadivari was making violins that are today the most prized of all musical instruments, the natives of Africa were plucking the strings of a gourd on a stick.

I won’t even mention the other instruments that make up an orchestra or the mind of the men like Mozart and Beethoven who could conceive of, held in their minds, set down their ideas on paper for posterity to be performed in the concert halls of the world.

Compare that with “improvisation” or “the master drummer of Africa” and people jumping barefoot around a fire.

Sorry dude, but there is no comparison.

UNDERCOVER BLACK MAN: Which only begs the question: Why would most WHITE people rather listen to music created by descendants of those barefooted African natives than to the music of Beethoven and Mozart?

[TO BE CONTINUED]

A whiter shade of jazz (or, How conservatives play the race card)

I’m unfamiliar with Thomas Lifson and his conservative group blog, The American Thinker. But as a Harvard Ph.D. in sociology and a former faculty member of the Harvard Business School and Columbia’s Graduate School of International Affairs, Mr. Lifson is certainly much smarter than me.

Still, he was way off base with his post last Saturday, “Jazz Succumbs to Racism.” Here’s a quick backgrounder:

Yoshi’s Jazz Club in Oakland – one of the premiere jazz spots in America – recently released a compilation CD to honor its 10 years at its current location.

There are no black artists on this CD.

There are two Marian McPartland tracks, two from Joe Pass, two from Joey DeFrancesco, two from Poncho Sanchez, and a track apiece from Madeleine Peyroux and Robben Ford.

Yeah… not the mix I would do to showcase the best of American jazz. Or even the best of what’s to be heard at Yoshi’s.

Consider a few other musicians who’ve performed at Yoshi’s in recent years: Oscar Peterson, McCoy Tyner, Anthony Braxton, Elvin Jones, Mulgrew Miller, Bobby Hutcherson, Wallace Roney, Joshua Redman, Branford Marsalis, Sonny Fortune, Taj Mahal.

Anyway, some folks complained about the blacklessness of Yoshi’s 10th Anniversary disc.

"What I immediately felt when checking out this CD was disrespect and insult,” wrote radio host Greg Bridges to Bay Area jazz critic Jim Harrington, “for again this majestic music that was created by Black musicians from their own life experiences and ideas is being presented as if there’s not even been a contribution from black musicians…”

Last week, Yoshi’s announced it was pulling the CD off the market so as to overhaul the mix. You’ll find this note on the club’s website: “We at Yoshi’s are profoundly aware of the unfortunate oversight in the omission of African American artists on our first ever CD. We apologize to anyone who feels slighted by this omission…”

Thomas Lifson, that’s your cue.

“Jazz has now fallen to the level apparently requiring affirmative action,” Lifson blogged on June 2. “The word ‘tragedy’ leaps to mind. We are moving in the opposite direction from a society where everyone is presumed equal and race is an irrelevant criterion. So much for Dr. King’s ‘content of our character’ hopes.”

A tragedy is it?

“Apparently in this day and age, especially in the ‘progressive’ Bay Area, one must always devote time and effort to racial bean-counting and careful allocation of everything on the basis of race,” Lifson went on. “Today, the ‘enlightened’ minds demand a racial consciousness that puts the old apartheid regime of South Africa to shame.”

The man is heartsick over this. “Silly me, silly Yoshi’s. We thought jazz was about music. It turns out that it is about racial grievances,” he wrote. “And I cannot describe how sad I feel about it.”

Ignore the rhetorical tactic of invoking Martin Luther King and apartheid in order to make black people look like hypocrites. The Yoshi’s CD is not about an allocation of resources. Nor is it (to recall the Age of Reagan) about “quotas.”

It’s not Buggin’ Out in Sal’s Pizza… How come there ain’t no black people up on the wall?!

Yoshi’s put out a CD in order to promote itself and promote jazz music. You don’t have to be a PC bully to wonder how the hell Yoshi’s could promote jazz while ignoring the artists who constitute so much of the top tier of American jazz. The black ones.

Colorblindness – a term so often misapplied by the right – doesn’t mean we’re supposed to look at this CD and simply not notice the absence of black people. (That would be plain blindness.)

Colorblindness, let us remember, is a metaphor. In the civil rights context, it was always a metaphor. A metaphor for fairness.

Does Mr. Lifson believe that Dr. King was naïve enough to wish for a world in which we’d look at each other and, literally, not be able to distinguish a Negro from a white man from a Mexican from a Chinese... the way the colorblind can’t tell pink from blue?

Dr. King didn’t devote his life to blissed-out utopian fantasizing. He laid his life down to bring about a society where black people – and all people – would be treated fairly. With race and color prejudice being the primary impediments to fair treatment in the ’50s and ’60, “colorblind society” was a useful metaphor. But fairness was always the goal.

Now, what do notions of fairness have to do with a jazz CD?

Simply that a jazz sampler without black bandleaders doesn’t accurately reflect the world of jazz, or the history of Yoshi’s. Just as an all-black CD wouldn’t accurately reflect the reality of this nightclub or jazz in general. (A majority of the musicians booked at Yoshi’s are white, as are most of its patrons.)

I have a feeling some white jazz fans would not’ve been “colorblind” if the Yoshi’s CD had featured nothing but black musicians. Hey! What about Joe Pass? I can imagine them thinking. Some might’ve even blogged about such blatant igging of white jazz artists.

Back to Lifson. Bizarrely, he injects the meritocratic argument into this thing, proclaiming that Yoshi’s has “been ‘shamed’ by its failure to judge the worth of jazz musicians on the color of their skin, instead of the content of their artistry.”

What’s silly about that is – as the San Francisco Chronicle explained it – the tracks chosen for the 10th Anniversary disc had little to do with “the content of their artistry.”

The club decided only last March to release a CD. It had to move quickly. Various record companies own master recordings of live performances at Yoshi’s. For the sake of “expediency” – and cheapness – it cut a deal with only one: Concord.

But some of the great “Live at Yoshi’s” recordings – such as the two by Mulgrew Miller and one by Dee Dee Bridgewater – are on other labels. Which will now mean “more elaborate negotiations for rights and licensing fees,” Lifson writes.

Now, I’m not the type who would’ve raised a stink about the original 10th Anniversary disc. There are more important things to get worked up about. And Yoshi’s only produced 1,000 copies of the doggone thing (for sale through its website). Truly this is a tempest in a trumpet mute.

But if some black folks went overboard in their objections, how about Lifson with his counter-objections? He actually wrote:

“Are we going to hear cries that the CDs must be destroyed? … Should they be treated the way Hitler treated books by Jews, and burned in a public bonfire?”

Like I said, I’m unfamiliar with Lifson’s writing. Maybe this is his brand of irony. But dang, did he have to go and drop the H-bomb?

Can’t we all just get a long-playing record of MJQ (or Brubeck… whatever) and chill?

(Surprise! I’m sneaking another contest in on y’all. I really want to give away a copy of RJ Smith’s jazz book. The following track was recorded live at Yoshi’s. The first person to put the pianist’s name in the comments section will win the prize. Just click here and go for it!)

UPDATE (06/05/07): Contest over, just that quick. Dougfp guessed correctly; it’s Jessica Williams. Who is white. Not that I ever really noticed it before...

‘Hee Haw’ on UBM-TV

Never let it be said that I am inconsiderate of my white readers. I got a little “Hee Haw” going on for y’all in the Video Bar!

Actually, if you’re black and over the age of 45, you probably have fond memories of “Hee Haw” too. Our parents’ and grandparents’ generation – especially if they were raised in the country – enjoyed a bit of country music. (My folks also watched “The Porter Wagoner Show” every week.)

And us as little kids could appreciate the corny jokes. So don't act like you don't know.

Plus, Roy Clark was a bad motherfucker on that gitbox!

(As for the sailboat video… that’s got former “Hee Haw” comic Archie Campbell hustling timeshares or condos or some shit. The thing about the Video Bar is, you have to take what the machine gives you.)

MBP of the Week: Fox News

It’s a video MBP this time, my friends. Courtesy of star blogger Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo.

Congressman William Jefferson got indicted today, you know. But for “B-roll” footage, Fox News showed Congressman John Conyers. At length. Click here to see the video, with Josh providing color commentary.

Thanks to Devin McCullen and Ron Gordon for letting me know.

(Jefferson, by the way, is the one on the right.)

UPDATE (06/06/07): TVNewser reports that Fox News issued a detailed on-air correction this afternoon. To wit:

“On Monday in our report on the indictment of William Jefferson, in error we aired some video of Congressman John Conyers of Michigan.

“That tape was labeled ‘a meeting about William Jefferson’ and it was mistaken as video portraying Mr. Jefferson. We regret this mistake. We in no way meant to suggest there was any connection between the Jefferson indictment and Congressman Conyers.

“We have extended our apology privately to the congressman, and we do so here as well.”

(Hat-tip: Craig Silverman at Regret the Error.)

John F. Kennedy speaks

“[W]hen Americans are sent to Vietnam or West Berlin, we do not ask for whites only. It ought to be possible, therefore, for American students of any color to attend any public institution they select, without having to be backed up by troops.”

I was born in 1961. JFK was in the White House. But I’ve never been caught up in the Kennedy mystique.

Recently, I found a fascinating audio file on the Web. It’s a speech President Kennedy gave on June 11, 1963. He had just federalized the Alabama National Guard and sent those troops to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. So that two black students could enroll.

“We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it. … But are we to say to the world – and, much more importantly, to each other – that this is a land of the free, except for the Negroes? That we have no second-class citizens, except Negroes?”

Does it seem like forever since we had a U.S. president who provided true moral leadership? Who could stir our souls with simple, straightforward language? Who could describe our national crises with clarity?

Then click here and listen to President Kennedy’s 13½-minute address on civil rights. And try to imagine what it felt like to hear these words 44 years ago.

Nicholas Stix explained?

At the risk of boring some of you, I have to say I’m intrigued by Nicholas Stix, the Internet journalist who still… still!… believes “Yacub 7 Ali” and his cult of Negro Sun Worshippers actually exist.

Stix is the only quasi-legitimate writer to have spread the notion that there’s a group of blacks on the Web actually celebrating the vicious rape-murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom in Knoxville.

I may have discovered the reason why.

Blacks used to bully him as a kid.

Before I get into that, let me share some good news. The folks in charge at Blogcritics.org – a grassroots-media website that draws as many as 80,000 unique visitors in a day – removed a few paragraphs from Nick Stix’s May 29 article on the “Knoxville Horror.”

Stix originally wrote: “Some black supremacist activists have… publicly expressed their love for [the accused murderers].” He cited Internet comments posted by “one of the contributors to the black supremacist Web site, Svengali Media, which celebrates all black-on-white racist atrocities, and has cheered the rapes, tortures, and murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom…”

Here, now, is the “editor’s note” attached to Stix’s story:

“Some material in this article which discussed the site Svengali Media has been removed. It was not essential to the main points of the article and functioned as a distraction because of the questionable nature of the site and the material contained on it. …”

I had sent an email to Blogcritics publisher Eric Olsen and his political editors last Tuesday, explaining that Svengali Media is not a genuine black website. It labels itself, on one webpage, “cynical humor, more offensive than amusing.”

As Dave Nalle, a Blogcritics editor, wrote in a blog comment last Tuesday: “My first assumption when I saw the site was that it was a highly developed sarcastic parody of some sort…”

If Svengali Media seemed fishy to Dave Nalle, and seemed fishy to me, and seemed fishy to those on various Internet discussion boards where the hoaxster has trolled (such as this one)… why didn’t it seem fishy to Nicholas Stix?

In response to my email, Stix wrote to Eric Olsen that the Svengali Media site “has the distinct flavor of black supremacism, as I have known it… firsthand since childhood…”

Since childhood? What does that mean?

Nicholas Stix is in his late 40s. He grew up in Long Beach, N.Y. – a largely white town in Nassau County – in the same neighborhood Billy Crystal grew up in. So where did he learn of “black supremacism”? Perhaps the answer can be found in a piece Stix posted on August 22, 2001.

As a prelude to his discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Stix shared a recollection of his youth. A youth during which “almost every day meant a fight.”

Stix doesn’t say that his bullies were black. But now that he has made an issue of his childhood experience with “black supremacism,” we can assume they were.

If only Mr. Stix would write directly of the racial bullying he endured. Maybe we could all learn something from that. (I’m sure he’s not the only one who could tell such stories.)

What Nick Stix should quit doing is believing everything he reads on the intertubes. And spreading made-up horseshit about a “Sexiest & Hardest Ghetto Black Male Felon Bragging Rights competition.”

So here’s what he wrote in 2001:

NICHOLAS STIX: “Arthur, you’re going to have to stop messing with my family,” I said, standing in Arthur Harris’ doorway. Arthur said, “Wait a second,” and went back inside his apartment. On a hunch, I went into in my apartment, a few doors down, and got my friend, “Hank Aaron.” I returned to Arthur’s doorway, where he and his friend, “Jim Bowie,” greeted us.

I didn’t tell Arthur that I was going to kill him if he tried to step across the threshold, but that’s just what I was going to do.

For thirty minutes at dinner time, we stood there. In silence. Arthur and “Jim,” and me and “Hank.”

I’d never seen such a big knife. Choke-a-horse big. And yet, after thirty minutes, Arthur agreed to call off his buddies. I then returned to our apartment, where for the next thirty minutes, every muscle in my body shook uncontrollably.

Now, I’m no Audie Murphy. I’ve always been pretty much of a coward; in combat situations, I’ve had to rely on keeping my wits. Most of the time, I’ve bluffed my way out; since I almost always had to fight much bigger, healthier opponents -- and as the last Jew in my Long Beach neighborhood, almost every day meant a fight -- I developed methods of scuffling and clutching much bigger boys to a draw.

In a poor neighborhood, if you’re a teenage boy with no man or big brother around, it’s incumbent on you to protect your mother. If necessary, you kill for her. Otherwise, your choice is to stay and die, or run and hide. (Not that my mother held that view; she was a good “liberal,” which almost got me killed on many an occasion. She has since been mugged out of the worst of her socialist excesses.)

‘Come On Cavs’

I’m not a big basketball fan. But I happened to be near a TV set when LeBron James carried the Cavaliers to a double-overtime win against the Pistons in Game 5 of the semis. I bowed down to his greatness.

Now I’d love to see the Cavs take it all against the San Antonio Spurs.

My thanks to Pandyora, who turned me on to a funky “fight song” floating around the intertubes from back in 1977, when the Cleveland Cavaliers were contending. It’s called “Come On Cavs.” It was sung by Julien C. Barber, a local jingle singer.

Click here to hear it.

Former Cavalier Austin Carr called this the greatest NBA fight song ever. Uhhh… not to be a hometown partisan or anything, but the funkiest NBA-related jammie of all times has got to be “Game Seven” by D.C.’s mighty mighty Chuck Brown & the Soul Searchers.

If you don’t know, the rallying cry of the Washington Bullets during their 1978 championship run was: “The opera ain’t over till the fat lady sings.” Bullets head coach Dick Motta was famous for this line. Chuck Brown just took it to the rim and stuffed it.

Click here to listen to “Game Seven.” (Chuck doesn’t get to singing till the final minute.)

Arsenio Hall on UBM-TV

Oh Lord, I’m gonna have fun with Blogger’s new “Video Bar.” In the upper right-hand corner of this blog, you’ll be seeing some of my favorite YouTube findings.

Like right now. That’s Eddie Murphy’s 1989 appearance on “The Arsenio Hall Show,” in four parts. Including a surprise guest appearance by Michael Jackson.

Arsenio doesn’t get enough credit for how he funked up late-night television for five solid years. Looking back, we can see that Arsenio’s early-’90s heyday coincided with the “golden age of hip-hop,” and with the “black film boom” (John Singleton, the Hudlin Brothers, the Hughes Brothers), and with the rise of a new generation of black comedians (Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, Eddie Griffin).

There was never a better time to be black in America. And Arsenio Hall was in the thick of it.

It’s wild… I’m only just now getting into YouTube. There are so many tasty pop-cultural artifacts out there, amidst all the homegrown weirdness and random noise. I look forward to wading knee-deep in the stream, pan in hand, to sift for gold.

Which I will then present to you on UBM-TV!

Name this saxophonist, win a prize.

Contest time again. This one’s for the jazz heads.

Simply click here, listen to the audio track, and identify that sax player… if you can. The first person to post the musician’s name in the comments section will win a prize.

That prize is “The Great Black Way: L.A. in the 1940s and the Lost African-American Renaissance.” This 2006 book is by RJ Smith, senior editor of Los Angeles magazine. (And he is a proud reader of UBM).

It’s about the golden age of the Los Angeles jazz scene… Mingus and Ornette, Dexter Gordon and Buddy Collette, Redd Foxx and Slim Gaillard…

So give it a shot, why don’t you?

UPDATE (06/04/07): No winner this time. Yo, I said this was one for the jazz heads.

The reed man is Wolfgang Puschnig, the pride of Vienna, Austria.

I figured somebody might peg the bass player as Jamaaladeen Tacuma and track it down that way. The tune is Ellington’s “Caravan.” It’s from a Tacuma-Puschnig CD titled “Gemini-Gemini.”

I’ll have to give away a copy of RJ Smith’s book next time.

‘The Latino Elvis’

Got an amusing little musical number for you this morning. It’s by El Vez, “the Latino Elvis.” It’s his rockabilly version of “Black Magic Woman.”

He’s got a sense of humor, this guy. A Mexican-American covering a song popularized by another Mexican-American (Santana), but refracted through the prism of Elvis Presley.

It gets weirder, because El Vez recorded a Spanish-language version of this song as well, over the same musical backing, while keeping the Elvis vocal twang. It was an Elvis impersonation en español. I forget where I found that version…

The English version is available for purchase through iTunes and eMusic. Or you can cop El Vez’s greatest-hits CD, “How Great Thou Art.”

Click here to hear El Vez doing “Black Magic Woman.”

And if you want to dig deeper into the man and the myth, El Vez’s website is here.

UPDATE (06/03/07): I’ve got the Spanish version – “Mujer de Magica Negra” – streaming now, for those who’d like to hear it.

This track is downloadable through iTunes, and is available on El Vez’s 1995 Spanish-language CD, “Fun in Español.”