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The Yummy Sound of Earfood
Trumpeter Roy Hargrove has beaten the odds. Hargrove hit the New York City jazz scene in the late ’80s amid of a blaze of hype calling him the new trumpet star. Blazes of hype were somewhat common in the jazz world then, as a succession of young, good-looking musicians seemed to take turns being flavor…
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The Ugly Truth
Thanks to the digging of The Atlantic Monthly’s Joshua Green, we now have a sense of what a Hillary Clinton presidency would have been like. And, Lord knows, it would not have been pretty. The most eye-catching detail to emerge from The Atlantic’s reporting, thus far, is the battle plan devised by Clinton’s chief strategist…
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A Handbook for Haters
Now that the presidential campaign is entering the homestretch and Barack Obama’s formal nomination at the Democratic Party’s national convention is just weeks away, it’s time to issue a primer for those older “black leaders” who still can’t seem to bear Obama’s ascendance. We already have a “Greatest Generation.” We don’t need a Hater Generation—a group so…
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What Camp Obama Has in Common With the Bushies
Allow me to apologize up-front for not drinking the Obama-aid. I like the reed-thin, caramel-colored, left-handed-jump-shot-having senator from Illinois and will probably vote for him, especially given the alternative. But I have had it with the Obama minions who decry any criticism, even policy-based, of him or his campaign. I don’t buy that “anything off-message…
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What is Sarcoidosis?
The news of Bernie Mac’s death has his fans learning a new word—”sarcoidosis”—as they grieve over the comedian whose blunt, earthy humor took him from Chicago’s streets to Hollywood’s boulevards. Sarcoidosis is an inflammatory disease that usually hits the skin, the eyes, lymph nodes and lungs. Mac had been treated for the condition, and it…
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No Time to Play Nice
Why, with the election less than three months away, is Barack Obama still embroiled in negotiations with his supposedly defeated rival for the nomination over how much of the limelight she and her husband will hog at the Democratic National Convention? Sure, John Edwards unwittingly stole the spotlight this weekend, with his forced admission of…
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Man Out of Time
We actually don’t know yet what killed Bernie Mac, born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough in 1957, so it’s hard to say just yet what lessons grieving fans should be reading into the comedian’s demise. (Keep your weight down? Rest? Eat right? Take your statins? None or all of the above?) Mac did suffer from an inflammatory…
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Father Figures
My father grew up without his father. Actually, he’s not entirely sure it was his biological father, but in any case, the man left when my father was 6 years old. Growing up without a father had a devastating effect on his material and emotional well-being, and he constantly tells me about the hardships he…
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Farewell to Black Moses
At my second wedding, I had the piano player play the theme song from Shaft as I walked down the aisle. For my MFA, I wrote my critical thesis on the ’70s film classic. Ernest Tidyman, the white author/screenwriter who created John Shaft (and many more iconic characters), was a cops reporter for Cleveland’s Plain…
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An Ode to Hot Buttered Genius
That the career of Isaac Hayes could be neatly packaged into two generationally specific cultural touchpoints like Shaft and the Comedy Central animated series South Park says volumes about the man’s longevity. But the timeless soundtrack that Hayes produced in support of Gordon Parks’ groundbreaking blaxploitation film, the animated character of Chef (a hammer-like nod…