Ordinarily I’d be writing a “My Vinyl” post about my loved and dearly departed Donna Summer in this space. That will have to wait. I have every album she ever put out, from Casablanca to Geffen and the CDs recently reviewed by me for www.about.com/dancemusic.
That will have to wait because of what is at me personally, currently. What is most important is getting my fiancee`, Inna, over in Ukraine (Kiev) and me together. THAT is the compelling story of my life and times now and we are not ashamed about asking the world for help in bridging the Atlantic Ocean to be together. Once we are together, all will not be apocalypse 2012, so you better watch out! ( :
Meanwhile, please take our fun poll at my website, “What Is your Favorite Donna Summer Song?” <a href="<a href= Thanks to the twelve (12) brave souls who DID PLEDGE their hard-earned money to our Rock The Post project. I uncharacteristically tried to appease too many potential audiences by adding too many variables and it saddens me to sleep at night. Let THAT be a lesson to all of you copycats! I will see to it that you 12 receive your rewards soon as, and if I, do land upon my “cat’s paws”, thereby my luck changing for the Cheetah better. 
Как Инна научил меня писать, “Спасиб”.
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Jimi Bruce’s “Cheetah” Newsletter ~ May 5, 2012
This is my “just for the Blog” Newsletter! I hope this one finds you and yours very well.
This was the week that WAS and ultimately we (I) fell short of the goal. It is amazing that I’ve been encouraged to try again by the project platform’s Managers and other group members on LinkedIN alike. Maybe. It was about the PLEDGE to our “Cheetah Radio Network” CAMPAIGN, but should have remained about just my Ukrainian lovely best woman in my life ever, NInna and me getting together across the ocean and five-thousand miles. Nothing else should I have entered into that project in hindsight. We even had Jason Falls, author of the book “No Bullshit Social Media” http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/social-media-marketing/introducing-no-bullshit-social-media/ agreeing to offer signed copies of his book for rewards at our “Social Media” package level! and my mentor and former employer, “BoomerZed” agreeing to do the artwork on the “Cheetah Radio” T-shirts reward you receive with a $10 donation! Here is his crowdfunding site! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1888748488/apocalypse-world-tour-tee-shirts ~ Our latest partner, Nashville, TN musician & song composer, Steve Rupe will write a special song just for people to donate $25 or more to our project.
It CAME DOWN TO THIS: I had to MOVE, find new revenue streams, proceed with the launch of my Social Media Consultancy, find a NEW LOCATION for our “Cheetah Radio Network” business start-up because the property upon which my rental house of the past ELEVEN years it being taken from under me because the Landlord (Stansell Electric aka “The 4-J LP”) RENEGED on their proposal of November 2011 to sell it to “someone” when the “someone” became ME in late April, 2012.
Like the racial discrimination of the 1960s, and we know the history of that stuff here in the southern USA. I Went to court about it on Friday, May 4, 2012. Their lawyer coerced me not to go in front of the JUDGE. I think that I got rooked a bit. They refused to give a reason why they would not sell to me, who had already “qualified” to buy at their stated price AND get some arrears.
THIS IS WHY our Rock The Post campaign was launched back IN MARCH! To AVOID this! As the FCC has recently embraced the idea of LPFMs (low power fm radio signals for the community. I am applying for one of these licenses to augment my desire for an internet radio station that will use my long-time broadcasting experience in-addition to my English Tutoring and the fact the my fiancee brings Russian language skills to the table. I envision a rare bi-lingual voice-over school, with opportunities for those curious about the world of DJing to learn and for positive messages to be heard inter-culturally. My lady also plays piano and that provides another learning and performance opportunity; we will also provide brokered programming.
My only regret is that Inna is not here with me yet (still the visa issue in Ukraine) and I HAVE TO GO THROUGH THIS ALONE, stuck in Nashville far from any shore.
Please watch our latest video update #9
href=”http://www.rockthepost.com/posts/view/176/Partner-With-A-Baby-Boomer” target=”_blank”>http://www.rockthepost.com/posts/view/176/Partner-With-A-Baby-Boomer
Partner as a co-owner, Associate Producer or sponsor to our vision and plan for self-sufficiency. No more being at the whim of a mercurial employer just “firing” you or changing the rules, mid-stream as has happened to so many of us “Baby Boomers”! I also announce the formation of my Social Media Marketing Consultancy under my “IMIJ Produckshunz” banner! website http://imijproduckshunz.weebly.com/
Featured in Switzerland’s “The Money Paper” on April 30, 2012!
http://paper.li/DarrenTMH
Featured in “Health News”! http://www.yourheartofillinois.com/2012/03/rock-post.html
We feel that the “Cheetah Educational Internet/Low-power FM Radio school/station Concept” is one way out of and a prototype for not becoming “the new poor” in America, as so many of us who were raised “middle-class” currently are at risk of becoming!
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/imijcheetah; Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jimib.pajamabar and connect via LinkedIN LinkedIN www.linkedin.com/in/imijproduckshunz
In the spirit of Communication and “Each one Help One” Take GOOD care.
Jimi”Cheetah” Bruce, Inna, families and teammates
Thanks a BUNCH for reading, feel free to Comment below.
Like this:
Nightly I leave a piece of paper and a pen upon the headboard of my bed so that I can jot-down thoughts and ideas that come to me during the night as I try to sleep. So I can jot dream scenarios before they disappear into the vault of my subconscious. Often my brain does not let me sleep soundly, what with the ever-present money worries of these times.
When I awake, I hardly am able to read these scribblings from the dark. Ideas that I’ll forget in the morning, or whenever I awaken if I do not write them down; scary episodes, often with people that I know but who I know do not know each-other! Like the time that I felt something trying to surround and envelope me just as I was falling asleep in my darkened room and bed. As it squeezed me silently, I almost could not wake up and free myself from whatever presence that was! 
I struggled physically to open my eyes and turn over a from my right side under the covers, to my left – and then “it” was gone! As I lay there, still and scanning the darkness in the aftermath, pondering what just happened and what “it” was that I really felt grabbing me in a strong constricting attempt. After briefly turning on the headboard light, I drifted to sleep for the night, thinking that maybe it was death itself that just tried to take me.
During ensuing days, I contemplated “the presence”, but have not felt its return to try and capture me – yet. Recently I’ve been, at the owner’s request last November, trying to shop this house I have rented for the past ten years, and researched that it was built in 1950. Therefore, there could be any number of “spirits” trying to return to their original haunts from time-to-time… Then an acquaintance who’d snagged his drawers by talking racist shit on Christmas Eve 2011 and who I had not heard from since, shows-up on my doorstep – without calling first which is my #1 RULE – like the Grim Reaper’s bad penny and furthered my waking pain.
The Girdler’s spirit of my father wants to handcuff him while I prepare the masonry to encase him in the wall for violating our space. We keep it in there.
That is how it happened! Sleep is a premium at any day or night these days as we toil to solve our monetary shortcomings. I tell my brain, “Quiet Your Mind!“, listen to an old cassette tape of my radio show, and most times, off to another dream-scape I go. What about YOUR dreams? Not your desires and goals, but when your subconscious takes over as you lay you down to sleep?
[March, 8, 2012 is when I began this post. I apologize that it took so long to complete, as such is everything a brain can manage and so full of nothing fun as my life is early this year - JB]
Now!…
I know…we all have to “go” at some point, but what saddened me about this particular musical talent’s separation was to learn that the lead singer of one of the most baddass-male-singing disco/r&b group of the 1970s and ’80s, The Trammps’, Jimmy Ellis (above in the picture at the far left) passed away at 74 years old on March 8, 2012…in a nursing home! My first thought was , “Oh My Godd, why was this guy, whose music hits must have sold millions, apparently broke like Joe Louis, the boxer, at the end of his life and in a nursing home?” Surely the other members of The Trammps knew of his decline and could have helped him!? Were/are they, like so many of us who pretend to be “friends until the end”, in truth are only “crabs in the barrel”? 
Analysis of My Vinyls’ collection of The Trammps from the stacks (“my children”):
The Trammps: Earl Young, Harold Wade, Stanley Wade, Robert Upchurch and Jimmy Ellis became a Hall of Fame disco group from a slightly mundane R&B/Soul situation. I first remember them as warming-up for the likes of James Brown when I first started hanging-out in Manhattan, NYC clubs like the Cheetah – not saying exactly that I saw them there, but maybe I DID and that is the kind of act The Trammps were – until they covered the old Judy Garland, “Zing Went The Strings of My Heart”. Even then when I heard it, the song was kind of hazy and in the background except for the guy with what became one of their trademarks, that deep bass (“timbre” as Inna writes to me) voice. 
Even when I heard of Mr. Ellis’ passing, I visualized the Trammps as just the original five guys. It wasn’t until I pulled all of my vinyls by them that I realized that around 1975, the group’s number doubled! Suddenly they became an aggregation known as the Trammps! lol The musicians like the late Ron (Have Mercy) Kersey became as integral to the sound as the basic vocalists! Some of that metamorphosis had to do with the record label politics of the day as they graduated from Buddah to their own “Golden Fleece” before being bought by Atlantic Records, who would profit the most from their brief in the larger scheme of musical vinyl and otherwise things. My early favorite Trammps jams were “Love Epidemic” and “Where Do We Go From Here” with ________ and his deep bass voice!
The Trammps arrangements embodied the epitome of the discotheque club experience while ignoring the “disco is dead” proclamations by the jealous of black music success’ haters of the day. I lived in Manhattan clubs like “Othello”, “Justine” , The Raspberry Freeze” and so many others back then and it was such a natural musical appreciation for our group as we were recent college grads out on the scene. 
When “Where Happy People Go” came out, I had one of the first two copies from my contact, Gunter Hauer, at Atlantic Records so I could double-mix them, back-to-back and over-and-over on the set! it really never dawned upon me that the group’s numbers multiplied. Either I thought, “Gee there’s a lot of dudes on this album cover this time – must be trick photography” lol or that the extra cats had always been there, but now they let them shine on the cover!
“Where Happy People Go” took them to another level; six of the seven cuts were such smashes, that to this day it is difficult for me to choose a favorite! The seventh, “Love Is A Funky Thing”, is one of their trademark instrumentals that they’d include on various albums! “Tom’s Song” from the “Zing” album comes to mind as another of those.
I remember that I mixed “Can We Come Together” over-and-over again as did radio at the time (Johnny Allen, WKTU FM) and I love “Disco Party (Dance, People Dance!)”. “Hooked For Life” s among my special DJ 12″ pressing collection and a very special song with a lover’s message; ‘Ninety-Nine And A Half” was the late Wilson Pickett’s original funky soul hit redone so you’d almost not know it unless you knew that and the title track “hooked” your ears from the first five very recognizable-to-this-day (after this lavish and classical piano interlude) brass and guitar notes! “Bold” and male is what The Trammps basic sound was; “party” still IS what you want to do and dance too when you listen to this album! 
Ellis, ‘you know I’m a Scorpio!’, always as much the party’s cheerleader as the lead singer. He is one of those singers who owns a unique scream like, “Oww!”, used to punctuate the lyrics and introduce the bridge. I used to love to “phase” these tracks as a DJ. ["phase" is when we would play two vinyls simultaneously in the same groove and try, with pitch control, to keep them in the same pocket even while they naturally tried to separate sonically, thus creating a growing "out-of-phase" effect] There were a lot of tricks we DJs could perform on the table with records like these that you simply cannot do today digitally.
So now, come to write about it, maybe it is not so surprising that Jimmy ended-up in the nursing home when, now that I look, they were just a “’70s group” who made their hay while the disco sun shined, and because of unknown or factors my space does not allow me to research, never progressed beyond that decade. They had two major hit albums release in 1976!
By the time the “Disco Inferno” dropped (came out), their sound was even more polished by the Atlantic Records studio machine. This album and the title track were destined for stardom, it seemed. I can only say that I did not know, nor did many that “Disco Inferno” would blow-up like it did, even though, we in the New York City dance and disco community (Dow Twins) at the time knew it was a “baad” album! “Burn Baby Burn, Disco Inferno” became the refrain of mass audience partyers once the soundtrack of the movie “Saturday Night Fever” adopted it. Prior to that, it was just another anonymous soul/disco cut on major market city radio stations of the USA! I bet that you didn’t KNOW that! Right? The first time that my late radio mentor, Sonny Taylor, played the chorus refrain and hook of “I Feel Like I’ve Been livin’ (On The Dark Side Of The Moon), I thought it was The Spinners singing, that is how versatile The Trammps’ sound was by then. ! 
Well, “saaatisfacion, came on a chain-reaction…” into my next two vinyls. Both in the year 1977, and typical of the record label competition of the day and sadly to say, I bet the GROUP, THE TRAMMPS, received NONE of the spoils from these two albums: “The Trammps III” which features my favorite mellow jam bay them, “Season For Girls” and the mid-tempo, “Living The Life (Of A Single Man)” a real-deal flava cut for the men in the room. 
I STILL play “Season For Girls” like a ritual every September. 
AND THEN, finally and with an “encore!” request, my last vinyl is the Philadelphia International Records final attempt to make money off of the group with the 1977 release of “Disco Champs” 
The Tramps remain as a staple of R&B, Soul, and Disco history. Anybody who chumps the Trammps needs to have their head examined. 
And I am grateful that I have been able to put on their tracks via vinyl “wax”, relive the “magic” of the Disco Days while assembling and composing this post for you. What are your favorite “disco” day memories? Do you remember The Trammps? One thing that set them apart was their Chorus arrangements!
Inna, here is a relevant lyric for us by The Trammps, “Each Night I go to sleep, with nothing but your memories. Sweet thoughts come into view, all I see is your sweet body…”
Sonny Taylor, pounded that song into my mind at the time. I HAD to play it when I came over to his house! lol
And my OWN FAVORITE is this one:
Now, notice please, I did NOT include “Saturday Night Fever” herein. There is a REASON for that. I would have loved to have just attended The Trammps rehearsals! Can you imagine being in the presence of a lead singer who could unleash that voice and carry such a group at-will? Please tell me YOUR favorite Trammps song or Disco memory while dancing to their music!
“Ship Ahoy!”
My nose itches and annoys.
How sad, “or what” is it?
To have found through,
Modern media means and then to;
Bond with that one special person,
Only to possibly never -
Because of economics,
Ever acquire the means;
To repay her graciousness!
Which she surely could have ignored
And sealed the deal forever more.
I would like to “seal her deal”!
She has my eternal love,
Blessed mutual countenance stay true!
This first spring month of time,
Two years ago;
I’d never heard of her.
Was lost in despair,
Heading for suicidal.
Now I save to marry bridal
What?, You say?
My inspirational flesh will come back;
Like money wherever we dun it from!
Some say “claim her in Jesus’ name!”
No, We carry religion in our hearts,
Just the same.
Now late at night,
After I douse the bed light;
Searching the darkness in my lonely room
Praying, meditating, channeling the formula that,
Will take me fastidiously to her!
Only to fall asleep;
Hours later awakening for work;
With an “Ah-Choo!!”
Watery and dripping eyes;
This time not from my cries.
It is yucky this yellow dust,
And again I feel all the bluer.
My latest and on-going self-help-with-YOUR-help Project is described as ‘inspirational” most often thus far. THAT itself is flattering, humbling and reassuring. It “inspired” this article, which first appeared on the blog of the platform, “Rock The Post” and they’ve granted me permission to re-post it here on “Achilliad”. In my life, I’ve seemed to always have been the one who would take the leap first when others in my group were hesitant for whatever reason. This is a “Guest Post”.
In case you have never heard the word crowdfounding/crowdsourcing before I will briefly provide a little context. It is a collective cooperation of people who decide to pool their money and other resources together to support efforts on other people’s projects.
Now that that is out of the way, do you know someone that is buried under a pile of bills? Could this someone possibly be you? Were you ever dealt a bad hand and are now suffering the aftermath effects? Dying to start or finish on a new project but lack proper funds? If you answered yes to any of these questions, crowdfunding just might be your solution.
Take Jimi Bruce for example. Jimi, is a veteran DJ radio personality who unfortunately lost everything after corporate restructuring. After an extended period of unemployment that spanned for almost 2 years, he accumulated many expenses and took a loan that made his finances take a turn for the worst. The loan had a 27% interest, which he was unaware of at the time of obtaining it and due to that bad decision and lack of income for 2 years, he found himself in over his head and in need of help.
Twenty months back, Jimi met THE love of his life, Ina a woman from the Ukraine, but she was forced to leave the US because of visa issues. Ever since then, Jimi has wracked his brain to find a way over there to meet her family and bring her back to the States. Having to re-invent himself as a middle aged man, Jimi had to learn new skills like how to use the internet and has successfully taken the first steps of getting back on track by landing a Social Media Coordinator job for a weekly Nashville newspaper. Unfortunately the salary doesn’t pay the rent, but it is better than nothing.
Currently Jimi’s love, Inna, resides in Eastern Europe, which really complicates their relationship.
He has been trying to get a loan since January 4, 2012 and has good credit score in the mid-600s, but from his point of view living in Tennessee hampers him from getting approved.
As a last resort and alternative option, Jimi turned to fundraising on Rock The Post so he can purchase a ticket to go see Inna and repay his loan in order to start a new chapter. As he explains on his post, once he raises the funds he will be marrying Inna, and they will be helping other people and couples who have struggled through similar situations reach their dreams.
His Fiancee Inna even used all of her savings to help Jimi get his first U.S. passport. As Jimi cites “As a man, I MUST pay her back .”
The money that Jimi will be raising will be used to:
Pay-off $1.900 loan;
Collect his soul/teammate Inna from Kiev;
Close on a house for him and Inna;
Relocate with a new job offer so they can build their life together in SF or near NYC;
Build/install Jimi’s i-net radio/voice-over/penmanship & phonics education business.
Jimi Bruce is a good example of how the magic of crowdfunding works. At the moment he has raised USD$ 218 from the USD$ 7,000 he is seeking. However, crowdfunding can not only be applied to causes, but also to businesses and individuals that would like to partner up from a money or resource perspective. Rock The Post is a good example of how the community comes together in order to make a dream become a reality.
***Rock The Post www.rockthepost.com is powered as a business social network site, serving as a bridge between entrepreneurs and/or talented parties and funding parties in order to take simple projects to the next level. We are a communication platform for business partnerships to form, and to become a place where projects, dreams, and passions become reality.
Comments
by sherman sterling ,founder on February 24, 2012 at 11:38 pm
I do thank you for the crowdfunding link up
Reply
by Kiarie nyanjau on February 25, 2012 at 03:20 am
This cool Guys.
Reply
by Peter Rouse on February 25, 2012 at 08:38 am
Crowdfunding and Crowdlending are undoubtedly of huge potential benefit to individuals and micro businesses. Banks are not interested in such ‘business’. Equity based crowdfunding is in place in the UK (www.crowdcube.com) and will hopefully be so in the US before long. Crowdlending is also in place (www.zopa.co.uk for example) in the UK. There are new banking entrants as well such as www.civilisedmoney.com. We need a new and better way of doing capitalism and crowdfunding/lending is one way we can achieve this.
Reply
by Jimi Bruce on February 25, 2012 at 03:27 pm
I am blown-away with gratitude after reading this true and informative write-up over my afternoon tea. Thank You, Rock The Post! спасибо!
Reply
by Sarah Barton-King on February 25, 2012 at 04:12 pm
Bravo….at last. This is exactly what we require to move our small (and I mean small) businesses forward. Banks refuse to even allow a ‘bridging loan’ to enable one to literally move step by step up the ladder to success. I hope we can make this happen here, and who knows, with small amounts, we can each help the other in the bracket to move onwards and upwards. I do hope that if we do go this route, we all remember to reward our ‘friends’ for the help they are going to give to us. Sarah xxxxx
Reply
by Jason Scott on February 26, 2012 at 09:54 am
Thanks for the post. We are also looking into crowd funding for potential link ups from later to be successful businesses, musicians, and inventors. We have been making donations to Kiva.org, but they are straight donations for Karma.
Reply
by Jim Thomas on February 26, 2012 at 04:42 pm
I’m all for altruism and helping folks out but calling an electronic way to pass the hat “crowd-funding” is a news-seeking gimmick that just clouds the waters. It’s not “funding”–it’s donating. Yes, there is a world of potential in common folk doing what banks and traditional lenders won’t do, but there’s a difference between a model of capitalism and a model of charity. This story is one of the latter and thus, the latest in sensationalist ways to mischaracterize and misinterpret the power of emerging technology.
Reply
Jimi Bruce
by Jimi Bruce on February 27, 2012 at 05:06 pm
Hello, Mr. Thomas: I cannot sit idly by and let you rain upon my/our social funding/crowdfunding/crowdsourcing parade via semantics. One of the reasons that a man like me with youthful middle age, my health (so far thank the Creator) and a variety of useful experience gets marginalized to the edge of the abyss of indigence is that needless nit-picking and small-mindedness has gained in popularity for whatever reason, instead of us celebrating our commonalities. Look and see what other labels your words “donating ” and “charity” are in common with here: generosity, gift Synonyms: alms, alms-giving, assistance, benefaction, beneficence, contribution, dole, donation, endowment, fund, gifting, hand*, hand-out, helping hand, largesse, oblation, offering, philanthropy, relief, write-off . They are all what we all need in our lives: HELP.
Like this:
Too Much Cloth (“To Part Two”)
Too Much time to think about her now;
Too many memories to surmise the unknown.
Too stupid to end it all, No!
Too dumb to think I will not do so.
To call her out for being
Too impatient and untrue too!
To see the power of loyalty is at the,
TOOth of and the key unTO unlocking for;
Two people could try to be unholy unforgivably…
Two hearts too stubborn and strongly unwilling;
To not stay separate across the grey-blue foaming sea.
To suddenly say, “The man who will be is necessary to me cares of me.”
To be clueless to whom you are writing TO;
Too “disappointed” to realize time on earth is too short,
To not realize I only had the “freedom” for 182 DAYS!
To know now she may be too materialistic;
To see me who, due to past experience knew:
To have no money is,
To get no honey;
To insert inTO her impatient dowry unless she,
Too has a needed “loo-bloo” epiphany -
To ME; “me too!!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like this:
Somewhere, a photographer or record company photo portfolio has a picture of [the now late] Whitney Houston, Clive Davis, actor James Woods and me from the night I fell out of “crush” with a songstress. 
In December of 1991, I was the Attendance Teacher (spelled “truant officer”) for the Special Ed kids at a high school just north of New York City, who still had his heart set on being back on the radio as a DJ as I had been for the past fifteen years at that juncture. All of my co-teachers and supervisors knew this about me, and it is probably why I they let me leave work early that afternoon so I could go home, shower, prep and get clean for the Whitney Houston album release party that one of my record promotion friends of the day, Ashleigh Sanford, of Arista Records, invited me to.
Her recent tragically and apparently un-timed/un-planned death reminded me that I had not included this episode of my “famous” life in the memoir book I published last year. So now you know there will be a “part two” as long as I stay alive to write it.
Ya want the “juicy” stuff: That night, I arrived solo at Tatou restaurant by day and nightclub by night back then, which my memory tells me is on East 50th near Park or Madison Avenues in Manhattan (my favorite rock in the world so far) New York City.
That night the lamb roast dinner I slurped was exquisite! I met pro footballers Lawrence Taylor of the New York Giants, Randall Cunningham of the Philadelphia Eagles (who the tabloids had as just having broken-up with Whitney), Ms. “Downtown” Julie Brown who was hosting a late-night music countdown show or something like that at the time, and other celebs like Samuel L Jackson. [Yes I have to 'name-drop' so you know I am not bullspittin!lol
ok?]
After dinner, we migrated upstairs in Tatou, which is a haunt that I used to love to sneak into upon the freebie of my radio station, friend, record company promotion person (as in this night) or just my stone-cold reputation as “Lenny” Bruce. (Yes the door-people thought I was a dead guy). The party experience is intimate there and the “VIP” area accessible for me, an experienced “on-location” reporter. I just knew that I was going to get Ms. Houston to speak with me into my “on-location” voice recorder as I had previous celebs like Freddie Hubbard, Grace Jones and (almost) Chaka Khan and others on this night. After all, that is why my supervisors at the High School gave me the afternoon off!
So suddenly I find myself within the body language of Whitney Houston, who I had to now suddenly summon-up all of the DJ/radio personality bravado I could muster in-order to be able to talk to her like an unruffled professional. This is where my basic boyhood shyness usually reappears, but somehow, maybe because I had on my best double-breasted blue pin-striped suit and felt in the same “club” as all the aforementioned superstars, I was able to step to her, relaxed and confident.
So here is what happened next, in the sequence that I can recall it now, twenty-one years later (but like “yesterday”).
After mingling and working the room as I always did at Tatou,, upstairs and downstairs, I spot Mr. Davis and sashay towards then; Whitney is emerging from the draped, curtained-off VIP towards us. I try to act non-nonchalant like I did not notice her…I get a beverage handed to me by someone of the many I knew at the party…I am introduced to Mr. Woods as Whitney is lingering with Mr. Davis off in my peripheral vision until a photographer suddenly appears and urges us to scrunch together so he can get a shot. We do; he does and then the DJ introduces the strains of Anita Ward’s classic disco hit, “Ring My Bell” to the din. At which point I am talking to Mr. Woods, who walks away and just as magically as I look back to my right, Whitney Houston is like shimmying and looking at me. “C’mon Jimi!” is what I remember what she said sounding like and the next thing I know, I am dancing like I always knew it was going to work-out this way with the “somebody” who sang “With Somebody Who Loves Me!” to Anita Ward music. “How Surreal is this?!”, I thought!
Then just as abruptly as we cavorted Terpsichore, Whitney bounced away from me and when I turned back from one of my famous “spin moves” she was off, mingling back among her adoring fans near the bar.
From that moment, what I noticed that night as I futilely tried to stay within her orbit, were two things that I’ve carried away ever since: Whitney preferred the Hip Hop guys to an “Arsinio hall-style clean” brother like me and that her lexicon was surprisingly impious. Having met her prim and proper Mum, Cissy Houston, one evening at Sweetwaters on Amsterdam Avenue a few years prior, Whitney’s potty mouth surprised me and turned me off, turning my pedestal-infatuation into that of a spectator which must have lasted until last Saturday evening when, at the tale-end of a computer tutor session with my neighbor, we saw the headline on Yahoo. I “didn’t believe it” like many have professed, yet at the same time, I was not surprised.
I guess I will have to write a “part two” or “b-side” to my memoir book. What is your favorite Whitney Houston song or memory?
That night some of us went “along for the ride”; after dancing with and observing her that night, I got off of the ride.
Thank you! Спасибо! for reading.
[This post, I had to let marinate for about a week because of the subtle-but-knowing/understanding shock of Mr. Cornelius' move and because the subject is so haunting]
So…I am not so crazy as those American Generation Xers, who would have every person who’d ever had a depressing thought subjected to some stranger “analyzing” them into true lunacy, eh?!
OR ~ I am just as crazy as most other under-appreciated, under-funded, underemployed Black American men are…
OR ~ The option is always open for some Don Cornelius-style self-deliverance from the “Sooooul Train” of the physical world!
My honesty, which comes from almost six decades on earth, plays to what I think people need to hear upon the news of the suicidal end to the life of the Father of the U.S.A. TV show, “Soul Train”, Don Cornelius, on the second day of February 2012. The first great “loss and tragic death” of this new year in entertainment.
“Soul Train” was the black answer to Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand” during that time in American television history. It caught-up with me when I was in college during the mid-1970s, and not a ‘sleep-in Saturday’ went by that my dormitory roommate and I didn’t wake up, turn it on, get back in our separate bunk beds bed to watch it, and maybe learn or validate some of the latest party fashions and dance-floor steps!
But back to suicide and Black American men for a moment. I recently read from the Chicago Tribune http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-02-05/news/ct-oped-0205-page-20120205_1_highest-suicide-rates-hispanic-women-native-american-men, to the Root to Psychology Today http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mood-swings/201008/revolutionary-suicide, where the prevailing noting has been that “Black American men do not commit suicide, or it is a ‘taboo’ or diluted because of that ‘Mandingoness’ amongst us”. Nothing could be more ridiculous! That tells me that this is yet another mis-characterization and perpetuation of the stereotype Black American that those white Americans who were/are uncomfortable with people who look different than they do propagandizes. It goes along with “those ole Negro fairy-tales from slavery days” that we are somehow, because of that subjugation, less-likely to want to end it all? That is illogical and means subtly that “those people” are less than human, in-reality than those who would assume such assassinity. Don’t believe the hype, world! To do so says that Black Americans do not have the same ups and downs, peaks and valleys that the rest of mankind does! I am writing this to put to bed, once and-for ALL-times, this bullshit! To dispel the myth! What does this chart tell you about it?
I can testify…and I “ain’t proud to” admit that I’ve considered self-deliverance several times. Most recently when I wan unemployed for an ungodly long time with life-experience that nobody wanted to pay me for as I continued to grow older, day-by-day! I’ve thought about it a couple of days before I wrote this post because, in a moment of panic, I thought I’d never hear from my suddenly mostly-silent fiancee`, Nina again!! “And so…?” as my Ukrainian [it] would say. Don and I have the same “good eye” for Slavic women, I see! ;-*)
When you are faced with eviction, food banks, injury and denial of benefits; having to ask for Welfare or any kind of social safety net public assistance after having gone to the University, and lived the “right way”, hailing from a “good and stable family” with two parents married for over fifty years and never getting into criminal trouble, often the edge of the abyss is the invitation to ending it all by ones own hand.
I most-often have felt suicidal due to the callousness of a lying romantic interest who got my heart “open”, just to break it. “Damn, some women!” :-j
It may sound silly but, I bet something similar that pushes your suicide button would sound similarly to me! To each their own poison (“oops!”) and I guess I’m at small risk to ever actually “do it” because, as I’m sure a few who are really close to me know, I’ve mentioned it as an option open to me from time-to-time during tough-and-lonely/depressing/unfulfilled times; the odds pundits of human behavior say, “Yee who talk about it will not really DO it”. http://tabangsendong.xu.edu.ph/index.php/the-news/185-indicators-of-suicide-risk, but my deep-seeded optimism that I will be comfortably rich soon always carries the day. When that happens, you won’t be able to get me outta here with a crowbar!
It must be that forlorn, walled-in Black Cat, beating-under-the-hard-wooden floorboards, Telltale Heart “Edgar Allen Poe” in me.
I dare you to now admit your suicidal thoughts, whatever your exterior skin color is, in our ‘comments’ section below! As the really old radio show used to say, “The SHADOW knows“…look in the mirror!
Like this:
So here we are getting used to our early [2012] two-thousand-and-twelve status; remembering the greats we lost in the double-oh-eleven ['011], when the news arrives that Jimmy Castor had aged to the number seventy-one [71], and passed away on Monday, January 13, 2012 which was, coincidentally, Martin Luther King Day, 2012. I think Jimmy would like that synergy! This post could be sub-titled, “The First Times” and here we go: the first album with the Jimmy Castor Bunch on it was, very coincidentally entitled, “Keep The Dream Alive” [RCA], a 1973 tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr! Oh wow! I always say that ‘timing is everything in life’, and at the time of that recording, the wound of King’s assassination was still very fresh and so in my mind’s eye, you can understand that Castor passing away on the day he did has some strange magic surround it. 
Also on that album is the only rendition I have of Castor’s prowess on the saxophone portraying the best instrumental version ever of the Ewan MacColl composition and Roberta Flack super hit, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”. The effort and feeling that he put forth, in such moving, classic, partially frenetic and grand style! It was a sexy and thoughtful sax interpretation was THAT powerful and yet so graceful simultaneously.
But wait a minute! The first time I heard Jimmy Castor was on a funny NewYorican soul jam played on New York City radio (and probably not many other markets in the USA) called “Hey Leroy!” Do you remember that side?
“Hey Leroy, Your Mama, she’s calling you man! HaHahahaahahaaa” and then the Latin beat kicked-in? Remember that? At first I thought that song was by somebody like Joe Cuba or Joe Bataan! It played often on New York City’s AM super-soul radio station, WWRL, and definitely made it to the top ten, if not number one briefly. [Correct me in the comments section if I am wrong, ok?]
The next of my vinyl Jimmy Castor Bunch introduced the “Troglodyte (Cave Man)” concept on 1972′s “It’s Just Begun”. The Lp begins very dramatically with a movie score type theme, “Creation (Prologue)” before breaking into serious jammin’ funk that I remember mixing into as a DJ at parties! Jimmy Castor was a very unabashedly imaginative and creative musician who would portray on-stage what some others might only do in studio production, and make it sound the same or better! This was on-display for the first time with his almost cartoon character “Cave Man” that never detracted from the groove.
He carried that theme into his next of my vinyl albums by the Jimmy Castor Bunch, 1974′s “Butt Of Course…” which debuted the next in his comic superhero creations, “The Everything Man”. Again the vivid imagination put-to-music, this was the his first time on Atlantic Records vinyl. As I play it again now for the first time as I write this I remember like yesterday’s memories flooding back the best dance cut on this album, “Potential”, or as we used to kiddingly pronounce it back then, “P’Tencha!” LOL He also did a nice instrumental version of Elton John’s “Daniel” followed by the smooth “Party Now”. This was the first of his albums to come complete with a storyboard comic strip on the back cover!
Next in my Castor collection is 1975′s “Supersound” which continued on Jimmy’s imagining himself as a superhero series. “The Everything Man” (no he didn’t have an ‘ego’ did he?) returned as “super musician/super performer” via self-described “molecular changes”. My favorite cut on this one is “A Groove Will Make You Move”, which had the same beat and mixed well with the previous album’s “Potential”. 
In 1976, The JCB was “E-Man Groovin’” on the last vinyl LP that I own and continued with Atlantic. He’d kept the “bunch” together for another project, this time without the comic strip, but still with the imagination as he tried to delve into the supernatural realm of horror with his concept of “Dracula” parts I and II. They bombed; maybe he should have collaborated with William Marshall and Vonetta McGee of “Blackula” fame; it was the first time jimmy’s gimmick game showed lame. This album did manage another top-twenty on the Black music charts however, with the jointsky, “Space Age”! This floor-filler featured a solid beat by Ellwood Henderson and far-out synthesizer proton lasers by Gerry Thomas.
The last of my Jimmy Castor vinyls is a nice disco 12-inch single called “Party People” which is complete with female chorus vocals, a string-like orchestral feel and beat break as he would compete for the dance floor dollars up-for-grabs back at the height of that music era in 1979. 
I do not remember ever meeting Mr. Castor in-person, or emceeing a show he was a part of back during my radio personality days. I could be that it got lost in the purple haze within my brain through the years. I’m sure that I didn’t miss him by much at any of those shows and that he would have been another one of the “fellas” had we ever made such acquaintance. There is some discrepancy as to just what his real age was at the time of his death; some articles had him as young as sixty-four; which I think is a fitting mystery climax for this talent who would enjoy the fantasy crusader speculation. Why not add to the conundrum with a comment?
