My Phyllis Hyman Remembrance

On Meeting Super Singer Phyllis Hyman

I’d watched her perform on grand stages like the legendary Beacon Theater, on Broadway in Manhattan and introduced her to audiences.

Phyllis Hyman, a celebrity singer who sought me out and introduced herself to me during my “Welcome to WBLS FM” coming-out party at club 70West in 1984. you may remember her biggest hit, “You Know How To Love Me” ?  Check out the video below!

I will never forget the time this late Superstar singer, Phyllis Hyman, found me during a moment of quiet reflection, contemplation and stage announcing prep, sitting aside from the main stage on a smaller, raised carpeted area. I was looking down – we didn’t have cell phones back then – when suddenly I spied this large palm of a female hand offering itself towards me, in front of my face. 

I raise my gaze to see a broad-shouldered woman, adorned in a purple and black cape, Khufu-like hat in front of me. I must have looked aghast as she said, in a semi-deep female melodious voice, “Hi… I’m Phyllis…” I was going to myself, “Oh shit! That’s Phyllys Hyman herself!, while trying to play it cool. Yes, I was a little slow back then in retrospect.

Oh my gosh, now so many decades later, I am so sorry I failed to realize her admiration towards me vibe! I never knew, until many years later, how much she liked me!

My girl. So sorry I did not understand your admiration for me.

So, it all came to a head to a point that she, by surprise, cursed me out about it one evening when we ran into each-other at the legendary “Possible 20” bar and restaurant on West 55^th Street, in midtown Manhattan, New York City, where all who where anybody in the 1980s came to wind-down after their entertainment, music, and media gigs, who used to congregate. I did not think that a woman of her physical stature and voluptuousness, would ever be attracted to a slim guy like “Jimi B”.

Not sure WHY this came to me here in 2023. maybe it the doldrums of between Social Security checks poverty.  Why she revealed and talked to me again, except for my senior social insecurity, aging and wanting to share my legacy, creative poverty and mutual unfulfilled love; but knew I had to post this with sentimental love, going with the current flow of chronicling, educating my DJ years, those who I was privileged to meet and/or introduce and entertaining you who found this post because,  in my humble opinion (and that of some psychologists) the mode of music melds mental metal.

Thee I’m missing; we could be kissing.

The Return of the Website 2023

Short and simple:

To put it short and simply, my website was “AWOL” since I can’t remember!  It was at least the past year or so, if not more!  However, in the true “scouting tradition” I didn’t totally give up, nor let it bum me out – I just ignored those feelings – until the time came for me to dig, sniff and experiment around with the original platform once again, and lo and behold…”Viola!”  It was still hiding there, partially due to something called “Square” which apparently merged with Weebly – my original site platform  in 2007 – sometime this decade, as a monetization vehicle for “selling”.  Not sure what kind of selling, although the images are of pottery and ceramics and household stuff.  Hmmmm…

As my site and life is predominantly centered around music, media and wordcasting, the Square model did not fit – and that’s okay!  They who do other things do not traverse my online world, we do not counter-judge one another and we still exist harmoniously, and that, as the late Teena Marie sang back in 1981, is “square biz”!

Not to belabor the point, because soon I have some other current common nonsensical events to blogplain about, I’ll just ask that when you have some free time, you to check out the (slightly) new look of I.M.I.J Produckshunz (pronounced “image productions”), 2023 two-point-OH! http://www.imijproduckshunz.com/

The home of Cheetah Media & Freelance Services (CMFS).  We are here for your needs, if our lifetime expertise allows.

Many Thanks, Be Well and best wishes in all you (legally and ethically) Do.   ~ Cheetah NJB

Fountain Pen Bleau

As a #writer, I am a “pen guy”. I have to hurriedly extract myself from Office Depot/Max and the like, lest I blow my budget on writing implements, like a variety of assorted colored ink pens. I have to remind myself to break the notion to stare and try, on the little sample pad, the assortment of colored stylographs.

So it is with particular trepidation that I, during my continual “#2023 winter of decluttering” came across an envelope, obviously owned by a late relative, inside of which was this peculiar “Sheaffer’s” pen, which turned-out to be a fountain pen!

Yes! And with enough ink still inside for who-knows-how-long and which I could immediately write with! OMGosh, where is my broncho inhaler! lol

I therefore had to research deeper, to make sure that my fascination with this ancient reservoir pen scribe tool wasn’t an act of encroaching lunacy! It must be another message from beyond from my genetic trainer, with the following “8 reasons” attendant. Who knew?? Timing IS truly everything. https://www.thepencompany.com/blog/pens/fountain-pens/why-fountain-pens-are-back/

I hope this inspires you to correct your “script” signature like your teachers once admonished you to practice! However, beware that I am the luckiest to have FOUND this stylograph, because of today’s prohibitive pricing for same, is like getting ink for your multi-functional copier, I think! (“Oh pleez! When will prices discount instead of increasing, please? in our lifetime? Oh! I just noticed that gasoline is down by a dollar since the beginning of the year!) Thank you, Hope.

Call, Don’t Text! The Monetization of Finding Heterosexual Companionship

Once upon a time, not so long ago, when I met chicks (ladies, females) at parties I spun in clubs or as a famous Disc Jockey on the radio; sometimes after hours, nobody asked for or mentioned money. Hell no! It was and still should be a taboo!

If I, she or me had the drugs (mostly pot or blow in those days), we both knew what we brought to the table without even mentioning dollars, unless we thought we would need more and then we would go in together often times. There was no innuendo of paying again for the intimate sexual pleasures to come. Are you kidding me??! If she needed a ride home, I’d give it to her or in the next morning, car fare, whatever worked for the friendship!

We fucked and sucked, laughed, partied and laid because we liked each other and wanted to have it again! If money had been the deal, I probably would not still be their friends to this day! All was consensual, w/o strings, and all was in-person to see, touch, feel, smell and taste each-other.

Nobody asked for money just to come over and see me for the first time or to rendezvous a first time at a neutral site to sniff one another! Who raised you to DO that? It would be embarrassing! If it came into that, it was because one player (and it was me a few times) was unemployed and felt embarrassed to broach the subject. In those instances, one or several involved parties would allay the fears of the impoverished friend, make a reimbursement arrangement or just say, “Fuggetabout it, we’re friends! C’mon, lets party!” The only females who asked for bucks up-front for fun were straight-up prostitutes, and we avoided them because of the STDs they carried. We knew what streets and neighborhoods to find one of them if we were throwing a bachelor party for one of out brothers who was “jumping the broom”, though, lol

I am not sure when this happened or how, but it seems as though there is a linguistic disconnect between we single Baby Boomers and those who are three or four decades younger in the simplest of how to write coherence text messages!

Unfortunately, these days in the 2023, with the possibility of internet texting forever without a phone call voice to attach and progress the relationship to, and all of these dating “apps” have given bullshit a new nefarious low license to trick, hide, scam or squash the in-person human touch that means so much. A recent texter wrote me that she “does meet ups”. At first I thought that rather quaint and shy; until she hinted – no – asked for money to pay for her phone plus gas UP-FRONT! My textd replied, “Oh, that makes you sound like a hooker…” “She” (still don’t know what gender I was dealing with in-reality) just kept calling it a “meet up”.

Ohh, you great pretender. What planet were you born and raised upon, that you come and prey upon the emotions of we Earthlings who are looking for love and trying to keep up with the times while doing so? And it blows my volcano cap, that an handsome man like who wrote this post, cannot find a sincere, hot, diverse, friendly female companion within the choosy specifications he desires, to walk up to the sun with, hand-in-hand.

Wow. Its a damned shame and maybe should be legally legislated to change the practice and protect the virtual parties involved, IMO. As the saying goes, “You can put lipstick on a pig, but its still a pig!”

This blog post is posted as a Public Service Announcement (PSA) warning to those not yet hip. If you think you saw me on an “APP”, please do not text me on the number you have been doing so…instead, CALL me, so I can know, via your voice that you are real and we can have a human, sexy, planning our dates, conversation.

Keep In Touch Bcs Time Waits For No One

It can take a few mph off your fastball to find out that those, who you were subliminally thinking or assuming are still along with you on this ride of our similar physical life-journey, have left you without any warning or a note from their wife, mutual friend or significant other or even a clue that they were ill unless one of your hobbies is perusing the obituaries!

I’m not talking about peeps with friends who are blood-related, as in brothers, I mean , in my case, men who have friends culled through the years.. You probably know or have noticed that, in-general, we do not last as long as our female counterparts, due to a variety if factors like they like the telephone more than we do – which are the subject for another post. This is why I now write; to remind you to keep in touch with your buddies, maybe more than you are currently doing. You don’t have to call them and in some cases you many not want to call them, but let them know you are thinking about them and visa-versa. I sometimes send greeting cards around the holidays or if I know their birthday is neigh.

Recently, I have experienced the loss of three friends, singer Irene Cara and two men from within my inner circle, who I felt very close to, and yet we had not broken bread on the phone, texts or in-person in quite some time, only to learn that they are recently deceased…within the past year I’m talking about! I learned of the demise of the guys while writing my Christmas cards and wanting to ascertain that their address was still the same. “Shock!”

Of course my DJ mind always has a musical analogy, even if in only title. So, I implore you to, in the words of the 1982 hit dance music record by Shades Of Love, which comes to mind, “Keep In Touch, (Body To Body)” at all costs. It is a damned sad shame that with the current plethora of communication choices – phone, sms, email, paper letters and cards in the US mails – that people are not keeping touch to the point that one’s friend can die without college mates, classmates, family and neighborhood buddies knowing about it, until l-o-n-g after-the-fact.

What I profess here sounds like what our parents did – and indeed it is one of their best habits from a simpler era. One of the negative aspects of the “information superhighway” is that is has encouraged lazy, lackadaisical traditional communication of the ilk our parents taught us by-example.

As I remember my mom saying late in her years, “We are at the age when we are losing cherished people!” At least she had a circle of friends – church, and professional – always calling each other on the telephone in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s.

The advent of texting and the internet has dumbed-down our collective society to the point that we do not reach-out as our predecessors did – and much to our emotional detriment at the end of the day, when you find out via Facebook, that so-and-so, your homie from around the way growing up, has been dead for a year or more, when you finally get around to thinking of them and the timely jokes they used to tell you around NFL playoff time or whenever…

So its so easy to call, leave a voice-mail, or better still, drop a note in the mail with a stamp, to let your friend know you thought of him while you still share the physical world! Who doesn’t like to receive a letter in their mailbox that isn’t a bill!?

Late last year, during my decluttering campaign, I came across a piece of paper written by a great lady I once knew, in her own handwriting. It wasn’t written to anyone in-particular insomuch as I could tell. It read, “Try to live our lives better healthier and stay in closer touch!”

Pick-hit: This post is dedicated as we used to do on the air, with brotherly love to my late colleague at WKCI (“KC101FM”), New Haven, Connecticut, “Smokin’ Willie B. Goode”, circa 1981 – 1983.

Watch the relevant video music I created, related to this song!

https://www.kapwing.com/videos/63d9a4ef3e76ca006a1b085c

Book Report: “Jane Russell, Mean, Moody, Magnificent!”

Growing up a movie fan, one of the great names I saw and heard mentioned in the same breaths with the likes of Betty Davis, Joan Crawford, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, Debbie Reynolds and Jayne Mansfield was Jane Russell.

If you’ve visited this blog previously, you know that I have a penchant for biographies and autobiographies, so you won’t be surprised that I just finished reading the bio of “Jane Russell – Mean Moody, Magnificent! And The Marketing of a Hollywood Legend”” by Christina Rice   [978-0813181080 University Press of Kentucky].

This was an addicting read from the outset for me. Ms. Rice chronicles Jane from cradle to the grave with details which portray the human story of an at first reluctant superstar actress of the classic “golden” movie years.

The one black mark in the book was at the end, where Jane is quoted as having misused a word which can have racist connotations; you’ll have to judge accordingly for yourself, because I don’t think she meant it that way.  Had she been around when I enjoyed my own celebrity as a radio DJ, being a man who always loves “the top”  (breasts) of a woman, I’d have surely sought her out for an interview – or maybe more!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about her, in-fact, I had to return/renew/take out again the hardcover edition a couple of times at my local public library in order to finish!  I surely would buy a copy for my home library, when my writer’s budget allows and recommend that you do so, if you are such a curious fan and book curator as I.

If you’ve ever heard of “Gentlemen Prefer Blonds”, “His Kind Of Woman” (featuring Robert Mitchum), “Born Losers (Billy Jack)” or watched TV commercials for Playtex “Living Bras” back in the days as I have, then you’ll want to read this book because Jane is the girl you were seeing!  I couldn’t tell how “mean” she – in the angry sense – was, but in street lingo, her figure sure was “mean” and to be seen!

Long before feminism and women’s lib, Ms. Russell quietly proved that there is more than posing for paparazzi emphasizing her voluptuousness by her activist activities, which championed adoption of orphaned children internationally by forming WAIF (World Adoption International Fund).

This is an educationally entertaining five-star read you should keep on your night table stack, as I did, for soothing bedtime (or any time ) stories!

Satanic Putin, Lay Down Your Inhumane Weapons!

We went into the 2021 Holidays (last year) feeling the earth was finally at peace. Even with the contrived election challenge in the USA, we, the majority, knew that cooler, more intelligent heads would prevail. It seems long ago, juxtaposed against world events in Eurasia (as I call it).

Every so often, an event, or series of events takes place to remind you of just how fragile our way of life is existence is and you just hope and pray that it isn’t you or yours it happens to next! Today’s world is , unfortunately weird and you never know…until you know and even then, keep your head on the swivel to think twice…

Just when I thought we had reached the “IGY” Donald Fagan (Steely Dan) described in his 1982 often-played on-air song of the same name, here, in early 2022, came a brain-damaged, diminutive despot from Russia named like a bowel movement gas, “Putin”, who has, for the past ten months decided to conduct a cold-war-style invasion of a peaceful neighboring country! A sudden seventy year throwback! What the hell is goin’ on with his mentally-ill brain and how can the rest of the countries of the world stop him immediately? Why is it so one-sided where Russian can disrupt Ukraine infrastructure and they cannot strike back similarly?? “Stop The War, NOW!”

If it means calling Stupin’s “nuclear” threat bluff, them we must DO IT as soon as possible because the longer this drags on in Ukraine, the later more than sooner it will happen anyway! Why are the nations of the world letting him rule the roost via bullshit threats when the only language he understands is a punch in his mouth, military defeat?!

Those of you who’ve read this place for the past decade, must know that I have courted a pen-pal in Ukraine and visited another in Kyiv in 2013. This is what my friend, who I’ll call “T” for protection’s sake and who I’ve communicated with virtually for almost three (3) years, wrote me today, November 25, 2022, the day after our USA Thanksgiving holiday,
“Hi!
Happy Thanksgiving day! Great that you have your turkey and can enjoy celebration…for me I am 4 days with no electricity and have no water and no food…life is horrible right now for me…
Very sad…no internet connection most of the places in Odessa. I was lucky to find one, pay for it and write to you and sent you my warmest greetings!
Enjoy baby!
Kisses, T. “

I can hardly believe that she is going through this, here in these “modern” times! In the back of my mind and even prior to knowing her communications, I never took our way of life in the USA for-granted, as so many of my fellow countrymen seem to do; yet even now, this is imperative thinking! I implore our United States government not to turn a blind-eye to these events; to speak to the populace about them and possible ramifications and to unite with Europe and other countries to throttle Putin and his regime as we did Sadaam Hussein for much less, as soon as possible. Why is it so one-sided that only Russian can shoot missiles into Kyiv and Ukraine cannot return fire the same into Putin’s lair – or Moscow; whichever is closer?

And to you, Putin, we now know who Satin is among us it is YOU; and as President Ronald Reagan said to your country’s Mr. Gorbachev, back in 1987, I now say, “Mister Putin, Lay Down Your Inhumane Weapons!”

I welcome your positive ideas or fund-raising to get my friend over here to the USA, out of harm’s way ASAP in the comments, please… Peace.

Trump Fatigue

Men and women run for offices and jobs all over this great country. Then they win or lose; serve with anticipated dignity or move on back into their former private lives – some with a renewed following – but they step aside to allow others to try their philosophies and luck.

THIS is how we DO it in America since 1776 insofar as I was taught in American History classes and know it.

I am not that much younger than thee, Donald, so do not dismiss me, mister “rich guy”!

I and all of my ilk, who were raised in the metro New York area know you as a long-time buffoon, not to be taken seriously, except that you built a “tower” in Manhattan, New York City, at around the same similar towers with your name on them, were imploded in Atlantic City, New Jersey, just ninety minutes south of us!

What is wrong with YOU, Mr. Trump? What makes YOU so special that you can buck the system time and time again to break our time-tested successful RULES?

Now, upon hearing that you are trying for a THIRD time to run for President of The United States, am seriously ill and afflicted with trump fatigue, as I am sure that millions of other Americans are also suffering. This is worse than COVID-19 as you hold the only “vaccine” to cure it, as Jim Jones held the only “Kool-Aid” over his cult. You keep turning up like a bad penny!!

Please stop and take your madness to another country; maybe you could unseat Putin in Russia!

Do you even remotely understand the metaphysical nature of how we citizens interact with our historic founding government principles which have led to our consistent, concrete society? You “endorse” a Hershel Walker because his is a sports Negro, who you are used to supporting, are comfy with because he is non-intellectually threatening to your old slave-master mentality. Step away from your mirror, think about this, which you just read, and really SEE who you are. We will understand your tears.

Please stop the madness. Get a hobby, like sailing around the globe in a rowboat to set a Guinness World Record, or something. Toe the line as so many real MEN before you have, and set your EGO aside for the good of mankind and America, the Beautiful.

As a person in the music entertainment/radio industry in these USA from 1978 – 2012, and again, not many years younger than you; I “SEE” though you, as I alluded to above. I oppose wholeheartedly your re-entry into the Presidential fray and pray…that the GOP will rise-up and have a traditional convention, which pitches other men and women as candidates for the 2024 race against you; of whom I pray to the heavens one of them wins the nomination.

You provided yet another example of why I #boycott, like back in the 1960s, (maybe even to my continued poorness) modern day #corporate rich guy intrusion into private and popular venues, traditional entertainment platforms and companies on and off the internet. Your ilk has NO clue about the needs of the people and would legislate upon the backs of those who can least afford to sustain it! All you want is to try to continue to lie and glorify your ego. You need mental counseling, sir.

C’mon people! Do not just lay down; don’t give your money to the same cult places, the corps who tear down what we are used to enjoying to try to recreate our historical truths, fought-for freedoms and grace in its place!

This is Dedicated To The Youth I Love, “VOTE Please!”

I have much to opine upon and say about the conditions of society and the world today,

But this is not the post for elaborations upon that.

I flash by simply to ask or say,

Please do not let the authoritarians have their sway;

I ask that you please VOTE on Election Day.

I don’t usually go “politics”, but as my parents used to preach, back when I was apathetically agnostic, “Too many have died for the right to #VOTE for you not to exercise that right which you HAVE…”

Therefore, this post is dedicated, especially to my younger Black and Hispanic American brothers and sisters, please…

Lou

I came across these verses upon an old school CCNY notebook’s hard cover page;
Apparently written by a boy I once knew. He may have been all of 10 years old. Maybe his father had these notebooks.
The kid wrote them about a sports star he looked up to.
Unfortunately, I didn’t find it timely enough to make my new poetry book’s publishing deadline, nor does the #Wordpress.com platform apparently now allow one to link a book cover click which directs interested readers to the purchase page. It’s a SHAME! Geez. Go away and write for a couple of years, and they change shit without letting loyal clients KNOW!!
Therefore, I post it upon this blog, which was deeply neglected while I composed and published my new poetry book, whose cover you can see in the right sidebar (“During Our Lovemaking Session…”) . Thanks a million, most humbly, as always, for your time reading my words.

“LOU” [circa 1970]

Lou is baad
Everyone knows
His hook is deadly
The statistics show.
But Lou is a rookie
And like every newborn
Moves and truths he as to learn.

A year has passed (is past?)
And already he’s tasted
The sweet excitement of that playoff test.

Lou pulls rebounds
Lou throws hooks
Lou takes jumpers,
Which no center should!

Lou stuffed and the crowd loved
Lou from college fame
Everyone now knows his name!
He comes home – all that and shit
Spin and shoot and everyone boos.

Now Lou is on the bench,
The giant now laid to rest;
Where a team from hometown
New York City power
Takes the eastern conference crown.

[found upon a 1970-ish CCNY cardboard notebook cover]