Football, baby, Football!!!

When this time of year comes along, my girlfriends are usually pouting and complaining about their men and their addiction to football. This is not an issue that I have, because I've been into football since Joe Namath said the Jets were going to win the Superbowl and he was literally the ONLY thing I saw on TV for the next week. When his prediction came true, he became the football icon of the decade. I don't understand why my friends don't learn more about football – I was bombarded with it, I wanted to see what all the excitement was. My father watches football all the time – most of my friends have at least one brother, a male cousin, a father, something – how do you miss learning about sports???

It's great for your dating life – most guys expect you to grouse and act bored while watching a football game with them. Want to blow their mind? Name the players, tell them what the play should be, and call the ref's call before he does! I've thrown a few brothers into apoplexy pulling that move. First question - “You know what it means to be “off sides” ?” Yeah, I do. Second question “Who taught you about football?” My father wasn't born a principal, you know. Being the girl who enjoys a good game places you on a whole new level.

In fact, my very first boyfiend played football from Pop Warner to the Canadian League to the Seattle Seahawks. We remained good friends forever. I was once watching him play with the Seahawks and they called his name on national TV. My family was so excited, we all called one another. The guy I was with was completely dumbfounded by this – “ You're still friends with this guy???” It was a long time ago, stop tripping.

When Sullivan High School was on its way to the Chicago Public League Championship back in the day, I went to the games if Kenwood wasn't playing. Sometimes, members of Kenwood's football team went to the games too. They went to see a good game, which I can understand. So, I walk into one game with my father, and one of the players asked me “You brought your father to the game?” Actually, my father was the principal of Sullivan at the time. We came to cheer on the troops. It was incredible when they played at Soldier's field, where the Chicago Bears play. Sullivan lost to St. Laurence, but at least they went! Kenwood, well, the less said about that, the better....

I wish Loyola had a football team. As it was, we had to go up to Northwestern when we wanted to see a game, and Northwestern never won a single game when we went out there, standing in the freezing cold at Dyche, which was a stone's throw from Lake Michigan, even closer than Soldier Field. Today, I'll watch Northwestern or U of I to get my college fix. It's mostly about the pros now, so it's all about the Bears, even when it doesn't go well.

I also went to two Superbowls, and I finally had a chance to meet Joe Namath in person and tell him how he brought the game to my attention. He was very nice, took a picture with me, hugged me, the whole bit. I also met Terry Bradshaw and Roger Staubach. It is, without a doubt, the WILDEST WEEKEND on earth. Everyone should go, at least once. But pace yourself, and don't plan on hitting the ground running as soon as you return. A little down time is a requirement.

Anyway, I encourage everyone to learn about football and stop fighing it. It's a great game, even if it is admittedly disgustingly brutal, frighteningly mean spirited, and can leave players with life long disabilities. The NFL is the most profitable sports league on earth, dwarfing basketball, and baseball. It's not going anywhere, so enjoy it.

Football Should Be Played on Real Grass

Robert Griffin III just injured his knee so seriously that he may not be able to return for the 2013/2014 season – that's tragic – it 's criminal in my mind. The man just started playing football – and now he has a major injury that may end his career prematurely. He might have to wait until the 2014/2015 season to return to work. Why? Because the television studios want to get a bright green background on their football fields rather than photograph the beauty of real grass????

Paint the grass green if need be – toss the uniforms and replace them after every game, don't sacrifice the player's limbs in the name of having a beautiful set. Does that make any sense? You can spray paint the lines, use vegetable dye on the field, and stencil a new logo on a grass field. Why would you play on anything else?

Professional athletes are asked to throw themselves on playing surfaces that are about as accommodating as a cement floor. If it were you, your child, your nephew, your friend – how would you feel about it? Isn't the point of OSHA to make sure everyone is working in a safe environment? When are they going to contact the NFL and ask them to straighten up! How painful it must be to have ten guys piled on top of you and your back is against an asphalt ground in a fiberglass helmet.

Think of all of the athletes whose careers could be saved if the players had been working on a surface that was meant for the sport? Are soccer players asked to play on hardwood? Are basketball players asked to play on ice? Are baseball players asked to play on gravel? What have football players done to be treated so disrespectfully? I urge the Football Players Union to take the initiative and fight for their players – no one makes money when the players can't play the game – let them play on real grass and save their legs and ankles!

The Book of Darlene

 

 

It's funny how things work out. I planned on going to see this movie on Friday evening because I wanted to see it at night before heading into the weekend. I always like to start the weekend with a good song on my mind. I wound up seeing “Lee Daniels' The Butler” and the song I was singing was “I'll Close My Eyes” and “Family Reunion”.

This movie is completely different – it's a documentary that deals with the background singers who go unsung, but lend the deep groove you hear in almost every song ever made. This film looks at the careers of Merry Clayton, Judith Hill, Lisa Fischer, and the most heralded background singer of all time – Darlene Love.

Merry Clayton is the one you hear wailing in the back of “Gimme Shelter” with the Rolling Stones, she also sang background on 'Bridge Over Troubled Water”, “It's In His Kiss” and “Southern Man”. She has a sound that you can't recreate with the best music machine. It's very unique.

Judith Hill is the background singer that worked with Michael Jackson on the “This is It” tour that never was. It's generally acknowledged that Judith was about to blow up with that tour, but fate had other plans for her. She's the one Michael tells “I gotta save my voice” in the movie.

Lisa Fischer is one background singer I actually had a chance to meet when she was here in Chicago singing back-up for Luther Van Dross. This was one of my first experiences working with a ticket broker, and I got tickets in the first row of his concert with a girlfriend and two guys we were dating at the time. I was hooked, I haven't been in the back since that day. It was like Luther was singing directly to me. My seat was right in front of his mic stand. Later that night Frances and I were at “The Limelight”, the hot night club of the time – it's called something else now. Luther comes in with his friend and we tell him how much we enjoyed the concert. He was very gracious, but it's clear that he was a little more concerned about unwinding after a night of hard work. The next day I'm at the Walgreen's on Chicago Avenue and Lisa Fischer was there getting some mascara with another backup singer. We recognize one another right away. They ask me how I got the seat in the front, and I asked them about their make-up and those fabulous gowns they wear in the show. They told me something that in years to come, I will hear again and again –their clothes were locked up after the show, and they didn't

 

get to wear the gowns anyplace but on stage. It took a while to understand the rationale behind that, but I get it now. Lisa got to sing lead on her own song, and it won a Grammy and was very popular – we all expected Lisa to become a superstar – she has as great a voice as Whitney Houston.

Now we come to one of the most infamous stories of career domination I am aware of – the story of Darlene Love. Darlene Love sang background on “Johnny Angel” Shelley Fabares hit song, “The Tracks of My Tears”, and “Poor Side of Town”. Darlene sang with a group called The Blossoms and they did back-up for Elvis, Dionne Warwick, The Beach Boys, and Tom Jones. Darlene finally gives her side of the story regarding how Phil Spector used her voice on songs that made The Crystals more famous. The Crystals were a famous girl group who did “Da Doo Ron Ron”. While The Crystals were on the road singing to their fans, their Producer, Phil Spector, was at home making new songs for the girls - and using Darlene's voice and refused to give her proper credit. It was a humiliating turn in Darlene's life. Darlene is actually the voice on “He's a Rebel” with the Blossoms. Following that was “He's Sure the Boy I Love”. Darlene didn't get her title on a song until “Today I Met the Boy I'm Going to Marry”, and Spector offered her $3,000 for total rights to the song.

She took it, and the song went gold, so she wound up getting robbed again. I used to listen to “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”, as a little kid at my grandmother's house because my aunt Elaine used to play it all the time. I've been a Darlene Love fan almost as long as I was a fan of the Supremes. It was sad to hear her talk about how she was taken advantage of. It was like reading that story about Florence Ballard in “Jet” magazine right before she died. No artist wants to see their work go unheralded, and you can feel her pain in this film.

Flash forward to the present day and Darlene Love is a regular guest on David Letterman, sings, acts, and is generally regarded as an icon. She's as big a star as any of the people she covered for in the sixties. She is still out there doing it, and the man who treated her with such disdain is in prison and will be for many years to come. I believe that with their talent that the other singers will get back what they lost, also.

“Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.” Romans 12:19

 

 

The Butler

I don't actually compare every movie I see to “The Godfather”. That would be pretty pitiful if I did, because what has a chance of meeting that measure of greatness?

But here's one thing (there are MANY) that make this a gold standard of movies – you got to know the family – and that helped you identify with them. That's what is missing from a lot of movies that are supposed to be family dramas – the relationship part is rushed – that's the only thing that I see that may hold “Lee Daniels' The Butler” back.

The story opens up as a tear jerker – a young boy whose family is torn asunder and he is displaced. There are many cash crops in this country – corn, wheat, sugar, rice – but is there any as closely associated with and murder as cotton? Cecil Gaines has more reasons than most to spend his life wearing polyester.

But the boy learns his lessons well and becomes the only thing that he has been taught to be – a butler to the Leaders of the Free World. One thing about it, though, he had to be the best to get the job, so you can't be mad at that. I've always been told that no matter what you decide to do for a living, be the best at it.

So Cecil rises to recognition through a series of positions and finds himself summoned to the White House to interview for the job. He actually raises the standard, and they already thought that they were pretty hot stuff. He is at the right place at exactly right time – Cecil is a silent witness to the great upheaval that is the Civil Rights movement. From the school integration of the “Little Rock Nine” at Little Rock Central High School to the first celebration of Martin Luther King's birthday as a federal holiday, Cecil is nearby the seat of power with a knowing glance.

The main conflict appears to be between Cecil and his son. Although it is clear that Cecil is proud of his son for going to school and he explains that he will be the first in the family to go, it's not clear that he has ever explained to him how far their family has come, and how easily all of that progress can be wiped away. The son has different ideas about what his newfound freedom will bring – and he spends most of the movie fighting in every battle of the Civil Rights movement he can find – while they may not detail every single battle he takes part in – they make sure the audience knows that he has been arrested more than ten times. I'm pretty sure than anyone's parents would be angry if they sent their child to college and they spent the time behind bars – they could have done that for free.

The other on-going conflict seems to be that black service workers are paid less than their white counterparts. A lot of people may be aware that there is still disparity between male and female workers all over the counry, but most people take for granted that race and color have been taken out of the wage wars. This is possible because the man responsible for selecting the service workers is careful to select only those who would be considered “responsible”, definitely wasn't looking for the uppity kind. Cecil breaks ranks and does the unexpected here.

And that brings us to Cecil's wife, Gloria. Gloria worked at a hotel with Cecil. She is played to the hilt by Oprah Winfrey. While there were some who were disappointed in her performance, I liked Gloria's saucy personality. After the attention brought to the anticipated love scene between she and the next door neighbor (played by Terrence Howard), I guess we'll all have to wait for the Director's cut to see what all the fuss was about.

Gloria is drinking, smoking, and cheating while her husband is working hard to make sure the current occupant of the White House has all of the creature comforts. You know that Gloria is frustrated, but, really, what is she upset about? Her husband has a job – there are a lot of sisters out there who wish they could say the same! What's the point of having an affair with the next door neighbor when he's about thirty cents away from having a quarter?!

I enjoyed the movie, but there were things that were missing – we need to see more of the family interaction – more about the dynamic – and more about the Civil Rights struggle. In “The Godfather” (sorry, there goes that comparison again) when Michael tells Kay about how his father got a famous singer out of his contract with a well known band leader, isn't that everything you need to know to set the family dynamic in place? When Don Corleone tells Michael that women can be careless but men can't be, and when he tells him that he wanted him to be Senator or Governor, not carry on the family business – doesn't that tell you what you need to know about how close they are and the size of his ambition? You don't get that sense and development from this movie. The movie just seems rushed from beginning to end.

You can't cover that much history in two hours. I know that movie makers want to maximize the film's earning potential with frequent showings. I know epic films are almost impossible to make, especially for African American directors, but this is a film that could have really benefited from an extra half hour – even more from an hour. Can you imagine “Malcolm X” being two hours long?

Tell me what you thought....

Step Away From the Cell Camera

In the last year I have witnessed a trend that I find incredibly distressing – people voluntarily entering nude photos of themselves on the Internet. They are saving sex tapes, sending photos of their bodies, and in general adding to the porn industry and sex market, a market that Heidi Fleiss, the famous madam. said was a market that is never saturated. Why??? Are you sure you want to do that??? You already have the story of a former Congressman who learned the hard way that this isn't the best idea, but let me take you back to a simpler time and a larger lesson. I hope that this will help some of us to remember that you don't know what God has in store for you – try and be careful out there.

About thirty years ago, I was getting my first real job and across the country a woman of humble beginnings named Vanessa Williams was about to blast into a superstardom she could never have really anticipated. That summer, the word around the campfire was that we were going to have our very first black Miss America. During the contest it was clear that the two top contenders were both African American – incredibly beautiful and talented and role models for brown skinned women all over the world. At that time, that had never happened. Everyone watched that contest and heard Vanessa Williams belt out “Happy Days Are Here Again” and win the swimsuit competition. She was great, it was amazing and when she won, people all over the world were doing flips and popping champagne bottles. She represented the community and the Miss America Pageant with verve. She was the most popular person to hold the title, unfortunately, she was also peppered with death threats and her security was beefed up like the Presidents. Yes, the Devil is always busy....

Years before Vanessa Williams was the toast of the globe, she took some nude pictures with a photographer who took advantage of her naivete and beauty. He saw a payday and shopped the pictures around, even though he was asked to refrain, and be a human being – no shot of that happening. The photographer found a willing buyer in Bob Guccione, the owner of Penthouse magazine. Guccione paid the photographer a few pennies for the pictures, placed them in Penthouse over the course of two magazines, and made $14 million exploiting this young woman. She made a mistake, it wasn't fatal, she hadn't killed anyone. He purposefully humiliated her, and she was pressured to relinquish the crown. The magazine literally sold like hotcakes, they couldn't print enough copies to meet the demand. It was a real take down, and it seemed that she would never recover.

Thankfully, Vanessa's beauty, talent, and charm eventually took her beyond that tragedy on to the superstardom she had earned and so richly deserved. She didn't know that she would be the first black Miss America, she had no idea what God had in store for her. But God also restored everything that she was meant to have and more. Her tale has a happy ending, but that chapter of despair could have been avoided.

Don't let that happen to you. One day when I'm collecting the Academy Award for writing the Best Screenplay or Producing the Best Picture, made the head of the Department of Labor of the United States of America, named Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, earn the Nobel Peace Prize, receive the Congressional Medal of Honor or the Presidential Medal of Freedom (Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,. Or what's a heaven for?) I want to make sure I'm not caught up like that. You don't need to recreate all of the mistakes – you can learn from the past and benefit from this cautionary tale.

Is Your House Underwater?

Chances are that your mortgage was backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac – let's hope.

If your mortgage is now underwater and you've sucked up all of the equity like Dracula on a fresh vein, let me walk you through the process of getting out from under, getting some real sleep, and ending the fantasy loop running in your mind of taking a blow torch to your mortgage company – no violence necessary. You can even wrap this up in less than a month – it's true.

HARP – the Home Affordable Refinance Program actually began in 2009 and was put in place by the Obama Administration to help home owners find relief instead of abandoning their life long dreams in the middle of the night. Whether your original mortgage is with Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citibank, or Chase, it's probably backed by Fannie or Freddie and was sold to a much smaller mortgage company you never heard of. You may still qualify for a HARP. And guess what? If your lender won't process your HARP, you can do it with another lender – don't lose heart, all is not lost. If you have an FHA loan, you may qualify for a Streamline Refinance Loan, which is similar.

One requirement is that you be current on your loan. This is to make sure you have a chance to make your payment more affordable and allow you to save for your other dreams – retirement, college for your children, and the continued quality of home ownership.

Banks are creating their own subtle changes into HARP, so be prepared to shop for the best rates and the qualifiers that relate to you. My advice is to gather all of the material and research before you jump in paying fees and losing time filling out voluminous forms. My other advice is to seek the help of your banker. They've got your money, make 'em work for it. You're a customer, not a vagrant, and if they don't appreciate you – dump them. If no bank makes any loans, they are going to go out of business.

If you need to be pointed in the right direction, please give me a call.

The Great Gatsby

When I was in fourth grade, my teacher already knew that I wrote plays on my own. She also knew that I was particularly fond of one of the stories in our 4^th grade reader. She asked me to take the story and turn it into a play that the students could perform. Since, at the time, the extent of my research library was the Encyclopedia Brittanica in our hallway, I didn't know that there was more to adapting a story to a play or screenplay than translating it into a group of scenes and turning the quotes into lines. I didn't write to the head of MGM as I would write to the President of Johnson Products in high school to ask how relaxers make your hair straight. I learned while watching the Oscars many years ago that there was a science to translating a story to a play or screenplay. Baz Luhrman didn't watch that telecast.

“The Great Gatsby” was a studied translation of F. Scott's Fitzgerald's fantastic ode to the Jazz Age. The decandence, the music, and the heart breaking idealism that you read about in the book are nonetheless brilliantly portrayed in this movie, and I recommend it. I recommend that everyone read the book at least. But you have to read it twice. When I read it in high school, I was appalled by the cavalier manner that Daisy treated her long lost admirer. When I read it recently, all I could think was this guy is a sap. Since the story hasn't changed, I guess that means that I did.

Since Baz Luhrman is famous for his way, way, over the top productions that would make Busby Berkeley cover his face in shame, he was actually the perfect choice to bring this story to life. His depiction of the parties, the clubs, and the opulence of another era where money was spent like water and nobodies became millionaires overnight was actually good. While it's true that Leonardo Di Caprio's Gatsby was no improvement over Robert Redford, Carey Mulligan is a better Daisy. I thought the money was well spent for the most part, but I would have done more with the 3D than Luhrman did. If you're spending that much to make a movie 3D – WORK IT!

You'll want to see the party scenes over again, the preparation for the afternoon tea, and that big yellow car sailing into New York. There was a lot of criticism of the use of Jay z's music, but that music is only briefly sprinkled through the movie – most of the music is true to the time, and I'm pretty sure Jay Z could have written more that could have seemed true to the times also. You will hear more in the previews than you will in the actual film. I suggest seeing the 3D version over the flat – you may as well see what the Director intended, right?

In high school I wrote about “The Great Gatsby”, “Tender is the Night”, and “This Side of Paradise”, so I had no intention of missing this balleyhooed remake. Since the Jazz Age very much resembles the squalor that preceeded the recent downturn that we are still suffering through, I think the story of careless and wanton revelry was well placed. People, especially young people, should see it. It will remind them that people didn't start partying the day after they were born, something I recall my parents telling me back in the day. I showed my neices some “Ed Sullivan Show” tapes so that they could see how Tina Turner sang “Proud Mary”. Some lessons never get too tired to teach, and that's what makes the book a masterpiece and the movie a welcome interpretation.