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| 5/23 |
| 2006/12/25-26 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Foreign] UID:45493 Activity:high |
12/25 R.I.P. James Brown
\_ http://www.deadoraliveinfo.com/dead.nsf/bnames-nf/Brown+James
http://www.corporatemofo.com/stories/021215godfather.htm
\_ He was already dead in 1991 (his music style, that is)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr_6q9DcSiM
\_ "Brown was one of the first artists inducted into the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame, along with Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and
other founding fathers."
"Disco is James Brown, hip-hop is James Brown, rap is James
Brown;"
http://music.yahoo.com/read/news/12176089 |
| 5/23 |
|
| www.deadoraliveinfo.com/dead.nsf/bnames-nf/Brown+James Dead See who's Alive See who's Missing See who's Unknown Intro/News Page A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Birthdays Today Died on this Date Died in the last 6 months Died Before Age 30 People Alive Over 85 Lived to 100 By Field By Sex By Cause of Death Random Name Added Recently Dead or Alive Quizzes Put 'em In Order Quizzes Guess the Age Quiz Who Have You Outlived? Visitor Stories Related Links RSS Feed Statistics Privacy Policy Advertising Info Click Here Advertisement Search Dead or Alive? Search Suggest a name to add to the site New Name Submit a comment to the site Comment Find out how the site works Instructions Find out if famous people are Dead or Alive? Home Search for: Search Click for the main Search Page Profile Send to friend Last updated: 12/25/2006 << Go Back Dead James Brown tombstone He died today, at the age of 73. Hidden links: 66. |
| www.corporatemofo.com/stories/021215godfather.htm by Tristan Trout I have become convinced that my job is a hideous psychological experiment calculated to drive me insane. There is, quite frankly, no other way to account for the dancing, singing James Brown doll that is determined to destroy me. It would be such a neat explanation that I almost wish it were so, if only to give the absolutely meaningless work I do some greater cosmic significance. I can't even call my job "Dickensian," since at least 12-year-old textile workers were making something physical like petticoats or knickers or baby-skin hats or whatever the fuck they wore in the 1800s. All I do from 9 to 5 (and usually later) is take data from one set of Microsoft Word documents and cut-and-paste it into Filemaker Pro, so we can give it to our outside vendors to share and enjoy. My life has been reduced to right click, left click, right click. A trained monkey could do my job, except the money would go apeshit and start throwing its poop around the office, since I am required to right-and-left-click at the very maximum of human right-and-left-clicking ability for a staff of 12,000 people, all of whom regard their approaching deadlines with the awe, reverence, and fear that Jehovah's Witnesses regard the Day of Judgment or perhaps the way people from Arkansas regard monster truck pulls. What makes the situation even more frustrating is that I find myself pathetically grateful to even be employed, since unemployment is running at 6% nationally (higher in the New York area), and the paltry $36,000 a year I make at least pays my rent while I try to finish writing the Greatest Book Ever, which is due to my publisher in April. But the fact remains that, until my work takes its proper place on the world's bookshelves--right next to the Bible--I'm working two full-time jobs, one of which is driving me insane, what with the James Brown doll and all. I guess the story about James Brown begins last Tuesday, when my inbox chimed with that chirpy Microsoft Outlook tone that I have so come to dread. The last time this happened, we had just finished a big project that would net the company millions. La Presidente threw us a big party in the cheerfully fluorescent cafeteria, complete with company-logo cakes--baked by the minimum-wage minority cafeteria employees--that tasted like burnt toast covered with sugared Crisco frosting. One of the career women, the one with the pictures of the cute kitty cats in her cubicle, had even baked cookies. La Presidente thanked us for all the hard work we did, all the while smiling Stepford Executive Smile #37. There was no good reason for this: The company has a stable market that isn't going away since we basically sell to the government, and we're thus making oodles of money for our parent company. They're not cutting back staff to keep us afloat-they're sending people to the unemployment line to keep the annual growth in the double digits to appeal to shareholders and, no doubt, pay for lobbyists to get the government to repeal things like minimum-wage laws or health insurance. A modern corporation is like a shark: It has to move forward or it dies. Thankfully, I was allowed the privilege of continuing to work, but only in the diminished capacity of data-entry monkey--that is, until Tuesday. "But this reorganization will be necessary for our continued growth and success as a Company." So, what this means, translated from the corporate-ese, is that after the right-and-left clicking project is over, I'm out on my ass. I just wish they'd be honest and say, "We're sorry, but we think that it would be better to get someone else to do your job as well as their own, and just keep the money ourselves. Our Fearless Leader is so fake, I believe she was a lawn ornament in a past life. I wonder what she's like in bed with her husband: "Is this good, honey?" "Though penile growth had been adequate this evening, we need to be applying 33% more stimulation to the clitoris," she replies. " "To overcome our shortcomings in the vaginal lubrication department, we have partnered with Astroglide for a more pleasant lovemaking experience." "I'm sorry, but afraid that due to cost-cutting measures, you've been replaced by Raoul, the pool boy." Of course, even though the ship is sinking, the band has to keep playing. For instance, this Christmas season, we're having a "departmental cheer" contest. The department who best decorates their cubicle-farm in the holiday spirit wins some undefined prize, like a dental plan. Last week, I was interrupted from my frenetic right-and-left clicking by a commotion in the intersection of the cubicle highway by my desk. My department head, accompanied by three or four of my coworkers, had broken out the old box of holiday decorations in an all-out attempt to prove that we're the best damn section of cubicles on the whole floor. Up went the Hannukah dreidel lights, never mind that the fucking holiday had been over for a week. But to win that contest, the display required that extra-special touch. You've probably seen these things in Spencer's Gifts at the mall or at K-Mart. They're plastic likenesses of James Brown, about three feet tall. You hit the button, and they start to sing "I Feel Good" and dance like a spastic retard dancing the spastic retard dance. Unfortunately, they don't beat their wife, grab a bunch of guns and lead the police on an interstate car chase--that might actually be amusing. All the same, they're fucking hideously, frighteningly, and evil-looking. Dancing and singing dolls make the Baby Jesus cry--and, because I've seen all three Child's Play movies, they creep the fuck out of me. "I know," I said, stringing a cherubic ornament to his hand. he said, smacking the faux PCP out of the Godfather of Soul's hand. He draped a streamer of tinsel like a feather boa around his neck. by boss said, slapping the button that launched James into the song that sent him to the top of the Billboard charts in 1965. So, for the rest of the week, I had to put up with the Godfather of Soul on the filing cabinet next to my desk. Every time another one of my coworkers would pass by on their way to gorge on the holiday cookies, they would be compelled to touch the shiny, jolly, red button that sent James into his singing, dancing spastic fit. Meanwhile, there I am, sitting in the Aerelon office chair that cost more than my annual salary, with people calling me on the phone every five minutes, demanding why I wasn't done right-clicking, left-clicking their files, while an animatronic James Brown was singing in my ear. Saturday morning, I came in, as usual, to catch up on the work I hadn't been able to finish during the week. I made sure to wear my long coat and kept my hat pulled down. I went up to my office as usual, and was there for about three hours. The guards never noticed the bulge under my coat as I left. I still had some M-80s at my mom's house left over from the Fourth of July. Three of them duct-taped to James at midnight in the parking lot of a Target in Queens did wonders for my disposition. |
| www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr_6q9DcSiM Hello, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of Macromedia's Flash Player. Toxicboy1 (48 minutes ago) JB's girlfriends can sleep a little easier tonight. wellyes (3 hours ago) And you are someone millions don't give a crap about. |
| music.yahoo.com/read/news/12176089 James Brown remained the hardest working man in show business to the end, telling friends from his hospital bed that he'd be in Times Square on New Year's Eve, even though he had pneumonia. His heart gave out a few hours later, on Christmas morning. Al Sharpton shared memories of their mentor and idol, while lesser known fans left candles on Brown's Hollywood Walk of Fame star in Los Angeles and streamed to his statue in his boyhood hometown of Augusta, piling mementos and flowers at its base. "Y'all lost the Godfather of Soul, but I lost my father. I know the whole world loved him just as much as we loved him, so we're not mourning by ourselves," Brown's daughter Venisha Brown told The Augusta Chronicle as she stood near the statue, fighting back tears. The 73-year-old pompadoured dynamo, whose classic singles include "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag" and "I Got You (I Feel Good)," died of heart failure less than two days after he had been hospitalized with pneumonia and only three days after leading his annual holiday toy giveaway in Augusta. "I ain't got the same energy," Brown had told the New York Post a week earlier as he discussed his planned concert tour, "but I'm sharper." "Father Time, knowledge and prayer -- I pray a lot," Brown had said. He described himself as "like Will Rogers: I love everybody. The entertainer with the rough-edged voice and flashy footwork also had diabetes and prostate cancer that was in remission. But he initially seemed fine at the hospital and talked about his New Year's Eve show at BB King Blues Club in New York, said his agent, Frank Copsidas. I'm the hardest working man in show business,'" Copsidas said Monday. Brown was himself to the end, at one point saying, "I'm going away tonight," said friend Charles Bobbit, who was with Brown when he died. A short time later, Brown sighed quietly, closed his eyes and died, Bobbit said. David Bowie to Public Enemy, his rapid-footed dancing, hard-charging beats and heartfelt yet often unintelligible vocals changed the musical landscape. "He was a whirlwind of energy and precision, and he was always very generous and supportive to me in the early days of the Stones," Jagger said. "He made soul music a world music," said Sharpton, who toured with Brown in the 1970s and imitates his hairstyle to this day. "What James Brown was to music in terms of soul and hip-hop, rap, all of that, is what Bach was to classical music. He put everybody on a different beat, a different style of music. Sharpton will officiate at Brown's funeral service, details of which were still incomplete, Copsidas said. Sharpton said Tuesday that he and Brown's daughters planned to view Brown's body Tuesday afternoon at an Augusta funeral home and finalize funeral arrangements. Brown's daughter-in-law Diane Dean Rouse told The Augusta Chronicle she hoped the funeral would be open to the people of Augusta. "He would want it open because he would want everybody to get there and because that's who he loved," she said. Brown, who lived in Beech Island, SC, near the Georgia line, also had a turbulent personal life that included charges of abusing drugs and alcohol. After a widely publicized, drug-fueled confrontation with police in 1988 that ended in an interstate car chase, Brown spent 15 months in a South Carolina prison and 10 months in a work release program. From the 1950s, when Brown had his first R&B hit, "Please, Please, Please" in 1956, through the mid-1970s, Brown went on a frenzy of cross-country tours, concerts and new songs. He earned the nickname "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business" and often tried to prove it to his fans, said Jay Ross, his lawyer of 15 years. Brown's stage act was as memorable, and as imitated, as his records, with his twirls and spins and flowing cape, his repeated faints to the floor at the end. With his tight pants, eye makeup and outrageous hair, Brown set the stage for younger stars such as Jackson and Prince. And the early rap generation overwhelmingly sampled his music and voice as they laid the foundation of hip-hop culture. His trademark moment of each performance was at the end: A weary, spent Brown begins to leave the stage, a cape thrown over his shoulders, then suddenly stops, shakes the cape off and rushes back to grab the microphone, his voice and feet moving at top speed all over again. "Disco is James Brown, hip-hop is James Brown, rap is James Brown; You hear all the rappers, 90 percent of their music is me," Brown told The AP in 2003. Brown was born in poverty in Barnwell, SC, in 1933, and abandoned as a 4 year old to the care of relatives and friends. He grew up in Augusta in an "ill-repute area," as he once called it, learning how to hustle to survive. By the eighth grade in 1949, Brown had served 3 1/2 years in reform school for breaking into cars. While there, he met Bobby Byrd, whose family took Brown into their home. Byrd also took Brown into his group, the Gospel Starlighters. Soon they changed their name to the Famous Flames and their style to hard R&B. "He was dramatic to the end -- dying on Christmas Day," said the Rev. Brown is survived by his partner, Tomi Rae Hynie, one of his backup singers, and at least four children -- two daughters and sons Daryl and James Brown II, Copsidas said. |