Random hipness

An Indian Christmas carol

Gather ’round, friends, and hear the story of Canada’s oldest Christmas carol.

The lyrics were written in Wyandot, the language of the Huron Indians... a language now dead except among the scholars who study it.

And yet this 365-year-old hymn is still widely sung in Canada – in French and English.

The song is known by several names: “The Huron Carol,” “Noël Huron,” “’Twas In the Moon of Wintertime,” “Indian Christmas Carol.”

Its original Wyandot title is “Jesous Ahatonhia” (“Jesus, He Is Born”).

You might wonder: “Why would 17th-century Huron Indians sing a song about Jesus? Were they Christians? And what’s this about ‘the lyrics were written’? Did the Hurons have a written language?”

The answer to this riddle rests in the story of Jean de Brébeuf.

He was a French Jesuit priest who traveled to “New France” (Canada) in 1625 to convert the natives to Christianity. In 1626, Brébeuf went to live amongst the Huron tribes of the Great Lakes region.

He learned to speak their language.

Called back to France in 1629, Brébeuf returned to Huron country five years later with a few associates, determined to continue his missionary work.

Things did not go smoothly. It wasn’t until 1637 that Father Brébeuf made his first convert. But by 1647, thousands of Indians had accepted baptism into the Catholic faith.

Meanwhile, Brébeuf wrote extensively about the culture of the Hurons. It was he who gave the name “lacrosse” to the traditional Amerindian field sport. Brébeuf also developed the Wyandot language into a written form.

And so this gutsy French priest wrote “Jesous Ahatonhia” around 1642 – using his own literation – and taught the song to the Indians.

If you’d like to hear it, click here. Canadian folksinger Alan Mills recorded “The Huron Christmas Carol” in 1960, singing the first verse in Wyandot, repeating it in French, then singing the whole song in English.

POSTSCRIPT: The story ended very badly for Father Brébeuf... and the Huron Indians. Iroquois attackers from the south laid waste to Huron villages in 1649, ultimately displacing the entire Huron nation. Brébeuf and another priest were captured, tortured and killed.

The invading Iroquois possessed an ironic advantage. They’d acquired muskets from the Dutch, who offered them in exchange for furs. France also provided guns to the Hurons for their defense... but the Jesuit priests insisted that only Christian Indians get guns.

With half of the Hurons Christianized and the other half still “heathen,” the Huron tribes were outgunned by the Iroquois four to one.

The Catholic Church canonized Brébeuf (and other “North American Martyrs”) in 1930. St. Jean de Brébeuf, Apostle to the Hurons, is now the patron saint of Canada.

Meet an American Indian: Jenna Plumley

Sports in the modern age have been an avenue to hero status for America’s racial minorities. The non-white athlete who can outperform white folks at their own games... that evokes a special kind of pride.

Jack Johnson, Jesse Owens and Jackie Robinson are damn-near mythic. Roberto Clemente, among Puerto Ricans, is a saint. Chicano musicians wrote songs about Fernando Valenzuela.

It applies to Jews as well; check out the Hank Greenberg documentary.

And when American Indian activist Dennis Banks organized a long-distance “protest run,” he named it after Olympic champion Jim Thorpe.

So you can understand the feelings aroused last year when Jenna Plumley – a 5-foot-4 freshman point guard – became a rising star on the University of Oklahoma women’s basketball team, one of the nation’s top squads.

“this girls a great role model & inspiration 4 native youth,” wrote one Jenna Plumley fan on an American Indian message board.

Watch the video clip below for a TV news report about Jenna’s status in the Indian community.

Jenna Plumley is a pure- blooded Native with Pueblo, Comanche, Otoe and Pawnee roots.

She was raised in Red Rock, Okla., and became one of that state’s best girl players ever. She led her high-school team to two state championships.

Becoming a Lady Sooner at OU made Jenna a rare Indian competing in Division I athletics. “It feels really good” being a role model, she says in the clip below, “especially since when I was a child I never really had a female role model to look up to.”

Alas, Jenna Plumley’s story took a dark turn this summer. She was arrested and charged with shoplifting from a Wal-Mart. Her coach suspended her for the 2008-2009 season.

Jenna left Oklahoma and now attends Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. She’ll be eligible to continue with basketball next fall.

“Attempting to turn Indian high school and college students into social heroes is a dangerous business,” wrote Cedric Sunray in the Native American Times. “When they don’t pan out it only serves to cause further disappointment and marginalization for Indian youth.”

The lesson here is: Sports hero or not, we’re all just human beings.

Saturday morning cartoon

“Deputy Dawg” is another one of those cartoons that reminds me of getting ready for school in the morning. And this one fits the American Indian Heritage Month theme... in a bad way.

Meet an American Indian: Dennis Banks

As blacks folks had Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, Native Americans had Dennis Banks and his fellow militant radicals who, in 1968, formed the American Indian Movement (AIM).

The Black Panther Party had its Ten-Point Program. AIM put forth a 20-Point Position Paper, which included a request for more than 100 million acres of land from the United States.

AIM staged armed confrontations with the government. Most notable was the 1973 takeover of the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota. The U.S. government prosecuted Dennis Banks and Russell Means for leading this seige. A federal judge dismissed the charges after a nine-month trial.

But the state of South Dakota convicted Banks on riot-related charges for another incident – a protest gone wrong in a town called Custer.

Rather than go to prison, Banks spent nine years as a fugitive. He eventually turned himself in and served 18 months.

The American Indian Movement is still active... but split into two rival factions. Banks, an Ojibwa born on Minnesota’s Leech Lake reservation, is part of the “Grand Governing Council” faction based in Minneapolis (where AIM was founded).

Russell Means – now the most famous Indian activist in America – is a leader of the other AIM, known as the International Confederation of Autonomous Chapters of the American Indian Movement.

I’m streaming a 2-minute audio clip of Dennis Banks from 1982, when he was chancellor of D-Q University, a two-year tribal college in Central California (which is now out of business).

Click here to hear it on my Vox blog. You can stream or download the complete 5-minute radio piece by following this link to the Internet Archive.

Banks put his story on paper in a 2004 book titled “Ojibwa Warrior: Dennis Banks and the Rise of the American Indian Movement.” (Russell Means’s autobiography, “Where White Men Fear to Tread,” was published in 1995.)

Banks also has a website under his Indian name – Nowa Cumig.

Siskel & Ebert on ‘Blue Velvet’

Here’s a Siskel & Ebert discussion I vividly remember... particularly Mr. Ebert’s argument that Isabella Rossellini was treated “cruelly” by director David Lynch.

I saw “Blue Velvet” in 1986, and I haven’t seen it since. I don’t want to see it again. I suppose that means I agree with Roger Ebert, though Gene Siskel defends the film ably.

I must acknowledge, after seeing Dennis Hopper in this clip, that Hopper did deliver one of the great villainous performances in modern movies.

Playlist: Goofing on the Indians

The mainstream American culture has often dealt with the hard history of Native Americans – as it has with black people – by making jokes.

These jokes were/are sometimes purely mocking, and sometimes from a posture of sympathy.

Below are a few examples. Click the track titles to listen.

1. “Marlon Brando Interview” – Chevy Chase, John Belushi

You might remember John Belushi’s Brando impression from “Saturday Night Live.” He actually did a little Brando for his “SNL” screen test.

Before all that, Belushi performed with Chevy Chase on “The National Lampoon Radio Hour.” This short skit makes fun of Brando’s well-known affinity for Native American causes.

2. “Indian In-Laws” – Cledus T. Judd

Country-music comedian Cledus T. Judd is thought by some to be funny. Judge for yourself. This song is a parody of Tim McGraw’s 1994 hit “Indian Outlaw.”

3. “Thanksgiving, or Pass the Indian Please!” – Firesign Theatre

I never got into the Firesign Theatre. So your pot is safe around me.

4. “I’m an Indian” – Fanny Brice

This one dates back to 1921. It’s a vaudeville classic from Jewish comedienne Fanny Brice.

The words of Chief Red Jacket

This is the day when Americans give thanks... thanks that the original inhabitants of this land didn’t act in their own racial and cultural self-interest and slice the throats of every European who disembarked from the Mayflower.

As part of my American Indian Heritage Month celebration, here’s a post about Sagoyewatha – also known as Red Jacket.

Red Jacket, a chief of the Seneca Indians, is remembered today as a gifted orator and important Native American diplomat during the early years of the United States.

Representing the Iroquois Confederacy, he kicked it with U.S. presidents such as Washington, Monroe and Andrew Jackson.

He acquired the name “Red Jacket” after his service to England during the American Revolution. He’d been a swift-footed messenger for British military officers, and they rewarded him with a richly embroidered scarlet jacket. (Red Jacket would later support the Americans against the British during the War of 1812.)

Red Jacket was primarily noted by white writers of the 19th century for his racial politics.

In modern language, he was a separatist. In the words of one writer in 1879, the Seneca chief “hated civilization... detested education and Christianity, and made no pretence at conforming to the polite customs of white society.”

Journalist William L. Stone, in his 1840 book “The Life and Times of Red-Jacket,” wrote that Sagoyewatha, by 1805, had “become utterly averse to any farther intercourse or association with the whites – having arrived at the conclusion that the only means of preserving his race... would be the erection of a wall of separation, strong and high, between them. ...

“He was opposed to any farther sales of [Indian] lands. He was opposed to blending the races by intermarriage – not unfrequently murmuring that, whereas before the approach of the white men the eyes of their children were all black, now they were becoming blue. ...

“He was opposed to the acquisition by his people of the English language. Above all, he was opposed to the introduction among them of Christianity.”

Red Jacket’s most famous speech was delivered in Buffalo Grove, New York, in 1805. It was in response to a young white missionary named Rev. Cram, sent by the Boston Missionary Society to propose the establishment of a mission among the Seneca.

“Brothers: I have not come to get your lands or your money,” Cram said, “but to enlighten your minds, and to instruct you how to worship the Great Spirit agreeably to his mind and will, and to preach to you the gospel of his son Jesus Christ.

“There is but one religion, and but one way to serve God,” the missionary continued, “and if you do not embrace the right way, you cannot be happy hereafter. You have never worshipped the Great Spirit in a manner acceptable to him; but have all your lives been in great errors and darkness.”

Et cetera.

The council of chiefs discussed the matter among themselves, then Red Jacket delivered his reply. He spoke in the Seneca language, his words translated by a U.S. government interpreter.

Would you like to hear what Red Jacket said? The English version was recorded in 1976 by Arthur S. Junaluska, a Cherokee playwright and actor, for an album called “Great American Indian Speeches, Vol. 1.”

Click here to hear it on my Vox blog.

You can download the MP3 by following this link to AmericanRhetoric.com.

In 2006, the Syracuse University Press published “The Collected Speeches of Sagoyewatha, or Red Jacket” – the first comprehensive collection of the chief’s words.

Happy Thanksgiving!

UPDATE: Meet an American Indian

Chuquai Billy – England’s favorite Native American standup comic – has commented on my recent blog post about him. Check it out.

Randomonium

I like liverwurst. Deal with it, motherfuckers!

I was in West L.A. this morning to get my hair cut. I haven’t lived on the Westside for five years... but the guy knows my head, and I’m averse to forming new tonsorial relationships.

Anyway, whenever I go for a cut, I’ll pop over to Junior’s Delicatessen for a bite to eat. If I feel like lunch, as opposed to breakfast, I’ll get the liverwurst on rye. Sliced yellow onion, stone-ground mustard... bam, that’s a good sandwich. (Goes right nice with a cream soda.)

When I was a kid, my dad used to snack on what seemed like the grossest foodstuffs in America. Blue cheese. Pickled pigs feet. Souse. (Y’all hip to souse? Also called “head cheese.”)

Then there was kipper snacks – canned herrings that Daddy would mash up with mayonnaise and relish and spread over Ritz crackers. Oh, how he delighted himself with that crap.

And, yes, Daddy liked liverwurst, though he preferred to call it braunschweiger. Only since moving to L.A. and getting my deli on at Junior’s did I acquire a taste for it.

I’ve done the kipper-snacks thing too, I won’t lie. Maybe I’ll try to find me some souse... though it’s hard enough trying to find scrapple out here in So Cal. (In fact, I haven’t.)

I never felt close to my dad. We were so wide apart in age; he was 51 when I was born. It was like being raised by a grandparent. He grew up in the country. His sensibilities were shaped by the Great Depression.

He never understood why I would leave a good job at the Washington Post and try to write for television. By the time my first co-written episode was shown on TV, Daddy was blind. He couldn’t even see it.

By the time I created my own show, he was dead and buried.

I still dream about my dad. Quite frequently.

Why YouTube is better than television

Reason #26: Drunk chicks.

Wanna watch ‘I Spy’?

My friend who blogs as Intrepid Ideas just informed me that Hulu.com is streaming episodes of “I Spy.”

As a kid, I never watched “I Spy.” Not once. (I was hardcore into “Mission: Impossible” and “The Avengers,” but gave less than a damn about “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” or “The Wild, Wild West.”)

Anyway, you know “I Spy” was a breakthrough, right? Bill Cosby was the first black actor with a lead role on a TV drama... and he won three Emmy Awards for his work.

I have embedded a complete episode of “I Spy” at the bottom of this page. Originally shown in 1965, this episode guest-stars Eartha Kitt as a strung-out nightclub singer in Hong Kong. (She acts and sings a couple of tunes!)

The script was written by Cosby’s co-star, Robert Culp. (Remember when Culp visited “The Cosby Show”?)

UPDATE (11/28/08): I just found out that Eartha Kitt was nominated for an Emmy Award for this performance.

Tuesday 12-inch Flashback: ‘The Glow of Love’

Don’t you miss Luther?

What could possibly be more cute than...

... infantile gibberish?

Playlist: Rock ’n’ roll Indians!

Native American music – traditional Native American music – isn’t known for swinging or grooving. Which is why the “powwow beat” didn’t evolve into rhythm & blues.

But a few Indians (or semi-Indians) have made their impact on rock ’n’ roll. And I’m not talking about Hendrix, who was one-eighth Cherokee.

Click the song titles below to hear what I mean.

1. “Come and Get Your Love” – Redbone

You know I had to start with this one. Redbone in the 1970s was packaged and sold as a Native American R&B band. But brothers Pat and Lolly Vegas (born Vasquez) could’ve more easily presented themselves as Latino.

To this day, Mexican Americans embrace Redbone as more Chicano than Native American... even though the Vegas brothers talked up their Yaqui and Shoshone ancestry.

The story goes that Jimi Hendrix – who strongly identified with his own Indian heritage – encouraged the young Vegas brothers to form an all-Indian rock band. “Jimi made me aware of my roots,” Pat Vegas once said.

Prior to forming Redbone, Pat and Lolly had cut a few surf-rock singles and toured with the Beach Boys. They also did studio gigs with the likes of Sonny & Cher and Dobie Gray.

“Come and Get Your Love” was a huge hit for Redbone in 1974. (And it’s one of my favorite singles of the ’70s.) Just this year, Redbone was inducted into the Native American Music Awards Hall of Fame.

2. “Washita Love Child” – Jesse Ed Davis

Guitarist Jesse Ed Davis, a full-blooded Indian (Kiowa and Cherokee), worked with some of the top stars of the ’60s and ’70s – John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, John Lee Hooker, Conway Twitty, Taj Mahal...

Davis signed a couple of major-label solo deals in the early ’70s, and he put out three albums. This song, supposedly autobiographical, is from his debut LP, “Jesse Davis.” Eric Clapton plays on it.

Jesse Ed Davis died in 1988 after years of drug and alcohol problems.

3. “Apache” – Link Wray

Half a century ago, a humble pioneer of the electric guitar named Link Wray put out a grungy instrumental 45 that is still influencing rockers today: “Rumble.”

(Quentin Tarantino used it in “Pulp Fiction.” Click here to listen.)

Wray’s sound was admired by Neil Young, Pete Townshend, Jerry Garcia and Bruce Springsteen, to name but a few. Link Wray is on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.

Later in his career, Wray called attention to his Indian heritage, eventually recording tunes with titles like “Indian Child,” “Geronimo,” “Comanche” and “Shawnee.”

“I’m half Shawnee Indian, born to a Shawnee mother [in North Carolina],” Wray told a reporter in 2002. “Elvis... grew up white-man poor. I was growing up Shawnee poor.”

This track – Wray’s cover version of “Apache” – was released in 1990.

Link Wray died in 2005 at the age of 76. The following year, he was inducted into the Native American Music Awards Hall of Fame.

4. “Unbound” – Robbie Robertson

For his membership in the legendary rock group The Band, Robbie Robertson is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

He wrote classic album-rock songs such as “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and “The Weight.”

As the Canadian son of a Jewish father and a Mohawk mother, Robertson has focused in recent years on a musical exploration of Native American identity. (He had spent childhood summers on the Six Nations Reservation in Ontario.)

“Unbound” is from Robertson’s 1998 album “Contact from the Underworld of Redboy.”

5. “An American National Anthem” – Geronimo Black

Texas-born drummer Jimmy Carl Black (Cheyenne) was a founding member of the Mothers of Invention, Frank Zappa’s trailblazing band. Black famously ad-libbed this line during a recording session: “Hi, boys and girls. I’m Jimmy Carl Black, and I’m the Indian of the group.”

After Zappa disbanded the original Mothers, Black formed a short-lived band called Geronimo Black.

Geronimo Black’s 1972 LP included a scathing (and jamming) protest song called “An American National Anthem.”

I’m streaming a demo version of that tune, released years later on an album called “Welcome Back Geronimo Black.”

Jimmy Carl Black bounced around the fringes of the music business ever since his days with Zappa... until his death from cancer earlier this month in Germany. He was 70 years old.

6. “Don’t Let Me Go” – Indigenous

So who’s keeping alive that flame of American Indian rock ’n’ roll? Guitarist/singer/songwriter Mato Nanji, that’s who.

Nanji grew up on the Yankton Sioux reservation in South Dakota, listening to his dad’s blues records.

Now he leads the popular blues- rock band Indigenous.

Mato Nanji’s guitar chops have brought him a lot of attention. He was greatly influenced by Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Recalling his early performances, Nanji told an interviewer in 2005: “[E]verybody thought that we’d be a traditional flute band... but we’d come out... and they’d be totally surprised. They never expected a band like us to come out and do what we do.”

“Don’t Let Me Go” is from the band’s 2005 CD, “Long Way Home.”

Black socialite power!

The news media are reporting that Desiree Rogers, a Chicago businesswoman and bonne vivante, will be the next White House social secretary.

Which is, like, the best party-planning job on Earth.

Lois Romano of the Washington Post writes: “The position of social secretary is more influential and far-reaching than the title might suggest.

“Although the job is associated with working with the first lady and with entertaining – and best known for staging state dinners for heads of countries – the social secretary’s office is responsible for every event or ceremony that occurs in the White House or on the grounds.”

Desiree Rogers is a longtime friend of Michelle Obama’s, and she was a major fundraiser for Barack.

Follow this link to watch a 5-minute interview from 2007 when Ms. Rogers was a Chicago gas company executive.

(Ummm... Nipsey, don’t you say a word.)

President-elect Obama today announced his economics brain trust. The woman you see here – 43-year-old Melody C. Barnes – will serve as director of the Domestic Policy Council.

That means she’ll be a senior White House advisor on a wide range of domestic issues, not just the economy.

Before joining the Obama campaign this summer, Ms. Barnes was a top official at the Center for American Progress, a center-left think tank. She had been a longtime aide to Sen. Edward Kennedy.

Washingtonian magazine last year spotlighted Melody Barnes as one of D.C.’s best-dressed women.

UPDATE (11/25/08): The Obama transition team has uploaded this video introduction to Melody Barnes:

Bill O’Reilly, kickin’ street knowledge!

I knew Bill O’Reilly was a gifted broadcaster. What I didn’t know is... he is also a world-class novelist.

A novelist of the streets!

Wanna hear a small bit of the audiobook version of O’Reilly’s 2004 crime novel, “Those Who Trespass”... read by the author himself?

Then click here.

But I must warn you, this clip describes the sexual exploitation of two underage girls. Indeed, Bill doesn’t flinch from the hard, cold realities of the drug game. (Matter fact, I bet he was smoking crack when he wrote this!)

UPDATE (11/26/08): I cannot stop listening to this clip. This is some Ted Baxter shit.

Meet an American Indian: Stevie Salas

Back in January, I blogged about a badass guitarist named Stevie Salas (with a FREE MP3 to boot). Salas, as I mentioned then, is a Mescalero Apache... and proud of it.

In the video interview embedded below, Salas talks about his racial identity.

He also tells the story of how a Mr. George Clinton launched his rock ’n’ roll career in 1985.

And quite an impressive career Salas has had, touring with the likes of Rod Stewart, Mick Jagger and Terence Trent D’Arby... recording with Bootsy Collins, Ronnie Wood and Ronald Shannon Jackson...

Lately, Salas has served as musical director for “American Idol” stars on tour – first Chris Daughtry, then Jordan Sparks, now David Cook.

As a solo recording artist, Stevie Salas is big in Japan.

Click here to hear his remake of a P-Funk All Stars jam called “Pumpin’ It Up.” This is from Salas’s 2007 compilation album “The Sun and the Earth.”

What could possibly be more cute than...

... age-inappropriate lyrics?

To my female readers...

... your opinions are sought in this thread. Scroll down to the comments from KeWayne. Thank you.

A free Jon Sass download

Cheers to Dollar Bill for introducing me to funky tuba player Jon Sass.

Click here to hear “Wetbottom” on my Vox blog. I wouldn’t call this hip-hop, but Sass sure can blow.

This track is from his 2007 CD “Sassified.” And it’s available as a FREE MP3, direct from the artist.

To commence the download, hit this link.

Meet an American Indian: Chuquai Billy

As American Indian Heritage Month rolls on, I’d like to introduce you to a few Indians you’ve probably never heard of... starting with Chuquai Billy (Choctaw and Lakota).

Chuquai Billy is a standup comedian. He was born in Gallup, New Mexico. He now lives and performs in London.

Yep... an American Indian who moved to England to tell jokes. How nutty is that?

Chuquai, in a 2007 interview, said: “A lot of what I do in my act is try to educate them away from the popular stereotypes most of Europe still believe about Native American people.”

But is he funny?

Based on the video below, I would vote thumbs down.

In 8 minutes of material, I count one decent joke (the one about immigration). Chuquai Billy seems to be at the “open-mike-night” level of proficiency. (Compare his stage presence and audience command to Warren Hutcherson’s.)

If he is to succeed at comedy, Chuquai will have to move beyond merely pimping himself as an exotic.

I said it before...

... and I’ll say it again: This guy – Warren Hutcherson – should be playing Barack Obama on “Saturday Night Live.” (Because Fred Armisen just ain’t cuttin’ it.)

Saturday morning cartoon

Betty Boop was a badass bitch.

A free Odean Pope download

Veteran tenor man Odean Pope has hooked up with a mysterious clique of hip-hop beatmakers called the Misled Children.

The result is a funky new album called “The Misled Children Meet Odean Pope.”

You might like the FREE MP3 they got out there.

Click here to hear “Foregone” on my Vox blog. To download it, click the track title below.

“Foregone” (MP3)
Album available at iTunes Music Store

Black nerd power!

Time to get to know some of the players in the upcoming Obama Administration. I know this is serious business, and all things Obama are a matter of pride to the people, so I won’t be cracking any jokes.

BUT... I did invite my old buddy Nipsey Muhammad to blog along with me on this one. And that dude don’t give a fuck! He’ll crack a joke at a funeral.

Anyway, the first video below is a Voice of America report on Eric Holder, said to be Obama’s choice for attorney general.

NIPSEY MUHAMMAD: Muthafucka look like a cartoon mouse, don’t he? Yo, Eric, on the real... your first order of business? Release Ronald Isley from federal prison. Turn him aloose! Seriously. How the fuck it look, he in the penitentiary, and R. Kelly walkin’ around free?

The bottom video is Susan Rice, who might become President Obama’s national security advisor.

NIPSEY MUHAMMAD: Oh shit! First time I saw that sista, I was like, “Damn... how is Barack gonna keep his dick outta that?”

Random wrongness

Siskel & Ebert on ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’

I remember when Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert used to be on public television and their show was called “Sneak Previews.” Watched it every week.

For more than 30 years now, Ebert’s opinion has mattered to me. But as a TV personality, he was never quite the same after Siskel died. He was Hardy without Laurel.

On Fridays, I’ll be posting a golden oldie from the Siskel & Ebert archives. Here’s one from 1992:

Randomonium

I went to the 7-Eleven this morning, bought a few items. And the total price was $7.11. That tickled me.

In a lifetime of buying stuff at 7-Elevens, I never before spent exactly $7.11. Surely it would’ve stuck in my mind if I had.

I wanted to make a cute comment, so I sized up the cashier to see if I should. Maybe it would just embarrass us both.

Then I saw his name tag. “Biplob.” That’s the dude’s name. So then I became obsessed with that. Biplob?

Figured I’d best keep my mouth shut altogether.

But Biplob is now at the top of my list of strange immigrant names encountered while shopping. Previous champion: “Polycarp.”

Polycarp was an African guy. A cute white chick ahead of me in line actually flirted with him over his name. He said it was not an unusual name where he came from.

My heathen ass... I just found out Polycarp was a Christian martyr.

What could possibly be more cute than...

... a cat on a Roomba?

It’s all about me today.

Today, I am giving myself the gift of self-promotion.

Below is a 10-minute video from the 2003 “Kingpin” DVD set, with me bloviating about the miniseries.

If you wanna do me a favor, send an email to the fine folks at Hulu (content@hulu.com) and ask them to stream “Kingpin” on their website! That way I could end up with a few duckets in my bucket, nomsayn?

Has YouTube revived the art of ventriloquism?

Yes. Yes it has.

Back in September, I blogged about America’s top ventriloquist, Jeff Dunham (and one of his puppets, a jive-talkin’ black pimp named Sweet Daddy Dee, which has been seen 9 million times on YouTube).

You might think being “America’s top ventriloquist” is sorta like being “America’s top duckpin bowler.” Nobody cares! But check this out: Jeff Dunham had a Christmas special on Comedy Central Sunday night.

And it was the most-watched show in the history of Comedy Central... with 6.6 million viewers. Which means that damn-near everybody in Hollywood wants to be in the Jeff Dunham business right now.

The Comedy Central executives didn’t even see that coming.

It’s all about teh YouTube.

Embedded below is an 11-minute clip of Dunham with another one of his politically incorrect puppets... Achmed the Dead Terrorist.

You might not believe this – it sure shocked the hell out of me – but this clip here, y’all... this clip right here, y’all... this clip has been watched 73 million times. It is the No. 1 most-viewed entertainment clip on YouTube ever. It is the No. 2 “top favorited” YouTube clip of all times!

That’s bananas! And it just goes to show you: Sooner or later, everything comes back in style.

The Mohawk ironworkers

Only after the Twin Towers had been destroyed did I learn about the special role that Mohawk Indians played in constructing them.

For more than a century, Mohawk ironworkers have had a reputation for embracing the dangerous job of building bridges and skyscrapers.

They worked on the Empire State Building, the Sears Tower and the San Francisco Bay Bridge.

Five hundred Mohawk Indians walked the high steel during construction of the World Trade Center.

This being American Indian Heritage Month, why not take a minute and listen to one of these workers reminisce? Click here to hear Peter Stacey from the Kahnawake Mohawk Territory in Quebec, Canada.

To hear others, follow this link to the Sonic Memorial Project; where it says “Search by theme,” select “Mohawk Ironworkers” in the drop menu.

A free Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings download

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings are on that retro shit. To the maximum. Click here to hear “Pick It Up, Lay It in the Cut” on my Vox blog.

This track and others from a new Daptone Records sampler album are available as FREE MP3s. Just follow this link to Amazon.com.

What could possibly be more cute than...

... a puppy play-fighting with a lion cub? (From TutzTutz.com.)

Tuesday 12-inch Flashback: ‘Going Back to My Roots’

Black radio used to sound like this:

‘The Mothership Connection Live 1976’

Every P-Funk fan – at least those horny for filmed artifacts of the Mob in its heyday – knows about the 1976 Houston show. Footage from that gig has been released on VHS and DVD multiple times.

Today it’s back on store shelves again... with the title “Parliament Funkadelic: The Mothership Connection Live 1976.”

Follow this link to see an 8-minute clip of George, Bernie, Maceo and the whole damn crew jamming “Undisco Kidd.”

Coming attraction: ‘Cadillac Records’

Chicago blues is about to get the Hollywood treatment... big time. “Cadillac Records,” written and directed by Darnell Martin, opens on December 5.

It features Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters... Cedric the Entertainer as Willie Dixon... Eamonn Walker as Howlin’ Wolf... and Columbus Short (from “Stomp the Yard”) as Little Walter.

But judging from the trailer below, “Cadillac Records” will focus on Beyoncé Knowles as R&B legend Etta James and Adrien Brody as record executive Leonard Chess. And then there’s Mos Def as Chuck Berry.

(Stop! You had me at Jeffrey Wright.)

Now, is it common knowledge that Etta James claims to be the illegitimate daughter of pool hustler Minnesota Fats? Seriously... she does. (Compare the photos above.)

And since Beyoncé is shooting pool in this trailer, maybe the movie will deal with that. Because I never knew.

A free Hound Dog Taylor download

Let me hit you with one last Chicago blues freebie before I move on to new business.

Theodore Roosevelt “Hound Dog” Taylor liked to do it raucous. He called his band the Houserockers for a reason.

Taylor died in 1975, soon after emerging as a recording artist for Alligator Records, a startup Chicago blues label.

Alligator is still going strong... and it is keeping Hound Dog’s music alive. In 2004 the label put out “Release the Hound,” an album of rarities, leftovers and live tracks.

Click here to hear “Gonna Send You Back to Georgia” on my Vox blog. To download the FREE MP3, follow this link to Download.com.

Something grandiose from Janelle Monáe

Janelle Monáe is about to get some love from Rolling Stone magazine... in its annual “Hot Issue.” Good for Janelle. (Even though I haven’t picked up a Rolling Stone since 1997.)

Meanwhile, have you seen the expensive and overstuffed video for “Many Moons”? Janelle Monáe is bringing dorky back. And I like it.

Living Colour in Amsterdam

Having blogged about this concert two weeks ago, I’m pleased to report that Living Colour’s complete Amsterdam show is now available for streaming at Fabchannel.com.

I’ve embedded it below.

If you don’t have time for the whole two-hour throwdown, just skip around through the set list. The band was on fire that night.

A free Phyllis Hyman download

I saw “Quantum of Solace” yesterday. I’m not a James Bond fanatic, but this new one has been huge overseas for a couple of weeks now. Figured it must be good.

I did not like it. Daniel Craig is cool... no problem there. But “Quantum of Solace” rips off a few action pieces from the “Bourne” movies (close-quarters combat in an apartment, balcony leaps), and for some reason they’re not so thrilling this time.

I sat there during the long opening car chase trying to figure out why it wasn’t working. (Too many edits.)

And the theme song... that Jack White-Alicia Keys duet, “Another Way to Die”? More like “Another Way to SUCK BALLS!”

Which is my segue into this: Did you know that the late Phyllis Hyman recorded a James Bond theme song in the 1980s, but it wasn’t used?

True indeed. Click here to hear “Never Say Never Again” on my Vox blog.

Canadian songwriter Stephen Forsyth wrote this song with Ms. Hyman in mind. And it’s Forsyth who finally released it to the public this year... as a FREE MP3.

To download the tune, hit this link.

Wanda Sykes comes out of the closet

At a Las Vegas rally today in support of gay marriage, comedian Wanda Sykes came out as a lesbian.

Matter fact, she announced that she got married in California a few weeks ago... before voters in that state decided to outlaw same-sex marriages.

Click here to hear what Wanda told the crowd. It was uploaded by the Strip Podcast Guys.

(Thanks, dez, for letting me know.)

Navajo heavy metal?

Yeah. It exists.

The white man messed up them Indians all kinds of ways, didn’t he?

The name of this band is Ethnic De Generation. It’s based in Kayenta, Arizona... part of the Navajo Nation.

I happen to believe that no piece of America is more invisible than the Navajo rez. Some 200,000 people live there, and the rest of us have no idea what they’re about.

Well... that’s why God created teh internets.

A free Thermals download

I go out of my way to support black rocker chicks. You know that, right? So let me point you to a FREE MP3 from the Thermals, a Portland punk-pop band featuring Kathy Foster on bass.

To hear the band’s live version of “A Pillar of Salt,” click here. It was recorded a year ago in L.A.

Click the song title below to commence downloading.

To watch Kathy Foster rock out, with her cute self, check the music video for “A Pillar of Salt.” I like how she infuses her personal energy into the proceedings even though she’s not out front. (And that doggone bass is big as she is!)

“A Pillar of Salt” (live) (MP3)
Album available at iTunes Music Store
Album available at Amazon MP3