Hey, hey! This is my blog where I will be saying the things that I know you are thinking! About celebrities, the President, current affairs, my life, my husband's murder - ANYTHING! Please feel free to comment below on the messages that I post here.
Don't be afraid - say what you want. I know that I will! So go for it!
"Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing"
I am honored to announce that Smithsonian Institute is including my photo (right) of the Delfonics in its exhibit "Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing: How the Apollo Theater Shaped American Entertainment" at the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. This exhibition will be on view from April 23, 2010 to August 29, 2010, and then will travel to several venues across the country through 2012. In addition, the photo will also be included it the companion book "Jazz, Jump and Jive/"Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing" due to be published in April 2010 to coincide with the opening of the exhibition in Washington DC.
The photograph was taken in May 1972 when me and my two friends, Carolyn A. Wyatt and Iris Wyatt, traveled with the group as photographers after meeting them in December 1969 at the Howard Theater in Washington, DC. We spent the next 5 years with the group, photographing them at venues up and down the "chit'lin circuit" and privately at their homes in Philadelphia. From hundreds of photos, this is one of the few that I still have. I gave most of them to the William Hart when I ran into him many years later. Accordingly to William, neither he, his brother Wilbert, Randy Cane or Major Harris had many tangible memories of their years as top recording artists with hits like "(Didn't I) Blow Your Mind This Time", "La-La Means I Love You", "Ready Or Not", and "Hey Love".
I'm BaaaaccccccKKKK!!!
My Latest Plaque
Lil Wayne sampled Con Funk Shun's "Honey Wild" (written by me, Louis, and Danny Thomas) for a song on his best selling CD "Tha Carter 3", released in 2008. The new song "Kush", is also on a digital download only EP called "The Leak". There's a long involved back story behind this album, along with how my publishing company, Exxtra Foxx Music, managed to end up owning the copyright in the new work, which I will go into at a later date. I got another multi-platinum plaque for my contribution to the Grammy Award winning CD. Pretty good for an old woman, huh?
Wow! It's been a long time since I've been here to do anything! It's been a rough 12 months....... Louis' murder case ended in a mistrial just hours after it went to the jury. More on that later..... I finally made it to Phoenix, in the middle of the summer, in the hottest year on record for Arizona!......... I've had to fly back and forth to DC because my Moms has Alzheimer's disease. She's getting worse every day. She's still being cared for in our home on Rittenhouse Street, with my 90 year-old father. My siblings are doing a magnificent job but it's becoming too much for them. It would be hard on trained medical professionals......... I was forced to removed many of the photographs I posted here (the real purpose of this website) after a person who will remain nameless (but who co-founded Con Funk Shun with my husband and who plays lead guitar!) "misappropriated" many of the pics of the band for some brochure he passed on a boat ride. We got it straight but his actions spooked me when it comes to what is MY property - photographs which have been part of my private collection for decades......One of the songs I wrote for Con Funk Shun was sampled for Lil Wayne's mega-hit "Tha Carter 3" (see box on the right).
UPDATE! MOVING TO PHOENIX!!
Sorry for being away so long but I've been so busy. Now I'm making plans to move to Phoenix next month! My house is in a mess, with boxes everywhere. I will keeping a day- to-day blog here, letting you in on my final road trip. Stay tuned!!!
Copyright Infringement of My Photos
This is a very belated blog entry about the photos on this website. I'd put up close to a 100 photos from my personal collection so that my friends and family, along with Con Funk Shun's fans could see them. Particularly the ones of the band, candid photos which have never before been published. The problem arose last May when my photos were popping up on other websites and even a brochure published by Michael Cooper and Felton Pilate for their "anniversary cruise" earlier this year. Not only were my pictures stolen from this website, some even had my Japanese Haiko watermark, clearly notifying viewers that the photos are MY intellectual property, i.e., I am the legal copyright owner. If you notice, each page on this site has my copyright notice. I had to send Cooper and Pilate, along with the brochure designer, Sheila Chadwick, a cease and desist letter, demanding that they stop using my photos. Cooper and I worked out the problem in a timely manner. However, in doing so, we discovered that many of my photos had been used by others.
Happy Father's Day…NOT!!!
As we are celebrating Father's Day, I have two children, who will be missing their father - again. They sent cards to their grandfather, my 88 year-old father whom, thank God, is still around for them as he always has been, particularly in this decade since they lost their own beloved father. I have another card - a sympathy card - sent to us by the former sheriff of the county, which is supposed to be bringing the killer of my children's father to justice.
On June 25, 2007 it will be the 10th anniversary of the execution-style murder of my husband and companion of over 20 years. Our children, now grown at 24 and 27, are forced to not only face another year without their Dad, but they still have no legal resolution to this matter. The Dekalb County District Attorney's office has no communication with us due to the fact that it still blames me for "leaking" the story of the suspect's escape days after he was indicted in January 2007. I didn't talk to the media about the escape, although with my contacts, I could have done so very easily. But, in an effort not to compromise the investigation (or lack thereof), I implored all of my journalist friends to write very little over the past 10 years. My BFF, Nancy A. Williams, is an accomplished journalist and former editor of Essence magazine. Another BFF, Angeline Hartmann, is a producer and correspondent with America's Most Wanted. In addition, my children and I have a working relationship with our local Fox affiliate, having volunteered for a year as part of its "Call For Action" consumer protection staff which supports the investigative reporters, "The I-Team".
Lindsay in Rehab?
Links re: This Nonsense
I'm not talking about MY LINDSAY! My Lindsay would not be in detox - she would be in decomp for acting like such a fool.
How the hell are you in rehab, facing charges for DUI, not your first such incident, and you don't turn 21 until July 2007? And all of your peers are "In The Same Gang": the incredibly stupid Paris Hilton and the incredibly slow Nicole Richie. Each are making public excuses for themselves and each other, as if some virus was responsible for their bad behavior and poor lifestyle choices.
I've read articles that say that money and fame are the reasons for the women's problems with substance abuse and crime. NOOOOOOO! The LACK of money causes people to do desperate and hopeless things. Like robbery, burglary, drug dealing, and even murder.
The problem with Lindsay (not MY Lindsay!), Paris, and Nicole is THEIR PARENTS! I'm not going to allow anyone to say that Lindsay is in rehab and Nicole is looking at doing time because their parents got a divorce. Paris' parents are still married and her skinny ass is about to be locked up in a few days also.
Yeah, I Said It!
Louis
First, I would like to thank all of the people who sent me such kind and supportive emails about my new site and all of the ridiculous issues that I had to go through to get some justice for my children's father, Louis A. McCall. I will have much more to say about the journey that finally got us closer to a modicum of justice. I can't tell you much more about the status of the case because the District Attorney's office has labeled me persona non grata due to my unwillingness to let them bully me when the news of the suspect's "accidental" escape became known to the media. So now I can't even get the courtesy and respect of a phone conversation with the prosecutor who is trying the case. No matter. I have done what I set out to do - to keep the case from consistently being thrown in a non-existent "cold case file cabinet" when Dekalb County doesn't even have an active cold case squad. If the family of the victim doesn't act a fool like I did, their loved one's case will just be overlooked in favor of the more high-profile cases, particularly the crimes against white people. Die in Dekalb and you will be forgotten. Do you realize that in 10 years, one of the only FOUR communiqués that I received from Dekalb County was a sympathy card from former Sheriff Sidney Dorsey? Know where he is now? In prison for life after he orchestrated the December 2000 assassination of his successor, Derwin Brown, just 3 days before the new Sheriff was supposed to take his oath of office. Then, after one of his "partners in crime". a Dekalb County Deputy Sheriff, decided to testify against him, Dorsey allegedly tried to have the Deputy killed. Oh, well, he shot the Sheriff, but could not kill the Deputy! Instead of compensating Mr. Brown's family for their loss, the county appealed the wrongful death suit won in November 2004. Brown's widow, already incapacitated from strokes after having her husband die in her arms, succumbed to her illnesses almost six years to the day after her husband's death, on Christmas Eve 2006.