#no rocks were murdered in the production of this television show

[chorusfm]

Incubus – A Crow Left Of The Murder…

I can vividly remember my excitement for the fifth studio album by Incubus called A Crow Left of the Murder… since the band was on a legendary run of successful records. The started to break through in the nu-metal scene with S.C.I.E.N.C.E., established themselves as Alt Rock heavyweights on Make Yourself, and showcased their experimental side on Morning View. Even after the departure of longtime bassist Dirk Lance, in favor of Ben Kenney (The Roots), it seemed like nothing could derail the trajectory of one of my favorite bands of all time. A Crow Left of the Murder… found Incubus working with veteran producer Brendan O’Brien, whose credits include some of the biggest rock bands of all time, and their trust in his style paid off on this record that still sounds as refreshing and exciting as I remember from 20 years ago listening to it in full for the first time. While some critics thought that Incubus were getting ultra-experimental, for the sake of being adventurous, after the success of their earlier albums, guitarist Mike Einziger clarified in a 2004 interview that, “we’ve never felt we didn’t have that freedom. We’ve always done what we wanted. It’s kind of self-serving, but that’s how we do it. We try not to pay attention to anything but each other.” By putting that trust back into their musical product, Incubus delivered the goods on what I consider to be some of the best work to date. The albums blasts off with a growling guitar riff on the lead single, “Megalomaniac,” that targets power-crazed individuals and their affinity for destructive behavior. Hmm, sounds familiar…Lead vocalist Brandon Boyd is as captivating as he’s ever been on the anthemic chorus of, “Hey, megalomaniac / You’re no Jesus, yeah, you’re no fucking Elvis / Wash your hands clean of yourself, baby / And step down, step down, step down,” as he makes his and his bandmates intentions clear that they weren’t happy with the status quo of the world. For as strong as a lead single the song is, I found it a tad surprising that their label would only release one additional official single from the LP that is loaded with great material. The title track follows with a frenetic pace to the instruments, while Boyd goes between soft to loud in his vocal approach to accentuate each lyric based on its purpose. The first verse of, “Unlearn me / Ditch what I read behind what I heard / Look, find, free / Yet? Do you get it yet? Do you get it?” finds the vocalist pondering what needs to be done to get the world to change for the better. “Agoraphobia” showcases their new bassist (Kenney) prominently with a pulsating bass line throughout the verses before gradually building to the chorus of, “I wanna stay inside / I wanna stay inside for good / I wanna stay inside / For good, for good, for good, for good,” that still merits its weight in gold today having lived through a pandemic. What Incubus does well on songs like this is to never rush their hook. They slow-build to their memorable moments and make sure they hit all of their intended targets, much like a painter putting the finishing touches on their canvas. The only other single to be released from the LP, “Talk Shows on Mute,” is a stunning ballad about the effects that television can have on us all. The refrain of, “Come one, come all / To 1984,” is in reference to the legendary book by George Orwell, which makes us all think about how far we still need to go as a society to avoid repeating unfortunate historical events. Boyd delivers another memorable vocal performance on this single that still stands the test of time in more ways than one. ”Beware! Criminal” and especially “Six Sad Little World” find Incubus leaning into some prog-rock elements, while still remaining recognizable in their Alt-rock roots by featuring uplifting choruses. On the latter, Boyd’s admission that “The world is a drought when out of love,” is as beautiful as it is tragic, and yet it still rings true today. The abrasive, speedy rock of “Pistola” marked a… https://chorus.fm/reviews/incubus-a-crow-left-of-the-murder/

[nickgerlich]

Hub City

Affinity merchandising is big businesses. It’s all part of what academics call fandom, and includes everything from sports team jerseys and caps to action figures, bobbleheads, games, and more from television shows, artists,  and anything else the collective hive deems cool.

That’s pop culture for you. It’s hard to put a finger on that pulse and extract a dollar value, though, because it’s typically all lumped together with other merchandise. But you know it’s popular because you see it all the time.

Which explains why Walmart has decided to expand its test market for the Netflix Hub it launched a year ago to include 2400 stores. That’s a little bit more than half of all Walmarts in the States, and shoppers will now be able to purchase wearables, collectibles, and otherwise useables based on their fave Netflix shows, like Stranger Things, Squid Game, and others. Previously these products were hard to find, sometimes found in places like Spencer’s, Hot Topic, and online.

It makes sense, because there is a degree of exclusivity about shows you find on Netflix and other streaming services. You have to subscribe, which automatically eliminates some people. If you subscribe and if you watch, you are now in the cool group. Well, as long as the zeitgeist declares the show to be cool.

And as we all know, there are some shows on streaming services that resonate far beyond anything the old-school network stations, and even cable networks, can ever hope to score. They spread virally, and as it does, Netflix, for example, greets us upon login with what is trending. It’s fuel on a fire.

In a rare example of available data, 40% of Hard Rock Cafe’s revenues come from sales of affinity merchandise. That’s pretty solid, meaning that for nearly every buck you spend on food and drinks, you spend the same on stuff. And this is the stuff that has badge value, because it means you more than likely picked it up while on travel, and have equally good taste in popular eating establishments.

Other streamers are getting in the game, but online. The Hulu Store has tons of cool merch, especially from shows I watch, like Only Murders In The Building and What We Do In The Shadows. HBO Max also has a lot of cool items from its shows, including The Righteous Gemstones. I am sure there are others.

You know what’s going to be on my Christmas Wish List, so feel free to go ahead and start your holiday shopping.

Any time a collaborative project pops up, it means that somebody has to do a little giving. In this case, it is Walmart, who has to trade out some otherwise utilized retail floor space in exchange for Netflix’ merch. It’s not like Walmart has 50 or 100 square feet of space sitting idly by, so there is naturally an opportunity cost associated with this move.

It is relinquishing whatever sales and profits were generated from this space before Netflix shows up. But Walmart must think this is a good move, one that will yield a net positive. That’s how retail works, because you have to try to maximize sales per square foot across every square foot.

As for Netflix, it signals their commitment to diversifying its revenue stream, which now includes advertising as well as busting up little password-sharing viewing cartels. Stir in a bunch of Funko Pop figures from Squid Game and Stranger Things, and this could be golden.

At the end of the day, we really do not need any of these things. We just want them. Sure, we could argue that an affinity hoodie meets part of our clothing and staying warm needs, but I am speculating the odds are good that the people who buy these, as well as all the team jerseys they wear to games, already have closets full of regular clothes.

As further sweetener on the Walmart-Netflix partnership, snack foods will be available at the hubs, as well as Netflix gift cards. This reminds me of the video rental stores of the past that also sold theatre-sized boxes of Goobers and Raisinets so you could replicate the viewing experience at home. Think of the gift card as a starter pack to get new subscribers sucked in.

This is sheer genius, and both companies are wise to move ahead with this one. I’ll be looking for it and ways to spend my money on things I don’t need. But man, they’re cool. And I will be too.

Dr “Hawkins High School For The Win“ Gerlich

Audio Blog

[storyofmychoices]

Original Murder Mystery Story

So I’ve been very uninspired as of late and I keep thinking about this novel I started almost six years ago now. I think I might take some time to work on it. I don’t know. But I thought I’d post the first chapter here incase anyone is interested in reading it. I’m not tagging anyone so this post will probably get lost in tumblr abyss and I’m okay with that. But if it doesn’t and you enjoy it, please, please let me know (like, comment, message me, reblog?!) I’ve never shared original work before so I’m quite nervous. (also, I guess, if it’s not good, please tell me (nicely of course) constructive criticism is good too.)

We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected to participate in an all-new reality television series. We have found that given your particular professional and personal experiences, you are an ideal fit for the cast. Official auditions will not be held for the premiere season, as the creators wish to film the entirety of the first round without the ever-watching eye of the public. In this day and age, we cannot be too careful.

Should you choose to accept our humble invitation, simply call the number below and enter your unique pin number when requested. If you choose to decline the offer, we ask that you return this letter in the enclosed self-addressed stamped envelope.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Our most sincere congratulations,

Truest Noon Productions

Phone: 1-800-687-3378

Pin: 58834633668

I

Mr. Danforth chuckled. He was far too old and out of shape to have been chosen. There must have been a mistake. No, certainly he would not be qualified for any of those reality television shows. “It’s the young folks they want,” he thought to himself. “They all want their fifteen minutes of fame. No, no. I am far too old to be getting involved in anything like that. Me on the television?” He couldn’t fathom it. 

Tossing the letter onto the pile of junk mail on his desk, he put his feet up in his recliner and rested from his long day at the security office. 

☆   ☆   ☆ 

Ding, dong. Ding, dong. Diiiiing, Dooooong. Knock, knock, knock. Knock, knock, knock. 

Ms. Drake pressed her nose against her dining room window, watching the mysterious deliveryman across the street. Her hair tightly wound in curlers, it was a wonder she could move at all without her scalp pulling off. She leaned back and took a long drag of her almost finished cigarette. She crushed the butt on a dish to her left without looking, turning her focus again to Mrs. Mulberry’s house across the street. The deliveryman continued to press the doorbell fervently. 

“I wonder what that could be about,” Ms. Drake said to herself. “Who delivers mail at ten to six in the morning?”

“What was taking Mrs. Mulberry so long to answer the door?” Ms. Drake thought, changing window positions. Certainly, she would be readying for work by this time? How could she leave that poor man standing there like an idiot? Not on her watch.

Ms. Drake tightened her silk floral housecoat around herself and moved toward the door. Her slippers were ready for her morning walk to the mailbox for the paper. She typically waited until Mr. Barnes was leaving for work so they could exchange their daily salutations, but today she would deviate from her routine. After all, she couldn’t leave that poor, helpless deliveryman standing in the damp morning air. That would not be neighborly at all. 

Waddling out of her house, Ms. Drake raised a hand to attract the man’s attention. “Yoo hoo. Oh, yoo hoooo.”

He turned toward the sound of Ms. Drake’s howling call. “Yes, ma’am.”

“I see you’re looking for Mrs. Mulberry. Perhaps she’s left for work already,” Ms. Drake suggested, knowing fully well that Mrs. Mulberry did not leave for work until 7:00 a.m. 

“Yes, ma’am. I have been instructed to hand-deliver this letter to her,” the man held out a large blue envelope with silver calligraphy; Ms. Drake’s gaze was immediately taken by it. “I don’t suppose you know when she might return? It is of the utmost importance that she gets this letter quickly.”

“Oh, my dear,” Ms. Drake said, fluttering her eyes at the man easily thirty years her junior. “I know Mrs. Mulberry quite well; we have been neighbors for the better part of two decades. I could deliver the letter to her.”

“That’s very kind ma’am, but my directions are to place the letter in Mrs. Mulberry’s hands directly. I’m not even to leave it at her door for her. She must receive it straight away.”

“Well then, it’s a pity that you’ll not succeed in your task. I only wanted to help you on your way!” Ms. Drake turned up her pug nose at him, an attribute certainly the result of pressing it against her window far too many times over the years. “I bid you a good day then.”

Ms. Drake sulked back to her house, failing to retrieve her newspaper. What was in that envelope and why was it so important? She had to know. 

“Wait,” the man called. 

Ms. Drake’s curlers almost burst off her head; she could hardly contain herself. “Yes, my dear?” She slowly turned around giving the man a determined look. 

“It’s urgently important Mrs. Mulberry receives this letter today; can you assure me you will get it to her?” The man asked skeptically.

“Of course, yes. Mrs. Mullberry’s letter is in safe hands with me.” She held out her thick hands in his direction, her fingers wagging invitingly.

Apprehensively, he turned the envelope over to her. “You’re a lifesaver. I really wouldn’t have had time to return this evening. I must be getting on with my other deliveries.”

“Of course, of course. What are neighbors for if not to help out those around them?” 

“That’s very kind of you ma’am. Well, I better be off. Thank you, Mrs....” 

“Ms. Drake,” she replied. “Ms. Cordelia Drake.”

“Well then, thank you, Ms. Drake. It has been a pleasure.” He smiled and was off.

Ms. Drake anxiously looked back at Mrs. Mulberry’s house. “Good,” she thought. “She doesn’t know yet.” Ms. Drake waddled her way back into the house, tucking the envelope under her robe. 

☆   ☆   ☆ 

Ms. Banks swiftly pressed the numbers on her phone with her long, manicured nails. “Shoot, a voice recording.” She said quietly to herself in her soft southern accent. Ms. Isabella Banks had no trouble seeing why she would be chosen for a new television series. The blonde bombshell had won Homecoming and Prom Queen at her high school, as well as placed as runner up for Ms. Georgia. Of course, they’d want her. 

Isabella practiced her award-winning smile. Yes, it would be good to be in the spotlight again. She must get through to the number. She dialed more slowly this time, speaking each number aloud as she tapped the keypad. The recording again–didn’t anyone want to talk with her directly, she wondered.

☆   ☆   ☆ 

Liam Flynn, a rock musician, found himself in possession of a letter welcoming him to join a reality TV pilot. “To accept is defeat,” he grumbled, tossing the letter in his overflowing trashcan. “Only washed-up artists do reality TV. I’m not that desperate.” 

His greasy dark bangs fell in front of his eyes as he opened his fridge. He carelessly pushed them aside and grabbed a beer. It was the closest thing to food that he had in his apartment. “Well, maybe, I’ll just hear them out. I could plan a comeback and use this as a launching point. Yes, that’s it!” Liam retrieved the paper, dialed the number, punched in his pin number, and listened to the recorded instructions. His hopes dashed a little as he too had wished to speak with a live person. 

☆   ☆   ☆ 

“Congratulations Mr. Martin,” read Adam. “What is it with all these scam contests? Why can’t one of these for once be legit? That would change everything.” Adam had been a star football player in high school and got a scholarship to play for the University of Michigan, but a shoulder injury took him out freshmen year. He needed some good news.

“I should give them a piece of my mind. Sending these letters, getting people’s hopes up, just to scam them. Who do they think they are?”

He furiously pounded his phone as he dialed the number. He would tell them. The second a voice spoke, he started ranting until he realized it was just a recording. “What a waste,” he thought. Well, he was this far, why not? He punched in his pin number and listened. He would receive a call in a day with further instructions. “Oh, I’m sure,” he began talking to the automated voice. “Yes, Mr. Martin, thank you for calling and verifying your award. Yes, all we need now is your bank account information, social security number, and credit cards,” he mocked. 

“No, thank you.” He slammed his phone on the counter. 

☆   ☆   ☆ 

Doctor Caitlyn Grey sat behind the large mahogany desk in her private office in Jacksonville, Florida. Her long legs crossed under her desk as she kicked her heels on and off. What a terribly boring day, she thought. Her calendar book was filled, yet Dr. Grey found her patients’ problems to be trivial. “The things people see a psychiatrist for these days.” She laughed to herself. Hadn’t she chosen this path to help people with real disorders? Why then is her day filled with people like Joan Hall who spends every minute of her bi-weekly hour-long sessions talking about her eleven cats and making cat noises? So, maybe there was an underlying cause for this behavior. When Joan had first come in, hadn’t she tried to ask questions and engage Joan? It was Joan who would not talk about herself and chose to focus only on her cats. There were fifteen of them then. “I guess that’s progress,” Dr. Grey reminisced.

“Your mail is here, Dr. Grey,” said Miranda, the good doctor’s secretary. She placed the mail on Dr. Grey’s desk.

“Thank you, and Miranda, call Antonio’s and make me a dinner reservation for tomorrow night.” 

“Of course, Dr. Grey, How many?”

“Just one, but make sure you tell them to reserve my special table.”

Miranda gave a curt nod and left Dr. Grey alone with her thoughts and only the sound of her pumps popping on and off to fill the room. Dr. Grey shuffled through the mail tossing each unopened envelope back on the desk until she came across a unique blue one with silver lettering. 

No return address, she noted. As she opened it, a sly smile broke across her face. A reality show really wanted a psychiatrist in its cast? Well, it would be to her advantage. She would, of course, see through their thinly veiled plots and uncover the truth. “Oh, yes,” she thought. “This could be enjoyable.”

Dr. Grey called the number and followed the instructions. She hung up the receiver and paged Miranda on the intercom. “Miranda?”

“Yes, Dr. Grey?”

“Be a dear and clear my schedule for next Tuesday. I’ve just received a call about an urgent meeting I must attend.”

“Of course, Dr. Grey. Is everything alright?”

“Oh, yes. I believe everything will be just splendid.”

☆   ☆   ☆ 

“Truest Noon Productions. How lame,” Emma Riley decided. And yet, something about the name intrigued her. She had never heard of them before. She sat pondering the content of the letter. The twenty-one-year-old college student attended New York University with an undeclared major. She had entered the school when she was seventeen and had jumped from program to program. Why would anyone want her on television? She was a loner, who cared less about reality television than the over-hyped pop artists with whom radio stations are determined to melt listeners’ brains. And yet, this one intrigued her. 

Emma pulled up a search engine on her computer and entered “Truest Noon Productions.” A dozen websites popped up in the results, but none an exact match. She couldn’t find any digital record of the company at all. She searched the phone number in hopes of pulling up a business listing. Nothing. She tried the address on the return envelope. Nothing. According to the map app on her phone, the address didn’t even exist. How could it not exist?

“I guess they really are keeping this show under wraps,” she contemplated. Emma stared at the letter and read it over and over again. There was just something about it, something peculiar. What was it?

She held the paper up to the light, but only found a logo imprinted in the threads of the paper. Unable to discover what was puzzling her, about the letter, she pulled out her phone and dialed the number. She pressed ‘0’ hoping to be transferred to a live person. It was no use; there was only the recording. 

☆   ☆   ☆ 

Ms. Drake sat in the kitchen, her curious hands clutching the envelope. It was too thick and dark to see through. She had tried holding it up to the sun and a lamp. Neither came close to illuminating the contents. The envelope was sealed tightly, so there was no chance of accidentally opening it. Steam, she thought. She quickly boiled a large pot of water holding the envelope carefully over it. It was taking too long. 

“He did say it was urgent,” she remarked. “Maybe I should open it, just in case it’s time-sensitive. Yes, yes, I think that will do.”

She took her letter opener and carefully broke the seal. “A reality television series? Mrs. Mulberry? No, it couldn’t be. They must have the wrong person,” Ms. Drake shook her head in protest. Then, she got an idea. The letter wasn’t actually addressed to Mrs. Mulberry at all. The envelope certainly was, but the letter was nameless. “I shouldn’t,” she muttered while grabbing the phone and dialing the number. “Well, who could it really hurt?” She admitted to herself. She couldn’t imagine Mrs. Mulberry accepting, and why should the opportunity go to waste?

(if you are interested in more and want to be tagged, please let me know)

((also if you made it this far OMGOSH HI AND THANK YOU 🥺😭))

[the-homicidediaries]

Chris Benoit

Guys.

I am so excited to talk about this.

Not because of the context, but because this is one of the reasons I love wrestling so much; there’s so much that goes on behind the scenes that people have NO CLUE about.

There have been several professional wrestlers who have killed people or been killed themselves and the rabbit hole goes deep.

(Rey Mysterio accidentally killed a man on live tv and they still have the video up on YouTube.)

(Jimmy ‘Superfly’ Snuka murdered his girlfriend in May of 1983. Who is Jimmy Snuka? Jimmy Snuka was related to The Rock, Rikishi, and The Uso’s.)

THERE ARE SO MANY MORE THO.

But today, I want to talk about the Daddy of them all, Chris Benoit.

Chris Benoit’s crimes are so heinous and unforgivable Vince McMahon has swept his name under the rug and removed him from The Hall of Fame.

Benoit’s crimes also changed the dynamic of professional wrestling forever.

Chris Benoit was born in Montreal, Quebec to Michael and Margaret Benoit on May 21, 1967. He and his family resided in Edmonton, Alberta, however.

During Benoit’s childhood, he idolized Tom “Dynamite Kid” Billington (a British wrestler who competed in the 1980’s and had ongoing feuds with Hart) and Bret “Hitman” Hart (a Canadian-American wrestler and a member of the notorious Hart Family. He is a personal fave of mine as well).

When Benoit was 12 years old, he attended a local wrestling event where both Dynamite Kid and Hart were competing and he knew right then and there that he was destined to become a wrestler.

He trained in The Hart Family “dungeon” and was coached by none other than Stu Hart (Bret and Owen Hart’s father. If you don’t know Owen Hart, you should google him as well because he died under bizarre circumstances on live tv as well.)

When Benoit fought in the ring, he channeled both Dynamite Kid and Hart, even adopting Hart’s signature move, “Sharpshooter” as his finishing move.

Chris began wrestling in 1985 in Stu Hart’s Stampede Wrestling promotion. He was quickly recognized as a force to be reckoned with and received his first title, the Stampede British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Championship, on March 18, 1988.

(This dude has a very extensive history or wrestling in New Japan Pro-Wrestling, World Champion Wrestling, Extreme Champion Wrestling, and World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment, but I just.. I cain’t get into all that, please forgive me. Haha! We are talking 22 years here! So I am humbly skipping to his family life.)

-Okay, so. I would love for this to be a romantic love story for the ages and the deaths resulted in crimes of passion, but that didn’t happen. At. All. Not at all.

You’ll see soon why this was all brushed under the rug.-

Benoit was married twice.

His first wife, Martina, and he had two children David (who is a wrestler as well) and Megan. By 1997, their marriage had broken down and Benoit and Martina decided it was best to end it.

Benoit began living with his girlfriend, Nancy Sullivan, who was the girlfriend of Benoit’s frequent opponent, Kevin Sullivan.

(It started off as an on-screen relationship for views and it led to a real-life affair. Many people joke that Kevin Sullivan booked his own divorce.)

On February 25, 2000, Benoit and Nancy’s son, Daniel, was born.

On November 23, 2000, Benoit and Nancy were married.

This 👏🏼 was 👏🏼 not 👏🏼 a 👏🏼 good 👏🏼 marriage.

In 2003, Nancy filed for divorce from Benoit, saying he would break and throw furniture and was cruel to her. She later dropped the suit as well as the restraining order she had set against him.

Benoit became good friends with fellow wrestler Eddie Guerrero, (a beloved and incredible wrestler, one of my dad’s faves), following a match in Japan, when Benoit kicked Guerrero in the head and knocked him out cold. This started a friendship that lasted even after Guerrero's death in late 2005, in which Benoit had written diary entries to him just ten days after his passing.

(I’m only mentioning this because Guerrero’s death has been rumored to be one of the reasons Benoit did what he did.)

Here’s where it gets gory.

So we know Benoit and Nancy did not have a good marriage, but things seemed to be okay because she dropped all the charges against him.

Benoit and Nancy were living in Fayetteville, GA, with 7 year old Daniel.

On June 25, 2007, police entered the Benoit home after Benoit’s WWE employers requested a welfare check after Benoit missed weekend events without notice.

(Benoit was actually scheduled to win another title during these weekend events.)

Upon arriving at his Georgia home, authorities found Nancy wrapped in a towel. She had died from asphyxiation.

Their son was also found, also dead, apparently strangled. Benoit placed a Bible next to each of their bodies.

Benoit’s body was the most disturbing to be found. The wrestler was hanged on a lat pulldown machine, with a Bible lying on the weight machine beside him. There were also allegedly 10 empty beer cans and an empty bottle of wine.

Autopsies concluded the murders and suicide took place over the course of three days.

On Friday, June 22, Chris Benoit killed his wife Nancy in an upstairs bedroom. Her limbs were bound, and her body was wrapped in a towel. A copy of the bible was left by her body. Injuries indicated that Benoit had pressed a knee into her back while pulling on a cord around her neck, causing strangulation. Officials said that there were no signs of immediate struggle. Toxicologists did find alcohol in her system, but they were unable to determine if she had been drinking prior to her death or if it was a product of decomposition.

Daniel was suffocated and killed in his bedroom, and a copy of the bible was left by his body. Daniel had internal injuries to the throat area, showing no bruises. Daniel's exact time of death is unknown. The reports determined Daniel was sedated with Xanax and likely unconscious when he was killed. Daniel's body had also just started to show signs of decomposition but was not as far along as his mother's body, so they were able to determine he was murdered after his mother.

(It was later alleged that Daniel had Fragile X syndrome, a genetic disorder that is characterized by mild to moderate intellectual disability. Physical features may include a long and narrow face, large ears, flexible fingers, and large testicles. About a third of those affected have features of autism such as problems with social interactions and delayed speech. Males are affected more than females. Daniel also had needle marks in his arm and it’s alleged that these were the result of growth hormones given to him because Benoit and his family considered him to be undersized.)

Chris Benoit committed suicide by hanging. Benoit used a weight machine cord to hang himself by creating a noose from the end of the cord on a pull-down machine from which the bar had been removed. Benoit released the weights, causing his strangulation. Benoit was found hanging from the pulley cable.

(On a podcast called The Talk is Jericho in 2016, Nancy’s sister Sandra Toffoloni divulged some more information. She said Benoit’s internet search history showed he had searched “the quickest and easiest way to break a neck”. Benoit had a towel wrapped around his neck when he committed suicide and his neck was broken instantly.)

A suicide note was not discovered, but a note written in one of the bibles Benoit had said, “I’m preparing to leave this Earth.”

A few possible motives I’ve seen people mention have included:

•CTE - Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is a neurodegenerative disease caused by repeated head injuries. Symptoms do not typically begin until years after the injuries and can include behavioral problems, mood problems, and problems with thinking. During his autopsy, it was concluded that Benoit did suffer from CTE after wrestling for so many years. (Back when they threw people from tops of cages, hit each other over the head with chairs and ladders, etc.) Autopsy experts say Benoit’s brain was so severely damaged that it resembled a 85 year old Alzheimer’s patient.

•Nancy’s abuse and filing for divorce - In February 2008, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Benoit was having an affair with a female WWE wrestler and Nancy found out. It was also speculated they argued over life insurance policies.

•Benoit’s alcohol abuse - Benoit abused steroids, but many people believe it was his alcohol abuse that led to these horrific murders. Many of Benoit’s colleagues attested he would drink more when problems with Nancy occurred.

•Eddie Guerrero’s death - Benoit and Guerrero and Benoit were very close. When it came out that Guerrero has died in his hotel room in November of 2005, Benoit was devastated. WWE held a televised memorial for Guerrero and when Benoit was giving his testimony, he broke down in front of the camera. Some of Benoit’s colleagues say, “he was never the same” after Guerrero’s death.

But at the expense of sounding completely heartless, (mind you, I’ve been suicidal myself), why didn’t he just commit suicide?

Why did he have to murder his wife and seven year old son? If we go with the CTE theory, it makes sense because he was not thinking rationally.

I wish Nancy had had the strength to leave him when she tried.

The night after Benoit’s body was found, WWE Raw had a televised memorial for him and his family with Vince McMahon standing in the middle of the ring breaking the news and a video montage.

No one knew he was the one who had killed his family.

When it was later revealed that Benoit had committed these crimes the episode was removed and WWE made the decision to remove nearly all mention of Benoit from their website, future publications, video games, merchandise, DVD/Blu-Rays, and future events.

Like I said.. swept him under the rug.

Benoit is now the “He Who Shall Not Be Named” of professional wrestling.

In ending this, I’d like to quote Stone Cold Steve Austin now.

“Well first and foremost, what I think about Chris Benoit is that guy was one of the most nicest guys I ever met in my life. He’s one of the most talented, hard working cats I’d ever seen in the squared circle. Anybody who knew Chris would tell you those exact two things. That guy loved the damn wrestling business, he was born to be a wrestler and was absolutely phenomenal. Drawing a lot of his influence from The Dynamite Kid, he blazed a path as the Pegasus Kid and his legacy as The Crippler Chris Benoit was just one hellacious career.

“One night, Chris ended up killing his wife and his kid. That is an act so terrible and horrible I can’t even comprehend or guess as to what happened in that house. That will always overshadow any accomplishment Chris had in the ring. He’ll never be in the Hall of Fame, it will just never happen. His career will speak for itself but his record as a human being, his first and foremost, and those actions will never be forgotten. That’s my feelings on that, we don’t even need to talk about the Hall of Fame. Speaking for myself, Chris Benoit as the person I knew, loved him. Chris Benoit as a wrestler, loved him. Chris Benoit as the person who did what he did, unforgivable. Bottom line.” – via NoDQ.com.

Pictured below are Chris and Nancy Benoit, their son Daniel, and their home in Fayetteville, Georgia.

[timeless-hollywood-classics]

Richard Ewing Powell (November 14, 1904 – January 2, 1963) was an American singer, actor, voice actor, film producer, film director and studio head. Though he came to stardom as a musical comedy performer, he showed versatility, and successfully transformed into a hardboiled leading man starring in projects of a more dramatic nature. He was the first actor to portray the private detective Philip Marlowe on screen.

Powell was born the middle son of three boys in Mountain View, the seat of Stone County in northern Arkansas. His brothers were Luther (the eldest), and Howard (the youngest). The family moved the boys to Little Rock in 1914, where Powell sang in church choirs and with local orchestras, and started his own band. Powell attended the former Little Rock College, before he started his entertainment career as a singer with the Royal Peacock Band which toured throughout the Midwest.

During this time, he married Mildred Maund, a model, but she found being married to an entertainer not to her liking. After a final trip to Cuba together, Mildred moved to Hemphill, Texas, and the couple divorced in 1932. Later, Powell joined the Charlie Davis Orchestra, based in Indianapolis. He recorded a number of records with Davis and on his own, for the Vocalion label in the late 1920s.

Powell moved to Pittsburgh, where he found great local success as the Master of Ceremonies at the Enright Theater and the Stanley Theater.

In April 1930, Warner Bros. bought Brunswick Records, which at that time owned Vocalion. Warner Bros. was sufficiently impressed by Powell's singing and stage presence to offer him a film contract in 1932. He made his film debut as a singing bandleader in Blessed Event.[4]

He was borrowed by Fox Film to support Will Rogers in Too Busy to Work (1932). He was a boyish crooner, the sort of role he specialised in for the next few years. Back at Warners he supported George Arliss in The King's Vacation, then was in 42nd Street (both 1933), playing the love interest for Ruby Keeler. The film was a massive hit.

Warners got him to basically repeat the role in Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), another big success. So too was Footlight Parade (1933), with Keeler and James Cagney.

Powell was upped to star for College Coach (1933), then went back to more ensemble pieces including 42nd Street, Convention City (both 1933), Wonder Bar, Twenty Million Sweethearts, and Dames (all 1934).[3]

Happiness Ahead was more of a star vehicle for Powell, as was Flirtation Walk (both 1934). He was top-billed in Gold Diggers of 1935 and Broadway Gondolier (both 1935), both with Joan Blondell. He supported Marion Davies in Page Miss Glory (1935), made for Cosmopolitan Pictures, a production company financed by Davies' lover William Randolph Hearst, who released through Warners.

Warners gave him a change of pace, casting him as Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935).

More typical was Shipmates Forever (1935) with Keeler. 20th Century Fox borrowed him for Thanks a Million (1935); back at Warners, he did Colleen (1936) with Keeler and Blondell. Powell was reunited with Marion Davies in another for Cosmopolitan, Hearts Divided (1936), playing Napoleon's brother.

He made two films with Blondell, Stage Struck (1936) and Gold Diggers of 1937 (1937). 20th Century Fox then borrowed him again for On the Avenue (1937).

Back at Warners, he appeared in The Singing Marine, Varsity Show (both 1937), Hollywood Hotel, Cowboy from Brooklyn, Hard to Get, Going Places (all 1938), and Naughty but Nice (1939). Fed up with the repetitive nature of these roles, Powell left Warner Bros and went to work for Paramount Pictures.

At Paramount, he and Blondell were cast together again, in the drama I Want a Divorce (1940). Then Powell got a chance to appear in another non-musical, Christmas in July (1940), a screwball comedy which was the second feature directed by Preston Sturges.

Universal borrowed him to support Abbott and Costello in In the Navy (1941), one of the most popular films of 1941. At Paramount he had a cameo in Star Spangled Rhythm and co-starred with Mary Martin in Happy Go Lucky (both 1943). He supported Dorothy Lamour in Riding High (1943).

He was in a fantasy comedy directed by René Clair, It Happened Tomorrow then went over to MGM to appear opposite Lucille Ball in Meet the People (both 1944), which was a box office flop.

During this period, Powell starred in the musical programme Campana Serenade, which was broadcast on NBC radio (1942–1943) and CBS radio (1943–1944).

By 1944, Powell felt he was too old to play romantic leading men anymore,[citation needed] so he lobbied to play the lead in Double Indemnity. He lost out to Fred MacMurray, another Hollywood nice guy. MacMurray's success, however, fueled Powell's resolve to pursue projects with greater range.

Powell's career changed dramatically when he was cast in the first of a series of films noir, as private detective Philip Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet, directed by Edward Dmytryk at RKO. The film was a big hit, and Powell had successfully reinvented himself as a dramatic actor. He was the first actor to play Marlowe – by name – in motion pictures. (Hollywood had previously adapted some Marlowe novels, but with the lead character changed.) Later, Powell was the first actor to play Marlowe on radio, in 1944 and 1945, and on television, in a 1954 episode of Climax! Powell also played the slightly less hard-boiled detective Richard Rogue in the radio series Rogue's Gallery beginning in 1945.

In 1945, Dmytryk and Powell reteamed to make the film Cornered, a gripping, post-World War II thriller that helped define the film noir style.

For Columbia, he played a casino owner in Johnny O'Clock (1947) and made To the Ends of the Earth (1948). In 1948, he stepped out of the brutish type when he starred in Pitfall, a film noir in which a bored insurance company worker falls for an innocent but dangerous woman, played by Lizabeth Scott.

He broadened his range appearing in a Western, Station West (1948), and a French Foreign Legion tale, Rogues' Regiment (1949). He was a Mountie in Mrs. Mike (1950).

From 1949 to 1953, Powell played the lead role in the NBC radio theater production Richard Diamond, Private Detective. His character in the 30-minute weekly was a likable private detective with a quick wit. Many episodes ended with Detective Diamond having an excuse to sing a little song to his date, showcasing Powell's vocal abilities. Many of the episodes were written by Blake Edwards. When Richard Diamond came to television in 1957, the lead role was portrayed by David Janssen, who did no singing in the series. Prior to the Richard Diamond series, he starred in Rogue's Gallery. He played Richard Rogue, private detective. The Richard Diamond tongue-in-cheek persona developed in the Rogue series.

Powell took a break from tough-guy roles in The Reformer and the Redhead (1950), opposite wife June Allyson. Then it was back to tougher movies: Right Cross (1950), a boxing film, with Allyson; Cry Danger (1951), as an ex con; The Tall Target (1951), at MGM directed by Anthony Mann, playing a detective who tries to prevent the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

He returned to comedy with You Never Can Tell (1951). He had a good role in MGM's popular melodrama, The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). His final film performance was in a romantic comedy Susan Slept Here (1954) for director Frank Tashlin.

Even when he appeared in lighter fare such as The Reformer and the Redhead and Susan Slept Here (1954), he never sang in his later roles. The latter, his final onscreen appearance in a feature film, did include a dance number with co-star Debbie Reynolds.

By this stage Powell had turned director. His feature debut was Split Second (1953) at RKO Pictures. He followed it with The Conqueror (1956), coproduced by Howard Hughes starring John Wayne as Genghis Khan. The exterior scenes were filmed in St. George, Utah, downwind of U.S. above-ground atomic tests. The cast and crew totaled 220, and of that number, 91 had developed some form of cancer by 1981, and 46 had died of cancer by then, including Powell and Wayne.

He directed Allyson opposite Jack Lemmon in You Can't Run Away from It (1956). Powell then made two war films at Fox with Robert Mitchum, The Enemy Below (1957) and The Hunters (1958).

In the 1950s, Powell was one of the founders of Four Star Television, along with Charles Boyer, David Niven, and Ida Lupino. He appeared in and supervised several shows for that company. Powell played the role of Willie Dante in Four Star Playhouse, in episodes entitled "Dante's Inferno" (1952), "The Squeeze" (1953), "The Hard Way" (1953), and "The House Always Wins" (1955). In 1961, Howard Duff, husband of Ida Lupino, assumed the Dante role in a short-lived NBC adventure series Dante, set at a San Francisco nightclub called "Dante's Inferno".

Powell guest-starred in numerous Four Star programs, including a 1958 appearance on the Duff-Lupino sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve. He appeared in 1961 on James Whitmore's legal drama The Law and Mr. Jones on ABC. In the episode "Everybody Versus Timmy Drayton", Powell played a colonel having problems with his son. Shortly before his death, Powell sang on camera for the final time in a guest-star appearance on Four Star's Ensign O'Toole, singing "The Song of the Marines", which he first sang in his 1937 film The Singing Marine. He hosted and occasionally starred in his Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater on CBS from 1956–1961, and his final anthology series, The Dick Powell Show on NBC from 1961 through 1963; after his death, the series continued through the end of its second season (as The Dick Powell Theater), with guest hosts.

Powell was the son of Ewing Powell and Sallie Rowena Thompson.

He married three times:

Mildred Evelyn Maund (b. 1906, d. 1967). The couple married in 1925, and appear on the 1930 census in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Powell was working in a theater, and on a 1931-passenger list for the SS Oriente, returning from Havana, Cuba. They divorced in 1932, although Mildred retained her married name.

Joan Blondell (married September 19, 1936, divorced 1944). He adopted her son from a previous marriage, Norman Powell, who later became a television producer; the couple also had one child together, Ellen Powell.

June Allyson (August 19, 1945, until his death, January 2, 1963), with whom he had two children, Pamela (adopted) and Richard Powell, Jr.

Powell's ranch-style house was used for exterior filming on the ABC TV series, Hart to Hart. Powell was a friend of Hart to Hart actor Robert Wagner and producer Aaron Spelling. The estate, known as Amber Hills, is on 48 acres in the Mandeville Canyon section of Brentwood, Los Angeles.

Powell enjoyed general aviation as a private pilot.

On September 27, 1962, Powell acknowledged rumors that he was undergoing treatment for cancer. The disease was originally diagnosed as an allergy, with Powell first experiencing symptoms while traveling East to promote his program. Upon his return to California, Powell's personal physician conducted tests and found malignant tumors on his neck and chest.

The marker on Dick Powell's niche in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California incorrectly identifies his year of death as 1962. Powell died at the age of 58 on January 2, 1963. His body was cremated and his remains were interred in the Columbarium of Honor at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. In a 2001 interview with Larry King, Powell's widow June Allyson stated that the cause of death was lung cancer due to his chain smoking.

It has been speculated that Powell developed cancer as a result of his participation in the film The Conqueror, which was filmed at St. George, Utah, near a site used by the U.S. military for nuclear testing. As well as Powell, who directed the film, about a third of the actors who participated in the film developed cancer, including John Wayne and Susan Hayward.

During the 15th Primetime Emmy Awards on May 26, 1963, the Television Academy presented a posthumous Television Academy Trustee Award to Dick Powell for his contributions to the industry. The award was accepted by two of his former partners in Four Star Television, Charles Boyer and David Niven.

Dick Powell has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6915 Hollywood Blvd.

[loudlytransparenttrash]

Bloody, now these people are going after tv shows and products that show cops in a good light. The show Cops was canceled on Tuesday after 32 seasons, Live PD is pulled from A&E, LEGO is not selling police kits, and they want that police dog from Paw Patrol to be removed. I thought that last one was a joke but sadly it was actually serious

Not long ago the police were celebrated first responders who ran toward the collapsing twin towers, many never to come back. Funerals of the cop heroes were televised, kids dreamed of growing up to be cops. It was normal for sons and daughters to follow in their dad’s footsteps, generation after generation. Those days are gone. Over the past few weeks, hundreds of cops all over the country, many black officers, have been run over, shot, slashed or bludgeoned by bricks and rocks. The cops who have been killed or put on life support by looters and rioters, once again, including black officers, they’re completely ignored by the media, they’re instead branded mass murderers, oppressors and racists on nightly TV and swarmed by agitators everywhere they go. With the persistent demonization of police officers and now the removal of anything that shows them in a positive light, it makes it easier to conclude the cause of every police shooting without any further inquiry - racism, of course. It also successfully covers up the one thing that nobody is allowed to talk about: black crime. Hiding who the real criminals and bad guys are is just another way to censor reality and keep their anti-cop narrative alive. Now that cops are Nazis and violent criminals are Anne Frank, it was only inevitable that demands to defund and dismantle our law enforcement were made, and the Minneapolis council is the first to oblige. The ironic part is, if our police were as racist and white supremacist as they’re accused of, the easiest way for them to kill blacks is to keep away from these crime riddled areas and let them keep killing and victimizing each other at unimaginable rates. 

[soyforramen]

Old Times

Gladys hadn’t been back in town for a month before Alice showed up on her front porch at four in the morning, tears streaking down her cheeks (makeup looking just as good as when she’d applied it that morning; gotta love a woman who can afford Avon).  A wide-eyed teenager, the spiting image of a younger, more precocious Alice, tagged along behind her.  Without hesitation Gladys ground her cigarette out on the arm of the rocker (saved from Mr. O’Neil’s Tuesday trash pile) and pulled them both inside.

Without a word spoken, Gladys went to change the sheets in her bedroom.  Alice and the girl spoke softly in the kitchen, and try as she might, Gladys couldn’t make out a single word.  Whatever it was, it had been bad enough to bring Alice here and not one of her fancy, high-society friends’ houses (probably put out jello molds and finger sandwiches and food that tasted like creamed dirt).  Something big enough to ruin the entire Cooper household.

The pillowcase hung from the bottom of the pillow, wrapped around its middle in a suffocating grip, as she realized Hal hadn’t been with them.  In fact, she hadn’t seen Hal and Alice in the same place since she’d moved back to town (long-since overstayed, parents basement too crowded with two bickering teens and three shifts at the grocery store, g.e.d. just out of reach).  She’d exchanged enough nods with Hal in the frozen dinner aisle, both pretending the space between them wasn’t mired in ancient history and still raw rivalry.  Her path with Alice was limited to the high school drop-off lane, the one public gesture of maternal affection Jughead still allowed

Now, though.  She sighed.  It wasn’t uncommon for the women around here to lean on one another for comfort and safety.  Sad, really, how often that came on the heels of the men not living up to even the lowest standards.  

After a second thought, she fluffed up pillows and headed back towards the kitchen.  Coming towards her in the claustrophobic hallway came Alice and her child (Betty, she realized with a flash of deja vu, a reminder of when she and Jughead were the ones on the other end of this), and Gladys flattened herself against the wall.

“Thanks, Ms. Jones,” Betty murmured, her eyes downcast.

Gladys hadn’t the heart to tell her she hadn’t been a Jones for almost fifteen years.  

“Not a problem at all, darlin’.  What do you think about strawberry pancakes in the morning?”

Betty gave her a watery smile and Alice shooed her into the bedroom.  The door closed behind them, and Gladys let out a heavy breath.  There was always something going wrong around here.  You expected it, but it still hurt to see it happen.

Filled with a nervous energy (live wired and on fire, as her daddy used to say before the tar and the coal got to him; put a cork in that and you could power the whole nothern half of the states), Gladys flitted around the house, straightening and tucking and dusting, nothing seeming to be enough anymore.  She had another two hours before she had to be at her first shift at the factory down the road.  Then again, maybe she’d return that long ago favor and call in sick.  After all, she was entitled to a few days here and there (nothing like the dump in toledo where they squeezed every drop of your soul, pennies on the dollar, and still demanded more).

Just as she was running a cloth over the television set (only three channels, black and white; older than either of her children who preferred leeching ole’ henry’s wifi instead of -), the bedroom door shut quietly.  Gladys straightened and waited for Alice to appear.  When their eyes met, Alice’s stoic, no-nonsense rock solid mask crumbled into a mess of tears and grief.

“He’s -“

Poor gal couldn’t even speak properly anymore.  Whatever Hal’d done, it was enough to knock the sense out of Alice, and that was a scary enough prospect on its own.  She hadn’t been that thrown for a loop since they’d raided (stole) Mantle’s stash of E (curled up like kittens, high in the dusty sunlight on the trailer floor, alice laying out her future with hal and not her…).

Gladys quieted her and lead Alice to the love seat (third-hand from earl and katie, bless their hearts even though it did smell like that damn cat).  Alice tried to apologize for the interruption, but Gladys refused to let her.  Jughead she didn’t have to worry about - boy slept like a brick in a tornado - and J.B. was at a sleepover with some of her friends (best friends on the first day of school, always did get her daddy’s better traits, while jug soured down into his old records and writing, lost in his own world, too much like his mama to make anything of it).

Once Alice was settled, Gladys poured out a shot of rum and set it on the coffee table along with a box of tissues.  A few steps back, and Gladys was in the kitchen to give Alice a modicum of peace in the tiny trailer.  She poured a glass of water and set it next to the empty shot glass.

“Another one?  I have whiskey, too.”

Alice shook her head, a crumbled tissue in her hand halfway shredded to hell and back already.  On the table lay three more (three bucks a pop here, can you believe) and Gladys couldn’t help but want that to be the remnants of Hal’s body.  

“Hal, he -“ Alice’s words were cut off with a gut wrenching sob, and Gladys rushed to her.

Like she did when the kids woke up from their nightmares, she murmured platitudes and soft words, her arms wrapped around Alice in a cocoon of safety.  After a good long cry (glad she still wore waterproof, cheap, drugstore mascara would have ruined the fabric, though the concealer would do hell on the blouse), Alice steadied herself.

Despite her hair falling out of its unnatural wave, despite the botchy cheeks, red eyes, and snotty nose, Gladys was still struck by how well Alice carried herself.  Likely an armor built up having to suppress anger and frustration in this ticky-tacky town (hoa’s, pta’s, cya’s).  A rose of anger bloomed on her cheeks sent Gladys rocking back on her heels, a thrum of excitement rushing through her.

“I suppose you’ve heard about our town’s little problem,” Alice said, still speaking in polite euphemisms and innuendos.  She reached for the glass of water and primly cleared her throat (cats and spots, zebras and strips, snakes and scales; once, always).

“Depends on which one you mean,” Gladys said.  

She was being sarcastic, she knew, but it was the truth.  Riverdale hadn’t changed much from when they were growing up, damn whatever bullshit Hiram and his developers were trying to sell.  It still had the same pristine front, picture perfect suburban life style, full of well respected men trying to save the village green from its own preservation society, but now the fetid foundation it had been built upon was bubbling out from the seams.  The drugs, gangs, and murders were more visible now, no longer brushed under the railroad tracks into the Southside of town.

Hell, the only new thing about it seemed to be the mafia trying to gain a foothold.  And Gladys had her own plans on how to deal with that.

Mostly, though, she’d missed being able to push Alice’s buttons (eyes narrowed, tongue beneath her teeth, a flash of heat in a pan), to get a rise from her so she was the center of her focus.  If nothing else, it drew Alice’s attention away from her grief at hand.  

“But, if you’re talking about that black hood idiot,” Gladys drawled, wincing at the pins and needles attacking her as she stood, “then I’ve heard a bit.”

“Yes, well.”  Alice cleared her throat and looked away.  “It turns out you were right.  About Hal.”

“Oh?”

Gladys let it hang in the air.  It wasn’t often that Alice Cooper, nee Smith, admitted to being wrong about anything, especially when it came to her life choices.  And yet the juxtaposition of the two - the Black Hood and Hal - had caught her attention like a hook in a trout’s belly.

“About -?”

“About Hal,” Alice snapped.

She stood to pace the thin carpet of the trailer, her hands wrapped tight around her arms, the pastel green cardigan wrinkling under her fingers.  

“He’s been going around these past few months like a god damned fool, playing at being an avenging angel, murdering people who he thought deserved it.  I can’t believe I bought his lie about going bowling. The man can’t even lift a lawnmower, let alone a bowling ball.”

Gladys sat down on the love seat, one leg thrown onto the coffee table and watched Alice stew in front of her.  It was a mirror image of fifteen years ago, almost to the day.  She gently touched the corner of her eye, still bearing a white scar, and cursed the day she’d ever met that man.

“And then the bastard has the audacity to say that our children need to be purified.  That I need to be purified.  It was bad enough that he sent that letter to Polly, what he did to Betty -“

Alice stopped and tugged at her hair (bottle blonde to cover up the slow, steady march of time; at least a week’s worth of gladys’ pay for vanity every month).  Gladys stood and guided Alice back to the love seat.

“How about you start from the beginning?”

Another stream of tears, this time borne of frustration and anger, slipped down Alice’s cheeks as she dove head first into the long tale.  Hal always had thought himself above the rest of the town (secret son, hidden away from the world) even though his own sins bore bitter fruit of their own (alice angry and self-destructive in senior year; drunk on the floor; od’ed in the bathroom; blood running down wrists).   Somehow he’d managed to fuel that into something more productive - a picture perfect nuclear family and modest but plentiful business - until he finally didn’t.  

The first murder attempt, then the second, third, and fourth followed, no longer attempts.  Quit murders in the surrounding counties that went with only a few murmurs of disapproval.  Even his own family hadn’t been immune; daughters, tortured and deceived by the man meant to protect them from such things (kids of all things; for crissakes was nothing sacred?.

And Alice…

When she was done with her macabre tale, ending in Hal’s entrapment of his family and their violent escape, Gladys let out a low whistle.

“Well.  Shit.”

Alice let out a wet, wry laugh.  She curled her legs up under her and hugged a throw pillow tight (bought on a whim at a yard sale - two’fer deal she’d haggled; matched the lace curtains jb couldn’t help but make fun of).  Gladys stood and walked towards where her father’s urn sat on the mantle, a place of honor in a family who had little to do with ghosts of the past.

“What do you want to do about it?” Gladys asked.  

Standing on her tiptoes, she reached in an pulled out a rusted Altoids tin and a lighter.  When Alice caught sight of it she let out a real laugh this time, one that drew memories of simpler, happier times when it had just been the two of them against the world.  Wonder Woman and Sarah Conner, united together.  Until they grew up and out of middle school dreams and into the real world where bills piled up and mouths had to be fed.  

“You know we’re not in high school, right?”

Gladys grinned and fell onto the love seat next to her.  She popped open the tin and held it out to Alice.

“Do you want to do the honors?  You always were better at it than I ever was.”

Alice chewed her lip, the implications and scandal of what Gladys was proposing flashed across her eyes.  It was easy enough to guess the arguments against it, the same old ones she’d heard before (what if your mom/daughter/sister finds out you keep that in there? she’ll be more pissed that she didn’t find it sooner), but her hand was steady when she took the tin. Gladys watched her fingers work, long thin fingers still trapped by a band of gold.  The ring of a promise that fell flat and brought with it a hell of a right-hook in the end.

As she watched, Gladys let her mind wonder what would have happened if they hadn’t allowed themselves to be torn apart in high school.  If she’d only beaten the truth out of Hal in junior year when Alice vanished.  If only, if only, if only.

“What I want,” Alice said with a finality, the lid snapping shut a punctuation to her decision, “is to rip his guts out and feed them to him while that harpy mother of his watches.”

Gladys flicked the lighter, the flame dancing around the end of the joint.  Her eyes didn’t move from Alice’s lips as she took a hit.  Lines ebbed and faded, reminders of their time spent apart, waves of years and youth wasted.  In the poor ventilation of the trailer, the smoke wrapped them in a thin cocoon of safety, a gauzy curtain to shield them against the reality of their choices.

“Might have to lay a tarp down, but I know a few guys.”

The phrase sent Alice into a fit of giggles (ask freddie and fp, they know some guys) and Gladys shushed her with a crooked smile, reminding her that Betty lay sleeping not forty feet away.  Alice took another took and blew the smoke into Gladys’ face, a ribbon that caressed and teased her skin

“Or we could take care of it ourselves.”

“Just like old times?”

“Just like old times.”

(A few months later found Jughead and Betty at Pop’s working on a school project under Gladys’ critical eye.  Jughead, used to his mother’s hovering nature, enjoyed the free fries she dropped off between customers; Betty, it seemed, was far more perturbed by the woman’s sudden closeness with her mother.  It wasn’t until they were writing about Lady McBeth  (‘out damn spot’ seemed to Jughead less of a guilt ridden complex after this Black Hood business and more of an attempt at an evidentiary coverup) that he spoke on a subject that had been bothering him for a few weeks.

“Doesn’t it seem odd?”

Betty hummed and continued to write.  “What seems odd?”

“My father disappears three months before my mother leaves town, never to be seen again.  We come back, and three months later your dad disappears.  And each time, our mothers renewed their friendship just weeks before.”

Any goodwill Betty might have held towards Jughead froze quickly at the implications in his words.  Her fingers gripped the mechanical pencil hard enough her knuckles went white and the plastic cracked.  

“My father was a serial killer,” she snapped.  Blooms of anger rose on her checks and Jughead shifted under her glare.  “It’s not surprising that he’d run away after trying to kill his wife and his daughter in their own home.”

Cowed, Jughead picked at the lukewarm fries.  Her words didn’t change his mind, didn’t move his suspicions a single degree, but it did quiet his need to pry further into her opinion.

The matter was dropped as Macbeth and his realm descended further into madness.)

[looxxi]

A lot of people are debating whether or not kpop idols should be speaking out about BLM and if black fans have a right to be angry if idols stay silent — which they do. As a white woman, I have no right or place to decide how these fans should feel or respond, but for those saying it doesn’t matter because kpop has nothing to do with BLM, let me give you a little history lesson on kpop and the genres of music it is heavily influenced by!

Korean pop music, gayo, or kpop, however you choose to refer to it as, can be traced back to 1885 when an American missionary began teaching American and British songs at schools. More western culture was introduced after the Korean War, when U.S. troops remained in South Korea. Modern kpop began to evolved in the 1990s when Korean pop musicals began to incorporate Europop and popular American music styles. It does have roots in traditional Korean music, however it is actually heavily influenced by western music and culture! Some of the biggest genres influences on kpop include rock, jazz, gospel, hip hop, R&B, reggae, electronic dance, experimental, folk, country and classical music. 

For the sake of this, I’m going to predominantly be focusing on jazz, R&B, rock, and hop hip.

Jazz originated in black communities in New Orleans in the late 19th century and has origins in blues, ragtime, spirituals, classical, and West African music. The 1920s was known as the Jazz Age, and jazz is considered by many to be America’s classical music and one of America’s original art forms. It has many derivative forms, including free jazz, hard bop, modal jazz, smooth jazz, Latin and Afro-Cuban Jazz. New Orleans jazz specifically blends sounds from brass-band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime, and blues. Swing was also a very popular derivative of jazz in the 1930s with musicians like Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Earl Hines, Jimmie Lunceford, and Count Basie.

Minnie the Moocher (Theme Song) by Cab Calloway

In A Sentimental Mood by Duke Ellington and John Coltrane

Weather Bird by Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines

Tain’t What You Do (It’s The Way That You Do It) by Jimmie Lunceford

Splanky by Count Basie

Rhythm and blues (R&B) developed in urban Black communities in the United States during the 1940s. Some of its stylistic origins are jazz, blues, spirituals, gospel, and boogie-woogie. Since the 1980s it shifted into a new style younger generations are currently most familiar with, referred to as contemporary R&B, which blends rhythm and blues with pop, soul, funk, disco, hip hop, and electronic music. Some of the most influential R&B artists are older artists like Prince, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Chaka Khan, Beyoncé, and Mariah Carey to newer artists like Rihanna, Ne-Yo, and The Weeknd.

When Doves Cry by Prince

Superstition by Stevie Wonder

Man in the Mirror by Michael Jackson

Respect by Aretha Franklin

I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) by Whitney Houston 

I’m Every Woman by Chaka Khan

Partition by Beyoncé

Hero by Mariah Carey

Needed Me by Rhianna 

So Sick by Ne-Yo

Blinding Lights by The Weeknd

Rock music originated in the United States in the late 1940s, and began as “rock and roll.” Rock and roll’s biggest influences are black musical genres, two of the biggest being blues and R&B. Blues originated in the Deep South in the 1870s from African musical traditions, spirituals, and African-American work songs (this is the white guilt way of saying what they actually are Slave Songs). Blues is arguably the most influential genre in modern western music as some of its derivative forms include rock, ragtime, R&B, jazz, and country. Some of the biggest rock and roll artists include Chuck Berry, Nat King Cole, the Crows, the Penguins, and the Turbans. Even Elvis Presley, the “King of Rock and Roll” would say some of his biggest influences were B. B. King, Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, Ivory Joe Hunter, and Fats Domino, all Black musicians.

Johnny B. Good by Chuck Berry

L-O-V-E by Nat King Cole

Gee by The Crows

Earth Angel (You Will Be Mine) by The Penguins

I’ll Always Watch Over You by The Turbans

The Thrill is Gone by B.B. King and Tracy Chapman 

That’s All Right by Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup

Since I Met You Baby by Ivory Joe Hunter

Ain’t That a Shame by Fats Domino

Finally, hip hop and rap music which developed by inner-city Black communities living in the Bronx, NYC, in the 1970s. Its origins are styles of funk, disco, electronic music, dub, R&B, reggae, dancehall, jazz, spoken and performance poetry, scat singing, and talking blues. Hip hop has four key stylistic elements: MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching turntables (records), breakdancing, and graffiti writing. Due to poverty and lack of acceptance outside of ghetto neighborhoods, however, hip hop did not officially get recorded for radio or television until 1979. Hip hop has derived and has many subgenres since the 70s and now includes freestyle rap, gangsta rap, hardcore hip hop, mumble rap, trap, experimental hip hop, and more. Some major influential artists include Public Enemy, Boogie Down Productions, LL Cool J, Ice-T, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Wu-Tang Clan, Notorious B.I.G., Lil Jon, Lil Wayne, Soulja Boy, B.o.B., Drake, Nicki Minaj, Kendrick Lamar, Childish Gambino, Chance the Rapper and so so so many more.

Fight The Power by Public Enemy

South Bronx by Boogie Down Productions

Mama Said Knock You Out by LL Cool J

Colors by Ice-T

Still D.R.E. by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg

Drop It Like It’s Hot by Snoop Dogg and Pharrell Williams

C.R.E.A.M. by Wu-Tang Clan

Hypnotize by Notorious B.I.G.

Snap Yo Fingers by Lil Jon, Youngbloodz, Sean Paul, and E-40

Scared of the Dark by Lil Wayne, Ty Dolla $ign, XXXTENTACION

Crank That (Soulja Boy) by Soulja Boy

So Good by B.o.B.

Started From the Bottom by Drake

Feeling Myself by Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé

HUMBLE. by Kendrick Lamar

This Is America by Childish Gambino 

No Problem by Chance the Rapper, Lil Wayne, and 2 Chainz

There is nothing you can say to tell me there isn’t Black influence on kpop. BTS had a whole multi-episode show where they travel to LA to train under “hip-hop tutors” Coolio, the artist behind Gangsta’s Paradise, and Warren G, a g-funk producer. Haechan calls Michael Jackson his favorite artist and inspiration. Almost all kpop groups have a rap line who “shockingly” LIKE BLACK RAPPERS AND ARTISTS. And it isn’t unheard of for kpop idols / groups to support and promote fundraising and campaigns. I’m not here to attack kpop, I’m here to explain why people can be upset by their silence.

Gangsta’s Paradise by Coolio and L.V.

Regulate by Warren G and Nate Dogg

While I am aware many of idols’ / groups’ accounts are not run personally or by their management, the silence and lack of support can hurt. I can understand why black fans want to see their idols they have been supporting support them too, especially when those idols have been, in a sense, profiting off of their culture. I can understand why black fans want their idols to support them not getting murdered in the street by police who are supposed to protect them. 

For anyone saying that “this is America’s problem” and “leave it to America to figure out,” World War II happened because Hitler was committing genocide on Jewish people and it took ALL of the Allies, not just anti-nazi Germans, to take down Hitler and the Axis powers. The police and the government are committing genocide on black people. Systematic racism is a disease that the world, not just America, needs to fight.

Silence doesn’t make you an ally, silence makes you an accomplice.

Here’s how you can help:

https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co

https://moreblminfo.carrd.co

Thread of More Places to Donate

Thread of How White Allies Can Help

A List of Black Owned Fashion / Cosmetology / Skin Care Brands

Tips on How to Engage Conversation on BLM with Conservative / Racist / Bigoted / Homophobic Family

Donate. Sign Petitions. Text and Call Local Governments. Protest. Vote. Educate. Listen.

[jgroffdaily]

Jonathan Groff decides we should take advantage of what might be New York’s last suitable night for al fresco dining in 2019. He sits down at one of a dozen empty tables outside the otherwise packed Hell’s Kitchen bistro and announces, in a tone suggesting more mischief than regret, that he must first make a call.

"Hello," he says, iPhone now at his ear. "Joel Grey?"

Groff is starring in a limited revival of Little Shop of Horrors, and it is a very hot ticket. The Broadway legend on the other end of the line has apparently thrown a Hail Mary in hopes of scoring seats to the night’s sold-out performance. Hamming up this exchange for my amusement, Groff is game to play broker for the Tony and Oscar winner who originated the role of Cabaret’s tuxedoed emcee — and, maybe, anybody else who has his number.

"This is basically my part-time job," says Groff of fielding requests, jotting down credit card information and negotiating pickup times and locations for friends both famous and civilian. "It was the same thing when I was doing Hamilton," he adds of his year playing King George III in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop history lesson. "But I was really only onstage for nine minutes during that show, so the tickets were probably full-time."

The 34-year-old actor seems eager to please, not unlike current alter ego Seymour. Little Shop’s nebbish, sweet and ultimately doomed florist nurtures a manipulative plant even as the pet’s homicidal tendencies grow more and more apparent. Those familiar with the campy musical comedy know that it suffers no shortage of blood, but it’s a nursery rhyme compared with Groff’s recent work on truecrime thriller Mindhunter. Playing a curious FBI agent in David Fincher’s Netflix series has perhaps done more for his ascendant profile than anything yet. But two seasons on the drama have meant two nine-month stints in Pittsburgh, filming interrogation scenes with character actors who bear uncanny resemblances to famous serial killers.

So even on a two-show day like this late- October Saturday, the rigors of theater are easy work for Groff. Over a couple of hot toddies, in between humoring three smitten waiters at the restaurant at which he’s been a regular since Little Shop went into previews down the block, the actor appears to be in his element. "Theater is such a communal, familial medium and interactive experience," notes Groff, who says he recognizes faces in the crowd during most performances. "Mindhunter, for me at least, is a very private experience."

Groff plays against type on Mindhunter. Wide-eyed with an almost perpetual grin, his is a mug you wouldn’t be surprised to find in an illustrated Merriam-Webster — cozied up to the entry for "baby face." Much of his previous acting career leaned into this, starting with his breakout. The Pennsylvania native came to New York at 19 and landed the lead in the musical Spring Awakening by the time he was 21. "I was just auditioning for the ensemble of Broadway shows," says Groff. "I hadn’t really developed the taste to appreciate something like Spring Awakening until I was in it."

New York’s "It" Broadway show of the aughts, the rock opera about sexual discovery among 19th century German teenagers earned Groff his first Tony nomination. He spent two years in the production before leaving in 2008, at the same time as friend and co-star Lea Michele, to pursue film and television. The work that immediately followed — Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock, a recurring spin on Michele’s Fox hit Glee, a supporting role in the second season of Kelsey Grammer’s cult drama Boss, voicework in Disney $1.3 billion smash Frozen (he’ll reprise his role as Kristoff in Frozen 2, out Nov. 22) — got him on the radar for vehicles of his own. When HBO began casting Looking, its 2014 dramedy about a group of gay friends navigating an evolving San Francisco, Groff was soon tapped to front the series.

"He will search for the best version of every scene and will work until everyone drops," says Looking executive producer Andrew Haigh, who cast him as Patrick — boy-nextdoor- ish, like the actor, but privileged and problematically fickle. "He is also wholly unafraid to be vulnerable onscreen."

Looking lasted for only two seasons and a wrap-up movie, and its premature demise allowed Groff to do Hamilton, which he joined while the show was off-Broadway in early 2015, and then made the jump to Broadway. His supporting part as the aforementioned royal — with interstitial lamentations for the seceding Colonies, sung like a lovelorn (and supremely pissed) Davy Jones — earned Groff his second Tony nomination. But Groff wasn’t long for Hamilton, either. He was circling his next TV project, a moody prestige procedural about the early days of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit, based on the 1995 memoir Mindhunter by criminal profiler John E. Douglas.

"I’m not naturally a true-crime person. So reading the book, I was like … 'oh, fuck,' "says Groff of John E. Douglas’ memoir 'Mindhunter.'

Mindhunter, the book and the series, delves into the morbid minutiae of notorious murder cases with an emphasis on interviews between law enforcement and criminals in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Groff was in contention for the role of FBI agent Holden Ford, based loosely on Douglas. First, he had to prove to director and executive producer Fincher — a filmmaker long admired by Groff, who says he has "a boner for his brain" — that a jovial Broadway star most widely known for singing with a reindeer in a Disney cartoon could have the upper hand with serial killers.

It was not Groff’s first audition for Fincher. Seven years earlier, he was in the running to play Napster co-founder Sean Parker in The Social Network. "My agents said, 'You have an audition in L.A. with David and Aaron Sorkin,' " Groff recalls. "If you get it, you start rehearsal the next day, so pack your suitcase for two months. They really like your tape, but they’re also considering Justin Timberlake." The part went to Timberlake.

"I did not feel then — and still don’t — that he had the inherent venality for that role," Fincher says of Groff. "He is as decent and sensitive as anyone I’ve ever met."

If venality is off the table for Groff, darkness is not. And though casting the song-anddance man was a source of curiosity for some in Hollywood before Mindhunter’s 2017 debut, the finished product didn’t elicit any skepticism from critics. Over the first season, Groff’s character goes from eager, milkdrinking company boy to a shell of the man introduced in the first episode. He alarms colleagues with the way he mirrors serial killers, until he has a panic attack after getting a bear hug from a necrophile. The second run, equally well reviewed after its August debut, saw a somewhat recovered Holden sit down with Charles Manson and, for the dramatic fulcrum of the season, investigate the Atlanta child murders of 1979-81.

"It is so impossibly bleak that I don’t think about it while I’m doing it," says Groff, who confesses he finds watching the show more affecting than making it. "All due respect to people who feel like the character is inside of them or whatever, but I don’t have that. I would leave set, listen to Beyoncé, and that was it."

After an hour and a half in his company, Groff reveals himself as a Lucille Ball historian, an avid bike rider, a devout New Yorker and someone who doesn’t seem easily bummed out — except when the conversation turns to success. His excitement over landing Mindhunter, he says, was immediately diluted by a pang of sadness. "Whenever something really great happens, it makes me feel a little bit depressed," he says. "It’s like, this is never going to get better than this moment right now. I’m sitting in David Fincher’s office and he’s giving me this role."

Talk of a third season of Mindhunter is on hold while Fincher focuses on his next feature. But the director did take a recent break from Mank, a biopic on Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, to attend Groff’s first Little Shop matinee with wife and fellow Mindhunter executive producer Céan Chaffin. It was a surprise appearance, but only because Groff hadn’t been checking his text messages. "I’m not good at my phone," he admits.

Groff has not looked at his phone since that one call — which, while polite, now has him in danger of running late for curtain. He breaks the bad news of his immediate departure to one particularly adoring waiter, and we walk to the stand where his bike is locked. There, he pulls from his bag a cobalt helmet that could double as Tron cosplay. Bars of blinding LED lights on both its front and back, his headgear tells cabs to get the hell out of the way and signals to everybody else that this is a man who values safety over subtlety.

"Yeah, I do really love riding my bike in the city … I’m just not that hard-core," Groff says of the helmet before encasing his tousle of sandy chestnut hair for the one-block ride to the theater and an expectant Joel Grey. "My mom bought this for me."

[scotianostra]

Happy 72nd birthday the excellent Scottish actor David Hayman.

Hayman, one of Scotland's most acclaimed actors of stage and screen was born in Bridgeton, Glasgow on February 9th 1948.

David Hayman grew up as one of three children in a working class family in Drumchapel, Glasgow. Leaving school without any academic qualifications he started work as a would-be engineer at 16. One day, wearing his grease stained boiler suit, he marched into the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and announced his intention to become an actor. He still has no idea where this came from, he is basically a shy person and there was no family history of acting. He took advice and joined an amateur dramatics group and a year later was accepted to study drama and has never been out of work since.

His film and television credits are, frankly, much too numerous to list but include his superb portrayal of hard man Jimmy Boyle in “Sense of Freedom” and, of course, he is recognisable everywhere as Detective Chief Superintendent Michael Walker in Linda La Plante’s long running Trial and Retribution series.He has also starred in the hit Scottish cop drama Shetland as well as Scottish comedy shows Scotch & Wry, Rab C Nesbitt and Still Game.

Hayman has also directed numerous films and TV shows as well as regularly treading the boards in the Theatres.

Away from acting, David established his Glasgow-based charity Spirit Aid in 2001. It has gone on to become one of Scotland’s most successful small scale humanitarian organisations. He started Spirit Aid because he wanted to do a Scottish Live Aid at Hampden, but his rock stars let him down. “They were all, ‘Oh, man, I’m burned out,’ and I was thinking, ‘You’re sitting on your fat arse on your sofa with £40 million in the bank. Go and sit in a refugee camp in Afghanistan and tell me you’re burned out’. But I thought, I believe in this, I’ve got to keep going.”

He spends several months every year visiting his charity’s relief projects where he employs indigenous workers wherever possible. His fundraising operations include Operation Loo Roll, a project selling toilet paper that raised £100,000 in 2007. The charity undertakes humanitarian relief projects from Kosovo to Guinea-Bissau, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Malawi and South Africa. Hayman is a big campaigner for a Scottish film studio, which is looking like happening soon, he says "It takes the Americans to come in and build a shed where they shoot Outlander and that's the nearest thing we have to a film studio,think of all the movies that we've lost, all the money that we've lost all the way back to Braveheart."

At 72 he looks like he isn't easing up on the film work, one to look out for from Scottish director Michael Caton-Jones Our Ladies is, "set in Edinburgh a group of Catholic school girls get an opportunity to go into Edinburgh for a choir competition, but they're more interested in drinking, partying and hooking up than winning the competition" it is an adaptation of Scottish author, Alan Warner, of Morvern Callar fame's third novel Sopranos, I read the book in the late 90's it is a laugh out loud book, and I can't wait for the film, imdb just say it is coming soon, but other sources say it will be out in April.

Hayman seems to have a good relationship with the Welsh at the moment, two of his latest projects, Bang and The Ballad of Billy McCrae are both set in the country. Bang is a 6 part Welsh language show for S4C and The Ballad of Billy McCrae a movie is described as a story of love and hate and murder, set against the backdrop of industrial South Wales, the film is in post production and I would expect to see it sometime in the coming months.

A great fan of the Scottish Highlands, and the outdoors in general David follows in the footsteps of the late great Tom Weir, with his very own series travelling through Scotland, Hayman’s Way unearths the people and places that make Scotland unique. In this first episode he travels through Glencoe, the series is available on the STV player until march.I'm not sure if it is available worldwide, but here is the link https://player.stv.tv/summary/haymans-way/

David Hayman remains based in Glasgow with his wife, Alice and their sons, David, Sammy and Sean.

[blackkudos]

Raphael Saadiq

Raphael Saadiq (born Charles Ray Wiggins; May 14, 1966) is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer. He rose to fame as a member of the multiplatinum group Tony! Toni! Toné! In addition to his solo and group career, he has also produced songs for such artists as Joss Stone, D'Angelo, TLC, En Vogue, Kelis, Mary J. Blige, Ledisi, Whitney Houston, Solange Knowles and John Legend.

He and D'Angelo were occasional members of The Ummah, a music production collective, composed of members Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad of A Tribe Called Quest, and J Dilla of the Detroit-based group Slum Village. He is a co-founder of independent video game developer IllFonic, which developed Friday the 13th: The Game.

Saadiq's critically acclaimed album The Way I See It, released on September 16, 2008, featuring artists Stevie Wonder, Joss Stone, and Jay-Z, received three Grammy Award nominations. His fourth studio album, Stone Rollin', was released on March 25, 2011. For the album, Saadiq worked with steel guitarist Robert Randolph; former Earth, Wind & Fire keyboardist Larry Dunn; Swedish-Japanese indie rock singer Yukimi Nagano (of Little Dragon fame); funk artist Larry Graham (on the bonus song "Perfect Storm") and Taura 'Aura Jackson' Stinson.

Music critic Robert Christgau has called Saadiq the "preeminent R&B artist of the '90s".

Early life

Saadiq was born in Oakland, California, the second-youngest of 14 siblings. His early life was marked by tragedy; he experienced the deaths of several of his siblings as a young child. When Saadiq was seven years old, one brother was murdered. One of his brothers overdosed on heroin and another committed suicide because he was unable to deal with his addiction to the drug. His sister died as a result of a car crash during a police chase in a residential neighborhood. Saadiq states that he does not want his music to be reflective of the tragedies he experienced, saying that "And through all of that I was makin' records, but it wasn't comin' out in the music. I did it to kinda show people you can have some real tough things happen in your life, but you don't have to wear it on your sleeve."

He has been playing the bass guitar since the age of six, and first began singing at age nine in a local gospel group. At the age of 12, he joined a group called "The Gospel Humminbirds". In 1984, shortly before his 18th birthday, Saadiq heard about tryouts in San Francisco for Sheila E.'s backing band on Prince's Parade Tour. At the audition, he chose the name "Raphael", and had difficulty remembering to respond to the name when he heard that he got the part to play bass in the band. He says of the experience, "Next thing I was in Tokyo, in a stadium, singin' Erotic City. We were in huge venues with the biggest sound systems in the world; all these roadies throwin' me basses, and a bunch of models hangin' round Prince to party. For almost two years. That was my university."

Career

1987–1999: Tony! Toni! Toné! and The Ummah

After returning to Oakland from touring with Prince, Saadiq began his professional career as the lead vocalist and bassist in the rhythm and blues and dance trio Tony! Toni! Toné! He used the name Raphael Wiggins while in Tony! Toni! Toné!, along with his brother Dwayne Wiggins, and his cousin Timothy Christian. In the mid-1990s, he adopted the last name Saadiq, which means "man of his word" in Arabic. His change of surname led many to speculate that he had converted to Islam at that point; in reality, Saadiq is not a Muslim, but rather just liked the way "Saadiq" sounded and changed his last name simply to distinguish himself from and avoid potential confusion with his brother, Dwayne Wiggins. As he confirmed by telling noted R&B writer Pete Lewis of the award-winning 'Blues & Soul' in May 2009, "I just wanted to have my own identity!"

In 1995, Saadiq had his biggest solo hit to date, when "Ask of You", featured on the Higher Learning Soundtrack peaked at #19 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #2 on the R&B chart. In 1995, Saadiq produced and performed on Otis & Shug's debut album, We Can Do Whatever.

Tony! Toni! Toné! would become major R&B superstars throughout the late 1980s and 1990s. However, after the 1996 album entitled House of Music failed to duplicate the group's previous success, Tony! Toni! Toné! went their separate ways in 1997.

1999–2004: Lucy Pearl and first string of solo albums

In 1999, Saadiq's next big project became the R&B supergroup Lucy Pearl. He recorded the self-titled album with Dawn Robinson (En Vogue) and Ali Shaheed Muhammad (A Tribe Called Quest). The group only lasted for one album.

Also in 1999, he collaborated with rapper Q-Tip on the single "Get Involved", from the animated television series The PJs. It samples The Intruders' 1973 song "I'll Always Love My Mama" and charted at number 21 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks.

His 2000 song collaboration "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" won D'Angelo a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance; it was also nominated for Grammy Award for Best R&B Song. The song was ranked #4 on Rolling Stone's "End of Year Critics & Readers Poll" of the top singles of 2000. D'Angelo's album Voodoo won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Album at the 2001 Grammy Awards.

In 2002, Saadiq founded his own record label, Pookie Entertainment. Among the artists on the label are Joi and Truth Hurts. In 2002, he released his first solo album Instant Vintage, which earned him three Grammy Award nominations in addition to another two Grammy nominations for his writing work on “Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)” the following year. He released a two-disc live album All the Hits at the House of Blues in 2003, and his second studio album Ray Ray in 2004, both on Pookie Entertainment.

2004–2010: Expanded output and second string of albums

In 2004, Saadiq produced a remix of the song "Crooked Nigga Too" by Tupac Shakur which is featured on the album Loyal to the Game. Other artists he has collaborated with include Whitney Houston, Mary J. Blige, The Isley Brothers, A Tribe Called Quest, Teedra Moses, The Roots, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Macy Gray, Angie Stone, Snoop Dogg, Mac Dre, Devin the Dude, DJ Quik, Kelis, Q-Tip, Lil' Skeeter, Ludacris, The Bee Gees, Musiq Soulchild, Jaguar Wright, Chanté Moore, Lionel Richie, Marcus Miller, Noel Gourdin, Nappy Roots, Calvin Richardson, T-Boz from TLC, Jody Watley, Floetry, Leela James, Amp Fiddler, John Legend, Joss Stone, Young Bellz, Anthony Hamilton, Babyface, Ledisi, Goapele, Ghostface Killah, —Ginuwine, The Grouch Stevie Wonder, Earth, Wind & Fire, Bilal, Chali 2na, Larry Graham, Luniz as well as many others. In 2007, Saadiq produced Introducing Joss Stone, the third album of British soul singer Joss Stone. According to J. Gabriel Boylan of The New York Observer, "he's produced artists including Macy Gray, the Roots, D'Angelo, John Legend, Whitney Houston, Mary J. Blige, and more. With all of them he's pushed a classic aesthetic, heavy on organic sounds and light on studio magic, deeply indebted to the past and distrustful of easy formulas."

Saadiq's third solo album, The Way I See It, released on Columbia Records on September 16, 2008, available in a collector's edition box set of 7" 45 rpm singles as well as on traditional CD, was critically well-received, made several critics' 2008 best albums lists, and garnered three Grammy nominations including Best R&B Performance by a Duo Or Group With Vocals (for "Never Give You Up", featuring Stevie Wonder & CJ Hilton); Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance (for "Love That Girl") and Best R&B Album for The Way I See It. Music from The Way I See It was featured in the following motion pictures: Madea Goes To Jail, Bride Wars, Cadillac Records, Secret Life of Bees, In Fighting (Rogue), and It's Complicated.

Touring with a nine piece band, Saadiq hit the 2009 summer music festival circuit with performances at Bonnaroo, Hollywood Bowl, Outside Lands, Pori Jazz, Stockholm Jazz Festival, North Sea Jazz, Essence Music Festival, Summer Spirit Festival, and Nice Jazz Festival, Bumbershoot Music Festival and Austin City Limits. Saadiq has been touring Europe extensively, and held a five-night residency at the House of Blues in Tokyo, Japan, in June 2009. In 2008, Saadiq formed a new label called Velma Records, a place where he promises "people can express themselves like I did with The Way I See It... where they can dream something up and just go with it".

He produced songs for LeToya Luckett's forthcoming second album Lady Love, released August 2009. In 2009, Saadiq produced "Please Stay" and "Love Never Changes" for Ledisi's August 2009 release "Turn Me Loose". Saadiq also was the executive producer for an emerging group called Tha Boogie. Tha Boogie's first EP was released on iTunes and is titled Love Tha Boogie, Vol. 1 (Steal This Sh*t).

In 2009, Saadiq announced his video game development company called IllFonic. The first video game in development by IllFonic is titled Ghetto Golf, with an expected release late in 2010. In 2009, Saadiq teamed up Bentley Kyle Evans, Jeff Franklin, Martin Lawrence, and Trenten Gumbs to create a new sitcom called Love That Girl! starring Tatyana Ali. Raphael is an executive producer and composer for Love That Girl!. The show airs on TV One and debuted on January 19, 2010. That same year, Saadiq performed The Spinners hit "It's A Shame" in a legendary Levi's commercial and sang as part of the chorus in the 2010 remake of "We Are the World" for Haiti.

2011–present: Stone Rollin'

In 2011, Saadiq was the guitarist/bandleader for the group backing Mick Jagger for Jagger's tribute performance of the Solomon Burke R&B classic, "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love" at the 53rd Grammy Awards in Los Angeles and on CBS. The band that accompanied the performance was Saadiq's touring band called Stone Rollin. In 2011 he and his band performed as the ESPY's house band for the night, where he performed his latest compositions.

Saadiq's 2011 album Stone Rollin' was released to great critical acclaim. "He's always had a boyish enthusiasm for performing, and a flexible, naturally joyous voice that suggests a young Stevie Wonder," wrote Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune, "but with his latest album, Saadiq finds a new gear. The album and his current tour demonstrate that there's a big difference between retro and classic, and the artist consistently finds himself on the right side of that divide." Kot ranked the album number seven in his year-end list, in which he dubbed it Saadiq's "finest achievement" and stated, "He's always written songs steeped in soul and R&B, but now he gives them a progressive edge with roaming bass lines and haunted keyboard textures. He's no longer a retro stylist – he's writing new classics." Critic Jim Derogatis called it "a stone cold gas of a party disc."

In fall 2011, he performed on the fourth results show of Dancing with the Stars season 13. In December 2011, he performed a cover compilation of several Neil Diamond songs at the Kennedy Center Honors award ceremony.

In 2012 he signed a deal with Toyota to do a TV commercial for the Toyota Prius. In 2013 Raphael partnered with Bay Area/ Atlanta Production company EL Seven Entertainment/ Republic Records and new R&B Superstar Adrian Marcel and released his 1st promotional mixtape "Raphael Saadiq Presents Adrian Marcel 7 Days of Weak".

Saadiq is a featured bass guitar player on Elton John's 2013 album, The Diving Board.

In 2016 he executive produced Solange Knowles album, A Seat At The Table which debuted at #1 on music charts in the United States. He also guest starred in Luke Cage, where he performs his songs "Good Man" and "Angel" at Harlem's Paradise.

In 2017 he appeared in the award-winning documentary film The American Epic Sessions, directed by Bernard MacMahon, where he recorded the Memphis Jug Band’s 1928 song “Stealin’ Stealin’” live on the restored first electrical sound recording system from the 1920s. Of recording on the system he said, “it’s amazing to just look at how it’s built, you know just look at the machine itself. It just has this like magical sound the way that it’s built. It’s true. It’s just the truest sound you could ever get.”

In 2017, Saadiq collaborated with Mary J. Blige as a songwriter for the movie Mudbound (2017), for which they both received Academy Award nominations for Best Original Song.

In 2018, he produced the John Legend holiday themed album, A Legendary Christmas.

During the 2020 coronavirus pandemic he released a song on his website called Rony! Roni! Roné!”

Discography

Studio albums

Instant Vintage (2002)

Ray Ray (2004)

The Way I See It (2008)

Stone Rollin' (2011)

Jimmy Lee (2019)

with Tony! Toni! Toné!

Who? (1988)

The Revival (1990)

Sons of Soul (1993)

House of Music (1996)

with Lucy Pearl

Lucy Pearl (2000)