Randy Twizzle

Here's a story that appeared in the NY Times in 1930

After trying to watch some of his later HBO specials I sort of feel the same way. I think he started to take himself too damn seriously and stopped being funny in order to play the role of some kind of "courageous" truth teller. Most self-conscience truth tellers are usually bores as are the people who cheer them on.

A small blurb about the show from a Syracuse newspaper on 9/22/1957

The show was simply called The Woolworth Hour

Not a jazz clipping but the story of a 1950's nightmare: the good people of San Mateo CA waking up to find a homemade Soviet flag flying over their civic center

Also from the Chicago Defender on Feb 16, 1924

In yesterday's NY Post Bettor's Guide: DA' TARA: Would be favored if they ran him in allowance race on Belmont undercard. DOES NOT BELONG IN THIS FIELD.

This ad for the same apartment building from Sept 1934 shows how real estate values went down during the Depression.

They're firing people. Currently there are 7 "farewell" emails in my inbox.

My 6th grade social studies teacher in 67-68 sometimes talked about the Vietnam War and its accompanying turmoil. However I remember that most of the class discussions usually ended with his suggestion that hippies should be put out to sea on a leaky raft.

There's no obscenity here, there's just pure hatred. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOc4XgBespw

In my little section of northern NJ the night before Halloween has always been known as Goosey Night.

There's quite a lively music scene in parts of Arizona

As usual the NY Post gets to the bottom of the story:

The last NYC news person saying "fuck" over the air. He was fired from WCBS but has managed to come back on WPIX.

A random group of people outside Grand Central Terminal

I looked in misc non political and didn't see anything. I guess it was somewhere else.

From the NY Times: By DENNIS HEVESI Published: March 20, 2008 Ivan Dixon, an actor and director who was best known for playing Sgt. James Kinchloe on the 1960s sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes” but whose films included vivid portrayals of black struggles in the American South and insurrectionist inclinations in the North, died on Sunday in Charlotte, N.C. He was 76 and lived in Charlotte. The cause was complications of kidney disease, said his daughter, Doris Nomathande Dixon. Ms. Dixon said her father was always pleased to be recognized as Sergeant Kinchloe, the American radio technician in a World War II German P.O.W. camp who could adeptly mimic his captors. But he was most proud, she said, of the 1964 movie “Nothing but a Man,” in which he starred, and of the 1973 film “The Spook Who Sat by the Door,” which he directed. In “Nothing but a Man” Mr. Dixon played a young black railroad worker who gives up his job to marry a minister’s daughter, played by Abbey Lincoln, and then runs into trouble for not knowing his place in the Deep South. In a 1991 article on the history of black films, Vincent Canby wrote in The New York Times that “Nothing but a Man” was “way ahead of its time.” “Ivan Dixon and Abbey Lincoln give tough, moving performances as a couple making their way in a white world without apologies to anyone,” he wrote. “No thoughts of integration for them. They demand their own lives and are willing to fight for them.” “The Spook Who Sat by the Door,” based on the novel by Sam Greenlee, tells the tale of Dan Freeman, the first black officer in the Central Intelligence Agency. After five years of menial assignments, Freeman quits, takes what he has learned about terrorist tactics and goes to Chicago, where he tries to put together a black guerrilla operation. Although “The Spook” aroused controversy and was soon pulled from theaters, it later gained cult status as a bootleg video and, in 2004, was released on DVD. At that time Mr. Dixon told The Times that the movie had tried only to depict black anger, not to suggest armed revolt as a solution. Mr. Dixon directed scores of television shows, including episodes of “The Waltons,” “The Rockford Files,” “Magnum, P.I.,” “Quincy” and “In the Heat of the Night.” In 1967 he played the title role in a CBS Playhouse drama, “The Final War of Olly Winter,” about a veteran of World War II and the Korean War who decides that Vietnam will be his final war. For that role he received an Emmy nomination for best single performance by an actor. Ivan Nathaniel Dixon 3rd was born on April 6, 1931, in Harlem, where his family owned a grocery store. Besides his daughter, Doris, who lives in Charlotte, Mr. Dixon is survived by his wife of 58 years, the former Berlie Ray; and a son, Alan, of Oakland, Calif. Mr. Dixon graduated from North Carolina Central University in 1954 with a drama degree. His big break came in 1957 when he appeared on Broadway in William Saroyan’s “Cave Dwellers.” Two years later he played Joseph Asagai, the charming, mannerly Nigerian student visiting the United States in Lorraine Hansberry’s “Raisin in the Sun,” the first play written by a black woman to be produced on Broadway.

I remember seeing the Rashied Ali show broadcast on 3/14/72. I was a sophomore in high school and had just started hearing "avant garde" jazz on WKCR but had never seen musicians playing it. I remember being thrilled by the whole experience and though I saw a few of the other Jazz Set show, it's the Ali show that sticks with me, especially Carlos Ward's playing.