Michael Jackson 1958-2009

They say deaths come in threes, and that is especially true of celebrity ones. Farrah Fawcett died this morning, Ed McMahon a day ago, and it was in the back of my mind who would be the third.

As of the time I'm writing this, the LA Times is confirming that Michael Jackson has died.

This is a sad on for me because I have a personal connection to it.

Michael Jackson's death is striking me a little harder than the average celeb death on many levels.

I and my brother got to tag along with my Dad when the station had a 'Meet The Jackson Five contest back in the day. We picked up the winner, and zipped off to the Sam Houston Coliseum for the concert. The show was the bomb until the crowd bumrushed the stage and put a quick end to it. I was backstage and barely avoided being trampled as the frenzied crowd chased the J5 to their waiting limos to the street.

At the rendezvous at the Galleria Oaks Hotel, I got to meet him along with the contest winner and my friend Ernest Carswell. Ernest and I used to win a lot of money off those photos in junior high school from peeps who assumed we were lying about doing so.

I still have the autographed pics at my parents house.

I like a lot of peeps of my generation and those like my sisters who grew up in the 80's was a big fan, and it was amplified by the fact I had met him.

It was also a sense of immense pride to many African-Americans that an R&B artist blew up to become a household name around the world, thanks to Quincy Jones' composing genius and his immense talent.

You were a once in a generation performer, and you will be missed.

RIP Michael.

National Healthcare Debate During Nixon Administration

Ever since President Harry S. Truman proposed in 1945 setting up a universal health care system in the United States, the GOP and its constituent conservative groups have fought it tooth and nail.



Here's some news footage from the early 70's discussing Richard Nixon's proposed healthcare reform plan.

What Was My First Concert?

June marks the 30th anniversary observance of Black Music Month, and I haven't had much discussion about it thanks to various higher profile breaking news stories.

I planned at the beginning of the month to talk about some of my fave groups, concerts I've attended and and why the American music scene owes a major creative debt to its African descended people.

So I'm going to make up for lost time and dedicate some posts until the end of the month to doing just that.

Y'all know my teen years were spent in the 70's. Thanks to Dad I got to attend a long list of great concerts and see some slammin' groups and artists back in the day.

My first concert experience happened during the summer of 1976. The Summit (later Compaq Center) had only been open a year and was several decades from becoming Lakewood Church's new sanctuary.

The group that my dad was taking me and my brother to see? WAR

The best part about this show was I got to see it from the comfort of the sky boxes with the staff of the radio station.

I got my grub on, had a bottomless soda cup and had the option of either watching the concert from nice comfortable seats or watch the closed circuit TV feed of the show.



The first one I attended without the parental units tagging along was one headlined by Bootsy's Rubber Band in 1976. I had floor seats 20 rows from the stage for this one. I also saw Bootsy in 1978 during his Player Of The Year Tour.



When I showed up for school that Monday wearing my Bootsy concert t-shirt, I opened my big mouth and accidentally let it slip I had a extra ticket that ended up going to waste.

Half the girls at JJ (and some of my homies as well) were pissed at me for a week.

In my defense, I did get those tickets last minute, and several peeps I called weren't home. Most of the time I didn't get those comp tickets until several hours before the show or I'd come home and the tickets were lying on my bed.



It seemed like during that era in the 70's and 80's, every time I turned around there were great shows to attend. Don't even get me started on the Budweiser Superfests and Kool Jazz Festivals stadium tours devoid of jazz artists, but full of great R&B ones.

But it's the first ones you attend that are the most memorable.

Unless something crazy happens.

The Jefferson's Transgender Episode

This episode entitled 'Just A Friend from the fourth season of 'The Jeffersons' was groundbreaking in many respects. It's the first time that an African descended transwoman character was shown on TV who didn't fit the stereotypes we all know and loathe.

It was also broadcast in 1977.





While I didn't care for the part where he tried to pass off Leroy as Edie, for the most part the episode is on point. You also have to remember at the time 'The Jeffersons' was a Top 10 rated show that many African-American homes watched.

So if they weren't aware of the trans issue affecting African descended people, they were after that broadcast.

Happy Birthday Lady Tee!

There are many whites who love R&B music, and some even try to sing it with varying levels of success. For those of us growing up in the 70's and 80's, the woman born on this date in Santa Monica, California became the definitive and most successful of the 'blue-eyed' soul singers of our generation.

I couldn't let today pass without giving a birthday shout out to Teena Marie. She's the Cali girl who ended up getting signed by legendary Motown Records, getting her first album produced by punk funk king Rick James and even rapping on her 1981 song 'Square Biz'.



Teena Marie on Soul Train



This is also Teena's 30th anniversary in the music business, with her Rick James produced and written debut album Wild And Peaceful hitting the airwaves in 1979. She's even responsible for a law called the Brockert Initiative as a result of the nasty legal battle she fought with Motown after discovering they underpaid her royalties on the four Motown albums she recorded.

That lawsuit resulted in what's called the Teena Marie Law, which means a record company cannot keep an artist under contract without releasing a record by him or her.



Reunited just four days before Rick's death to sing Fire and Desire in 2004



Teena's back in the business after a layoff to raise her daughter Alia Rose. She has created and still is thrilling us with music her fans like me will treasure forever.

Happy Birthday Teena Marie!

Club White House-Washington's Hottest Music Venue

When I wrote my 'If I Were President' post a year before Election Day 2008, little did I suspect that the thinking exercise I engaged in that day would become reality in the person of Barack Obama a year later.

There are some days when I'm watching the news and listening to some of the policy stuff they've been pushing and I wonder if peeps in the Obama administration read my blog posts.

One of the things I talked about in my presidential daydreaming post was having some slammin' entertainment in the White House, and last night that part of my post came to pass.

While I was watching CNN this morning they reported that Earth, Wind and Fire, one of my (and President Obama's) fave groups during my teen years performed in the East Room for an event honoring US governors in town for the National Governors Association meeting.



It was cool seeing the guys in tuxedos, some of the guests and the president and First Lady jamming to some of my fave EWF songs.

Stevie Wonder is going to be honored with a Gershwin Award presented by President Obama on February 25.

The "Stevie Wonder in Performance at the White House: The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize” event will be taped and televised on PBS the following day. This event will take place in the East Room as well and include performances by Will.i.am, Tony Bennett, Diana Krall and many more.

And oh yeah, Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours was the official song for the Obama campaign.



So if you're living in the DC area and happen to get one of those coveted invitations to a White House event, clear your calendar and go. For the next four to eight years, 'Club White House', as DJ Tom Joyner calls it is going to have some interesting music groups and artists performing there.

Happy 60th Birthday Donna Summer

While I was perusing the celebrity birthdays on New Year's Eve, I discovered that one of my favorite singers was celebrating a milestone birthday.

Back in the day I was a huge disco fan, and one of my favorite singers was Donna Summer. She started off as a gospel singer, but what a lot of people don't realize about her is that she's an accomplished songwriter as well.

She has won five Grammys and is the only artist to have three consecutive number one double albums and three number one pop singles in the same year. While she's known for the disco hits, her musical repertoire encompasses rock, pop, R&B and gospel.

She has sold over 130 million records worldwide and I definitely have my share of Donna's music in my collection. She's one of the most successful female artists of the 1970s and 1980's and was inducted in 2004 to the Dance Music Hall of Fame.\

Happy birthday, Donna and may you have many more.

Chic Nominated Again For Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Pardon Nile Rodgers and the rest of Chic if they're starting to feel like All my Children's Susan Lucci. Susan was nominated 18 times for a Daytime Emmy Best Actress Award before she finally won it in 1999.

They've been nominated in 2003, 2006, 2007, and now 2008 for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and when the votes are counted, they fall just short of becoming one of the five inductees in that year's class.

Chic is one of my my fave groups from my high school days (and still are). For those of you with knee-jerk reactions to disco, you can stop right now because this band was cutting edge.





Ask the Sugarhill Gang, because without Chic's Good Times song, Rapper's Delight, the song that catapulted hip hop into prominence doesn't happen.



Ask Sister Sledge, who thanks to Nile and 'Nard's production talents, created a song that became a championship anthem for the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates.



Once again Chic has been nominated along with Jeff Beck, Wanda Jackson, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Metallica, Run-D.M.C., the Stooges, War and Bobby Womack, but only five of these outstanding nominees will get in. After the votes are tabulated, the announcement will be made next month as to who will comprise the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2009.

The induction ceremony will take place in April, and this time I'm hoping along with other Chic fans that they'll FINALLY get in.

The Hippest Trip In America

Don Cornelius getting busted last Friday in LA triggered memories about my favorite way in my teens to enjoy a Saturday besides watching my favorite cartoons.

The show was Soul Train and to me and every other African-American kid growing up in the 70's, 80's, 90's and part of the 2K's, it was Must See TV.

It was our version of American Bandstand and Don Cornelius was our Dick Clark. I tuned in to KHTV 39 at noon to see the latest dances, the latest fashions and hear the latest music.

And because I was on the wrong side of the gender fence at the time, I was also jealously envious of the sistahs on that show.




You also got to see the Soul Train Dancers forming that world famous Soul Train Line and either coolly or in some cases acrobatically moving and grooving their way down the end of it.







Some of the peeps who danced on Soul Train over the years included Rosie Perez, Carmen Electra, Nick Cannon, MC Hammer, Jermaine Stewart, Fred "Rerun" Berry, Pebbles, and NFL legend Walter Payton. Jody Watley and Jeffery Daniel danced on the show before becoming (along with Howard Hewitt) two-thirds of the group Shalamar.

It was also the place where we tuned in to see our artists (even if some of them were lip-synching to the songs).


The Commodores 1974



Chic 1978



Teena Marie 1980



Morris Day and The Time 1982



Vanity 6 1984



After a 35 year run, 1117 episodes and several guest hosts after Don Cornelius stepped down in 1993, Soul Train ended its historic run in 2006.



Wishing you love. peace and SOUL!

Lynda Carter To Caribou Barbie: You're No Wonder Woman

TransGriot Note:Philadelphia magazine recently interviewed Lynda Carter about her three week show at an Atlantic City casino. The interviewer asked a question about the comparisons that Repugnicans are making to Palin and the Wonder Woman character she played back in the 70's.

Needless to say Ms. Carter has very definite opinions about that.


PHILADELPHIA: Okay, last question. I'm sure you've seen all the comparisons in the media and among Republicans of Sarah Palin to Wonder Woman. How do you feel about that?

CARTER: Don’t get me started. She’s the anti-Wonder Woman. She’s judgmental and dictatorial, telling people how they’ve got to live their lives. And a superior religious self-righteousness … that’s just not what Wonder Woman is about. Hillary Clinton is a lot more like Wonder Woman than Mrs. Palin. She did it all, didn’t she?

No one has the right to dictate, particularly in this country, to force your own personal views upon the populace — religious views. I think that is suppressive, oppressive, and anti-American. We are the loyal opposition. That’s the whole point of this country: freedom of speech, personal rights, personal freedom. Nor would Wonder Woman be the person to tell people how to live their lives. Worry about your own life! Worry about your own family! Don’t be telling me what I want to do with mine.

I like John McCain. But this woman — it’s anathema to me what she stands for. I think America should be very afraid. Very afraid. Separation of church and state is the one thing the creators of the Constitution did agree on — that it wasn’t to be a religious government. People should feel free to speak their minds about religion but not dictate it or put it into law.

What I don’t understand, honestly, is how anyone can even begin to say they know the mind of God. Who do they think they are? I think that’s ridiculous. I know what God is in my life. Now I am sure that she’s not all just that. But it’s enough to me. It’s enough for me to have a visceral reaction. And it makes me mad.

People need to speak up. Doesn’t mean that I’m godless. Doesn’t mean that I am a murderer. What I hate is this demonization of everybody but one position. You’re un-American because you’re against the war. It’s such bullshit. Fear. It’s really such a finite way of thinking about God to think that your measley little mind can know the mind of God. It’s a very little God that way. I think that God’s bigger. I don’t presume to know his mind. Or her mind.

P-Funkin' In Da Ville

Later today I'll be taking a refesher course so that I can maintain my Doctorate of Funkology.

Yep, I'm a serious Funkateer. and this evening Parliament-Funkadelic is headlining a free concert at Waterfront Park's Great Lawn as part of the Waterfront Independence Festival. It's been advertised on Magic 101.3 for a week (yes, we have Black radio stations here in Da Ville), and it's been a major topic of discussion for those of us who remember the heyday of Parliament-Funkadelic and how cutting edge their music was (and still is) back in the day.

My love of P-Funk started when I was in the 8th grade. My Dad came home from work that afternnon, tossed a promo album in my room and said, "You need to be listening to these guys."



The album he tossed in my my room was Parliament's 'Mothership Connection'. I took it into the den, put it on our quadraphonic stereo turntable, slapped on my headphones and the rest is history. From that day forward I eagerly awaited their album releases and didn't miss a Parliament-Funkadelic concert whenever they hit town. One of the first concerts I was allowed in my teen years to go to unsupervised by the parental units was a P-Funk one at The Summit.

I enthusiastically watched a documentary late one night that was done about the P-Funk phenomenon on PBS called Parliament-Funkadelic - One Nation Under A Groove for Independent Lens. The website for it even has a trivia quiz that tests your P-funk knowledge.

Far from faking the funk, I revel in it. I'm looking forward to seeing one of my favorite bands perform once again on the banks of the Ohio.

ConGRADulations

Yesterday I received an e-mail from my old friend Melinda Bogdanovich concerning the impending graduation of her son Alexander from his Austin area high school on May 31. It triggered memories of my own high school graduation that happened on this date 28 years ago.

Put your calculators down. My 30 year reunion is coming up in 2010.

Although I'm Class of 80, in reality my high school years covered the tail end of the 70's. We only spent a grand total of five months in the 1980's

So when I looked at Alexander's handsome face on his graduation picture, it took me back to that magical month when I (and his Aunt Melanie) were about to hit that milestone day. I'd turned 18. I'd just gotten my license after driving around on my learner's permit for two years. The All Night Senior Party at Astroworld had come and gone and I stayed until the park closed down at 6 AM. I was still pondering who I was going to take to the prom since two of my top five candidates now had boyfriends.

I had mixed emotions at that time. While I was happy on one level that my time in high school was coming to an end and was excited to be moving on to college, there was sadness as well on two levels. Those of us who had spent three years bonding together as 'The Class With Class' were about to go our separate ways and pursue our various dreams. For some peeps, that meant college. For others it was off to the military. And for others they were still trying to sort things out in terms of what direction they wanted their lives to take.

I will never forget seeing all of us in the caps and gowns in our school colors as we excitedly awaited the start of our ceremony at 7 PM. All 700 of us marching into the then Astroarena (now Reliant Arena). The choir singing and the band playing as part of the ceremony with the senior members participating in their caps and gowns.

Listening to our graduation speaker Judge Thomas Routt. Hearing the shouts of joy from the relatives and friends of people when their baby's name was called as they crossed that stage. Tearing up as we started singing our class and school songs. My classmates and I tossing our caps in the air after the benediction was said to close out our ceremony. The endless snapping of photos with various clusters of classmates before we turned in our caps and gowns.

Unfortunately, since ours was on a Tuesday night, we still had to go to school the next morning. (The school year didn't end until the first week of June) The only thing many of us did was go straight home and to bed. We still had other Senior Week events to go through including the prom that Saturday.

It's also ironic when you think about it, the world of May 1980 and the world of May 2008 have some interesting parallels. We'd just had the winter games in Lake Placid, but there was talk of a boycott of the Moscow Games because of the December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Gas prices had spiked to a horrible $1.49 cents a gallon. We had inflation as a result of the gas spike and President Carter's popularity was plummeting because of the economy and the Iran hostage crisis. We were facing a crossroads presidential election with a charismatic candidate in November that I was going to be eligible to participate in. Texas had an unpopular Republican governor. The 'Disco Sucks' movement was gaining momentum.

Hmm, the more things change, the more things stay the same.

So to the Class of 2008, congratulations. Whether you're moving on to the next level of your educational careers or leaving college for the working world, may your dreams come true and you have a smooth and relatively pothole free road to success.

And the other issue that was bothering me at the time? Well, you know.

BernNadette Stanis

Another installment in my ongoing series of articles on transgender and non-transgender women who have qualities that I admire.

Back in 1974 a spin off show from Maude debuted on CBS called Good Times. The iconic show chronicled the trials, travails and sometimes comic pitfalls of the Evans family, who were trying to earn their piece of the American Dream while dealing with the reality of living in the Cabrini-Green projects of Chicago.

This was the first television show show to focus on an African-American lower income family. One of the things that made it entertaining to watch for many teenaged boys of my generation besides Jimmie Walker was BernNadette Stanis, who played Thelma Evans.

She was the Brooklyn born sistah that African-American boys of my generation drooled over. In my case I wanted to BE her, but that's a story for another time. ;)

We got to see for the first time on American television a young, smart, proud, strong-willed, beautiful and sexy sister who had dreams bigger than the environment she lived in. She was a good girl, which only enhanced the enjoyment that the fellas got when they saw her in her tastefully sexy clothes she got to wear as Thelma or showed off her graceful dance moves honed as a Julliard graduate.

The former Miss Black New York was our first sex symbol. She showed mainstream America that the stereotypes of folks that lived in the ghetto were wrong. There were beautiful peeps there in body, mind and spirit who had hopes, dreams, aspirations, integrity and class. We had the pleasure of seeing her on the small screen for seven seasons until Good Times went off the air in 1979.

BernNadette has done guest spots on various TV shows, most recently on Girlfriends in an episode when she played Maya's cousin. She was set up on a date with William, who blathered on and on in her presence about his teenage crush on Thelma.

She eventually got married and became the mother of two daughters. She is a writer and producer, and has acted in some stage plays, most notably one called Whatever Happened to Black Love that she also produced with her husband Kevin Fontana. She also had a role in He Say...She Say But What Does God Say? She's written a book on relationships called Situations 101 that she is currently promoting.

And yes fellas, BernNadette's still as beautiful, smart and sexy as she was in 1974.

Happy Birthday 'Lufer'

With all the negativity that April 20 is associated with in terms of the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado and it being Adolf Hitler's birthday I thought it was time to point out something positive that happened on this date.

Luther Ronzoni Vandross was born in New York City in 1951.

Boy do I miss 'Lufer' as one of my friends used to pronounce his name. I remember when I first heard him singing during the disco era on Change's 'The Glow Of Love and Searchin' tracks and my reaction when I walked into Soundwaves and saw his Never Too Much album being sold.

There are very few artists that I buy their albums, much less debut ones without listening to it first but I did in this case. I wasn't disappointed.

From that point on every time he released an album or CD I was plunking down cash on the counters of my local record stores to purchase them. I attended EVERY Luther Vandross concert during the 80s and up until 1991.

Yeah, I'm a huge Luther fan. The man could SANG. The 25 million albums sold, the 14 albums ithat hit either platinum or multi-platinum status, eight Grammy Awards and other awards he won over his career are a testament to that. He had much success in the commercial jingle arena as well. It's also impossible to count the number of people who got busy to his music or how many children were conceived as a result of their parents listening to Luther's romantic songs.

Even the 1999 movie The Wood alluded to this when two of the characters, Alicia and Mike ended up slow dancing at a junior high school dance to Luther's 'If This World Were Mine'. They later remembered the moment as high school juniors. They were in Alicia's bedroom when the song played on the radio just before she and Mike lost their virginity together.



It's ironic that the lifelong bachelor who became synonymous with love, romance and relationships was himself always in search of them. He was consistently dogged by gay rumors which he vehemently denied during his lifetime. He was posthumously outed after his death due to the complications from the debilitating stroke he suffered in April 2003.

He was interviewed in May 2004 on Oprah and at the end of it sang "I believe in the power of love" in reference to his 1991 hit song 'Power of Love'. I cried for ten minutes after hearing that and hoped like many Luther fans that he was on the road to recovery. Unfortunately he took a turn for the worse a year later and passed away July 1, 2005.

Luther is no longer here with us, but his music, the fond memories I have of those concerts and the memory of his Oprah television appearance will stay with me forever.

In Praise Of Disco

I've come to praise disco, not bury it like the 'disco sucks' haters tried to do back in the day.

I'm one of those peeps who loves disco. I adore the fact that it's a blend of dance music, soul, funk, latin rhythms and jazz to an uptempo beat. When KRLY-FM changed their format to playing disco music 24/7 and called themselves Disco 94 my radio was tuned to it. I got some raised eyebrow looks from peeps and took some ribbing from my high school classmates for admitting that I liked the Village People.

I have this and a lot more to say about disco. It was one of the few music formats (jazz, R&B, country and classical are the others) that crosses racial boundaries in terms of its fanbase. Walk into any disco during the 70's and you would literally see a rainbow of people out shaking their bootys on the dance floor.

It started getting played on the Houston R&B radio stations about the mid 70's and it wasn't long before I started hearing some of my favorite artists recording songs to disco beats. In addition to being introduced to the Village People, I also became a huge fan of Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Sylvester, Chic and a few other groups. A 70's commercial jingle and backup singer by the name of Luther Vandross hooked up with a group called Change and sang lead vocals on the album's 'The Glow of Love' and 'Searchin' tunes. They got major airplay and set the stage for the 1981 platinum debut album Never Too Much that launched his solo career.

Rap owes its origins to disco along with house music. Without Chic's 'Good Times' the Sugarhill Gang would've had to use some other beats as the basis for 'Rapper's Delight'. Would the Pittsburgh Pirates 1979 championship be as memorable without hearing Sister Sledge's 'We Are Family' rocking Three Rivers Stadium? The tune was adopted as the Pirates theme song that season. Even the US Navy considered using the Village People's 'In The Navy' as a recruiting song.

One thing I must point out about the 'Disco Sucks' movement is the homophobia and racism that were a component of it. I found it interesting that the main peeps hollering 'disco sucks' when I was in high school were overwhelmingly white males who were hardcore rock fans.


Best of all, before disco got eclipsed on the American music scene it was fun. I was reminded of that when I got taken to Polly Esther's Culture Club by some friends a few weeks before I moved to Louisville. It has three themed rooms. One of them is a 70's room complete with a lighted flashing disco floor and mirrored disco balls hanging from the ceiling.

I observed as the DJ continued to spin my fave tunes from the 70's that there was a multicultural crowd dancing to it. Nobody cared whether the artist being played was White, Black, Latino, gay or straight. The music was slammin', everybody was having fun and you didn't have to be a Soul Train dancer or know the latest dances to groove to it.

I need to find my Disco Greatest Hits CD. Time for me to relearn how to do 'The Hustle'.

School Days II-Falcon Quest

Our Gold and White we love so dear
We'll remember through the years
Courage, love and loyalty
True to our school we'll always be
Falcons stand out among the rest
Meeting each and every test
Cherished you will always be
In and hearts and memories.

I recently renewed my Classmates.com subscription after getting numerous e-mails about peeps checking my profile. Being on there the last few days I've seen the names of some of my old classmates. Its triggered a flood of memories for me about the Class of 1980 that made me pull out my senior class memory book and yearbook.

Ah, the memories. Beating Jack Yates my sophomore year. The great state-ranked Falcon basketball teams. That heartbreaking last-second basketball district championship loss on a dunk we suffered against Wheatley in 1979 that eerily replicated itself for me at UH in 1983. The dances. Beating Sterling on a last second field goal during the 1979 'South Park Super Bowl'.

The Vanguard beach parties in Galveston and some of the other wild-and-crazy things about life in Vanguard. The costume day during homecoming week in 1979 when Charmaine Tolliver came dressed as Wonder Woman. She had the body to pull it off and was followed through school by drooling brothers hollering "Save me, Wonder Woman, Save Me!" Me and Lonnie Prothro cutting up during tennis practice and running laps for it.

The mornings we spent cracking jokes in the cafeteria or in front of the school auditorium before school started. Sneaking off campus to go to Popeye's and Mickey D's for lunch. The Max and Kyle Living Singleesque dissfest that me and Jocelyn Woodard used to engage in before she transferred to another school my senior year. Peeps used to accuse both of us of having feelings for each other which we both heatedly denied.

To be honest, I was a little jealous of her. Jocelyn was a beautiful girl, smart, never had a hair out of place and we rarely saw her in anything but dresses, heels and hose. Before she left for Lamar I had the pleasure of beating her butt at Mattel electronic football.

The girls that were interested in my 'twin' I kept at a distance because I was afraid that if I fell in love and that relationship progressed to marriage plus kids one day the gender issue would blow everything up and I'd have three or more people's feelings and lives hurt instead of just my own.

It was also torture for me to watch my female classmates blossom into womanhood. I felt like I was on the wrong team, I was being cheated and a cruel cosmic joke was being played on me. Little did I know at the time that I had a fellow Vanguard classmate that was going through the same feelings from the female to male aspect of it.

My time at my high school alma mater was a mixed bag. I'm very proud of my classmates in 'The Class With Class' as we're known in Jesse H. Jones lore. Many of them have gone on to greater success or are still working on it like I am. Sometimes when I get nostalgic about my time at JJ there's a little bit of residual sadness that washes over me because of the internal gender conflict I was dealing with and felt I couldn't tell anyone about.

That senior year seemed almost magical when I look back at it. I ended up going to TWO proms that night, ours and Sterling's. Ross Sterling was the high school my neighborhood was zoned to and my junior high Albert Thomas was a feeder for. I was at JJ for the Vanguard magnet program and many of my junior high friends ended up at Sterling. I spent almost as much time around Sterling events as I did at Jones and it was ironic that we held our prom the same night at two different Galleria hotels. We kept trading peeps back and forth between the two events.

The All Night Senior Party event at AstroWorld was the bomb. I got my license on my 18th birthday just a few weeks before graduation and recall the mixture of relief and sadness I felt during Senior Week. I also remember the last day of school of my senior year. It felt like that day took ten years to pass. Now ten years passes by in a week.

However, there are times I wish I'd just dealt with the gender issues then. I could've walked across that stage when I picked up my diploma as the person I am right now and I'd be in a better position life wise. Then again I'm also talking about the late 1970's as well.

I also have to consider the fact that if by some miracle I'd been able to do teen transition, would I be the same person I am now? I probably wouldn't be as open about my life since the advice gender therapists were giving then was to blend in and not let anybody know you were transgender. But then again I had buried it so deeply that when I finally did come out, the weight lifted off my shoulders was so liberating that I didn't care if peeps knew or not. I probably would've had the same reaction then as I did in 1993.

I managed to graduate with honors, but when I look back on it there were some things I would do differently if I could. I'd be more active than I was. I was on student council, part of the Model United Nations group my junior year but I feel I could've done more. I realized several years ago that I have a God-given talent for writing. That's something that should have clicked when I was one of my junior high school's winners of that NASA writing contest. I would've spent time on the school paper, joined the yearbook staff and went out for the tennis team sooner instead of my senior year. One of the side effects of the gender issues conundrum was that I spent so much time and energy trying to play 'boy' and eradicate any hint of my female persona that I didn't leave myself time to focus on what I really wanted out of life. I didn't have the self-confidence built up to fearlessly go for it.

I'm still the premier trash talker bar none and opposing fans who made the mistake of walking over to our side of Barnett Stadium or Barnett Fieldhouse found out the hard way. One night we were playing our bitter rival Jack Yates my junior year and they were trashing us 40-0 in response to the buttkicking we gave them my sophomore year. This loudmouth comes over to our side of the stadium and yells, "What's wrong Jones? Y'all couldn't program the computers to beat us?"

I shot back, "At least we have people at Jones smart enough to program computers, unlike you future TDC (Texas Department of Corrections) residents." Homeboy went scurrying back to the Yates side of the stadium with our laughter ringing in his ears.

I am blessed to still have in my life some of the friends I made during my time there. Some have remained so through my transition. I have gone to our reunions in 1985, 1990 and 2000 and plan to be there in 2010. I'm hoping I'll get to see at the 2010 reunion some classmates I haven't seen since we left JJ. I'm hopeful that while I'm on Classmates.com I get to reconnect with some others and reminisce about our times walking the halls of Jesse H. Jones.

By the way, me and 'errbody' else in Vanguard are still pissed about that Animal House like double secret senior trip some of y'all took to Dallas-Fort Worth and didn't tell us about until y'all got back. ;)

Angela Bofill-The Angel Of The Night

One of my favorite songs is Angel of the Night by Angela Bofill. For those of you who were toddlers during the 70's or weren't even thought of yet you've probably heard the song played regularly as part of your local radio station's Quiet Storm format. She was also the first Latina to find success in the R&B world.

Angela's a New York City girl raised by a Cuban father and Puerto Rican mother in Harlem. Her godfather was the legendary Tito Puente and she has a three and a half octave range voice. Bofill growing up was exposed to various music styles ranging from Motown to Aretha to Celia Cruz and of course her godfather.

She's an accomplished, classically trained opera singer and songwriter. By the time Angie was 18 she was doing jam sessions with music greats such as Cannonball Adderly, Herbie Hancock, and Dizzy Gillespie. She was a featured soloist for the Dance Theater of Harlem, majored in theater at the University of Hartford, voice at the Hartt School of Music and holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the prestigious Manhattan School of Music.


Bofill began her solo recording career in 1978 with a singing style that blended pop, R&B and jazz. Her first album, Angie contained the hits Next Time I'll Be Sweeter and Under The Moon and Over The Sky. It quickly established her as an up and coming vocalist and evoked comparisons to another vocalist with a similar singing style, her label mate Phyllis Hyman.

Her sophomore album, Angel of the Night contained my fave song and 'I Try'. Both albums topped the R&B, pop and jazz charts for several months in 1979 and firmly established Angela Bofill in short order as a musical force to be reckoned with.

She released Something About You in 1981 and Too Tough in 1983. The title track on this album became a major dance hit and the album went gold. Angie released a few more albums during the rest of the decade with varying degrees of success and also appeared in stage plays such as “God Don’t Like Ugly” and “What A Man Wants, What A Man Needs.”

On January 10, 2006 she suffered a stroke that paralyzed her left side and impaired her speech. She spent a few days in the hospital before being relased January 15, 2006 to recover at her California home. Like millions of Americans Angie didn't have health insurance at the time so it's been a long, tough fight to recovery. She is able to lift her leg, has feeling in her shoulder and her arm but has no mobility in it. She's determined to sing again and she's currently undergoing speech and physical therapy. There was a benefit concert held for her in Detroit on March 21, 2007 and according to her agent the R&B Foundation feels she qualifies for assistance as well.

Here's hoping that one of my fave singers makes a full recovery and we once again get to hear the Angel of the Night in her full glory.

Transsexual Pioneer Renee Richards Regrets Fame

Sun Feb 18, 2007 12:07pm ET
By Belinda Goldsmith

NEW YORK (Reuters) - As Renee Richards, the world's most famous transsexual athlete, looks back on her life, she has one regret -- the fame she attained.

Richards, who was born Richard Raskind, had managed to create a new life for herself as a woman after a sex change operation in 1975 but a year later made a decision that was to have an even greater impact.

She decided to take the United States Tennis Association to court for banning her from playing in women's events at the U.S. Open as she was a transsexual -- and she won, winning headlines globally as a pioneer for transsexual rights.

Richards, now 72 and without a partner, said she does not regret the sex change operation at the age of 40 -- although she might have liked to have gone through the process a bit earlier -- but she does have misgivings about her notoriety.

"I made the fateful decision to go and fight the legal battle to be able to play as a woman and stay in the public eye and become this symbol," Richards, an ophthalmologist, told Reuters in an interview in her Manhattan offices.

"I could have gone back to my office and just carried on with my life and the notoriety would have died down. I would have been able to resume the semblance of a normal life. I could have lived a more private life but I chose not to.

"I have misgivings about that. I am nostalgic about what would have happened if I had done it the other way," said the 6-foot-2-inch tall Richards with an unmistakable air of sadness as she folds her man-sized hands in her lap

Richards went on to play tennis professionally until 1981 then coached Martina Navratilova for two years before returning to the practice of ophthalmology.

FLEETING FAME

Fame came at a cost for Richards, who as Richard Raskind graduated from Yale, served in the Navy, become a prominent ophthalmologist and internationally known amateur tennis player. Raskind also married and fathered a son, Nick.

Her son, who is now 34 and still refers to her as "Dad" in private, attended many schools and struggled academically. He bounced between jobs before finally settling into a career as a real estate broker specializing in New York lofts.

"I am sure that had a lot to do with the chaos I went through in his childhood," said Richards, who refers to her son as "the apple of my eye."

Although Richards' mother died before her sex change operation, her father refused to acknowledge her sex change, and her sister still denies Richards' existence to friends.

Richards' former wife, who remarried and had another son, only talks to her when they need to discuss their son.

"We don't have a friendship," said Richards.

Forming relationships with men has proved difficult since she gained such notoriety, with Richards only having a couple of long-term boyfriends.

"With my first romances, they didn't know who I was but then I was found out," she said.

"You have to be a pretty strong character to have a relationship with someone who has been a man originally, and famous. I haven't had any romance in a number of years."

Richards, who spends her time between her home in upstate New York and a Manhattan apartment she shares with her son, found fame was also fleeting.

In the mid-1970s and when her memoir, "Second Serve: The Renee Richards Story," came out in 1983, was treated as an curiosity and besieged by television chat shows.

But with the release this month of her second memoir, "No Way Renee, The Second Half of My Notorious Life," few came knocking and television showed no interest.

"It is annoying to me," said Richards. "I'm so ordinary now; they're not interested. There's lots about transsexuals now."

© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved.


TransGriot note: I'm glad Renee did fight the USTA. As someone who was struggling with gender issues during the 70's she was the first concrete evidence I had that transpeople existed. It would take me a few more years before I met some transwomen who shared my ethnic heritage, but she along with local transwomen Phyllis Frye and Toni Mayes put names and faces to what I was feeling emotionally and internally at the time.

Tres Chic

The dictionary definition of chic reads: smart elegance and sophistication especially of dress or manner. That's a dead-on target description of one of my favorite bands of the 70's.

Chic's music like most of the stuff I grew up listening to has proven to be timeless and ground breaking as well. I fell in love with their amalgamation of deep bass guitars, the lush strings courtesy of the Chic Strings (Cheryl Hong, Karen Milne and Marianne Carroll) and funky rhythms. Sometimes it was at a disco pace. Other times it was pure 70's funk with some cool soulful ballads and instrumentals thrown in just for good measure.

While Dad introduced me to Parliament-Funkadelic, I discovered Chic on my own. I opened the package of promo albums that got mailed to the house one day back in 1977 from Atlantic Records and noticed Chic's debut album. It was the self titled one that contained what would become their first hits 'Dance Dance Dance' (Yowsah Yowsah Yowsah) and 'Everybody Dance'.

Dad sometimes used me to screen albums because I tend to be analytical about the way I listen to music. The lyrics are extremely important for me. I'm into great guitar players, sax players who can blow and great producers. I got spoiled listening to peeps produced by Holland Dozier Holland, Gamble and Huff, Maurice White, Quincy Jones, et cetera. In Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards they already had the quality producers and musicians.

Norma Jean Wright started out as Chic's front singer. They decided after a year of touring to support the first album they needed another female singer to expand what they could do in the live show and musically. Norma Jean suggested her friend Luci Martin. When Norma Jean Wright was forced to leave the band because of her contractual solo career obligations. Alfa Anderson, who sang backup on the second album C'est Chic was moved up to replace her in 1978. Norma Jean did get to sing some vocals on the monster Sister Sledge 1979 We Are Family LP.

C'est Chic got released in late 1978 with 'Le Freak' as the lead single and sold six million copies. Risque was released the next year. It contained a a song that would help propel a new music genre to prominence. That song was 'Good Times' and it became the basis for the Sugarhill Gang's breakthrough hit 'Rapper's Delight' and a host of other rap records that sampled it throughout the 80's. The basslines were sampled by rock, rap and R&B producers as well.

C'est Chic was supposed to contain the song 'He's The Greatest Dancer'. While producing Sister Sledge's album they decided that this song was a better fit for them and swapped it with another song. The song they exchanged it for that ended up on the Risque album was 'I Want Your Love'. They also featured an up and coming commercial jingle and session singer by the name of Luther Vandross on several of their albums. Luther hit it big singing lead vocals on Change's 1979 album featuring the hit singles 'The Glow Of Love' and 'Searching' and set the stage for his debut Never Too Much LP in 1981.

Nile and 'Nard also produced Diana Ross' hit singles 'Upside Down' and 'I'm Coming Out' for her 1980 Diana LP.

They struggled to get airplay in the early 80's and disbanded. They did produce Madonna's 1984 breakthrough album Like A Virgin album and scored some successes producing other artists.

After a 1992 party in which Nile and 'Nard played old Chic tunes along with Paul Shaffer and Anton Fig to thunderous applause they organized a reunion of the band and produced CHIC-ism. It not only charted but received critical acclaim and airplay all over the world.

In 2005 they became three category inductees in the Dance Music Hall of Fame. They have received nominations for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003, 2006 and 2007 but have yet to be elected.

Here's hoping that someday they'll be enshrined there as well.

Justina Williams-The 1979 JET Magazine Article

photo-Justina Williams

From the November 1, 1979 Jet Magazine article written by D. Michael Cheers. Deep thanks to Roberta Black for scanning it. Note how OUR media used the correct pronouns several decades before the 2001 AP Style Book mandated it, and treated Justina with respect.


Justina Williams always knew that she was different.

Ms. Williams, 30, was born Johnny Williams, a man with a gender disorder. She said that although she had a man's genitalia, psychologically she was a woman. Further, she had glandular bust tissue, and chromosomally and hormonally she was female.

"From my early childhood years I was more feminine than masculine. I just naturally assumd that I was a girl," she told JET. "I used to fight with my sister to see who would comb the doll's hair. I never played with games or toys associated with boys."

While on sick leave two years ago from her job as an assembly line worker for General Motors' Cadillac Motor Car Division in Detroit, she went to New York and was admitted to Boulevard Hospital for a sex reassignment operation..

Two months later she legally changed her name to Justina. Fifteen months later, after 10 years of seniority at General Motors she was terminated.

Ms. Williams filed a lawsuit last month in Wayne County Circuit Court where she claimed her termination was illegal, and that she suffered from unlawful employment practices and other forms of discrimination because of her sex. GM says they plan to answer the suit within a month.

Among the charges listed in the complaint, Ms. Williams alleges that she was "repeatedly harrassed, tormented and humiliated with verbal abuse with the intention of making her workplace conditions so unbearable that she would be forced to terminate her employment for her physical and mental well-being."

"I tried to be a man." said Ms. Williams, who now supports herself on general assistance and food stamps. "From 1970 to 1974 I even grew a mustache, tried to generate an interest in girls, but I could not become interested in them. We could only be friends. I never dated a girl in my life. I never had sex with a woman, nor have I ever engaged in any homosexual activity.

"When I was 13 I read a magazine article about an entertainer who had a sex reassignment operation. I knew then that there was hope for me. My prayers were answered." she continued. "In 1969 I started taking hormone shots to soften my skin and develop bust tissue. I even dressed like a woman, but only when I wasn't at work.
"Now I am totally a woman and content with my body. I have sex, have orgasms and really enjoy macho men," she added. Ms. Williams said that she cannot have children because she does not have any ovaries or a uterus.

As for her future, "What I really want to do is study cosmetology and move to another location so that I can get on with my life. I want to form an organization to help other women who have gender dysphoria and have suffered like I have. But for right now I want to concentrate on being female. I haven't had time to do that yet," she said.


TransGriot Notes:
Ms. Williams lawsuit against GM was never settled, but she did fufill her dreams of becoming a cosmetologist. She also went to school and became a legal assistant. The organization she formed, the National Gender Dysphoria Association helped many people in the Detroit area transition and lead happier, healthier lives. NGDS provides gender counseling, electrolysis, legal advice and SRS guidance.
They can be reached at:

National Gender Dysphoria Organization
PO Box 02732
Detroit, MI 48202
(313)842-5258