Harris, Keith Featured in TACT's 'Bedroom Farce' This Fall
Jenn Thompso
Harris is a veteran of TV's "Mad About You" and was recently seen in the world premiere of Richard Greenberg's comedy The Injured Party at South Coast Rep. Keith starred in Broadway's Caroline, or Change.
According to TACT, "Written for the National Theatre in 1975, Alan Ayckbourn's dexterous and gloriously funny play about four couples in four very different stages of marriage gets its long awaited revival. Bedroom Farce marks a significant turning point in Alan Ayckbourn's writing career, bridging the broader style of his earlier work with the darker aspects of middle-class English life he would so successfully go on to explore. Known as the 'bard of the bourgeois,' Ayckbourn's ironically titled Bedroom Farce displays many aspects of his unique talent - comedy that relies on circumstance rather than one-liners, inventive use of physical space, and a refusal to sacrifice the realism of his characters and their relationships to one another for cheap laughs or neat candy-coated endings."
The play "examines the dysfunctional relationships of four couples over one chaotic Saturday night. Trevor and Susannah are on the verge of a break-up - and they're determined to take their friends and family down with them! After Trevor and his ex-girlfriend, Jan, are caught kissing at Malcolm and Kate's housewarming party, all hell breaks loose. Susannah flees to her in-laws who are trying to salvage their anniversary celebration; while Trevor pays a midnight visit to Jan's in order to explain his misdeeds to her husband, Nick. As the evening progresses, this unstable pair travels from bedroom to bedroom, raining hysterical havoc on everything they touch and assuring that no one will get any sleep."
Co-artistic director Scott Alan Evans (whose artistic partners are Harris and Simon Jones) stated, "With his extraordinary sense of the theatrical and his deft use of language, Ayckbourn has been on the top of our to-do list for a long time. We're thrilled to reintroduce New York audiences to this tremendously funny and touching play."
Ayckbourn's more than 70 plays includeRelatively Speaking (1967), Absurd Person Singular (1974); The Norman Conquests (1975); Bedroom Farce (1977); Just Between Ourselves (1978); A Chorus Of Disapproval (1985); Woman In Mind (1986); A Small Family Business (1987); Man of the Moment (1990); Things We Do For Love (1998); Comic Potential (1999); and Private Fears in Public Places (2004).
The design team includes Amir Khosrowpour (original music), Aaron Copp (lighting), Martha Hally (costumes), Stephen Kunken (sound) and Robin Vest (sets).
The performance schedule is Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 7:30 PM, Saturday at 2 & 8 PM, Sunday at 3 PM.
The Beckett Theatre is located at 410 West 42nd Street.
Tickets are $25-$56.25 and can be purchased at Ticket Central by phone (212) 279-4200 or online at www.tactnyc.org. For more information on this production or TACT, visit www.tactnyc.org.
In spring 2009, TACT will present the World War II drama Incident at Vichy by Arthur Miller, directed by Evans, running Feb. 22-March 28, 2009 at The Beckett Theatre, Theatre Row.
TACT "is dedicated to presenting neglected or rarely produced plays of literary merit, with a focus on creating theatre from its essence: the text and the actor's ability to bring it to life. TACT's company of actors was drawn together in 1992 by a love of the literature of the theatre. Over the 15 seasons and more than 80 productions [most of them concert readings], it has grown to become a true repertory ensemble: a group that has developed a common vocabulary and a technique based on our artistic vision and collective body of work."
Harris, Pine Featured in TACT's 'Bedroom Farce' This Fall
Jenn Thompso
Harris is a veteran of TV's "Mad About You" and was recently seen in the world premiere of Richard Greenberg's comedy The Injured Party at South Coast Rep. Pine starred in Broadway's Caroline, or Change.
According to TACT, "Written for the National Theatre in 1975, Alan Ayckbourn's dexterous and gloriously funny play about four couples in four very different stages of marriage gets its long awaited revival. Bedroom Farce marks a significant turning point in Alan Ayckbourn's writing career, bridging the broader style of his earlier work with the darker aspects of middle-class English life he would so successfully go on to explore. Known as the 'bard of the bourgeois,' Ayckbourn's ironically titled Bedroom Farce displays many aspects of his unique talent - comedy that relies on circumstance rather than one-liners, inventive use of physical space, and a refusal to sacrifice the realism of his characters and their relationships to one another for cheap laughs or neat candy-coated endings."
The play "examines the dysfunctional relationships of four couples over one chaotic Saturday night. Trevor and Susannah are on the verge of a break-up - and they're determined to take their friends and family down with them! After Trevor and his ex-girlfriend, Jan, are caught kissing at Malcolm and Kate's housewarming party, all hell breaks loose. Susannah flees to her in-laws who are trying to salvage their anniversary celebration; while Trevor pays a midnight visit to Jan's in order to explain his misdeeds to her husband, Nick. As the evening progresses, this unstable pair travels from bedroom to bedroom, raining hysterical havoc on everything they touch and assuring that no one will get any sleep."
Co-artistic director Scott Alan Evans (whose artistic partners are Harris and Simon Jones) stated, "With his extraordinary sense of the theatrical and his deft use of language, Ayckbourn has been on the top of our to-do list for a long time. We're thrilled to reintroduce New York audiences to this tremendously funny and touching play."
Ayckbourn's more than 70 plays includeRelatively Speaking (1967), Absurd Person Singular (1974); The Norman Conquests (1975); Bedroom Farce (1977); Just Between Ourselves (1978); A Chorus Of Disapproval (1985); Woman In Mind (1986); A Small Family Business (1987); Man of the Moment (1990); Things We Do For Love (1998); Comic Potential (1999); and Private Fears in Public Places (2004).
The design team includes Amir Khosrowpour (original music), Aaron Copp (lighting), Martha Hally (costumes), Stephen Kunken (sound) and Robin Vest (sets).
The performance schedule is Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 7:30 PM, Saturday at 2 & 8 PM, Sunday at 3 PM.
The Beckett Theatre is located at 410 West 42nd Street.
Tickets are $25-$56.25 and can be purchased at Ticket Central by phone (212) 279-4200 or online at www.tactnyc.org. For more information on this production or TACT, visit www.tactnyc.org.
In spring 2009, TACT will present the World War II drama Incident at Vichy by Arthur Miller, directed by Evans, running Feb. 22-March 28, 2009 at The Beckett Theatre, Theatre Row.
TACT "is dedicated to presenting neglected or rarely produced plays of literary merit, with a focus on creating theatre from its essence: the text and the actor's ability to bring it to life. TACT's company of actors was drawn together in 1992 by a love of the literature of the theatre. Over the 15 seasons and more than 80 productions [most of them concert readings], it has grown to become a true repertory ensemble: a group that has developed a common vocabulary and a technique based on our artistic vision and collective body of work."
Frankenstein to Star Wars, Best 'Genre' per Decade - 50's
When looking at the '50s, it's important to remember that this decade is essentially the Hollywood Science Fiction explosion. There were certainly films of that ilk before, and there have been sci-fi saturated decades since. However, this was the decade that we see that genre touch nearly everything. It was the decade of the Space Race, Atomic Power, and "Modern Conveniences". Therefore, expect this look skewed in that direction.
The Blob (1958): Young Steve McQueen (in his film debut!) battles the scariest crawling Jell-O from space we'd seen at this point. It's often categorized as a "B-picture", but it's a fairly enduring film. There are a lot of fun moments, like the movie theater panic and the swallowing of the diner. And lest we forget, bonus points because the creature isn't destroyed, but merely stopped ... for the moment.
The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954): Gilled-death rises from the deep, and Universal Studios is there! Originally shot in 3D by director Jack Arnold, "Creature" contains stellar underwater photography for the time period and a fantastically designed monster. One of the highlights is the Creature stalking the heroine in the water (while she's wearing what Stephen King calls "the requisite one-piece white swimsuit" in his book on horror, Danse Macabre). Other films have sunk trying to imitate the style and atmosphere, but "Creature" rises above them all.
The Fly (1958): Featuring the immortal "Help me, pleeeease! Help me!", "The Fly" was as close to a gross-out film as you could get in the late '50s. With the giant fly's head and hand grafted onto a hapless human scientist, you know that you're in for a good time. And of course, there's Vincent Price, who can elevate the quality of a horror film just by walking into the room.
"The Fly" is another movie that straddles the lines of science fiction and horror, but anyone who's seen the awesome costume and chilling ending knows exactly which side it belongs too.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (1956): The title says it all. Godzilla is the king! The movie that launched an industry of atomic-powered monsters, Godzilla still reigns as the 400-foot tall champion. We recommend picking up the unedited Japanese version (Gojira) if you get a chance. It's longer, and it doesn't have Raymond Burr cut in as reporter Steve Martin. Regardless, Godzilla is king of rubber-suit land.
Despite the dated effects, the movie still holds up extremely well; it crushes by comparison the weak Devlin/Emmerich remake from 1998. Hell, the scene of Bob Goldthwait in a Godzilla suit stomping the model development in One Crazy Summer is about twenty times as good as the Devlin/Emmerich version. (Yes, there are those who argue the merits of the Devlin/Emmerich version. But we must insist: Godzilla is not an iguana).
Horror of Dracula (1958): Christopher Lee as Dracula vs. Peter Cushing as Van Helsing. The review could stop there and you'd understand why this is so great. However, other points need to be made, like the fact that this launched the Hammer Studios franchise, and that the blood ran in color.
Though the film's script is brutal on the novel (let's reiterate: brutal. Many are the nonsensical changes to character relationships), there is so much going on that the film takes on a life of its own. The climactic battle between the Count and his nemesis is fantastic. Many, many Lee/Cushing films followed. Good, good stuff.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956): Though director Don Siegel insisted that this wasn't a McCarthyist allegory, it still works in that fashion amazingly well. As in Jack Finney's novel, the hero (Kevin McCarthy, ironically enough) discovers that alien pods are replacing people. A ticking clock of suspense, the movie is especially memorable for the scene of McCarthy shouting in the middle of the street.
The 1970s remake is pretty darn good too, particularly due to the strong presence of Donald Sutherland. The '90s version, simply titled Body Snatchers is okay, but the less said about this decade's The Invasion, the better. The original is currently being homage in a Marvel Comics summer event near you.
The Thing . . . From Another World (1951): Commonly known as "The Thing", this absolutely awesome flick set many standards for '50s horror and science fiction. Drawn from John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?", the film is set at an isolated Arctic research station with a mix of military and scientific personnel. The sci-fi debate chestnut of "destroy the alien or study it" is clearly defined here.
Though Christian Nyby gets the directorial credit, it's generally understood that producer Howard Hawks oversaw the whole deal.
The entire affair moves at a slam-bang pace with great suspense. And now dig this: James "Marshall Dillon" Arness played The Thing. We refer once again to King's Danse Macabre; his take on the political and social overtones of this film is especially cogent.
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951): Frankly, it's somewhat saddening that this is being remade. Thematically, it was a perfect film of its time, with the message that pursuing apocalyptic weapon design in a political race (i.e., The Cold War) is a futile endeavor that leads to destruction.
There are many fine touches in Robert Wise's terrific film, particularly Gort the robot and the realistic depiction of what would happen if the military met aliens. The thing that puts this above so many other genre films is the time that it takes with thoughtfulness and dialogue. It's a suspenseful film, but that comes in second to communicating worthy ideas, one of the reasons why it's remembered as a classic of its kind.
The War of the Worlds (1953): The first adaptation of this particular H.G. Wells novel, "War of the Worlds" is generally considered a fine example of '50s sci-fi. This Oscar winner (for special effects) recounts the familiar tale of what happens when aliens attack.
Though some liberties are taken with the narrative, the overall thrust of the story is still the same. Some symbolic points are scored in demonstrating the ruthlessness of the Martian invaders when they massacre three men approaching peacefully (and later, a pastor as well). The visuals really drive the story. A viewing today will definitely do one thing: make you realize exactly how much Independence Day bit from it.
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953): Ray Harryhausen in the, er, hausen! A hugely influential movie (likely inspiring everything from Godzilla to Cloverfield), the Beast is the first in a long line of giant monsters to be aroused from slumber by stupid, stupid humans.
Actually based in part on a Ray Bradbury story (now called The Fog Horn), "Beast" hits the familiar beats associated with this kind of tale. Atomic tests? Check. Peeved-off giant monster? Check. Cities hopeless in the face of this menace? You bet. There's also the bonus element of having the monster's blood be toxic in its own right (a prelude to Alien, perhaps) and a climax involving a roller-coaster and a rocket launcher.
Them! (1954): Another entry in the "giant thing created by science" family, "Them!" features giant ants. Though giant ants would become a recurring theme in films (like Empire of the Ants), this is probably the classic of that six-legged sub-genre.
One of the more compelling (and believable) aspects of the film is the way in which the authorities approach their investigation; things are kept quiet, experts are summoned, steps are taken to avoid panic. It seems as if this is the way that the government would indeed deal with giant ants (aside from taxing them, of course).
Also enjoyable is the scientifically accurate notion that the queens would attempt to escape to form new colonies; this thread takes the action to L.A. It's there that we get a surprise fatality that's outside of the norm for films of the time. Overall, a strong pioneering effort.
This Island Earth (1955): Despite being wailed on in the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 film, "This Island Earth" is actually a strong film with some indelible visuals. The huge-brained, veiny-headed mutant is an indisputably iconic image, and the movie as a whole received great praise for its effects and color. Comic book fans will note with some amusement that the alien leader is named The Monitor.
One of the key plot points turns on the notion of obviously advanced civilizations needing the help of a human scientist; this idea turns up again and again in the films of the period. It's almost cute in a way: a species that can build teleporters and interstellar craft needs help, and the way hold auditions is getting a guy to build a radio.
Forbidden Planet (1956): Attention Lost fans: this is one of the keystone texts for the series. Based in many ways on Shakespeare's The Tempest, "Planet" comes bursting with great ideas. The visuals are uniformly terrific, with sweeping images of The Great Machine and a monster that, when revealed, comes courtesy of animation staff imported from Disney. Great care (and cost) went into the creation of the vehicles and, of course, Robby the Robot.
There are also those that credit the genesis of the miniskirt to this film for the outfits worn by Anne Francis.
Younger viewers may find it hard to accept noted deadpan genius Leslie Nielsen in an action role, but this is great stuff.
Among other favorites? 1957's The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). And though we'll pass this along without the benefit of having seen never seen the original BBC version, many scholars and fans alike agree The Quartermass Experiment (1953) should be regarded as a seminal text.
There it is, readers. The '50s At this point, we'll leave it to you.
Please discuss.
[* Edited versions of some entries previously appeared in the author's "Best Horror Films of the 20th Century" list written for his own website, ShotgunReviews.com].
Related Content:
Part One: the 1930's
Part Two: the 1940's
Mystery surrounds death of NYC Renaissance man
He ran away from home in Seattle at 15 to make it in the nation's biggest city. He became a club kid, a model, a Web pioneer, one of CNN's first
Then, suddenly, he was dead at 41 — the cause still a mystery three weeks later.
Hundreds of friends planned to attend a memorial Saturday night at the Theater for the New City in Manhattan's East Village. With Chamberlain's body in a Manhattan morgue, a rose-filled casket on a makeshift altar was to hold objects reflecting a life both thrilling and sad.
The casket and its contents are to be burned in effigy this month at the Burning Man arts festival in Nevada's Black Rock Desert, where Chamberlain's ashes are to be scattered. For the festival, he recently helped create a mammoth metal sculpture featuring parts of 18-wheelers.
Chamberlain is believed to have died July 25, but his landlord found him in his chic Chelsea apartment about a week later, said John Morton, a friend who worked with Chamberlain on his TV show, which ran from 1999 until 2000.
On Saturday, the medical examiner was still investigating the cause of death. Police said there was no sign of foul play, and friends said Chamberlain seemed healthy.
Those who knew him well said he was a modern-day American dreamer who made it in New York.
"He was a real selfless pioneer who would push the envelope in art and technology — without great expectations of returns," said Adeo Ressi, a friend flying in from San Francisco to attend the memorial. "He didn't need to make a lot of money; he didn't need to be famous. He really just wanted to do great work."
Chamberlain arrived in New York in the early 1980s and got a job at Danceteria, a Chelsea club frequented by the likes of Madonna and the Beastie Boys. He modeled for designer Stephen Sprouse, performed with a band called Icon Man and appeared in a video made by David Byrne of the Talking Heads.
By 1994, Chamberlain was working for Pseudo.com, which became one of the Web's early providers of video — including "Judge Cal's High Weirdness." Chamberlain built a following with his observations on conspiracy theories, the occult, politics and cyberculture. During one show, he had his lip pierced.
By 2000, he was reporting for Pseudo.com from both the Republican and Democratic national conventions, equipped with a Web cam and keypad that was later donated to the Smithsonian Institution. He also briefly worked as a political blogger for CNN.
Pseudo.com's closing launched Chamberlain into "a dark time when he was not doing much," Morton said. Chamberlain got a job as a bartender at another trendy New York club, Crobar, now closed.
In recent years, he had found another passion — helping build metal sculptures with the Madagascar Institute, a Brooklyn art group that specializes in large-scale sculptures and "guerrilla art."
But while Chamberlain accumulated a coterie of friends — one of whom wrote about his death on the popular political Web site the Huffington Post — he was estranged from his family, only occasionally keeping in touch by phone or e-mail.
After his death, authorities and dozens of friends spent two weeks trying to find a family member, finally finding an Internet contact for Chamberlain's sister on Thursday.
His relatives hadn't seen him in more than 20 years, respecting his apparent desire not to see them, said his mother, Bette Hill, 64, of Spokane Valley, Wash.
"I think he was struggling," she said.
His friends had become his family, his mother said, and in death, "they're taking care of him. And we're very grateful for it."
Thousands expected at funeral for Palestinian poet Darwish
Pal
Darwish, who died on Saturday at the age of 67 in a US hospital from complications following open-heart surgery, was to be flown to Jordan and then onward to Ramallah, to be buried near the town's Cultural Palace.
His grave will face the outskirts of Jerusalem, where the Palestinians hope to create the capital of a future state which Darwish had yearned for in poems imbued with the agony of exile and loss.
Organisers planned to unfurl 5,000 flags printed with pictures of Darwish, who came to Ramallah in 1995 after a quarter-century abroad and who, according to Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki, wished to be buried there.
Wednesday's funeral is being organised by the office of Abbas, who succeeded Arafat after his death in November 2004.
The Palestinian ambassador to Amman, Atallah Kheiry, said Darwish's body would be transferred to Jordan from the United States on a plane sent by UAE President Sheikh Khalifa al-Nahayan.
A ceremony was to be held at Amman's Marka military airport at 0700 GMT before Darwish's body is flown to the occupied West Bank on a Jordanian military helicopter.
Darwish won a number of international prizes and is widely considered one of the Arab world's greatest writers, his terse but deeply evocative verses having inspired generations of modern poets.
He penned over two dozen books of poetry and prose in a career spanning nearly a half-century that captured the Palestinian experience of war, exile, and the unfinished struggle for national self-determination.
In "Diary of a Palestinian Wound" he wrote: "This land absorbs the skins of martyrs/ This land promises wheat and stars/ Worship it!/ We are its salt and its water/ We are its wound, but a wound that fights."
Born in 1941 in an Arab village in what is now northern Israel, Darwish and his family fled during the 1948 war that followed the creation of the Jewish state, though they returned to Israel a few years later.
He published his first book of poetry "Wingless Birds" in 1960, and has since been translated into dozens of languages while many his poems have been set to music, including "My Mother" by the Lebanese musician Marcel Khalife.
"I long for my mother's bread/ My mother's coffee/ Her touch/ Childhood memories grow up in me/ Day after day/ I must be worth my life/ At the hour of my death/ Worth the tears of my mother."
Darwish has been harshly critical of Israel over the years and was detained several times in the 1960s before going into self-imposed exile in 1970. Over the next 25 years he lived briefly in Paris, Moscow, and several Arab capitals.
A sequence of poetic prose written about his experience of life in Beirut during the Israeli invasion and bombardment of Lebanon in 1982 was translated into English in 1995 under the title "Memory for Forgetfulness."
In 1988, Darwish wrote the official Palestinian declaration of independence and served on the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation until 1993, when he resigned in protest at the Oslo autonomy accords.
Actor, comedian and exasperated dad Mac dies at 50
Though his comedy drew on tough experiences as a black man, he had mainstream appeal — befitting inspiration he found in a wide range of humorists: Harpo Marx as well as Moms Mabley; squeaky-clean Red Skelton, but also the raw Redd Foxx.
Mac died Saturday morning from complications due to pneumonia in a Chicago area hospital, his publicist, Danica Smith, said in a statement from Los Angeles. She said no other details were available.
"The world just got a little less funny," said "Oceans" co-star George Clooney.
Don Cheadle, another member of the "Oceans" gang, concurred: "This is a very sad day for many of us who knew and loved Bernie. He brought so much joy to so many. He will be missed, but heaven just got funnier."
Mac suffered from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory lung disease that produces tiny lumps of cells in the body's organs, but had said the condition went into remission in 2005. He recently was hospitalized and treated for pneumonia, which his publicist said was not related to the disease.
Recently, Mac's brand of comedy caught him flack when he was heckled during a surprise appearance at a July fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate and fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama.
Toward the end of a 10-minute standup routine, Mac joked about menopause, sexual infidelity and promiscuity, and used occasional crude language. Obama took the stage about 15 minutes later, implored Mac to "clean up your act next time," then let him off the hook, adding: "By the way, I'm just messing with you, man."
Even so, Obama's campaign later issued a rebuke, saying the senator "doesn't condone these statements and believes what was said was inappropriate."
But despite controversy or difficulties, in his words, Mac was always a performer.
"Wherever I am, I have to play," he said in 2002. "I have to put on a good show."
Mac worked his way to Hollywood success from an impoverished upbringing on Chicago's South Side. He began doing standup as a child, telling jokes for spare change on subways, and his film career started with a small role as a club doorman in the Damon Wayans comedy "Mo' Money" in 1992. In 1996, he appeared in the Spike Lee drama "Get on the Bus."
He was one of "The Original Kings of Comedy" in the 2000 documentary of that title that brought a new generation of black standup comedy stars to a wider audience.
"The majority of his core fan base will remember that when they paid their money to see Bernie Mac ... he gave them their money's worth," Steve Harvey, one of his co-stars in "Original Kings," told CNN on Saturday.
Mac went on to star in the hugely popular "Ocean's Eleven" franchise with Brad Pitt and George Clooney, playing a gaming-table dealer who was in on the heist. Carl Reiner, who also appeared in the "Ocean's" films, said Saturday he was "in utter shock" because he thought Mac's health was improving.
"He was just so alive," Reiner said. "I can't believe he's gone."
Mac and Ashton Kutcher topped the box office in 2005's "Guess Who," a comedy remake of the classic Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn drama "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" Mac played the dad who's shocked that his daughter is marrying a white man.
Mac also had starring roles in "Bad Santa," "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" and "Transformers."
But his career and comic identity were forged in television.
In the late 1990s, he had a recurring role in "Moesha," the UPN network comedy starring pop star Brandy. The critical and popular acclaim came after he landed his own Fox television series "The Bernie Mac Show," about a child-averse couple who suddenly are saddled with three children.
Mac mined laughs from the universal frustrations of parenting, often breaking the "fourth wall" to address the camera throughout the series that aired from 2001 to 2006. "C'mon, America," implored Mac, in character as the put-upon dad. "When I say I wanna kill those kids, YOU know what I mean."
The series won a Peabody Award in 2002, and Mac was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Emmy. In real life, he was "the king of his household" — very much like his character on that series, his daughter, Je'niece Childress, told The Associated Press on Saturday.
"But television handcuffs you, man," he said in a 2001 Associated Press interview before the show had premiered. "Now everyone telling me what I CAN'T do, what I CAN say, what I SHOULD do, and asking, `Are blacks gonna be mad at you? Are whites gonna accept you?'"
He also was nominated for a Grammy award for best comedy album in 2001 along with his "The Original Kings of Comedy" co-stars Harvey, D.L. Hughley and Cedric The Entertainer.
Chicago music producer Carolyn Albritton said she was Bernie Mac's first manager, having met him in 1991 at Chicago's Cotton Club where she hosted an open-mike night. He was an immediate hit, Albritton said Saturday, and he asked her to help guide his career.
"From very early on I thought he was destined for success," Albritton said. "He never lost track of where he came from, and he'd often use real life experiences, his family, his friends, in his routine. After he made it, he stayed a very humble man. His family was the most important thing in the world to him."
In 2007, Mac told David Letterman on CBS' "Late Show" that he planned to retire soon.
"I'm going to still do my producing, my films, but I want to enjoy my life a little bit," Mac told Letterman. "I missed a lot of things, you know. I was a street performer for two years. I went into clubs in 1977."
Mac was born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough on Oct. 5, 1957, in Chicago. He grew up on the city's South Side, living with his mother and grandparents. His grandfather was the deacon of a Baptist church.
In his 2004 memoir, "Maybe You Never Cry Again," Mac wrote about having a poor childhood — eating bologna for dinner — and a strict, no-nonsense upbringing.
"I came from a place where there wasn't a lot of joy," Mac told the AP in 2001. "I decided to try to make other people laugh when there wasn't a lot of things to laugh about."
Mac's mother died of cancer when he was 16. In his book, Mac said she was a support for him and told him he would surprise everyone when he grew up.
"Woman believed in me," he wrote. "She believed in me long before I believed."
Mac's death Saturday coincided with the annual Bud Billiken Parade in Chicago, a major event in the predominantly black South Side that the comedian had previously attended.
"It's truly the passing of one of our favorite sons," said Paula Robinson, president of the Black Metropolis National Heritage Area. "He was extremely innovative in putting his life experiences in comedic form and doing it without vulgarity.
"He was an ambassador of Chicago's black community, and the national black community at large."
___
Associated Press writers F.N. D'Alessio, Daniel J. Yovich, Caryn Rousseau and Carla K. Johnson in Chicago contributed to this report.
Solange realizes "Dreams" on her own terms
"I'm not her and never will be/Two girls gone in different directions, striving towards the same galaxy/Let my star light shine on its own/No, I'm no sister, I'm just my God-given name," Solange sings.
But she's quick to set the record straight: This album isn't any more about Beyonce than it is "about your mom, auntie or cousin. I'm very good at saying that's not what this project is about. The idea of me being compared to my sister has been addressed before. Fans don't want to hear the same thing and I definitely don't want to answer the same thing."
"Solange wasn't concerned with being perfect on this album," her manager and father, Mathew Knowles, told Billboard earlier this year. "Beyonce's already got pop, and she's perfect at it. Solange just wanted to sing from the heart. She wants her feelings and emotions to touch you. That's why 'God Given Name' was purposely the first song -- so she can share with you how different she is."
With the help of producers the Neptunes, Jack Splash, Q-Tip and Mark Ronson, Solange created a sound on "Sol-Angel" (due August 26 from Music World/Geffen) that is less pop and more of a "marriage of '60s and '70s music with subtle hints of electronic" than her pop-driven 2002 Music World/Columbia debut, "Solo Star."
"I knew what I wanted then, I just didn't know how to execute it," Solange says about her debut. "I was 15; I loved reggae, soul, alternative, R&B and hip-hop. And although I knew I had those tastes, the album became one with no identity. The songs were good independently, but as a collection it wasn't a body of work."
Meanwhile, Solange will continue to pen songs for her sister and former Destiny's Child members Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams. Solange wrote Williams' latest single, the Billboard Hot Dance Airplay chart-topping "We Break the Dawn," and is hoping to further expand her reach into other genres.
"I really hope that I achieve what my definition of success is," Solange says. "I'm going to continue to make music. I will definitely do things on my own terms and standards. I want to be at a level where this feels totally organic and it feels fun and enjoyable and it doesn't feel like a job. If that's the case, then I would've just gone to college and gotten me a nine-to-five."
Reuters/Billboard
But after years and years of dealing with a house full of children, last week, by some miraculous alignment of the stars, my wife and I found ourselves at home for an entire week — all by ourselves. Our 12-year-old twin daughters were visiting my sister in Philadelphia for a week, our 14-year-old son was at camp, our 19-year-old boy had elected to spend the summer at his college working, and our oldest son, 22, was off on his own, having just gotten a job. The end result was that for a whole week, it's just me, my wife and the dog.
Sunday: The first thing my wife does is clean the house. For years, she'd been saying that she'd like, just once, to straighten up a room and not have someone come in five minutes later and turn it into a complete wreck. As she arranges pillows on the couch, she predicts the living room will look great all week. She's right, but now I'm afraid to touch anything. For the first time, I can't blame a mess on the kids.
Monday night: We both come home from work, look around the house, completely lost. My wife sits at the kitchen table paging though a magazine, while I wander back and forth, looking for something to do. I start to wonder if this was what "empty nest syndrome" is going to be like, when the kids fly the coop and the parents are left to stare at each other and wonder where the heck everybody went.
Tuesday night: The dog is starting to get a little creepy. For the past year or so, all he's done is eat, drink, sleep and chew on parts of his body that make me queasy. Suddenly, he's following us around the house, tripping us up as we move from room to room, looking over his shoulder and jumping at the slightest sound, a pint-sized Scooby Doo. He clearly thinks he's in a horror movie, where one by one people are disappearing from a haunted house, and that he's next.
That night I go to bed slightly uneasy, and at 2 a.m. I wake to a blood-curdling whine and jump out of bed. I find the dog crying and shivering outside our bedroom door. I tell him, in the nicest way possible, that if he doesn't get a hold of himself, he actually will be next.
Wednesday night: We come home to a perfectly clean house. There's nobody to cook for or clean up after, so we turn right around and head off to the movies. This empty nest thing is starting to look like fun.
Thursday night: We come home to a perfectly clean house again. My wife and I shrug, look around and decide to head out to a baseball game. Nobody calls to find out where we are. When we get home, the house is dark, and the dog rushes up to us like we've rescued him from a deserted island.
Friday night: We stop home for five minutes, and then head out to a party. When we get home, the dog is almost suicidal, worrying about his fate. Maybe he's right. The house is just a little too quiet. Suddenly, the house isn't just clean and orderly, it feels (and it kills me to say it) just a little lonely.
Saturday night: Within the space of a few hours, everyone has returned, like shoppers rushing into a store holding a 70 percent off clearance blowout sale. I can't hear myself think, because three TVs are blaring at once, and my son is playing Guitar Hero at top volume. I can't find a seat in the living room, with the girls sprawled across the furniture like throw quilts. Somehow, in a matter of minutes, they've cleared the kitchen of everything remotely edible. The dog is relieved, but only because he had assumed he'd be dead by now.
Somehow, though, it feels just right.
To find out more about Peter McKay, please visit www.creators.com.
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Should Chris Brown Worry About Adam & Rihanna?
"The possibilities are endless," Levine says.
We're talking about work, people!
The Maroon 5 frontman says there&
Yeah, but what would Chris Brown think of all that?
He probably wouldn't mind, because he apparently had no trouble with Levine and Rihanna sexin' it up in the video for Maroon 5's remix of their song "It Won't Be Soon Before Long."
I caught up with the hunky Levine this morning, a day before the launch of the tour, to find what he has to say about working with Rihanna, his yoga obsession and why he and the Crows will be flipping a lot of coins this summer:
How did you end up working with Rihanna?
We thought we needed a female touch, and you know, she was just perfect. We really wanted to get a great female singer to add to the song. She was our first choice and we made it happen, and we love her.
What was it like working with her?
It was amazing. She's incredible, you know? She's so talented, so beautiful, so sweet. She's the complete package, the whole package.
You guys have some steamy scenes in the music video, were you nervous that her boyfriend Chris Brown might get jealous?
No, no. Chris is cool.
You recently said you practice yoga because there are so many beautiful women in the classes. Are you able to keep up with it on the road?
Yeah, I do it all the time. We're fortunate enough to have a private instructor out with us who is with us every day, so we practice. So it really helps. It helps your brain, it helps your body. It helps your life in general.
Does the rest of the band do it, too?
Jesse [Carmichael] practices a lot. James [Valentine] practices a little. Everyone's getting into it. Mickey [Madden] is doing it now. It's really pretty great for us all to do together. It's really a great thing for us all to do together. It's really gratifying.
You and the Counting Crows are switching off on opening for each other. How do you decide who is doing what each night?
Flip a coin. It's a crap shoot. We choose certain cities, they choose certain cities. We give a little, take a little.
—Additional reporting by Alexis Brunswick
R. Kelly's career remains full of great escapes
During his 16-year career, Kelly's star continued to rise despite marriage to a 15-year-old and songs so explicit they might have gotten other artists boycotted. The fu
On Friday, Kelly was acquitted of all child pornography charges, despite a litany of witnesses who testified that he was the man on the videotape. With a new album scheduled for release this year, his continued success seems assured.
Sex has defined R. Kelly's career since he first came on the musical landscape in 1992 with the group Public Announcement. While his early hits included innocuous songs like "She's Got That Vibe" and "Slow Dance," the album also had songs like "Honey Love" — suggestive, but not far out of step with much of the material on the radio at the time.
But in 1994, his No. 1 hit "Bump 'N Grind" became a defining moment for the budding superstar, making him R&B's unabashed, unapologetic stud. Whereas other male singing superstars certainly crooned about sex, there was always a bit of restraint, a touch of decorum that kept their expression of desire from turning crass.
Kelly's music was hailed as genius by some, with irresistible melodies and compelling instrumentation. But the lyrics often lacked nuance, and over the years they became even more raw, more explicit. Although Kelly's musical catalog represents significant range in subject matter — from inspirational gospel to romantic love anthems to relationship drama to celebratory party music — the topic that has most defined his music is sexuality.
The titles speak for themselves: "Sex Me," "Your Body's Calling," "The Greatest Sex," "Sex in the Kitchen," "Sex Weed," and the campy classic "Feelin' On Yo Booty," with lyrics so over the top that even Kelly couldn't deny its ridiculousness, laughing at the end of the song. Though he won his three Grammys in 1997 for "I Believe I Can Fly" — a song played in churches and covered by gospel artists — that was an anomaly for an artist who had become identified with the bump and grind.
"People have to learn how to separate me from show business," Kelly, who shied away from talking to the press, told The New York Times in a 2003 interview, a year after the child pornography charges against him were launched (Kelly has three children and is estranged from his wife).
But Kelly's sexual image was only enhanced by his personal life. In 1994, the 15-year-old singer Aaliyah made her recording debut, presenting a sensuous image with Kelly as her mentor and producer. He wrote songs for her such as "Age Ain't Nothin But A Number" — which may now seem prescient to some — and was seen in her videos. It was later revealed that they wed in a secret ceremony; the marriage and their musical union were both quickly annulled.
While Kelly's relationship with Aaliyah may have disturbed some, radio kept playing him and fans kept buying. But in 2002, the videotape surfaced, which purported to show Kelly having sex with a young girl, and even urinating on her. Copies were sold on street corners nationwide, some wondered whether audiences would be as accepting of his music: How could fans listen to songs like "The Greatest Sex" — or even "I Believe I Can Fly" — without wincing?
Many speculated that the allegations were a blow that Kelly could never recover from: This reporter recalls interviewing a major music star at the time who declared "R. Kelly is over!"
But he wasn't. He returned to the music scene a year later with a creative triumph, the critically acclaimed "Chocolate Factory." The album included the feel-good dance anthem "Step in the Name of Love" and romantic songs like "Dream Girl," but was fueled by the smash "Ignition" — yet another sexually charged song in which Kelly likened sex to the process of starting a car.
The album sold 2.8 million copies, and was one of his best-selling albums (the top seller was 1993's "12 Play," which sold 3.9 million). It was clear that power of magical music was enough to overcome the weight of the criminal charges against him. (And that major music star? He later became one of Kelly's collaborators.)
Not that Kelly didn't suffer any repercussions. Before the videotape, he was on the cusp of the mainstream, with Grammy awards and performances at an NFL playoff game and the Winter Olympics. After the charges were filed, while his success still grew, his mainstream profile waned: no Grammys, late night show performances or major sponsors.
Yet Kelly didn't seem bothered; it seemed as if he enjoyed being music's freak show. After the success of "Chocolate Factory," his music got even more grimy and sexual. Then there was the camp farce that became the "Trapped in the Closet" saga: When he first released the song, it was an innovative cliffhanger that left listeners waiting for more in the twists and turns of a married man found by her lover's husband. It turned into a musical soap opera, video series and ghetto farce. That only added to its allure, and it became so popular it was chronicled by the likes of The New York Times and the second series made its debut on the IFC channel.
Since 2002, Kelly has released seven albums, including a joint record with Jay-Z. He is due to release another album sometime this year. While it remains to be seen how many copies it will sell, it is clear that, as always, this latest scandal won't affect Kelly's popularity.
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