WHAT'S GOING ON

Stop Lovin Me

2008-10-04T14:17:00.001-07:00

Great play off the Hear My Dear from Marvin that the media panned at the time and now praise.

STEPHEN BISHOP SAVE IT FOR A RAINY DAY

2008-09-05T14:00:00.001-07:00

Welcome Hurricane Hannah.

Teena Marie - My Dear Mr. Gaye

2008-08-18T19:01:00.001-07:00

Not a well known tribute song. Most folks know of Teena Marie from her other hits.

Marvin Gaye Tribute

2008-08-18T18:59:00.001-07:00

Unless I'm mistaken, this is the only song to pay homage to Marvin before his passing. I'll post some other tribute songs to follow

MARVIN GAYE ON FILM

2008-08-15T20:26:00.003-07:00

I'm not suggesting you spend the entire 5 minutes watching this, but it is interesting to note this side of Marvin.

FINAL APPEARANCE: Marvin Gaye

2008-08-15T19:09:00.005-07:00

Folks asked me what Marvin's final tv appearance was. Here it is. Was in LA for the weekend and didn't get the chance to head over to Gramercy Place.

Marvin Gaye

2008-08-15T19:09:00.003-07:00

Not his last appearance as the title says -his last appearance was on Soul Train.

This is from the excellent Motown 25 benefit concert.

Arguably my favorite Marvin footage. His performance from the Operation Push benefit concert would be a definite second.

Frankie Gaye - My Brother

2008-07-23T09:03:00.001-07:00

Little beach music flavor here. Resemblance is remarkable. Folks say he sounds like Marvin but I don't see that, unless you consider the soft touch on the song stylings. He wrote a book about Marvin that same out shortly after his death.

THE LAST SONG FROM THE LAST ALBUM

2008-07-21T05:18:00.001-07:00

Marvin had some other stuff working as he always did, but this was the last official album to go out - Midnight Love. CBS released a compilation of material after his death and there have been numerous other releases of material since then as well.

MY FAVORITE BANK COMMERCIAL

2008-07-03T15:39:00.001-07:00

:55 MARK. FOR MY POLITICAL FRIENDS, NOTE THE VOICE TALENT FOR THE AD, THEN GO CHECK OUT RONALD REAGAN'S THE BEAR CAMPAIGN AD FROM 1984.

COOLEST SCENE FROM THE MOONLIGHTING SERIES

2008-05-20T15:42:00.001-07:00

5:00 mark

Paul Weller - What's Going On 1993

2008-01-22T13:35:00.001-08:00

I'm usually skeptical of any artist reworking Marvin's masterpiece, but Weller does a great job with this interpretation. He also does some great versions of other 70s soul cuts.

2x05 My Fair David

2007-09-08T12:12:00.001-07:00

On this date in 1962 Chubby Checker's "Limbo Rock" charted. Here's my favorite Limbo moment from my favorite Moonlighting.

Doobie Brothers - Takin' It To The Streets

2007-08-26T16:33:00.001-07:00

Concert Recap - Great concert Friday at Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary. War opened up. Okay, but just carried folks over until Michael hit the stage. Michael went through all his old great Doobie Brothers hits. He also rolled through a great set of Motown classics that the crowd loved. Definitely everyone wanting got their fix of Marvin Gaye tunes that evening. He closed with the above. Enjoy. Arguably the greatest blue-eyed soul performer ever and easily the best still around today

Donny Hathaway - Put Your Hands In The Hand

2007-08-05T06:49:00.001-07:00

Sunday Morning - A very nice piece from Donny Hathaway.

Yet another tormented soul like Marvin. Many comparisons made between the two.

Doobie Brothers with Michael McDonald LIVE 1979

2007-07-24T19:41:00.001-07:00

A staple of any McDonald concert, you can catch him live in Cary on August 24. Michael says the song "was inspired by a college term paper" written by his sister but that also "the idea for that song came out of my Marvin Gaye fetish at the time."

JOAN OSBORNE I'll Be Around

2007-07-05T08:14:00.001-07:00

I've been pleasantly surprised at the blue-eyed capabilities of Joan Osborne. She has a great rendition of the classic Dusty Springfield "Son of a Preacher Man" also.

Marvin Gaye sings American National Anthem

2007-07-04T13:23:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday America

Maze feat Frankie Beverly - You (live)

2007-06-23T17:45:00.001-07:00

More Maze with Frankie Beverly. Funny this isn't on a greatest hits album. It's one of their better cuts.

Lisa Stansfield

2007-06-23T17:29:00.001-07:00

Lisa Stansfield - Great Blue Eyed Soul. Wish she would put out some new stuff.

THOUGHTS ON THE MARVIN GAYE MOVIE

2007-03-03T20:13:00.000-08:00

There's been speculation for years about a "Marvin Gaye" movie. It has been perhaps fueled more so by the recent Ray Charles film. From what I have gathered, the movie will encompass the final years of Marvin's life. Is this a good approach?

Not really.

In one aspect I am glad that a substantial amount of attention will be visited upon this time of his life. I don't know how it will exactly be portrayed, but I have never viewed this time as a "balanced" period of Marvin's life. You could perhaps draw this assumption from his time in Ostend, Belgium and that he flushed his system generally of the ravages of drugs while there. He also worked out the Midnight Love Album with the hit song "Sexual Healing," which lead to his only Grammy awards. However, the time in Belgium can be clearly defined as escapism as he got away from the troubles of failed marriages and the IRS. Once back in the states, the drug use became rampant again and the dark paranoia enveloped him.

I think a better approach to lay the groundwork for the that period of his life would be to start around 1967. A good starting point would be the episode at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia where Tammi Terrell fell ill. From there the movie could encompass the heartache Marvin felt upon her passing in 1970, his failed marriage to Anna Gordy, his brother's Vietnam influences and the pinnacle of his genius, What's Going On. The film could then move on to his struggles in the 1970s, the Hear My Dear album and his brief time playing the role of hermit while living in a converted bread truck in Hawaii.

Anyway, the movie should be interesting to watch. I've always like Jesse Martin on Law and Order.

MARVIN GAYE MOVIE COMING!

2007-02-17T14:49:00.000-08:00

From the BBC News:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4684630.stm

Gaye's final years 'become movie.'

Marvin Gaye was killed in 1984. The final years of soul singer Marvin Gaye's life are to be made into a film, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Law & Order actor Jesse L Martin will play the Motown star, who was killed by his father in 1984. The biopic, Sexual Healing, follows on from recent successful films about Ray Charles and Johnny Cash.

"More than just being the voice of a generation, Marvin Gaye proved to be its very heartbeat," said director Lauren Goodman.

The film will be an independently financed film which be shot on location in Hungary and Germany, the Hollywood Reporter said. Martin stars in Law & Order.

Gaye moved to Europe from the US as he battled drugs and music industry wrangles.
It was after this that he was taken under the wing of a promoter who helped him recorded his comeback album Midnight Love, which featured the hit song Sexual Healing. He eventually moved back to the US to live with his parents after drug addiction and depression took hold.
He was shot dead just before his 45th birthday in the middle of a row with his father, Marvin Senior.

Jesse L Martin most recently starred in the movie adaptation of the musical Rent.

WILL BRAD MILLER SPEAK OUT?

2007-01-14T18:07:00.000-08:00

I noted during the past election how offended Brad Miller was about Vernon Robinson's comments concerning how Rep. Miller and his wife have no children. I am awaiting anxiously Congressman Miller's likewise response to Senator Boxer's commnets about Sec. of State Rice.

HILLARY WITH THE TROOPS

2007-01-14T18:04:00.000-08:00

Brilliant move Hillary - nice job trashing the war while in front of the troops. What's next? Going to go over to St. Jude Children Research Hospital and tell the media in front of cancer patients that the treatments aren't working?

BETTY FORD MADE ME RECOLLECT ON BREZHNEV'S WIFE

2006-12-31T06:55:00.000-08:00

From the Christian Times:

"As Vice President, George Bush represented the U.S. at the funeral of former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Bush was deeply moved by a silent protest carried out by Brezhnev's widow. She stood motionless by the coffin until seconds before it was closed. Then, just as the soldiers touched the lid, Brezhnev's wife performed an act of great courage and hope, a gesture that must surely rank as one of the most profound acts of civil disobedience ever committed: She reached down and made the sign of the cross on her husband's chest. There in the citadel of secular, atheistic power, the wife of the man who had run it all hoped that her husband was wrong. She hoped that there was another life, and that that life was best represented by Jesus who died on the cross, and that the same Jesus might yet have mercy on her husband. "

Gary Thomas, in Christian Times, October 3, 1994, p. 26

Contrasts in Ethics

2006-12-28T11:24:00.000-08:00

Current leader of NC House Democrats: Jim Black
Current leader of NC House Republicans: Skip Stam

I support the war protestors in Chapel Hill - you should too!

2006-12-23T06:07:00.000-08:00

Police charged five protesters on Friday during the second demonstration in a month outside the new Army recruiting station.

"We thought it was important to not have this recruiting station open quietly," said Emily McFarlane, a UNC-Chapel Hill junior who helped organize the protest at the Army Career Center, 1502 E. Franklin St. (N&0)

Read the N&O story here.

Little secret for you folks - nobody takes you seriously. You are however good for comic relief as just another idiot in Chapel Hill. Actually you do a valuable service for the conservative movement. You engage in nonsense that makes no substantive difference rather than devote your energies to actually effecting change. I see you have your nifty signs with, I believe, Martin and Malcolm on them.

Which international leftist organization gave you the signs to front for them?

Keep on keepin on. Whether it actually makes a difference is irrelevant as long as you and your thirty other buddies feel good about yourselves, hold up some groovy signs, channel the 1960s, sing some Peter, Paul and Mary songs and get a cool article in the N&O you can cut out to show you are important.

Good little liberal. (Insert pat on head here.)

PS - When you and your buddies get time beyond doing things to feel important about yourself, maybe you could actually do something to help the homeless on Franklin Street that you callously walk by every day on your way to discuss global paradigms at Starbucks. I'm sure they'll still be around when you get back. Maybe you can partner with John Edwards' folks since they don't seem to know about them either.

Should we ban crowbars and Sledgehammers?

2006-12-22T16:44:00.000-08:00

Needs no comment.I know the adage about never bringing a knife to a gunfight, but is it improper to bring a crowbar to a sledgehammer fight?

Rival monks battle over monastery
From Times Wire Reports
December 21, 2006

Rival groups of monks wielding crowbars and sledgehammers clashed over control of a 1,000-year-old monastery in a community regarded as the cradle of Orthodox Christianity, police said.

Seven monks were injured and transported by boat to receive treatment. They were released after several hours, police said. No one was arrested, but three monks were banned from reentering the Orthodox sanctuary at Mt. Athos, on a selfgoverning peninsula in northern Greece.

Esphigmenou monastery is the scene of a long-running dispute between Orthodox church authorities and rebel monks who occupy the facility and refuse orders to leave.

2006-12-22T16:23:00.000-08:00

maze with frankie beverly changing times

Here's my probably more than periodic music recommendation - Maze with Frankie Beverly. They come through Raleigh about every summer. Definitely a great concert to attend. They haven't had a new album out in years but their music is still as fresh as it was back in the 70s. The group was elevated in the 70s when Marvin Gaye took them under his wings and had them tour with him.

Mike Ding Dong in Durham

2006-12-22T16:06:00.000-08:00

Hey Durham's liberal black political community:

How does it feel to have been used for someone's political opportunism?

You folks deserve each other. Unfortunately your idiocy has had damaging implications for your city far beyond three Duke students.

Nice job.