Glee to Write Off Finn Hudson

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I just heard that the writers of Glee have decided what they're going to do with Corey Montieth's character, Finn Hudson, in the new season.  “'The right thing to do for the show, at least at this point, is to have that character pass,' series creator Ryan Murphy said." (Queerty)  He also says that they're going to do it in a way that doesn't cause Montieth's fellow actors to re-live the experience of losing such a close co-worker and friend at so young an age.

I agree that they need to write him out of the show by way of his character passing. That way, there'll be no way that somehow or someway in the future they could bring back his character played by another actor.  That would be wrong.  Corey Montieth's death is real life, and I never believed in sugar-coating things on TV or in movies.  Many of the viewers who watch the program are young, and they're probably already dealing with the actor's death in some way, so they should get a dose of reality when it comes to his character.

As for writing it so that the actors won't "recreate the feelings of grief" they experienced just a couple of short weeks ago, well I'm afraid that's not possible, and that's probably a good thing. Having happened so recently and being in the state that they must all be in, how can they help but not relive the experience of his loss during filming?  Besides, that'll come across more realistically and powerfully.

Murphy says that the episode in which this will happen "will deal directly with the incidents involved in Cory’s passing and the drug use in particular.” (Fox)  I like this idea, and it wasn't unexpected.  One of the more recent episodes of the show dealt with school shootings, a touchy subject in itself that made me cringe watching it, but in a way I thought it was good, especially since I'm a teacher and the idea of that happening in my school is always in the back of mine and almost any teacher's mind.

The show is planning to do public service announcements, presumably about drug use, during the show, which only adds to why they should keep it real.  The show has tackled some pretty big issues in its run, some more than others, but if anything good can come out of Montieth's death, like preventing the overdose of just one viewer, then they should go for it! Bravo!   



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Song of the Day Tribute to Jam Master Jay - It's Like That/Sucker MC's - Run DMC

On October 30th, 2002, Jason Mizell, Jam Master Jay of Run DMC fame, was shot and killed in Jamaica, Queens in a notoriously senseless attack in a recording studio.  It's hard to believe it's been ten years already since this groundbreaking Hall of Fame musician left us, and so today we make note of this sad anniversary with two of my favorite early Run D.M.C. tunes...

Latino Rebels

In honor of the 10th anniversary of the death of Run D.M.C. spinmeister Jam-Master Jay, we present two early songs of a groundbreaking trio. Run D.M.C. was one of the first acts ever to bring hip-hop to the mainstream,  leading the way for a huge transformation in the pop music world that has evolved, yet has  remained a force in music even today.

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Back in 1983, the group Run D.M.C., consisting of Joseph "Run" Simmons, Darrel "D.M.C." McDaniels, and Jason "Jam-Master Jay" Mizell, released a two-sided single featuring the street-tough It's Like That, backed with the fast-paced Sucker M.C.'s.  The two songs were typical of the "new" rap sound that was fast becoming popular in those days, with streetwise social commentary set to primitive (by today's standards) back beats.  The mix was infectious, and these two songs got lots of airplay and helped propel the trio into the mainstream, beginning with their first, eponymous album that came out a year later.

Check out the classic It's Like That:                                                    

Sucker MC's was featured in the background of Madonna's 1985 film debut, Desperately Seeking Susan.  I remember distinctly the song playing in the background as our heroine (?) arrived at New York's Port Authority and, um, cleaned up in the public bathroom.  Having bought the 12" single for these two songs, I'd have to say that I played this one more than the other, and I still love it!  Here's a rare early performance of the song, with a special treat afterwards for old school rap fans out there...

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February 15th, 2012 - Writing Wednesday

It's hard to believe it, but Writing Wednesday is here already and all I've got this week is stuff from John's World. Here's a recap of some of this week's top stories:



Whitney Houston

Several big things have happened this week, most notably the tragic death of singer Whitney Houston. The story broke out early Saturday night and my first reaction was to do an impromptu tribute featuring one of my favorite Whitney songs...

If tomorrow is judgement day
And I'm standin' on the front line
And the Lord ask me what I did with my life
I will say I spent it with you

R.I.P. Whitney Houston "My Love Is Your Love"

Of course, I couldn't let the death of such an important person in my music world go with just a single song and a note. Like many others, Whitney Houston will forever be a part of the soundtrack of my life and I just had to pay some sort of tribute to the gifted songstress who touched many with her words and her voice. Check out Memories and Songs of Whitney Houston.

Along with all of the tributes and news coverage of Whitney's death came an ugly story that I first read on Monday and had to share. It's really hard to believe, and sad too, that such disgusting racism still exists among us. A Fox News' report of the death of Whitney Houston elicited upwards of 4,000 comments on their Facebook page, and many of the comments are appalling, to say the least. I'm ashamed to call some of these people Americans. Check out the story below:

Fox Viewers Show Their True Colors with Ugly Diatribes Against Whitney Houston

The Grammy's

The other big story this week, of course, was the 54th Annual Grammy Awards show that aired on Sunday night. The show had its' moments, with superb performances by Bruno Mars, Chris Brown, David Guetta, and a heartfelt rendition of "I Will Always Love You" by Jennifer Hudson. Nicki Minaj raised quite a few eyebrows with her, um, strange performance, too, but the big story of the night was Miss Adele.



MJB Pulling for Adele at 54th Annual Grammy Awards

On the day of the show, I read a piece online that one of my favorite singers, Mary J Blige, was a big fan of Adele and that she was hoping for a six-Grammy sweep by the British phenom, which is of course what happened. Adele was simply adorable at the Grammy's, beautiful, gracious, and super endearing all at once. Her down-to-earth persona is a big part of what makes this very talented so special, and Mary wasn't the only one, I'm sure, who was happy for her big sweep.

In the show's after-buzz, the singer's people announced that she had decided on the newest single from the Album of the Year, "21," a more upbeat "Rumor Has It." Read on...

"Rumour Has It" to be Adele's next single

A Rant for the Week

There was a story buzzing the other day about Madonna's Super Bowl performance that got my juices flowing. During the performance of "Gimme All Your Luvin," rapper M.I.A. flipped the bird, which was caught on camera. Yahoo ran a story days after speculating whether or not the NFL would take action against the British born star. To me, the story was just another example of irresponsible sensationalism that only works to fuel outrage at the incident, which beforehand had been relatively obscure.

The story reminded me of another Super Bowl performance incident that actually worked to dismantle the highly successful career of one Janet Jackson, and I just had to say something about it:

Fingers and Birds, Nipples and Careers: WTF?

I haven't seen any other news stories on the web since this one appeared, which I hope is a sign of the story fading. Should I see or hear anything further on it, you will surely hear about it here...



Filed Under "Other"

What Happened to Macaulay Culkin?

British online magazine The Sun ran a story on "Home Alone" star Macaulay Culkin, who was photographed in NYC late last week looking simply awful. In response to the story, Mac said that he was doing just fine, but judging from the picture, he doesn't look well!

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Fox Viewers Show Their True Colors with Ugly Diatribes Against Whitney Houston

I saw a post on Keith Olbermann’s Facebook fan page today that disturbed me enough that I want to talk about it here. The post referred to an article about Fox News fans and their pretty disgusting remarks about singer Whitney Houston’s death on Saturday. The article appears on a website called little green footballs and it was written by site founder Charles Johnson.

I read through Mr. Johnson’s article, Fox News Commenters Respond to Whitney Houston’s Death With Deluge of Hate and Racism, and was appalled at some of the comments he shared. Though he claims to have seen almost 5,000 comments in the thread, at the moment I’m writing this, there are only a little over 3,500. Perhaps Fox removed some of the more disgusting ones.

Mr. Johnson says that the commenters “deliberately misspell their slurs or insert random spaces, so they aren’t caught by word filters,” and the “likes” to many of the comments only work to magnify the horror that there are actually fellow Americans who think like this. Read on and you’ll see what I mean.

Rather than copy and paste some of the pretty inane remarks noted by Johnson in his story, I went to the original thread on Facebook to find my own to share. Right from the get-go I found plenty of diatribes against both Houston herself and the coverage surrounding her death:

I am very upset that Fox News covered the death Whitney Huston! Not that there was plane crash 3 yrs ago yesterday! Flight 3407! I cared more about than her death! I knew people that knew people on that plane crash!

Enough with Whitney Houston already..................Yes, I loved her music.......I don't think she had a bad one......but enough is enough....she was only an entertainer, albeit an excellent one, ... not someone who will change this world and make it better.....she's getting more coverage than Jesus did at Christmas. ENOUGH

Another dead crackhead who wasted god-given talent. No loss, AMF

Guess we'll end up forever celebrating another deceased celebrity drug addict as if she were Mother Theresa.

Too much media coverage on this. Another self-important egomanic self-destructs. So what? I couldn't care less.

And so it went, on and on, but these weren’t even the most objectionable comments. Like I mentioned before, maybe Fox removed some of the nastier ones that Johnson shared, or maybe I just couldn’t find them. I only looked through about 300 of the 3500 out there. Here are some of the more disturbing ones Johnson shared in his piece:

A tragedy is when someones passes away from a terminal disease or something else that no one saw coming.Whitney is just an inferior lo w life ni gg er that needed to go,no tragedy,no loss.

SHe couldn’t even sell issues of “the national enquirer” anymore. Everyone was tired of the TNB. Niqqer flaps her lips and screeches, niqqer becomes rich. Niqqer ends up nearly broke after spending all of her money. Niqqer in constant fights and drug binges. Niqqer ODs when she learns she’s nearly broke and she is so wasted physically she can’t make another album. Niqqer hit the end of the road, niqqer thinking and niqqer behavior led her to where she had nothing. She couldn’t face life without the “bling bling”, she knew she would never have any more “kaching kaching”

I am now patiently waiting for the grand messiah Obama to have a blk fundraiser in honor of Whitley with Kevin Costner as guest of honor with all the Hollywood elites invited along with Alan Colmes, Al Sharpton, Jeremia Wright, Charles Rangel, etc. with a menu featuring blk eyed peas, grits, Imported Kobe steak, Dom Perignon, sweet potato pie and a mus lll im scarf as a momento of this great occasion.

Of course the door prize will be an all expense paid trip to Kenya to visit the Obama tribe and birthplace of his ancestors while the American people still look for this imposter’s birth certificate in Hawaii !!!

Whitney who?!? some /\/iggress music artist that had a couple of hits in the early 90’s. She’s since been forgotten and now she’s dead.. Who cares..

Pretty disgusting, huh? Now I used to be a political junkie and I know all about the supposedly “fair and balanced’ news coverage they put out there. Apparently they cater to a certain type of viewer that I simply can’t relate to. I’ve said it before and I will say it again and again until the day I die: DON’T BE A HATER!!!! The only thing I hate in life is a hater.

These people are simply that, haters, and they’re the same haters who hate gay people and liberals and the poor and just about everyone else that’s not like them. Yet they’re the first to say that they’re proud to be American, proud to be a citizen of the greatest country in the world, which ironically was built on the diversity that is our true makeup.

Not all of the comments on that Facebook page were negative, to be fair. There were plenty of people who expressed genuine sorrow over Whitney’s death, and there were others who stood up to the haters and called them out on their vitriol, only to have more hate and insults spewed back at them. It just proves that you can’t have any kind of civil debate with these types of people. All you can do is stay as far away from them as possible.

There was one comment I found towards the end of my search that I simply loved. To me, it was the perfect response to the many ignoramuses that showed their own true, ugly colors for all the world to see:

I used to struggle with depression, drugs and alcohol. Then I stopped watching Fox news and I'm better.

Image Source: triple pundit

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Ferris Bueller's back, if only for a couple of minutes...

Bueller...Bueller...

One of the best things about the Super Bowl are the commercials, and there's one commercial that's already been buzzing about on the Internet. Yes, Ferris Bueller is back, if only for a two-plus minute commercial for Honda. Matthew Broderick has reprises his most famous role as the hipster truant and it's sure to be one of the most talked about commercials of the night.

John Hughes' Ferris Bueller's Day Off was one of the most iconic films of the 80's, and this commercial pretty much captures some of the best of the movie. From the moment Ferris feigns sickness to avoid going into the studio, much of the same mayhem ensues as in the film, albeit with a more modern twist. If you've ever seen the movie, then you'll really appreciate the commercial. Take a look:



Pretty funny, huh? Of course, Ferris Bueller's Day Off was a great movie, with plenty of classic moments. Here are a couple of more videos, this time from the original. The first is one of my all-time favorite scenes from the movie in which Ferris jumps in on a float in the parade. You can't help but smile just watching it:



Next, here's a nicely put together video of some of the most memorable lines and scenes from the movie. After watching the clip, I think I may just have to watch the movie again. It's been awhile...





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Rest in Peace Amy!

What a crazy day today! As you’ve probably heard by now, British singer Amy Winehouse was found dead in her apartment in London earlier today. Such a sad, but unsurprising ending to another promising career cut short by drugs and alcohol.

I first heard the news via Twitter and immediately began writing a story on it. It was one of the fastest pieces I’d ever written, about ten to fifteen minutes, and I quickly submitted it to Gather. For the next hour I waited for them to review it and was finally greeted with a rejection, saying that a story had already been published on the news. One of those frustrating things as a writer…this was the first time I had such quick access to a story and still I was beaten to the punch. Ah, well, at least I can share what I want about it here. The rejection doesn’t really have any bearing on the story anyway.

Of course, I first discovered Amy Winehouse right about when everyone else did, when “Rehab” was all over the radio. I bought “Back to Black” and fell in love with virtually every song. I even got my mom to like her by playing the album over and over in the car on the way to Atlantic City several times.

As time went on and Amy’s troubles were keeping her from putting out new stuff, I went on to iTunes in search of some old Amy stuff, as I was yearning for something new from the singer (as were all of her fans). I did find some stuff she had done before “Back to Black” and a couple of those songs turned out to be my favorites, most notably “Valerie” and “Amy, Amy, Amy.”

So be on the lookout for another piece or two on the singer. She meant that much to me and I am moved to share more. In the meantime, my heart goes out to her troubled soul and I hope that she is now in a better place, entertaining the angels. Rest in peace Amy! You will be missed!

Here’s an appropriate Amy Winehouse song to mark today’s sad occasion:




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Ab Fab Returns

They’re coming back! Earlier this week it was reported that the British TV sitcom ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ will be filming an all new season this summer. For those of you who are not familiar with the show, AbFab is a hysterical show about the misadventures of two friends, Edina and Patsy, who are not your ordinary middle aged women. Still stuck in their drug-taking days in the 60’s, Eddy and Patsy get into the kind of outrageous situations that could only be shown on British television.

With a supporting cast of characters, including Eddy’s level-headed daughter (who's more like her mother!) Saffy, her dim-witted mom, and her absolutely idiotic secretary Bubble, AbFab is one of the most popular comedies in BBC history. I first caught them about ten years ago in repeats on BBC America and have been in love with the show ever since. The humor is British, so it doesn’t all translate to American audiences, but for many of us, it’s well worth watching!



"You can never have enough hats, gloves and shoes." - Patsy Stone



Take a look at some outtakes from the show (and don’t mind the subtitles, lol):





For more on this week's announcement see this post in the Advocate online.

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