12.31.2012

DETROIT ARTIST ROBIN SOMMERS HAS PASSED AWAY


I first heard about Mr. Robin Sommers from my rock poster artist friend Big Rich Dorris. Rich told me how Robin had painted the American flag on Wayne Kramer's signature Fender Stratocaster.

Not long after hearing Rich's story, I got a call from Margaret Saadi Kramer asking me to locate Robin in Detroit as they planned to gift Robin with one of the first Wayne Kramer signature guitars that Fender had just announced in 2011.&nbsp; I found him and was invited to the event<br />
<br />


One of the most fantastic stories from back in the MC5 days was that Artist Robin Sommers and Wayne together got the idea of painting the American Flag on Wayne's guitar after seeing Pete Townshend's Union Jack guitar. So together they painted this custom American Flag Fender Stratocaster.


I didn't get to chat with Robin for very long but I was totally charmed to meet him.  Sadly, I just learned that he passed away from cancer..Robin Sommers' Memorial will be held at Cass Cafe on Sun Jan 13, 2013 at 1pm...Detail pending....RIP Robin...



12.30.2012

YOKO ONO SAYS PAUL TO BLAME FOR BEATLES BREAKUP

Paul McCartney

Ever since the Beatles‘ split in 1970, Yoko Ono has been, quite unfairly, assigned a good deal of the blame. However, a long-lost interview from 1987 finds John Lennon‘s widow telling the real reasons for their breakup.

“The Beatles were getting very independent,” she told record executive Joe Smith (via the Huffington Post). “John, in fact, was not the first who wanted to leave The Beatles. [We saw] Ringo [Starr] one night with Maureen [Starkey Tigrett], and he came to John and me and said he wanted to leave. George [Harrison] was next, and then John.”

Although Ono credited Paul McCartney as the one who, by this time, was still a believer that the Beatles should remain a group, she believed that McCartney had his own agenda. In October, McCartney said that Ono’s influence on Lennon did not break up the group, and that his former partner couldn’t have written ‘Imagine’ without her.

“Paul was the only one trying to hold The Beatles together,” she continued. “But the other three thought Paul would hold the Beatles together as his band. They were getting to be like Paul’s band, which they didn’t like.”

12.28.2012

THE BEST PAIR OF RUBY SLIPPERS TODAY

"The Witches Shoes"

They are the most famous shoes in the world, a piece of Hollywood culture so iconic that all you have to say is “Click your heels three times” and everyone will know what you’re talking about.



The ruby slippers from “The Wizard of Oz.” Only four sets remain: those in the Smithsonian, the pair stolen from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minn., a mismatched pair owned by collector Michael Shaw and the “beauty pair” used for close-ups such as Dorothy’s exit scene with Glinda the Good Witch. The latter sells this week on the season premiere of “Hollywood Treasures.”

Hank Azaria

Memorabilia magnate Joe Maddalena fetches a princely sum for the sequined shoes — we’re talking $2 million — but first he has to wrest them out of the hands of former owner Philip Samuels. Samuels bought the slippers at Christie’s in 1988 for $180,000, and then hid them away in a place called Hollywood Vaults.


Sounds like the name of a cemetery or a post-Botox recovery room for A-list actors, but it’s really a climate-controlled, high-end storage facility in the mid-Wilshire neighborhood with security cameras and guards with muscle T-shirts and Popeye arms. Maddalena is escorted to the vault along with ruby-slipper expert Rhys Thomas.
 

One of the vaults is unlocked and a black briefcase is removed. Maddalena says he felt like he was in an episode of “Mission: Impossible,” but instead of being handed the test tube of nitroglycerin, he was given a pair of white gloves and allowed to touch the precious slippers. For the Hollywood collector, this is a religious moment.

“They are the most famous movie artifacts in the world,” Maddalena says.

Read Full Story Here

12.27.2012

GENERAL H. NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF DEAD AT 78

Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, 1934-2012

Retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who topped an illustrious military career by commanding the U.S.-led international coalition that drove Saddam Hussein's forces out of Kuwait in 1991 but kept a low public profile in controversies over the second Gulf War against Iraq, died Thursday. He was 78.

Schwarzkopf died in Tampa, Florida, where he had lived in retirement, according to a U.S. official, who was not authorized to release the information publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.



A much-decorated combat soldier in Vietnam, Schwarzkopf was known popularly as "Stormin' Norman" for a notoriously explosive temper.

He served in his last military assignment in Tampa as commander-in-chief of U.S. Central Command, the headquarters responsible for U.S. military and security concerns in nearly 20 countries from the eastern Mediterranean and Africa to Pakistan.

ANN AND NANCY WILSON TRIBUTE TO LED ZEPPELIN


In a performance that had Robert Plant on the verge of tears, Ann & Nancy Wilson of Heart sang ‘Stairway to Heaven’ as the finale of a star-studded musical tribute to Led Zeppelin during the Kennedy Center Honors, which were broadcast last night (Dec. 26) on CBS.

It seems like about 3,000 people were on stage during this performance, with the Wilson sisters joined by late Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham’s son Jason on drums, as well as a gigantic house band featuring string and horn sections and what appeared to be two different vocal choirs.

As anyone who’s seen their frequent live performances of ‘Rock and Roll‘ or ‘The Battle of Evermore‘ can tell you, the Wilson sisters know how to play Led Zeppelin live. From the moment they began, all eyes and ears were focused on Ann Wilson, and she knocked this one out of the park, leaving John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page and a clearly misty Plant with big smiles on their faces as they watched from the balcony.

Earlier in the evening, the Foo Fighters, Kid Rock and Lenny Kravitz performed short versions of three other Led Zeppelin classics, and you can watch those right here.

12.26.2012

DECEMBER 2012 FULL MOON

 
The full moon will be on Friday!

The 21st December has passed and the world is still standing :-) ... It shows yet again, that we need to take ancient messages symbolically and not literally. This is valid for prophecies as well as for stories in the great books of wisdom of human kind. The razzamatazz about the alleged apocalypse makes it apparent how far people are removed from their inner voice. So let's make use of the time of reflection around this New Year, to turn within just a little …

The exact time of the next full moon is:
Friday * 28th December 2012 * 11:21:12 am
Central European Time (CET)
Moon sign: Cancer 07° 05'

Here you find this time converted into different timezones for other cities:
WELLINGTON = Friday * 28th December 2012 * 11:21:12 pm (NZDT)
SYDNEY = Friday * 28th December 2012 * 09:21:12 pm (AEDT)
TOKYO = Friday * 28th December 2012 * 07:21:12 pm (JST)
BEIJING = Friday * 28th December 2012 * 06:21:12 pm (CST)
DELHI = Friday * 28th December 2012 * 03:51:12 pm (IST)
MOSCOW = Friday * 28th December 2012 * 02:21:12 pm (MSK)
RIYADH = Friday * 28th December 2012 * 01:21:12 pm (AST)
BERLIN = Friday * 28th December 2012 * 11:21:12 am (CET)
LONDON = Friday * 28th December 2012 * 10:21:12 am (GMT)
RIO = Friday * 28th December 2012 * 08:21:12 am (BRST)
NEW YORK = Friday * 28th December 2012 * 05:21:12 am (EST)
MEXICO CITY = Friday * 28th December 2012 * 04:21:12 am (CST)
LOS ANGELES = Friday * 28th December 2012 * 02:21:12 am (PST)
HONOLULU = Friday * 28th December 2012 * 12:21:12 am (HAST)

12.22.2012

PRINCE WILLIAM AND KATE SPENDING CHRISTMAS WITH HER FOLKS!

REUTERS/Andrew Winning 

Princess Diana definitely lives..... We know that Prince William is the right choice to be King...Skip Charles we say.....

Britain's Prince William leaves the King Edward VII hospital with his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, London December 6, 2012. Prince William's pregnant wife Kate left the King Edward VII hospital in central London on Thursday where she had spent four days being treated for acute morning sickness.

12.21.2012

5 FT ALLIGATOR ABANDONED: EAST SIDE DETROIT


DETROIT -

A 5-foot-long alligator has been found dumped on Detroit's east side.

While neighbors in the area say they are used to people dumping garbage along their street, they saw someone throw something out of a truck Thursday night that they never expected to find.

"A black truck pulled up, they got out and I thought they was dumping a body," said Shontez Gibson, who helped rescue the exotic animal. "So, I told my uncle. My uncle said, 'Come on, let's go see.' My uncle chased the truck up the street and they stopped, so my uncle ran back. And when we got back in the field I said, 'No, it's an alligator.'"


Gibson placed the alligator in its own room with a space heater to help warm it up. He said he fed it fish.

"So, he said, 'Pick it up,' I said, 'No, you pick it up!" Gibson said. "He said, 'Alright, come on, let's take it in the house.' I pick it up, take it in the house. He was scared and ran."




**NEW** SINATRA BOOK FOR CHRISTMAS!

Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardiner


A new memoir by Frank Sinatra’s former valet recalls how the ratpack crooner would use him to break off relations with women on his behalf — often in most unpleasant fashion. Tony Consiglio writes in his posthumous memoir Sinatra And Me: The Very Good Years of several incidents involving Sinatra’s romantic interests which reveal a mile-wide vindictive streak in his former employer.

 In one such instance, Consiglio — an old high-school friend of Sinatra’s — recounts an evening where Frank was entertaining a young actress in Claridge, Atlantic City, who incurred his displeasure when talk turned to politics. When the lady in question returned to her room to slip into something more comfortable, Sinatra ordered Consiglio to go knock at her door with a plate of spare ribs and a special ‘message’ from his boss.


“I went to her room and knocked on the door,” he writes. “She opened the door wearing a beautiful light chiffon dressing gown over a transparent white negligee. She looked beautiful and ready for a long night. I told her that I was sorry to bother her, and that Frank had insisted that I deliver the spare ribs.

“When she reached out for the plate I hit her in the face with the ribs, sauce and all. I apologized again and went back to the suite. “Frank asked, ‘Did you do what I told you?’ I nodded yes.”

Not many people were allowed inside Frank Sinatra's inner circle. But Tony Consiglio was a boyhood friend of Sinatra's who remained his friend and confidant for over sixty years. One reason Sinatra valued Tony’s friendship is that he could be trusted: Sinatra nicknamed him "the Clam" because Tony never spoke to reporters or biographers about the singer.

From the early days when Sinatra was trying to establish himself as a singer to the mid-1960s, Tony worked with Sinatra and was there to share in the highs and lows of Sinatra's life and career. Tony was with Sinatra during his "bobby-soxer" megastar days in the 1940s, and he remained loyal to Sinatra during the lean years of the early 1950s, when "the Voice" was struggling with a crumbling singing and acting career—as well as his tumultuous marriage to Ava Gardner.

 Frank Sinatra and Kim Novak

Tony also had a front row seat to Sinatra's comeback in the 1950s, starting with his Academy Award–winning role in From Here to Eternity and a string of now-classic hit recordings. Tony's friendship with Sinatra allowed him to rub elbows with the Hollywood elite, including Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, Kim Novak, Ava Gardner, and many others. It also brought him close to the political world of the early 1960s, when Sinatra campaigned for John F. Kennedy and then helped plan the Kennedy inauguration.




Tony was even at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis, Massachusetts, when the election results came in. Sinatra and Me will shed new light on the real Frank Sinatra—from the man who knew him better than anyone.

12.20.2012

POST-IMPRESSIONIST PAINTER PAUL GAUGUIN


Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (French: 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist who was not well appreciated until after his death. Gauguin was later recognized for his experimental use of colors and synthetist style that were distinguishably different from Impressionism. His work was influential to the French avant-garde and many modern artists, such as Pablo Picasso, and Henri Matisse. Gauguin’s art became popular after his death.


Paul Gauguin painted Nature morte aux tomates the year he quit working at the stock exchange and devoted his career to art.  The work from this period is closely related to Impressionism – he later broke away from the movement by simplifying his painting and focusing on shape and bold blocks of colour.

In the two years before Gauguin painted Nature morte aux tomates, he exhibited at the Salon and formed a close relationship with Camille Pissarro. The short brush strokes create a wavy texture over the surface of the composition carrying the eye from one corner to the other and reflect Cezanne’s influence over his art.


Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? is a painting by French artist Paul Gauguin. Gauguin inscribed the original French title in the upper left corner: D'où Venons Nous / Que Sommes Nous / Où Allons Nous.


The inscription the artist wrote on his canvas has no question mark, no dash, and all words are capitalized. In the upper right corner he signed and dated the painting: P. Gauguin / 1897. The painting was created in Tahiti, and is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.


 Gauguin was influential in the foundations of modern art.Forerunner to the surrealists.One of the first artists to center his work on an exotic locale like Tahiti.Freeing color from the national world, using color in an abstract way.

First time an artist did not use color to reflect reality.Painted rural women in Brittany.
Unusual combinations of people and objects.Tahitian paintings celebrate the lushness and mystery of the island.Often painted Tahitian people.He focused on color and line, employing very bright, vibrant shades that reflects tropical environment.

Gauguin is thought to have died of syphilis in Tahiti

The Red Cow



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