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Incredible Beauty of the Bicycle Card Aesthetic

I was never a great skill card player growing up. I was quite excellent at War, and at 52 Pick-Up, but other than that, my mastery in card games was more in my mind than in my hand. I never played a dime or a nickel flush where I won any type of pot, but I always enjoyed holding the actual playing cards. The designs were a fascination to my young mind, and today, when I happened upon the Bicycle cards website, I was taken back to a time when a deck of cards lasted for years of regular use around the kitchen table with nickel raises and dime bets; but these cards, these new Bicycle cards, had a right life of their own. The opaque card box was gone; replaced by a lovely translucent plastic that was more welcoming to both hand, and eye.

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Passing on Royal Fever

If you are a Real American — how can you get caught up the royal fever over the pending marriage of William and Kate?  Didn’t we race from the crown and found our own country with war because we didn’t want to have anything to do with inherited leadership — other than, of course, repeatedly electing our very own American Royals to ongoing public office: The Kennedys and the Bushes.

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Albert King Licks or Andy Aledort Lacking?

Take a look at the cover of this “Albert King” signature licks DVD.  Just looking at the cover en passant, you would think you are going to watch Albert teaching you signature licks just as he did with Stevie Ray Vaughan in Session.  No so fast!  Read the small print in the left gutter on the DVD cover and you’ll see “Featuring Andy Aledort” spelled out and that little text phrase means there’s no Albert King on the DVD.  You get Andy pretending to be Albert and you feel cheated.

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Freddie King and the 1966 Beat

We love Freddie King and his classic DVD — “Freddie King The!!!!Beat 1966” — is an instant classic that deserves your rabid attention and ultimate devotion.

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Johnny Winter Live at B.B. King's on Broadway

There’s nothing like seeing The Blues live in performance and I was lucky enough to see the great Johnny Winter play a live set at B.B. King’s box of Blues on Broadway in New York City’s Times Square.

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The Playwright as King

There are very few, if any, graduate theatre training programs where the word is so valued that a Playwright is the Chair of the department.

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B.B. King is Rattled and Humming

B.B. King, at 84, is the greatest Blues guitarist in the world.  In 2003, Rolling Stone named B.B. King as the third best guitarist in the world out of 100.  There is a secret few people know about B.B. King and his ability to play the guitar and I will share it with you now.

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Dithering the Color Line with Violence

As we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. day in the United States, MLKingwe are faced with the questions of antiquity that have bothered and constrained humankind: Do we still judge people by color?

Do we still prefer violence over getting along with each other and the world?

It is possible in any way to reclaim our tainted and lost humanity?

I wish those in the churches and the mosques and the community living rooms and the religious leaders would stand up to the politicians and say, “Don’t go to war in God’s name.

Don’t ask for our prayers to cover your bloodshed.

Don’t seek our religious protection for your unholy political wars.

Don’t ask for our faith votes in the polling place. Leave religion out of your killing fields.”

That kind of religious rebellion against the politicians would remove the brush cover from political fanatics who pretend they are doing God’s work in the fields of war by killing those who are of darker skin and lesser opportunity than those wielding the staff and the cross.

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Guilt by King Prawn and the Alienable Confessor Killer

JonBenet‘s accJohn Mark Karrused killer John Mark Karr  — or is the more proper term “confessor killer” — has already been drawn and quartered in the court of public opinion by the mainstream media vested to protect the public interest.

How did things go wrong so quickly and why does the media feed such a bloodthirst for information about a man who — guilty or not — is obviously not right in his mind or comfortable in his body even if he did he killing or even if he just thinks he did the killing?

In America, the notoriously accused are deemed the most guilty by associations created by the media even before being charged in the legal system.

The mainstream media opinion makers appear to live for guilt by insinuation. That must make for thrilling reporting but it makes lousy television and reading.

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The Nigger Lover

I have resisted posting about this topic because I didn’t want to encourage even more hate on the web, but now that some time has passed and more protections have been set in place, I am prepared to tell you on January 16, 2006 — Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in America — something awful happened here. 

Continue reading → The Nigger Lover