February 2012
1 post
January 2012
2 posts
My Etta James - Jokatherine Page
Here’s is how my mom remembered Etta James:
“Toinight I am saluting Etta James, my most favorite singer and one that I truly I identify with.Her songs have always resonated with me, perhaps maybe because we are the same age and just similar situations that I identify with - HELLO! I was honored to see and hear her once in person at the Paramount here in Denver - what a power! Never...
December 2011
1 post
Matt McGuinness and Gourmandizing go Through the...
The riots are three months gone and its shopping season in London town. Consumerism rules the headlines and headaches where just a few weeks earlier locals incorrectly blamed gangs for the most devastating riots in recent history. As London spends and heals and spins its heels, Peckham, an area that was heavily effected by these days in August, has gotten a facelift in its shop windows. Peckham...
November 2011
1 post
Vote For RISE in the ORC You Decide Competition
“Vote early, Vote Often” The RISE Foundation, has been nominated by Orange RockCorps in the YOU DECIDE Competition taking place right now in the UK. I have worked for both organisations and believe in their missions wholeheartedly. I have had the privilege to be affiliated with Rise for the last year and a half as Operations Manager and was the Community Manager for social networks...
October 2011
2 posts
September 2011
10 posts
My brother's take today:
As we ponder over the flawed, or stolen, justice behind Troy Davis’s execution yesterday, keep in mind that one of James Byrd’s killers was executed yesterday:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44613428/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/?gt1=43001 I followed this news story so intently that it became an tipping point in a fictional story I published in the mid-2000s, one that became the title...
The lynching of Troy Davis by US and the State of...
This morning, I can’t help but troll through the reactions on the lynching of Troy Davis. Its curious to me that the issues surrounding this event range from policy to economics to race to class to anything in between. And what strikes me about some comments is that many center around the amount of money that the state has spent on Troy Davis. The economics, and this phantom idea that...
The comfort of a Crofton Park public sphere
Yesterday was a little rough. It was just one of those days. There’s all those little bits like the fickle weather drenching my shirt, giving me chills and running my nose all before I got off the train at the end of it; the frustration with long-distance phone call recon, juggling languages and origins. But most importantly, it was news from home. This is by no means is a piece about comparing...
Live magazine's journey from Brixton to Cape Town
Great article about an amazing magaizine based in Brixton produced entirely by young people and their endeavor to launch in South Africa. Check it out
http://gu.com/p/3xzpd
My only possible response to "The Help"
I haven’t seen the film nor read the book. And I doubt I ever will, not as a boycott of some sort. Rather, it’s just that there are so many other books I’d prefer to read and films I would prefer to see. And this story is more familiar to me and my family than any Barnes & Nobeled novel or greenlit hollywood darling could ever portray.
However, with all of the talk on the...
August 2011
7 posts
Perhaps you might like to read this article by...
Stop Picking on the Black Middle Class
The Root
London Is Burning and Mark Duggan Is Still Dead
There are a few things at play. The most obvious from the images regardless of the location or color of the perps is that folks are expressing anger. They are young and mostly poor from urban areas. They are beating against a wall of police that, until last night, had not exercised their full power to put this insurgence down.
I sympathize with their frustration, not their violence. And would...
Open Road in Brooklyn
First fireflies and Buttermilk Channel.
While in exile, my wife and I searched for that pie. She didn’t believe that it was melt in your mouth heaven. We eventually got there, but this night, it wasn’t happening. What did happen was a chance encounter with Open Road.
The walk was glistening in the evening sunset. On the way, we passed some young brothers closing up a gate at the...
July 2011
1 post
Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring @ Frank’s Café,...
Last night I went to this with my neighbor Kevin. In a car park. In Peckham. The most beautiful views of London ever, looking north at the cityscape, perfect sunset to the west lighting up each building at different moments in the evening. Then, Stravinsky’s riotous the Rite of Spring barreling out from the floor below. At last, the set sun project that magical combination of pink and...
June 2011
3 posts
August 2010
1 post
November 2009
2 posts
Daniel Lawrence Page 23 August, 1932 - 11...
All I can think is that he is alive now. The last time I saw uncle Danny was in Colorado Springs. I can’t remember the occasion. But I took a photograph of the brothers Page at the Colorado Springs Airport. Danny was in a wheelchair, looking very much like the oldest, David had his signature sporty snap down cap and Jerome (my father) was in a suit, as usual. It was a moment and a photograph...
Limos, Hatchbacks, the 6 and Schwinns
Those of you who know me know that my mind wanders out into the ether and then returns with the strangest of associations. But this one is too wonderful to let back loose into the ether….So, please bear with me.
When I was a kid, I remember Urban League dinners, parades and conferences at the Sheraton and Hilton in D.C. I remember Marion’s arrivals, all stretch limos, black suits,...
October 2009
9 posts
Facebook Quiz: Which Complacent Patriot Profile...
The Republican National Committee went through the usual American and sheepish motions of allowing a user to post an inflammatory poster on their Facebook fan page before removing it from the site. Initially sanctioned by the monitors of the RNC fansite, the post remained up for a few days before public outrage resulted in it’s removal. Now, a quiet few of you in the U.S. are discussing this act...
The Jackson Jive Down Under....Yes, I can feel it....
Yet another brilliant moment courtesy of white people half way around the world. Consider for a moment that it’s neither right nor wrong. It just IS. It IS because it was created by white people generations before. And because it just IS, we can talk about it and hopefully add to the discussion about race politics. And because it is there for all of us to see instantly via the world wide web, we...
Bill Safire, Dead at 79
Bill Safire died last week at 79. Along with writing the weekly column in the weekly New York Times Sunday magazine, On Language, he was also a speechwriter for Richard Nixon. Mr. Safire also wrote four novels, including “Full Disclosure”, a best-seller about succession issues, and nonfiction that included “The New Language of Politics”.
I had the privilege to moderate a...
August 2009
1 post
July 2009
1 post
Romeo Is Black and No One Cares
As appeared on The Root July 30, 2009
LONDON—Romeo is black. And no one cares. While this might be big news in America, no one in London is making any fuss about Adetomiwa Edun in Romeo & Juliet, playing through August 23 at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. Here, it’s just damn good theater. No nuance, no emotional triggers playing on Edun’s ethnicity.
I admit that I was excited and skeptical...
June 2009
3 posts
Obamas ovantade drag ar historiskt
By Jason W.H. PageAs printed in Metro Sweden 27 May, 2009 Today, U.S. President Barack Obama nominated Federal Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor as his first appointment to the Supreme Court, making Sotomayor possibly the first Hispanic and third woman to hold a Supreme Court seat. Upon accepting the nomination, Sotomayor recognized herself as an ordinary person blessed with extraordinary...
Poetic Injustice - Even the Nobel Prize can’t...
As appeared in The Root on Monday, 1 June, 2009. Please click the link so that I can get your hit and your comment. Thanks!
LONDON—At 79, Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott is recognized as one of the greatest writers in the world. He is also presumably not at the height of his sexual prowess. However, during his recent bid for the prestigious role as poetry professor at Oxford University,...
May 2009
3 posts
ROCKCORPS 2009 LONDON LAUNCH
A little rain didn’t stop the first 50 volunteers from launching RockCorps London 2009 yesterday at Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park and earning their ticket to the gig in September at Royal Albert Hall. RockCorps volunteers repped the London area from Edmonton to Islington clearing out the stinging nettles, goose grass and cow parsley that was overtaking an area of the park.
The crew gathered at the...
Farewell, Brother Cousins
I had a chance to sit with Brother Cousins at his house this past summer. I was in town producing an exhibit at Blair Caldwell Library in the Five Points, where Mr. Cousins owned a great deal of real estate.
We arrived at the house I’d seen from the road for years in the late afternoon. It was the time of day when folks come calling, as my mom would tell me of times gone past. Brother Cousins...
April 2009
13 posts
Barack's 100th and Duke's 110th
Today marks, not only President Barack Obama’s 100th day in office but, what would have been the 110th birthday of Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, the most talented musical composer the world has ever seen.
The fanfare of these two occasions and their celebrants is jointly jubilant and American. Despite the ever-present critics and naysayers, the contributions and ferocious tenacity of these two...
The Obama Blackout
The network that echoes the sentiment of the voters who elected George W. Bush has refused to air President Obama’s press conference marking his first 100 days in office. The Fox network has announced that it will stick with its originally scheduled programming. Adding hilarity to insult is the fact that the original programming that will air is the Tim Roth drama, “Lie To Me,” a show about a...