Why I'm reading about a shooting that took place in 2007 over the question of exactly how tall was James Brown.

1. In the first post of the morning, I asserted: "Some of the best videos have been made like that, with the singer randomly walking along someplace mouthing the lyrics and interacting with this and that." Instead of naming any actual video, I just wrote, in parentheses and italics, as if that helps, "(Yeah? Which ones?!)" 

2. That loose thread nagged at me for 3 hours — from about 4:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. — and I tried to call to mind a great video that fit the description. I came up with "Brass in Pocket" and watched the delightful video, even though it does not fit the description:

 

3. Who cares? I like it anyway. Primed by a good YouTube experience, I took the websites suggestion to watch "David Bowie imitates Mick Jagger!!"

 

4. Bowie does do a quick, excellent Jagger impression. About 2 seconds of that video, but watch the whole thing. You'll get to a part about how his wife bought him an old suit of Little Richard's and he must not have been so little after all because the suit was way too big for Bowie. 

5. That got me looking up how tall the 2 men were. Have you noticed the internet is ready to tell you the height of various people? Just yesterday I was watching a video of Bob Dylan and David Crosby singing at the same microphone and Dylan seemed to tower over Crosby. The internet says Dylan is 5'9" and Crosby is 5'10". Maybe it's something about the shoes or the camera angle.  

6. In honor of the first post of the day, which got this list started, I pause to see if the internet will give me the answer for the famous philosopher named in that post, and I'm pleased to be informed: René Descartes was 5'1". Anyway, it turns out that David Bowie and Little Richard were the same height: 5'10". Maybe Bowie's wife got conned on that suit deal. 

7. Since I was interested in the height of Little Richard, the internet assumed I would be interested to know that James Brown was 5'6". That is pretty interesting. If you didn't know that fact, I could see how you might get into an argument with somebody who — knowing the fact — would annoyingly stand his ground. And that's what happened in January 2007: "Man shot over argument about James Brown's height" That happened not long after "Brown, who was known to wear lifts, died of heart failure Dec. 25 at age 73."

Can I get a little attention? Does anybody care this year? Seems like they would... this year, especially, but no... Anybody?

It's Columbus Day, but there's way less than the usual hoopla, even though you'd think there'd be more. I found this in the Washington Post, "Much of America has stopped celebrating Columbus Day, but the explorer remains revered in Italy." That's super mild. The observation that has replaced the observation of: There used to be an observation of the holiday, and now there's only the observation that the holiday is no longer observed.  

While many Christopher Columbus statues were toppled this year in the United States — dragged into Baltimore's Inner Harbor, beheaded in Boston — the towering marble monument to the explorer in his hometown, Genoa, Italy, is disturbed only by pigeons....

 “Some vague awareness of his colonialist brutality has only in the last few years made it into classrooms,” said Marina Nezi, a recently retired high school history teacher in Rome. “But [Italy has] a very long history, and school years are often not enough to tell the whole of it.”...  

“There’s a firewall of Italianness that has prevented the critique from breaking through and garnering a meaningful following,” [said Giulio Busi, author of “Christopher Columbus, the Sailor of Secrets."] Toppling his statues “feels like an attack on our nationality.”...

Did you know that with a firewall of Italianness, you can stop critique from garnering?   

In the New York Times, Christopher Columbus hasn't even been mentioned since October 9th. There's not even the observation that the holiday is not observed. Which is to say, it's really not observed. They didn't even see it. They didn't even see the non-seeing of it!

Now, the New York Post offers a cry for us to respect the old tarnished hero. It's a column by David Marcus:

"We don't want to make 'em too unhappy, James... Would you teach all the action kids... would you teach us all to do the James Brown boogaloo?"

That's James Brown in 1964, found in an NPR article from last May, "Who Owns 'Boogaloo'?" which I got sidelined into while trying to find out if there was a special 1970s meaning to the word "boogaloo." This is a question I had researching the song "All the Young Dudes"... and let's take a minute to listen to Mott the Hoople: 

 

Wikipedia informs us that David Bowie — who wrote the song — offered "All the Young Dudes" to Mott the Hoople after they rejected "Suffragette City." "All the Young Dudes" was a big hit single for Mott the Hoople — their biggest. The answer to the question what's a "hoople" is: "Hooples... 'make the whole game possible, Christmas Clubs especially, politics, advertising agencies, pay toilets, even popes and mystery novels.' Obviously they're squares...."

But I'm thinking about "All the Young Dudes" this morning because I used the song title as a framework from the title of my podcast yesterday: "All the dangerous dudes are on the other side." There are some tricks to devising titles for episodes of the Althouse podcast, but I use things that are in the podcast and fit them together, sometimes using the form of a song title. In that case, the podcast discussed the Google Adsense policy banning "dangerous and derogatory" material, the line from the Wisconsin protests "All the assholes are on the other side," and the use of the word "dude" by a man who was arrested in an alleged plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan. Approving comments this morning, I saw that Joe Smith had recognized the presence of "All the Young Dudes" in the podcast title, and it made me want to read and understand the lyrics, something I've never done, even though I'd listened to the song — the David Bowie version — as I was working on the podcast.

Reading the lyrics at Genius.com, realizing I've never paid attention to the words, I'm surprised to see "boogaloo" in the chorus:

All the young dudes

Carry the news

Boogaloo dudes

The annotation says "In the 50s, “boogaloo” referred to a type of Latin music. But by the 70s, it referred to this..." And "this" is a video that is currently unavailable! And that's why I was looking for the 70s meaning of "boogaloo." I lived through the 70s. My memory of it is that the boogaloo was a dance. I'm stunned to see James Brown doing it all the way back in 1963. The reason the show host says "We don't want to make 'em too unhappy, James" is that after James did a joyous boogaloo, he was asked to do a sad boogaloo, which of course, he could also do and did so well that it could be a joke that he could make us — or whoever the "action kids" were — unhappy... and not just unhappy but too unhappy.

I'm just going to guess that the 70s meaning, the one referred to in the song, is the sexual meaning you can see at Urban Dictionary:

What that says about the right-wing terrorists of the 2020s is something I might riff on when I read this post out loud later today for the podcast. 

ADDED: The NPR article says the James Brown clip is from 1964 (or 1963), so I excluded the possibility that "the action kids" were the extras on the Dick Clark TV show "Where the Action Is," because that wasn't on TV that early. The years in the 1960s are very fine-tuned in my memories! The show debuted in 1965, and, as Wikipedia verifies, the extras on the show were, in fact, referred to as "The Action Kids"! So James Brown is dancing in 1965 or later.

 

AND: And in the 1970s — as as Leo Sayer sang in the 70s — before you can eat, ya gotta dance like Fred Astaire:

"But camp was always something that was so bad it was good, and didn’t know it. Trump ruined that. Even camp he ruined."

"It isn’t really camp, but some people said he looks like a white James Brown impersonator. Which he does now. But that’s not camp. You have to like what’s camp. It has to be so bad, it’s good. He’s so bad, he’s bad.... When I was on Bill Maher with Andrew Breitbart, [Breitbart] said to me, 'I do the same thing you do; we’re just on different sides.' Which is true. So I get why Trump supporters like [Trump], because he is doing what he said he was going to do and we hate him so much he makes us crazy....  I think I love everything I make fun of, and certainly Trump does not love what he makes fun of. Although he used to be what he makes fun of. He was a liberal, wasn’t he?... [Does he make you laugh?] Never. But neither do most of the Democrat character candidates running now either. And you could argue it’s not a funny time, which is true.... There are 40 [Democrats] that are going to divide it all up. You know, the gay one I like. I’d vote for any of them, even though it would be really hard for me to vote for Elizabeth Warren who has never once said a funny thing in her entire life.... I think she will lose. Any of the ones that have already been out there will lose, big time. And any of the ones that try to be super left wing will really lose, too. And all the other ones just haven’t been around. I don’t know. I’m very much against Kamala because she is a prisoner’s enemy.... What’s the one, Mayor Pete? Is he the gay one?... It’s a civil war, and I believe that it could be decided by one vote.... It’s just exhausting to me. But I get why they like [Trump], because he infuriates us."

Said John Waters, interviewed in "In Conversation: John Waters The pope of trash on Anna Wintour, staying youthful, and why Trump ruined camp" (The Vulture).

"When she was performing, she didn’t slither out of her mink or her chinchilla as though she was doing a flirtatious little striptease for her audience’s pleasure."

"Instead, she discarded her fur coats as though she was shedding bothersome earthly shackles in order to commune directly with the Holy Spirit. The coat drop was a signal that Franklin... was ready to loose her full vocal power in a transformative sermon of gospel, soul and rhythm and blues. That voice was more lush and valuable than the coat. Still, she did not want to sweat out her coat. She threw it off. The coat was dismissed."

From "Aretha Franklin, secret style icon: With the drop of a fur coat, she proclaimed her worth" by Robin Givhan.

What about the usual criticism of wearing fur? Givhan refers to it but only in passing:

Franklin had earned [the furs], and they were worn with pride and pleasure and in spite of all PETA’s begging and bullying. So, so many furs. Worn against the cold and worn in the face of adversity. Worn with hauteur. Worn because she was a star, and furs are what stars wear.

In the comments at WaPo, I see:

Having a good singing voice is no justification for deplorable behavior. Flaunting big, gaudy fur coats is insensitive to the animal torture that it is.

And:

Does your "religion" or "church" have anything to say about torturing and killing other sentient beings?

And:

Aretha was able to wear fur because she was grandfathered (grandmothered?) in. Mad about a legendary black woman being allowed to do something no one else is allowed to do today, black or white? Tough. Watching that move was like watching living black and feminist history. Until the 1980s or so few people thought much about wearing fur. By the 2000s virtually no one in polite company wore fur any longer. Aretha was at heart an old fashioned church lady through and through. As Robin alludes to, those in the church community with enough means definitely wore furs and wore them proudly. Aretha pulling off her fur coat mid-performance was similar and perhaps even more powerful than James Brown shedding his coat (which in his performance was more a cartoon statement of need and desperation). Hers was a statement of shedding oppression and gaining freedom.

Another thing that happens in the comments — because it has to happen everywhere — is Trump. Someone drags in that Trump wrote that Franklin "worked for him" and others add things like "Trump is a cockroach" and Trump (unlike Franklin) "has made nothing and has shared nothing, his entire life," and — this is good, dark humor:

I think that what the Trumps did to those animals should be done to them. Satisfied?

"That the man who wrote the song 'Say It Loud — I'm Black and I'm Proud' and who recorded the soundtrack to the Black Power movement..."

"... could scarcely comprehend that a black man like Cornelius both owned and helmed this kind of enterprise without white patronage is a testament to the magnitude and the improbability of Cornelius' achievements."

From a column at NPR.org titled "Why Don Cornelius Matters."

(Unfortunately, Don Cornelius committed suicide.)

"The silver glove couldn't be traced to some unseemly beginning — like the droopy jeans that rappers picked up from prisoners..."

"... who'd been forced to give up their belts. It wasn't uncomfortably androgynous in the manner of guyliner. The single glove was odd and startling -- and somehow so right. It had Mick Jagger panache and James Brown flamboyance, but paired with the fedora and the cropped pants -- and that glorious moonwalk -- it also echoed the dapper style of such men as Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, men whose graceful movements Jackson admired. If Jackson was forming a bridge between rock-and-roll and rhythm and blues in his music, he was evoking every era between MGM's Tinseltown and MTV's Hollywood in his costumes."

Robin Givhan analyzes the fashion.

Death TV.

The last two nights of television were Death TV.

On Friday, talking heads talked for hours about the hanging of Saddam which we could watch on-line the next day). Writes Alessandra Stanley:

The news that Mr. Hussein was indeed dead came late on Friday night, and anticlimactically after hour upon hour of creepy music, blood-colored graphics and montages of Mr. Hussein’s most infamous moments, particularly his spider hole capture in 2003, when an American military camera recorded a hairy, befuddled Mr. Hussein being prodded and poked like a vagrant being searched for lice.

As the deadline loomed, and commentators filled time with pronouncements like “the clock is ticking on Saddam Hussein,” even on-air personalities looked restless. After devoting his entire hour on CNN to the impending hanging, Larry King asked, “Is there something ghoulish about this?” Mr. King looked a little let down when he had to sign off before the execution, promising viewers, “It is really imminent now.”...

Fox was much less squeamish, pumping up the Friday night vigil with graphics that promised “The end is near!” and “Date with Death” and urging viewers to stay tuned to Fox News.

On Saturday, there was a long ceremony about Gerald Ford that sounded like the funeral as I overheard it from the next room where I was working. But the state funeral will be on Tuesday. Last night was a preliminary ceremony as the body was brought to the Capital rotunda:

Vice President Dick Cheney, who served as Mr. Ford’s chief of staff and was an honorary pallbearer, said, “Few have ever risen so high with so little guile or calculation.”...

Mr. Cheney praised his former boss for his “capacity to forgive” and for being “always a striver — never working an angle, just working.” He noted that Mr. Ford had been treated more kindly in hindsight than when he was in office, after he pardoned former President Richard M. Nixon.

“In politics, it can take a generation or more for a matter to settle, for tempers to cool,” Mr. Cheney said. “The distance of time has clarified many things about Gerald Ford. And now death has done its part to reveal this man and the president for what he was.”

Who can read that and not think he's pleading for respect for George W. Bush?

They say famous people die in threes, and the completion of this triad was James Brown. There was no night of television devoted to his funeral, though it too would have filled the screen:

Brown's body lay in an open-topped golden coffin in front of the stage at the James Brown Arena...

The legendary showman, known as the "Godfather of Soul," was dressed in a black suit and gloves with a ruby red shirt. Jewels sparkled on his lapels and the tips of his shoes....

"The whole world changed their beat because of James Brown," civil rights leader Al Sharpton said in a eulogy. "Nobody started lower and ended higher than James Brown did."

In a brief speech [Michael] Jackson, who wore a black leather jacket, black pants and sunglasses, said he'd watched Brown perform on television as a 6-year-old and was "mesmerized," deciding right then to follow in Brown's fancy footsteps.

"James Brown is my greatest inspiration," said Jackson, who has spent little time in the United States since being acquitted of child molestation charges in 2005....

In a passionate speech, comedian and activist Dick Gregory reminded the audience of the oppressive racial environment of Brown's early life rather than simply focusing on his music.

"We didn't get this (civil rights) out of the goodness of America's heart," he said. "We didn't get this because they sent the Marines in ... We got this because with love and willing to die we said, 'We gonna change it."'

"How long do you think it will take before they make a James Brown biopic?"

I said yesterday. Answer: here.

''James presented obviously the best grooves. To this day, there has been no one near as funky. No one's coming even close.''

Said Chuck D about James Brown, who has now left the stage:

Along with Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and a handful of others, Brown was one of the major musical influences of the past 50 years. At least one generation idolized him, and sometimes openly copied him. His rapid-footed dancing inspired Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson among others. Songs such as David Bowie's ''Fame,'' Prince's ''Kiss,'' George Clinton's ''Atomic Dog'' and Sly and the Family Stone's ''Sing a Simple Song'' were clearly based on Brown's rhythms and vocal style.

If Brown's claim to the invention of soul can be challenged by fans of Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, then his rights to the genres of rap, disco and funk are beyond question. He was to rhythm and dance music what Dylan was to lyrics: the unchallenged popular innovator.

There are some sad things in his story. You can read them at the link. I'm not going to bring them up here. The man is dead. Goodbye to a brilliant artist.

"I'm good"/"It's all good."

William Safire's "On Language" column today is about the phrase "I'm good":

Early on, I'm good meant "I am without sin," but that is now seldom the meaning. In later centuries, good - followed by the preposition at - acquired a utilitarian sense, as in "I am good at whist, as well as at hand-held computer games." When followed by the preposition for (meaning "in place of" or "with the purpose of"), the adjective good became the hyphenated adjective and noun good-for-nothing. Recently, it acquired the phrasal meaning of "readiness," good to go.

The sense we examine today is a response to a question about capability or mood. "I'm good" means "I can handle it" or "It doesn't trouble me"; its implied ensuing preposition is with, as in "It's all right with me."

Why does this usage seem odd? We've been saying "I'm fine" this way for a long time, and "good" and "fine" are pretty damned similar. James Brown sang "I Feel Good," and the Beatles sang "I Feel Fine." They were talking about the same thing, though Brown seemed to be enjoying it a lot more.

I think "fine" is just a bit old-fashioned. As the stock answer to the question "How are you?" it's taken on a stodgy, phony attitude. "Good" seems more honest and friendly.

But have you noticed that people have taken to saying "It's all good"? Is there some character on a TV show I don't watch who's popularized that? The other day, I was being a little careless moving my shopping cart forward in line at the store, and it slightly touched the woman in front of me. I said "I'm sorry," and she said "It's all good." Man, what an optimist! I guess just the great joy of being alive is so incredibly cool that when someone bumps into you, she recognizes it as all part of the great gift of sensory awareness. It's all good.

"American Idol," in Cleveland and Orlando.

We're in Cleveland: The first performer is Jacklyn Crum, who's only 16 and who tells Paula she loves her because she's pretty. She's obviously scared but she sings beautifully. Simon and Randy start hedging about her inexperience, but guest host LL Cool J says you've got to start somewhere and, with Paula's yes, she makes it.

Up next is one of the least attractive women ever to appear on the show. I assume she's going to be great, because otherwise it would be too mean to shine the spotlight on her. She looks 50 but she's only 18. LL Cool J laughs out loud. She's singing "I Could Have Danced All Night" with no pop quality at all. They all like her voice, and Simon lectures her about how you just can't go into pop music and look as bad as she does. They are nice to her as they reject her. LL gets up out of his chair and goes over and hugs her. So far, LL is a total sweetheart, a male Paula.

There's a big montage of bad singers. Then we get Scott Savol, who talks a little like that Sling Blade guy. He sings "Superstar." He says his dad doesn't think he can amount to anything. He's got a lovely voice, but again, lacks the looks. "You've just proved your dad wrong," Simon says. He makes it.

A mime is next. She silently mimes an Aerosmith song. Lotsa jokes about how she's better than most.

A farm boy comes out in overalls and sings the Charlie Chaplin song "Smile," which he identifies as a Nat King Cole song. They love him.

The Jackson sisters. They are very large, but charismatic. First, Lashunda. No! She cries. Leandra is next, crying, knowing her sister didn't make it. She sings "Summertime," but it's all off key, much worse than Lashunda. They are nice to her. LL gets up again to hug her and they all get up and hug her. We see her come out crying.

Briana Davis is next, dressed in lots of stripes, singing "Phantom of the Opera" beautifully ... until she gets to the high notes, which are a horror. But they all like her and she gets through.

"Aw, we all love this boy," I say about Anthony Federov. I've seen him on the teasers and thought was going to be the new Clay. They start saying he reminds them of Clay Aiken. As a boy, he had a tracheotomy and was told he might never speak again. Okay, we love him.

For the second half of the show, we're in Orlando. First up, Marissa Ganz sings "White Boys" from "Hair." She's white, so ... what is really the point of this song choice? She's horrible. They are aghast. "I don't know if that's good or bad." It was bad. She's followed by some other terrible people.

Vonzell Solomon sings "Chain of Fools." She fancies it up beyond belief, but she's good. She's trying touchingly hard. They love her.

Dezmond Meeks tries to do James Brown, "I Feel Good." He's wearing two-tone shoes. Paula loves him. Randy is not convinced. Simon thinks it's stagey and says no. So Paula "feels like quittin'." Paula asserts that he did James Brown better than James Brown, which is so not true. Simon has said no. Randy agrees based on Paula, and he makes it. He seems like a sweet kid. He overdid it, but how was he supposed to know where the line was between overdoing it and performing? Our hearts go out to him.

Note that they put two cities together tonight. I guess Cleveland and Orlando were the worst cities in the auditions. Tomorrow's San Francisco. Just one city. So presumably better than tonight's slightly subpar show.

"American Idol," simulblogged.

I fry up some meat and pour a glass of wine, and sit down to "American Idol." I say "I bet we see the winner tonight and some of the other finalists, because we're in New Orleans, and the best singers are always from the south."

Gene Simmons is the guest judge. "Why do you want to do this?" he says to the 19-year-old David Brown. Brown looks perfect. He belts out "Long Time Comin'" beautifully. Randy tells him he's the best audition he's seen in four seasons of the show. Wow! He's suddenly the favorite to win Season Four. [UPDATE: As a reader reminds me, the title of this song, which does contain the words "long time comin'," is "A Change Is Gonna Come." I've written about that song before and especially regret the mistake, for it is surely one of the most beautiful songs ever, and I adore its composer, Sam Cooke.]

Next up is a yodeler. He yodels well. Paula: "That's not easy to do." They make him go behind a screen and try a Stevie Wonder song. (Stevie has long been the show's standard of perfection for the male pop singer.) He's not too bad, but he's still rejected.

Lindsay Cardinale is beautiful and sings beautifully. She makes it.

An earnest and very tall accountant named Sandeep sings "Eye of the Tiger" and is asked how he thought he did. He says he got the lyrics. He's rejected. His after-analysis: "The voice was in one tone. I needed to kind of mix it up with the tones. So … sorry."

Michael Liuzza wants to be the American Idol because "The world's a evil place. They got a lot of bad people. I'd like to give some good love around, you know." He sings "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans" – the Louis Armstrong version. It's elegantly modulated, but has a bit of a weird affectation some of the time. He reminds Gene Simmons of Rosemary Clooney, and he says that's all out of style. Randy says no, Simmons says no, Paula says yes, Simon makes a sound that causes Paula to say: "You take the joy out of me having fun and showing love." Then Simon gives him the chance, and Paula still calls Simon "obnoxious." The Simon-Paula thing is part of the game, part of the act. We see Liuzza running out into the street, exulting.

At every break, they promote Leroy Wells. They've preselected him as this year's William Hung. He'd better be damned funny. Okay. Here he is. He's happy. He's a clown. Dances. Talks, but you can't understand a word he's saying. Wait. I did understand when he got down on his knees and said, "Thank you, Jesus. 'Cause you gotta put Jesus first." Randy: "Yo, dawg. But can you sing? … Sing something!" They suggest James Brown. He tries to sing "I Feel Good," and can't do it. He has gold teeth that he puts in and out. They love him, but he can't go through. Yet, media-savvy, he understands that he's on TV right now! Success! "It's all good!" He walks out saying "Can you dig it?" And they all say "Yes!" America is entertained. He's raving, happy. He knows he's going to be on TV.

Next is a minister from Dallas, Jeffrey Johnson, who's shocked by New Orleans. He sings "In the Still of the Night." Simmons thinks he's a country artist, because of his ministry. Rock is about sexuality, he says. Simon says the public will love him. Randy's the deciding vote and he says yes. He's through.

Back to David Brown, in his Baptist Church. We see a closeup of him with a tear rolling down his cheek. We love this guy. Fox TV wants us to love this guy, and, yeah, it's manipulative, but we do love him.

After the commercial, it's all about twins. The first two -- the Jefferson twins -- are pronounced "good" by Simon and they make it. The second two … you get the vibe they're going to be bad. The Molfetta twins. They sing "I'll Make Love to You," and Paula is seduced. Simmons refers to "the oozy, oozy white boy thing." Simon thinks it's only the twinning that makes them seem approvable: "I don't think individually, you're good enough." But maybe one is better than the other? Judged individually, it's still a no. Randy and Paula get pissed and walk out. In the promo for tomorrow night, we see one of the Molfetta brothers returns in the Las Vegas auditions.

"They sure signaled to us that the guy to watch is David Brown," I say. Chris says: "I don't like when they give an unfair amount of air time to someone no one has voted on."