Light snow falling at 10 PM last night. A Deer meandered through one of the neighborhood alleys, all lit up by Christmas lights -- GOOD! -- I saw it in plenty of time while I was driving on an icy side street.

Sitemeter Sez: A visitor from Danbury, Connecticut was searching for Joss Stone -- I speak well of her. I like a singer who is known primarily for singing, rather than anything else.

REAL SLC Punk, not the movie, at: Theater X-Net

Starring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Ida's Places in Paris -- from my first jet-lagged day by the Seine.
Read more about Ida in Sisters of Salome by Toni Bentley

Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
Spitfires of the Spaceways
Wilma Deering & Dale Arden to the rescue; Bodacious Princess Aura I; Hapless Aura II; The fiery Emperor Ming; The Orson Welles Rumor Debunked; and BOTH incarnations of Jean Rogers!





Thanks to Jim Keefe (Visit his Website) -- the LAST Flash Gordon illustrator of the 20th Century, and Flash's first illustrator of the 21st, for his recommendations -- HERE!

Charity Alert: Make a Holiday Resolution to click on The Hunger Site every day. Also check into Terra Sigilata blog -- donate $$$ to cancer patients just by clicking onto the site.

In The Community: Changing shows at the Hockaday Museum of Art, and getting another one ready to tour the state. Goodness, gracious, CRATE scads o' pictures!

Media Watch: I found myself thinking about Dusty Springfield after responding to the Joss Stone search (above). She passed away a few years ago from cancer, after reviving her singing career to some extent. The first great wave of Progressive Rock, which started around 1967, began to put her stardom on the proverbial shelf in the USA. Her stable of British Pop Singers who raced each other up and down the charts eaked out a few more successes with Petula Clark, and Lulu's solitary American hit. Dusty Springfield even scored with Son of a Preacher Man, but Windmills of your Mind, although it was both played on the radio and designated a hit by the industry, was an example of the middle-brow schlock which made my generation turn away from Springfield and her stablemates. (Pet Clark sailed on the Titanic of Finian's Rainbow into Pop Oblivion.)
OK, so I'm telling my view of her story in reverse -- for many years I counted myself a Dusty Springfield fan. I loved certain singles of hers, and wore out my copy of her Greatest Hits album. I thought it was hilarious the way she played the Pop Star game, first as a faux-Folk act with The Springfields, wearing blue denim, a wiglike bob, and singing Silver Threads and Golden Needles, then sporting St. Laurent frocks, a blond bouffant and gobs of masscara after she made a little money, or her management did. Patti Labelle and Nona Hendryx called her "authentic" and "approachable" in their tribute on the BBC award show, and she may have been in private, but she was all calculated Show Business to the American Public -- one cog in an international music-making machine that included P.J. Proby, Adam Faith, Cilla Black, Sandi Shaw, young saxophonist/bandleader David (Bowie) Jones, and dozens of others. Progressive Rock dealt in a lot of hype too, but it pushed London's Denmark Street syndicate aside for a little while.
Hmm -- I should say which Dusty singles appealed to me the most, besides two of the three listed above: Wishing and Hoping (Great Bacharach & David tune, plus a dandy arrangement stolen from them); I Only Want to be With You (I wish all Pop Candy tasted this good -- Samantha Fox and Annie Lennox have also covered this song exuberantly); You Don't Have To Say You Love Me (Magnificently overdone re-worded Italian schmaltz -- greasy broken-hearted cholesteral for the ears. The song was shopped all over Europe. I heard an earlier version, sung by a man, in an Italian James Bond spoof, running on a silly Dick Tracy device which resembled a modern cell-phone video screen); The Look of Love (Bacharach & David again, with a hoarse, somewhat squeezed vocal. I was better pleased by Sergio Mendes' version a few years later -- I preferred hearing Springfield's voice as a trumpet more than a flute.)

Funky News: (from Bootsy Collins' MySpace site)
Say it Loud, an Instrument 4 every Child!
That is what I feel Mr. James Brown really wanted for our creative Artists and Workers of our land. That is one reason why we are honoring him this Sat. Dec. 22nd -- show starts at 8:00PM. Here are some of the Players that will Pee on the show, BucketHead, Triage, FreekBass, IceCream, Lil' Boosie, Chuck D, The Soul Generals -- James Brown's band featuring his son Daryl on guitar, Tommy Davidson & Michael Colyar the Comediens, Danny Ray -- James Brown 's personal MC for the last 50 years.
Vicky Anderson & the Bobby Byrd Band, DJizzle, Zion Planet 10, all the City Officials, James Browns Daughters Deanna Brown, Venisha Brown who looks just like him an will sing and dance like her Dad on the set -- to close out the show the Original JB's.
Rhythm Section: Jab'o & Clyde the funky drummers -- and they brought Catfish Collins and myself Bootsy Collins out of P-Tirement especially for this show. We have to do this for the greatest entertainer of our time for me, maybe because he picked me to play Bass with him when I was just 17 years old! My momma said "Bootsy can only go if you takes his brother Catfish," so here we are now giving our King of King Records his props.
If anybody is interested in coming and or helping out go to:
www.madisontheateronline.com for more details.
You can also stop by www.bootsycollins.com
Hope to see all my funkateers there.
They came, We funked um!
Bootsy!!!


(Lower Left Corner) John (Jabo) Starks was James Brown's tireless "go to" drum-master through the late 60's and into the mid 70's. Clyde Stubblefield, who calls himself "The Funky Drummer," EARNED his title by performing the Class-A solo on Cold Sweat in 1967. When that same track was re-used in the 90's for Sinead O'Connor's I'm Stretched On Your Grave, he was quoted in Rolling Stone as saying "... (Brown) just gave drummers Hell!" Time is a healer, and it is good to see them
playing together in honor of their old boss,
who died almost a year ago.