Erykah Badu: Window Seat

Remarks:

Ms Badu walks through Dallas where President Kennedy was shot.

Lyrics:

so, presently I’m standing
here right now
you’re so demanding
tell me what you want from me
concluding
concentrating on my music, lover and my babies
makes me wanna ask the lady for a ticket outta town…

so can I get a window seat
don’t want nobody next to me
I just want a ticket outta town
a look around
and a safe touch down
can I get a window seat
don’t want nobody next to me
I just want a chance to fly
a chance to cry
and a long bye bye..

but I need you to want me
I need you to miss me
I need your attention, yes
I need you next me
I need someone to clap for me
I need your direction
somebody say come back
come back baby come back
I want you to need me
come back come back baby come back
come back come back baby come back
come back come back baby come back

so, in my mind I’m tusslin’
back and forth ‘tween here and hustlin’
I don’t wanna time travel no mo
I wanna be here
I’m thinking
on this porch I’m rockin’
back and forth light lightning hopkins
if anybody speak to scotty
tell him beam me up..

so can I get a window seat
don’t want nobody next to me
I just want a ticket outta town
a look around
and a safe touch down
can I get a window seat
don’t want nobody next to me
I just want a chance to fly
a chance to cry
and a long bye bye..

but I need you to miss me
I need somebody come get me
I need your attention
I need your energy
I need someone to clap me
I need your direction

somebody say come back
come back baby come back
come back come back baby come back
come back come back baby come back
come back come back baby come back

but can I get a window seat
don’t want nobody next to me
I just want a ticket outta town
a look around
and a safe touch down…

I just wanna chance to fly
a chance to cry
and a long bye bye…

They play it safe, are quick to assassinate what they do not understand. They move in packs ingesting more and more fear with every act of hate on one another. They feel most comfortable in groups, less guilt to swallow. They are us. This is what we have become. Afraid to respect the individual. A single person within a circumstance can move one to change. To love ourself. To evolve.

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Solange Knowles

Solange, 2016.

Solange Knowles (1986- ) is an American R&B singer best known as the little sister of picture-perfect Beyonce. She has had three number one hits on the American dance charts:

2008: I Decided

2008: Sandcastle Disco

2009: T.O.N.Y.

The last two she wrote with Cee-Lo of Gnarls Barkley. All three songs are from her second album, “Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams” (2008). Like Raphael Saadiq, her music sounds like it is from the 1960s but made now –  neo-Motown sort of stuff. Partly because she loves old soul music and partly, no doubt, because she is desperately trying not to sound like her sister! Her first album, “Solo Star” (2003), was all over the place in terms of musical style. Hadley Street is the street in Houston, Texas where her father’s record company stands and where she recorded the album.

She was never one of the main members of Destiny’s Child, though she has been a dancer and backing singer for them and one time did fill in for Kelly Rowland. When she was 15 she travelled the world with them as a dancer. After that her father thought she was old enough to handle a recording contract. Out of that came “Solo Star”.

“Solo Star” did not do well. She went into acting and landed parts in two films: she played the daughter of Vanessa Williams and Cedric the Entertainer in “Johnson Family Vacation” (2004) and then the head black cheerleader in “Bring It On: All or Nothing” (2006), the third film in that series.

In 2004 she married a football player, Daniel Smith. They had a son later that year, Daniel Julez J. Smith, and moved to the mountains of Idaho. In 2007 they divorced. Solange moved to Hollywood with her son.

Up to this point she had taken whatever opportunities came her way. They were great opportunities but she lacked inner direction. In Idaho it seems she got her head together and made up her mind to become a singer and songwriter, singing the kind of music she liked, not whatever producers like the Neptunes or Timbaland were pushing at her, making her sound like every other singer out there. She knew she liked Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, the Supremes and so on, and she started from there, writing songs. That was the beginning of what became “Hadley St. Dreams”.

In August 2009 she cut off her hair. It was a brave move but it seems to have worked out well: she looks better in short hair. It brings out the beauty of her face much more.

She made my list of women with the most beautiful lips, just ahead of Molly Ringwald.

As someone who hates how Beyonce is pushed so hard at us and as someone who is a second son, it is hard for me not to like Solange. But even apart from that I do like her music more (featured here twice so far).

I know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows her! Yes, we are that tight.

– Abagond, 2010.

See also:

• songs
  • 2008: Solange: F*ck The Industry
  • 2008: Solange: Sandcastle Disco
  • 2008: Solange: I Decided
  • 2012: Solange Knowles: Losing You
  • 2016: Solange ft Sampha: Don’t Touch My Hair
• Beyonce Knowles
• Creoles – she is Creole on her mother’s side
• women with the most beautiful lips
• natural black beauty #2
• Kelis

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Dorrough: Ice Cream Paint Job

Remarks:

I know this is not a particularly deep song, not one for the ages, but I like it all the same.

At first I thought this was one of those songs that seem to be about a car but is in fact about a woman through its double meanings. Then I thought, no, it is just about his car. But just to make sure I looked it up in the Urban Dictionary and found out that I was right the first time.

You can see Paul Wall towards the end of the video. He appeared in this space with his own song of cars and women, “Break ‘Em Off” (2007). He is from Houston while Dorrough is from Dallas.

Lyrics:

haha
yeahh
mr. D-O-double-R

i say..
Yea buddy!
Rolling like a big shot,
chevy tuned up like a nascar pitstop
Fresh paint job [check]
Fresh inside [check]
Is the outside frame in the trunk wide [yes]
Are the rims big [what]
Do it ride good [good]
Lean back right hand on the pinewood.

Cream on the inside
Clean on the outside
Cream on the inside
Clean on the outside
Cream on the inside
Clean on the outside
Ice, ice cream, Ice cream paint job

Cream on the inside
Clean on the outside
Cream on the inside
Clean on the outside
Cream on the inside
Clean on the outside
Ice, ice cream, Ice cream paint job

Whoo!
Clean on the outside cream on the inside ice cream paint job. Got screens on the dash watchin saved by the bell got a house by the bayside. yea im livin like that, and im ridin like that. Boy im ridin like that and the sturring wheel wood like a baseball bat.
Just like Archie said We Ready. Whole cliques straight, lunatics like nelly. Gran Marquis paint job grape jelly, R triple BC big black box Chevy. Crank my car, she be hummin, rims so big u can see me comin. Prime time click, we get money, stay iced up like TV johnny.

Cream on the inside
Clean on the outside
Cream on the inside
Clean on the outside
Cream on the inside
Clean on the outside
Ice, ice cream, Ice cream paint job

Cream on the inside
Clean on the outside
Cream on the inside
Clean on the outside
Cream on the inside
Clean on the outside
Ice, ice cream, Ice cream paint job

Im loud, Im loud like a superbowl kickoff, my slab got a lot of n***** pissed off. Paint shine like lip gloss, cadillac got a wide body like Rick Ross. Took time but my cash got right, if i want it ima buy it i dont ask no price. Rear view mirror, Jumbo dice, trunk hit hard like KIMBO SLICE. Be around tint no window light, car ride smooth so the rims are white. That right thur see see i like. Got the top notch slab for da dirt cheap price. Press one button called automatic start. Stand too close car alarm might bark. Like what? Argh Argh, Like you go, prime time click make it move like Uhaul.

Cream on the inside
Clean on the outside
Cream on the inside
Clean on the outside
Cream on the inside
Clean on the outside
Ice, ice cream, Ice cream paint job

Cream on the inside
Clean on the outside
Cream on the inside
Clean on the outside
Cream on the inside
Clean on the outside
Ice, ice cream, Ice cream paint job

I ride with a towel cuz the candy paint wet. Rims on the Ride got these N***** upset. Rims sit high so i ride upset. 6 12’s in the trunk 4 screens in the deck

I ride with a towel cuz the candy paint wet. Rims on the Ride got these N***** upset. Rims sit high so i ride upset. 6 12’s in the trunk 4 screens in the deck

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Paul Wall and Lil Keke: Break ‘Em Off

Remarks:

The woman who comes out of the black car and shakes hands with Paul Wall is Deelishis, the winner of the second season of Flavor of Love. So far as I know this is the only video she has ever been in. Does anyone know the name of the main white girl in this video?

I love the chopped and screwed version of this video but cannot find one that is embeddable.

Lyrics:

[Lil Keke]
[Intro]
I’mma break ‘em off real bad, I’mma show ’em pourin up a duece while ridin slab

[Chorus]
I’mma break ‘em off real bad, I’mma break ‘em
I’mma break ‘em off real bad,
I’mma break ‘em , I’mma break ‘em off real bad
I’mma show’em pourin up a duece while ridin slab

[Paul Wall]
Now I gotta work ma wood grain wheel
Poppin’ trunks, poppin’ pillz, still poppin’ seals
Higher than a hill with ma mind on millz
Piece and chain swangin’, bank roll, shiny grill
Baby, I got million dollar dreams, with ma mind on cream
I’m in that mean green machine clean on 19s
Flat screens in the headrest, swangin’ like a swing set
Brandy wine, paint wet, comin’ down that’s a bet
I’m in the lot chasin’ broads like a lesbian
Full of that Kush flower, I’m breakin’ off pedestrians
Higher than a street light, floatin’ like a parachute
Buzzin’ like a bumble bee, mustard green Bentley coupe
Young gangsta, Mac game, sharper than a thumbtack
Breakin’ ‘em off, makin’ all the boppers attract
Then they watch me, I’m rocked up fully loaded and sloppy
Tryin’ to hit it and quit it
And walk off like Big Papi then break ‘em off

[Chorus]
I’mma break ‘em off real bad, I’mma break ‘em
I’mma break ‘em off real bad,
I’mma break ‘em , I’mma break ‘em off real bad
I’mma show’em pourin up a duece while ridin slab
I’mma break ‘em
I’mma break ‘em off real bad, I’mma break ‘em
I’mma break ‘em off real bad,
I’mma break ‘em , I’mma break ‘em off real bad
I’mma show’em pourin up a duece while ridin slab

[Lil’ Keke]
Aye, aye
I pull up like this, untouchable white wrist
I’m hotter than warm piss, berry grape Sunkist
The truck blow mist five 50 snow bunny
Bentley continental with the mink floors dummy
Paul Wall money, dat’s expensive taste
And ‘em frilly ass fools we send ‘em to myspace
I’mma break ‘em off until the backbone broken

Stainless steel drop phantom, leave the top open
Shit done hit the fan, better cover your nose
And the Kush done start burnin’, better cover your clothes (that’s right)
Concrete crumblin’, glass shootin’ lazers
Crawlin’ and cuttin’ up on 24 razors
I’mma show ‘em how to make the slab look phenomenal
Chasin’ paper in the mornin’, call me Houston Chronicle
Hold on then u buckle up the seat belt
Swisha House, Young Don, capital TF

[Chorus]
I’mma break ‘em off real bad, I’mma break ‘em
I’mma break ‘em off real bad,
I’mma break ‘em , I’mma break ‘em off real bad
I’mma show’em pourin up a duece while ridin slab
I’mma break ‘em
I’mma break ‘em off real bad, I’mma break ‘em
I’mma break ‘em off real bad,
I’mma break ‘em , I’mma break ‘em off real bad
I’mma show’em pourin up a duece while ridin slab

[Paul Wall]
Already
Higher than the satellite, crawlin’ like a baby
Maneuverin’ thru the traffic like I’m Tracy McGrady
Still choppin’ on ‘em buttons, I’m struttin’ and lookin’ fresh
Switch hittin’ like Berkman, this is ballin’ at its best
In dat minute maid droppa’, with retractable roof
Finer than wood, wavin’ the hood, student loans on the two
The fifth wheel on the ground, and the trunk in the air
Paul Wall, baby I’m the definition of playa
Ma skillz is so ill when workin’ the wood wheel
Tippin’ 4s like a waiter, beware of the oil spill
Wide screen mind frame, panoramic pimpin’
I’m sippin’ on dat Osama, baby leanin’ like I’m limpin’
In dat 2 seater feeder, it’s me and a senorita
3 ounces up in the liter, and it’s ten up in the heater
Mackin’ a mamacita
Runnin’ game like a cheetah
I’m knockin’ ‘em out the park
Similar to Derek Jeter (Break ‘em off)

[Chorus]
I’mma break ‘em off real bad, I’mma break ‘em
I’mma break ‘em off real bad,
I’mma break ‘em , I’mma break ‘em off real bad
I’mma show’em pourin up a duece while ridin slab
I’mma break ‘em
I’mma break ‘em off real bad, I’mma break ‘em
I’mma break ‘em off real bad,
I’mma break ‘em , I’mma break ‘em off real bad
I’mma show’em pourin up a duece while ridin slab

See also:

• Deelishis

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Beyonce Knowles

Beyonce Knowles (1981- ) is an American pop and R&B singer who made her name as the lead singer of Destiny’s Child. She has sold over 60 million records and won ten Grammys.

Here are her number one songs to date on the American charts, both as part of Destiny’s Child and, since 2003, on her own:

• 1999: Bills, Bills, Bills
• 2000: Say My Name
• 2000: Independent Woman, Part I
• 2001: Bootylicious
• 2003: Crazy in Love
• 2003: Baby Boy
• 2006: Irreplaceable
• 2008: Single Ladies

No, “Survivor” (2001) never made it to number one. Her music since Destiny’s Child has sold much better in Britain and Black America than in White America.

Her songs are good, but they are the kind that ring in your head and then a year later you forget about them. “Irreplaceable” is the only song that rises above that.

While she is rich and famous and beautiful and has a great singing voice, many do not like her but cannot quite say why. The Black Snob says it is because, unlike Lauryn Hill, she is not being herself. Instead she presents a perfect image of herself that nobody is, not even her. She does not let us into the pain of her broken heart like great singers do.

Every radio round the world know me
‘Cause that’s where I be
I’m a, a diva, hey
…
Na, na, na, diva is a female version of a hustla

She has been singing and dancing since she was a little girl in Houston, Texas. When she was 12 she appeared along with Kelly Rowland as part of Girl’s Tyme on “Star Search”, a television talent show. They had practised for six months straight but came in second.

It was such a huge blow to Beyonce that her father, a Xerox salesman, stepped in and took over Girl’s Tyme to set it on course to get a recording contract. In time it would become known as Destiny’s Child (from a verse in the Bible).  He was a strict taskmaster who made sure the girls practised, practised, practised. He gave up being a salesman and worked on it full-time. Kelly Rowland even moved in and lived with them.

In time he did land a contract. First a short-lived one with Elektra, then one with Columbia Records in 1996. With Wyclef Jean as their producer they became a huge crossover success.

Destiny’s Child lasted till 2005, but by 2003 Beyonce had begun to  sing on her own.

She is trying to become a Hollywood star too but lacks depth and experience as an actress. She played Etta James (badly) in “Cadillac Records” (2008) and has been picked to play Angela Davis!

She is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful black women in America. She is one of the few black women who has appeared on the cover of white American Maxim. In at least one L’Oreal ad she seems strangely white looking.

Beyonce has been with rapper Jay-Z since 2002. They married in 2008.

She is part Creole on her mother’s side. Solange Knowles is her younger sister.

– Abagond, 2009.

See also:

• Beychella – Beyonce at Coachella in 2018
•  songs
  • 2006: Beyonce: Irreplaceable
  • 2008: Beyoncé: If I Were a Boy
  • 2011: Beyonce: 1+1
  • 2013: Beyoncé: Yoncé
  • 2013: Beyonce: No Angel
  • 2016: Beyonce: Formation
  • 2016: Beyonce: All Night
•  haters:
  • We All Hate On Beyonce – a blog
• talent:
  • Sign the Petition: Beyonce Knowles Should Not Portray Angela Davis
  • Why I love Lauryn Hill and do not care for Beyonce
  • Singing Contest; Etta, Beyonce and Christina
• beauty:
  • Is That Really Beyonce: Black Women and Beauty
  • The most beautiful black women according to white people – #2: only Halle Berry is seen as more beautiful
  • The most beautiful black women according to black people – #6
• Creoles
• Maxim magazine
• Solange Knowles

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Seeing Texas

For Thanksgiving in November 2004 we flew down from New York to Texas to visit family and friends. We saw Houston, Austin and Dallas. We spent a day or so in each. Dallas was the best of the three.

Texas is big, flat, hot and has few trees. Snow is so rare in Houston that they stop school so everyone can go out and see it. It last snowed there eight years ago. January and February in Texas are no worse than October and November in New York. In fact their trees still have their leaves, which only now are turning colours – almost two months behind New York. Their grass is still green and even growing. No one sells road salt or snow tires, so ice and snow brings their cities to a standstill: the police turn back New Yorkers foolish enough to leave their house to drive in the snow.

Austin is the most like what we are used to: it is at the edge of the plains of south-east Texas, next to hill and lake country. It has a computer industry: Dell, IBM and the University of Texas, one of the top ten computer schools in the country, are there. It has even drawn in people from Silicon Valley.  IBM is designing a new computer chip there. Because it is the place in Texas where people from New York and California prefer to live, it has the bluest political views – a blue patch in the middle of the red Bible Belt.

Houston is as flat as a pancake and vast. It has more kinds of Spanish music on the radio than I knew existed. They were playing Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina” to death. Houston is right by the Gulf, so its summers make you sweat under your clothes, but for the same reason, they barely have a winter. Of the three, Houston is easily the biggest, about the size of Philadelphia from the looks of it.

Dallas reminds me a lot of Atlanta – just flatter and warmer and with much fewer trees. It is much bigger than Austin, but maybe only half the size of Houston. It has hot summers, but it is a drier hot than Houston. The summers in Dallas are bearable so long as you have air conditioning.

The houses in Texas are way cheaper, but they have little land and few trees. Of the ones we saw, most have just one floor with a high ceiling. An attic, no basement. Because of the heat, most houses are built of brick. You have to look at the roof to tell how old a house is. Some houses have what is caled a game room – a play room with three walls and no door. Four bedrooms are rare. Bigger houses have a media room, a room just for watching television.

Of the people we know who moved down there from New York and Philadelphia, none of them are sorry they did it – they just wished they had done it sooner!

See also:

• Seeing Melbourne, Day 1
• Seeing Melbourne, Day 2
• Seeing Wellington
• Seeing Auckland

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Gary Graham

Gary Graham (1963-2000), also known as Shaka Sankofa, was a small-time armed robber from Houston, Texas who was put to death in 2000 for the murder of Bobby Lambert. It made the news across America and overseas because the governor of Texas at the time was George Bush, who was then running for president.

It was widely condemned overseas because Graham was 17 at the time of the murder. Only four other countries apply capital punishment to children: Iran, Pakistan, Congo and Nigeria.

The case against Graham was strikingly weak: His gun did not match the bullet that killed Lambert. Only one of the five witnesses placed him at the scene of the crime. Two were sure it was not him. Bobby Lambert did have enemies, but Graham was not one of them.

In 1981 Bobby Lambert gave testimony in court against some drug dealers. One night soon after in front of a Safeway food store in Houston he was shot dead. He was not robbed. Five people saw it.

Ten days later Graham was arrested. A 17-year-old boy with a gun, he was robbing and raping the good people of Houston. He found himself put in police line-ups just when the police were looking for Lambert’s killer.

Only one of the five witnesses picked him out of the line-up and even she failed to pick out his picture earlier.

Having no one else, the police pinned the murder on Graham.

He had no money for a lawyer so the court appointed him one, Ronald Mock. Court appointed lawyers are underpaid and overworked. They try to get you to admit guilt so they can get through their cases quickly.

Graham said he had robbed some people but he never killed anyone, so it went to trial. Mock did little work on the case. He did not know about the other four witnesses. He did not know about the gun not matching the bullet. So neither did the judge and jury.

The judge sentenced Graham to die.

For the next 19 years Graham fought it. No judge wanted to reopen the case. No judge wanted to hear from the other four witnesses. The Supreme Court, by a 5-4 decision, refused to hear it. The case was reviewed by 33 judges in all. Graham had run out of appeals.

The New York Times was against it and so was the United Nations and Amnesty International. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton came to support Graham. So did Amnesty International in the person of Bianca Jagger. The Ku Klux Klan came too, but probably not in support of Graham, who was black. (Lambert was a white man.)

It took five guards to take him away to be killed. Just before he died he gave an angry speech. He said he was being lynched, that this sort of thing will go on for another hundred years if black people do nothing. Bianca Jagger cried. Then he died.

Bush said justice had been done.

See also:

• Bush
• New York Times
• United Nations
• America
• Race in America

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Vilayna Lasalle

Vilayna Lasalle is an American model. According to this blog she is the most beautiful black woman in the world famous enough to be in the Wikipedia, and the third most beautiful woman of any race. Only Elizabeth Taylor and Sophia Loren in their prime were better.

She appears mainly in print advertising, swimsuit calendars and music videos.

She has also had bit parts in film and television.

She plays for New York Euphoria in the Lingerie Bowl.

She is black, Brazilian and Creole. She grew up in Killeen, Texas near the Fort Hood army base north of Austin. She was the youngest of five children and went to Ellison high school where she was in the marching band.

At 16 she started modelling in nearby fashion shows. Elite said she should go to New York or Los Angeles to model. She knew she wanted to be a model, but her mother did not want to move. Later, when she was old enough she went to California to become a model and an actress.

Modelling is a dream come true for her. She loves it, especially travelling to new places and meeting interesting people. She just wishes she could keep the clothes they put on her!

She would like to do high fashion modelling for top designers in Paris and Milan. Failing that she would like to go back to school and become a psychologist to help troubled children.

She wants to become a singer, something she is working on. She is good, but it is a hard business to break into.

When she is not working she likes to shop and shop, be with her friends, sing, write songs and poetry, exercise and do graphic design. She knows PhotoShop, Illustrator and even some Flash!

She likes a man who is physically fit, dresses well, has self-confidence without being overbearing, has a sense of humour, is honest and down-to-earth and is even a bit geeky – because she is a little geeky too!

She has a wide taste in music: from Korn and Coldplay to Janet Jackson and Sade to Mobb Deep.

Her advice to young models: have faith in yourself, go at it with full force and do not give up! Get an agent and take good care of your appearance: picture quality these days is merciless.

Vilayna: “Anyone who believes in themselves can create their own destiny.”

She likes what Diderot once said: “Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.”

Some music videos that she has been in:

“Hot in Herre” by Nelly

“Pretend” by Nate James

“Yummy” by Chelo and 2 Short

“Conteo” by Don Omar

“Give it to me” by Mobb Deep

In “Conteo” she has a part by herself and in Mobb Deep she has one with Prodigy. She liked “Hot in Herre” and “Pretend” the best.

See also:

• vilaynaonline.com
• Vilayna – her sometime article in the Wikipedia
• Bria Myles – a friend of hers
• The ten most beautiful women in the world
• The most beautiful black women
• The most beautiful black women models
• video vixens
• Creoles

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Jill Marie Jones

House on the hill two doors from Tracey Ross and I’m asking about her girlfriends yeah the dark-skinned one.

– Kanye West, “The Glory”

Jill Marie Jones (1975- ) is an American actress. She was once a cheerleader for the Dallas Cowboys and later appeared on the American television show “Girlfriends” from 2000 to 2006. She is now acting in films and liquor ads.

She is the fourth most beautiful woman in the world according to this blog. What lips! Yet she is not beautiful in an ordinary way, the way where you could imagine her in a love story, say. Yet in 2002 she did make the cover of the illest men’s magazine ever, King.

Her first three films come out in 2007: “Redrum”, where she plays the lead female, “Universal Remote” and “The Perfect Holiday”. She has not yet had the success in film that she had in television. It may take some time, yet most cannot make the jump from television to film. It is harder than you would think.

On “Girlfriends” she played the self-centred, sharp-witted, money-mad Toni Childs. “Girlfriends” is a sort of “Sex in the City” with black women played for laughs. It is produced by Kelsey Grammer, who was Frazier on “Cheers”.

She left the show in 2005. It seems that she could not agree on a new contract with the show’s producers. They wanted to cut her pay.

According to one story, she and the other three starring actresses had agreed to stick together and stand their ground so that they would not get paid less. The producers might be able to get rid of one or two of them, but not all four. Jones stood her ground but the other three gave in. Perhaps they lost their nerve, or perhaps it was trick to get rid of Jones from the beginning: if she left, they stood to get paid more. They certainly do not seem sad to see her go.

Jones’s two great loves are dancing and acting. When she was a girl in Dallas, Texas she watched Susan Lucci on television play Erica Kane in “All My Children”. From that moment she knew she wanted to be an actress.

At first she was a model and then a cheerleader for the Dallas Cowboys and the Dallas Mavericks. She even went overseas with the USO to entertain the troops. Then she left Texas for California to become an actress. She studied acting under John Kirby and then landed a part on “Girlfriends”. Pretty amazing.

Unlike the character she played on “Girlfriends” Jones is down to earth in person. The article of clothing that she likes best are a pair of blue jeans. She likes Wendy’s and even has her own MySpace page, like an ordinary person.

She likes shopping for shoes, watching old television shows and being with her friends. One of her girlfriends is Gabriel Union. Both will be in “The Perfect Holiday”, coming out in December 2007. They both like shoes by Jimmy Choo.

She likes a man who makes her laugh.

Some say she belongs to Alpha Kappa Alpha.

See also:

• Jill Marie Jones Online
• Jill Marie Jones filmography at IMDb.com
• The ten most beautiful women in the world
• The most beautiful black actresses
• black actresses
• Gabrielle Union
• King magazine
• Alpha Kappa Alpha

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Anna Nicole Smith

Anna Nicole Smith (1967-2007), America’s most famous brainless beauty, died this week at age 39, three years older than her hero, Marilyn Monroe. The cause of death may not be known for some weeks. There is no sign so far of foul play.

Her 20-year-old son Daniel died just last September. It broke her heart.

She was born Vickie Lynn Hogan in a small town in Texas. By the time she was two her father had left. She moved to Houston and became a second-rate topless dancer with the stage name of “Anna Nicole”.

There in 1991 she met one of the richest men in Texas, J Howard Marshall II. He loved her and she loved at least his money. By May 1992 she had become Playboy‘s Playmate of the Month. Men liked her so much that in 1993 she went on to become Playmate of the Year.

In 1994 she married Marshall. She was 26 with an incredible body and he was 89 with an incredible fortune. Smith was widely despised for marrying him. She liked spending his money, but she was not there at his side in the last months of his life.

He died in 1995. She says he had promised her half his fortune, but his will said otherwise: he left everything to his son Pierce.

She spent the next 12 years fighting over her husband’s estate with Pierce. When Pierce died in 2006, she fought his wife. In 2000 a judge awarded her almost a third of her husband’s fortune, about $450 million (95 million crowns), but the decision was overturned. She died getting nothing. No final decision, however, has yet been made.

If she gets anything it will go to her five-month-old baby daughter, Dannielynn. Unsurprisingly, two men say they are her father. Just days before Smith died a judge ordered DNA tests to be done to find out who is the real father.

She has appeared in a few Hollywood films, including “Naked Gun 33 1/3”, but more for her looks than her ability to act.

From 2002 to 2004 she had a reality show on American television, “The Anna Nicole Show.” It showed her day-to-day life. She proved to be even more of an airhead than anyone knew. She was also getting fat and losing her famous looks. Later she lost a lot of the weight but the show was killed anyway.

She once said, “Marrying into money was not a good thing for me.”

Like too many girls who grow up without a father, she had difficulty relating to men. She used the power of her beauty to use men instead of love them. Consider how many women dance topless or marry men who are old enough to be their grandfather.

Anna Nicole Smith is gone but it seems her story is not yet over.

See also:

• America
• 2006
• film
• television
• white beauty: a brief history
• Playboy

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Bush

George W. Bush (1946- ) has been president of the United States of America since 2001. He is due to leave office in 2009. The Bush who was president from 1989 to 1993 was his father.

Bush was president not even a full year when 9/11 killed nearly 3000 Americans in 2001. To defend America against this new and strange war, he increased the power of the American government to watch its citizens. He also attacked Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003.

He overthrew the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq easily but has not been able to bring real peace to either country. There he finds himself fighting some of the very same forces that attacked America on 9/11. Better there than here, he says.

Bush says he wants to make the world safe for America through planting true democracies. A tall order. It looks next to impossible any time soon in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.

His father had destroyed the Iraqi army in 1991. Nothing stood between the American army and Baghdad. Nothing. But his father chose not take the road to Baghdad: he did not want to get stuck fighting there street to street for years.

But in 2003 Bush did take that road. Years later he is still there fighting. Street to street. James Baker, his father’s Secretary of State, has told him how to get out in the least bad way possible in the ISG Report.

At home Bush cuts taxes on the rich while keeping minimum wage low, like Ronald Reagan, making the rich richer and the poor poorer.

In 2005 Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, killing half as many people as 9/11. When he was slow in helping the city, like it was in some part of Africa, Kanye West famously said, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”

Bush and God: Bush believes in God and in divine providence, that God is guiding history. And not just history, but Bush himself. This makes Bush certain and unwavering in his decisions, even when they seem to bring disaster.

God or not, Bush also has Karl Rove, the “Boy Genius” as Bush calls him. Rove is currently the best political mind in either party.

Bush is a Republican who was governor of Texas in the 1990s. In his person he represents the two wings of the Republican party: business and the religious right. He is both a businessman and a serious Christian.

Bush comes from a rich and powerful family. His grandfather was a senator, his brother is governor of Florida, his father was not just president, but was also a rich oil man from Houston and once the head of the CIA.

In public Bush seems a bit dim, like he can barely speak English or hold a thought in his head for more than two minutes. It is an act so people forget that he is a rich man’s son with a Yale education. Listen to him in the 1994 debates when he ran for governor of Texas and lost.

See also:

• 9/11
• Iraq
• ISG Report
• Gary Graham
• Katrina
• “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”

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