**PAM**THE**SHAM**.**COM**
                                                       

                    **A**21ST**CENTURY**WEBCHANNEL**

 

                               **S*ERVICE**H*UMILITY**A*PPRECIATIONM*OTIVATION

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              **KING**SOLOMON*S**WISDOM**

                                 **PROVERBS**18**

**15**

**THE**HEART**

**OF**THE**PRUDENT**

**GETTETH**

**KNOWLEDGE**

**AND**

**THE**EAR**

**OF**THE**

**WISE**

**SEEKETH**

**KNOWLEDGE**

**MUCH**LOVE**

 

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Aretha Franklin on Feminism, Beyonce and Who Should Star in Her Biopic

 

            Lunch with Lady Soul:
A revitalized Aretha speaks out

Aretha Franklin

Paras Griffin/Getty
Aretha Franklin onstage in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 8th, 2014.
 
 

By |

Listen,” Aretha Franklin says to a waiter as she points at her fish sandwich. “Don’t you have the smoked salmon?” She’s sitting in the restaurant at New York’s Ritz-Carlton on a rainy Friday afternoon, wearing a bright fur coat, hair spilling out of a winter cap. The waiter explains that Franklin’s lunchtime staple – salmon and cream cheese on whole-wheat bread – isn’t on the menu anymore. “But I will talk to the chef,” he adds quickly. “He will do it for you right now.”

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Franklin, 72, just finished signing a stack of copies of her new album, Aretha Franklin Sings the Great Diva Classics, her first recording since she was reportedly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2010. Franklin canceled several shows at the time; tabloids had her on deathwatch. When she was honored at the Grammys the next year, she looked noticeably thinner. Franklin denied the diagnosis, but last June, onstage at Radio City Music Hall, she recalled receiving a grim diagnosis from doctors: “[I told them,] ‘You burn the midnight oil, you read books, but you really don’t know that much about me. You see, I come from a praying family.’?.?.?.?A couple of years later, I went back to the hospital, and those same doctors are saying, ‘Miss Franklin, the thing we saw before, we don’t see no more.’ Hallelujah!”

This week, Respect, a new biography by David Ritz, has been getting a lot of publicity – and Franklin is not happy about it. Ritz ghostwrote Franklin’s 1999 autobiography but was unsatisfied with the results. “Self-reflection doesn’t come easy to her,” Ritz says. So, drawing from his interviews with her and her close family, he published a book that details the wild offstage promiscuity of the Fifties gospel circuit as well as Franklin’s troubled marriage to Ted White, who managed her before their divorce in 1969. “[It’s] a very trashy book – all lies,” she said recently.

Today, Franklin is careful with her words and at times combative. When I ask if I can record our conversation, she flatly declines. “You can take notes,” she says. When I mention praise in the book from her sister Carolyn – “She slips into a zone when she sings?.?.?.?and connects to the Holy Spirit” – Aretha cringes. “I don’t think Carolyn ever said anything like that. That doesn’t even sound like Carolyn.” 

Aretha and Clive Davis

Aretha with Clive Davis (Photo: Kevin Mazur/Getty)

Franklin’s new album – on which she covers Gladys Knight’s “Midnight Train to Georgia” and Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” – reunites her with Clive Davis, who helped revive her career in the Eighties with a series of hits on his Arista label. Davis had been pushing Franklin to record an album of diva classics for years, sometimes over dinner at the Four Seasons. According to Davis, Franklin hasn’t lost any fire. “She’s come back in peak form,” he says. “The wonder of Aretha is she can do any song. And with very, very few exceptions, two takes is as close to the maximum as she does.”

For Franklin, the album is a chance to prove herself in a pop world with more divas than ever. “It was never as competitive as it is now,” Franklin says. “People are being very selective about what they spend their money on. I understand that this year they haven’t had any platinum records. I hope to have the first one. That would be fabulous.”

Soon, the salmon hors d’oeuvre arrives, which she offers me. “A little caviar, too,” she says, savoring a bite. “Great!”

Franklin has lived in Detroit for most of her life, but visiting New York reminds her of when she moved there in 1960. She was 18 and had just been signed to Columbia Records. “I always had a chaperone,” she says with a smile. “I was working with the jazz greats – Charlie Mingus, John Coltrane, Blue Mitchell. All of the best of the best.”

Franklin had been a star in the gospel world for years before signing to Columbia. At 12, she joined her father, the Rev. C.L. Franklin – whose sermons sold millions of copies on Chess Records – on the road. “His delivery was very dynamic,” she says. “If he had chosen to be a singer, he would’ve been a great one.” Her favorite sermon of his was “A Wild Man Meets Jesus,” about a man who goes insane, abandons his family and winds up living in a graveyard. Jesus sails through a rainstorm to meet him and exorcises him of demons, to the dismay of townspeople who prefer the man as the village idiot. “The man walks into someone he immediately knows is superior and supreme to him, without any words,” says Franklin. “That’s what I love about that. It underscores a supreme being.”

Franklin was no stranger to big personalities growing up – her parents’ parties included Nat King Cole, Duke Ellington and Sam Cooke. “I had a teenage crush on him,” Franklin says of Cooke. “Very classy, very classy. He came from the church, so it would be hard not to have class.”

Franklin’s early records sold poorly – her Columbia material was lounge-y and overly slick, and she was mistakenly marketed as a supper-club soul singer in the mold of Dinah Washington. She didn’t become the Queen of Soul until she signed to Atlantic Records in 1966. There, she was backed by the Muscle Shoals rhythm section and produced by Jerry Wexler, who added a funky, psychedelic edge to match her gospel fervor. “Jerry asked me to play the piano [in the studio],” she says. “You could call my piano my trademark, or one of my trademarks.” 

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin signs her contract with Atlantic Records alongside Jerry Wexler, and husband Ted White on November 21st, 1966. (Photo: Donaldson Collection)

Soon, Franklin was topping the charts with songs like 1967’s “I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)” and “Respect,” which she singles out as her two favorite songs in her catalog. “Everybody wants respect,” she says. “In their own way, three-year-olds would like respect, and acknowledgment, in their terms.” As for the “sock it to me” backing vocals in “Respect,” she clarifies: “There was nothing sexual about that. Some people thought that, but it wasn’t.”

Franklin lights up when she remembers February 16th, 1968. The mayor of Detroit christened it Aretha Franklin Day, ahead of her show that night at Cobo Hall. “Dr. King was there, my dad was there,” she recalls. “When we walked into the arena and became visible to the audience, then the crowd erupted. It was like the ceiling was coming down.”

Songs like “Respect,” “Chain of Fools” and “Think” became anthems for the civil rights and women’s liberation movements, though Franklin downplays her influence on the latter: “I think that’s Gloria Steinem’s role. I don’t think I was a catalyst for the women’s movement. Sorry. But if I were? So much the better!” Today, she praises Beyoncé for carrying the torch for feminism in pop. “Astrologically, for what it’s worth, she’s a Virgo, like Michael Jackson,” Franklin says. “A very hard worker.”

From The Archives Issue 1224: December 18, 2014
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/aretha-franklin-on-feminism-beyonce-and-who-should-star-in-her-biopic-20141211#ixzz3Ldz1zqdg

Bernard Kerik: De Blasio, Sharpton ‘Have Blood on Their Hands’

Saturday, 20 Dec 2014 06:49 PM

By Todd Beamon

 Ex-NYPD Commissioner Kerik: de Blasio, Sharpton Have 'Blood on Their Hands’

 
Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik told Newsmax that Saturday’s execution-style shooting of two uniformed police officers was ultimately encouraged by Mayor Bill de Blasio and the Rev. Al Sharpton — and “they have blood on their hands.”

“de Blasio, Sharpton and all those who encouraged this anti-cop, racist mentality all have blood on their hands,” he said. “They have blood on their hands.”

The two officers were shot about 3 p.m. while sitting in their marked car in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn by a man identified as Ismaaiyl Brinsley.

He wounded his girlfriend in a shooting in Baltimore before driving to New York and ambushing the officers, according to the New York Daily News.

Brinsley, who reportedly belonged to a gang, later killed himself on a crowded Brooklyn subway platform as police closed in on him. He bragged on his Instagram page just hours before that he wanted to kill police officers, the Daily News reports.

Investigators said that Brinsley was avenging the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown by killing the officers.

Kerik told Newsmax that the officers’ deaths resulted from a climate created by de Blasio, Sharpton and other New York City officials.

“This guy’s intent — based on that Instagram post — was retribution for Eric Garner and Michael Brown,” he told Newsmax. “The people who encouraged these protests — you had peaceful protesters who were screaming ‘kill the cops’ — the so-called peaceful protesters.

“Who was encouraging these protesters? De Blasio, Sharpton and other elected officials and community leaders. They encouraged this mentality. They encouraged this behavior.

“They encouraged it — and these two cops are dead because of people like them,” Kerik said. “They don’t owe the cops an apology.

“An apology isn’t good enough. They have blood on their hands.”

Later, Kerik called for peaceful citizen demonstrations over the deaths of the officers.

“What I want to see is a day of outrage,” he told Jeanine Pirro on her Fox News program. “I want to see protests for the two cops that are lying dead tonight.

“I want to see those protests.”

Beverly Johnson Claims Bill Cosby Drugged Her, Yanked Her Down Stairs

Celebrity News Dec. 11, 2014 AT 3:00PM
Beverly Johnson ’70s and ’80s supermodel and actress Beverly Johnson claims that Bill Cosby drugged her in the mid-’80s, “yanked” her down a staircase — read her story Credit: Paras Griffin/Getty Images

Legendary supermodel Beverly Johnson claims in a new shocking Vanity Fair essay that she was once drugged by Bill Cosby in the mid-’80s. The actress, who was in a heated custody battle with ex Danny Sims at the time, was called in to audition for The Cosby Show. She met the famed cast and Cosby, and said that the once-beloved comedian seemed “genuinely” interested in helping her get to “the next level.”

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After the meeting, Johnson, now 62, brought along her daughter Anansa for her first audition at Cosby’s home in New York. After hitting it off, the actor suggested she come back to read again. When she did, she was offered a cappuccino and was told to act drunk for the part. Johnson thought the request was odd, especially because she was auditioning to play a pregnant woman.

“I told him I didn’t drink coffee that late in the afternoon because it made getting to sleep at night more difficult. He wouldn’t let it go,” Johnson writes in VF. “He insisted that his espresso machine was the best model on the market and promised I’d never tasted a cappuccino quite like this one.”

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Johnson says she felt silly arguing with Cosby, so she took a few sips. Afterward, she quickly realized she had been drugged.

“Now let me explain this: I was a top model during the ’70s, a period when drugs flowed at parties and photo shoots like bottled water at a health spa. I’d had my fun and experimented with my fair share of mood enhancers. I knew by the second sip of the drink Cosby had given me that I’d been drugged—and drugged good,” she claims. After leaning into Cosby for support, she asked him: “You are a motherf—er aren’t you?”

According to Johnson, Cosby got “pissed” when she wouldn’t stop acting out. “I recall his seething anger at my tirade and then him grabbing me by my left arm hard and yanking all 110 pounds of me down a bunch of stairs as my high heels clicked and clacked on every step,” she alleges in VF. “I feared my neck was going to break with the force he was using to pull me down those stairs.” He then shoved her in a taxi to go home. Read more of Johnson’s allegations against Cosby

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A few days later, Johnson decided to confront Cosby on the private line he gave her. His wife Camille picked up instead, and said it was late and to call back another time. Johnson says she never did.

“At a certain moment it became clear that I would be fighting a losing battle with a powerful man so callous he not only drugged me, but he also gave me the number to the bedroom he shared with his wife,” Johnson writes. “How could I fight someone that boldly arrogant and out of touch? In the end, just like the other women, I had too much to lose to go after Bill Cosby. I had a career that would no doubt take a huge hit if I went public with my story and I certainly couldn’t afford that after my costly divorce and ongoing court fees.”

After decades of silence, Johnson says she’s only now telling her story after hearing other women’s allegations, including Barbara Bowman and her friend, fellow supermodel Janice Dickinson. “Over the years I’ve met other women who also claim to have been violated by Cosby. Many are still afraid to speak up,” she says. “I couldn’t sit back and watch the other women be vilified and shamed for something I knew was true.”

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Johnson was particularly afraid to speak up because of the “current attack on African American men” in the country, which includes the controversial deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner. But, now, Johnson(the first black woman to land the cover of Vogue in 1974) acknowledges that Cosby is in his own category.

“He brought this on himself when he decided he had the right to have his way with who knows how many women over the last four decades,” Johnson concludes. “If anything, Cosby is distinguished from the majority of black men in this country because he could depend on the powers that be for support and protection.”

So far, more than 20 women have come forward claiming Cosby, 77, of sexual assault. Amid the scandal, he most recently thanked Whoopi Goldberg and Jill Scott for their support via Twitter on Dec. 3.

The Little Couple’s Rules for a Happy Marriage

By Alexandra Zaslow
@alexandrazaslow

12/11/2014 AT 03:45 PM EST
The Little Couple stars Jen Arnold and Bill Klein, who renewed their vows in April, know the secrets to a happy marriage, and they shared them with PEOPLE Now on Thursday.

Klein’s tip for maintaining a strong relationship is not to go to bed angry.

“We, like everyone else, have arguments, but we don’t let it go to the morning,” Klein tells PEOPLE NOW. “Everything is resolvable, even if someone has to say they’re sorry.”

Arnold’s three rules: knowing when to give in, the wife is always right and the importance of making time for each other. They have their hands full with their two children, Will, 4, and Zoey, 3, but they don’t let that get in the way of spending time together every day.

“When you have a busy life, particularly two toddlers that can take up all your attention and energy during the day, so you make sure to have something at night,” Arnold says. “It could be a glass of wine after you put the kids to bed, watching a TV show, making sure you give at least 10-15 minutes of your time to each other.”

The couple also makes sure to give their children, who both have forms of dwarfism, the same attention they give each other – so they want to wait before adopting anymore kids.

“Right now, we’re really happy,” Arnold says. “I love giving them attention and being able to spoil the two the way we’re spoiling them. At some point, they’re going to not like us, like every preteen, and at that point maybe we’ll be ready for a third.”

They also don’t think it would be “out of the ordinary” to adopt a child without dwarfism.

“Our original goal was to use our experience as little people to maybe help out kids who were in a similar circumstance and were looking to build our family, so we thought that was perfect,” Arnold said. “But, there’s a lot of kids out there that obviously need a good home and we have that.”