Little Black Sambo goes to university

Leave it to Gerald Early to dream up an academic symposium devoted to Little Black Sambo!

Gerald is a rare bird: a professor at a high-profile institution of higher learning (Washington University) who embraces pop culture without shame or pandering. He has written books about boxing and jazz. He has spoken about jazz and baseball on Ken Burns documentaries. He took over leadership of an academic center (The International Writers Center) founded by the legendary William H. Gass, reframed it as The Center for the Humanities, and promptly donated a bunch of comic books and toys to its library.

And, now, he brings the world "Little Black Sambo: Race, Children's Literature, and a Century of Controversy," a coproduction with Washington University Libraries, which is also curating an exhibit of books to accompany the Sept. 12-13 symposium and publishing a companion catalog.

Among other things, this event will bring to St. Louis a perhaps unprecedented concentration of black folks who write and draw books for children: Jerry Pinkney (who drew Sam and the Tigers, a retelling of the Sambo story), Floyd Cooper (who has done books about every African-American notable and his brother), and Eleanora E. Tate (a homegirl from Canton, Missouri who teaches at two places most of us didn't know existed: the Institute of Children's Literature in West Redding, Connecticut and the School of Graduate Studies Masters Program Writing for Children and Teenagers at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota).

I'll be there, and I look forward to reporting a preview story in The St. Louis American before any of these interesting folks are welcomed to town. I'd recommend attending the symposium just to get your hands on the free catalog - Anne Posega and Washington Unversity Libraries produce fabulously beautiful publications.

We discussed this stuff today at a board meeting for The Center of the Humanities, held at the august Whittemore House on campus. We'll see if my fellow average joe board member Joe Pollack gets a food review out of the sandwiches and fried sweet potatoes we munched on while we all gave Gerald feedback on the symposium and a dozen other cool things we have coming up at the center.

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Image from a marvelous online children's book about Sambo - drawn by children, that is - posted on some German website.

Toyy getting fit for MTV coattails I hope to ride

I returned a call to my buddy Toyy today, and she told me a producer from MTV had recruited her for a casting call they are doing tomorrow in St. Louis at Blueberry Hill. I got a little story out of it for the St. Louis American website this afternoon.

It was a bit too self-serving to put this on the newspaper website, but I can tell you (Dear Blog Diary) what I told Toyy, and that was: Talk up the movie! Toyy made her name in St. Louis as an emcee, but she has many talents - she is one of the best singers on the St. Louis scene, and I figured she could act, which was why I asked her to star in my movie Blind Cat Black.

You can see some of her scenes on the Blind Cat Black MySpace page, but since it's a silent movie (or a 58-minute-long music video, in that it's edited to the poetry score I made to a Turkish poem), if you want to hear Toyy's marvelous voice you'll have to go hang out on Toyy's MySpace page.

You'll notice that her songs have about 5,000 more plays than my movie clips, which must mean Toyy is a hell of a lot better at making music than I am at making movies. But, hey, if MTV and Diddy pick her up for their new reality TV show, I'll take a ride on her fabulous coattails! I think they will need to do an episode where Toyy shows the other contestants the freaky zombie movie she made!

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Photo by Mathew Pitzer, from a zombie bar scene we shot at CBGB. Claire Nowack-Boyd is the woman in the pink hair with the shocked look, the great Ray Brewer (as King of the Zombies) is the man Toyy is looking down at, and the brim of the hat to the left is on the head of Michael S. Allen, the urban landmarks activist and citizen journalist, who played the zombie bartender. This hat mysteriously disappeared after we shot this scene and then mysteriously reappeared months later in my basement, which I had ransacked looking for it when we needed it to shoot some pickup shots. SPOOKY.

Zel and Lisa tied in blogland voting for Supreme gig

My first attempt to go interactive with this thing is not exactly burning up the blogosphere. On Friday I posted links to the applications of the three final panelists for the opening on the Missouri Supreme Court and asked the people to play governor and pick their judge of choice. This post caught the attention of the Office of Administration for the state government, which had somebody checking that post a number of times, I guess to see what people had to say.

People didn't have anything to say. Not here, anyway. One lawyer who knows Zel M. Fischer picked Zel, but did so in an email to me. Another lawyer (a black woman) picked Lisa White Hardwick, but did so in an email to me which went something like this:

"I read your blog and accepted your challenge. I pretented to be the governor for the State of Missouri seeking the most qualified applicant. Then, I opened each application and read them all thoroughly with their attachments, and guess what??? I STILL PICKED THE BLACK ONE. Lisa White Hardwick with her Harvard Law Degree and her teaching experience in Japan and all of her publications and literary accomplishments is FAR SUPERIOR to the other candidates. Now, which one will the governor pick?"

She added, "I am forwarding this to the Mound City Bar Association so that they can take your challenge and be prepared when the governor makes his choice."

For those who don't typically count apples and oranges, there has only been one black person to ever serve on the Missouri Supreme Court, Ronnie L. White, and he has since retired and taken up private practice. If Gov. Matt Blunt does pick White Hardwick, that would mean the first two black Supremes in Missouri were both named White!

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The pic is of justices from the Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District: Judges Ronald R. Holliger (left), Edwin H. Smith (center) and Lisa White Hardwick (right). Holliger also has a shot at the Supreme gig, along with Zel and Lisa.

I'm on the path of creativity and joy

Since the next president of the U.S. will be number 44, and that's a magic number, I did some thinking about Obama and numerology and I got a little story out if it. My story had some good-natured fun with a numerologist posting on a Cincinatti Moms website. She found me! She offered to crunch my numbers. So I sent her my date of birth. MizGreenJeans wrote:

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To do a full chart, I need your full name as it appears on your birth certificate. But from your DOB I can tell you:

Your Life Path is a 48/3. Three is the number of Creativity and Joy. Your life is/will be, in many ways, easy, as material things will come to you with little effort on your part. However, you find yourself dissatisfied with the simply material, and spend much of your time seeking a higher ideal. You are creative and possibly gifted, either musically or in some other aspect of the arts (do you sing? Paint?). Do not completely reject all things of the material world, but recognize that money and related things are just tools we can use to obtain the things our higher ideals drive us towards. Rise above the material world if you wish, but do not reject it out of hand.

The 48 behind your three tells me that you will fulfill your creative potential by using your innate sense of order to control and positively manipulate material things. Turn not away from the potential the material world offers you, but use it for your higher ideals.

That’s what I get. I have not read your blog (other than what I got when I Googled my username) or looked at your MySpace page, fwiw, so have no idea if this is spot on, or widely off. I just do the numbers and type what comes to me as I do them.

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So, then I sent her my name as it appears on my birth certificate (everything but my SSN and the passcode to the garage door opener!). MizGreenJeans wrote:

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Your Expression (shown by the all the numbers of the letters in your name) is the face you show the world. It is a Three (not a surprise), which is the number of Creativity and Joy. I am seeing rather strongly that you are a musician, or somehow very creative in your outside life. Paint, write (the fact that you blog bears that out more, but again, I haven’t read through it, on purpose so I wouldn’t taint the reading I’m doing now). But I get music most strongly. Do you perform? A critic perhaps? Dunno. But the Three energy is very strong in your chart, so if you don’t, you should! You tend to live life large, moderation is not your forte. It’s all or nothing, with people as well as everything else. Work on keeping your temper if it’s an issue, finding balance is key here.

Your Soul Urge, (shown by the vowels in your name), which is the thing you desire deep inside you, perhaps known only to you, is a 35/8. Eight is the number of Material Satisfaction, and in this position refers to the desire to use money wisely and for good. As I’ve said (and I get that you know already), money is just a tool, energy if you will, to do things with and accomplish things. You desire to use your material success in ways that will benefit not only yourself, but others as well.

This is underscored by your Mind Set (shown by the consonants in your name), which describes how your mind works, is a 72/9. Nine is the number of Charity, Good Works, and Endings. It is the last number of the epicycle, and as such is the highest (except for the Master Numbers.) It is a somewhat more challenging number to deal with, but if you remain balanced and don’t dodge the demands it places on you, can also be rewarding. Nine people are often priests, health care providers, those who work in/run non-profits and so on.

Your Birth Date (the actual day on which you were born) is a 15/6. Six is the number of Family and Responsibility. When it’s in the Birth Date, it often refers back to the family one grew up in, rather than that which one has as an adult. It usually signifies a stable childhood, with loving parents.

The other thing I look at are the Aspects, which is the number of times a given number appears in your name. Here’s what stands out in yours:

You have 5 Ones. One is the number of Attainment and Achievement. With this number of Ones I generally see people who are very interested in succeeding in life, especially in their career. You’re somewhat driven, but in a (normally) good way.

You also have 5 Nines. Again that Nine energy enters your life. It reinforces everything I said about the Mind Set. If you’re not working for a non-profit or similar job now, think about doing so, you’ll find your life much more satisfying.

And lastly, you have no Fours in your chart, which means you have a Karmic Lesson going on there. Four is the number of Order and Service, but in this case my sense is that it’s the Order part that relates to you. Are you a bit of a slob? Socks all over the floor, laundry spilling out of the hamper (if it’s in there at all?) Your desk looks like a hurricane, your workplace jammed with stuff. Think about clearing out some things, putting them into order, it will sooth your creative soul if you do, but isn’t a major hindrance (unless it ticks your wife off too much if you don’t).

So, that’s what I get. Let me know how it fits.

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It fits! But since people tell me that people don't read anymore, or don't read more than four words at a time, I'll have to tell you later how and why it fits and where it doesn't. Thanks, MizGreenJeans! (Art by Leyla.)

Cbabi shouts out to Barack Obama and Wiley Price

Elsewhere on Confluence City, I have told the story about the prayer for Obama that went around the world on email chains, forwarding a photograph taken by Wiley Price of The St. Louis American.

As I said in that previous post, Obama was in St. Louis to speak at an African Methodist Episcopal conference. As our young reporter Jessica Bassett said in the news piece that accompanied the now-famous photo, "Before addressing the convention, the Illinois senator met privately with church bishops who prayed for his safety, health and good guidance during his historical race to the White House."

That is the moment that Wiley photographed, and that thousands (perhaps, by now, millions) of people would later forward to their friends, with the subject line "RE: PHOTO U WON'T SEE ON FOX!!!!"

Now the great St. Louis artist and caricaturist Cbabi Bayoc has made a painting from Wiley's world-famous photograph; it's reproduced above. Note the "WP" on the cufflink - that's a shout out to Wiley Price.



I understand that Cbabi's original painting is to be auctioned off this Thursday, August 28 at Afro World, 7276 Natural Bridge, with proceeds to benefit the Obama campaign. I'm not that sure of the details, but you can call Afro World at 314-381-5194 or email them at aworld [@] afroworld.com.

Of espionage and bungholes

I like to read Renaissance history and literature because it reminds me where this shit got started. The period is now more formerly known as "early modern Europe," and it does indeed provide a blueprint for what was to become the cultural forms and institutions we have inherited, as a former British colony.

I am reading an old classic, The Elizabethan World by Lacey Baldwin Smith, first published in the year I was born (1966). Lacey went on to write another volume on Tudor England with the subtitle "Politics and Paranoia," which does much to sum up the age and its legacy. The distinctively Tudor brand of politics and paranoia speaks particularly well to 21st century St. Louis, which retains a fedual politics, in many respects, thanks to its almost comic degree of political fragmentation: a small city segregated from a larger county and then divided into an absurdly large number of wards, each a micro-fiefdom - all entrapped in a largely rural state.

This book has me so mired in an atmosphere of politics and paranoia, tonight, that I'm willing to consider it more than mere coincidence that the only other Lacey I have ever heard of (actually, he is a Lacy) is a politician from North St. Louis.

"Rogues grew rich, upright men were disgusted, and almost everybody lost confidence in a government that was rapidly moving from inefficiency into blatant corruption." Is that France in 1559, or St. Louis moving toward 2009? Another reference to "the dangerous union of baronial gangsterism and spiritual discontent" set me to pondering for a long time where I had seen that mix before (pretty much everywhere, around here).

Lacey reads his 20th century context back into their day, just as I am paying our present reality backwards. He writes, "The sixteenth century was no stranger to the fine distinction between hot and cold war." The way he describes ye olde cold war sounds eerily familiar. He writes that both the English queen and the Spanish king "preferred intrigue, diplomatic assassinations, and the quiet fostering of domestic strife to open war." That is still very much the playbook used in the City of St. Louis today. It helps when you have 28 wards and 28 aldermen in and with which to foster (and fester) domestic strife. Let's play: dupe the alderman!

There is one lost art, however, and I would like to see somebody bring it back. All the materials are ready at hand. I am talking about the art of espionage by brewing and selling beer.

It's too good of a trick to have been used only once, but I have only heard about it in connection with the lightweight imprisonment of Mary, Queen of Scots in Chartley Castle. This was a frame job within a frame job, but I'll skip the tangles of history and focus on the espionage technique, which relied upon the bunghole in a keg of beer.

Queen Elizabeth's spymaster, Francis Walsingham, flipped various recusant Catholics into playing double agent against the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots. (One guy had a really great name for a flipper, for a double agent: Gilbert Gifford.) They were manipulated to entrap the Catholic queen in a particularly creative way, which is wonderfully described by Lacey:

"Her letters were smuggled in and out of Chartley House in waterproof packages slipped through the bungholes of beer kegs. News from abroad arrived in the French ambassador's diplomatic pouch and was sent on to Mary, but before it was placed in the beer kegs it was deciphered, read and copied by Elizabeth's Principal Secretary, Francis Walsingham. The system satisfied everyone: Mary was lulled into a false feeling of security and received secret news from Europe for the first time for years; Walsingham learned everything Mary read or wrote and waited patiently for the victim to enmesh herself in still another plot; and the astute brewer was handsomely paid by both Mary and Walsingham, as well as receiving an inflated price for his beer."

All of these techniques are still very much in play in the St. Louis of today - the double agency, the entrapment, the lulling into false peace, the encrypted messages, the politically complicit brewer, the inflated price of beer - except for the inspired use of the bunghole.

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Bunghole image from some guy's trip to Brasserie Cantillon in Brussels.

Mayor Slay flexes big money muscles

As the majority of his alleged political party (the Democrats) publicly celebrate a step toward the change promised by Barack Obama, St. Louis Mayor Francis G. Slay is privately celebrating an apparent victory in his perpetual reelection campaign.

Most Democrats spent the past week gearing up for the Democratic National Convention in Denver and hedging bets as to Obama's choice of vice president. In ever-myopic St. Louis, Slay and Chief of Staff Jeff Rainford and paid communications operative Richard Callow spent the past week calling heavy donors in the business community, begging them to close close ranks around Slay.

It seems to have worked. A number of big donors have been contacting a viable potential mayoral challenger and advising him that now is not the time. It seems that if anyone is going to beat Slay in 2009, it will have to be without the help of the business community.

The good news for a viable challenger willing to tilt against Slay in 2009 is that Slay and the business community have suffered a series of recent upset defeats. Slay and the business community supported a recent school board slate and set of City Charter amendments that were soundly defeated. Slay's ally/surrogate Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce and the business community supported Rodney Hubbard over Robin Wright Jones in the recent state primary, and Wright Jones won by a whisker.

An even more revealing precedent might be the point spread in the city for the Democratic presidential primary. Barack Obama beat Slay's candidate, Hillary Clinton, 66 percent to 33 percent. Obama had twice as much support in the city as Slay's candidate.

If the appetite for change (and grass-roots political irrelevance of Slay) reflected in those numbers continues to grow in the city - especially after an Obama victory in November - then the business communty won't be able to reelect Slay any more than it was able to elect its school board slate, pass charter reform, or elect Rodney Hubbard. Money can't always buy you votes.

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Illustration courtesy of an urban pioneer activist, doodling on a goofy sketch pad set out at the 52nd City release party for Sexy.

Oliver Lake and the gutbucket complexity lesson

The great composer and saxophonist Oliver Lake is coming back to St. Louis next month as part of the "BAG and Beyond" weekend, Sept. 12-14. I am fortunate to know Oliver somewhat through mutual friends, so he thought to reach out and get me a copy of an Oliver Lake Organ Trio CD that is so new I can't even find it on his website.

The record is called Makin' It, and this trio (Lake on alto, Jared Gold on Hammond B3 and Johnathan Blake on drums) is indeed makin' it. They are makin' grooves, time, and marvelous mischief throughout 10 compositions (seven by lake, two by the late Malachi Thompson, and one by some anonymous soul who wanted one day "to walk with Jesus" so bad he had to sing about it), ably produced by Oliver's son, Jahi Lake.

I have encountered this record over only one day of driving in St. Louis traffic, listening ecstatically while trying not to drive nobody down. What struck me instantly was how much of Lake's highly original melodic identity - which tends toward the exploratory and gravity-defying - survives intact on a groove record.

Lake released this record on his own Passin' Thru Records imprint, so must be considered the unaknowledged executive producer of the session (not that this musician, painter, poet, and performance artist needs me to concoct any new business titles for him!). I am thinking it must have been Lake who tabbed Greg Tate to write the liner notes. They are exquisitely in the spirit of the session (recorded on Sept. 11, 2006, by the way, almost two years to the date before "BAG and Beyond").

Tate writes that Lake's decision to tackle the rambunctious legacy of the organ trio "speaks volumes about his roots in St. Louis bistros of the '60s and '70s. Lake's prodigious career has taken him far in stylistic miles and cerebral scope from those sweaty and sanctified humble origins."

Tate later observes, so very wisely, that like Charlie Parker, "Lake has never thought intellect, emotional complexity, and gutbucket blues feeling comprised a musical oxymoron."

You can have intellect, emotional complexity, and gutbucket blues feeling all in one bucket: that is the take-home message from Makin' It by The Oliver Lake Organ Trio. This is the sort of take-home message that gets the bag a little sweaty on the way home from barbecue sauce of the most spiritually delicious variety.

My first teacher of this lesson (which we might call the gutbucket complexity lesson) was the great St. Louis poet K. Curtis Lyle. Curtis wrote a long piece for this week's St. Louis American about Oliver Jackson, the world-renowned artist from St. Louis, whose opening will kick off "BAG and Beyond" on Friday, Sept. 12.

"BAG and Beyond" will be held Sept. 12-14 at the Nu-Art Series' Metropolitan Gallery, 2936 Locust St.

The VIP champagne reception and exhibition opening for Jackson’s show will start Friday, September 12 at 5 p.m., with doors opening to the public (no charge) at 6 p.m. For tickets to the VIP reception (at $20), call 314-535-6500. The show will remain up through Oct. 10.

That Saturday afternoon (3-7 p.m.), Freddie Washington headlines a program that also features Marlin Bonds, Mike Nelson, Eugene B. Redmond, and Curtis.

Lake, Hamiett Bluiett and a larger cast of musicians and poets (including Quincy Troupe) will perform a Sunday (Sept. 14) matinee, 3-7 p.m.

For tickets or more information about Bag and Beyond, call 314-535-6500.

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Crude sketch of Oliver Lake performing with the World Saxophone Quartet in St. Louis (2006) is by me and signed by Lake.

Fun with Missouri Supreme Court job applications!

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I bet we've all filled out a few job applications before, but not many of us ever get to the point where we can apply for the job of Missouri Supreme Court justice and be taken seriously.

With Rush Limbaugh's cousin Stephen Limbaugh Jr. moving on and up to the federal courts, there is an open spot on Missouri's big bench. The Missouri Non-Partisan Court Plan involves a juried, expert/peer review process that limits governors from stacking the bench with their buddies and backers and judicial henchmen.

The Appellate Judicial Commission has done its work toward filling this vacancy, and it has now told Gov. Matt Blunt, "Put in any of these three, Coach, they are ready to play."

In alphabetical order, the panel of nominees consists of the Honorable Zel M. Fischer,
the Honorable Lisa White Hardwick, and the Honorable Ronald R. Holliger.

Supreme Court of Missouri Communications Counsel Beth S. Riggert being the diligent, "let in the Sunshine Law" kind of professional she is, the job applications for these three Supreme wannabes (and, apparently, deserve-to-bes) are now online in the public record, posted as PDFs.

Zel M. wants the job.

Lisa W. wants the job.

Ronald R. wants the job.

I'd like to encourage folks to click on those PDFs of Supreme job applications, and to play governor for the day. Which judge would you pick for the big bench? Mel, Lisa, or Ronald? Fischer, White Hardwick, or Holliger? Feel free to leave your picks as a comment to this post by clicking on the pencil icon below.

And, as we all go forward into that cold career world, and anticipate our own job applications and cover letters of the future, please keep in mind the immortal story "The Job Application," by the great Swiss writer Robert Walser, which begins, hat in hand:

"I am a poor, young, unemployed person in the business field, my name is Wenzel, I am seeking a suitable position, and I take the liberty of asking you, nicely and politely, if perhaps in your airy, bright, amiable rooms such a position might be free. I know that your good firm is large, proud, old, and rich, thus I may yield to the pleasing supposition that a nice, easy, pretty little place would be available, into which, as into a kind of warm cubbyhole, I can slip."

The best gigs never get listed on the itinerary

A retired cop who drinks at The Tap Room once told veteran barkeep Paul Jensen that the amazing thing about police work is "the stories you don't read in the paper."

That's probably an amazing thing about many vocations. The working musician definitely learns that the real glory of making music is seldom represented in print, and the best gigs are almost never the ones listed on the tour itinerary.

Paul Jensen was just telling me about his last trip to Alaska. His buddy, the brewer and master taster Mark Naski, was entertaining his fellow alumni from The University of Helsinki. Naski knows some of the St. Louis music scene old guard from hanging around Paul Jensen, so he thinks to invite Tom Hall and Charlie Pfeiffer up to perform at the U. Helsinki reunion.

Jensen said, "So I call Tom Hall and say, 'We're going to fly you and Charlie up to Alaska to play for us two nights.' They went, 'Wow.' I pick them up at the airport in Anchorage. They say, 'We can't believe this is happening.' I drive them three hours deep into Alaska, through the mountains. I'm thinking, 'This is neat, this is cool.'"

Jensen and Naski are now partners in The Stable, at Lemp and Cherokee in South St. Louis. I am cohosting a Taste for Tunes benefit dinner for KDHX Community Media (that's 88.1 FM on the STL dial) at The Stable, 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 9. All invited.

Tom Hall donated an experience (he plays your next barbecue, if he gets a few cold ones and a supper plate) to the 2007 Experiential Auction. SAVE THE DATE: The 2008 Experiential Auction is scheduled for 5-8 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 21 at The Atomic Cowboy, on Manchester in The Grove. Keep your eyes peeled for announcement of auction items (Eugene B. Redmond tour of The Katherine Dunham Center, horseback riding in Rolla with Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, a custom case of homebrew in bottles with your face on it, a tour of The Old Courthouse from Dred Scott's great-great-granddaughter ...).

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Picture is of Tom Hall playing music at the grave (well, one of the putative graves) of Robert Johnson. Pic by me, from Tom's first trip to Mississippi, ca. Back In The Day.

Bradd Young gets down tonight (Aloha, too)

When I moved to St. Louis a few years ago to work in the black press, I had some catching-up to do on hip-hop.

Because of a girlfriend who was connected, I had once swung in Queens on the outskirts of the Wu-Tang Clan, but I really didn't know how cool that was at the time. I was there for a girl, not the music, and though the second and third generation of Wu cousins (etc.) were grinding all around me, dreaming up verses and competing for studio time and playing each other their new hot tracks, all I saw was a girl.

One of my best friends in St. Louis is an unlikely hip-hop mix master. Adam Long is a carrot-topped space cookie from Minneapolis who produced Nelly's earliest recordings with The St. Lunatics and who knows just about everybody on the creative side of that scene in St. Louis (and none of the posers). Adam said if I wanted to know what was going on in hip-hop, I should get to know Orlando.

So I got to know Orlando "Pretty Boy" Watson. Orlando is one of those quiet guys behind the scenes. He produced what became my favorite local hip-hop artist, 1 Dime. A short list of the national artists he has produced would include Tyra B., Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Swizz Beatz, Kelly Rowland, Yolanda Adams, Teddy Riley, Shawty and local boy Jibbs.

I would eventually see Orlando go to hell and back in a struggle with lymphoma that I kept to myself until he asked me to report it in The St. Louis American.

From my first conversations with Orlando, he was telling me about Bradd Young. Bradd is another one of those genuinely creative characters, with swagger, who can't be bothered to promote himself or compete for the top spot on the sales shelf. He just lets the music pour out of him.

People who know Bradd's work well usually arrive at the same comparison, eventually: early Prince. Like the purple one, Bradd can play every instrument in a band and build up an entire, complicated pop song from scratch, all by himself. Just leave him alone in the studio long enough.

This past year, Orlando and Bradd have been setting aside time that clients can't get at to make Bradd's own record. Bradd could have had a label deal as an artist years ago, when he was an even younger man, but he didn't like the marketing plan: sex symbol (Bradd has good looks, on top of everything else). They are not close, yet - Orlando told me yesterday they don't have a title or set track list, yet - but they are close enough to be putting together the live act.

"Bradd is such a natural, he got up onstage at the Old Rock House after years, and he killed it," Orlando told me yesterday.

Tonight (Friday, August 22), Bradd is playing an early show at The Loft (on Lindell, near SLU) with the gorgeous and talented Aloha. Live pop music, with swagger (and, in Olaha's case, crushing beauty). Orlando says show time is 7 p.m. "sharp," though I'm smiling to myself at the concept of "sharp" applied to the local club scene.

Orlando says "it's no big deal" and there will be many more local club dates for Bradd as he gets ready for a major label push and tour. I say it's always a big deal when Bradd Young and Pretty Boy are the house. And Aloha? Damn.

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Photo is a still (actually, a photograph of a paused image on my laptop!) from my movie Blind Cat Black, which features Bradd in his first on-sceen role - and his first (faux) "nude" role. He makes love to the lead character (played by hip-hop diva Toyy) on top of a pile of zombies. Yeah. can watch the entire clip on the Blind Cat Black MySpace page. The clip you want, if you want this, is "This Monstrous Traveler in Hashish."