I am anti-drug. I have one activist friend that wants all drugs legalized and I understand his point of view. I consider pharmaceutical companies legalized drug dealers dealing to kids as well as adults but that is just me. I have never smoked pot and the one and only time I have held an illegal drug in my hand was performing jury duty. They gave us a baggie of a drug to hold and examine. Drug dealing hurts the community and robs them of many things including safe streets and hope.
That being said "Notorious" was an excellent film. BIG's Mom made it clear from the get go where she stood and at the end of his young life you get the vibe if he had lived he would have cleaned up his lyrics as well as well as his life. He did stop selling drugs but he lived his life to the excess. The film wants to make it clear he made peace with the people he loved before he died.
I love Ella Fitzgerald. I don't care for rap but in the beginning of the film you see how writing poetry to express his pain at his Dad not being in his life is powerful. The film held my attention and I was moved. I went to ITunes but I could not find one song that did not have some word I could live with out. If he had lived I believe he would have cleaned up his lyrics and become an activist. I know he wouldn't have allowed his children to sell drugs. I hope his family are turning to activism.
I filmed Giuseppie Logan in Tompkins playing Begin the Beguine not knowing he had made 2 records in the 1960's and completely self destructed ending up in prison and mental institutions. He sold drugs but unlike BIG he did not get out and rise to the fame he could have. I had no idea when I posted this YouTube I would rock people's world and be contacted by people all over the world either celebrating he is still alive, deeply moved he still is playing and even composing music or they contact.
I do see GL's story becoming a film and also maybe a documentary as well. I do consider my YouTubes a documentary of their own but I mean a mainstream one. I have to laugh because I am often erased, my work stolen but Peter Gershon, publisher of "Signal to Noise" wrote a beautiful article with stunning photos of the young Giuseppi Logan (for the album covers he dropped the "e") and the old GL -- "Out from the Shadow". Tim Madison was the first person other than Raggedy of YouTube who wrote "he lives!" to contact me and explain the power and meaning of my YouTube and he told me go pick up Signal to Noise. I expected to be erased but instead I was fully acknowledged.
For the first time in over 30 years GL and his equally musically gifted son Jay Logan will be reunited and apparently my YouTube series played apart in this reunion to be and I hope to be there for part of it of course to film. On a very sad note, Jay's son, an honor student was killed by gun violence and Jay has turned to activism to get guns off the street.
Sept. 11 is something I have never fully wrapped my heart and mind around and than I had a series of shocking and terrible events that caused me to sell my home of 20 years. I have "little fame" and have been meeting with a lawyer to discuss the darker aspects of dealing with being out there so I am drained and very tired. I think of leaving NYC. When you sell your home in NYC, the City acts like Mafia, holding a gun to your head pressuring you to commit to a new property. I did and it is not for me. I think of selling and leaving New York. The only way I could imagine staying is being rich enough to have two homes -- one out in the country somewhere peaceful and quiet.
When I listen to Alicia Keys singing "Empire State of Mind part 2" I laugh because there are lyrics borrowed from another famous NY song...yes? but her soullful song makes me fall in love with NYC all over again and makes me want to stay not what what.
