Soul Train's Legacy

I’m seeing a lot of people talk and write about Don Cornelius passing but do not seem to comprehend the legacy Don Cornelius established while he was here with us. Don Cornelius was a pioneer who built a Black empowerment framework that was also an economic engine and knew exactly what he was doing and succeeded. As a fellow Chicago native who knows my people, know and respect those who came before me and appreciate the path they shaped for me and you to move forward, we are going to discuss Don Cornelius legacy and contribution.

Don Cornelius is from Chicago and was definitely someone who grew up with love for his people. You can check his history where he was straight hustling to get his in the Chi before joining WVON radio in the 60s. WVON means Voice of the Negro in case you didn’t know broadcasted to the Black community back then. Martin Luther King Jr. would appear regularly on WVON and most likely Don Cornelius was inspired by his presence as well as the fact he broadcasted for his people. He also carried this on television at WCIU where Soul Train got it start:



However, the late sixties was a beautiful time for brothas and sistas as we became united. More people were moving from the South up North to Chicago and cats were establishing themselves and their identity as Black. Don Cornelius was throwing parties all around Chicago as a party promoter and this is where he wanted to promote a television show and used his media industry connects to host Soul Train in Chicago.

Now Soul Train blew up and Don Cornelius moved the show out to Los Angeles for a bigger audience. Now here is where we have to take a break because this is the moment of truth. When some of us brothas or sistas make it big, what do we do? Most of us start acting like we don’t know our Black people anymore and start trying to go “mainstream” hoping to reach a bigger audience. But Don Cornelius not only kept his show Black-orientated, he pioneered Black media as we know it today and built a Black economic framework upon his success.

Soul Train was not some dance show, it was a framework that Don Cornelius used to promote his people and promote peace, love and soul in the core essence. Let’s look at each element of the Soul Train show:.................

Thank you!

In reply to this comment by legacy0100:
Well it is true. Hot dogs will kill you.

*promote

>> ^legacy0100:

Well it is true. Hot dogs will kill you.
promote


I ate one this morning.

Interesting hustle. The power of sales is that you spend all that time with him and there's a massive feeling of obligation to buy something at the end.

These guys don't sink a single shot! (unless you count the scratch off the break!) So much for executing a digital hustle.. Back to coding the software.

>> ^gwiz665:

Bukowski wrote that? Huh, guess I should reevaluate my position on him.


This is one of my favorite short stories of all time:

http://plagiarist.com/poetry/194/

Cass was the youngest and most beautiful of 5 sisters. Cass was the most beautiful girl in town. 1/2 Indian with a supple and strange body, a snake-like and fiery body with eyes to go with it. Cass was fluid moving fire. She was like a spirit stuck into a form that would not hold her. Her hair was black and long and silken and whirled about as did her body. Her spirit was either very high or very low. There was no in between for Cass. Some said she was crazy. The dull ones said that. The dull ones would never understand Cass. To the men she was simply a sex machine and they didn't care whether she was crazy or not. And Cass danced and flirted, kissed the men, but except for an instance or two, when it came time to make it with Cass, Cass had somehow slipped away, eluded the men.

Her sisters accused her of misusing her beauty, of not using her mind enough, but Cass had mind and spirit; she painted, she danced, she sang, she made things of clay, and when people were hurt either in the spirit or the flesh, Cass felt a deep grieving for them. Her mind was simply different; her mind was simply not practical. Her sisters were jealous of her because she attracted their men, and they were angry because they felt she didn't make the best use of them. She had a habit of being kind to the uglier ones; the so-called handsome men revolted her- "No guts," she said, "no zap. They are riding on their perfect little earlobes and well- shaped nostrils...all surface and no insides..." She had a temper that came close to insanity, she had a temper that some call insanity. Her father had died of alcohol and her mother had run off leaving the girls alone. The girls went to a relative who placed them in a convent. The convent had been an unhappy place, more for Cass than the sisters. The girls were jealous of Cass and Cass fought most of them. She had razor marks all along her left arm from defending herself in two fights. There was also a permanent scar along the left cheek but the scar rather than lessening her beauty only seemed to highlight it. I met her at the West End Bar several nights after her release from the convent. Being youngest, she was the last of the sisters to be released. She simply came in and sat next to me. I was probably the ugliest man in town and this might have had something to do with it.

"Drink?" I asked.

"Sure, why not?"

I don't suppose there was anything unusual in our conversation that night, it was simply in the feeling Cass gave. She had chosen me and it was as simple as that. No pressure. She liked her drinks and had a great number of them. She didn't seem quite of age but they served he anyhow. Perhaps she had forged i.d., I don't know. Anyhow, each time she came back from the restroom and sat down next to me, I did feel some pride. She was not only the most beautiful woman in town but also one of the most beautiful I had ever seen. I placed my arm about her waist and kissed her once.

"Do you think I'm pretty?" she asked.

"Yes, of course, but there's something else... there's more than your looks..."

"People are always accusing me of being pretty. Do you really think I'm pretty?"

"Pretty isn't the word, it hardly does you fair."

Cass reached into her handbag. I thought she was reaching for her handkerchief. She came out with a long hatpin. Before I could stop her she had run this long hatpin through her nose, sideways, just above the nostrils. I felt disgust and horror. She looked at me and laughed, "Now do you think me pretty? What do you think now, man?" I pulled the hatpin out and held my handkerchief over the bleeding. Several people, including the bartender, had seen the act. The bartender came down:

"Look," he said to Cass, "you act up again and you're out. We don't need your dramatics here."

"Oh, fuck you, man!" she said.

"Better keep her straight," the bartender said to me.

"She'll be all right," I said.

"It's my nose, I can do what I want with my nose."

"No," I said, "it hurts me."

"You mean it hurts you when I stick a pin in my nose?"

"Yes, it does, I mean it."

"All right, I won't do it again. Cheer up."

She kissed me, rather grinning through the kiss and holding the handkerchief to her nose. We left for my place at closing time. I had some beer and we sat there talking. It was then that I got the perception of her as a person full of kindness and caring. She gave herself away without knowing it. At the same time she would leap back into areas of wildness and incoherence. Schitzi. A beautiful and spiritual schitzi. Perhaps some man, something, would ruin her forever. I hoped that it wouldn't be me. We went to bed and after I turned out the lights Cass asked me,

"When do you want it? Now or in the morning?"

"In the morning," I said and turned my back.

In the morning I got up and made a couple of coffees, brought her one in bed. She laughed.

"You're the first man who has turned it down at night."

"It's o.k.," I said, "we needn't do it at all."

"No, wait, I want to now. Let me freshen up a bit."

Cass went into the bathroom. She came out shortly, looking quite wonderful, her long black hair glistening, her eyes and lips glistening, her glistening... She displayed her body calmly, as a good thing. She got under the sheet.

"Come on, lover man."

I got in. She kissed with abandon but without haste. I let my hands run over her body, through her hair. I mounted. It was hot, and tight. I began to stroke slowly, wanting to make it last. Her eyes looked directly into mine.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"What the hell difference does it make?" she asked.

I laughed and went on ahead. Afterwards she dressed and I drove her back to the bar but she was difficult to forget. I wasn't working and I slept until 2 p.m. then got up and read the paper. I was in the bathtub when she came in with a large leaf- an elephant ear.

"I knew you'd be in the bathtub," she said, "so I brought you something to cover that thing with, nature boy."

She threw the elephant leaf down on me in the bathtub.

"How did you know I'd be in the tub?"

"I knew."

Almost every day Cass arrived when I was in the tub. The times were different but she seldom missed, and there was the elephant leaf. And then we'd make love. One or two nights she phoned and I had to bail her out of jail for drunkenness and fighting.

"These sons of bitches," she said, "just because they buy you a few drinks they think they can get into your pants."

"Once you accept a drink you create your own trouble."

"I thought they were interested in me, not just my body."

"I'm interested in you and your body. I doubt, though, that most men can see beyond your body."

I left town for 6 months, bummed around, came back. I had never forgotten Cass, but we'd had some type of argument and I felt like moving anyhow, and when I got back i figured she'd be gone, but I had been sitting in the West End Bar about 30 minutes when she walked in and sat down next to me.

"Well, bastard, I see you've come back."

I ordered her a drink. Then I looked at her. She had on a high- necked dress. I had never seen her in one of those. And under each eye, driven in, were 2 pins with glass heads. All you could see were the heads of the pins, but the pins were driven down into her face.

"God damn you, still trying to destroy your beauty, eh?"

"No, it's the fad, you fool."

"You're crazy."

"I've missed you," she said.

"Is there anybody else?"

"No there isn't anybody else. Just you. But I'm hustling. It costs ten bucks. But you get it free."

"Pull those pins out."

"No, it's the fad."

"It's making me very unhappy."

"Are you sure?"

"Hell yes, I'm sure."

Cass slowly pulled the pins out and put them back in her purse.

"Why do you haggle your beauty?" I asked. "Why don't you just live with it?"

"Because people think it's all I have. Beauty is nothing, beauty won't stay. You don't know how lucky you are to be ugly, because if people like you you know it's for something else."

"O.k.," I said, "I'm lucky."

"I don't mean you're ugly. People just think you're ugly. You have a fascinating face."

"Thanks."

We had another drink.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Nothing. I can't get on to anything. No interest."

"Me neither. If you were a woman you could hustle."

"I don't think I could ever make contact with that many strangers, it's wearing."

"You're right, it's wearing, everything is wearing."

We left together. People still stared at Cass on the streets. She was a beautiful woman, perhaps more beautiful than ever. We made it to my place and I opened a bottle of wine and we talked. With Cass and I, it always came easy. She talked a while and I would listen and then i would talk. Our conversation simply went along without strain. We seemed to discover secrets together. When we discovered a good one Cass would laugh that laugh- only the way she could. It was like joy out of fire. Through the talking we kissed and moved closer together. We became quite heated and decided to go to bed. It was then that Cass took off her high -necked dress and I saw it- the ugly jagged scar across her throat. It was large and thick.

"God damn you, woman," I said from the bed, "god damn you, what have you done?

"I tried it with a broken bottle one night. Don't you like me any more? Am I still beautiful?"

I pulled her down on the bed and kissed her. She pushed away and laughed, "Some men pay me ten and I undress and they don't want to do it. I keep the ten. It's very funny."

"Yes," I said, "I can't stop laughing... Cass, bitch, I love you...stop destroying yourself; you're the most alive woman I've ever met."

We kissed again. Cass was crying without sound. I could feel the tears. The long black hair lay beside me like a flag of death. We enjoined and made slow and somber and wonderful love. In the morning Cass was up making breakfast. She seemed quite calm and happy. She was singing. I stayed in bed and enjoyed her happiness. Finally she came over and shook me,

"Up, bastard! Throw some cold water on your face and pecker and come enjoy the feast!"

I drove her to the beach that day. It was a weekday and not yet summer so things were splendidly deserted. Beach bums in rags slept on the lawns above the sand. Others sat on stone benches sharing a lone bottle. The gulls whirled about, mindless yet distracted. Old ladies in their 70's and 80's sat on the benches and discussed selling real estate left behind by husbands long ago killed by the pace and stupidity of survival. For it all, there was peace in the air and we walked about and stretched on the lawns and didn't say much. It simply felt good being together. I bought a couple of sandwiches, some chips and drinks and we sat on the sand eating. Then I held Cass and we slept together about an hour. It was somehow better than lovemaking. There was flowing together without tension. When we awakened we drove back to my place and I cooked a dinner. After dinner I suggested to Cass that we shack together. She waited a long time, looking at me, then she slowly said, "No." I drove her back to the bar, bought her a drink and walked out. I found a job as a parker in a factory the next day and the rest of the week went to working. I was too tired to get about much but that Friday night I did get to the West End Bar. I sat and waited for Cass. Hours went by . After I was fairly drunk the bartender said to me, "I'm sorry about your girlfriend."

"What is it?" I asked.

"I'm sorry, didn't you know?"

"No."

"Suicide. She was buried yesterday."

"Buried?" I asked. It seemed as though she would walk through the doorway at any moment. How could she be gone?

"Her sisters buried her."

"A suicide? Mind telling me how?"

"She cut her throat."

"I see. Give me another drink."

I drank until closing time. Cass was the most beautiful of 5 sisters, the most beautiful in town. I managed to drive to my place and I kept thinking, I should have insisted she stay with me instead of accepting that "no." Everything about her had indicated that she had cared. I simply had been too offhand about it, lazy, too unconcerned. I deserved my death and hers. I was a dog. No, why blame the dogs? I got up and found a bottle of wine and drank from it heavily. Cass the most beautiful girl in town was dead at 20. Outside somebody honked their automobile horn. They were very loud and persistent. I sat the bottle down and screamed out: "GOD DAMN YOU, YOU SON OF A BITCH ,SHUT UP!" The night kept coming and there was nothing I could do.

Here's something Republicans do well -- they have the discipline to keep a united message.

Dems just turned on Weiner when Vitter broke the law, actually bought and paid for sex, and he was still re-elected.

He was hustled off to maintain a united front, I'm thinking.

I was tempted to put this into "comedy" as well, seeing as the two-tiered justice system of the US has become somewhat of a running gag. But I don't feel that cynical at this particular moment. Still, after having read Matt's article, The People vs Goldman Sachs, three times actually, I couldn't help but burst out into laughter.

Anyway, if you haven't read his articles on organized crime aka Wall Street, here's a few of 'em:

-- The People vs Goldman Sachs
-- Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?
-- Invasion of the Home Snatchers
-- The Great American Bubble Machine
-- Wall Street's Bailout Hustle

Nerd rap infests your internet. You left a trap, but it's empty.
MC Frontalot took a gape but the bait wasn't tempting,
ending up uncaged and at large
to talk smack at you through the networking appliance that's in charge
of every drip of your attention.
Yo, when mine goes out I've got to log in just to mention
my disappointment at the interruption of convenience.
I mean just: a lot left, but none up in between this
couple of minutes here and a couple of minutes later.
It's an outrage, at the price I paid. These dictators
of my leisure rule with an iron fist.
Has anybody ever been so put upon as this?

Your GPS run out of battery (first world problem)
Got to wake up Saturday (first world problem)
You just delayed a honeymoon (first world problem)
Pledge season's coming soon (first world problem)
Half your friend list is spam accounts (first world problem)
And your center channel speaker's out (first world problem)

Muffy, my hair regrowth cream is mostly ineffective
and I'm struggling to keep this in perspective,
but I feel like a massive injustice occurred.
Says "regrows hair" on the tube (in the words)
in a third — or maybe a quarter — of all users.
I must have got swindled. Is it a fault? Of whose is?
Oooh, Muffy, Muffy, I had all the servants tortured.
Did you keep them on retainer? Do you got some more on order?
'Cause I can't comb my hair on my own no more.
I got accustomed to the lifestyle, sniffed upon the spore
and it molded up my innards, made the blood turn blue.
Muffy, Muffy, there's a revolution; what we're gonna do?

Misplaced the Ambien (first world problem)
Left a participle dangling (first world problem)
You're scheduling your root canal (first world problem)
Your grad schooling had no rationale (first world problem)
You didn't like your appetizer (first world problem)
Your yacht got capsized (a first world problem)

Now while our capitalism is in a minor kerfuffle,
you have to hustle. Before the fates come, reshuffle.
Rustle up another couple grievances and air 'em.
You can laugh about it later (maybe needed while despairing).
For the moment though, you ordered half caf, didn't get it;
there was no TV set when you jetted; internet resetted
itself just as I was in the middle
of tournament play, and so I suffered from transmittal
interruption. Completely ruined my day.
MC Frontalot's a jackass, that's all I'm trying to say.
People buy CDs in these days of disaster,
so poor me: I have to be a professional rapper.

No bubbles in the soda cup (first world problem)
App crashed when you loaded up (first world problem)
Phone's OS is outta date (first world problem)
Colors won't calibrate (first world problem)
They never stock the snack you want (first world problem)
Caught herpes from a celebutante (first world problem)

Got wallhacked in PVP (first world problem)
Oh no, HD-DVD (first world problem)
Pixels aren't perfect square (first world problem)
Your favorite rapper isn't debonair (first world problem)
You own too many underwear (first world problem)
And you're not much of a millionaire (first world problem)

I'm not sure what that guy is all crazy about the people down field, the running back is where the crazy should be pointed.

It's standard training to hustle your ass down field on a run, as an offensive lineman, and get some crucial blocks whilst not blocking in the back.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'kung fu hustle, funny, scene' to 'kung fu hustle, funny, scene, knives, road runner' - edited by rasch187

summer, summer, summertime

time to sit back and unwind

Verse One: Fresh Prince

Here it is the groove slightly transformed

just a bit of a break from the norm

just a little somethin' to break the monotony

of all that hardcore dance that has gotten to be

a little bit out of control it's cool to dance

but what about the groove that soothes that moves romance

give me a soft subtle mix

and if ain't broke then don't try to fix it

and think of the summers of the past

adjust the base and let the alpine blast

pop in my CD and let me run a rhyme

and put your car on cruise and lay back cause this is summertime

Chorus

Verse Two: Fresh Prince

school is out and it's a sort of a buzz

a back then I didn't really know what it was

but now I see what have of this

the way that people respond to summer madness

the weather is hot and girls are dressing less

and checking out the fellas to tell 'em who's best

riding around in your jeep or your benzos

or in your Nissan sitting on lorenzos

back in Philly we be out in the park

a place called the plateau is where everybody goes

guys out hunting and girls doing likewise

honking at the honey in front of you with the light eyes

she turn around to see what you beeping at

it's like the summers a natural afradesiac

and with a pen and pad I compose this rhyme

to hit you and get you equipped for the summer time

Chorus

Verse Three: Fresh Prince

it's late in the day and I ain't been on the court yet

hustle to the mall to get me a short set

yeah I got on sneaks but I need a new pair

cause basketball courts in the summer got girls there

the temperature's about 88

hop in the water plug just for old times sake

break to ya crib change your clothes once more

cause you're invited to a barbeque that's starting at 4

sitting with your friends cause y'all remincise

about the days growing up and the first person you kiss

and as I think back makes me wonder how

the smell from a grill could spark up nostalgia

all the kids playing out front

little boys messin round with the girls playing double-dutch

while the DJ's spinning a tune as the old folks dance at your family reunion

then six o'clock rolls around

you just finished wiping your car down

it's time to cruise so you head to the summertime hangout

it looks like a car show

everybody come lookin real fine

fresh from the barber shop or fly from the beauty salon

every moment frontin and maxin

chillin in the car they spent all day waxin

leanin to the side but you can't speed through

Two miles an hour so everybody sees you

there's an air of love and of happiness

and this is the Fresh Prince's new defintion of summer madness

8 Blue shirts, 1 White shirt. No hustle guys, I hope they didn't make fun of him for this.

Your video, Kung Fu Hustle - The 3 Heroes Fight Scene, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 2 Badge!

>> ^robv:

I also love this Kung Fu Hustle. The English dubbing is terrible though Not that I'm opposed to dubbing in general, but I feel they did a particularly poor job with this movie.
i think it suited it well. corny dubbing for a corny(in a good sense) movie.
kungfu hustle doesn't get enough credit or recognition!