La Vie En Robe

Friday 'Fro: Ike Turner, 1931-2007

I originally despaired of being able to give Ike Turner a Friday 'Fro shout-out and send-off, since the cat wore a pomp or a flat-top for most of his career. (That is, with the exception a brief period in the late '60s where he ironed his hair for a truly ghastly Beatle wig effect!) But then my friend John e-mailed me this fine early '70s pic. Thanks, John!

There's no question that Ike behaved like an asshole for much of his life, or that he brought much of his lousy reputation upon himself. (Even while disputing the way he was portrayed in What's Love Got to Do With It, he would defend himself with such charming statements as, "There have been times when I punched Tina to the ground without thinking, but I never beat her!")

Would I have wanted Ike to date my Mom? Hell no — but the dude was one helluva bad-ass guitar player and bandleader, and it's good to see that his considerable contributions to R&B, funk and rock and roll have at least gotten some play in his obituaries over the last few days. Here's one of my favorite Ike instro tracks, a cover of Marvin Holmes & The Uptights' "Funky Mule," from his supremely funky 1969 album A Black Man's Soul:

Funky Mule.mp3

(I also seem to recall an interview with Ike in the late 80s/early 90s, wherein he basically laid the blame for his life's various troubles on his inability to perform fellatio upon himself; he said that, if there's such a thing as reincarnation, he hoped to come back as a guy with a longer neck. Wonder if he'll get his wish...)

 

Friday 'Fro, Vol. 17

The Detroit Tigers of my youth (i.e., most of the 1970s) were a big disappointment. Not just on the field —where the individual heroics of Ron LeFlore, Sweet Lou Whitaker, Rusty Staub, Jason Thompson and (of course) Mark Fidrych did little to stem the overall bleeding — but in the hair department, as well. How was it that a team from the Motor City (home of Rob Tyner's voluminous MC5 Jewfro) couldn't muster a half-decent afro? Fidrych's Harpo-like locks were far and away the most impressive follicular display in those years; but unless you had a thing for Staub's "grande orange", there weren't many 'dos of distinction in the Tiger Stadium dugout.

A few years ago, Dmitri Young (see above) attempted to single-headedly make up for decades of missed natural opportunites. Young was one of the few bright spots on some seriously dire Tigers squads — he whacked 29 homers in 2003, the year Detroit lost 119 games — and I was saddened when "personal problems" led to him being booted from the team during their AL Championship run in 2006. Happily, he regained his stroke with the Nationals last season, hitting a career-high .320 and winning the NL Comeback Player of the Year award. His 'fro is no longer the insane mane of yore, but I'm glad he's at least back on track (and gotten his life back in order).

All of which brings me around to the '08 Tigers, who probably won't win any "Big 'Fro" contests, but who look set to make a serious run for the World Series, thanks to the incredible trade that Tigers president Dave Dombrowski pulled off this past week — getting Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis in exchange for six scrubs, a bag of baseballs and a cracked jock cup. Cabrera's value is obviously well-known, but I've always been a big Dontrelle fan as well; I'm hoping that, even if he never returns to his 22-10, 2.63 form of 2005, he'll be a solid part of the Tigers' rotation for years to come.

I'm still worried about the bullpen, though. Todd Jones, though obviously a fan fave and a good "clubhouse chemistry" guy (at least, as long as there aren't any gay players on the team), is anything but a "lights out" closer, Joel Zumaya is gonna be out for most or all of next year, and the rest of the middle relief core was considerably less formidable in '07 than they were in '06. But damn, that starting eight is gonna be killer!

Friday 'Fro Vol. 16: The Puerto Rican Jewfro

Imagine, for a second, that you're a nine-year-old kid in the Midwest, at a time when radio, movies, and pre-cable TV are pretty much your only entertainment options. Through the elementary school grapevine, you hear that there's gonna be a new network sitcom featuring a character with YOUR last name — and as far as you know, this is the first time there's ever been a character with YOUR name on a TV program. Imagine how psyched you would be! And then, imagine how deeply NOT psyched you'd be when you watch the show's first episode, and said character turns out to be only a few IQ points north of retarded...

Yup, Robert Hegyes — aka Welcome Back, Kotter's Juan Epstein, aka the lazy, conniving, dumbshit "Puerto Rican Jew" — was a mortifying thorn in my side for much of my childhood, adolescence, and beyond. Even in my college years, some jock or mook would invariably find out my last name and revel in his ability to wittily reference this long-dead sitcom.

"Hey, Epstein! Are you a Puerto Rican Jew? Heh heh heh heh!"

"Hey, Epstein! You got a note from you Mother? Heh heh heh heh!"

"Hey, Juan! Heh heh heh heh!"

And so on. In retrospect, however, there's no denying the impressive mass and density of Bob Hegyes'  'fro, as displayed here on the cover of Dynamite, the kid's mag that was pretty much my personal Bible from 1975 to 1977. Even Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, the show's black Sweathog, couldn't come close to touching that shit.

Friday Fro, Vol. 15: Happy Birthday, Harpo!

One day when I was five years old, my Mom announced that she was taking me to see a Marx Brothers movie playing somewhere on the University of Michigan campus. At the time, the only famous brothers I knew about were the Jacksons, so I imagined these Marx Brothers might be a similar sort of thing. And since I was already completely fascinated by the sizeable afros that the Jackson Five sported, I hoped that these Marx Brothers might be in a similar tonsorial bag. "Do they have big hair?" I asked. "Well," answered my Mom, somewhat taken aback by the question, "One of them does..."

Harpo Marx was born on this date back in 1888, and — as far as I have been able to ascertain — he was the first popular American entertainer to rock a proto-fro as part of his act. Though it was, in fact, a wig, Harpo's mop of unruly curls was a good forty years ahead of the fashion curve, as was — just ask Marc Bolan or Noddy Holder — his penchant for top hats. And, of course, he was a comedic genius, a talented dancer and one hell of a harp player; decades before Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi began to down-tune his guitar, Harpo was playing a down-tuned harp — a tuning of his own devising that completely fascinated and mystified professional harpists of the day.

Before I even started elementary school, my parents were already feeding my mind with a steady dose of Woody  Allen, WC Fields, Monty Python, Mel Brooks, and of course the Marx Brothers — thus ensuring that I would have a healthy sense of humor, a taste for the surreal, and (probably unintentional on their part) a deeply ingrained suspicion of authority, all of which I've happily carried with me through my life. On this Thanksgiving Weekend, that's definitely something I can give thanks for.

Of all the above gentlemen, the Marx Brothers were my favorite when I was a kid, and Groucho was unquestionably my favorite Marx Brother; he got the most laughs, got the girls (well, sort of), and always seemed to be the sharpest guy in the room. (I still have the dog-eared copy of Richard J. Anobile's Why A Duck that I read religiously in my grade school years, memorizing as many of Groucho's lines as I could. Harpo's lines, of course, mostly consisted of "Honk!") But as I've gotten older, there's something about Harpo's mixture of cherubic sweetness and utter insanity that I've found increasingly appealing. Apparently, he applied a similar if slightly — but only slightly — toned-down approach to his life, as well as his work; check the following passage from the intro of his autobiography Harpo Speaks!, one of the most life-affirming books I've ever read:

I've played piano in a whorehouse. I've smuggled secret papers out of Russia... I've taught a gangster mob how to play Pinchie Winchie, sat on the floor with Greta Garbo, horsed around with the Prince of Wales, played ping-pong with George Gershwin. George Bernard Shaw has asked me for advice. I've basked on the Riviera with Somerset Maugham and Elsa Maxwell. I've been thrown out of the casino at Monte Carlo.

On this day after Thanksgiving, when everyone's supposed to run out and buy up as much shit as possible in order to keep our sinking economy afloat, I can't think of anything better than celebrating Harpo's birthday with a purchase of Harpo Speaks! for yourself or a similarly warped love one. It's far more rewarding than an Xbox, and substantially cheaper...

Happy Birthday, Harpo!

Friday 'Fro, Vol. 14

Can't say I remember the last time I mentioned (or even thought of) Oil Can Boyd and Delino DeShields in the same sentence, but apparently the former major leaguers have teamed up to form The Urban Baseball League, an independent baseball league devoted to "the rebirth of the Negro Leagues". While I'm not certain that their well-intentioned venture is necessarily the best way to get young African-Americans into baseball, I'm damn sure that I would happily shell out some bucks for a cap or jersey with the logo of their charter team, The Afros:

The logo of charter team The Stacks bears mention, as well:

Friday 'Fro, Vol. 13: Wear Your Natural, Baby

Back in the late 60s and early 70s, wearing an Afro hairdo wasn't just about style, but it was also an expression of black pride, a refusal to conform to the grooming standards imposed by white society. And no song summed this up better than "Wear Your Natural, Baby" by Towana and the Total Destruction. Not that many people heard it at the time...

Released in 1971 on the tiny Romark label, "Wear Your Natural" missed the charts completely, and was only rescued from utter obscurity decades later by the folks at Goldmine Records, who included it on their Essential Sweet Soul collection. There's some controversy over the actual identity of Towana, and there are apparently no existing photos of the girl or the group, which supposedly was just a one-time studio aggregation featuring members of LA vocal combo the Mad Lads (not to be confused with the Stax group of the same name). But whoever these folks were, they came up with a dynamite ode to the 'fro that's brimming with love and pride, and sounds a little bit like Tina Turner backed by the Pips; you can almost see the synchronized dance steps and hand movements...

Enjoy!

Wear_your_natural_baby.mp3

Friday 'Fro, Vol. 12

Not much time to write anything today. Thankfully, my pal MJ from the Friday Fishwrap has hipped me to a Friday 'Fro offering that needs no description — because it practically defies it.

Ladies and Gennelmans, I give you... Nbuda Funkshun!

Friday 'Fro, Vol. 11: Give the Godfather Some

There's no question that the late, great James Brown had some unfortunate difficulties with narcotics at various times in his life, but his addiction to hair products was just as tragic. For most of his fifty some-odd years in the spotlight, the Godfather wore his 'do pomped, conked, processed, ironed, flattened, straightened and lubed up with fistfuls of pomade — the more daily maintenance required, it seemed, the better.

Though James was all about the "revolution of the mind," the revolution of the head was a different story. He was a relatively late conversion to the "natural" — one wonders if Hank Ballard's 1968 funk classic "How You Gonna Get Respect (If You Haven't Cut Your Process Yet)" was directed at the Godfather, who produced the record — and his "window of 'fro" was fairly brief, lasting only about four years from around '68 to '72.

All of which is a real shame, because the whole soul truth is that James looked damn stylin' with an afro. Like the man himself, the James Brown 'fro was proud, substantial, supremely funky and slightly off-kilter. Alas, by 1973 or so, the call of the relaxer proved too strong for the Godfather, and he returned to his greazy ways. But to catch a precious glimpse of 'fro-capped JB in action — with a mighty version of the JB's that featured a young Bootsy Collins on bass, and his brother Catfish on guitar — check this absolutely killer clip from live at the Paris Olympia, 1971...

Friday 'Fro, Vol. 10 - Big Ten Edition

In honor of the tenth installment of the Friday 'Fro, I thought I'd cast my mind back to one of the more memorable afros in Big Ten athletics history — the one perched upon the head of University of Michigan point guard Ricky Green.

When I was growing up in Ann Arbor and first starting to get into sports, the Chicago-born Green was the star of the U of M's basketball team, averaging nearly twenty points per game for Johnny Orr's excellent 1975-76 and 1976-77 squads. My dad had season tickets to the basketball games for those seasons, so I have many fond and vivid memories of watching the lightning-fast, silky-smooth Ricky make opposing defenders look like statues. (I also recall that, whenever Ricky missed a shot or got called for double-dribbling, my fourth grade friends and I would jeer, "Ricky Green with mold!" We thought we were pretty funny.)

Ricky went on to have a pretty respectable NBA career — playing fourteen seasons for eight different teams, and making the 1984 All-Star game as a member of the Utah Jazz — but this is the way I'll always picture him:

Friday 'Fro, Vol. 9: Cubs Edition

Rather than dwell on everything that went wrong with the Cubs last night, or bitch at length about how fucking annoying those TBS post-season spots are where Dane Cook tells us "It all comes down to this" (In his case, it all comes down to what — innate mediocrity? Relentless self-promotion? Bro-hawks?), I thought it would be good for the soul to salute the most Afro-riffic Cubs player of all time: Jose Cardenal.

A Cuban-born outfielder who logged eighteen seasons in the bigs, Cardenal came to the Cubs in 1972 at the tail end of the Durocher years, and was traded to the Phillies at the end of 1977. During this period, wherein the hangover from the '69 collapse began to give way to good-humored resignation, Cardenal was the Cubs' most consistent offensive player (and a real fan favorite), hitting over .290 and swiping 19 or more bags in every season but '77.

He was also, even on a team that (for a while) included Joe Pepitone and Milt Pappas, by far the most eccentric dude in the Wrigley clubhouse. Cardenal was known to pull leaves from the Wrigley vines and chew on them between pitches, and his excuses for not being able to play were legendary — loud crickets had kept him up the night before, his eyelashes were stuck together, etc. Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mike Royko wrote that Cardenal was "an inspiration to those of us who believe in sleeping late, walking slow and calling in sick at the office."

Most inspirational of all, though, was his gigantic 'fro, a finger-in-the-light-socket 'do that was far more radical than any of the hairstyles that African-American Cubs players were sporting at the time. There's no record of Cardenal actually trying to catch a fly ball with his hair; but if he had, I'm sure it would've gotten totally lodged and lost in there, just like an "in the vines" shot.