Smooth Jazz 105.9 is gone

I couldn’t believe it. I turned to Smooth Jazz 105.9 around 4:00pm this afternoon at work and heard a song that I never heard on the station before. After doing some listening I noticed they mentioned that the station is now True Oldies 105.9. WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was pissed. Why did one of my favorite radio stations have to disappear? I wonder if the ratings weren’t so good. I did a google and found this at Wikipedia.

Format Change

At 3:00 p.m. on February 29, 2008, Citadel Broadcasting changed the format of WJZW to oldies and moved the former “smooth jazz” format to the HD-2 channel. The first song on the new format was “Respect” by Aretha Franklin and, at least initially, no live on-air talent will be utilized. Before the change, a brief statement was read thanking the staff and listeners of Smooth Jazz 105.9.

Here’s a little more info I found.

Citadel’s Suleman Makes Management Changes

Mike Stern, Radio and Records

FEBRUARY 29, 2008 -

After Citadel Broadcasting reported a tough fourth quarter Friday, Farid Suleman, chairman and CEO vowed company-wide “management changes, format changes, programming changes and self-management changes.”

The company began instituting changes just hours after attributing losses to lower revenue in the group’s biggest market, including San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Chicgo, Atlanta, New York, Birmingham, Dallas and Los Angeles.

In New York, John Gambling and newsperson John Webber have exited talk WABC-AM. Curtis Sliwa will take over middays on Monday, with a possible syndication deal to follow.

In Washington, there are unconfirmed reports that Chris Core exited talk News/Talk WMAL-AM. Citadel also detonated the Smooth Jazz format on WJZW-FM. The station signed off Friday at 4 p.m. ET with a farewell note, also posted on its Web site, thanking listeners for their 14 years of devotion. The shiny-new “True Oldies 105.9, DC’s Greatest Hits” has already appeared in its place. Citadel’s own Scott Shannon, program director and morning co-host on WPLJ-FM in New York, cooked up True Oldies in his basement lab. WJZW program director Steve Allan remains as PD, but the station’s entire airstaff has been blown out.

Well I’ll be damn!!! I’m not too fond of most of the radio stations in this area. During the morning hours at work I listen to the Tom Joyner Morning Show on Magic 102.3 but if Tom pisses me off I would usually switch over to 105.9. I try listening to 102.3 after 10:00am but they have a new radio announcer, Olivia Fox, and girlfriend comes off somewhat rough. I don’t know what happened to the previous announcer but her voice was much more pleasant.

I can’t listen to WPGC or WKYS. Not fond of their formats. I don’t listen to WHUR too often after the Tom Joyner Morning Show left WHUR and switched to Magic 102.3. The Steve Harvey Morning Show doesn’t impress me that much. I might give WHUR a chance after 10:00am. I’ll also switch over to 94.7 The Globe once in a while. Now of course there’s always my gigabeat. I like to hook it up to my iBlaster so I can listen to my own music collection at work. From the way things are looking I might be doing that more often.

Smooth Jazz 105.9 may be gone but I’m still keeping the logo that I have on the sidebar of my blog. RIP Smooth Jazz 105.9. You will be missed.

Shirley Chisholm

Found an interesting article about the late U.S. Representative Shirley Chisholm.

Shirley Chisholm broke ground before Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton

By Cary Clack
San Antonio Express-News

SAN ANTONIO — History is always in a hurry to see and do things that have never before been seen and done. But even in its insatiable quest for uncharted territory, history understands the importance of looking back and preserving the memory and accomplishments of those who gave it momentum.

This fall, for the first time in the American saga, either an African-American or a woman will be on the ballot as one of the two major-party nominees for president. Even the loser of the race for the Democratic nomination between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will have broken new ground and earned a page or two in history books.

But before Hillary and Barack in 2008, there was Shirley in 1972.

Thirty-six years ago, U.S. Rep. Shirley Chisholm became the first woman and the first black person to seek a major party’s presidential nomination.

When she made her announcement on Jan. 25, 1972, she was already a historic figure by virtue of her 1968 election to the House, representing Brooklyn’s 12th Congressional District. It was an election that made her the first black woman elected to Congress.

Chisholm’s decision to run for president wasn’t met with the celebratory enthusiasm that has showered the campaigns of Clinton and Obama. Shunned by the political establishment, including most of her black male colleagues, Chisholm embarked on a heroic and idealistic campaign of inclusion that showcased her intellect, passion, wit and considerable oratorical skills.

George McGovern won the nomination, but Chisholm went on to the Democratic National Convention in Miami, winning 152 delegates.

For more information about Shirley Chisholm’s presidential run check out the PBS documentary Chisholm 72: Unbought & Unbossed.

Cherchez la Femme

I went into the 70′s vault to find this musical gem. It’s Cherchez la Femme by Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band. This single was released in 1977.

You can read about the group here at Wikipedia and check out their self titled debut cd at Amazon.com.

Whoopi is coming to QVC

Back in September I mentioned that Whoopi Goldberg would be selling her own line of linen on QVC. Well I received an email from QVC letting me know that Whoopi will be on QVC tomorrow (February 28) selling G Beds, her signature line of bedding ensembles.

According to the email G Beds, Bedding by Whoopi Goldberg will be shown tomorrow, February 28, 2008 at 7:00pm EST. I’m gonna check it out.

Back to black

Interesting New York Times article by K.A. Dilday, encouraging Black Americans/African Americans to go back to black.

Go Back to Black
By K. A. DILDAY

London

I’M black again. I was black in Mississippi in the 1970s but sometime in the 1980s I became African-American, with a brief pause at Afro-American. Someone, I think it was Jesse Jackson, in the days when he had that kind of clout, managed to convince America that I preferred being African-American. I don’t.

Now I live in Britain where I’m black again. Blacks in Britain come from all over, although many are from the former colonies. According to the last census, about half of the British people who identify as black say they are black Caribbean, about 40 percent consider themselves black African, and the rest just feel plain old black. Black Brits are further divided by ancestral country of origin, yet they are united under the term black British — often expanded to include British Asians from the Indian subcontinent.

The term African-American was contrived to give black Americans a sense of having a historical link to Africa, since one of slavery’s many unhappy legacies is that most black Americans don’t know particulars about their origins. Black Americans whose ancestors arrived after slavery and who can pinpoint their country of origin are excluded from the definition — which is why, early in his campaign, people said Barack Obama wasn’t really African-American. Yet, since he has one parent from the African continent and one from the American continent, he is explicitly African-American.

You can read the entire article here.

Attack of the python

Yuck!!!!! I feel sorry for the kids who witnessed this.

Python stalked, then ate family dog

Horrified children watch as 16-foot snake swallows their pet whole

BRISBANE, Australia – A 16-foot python stalked a family dog for days before swallowing the pet whole in front of horrified children in the Australian tropics, animal experts said Wednesday.

The boy and girl, aged 5 and 7, watched as the scrub python devoured their silky terrier-Chihuahua crossbreed Monday at their home near Kuranda in Queensland state.

Stuart Douglas, owner of the Australian Venom Zoo in Kuranda, said scrub pythons typically eat wild animals such as wallabies, a smaller relative of the kangaroo, but sometimes turn to pets in urban areas.

“It actively stalked the dog for a number of days,” Douglas said.

“The family that owned the dog had actually seen it in the dog’s bed, which was a sign it was out to get it,” he added.

“They should have called me then, but (the snake) got away and three or four days later, I was called and went around and removed it” after the dog had been killed, Douglas said.

By the time Douglas arrived, all that could be seen of the dog was its hind legs and tail.

The zoo manager, Todd Rose, said pythons squeeze their prey to death before swallowing it whole. The 5-year-old dog would have been suffocated within minutes.

“The lady who was there threw some plastic chairs at the snake, but you’ve got to remember that this is about 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of aggressive muscle,” Rose said.

Removing the half-swallowed dog could have harmed or even killed the python, Rose said, because dogs have sharp teeth and claws that could do the snake internal damage if it were wrenched out.

The snake was still digesting the dog at the zoo Wednesday. It will soon be relocated to the bush, Douglas said.

Consumer backlash

Business Week.com has an interesting article about consumers fighting back against lousy customer service.

Meet today’s consumer vigilantes. Even if they’re not all wielding hammers, many are arming themselves with video cameras, computer keyboards, and mobile devices to launch their own personal forms of insurrection. Frustrated by the usual fix-it options — obediently waiting on hold with Bangalore, gamely chatting online with a scripted robot — more consumers are rebelling against company-prescribed service channels. After getting nowhere with the call center, they’re sending “e-mail carpet bombs” to the C-suite, cc-ing the top layer of management with their complaints. When all else fails, a plucky few are going straight to the top after uncovering direct numbers to executive customer-service teams not easily found by mere mortals.

Folks are angry and you can’t blame them. One thing I hate is when you call customer service and the recording is constantly telling you if you want one thing hit one, if something else hit two, then after you reach your destination, you’re doing the same thing again. It’s annoying.

The article also mentions a website called The Consumerist, a website where shoppers bite back.

Other Comcast customers have used blogs, too. Dan Ortiz says he called the cable provider at least 20 times during his first month as a subscriber to fix dropped Web access and screen-image problems. Then the 26-year-old bike messenger logged on to The Consumerist, a blog with more than 2 million unique visitors a month that’s part of Gawker Media’s digital empire of snark. There he found a consumer vigilante’s gold mine: a list of e-mail addresses for more than 75 Comcast executives and employees, along with instructions for launching what the blog calls its “executive e-mail carpet bomb.”

Do the Oscars need a facelift

The Los Angeles Times has an excellent article about the Oscars and how it needs a facelift.

The Oscars require major surgery
Time for the Hollywood treatment — a face-lift.

By Patrick Goldstein
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 26, 2008

IT’S now painfully obvious that the Oscars need what nearly every aging star in Hollywood has already had — a face-lift.

The ratings for the show couldn’t have been any worse if they’d been stuck with all of Jay Leno’s strike-show guests instead of Jon Stewart and Co. The numbers hit rock bottom, down a million viewers from 2003, the show’s previous low ebb, and that was right after a war started. Even worse, the ratings for younger viewers dropped off a cliff, falling almost 25% from last year’s telecast. The film academy elders should be very, very worried. If Fox doesn’t have a best picture nominee next year, they’ll probably cook up a nighttime NASCAR special hosted by Jessica Alba, run it opposite the Academy Awards and do some serious damage.

Being the film buff that I’ve been for years, I use to look forward to watching the Oscars every year. But as I got older and wiser, the Academy Awards started to become a turnoff for me. Some of the films and actors/actresses nominated baffled me. Of course there have been plenty of films and actors/actresses who’ve been snubbed by the Academy. And don’t get me started on the lack of diversity in the film and actor/actress nominations. It wasn’t until recently that black actors and actresses finally received some recognition. Of course the lack of quality roles in Hollywood for black actors and actresses doesn’t help matters.

It’s a shame that it wasn’t until 2002 that the Best Actress Oscar was finally won by a black woman. Halle Berry won that year for Monster’s Ball. This should have happened much earlier. Cicely Tyson gave an excellent performance in Sounder but she lost to Liza Minnelli in Cabaret. Diana Ross was also nominated that same year for Lady Sings The Blues. Whoopi Goldberg was fantastic in The Color Purple but she lost to Geraldine Page in The Trip To Bountiful. And let’s not forget how awesome Angela Bassett was in What’s Love Got To Do With It but she lost to Holly Hunter in The Piano. Cicely, Whoopi, Diana and Angela weren’t the only black actresses nominated for Best Actress (Dorothy Dandridge and Diahann Carroll were also nominated) but Cicely, Whoopi and Angela gave Oscar winning performances. They was robbed!!!!

And what about Best Actor? Sidney Poitier became the first black actor to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for Lilies of the Field, but it would take almost 39 years until another black actor won for Best Actor. That actor was Denzel Washington for Training Day in 2002. Denzel was robbed in 1992. He should have won for his awesome performance in Malcolm X. But no, the Academy gave Al Pacino a makeup award for Scent of a Woman. There is no way in hell a great actor like Al Pacino should have won for that film. Al Pacino should have won several Best Actor awards back in the 70′s for Serpico (lost to Jack Lemmon in Save The Tiger), The Godfather Part II (lost to Art Carney in Harry & Tonto) and Dog Day Afternoon (lost to Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest).

Check out this page for a list of black actors and actresses who’ve been nominated in all the Academy Award acting categories through 2001.

Anyway the article gives some interesting tidbits on how the Academy can make changes. Will the Academy look at the suggestions? I doubt it. You can read the entire article here.

Rashida Jones in Unhitched

I received the latest issue of Tv Guide in the mail today. There’s an interview with actress Rashida Jones.

Rashida has a new tv show on Fox. Unhitched premieres on Sunday, March 2, 2008 at 9:30pm EST.

I’ve been a fan of Rashida since she starred in Boston Public. Man I loved that show. You can check out the reruns on TvOne. For those who don’t know, Rashida is the daughter of music genius Quincy Jones and former Mod Squad star Peggy Lipton. Her sister is actress Kidada Jones.

You can read more about Rashida and see what she’s up to by checking out Rashida Jones Online. I have information about Rashida on my site but Rashida Jones Online is much more up to date. I haven’t updated Mahogany Cafe in a long time. I know I need to get back to updating on a regular basis but I just haven’t been in the mood and I needed this break after working on the site nonstop since 2002. I’ll get back into the swing of things soon

Goodbye Jesse L. Martin

I read last week that Jesse L. Martin is leaving Law & Order.

After nine seasons, Jesse L. Martin is about to turn in his “Law & Order” badge.

Martin, who plays Detective Ed Green on the long-running series, had signed on for 13 episodes of the show this season. He had an option to continue after that, but the showbiz trade papers report he chose to leave. He’s expected to shoot one more episode of the show to give his character a send-off.

That show is an institution. I’ve been watching the show since the beginning. I still watch the reruns on TNT. I was disappointed to see that he’s leaving. First you had Christopher Noth, then Benjamin Bratt and then Jesse L. Martin. Handsome men. So when I read this I was like huh?

The show is in talks with “K-Ville” star Anthony Anderson to replace Martin, which would seem to be a death knell for the FOX series.

Anthony Anderson? Well slam on the brakes cause there goes the pretty streak, lol. I guess Anthony’s latest show K-Ville has bitten the dust.

Martin, meanwhile, will move on to playing Marvin Gaye in a biopic set to begin filming in the spring. He was part of the original cast of “Rent” and reprised his role for the 2005 film.

I read a while ago that Jesse would be starring in a Marvin Gaye biopic. I wish him the best of luck in his film career.