First Think, THEN Ink.

You must have heard about this already, but if you didn't, there is this Quincy Jones Interview by David Marchese

The top dishes in this incredibly juicy article:

1. Michael Jackson thieved a bunch of music and didn't properly pay or even credit the writers.
2. Hillary Clinton was disliked for the secrets that she kept.
3. John F. Kennedy was killed by Chicago Mobsters associated with Frank Sinatra.
4. The Beatles were the worst musicians in the world. "Paul was the worst bass player I ever heard. And Ringo? Don't even talk about it."
5. Paul Allen of Microsoft can play like Jimi Hendrix.
6. Donald Trump is " a crazy motherfucker. Limited mentally — a megalomaniac, narcissistic. I can’t stand him."
7. Ivanka Trump dated Quincy.
8. Oprah Winfrey doesn't have the chops to be president.
9. Current Music isn't as good because the mentality of those making it aren't as good.
10. Bruno Mars, Chance The Rapper, Kendrick Lamar, Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith and Mark Ronson are the best out there currently.
11. Marlon Brando had sex with James Baldwin, Richard Pryor and Marvin Gaye.

This leads to a whole lot of other questions that perhaps he's saving for a memoir. Questions like: Why didn't he stop MJ from stealing all that stuff? What secrets is Hillary keeping? How did the mob get Lee Harvey Oswald involved in the assassination of JFK and was Jack Ruby on their payroll? How did those dates with Ivanka go? Why didn't Q think of a single woman to name when it came to talented musicians? And then the Brando thing, which he probably couldn't answer in detail.

Finally, there was also this exchange:

Marchese: Are we in a better place as a country than we were when you started doing humanitarian work 50 years ago?

Jones: No. We’re the worst we’ve ever been, but that’s why we’re seeing people try and fix it. Feminism: Women are saying they’re not going to take it anymore. Racism: People are fighting it. God is pushing the bad in our face to make people fight back.

When I did my 30 Day Music Challenge and got to Day 27 on Grammy Day. I selected "We Are The World," the anthem for famine relief in Africa with that all star group of singers. And, of course, Quincy Jones was there as a producer (he's got a story about that in this interview, too).

But what I didn't share in my post at the time, was that I hadn't heard the song in several years, and I just started crying because it seemed like the atmosphere of the country is so different now than even then, and that we have to do so much more work just to get back to THAT place.

We have to keep fighting back.

Steve Scalise Among 4 Shot at Baseball Field; Suspect Is Dead - The New York Times Wednesday June 14, 2017

Partisan politics commentary where people of a differing political stance have chosen to call each other “selfish,” “stupid,” “insane” or worse. Much worse. It's difficult not to see the above event as possibly a result of such responses. And it's something we have to address.

If we are to understand where the United States is, politically, we have to go back in time and examine where we were. Let’s turn back the clock and go for a trip to a previous USA, all the way back to the mid twentieth century!

( The world of politics during the Eisenhower era... )