From eurweb
*In the eyes of many, “Soul Train” is an institution. From a who’s who of singers performing on stage to the scramble board to dancers showing off their best moves while dancing down the show’s infamous line to host Don Cornelius’ weekly farewell of “love, peace and soul,” the TV show immediately generated flashbacks for viewers.
For Terry Crews, “Soul Train” served as his introduction to dance, a fact he proudly boasts about without shame.
“First of all, "Soul Train" means so much to everybody. People think I’m an actor. I’m a dancer first. This is where you learned to dance,” said Crews, who revealed how far back his relationship with the show went. “This where you get your first move….I was four-years-old when I could see it and all of a sudden, you realize that you can dance over the years because you’ve been watching "Soul Train."
NEW YORK (WPIX) - With 12 Grammys, four number one albums and a slew of roles on the big screen, you would think Alicia Keys had more than enough to put on her resume.
In an effort to expand her brand and career, the 28-year-old singing sensation is now pursing a number of ventures outside of music that she calls "business of inspiration."
Keys, who recently launched her new company AK Worldwide (AKW), announced a partnership in The Barber's Daughters jewelry line - the first of many endeavors, she says.
The inspirational handcrafted jewelry line caught the singer's eyes during a tour stop in Toronto last summer and inspired her to design her own collection for the line.
"They are these unique one of a kind pieces that have the most beautiful words on them, and for me - as a song writer - words mean everything to me," she told PIX News during a retail gallery reception Tuesday at the Collette Blanchard Gallery in Soho.
"People always tell me my music has gotten them through different periods in their lives and I feel this is an extension of that."
For Keys', her business venture is just one of many projects on deck in the coming weeks. The R&B superstar will release her fifth album "The Element of Freedom" on December 15, a piece of work that's already received rave reviews.
"You're going to be able to play it from the beginning, all the way to the end," she said. "I want you to fall in love with the album and I guarantee you will."
"Freedom" has already generated excessive buzz, and will most likely land the New York native her fifth consecutive number one album.
From NPR
This month the U.S. Mint releases the last of four special Abraham Lincoln pennies, which coincide with the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth.
Not everyone is celebrating.
The future of America's one-cent coin has been the subject of much debate, and one store owner in Berkeley, Calif., has decided to take a personal stand.
Not Even One Red Cent
Alko Office Supply in downtown Berkeley is an average-looking store, with one exception. Hanging above the cash register, a sign reads: "We are a penny free store."
Cashier Andrew Allen says that with so many people using credit and debit cards, he only has to explain the no-penny rule about once a day.
ALKO Office Supply cashier Andrew Allen says most customers laugh at the penny-free policy.
ALKO Office Supply cashier Andrew Allen says most customers laugh at the penny-free policy.
I purchased a 2010 planner. Total: $15.53. Allen asked for $15.50. I proffered $15.53, pennies and all, and Allen didn't accept the superfluous cents.
"I won't take them," Allen said. "I refuse to take them."
But Is It Legal?
While all U.S. currency is legal tender for paying debts, public charges, taxes and dues, the Treasury Department says private business can decide, as a matter of policy, whether to accept currency as payment, and if so, in which denominations. About a year ago, Gary Shows, the owner of Alko Office Supply, felt pennies were no longer worth the hassle for customers and cashiers.
"One evening, I had this idea," Shows says, "That if we went penny free and rounded everything down to the customer's favor to the nearest nickel — if everybody was four cents, I decided that we would lose about $500 a year."
Shows says that the lost $500 is likely overcome by customers who remember the store and come back. For Shows, it was an issue of convenience. But there are other figures starting to stack up against the penny. For instance, since 2006, producing a penny has cost more than one cent due to the rising price of zinc, the main ingredient in the coin. Inflation is also an issue.
"It's important to separate the idea of something being used, and something being useful," says Jeff Gore, the founder of a group called Citizens for Retiring the Penny. Gore points out that every year, our currency is worth less.
"There's just a very natural process where we have to retire currency," Gore says. "The penny used to be a useful coin. But it hasn't been useful for many decades."
If you happen to be in the Hub this evening and don't feel like tuning in to the Pats and the Saints tonight then head on over to the Enormous Room in Cambridge for a great night put together by UMass Boston's Pacey Foster and Wayne and DJ Flack from Beat Research at the Enormous Room. It's a celebration of Boston hip-hop, from the early 80s ("Pak Jam"!) to the advent of Magnus Johnstone's "Leccos Lemma" show on WMBR in the mid-80s, up through the indie explosion led by Brick Records, 7L & Esoteric, Mr. Lif, Akrobatik and others in the mid-90s, straight into the present day.
Boston Hip-Hop History Lesson
November 30th, 2009, 9PM
Enormous Room, 567 Mass Ave, Central Square
Free
On Friday night at the Mercury Lounge Hi-Hop Karaoke Manhattan Regional Champoinship is going down. According to their rules:
20 people will compete for the chance to move on to the finals at each regional event.
The top 5 from Manhattan all advance to January's Championship, where they'll compete for the $1,000 prize and shot at Hip Hop Karaoke Champion.
Want to compete at one of the regionals, for a slot at the championship? There are two ways:
Sign up to perform a track during the designated sign-up period (9pm-10pm). At the end of the sign-up period for each event, 10 people will be randomly selected to compete that night. Those picked will be added to a list of competitors pre-selected by the HHK Crew to battle for the chance to move on to the Championship. All competitors are welcome to be as creative as possible in the regionals, no lyric sheets, back-up dancers, or hypemen are allowed. It's just skill versus skill. Of course, special guest judges will be grading the performances each night.
Hip-Hop Karaoke
Friday, December 4th, 8PM
The Mercury Lounge, 217 E Houston Street, Manhattan
$5 with flyer, $8 without
From ESPN
After 14 seasons in the NBA, Allen Iverson says he plans to retire. Here are some quotes from players and coaches Wednesday, from games around the league or via their Twitter feeds, about the 10-time All-Star.
"It's sad man, especially coming from a guy that's close to me and a friend. To see him go out the way he's going out right now, it's not like he wants to go out, he's almost being forced to retire. It's a bad situation right now. It was just, he got dealt a bad hand from when he went to Detroit up to right now. Everything kind of spiraled downhill. I never want to see nobody go through nothing like that, especially a guy with his talent, somebody who can still go out there and be productive." -- Denver forward Carmelo Anthony
"I think he still has something left to give some team out there. If that's his decision, he'll go down in history, I think, as the greatest little guard ever to play the game of basketball. I was happy to have him for a couple years and hopefully our paths will cross. But I have a sneaky feeling that somewhere along the way an injury or a circumstance with a team will open that window back up." -- Nuggets coach George Karl
The iPhone's arrival in South Korea is generating considerable buzz among consumers and industry watchers amid expectations it will shake up a market dominated by world-beating domestic manufacturers.
"I can't wait to get my iPhone," said Na Hae-bin, a 30-year-old market researcher at an Internet company, who reserved one as soon as he could. "My heart was beating fast."
Judging from pre-orders that started Nov. 22, Apple Inc.'s hit communications device appears set to make serious inroads in South Korea — home to some of the world's most sophisticated mobile phone users.
From AP
The Washington Post will close its last three remaining national bureaus in a cost-cutting move, Kris Coratti, the paper’s director of communications, said Tuesday.
The decision effectively means The Post will cover national stories by traveling from its base in Washington. The reporters from the bureaus — in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles — will be offered the opportunity to relocate to Washington, Ms. Coratti said, though three news assistants in those cities will lose their jobs.
From The Times
