Thursday, December 29, 2016

UFC 207 Countdown: Amanda Nunes vs Ronda Rousey

Tomorrow December 30 is the return of Ronda Rousey against the Current Champion Amanda Nunes in the UFC 207 World Bantamweight Championship.

I'm for Rousey. Would be awesome if she wins tomorrow the title back. She already said in the past that she might retire after this fight. Well!!!

Here it is the video promoting the fight that will happend tomorrow in Las Vegas, USA.

UFC 207 Countdown: Amanda Nunes vs Ronda Rousey
Published on Dec 26, 2016
UFC 207 Countdown takes you inside the lives and training camps of four bantamweights preparing for their December title fights. Former champion Ronda Rousey returns to the Octagon fiercely motivated to recapture the belt she pioneered. But current women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes has no intention of letting go of her hard-earned title.

Watch UFC 207: Nunes vs Rousey, this Friday, December 30th, kicking off with the UFC Fight Pass Prelims at 7:30PM ET / 4:30PM PT.


Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Carrie Fisher, DEAD (1956-10-21, 2016-12-27) (aged 60)

Carrie Fisher dies with 60. Actress.

One of the most unforgettable actresses ever. Famous for being the Princess Leia in the Star Wars movies.

Remember a few of her movies like:

- "Star Wars (1977)" as Princess Leia Organa,
- "The Empire Strikes Back (1980)" as Princess Leia Organa,
- "Return of the Jedi (1983)" as Princess Leia Organa,

- "When Harry Met Sally... (1989)" as Marie,
- "Hook (1991)" as Woman kissing on bridge,
- "Scream 3 (2000)" as Bianca,
- "Heartbreakers (2001)" as Ms. Surpin,
- "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003)" as Mother Superior,

- "Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)" as General Leia Organa,
- "Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)" as General Leia Organa.

Carrie fisher Official Website
Carrie fisher on IMDb

Here it goes the story of Carrie Fisher from Wikipedia

Thanks to Carrie Fisher on Wikipedia

Carrie Fisher (October 21, 1956 – December 27, 2016) was an American actress, screenwriter, author, producer, and speaker. She was best known for playing Princess Leia in the Star Wars series of films. Her other film roles included Shampoo (1975), The Blues Brothers (1980), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), The 'Burbs (1989), and When Harry Met Sally... (1989). Fisher was also known for her semi-autobiographical novels, including Postcards from the Edge and the screenplay for the film of the same name, as well as her autobiographical one-woman play and its nonfiction book, Wishful Drinking, based on the show.

Early life

Fisher was born in Beverly Hills, California, the daughter of singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds. Her paternal grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants. Her mother was raised a Nazarene, and is of English and Scots-Irish ancestry. When Fisher was two, her parents divorced after her father left Reynolds for her mother's close friend, actress Elizabeth Taylor, the widow of her father's best friend Mike Todd. The following year, her mother married Harry Karl, owner of a shoe-store chain, who secretly spent Reynolds' life savings.

Fisher "hid in books" as a child, becoming known in her family as "the bookworm". She spent her earliest years reading classic literature, and writing poetry. She attended Beverly Hills High School until, at the age of 15, she appeared as a debutante and singer in the hit Broadway revival Irene (1973), which starred her mother. This activity interfered with her education, and she never graduated from high school. In 1973, Fisher enrolled at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, which she attended for 18 months, and in 1978, Fisher was accepted into Sarah Lawrence College, where she planned to study the arts. However, she left before graduating due to conflicts filming Star Wars.

Career
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Personal life

Fisher dated musician Paul Simon from 1977 until 1983 after meeting him on the set of Star Wars. In 1980, she was briefly engaged to Canadian actor and comedian Dan Aykroyd, who proposed on the set of their film The Blues Brothers. She said: "We had rings, we got blood tests, the whole shot. But then I got back together with Paul Simon." Fisher was married to Simon from August 1983 to July 1984, and they dated again for a time after their divorce.[citation needed] During their marriage, she appeared in Simon's music video for the song "Rene and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog after the War". Simon's song "Hearts and Bones" is about their romance.

She subsequently had a relationship with Creative Artists Agency principal and talent agent Bryan Lourd. They had one child together, Billie Catherine Lourd (born July 17, 1992). Eddie Fisher stated in his autobiography (Been There Done That) that his granddaughter's name is Catherine Fisher Lourd and her nickname is "Billy". The couple's relationship ended when Lourd left to be in a relationship with a man. Though Fisher described Lourd as her second husband in interviews, according to a 2004 profile of the actress and writer, she and Lourd were never legally married.

In her 2016 autobiography, The Princess Diarist, Fisher wrote that she and Harrison Ford had a three-month affair in 1976 during the filming of Star Wars.

Fisher also had a close relationship with singer James Blunt. While working on his album Back to Bedlam in 2003, Blunt spent much of his time at Fisher's residence. When Vanity Fair's George Wayne asked Fisher if their relationship was sexual, she replied: "Absolutely not, but I did become his therapist. He was a soldier. This boy has seen awful stuff. Every time James hears fireworks or anything like that, his heart beats faster, and he gets 'fight or flight.' You know, he comes from a long line of soldiers dating back to the 10th century. He would tell me these horrible stories. He was a captain, a reconnaissance soldier. I became James' therapist. So it would have been unethical to sleep with my patient."

On February 26, 2005, R. Gregory "Greg" Stevens, a lobbyist, was found dead in Fisher's California home. The final autopsy report lists the cause of death as "cocaine and oxycodone use" but adds chronic, and apparently previously undiagnosed, heart disease as contributing factors. Media coverage of an initial autopsy report used the word "overdose," but that wording is not in the final report. In an interview, Fisher claimed that Stevens' ghost haunted her mansion, which unsettled her: "I was a nut for a year", she explained, "and in that year I took drugs again."

Fisher described herself as an "enthusiastic agnostic who would be happy to be shown that there is a God". She was raised Protestant, but often attended Jewish services, the faith of her father, with Orthodox friends.

In 2016, Harvard College gave Fisher its Annual Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism, noting that "her forthright activism and outspokenness about addiction, mental illness, and agnosticism have advanced public discourse on these issues with creativity and empathy."

Fisher was a supporter and advocate for several causes, including women's advocacy, animal rights, and LGBT causes. She was open about her experiences caring for friends who suffered from AIDS, contributing financially to various AIDS and HIV organizations, including hosting a benefit for amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research. She also served as an honorary board member for the International Bipolar Foundation, and, in 2014, received the Golden Heart Award for her work with The Midnight Mission.

She was a spokesperson for Jenny Craig weight loss television ads that aired in January 2011.

Bipolar disorder and drug use

In appearances on 20/20 and The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive with Stephen Fry, Fisher publicly discussed her diagnosis of bipolar disorder and her addictions to cocaine and prescription medication. She said her drug use was a form of self-medication; she used pain medication such as Percodan to "dial down" the manic aspect of her bipolar disorder. She gave nicknames to her bipolar moods: Roy ("the wild ride of a mood") and Pam ("who stands on the shore and sobs"). "Drugs made me feel more normal", she explained to Psychology Today in 2001. "They contained me." She discussed her 2008 memoir Wishful Drinking and various topics in it with Matt Lauer on NBC's Today that same year, and also revealed that she would have turned down the role of Princess Leia had she realized it would give her the celebrity status that made her parents' lives difficult. This interview was followed by a similar appearance on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on December 12, 2008, where she discussed her electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) treatments. At one point, she received ECT every six weeks to "blow apart the cement" in her brain. In 2014, she said she was no longer receiving the treatment.

Fisher revealed in another interview that she used cocaine during the filming of The Empire Strikes Back. "Slowly, I realized I was doing a bit more drugs than other people and losing my choice in the matter", she noted. In 1985, after months of sobriety, she accidentally overdosed on a combination of prescription medication and sleeping pills. She was rushed to the hospital, creating the turn of events that led to much of the material in her novel and screenplay, Postcards from the Edge. Asked why she did not take on the role of her story's protagonist, named Suzanne, in the film version, Fisher remarked, "I've already played Suzanne."

In her later years, Fisher had an emotional support animal, a French Bulldog named Gary, whom she brought to numerous appearances and interviews. Following her death, reports indicated that Fisher's daughter Billie Lourd would take care of Gary.

Death and tributes

On December 23, 2016, after finishing the European leg of her book tour, Fisher was on a flight from London to Los Angeles. She suffered a medical emergency around fifteen minutes before the plane landed. A passenger seated near Fisher reported that she had stopped breathing; another passenger performed CPR on Fisher until paramedics arrived at the scene. Emergency services in Los Angeles were contacted when the flight crew reported a passenger in distress prior to landing. After Fisher was taken by ambulance to the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, she was placed on a ventilator.

Following four days in intensive care at UCLA Medical Center, Fisher died on December 27, 2016, at 8:55 a.m. (PST); she was 60 years old. Fisher's daughter, Billie Lourd, confirmed her mother's death in a statement to the press. News of Fisher's death spread quickly online where fans from around the world responded with tributes and condolences. Many of her costars and directors from Star Wars and other works also shared their thoughts on Fisher's death.

On December 28, 2016, while at the home of Fisher's brother Todd, their mother Debbie Reynolds experienced a medical emergency and was taken to the hospital by ambulance. Reynolds and her son had been planning Fisher's funeral before 9-1-1 had to be called. The actress subsequently died at the hospital. It was reported later that Fisher's mother had suffered a stroke, and that Reynolds said, "I want to be with Carrie" shortly before she died. On January 5, 2017, a joint private memorial was held for Fisher and Reynolds. A portion of her remains were laid to rest beside Reynolds in a crypt at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills. The remainder of Fisher's ashes are held in a giant, novelty Prozac pill.

In her 2008 book, Wishful Drinking, Fisher wrote about what she hoped would eventually be her obituary: "I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra." Several obituaries and retrospectives featured the quote. In the absence of a star for Fisher on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, fans created their own memorial using a blank star. Along with flowers and candles, words put on the blank star read, "Carrie Fisher may the force be with you always". In the video game Star Wars: The Old Republic, thousands of fans paid tribute to Fisher by gathering at House Organa on the planet Alderaan where Fisher's character in Star Wars resided. Lightsaber vigils and similar events in Fisher's honor were held at various Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas theaters and other sites. On January 6, 2017, the lights on Broadway in New York City were darkened for one minute in honor of Fisher and her mother.

On January 9, 2017, the Los Angeles county Department of Public Health issued a death certificate listing "cardiac arrest/deferred" as the cause. More tests were expected.
Filmography
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Look on Carrie Fisher on Wikipedia
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Television
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Look on Carrie Fisher on Wikipedia
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Video games
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Look on Carrie Fisher on Wikipedia
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Bibliography:

Novels
Postcards from the Edge, 1987, ISBN 0-7434-6651-9
Surrender the Pink, 1990, ISBN 0-671-66640-1
Delusions of Grandma, 1993, ISBN 0-684-85803-7
Hollywood Moms, 2001, (introduction)
The Best Awful There Is, 2004, ISBN 0-7434-7857-6

Non-fiction
Wishful Drinking, 2008, ISBN 1-4391-0225-2
Shockaholic, 2011, ISBN 978-0-7432-6482-2
The Princess Diarist, 2016, ISBN 978-0-399-17359-2

Screenplays
Postcards from the Edge, 1990
These Old Broads, 2001
E-Girl (2007)
Doctored screenplays for Sister Act (1992), Last Action Hero (1993) and The Wedding Singer (1998)

Plays
Wishful Drinking, 2006
Wishful Drinking, 2008
A Spy in the House of Me, 2008

Fisher in 2013
Fisher in 2013
Born Carrie Frances Fisher
October 21, 1956
Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Died December 27, 2016 (aged 60)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation Actress, screenwriter, author, producer, speaker
Years active 1973–2016
Spouse(s) Paul Simon (m. 1983; div. 1984)
Partner(s) Bryan Lourd (1991–1994)
Children Billie Lourd
Parent(s)
Relatives

George Michael 2016-12-27 Page Six, George Michael quietly battled heroin addiction before death

http://pagesix.com/2016/12/27/george-michael-quietly-battled-heroin-addiction/

George Michael quietly battled heroin addiction before death


George Michael had been quietly battling a spiraling heroin addiction in the year before his death, according to a British media report.

The Daily Telegraph reported that Michael’s condition forced him into the ER — or the “accident and emergency room” as the Brits call it — multiple times.

“He’s been rushed to A&E on several occasions,” an anonymous source told the British newspaper. “He used heroin. I think it’s amazing he’s lasted as long as he has.”

Michael’s long-time boyfriend, celebrity hairdresser Fadi Fawaz, said he found Michael’s lifeless body in bed on Sunday morning inside the singer’s Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire home.

“We were supposed to be going for Christmas lunch,” Fawaz told The Telegraph. “I went round there to wake him up and he was just gone, lying peacefully in bed. We don’t know what happened yet.”

Fawaz hinted that their relationship had been strained in recent times but they were looking forward to a pleasant holiday Sunday.

“Everything had been very complicated recently, but George was looking forward to Christmas, and so was I,” he said.

“Now everything is ruined. I want people to remember him the way he was — he was a beautiful person.”

Michael’s manager has only said the pop icon died of “heart failure.”

Authorities have not officially declared Michael’s cause of death, but have said it wasn’t suspicious or the result of foul play.

Michael had long battled insatiable desires for drugs and sex – but those demons had never stopped his music.

“In a strange way I’ve spent the last 15 or 20 years trying to derail my own career because it never seems to suffer. I suffered terrible things – bereavements and public humiliations,” Michael told BBC radio back in 2007.

“But my career just seems to right itself like a plastic duck in a bath and, in some ways, I resent that.”

Monday, December 26, 2016

Debbie Gibson - > Blog: Remembering George Michael - December 25, 2016

http://debbiegibsonofficial.com/blog-rip-george-michael/

I have to repost this amazing blog from Debbie Gibson here.

Debbie was one of my idols of the 80s, still have her tapes and CDs. She was always playing in my tape recorder.

"Shake Your Love" was the music that made me know her. I was playing this song non stop. "Staying together", "Only In My Dreams" other 2 amazing songs also nonstop playing. This songs from "Out Of The Blue" (1987).

Then the album "Electric Youth" (1989) with all of the amazing songs inside. "Electric Youth" and "We Could Be Together", just to remember a few.

This 2 albuns made me always so happy.

"Think with Your Heart" (1995). My other Debbie CD.

Love this blog that she wrote about the great and only one George Michael. Made me remember the days in School where I took a tape recorder with the Wham! cassettes and play them on the breaks of classes.

Debbie Gibson, I would love to meet you one day. Photo with you and autographs on my CDs would make me so happy.

Links of the amazing Debbie Gibson:


Blog: Remembering George Michael




By now everyone has heard the news…. and, my first reaction was “No… not George!” We have lost so many greats as of late and all have impacted me, but quite possibly none more than George Michael. Let me tell you why.

I was 13 years old when I got my Tascam 4 track recorder in my garage. I was multi track recording with a sequencer, splicing tape… I didn’t know what I was doing except for the fact that I was making music as I heard it in my head. I’m not sure if I knew what the word “producer” meant at the time. Then, along came Wham!

I will never forget the day I got home from school and turned on MTV and there it was. “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go,” quite possibly THE catchiest pop song I had EVER heard! As a pop fan and a budding songwriter, I was beyond inspired. I announced to my family I had a new favorite group. The posters went up on my garage studio wall. And, as I struggled to write what I felt were “hits,” my Mom sited “Careless Whisper” as an example of a writing realm I had not yet ventured into. Suddenly, my own song was emerging with the minor key and haunting melody, epic sax solo, and even the concept of the title not being the obvious hook, but a phrase pulled from the middle of the song. As kids, we are directly influenced by whatever is going on in pop culture and George was among a short list of artists, which also included Madonna and a handful of others, who I was directly emulating in my formative years.

A lot of my friends made fun of me for liking Wham! A boy I liked walked into school one day and gave me all of his Wham! records and memorabilia because he was now into Depeche Mode saying they were far cooler than Wham! My love for Wham!, but namely the talents of George Michael, never wavered. When I saw “Written and Produced by…” on those records, it was the very thing that let me know that it was possible for me to do the same. I knew that he was channeling music without any outside interference and that notion captivated me. A man, his keyboards, a microphone… In my vision of George Michael in the studio, there wasn’t even an engineer present (though I am sure there was, which is a testament to how unadulterated and intimate the music was.) I knew he did not run these songs by a committee of execs who weighed in on his every note and nuance. I just knew. And, I respected the heck out of him for it. I wanted to be like him. He was the marker for me in my own musical compromise meter. I learned to be musically pure from George Michael.

George did not share details of his personal preferences in his early career. And what did that matter anyway? We were all in love with his essence and his voice. His voice had that tone that was so unique to him that if you were driving by another car on the freeway blasting his music out the window at 90 MPH you would know that TONE. The late great Ahmet Ertegun once cited that as the very thing that made so many of the greats great… To have a tone that is absolutely one of a kind that it pierces your soul leaving a mark forever… that you knew anywhere. His rich and resonant tone had that unmistakable “thing.”

At 14 years old, before I was signed to Atlantic Records, I called into WPLJ in NYC to try to win tickets to see Wham! in Philadelphia. I was a die-hard pop radio and music FAN. Lo and behold I was the 95th caller, and my sister Karen and I were off on the “Whamtrack to Philly!” En route, it was all Wham! all the way. Music, contests, t-shirt giveaways… I was in Wham! heaven! We were on the stadium floor amongst the masses, but I made my way to a spot in the stadium where I could call to George in the wings and I got a wave from him! It was all I talked about for ages. The concert was amazing. His presence was at once cool, magnetic and powerful! His voice soared. Chaka Khan was the opening act. Who could have followed her vocally? George Michael. Just three short years later, I would be whisked off on the Westwood One Radio Jet to visit with George backstage before one of his concerts. My “Momager” Diane and my younger sister Denise were with me at the time. I was already becoming known to the pop audience, but in that moment I was a teenaged girl… one who won tickets to see her idol and was about to meet him. I mean I had his posters on my wall! I was freaking out! He was super gracious and invited me to sit with him backstage in the catering hall to eat dinner before his performance. I could barely function. I was SO nervous, though he was super down to earth – albeit introverted – and, did everything within his power to set me and my family at ease.

I would continue to follow his career and draw on his productions and arrangements for inspiration. I had another opportunity to hang out with him after one of his big concerts in LA. His managers Michael and Terry Lippman hosted the after party and I was invited. It was at a house and then something happened to the stereo system. I remember finding myself assisting George in re-wiring the system to try and get the music going again. My friend and longtime dancer/choreographer Buddy Casimano was there and was recently saying that it was a night he would never forget. I never have and I never will. We were laughing and trying to figure out the wiring but could not get the music going. Turns out the plug had fallen out of the socket. My musical producing hero was human! That and a spot of tea in the kitchen with George made for the best Hollywood party I ever went to!

But at the heart of it all is the MUSIC. I know how devastated we all are that such an incredible talent and person has left us so soon, but there is such beauty in art and in the fact that he bared his soul and dared to be an innovator and dared to take a lot of heat for being who he was both personally and musically. He was SO crafty and wrote SUCH unforgettable hooks that it annoyed a lot of people. I love that he kept on writing those hooks and kept on coming at us with his physical and vocal perfection. “Faith” and the music that followed were his “Told ya so” to the critics who once made fun of him. With the integrity and sophistication of the post Wham! music, the critics had no choice but to shut up and sing his praises. I have always been proud to say I was never on the post Wham! bandwagon. I was a fan from note one. I know many of you reading this share that same experience. For those with eyes and ears that saw and heard beyond the confines of a 3 minute 45 second snapshot of someone’s talents and a pin up picture in Smash Hits, the soul of a timeless genius awaited. We Listened Without Prejudice to the future of music. He was always a step ahead.

RIP George Michael. We will all mourn the loss of your presence here on earth and what you would have done next as we celebrate your incomparable talents and the grooves you cut in our hearts that are forever a part of the soundtrack of our lives.

Sunday, December 25, 2016

George Michael, DEAD (1963-06-25, 2016-12-25) (aged 53)

The unique and incredible George Michael is dead.
I saw George Michael live in 2007 in a big stadium (Estádio Cidade Coimbra). I was on front row on the show.
You can check my story of that show on a post I wrote in 2007: (George Michael, 2007-05-12, Coimbra) http://pedrossm.blogspot.pt/2007/05/george-michael-2007-05-12-coimbra.html
He was always one of my idols. Already since 1982 when he was in Wham! (1982 to 1986).

You can check his story on his wikipedia page and on his imdb page.

Here it goes a little from his history from wikipedia.

Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou (25 June 1963 – 25 December 2016), known professionally as George Michael, was an English singer, songwriter, and record producer, who rose to fame as a member (with Andrew Ridgeley) of the music duo Wham!. He was best known in the 1980s and 1990s with his style of post-disco dance-pop, with best-selling songs such as "Last Christmas" and "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go".

Michael sold more than 100 million records worldwide. His 1987 debut solo album, Faith, sold more than 20 million copies worldwide. Michael garnered seven number one singles in the UK and eight number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, including "Careless Whisper" and "Freedom! '90". He ranks among the best-selling British acts of all time, with Billboard magazine ranking him the 40th most successful artist to ever live. Michael won various music awards throughout his 30-year career, including three Brit Awards—winning Best British Male twice, four MTV Video Music Awards, four Ivor Novello Awards, three American Music Awards, and two Grammy Awards from eight nominations.

In 2004, the Radio Academy named Michael the most played artist on British radio during the period 1984–2004. The documentary A Different Story, released in 2005, covered his career and personal life. In 2006, Michael announced his first tour in 15 years, the worldwide 25 Live tour, spanning three individual tours over the course of three years (2006, 2007 and 2008). In 2016, Michael announced a second documentary on his life entitled Freedom, set to be released in March 2017. On 25 December 2016, Michael died at home at the age of 53.

Early life

George Michael was born in East Finchley, London. His father, Kyriacos Panayiotou, a Greek Cypriot restaurateur, moved to England in the 1950s and changed his name to Jack Panos.Michael's mother, Lesley Angold (née Harrison; 1937–1997), was an English dancer. Michael spent the majority of his childhood in Kingsbury, London, in the home his parents bought soon after his birth; he attended Kingsbury High School.

While in his early teens, the family moved to Radlett, Hertfordshire. There, Michael attended Bushey Meads School in the neighbouring town of Bushey, where he befriended his future Wham! partner Andrew Ridgeley. The two had the same career ambition of being musicians. Michael would busk on the London Underground, performing songs such as "'39" by Queen. His involvement in the music business began with his working as a DJ, playing at clubs and local schools around Bushey, Stanmore, and Watford. This was followed by the formation of a short-lived ska band called The Executive with Ridgeley, Ridgeley's brother Paul, Andrew Leaver, and David Mortimer (later known as David Austin).

Musical career

1981–86: Wham!

George Michael first found success after forming the duo Wham! with Andrew Ridgeley in 1981. The band's first album Fantastic reached No. 1 in the UK in 1983 and produced a series of top 10 singles including "Young Guns", "Wham Rap!" and "Club Tropicana". Their second album, Make It Big reached No. 1 on the charts in the US. Singles from that album included "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" (No. 1 in the UK and US), "Freedom", "Everything She Wants", and "Careless Whisper" which reached No. 1 in nearly 25 countries, including the UK and US, and was Michael's first solo effort as a single.

Michael sang on the original Band Aid recording of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" (which became the UK Christmas number one) and donated the profits from "Last Christmas/Everything She Wants" to charity. In addition, he contributed background vocals to David Cassidy's 1985 hit "The Last Kiss", as well as Elton John's 1985 successes "Nikita" and "Wrap Her Up". Michael cited Cassidy as a major career influence and interviewed Cassidy for David Litchfield's Ritz Newspaper.

Wham!'s tour of China in April 1985, the first visit to China by a Western popular music act, generated worldwide media coverage, much of it centred on Michael. Before Wham!'s appearance in China, many kinds of music in the country were forbidden. The audience included members of the Chinese government, and Chinese television presenter, Kan Lijun, who was the on stage host, spoke of Wham!'s historic performance; "No-one had ever seen anything like that before. All the young people were amazed and everybody was tapping their feet. Of course the police weren't happy and they were scared there would be riots." The tour was documented by film director Lindsay Anderson and producer Martin Lewis in their film Foreign Skies: Wham! In China.

With the success of Michael's solo singles, "Careless Whisper" (1984) and "A Different Corner" (1986), rumours of an impending break up of Wham! intensified. The duo officially separated during the summer of 1986, after releasing a farewell single, "The Edge of Heaven" and a singles compilation, The Final, plus a sell-out concert at Wembley Stadium that included the world premiere of the China film. The Wham! partnership ended officially with the commercially successful single "The Edge of Heaven", which reached No. 1 on the UK chart in June 1986.

Solo career

The beginning of his solo career, during early 1987, was a duet with Aretha Franklin. "I Knew You Were Waiting" was a one-off project that helped Michael achieve an ambition by singing with one of his favourite artists, and it scored number one on both the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100 upon its release.

For Michael, it became his third consecutive solo number one in the UK from three releases, after 1984's "Careless Whisper" (though the single was actually from the Wham! album Make It Big) and 1986's "A Different Corner". The single was also the first Michael had recorded as a solo artist which he had not written himself. The co-writer, Simon Climie, was unknown at the time, although he would have success as a performer with the band Climie Fisher in 1988. Michael and Aretha Franklin won a Grammy Award in 1988 for Best R&B Performance – Duo or Group with Vocal for the song.

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Personal life

Sexuality

At the age of 19, Michael told Andrew Ridgeley and close friends that he was bisexual. Michael also told one of his two sisters, but he was advised by friends not to tell his parents about his sexuality. In a 1999 interview with The Advocate, Michael told the Editor in Chief, Judy Wieder, that it was "falling in love with a man that ended his conflict over bisexuality." "I never had a moral problem with being gay", Michael told Wieder. "I thought I had fallen in love with a woman a couple of times. Then I fell in love with a man, and realized that none of those things had been love." In 2007, Michael said he had hidden the fact he was gay because of worries over what effect it might have on his mother.

Speaking about his time with Wham! in the 1980s, Michael said: "I used to sleep with women quite a lot in the Wham! days but never felt it could develop into a relationship because I knew that, emotionally, I was a gay man. I didn't want to commit to them but I was attracted to them. Then I became ashamed that I might be using them." In 2009, Michael said: "My depression at the end of Wham! was because I was beginning to realize I was gay, not bisexual."

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Health problems

On 26 October 2011, George Michael cancelled a performance at London's Royal Albert Hall due to a viral infection. On 21 November 2011, a hospital in Vienna admitted Michael after he had complained of chest pains while at a hotel just two hours before his performance at a venue there for his Symphonica Tour. The singer was later confirmed to have suffered from pneumonia and, until 1 December, was in an intensive care unit. While Michael appeared to be "in good spirits" and responded well to treatment following his admittance, on 25 November hospital officials said that his condition had "worsened overnight". This development led to cancellations and postponements of Michael's remaining 2011 performances, which had been scheduled mainly for the United Kingdom.

On 1 December 2011, doctors at the hospital in which George Michael had stayed announced that the singer was "steadily improving" and that he had moved out of the intensive care ward. On 21 December 2011, the hospital discharged Michael. On 23 December 2011, Michael made a public speech outside his house in Highgate, London, in which he stated that the staff at the Vienna General Hospital had saved his life and that he would perform a free concert specifically for those staff. While making the speech, he became emotional and breathless. During the speech, he also mentioned that he had undergone a tracheotomy. He also revealed that, after waking from the coma, he had a temporary West Country accent.

On 16 May 2013, George Michael sustained a head injury when he fell from his moving car on the M1 motorway, near St Albans in Hertfordshire, and was airlifted to a hospital.

Death

Michael died at his home in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, aged 53. He was found dead by his partner Fadi Fawaz on Christmas morning, 25 December 2016.

No cause of death was immediately determined; his manager Michael Lippman conjectured that heart failure was the cause of death, and that Michael "passed away peacefully." Fawaz described, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, finding the performer on Christmas morning, “I went round there to wake him up and he was just gone, lying peacefully in bed. We don’t know what happened yet. Everything had been very complicated recently, but George was looking forward to Christmas, and so was I."

On 29 December a post-mortem was undertaken to determine the exact cause of death, but was inconclusive. Thames Valley Police said that further tests would be carried out, but the results were unlikely to be known for several weeks.

In its obituary of Michael, the BBC described him as a "pop superstar" and wrote, "Blessed with good looks and a fine singing voice, his stage presence made him a favourite on the live concert circuit as he matured from teen idol to long term stardom." He is survived by his father and two sisters.

Awards and nominations

Michael won numerous music awards throughout his 30-year career, including three Brit Awards—winning Best British Male twice, four MTV Video Music Awards, four Ivor Novello Awards, three American Music Awards, and two Grammy Awards from eight nominations.

Discography

Faith (1987)
Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 (1990)
Five Live (EP) (1993)
Older (1996)
Songs from the Last Century (1999)
Patience (2004)
Symphonica (2014)

Tours

Faith World Tour (1988–89)
Cover to Cover (1991)
25 Live (2006–08)
George Michael Live in Australia (2010)
Symphonica Tour (2011–12)


George Michael
George Michael.jpeg
Michael performing on stage during the
Faith World Tour in 1988
Background information
Birth name Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou
Born 25 June 1963
East Finchley, London, England
Died 25 December 2016 (aged 53)
Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England
Genres
Occupation(s)
  • Singer
  • songwriter
  • record producer
Instruments Vocals
Years active 1981–2016
Labels
Associated acts
Website georgemichael.com







Notable instruments
  • Piano
  • John Lennon model "Z" Steinway

Friday, December 16, 2016

James Corden Carpool Karaoke Christmas videos (2015-2016)

2 Christmas Carpool Karaoke videos of James Corden with some famous music people.
Hope you like them. 2 songs "Joy To the world" and "All I Want For Christmas Is You". Videos from 2015 and 2016.

'All I Want for Christmas' Carpool Karaoke
Published on Dec 15, 2016
James caps off 2016 with a Christmas edition of Carpool Karaoke featuring Mariah Carey, Adele, Lady Gaga and other guests throughout the year to sing Mariah's classic "All I Want for Christmas Is You."


Christmas Carpool Karaoke - Joy to the World
Published on Dec 17, 2015
James Corden and Reggie Watts kick off a Christmas edition of Carpool Karaoke singing "Joy to the World" with One Direction, Stevie Wonder, Iggy Azalea, Rod Stewart, Carrie Underwood, Jason Derulo and Justin Bieber.

Thursday, December 08, 2016

Madonna & James Corden - Carpool Karaoke

Here it is the amazing new Carpool Karaoke video by James Corden. Today is finally Madonna time.
Madonna, so amazing. Vogue" and "Papa Don't Preach" just a few of the songs they sing on the car. Only problem here is that the video would be so much better if it was an hour video. Not only 14 minutes.

Madonna Carpool Karaoke
Published on Dec 7, 2016
James and Madonna go for a drive through New York City singing classics from her epic catalog of music, and James learns about Madonna's relationship with Michael Jackson.

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Lady Gaga & James Corden - Carpool Karaoke

Here it is the new awesome Carpool Karaoke video by James Corden. Today is Lady Gaga time.
Lady Gaga, so amazing. So pretty, incredible voice. when Gaga was driving (sick and scary times for James).

Lady Gaga Carpool Karaoke
Published on Oct 25, 2016
Lady Gaga joins James for a drive through Los Angeles singing her classics and tracks from her new album, "Joanne" before James tries on some of her classic looks and lets her take the wheel. Buy Lady Gaga's new album 'Joanne' here: http://smarturl.it/Joanne

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Lady Gaga - Perfect Illusion

The amazing new video by the incredible Lady Gaga.

Lady Gaga - Perfect Illusion



Hope you will love this awesome lyric.

Lady Gaga - Perfect Illusion

Tryin' to keep control
Pressure's takin' its toll
Stuck in the middle zone
I just want you alone
My guessing game is strong
Way too real to be wrong
Caught up in your show
Yeah, at least now I know

It wasn't love, it wasn't love
It was a perfect illusion (Perfect illusion)
Mistaken for love, it wasn't love
It was a perfect illusion (Perfect illusion)
You were a perfect illusion

I don't need eyes to see
I felt you touchin' me
High like amphetamine
Maybe you're just a dream
That's what it means to crush
Now that I'm wakin' up
I still feel the blow
But at least now I know

It wasn't love, it wasn't love
It was a perfect illusion (Perfect illusion)
Mistaken for love, it wasn't love
It was a perfect illusion (Perfect illusion)

(Where are you?
Cause I can't see you)
It was a perfect illusion
(But I feel you watchin' me
Dilated, falling free
In a modern ecstasy)

(Where are you?
Cause I can't see you)
It was a perfect illusion
(But I feel you watchin' me
But I feel you watchin' me)
Illusion
(But I feel you watchin' me)
Mistaken for love
(Where were you
Cause I can't see
But I feel you watchin' me)
Mistaken for love
(Dilated, falling free
In a modern ecstasy)
Mistaken for love
(In a modern ecstasy
In a modern ecstasy)

I'm over the show
Yeah at least now I know

It wasn't love, it wasn't love
It was a perfect illusion (Perfect illusion)
Mistaken for love, it wasn't love
It was a perfect illusion (Perfect illusion)
Ohhhh
You were a perfect illusion
Ohhhh
It was a perfect illusion
It was a perfect illusion
Somewhere in all the confusion
It was a perfect illusion, (illusion) (illusion)
It was a perfect illusion
Somewhere in all the confusion
You were so perfect
You were a, you were a perfect illusion

Friday, September 02, 2016

Tulisa (Ft. Akelle) - Sweet Like Chocolate (Official Video)

The new awesome, summer video by the gorgeous, cool voice of Tulisa.

Tulisa ft. Akelle - Sweet Like Chocolate (Official Video)



Hope you will love this awesome lyric.

Tulisa (Ft. Akelle) - Sweet Like Chocolate

[Verse 1: Tulisa]
You're touching me so deep
You bring me to my knees
It's you that I'm down for
Just say the word and I'll come
Even if the day is done
It's you I'm around for

[Pre-Chorus: Tulisa]
I'm not scared to take this further
Your love is so sweet when it rains over me
Let it rush through my veins like sugar
[Chorus: Tulisa]
You're sweet like chocolate
You're sweet like chocolate
Chocolate, boy
You're sweet like chocolate
You're sweet like chocolate
Chocolate, boy

[Verse 2: Tulisa]
The morning after
All I do is think about ya
Cause your name stays on my tongue
Them other girls know 'bout ya
But they can never have ya
I know I'm the only one

[Pre-Chorus: Tulisa]
That's why I'm not scared to take this further
Your love is so sweet, no it rains over me
You just run through my veins like sugar

[Chorus: Tulisa]
You're sweet like chocolate
You're sweet like chocolate
Chocolate, boy
You're sweet like chocolate
You're sweet like chocolate
Chocolate, boy

[Verse 3: Akelle]
You say you love me, I believe you
I got a sugar rush, babe, I got a sweet tooth
Her energy is what is needed
I'm a chocolate boy and she my sweetie
She had my back from long
She knows what I been on
I came from doin' shows, workin' late
Now she play this song
My baby girl, yeah
With her I can't go wrong
She keeps my chin up so I stay strong
I wear the wave but not for too long, yeah

[Bridge: Tulisa & Akelle]
Finding your way in the dark
It's so hard when you're close to my heart
You are there when I'm feeling alone
All I need is for you to come home

[Chorus: Tulisa & (Akelle)]
You're sweet like chocolate (My baby sweet like)
You're sweet like chocolate (Ooh, my baby calls me)
Chocolate, boy
You're sweet like chocolate
You're sweet like chocolate
Chocolate, boy

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

PokerStars 2016-08-30 PokerStars, Heads-Up Duels for charity

PokerStars made 5 videos with some famous people like Cristiano Ronaldo (football), Miss World Mireia Lalaguna, Neymar Jr. (football), Sara Sampaio (model), Aaron Paul (actor) and John Boyega (actor). The winner will give a prize money to the charity they chose.
They were trained by some poker pros like Vanessa Selbst, Fatima Moreira de Melo and André Akkari.

Published on Aug 30, 2016
Watch football legend Cristiano Ronaldo tackle the poker table as he takes on 2015 Miss World Mireia Lalaguna for charity in an intense heads-up duel. Who will hold their nerve and emerge victorious? Find out now...


Published on Aug 30, 2016
Watch football legend Neymar Jr. tackle the poker table as he takes on Portuguese Victoria Secrets model Sara Sampaio for charity in an intense heads-up duel. Who will hold their nerve and emerge victorious? Find out now...


Published on Aug 30, 2016
Watch football legend Cristiano Ronaldo tackle the poker table as he takes on Hollywood superstar Aaron Paul for charity in an intense heads-up duel. Who will hold their nerve and emerge victorious? Find out now...


Published on Aug 30, 2016
Watch football legend Neymar Jr. tackle the poker table as he takes on Hollywood superstar John Boyega for charity in an intense heads-up duel. Who will hold their nerve and emerge victorious? Find out now...


Published on Aug 30, 2016
Don't miss the conclusion of this epic charity poker battle between football legend Neymar Jr. and Hollywood superstar John Boyega. Who will be first to crack under the pressure? Find out now...

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Little Mix (Ft. Jason Derulo) - Secret Love Song (Official Video)

Just saw this video for the first time this morning. And love it.
I like Little Mix since they won the X Factor UK in 2011. And I also like the songs and style of Jason Derulo.
They got together here and I think this song is like magic.
Little Mix are: Jade Thirlwall, Jesy Nelson, Leigh-Anne Pinnock & Perrie Edwards.

Little Mix - Secret Love Song (Official Video) ft. Jason Derulo



Hope you will love this awesome lyric.

Little Mix (Ft. Jason Derulo) - Secret Love Song

When you hold me in the street
And you kiss me on the dance floor
I wish that it could be like that
Why can't it be like that?
'Cause I'm yours

We keep behind closed doors
Every time I see you, I die a little more
Stolen moments that we steal as the curtain falls
It'll never be enough

It's obvious you're meant for me
Every piece of you, it just fits perfectly
Every second, every thought, I'm in so deep
But I'll never show it on my face

But we know this.
We got a love that is homeless

Why can't you hold me in the street?
Why can't I kiss you on the dance floor?
I wish that it could be like that
Why can't we be like that?
'Cause I'm yours

[Jason Derulo:]
When you're with him, do you call his name
Like you do when you're with me? Does it feel the same?
Would you leave if I was ready to settle down
Or would you play it safe and stay?

Girl, you know this.
We got a love that is hopeless

Why can't you hold me in the street?
Why can't I kiss you on the dance floor?
I wish that it could be like that
Why can't we be like that?
'Cause I'm yours

And nobody knows I'm in love with someone's baby
I don't wanna hide us away
Tell the world about the love we're making
I'm living for that day
Someday

Why can't I hold you in the street?
Why can't I kiss you on the dance floor?
I wish that we could be like that
Why can't we be like that?
'Cause I'm yours, I'm yours

Oh, why can't you hold me in the street?
Why can't I kiss you on the dance floor?
I wish that it could be like that
Why can't it be like that?
'Cause I'm yours

Why can't I say that I'm in love?
I wanna shout it from the rooftop
I wish that it could be like that
Why can't we be like that?
'Cause I'm yours

Why can't we be like that?
Wish we could be like that

Friday, August 26, 2016

Britney Spears & James Corden - Carpool Karaoke

This is the new Carpool Karaoke video by James Corden. Today is Britney Spears time.
To be honest James Corden was the only one rocking the music. Hard to hear Britney Spears here.

Britney Spears Carpool Karaoke
Published on Aug 25, 2016
James and Britney Spears carpool through Los Angeles, singing her biggest hits and chatting about her life.

Thursday, August 25, 2016

Aaliyah 2016-08-25 Rolling Stone, 7 Ways Aaliyah Changed R&B Forever

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/7-ways-aaliyah-changed-rb-forever-w436198

7 Ways Aaliyah Changed R&B Forever

Fifteen years after her death, the singer's impact is still felt

Aaliyah died 15 years ago today. Hamish Brown/UPPA/Zuma

By

It is one of the greatest moments in modern soul history: The first few seconds when Aaliyah Haughton, then only a 15-year-old newcomer, opens her cover of the Isley Brothers' "At Your Best (You Are Love)" with a few seconds of a cappella brilliance. "Let me know … let me know," she sings with grace, before offering a wordless cry with incandescent softness.

Back in 1994, Aaliyah's career-defining interpretation topped out at Number Six on the Billboard Hot 100, but that was due to radio programmers and BET's Video Soul spinning R. Kelly's "Gangsta Child" remix, which relied on a bass-heavy G-funk beat and an alternate vocal from Aaliyah that's more restrained than the version on her debut, Age Ain't Nothin' But a Number. But from its release, the LP version drew a cult following, first through constant airplay on the late night mix shows that still populate black radio; and then through samples and homages like Drake's "Unforgettable" and Frank Ocean's rendition for his recent "visual album" Endless.

Like so much of Aaliyah's career, "At Your Best (You Are Love)" didn't seem revolutionary at the time of its release. She emerged from the world of black pop, and a part of the music industry that sold plenty of records – all three of her albums are certified multi-platinum – but didn't draw much serious critical attention until just before her tragic death at the age of 22 on August 25, 2001. In retrospect, however, Aaliyah is widely recognized as one of her generation's biggest innovators.

1. Aaliyah was mysterious
On the cover of Age Ain't Nothin' But a Number, Aaliyah was clad in black sunglasses. She often presented herself as an enigmatic figure, and even when she began abandoning those shades in publicity photos and videos, she styled her hair so that hung over one of her eyes like a mask. In interviews, she declined to reveal aspects of her private life, which is understandable in light of R. Kelly's marriage to her when she was underage – the details of which she never publicly acknowledged during her lifetime. More abstractly, Aaliyah emanated a remarkably cool distance that only drew us closer. Artists like the Weeknd and Zhu would take this farther to the point of anonymity.

2. Aaliyah brought the teen girl's voice back to R&B
When Aaliyah dropped her first hit, "Back & Forth," New Jill Swing ensembles like En Vogue, Xscape and SWV dominated the R&B charts. With her baggy jeans, oversized sports jerseys and lyrics about partying on Friday night and chilling with the homies, the high school-aged Aaliyah was a part of this era as much as any other. But as a solo artist who appealed to a younger audience – and in contrast to older divas like Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey and Toni Braxton – she stood out. (And let's not forget Mary J. Blige who, at 22 years old, was already considered the queen of hip-hop soul.) In the years to come, other solo R&B homegirls like Brandy and Monica would emerge, hastening the slow, lamentable decline of girl groups to the point that, today, they're virtually nonexistent.

3. Her absence between albums only deepened her appeal
Aaliyah only recorded three albums during her life. She released music sparingly, but when she did, she spoke with impact. When she broke with R. Kelly after his scandalous and predatory marriage became public, she found new collaborators in production team Timbaland and Missy Elliott, resulting in One in a Million, which was arguably more dynamic and groundbreaking than her debut. Five years later, just as the jiggy, jittering R&B of that album was becoming a cliché, she returned with her final album, Aaliyah. Its impressive range, from the summery, sun-kissed groove of "Rock the Boat" to the coagulated electronic rock of "What If," still sounds fresh over a decade later. Much as A-listers like Beyoncé would soon learn, Aaliyah knew how to wait and study black pop's subtle changes – and then get there first before anyone else.

4. She made Timbaland and Missy Elliott official
Every R&B fan alive and kicking in 1996 remembers when they first heard Ginuwine's "Pony." Its odd interplay of vocal percussion, whistles, and a sludgy yet swinging beat sounded like nothing we had heard before. Timbaland's (who made the track along with the late songwriter Static Major) stylistic quirks could have been dismissed as a novelty, or gimmick with a short shelf life. (See Rich Harrison's fusion of go-go and brassy hip-hop, which quickly lost steam after a few classic singles like Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love.") But when Timbaland and Missy Elliott brought the same kitchen-sink aesthetic to Aaliyah's "If Your Girl Only Knew," which appeared just weeks after "Pony," we realized that their revolution was here to stay.

5. Her voice is unlike anyone else's
Many R&B singers have tried to duplicate Aaliyah's pillowy falsetto and sharp mid-range, from Ciara and Amerie to Teyana Taylor. She could do deep gospel runs, too – check her deep-hued inflections on the Age Ain't Nothin' But a Number track "Street Thing." But she's rightly remembered as one of the most influential singers of the modern R&B era.

6. She's provided pushback from the "2Pac Treatment"
Aaliyah is the most significant R&B artist of her era to pass away while in the prime of her career. In hip-hop, such an event would have resulted in an avalanche of repackaged and remixed demos. Aaliyah's estate has flirted with this strategy. Drake announced that he was executive-producing a 2Pac-styled showcase of previously recorded vocals with new beats and guests, but backlash from fans as well as Timbaland dissuaded him. Then there was Chris Brown's "Don't Think They Know," where he sang alongside Aaliyah's disembodied voice. (Aaliyah might not have approved of a duet with the notoriously abusive singer. On "Never No More," she sternly warned a former lover she'd never let him "put your hands on me again.") Meanwhile, ongoing disputes between her estate, former label Blackground Entertainment and Reservoir Media Management (the latter which controls publishing rights to her Atlantic work) means her final two albums have been out of print for years, and are not available on Apple Music or Spotify. One project neither approved of was Lifetime's critically lambasted yet highly rated biopic, Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B.

At some point, someone will figure out a way to capitalize on the huge amount of interest surrounding this brilliant artist. For now, much as her frequent absences from the pop scene increased our ardor for her work during her life, the lack of posthumous money grabs haven't lessened our interest. Or her legacy.

7. R&B's golden era forever has an icon
In a perfect world, Aaliyah would be in her late thirties. Perhaps she would have danced alongside Monica, Tweet and Fantasia during their tribute to Missy Elliott at VH1's Hip-Hop Honors; and would have performed alongside Elliott at the Super Bowl in 2015. Maybe she would be like Mary J. Blige, periodically updating her sound with newfound collaborators like Disclosure and Kanye West; or she'd be like Beyoncé, a pop queen whose throne is never in dispute. Unfortunately, we'll never know the direction Aaliyah's career would have taken. It's that sense of lost possibilities that has burnished her legend, just as it did with past soul geniuses who passed before their time like Donny Hathaway and Minnie Riperton. We can imagine Aaliyah as the princess of R&B who lost her life at the tender age of 24. But it's better to imagine all the ways she's still be changing pop music if she were still here.

2016 marks 15 years since Aaliyah's untimely passing. Here's a remembrance of her short and remarkable life.
Video on site

Aaliyah 2001-10-11 Rolling Stone, Aaliyah: 1979-2001

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/aaliyah-1979-2001-20011011

Aaliyah: 1979-2001

Friends and family remember the short, remarkable life of a music and film phenom


Singer Aaliyah died on August 25th, 2001. ZumaPress

One late Saturday afternoon, just two weeks before her death, twenty-two-year-old Aaliyah walked from a black Mercedes-Benz to a small helicopter for a short flight from New Jersey to East Hampton, New York. She was on her way to the summer house that Jay-Z shared with her boyfriend of a year, Damon Dash, Jay's partner in Roc-a-Fella Records. She wore a dark-green hoodie and matching shorts so small they showed off most of her long, curvy legs, down to the little treble-clef tattoo on her right ankle. She wore all-white Nike Air Force Ones with white socks. Around her neck hung a small Roc-a-Fella pendant. In her left arm she clutched a large, fluffy pillow in a black pillowcase. She got on the helicopter, nuzzled into Dash's shoulder and went to sleep. I was there reporting a story on Jay-Z, and I was struck by Aaliyah's presence, the way she was in person, as she was onstage – sexy without losing her girlish sweetness. Throughout the weekend, she was quiet but not quite shy, quick to flash her wide, bright smile, quick to laugh at Dash's jokes and quick to dance with him in the middle of the living room when Michael Jackson's Off the Wall came on. On Sunday, she slept hours longer than everyone else, on a bed strewn with rose petals. She and Dash seemed very much in love.

Aaliyah Dana Haughton was born January 16th, 1979, in Brooklyn, New York, and moved to Detroit with her family at age five. She grew up singing with her mother, and at eleven opened for her aunt Gladys Knight in Las Vegas. She studied dance at the Detroit High School for the Fine and Performing Arts and earned a 4.0 GPA. At fourteen, Aaliyah released an album produced by Chicago R&B kingpin R. Kelly, called Age Ain't Nothing but a Number, which sold more than 1 million copies. Reports surfaced that she had married Kelly when she was only fifteen and he was twenty-seven; Aaliyah denied it, although a marriage certificate was found in a Chicago county clerk's office.

In 1996 came her second album, One in a Million, which sold 2 million copies and launched its producer-songwriter team, two largely unknown figures named Timbaland and Missy Elliott, to stardom. Aaliyah began modeling for Tommy Hilfiger and taking acting lessons, which led to a starring role in Romeo Must Die (2000) as well as the role of Akasha in Queen of the Damned, slated for release next spring. She had also been cast in both of the upcoming sequels to The Matrix, which she had started shooting this summer in L.A.

Her third record, Aaliyah, released in July, was already gold when she flew to Abaco Island in the Bahamas to finish the video for the album's third single, "Rock the Boat," directed by Hype Williams. On Saturday, August 25th, she boarded a ten-seat twin-engine Cessna 402B bound for Opa-Locka, Florida, with the pilot, Luis Morales III, and seven members of her crew: video-production director Douglas Kratz, 28; bodyguard Scott Gallin, 41; hairstylists Anthony Dodd, 34, and Eric Forman, 29; Blackground Records executive Gina Smith, 30; makeup artist Christopher Maldonado, 32; and friend Keeth Wallace, 49. Less than a minute after it took off, the plane crashed just a few hundred feet from the runway. Aaliyah was among six passengers dead at the scene; three others passed away hours later.

Though Bahamian investigators have not officially determined what caused the crash, police initially speculated that the plane foundered because it had been overloaded with equipment that brought the total weight to more than 700 pounds over the aircraft's specified 6,300-pound limit.

Aaliyah was scheduled to leave the island the next day, but when her part in the video was completed she decided to leave early. "Aaliyah left midproduction, so we were still shooting when she left," Williams says. He challenges the contention that the plane was overloaded. "Those rumors about there being camera equipment on the plane, they're all false because when they left, they left us in the middle of the ocean still in production. Anything that's not the truth – it makes it harder for people to understand."

Reports have surfaced that the passengers argued with pilot Morales over whether the plane was overloaded, although it is the pilot's responsibility to make this determination. Jomo Hankerson, Aaliyah's cousin and the president of Blackground Records, her label, is angered by reports that the passengers argued with Morales. "I don't subscribe to the scenario that the passengers of a plane dictate them to overload the plane," he says. "That seems unfathomable. In the airline business, safety has to always come first."

Though the cargo's weight was the initial focus of investigation, the days that followed brought troubling reports about thirty-year-old pilot Morales and the Fort Lauderdale company that chartered the plane, Blackhawk International Airways. In the past three years, Blackhawk has received several citations for safety violations, including a warning for not adequately testing employees for drugs. Morales' record is also spotty: Less than two weeks before the crash, he pleaded no contest to charges of possession of crack cocaine and attempting to sell stolen airplane parts, and was put on probation. He began working at Blackhawk two days before the accident, and the company hadn't licensed him to operate the plane used for Aaliyah's flight.

Friends recall Aaliyah as driven, intelligent and clear on the reward of hard work, as well as an unusually sweet and gentle spirit who always found time for play. She had a shyness that was beautiful, they say, because it sprang from humility. "She had an old soul," says Hankerson. "She seemed like she was living everything in rewind, like she'd already done all of this. She had this personality that was contagious. It was never just a job when you were working with her. You always had fun. Good kid fun."

She was remarkable for being sexy without selling herself, for finding the thin line where she could attract the boys without embarrassing the moms. "She's the first artist I worked with who would not compromise her values to be famous," says Parrish Johnson, an executive vice president at Blackground. "In this business, church girls become prostitutes because they want to be stars, but she would never let stardom interfere with who she was."

She was nicknamed Li-Li and Baby Girl. She loved to sleep, to play word games, to make prank phone calls, to shop at Fred Segal in Los Angeles, to eat breakfast food, even late in the afternoon. "She would just do silly stuff," remembers Elliott. "One time, she put these big fake teeth in her mouth, the kind you get at a joke shop, and she came into my room and started doing the scenes from Romeo Must Die. Her personality was very playful, but she was also equally caring and compassionate."

She was a girly girl who always made sure her nails were done, her perfume was right, and her bag had lotion and lip gloss. "She matured a lot in the last year," says Kidada Jones, one of her best friends. "She really settled into her womanhood. Her parents gave her more freedom, and she took more control of her projects. She fell in love with Damon and that was it. She wanted to have a family, and we talked about how we couldn't wait to kick back with our babies." She prayed before every meal and before she went to bed. "God definitely must've needed an extra angel," says Sean "Puffy" Combs. "A real strong angel."

Aaliyah had not yet become a songwriter – Hankerson called her an "interpreter" – but the songs she chose to grace with her sultry, understatedly sexy vocals spoke volumes about the image she wanted to portray. "Try Again," from the Romeo Must Die soundtrack, is a playing-hard-to-get anthem, in which she's telling her suitor she's not going to be won right now but he shouldn't quit trying. She sings, "I'm into you, you're into me/But I can't let it go so easily." She debases neither men nor women, remaining above the gender wars that pop songs about dating often become. In "Are You That Somebody?" from the Dr. Dolittle soundtrack, she confesses her sexual desire but demands that her lover be discreet. "If I let this go, you can't tell nobody," she sings. "I'm talkin' 'bout nobody." Where other pop songs treat sex wantonly, she wonders aloud, "I hope you're responsible... I'm trustin' you with my heart, my soul."

But no choice reveals more about Aaliyah's adventurousness, self-confidence and world-class ears than her opting to work with Timbaland and Elliott long before their quirky, futuristic, highly textured, visual soul had become a dominant pop sound. "She was always trying to be the first to do something," Hankerson says. "She never wanted to copy something that's already been out." "Tim and I were new producers," says Elliott. "From day one, she had that much faith in our music that she treated us like we already sold 2 million records, when we hadn't sold anything yet. She really helped make us what we are today."

Her acting career began at nineteen with a call to Harold Guskin, who has coached Kevin Kline, Glenn Close and Matt Dillon. For six months, Guskin and Aaliyah met several times a week to work through plays by Chekhov, Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams. "We worked very seriously," Guskin says. "She was a great student. Very smart, incredibly emotionally available, and she had a wonderful imagination." When she was offered the role of the rebellious Trish O'Day in Romeo Must Die, Guskin worked with her on the set. "We had this scene with Delroy Lindo [who played her father] where she's blaming him for the death of her brother. Delroy's magnificent and she loved him, but in the scene she had to go at him, and I said, 'You treat him like a piece of crap.' Well, she took off on that scene. She just uncorked it. My students, who are major actors, couldn't believe that she'd just started in my living room."

Her last day was marked by fun and laughter, dancing and sun. "I feel that it was a great day," says Williams. "We were on a boat in the middle of the Caribbean. It was extremely hot, but everyone was in such good spirits. Up until the tragedy occurred everybody was really feeling good. Everyone who left the island and got on that plane was in the best of spirits."

Most of those in the crash were friends of Aaliyah's; she tended to treat the people who worked for her like family. The circle included hairstylists Anthony Dodd and Eric Forman. Williams says of Forman, "He was the main one to keep everyone's spirit and morale up." Christopher Maldonado was a makeup artist, one of the best in the industry. Douglas Kratz, director of video production at Virgin Records, was unusually gentle for a record executive. "He made sure Aaliyah was always comfortable and content," Williams says. "He wanted to be more of a friend and less of an obstacle." Scott Gallin was a bodyguard and actor who appeared in the film Bad Boys and on Miami Vice. Keeth Wallace was a close friend of the Haughton family who was nicknamed Joy. Gina Smith had been promoted to product manager at Blackground just a month before.

Aaliyah's August 31st funeral was closed to the public, but hundreds of her fans lined Park Avenue on Manhattan's Upper East Side as the singer's casket was carried to St. Ignatius Loyola Roman Catholic Church. Family and friends attended the service, including Combs, Elliott, Busta Rhymes, Mike Tyson, Jay-Z, Ananda Lewis and Lil' Kim. Later, a public memorial at Cipriani 42nd Street was crowded with more than 3,000 mourners. In Los Angeles, a Sunset Boulevard billboard for Aaliyah's album became an ad hoc shrine.

Though some sources at Blackground say the "Rock the Boat" video will be released eventually, and Williams says he would like to see it on the air, Hankerson says he and his family haven't yet figured out how to move forward as a company. For now, they are struggling to deal with the loss of the girl whose name was an Arabic word meaning "supreme." "She was charmed from the womb," Hankerson says. "It just always worked out for her. This wasn't supposed to happen. I never question God. It's just really hard to see the reason for this one. They say he works in mysterious ways. This one's extremely mysterious to me."

This story is from the October 11th, 2001 issue of Rolling Stone.

Friday, August 12, 2016

Bon Jovi - This House Is Not For Sale

This is the new video of Bon Jovi. Out now.
Jon with white hair. No more blond. Age is coming.

Bon Jovi - This House Is Not For Sale



Hope you will love this awesome lyric.

Bon Jovi - This House Is Not For Sale

These four walls have got a story to tell
(Oh-oh, oh-oh...!)
The door is off the hinges, there's no wishing them well
(Oh-oh, oh-oh...!)

Outside the sky is coal black, the streets are on fire
The picture windows cracked, and there's no where to run
I know, I know, this house is not for sale

I set each stone and I hammered each nail
This house is not for sale
When every memory is lived and my dreams all fail
This house is not for sale
Coming home, I'm coming home

Swirl my spike into the ground and I stake my claim
(Oh-oh, oh-oh...!)
Standing on the dirt where they'll dig my grave
(Oh-oh, oh-oh...!)

Now I built these walls, it's in my veins
No time for lookin' back, the world is out the door
This heart, this soul, this house is not for sale

I set each stone and I hammered each nail
This house is not for sale
When every memory is lived and my dreams all fail
This house is not for sale
Coming home, I'm coming home

This house was built on trust
That's what it is, it always was
No wrecking ball could knock it down
This house was built on higher ground

I set each stone and I hammered each nail
This house is not for sale
When every memory is lived and my dreams all fail
This house is not for sale
Coming home, I'm coming home

Coming home, I'm coming home
(This house is not for sale)
Coming home, I'm coming home
(I'm) coming home, I'm coming home

(This house is not, is not for sale...!)

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Michael Phelps 2016-08-09 The New York Times, Message Sent: 21 and Counting for Michael Phelps

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/sports/olympics/michael-phelps-200-butterfly-lochte-relay.html?rref=collection%2Fnewseventcollection%2Frio-olympics-2016&action=click&contentCollection=olympics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=9&pgtype=collection

Message Sent: 21 and
Counting for Michael Phelps


Photo

CreditDoug Mills/The New York Times

RIO DE JANEIRO — Michael Phelps won a gold medal on Tuesday night, which is almost ordinary by now. It was his 20th Olympic gold.

His post-race performance, however, was something different.

After winning the 200-meter butterfly — his signature event — for the third time, Phelps stood triumphant in the pool, gesturing with bravado. He was stone-faced and silent, but his motions loudly said, “I’ll take all comers.”

“I was pretty fired up after that race,” Phelps said, adding, “I didn’t say anything to anybody else, but there wasn’t a shot in hell I was losing that tonight.”

To top it off, he added his 21st gold medal soon after, anchoring the 4x200 freestyle relay. Conor Dwyer, Townley Haas and Ryan Lochte swam the first three legs.


Photo

CreditChang W. Lee/The New York Times

Phelps’s celebration after the 200 butterfly was loaded with meaning. This was the event in which Phelps endured one of the most painful defeats of his career: At the 2012 London Games, Chad le Clos of South Africa edged him by five-hundredths of a second.

Le Clos was in the lane next to Phelps on Tuesday night, one of five swimmers in the race who had at one time or another claimed Phelps as their childhood hero.

“Chad liked me, and then he didn’t like me,” Phelps said recently with a laugh. “He said I was his hero, and then he was calling me out.”

Phelps was the magnet that pulled the next generation into the sport, but at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium on Tuesday night he repelled their challenge. Phelps clocked a time of 1 minute 53.36 seconds.

Photo

CreditDoug Mills/The New York Times


Tamas Kenderesi, 19, of Hungary, had turned the tables on Phelps in the semifinals, passing him over the last 25 meters of their semifinal heat to beat him by 16 hundredths of a second. But the story was different in the final.

Masato Sakai of Japan was the surprise silver medalist and Kenderesi was third. Le Clos finished fourth.

Phelps exulted after his victory, wagging his finger, raising his arms and orchestrating the crowd’s response.


Photo

CreditDoug Mills/The New York Times

On the medals stand, Phelps grew teary. Then, during the playing of the national anthem, one of his friends from Baltimore in the stands shouted out the “Oh” as if he were at Camden Yards before the start of an Orioles game. “I heard that, I knew exactly who it was,” Phelps said. “I instantly looked right over. I could not stop laughing.”

To win the 200 fly in his fifth Olympics, 16 years after he finished fifth in the event in his Olympics debut was sublime, Phelps said. “Couldn’t have scripted it any better,” he said.

Phelps has owned the world record since 2001, lowering it eight times, most recently in 2009 during the tail end of the buoyant suit era. When he took the mark from another American, Tom Malchow, in March of 2001, the top qualifier for the final, Kenderesi of Hungary, was four years old and a year away from his first swim lesson.

Phelps did not address the media after the race because he still had unfinished business. Roughly 70 minutes after finishing the butterfly, he swam in the 4 x 200 freestyle relay. The Americans took the lead by the end of the first leg, and by the time Phelps got into the pool, the race had turned into another coronation for him. His teammates cheered him wildly as he touched the wall. Britain was second and Japan third.

Photo

CreditChang W. Lee/The New York Times


The relay was held 22 minutes before midnight local time, which was another aspect of Phelps’s legacy. He turned swimming into a made for prime time event in America.

Men’s 200m Butterfly


50m100m150mFinal
GoldUnited States - Michael Phelps24.8553.351:22.681:53.36
SilverJapan - Masato Sakai25.3754.351:23.731:53.40
BronzeHungary - Tamas Kenderesi25.4254.181:23.611:53.62
4South Africa - Chad Guy Bertrand le Clos25.0653.871:23.351:54.06

Men’s 4 x 200m Freestyle Relay


200m400m600m800m
GoldUnited StatesConor Dwyer 1:45.23Townley Haas 3:29.37Ryan Lochte 5:15.40Michael Phelps 7:00.66
SilverBritainStephen Milne 1:46.97Duncan Scott 3:32.02Dan Wallace 5:18.28James Guy 7:03.13
BronzeJapanKosuke Hagino 1:45.34Naito Ehara 3:31.45Yuki Kobori 5:17.16Takeshi Matsuda 7:03.50
4AustraliaThomas Fraser-Holmes 1:45.81David McKeon 3:31.44Daniel Smith 5:18.81Mack Horton 7:04.18