#Bel Air (FORMER)

[captain-crowfish]

my mind often confuses "The Triplets of Belleville" with "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air "

[mcacnshow]

Our MCACN 2024 Military Appreciation Invitational Sponsored by the Kultgen Family is a wonderful way to honor our current and former members of the military. Seen here is Bill Collopy at Tan Son Nhut Air base, Vietnam December 1969 and also his 1957 Chevy Bel Air. Come and show honor to our military at MCACN 2024 #mcacn #mcacn2024 #militaryappreciation #kultgenfamily @24v.abby #abbykultgen #chevy #chevybelair #vietnam

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Gov. Jeff Landry signed into law Tuesday a bill allowing executions by nitrogen gas and electrocution, opening the door for Louisiana to revive capital punishment 14 years after it last used its death chamber.

Landry signed the legislation, House Bill 6, and 10 other bills into law while surrounded by crime victims' loved ones and law enforcement officials in a ceremony at the State Capitol. HB 6 also shrouds records of the state's procurement of lethal injection drugs in secrecy, a step supporters say will make it easier to obtain those drugs.

The death penalty bill headlined a slate of tough-on-crime legislation approved by the Republican-controlled state Legislature last month and championed by Landry, a Republican and former state attorney general who campaigned on a promise to punish criminals and uplift people affected by violent crime. The new laws reverse a path charted by the state's 2017 Justice Reinvestment Initiative by slashing chances for convicted criminals to be released from prison early and lengthening sentences for some crimes.

"This is what I ran on," Landry said Tuesday.

The Governor also signed bills that allow people to carry concealed handguns without permits, eliminate parole for adults who commit crimes after Aug. 1, dramatically cut the availability of good behavior credits in prison and limit how people can request plea deals after their convictions, among others.

Landry is expected to sign additional bills passed in last month's special session in New Orleans on Wednesday, including measures to publish court minutes for youth accused of violent crimes, increase penalties for carjacking and weapons offenses and give Landry more control over the state's public defense system.

Protests against that legislation — particularly the death penalty bill, which opponents caution promotes one method that has hardly been tested and another ruled inhumane by courts in some states — spurred fiery debate but did little to sway lawmakers, most of whom fell in line with Landry's agenda.

A series of criminal justice advocacy groups spoke out against the new laws again on Monday, saying they will do little to curb crime and risk bloating the state's prison population to pre-2017 levels.

The 2017 public safety laws, which drew bipartisan backing and support from law enforcement, released people with convictions for nonviolent crimes and saved the state some $153 million, a recent audit found.

"Blaming the wrong problems doesn’t get the right solutions, and our communities for years have made clear the solutions necessary to address the very real concerns and needs of all Louisianans," said Danny Engelberg, the chief public defender in New Orleans. "These misguided bills will balloon our already bloated legal system, jails and prison system, and further widen the inequities in justice, safety, and community well-being."

The first modern execution by nitrogen gas occurred in Alabama in January. It sparked pushback from anti-death penalty advocates who expressed concern about eyewitness reports that Kenneth Smith, who was put to death for a 1988 murder-for-hire, writhed and struggled for air for some 20 minutes after nitrogen began flowing into his mouth. Alabama officials said the execution was humane and offered to aid other states' efforts to put the method to use.

Difficulty obtaining the cocktail of execution drugs from pharmaceutical firms, along with former Gov. John Bel Edwards' opposition to capital punishment and a series of federal court orders pausing executions in recent years, had kept Louisiana from putting anyone to death since 2010.

It's unclear when state officials might begin taking steps to obtain materials needed to carry out executions or when executions could resume in Louisiana. Also unclear is which of the three execution options the state will use; the new law leaves that choice to the secretary of the state's Department of Public Safety and Corrections.

HB 6's sponsor, Rep. Nicholas Muscarello, R-Hammond, said in an interview last month that Landry has indicated that his preferred execution method is lethal injection.

Last week, a DPSC spokesperson referred questions about the death penalty process to Landry's office, which did not respond to requests for comment. Landry left Tuesday's bill-signing ceremony without taking questions from reporters.

The new law letting people carry concealed handguns without permits, which supporters dub "constitutional carry" because they argue it restores an absolute right to self-armament enshrined in the United States' founding document, drew applause from gun rights activists and condemnation from gun safety groups.

National Rifle Association Interim CEO Andrew Arulanandam in a statement praised the "resolve" of Landry and "pro-self-defense legislators" who voted for the new law. Angelle Bradford, a volunteer for the Louisiana chapter of the pro-gun control group Moms Demand Action, criticized Landry for "cater(ing) to the gun lobby and reinforc(ing) their deadly ‘guns everywhere’ agenda."

[dreamangcls]

⊹₊⟡⋆ laura kariuki + she/her ⊹₊⟡⋆ blasting cleo by shygirl through their airpods is sapphire dixon . oh , you don’t know them ? they’re the twenty - five year old musician who just went viral for allegedly being the reason the girl group she was in split up . yup , the one that drives a 2022 alpine a110 in rose bruyère. i hear they’re pretty imaginative , but others have claimed that they’re quite naive . that makes sense , considering they’re often labeled as the wannabe .

stats.

full name: sapphire faith dixon

nickname(s): sapph and sapphy mostly

gender: cis woman (she/her)

sexuality: bisexual

dob: 16th of october 1998

age: 25 almost 26

zodiac sign: libra

occupation: musician

career claim: i didnt want to lock her in with one specific discogography but for pararelles think normani and leigh-anne. she wants to be beyonce but she's not beyonce (yet)

positive traits: candid, intrepid, captivating and exuberant

negative traits: self-absorbed, impulsive, overly optimistic and ditsy

personality markers: esfp, sanguine, type 7-the enthusiast , chaotic good

counterparts: cher horowitz (clueless), hilary banks (fresh prince of bel-air), london tipton (the suite lufe of zack & cody) & alexis rose (schitt's creek)

aesthetics.

long nights spent in a recording studio, an apologetic sorry shouted  through the window of a bright pink car after reversing into a trash can, the tap of acrylic nails on a phone screen, spending thousands of dollars on one shopping trip, a notebook full of unfinished song lyrics, neon blue cocktails and embarrassing moments spun into engaging stories

bio outline.

as a child sapphire's dad often lovingly referred to her as his good luck charm. he was right she was born lucky. but she wasn't born lucky because he won the super bowl three months after she was born. sapphire dixon was born lucky because she was born to two wealthy and loving parents. most people only have parents who are one of the two.

sapphire's parents moved to new york permanently when she was 12. before then she had three major cross country moves. some children would have been distressed by the lack of stability but sapphire thrived off it. every new move was an exciting new adventure. of course she missed the friends she lost when she moved to a new city but moving was a chance to make new connections. she was the type of kid who found it easy to form friendships. maybe it was because of her famous father but she like to believe it was because she was kind and had a sparkling personality.

no matter where she moved music was always a constant in sapphire's life. she developed a passion for music at a young age. she loved getting the opportunity to express herself artistically and be the centre of attention. her parents fully supported her ambition.

sapphire's mom doesn't have the same name recognition as her dad but as the head of an interior design business specialising in luxury homes she's well connected. it was sapphire's mom who discovered that a record label was looking for members of a new girl band while working for a music exec client in la. when her mom told her about the opportunity eighteen year old sapphire packed a wide array of suitcases and travelled to la as quickly as possible.

the audition process for the band was longer than sapphire expected but she was a perfect fit. she spent seven years in the band touring and making albums. she loved it and she still loves her three former bandmates. they're the closest she has to sisters. but she had enough of being a small part of a larger whole. she felt stifled creatively and like she was often overlooked by the fanbase. nine months ago she quit to work on her solo album. she's still dealing with the media fallout. she understand why ex fans and tabloids are calling her selfish. who else is she supposed to focus on ?

connections.

girl squad who get into chaos together please

a woman the media pits her against. what that did to their relationship can be plotted out. give her a girl so confusing moment

platonic soulmate

childhood friends. could be somebody she spend her teenage years in new york with or somebody she lost touch with

a person who finds her annoying but she's completely oblivious

exes on good terms, exes on bad terms one night stands, a messy situationship ect ect

people she's worked with professionally somehow

neighbours

[lboogie1906]

Benjamin Augustus Vereen (October 10, 1946) is an actor, dancer, and singer. He gained prominence for his performances in the original Broadway productions of the musicals Jesus Christ Superstar, for which he received a Tony Award nomination, and Pippin, for which he won the 1973 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical.

He has starred in numerous television programs and is well known for the role of ‘Chicken’ George Moore in Roots, for which he received an Emmy nomination in 1977.

In 1985, he starred in the Faerie Tale Theatre series as Puss in Boots alongside Gregory Hines. He appeared on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air episode, “Papa’s Got a Brand New Excuse”, in which he played Will Smith’s biological father, Lou Smith. He made several appearances on Webster as the title character’s biological uncle.

He has six children. He married Nancy Bruner Vereen (1976-2012).

He is the godfather of R&B singer Usher and is the first cousin of former NFL running back Shane Vereen. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #phibetasigma

[fxreflyes]

ahhh I just saw you already answered, damn these time zones!! can u please tell me about the fic your most excited to write in that case???

hi bel!!!!! <333333 (i am so sorry for the v late reply, the brain fog today has been v real) the time zones are truly horrid, im so sad to be 8 hrs behind u :'(

i think i have talked abt all of my fics so far, which is making me feel like I need more wips HAHA (I do not need more) so i will talk once more abt the one i currently have my word doc open to!! (i think you already saw a post abt it im sorry!!) (summary ask here) (snippet ask here) but it's called hand in hand with the living dead and it is basically all angst. it is sirius suicide fic & he becomes a ghost & meets remus who is also a ghost!

a snippet for u!!

After a few minutes of fevered hacking, his hair lay around him in clumps. The razor clattered to the tile and Sirius was left shivering.

It was a long moment before he got to his feet.

When he met his gaze in the mirror of the motel bathroom, the hollows of his eyes carved two large shadows where his eyes should be, blood trickling from the nicks on his skull. He wiped away the blood on his cheek, and it smeared. He tried a smile, but it was all teeth, like a dog with his fangs bared.

If James could see him now.

-

im honestly hyperfixating on this one rn, but probably the 2 im ACTUALLY most excited about in general are my marauders clue au poor boy youre bound to die set in 1954 which i have rambled to u abt sorry 🙈 (summary ask here) and then the spinoff bloodlands which takes place in 1944 on the eastern front w reg, remus, evan & barty!! (summary ask here)

so here is a snippet from the next ch of poor boy you're bound to die under the cut!!

He would have been dead too, if not for a former Soviet guard by the name of Ivan Rosanov. Or, as he later became known, after absconding to France and assuming a new name and identity, Evan Rosier.

With a jaw that could take a punch and hair that could have rivalled the snow for pallor, Evan Rosier had had a comportment as icy as the tundra itself. It was only by the grace of some unfathomable higher entity, that Regulus happened to have fostered an odd friendship of sorts with the one man and one man alone who appeared able to crack that façade like a stick of dynamite colliding with a lake in midwinter.

It was for this reason that Regulus supposed he owed just as much credit to the incessant and unabashed flirting that his cell mate had engaged in as to the guard himself. If it hadn’t been for Barty Crouch Jr.’s dirty mouth and unflinching ability to suffer a beating, Regulus would have long since been a feast for the worms. That was if worms could survive the frigid conditions they had been in. He might have simply slowly decomposed on the ice without even serving the worthwhile purpose of being some critters tea-time snack. He supposed he was lucky that Evan had taken a shine to the way the blood looked smeared on Barty’s lips as he panted, in what even Regulus had to admit was an obscene way, as he was restrained in a chair as he was disciplined for some petty quip. The whole affair was rather sensual, and Regulus was amused and only a little surprised at Evan’s face coloring the faintest bit of red as Barty had turned to him and cooed “Do you like what you see, pretty boy?” right before getting smashed in the face by one of the Death Eaters for mouthing off, his blood and spit splattering through air.

[vodka-01]

Blackfyre Records is an American record label owned by House of the Dragon Music Group (HOTD MG). Blackfyre is one of the oldest surviving brand names in the recorded sound business. It is also one of two of House of the Dragon Music Group’s flagship record labels: the other being its longtime rival, Oldtown Records.

Born out of the partnership of Uthero Zalyne, an Iron Bank partner, and Aerion Targaryen, Blackfyre Records was founded in 1916 as then named, Blackfyre Graphophone Company. By 1926, Blackfyre had a growing stable of jazz and blues artists and was on track to being the leading recording company in the country. But due to the stock market Crash of 1929 leading to huge losses in the recording industry, Zalyne sold his shares of Blackfyre to Draz & Co., another investment bank. When Draz & Co. was declared bankrupt in November 1931, Blackfyre, now independent and floundering, was put into receivership. In January of 1932, Aerion was prepared to sell the company to Warner Brothers Pictures, Inc., to be their in-house music label, but due to an untimely heart attack, his daughter, Visenya Targaryen, the only one of his three children to follow their father into the music business, took over as President and broke the deal off.

By 1967, Visenya became CEO of House of the Dragon, thus leaving the position of president to her son, former actor Maegor Targaryen. Following the appointment of Maegor, Blackfyre became more of a rock music label, thanks mainly to Maegor’s obsession with rock and roll in his youth. He signed several leading acts including Longclaw. Longclaw led the way for several generations of rock and rollers that would dominate the scene for a decade. However, Visenya still had a hand in traditional pop and jazz and one of its key acquisitions during this period was Gareth Tyrell. Gareth released his first solo album with Blackfyre in 1973 and remains with the label to this day.

And yet, despite being the man with Midas touch, Maegor’s personal life throughout his tenure had been highly controversial, known popularly as the “Dark Days”. From marrying a suspected Hollywood madam in a highly publicized TV wedding to converting to Mormonism in a bid to have a second wife, as well as rumors of emotional and physical abuse of his partners and being linked to the shooting of the son of a former business associate. Culminating in the spring of 1980 when Maegor was charged with the murder of one of his artists, Alys Harroway, leaving his half-brother Aenys Targaryen to act as Interim President.

In June of 1980, Visenya dies of old age, three weeks before Maegor’s sentencing hearing. At the news of his mother’s death, Maegor committed suicide by self-inflicted gunshot in the office of his Bel-Air mansion while released on bail.

Aenys, unable to handle pressures of being president of Blackfyre, hands in his resignation not long after in January of 1981. Jaehaerys Targaryen, then CEO of HOTD MG after Visenya, holds a vote to determine the next president. After a week of deliberation, Baelon is chosen to lead Blackfyre Records, over his older brother Aemon.

The appointment was met with confusion and frustration, with Baelon being quoted in the 1981 September edition of Time magazine saying “Maegor left a mess, and they handed it to me on a silver platter.” In order to handle the workload, Baelon recruited his sister Saera Targaryen to be the new Label Manager while he handled the corporate cleanup.

And while the 1980s saw the emergence of modern rock, becoming very popular, it was in the late 1980s that glam metal became the largest, most commercially successful brand of music worldwide. Off the back of this new mainstream appeal, Dark Sister, the brainchild of Baelon’s sons, Viserys and Daemon, was formed. And Saera, an avid cinephile and soap opera enthusiast used their band as a vehicle to market Blackfyre and Oldtown Records’ longtime rivalry to massive mainstream success. Yet by the mid-90s the popularity of many of Blackfyre’s glam metal artists had waned with only Dark Sister, Lamentation, and Brightroar maintaining theirs throughout the entire decade, largely by re-inventing themselves.

Blackfyre Records is currently run by Daemon Targaryen in a dual role as both Record Label Manager and President (Viserys previously stepped down due to health concerns).

[princetorn]

aftercare:     for our muses to participate in aftercare together.

Condensation climbed the windows, affording some small semblance of privacy.  The Bel Air had stopped rocking, no longer did it creak as it swayed and bounced on its suspension.  Now there was only the sound of cicada song, the murmur of wind in the trees, the low drone of the radio playing inside – Pat Boone’s velvet tones singing of love letters written in sand.

Their clothes had been shed slowly, but still fell in a haphazard trail from the front seats to the back, lying in heaped, creased piles.  Royce pinched the base of the loaded condom as he slid it off, before knotting it and dropping it unceremoniously into the dark footwell.  He was quick to close the distance he had opened between them, quick to gather Sawyer back into his arms, to kiss her clavicles, her throat, her cheek, her temple.  Gentler, sweeter, now that the rolling boil of passion had broken into something more tender.  In response, she cupped his face, her thumb gliding over the bruise that spoiled it.

Better than what that bastard Harry had been left with – garishly split lips and a bloody nose.  Just deserts for the slander that spilled out of his mouth, for calling Sawyer a floozy within Royce’s earshot.  The pair had fought with all the viciousness of a pair of cock-robins in springtime.  Even if there was some truth to it, even if Royce had to wonder where he ranked on the scoreboard of Sawyer’s former lovers.  An ugly thought, one he was quick to dismiss.

The scrap had been a spectacle, inflamed by the sneers and jeers of those classmates who gathered to watch the star slugger going to bat for the disgraced cheerleader.  Without words, Royce had said that Sawyer was his girl.  It certainly felt like she was his as she curled against his chest, as he cuddled her, their bare bodies damp with sweat and sticking together.  He drew swirling patterns on her lower back, murmured sweet somethings into the well of her ear, his nose tickled by strands of blonde hair as he told her how good she was to him.

“You wanna go get a coke?  Maybe a shake, or somethin’?”  Royce asked quietly, nuzzling against the top of Sawyer’s golden head, breathing in the scent of her hairspray, her perfume; she smelled expensive, like someone who would be at home in a luxurious penthouse lounge, with a crystal glass of champagne bubbling in hand.  “Or we can just stay here…”

[natromanxoff]

Daily Express - April 22, 1992

Credits to Roberto Macchi.

[Photo caption: CUDDLING: Paul Young and wife Stacy]

[ADMIRING: Brian May and Liza Minnelli]

Women who sparkle like Mercury

THE LADS may have been the stars of the show at the Freddie Mercury Wembley tribute. But it was the girls who glittered at the lavish party at Browns nightclub later. Flake advert girl Debbie Leng, long-standing girlfriend of Queen's Roger Taylor, topped the fashion stakes in clinging catsuit and elaborate necklace. And Paula Yates showed her husband Bob Geldof it's possible to be colourful without wearing the sofa covers. Model Stacy Smith, wife of Paul Young, was in sparkling form, and superstar Liza Minnelli found that Queen guitarist Brian May — accompanied by former EastEnders actress Anita Dobson — is one of her greatest fans.

[Photo caption: SPARKLING: Debbie Leng in catsuit and necklace]

[Photo caption: CLASHING: Chic Paula Yates and Bob Geldof]

[MRS LINDA JAMES A picture on Page 3 of yesterday's Daily Express was incorrectly captioned as Mary Austin. It was, in fact, of Mrs Linda James, who attended the Freddie Mercury tribute concert. We apologise for any embarrassment.]

[Pictures by RICHARD YOUNG • JILL PARKIN]

~~

First Lady of AIDS

Taylor takes on a new role

LIZ TAYLOR touched down at the airport looking slim and sensational at 60. The caption writers reached for the "age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety” quote from her most famous role — Cleopatra.

What is it that's brought the smile back to the Queen of the Nile? Putting it straight: AIDS. Her flagging reputation has been given the kiss of life by the virus.

There she was on Monday night in front of an audience of 72,000 for the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium, giving the hammiest performance of a hammy career.

She all but went into a Bohemian Rhapsody about condoms and generally urged the youth of today to encase itself in rubber and not share needles.

"Protect yourselves," she pleaded with tremulous voice and quivering lip. "The world needs you to live.

Arguable, if the evidence of several hours of Def Leppard and all the other sound-alikes these 72,000 paid to hear were anything to go by.

“You are the best and brightest, the shining light that will illuminate a better world tomorrow…" Good grief, let's hope she didn't pay a scriptwriter for that.

Close at hand was Larry Fortensky, her seventh husband but her first from the construction industry, who now escorts her round the AIDS charity circuit on both sides of the Atlantic.

And what a party it has been for Liz ‘n’ Larry so far. Thank goodness she picked an exceptionally enlightened brickie, not one likely to share an anti-gay joke over the hod with his mates.

AIDS has given Liz a whole new starring role. After all, it has been a long time since Cleopatra.

Who said not long enough? Unlike the dewy eye, the parts dried up long ago.

Liz was forced to star in her own drama of drink, men and self-destruction. All very well, but costly in terms of drying-out fees.

And being pushed about various airports, bloated and wedged into a wheelchair, must have been losing its novelty as a photo-opportunity.

She had tried the last refuge of a Hollywood legend — bringing out your own scent and touting it round the promotional counters — when she was saved by the arrival of the incurable disease of the late 20th Century.

AND not just any old disease, but a high-profile one with a heavy presence on America's West Coast, handy for her Bel Air home. Thousands of victims in Africa but, more importantly from the PR point of view, a few glamorous names nearer to hand.

But in the case of Freddie Mercury, who died of AIDS last November, is glamour a big enough word? Should we be talking greatness here?

One of his few profundities not set to music was: "New York is Sin City. I just slut myself. My sex drive is enormous. I've got a big bed and it can sleep six."

Another shining light, eh?

Still, it has all been great PR for Liz, whose Tinseltown tiara was beginning to tarnish.

Now she's the First Lady of AIDS and she may soon be more famous for that than for getting married. And how well she looks on it.

Every cloud, as they say, has a silver lining for someone.

[Photo caption: EXIT: Liz leaving London last night with granddaughter Naomi and Larry / Picture: Dennis Stone]

[mightyflamethrower]

Baltimore Gave A Violent Street Gang The Job Of Ending Violence - How Do You Think That Turned Out?

Baltimore has been as aggressive as any city in pushing the idea that somehow police are the problem and that less law enforcement means less crime. Central to this idea has been an initiative called ‘Safe Streets’. The idea is to have individuals who are not police “defuse” tensions and prevent violence in the city’s neighborhoods.

What perhaps no one understood, however, was that what the city was really doing was putting a dangerous street gang in charge of policing.

The city of Baltimore has this to say about Safe Streets.

“Since 2007, Safe Streets has been Baltimore’s flagship gun violence reduction program. Founded in 2000 by epidemiologist Dr. Gary Slutkin, Cure Violence is a public health approach that uses trusted messengers in the community to interrupt the transmission of violence. Violence interrupters spread anti-violence messages and encourage positive changes in individual behavior as well as community norms around violence. In 2007, the Cure Violence model pioneered in Chicago came to McElderry Park in East Baltimore.”

What the city does not say is that the “violence interrupters” it hires to work the Safe Streets programs are themselves “former” gang members. In the best-case scenario, that means they are reformed and are now working to stop others from following their example and ending up dead or in prison. In quite a few cases, what it means is that Baltimore gives these “former” gang members a paycheck and a license to go back on the street and go back to their old ways.

Particularly, in the case of a gang known as the Black Guerilla Family, it appears more than a few of the city’s new guardians have turned out to be just as violent and thuggish as they ever were.

In 2018 two Black Guerilla Family (BGF) gang members pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges, with prosecutors saying the pair conducted their gang activity while working out of a Safe Streets office. The two gang members, Ricky Evans, a/k/a Dorsey, and Shawn Thomas, a/k/a Bucky, sold drugs, stored weapons and held meetings at their Safe Streets offices, and even orchestrated murders from those locations. Evans was one of the top leaders in the BGF throughout his time working for Safe Streets.

That case was no aberration.

In 2013 it turned out that Nathan "Bodie" Barksdale a “former” drug dealer employed by Safe Streets to “interrupt” violence was actually still a member of the BGF and was, you guessed it, dealing drugs while on the city payroll. In fact, Barksdale was a senior member of the BGF when he was hired by the city of Baltimore to work in the Safe Streets program.

The Mayor of Baltimore at the time, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, had this to say about the Barksdale case.

"We know that Safe Streets works. I am not going to let one person destroy that progress."

At the time that Barksdale was apprehended, the city had known for at least three years that the BGF had infiltrated Safe Streets.  In fact, the city had previously frozen funding to at least two Safe Streets sites because of connections to the BGF.

Nothing appears to have changed in Charm City. Last week the FBI raided the Bel Air-Edison Safe Streets location in connection with the apparent continuing penetration of the Safe Streets program by the BGF. Three employees of Safe Streets were placed on leave after the raid. The supervisor of the Bel Air-Edison site has now been indicted. A firearm and materials used to package drugs were seized from his residence.

Nothing appears to have changed in Charm City. Last week the FBI raided the Bel Air-Edison Safe Streets location in connection with the apparent continuing penetration of the Safe Streets program by the BGF. Three employees of Safe Streets were placed on leave after the raid.

The supervisor of the Bel Air-Edison site has now been indicted. A firearm and materials used to package drugs were seized from his residence.

Tell me again. Why do we willingly pay taxes??

[andrewmoocow]

FLCLlge AU (you can tell I put a lot of effort into that title)

Julia Raharu, often referred to by her middle name Jinyu, is an accomplished lawyer working for the legal firm Ikari and Kiryuin, Attorneys at Law who owns a Bel-Air passed down to her from her Italian father, frequently goes out for coffee with her friend and boss's daughter Satsuki Kiryuin, is a card-carrying member of Silverman Gym, and lives in a modest apartment close to her old alma mater of Tsurumaki University.

Coincidentally, that's where Jinyu's rambunctious, mischievous, neurodivergent, and sassy younger sister Haruha Raharu, or her stage name Haruko Haruhara as she prefers to be called, is currently attending, and now Jinyu is forced to house her little sis after Haruko got kicked out of her dorm room by her roommate Nonon Jakuzure for being a nuisance. The last time the two saw each other was when Jinyu graduated high school and moved to Tsurumaki University to study law, so it'll take a while for the two to get used to living together as sisters again. But deep down, beneath her middling empathy and penchant for trouble, Haruko desires for someone to be proud of her, as the girls' father believed that her destructiveness is only wasting her potential.

Also present is Tasuku Nandaba, the oafish but kindhearted leader of the university baseball team that Haruko joins, Adam Smith, an old money upperclassman that Haruko develops a crush on (and basically this universe's equivalent of Atomsk), Tasuku's precocious younger brother Naoto who Haruko becomes a big sister to, and other characters from FLCL.

Other anime referenced include:

Kill la Kill: Ragyo Kiryuin runs Ikari and Kiryuin with Gendo Ikari, her oldest daughter Satsuki Kiryuin is groomed to eventually take over the firm alongside Gendo's son Shinji, Satsuki also happens to be friends with Jinyu as the two go out for coffee and yoga every week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Nonon Jakuzure is head cheerleader and Haruko's former roommate, Ryuko is a member of a study group Jinyu makes Haruko join to keep her grades up. The two become friends and form a band called The Shooting Star Riders.

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Gendo Ikari runs Ikari and Kiryuin with Ragyo Kiryuin, his son Shinji is being set up to take over the firm alongside Satsuki, Asuka Langley Soryu is a member of Haruko's study group and later becomes one of the founding members of The Shooting Star Riders.

Gurren Lagann: Kamina Gurren is the passionate leader of the university's robotics club alongside his younger brother Simon Gurren and their friend Yoko Littner, Rossiu Adai works alongside Jinyu and Satsuki at Ikari and Kiryuin, Kittan is a member of Haruko's study group and a founding member of The Shooting Star Riders.

Little Witch Academia: Akko Kagari runs the DND club themed around her favorite book series Shiny Chariot du Nord, Diana Cavendish is a second generation student of Tsurumaki after her mother and friends with Nonon.

Brand New Animal: Michiru Kagemori is captain of the basketball team and Nazuna Hiwatashi is her personal cheerleader, Shirou Ogami serves as a history teacher at Tsurumaki, Barbara Rose is the dean of Tsurumaki.

How Heavy are the Dumbbells You Lift?: Jinyu and Satsuki are members of Silverman Gym, where they also take Haruko and Ryuko with them, Akemi Soryuin is a member of the student council and good friends with Milly Ashford.

One Piece: Brook is a fun-loving music teacher that Haruko grows a friendship with, Nico Robin is a campus therapist, Jinbe is a retired Olympic martial artist turned fitness doctor, Franky is a local mechanic who Haruko starts working for, and the other Straw Hat Pirates are basically the Hungry Days ads.

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Josuke Higashikata is a member of Haruko's study group, Jotaro Kujo is a biology professor specializing in marine life, Rohan Kishibe publishes Haruko's favorite manga Pink Dark Boy.

Sailor Moon: Usagi Tsukino is a member of Haruko's study group and quickly develops a friendship with Asuka of all girls, Ami Mizuno and Minako Aino are members of the student council, Makoto Kino once dated Kittan, Rei Hino is a member of the archery club.

Code Geass: The student council of Ashford Academy is the student council of Tsurumaki University here with a few additions from the other shows listed here, Kallen Kozuki is a member of the cheerleading team.

Keijo: The elite class of Setouchi Academy are now the girls' swim team and friendly rivals with the boys' team, aka the boys from Free.

Dragon Ball: All the Z Fighters have long since graduated from Tsurumaki Academy. Goku is now a martial arts teacher, Vegeta has taken over his father's company Saiyan Inc. and entered a partnership with Capsule Corp, Piccolo is a former violent tough guy turned babysitter, Krillin has settled down with his crush Lazuli to start a family and became a police officer, Yamcha is a moderately successful baseball player, Tien Shinhan and his little friend Chiaotzu travel the world together, and Yajirobe runs a local coffee shop called Bean Daddy's, Frederick Coleman (aka Frieza) runs Saiyan Inc's chief rival and former business partner Coleman Industries, having inherited the position from his father Kingsley Coleman (aka King Cold).

My Hero Academia: Bakugo was forced to join the study group because his fellow students were tired of his bullying and attitude problems, Izuku is an aspiring comic book artist who credits his favorite superhero All Might as his inspiration for drawing.

Baccano: Issac and Miria are the local theater kids. Come on, look at those two and tell me they don't radiate theater kid energy!

Soul Eater: Maka and Soul are members of Haruko's study group, Black Star is a total weeb who wanted to become a ninja after watching one anime too many (yes, I get the irony) and it's up to Tsubaki to keep him down to earth; so same dynamic as always, Death the Kid is an upperclassman whose father was a student of Tsurumaki before him and his brother Asura, who is currently off working for the military, Crona lives with their mother Medusa, who works as a campus nurse. However, they'd much rather prefer spending time with Maka and Soul due to Medusa's emotional abuse.

And potentially more that I can't list right now!

[mariacallous]

The first time I encountered Donald Trump was on my TV screen. It was 1994, and it happened in an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Will Smith’s popular coming-of-age sitcom about class assimilation that ran on NBC for six seasons. There was nothing particularly memorable about the episode or Trump’s appearance in it—he played a relatively tame version of himself—but for much of my early life this was how I made sense of him. As a real estate dealmaker. As a reality TV star. And eventually as 45th president of the United States. Then and now, Trump best communicates through the medium of images.

The latest transmission from his visual onslaught began making rounds on the internet last Thursday, just past the 8 pm Eastern primetime hour, when Georgia’s Fulton County Jail released his mug shot to the public. It has since been described as one of the most historic images of our time. And rightly so. There is no parallel for it in our visual lexicon. It is, in every sense of the phrase, a Trump original.

Along with 18 codefendants—which include his former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, a DOJ official, a stable of attorneys, a publicist, and a pastor—Trump is being charged as the lead actor in a conspiracy to overthrow the 2020 election in Georgia, where the law requires a mug shot be taken for a felony offense. Like most images of Trump, this one does not pretend to soften its collision. His grimace is absolute aggression—all venom and intimidation.

On its own, the photograph is nothing to call home about. Were it not infused with so much meaning—his is the first presidential mug shot in history—it would barely register as remarkable. (In fairness, he set the bar pretty high during his presidency. Remember the orb?!) But its aesthetics are classic Trump. The furrowed brows. The chromatic cloud of hair. That unyielding glare, his eyes like darts, in search of a target. The camera struggles to capture proper light, but that feels strangely fitting: His darkness is in full view.

Trump is a savvy counterprogrammer, a showman with a taste for political rebranding. He understands that images endure, the imprint they can leave. He understands that sometimes the image is the message. It's why, in the hours following his release, he used his mug shot as an opportunity to raise funds by posting it on X (formerly Twitter). “Never surrender,” he tweeted, without a pinch of irony, after surrendering.  The photo has raised more than $7 million since last week, according to Politico. This is all part of the Trump allure. The amphitheater of social media is where he excels, as meme and messiah.

Online, Trump exists across an explosive vernacular of media. His identity is a patchwork of zany interview clips, Photoshopped images, and antagonistic sound bites meant to go viral. It is why the story of Donald Trump will always be a story best told in pictures. Pictures that are brash and erratic, unfading and unpredictable. And as the front-runner for the Republican nomination, his mug shot is a picture that demands interrogation. It demands that many of us continue to challenge the image of America he is working to bring back. We should not look away. We can't afford to look away. This time, Trump should not be allowed to so easily evade the lens of reality. 

That, more than anything, is what the mug shot makes plain. Whether Georgia district attorney Fanni Willis can make her case or not, the mug shot implies an air of criminality. Some will call that implication into question. They’ll say it’s unfair. They’ll again label it a witch hunt. For others, it validates what they already believe to be true: In his loss to President Joe Biden, he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and now he must go on trial to prove otherwise. Trump and his codefendants are set to be arraigned next week. The court of public opinion will be watching.

[unreluctantone]

The Grand Staircase (Week 5, 29/01/2023)

Week 5, not catching up, but not falling further behind.

We're descending now, delving into the depths beneath the Riddle. A former guard post of the Dominion of Bel, secret paths, mysterious happenings, and *drumroll* a semi-original stat block! Woo!

29. The Grand Staircase

A grand staircase descends from the two double doors on the upper level of this large chamber. The ceiling is thirty feet above the tiled floor, and the north wall is carved with images of horned humans worshipping something in the centre of the wall. However, where the object of that worship should be depicted, there is now a scorched crater that has been somehow blasted out of the wall.

There are six statues of horned humans standing on high plinths on the lower floor; each is dressed in heavy plate, armed with swords and maces, and with draconic wings sprouting from their shoulders.

Four have (A, C, E, & F) have cloth bags pulled over their heads; if one of these is removed the trap on the statue is activated and magical bolts lash out from the eyes of the statue to strike at the nearest target (+8 to hit, 14 (4d6) fire damage, random target every round after the first). The bags block this and putting the bag will deactivate the trap temporarily.

The other two statues (B & C) will animate and attack (stats as gargoyles) if a bag is removed or if someone approaches the set of ironbound double doors in the west wall.

30. Stonemason’s Workshop

There is an incomplete statue standing here on a low plinth, with an identical empty platform standing next to it. The east wall is covered in graffiti from other adventuring parties. There is a one-in-six chance that one is camping here.

If the gargoyles in the Grand Staircase (room 29) are destroyed, they regrow here over the next week, seemingly being sculpted out of thin air.

31. Abandoned Guard Chamber

A small table sits against the west wall, flanked by two wooden chairs. A set of playing cards sit on the table, arrayed as if in the middle of a game. The whole scene reset at dawn, with any items that have been taken away teleporting back, unless the game is played to completion (DC 20/Hard check). If this is done, the deck becomes a deck of illusion.

The wooden door to the south has a dog’s head carved into it.

32. Kennel

The floor of this chamber is covered in ash and fragments of charred wood. There is a three-in-six chance that whenever someone enters this room that a hostile hell hound will appear; this can occur only once every ten minutes.

33. Ruined Barracks

This room is largely bare, except for a large pile of mouldy, broken wood in the south-east corner. Anyone searching the pile will find nothing but will disturb the mould, and will need to succeed on a DC 15/Medium Constitution save or be poisoned for the next hour.

34. Looted Armoury

The walls are lined with mould-covered wooden weapon racks, stripped bare over the years. There is a scattering of rusted daggers throughout the room, if any are picked up, they all rise into the air as a swarm of animated daggers (stat block follows!), fuelled by the restless souls of the former guards of this place.

There is a secret door concealed in the north wall, behind a particularly mouldy weapon rack. It is hard to detect (DC 20/Hard difficulty), a holy symbol of Elemental Water must be pressed into a concealed niche in order to unlock it, and if care is not taken

35. The Secret Stairwell

The walls of this chamber are covered in cracked and water-stained frescos that depict tin-scaled dragons soaring over oceans cliffs, while a marble statue of a robed woman holding in an ewer stands at the far end. Between the secret door and the statue stands a shield guardian, which will attack anyone approaching the statue.

Stairs descend in a spiral around the statue.

[davidmariottecomics]

The Staying Power of the Simpsons

Hey there! 

This week we're talking about longevity. If you've been reading my "What I enjoyed this week" bit for a while, you know two things I've recently been consuming a lot of are the Blank Check Podcast and The Simpsons. Blank Check, if you're unfamiliar though I do think I've mentioned it before, is a podcast about directors' filmographies--how they go from their early hits to being given free reign to make the sort of movies they want to make, and loosely, how the movies "clear or bounce". I've been more-or-less bouncing back and forth between the newest episodes and listening to the back catalog from the beginning, so I've most recently finished Spielberg (the Dreamworks years) and Henry Selick. 

One of the show's hosts, Griffin Newman (Arthur from The Tick), has a theory that I've been very drawn to. He talks about actors and how interesting to trace how many decades they've been relevant relative to their creative evolution.

Just because I think he's a good example (and he's been on The Simpsons), let's use Woody Harrelson as an example. In the 80s, he is essentially Woody from Cheers. He's in a few other things, but he's a TV actor from one huge show, to the point that even into the 90s, his most frequent role is Woody from Cheers. In the 90s, at the end of/post-Cheers, he becomes a movie star. Like an actual movie star, where the poster is his face, it's his name above the title, etc. The 2000s, he becomes a character actor. He's still working at a good clip, he sometimes ends up on the poster, but now he's back as part of ensembles. And in the 2010s, like so many former-movie-star-character-actors, he becomes a franchise guy: He's a big part of the Hunger Games. He's in a Marvel movie. He's in a Star Wars movie. He's so good in True Detective, that even though he's only in one season, he gets the show renewed. And while we're still fairly new into the 2020s, his 5th (technically 6th) decade as a working actor, the prestige-y films he did between his franchise movies have earned him elder statesman status and he's on posters again. For a guy whose most famous role is also a guy named Woody, he's really stuck around and managed to find a way to stay relevant. 

Okay, but The Simpsons? 

Tracking of creative evolution over the decades works for all sorts of creators and endeavors. That same framework, that same way of thinking, can be applied to something like say, The Simpsons. If you're a fan of The Simpsons, there's a distinct chance that either A. you believe it stopped being good at the end of the 90s or B. you've heard people it stopped being good at the end of the 90s. I like a lot of The Simpsons, so I wanna talk about that a bit. 

In the 90s, The Simpsons was a family sitcom. That's rightfully what appealed to people about it. It's right there in line with Newhart and the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as a show about family dynamics that're usually silly and sometimes serious, with the only real dividing factor being that The Simpsons is animated.

But by the 2000s, the Simpsons exists in a really strange place. It's no longer the only primetime animated sitcom or adult animated sitcom. You have King of the Hill and the Mike Judge properties, you have South Park, you have Family Guy and Adult Swim and Futurama. And at the same time, while family sitcoms never go away, there starts to be a shift to occupational sitcoms being the power players--Scrubs, The Office, etc. So the show's in a place where it's competitors are shifting genres and moving to absurdist humor and they have to find a new identity within that. And what they find is they keep it a family sitcom, but heighten the absurdity and start to really play into The Simpsons as a pop culture object that can be aware of other pop culture.

In the 2010s, things have shifted even further--I'd say actually in some ways tied to what I was talking about a few weeks back in the brandification of geekdom. And The Simpsons, in growing and changing their relevance 20 years in, change from a pop culture object that is aware of other pop culture to almost a self-referential pop culture staple. The show, in some ways, is about how long "The Simpsons" can last and the what "The Simpsons" means. It's common knowledge that the Simpsons "predicts the future", but interestingly enough, the future episodes of the show used to be a lot more spaced out. It was roughly one every five years, until 2011 when they became much more regular--from full episodes to end of episode flash-forward tags to "life of" episodes. 

Now, in the Season 30-somethings, The Simpsons has truly become such an institution that it can be a bit of everything it's been before. Some episodes lean more heavily on traditional family sitcom "drama". Some are unexpected and bizarre (Lisa the Boy Scout is a personal favorite from the current season). Some are straight up pop culture pastiches. I think to their benefit, it's what the writers find funny because all aspects are true of what The Simpsons is and it's not a surprise to hear they've been renewed for a few more seasons. 

Each decade has charms because they're responding to what was needed at the time for the show's longevity. 

I Thought this was a Comics Blog?

It is! And here's what that has to do with comics. On the one hand, you can apply this "changes over decades" theory to a lot of comics creators. You look at someone like the much missed George Perez and can track how he maintained a career for so long and how his art and storytelling and even the functions of his job evolved, right? He's a creator whose style is so specific and recognizable that two pieces from different decades can both immediately be identified as his own, even when they might look very different from each other. Part of what I'm getting at is if you are looking at comics as a long-term goal, the thing you want to do with your life, it's worth it to study the people who have managed to do that and the sorts of changes they've made along the way to do so. 

On the other hand, and this is one of the things I find really fascinating about comics--generally speaking, it's a lot harder to apply that same thinking to specific titles. Not to say you can't do it entirely, but it tends to be easier when the comic is the work of one or a one group of people--Usagi Yojimbo or Dragon Ball or I'd say even to some extent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles given how much of it's history has had some combination of Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird involved. But when you look at something like Batman, because of the nature of comics--between multiple titles for a single character, runs of incredibly varying lengths, a constant influx of new creators who bring in a diversity of storytelling (but not always a diversity of creators...) it is harder to take these evolutions by decade. Which, in some ways I think is a good thing. Because it means the things that last are not static and are changing to encompass multiple ideas of what it is and what it could be. 

Anyway, food for thought and mostly I wanted to talk about how actually The Simpsons has been pretty funny for the majority of their 30+ years. 

Coming up: Next week, since it's been about a year since I did a full one of these, I'm probably going to do another "Stuff That Sucks" and talk about the many massively disappointing and frustrating and downright awful things happening right now that we should all be keeping an eye on. The week after that, I think we're going to do another "Ask Me (Almost) Anything"! My inbox is open here (and it's incentive to answer a couple emails in there...) and I'll get a post up with next week's blog on Twitter for people to submit their questions! 

What I enjoyed this week: Blank Check (Podcast), Honkai Impact (Video game), House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (Book), Persona 4 Golden (Video game), Poker Face (TV show), Romantic Killer (Anime), Warioware & the other Gameboy/GBA games now on Switch, Snack vs. Chef (TV show), finally got my hands on a Minerva so that's one more Wrecker! And I got the new Big the Cat figure! Admiring good comics lettering. Seeing The Fablemans tomorrow and very much looking forward to it, and the Kaguya-Sama movie on Valentine's Day with my valentine! 

New Releases this week (2/8/2023): Godzilla: Monsters & Protectors - All Hail the King #5 (Editor) Sonic the Hedgehog #57 (Editor) Sonic the Hedgehog, Vol. 13: Battle for the Empire (Editor, collecting Sonic #50, 51, the 2022 Annual, and the 2022 Free Comic Book Day short)

New releases next week (2/15/2023): Off week for my books

Final Order Cutoff (2/13/2023): Godzilla: Best of King Ghidorah (Editor) Sonic the Hedgehog #59 (Editor) Sonic the Hedgehog #1 5th Anniversary Edition (Editor)

Announcements: Arizona Comic Book Arts Festival - 2/25! This is like 2 weeks from now! They've got a heckuva guest list including me, Becca, Elizabeth Brei, Danny Djeljosevic, Mitch Gerads, Steve Rude, John Layman, Henry Barajas, Jay Fotos, Jeff Mariotte, Marcy Rockwell, John Yurcaba, Andrew MacLean, Alexis Zirrit, Meredith McClaren, James Owen, Ryan Cody, and many more! Come and see us! Becca'll have some very cool new merch, too! And tickets are only $10! I'll be bringing a mess of stuff that I've written and edited from Transformers, Sonic, Godzilla, and more! (Promo by Becca)

Speaking of Becca, did you know they have a Patreon? They're doing weekly drawing prompts that're uploading Sundays, so lots of new stuff up there as well as a pretty impressive backcatalog from the past few years. This month, if you sign-up at any level, your support's actually going to a really amazing local organization, The Brown Building.

And final Becca news, they contributed to Aradia Beat, a Magical Girl Anthology Magazine! It's now on Kickstarter! It's both a tribute to 90s magical girl stories and part of a larger project about the overall preservation and mutual support of magical girl stories! We're in the final week and they're about $1K away from their goal. They can definitely make it, but it'd be cool if you could help out by backing or by sharing! Speaking of Magical Girl Kickstarters, it's still early in the life cycle of Sweet Little Resistance, which is by fellow AZ Comic Book Arts Fest tablers,  Elizabeth Brei and Danny Djeljosevic as well as a host of cool artists! They're only about $500 away from their goal, and would make for a very nice complimentary piece! (More Promo by Becca)

Pic of the Week:  So the actual Pic of the Week is Tiansheng who decided to sleep under the pillows in Becca's office chair, rather than on top of them!

[whileiamdying]

Quincy Jones, Giant of American Music, Dies at 91

As a producer, he made the best-selling album of all time, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” He was also a prolific arranger and composer of film music.

By Ben Ratliff Nov. 4, 2024

Quincy Jones, one of the most powerful forces in American popular music for more than half a century, died on Sunday night in his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. He was 91.

His death was confirmed in a statement by his publicist, Arnold Robinson, who did not specify the cause.

Mr. Jones began his career as a jazz trumpeter and was later in great demand as an arranger, writing for the big bands of Count Basie and others; as a composer of film music; and as a record producer. But he may have made his most lasting mark by doing what some believe to be equally important in the ground-level history of an art form: the work of connecting.

Beyond his hands-on work with score paper, he organized, charmed, persuaded, hired and validated. Starting in the late 1950s, he took social and professional mobility to a new level in Black popular art, eventually creating the conditions for a great deal of music to flow between styles, outlets and markets. And all of that could be said of him even if he had not produced Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” the best-selling album of all time.

Mr. Jones’s music has been sampled and reused hundreds of times, through all stages of hip-hop and for the theme to the “Austin Powers” films (his “Soul Bossa Nova,” from 1962). He has the third-highest total of Grammy Awards won by a single person — he was nominated 80 times and won 28. (Beyoncé’s 32 wins is the highest total; Georg Solti is second with 31.) He was given honorary degrees by Harvard, Princeton, Juilliard, the New England Conservatory, the Berklee School of Music and many other institutions, as well as a National Medal of Arts and a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master fellowship.

His success — as his colleague in arranging, Benny Carter, is said to have remarked — may have overshadowed his talent.

Mr. Jones at his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013 in Los Angeles.Credit...Danny Moloshok/Invision, via Associated Press.

In the late 1950s and early ’60s, Mr. Jones led his own bands and was the arranger of plush, confident recordings like Dinah Washington’s “The Swingin’ Miss ‘D’” (1957), Betty Carter’s “Meet Betty Carter and Ray Bryant” (1955), and Ray Charles’s “Genius + Soul = Jazz” (1961). He arranged and conducted several collaborations between Frank Sinatra and Count Basie, including what is widely regarded as one of Sinatra’s greatest records, “Sinatra at the Sands” (1966).

He composed the soundtracks to “The Pawnbroker” (1964), “In Cold Blood” (1967) and “The Color Purple” (1985), among many other movies; his film and television work expertly mixed 20th-century classical, jazz, funk and Afro-Cuban, street, studio and conservatory. And the three albums he produced for Michael Jackson between 1979 and 1987 — “Off the Wall,” “Thriller” and “Bad” — arguably remade the pop business with their success, by appealing profoundly to both Black and white audiences at a time when mainstream radio playlists were becoming increasingly segregated.

At 11, a Pivotal ‘Whisper’

Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was born on the South Side of Chicago on March 14, 1933, to Quincy Sr. — a carpenter who worked for local gangsters — and Sarah (Wells) Jones, a musically talented Boston University graduate. At one point in the late 1930s, Quincy and his brother, Lloyd, were separated from their mother, who had developed a schizophrenic disorder, and taken by their father to Louisville, Ky., where they were put in the care of their maternal grandmother, a former enslaved worker.

By 1943, Quincy Sr. had moved with his sons to Bremerton, Wash., where he found work in the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. They were eventually joined by his second wife, Elvera, and her three children, and four years later the family moved to Seattle. Once there, Quincy Sr. and Elvera had three more children; of the eight, Quincy Jr. and Lloyd perceived themselves to be the least favored by their stepmother and were often left to fend for themselves.

But the young Quincy was hungry to learn, and eventually to leave. At 11, he and his brother broke into a recreation center looking for food; there was a spinet piano in a supervisor’s room in the back, and as he later told the story in the BBC documentary “The Many Lives of Q” (2008), “God’s whispers” made him move toward it and touch it.

He went on to join his school band and choir, learning several brass, reed and percussion instruments, and music became his focus.

At 13, he persuaded the trumpeter Clark Terry, who was in Seattle for a month while touring with Count Basie’s band, to give him lessons after the band’s late set and before his school day began.

At 14, he met the 16-year-old Ray Charles, then known as R.C. Robinson, who had come west from Florida; they became close, and both worked for Bumps Blackwell, a local bandleader. At 15, Quincy gave Lionel Hampton an original composition and was hired for his touring band on the spot, only to be dismissed the next day by Hampton’s wife and manager, Gladys; she admonished him to go back to school.

After graduating from Garfield High School in Seattle, he attended Seattle University for one semester, then accepted a scholarship to attend the Schillinger House in Boston, now known as Berklee College of Music.

In 1951, Hampton’s band came calling again. This time, Mr. Jones joined and stayed for two years, as a trumpeter and occasional arranger. He wrote music quickly — including his first complete and credited composition, “Kingfish”— and got it sounding good quickly, through preternatural skills of charm and organization.

Mr. Jones circa 1974.Credit...A&M Records/ Michael Ochs Archives, via Getty Images.

During that time he settled down with his high school girlfriend, Jeri Caldwell, and had a daughter, Jolie, in 1952, although the couple did not marry until 1957. (She was white, and the early days of their relationship and child-rearing met much disapproval. It was the first of Mr. Jones’s three marriages, all interracial.

By the end of 1953, still only 20 and with a young daughter, he left Hampton’s band to settle in New York and work as a freelance arranger for Count Basie and the saxophonist James Moody, among others.

Mr. Jones’s true education was only beginning. In 1956, he was hired as musical director, arranger and trumpeter in the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie’s band, which traveled under the auspices of the State Department for three months through Europe and the Middle East and then took a second trip to South America.

Mr. Jones recorded the first album under his own name, “This Is How I Feel About Jazz,” in 1956. A year later, he moved to Paris to work for Barclay Records and stayed in Europe on and off for five years as the label’s staff arranger and conductor. He took advantage of the opportunity to write for strings — because, in his view, a Black arranger was much less likely to be given the chance to do so in America — and studied music theory with Nadia Boulanger.

In 1958, Mr. Jones signed with Mercury Records. For his albums “The Birth of a Band!” and “The Great Wide World of Quincy Jones,” both released in 1959, he assembled a big band including Mr. Terry and other first-tier jazz musicians. Mr. Jones’s vision for this band grew out of the tight and smooth sound world of the 1950s Count Basie Orchestra.

Offered the job of assembling a jazz band to lead the orchestra in a musical — “Free and Easy,” about the post-abolition South, based on the work of the Black American writers Arna Bontemps and Countee Cullen and with a score by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer — Mr. Jones used many of the players from his working ensemble. The idea, as he explained in “Q,” his 2001 memoir, was for the group to “work the kinks out of the show” in Europe before it moved on to London and, potentially, Broadway.

Hobbled by a problematic script and an 11th-hour change in director, “Free and Easy” opened at the Alhambra Theater in Paris in January 1960 and closed within a few weeks.

Turning to Pop

Wanting to keep his band together at all costs, Mr. Jones kept 30 people on the payroll and assembled concerts around Europe for 10 months; deep in debt at the end of the tour, he sold publishing rights for half of his songs to get his retinue home. (He would later buy back those rights at a much higher price.)

Back in New York, the band dissolved, as did Mr. Jones’s first marriage — although, given his acknowledged chronic infidelity, that might have been some time coming. “It got so out of control,” he wrote in his memoir, “that at one point I was in love with and dating Marpessa Dawn, the leading lovely from ‘Black Orpheus’; a Chinese beauty; a French actress; Hazel Scott, the gifted, cosmopolitan ex-wife of Adam Clayton Powell Jr.; and Juliette Gréco, the Queen of French Existentialism, all at the same time.”

Mr. Jones took the job of musical director at Mercury in 1961, assembling its jazz roster: He signed Dizzy Gillespie, Gerry Mulligan, Shirley Horn and others. But this was a moment when pop was taking over; jazz’s margins, and perhaps its audience, too, were in steep decline.

He changed his focus accordingly. His first pop success was with the singer Lesley Gore, who was only 16 when he came into possession of her demo tape. “She had a mellow, distinctive voice and sang in tune, which a lot of grown-up rock ’n’ roll singers couldn’t do, so I signed her,” Mr. Jones wrote. He helped make the song “It’s My Party” (1963) into a No. 1 hit for Ms. Gore, rushing acetates to radio stations just before another version of the song, sung by the Crystals and produced by Phil Spector, which remains unreleased.

Mr. Jones ascended at Mercury, in 1964 becoming the first Black vice president of a white-owned record label. (He also won his first Grammy Award that year, for his arrangement of Count Basie’s “I Can’t Stop Loving You.”) He kept the position for less than a year, until he scored “The Pawnbroker” — one of his greatest achievements as a composer — and moved to Los Angeles to work in films and television.

His most frenetic years, professionally and personally, began in the late 1960s and stretched to 1974. He married Ulla Andersson, a 19-year-old Swedish model, in 1967 and had two children with her, Martina and Quincy III; they divorced in 1974. His dozens of film-score credits in those years included “The Deadly Affair,” “In the Heat of the Night,” “In Cold Blood,” “Mirage,” “For Love of Ivy” and “The Getaway.” And he composed theme songs and scored episodes for “Sanford and Son,” “Ironside” and two different shows starring Bill Cosby. He also produced the 1973 television tribute “Duke Ellington … We Love You Madly.”

Mr. Jones with Duke Ellington, seated, during a recording session in 1973.Credit...David Redfern/Redferns, via Getty Images.

At the same time, Mr. Jones was making large-ensemble jazz-funk records as a leader, including “Walking in Space” (1969), whose title track won a Grammy for best instrumental jazz performance by a large group. He soon moved toward a more purely commercial kind of funk and R&B with “Body Heat” (1974).

He was working on “Mellow Madness,” a follow-up to “Body Heat,” when he suffered a brain aneurysm in 1974, resulting in two operations. After the first, his friends, not expecting him to live, organized a memorial concert at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. The concert went on as planned, with a roster that included Cannonball Adderley, Sarah Vaughan and Ray Charles. Mr. Jones attended, under strict orders from his neurosurgeon not to get excited.

“It felt like I was watching my own funeral,” he later wrote.

For a few years Mr. Jones slowed down, comparatively. He married the actress Peggy Lipton and had two daughters with her: Kidada Jones, an actress, model and fashion designer, and the film and television actress Rashida Jones.

He produced hit records by the Brothers Johnson, who had sung on “Mellow Madness”; contributed music to the celebrated mini-series “Roots” in 1977; and in 1978 served as musical supervisor for Sidney Lumet’s film version of the Broadway musical “The Wiz,” working with Michael Jackson for the first time. That led to their collaborations on the albums “Off the Wall,” “Thriller” and “Bad,” whose combined certified American unit-sales amount to 46 million, and whose worldwide figures are said to be more than double that.

As a joint venture with Warner Bros. Records, Mr. Jones started his own label, Qwest, in 1980. The label’s first release was the singer and guitarist George Benson’s “Give Me the Night,” which won three Grammys; otherwise, its quirky discography — the list includes not just stars like Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne and the R&B singer James Ingram, but also the post-punk band New Order, the gospel singer Andraé Crouch and the experimental jazz saxophonist Sonny Simmons — proved, if it needed proving, that Mr. Jones was not concerned only with the bottom line.

Clockwise from left, Lionel Richie, Daryl Hall, Mr. Jones, Paul Simon and Stevie Wonder recording “We Are The World” in 1985.Credit...Associated Press.

His profile was raised even higher in 1985, when he produced, arranged and conducted a supergroup of more than 40 singers — including Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Wonder — under the banner name USA for Africa, in “We Are the World,” a fund-raising single for famine relief.

The recording, with an accompanying video, was an international hit, becoming the industry’s first multiplatinum release, raising millions of dollars in donations and winning four Grammys, including “Song of the Year.” (The making of that record was the subject of a 2024 Netflix documentary, “The Greatest Night in Pop.”)

Shortly after that, Mr. Jones served as associate producer of Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation of Alice Walker’s novel “The Color Purple.” He also wrote the score, in less than two months.

To Tahiti and Back

Meanwhile, Mr. Jones’s third marriage failed, he became dependent on the sleeping pill Halcion, and he was not making good on plans for a follow-up to “Bad.” In 1986, he fled to one of Marlon Brando’s vacation spots — “a cluster of islands he’d owned in Tahiti since filming ‘Mutiny on the Bounty,’” as he described it in “Q.” He spent a month recovering, overcame his Halcion addiction and bounced back.

The 1989 album “Back on the Block” served as his official return, with a guest roster that typified his cross-generational, cross-stylistic dream of Black American music: Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Ice-T, Luther Vandross, Barry White. The album won six Grammys, including album of the year, and Mr. Jones was named nonclassical producer of the year.

The documentary feature “Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones,” which told his story through the recollections of his colleagues, was released in 1990. That same year, his record label became part of a larger multimedia entity, Quincy Jones Entertainment, which produced the sitcoms “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” and “In the House” as well as the sketch show “Mad TV.” The business eventually branched out into publishing: He helped start the hip-hop magazine Vibe, and published Spin and Blaze with Robert Miller.

Mr. Jones with students at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1991.Credit...Alain Benainous/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty Images

In 1991, Mr. Jones produced a concert at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland — of which he, in typical factotum spirit, had become a co-producer — reuniting Miles Davis with the arranger Gil Evans to play music from the albums “Sketches of Spain” and “Porgy and Bess.” It was there that he met the actress Nastassja Kinski, with whom he lived for four years, a union that produced his seventh child, Kenya Julia Miambi Sarah Jones, who became a model and is known professionally as Kenya Kinski-Jones.

By that time Mr. Jones’s life and work had become entwined with hip-hop, with or without his direct input. At his death in 1996, Tupac Shakur had sampled, for his own No. 1 hit “How Do U Want It,” a piece of Mr. Jones’s “Body Heat” — a track that has also been sampled by Das EFX, Mobb Deep and Tyrese, among others — and was dating Mr. Jones’s daughter Kidada.

According to his publicist, Mr. Jones is survived by a brother, Richard; two sisters, Margie Jay and Theresa Frank; and seven children: Jolie, Kidada, Kenya, Martina, Rachel, Rashida and Quincy III.

In his final decades, Mr. Jones dedicated much of his time to charity work through his Listen Up! Foundation; established a Quincy Jones professorship of African American music at Harvard University; produced “Keep On Keepin’ On,” a 2014 film about the teacher-student relationship between the 89-year-old Clark Terry, Mr. Jones’s old mentor, and Justin Kauflin, a young blind jazz pianist; and released the album “Soul Bossa Nostra,” reprising songs he’d produced in the past, with appearances by Snoop Dogg, T-Pain and Amy Winehouse, who contributed a louche version of “It’s My Party” — her last commercial release before her death in 2011.

Mr. Jones stayed in the public eye. In 2018, he made headlines when he gave wide-ranging interviews to New York and GQ magazines that contained surprising comments about Michael Jackson and other subjects.

In 2017, he helped launch a video platform, Qwest TV, offering high-definition streams of jazz concerts and documentaries, and in 2022 he appeared on the album “Dawn FM” by the Weeknd, performing a monologue on the track “A Tale by Quincy.”

But even his not-fully-realized back-burner projects tell a story of their own, a kind of secondary biography of the obsessions and connections of a constantly busy man. Among them were a musical about Sammy Davis Jr.; a Cirque du Soleil show on the history of Black American music, from its African roots; a film about Brazilian carnivals; a film version of Ralph Ellison’s unfinished novel “Juneteenth”; and a film on the life of Alexander Pushkin, the Russian poet who was said to be of African origin.

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John Ridley IV (October 1, 1964) is a screenwriter, television director, novelist, and showrunner, known for 12 Years a Slave, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He is the creator and showrunner of American Crime. He directed the documentary film Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982–1992. He was born in Milwaukee to an ophthalmologist father, John Ridley III, and a mother, Terry Ridley, who was a special education teacher for Milwaukee Public Schools. He has two sisters. He is the middle child. He enrolled at Indiana University and transferred to New York University.

He performed standup comedy in New York City, where he made appearances on the David Letterman talk show and the Tonight Show. He moved to Los Angeles where he started to write for television sitcoms such as Martin, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and The John Larroquette Show. He made his directional debut with Cold Around the Heart. He wrote the screenplay for the film. He published his first novel, Stray Dogs, which became the basis for U-Turn.

Another of his stories, Spoils of War, became the basis for Three Kings. He became the writer and supervising producer on Third Watch. His books and short stories were adapted into films, and he continued to publish novels, including Love is a Racket, Everybody Smokes in Hell, A Conversation with the Mann, and The Drift.

His other works in screenwriting include Undercover Brother, Red Tails, Jimi: All is by My Side, and 12 Years A Slave, which won him the 2014 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. he was only the second African American to win the award. His 12 Years a Slave was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in the Best Motion Picture Screenplay category. Other television shows that have featured his writing are Team Knight Rider, Trinity, Third Watch, Platinum, Static Shock, Justice League, Barbershop: The Series, The Wanda Sykes Show, American Crime, and Lady Dynamite.

He married Gayle Yoshida Ridley (1998) who is a former script supervisor. They have two children. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence