#john benitez

[posthumanwanderings]

Rick Lake - Main Theme / Opening / Go Ricki Remix

[twixnmix]

DJ Jellybean Benitez and Demi Moore at Nell’s in New York City on November 8, 1986.

Photos by Andy Warhol 

[elliscraddock]

Here's my #8thRocksShuffle #8thRocks dance video w/song called Jingo by #JellybeanBenitez #JohnBenitez.

(w/heavy rain sound effects/high tone version). I don't own this song but enjoy. This tap dance video is to celebrate his early 67th Birthday. Happy Birthday, sir. This is for you. #PuertoRico 🇵🇷🇵🇷🇵🇷

[diioonysus]

men's fashion + art

[a-state-of-bliss]

Elsa Benitez @ John Galliano Spr/Sum 1997

[classyinfur]

[ilromagnollo84]

Elsa Benitez

'Little Sweetheart Pin-ups da Dior' Collection

Christian Dior RTW F/W 1997 98

By John Galliano

[theoriginalsupermodels]

John Galliano - Spring 1998 RTW

[jedivoodoochile]

Here is Jeff Beck, Diana Ross, Nile Rodgers, Madonna and John 'Jellybean' Benitez, May 16 1984 at Keith Haring's birthday party at the Paradise Garage Nightclub in NYC.

[c-40]

A-T-3 080 James Ingram - Yah Mo B There (John "Jellybean" Benitez 12'' Remix)

Picking up from where I left my short history of reissue labels in the age of Record Shop Day (which are all reissues in some form or other) and back catalogues (legacy records) making up 75% of all US album sales

In 1990 CBS brought back it’s Legacy label, CBS was acquired by Sony the following year and Legacy serves as the reissue label for Sony and all its labels

1991 Beechwood music launched it’s highly successful Mastercuts series, their promise “Mastercuts will cover all areas of music and endeavour to provide a higher standard of track listings, quality music and packaging. Conceived and compiled with love by Ian Dewhirst.” The first three in the Mastercuts series were:

Classic Mix Mastercuts volume 1

Classic Jazz-Funk Mastercuts volume 1

Classic Mellow Mastercuts volume 1

They were all compiled by northern soul dj Ian Dewhirst but as the catalogue grew other djs were brought in, Greg Wilson did Classic Electro, Dave Lee Classic Disco, Paul "Trouble" Anderson Classic House Volume 2, Dez Parkes Classic Rare Groove Volume 2, and on and on. The selections crossed over with Street Sounds, especially the Street Sounds Anthems series but the sleeve notes were a little better and they were spread over 2xLP, this was reflected in the price. I remember Mastercuts being more expensive compilations. With the success of Mastercuts, Beechwood would reissue Street Sounds Anthems series in the mid 1990s. Beechwood acted as distributed for BBE and Ian Dewhirst would become a record exec working for reissue labels S12, Suss’d, and Harmless

Blue Note’s Blue Break Beat series began in 1992, the quality of the package had improved with extensive sleeve notes thanks to being compiled by Dean Rudland and Eddie Piller of Acid Jazz Records and coming from mind of Giles Peterson (BGP, Acid Jazz, Talkin’ Loud) The popularity of the compilations led to reissues of the Blue Note street funk albums by Donald Byrd, Grant Green, Richard "Groove" Holmes, Jimmy McGriff et al

Polydor parent PolyGram (Polydor and Phonogram) launch its Chronicles series in 1992 to issue anthologies and expanded reissues like Yes We Can ...And Then Some by Lee Dorsey. Funk Essentials was an offshoot of Chronicles, the Parliament, Kool And The Gang, Barry White, Gap Band anthologies are all excellent as they often included rarer, funkier tracks and extended and instrumental mixes. Chronicles would become a label in its own right handling reissues for all labels under the Universal Music umbrella, like Motown Deluxe Editions

1992 also saw the record shop Sounds Of The Universe reissue 1974 soul-jazz album Fresh Out by Eddie Russ on their new label Soul Jazz. Soul Jazz would go above and beyond when it came to sleeve notes, sometimes this would extend to a book and film, they set the standard

The following year Blood & Fire would launch their reissue and anthology label. Blood & Fire was loved for it’s high quality releases, great packaging, great sleeve notes, and great selections. Each Blood & Fire released was a premium product

James Ingram - Yah Mo B There (John "Jellybean" Benitez 12'' Remix) is track 1 on the first Mastercuts compilation, Classic Mix. This classic mix is by John "Jellybean" Benitez (A-T-2 123 A-T-2 283 A-T-3 039) and Yah Mo B There was written by Rod Temperton, Quincy Jones, Michael McDonald, and James Ingram, with Quincy Jones producing

[filmnoirsbian]

Things read and watched in January

Essays & Articles:

Inside A Neo Nazi Homeschool Network with Thousands of Members

I Cut the 'Big Five' Tech Giants From My Life. It Was Hell.

Social Media, Social Factory

The Not So Hidden Israeli Politics of 'The Last of Us Part II'

The Okinawa Problem: The Forgotten History of Japanese Colonialism and Ryukyuan Indigeneity

How the Pentagon Leaned on Hollywood to Sell the War in Afghanistan

Get Out and the legacy of sundown suburbs in post-racial America

There is No Mary Problem in 'It's A Wonderful Life'

Why Do Rich People Love Quiet?

John Mulaney's Jokes About His Jewish Ex-Wife Suddenly Don't Seem So Funny Anymore

Kansas Research Shows Reintroducing Bison on Tallgrass Prairie Doubles Plant Diversity

"Alien" chestburster was inspired by writer's Crohn's disease

It's Frustratingly Rare to Find a Novel About a Woman That's Not About Love

The 50 Greatest Apocalypse Novels

Something in the water--life after mercury poisoning

Do You Have To Win A Nobel Prize To Be Translated?

Co-Author of Affluenza: "I'm Appalled by the Ethan Couch Decision"

Data Reveals Loneliest Cities in America

Groundbreaking effort launched to decode whale language

Ireland offers basic income for artists

Unhinged 'Transvestigators' Think They're the Only Cis People Left

Werner Herzog 'gives blessing' to pirates who want to download his films on Torrent sites

Music on Mars: If you thought space was silent, take a closer listen

The Singularity is Here

The Average Fourth Grader is A Better Poet Than You (and Me Too)

If Black English Isn't A Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?

Poetry:

Guts by Julia Armfield

the guessing game: a mother's love by Silas Denver Melvin

The Sea is Rising by Rakyah Assam

You Were You Are Elegy by Mary Jo Bang

Stop and Look, Alicante by Layla Benitez-James

ANWR by Sherwin Bitsui

Self-Portrait as Daily Sustenance by Ae Hee Lee

On Asking My Mother About Winter 1990 by Abhijit Sarmah

Finally Writing the Poem by Tarik Dobbs

Pound and Brodsky in Venice by Megan Fernandes

Books:

Engine Summer by John Crowley

No One Cares About Crazy People by Ron Powers

My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris

Hybrid Heart by Iori Kusano

Films:

[gusty-wind]

CIA’s scheme to launder U.S. Financial Aid Through Noetic International Inc.

1) The Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov orders all the necessary equipment/service/weapons through “liaison officer" Manuel Benitez.

2) Mr. Benitez redirects the application to Johnna Holeman and John Irvin, who call their “friends” in the intelligence community to look for a “preferable” contractor.

3) After the contractor is found, the Noetic International organizes a communication channel with the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine;

4) After the work’s done, the Noetic International takes a “small” fee from both sides, depending on the amount of the contract.

According to our source, the amount of the four-year deal between the Ukrainian government and the GK was estimated at $60-80 million. It should be noted, that the contract amount exceeds the market price by 20-30%. Given the fact that the GK personell was spotted on Ukrainian soil a couple of months ago, the deal had been eventually signed.

Is it possible that these 20-30% went to the Noetic International specialists for their work? We believe yes.

But anyway, if you think such inflated price tags somehow bother the Ukrainian government, you are wrong. In fact, all this goes on American taxpayers’ money, sent by the U.S. Congress. And CIA’s director William Burns keeps insisting on the need to give more money to Zelenskyy.

UNITED24 AND “USEFUL IDIOTS” FROM HOLLYWOOD

As we said before the Ukrainian digital minister Mykhailo Fedorov oversees the Army of Drones project, an initiative that implies combat UAV procurement at the request of the Ukrainian military. But what is important here is that all the purchase of these UAVs is carried out with money raised from United24 charity fund, so warmly supported by numerous Hollywood stars, bands and other celebrities: Mark Hamill, Robert de Niro, Imagine Dragons and others.

[elliscraddock]

Here's my #8thRocksShuffle #8thRocks dance video w/song called Jingo by #JellybeanBenitez #JohnBenitez(w/heavy rain sound effects/high tone version) on YouTube to celebrate his 67th Birthday. Also click the like, share, subscribe, & hit a notification button on my YouTube channel. Happy Birthday, sir. This is for you. #PuertoRico 🇵🇷🇵🇷🇵🇷

[silveragelovechild]

Originally I did not plan to see “Conclave”. I don’t have any interest in stories about religion nor the Catholic Church in particular.

But “Conclave” has been receiving some very good reviews (92% at Rotten Tomatoes) with Ralph Fiennes being single out for his Oscar worthy role. The movie does hold up pretty well, and Fiennes is excellent.

But it’s no surprise the movie included many details of arcane rituals and men dressed in red gowns and lots of jewelry. (You’d think this was another season of Drag Race.)

The movie opens with the death of one pope then follows the effort to elect a new pope. Fiennes plays Cardinal Lawrence who must manage the voting process, although he himself has doubts about his own faith.

There aren’t any murders in “Conclave” but the plot follows a typical detective mystery story - Fiennes must discover who is telling the truth and what secrets are they hiding.

You might think that as men of the cloth, the cardinals would be open and honest… nope! Many of them conspire against each other and they have secrets that would create major scandals for the church if they were to be leaked.

The main candidates for the job are:

John Lithgow as Tremblay who you can tell is lying just by looking at him

Stanley Tucci as liberal Bellini who is more concerned someone else doesn’t get elected.

Sergio Castellitto as Tedesco who can easily pass as a MAGA member

Lucian Msamati as Adeyemi who may have broken a priestly vow

Carlos Diehz as soft spoken Benitez who was recently promoted.

A fair portion of the movie is devoted to the various rounds of voting, and how the Cardinals win or loses votes. My one complaint about the movie is, at the end, to adds tension, the method the votes are revealed is suddenly changed. The outcome was obvious, so this switch felt like a cheat.

The ending involves a twist which you may have read about by the time you read this. It’s very topical but wasn’t entirely necessary to the plot - except that it does have some rumored precedence.

Note: Isabella Rossellini has a small role in the film. I follow her on Instagram and it was nice seeing her on the big screen again.

[mediaacestar]

Madonna's Summer Song -- Holiday

An artist’s first hit!  For some it’s also their last hit.  For some talented artists, it’s the first of many.  But, there’s a lot that the first hit often tells you about the artist.  Consider Madonna’s first hit “Holiday”.  Madonna was living in New York and frequented nightclubs to get disc jockeys to play her demo songs.  Mark Kamins a DJ at Danceteria (and friend of Madonna) arranged a meeting for her with Seymour Stein of Sire Records (part of Warner Brothers). He gave her a three single deal, with an option for an album.  Her singles cracked the top 10 in Billboard’s “Hot Dance Club Songs” chart. With that success, Warner Brothers hired a producer and they began to cobble together the album that would become her first, the self-titled “Madonna”.  

Madonna was unhappy with the way the album was progressing and the way the songs were moving away from the sparser beat-based form of the original demos. This is the fork in the road where things changed. As a New York dance club aficionado Madonna asked John Benitez the DJ from The Fun House to do some remixing of the tracks.  The Fun House was a 26th Street Manhattan dance club, with a decidedly anti-Studio 54 club vibe, full of younger less affluent clientele.  Benitez knew the pulse of the city’s youth. Nicknamed “Jellybean” because of his initials, he remixed her singles “Burning Up”, “Borderline” and “Lucky Star”. They needed one more song for the album and “Jellybean” knew of the song “Holiday” written by Curtis Hudson and Lisa Stevens-Crowder for their own musical act Pure Energy. They refused at first, but agreed after meeting with Madonna.  Again, another game changing moment. Benitez then produced the track.

Released in August 1983 “Holiday” hit #1 a month later on Billboard’s “Dance Club Songs” chart and then #16 on Billboard’s Top 100.  It also hit #25 on Billboard’s “Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs” chart. By the time of Live Aid on July 13, 1985 Madonna was an international star with a #1 hit song, multiple top 5 songs and the title role in the movie “Desperately Seeking Susan”. But, with all that going for her, she reached back to her first big hit "Holiday" for her set at Live Aid.  The huge crowd and the mood of the song and her “no auto-tune” singing makes it the very best version of a great song.  It’s a great summer song!