News

Ad Nauseam: Newsprint Nightmares from the ’70s and ’80s

1984 Publishing, October 5, 2021

Michael Gingold (Author), Joe Dante (Foreword)

Ballyhoo, the art of selling the public something they don’t want, has never changed—but like the devil it has assumed many disguises. In the 19th century small towns were inundated with colorful broadsides, barn-sized murals promoting the arrival of the circus or a traveling vaudeville show. The 20th century made do with the daily newspaper’s theater section—all in black and white but jam-packed with exciting possibilities. Today we have Twitter and your neighbor’s cousin’s friend on Facebook. That’s not exactly progress.

The movie advertisements of a not-too-distant yesterday were called ad mats. They permeated the entertainment sections of the dailies, crammed together side by side like post-war housing developments. They were in close competition for our undivided attention so the artwork was designed to attract—and shock—the most jaundiced soul.

Friends and family gathered to honor and celebrate the life of poet-musician Gil Scott-Heron yesterday, at Harlem's historic Riverside Church. His daughter Gia "proclaimed the revolution will be televised" in a stirring service during which she "performed an original poem, called 'Time' and sang Bette Midler's 'The Rose,' the NY Daily News reports.

Another speaker was Scott-Heron's first wife, Brenda Sykes, who reminisced about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (who introduced her to Scott-Heron) and the poet's friendship with Stevie Wonder. She told about how Wonder wanted to dance on stage, but didn't trusted anyone to keep him from bumping into things. He trusted Scott-Heron though. "Gil led Stevie in a conga line," she said, and added that they toured together after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in an effort to create the federal holiday in his memory.

Later, Kanye West, who was deeply inspired by Gil-Scott Heron's work,...

Here’s your chance to see the one, the only Definitive Definition of Black Masculinity, Jim Brown, in the 1972 blaxploitation (admittedly not-so-classic) Black Gunn on Crackle.com, which is Sony Pictures’ version of Hulu. (That’s the lovely Brenda Sykes as Brown’s bed-mate in the film).

So, O.K., it’s not one of better ones of the period, but compared to what we’re going to be getting soon, like Big Momma’s House 3, or The Skank Robbers, Black Gunn is a masterpiece. I mean, it’s Brown beating the hell out of, and killing racist white villains, and bedding hot chicks. What more do you need?

I get laughed at by some people because of my admiration of Jim Brown, but go ahead – name me another black actor who was as hard and tough and pure brute machismo than Brown. What have we got now? Black actors in drag.