Life as a traveling market clown















We are a few weeks off on posting these - a day in the life of the Dumbo Brooklyn Market...
as seen from Miss Wit's post.


Soul Power Brooklyn Style




Miss Wit had a fun family filled weekend, laced with a soulful Soul Power opening at the Sunshine Theater in NY - where they did a dance like James Brown, win a Miss Wit tee contest and everything!  Zaire 74 tee sightings all over town. (Okay fine that is a mild exaggeration but it is also somewhat true too as some folks round town have testified legally saying so!)

As the 2 or 3 of you who follow this blog (har har) by now know, Miss Wit and the woman behind Miss Wit, who strives to not mention her own name as part of a third person reality don't vote me off the island kind of game - procured, or secured or delicately proposed that she recreate the original Zaire '74 logo, seen prominently through out the now released concert documentary Soul Power.  

Folks sit outside Madiba

She went to an anniversary screening of When We Were Kings about a year ago - and introduced herself to director Jeff Levy- Hinte.  



She among other things is the proud niece of that dude you see in When We Were Kings who says that delightful play on words ( hmmm might we invoke a study on the genetics of wit?) "We going in Zee Air to Zaire."  (Stewart Levine)

Coyly a few weeks later she contacted said director "hey if you ever want to remake that shirt, you knowwwww we do things like that over here."

Few  months later we make some smashing tees for Mr. LH and he gives them out at the premiere of Soul Power at the Toronto Film Festival September 2008! 

Few more of a few more months later, Soul Power gets it's rightful festival recognition and as the way one hopes these things go...distribution, whoo hoo!  

So Miss Wit is all like "man we gots to make and sell these shirts." I feels it in my bones, people dig em, you should sell em.  Well, said director, is a director not a schmata salesmen so he says, in not these exact words at all so don't quote this please - "you do it!"

Okay fine, blah blah yadda yadda ( sure when writing a blog you should have words to use but, words are so over rated) Consider this the montage segment - proposals written, email fades, phone conversations, numbers being crunched, colors being matched, shirt styles strewn across floors, signatures, contracts and VOILA - Miss Wit has the License to Funk.   And the games begin.  And she thanks Jeff and Uncle Stewy for conduit-ing things.  ( We make up words here, you know this).

And so the energy was high this weekend over at Madiba Restaurant in Ft. Greene Brooklyn - The bartender style cat-ed up her tee and is looking down right foxy, we thought....Thanks Madiba!


This is Miss Wit's niece at Madiba, she is cute.

Scott Turner & Miss Wit Soul Power Quiz Night Sensation!

Greetings Pub Quiz Mustelidae Family Members...

As you make your way to Red Hook for tonight's Rocky Sullivan's Pub Quiz, think about this breaking news item from Germany:

BERLIN (Reuters) - A badger in Germany got so drunk on over-ripe cherries it staggered into the middle of a road and refused to budge, police said on Wednesday. A motorist called police near the central town of Goslar to report a dead badger on a road -- only for officers to turn up and discover the animal alive and well, but drunk.

Police discovered the nocturnal beast had eaten cherries from a nearby tree which had turned to alcohol and given the badger diarrhoea. Having failed to scare the animal away, officers eventually chased it from the road with a broom.

http://www.highlandbadgers.net/Images/BadgerRTA.jpg
Germany deals with its drunken-badger problem, as another soused inebriate sleeps it off...

Back in Brooklyn, where over-ripe cherries haven't become the public menace they are in Germany, we celebrate tomorrow night's opening of the film Soul Power with our first-ever Rocky Sullivan's Pub Quiz MissWit Soul Power Extravaganza.  Questions, Photo Round and Music Round all dedicated to the famous Rumble in the Jungle heavyweight fight between Muhammed Ali and George Foreman and its sister concert featuring James Brown, Bill Withers, Celia Cruz and The Spinners.



MissWit will be on hand to award official merchandise from the film, including Zaire 74 tee-shirts like the ones worn by musicians and crew members 35 years ago.

If the weather holds, and it's not too chilly, we'll be up on the Rocky's roof-deck for a Quiz 'Neath The Stars.  Upstairs or downstairs, insider or out, Soul Power comes to Red Hook tonight!

...and ask Tony the Bartender for his Deutsche überreife Kirschen drink special.

yours,

Scott M.X.
Rocky's quizmaster

* * * * * * * *

Rocky Sullivan's Quiz
QUIZ 'NEATH THE STARS
MISSWIT SOUL POWER EXTRAVAGANZA
General Knowledge Night
with Quizmaster Scott M.X. Turner
TONIGHT, July 9th
8:00 p.m, on the Rocky's roof-deck, weather permitting
free admission, potable prizes, per chance wearable winners and aural awards
Rocky Sullivan's
34 Van Dyke Street
Red Hook, Brooklyn
F/G to Smith/9th Street -or- F/R to 4th Avenue/9th Street Stations 
transfer for the B77 Bus to corner of Van Dyke & Dwight Street, Red Hook
free Ikea shuttle buses and ferries, go here for more info: http://info.ikea-usa.com/brooklyn/
http://www.rockysullivans.com/quiz.html

David Sanger Ain't Nothin'

Scott MX Turner's Weekly Quiz Master to the Stars ( celestial that is )

He is our good friend, a real partner in crime, and can spin a touching, sentimentally irreverent all in one phrase, on a dime. 

Quiz on the Roof of Rocky Sullivan's is an urban oasis filled night of fun and stars. 

Greetings Pub Quiz Dance Floor Denizens...

THIS WEEK'S ROCKY SULLIVAN'S PUB QUIZ is a Very Special Edition.

It's the 
MissWit Soul Power Extravaganza!!

Our beloved 
MissWit the official licensee for the new Sony Pictures film Soul Power. Opening Night is Friday, July 10th.  To celebrate, we'll have Official tee-shirts from the film and questions and music from the era throughout the evening.



Here's the capsule description of 
Soul Power:

In 1974, the most celebrated American R&B acts of the time came together with the most renowned musical groups in Africa for a 12-hour, three-night long concert held in Kinshasa, Zaire. The dream-child of Hugh Masekela and Stewart Levine, this music festival became a reality when they convinced boxing promoter Don King to combine the event with “The Rumble in the Jungle,” the epic fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, previously chronicled in the Academy Award-winning documentary WHEN WE WERE KINGS.

SOUL POWER is a verité documentary about this legendary music festival (dubbed “Zaire ‘74”), and it depicts the experiences and performances of such musical luminaries as James Brown, BB King, Bill Withers, Celia Cruz, among a host of others. At the peak of their talents and the height of their careers, these artists were inspired by this return to their African roots, as well as the enthusiasm of the Zairian audience, to give the performances of their lives. The concert has achieved mythological significance as the definitive Africa(n)-American musical event of the 20th Century.




MissWit's floating the merchandising end of this film like a butterfly and stinging your fashion sense like a bee.  If you're lucky, you'll take home the same tee-shirts worn by 
Bill WithersJames BrownMuhammed Ali and the all the musicians and crew from Zaire 74.  

As if the MissWit Soul Power Extravaganza weren't enough, there's lots more!
  • Individual potable prizes after each round;
  • Rocky Sullivan's Pub Quiz SuperMix Compilation CD -- answer a super-tough question and win a mix CD of full versions of all the songs in this week's Music Round;
  • Special prizes from the Quizmaster's Magic Bag Of Stuff You Can Live Without But Why Would You?
  • Grand Prize -- a thirst-slaking round for everyone on the winning team.
DON'T FORGET: As is custom, somewhere in this e-mail is a clue for this week's Pre-Quiz Bonus Question.  Get it right and your team earns five points before the Quiz has started.

As the world hurtles toward 
The Next Big Thing, come down to Rocky's this Thursday for Brooklyn's Best Sure Thing -- theRocky Sullivan's Pub Quiz.

What do I have that David Sanger doesn't?  You guys coming down to Rocky's Pub Quiz every Thursday night. Pulitzers, schmulitzers!

Scott M.X.
Rocky's Quizmaster
 
* * * * * * * *
Rocky Sullivan's Quiz
QUIZ 'NEATH THE STARS
SOUL POWER SPECIAL
General Knowledge Night
with Quizmaster Scott M.X. Turner
This Thursday evening, 
July 9th
8:00 p.m, on the Rocky's roof-deck, weather permitting
free admission, potable prizes, per chance wearable winners and aural awards
Rocky Sullivan's
34 Van Dyke Street
Red Hook, Brooklyn
F/G to Smith/9th Street -or- F/R to 4th Avenue/9th Street Stations 
transfer for the B77 Bus to corner of Van Dyke & Dwight Street, Red Hook
free Ikea shuttle buses and ferries, go here for more info: 
http://info.ikea-usa.com/brooklyn/
http://www.rockysullivans.com/quiz.html


* * * * * * * *

A few weeks ago I reconnected with my best friend from 1972.  Most people have best friends that last lifetimes.  I have Whit andDiane and the Skyline Five.  I'm lucky, and no, you can't force me to choose a single Best Friend.

In 1972, entering 7th Grade at Eastview Junior High in White Plains, I quickly made friends with Ray Schieber.  He'd moved to White Plains from Chicago.  We found each other through obsessive sports fandom and, well, little else.  We made up games throughout the school year, created new baseball teams and leagues for them to play in, took each other on in various baseball board games, plotted all sorts of shortcuts home from school either to his folks' or my mom's apartment.

Ray's mom was wonderfully welcoming, his dad taciturn and methodical in his reading of the Saturday night early edition of Sunday Daily News, and his older sister put up with us, rarely successfully in hers or our minds.

Once we discovered ancient animal bones on the grassy slope leading from the football field to the back of the bowling alley -- ancient until the science teacher we brought them to, Mr. Cutler, let us down easy by saying "well, they might be dinosaurs, but more likely it's one of the neighborhood cats."  On further review, maybe they weren't the biggest oldest or oddest bones every unearthed.

There was a third friend, Scott Robeson.  Our triumvirate coursed through films, photography, sports, current events, Hi-C, bologna sandwiches, slices at the Italian Pavilion on Mamaroneck Avenue.  We made it through the school year with little to no sense that life was anything but friendship and collecting NFL Player Stamps at the local Sunoco.

There's a lot I'll leave out just now -- from the endless eccentric but harmless adventures Ray, Scott and I went on through to the smart, covert and brilliant way Ray tracked me down.  He and his mom are upstate, he's a brilliant and so-far unrecognized artist.  And Scott is a super in a building in Manhattan who several years ago made the papers when he foiled a mugging attempt.

Why the one-year friendship?  At the end of the school year, my mom and her new husband dropped the bomb -- we'd be moving to North Carolina at summer's end.  That kinda sucked.  I missed Ray and Scott and for years we stayed in touch, until we didn't.  We took separate paths, but they were always joined way back there in 1972.

Ray loaned me the Eastview yearbook from our one year together, '72-73.  Here's our class photo.  Since homeroom was with a shop teacher, there are only boys in this photo: 

Scott Robeson (top row, far right); Scott M.X. Turner, Ray Schieber (bottom row, last two right)

One more thing.  Do you recognize the kid sitting, far left?  It's David Sanger, the New York Times' Pulitzer Prize winningWashington correspondent.  Back in seventh grade, David was that worst blending of personality disorders -- a Mets fan with the arrogance of a Yankees fan.  That's messed up.  Because I was a catcher in little league, I'd taken a shine to Johnny Bench, my generation's greatest catcher.  (That's still true, by the way.)

David razzed me every chance he could.  He was churlish and annoying and the kill-switch that even kids know to throw when they've gone to far, David either chose not to throw it or never had one installed.  I remember on several occasions really wanting to clock him, but I never did.

That's right.  At least a good half dozen times, I nearly punched out a future Pulitzer Prize winner.

A future Pulitzer Prize winner who deserved it.

http://www-tc.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/images/a/6918.jpg
Sure, he's won a couple of Pulitzers.  Bet he has fancy seats at Tarp Field, too.

I'm glad Ray found me.  I'll pull out the old Sports Illustrated Baseball game (1972 edition) and we'll see who's still got it.

Cleanin' and Tubin'

You Tubing that is...


A montage from backstage 


Celeb Sightings in Zaire '74 Tee


Jazz Musician "Twenty Something" stomp box extraordinaire Jamie Cullum seen here following his Spinal Tap invasion @ Glastonbury last weekend , sporting an 100% organic/ fair wear/ manufactured from wind powered energy sources - tee.   Miss Wit, we bring good things back to life! www.misswit.net/soulpowerfilm


MSWOO Shows MissWit Some Love

Okay so we have a one track mind these days, sue us.  No really please don't sue us, we could not bear it.

It's been a heck of a week of foibles and it is only Wed.  Thank goodness for Vin Scelsa's Idiot's Delight on Sirius and WFUV.

The Miss has connected with a lovely diplomatic Ms ( she should take over the NY Senate!)  who has written a lovely little plug.  

Check it out, you can win - we are not related, go for it!