Madonna

By Gus Van Sant
Photography Mert Alas, Marcus Piggott

Go to http://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/madonna/ and check out the great interview and photoshoot of Madonna. Some people are victims, some people are survivors and then there's people who carve their own path through life, take what it gives them and turn into a rich tapestry of love, wisdom and success. You never know til their gone what the final bio will ready, but I'm willing to bet some serious cash that Madonna's story is going to be a triumphant one filled with great art and an enduring legacy.

Check her out in Interview Magazine, which by the way is one of my favorite publications.

For more info on me visit my official website
www.rickyday.net

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"How do you talk about Michael Jackson unless you begin with Prince Screws? Prince Screws was an Alabama cotton-plantation slave who became a tenant farmer after the Civil War, likely on his old master's land. His son, Prince Screws Jr., bought a small farm. And that man's son, Prince Screws III, left home for Indiana, where he found work as a Pullman porter, part of the exodus of southern blacks to the northern industrial cities.

There came a disruption in the line. This last Prince Screws, the one who went north, would have no sons. He had two daughters, Kattie and Hattie. Kattie gave birth to ten children, the eighth a boy, Michael—who would name his sons Prince, to honor his mother, whom he adored, and to signal a restoration. So the ridiculous moniker given by a white man to his black slave, the way you might name a dog, was bestowed by a black king upon his pale-skinned sons and heirs. " This starts a great story in the Fall Style Issue of GQ.

So yet another piece of redemptive information surfaces. Prince, the name most of us mocked that Michael bestowed upon his boys, was actually a tribute to his maternal grandfather and the legacy of a former slave and his descendants who made a better life for themselves in Indiana. Wow!

I will keep saying this until I go to my grave. READ READ READ AND adopt the Four Agreements. Being impeccable with ones word, NOT making assumptions, always doing your best and NOT taking anything personally are life changing concepts. Had Michael Jackson NOT been so personally affected by the garbage spewed his way by jealous and often juvenile public and had we not been so quick to assume the worst and most absurd things about him were always true perhaps he'd still be here, be black and be making music to help us get through these difficult economic days. Of course, I cannot assume or presume to know what he was thinking and how much of the odd behavior was innocent vs. nefarious, but I do know that if we spent more time worrying about our own shit instead of everyone else's the world would likely be a better place.

Check out the full story in the current issue of GQ. It also has a great photo spread featuring Michael images when he was still very black, very suave and very cool.

It's late...time for bed.

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Yo I've entered the Surface Magazine Avant Guardian photography contest. Click on the link below and vote for me. Popular vote is 20% of the final judging so your votes will help. The contest site doesn't appear to be searchable so I cut and pasted a link. However, I'm not sure if the page I am on will change as more people enter the contest...so please do me a favor, if you don't see me on the page that corresponds to the link then just browse through a couple of extra pages and I'll probably be right there.

This is also a great way to see a few sample images from my on-going portrait series This is The Life which is coming next year.

Have a great day and make sure you pop!

Surface Magazine

For more info on me visit my official website
www.rickyday.net

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Visura Magazine is a publication that encourages the artists to participate directly in its formation by choosing which series they would like to contribute. The artwork and writing published within these pages are neither censored nor constricted.

Visura celebrates this freedom.

Editor: Zoë Calman
Website & Design: Graham Letorney
Publisher / Creative Director: Adriana Teresa
Produced by: FotoVisura | www.fotovisura.com

Contact Us: inquiries@visuramagazine.com

www.visuramagazine.com

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Photographer and filmmaker Patrick Trefz spent more than two years wandering country roads, always in search of the best way to the beach. Thread follows Trefz on his travels from the Basque Country to Steinbeck country, from New York City to West African island nations, scaling fences and hunkering down in the dirt to capture his vision of the visual language of surf culture.

The book is a study in juxtaposition, particularly between the man-made and the naturally occurring. Freighters in a harbor, arranged like pieces on a game board, are set against the light ruffle of wind on the water. Wheels and gears, line running through an installation like belts in a motor, the extremity of industrial production, are countered by a man and a wave, two products of natural energies. Seen one way, everything is natural, and the question becomes one of degrees of manipulation. Still, the settings in these pictures suggest duality, differing realms—the road and the beach, the train track and the lineup—each element evoking its own associations. Patterned yet non-linear, Thread takes seemingly disparate subjects and gently ties them into a unified whole, finding commonality in devotion and practice.

Patrick Trefz is a longtime staff photographer for Surfer Magazine. He is also a filmmaker, who directed the 16mm film on which the book version of Thread is based. He was born in 1970 in Düsseldorf, Germany, and lives and works in Santa Cruz, California.

Charles Wehrenberg is a biochemist, writer and art collector who lives in San Francisco. He is the author of five books, including Mississippi Blue (Twin Palms, 2002).

Ari Marcopoulos began his career in New York City assisting Andy Warhol. In his quarter-century career as a photographer, he has become known for stunning landscapes and playful portraits of artists, musicians, extreme athletes, and other muses.

Christian Beamish is the former associate editor of The Surfer’s Journal, as well as a writer and builder of surfboards and boats.

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If you love to read, you adore terrific writing in all it's varied forms and you like writing with a distinctly African-American point of view then I've got a suggestion for you...Callaloo.

Since 1976 Charles Henry Rowell has been publishing Callaloo, the nations premiere African-American literary journal. Over the years Callaloo has been housed on some of the most prestigious Universities in the country. The website says it best:

Callaloo, the premier African-American and African literary journal, publishes original works and critical studies of black artists and writers worldwide. The journal offers a rich mixture of fiction, poetry, plays, critical essays, interviews, and visual art from the African diaspora. Frequent annotated bibliographies, special thematic issues drawing on people and place, original art and photography are some of the features of this highly acclaimed international showcase of arts and letters.

The Winter 2001 issue recieved honorable mention recognigiton for "Best Special Issue of a Journal in 2001" by the Professional/Scholarly Publishing (PSP) Divison of the American Association. The Winter 2002 issue, entitled "Jazz Poetics" has been recognized by the Council of Editors for Learned Journals as one of the best special issues of 2002.

Callaloo was founded by current editor Charles H. Rowell in 1976 at Southern University in Baton Rouge, LA. The journal moved to the University of Virginia and then Texas A&M.

I've had the pleasure of meeting and becoming fairly close to Mr. Rowell and not only is he a very talented man, but he is a kind soul with a passion for providing talented writers, artists, academics and professionals with a forum from which to share their theories, talents and progressive thought with a nationwide audience. Oh yes and if you need another reason to pick up a copy of the politics issue of Callaloo, my cousin Melvin White (former President of the DC Bar Association) was interviewed by Michael Collins and Melvin also wrote a thought provoking essay on Inclusion. The essay focuses on issues of sexuality and gender identity in the workplace. It's a must read.

For more information on how you can obtain a copy of Callaloo check out the website: http://callaloo.tamu.edu/

Callaloo
Editor

Charles Henry Rowell
Program Coordinator

Brookelyn Hodges
Administrative Assistant Casey Brown
Associate Editors

Carrol F. Coates, Michael S. Collins, Brent Hayes Edwards, Percival Everett, Helen Elaine Lee, Carl Phillips, Tracy K. Smith
Book Review Editors
Douglas Field, Thomas Glave, A. Van Jordan

Contributing and Advisory Editors

Kimberly Benston, Faedra Chatard Carpenter, Stephen Carpenter, Joseph Clarke, Lucille Clifton, Maryse Condé, Angie Cruz, Edwidge Danticat, Toi Derricote, Rita Dove, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Susan Fraiman, Ernest J. Gaines, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Saidiya Hartman, Terrance Hayes, Shona N. Jackson, Marcus D. Jones, Meta Jones, Jamaica Kincaid, Yusef Komunyakaa, E. Ethelbert Miller, Valerie Cassel Oliver, Marco Portales, Richard Powell, Emily Raboteau, Caroline Rody, Marlon Ross, Franklin Sirmans, Robert B. Stepto, Sharan Strange, Natasha Trethewey, Ben Vinson III, Derek Walcott, Alvia J. Wardlaw, Steven F. White, John Edgar Wideman, Judith Wilson, Kevin Young

For my info on me visit my official website
www.rickyday.net

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In a world where one could reasonably question "do we need ANOTHER FRICKIN FASHION MAGAZINE?" My answer is YES IF the magazine is irreverent, edgy, inclusive and called Unvouge.

Editor-in-Chief K. Tyson Perez and his team have put together a classy fashion rag that gives you all the info you could want on the latest trends in fashion, but includes information and great looks for all types of people including those who wear REAL PEOPLE SIZES!!!!!!!. Low on pretense and high on creativity UnVouge really works for me.

The mission statement for the magazine reads "UNVOGUE intends to become one of the leading international on-line fashion magazines. UNVOGUE's innovative and all inclusive approach to representing an ethnically and economically diverse demographic will not only set our book apart from our elitist and exclusive publishing competitors, but will allow us to herald a spirit of change and harmony in the rapidly growing on-line community." I say that it's a mission accomplished! I find the magazine refreshing, inclusive and professionally assembled. In a word I think it's inspiring.

When the opportunity presents itself, check them out online at http://www.unvogue.com/

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This blogging thing is taking on a life of it's own. I'm starting to get lots of new readers, lots of feedback via email (though I'd really like it if you posted comments instead please...lol) and now I get requests to attend events as a journalist. I'm not sure how anyone could confuse me with a real writer, but it's a nice compliment.

Recently I was invited to a private brunch to celebrate the launch of the very first novel by a talented new writer named Lamar Arariel. The book is called Ready to Male and is available now. I can't review it yet as I have not read it. However, I will be reading in the coming days and will follow with my thoughts and a mini chat with Lamar. Until then discover the book and him for yourself.

www.readytomale.com

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Art Nouveau Magazine is a bi-monthly online art, fashion, music, film, literature and culture magazine that was started in 2007 by Kendrick Daye and Phillip Holmes. Kendrick likes reading, writing, break beats and Madonna. He hates ghetto literature, smokers, people that write like ThIs! and math—unless it involves counting $$$. He does not speak Ebonics. Phillip likes skipping class, laughing, and showing skin. He hates clear bra straps on girls, dirty white flip-flops and string track back-packs. His pet peeve is dirty fingernails. Phillip is a better dancer than Kendrick, but, Kendrick is a better writer. They are equal yet different, a perfect balance of art and fashion, love and hate.

In the future they'll be links to articles from the magazine here on Urban Pop Life. I love this magazine , hopefully they will know who I am and love me too someday soon...lol.

artnouveaumagazine.com/

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