Boston Herald Article

Patrick Chung won't shy away
Parental guidance prepped Patriots safety for stardom
By Ian R. Rapoport  |   Friday, October 21, 2011  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  N.E. Patriots

Photo by Nancy Lane

FOXBORO — There isn't a how-to guide on being a celebrity. There should be, considering the pitfalls and life-shaking changes the famous encounter, but there isn't.

It's trial and error and learning on the fly while striving to continue doing the job that brought one into public consciousness. All of which makes the education Patrick Chung received priceless.

Before he was a star safety for the Patriots [team stats] heading toward a breakout season, before he was a do-everything playmaker for the University of Oregon, Chung was born in Jamaica to reggae star Sophia George and her producer/manager/husband Ronald Chung. On their laps, Patrick heard stories of stardom and star-crossed situations, of fame and of infamy.

From California to Foxboro, those conversations continue on the phone. He has devoured every word.

"I said, 'Son, I can stretch my hand and let me reach you, because there is so much I can teach you," said his mother George-Chung, whose song "Girlie Girlie" was a No. 1 hit in Jamaica in 1985 and made it into the top 10 in the United Kingdom. "You always learn from people who have been there before you. One thing you never want to ever say is, 'I have arrived.' Be humble at all times. I teach him about my life experiences being in that 'celebrity status' for a while. He always listens."

Rising star

Chung has risen from Patriots 2009 second-round pick, to special-teams maven, to starter, to likely to star. On a suddenly surging defense heading into its bye, the 5-foot-11, 212-pound Energizer bunny has 37 tackles, an interception and a sack.

During camp, coach Bill Belichick noted "you really can't outwork Chung," and he meant it.

The same studious, diligent nature that led him to morph from child soccer player to Rancho Cucamonga (Calif.) High football star also led him to soak up the advice doled out by his parents on how to thrive amid backslaps, back-stabs and bright lights.

His parents, married for 26 years, warned him he won't please everyone. They spoke on how to deal with a performance that doesn't delight the crowd, and how to choose your friends and advisers. How to succeed, how to fail, and how to handle each in public.

Accordingly, Chung is polished and even-keeled, whether he's injured and missing the loss in Buffalo or making a game-turning, red-zone interception against the Raiders.

It all goes back to lesson time in the Chung household. Sophia and Ronald have traveled from Kingston to Japan, London and anywhere in between performing, picking up experiences along the way.

The lights have since dimmed. George-Chung set singing aside to raise a family that includes 28-year-old Patrice, who works in pharmaceuticals, and 19-year-old Petra, an Oregon student and aspiring journalist. George-Chung still writes songs, but mostly she just sings to her children in between life lessons.

"I got prepped for this," Chung said. "My parents, they've been through it, they've lived it. Giving me advice along the way. I should've listened 100 percent instead of 80 percent. But I did pretty good."

Chung will rarely admit to performing anything to the highest level. Of that Oakland interception, for instance: "Off to the next one," he said.

Chung described his mom as "a rock" and his father as the one who made him a man. Patrick intends to give them a reason to "brag about us kids," and he already has.

Never was there a better example than on Jan. 17. One day after the Patriots' shocking loss to the Jets in last season's playoffs, Chung sat at his locker, sorting through old cleats and gloves. Quietly, he motioned reporters over to talk about the issue that dominated the airwaves.

Late in the first half, as personal protector, Chung called for a fake punt that failed, an ill-advised adjustment that derailed his team. He could have easily slinked off into the offseason, allowing the hurt to fade before responding in the spring that the issue was "in the past."

Instead, he stared into the cameras and declared, "That's on me."

Out in California, a heart-sick mother looked on.

"I felt for him, because I know inside he was dying," Chung-George said. "When I talked to him, I said, 'You know what, son? I am very proud of you. You just have to take responsibility and just try to move on from there.'

"The Jamaican elder says, 'Breathe, stretch, shake and let it go,' " Chung-George said with her island-tinged accent. "You must always know bitter and sweet."

Chung does. With an ever-ready smile and an easiness that brings teammates into his fold, Chung handles it all with equal aplomb.

Living on Jamaica until their son was nine, the Chung family moved to Florida, then a year later drove to California. The reason was simple — better opportunity for the children to attend college. The several-day drive made an impression, with Chung recalling how he asked, "let's put wings on the car and let's just fly there." Life was changing, and he knew it.

When they landed in California, it presented Patrick with fresh obstacles.

Just 11 years old, he was the half-Jamaican, half-Chinese newcomer who looked different. With an accent that clashed with the surfer dudes, children would ask him if he could speak Chinese or Jamaican, despite the Jamaican Patois he lapses back into when he's around family being mostly English.

Being the curiosity is what Chung says made him stronger. Now 24, he identifies himself with his entire catalogue of ethnicities.

"I'm Jamaican and I'm Chinese," Chung said. "I'm not going to try to separate the two. That's me."

It also means he can offer light-hearted jokes about both cultures, saying his speed comes from his Jamaican roots while his ability to see things before they happen comes from his Asian background. A self-described "goofball" off the field, Chung's diverse background helped turn him into an arms-outstretched, all-welcoming teammate who says he can "be cool with anybody."

No surprise, his dad is the same way.

"That's Patrick's personality," George-Chung said. "Try and make friends with everyone, try and make everyone feel welcome, and don't think that you're better than that guy across the street because you earn a little bit more money."

When touted prospects came to Eugene, Ore., it was Chung who was assigned to tour the would-be college students around.

"He's a guy that we would use in recruiting because he put a positive face on things," recalled ex-Oregon coach Mike Bellotti, now an ESPN analyst. "Very comfortable in terms of representing the university on the field, off the field."

It's that way in New England, as Chung is starting to become one of the Patriots public faces.

A "relentless" child, George-Chung said, he swam, played soccer, and earned karate belts. Stubborn just like his mom, Chung once refused to come to dinner because he was dressed like RoboCop, and RoboCop didn't need food.

Love at first sight

He picked up football from scratch as a high school freshman, falling in love quickly. He proudly proclaimed to his parents that he yearned to hit, which anyone can see now. He admired the passion of former Eagles safety Brian Dawkins and tucked away his pride to embrace criticism from his coaches.

Playing time led to a scholarship at Oregon, despite being a year younger than most seniors.

Bellotti used to tell his defensive backs to have "quick feet and a short memory." He didn't remember the two-time All-Pac 10 player having many bad plays, but on the rare occasions Chung did, there was that same deep breath and steely expression.

"I don't remember him dwelling on things, just being upbeat, positive," Bellotti said. "Not the life of the party, but pretty close. . . . The beginning of junior year, he started making reads and recognizing how to train his eye to see what the coaches kept talking about. He became not only a great football player, but also an instinctive football player."

The progression was similar in New England.

Belichick raised eyebrows this camp, cutting veteran James Sanders [stats] and two-time Pro Bowler Brandon Meriweather. That left the safety position to just Chung and unproven players James Ihedigbo, Sergio Brown and Josh Barrett. Despite an ever-changing starting unit and some growing pains, Chung has shepherded the group toward improvement with his smarts and his magnetism.

"He definitely does a good job of making guys know that we're a unit," Barrett said.

On the field, Chung's passion comes through. He is always moving, always hitting, always filled with emotion. He unabashedly says, "I love football," and that's not an act.

His mother views Patrick as "a guy with a big heart who likes to make everyone happy," and the result is he outworks others in a battle for success to please his coaches, teammates and family. No one beats him during practice sprints.

Chung is fighting to make his family proud and to begin paying his parents back for the opportunity they gave him on the trek from Jamaica. Now established in New England, Chung wants more. He aims for a long career on the field and hopes to help children — "the funniest people on earth" — off it.

"If you start off on the right track when you're younger and you're raised the right way," said Chung, who has a 1-year-old boy, Taj, and a fiancee, "it's a lot easier to get a good man or woman out of that when they grow up."

He would know.

"His dad always says, 'Pick sense out of the nonsense that I'm saying,' " George-Chung said. "He has listened. . . . I love watching him (on TV). Even though I watch him and think 'Oh my goodness, he's going to get hit,' it's such a joy watching him. I can't express how proud I am."

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/football/patriots/view.bg?articleid=1374852

Huffington Post Article

Samantha Garvey, Homeless Intel Science Competition Semifinalist, Is Dedicated To Helping Her Family Overcome Hardship (VIDEO)

First Posted: 01/19/12 12:02 PM ET Updated: 01/20/12 02:23 PM ET

New York -- America is slowly taking notice of the inspirational details that mark the life of a young woman from Long Island named Samantha Garvey, who learned she was a semifinalist in the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search while living with her family in a homeless shelter.

"My daughter is a blessing," said her proud mother, Olga Garvey Coreas, who came to this country to escape El Salvador's civil war in the early 1980s. "I never tire of thanking God for giving her the talent she has. She lives dedicated to her studies -- nothing stops her."

On Tuesday, Garvey is expected to sit in the House of Representatives chamber as President Obama delivers the State of the Union address. She will be a guest of Long Island Congressman Steve Israel, who believes Garvey's story should make all Americans ask themselves how a middle class family with a gifted child could end up homeless.

For Garvey and her family, 2012 got off to an inauspicious beginning.

On New Year's Day, they were evicted from their home because they could not pay the rent. They spent a week in a hotel before moving to a homeless shelter in Bay Shore.

Days later, however, Garvey's smarts and hard work brought news which began to change the family's hard luck path. She learned that she was an Intel science competition semifinalist, meaning that she's in the running for a $100,000 prize against 299 other top students.

Her story moved Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone to make available a three-bedroom, rent-subsidized home for the struggling family, which includes parents Leo and Olga, 13-year-old twins, Kenny and Erika, and Samantha. Bellone also offered Garvey an internship in Suffolk County to work on marine fisheries issues.

"You have inspired us," Bellone said last week, calling the story "an inspiration to millions of families in our country."

And just today, it was announced Garvey will be presented with a $50,000 scholarship from AT&T.

Garvey is in her final year of high school. In 2010, she was a semifinalist in the Siemens national Competition in Math, Science & Technology. That same year, she started a study of the mussel population in a Long Island salt marsh, focusing on the effects of the ribbed mussel on the bio-systems of some species in swampy areas along the coast. Her research was published last year in a magazine specializing in marine life.

More recently, Rebecca Grella, Garvey's science research teacher, provided her access to the Stony Brook University laboratory, where Garvey conducted the research on mussels and other mollusks affected by the Asian short crab, an invasive species.

Her research concluded that mussels exposed to the Asian short crab grew stronger, with thicker and heavier shells to protect them from predators.

"Her life's dream is to be a marine biologist," her mother Garvey Coreas told The Huffington Post. "Since she was 5 years old, she would tell her father that she wanted a pool in the yard to have a pet dolphin or a shark."

Garvey Coreas emigrated alone to the U.S. from El Salvador in 1981. She met Leo Garvey in 1990, while they both worked in a hospital. They married a short time later. Garvey, who is of Irish ancestry, was born in North Carolina.

According to her mother, Garvey is a very simple person, leading the life of any girl her age, but with a clear notion of her responsibilities.

"She's very sensible, a homebody who loves her siblings -- and her pets -- very much. Samantha was suffering greatly because at the shelter, we couldn't keep Pulga, her dog, or her cat, Spike, nor her two turtles," Olga said.

Pulga, a 4-year-old pit bull, was turned over to an animal shelter. Samantha feared the dog would be put down if it wasn't adopted. Spike was able to stay with a family member in Queens. The turtles went to work, so to speak, with her father at his taxi dispatch office.

Now, the pets will be rejoining the family when they move into the county-owned home this month.

Like so many Americans, Garvey's family has been through hard times in recent years. Her parents lost their home and moved several times, hoping to find an affordable place.

To make matters worse, Samantha's parents were hospitalized after a car accident last February. Their earnings eroded.

Accident-related injuries left Garvey Coreas out of work for nine months. Leo Garvey recovered and returned to work as a cab driver.

Garvey said she and her siblings attended three different schools in one year.

"My family's setbacks are a source of motivation. I want to get my family ahead, which is why I do well in school," Samantha told Newsday.

Karin Feil, a counselor at Brentwood High School, said, "Samantha's will is unsurpassed. She has overcome more obstacles than any other student I've ever seen."

Feil said Samantha maintains a 3.9 grade point average, and her faith lies in the fact that education will bring her -- and her family -- a better life.

Samantha is president of her school's chapter of the National Honors Society, is ranked 4th out of 433 students in her grade, and hopes to attend Brown or Yale universities. She also takes courses in Italian and music; her favorite instrument is the violin.

"We are confident that she can continue on in the career of her choice and have better opportunities in life," Garvey Coreas said, adding that her daughter "never fails at what she sets out to do."

"In the summer, her vacations are spent as an intern at the university laboratories," she added. "She only visits us on the weekends."

Garvey Coreas said Samantha hasn't let the media attention change her and that she remains proud of her roots.

"At home, her favorite foods are still beans, tamales, pupusas [the Salvadoran version of tortillas] with rice and plantains. She's told me she eats sushi with her friends."

The struggling mother said parents shouldn't leave their children alone and always support their goals.

"Leo worked nights and I worked days," she said. "The fact was that we never left them alone; we were always there to help them with their homework. I believe that good communication is the basis for guiding our children."

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/19/samantha-garvey-intel-science-immigrant_n_1215994.html

NY Times Article

It's the Economy
What's a $4,000 Suit Worth?

Illustration by Peter Oumanski
By ADAM DAVIDSON
Published: September 4, 2012

A few years ago, Peter Frew came to New York with an important professional skill. He was one of maybe a few dozen people in the U.S. who could construct a true bespoke suit. Frew, who apprenticed with a Savile Row tailor, can — all by himself, and almost all by hand — create a pattern, cut fabric and expertly construct a suit that, for about $4,000, perfectly molds to its owner's body. In a city filled with very rich people, he quickly had all the orders he could handle.

Deep thoughts this week:

1. How can you not get rich selling $4,000 suits?

1.5. Insist on making them perfect.

2. The bespoke business is being squeezed by the luxury business it helped start.

3. Can it learn anything from the Kardashians?

It's the Economy

Adam Davidson translates often confusing and sometimes terrifying economic and financial news.

Multimedia
Slide Show
Bespoke Tailors in New York
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Marvin Orellana for The New York Times

Peter Frew at his apartment in Brooklyn, where he works. More Photos »

When I learned about Frew, I assumed he was some rich designer in an atelier on Madison Avenue. That's what Frew hopes to be one day, but for now the 33-year-old Jamaican immigrant works out of his ground-floor apartment near Flatbush Avenue, in Brooklyn, and makes around $50,000 a year. His former living room consists of one large table piled with bolts of cloth and a form with a half-made suit. As Frew sewed a jacket, he explained how he customizes every aspect of its design — the width of the lapel, the number and size of the pockets — for each client. What makes a bespoke suit unique, he said, is that it's the result of skills that only a trained hand can perform. Modern technology cannot create anything comparable.

As I watched Frew work, it became glaringly obvious why he is not rich. Like a 17th-century craftsman, he has no economy of scale. It takes Frew about 75 hours to make a suit — he averages about two per month — and he has no employees. A large part of his revenue is used to pay off his material expenses, and because his labor is so demanding, he relies on an outside salesman, who requires commissions. (Frew can't even afford to make a suit for himself. When we met, he was wearing shorts and a T-shirt.) While he hopes to one day hire full-time assistant tailors and rent a Manhattan showroom, he knows it will be a huge challenge to get there.

Tailors pose an odd riddle for our current economy. Why can't a wealthy city — particularly at a time when the rich are doing so well — support a niche business that people are willing to pay for? Even London, the historic home of the bespoke suit, isn't immune. During the 1980s and 1990s, Anderson & Sheppard — the prestigious Savile Row suit maker to kings and movie stars — seemed content to survive through its existing clients and, perhaps, their sons. But in 2005, Anda Rowland joined the company and began catering to newer customers. (She even plans to introduce a line of casual trousers and accessories to capture more of the brand's value.) Seven years ago, the company made 17 suits each week for revenue of $3.6 million. Today Anderson & Sheppard makes around 25 suits per week, for $5.4 million a year.

Growth of 40 percent over seven years is mediocre for many businesses and could get a C.E.O. fired from a large apparel firm. But for the bespoke industry, it's close to miraculous. As Rowland explained to me, even with a century-old reputation and a profoundly loyal customer base, it's nearly impossible to get ahead. "There's no scalability," she explained. "Whether we're making 50 suits or 1 — each unit costs the same."

In essence, Anderson & Sheppard simply faces a larger version of the problem plaguing Frew. Bespoke suits — like expensive couture gowns — are great for building a reputation, but they are lousy for business. And modern clothiers' profits have long come from establishing a strong brand and then emblazoning it on all sorts of cheaper products, like fragrances, which can be mass-produced. Michael Kors and Ralph Lauren — not to mention Carolina Herrera — began as small studios before spinning off into variegated billion-dollar businesses. Meanwhile, Anderson & Sheppard stuck to its stock in trade and has stayed about the same size.

The only way to make money in the perfectionist craftsperson industry, it seems, is to stop being a perfectionist craftsperson. However, Martin Greenfield Clothiers in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, has maintained high-quality tailoring standards along with modern efficiencies for decades. Greenfield himself says the factory floors are almost the same as when this place opened, in 1916, and nearly identical to what he first saw when he got a job here in 1947, before he bought the factory. More than 100 tailors sit at sewing machines, some ancient, or work by hand.

Greenfield's factory makes custom suits, which are known in the business as made-to-measure. Customers can go to a third-party boutique, like J. Press, to pick a fabric and be measured. The cloth and measurements are then sent to Brooklyn, where patterns are created, fabric cut and then sent through the production line of cutters and tailors. Just as Adam Smith described in "The Wealth of Nations," there are huge efficiency gains when one complex process is broken down into constituent parts and each worker specializes in one thing. At Greenfield, one worker sews pockets all day long, and another focuses entirely on joining front and back jacket pieces. The labor involved in each suit's construction is about 10 hours. The suits Greenfield makes typically retail at around $2,000.

Even with all those efficiency advantages, Greenfield isn't without its difficulties. Demand has fallen just as the cost of raw materials has gone up. Manufacturers in China, where a suit can be made in about 30 minutes at a cost well below $100, are driving up the price of wool, which increases the prices of fancier fabrics too. A few decades ago, there were thousands of clothing factories in New York. Now Greenfield's is one of only a handful left. He and his sons, Tod and Jay, who run the business with him, say there are several ways they could have made more money, but their two best bets are selling their building to a residential housing developer or moving their manufacturing operation to Asia.

Sentimentality aside, Greenfield told me that he has not even considered moving. Suiting is an apprenticeship business, and new employees learn their craft by watching the many people who have worked there for years. If they started over, they could never replicate that institutional knowledge. At the end of the day, he said, their only competitive advantage is that knowledge.

Unable to move, though, they're also unable to make much profit. They pay New York prices for all their services and are further undercut by cheaper suits coming from low-wage countries that use all the latest technology, which is, indeed, getting better. The glue that simulates stitches is nowhere near as good as hand sewing, but it's an awful lot better than it used to be. The whole marketing apparatus of fashion magazines, shows, billboards and celebrity endorsers is increasingly sophisticated. As the handcrafted stuff continues to cost more, it just keeps getting easier and cheaper to profit from mass-produced branded products.

Still, I kept thinking that if people spent the time to learn about suits, they'd value Frew's work so much more. But not everyone is willing to wait. Bespoke suits commonly require three fittings, and that's after a long consultation. Even the richest customer simply has to wait — sometimes months — before the new suit is finished. No wonder so many pass up a $4,000 bespoke suit for a ready-to-wear Kiton version at twice the price.

When I spoke to Frew, Rowland and the Greenfields, they talked about how there is now a large difference between what is monetizable and what is actually valuable. One of the defining attributes of capitalism is that the market determines what succeeds even if it means that the Kardashian Kollection might bring in more money than all the bespoke suits in the world.

Adam Davidson is co-founder of NPR's "Planet Money," a podcast, blog and radio series heard on "Morning Edition," "All Things Considered" and "This American Life."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/magazine/whats-a-4000-suit-worth.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&pagewanted=all

News Article

Can Ya Dig It? Still Down With 'Shaft'

by Karen Michel, December 21, 2000

View and comment on NPR.org

Today, Aug. 20, 2012, would have been Isaac Hayes' 70th birthday. We celebrate the man with the golden voice with the story behind "The Theme from Shaft." In the late 1960s, vocalist and keyboardist Isaac Hayes wrote a series of hit songs for the famed Memphis label, Stax, with his partner Dave Porter. In 1971, Hayes was asked to score the classic movie Shaft, which went on to become famous for its in-your-face protagonist and for the music that punctuated and nearly completed every frame. From the relentless cymbals to the funky "wah-wah," the opening bars of "The Theme from Shaft" speak to the urgency, heat and insistence of the film's hero: John Shaft, private detective. Before there was Shaft, though, there was director Melvin Van Peebles' homage to the macho man in the independent film Sweet Sweetback's Badasssss Song. The film's success as an indie release made mainstream movie studios take notice. It was 1971 and the Stax house composer and low-down vocalist Isaac Hayes was hot and sought after having sold millions of records. "They wanted to have a black leading man, a black director and a black composer," Hayes recalls. "So since I was Stax's number one artist at the time, they chose me." Hayes Got The Shaft In 1969, his album Hot Buttered Soul went to number one, with stretched-out renditions of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and "Walk On By." Primarily, Hayes wrote for others or performed other people's songs, but with "Shaft," that all changed. The music was entirely his, and as he told director Gordon Parks, Hayes would have preferred it be his even more. "Well, I wanted to do the acting, so I asked him, 'What about trying out for the leading role?'" Hayes says. "He said, 'OK. But, remember, you've got to do the music.' So, anyway, I came back home. I didn't tell my friends about the movie score. I was telling them about the leading part: 'I'm going to have a shot at the leading part,' you know. And about two weeks had passed, he said, 'Ike, have you gotten a call yet?' I said, 'No, they didn't call me yet.' So I started calling. I asked, 'Whoa, what happened to the leading role?' They said, 'Oh, didn't you know, Mr. Hayes? They just casted a guy by the name of Richard Roundtree for the lead role.' 'What?' 'Oh, but, Mr. Hayes, you promised to do the music.' 'OK, all right.' Well, anyway, I went on and did the music, and, of course, you know how it turned out. It turned out, hey, a big, big plus, big win for me." Not that it was an easy feat. Even though it was Gordon Parks' first feature film, he was already an experienced composer and guided Hayes throughout the process, which was mapped out in a 2000 HBO special about Parks. "Gordon Parks sat down and talked to me about the character, because I'd never scored a movie," Hayes remembers. "He said, 'Isaac, just remember, when you write this music, zero in on the lead character, on his personality. He's a roving kind of character. He's relentless, and your music has to depict that.' So that's when I got the idea for these high hats, you know, and made—the guitar and all that stuff and everything else followed. "The sequence we saw this morning: Times Square panned down off the skyscrapers along 42nd Street of the marquees. And when Shaft pops up out of that subway, that's when this should really come on and carry him all the way through Times Square, right to his first encounter." "If the music follows the action on the screen, you might have to put some funny bars in it and everything," added Mr. Hayes. "That's the way I did it. But everybody thought I was being hip, but I was just following the action of the character." The Impact For some of those flourishes — special touches that made Shaft the music as much a part of the man as his turtlenecks and leather jackets — Hayes recycled material from other successes. He'd worked with Otis Redding on "Try a Little Tenderness," their last session together for Stax. York University music Professor Robert Bowen elaborates on this connection between Stax and Shaft in Isaac's music. "Everybody knows that 16th-note, hi-hat ride pattern that one hears at the beginning of Shaft and throughout Shaft. It becomes one of the cliches of disco music. Don't blame Isaac for that. He actually lifted that from a break in an Otis Redding record from 1966. So that's one little kernel that comes from an earlier source, if you will," Bowen says. It's the rhythm that drives Shaft, which Hayes laid that down first. He then went on to score the rest of the film before coming back to finish the theme. The impact of Shaft extends well beyond the notes to the text. "Yeah, the lyrics was—I was trying to describe this guy," Hayes says. "You know, 'Who's the black private dick, that sex machine to all the chicks?' Or, you know, I was kind of getting away with little sexual connotations, but nobody could rap me for it because it was good. And then I did a self-censoring thing, too. That became the phrase of that decade. 'Yeah, man, he's a bad mother.' 'Shut your mouth.' I heard old people say that, you know. So it was good. It was right on time. Everything was." 'It's Like Foreplay' Then there's that all-girl chorus. Hayes calls it seductive — the sundae on top of the cherry. The oh-so-slow way the song builds has been compared to lovemaking, good lovemaking. "You cannot get there too quickly. You have to — don't be anticlimactic. It's like foreplay. You've got to start off and just — you know, you can't put bread in a cold oven, you know? You got to take your time, you got to heat it up, so that's what I like to do with my music. I like to build it and build it into a maddening, exciting crescendo." There's even some gospel influences in Shaft, too. Hayes started singing in the choir at the age of four. He was brought up by his grandmother in Covington, Tennessee, where he was born on August 20th, 1942. With Shaft, Hayes took everything he had, mixed it up and created a sound for the '70s. "We hear the influence of Shaft in all of the Kenny Gamble-Leon Huff productions at Philly International," Professor Bowen says. "That means The Spinners, The O'Jays, The Trammps, MFSB. We hear it up at Motown. A very, very different use of strings following Shaft. We certainly hear it on Stevie Wonder's recordings. We hear it on Marvin Gaye's recordings. I don't think there's very much black music in the 1970s that wasn't affected by Shaft." The Sex Appeal Never Left Artists not associated with soul or disco appropriated "The Theme from Shaft" as their own — Henry Mancini recorded it; as did The Ventures and Sammy Davis Jr. When John Singleton did his remake of Shaft in 2000, Hayes also did a remake of the old theme changing nothing. Hayes figured the "kids," as he called them, don't know the old version, though what they probably do know about him stems from his role on South Park as the singing advice-giving Chef. Three decades after its release, the song, like the detective, still has sex appeal. Some say Hayes is — or should have been — John Shaft, and that's what made the music so powerful, so certain. "What it did, it made a lot of guys want to be Shaft, and it made the hip person to be Shaft. So it was all about Shaft." In those disco '70s, Shaft was more, way more, than a mirrored ball or the right threads. Shaft had the moves because his music had the grooves, the music of Isaac Hayes. Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

 

--

Jay

 

News Article

 
Pitbulls: Landlord Discounts Rent If You Adopt A Dog

The Huffington Post  |  By Ann Brenoff
Posted: 08/17/2012 8:54 am

 

Landlord Sandy Zalagens' ad seeking a tenant for one of her 12 units may be one for the dogs. It read: "Rent is $950; $150 a month discount if you adopt Big Louie."

Big Louie is an 80-pound gray brindle Pitbull.

Jessie McElwee stepped up and now is living quite happily with the big guy -- and a cat -- in the Los Angeles apartment. Zalagens, a realtor with Keller Williams in Los Angeles, calls McElwee her "dream tenant" and acknowledges that her ad may have danced around some fair housing laws. Truth is, she isn't sure and nobody is lining up to tell Big Louie that he has to move on.

"Yeah, it probably wasn't legal and I did catch some flack," Zalagens said, "but dog-rescuing is important to me." She rescued her first dog in 1993 and began doing it in earnest seven years ago. She sponsors a rescue dog every time she sells a house and has rallied the support of her real estate office in fund-raising races for rescues.

Dogs feature prominently in the 47-year-old Zalagens' second act. Selling real estate may still pay the bills, but the passion comes in finding homes for displaced dogs. For the past few years, she's focused her efforts on pets made homeless through foreclosures.

One thing that typically happens when a family loses their home is that they become renters. And landlords, by and large, haven't allowed them to move in with pets, Zalagens said. Shelters confirm this and note that the housing crisis has caused their intake to skyrocket. Pet-adverse landlords have left people with the choice of turning their four-legged friends in to shelters or worse, setting their dogs and cat loose in the neighborhood to fend for themselves.

"Landlords who don't permit pets to move in are a huge part of the homeless pet problem," Zalagens said, when asked what led to her unusual rental offer. "I just felt I had to do something to address that." So she put her money where her mouth is and made Big Louie part of the rental deal. And while the offer was couched in terms of a rental discount, the message was clearly "take him or leave it." Zalagens, who says she hopes to rid the rental market of discrimination against pet owners, is working on compiling a list of pet-friendly landlords.

"Dogs are my big why," Zalagens said. She lives in the West Adams area of Los Angeles, a neighborhood of historic homes. Many of her rescues come from her neighborhood, she says.

While she rescues all breeds, she admits to being a soft touch for a pitbull in need. Why? "They are the underdog of today's dog world." She blames the perception of the breed as vicious and untrustworthy on irresponsible owners and backyard breeders. Insurance companies have been known to charge more for homes with pitbulls. Yet many pitbull owners swear by the gentle nature of their pets.

As for Big Louie, his story is pretty typical. He was abandoned by his family and left to roam the neighborhood. Before Zalagens could get to him, he was picked up by animal control. Zalagens located him in a South L.A. shelter and convinced Downtown Dog Rescue -- one of the rescue groups she regularly works with -- to spring him and foster him until she could find him a permanent home.

Big Louie certainly appears to be a happy camper nowadays. Sharing the couch with his co-tenant cat, "He's just a big mush," Zalagens said.

"Big Louie happened to be a pitbull," she said, "but if he had been a little Yorkie, my ad would have said "$150 discount on rent if you adopt this cute Yorkie" and the apartment probably would have rented in a minute instead of two weeks."