Ms. Kitt

Many would not consider her a Legend, and many don't even know who she is, or was, but what she was, was legendary. I mean, the first black superhero, or super-vilain rather. Ms. Kitt played Cat Woman in the Original Batman TV series that began in the 60's. I mean she was cool, sexy, intreaging exotic, made every man melt, even if they couldn't admit it to their mainstream white friends around the water cooler the next morning.

Obviously I wasn't around in the 60's and the only thing I know about that Batman series is the reruns that I was able to catch on TV-Land as a pre-teen. I found it to be lame.... I mean really lame, with the huge POW's and BAMMMMM's that would pop up on the screen when the fighting began; the very strange, and close, relationship between the men in tights, Batman and Robin; and all of the "Holy rusted metal, Batman," and "Gee wizz! Here they come!" that came out of the very slack dialogue. But the one thing I remember is that Cat Woman always got away, and always had those Heroes wrapped around her little finger... one word... cool.

But at the time of those re-runs Ms. Kitt was just a lightskined black chick in a mask no face for me, just a voice. Then I saw Boomerang. Again a movie that is under most people's radar, but in the Black Cinema circuit it is a classic. Staring Eddie Murphy, Robin Givens, Halle Berry, and of course Ms. Kitt as Lady Eloise... again she was cool, confident, sexy, even as the aging matriarch, and semi-sexual predator... but she was hilarious. This is the Eartha that I learned to love, watching her in comedic roles, even as the millionaire heiress on Living Single... cool.

Now I'm not claiming to be the biggest fan, or to have her albums, but I do respect the hustle. She was awesome, killing the game on the stage (Paris, Broadway, Off-Broadway, and on tour as a musical artist), and screen (TV and Movies). I mean we are talking about a 70 year old woman who could still do a one handed hand-stand... cool.

So Miss Eartha Kitt you will be missed, well at least by me, and I will be spending the next month renting her movies and downloading her music. I'm going to let her go out with a bang, by gaining at least one more serious admirer, and maybe, just maybe I can learn some of that sexy that came so easy to her, if I can get that down, then maybe I can be cool too.

Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes

Is there an attack? Maybe one on our possitive Black role models? I think it might be so. Just one day after Chicago's own Bernie Mac passes away, so does singer/song-writer Isaac Hayes. It might not seem like much, just a commedian, just a dude who wrote some songs. But that was one less drug dealer, one less thief, one more notch on the belts of African-Americans, and one more dream for our youth. I don't really understand. I'm not saying that I wish death on anyone, but why is it that the 50 cent's of the world always seem to survive... they always seem to get away clean. I know that it's all written, that Bernie and Isaac had their name in the book way before I understood the entity that is God. I also understand that they died of natural causes, they weren't doing what they shouldn't have been doing. No affairs, no car crash, just working out, or trying to get better. These things I know. What I don't know is what we are going to do when I'm upset about these things, and my younger sister isn't. She doesn't know music past Miley Sirus, and Alicia Keys. She doesn't understand what it means to win a Grammy and an Oscar for music that you did not sample but actually composed; and, although she's seen the Bernie Mac show, and heard of The Original Kings of Comedy, she doesn't know what it meant to Black chicago for Bernie to get a HBO comedy special, or to be on one of the first seasons of Def Comedy Jam. To me it ment a lot. And I want to thank Isaac and Bernie for their contributions. For those who didn't appreciate you before you died, and for those who appreciate you even more now, I want to say thank you. Rest In Peace.