Hasta La Gadget!

Prolific poet Sonia Sanchez invited two literary greats — iconic author Toni Morrison and acclaimed journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates — to have a conversation about art and social justice at the Ambassador Theatre in New York on Wednesday, June 15.

In front of a sold-out audience, Sanchez led an insightful discussion on how the writers use their craft to voice their truths and tell stories untold. Addressing modern-day tragedies like the Orlando shooting and instances of police brutality, the three explained why they felt their occupations weren’t optional; they considered it their duty. 

“I want to remind us all that art is dangerous,” Morrison warned the audience. “Somebody’s out to get you. You have to know it before you start, and do it under those circumstances, because it is one of the most important things that human beings do.”

Following the discussion, all three of the panelists received the Marlon Brando Award for excellence in the arts and commitment to social engagement from The Stella Adler Studio of Acting. As one would expect, the 90-minute conversation was full of gems — including what they each learned from the late Muhammad Ali. Here are a few key quotes from Sanchez, Morrison and Coates, respectively, on some of the topics they discussed that night.

On writing:

Sanchez:

“When I began to write, I wanted to tell how I became the woman with razor blades between her teeth. What made me want to power others through my bloodstream, what made me want to rise up to tell my story and… all our stories, I guess it must’ve been something underneath our skirts, girls… Something accented, unaccented in my and your walk and talk. Jimmy Baldwin wrote, ‘For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new. It must always be heard. There isn’t any other tale to tell. It’s the only light we’ve got in all of this darkness.’”

Morrison: 

“I began, not because I wanted to write, but because I wanted very, very much to read…  I wanted to read that book that I did not think anybody had written. I read all the time, and I was never in those books. So I decided that I would write the book that I really and truly wanted to read. I called it The Bluest Eye. And it was the result of a convo I had with my friend, at 8 or 9 years old. She and I were having a very serious discussion about whether there is a God or not. I said there was. She said there wasn’t and she had proof. And I said, ‘what is the proof?’ She said, ‘I have prayed for blue eyes for two years and hadn’t gotten them. He hasn’t delivered them to me.’

And I remember turning around and looking at her and thinking two things at the same time. One, thank God He had not given her blue eyes because she would look awful. That was when I realized that what I was thinking was, as she was, she’s a very, very dark-skinned girl with these beautiful cheekbones, high cheekbones, these great almond eyes, but I had never said or thought ‘beautiful.’ That’s not a word we would use as kids… For the first time, I looked at her… she was beautiful.”

Coates:  

“I guess I never knew of it as a means to a choice. I grew up in a household surrounded by books, there were books everywhere. My dad published books. My mother was a teacher. My mother taught me how to read and taught me how to write… I was interested in doing all that outside the classroom. So if you’d put a teacher in front of me and sat me at a desk… I would almost immediately cease to be interested in reading and writing. Reading and writing was something that belonged to me. It didn’t really belong to the classroom. But the flip side of that is that it meant that there weren’t too many other options besides writing in my life. This is the thing that brought me the most joy. This is the thing that no matter, when it wasn’t being published, when it no longer made money… I’ll still be doing it. It’s just a thing that’s here.” 

On fighting injustice:

Sanchez: 

“All of these people who were [in Orlando], let’s take a minute of silence…. because we know if you work, not just at some point saying something like ‘I have a good friend who’s gay,’ not that… but you go to your church and people talk against your brother and your sister and your mother and your father and your uncle and your aunt. You’ve got to say something. You’ve got to say something… Because when we let that happen, then we produce people who think they have a right to kill. And so we have to come up against that at some point.”

Morrison:

“I want to remind us all that art is dangerous. I want to remind you of the history of artist who have been murdered, slaughtered, imprisoned, chopped up, refused entrance. The history of art, whether it’s in music or written or what have you, has always been bloody because dictators and people in office and people who want to control and deceive know exactly the people who will disturb their plans… And it’s something that society has to protect. When you enter that field, no matter where you enter, whether it’s Sonia’s poetry or Toshi’s music or Ta-Nehisi’s rather starkly clear prose, it’s a dangerous pursuit. Somebody’s out to get you. You have to know it before you start, and do it under those circumstances, because it is one of the most important things that human beings do. That’s what we do.”

Coates:

“When something catastrophic happens, we like to analyze it at the point of conflict. Take Orlando right now, and so where we are is ‘OK, assault weapons are banned, that’s what we need right now.’ And so things that really are insufficient measures seem like radical steps. Like assault weapons bans, which would not be adopted, we wouldn’t even be close to adopting… And so, where that goes into a situation like Ferguson, you get bogged down into this place: What happened between the officer and Mike Brown? All of the analysis happens right there. And none of the analysis goes to the sort of broader question, ‘OK, what is the relationship between the police department in general, historically, between this community and the cops.’

I think part of that is we’re just scared of the work. It’s gonna be a lot of work. It’s gonna be a lot of really, really hard work. And we might not win. And yet we have to commit ourselves to the struggle, because it’s nothing else besides struggle. There is no laying down and giving up. And so one thing about this moment right now, and I am seeing more of this in the journalism and the activism, we have to get past a place of how can we get these officers convicted in a court of law, and get to a place of why did this happen in the first place.”

On Muhammad Ali:

Sanchez:

“Along comes Muhammad Ali, and I said, I made this great production, ‘I don’t watch boxing, it’s cruel.’ My father said, ‘He is this dancer. He is this poet. He is clever. He’s a clever boxer.’ And so I watched him and fell in love with him. Not only was he boxing for himself, he was boxing for all of us. I said to someone recently, he loved [black people] more than we loved ourselves. And more than he loved himself…

I remember, with my twins, going up to [Deer Lake]… and he got in the ring, he said to everybody, ‘Come on, come on, come on, come on. I’m here. Come on.’ And they were put in the ring with him and they start boxing him. He fell out on the ground and the kids put their feet on him. ‘We won, we won, we won.’ And then they put me up there. I said, ‘I ain’t gonna box you, man.’ He picked me up and throw me up in the air. His timing was so perfect. I was so scared. He was saying something like, ‘Are we getting ready to go?’  and he caught [me]. That was my one and only time in the ring, people.”

Morrison (who was Ali’s book editor):

“That was one smart dude. I have to tell you, and he understood instantly what other people needed in him, what other people wanted in him. He complained to me [that] he couldn’t go to some book signing in New Jersey, and I said, ‘what do you mean you can’t go, it’s already set up.’ ‘No, no, no, it costs too much,’ [he said]. I said, ‘It doesn’t cost anything, what are you talking about? We pay, you just go and sign books.’ He said, ‘It costs because people ask me for money.’ And I said, ‘you don’t have to give it to ‘em.’ He said, ‘I’m the champ. They hit me on the shoulder, they say ‘hey, champ, give me a dollar. Give me five dollars.’ I can’t say I don’t have it. I can’t say no.’ So everybody who asked him for money, he always gives it and it costs. And I insisted that that was not a good enough reason for him to refuse to go to this signing… But he was correct in what the limitations were and it was less about the money, I think, than the fact that everybody who came in the line and who he spoke to hit him on his shoulder and said ‘Hey champ.’ A thousand of those hurt. And he’s not gonna say it. So you had to have some mechanism so you could stop it. [Laughs.] And make everybody happy, including him. But I have to say that working with him, it was strategic, that’s all I mean. You had to think like him… and use his best resources and his own personality, and then it was successful and the book was successful.”

Coates: 

“I think we are always, as African Americans, under some sort of pressure to sort of conform ourselves in ways that won’t either bring bodily harm to ourselves or to our children, and so there’s a lot of pressure revolving on talks about this: Make sure your skin isn’t ashy, everything’s straight, your hair looks right. And there’s a whole sort of performance that we do to put on our best face for folks. And to see somebody so profoundly reject that, I mean it’s just the most powerful thing… To see somebody out there like, ‘My Image is my own. I don’t have to conform to any of these… If I’m gonna say I’m the greatest, I’m gonna say I’m the greatest.’ Just be mad about it.” 

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You define your beauty. 

That’s the message behind the new Dove campaign #MyBeautyMySay. The campaign, which launched Tuesday morning, features the stories of badass women proudly expressing their beauty. 

“My Beauty My Say” includes six separate videos featuring six women’s personal stories about how they define their own beauty every single day. The six women include androgynous model Rain Dove, boxer Heather Hardy, plus-size fashion blogger Jessica Torres and more. 

“They said I was too pretty to fight,” Hardy says in the video above.

“They said I was too fat, only skinny girls could dress well,” Torres says. 

“They said I was too masculine,” Dove says. 

But these accomplished ladies pointed out that the negative comments didn’t stop them from achieving their goals. Dove is a world-renowned model and Torres is a successful fashion blogger. And Hardy’s pretty face definitely didn’t stop her from becoming the UBF and WBC Super Bantamweight International Champion. 

According to the beauty brand, 7 out of 10 women believe that women receive more compliments and comments on their looks than their accomplishments. Dove also found that 74 percent of the women surveyed agreed that there are other unique characteristics of a woman — not just her looks — that make her beautiful. 

As Dove says in regards to all those naysayers and critics:

Yes, yes, and more yes. 

Head to YouTube to hear more from each woman in Dove’s #MyBeautyMySay campaign. 

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When musicians Anthony “Tone” Catalano and Celeste “C.C.” Spina decided to form Little Hurricane in 2010, the San Diego-based duo never could have predicted the big trouble that would soon follow.

They’ve survived some extreme weather conditions over the years, including dust storms in New Mexico and sub-zero temperatures in Canada during the polar vortex.

Yet the most frightening time of their musical lives was in October 2012, when Superstorm Sandy, what’s been called the second-costliest hurricane in America’s history, chased them along the East Coast.

“It was literally following our touring path,” Spina said in late June, calling on the phone with Catalano from Lake Tahoe, where they were in the middle of recording their third studio album. “We played in Manhattan the night that it hit. Well, we played that night and it hit at 4 in the morning. So we played our set and just had to book it west to Pennsylvania. That was kind of a grueling experience just because we didn’t know if we were gonna get hit by an actual hurricane.”

Through thick and thin, the name stuck, though, and so has the pair of singer-songwriter-performers, who will be one of the first acts on the main stage when The Ride Festival officially kicks off its fifth yearly event July 9 in Telluride, Colorado.

“We wanted something that would kind of encase what we’re all about,” Catalano added about the band’s origin story. “Small, there’s only two of us, but wild, powerful. … There’s a phrase that I’ve been using: No one likes a big hurricane but a little hurricane is more of a party, a good time.”

Little Hurricane have been kicking up a storm since Catalano, then playing electric drums, answered Spina’s Craigslist ad for a guitar player in 2009, four years after she left her hometown, the Windy City of Chicago. She knew someone would apply after previously replying to a want ad for a bartender and showing up for the job — along with 400 other applicants.

Living only a few blocks away from each other in San Diego, Spina and Catalano hit if off right away, quit their regular jobs, kept their relationship strictly on a professional basis and became two-for-the-road warriors.

“For us, it’s just been easier to keep some balance in our life; just kind of focus on the music,” Spina said about not mixing business with pleasure.

“We decided to keep (the group) at two people since we liked the way everything was sounding and it was easy to turn the bass up on the guitar and, traveling to gigs, everything was easier,” offered Catalano, a native of Santa Cruz, Calif., who previously was an audio engineer and worked with artists ranging from Gwen Stefani to John Paul Jones, the former Led Zeppelin bass player.

Recording demos while touring, they self-released Homewrecker in 2011, then Gold Fever in 2014. They have been billed as a rootsy blues-rock band but some Southwestern influence also creeps in, sonically touching territory explored by other prominent duos such as Escondido, a 2013 Ride participant, and HoneyHoney, a ballsy band that will open NightRide‘s series performances July 8 at the Sheridan Opera House.

As producer of Gold Fever, Catalano, Little Hurricane’s principal singer who accompanies his gritty voice with rich and moody tones from an electric guitar, added string and brass players to complement their already full sound.

Their songwriting approach varies, depending on “whose feelings we’re focusing on,” said Spina, who sticks mostly to drums but occasionally plays mandolin, ukulele and harmonica. Her story about her brother’s struggle with addiction supplies the emotionally charged themes in “Sorry Son,” probably the album’s strongest track.

Allowing that their yet-untitled third album will be released in “roughly January or February,” Catalano teases that he and Spina are “kind of pushing the boundaries as to what to categorize our sound as. … Some of the songs on the new album, there’s no guitar. I’m either playing keyboards or mandolin or … so it’s interesting on my part just to switch up. … But I think our overall sound will remain constant.”

Whether the winds of change ever arrive, expect to be blown away by Little Hurricane.

ON THE ROAD TO THE RIDE: LITTLE HURRICANE

Though Little Hurricane will make their debut at the Ride Festival, which this year includes headliners Pearl Jam (July 9) and Cage the Elephant (July 10), this isn’t the first time Catalano and Spina have performed in the southwest Colorado town of Telluride.

In 2012, they played the Telluride Blues & Brews Festival. “The B-52s headlined, which was kind of awesome,” said Spina, who teamed up with Catalano to open the 19th annual event with a Thursday night show at the Sheridan Opera House.

In honor of their upcoming appearance, Little Hurricane offered opinions about the Ride, the road and the town known for peak performances.

Other first impressions of Telluride:

C.C.: “I think for me it was the most beautiful venue and environment we’ve every played in. It’s just so gorgeous to be on that stage and looking out at the mountains. Definitely a magical place.”

Tone: “We did a music video (‘Trouble Ahead’) on that gondola (between the town and the Mountain Village). It’s on YouTube somewhere.”

C.C.: “Yeah, and one at the very top of the mountain (‘Get By’). I think it was for Paste magazine, actually.”

On performing at high altitude:

C.C.: “Oxygen tanks were waiting for us backstage. … I think since we’ve been recording up here in Tahoe, the elevation is like 7,500 feet, so we’ll be a little more prepared this time.”

Tone: “I do remember turning around a few times onstage. We had a two-hour set, and taking some really deep breaths. So it’s always getting behind on the breathing, you’re pushing a lot of air out but there’s not a whole lot of time to take the air in. So that was the tough part for me. But I’m sure drums were more … “

C.C.: “Actually, looking back, my lesson learned would be I’m not gonna wear too tight of a dress. My dress was tight and it was hot. So I’ll take that wisdom and apply it.”

What crowds can expect from Little Hurricane at the Ride, with a set on the main stage Saturday afternoon (1:30-2:30 p.m. July 9) and the Sunday NightRide show (10:30 p.m. July 10) at the Moon at O’Bannon’s:

Tone: “I’m sure the Sunday night run will be longer, so we’ll get into more of the deep cuts, I guess. More cover songs and stuff. The one during the day we’ll probably keep the energy up, keep the people going. … We’ll play some of the new songs probably if not at the festival then at the after-show on Sunday.”

Little Hurricane’s go-to cover song:

Tone: “We used to cycle through them but there was one that stood out. We got a lot of requests for it, so Bill Withers’ ‘Ain’t No Sunshine.’ “

C.C.: “But we do have a full record of covers that’s online, too (Stay Classy, available for free download at bandcamp.com). Ten songs, with artists varying from Fiona Apple to Aerosmith. It just kind of runs the whole gamut.”

Since this festival is called the Ride, what has been the ride of your life?

C.C.: “Well, for me, it’s definitely been Little Hurricane that has been the ride of my life. Last year we went to 11 countries; we go to all sorts of amazing places. You never know what’s gonna be next. In August, we are going to St. Bart’s in the Caribbean. … Some places I still can’t pronounce that we visited in Europe.”

Tone: “Maybe I was taking the question too literally. We did a festival up in Norway (Parkenfestivalen in August 2015). As part of the package for the artists, they had this activity where you jump off a cliff with a parachute, paragliding. We were like, ‘All right, we’ll do it.’ So that was a crazy ride. Running off a cliff hoping that the parachute is gonna hold you. And it did.”

C.C.: “He did it far better than I. I crashed my landing because I didn’t know how to run properly. (laughs) He landed pretty well.”

Most memorable road trip together as Little Hurricane:

Tone: “We’ve seen some crazy weather, I will say that, touring around. Dust storms in New Mexico nearly blowing our van over. Ice storms up in Toronto, minus-12 degrees.”

Act you would climb a mountain to see:

C.C.: “I just saw that Van Morrison is touring and it’s almost all sold out. I would love to see Van Morrison. Tone has seen him several times but that would be for me a huge one I would love to see perform.”

Tone: “I think it would be cool to see Pearl Jam (who headline at 7 p.m. July 9). I’ve never seen them perform. And we’re gonna be in the same place.”

Favorite road song:

C.C.: ” ‘Turn the Page,’ Bob Seger. That’s my go-to on-the-road song.”

Tone: “Lately, we’ve been listening to this Nathaniel Rateliff album (Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats).”

First in a three-part series. Little Hurricane publicity photo courtesy of the Ride Festival.

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Despite assuring evangelicals last week that he would appoint anti-abortion judges and cares deeply about the anti-abortion cause, Donald Trump has so far been silent about the Supreme Court’s major abortion rights ruling on Monday. And conservatives are not happy. 

Just minutes after the high court struck down a pair of Texas abortion restrictions, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton praised the ruling and used it to attack Trump, who said earlier this year that women who have abortions should face some sort of “punishment” if the procedure ever becomes illegal.

“This fight isn’t over: The next president has to protect women’s health,” Clinton tweeted. “Women won’t be ‘punished’ for exercising their basic rights.” 

Everyone held their breath for Trump’s counter-jab — but instead, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee stayed mum. 

Trump’s silence on the ruling is odd, considering his monthslong struggle to assure skeptical anti-abortion activists that he’s on their side. Just last week, Trump accepted the endorsement of Troy Newman, the president of the extremist anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, who has said that the murder of abortion providers is justifiable. 

Conservative pundits are now skewering Trump for his silence on the ruling. Leon Wolf, the managing editor at RedState.com, wrote a scathing tweet mocking the real estate mogul. 

RedState’s Joe Cunningham called Trump a “coward.”

“Trump is unqualified to lead Republicans if he can’t stand up for one of the most fundamental parts of the Republican Party platform,” he wrote. 

Fox News contributor Erick Erickson also slammed Trump in an op-ed. 

“Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued a decision propping up the abortion industry in America and giving it special rights against regulation,” he wrote. “And Donald Trump, supposed champion of the unborn, said nothing. … Can the leader lead or must he be led on this issue? If he must be led on an issue about which he is supposedly committed, I would submit he really is not that committed to the cause.” 

Some anti-abortion leaders are being a bit more careful about condemning Trump, knowing that he may be the GOP’s only alternative to Clinton — the strongest abortion rights champion the Democratic Party could ever nominate for president. Clarke Forsythe, senior counsel for Americans United for Life, told The Huffington Post that Clinton’s record is still in “stark contrast to whatever Donald Trump does or doesn’t say.” 

“Donald Trump and his campaign are learning the issue,” he said. “I have no reaction to his reaction. It’s a process.” 

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.

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Women got a long-awaited victory today in the Supreme Court’s decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. They struck down as unconstitutional two abortion restrictions aimed at curtailing women’s access to abortion. They specifically held that an admitting privileges requirement for abortion providers and a burdensome surgical center facility requirement constitute undue burdens on a woman’s right to choose abortion.

In short, the U.S. Supreme Court didn’t believe the façade that these restrictions had anything to do with improving or protecting women’s health. In fact, these restrictions and the countless others that we’ve seen across the country are about shaming and demeaning women and taking away their most fundamental rights. The real threat to women’s health isn’t a procedure with a major complication rate of less than one-quarter of 1%, it’s the health center closures that result from restrictive and unnecessary reproductive health laws.

Since the beginning of the Tea Party takeover in 2010, there has also been a takeover of women, including their lives, bodies, and rights. Across the United States, legislatures have imposed approximately 300 abortion restrictions since 2011. The same is true here in Wisconsin, where the GOP dominated legislature and governor have passed abortion bans, forced vaginal ultrasounds laws, and harmful admitting privilege requirements.

We’ve seen the disastrous effects of these laws. In Texas, Wisconsin and across the country, life-saving health centers have been forced to close with nothing taking their place. There is no question that women’s health is suffering, sometimes in a very real life or death manner. As Justice Ginsburg points out: “When a State severely limits access to safe and legal procedures, women in desperate circumstances may resort to unlicensed rogue practitioners…at great risk to their health and safety.”

There is no doubt in my mind that legislative Republicans and Governor Walker will double-down and attempt to pass even more restrictive, and likely patently unconstitutional, laws in the sessions to come. There is no doubt in my mind that even though the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Wisconsin’s admitting privileges appeal, our Attorney General will continue wasting taxpayer money litigating future unconstitutional burdens on women’s reproductive rights.

This ruling is a turning point in the fight to restore reproductive rights for women that have been so seriously curtailed by state legislatures throughout the country. It is fitting that the court released this decision just days before our country celebrates individual rights and liberties on Independence Day. There is nothing that epitomizes individual rights and liberties more than affirming that women have a constitutional right to make their own decisions about their health, family, career, and future without interference from politicians.

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