Sunday, September 25, 2016

You Could Never Tell The Truth - By Carroll Bryant

YOU COULD NEVER TELL THE TRUTH - By Carroll Bryant 



It's a serious situation
When you're running out of ambition
You look to the sky and you still can't see
What everything around you is suppose to mean 

(You look deep inside and there's nothing
Absolutely nothing)

Everything you told me was a boldface lie
Funny how you never even said goodbye 
Well, I know the diff between a lover and a clown 
Don't need another bitch to keep me down 

The pain always comes too soon
You could never tell the truth 
It's a world filled with gloom and doom 
You could never tell the truth 

I got to find a map and escape this place 
Avoid any mirror that reflects this face 
Anything of worth will always make you a slave 
Maybe that's something to take to your grave 

The pain always comes too soon
You could never tell the truth 
It's a world filled with gloom and doom 
You could never tell the truth

The pain always comes too soon
You could never tell the truth 
It's a world filled with gloom and doom 
You could never tell the truth

You hide by yourself
You like it alone
No secrets to tell 
It's about time to find a home 

It's a serious situation
When you're running out of ambition
You look to the sky and you still can't see
What everything around you is suppose to mean 

The pain always comes too soon
You could never tell the truth 
It's a world filled with gloom and doom 
You could never tell the truth

The pain always comes too soon
You could never tell the truth 
It's a world filled with gloom and doom 
You could never tell the truth


Tuesday, September 20, 2016

UFO Files: 2016 Sightings (Part One)

Let's take a look at some interesting footage of some 2016 UFO sightings, shall we?







Thursday, September 15, 2016

Teena Marie: Influences

Mary Christine Brockert (March 5, 1956 – December 26, 2010), better known by her stage name Teena Marie, was an American singer - songwriter, and producer.

I remember one lazy day I was watching MTV and they played a brand new video. It was "Lover girl" by Teena Marie. I was hooked.

A few days later I went to the music store and bought a couple of her early releases. It was a treasured discovery for me. I have been a fan ever since, and always will be. When I learned of her passing, I was about as much in shock and sorrow as I was when Michael Jackson passed, and Elvis Presley.

The thing I liked most about her and her music was that she wasn't always just "radio" hungry nor did she ever have to take off her clothes on stage or in music videos to showcase her talents. I respect that. She was a true songwriter and authentic performer. She didn't play it up for the record labels, she played it up for the fans. A true original if you ask me. About as down to earth as an artist can get. There was nothing fake about Teena Marie. And you just don't get that anymore these days where recording artists are concerned because it seems everyone has a fame complex. She did it for the music. Writing was her soul.

Mary Christine, or Tina as she was called, was the daughter of construction worker Thomas Leslie Brockert and his wife, home renovator Mary Anne. She spent her early childhood in Mission Hills. Her ethnic heritage was Portuguese, Italian, Irish, and Native American. In 2005, while visiting Louisiana, she had discovered that her paternal ancestors once lived in New Orleans. She took to singing naturally, performing Harry Belafonte's Banana Boat Song by age two. She also developed a fondness for singing Motown songs, and her self-professed "gift from God" would become fine-tuned as the years progressed.

When she was eight years old, her parents began sending Tina on auditions which, among other things, netted her an acting role on The Beverly Hillbillies, credited as Tina Marie Brockert. She also sang at the wedding of Jerry Lewis' son when she was 10 years old. Reared in a Roman Catholic household, she learned to play the piano under the tutelage of two nuns, and later taught herself the guitar, bass, and congas. She would go on to form a semi-professional R&B band with her younger brother Anthony and their cousin.

In the early 1970s, after the family moved to Venice, Los Angeles, Brockert spent her adolescent years in the historically black Venice enclave of Oakwood, nicknamed "Venice Harlem". There, she would acquire a strong spiritual influence from neighborhood matriarch Berthalynn Jackson, an African American who would become her godmother.

While attending Venice High School, Brockert joined the Summer Dance Production and was the female lead in the school's production of The Music Man. She also fronted a local Venice rock band "Truvair" in 1974–1975; the band's members were her high school classmates.

Following graduation, Brockert juggled auditioning for various record companies with studying English Literature at Santa Monica College. She credited her love of reading with helping her to write lyrics.

In 1976, Brockert (as the lead singer of a band she had assembled, which included long-time friend Mickey Boyce) gained an introduction to Motown Records staff producer Hal Davis (best known for his work with Brenda Holloway and the Jackson 5). It led to an audition for a film about orphans that was being developed by Motown. The project was shelved, but label boss Berry Gordy, impressed with her singing but having no need for a musical group, decided to sign her as a solo act. Tina recorded unreleased material with a number of different producers over the next few years, before being spotted by labelmate Rick James, who was immediately impressed with her sound. Some of Tina's earlier, unreleased material has since been made available on the compilation album First Class Love: Rare Tee. At the time, James, already established as a successful recording artist, was on tap to produce for Diana Ross but changed his mind and decided to work with Brockert, instead. The result was her debut album release, Wild and Peaceful. The album was, at one point, due to be credited to "Teena Tryson", but ultimately was put out under "Teena Marie", the name by which she would be known throughout her remaining career. It scored Teena Marie her first top-ten R&B hit, "I'm a Sucker for Your Love" (#8 Black Singles Chart), a duet with James. Neither the album nor its packaging had her picture on it, and many radio programmers assumed she was African-American during the earliest months of her career. This myth was disproved when she performed her debut hit with James on Soul Train in 1979, becoming the show's first white female guest. (She would appear on the show eight more times, more than any other white act.)

Her portrait graced the cover of her second album, Lady T (1980), which is also noted for having production from Richard Rudolph (the widower of R&B singer Minnie Riperton). Teena Marie had asked Berry Gordy to contact Rudolph and secure his input, as Rick James was unavailable, and she felt unprepared to be sole producer of her own material. Rudolph intended for the song he penned, "Now That I Have You", to be sung by his wife, but it was later given to Teena Marie. Rudolph also co-composed the single "Behind The Groove", which reached number 21 on the black singles chart and No. 6 on the U.K. singles chart in 1980. The song would also be included on the soundtrack of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City on the Fever 105 soundtrack. Another notable track, "Too Many Colors", featured Rudolph and Riperton's then 7-year-old daughter, Maya Rudolph, who became Teena Marie's goddaughter. 

Also in 1980, Teena Marie released her third LP, Irons in the Fire, for which she handled all writing and production herself, including the horn and rhythm arrangements of her band, and all backing vocals, achievements considered rare at the time for a female artist. The single "I Need Your Lovin'" (#37 Pop, No. 9 Black Singles) brought Teena Marie her first top 40 hit; it also peaked at No. 28 in the UK chart.

That same year, Teena Marie appeared on James' hugely successful album, Street Songs, with the duet "Fire and Desire". In an interview, Teena Marie said she had a fever at the time yet managed to record her vocals in one take. After the session, she was driven to a hospital. The two would perform the single at the 2004 BET Awards, which would be their last TV appearance with one another, as James died later that year.

Teena Marie continued her success with Motown in 1981, with the release of It Must Be Magic (#2 Black Albums Chart), her first gold record, which included her then biggest hit on R&B, "Square Biz" (#3 Black Singles). Other notable tracks include "Portuguese Love" (featuring a brief, uncredited cameo by James, No. 54 Black Singles), the title track "It Must be Magic" (#30 Black Singles), and the album only track "Yes Indeed", which she cited as a personal favorite.

In 1982, Teena Marie got into a heated legal battle with Motown Records over her contract and disagreements about releasing her new material. The lawsuit resulted in "The Brockert Initiative", which made it illegal for a record company to keep an artist under contract without releasing new material for that artist. In such instances, artists are able to sign and release with another label instead of being held back by an unsupportive one. Teena Marie commented on the law in an LA Times article, saying, "It wasn't something I set out to do. I just wanted to get away from Motown and have a good life. But it helped a lot of people, like Luther Vandross and the Mary Jane Girls, and a lot of different artists, to be able to get out of their contracts." She left Motown as the label's most successful white solo act.

Contacted by Epic Records in the fall of 1982, after expressing dismay over her Motown contract, Teena Marie signed a worldwide deal with the Columbia Records subsidiary that also allowed her to establish her own publishing company, Midnight Magnet. Epic released the concept album Robbery, which featured the hit "Fix It" (#21 R&B), as well as "Shadow Boxing" and "Casanova Brown." (The latter was one of many tracks Teena Marie would write over the years about her real-life romance with one-time mentor Rick James. The relationship had ended by that point, but the two continued a sometimes tempestuous friendship until James' death, in August 2004.)

In 1984, Teena Marie released her biggest-selling album, Starchild. It yielded her biggest hit "Lovergirl", which peaked at No. 4 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in March 1985 and at No. 9 on the R&B chart. The label also released the moderate R&B hit "Out on a Limb", which peaked at No. 56 on the R&B chart but didn't break the Hot 100. "14k" was featured on the soundtrack of the film Goonies (1985) but was not a hit (only making the U.S. R&B charts at #87).

In 1986, Teena Marie released a rock music-influenced concept album titled Emerald City. It was controversial with her established fan base and not as successful as its predecessors. She also recorded the rock-influenced track, "Lead Me On", co-produced by Giorgio Moroder, for the soundtrack of the box office hit film Top Gun (1986).

In 1988, she returned to R&B and funk, releasing the critically acclaimed album Naked to the World. That album contained the hit "Ooo La La La", which reached the top of Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart and was her only No. 1 single on that chart. During her 1988 Naked to the World concert tour, she suffered a fall and was hospitalized for six months.

Teena Marie released Ivory in the fall of 1990; it scored no pop hits, but it did experience two R&B hits: "Here's Looking at You" (#11 R&B) and "If I Were a Bell" (#8 R&B)

During the 1990s, Teena Marie's classic R&B, soul, and funk records were either sampled by hip-hop artists or covered by R&B divas. Teena Marie herself is regarded as something of a pioneer in helping to bring hip-hop to the mainstream by becoming one of the first artists of her time to rap one of her singles - the aforementioned "Square Biz".

In the fall of 1994, Teena Marie released Passion Play on her independent label, Sarai Records. Lacking the backing of a major label, this album sold less well than her earlier work but was well received by fans.

Subsequently, Teena Marie devoted most of her time to raising her daughter Alia Rose (who has since adopted the stage name "Rose Le Beau" and is pursuing her own singing career). During the late 1990s, Teena Marie made appearances (as herself) on the TV sitcoms The Steve Harvey Show and The Parkers. She also began working on a new album, titled Black Rain. She was unable to secure a major label deal for this and did not want to put it out on her own Sarai label, in light of the modest sales of Passion Play.

After a 14-year sabbatical from the national spotlight, Teena Marie returned to her musical career by signing with the Classics sub-label of the successful hip-hop label, Ca$h Money Records. She released her comeback album, La Doña, in 2004, and follow up Sapphire, in 2006. La Doña became a gold-certified success (and the highest-charting album of her career, peaking at No. 6 on the Billboard 200 chart) on the basis of the Al Green-sampled "I'm Still In Love" (#23 R&B, No. 70 Pop) and a duet with the late Gerald Levert, "A Rose by Any Other Name". Teena Marie was nominated for a 2005 Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Still in Love" and quickly followed this success with the release of Sapphire in 2006.

Teena Marie never married. She gave birth to a daughter named Alia Rose in 1991. As of 2009, Alia Rose sings under the name Rose LeBeau.

Throughout her career, Teena Marie lived in Inglewood and Encino, Los Angeles, before settling in Pasadena, California in the mid-1980s.

Teena Marie was godmother to actress-comedian Maya Rudolph and to Marvin Gaye's daughter, Nona Gaye. She also cared for Rick James' son, Rick, Jr., and family friend Jeremiah O'Neal.

Lenny Kravitz posted a video in which he said that Teena Marie had taken him into her home and helped him when he was struggling early in his career.

In 2004, while Teena Marie was sleeping in a hotel room, a large picture frame fell and struck her on the head. The blow caused a serious concussion that would cause momentary seizures for the rest of her life. On the afternoon of December 26, 2010, Teena Marie was found unresponsive by her daughter, Alia Rose, at Teena Marie's home in Pasadena, California.

On December 30, 2010, an autopsy was performed by the Los Angeles County coroner, who found no signs of apparent trauma or a discernible cause of death, and concluded she had died from natural causes.

She had suffered a tonic–clonic seizure a month before.

A memorial service was held at Forest Lawn Cemetery on January 10, 2011. Among those in attendance were Smokey Robinson, LisaRaye, Sinbad, Tichina Arnold, Stevie Wonder, Deniece Williams, Shanice Wilson, Queen Latifah, and Berry Gordy, Jr.


You can visit her official website here: TEENA MARIE OFFICIAL WEBSITE


Sources: Wikipedia

This work released through CC 2.0 SA-BY: Creative Commons


Saturday, September 10, 2016

Soul Naked - By Carroll Bryant

SOUL NAKED - By Carroll Bryant 


There's nothing I can say this time
You hide behind magic eyes 
If you want to know the truth 
How I feel inside
Just look into mine 

There's nothing I can do tonight 
But to hold you in my arms so tight
If you want to break free 
Then listen to me
Just give into the fight 

Naked
Naked with you
Naked as a soul can be
Naked as the moon
Naked
Naked with me
Naked from a midnight rendezvous 
Naked in a dream

Soul naked

There's nothing you can prove this time
I hide behind eyes that are blind
If I want to seek your rhythm 
Lose the rhyme 
Just let me dance inside 

Naked
Naked with you
Naked as a soul can be
Naked as the moon
Naked
Naked with me
Naked from a midnight rendezvous 
Naked in a dream

Soul naked 

This thing called love has been around
Longer than a hearts forever
It can happen without a sound 
To anyone who wants to be together

There's nothing I can say this time
You hide behind magic eyes 
If you want to know the truth 
How I feel inside
Just look into mine 

Naked
Naked with you
Naked as a soul can be
Naked as the moon
Naked
Naked with me
Naked from a midnight rendezvous 
Naked in a dream

Soul naked
Naked with you
Naked as a soul can be
Naked as the moon
Naked
Naked with me 
Naked from a midnight rendezvous 
Naked in a dream

Soul naked
You and me naked
Really soul naked 
Naked in a dream
Naked with me
Naked in a dream


Monday, September 5, 2016

Henry Hill: American Gangster

Henry Hill, Jr. (June 11, 1943 – June 12, 2012) was a New York City mobster. Between 1955 and 1980, Hill was associated with the Lucchese crime family. In 1980, Hill became an FBI informant and his testimony helped secure fifty convictions, including that of mob capo (captain) Paul Vario and James Burke on multiple charges.
Hill's life story was documented in the true crime book Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family by Nicholas Pileggi. Wiseguy was subsequently adapted by Martin Scorsese into the critically acclaimed film Goodfellas, in which Hill was portrayed by Ray Liotta.

Henry Hill, Jr., was born on June 11, 1943, to Henry Hill, Sr., an immigrant Irish-American electrician, and Carmela Costa Hill, a Sicilian-American. The working-class family consisted of Henry and his eight siblings who grew up in Brownsville, a poorer area of the East New York section of Brooklyn. From an early age, he admired the local mobsters who socialized across the street from his home, including Paul Vario, a "capo" in the Lucchese crime family. In 1955, when Hill was eleven years old, he wandered into the cabstand across the street looking for a part-time after-school job. In his early teens, he began running errands for patrons of Vario's storefront shoe-shine, pizzeria, and dispatch cabstand. He first met the notorious hijacker and Lucchese family associate James "Jimmy the Gent" Burke in 1956. The thirteen-year-old Hill served drinks and sandwiches at a card game and was dazzled by Burke's openhanded tipping.

The following year, Paul Vario's younger brother, Vito "Tuddy" Vario, and older brother, Lenny Vario, presented Hill with a highly sought-after union card in the bricklayers' local. Hill would be a "no show," put on a building contractor's construction payroll, guaranteeing him a weekly salary of $190. This didn't mean Hill would be getting or keeping all that money every week. He received only a portion of it and the rest would be kept and divided among the Varios. The card also allowed Hill to facilitate pickup of daily policy bets and loan payments to Vario from local construction sites. Once Hill had this "legitimate" job, he dropped out of high school, working exclusively for the Vario gangsters.

Hill's first encounter with arson occurred when the Rebel Cab Company cabstand opened just around the corner from Vario's business. The competing company's owner was from Alabama; new to New York City. Sometime after midnight, Tuddy and Hill drove to the rival cabstand with a drum full of gasoline in the back seat of Tuddy's car. Hill smashed the cab windows and filled them with gasoline-soaked newspapers, then tossed in lit match books.

Hill's first arrest took place when he was sixteen; the arrest record is one of the few official documents that prove his existence. Hill and Lenny, Vario's equally underage son, attempted to use a stolen credit card to buy snow tires for Tuddy's wife's car. When Hill and Lenny returned to Tuddy's, two police detectives apprehended Hill. During a rough interrogation, Hill gave his name and nothing else; Vario's attorney later facilitated his release on bail. While a suspended sentence resulted, Hill's refusal to talk earned him the respect of both Vario and Burke. Burke, in particular, saw great potential in Hill. Like Burke, he was of Irish ancestry and therefore ineligible to become a "made man." The Vario crew, however, were happy to have associates of any ethnicity, so long as they made money and refused to cooperate with the authorities.

In June 1960, Hill joined the Army, serving with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Hill claimed the timing was deliberate; the FBI investigation into the 1957 Apalachin mob summit meeting had prompted a Senate investigation into organized crime and its links with businesses and unions. This resulted in the publication of a list of nearly five thousand names of members and associates of the five major crime families. Hill searched through a partial list, but could not find Vario listed among the Lucchese family.

Throughout his three-year enlistment, Hill maintained his mob contacts. He also continued to hustle: in charge of kitchen detail, he sold surplus food; loan sharked pay advances to fellow soldiers; and sold tax-free cigarettes. Before his discharge, Hill spent two months in the stockade for stealing a local sheriff's car and brawling in a bar with a civilian and Marines. In 1963, Hill returned to New York and began the most notorious phase of his criminal career: arson, intimidation, running an organized stolen car ring, and hijacking trucks.

In 1965, Hill met his future wife, Karen Friedman, through Paul Vario, Jr., though the film Goodfellas replaces him with Thomas "Tommy" DeSimone. Paul insisted that Hill go with him on a double date at Frank "Frankie the Wop" Manzo's restaurant, Villa Capra. According to Friedman the date was disastrous, and Hill stood her up at the next dinner. After, the two began going on dates at the Copacabana and other nightclubs, where Karen was introduced to Henry's outwardly impressive lifestyle. The two later got married in a large North Carolina wedding, attended by most of Hill's gangster friends.

On December 11, 1978, Hill and Jimmy Burke pulled the Lufthansa heist. Hill had heard from Robert "Frenchy" McMahon that his employer, Lufthansa, was handling a shipment of USD $6 million in cash and jewelry. The main problem was a guard with a key to the safe. They identified the guard's weakness for women. They got the guard drunk and took him to a motel, where a prostitute waited to distract him. When the guard took off his pants to change into a bathrobe, they took his ring of keys. Not knowing which key led to the vault, the mobsters simply made duplicate copies of as many of the keys as possible, then replaced the original keyring without his knowledge. At 11:40 pm on a Saturday, Hill and Burke drove to the Air France cargo parking lot in a rented car sporting false plates. They left with the USD $6 million haul. Hill and DeSimone paid a $750,000 tribute to two mob chiefs. They were Sebastian "Buster" Aloi, the 57-year-old capo for the Colombo crime family, who considered Kennedy Airport their turf, and their own capo, Paul Vario.

Hill began wholesaling marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and quaaludes based on connections he made in prison; he earned enormous amounts of money. A young kid who was a "mule" of Hill's "ratted" Hill out to Narcotics Detectives Daniel Mann and William Broder. "The Youngster" (so named by the detectives) informed them that the supplier [Henry Hill] was connected to the Lucchese crime family and was a close friend to Paul Vario and to Jimmy Burke and "had probably been in on the Lufthansa robbery." Knowing who Hill was and what he did, they put surveillance on him, taking pictures. They found out that Hill's old prison friend from Pittsburgh ran a dog-grooming salon as a front. Mann and Broder had "thousands" of wiretaps of Hill. But Hill and his crew used coded language in the conversations.

Hill and his Pittsburgh connection set up a point shaving scheme by convincing Boston College center Rick Kuhn to participate. Kuhn encouraged teammates to join the scheme, which ended in a well-known scandal. Hill also claimed to have an NBA referee in his pocket who worked games at Madison Square Garden during the 1970s. The referee had incurred gambling debts on horse races.

On April 27, 1980, Hill was arrested on a narcotics-trafficking charge. He became convinced that his former associates planned to have him killed: Vario, for dealing drugs; and Burke, to prevent Hill from implicating him in the Lufthansa Heist. Hill heard on a wiretap that his associates Angelo Sepe and Anthony Stabile were anxious to have Hill killed and that they were telling Burke that he "is no good," and that he "is a junkie." Burke told them "not to worry about it." Hill was more convinced by a surveillance tape played to him by federal investigators, in which Burke tells Vario of their need to have Hill "whacked." But Hill still wouldn't talk to the investigators, while in his cell, the officers would tell Hill that the prosecutor, Ed McDonald, wanted to speak with him, and Hill would yell "Fuck you and McDonald." While Hill was in his cell, he became even more paranoid because he thought Burke had officers on the inside and would have him killed.

While Karen was worried, she kept getting calls from Jimmy Burke's wife, Mickey, asking when Hill was coming home, or if Karen needed anything. Hill knew the calls were from Jimmy. When Hill was finally released on bail, he met Burke at a restaurant they always went to, Burke told him that they should meet at a bar Hill had never heard of or seen before, owned by "Charlie the Jap." Hill never met him there, instead they met at Burke's sweatshop with Karen and asked for the address in Florida where he was to kill Bobby Germaine's son with Anthony Stabile. Hill knew he was going to get killed in Florida, but he needed to stay on the streets to make money. McDonald didn't want to take any chances and arrested Hill as a material witness in the Lufthansa robbery. Hill then agreed to become an informant and signed an agreement with the United States Department of Justice Organized Crime Strike Force on May 27, 1980. In 2011, former junior mob associate Greg Bucceroni alleged that, after Hill's 1980 arrest, Jimmy Burke offered him money to arrange a meeting between Bucceroni and Hill at a Brooklyn grocery store so that Burke could have Hill murdered gangland fashion, but Bucceroni decided quietly against any involvement with the hit on Hill. Shortly afterwards, Burke and several other Lucchese crime family members were arrested by federal authorities.

Hill testified against his former associates to avoid a possible execution by his crew or going to prison for his crimes. His testimony led to 50 convictions.

Jimmy Burke was given 20 years in prison for the 1978–79 Boston College point shaving scandal, involving fixing Boston College basketball games. Burke was also later sentenced to life in prison for the murder of scam artist Richard Eaton. Burke died of cancer while serving his life sentence, on April 13, 1996. He was 69.

Paul Vario received four years for helping Henry Hill obtain a no-show job to get him paroled from prison. Vario was also later sentenced to ten years in prison for the extortion of air freight companies at JFK Airport. He died of respiratory failure on November 22, 1988, at age 73 while incarcerated in the FCI Federal Prison in Fort Worth.

Hill, his wife Karen, and their two children (Gregg and Gina) entered the U.S. Marshals' Witness Protection Program in 1980, changed their names, and moved to undisclosed locations in Omaha, Nebraska; Independence, Kentucky; Redmond, Washington; and Seattle, Washington. In Seattle, Hill hosted backyard cookouts for his neighbors, and on one occasion, while under the influence of a combination of liquor and drugs, he revealed his true identity to his guests. To the ire of the federal marshals, they were forced to relocate him one final time to Sarasota, Florida. There, a few months had passed, and Hill repeated the same breach of security, causing the government to finally expel him from the Federal Witness Protection Program.

Hill was arrested in 1987 on narcotics-related charges in Seattle, where he was living in the Wedgwood neighborhood under the name of Alex Canclini. In 1989, he and his wife Karen divorced after 25 years of marriage.

Due to his numerous crimes while in witness protection, Hill (along with his wife) were expelled from the program in the early 1990s. After the 1987 arrest, Hill claimed to be clean until he was arrested in North Platte, Nebraska, in March 2005. Hill had left his luggage at Lee Bird Field Airport in North Platte, Nebraska, containing drug paraphernalia, glass tubes with cocaine and methamphetamine residue. In September 2005, he was sentenced to 180 days imprisonment for attempted methamphetamine possession.

Hill was a painter and he sold his artwork on eBay, and was a frequent guest on The Howard Stern Show. Hill, who previously claimed to have never killed anyone, admitted on The Howard Stern Show to being ordered by Vario to kill three people, which he says he did comply with.

He was sentenced to two years probation on March 26, 2009. On December 14, 2009, he was arrested in Fairview Heights, Illinois, for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest which Hill attributed to his drinking problems.

In August 2011, Henry Hill appeared in the special "Mob Week" on AMC. He and other former mob members talked about The Godfather, Goodfellas, and other such mob films. On February 14, 2012, he was put in the Las Vegas Mob Museum and in April 2012, he interviewed for "mobsters" about Jimmy Burke and Tommy DeSimone to air that summer.

In October 2002 Henry Hill wrote a cookbook called The Wiseguy Cookbook: My Favorite Recipes From My Life As A Goodfella To Cooking On The Run. Henry shares some of his stories and recipes he’s learned from his family, his years in the Mob, and ones that he came up with himself. Hill’s last supper on the day he got busted for drugs was rolled veal cutlets, sauce with pork butt, veal shanks, and ziti, green beans with olive oil and garlic.

Hill worked for a time as a chef at an Italian restaurant in Nebraska and his spaghetti sauce, Sunday Gravy, was marketed over the internet. Hill opened another restaurant, Wiseguys, in West Haven, Connecticut, in October 2007.

On October 7, 2014 Henry Hill was featured on ESPN Films: 30 for 30 "Playing for the Mob". It was based on the fixing of the Boston College basketball games in 1978 and 1979, Hill reveals the details behind the point shaving scandal along with the testimony from the players and federal investigators involved. Ray Liotta also guest starred as the narrator.

Hill died in a Los Angeles hospital on June 12, 2012, one day after his 69th birthday. Hill's girlfriend for the last 14 years of his life, Lisa Caserta, said: "He had been sick for a long time and that his heart gave out." and CBS News reported Caserta saying: "he went out pretty peacefully, for a goodfella."

She said Hill recently suffered a heart attack before his death and that Hill died of complications from longtime heart problems related to smoking. Hill's family was present when he died. Hill was cremated the day after his death.




Sources: Wikipedia

This work is released through CC 3.0 BY-SA: Creative Commons


 





Thursday, September 1, 2016

Sabrina Carpenter: Teen Star

She's a teen star who is starting to make her mark in the "real" world, not just in the Disney realm. One to watch for the next few years ... and beyond.

Sabrina Ann Lynn Carpenter (born May 11, 1999) is an American singer, songwriter and actress. She stars as the young version of Chloe Goodwin in The Goodwin Games and as Maya Hart in the Disney Channel series Girl Meets World. She is signed to Hollywood Records.

Carpenter booked her first acting role in 2011, a guest role on the NBC drama series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. She played a young rape victim interviewed by Detective Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni). Around the same time, she performed live on the Chinese television station Hunan Broadcasting System, for the Gold Mango Audience festival. She performed Etta James' "Something's Got a Hold on Me", in the style of Christina Aguilera from the movie Burlesque. Less than two years later, Carpenter booked a series recurring role on Fox's The Goodwin Games as Young Chloe, a series regular role on Disney Channel pilot Gulliver Quinn and the ABC pilot The Unprofessional.

She portrayed young Merrin in the 2013 film Horns. Carpenter performed "Smile" for the album Disney Fairies: Faith, Trust And Pixie Dust"; the song charted on Radio Disney. Her song "All You Need" is featured on the Sofia the First soundtrack.

In January 2013, Carpenter was cast as Maya Hart in the Disney Channel series Girl Meets World, opposite Rowan Blanchard. The series is a sequel to the 1993-2000 ABC series Boy Meets World. On March 14, 2014, Carpenter's debut single, "Can't Blame A Girl For Trying", premiered on Radio Disney, and was released on iTunes later in the day. The song is the title track on her debut EP which was released on April 8 and was generally well received. Carpenter is featured on the Girl Meets World theme song, "Take On The World", which also features her co-star Blanchard. Carpenter contributed to the song "Stand Out" in the Disney Channel Original Movie How to Build a Better Boy, which premiered August 15, 2014, on Disney Channel. On July 20, 2014, Carpenter contributed lead vocals to Disney Channel Circle of Stars's cover version of "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?". In January 2015, it was announced that Carpenter, along with Sofia Carson, will star in a Disney Channel Original Movie Further Adventures in Babysitting, based on the movie Adventures in Babysitting.

On February 22, Carpenter announced the title of her debut album Eyes Wide Open. It is preceded by the debut single "We'll Be the Stars" which was released on January 13, 2015. It was originally to be released April 21, 2015, but the release date got moved and the album was released on April 14, 2015. In 2015 she won a Radio Disney Music Award in the category "Best Crush Song" for her song "Can't Blame a Girl For Trying".

In December 2015 Carpenter portrayed the role of Wendy in the Pasadena Playhouse's production of Peter Pan and Tinker Bell: A Pirate's Christmas.

In August 2015 it was reported that Sabrina had begun work on her second album. On November 5, 2015 she unveiled the artwork for her new single, "Christmas the Whole Year Round", which was released a week later. On February 2, 2016 Sabrina Carpenter announced via social media, the first single from her second album, "Smoke and Fire", was released on February 19, 2016. Speaking of the single, Sabrina said: "Smoke and Fire was the first story that I was waiting to tell out of the many stories from the second album... I kind of write wherever I go. I'm always writing down things in my phone and in my notes on stuff that inspired me and stuff that I see in everyday life, or even just fun words."



Sources: Wikipedia

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