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Ricky Powell — famed photographer and iconoclast — died yesterday, at the age of 59. “The Rickster” made his name as a tour photographer for the Beastie Boys and Run DMC in the mid-80s. Through his lens, he captured the first Golden Age of NYC hip-hop and became famous in his own right, often called “The 4th Beastie Boy” after being shouted out in the lyrics of “Car Thief” on Paul’s Boutique.

To honor Ricky’s life, we asked photographer Mel D. Cole to share his memories and reflections with us. As adept with words as with images, Mel paints a picture of a man whose place in the culture and the vintage New York firmament is unquestionable and whose charisma was balanced out by an impeccable bullshit detector.

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I met Ricky Powell in 2007. By that point, people had been telling me that my photos reminded them of his work for at least five years — which was flattering because I knew so many of his classic images. Most people know the Run DMC/ Eiffel Tower shot, but there are lots of others.

The man photographed Warhol.

As rap photographers, we had a lot of mutual friends and, finally, we met at a party. The connection was instant — I admired him and, once he saw my work, the respect went both ways. He would introduce me to people as “the Black Ricky Powell,” which I found lovely.

This was a man who would call people cornballs right to their faces. One of those people who, if he doesn’t like you, he doesn’t like you. If he does like you, you can’t help but be flattered.

One of my favorite stories:

I had this “turkey burger” party at my friend’s place in Jersey City, and I invited Ricky. He’s one of those people where if you have him over it’s not gonna be boring. Something’s gonna happen. You always had to expect the unexpected.

My friend Shawn Morrissey was there, I was surprising him — because he was the biggest Ricky Powell fan. Had all his books, prints, everything. Ricky walks in and Shawn couldn’t speak, he was completely starstruck.

After a minute, Ricky starts getting weirded out and says, “Damnnnnn, you’re looking at me like I owe you money or something. Do I know you?” But out of that awkwardness, they became friends — hanging out and texting all the time.

He could be harsh like that, but he was also open to connection. His life was big but there was space in it, too.

Over the years, Ricky taught me a lot — directly and indirectly — and motivated me to learn, both from his work and from his mistakes. He got to a point where he had an amazing catalog that he lived off of, but he got stuck professionally for many years after his heyday. This pushed me to be known as more than “the guy who takes photos of The Roots.”

You couldn’t have told him to do more, though. His life was full. He might not have it all, but he’d had it all. And there wasn’t regret about how anything worked out, from what I could see.

How could there be? He did everything his exact style. No imitation. So when he got tired of what he’d been doing, he just moved on. His inspiration changed and he started shooting dogs and cats.

Sure, he got in his own way a lot. But who was gonna tell him to change? He liked his place in the world; he was “The Rickster.”

I remember I took Ricky to a Roots show in 2009. He hadn’t seen Questlove in a while and you could just tell that he was having such a good time. He looked so happy — walking around with this little radio where he’d listen to jazz music.

You see what I mean about an original?

Ricky pulled it off so easily. Smoking his invisible jazz cigarettes. No one questioned him because he was 100% himself. He kept it more than a buck, always, and people felt that.

I want to talk about being in his apartment, which you can see in the photo above, by Aviva Klein. We took that in 2008. It was like a museum in there and only a few people got to come in.

Inside, it was like… gross but in the most amazing way. You’d want to ask questions about his artifacts and his interests — basketball, the Knicks, Clyde Frazier, concert passes and posters of rappers, Keith Haring art, 50s-era pin-up girls next to fucking Basquiat.

This guy had stories about everyone. And he had no patience for fakes. “Cornball” was one of his favorite words to refer to people he did not fuck with.

There are people out there who look like other people, act like other people, talk like other people. That wasn’t Ricky. He wore glasses with one arm for years — just walking around and going to parties like that — and you couldn’t tell him to get them fixed.

It wasn’t his priority. He had no one to impress.

There’s this specific type of authenticity that certain New Yorkers from that era had. You couldn’t fake it or imitate it; social media and TV hadn’t destroyed regionality yet. Ricky was that era of New Yorker.

He was an icon; an institution.

When I got the call that Ricky died, I wasn’t surprised. It wasn’t a shock, it was just fucking sad.

I’ll miss him giving me that “Yeowwwww, let’s go smoke a doobie.” Which always felt good because if he liked you, he respected you. And if he didn’t like you… he had no filter for that.

He didn’t give a fuck. And yet, to know him was to care about him. Not many people can pull that balance off.

He’s the guy who we accepted for exactly who he is. Nobody could ever even think about changing Ricky Powell — it makes me smile just to think about someone trying. He was unchangeable to the very end.

And we all loved him for it.

Monday night’s Hawks-Lakers game in Atlanta gave us one of the strangest and most entertaining beefs of the NBA season so far. At some point, a fan who was sitting courtside started heckling LeBron James, as if his recent response to a Cavs GM attempts to rattle him weren’t enough of a cautionary tale that it’s best not to poke the bear.

LeBron, who’s no stranger to taunts from fans, engaged in a little back-and-forth with said fan, which then prompted his wife, who was also sitting courtside, to stand up and start hurtling obscenities. They were subsequently removed from the arena. But it didn’t quite end there.

The woman, who LeBron dubbed “Courtside Karen,” later went online to defend herself, saying that she was simply sticking up for her husband. LeBron, for his part, has shrugged the whole thing and even went so far as to say they shouldn’t have been ejected from the arena. Now, it appears the woman, whose real name is Juliana Carlos, apologized in an Instagram post.

‘Courtside Karen’ issues a statement via IG stories pic.twitter.com/AdH8BYQy4g

— NBA Retweet (@RTNBA) February 2, 2021

Trash-talking, even with fans, is a part of the game, but there is a line that gets crossed every now and then, and this is a good opportunity to take a step back and evaluate the right way to handle situations like this.

Almost a month after Donald Trump supporters assaulted the U.S. Capitol building in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has issued an apology to his staff for being a tad too overzealous in her support of all things MAGA — including buying into the conspiracy theories that led to the insurrection on January 6. Via The Washington Post:

“I owe you all an apology. I have likely imposed on you my lifetime passions,” Thomas, who goes by Ginni, recently wrote to a private Thomas Clerk World email list of her husband’s staff over his three decades on the bench. “My passions and beliefs are likely shared with the bulk of you, but certainly not all. And sometimes the smallest matters can divide loved ones for too long. Let’s pledge to not let politics divide THIS family, and learn to speak more gently and knowingly across the divide.”

However, Thomas support for the MAGA riot wasn’t contained to just the private chat. On the morning of January 6, she voiced her “love” for the demonstration on her now-private Facebook page, and only after the deaths were reported did she amend the post to add “[Note: written before violence in US Capitol]” according to Slate. Thomas is also a vocal opponent of Black Lives Matter and government shutdowns to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, which she often expressed on Facebook along with sharing conspiracy theories that Jewish billionaire George Soros was organizing a secret “coup” to oust Trump. Not good!

(Via The Washington Post)

EA Sports is getting back in the college football game sometime soon. While details are pretty sparse, EA Sports College Football is somewhere on the horizon, with the news dropping on Tuesday morning to the delight of the legions of gamers who have been jonesing for a new release since NCAA Football 14 came out in 2013.

One detail we do know is that more than 100 teams will appear in the game, and EA Sports will agree to licenses with licensing company CLC. Those specific teams are, of course, unclear for now, but there is no doubt in my mind what school must make a cameo: Flavortown U.

The good news is that Flavortown U chancellor and tenured good vibes professor Guy Fieri very much wants this to be the case. Fieri tweeted on Tuesday afternoon a picture of himself wearing what appears to be a Clemson uniform and sure as heck makes it look like he wants to get into some sort of agreement with EA Sports to make this into a reality.

So, obviously, this needs to happen. An entire roster of Food Network personalities in EA Sports College Football would be a delightful Easter egg in the game, and the good news is they would have the most important position in the sport all figured out because former Florida quarterback Jesse Palmer gets that Holiday Baking Championship money. I am confident that if EA Sports and various decision-makers at Flavortown U sat down to hammer out a deal that something would come of it.

What happened at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 was a violation. Even Americans observing from home felt it. The loss of security. The destruction in the seat of our democracy. The peaceful transfer of power tradition broken. The flag of the United States being replaced by the flag of Donald Trump.

The details of the storming of the Capitol have only gotten worse as more footage has come out. It’s now clear how narrowly our lawmakers escaped a rabid mob who had built gallows and chanted “Hang Mike Pence!”, who sent men dressed in tactical gear and carrying flex cuffs into Congress chambers, who dared to carry white supremacist symbols through the hallowed halls as they trespassed, leaving a trail of literal piss and shit behind them.

Few Congress members have given detailed accounts of what they personally experienced that day, but there’s no question it was traumatic for everyone involved. Lawmakers had to flee for their lives. People were killed in their workplace as they hid from the insurrectionists. They survived a terrorist attack. That’s a big deal.

But it would be wrong to pretend the threat was equal for all lawmakers. Republican members of Congress who peddled election lies were not the target of the attack (some, in fact, appeared to be on the side of the insurrectionists). Considering the nature of the mob and what they were there for, the worst position to be in that day was to be Democrat woman of color.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fits that bill. As an attractive, outspoken woman, she has also been a specific target of violent and often sexualized death threats online since she came to Congress. But it’s one thing to deal with online trolls, even particularly troubling ones, and another to know that there is a mob who wants to kill you roaming the halls of your workplace looking for you.

Other women of color who serve in Congress spoke of their trauma and fears of the racist mob during the attack in a piece published on Slate yesterday. But AOC took to Instagram Live last night to share a much more detailed account of what she personally experienced.

The full video (shared below) is long, but it’s worth watching. After making it clear that it’s her personal story, not “the” story of the Capitol attack, she shared a detail that informed her experience and shouldn’t be brushed aside. AOC is a sexual assault survivor—an admission she’d never made publicly before. It’s an important detail because 1) It’s not uncommon—approximately 1 in 5 American women have survived a rape or attempted rape, which means it’s statistically likely that many other members of Congress are also survivors, and 2) That trauma colors other traumatic experiences—such as surviving a terrorist attack—since trauma tends to compound.

AOC’s description of how she hid in the bathroom and thought she was going to die is harrowing, but details in the story require an understanding of her perspective as a survivor. For instance, as she was hiding in the bathroom, a man came into her office yelling “WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS SHE?” In those few seconds, she literally thought she was going to die. It turned out the man was a Capitol Police officer, but he didn’t announce himself as such. As she was hiding behind the bathroom door, all she could see was that he was a white man in a beanie cap. When her aide told her it was safe to come out, she did, but even then she said something didn’t feel right, as the officer looked at her with anger and hostility.

She questioned if she was projecting. Maybe she was. That’s the thing about having survived a sexual assault and knowing you’re a target in an attack—you really don’t know who you can trust. And considering how terribly prepared law enforcement was for the attack, she had reason to be fearful.

The officer told her and her aide to flee to another building but didn’t tell them exactly where to go. She ended up banging on the door of Rep. Katie Porter’s office and hiding out in there for hours. She changed out of her heels and into gym shoes that belonged to one of Porter’s aides and borrowed a puffer jacket from Porter in case she needed to escape out a window and blend in with the mob. She worried about the aides who were willing to put themselves in between the mob and the lawmakers.

The simple telling of the story, with AOC talking straight into the camera, is powerful. It’s a reminder that this is not just about politics, but about human beings, that what they experienced in that attack was real, and terrifying, and traumatic. And most importantly, it makes it clear that calls to “move on,” as if the attack wasn’t really a big deal or should just be forgotten, are wrong.

That point cannot be made any clearer. The lawmakers who don’t want people held accountable for the Big Lie that led to American citizens attacking their own government in a violent coup attempt are wrong. The attack on the Capitol wasn’t just a random blip—it was an enormously big deal. According to the Coup D’etat Project at the University of Illinois’ Cline Center—an academic group dedicated to studying government overthrows around the world—Jan 6 was an “attempted coup d’état: an organized, illegal attempt to intervene in the presidential transition by displacing the power of the Congress to certify the election.”

An attempted coup on behalf of an outgoing president who refused to accept the results of an election is unprecedented and unAmerican. And yet lawmakers are refusing to accept and acknowledge their role in supporting the basis for the coup. Even worse, some have called for AOC to apologize for being angry at the lawmakers who pushed the Big Lie—which she rightly called out as a manipulation tactic used by abusers to avoid accountability.

Unfortunately, one of the reasons people don’t speak about traumatic experiences is that they fear they won’t be believed. Not being believed just adds to the trauma, but it’s a common scenario with sexual assault, as well as domestic violence and other forms of abuse. Considering the video footage we have of the Capitol attack, AOC’s account of what she experienced is totally believable, but she’s still being attacked for being “overly dramatic” or making it all up or using it as a way to manipulate people.

She literally just shared her experience and how she feels about it. Is she supposed to not do that? Is she supposed to remains silent so people don’t have to be reminded of the trauma the whole nation has experienced? So that people culpable in the Big Lie can remain comfortable despite the trauma they contributed to? Eff that.

Telling her story is an act of courage and hopefully it will inspire other Congress members to share their own accounts. It shouldn’t be necessary, and no one should feel pressured to relive their trauma for all the world to see, but since there’s a whole lot of denial going on, we need to hear these stories to get the full picture of what the Capitol attack entailed and what it meant. There can be no “moving on” without fully investigating this attack on our country and holding those responsible for it accountable. To suggest otherwise is simply wrong.

A few years ago, the NBA All-Star Game was badly in need of a shake-up. All of annual festivities leading up to the main event continued to be the strongest of the bunch, but the game itself had longed ceased to have any sense of urgency and, at its worst, had devolved into a glorified pick-up game featuring the world’s best players that lacked anything even approaching intensity.

After the borderline unwatchable 2017 game in New Orleans, the league made the savvy move to create team captains and allow those captains to choose their own squads from the pool of players who earned All-Star nods. It was just the punch it needed, and the following year gave us one of the best All-Star Games in recent memory.

But this year, with the pandemic raging on and teams across the leagued hit hard by COVID itself or the healthy and safety protocols associated with it, the 2021 All-Star Weekend is set to be a massively scaled-down event that will reportedly take place on a single evening in Atlanta following the mid-season break in early March. Part of that will also include reverting back to the original format that pits the East All-Stars against the West.

Via Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN:

The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association are progressing toward an agreement for an All-Star Game on March 7 at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, a single-night event that encompasses a game between the Eastern and Western Conferences and skills competitions, sources told ESPN.

Many across the league are divided about the prospect of holding the game, given the safety issues involved. Yet, the league appears to be close to finalizing an agreement to move forward with plans to host one of the NBA’s most popular events of the season. The game will reportedly benefit historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) and COVID relief efforts.

(ESPN)

Tiffany Haddish Presents: They Ready: Season 2 (Netflix series) — Netflix’s stellar run of stand-up comedy specials took a bit of a breather in late 2020, but there’s some excellent news on the horizon. Girl’s Trip star Tiffany Haddish will return with a fresh collection of half-hour specials that includes a diverse crop of comedians who are near and dear to Haddish. These players include Chaunté Wayans (Wild n’ Out), April Macie (Last Comic Standing), Tracey Ashley (The Last O.G.), Aida Rodriguez (Comedy Central’s This Week at the Comedy Cellar), Flame Monroe (Def Comedy Jam), and Marlo Williams (BET’s Comicview). This season won’t drop a moment too soon because we could really use the laughs.

Fake Famous (HBO Documentary, 9:00pm) — Veteran journalist Nick Bilton’s a first time director here while journeying into the bizarre world of Los Angeles-based social media influencers who are jacking up their own followings in illicit ways, including armies of bots and purchases of fake followers. Look out for the costs of this immersive lifestyle to come roaring in from the sidelines.

Kid Cosmic (Netflix series) — This one is mostly for the younger crowd, but one never knows. The story follows an imaginative young boy who wishes to become a hero and stumbles upon 5 Cosmic Stones of Power in a spaceship that’s wrecked in the desert. Then he must assemble a team of fellow heroes to take back the stones. Sounds familiar?

Mixed-Ish (ABC, 9:30pm) — Rainbow is put in charge while Alicia and Denise are at odds over tho is the stronger Black woman while Paul and Harrison consider the concept of affection.

Black-Ish (ABC, 9:00pm) — Dre attempts to educate her white cousin on how to best be an ally, against the better judgement of Bow. And Olivia is attempting to psychoanalyze everyone, which should go over well.

Prodigal Son (FOX, 9:00pm) — The NYPD heads into a murder investigation in Martin’s territory, and he is utterly delighted as a result.

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist (NBC, 8:00pm) — Zoe gets rebellious while dealing with a childhood neighbor, Aiden, and Max’s dad pops around for a visit.

Two Sentence Horror Stories (CW, 8:00pm) — A young woman who works at a nail salon is alarmed at the physical toll she soon feels after a shift, so she suspects a more sinister happening. Gross.

Trickster (CW, 9:00pm) — Jared’s discovery about his parents throws him for a loop, and then he learns that he’s in danger with Georgina. Also, Jared might be a Trickster.

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert — Zendaya, Father James Martin

The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon — Drew Barrymore, Talib; Nilüfer Yanya

Late Night With Seth Meyers — David Duchovny, Elizabeth Olsen, Wright Thompson

In case you missed these recent picks:

Everwood: All Seasons (Warner Bros. series on HBO Max) — One of Greg Berlanti’s most beloved series returns with two MCU stars in tow. Revisit Chris Pratt’s early aughts hair and marvel at how Emily VanCamp manages to look cool, and almost like she still appears today, beside the guy who who would go on to play Star-Lord. To be slightly more serious, this is an opportunity to catch up on all four seasons of a a dramedy that’s set in a fictional, idyllic Colorado town, where a city boy attempts to fit into the small-community vibe and relationships of all types swirl after a Manhattan physician decides to transplant to Everwood. There’s plenty of bright (and Pratt’s character is actually named Bright) and tragic and heartwarming moments to be found in this show.

Babylon 5: All Seasons (Warner Bros. series on HBO Max) — WarnerMedia’s streaming service keeps adding to its throwback library (last Wednesday, they did all of Everwood), and now, here’s something for the nerds. Revisit the futuristic space opera that takes place across five seasons and five miles of space station. There’s plenty of potential warfare concerning the Earth Alliance and plenty of personal drama.

This Friday on Youtube, Nipsey Hussle fans will be able to catch a “visual album experience” titled The Marathon live at 6 pm PT / 9 pm ET. The video was teased by Nipsey’s Instagram, the Marathon Clothing account, and by animation studio Oki Doki, who apparently handled the rendering on the visuals. Oki Doki’s account describes the stream as “Celebrating the life of an incredible human, the Marathon mixtape, and the first week of #BlackHistoryYear.”

From what little we’ve seen, the experience appears to be a stunning visual tribute to the late, great Nipsey Hussle, as well as his beloved Crenshaw neighborhood of Los Angeles. Nipsey’s estate first teased the project in December of 2020, writing, “In commemoration of this anniversary we’re proud to announce our collaborative effort with @okidoki to bring to life an interactive live visual album experience coming in 2021. The experience will give viewers [an] intimate look at the era that helped shape this masterpiece. The people, the places, the stories, and more.”

Meanwhile, Nipsey Hussle’s voice made a posthumous appearance on his All Money In artist J Stone’s new album The Definition Of Pain, with J Stone assuring fans more new music is on the way.

Tune in to The Marathon visual album experience on Friday 6pm PT / 9pm ET on YouTube.

If you missed the virtual film screenings for Minari throughout the fall, A24 has you covered. “.@MinariMovie is for everyone! That’s why we’re launching the A24 Screening Room, with virtual screenings starting Feb 12 in addition to a limited theatrical release,” the distributer tweeted on Tuesday.

This is excellent news as Minari, starring Steven Yeun as the father of a Korean-American family who moves from California to a small town in Arkansas, was one of the best movies of 2020. It’s sweet, it’s sad, and there’s a very good recurring joke about Mountain Dew that I won’t ruin. Minari is also expected to an Oscars contender, including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay for writer and director Lee Isaac Chung, and a possible historic nomination for Yeun. Here’s more about the film:

A tender and sweeping story about what roots us, Minari follows a Korean-American family that moves to an Arkansas farm in search of their own American Dream. The family home changes completely with the arrival of their sly, foul-mouthed, but incredibly loving grandmother. Amidst the instability and challenges of this new life in the rugged Ozarks, Minari shows the undeniable resilience of family and what really makes a home.

To buy tickets for the virtual screenings, click here.

After scoring over $30,000 during the Reddit traders run on GameStop stocks last week, college student Hunter Kahn made it a point to bring happiness to other’s lives with his new wealth. The Cornell University student personally delivered a treasure trove of Nintendo Switch consoles, games, and accessories to Children’s Minnesota Hospital. “There’s no group of people more deserving of receiving a bunch of video games than some kids going through a hard time,” Kahn told CNN who confirmed the donation after the real life Robin Hood’s generosity went viral. Here’s the message Kahn wrote in an effort to encourage others to share their GameStop wealth via Instagram:

As a beneficiary of the recent events on Wall Street I think it is important that myself and others pay forward our good fortune. These events have highlighted a lot of corruption and with this transfer of power it is important that we don’t become men in suits ourselves. I am proud to announce my humble donation of 6 Nintendo Switches and games to go with them to the Children’s Minnesota Hospital.

You can see Kahn’s full post below:

As for the kids, they were thrilled to receive the Nintendo Switch consoles and are already putting them to good use, according to Children’s Minnesota Foundation president Jennifer Soderholm who thanked Kahn for the surprising donation. “We’re so grateful for this generous donation that will help bring joy to kids at our hospitals, especially during these challenging times,” she told CNN in a statement. “It’s inspiring to see young people in our community choosing to give back and pay it forward.”

(Via CNN)