COVID CONVOS — As Coronavirus Cases Surge, Sacramento Shuts Things Down For July 4th

Private gatherings with people who don’t live with you are prohibited, and residents are asked to remain in their cars if they attend Independence Day fireworks shows. With coronavirus cases and related hospitalizations surging across the country, and California emerging as a new COVID-19 hotbed, Sacramento County is shutting things back down. Rarely have we …

EXCLUSIVE! Broadway Legend Lillias White Wants Us To “Get Happy”

“This new album is a balm. It’s a salve. It’s something that will hopefully get people back on track, to be loving, and to find the sunshine through the rain.” By Michael P Coleman When you think of flat footed soul belters, Tony Award-winner Lillias White may not come immediately to mind. But since the …

COVID CONVOS — Words Of Wisdom From California’s Surgeon General On Face Coverings

By Michael P Coleman With California’s new mandatory mask edict, discussions about face coverings and coronavirus are at a fever pitch. While some believe that the use of face coverings is a temporary, necessary act that will help us all manage coronavirus and is in the best interest of community public health, others think that …

EXCLUSIVE! Deborah Joy Winans Discusses Greenleaf’s Final Season

“For so long, it felt like you had to have been a certain kind of good to walk into church or even feel like you could pray. Our show has broken that barrier.“ By Michael P Coleman The wait is almost over! Tonight, OWN’s critically acclaimed drama, Greenleaf, returns with its fifth and final season. …

This Father’s Day, Take Someone Under Your Wing

Father’s Day is this weekend, so jump onto Amazon and, as Spike Lee once said, do the right thing! Even if the card or present (I’ll save you some time: we prefer the latter) is late, the father or father figure in your life will still love and appreciate that you thought of him. My …

Juneteenth, the Kwanzaa of 2020

I’m as tired, angry, frustrated, pummeled — you pick the adjective — as the next black man, weathering a global pandemic, open season on black men, and a maniac in the Oval Office. But Juneteenth? A “holiday” to commemorate a 1865 event? I’ll save you the Google search: a white general rode into a town …

EXCLUSIVE! Remembering Diana Ross’ Jazz Concert, 1992’s Stolen Moments with producer Ben Sidran and saxophonist Ralph Moore

Like Jazz, it only happens once…A Stolen Moment. It’s a line a wish I’d written, and was used to promote a 1992 concert that was to be Diana Ross’ first foray into jazz in two decades. The show would result in the finest live recording of Ross’ career thus far. The tag line perfectly encapsulates …

Will Smith Was Just The Right Men for Gemini Man

Will Smith is a phenomenal, Academy Award-winning actor who quite surprisingly manages to sink films as easily as he carries them. Watching anything he does is a bit of a crap shoot. For every Independence Day, there’s an Aladdin…or worse, a Planet Earth. But after the last few weeks of coronavirus and lynched black men …

COVID CONVOS — Restrictions Are Loosening, But The Virus Is Still Here

Along with states and counties nationwide, Sacramento County is loosening COVID-19 restrictions. They’ve just amended the Public Health Order that is related to coronavirus restrictions, effective at 11:59am Friday, June 12. The amended Health Order supersedes previous orders. Businesses like bars and wineries, hotels, campgrounds, gyms, pools, family entertainment centers (including zoos, museums, movie theaters, …

Mitt Romney Marched With Black Lives Matter In Washington DC

THAT is a headline that I never thought we’d see! In early February, I praised Republican Mitt Romney for opposing both his party and our president during Donald Trump’s impeachment hearings. That took courage, and my piece suggested that he could have earned my presidential vote. It would have been the first time I ever …