Meet Sonny James - Coming to The Lodge in May

Sonny James (aka: Statik) is an amazing DJ out of Philly, representing one part of the Illvibe Collective with partner, Matthew Law (aka: Phsh). Sonny Was recently featured by DJ Jazzy Jeff as a part of the mix tape series, Your Favorite DJ's Favorite DJ (see the video short with Jazzy Jeff below). I personally got the chance to meet Sonny and see him in action for the first time last month when he came through DC as a surprise guest of Rich Medina (see images here). The crowd was in awe of both his technical abilities and the selections he picked. Sonny totally had the packed house rocking!  

Directly to the right is a live mix Sonny James just made while a guest of the Berlin radio show, Hip Hop Don't Stop. Sonny is in Germany throughout the week playing a number of venues, including one of our favorites, Tube Station.

We are looking forward to having Sonny James back in the states with partner, Matthew Law on Saturday 5/10 at The Lodge At Red Rocks. As always, The Lodge is NO COVER. Add it to your calendar.  

GIAM presents HIPHOP DON´T STOP & Friends. Was euch erwartet: Live-Mixe verschiedenster Künstler, Interviews und noch vieles mehr, also hört rein :) Dieses Mal mit einem Mix von Sonny James (Illvibe Collective/Philly) DJ STATIK aka. SONNY JAMES http://www.mrsonnyjames.com/ https://soundcloud.com/mrsonnyjames Für alle, die die letzten Shows verpasst haben, hier könnt ihr in alle Shows reinhören und free downloaden: Tracklist: Red 2 Go - Danny Brown The Motion - Drake Versus - Jay-Z Jumanji - Azealia Banks Collard Greens - Schoolboy Q ft. Kendrick Lamar Toxic - Childish Gambino ft. Danny Brown Jamba - Tyler The Creator ft. Hodgy Beats It Concerns Me - Action Bronson & Party Supplies Chilled Coughpee - Curren$y ft. Devin The Dude We Taking Off - Busta Rhymes & Q-Tip Walk of Shame - Cane A Hunned Proof (Premier) - Illvibe Collective x Writtenhouse ft. Fatnice Shitsville - Freddie Gibbs & Madlib Once You Pick It Up (Premier) - Hezekiah Land of the Crooks - Sean Price & M-Phazes Made In Black America - Common ft. Ab-Soul Art Imitates Life - Talib Kweli ft. Black Thought, Rah Digga and Albe. Back Trillmatic - A$AP Mob ft. Method Man Duck Sauce - Mack Wilds & Pete Rock

http://www.djjazzyjeff.com/your-favorite-djs-favorite-deejays

Birthplace of Cronut Shut Down by Health Department

infested!

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New York City residents and tourists are apparently not alone in their love of Cronuts, those croissant-and-doughnut hybrids that have people lined up for blocks before dawn outside a SoHo bakery.

Online video showing a mouse running around in the Dominique Ansel Bakery on Spring Street, which shot to fame after its eponymous chef created the pastry, led health officials to temporarily shut the shop on Friday.

The closing was reported on Friday on the website Gothamist, which noted that the bakery had been open earlier in the day.

Inspectors from the city’s health department found a severe mouse infestation at the bakery requiring professional pest control, and the bakery cannot reopen until inspectors determine the problem has been fixed, an agency statement said.

No one answered calls to the bakery on Friday evening, but in a statement to Gothamist, a representative said employees had spent seven hours cleaning the bakery and the chef had been down on his knees searching for a mouse.

“They didn’t find anything and anticipate it may have come from the outside as we have a greenhouse and park with doors opened during the nicer weather days,” the representative said. “As you guys know, cleanliness is something that is of utmost importance to us and in the close to three years we’ve been opened we have received nothing but A’s on our health inspects.”

It was not the first time the bakery was cited for having uninvited visitors with more than two legs. It received an A grade after its last inspection in October, though inspectors found evidence of mice and flies in areas where food was prepared and served, according to health department records.

The video of the mouse was posted to YouTube on Thursday by a customer and had been viewed more than 50,000 times by Friday night.

The bakery will probably be closed over the weekend to allow workers to re-cement the basement, according to a bakery spokeswoman, who told WNBC that the bakery hoped to open on Monday after another inspection.

New York Times

Kendal Jenner's Cornrows Upset Twitter

 *new* 

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About three hours ago, Marie Claire sent out a tweet acknowledging Kendall Jenner’s braids she sported almost a year ago. As we reported on Tuesday, the Kardashians are currently in Thailand for work and play. Jenner, along with her sisters Kim and Khloe Kardashian have been posting tons of pictures from the trip, including shots similar to this one.

The women’s publication put up the photo with the caption, “Kendall Jenner takes bold braids to a new epic level.” And immediately, all hell broke loose.

Black Twitter, as it’s affectionately called, quickly spoke up.

 

Via TMZ

Poisoned Sausages Being Given To Dogs In Baltimore

Dog owners in the Hampden neighborhood of Baltimore are on high alert since a resident discovered several pieces of poisoned sausage strewn about her backyard.

Hampden resident,Terri Galvan let her 4-year old pit bull, Maddie, out into the backyard Saturday night. After about 30 minutes, Galvan heard Maddie barking at something, then suddenly stop. When she went outside to check on her dog, she saw a man slowly walking up the alleyway behind her home. That’s when she discovered several slices of sausage stuffed with Tylenol in her backyard.

Tylenol’s active ingredient, acetaminophen, is highly toxic to both dogs and cats. Just a small amount of the medication ingested can cause irreparable liver damage, vomiting, jaundice, coma, or worse, death. The sausage slices found in Galvan’s yard contained upwards of 8 to 10 caplets of Tylenol each.

Thankfully, Galvan found and collected the sausages before Maddie ate any of them.

The man seen in the alley is described as a balding, heavy-set man in his late 50′s to 60′s. Galvan’s home is located on the 3400 block of Elm Avenue. The incident occurred around 11pm on Saturday.

Galvan told The Baltimore Sun she called 911 immediately, but that no officers arrived. She called again on Sunday, but again, no officers visited her home.

Tina Regester, a Maryland SPCA spokeswoman could not recall any confirmed animal poisoning cases in Hampden, but urges all pet parents to always supervise pets, even in their own backyards.

Recent accounts from around the country report similar incidents of poisoned treats and food being tossed in backyards, dog parks, or left along popular walking trails with the intention of harming pets.  Always keep an eye on your pet and carefully inspect your own yard before letting your dog outside.

Grandmother wrongly declared dead, frozen alive in hospital freezer before struggling to escape

Que Nightmares!

A family that claims a woman was frozen to death in a hospital morgue after she was prematurely declared dead can proceed with a medical malpractice lawsuit, an appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The California 2nd District Court of Appeal overturned a lower court ruling that the lawsuit against White Memorial Hospital was filed too late, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Maria de Jesus Arroyo, 80, was declared dead in July 2010 after suffering a heart attack and was placed in a freezer at the Boyle Heights White Memorial Medical Center. Morticians who received her body a few days later discovered that it was face down and the woman had a broken nose and disfiguring cuts and bruises to her face, according to court papers.

Arroyo’s husband and eight children filed a lawsuit that claimed her body was mishandled.

However, as the case was being heard in December 2011, a pathologist concluded the woman had been frozen alive, “eventually woke up” and caused the injuries herself during a failed struggle to escape her “frozen tomb,” according to court records.

The family withdrew the lawsuit and in May 2012 filed a medical-malpractice lawsuit. A judge in Los Angeles County Superior Court threw out the lawsuit, ruling that it was filed past the one-year statute of limitations.

However, the appellate court said the family had “absolutely no reason” to suspect that the woman was alive until the pathologist gave his expert opinion. The case now returns to the lower court for further proceedings.

The hospital has not addressed the allegation that Arroyo was prematurely declared dead, the Times said, citing court records.

A call seeking comment from a hospital representative on Wednesday was not immediately returned.

VIA National Post

Would Walmart’s Prices Spike If They Paid Their Employees More?

We all know Wally World Depends on Food Stamps, but what if they paid their workers a livable wage?

In the series “The Secret Life of a Food Stamp,” Marketplace reporter Krissy Clark traces how big-box stores make billions from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, aka food stamps. What’s more, the wages of many workers at these stores are so low that the workers themselves qualify for food stamps—which the employees then often spend at those big-box stores.

This video crunches the numbers on how much Walmart, the single biggest beneficiary of the food stamp economy, might have to raise prices across the board to help a typical worker earn a living wage.

A note on methodology: Eligibility for food stamps varies according to income, number of dependents, and other factors. This estimate of Walmart’s potential cost from raising wages is based on wages for a Walmart employee with one dependent working 30 hours a week, a typical retail worker based on federal data.

VIA Slate

US Takes Hard Stance On International Drug Fiend Nigella Lawson

Nigella Lawson has been banned from the US because of her court confession that she took cocaine.

Humiliatingly, the celebrity cook was stopped from boarding a flight from Heathrow to Los Angeles, the Daily Mail can reveal today.

Her television career in the U.S. - she is a judge on talent show The Taste - is now in peril.

The 54-year-old ‘Domestic Goddess’ was forced to confess under oath during a trial last year that she had snorted cocaine seven times and smoked cannabis in front of her children.

Although Scotland Yard did not act over her confession, the U.S. authorities are taking a tougher stance.

Miss Lawson arrived alone at Heathrow’s Terminal Five on Sunday morning to catch a direct British Airways flight to LA.

She is thought to have checked in and passed security before being told she could not board her plane. She had to return to the first class check-in to arrange to collect her hold luggage.

‘She didn’t seem to say much, but she did not look happy,’ said an onlooker. ‘She could not get on the flight so she had to turn around and leave.’

Miss Lawson is thought to have tried to enter the U.S. by registering online for permission to travel and confirming she had not been arrested or convicted of offences including taking illegal drugs. But the US can also decide to bar foreigners who have committed drugs offences without ever being charged. Would-be travellers can apply to have the ban lifted, but this can take months.

Miss Lawson wrote on Twitter in the early hours of Sunday that she was ‘packing for my holiday’ – including a picture of a sun hat and some Colman’s mustard.


VIA Daily Mail

David Letterman to Retire From CBS in 2015

In a move that will complete the generational transition in latenight, David Letterman is preparing to retire from CBS next year.

“The man who owns this network, Leslie Moonves, he and I have had a relationship for years and years and years, and we have had this conversation in the past, and we agreed that we would work together on this circumstance and the timing of this circumstance. And I phoned him just before the program, and I said ‘Leslie, it’s been great, you’ve been great, and the network has been great, but I’m retiring,’” Letterman said, according to a transcript issued by his PR rep.

“I just want to reiterate my thanks for the support from the network, all of the people who have worked here, all of the people in the theater, all the people on the staff, everybody at home, thank you very much. What this means now, is that Paul and I can be married.

“We don’t have the timetable for this precisely down – I think it will be at least a year or so, but sometime in the not too distant future, 2015 for the love of God, in fact, Paul and I will be wrapping things up.”

Afterward, Letterman received a standing ovation from the audience at the Ed Sullivan Theater.

Sources said there was no creative license in Letterman’s statement. CBS Corp. chief Moonves got the official word from Letterman on his decision to retire shortly before Thursday’s taping.

“When Dave decided on a one-year extension for his most recent contract, we knew this day was getting closer, but that doesn’t make the moment any less poignant for us,” Moonves said in a statement.

“For 21 years, David Letterman has graced our network’s air in late night with wit, gravitas and brilliance unique in the history of our medium. During that time, Dave has given television audiences thousands of hours of comedic entertainment, the sharpest interviews in late night, and brilliant moments of candor and perspective around national events. He’s also managed to keep many celebrities, politicians and executives on their toes – including me.

“There is only one David Letterman. His greatness will always be remembered here, and he will certainly sit among the pantheon of this business. On a personal note, it’s been a privilege to get to know Dave and to enjoy a terrific relationship. It’s going to be tough to say goodbye. Fortunately, we won’t have to do that for another year or so. Until then, we look forward to celebrating Dave’s remarkable show and incredible talents,” Moonves said.

Last year, Letterman re-upped his contract with the Eye network in a two-year deal that was expected to be his last. But sources close to the situation advised that Letterman may stick around a little bit longer past the August expiration of his current contract

As of next year, Letterman will have hosted “Late Show” on CBS for 22 years. He logged 11 years as host of NBC’s “Late Night” before famously being passed over at NBC for Johnny Carson’s throne on “The Tonight Show” — over Carson’s objection. Letterman has logged more than 6,000 episodes during his long career.

Word of Letterman’s plan spread quickly via Twitter on Thursday afternoon after musician Mike Mills, who appears on Thursday’s show, noted Letterman’s big news following the taping.

Letterman’s departure will cap a busy period of host shuffling in latenight following Jay Leno’s retirement from “The Tonight Show,” which made way for Jimmy Fallon to take the helm.

Staying on through 2015 will allow Letterman to comfortably outlast his longtime rival, although Leno had the ratings advantage during most of his 22-year run on NBC. Sources close to the situation were also adamant that the decision was Letterman’s, with no nudge from CBS despite the fact that he is now going up against much younger competitors on NBC and ABC.

With Letterman stepping down, the latenight TV landscape will be dominated by hosts (Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, Craig Ferguson, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Conan O’Brien) who came of age professionally in the post-Johnny Carson era. Arsenio Hall, who returned to latenight this past fall with a syndicated series, is the lone exception.

In fact, Letterman is the bigger influence on his contemporary crop of rivals. ABC’s Kimmel has made no secret of idolizing his 11:35 p.m. competitor.

VIA Variety

Replacements? HERE

Animals fleeing Yellowstone spark fears of volcanic eruption

Run for your lives!

Videos of bison seemingly fleeing Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming have sparked concerns among some bloggers that recent seismic activity could trigger the eruption of the park’s so-called supervolcano.

According to Epoch Times, multiple videos of such incidents have been posted online recently, one of which shows a herd of buffalo allegedly leaving the park and “running for their lives.” Although people behind the discussion acknowledge there’s no way to predict when the park’s massive volcano could erupt, they believe the reaction of the Yellowstone’s animals could signal some kind of alert.

On March 30, Yellowstone was struck by the most powerful earthquake it has experienced since 1980 – a 4.8 magnitude quake that did no damage, but that some believe could be connected to the various animals’ movements.

“Whether I believe this, or whether I don’t believe the story or not, I don’t know. I can tell you this story I saw this morning about the buffaloes running the street … whether or not it’s because of any activity in Yellowstone or not, I don’t know,” said blogger Jay Lee, according to the Times.

“But I’ll tell you this, whatever the case may be, that their running away from Yellowstone is an alert of some sort.”

Another video uploaded to YouTube, this time by self-described “survivalist” and “search-and-rescue expert” Tom Lupshu, claims, “Biologists aren’t sure if there’s been a stunning decline in the herd or if other factors have skewed the tally.” Lupshu also said that helium releases in the area are 1,000 times above normal levels, and accused the US Geological Survey of not reporting small quakes occurring near the volcano.

“Herds of bison running for their lives on the public roadways and they were not being chased or rounded up, the bison were running down the mountain slopes onto roadways running right past a filming crew,” he added. “They detect something vast and deadly. The Yellowstone Supervolcano is the only thing there that would fit the bill.”

The supervolcano – which was found last year to be 2.5 times larger than previously thought – has not erupted in over 640,000 years, leaving some to speculate that a blast is overdue. If and when it erupts again, the volcano could potentially spew ash over large swathes of North America and cause trouble around the entire planet.

"It would be a global event," Jamie Farrell of the University of Utah told the Associated Press last year. "There would be a lot of destruction and a lot of impacts around the globe."

Although Farrell said scientists don’t know enough to map out the next eruption’s likely arrival, he did say they’d know if magma was moving towards the Earth’s surface.

In another video, Lupshu said that increased seismic activity at Yellowstone could bring about the volcano’s eruption, but the Geological Survey has noted such activity is currently par for the course, and that between 1,000 and 3,000 earthquakes hit the area every year. The agency also stated that helium releases have “no implications about volcanic hazards.”

According to Epoch Times, the University of Utah Seismograph Stations also downplayed fears.

“There is no evidence that a catastrophic eruption at Yellowstone National Park (YNP) is imminent,” the service said. “Current geologic activity at Yellowstone has remained relatively constant since earth scientists first started monitoring some 30 years ago. Though another caldera-forming eruption is theoretically possible, it is very unlikely to occur in the next thousand or even 10,000 years.”

Samuel L. Jackson Slam Poem: Boy Meets World

Actor Samuel L. Jackson gave an artistic tribute to Boy Meets World on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

Jackson performed a 3½-minute slam poem giving a synopsis of the 1990s hit TV show Tuesday night.

Boy Meets World has been off the air since 2000, but a sequel, Girl Meets World, is set to premiere on the Disney Channel this summer, according to People.

Get To Know A Mayoral Candidate: Muriel Bowser

In the past month, Muriel Bowser has gone from one of four Councilmembers in a crowded pack vying for Mayor Vincent Gray's job to the candidate most likely to defeat him.

Polls show the Ward 4 Councilmember neck and neck with the mayor, with her closest opponent more than 10 percentage points away. After serving as an ANC commissioner and working on Adrian Fenty's first mayoral campaign, Bowser successfully ran for the former mayor's Council seat and currently chairs the Committee on Economic Development. Shortly before a Washington Post poll was released showing Bowser ahead of Gray for the first time, DCist spent 30 minutes at her Georgia Avenue NW headquarters. Our interview is transcribed below.

This interview has been edited for clarity and condensed for space. As with the other interviews in our series, DCist told the candidate that "the way this will be published is my question and your full answer."

DCist: [This week] a judge ruled that the city can no longer house homeless families in recreation centers on hypothermia nights. You've been a critic of the Gray administration's handling homelessness in the city. My question is, how do you plan to help these families, and what do you plan to do with D.C. General? Do you plan to keep it open? Send families to other shelters? Improve it?

Bowser: My policy is that people don't get out of homelessness by having a bed for the night. They get out of homelessness when they have a home. We need to get back to the posture in our government that we will provide Housing First. This administration has backtracked from that model. When the stimulus funds dried up, we didn't find the local dollars to make sure that we're creating permanent supportive housing units. And that's the policy that we'll return to. We'll figure out what the cost is, make an annual commitment, and that's how you end homelessness.

What we learned from the first families and individuals that we put in those permanent supportive housing units — they're still housed. They're dealing with the issues that took them into homelessness in the first place. We also know that we're going to have to do better at funding and getting out our local rent supplement vouchers so that people who have no income or very low income can actually go out in the market and afford to get housing.

We need the right people in place, as well, that are liaisons with the Interagency homeless council, with all the various departments in our government that have some hand in housing. But we need the right people, just very practically speaking, we need to have the right people in place in advance of hypothermia season to make sure that we're doing the right thing.

I think the conditions at D.C. General, none of us can be proud of. We know that we need some low-barrier shelter, and we have to make sure that it's clean, safe and decent. But my focus will be on how do we get people out and into permanent supportive housing.

DCist: How do you balance the desires of neighbors not to have shelters or not to have mixed-use developments in their neighborhood where homeless or formerly homeless families are housed?

Bowser: I think a lot of neighbors support mixed-income housing. What neighbors don't tend to support is concentrating shelter housing. That's the model we're following in a lot of different regards — market rate, work force and permanent supportive units. We're going to be very proud, for example, to welcome on Georgia Avenue a development that's been approved for several years and now funded: The Emory Beacon of Light. It's that model of mixed incomes. That's what we want to do with all our public housing projects, as well. Have mixed-income housing.

DCist: Which hasn't worked so well with the New Communities Initiative. Tearing down housing, saying it's going to be replaced with mixed-use and still there's barely any housing, on K Street NW, for example [where Temple Courts formerly was.]

Bowser: What hasn't worked well?

DCist: Well with New Communities, hundreds of families have been displaced while only some have been put back into housing and others are still waiting.

Bowser: Do you think it worked well at Temple Courts?

DCist: No.

Bowser: OK. So before you say it doesn't work well, let's figure out what the replacement units are going to be and speed up — what hasn't worked well is the production of new units, not the model. We want to transform communities that were dangerous and deteriorated into ones where there are more options. Those are four communities out of 8,000 units, and so we also have to speed up the investments. You know what the Housing Authority says we need for the other 6,500 public housing units? Just to bring them to 20-year viability we'll need $1 billion in investment. So we better get started because in this city we can't afford to lose any of those units.

DCist: This sort of transitions into the D.C. United/Reeves Center land swap plan. If this does go through, would you like to see affordable housing be a part of what replaces the Reeves Center?

Bowser: Affordable housing should be part of any government development, if government land is being used for development. I co-introduced a bill with Kenyan McDuffie, and I'll be holding a hearing on it soon, that would set a goal of 30 percent of units produced on the land should be at various levels of affordability. That is a goal that is reachable and doable. What you point out, though, is when you say you have a land swap, this one owner is gonna trade with us, is you don't get the plethora of ideas that come out of a competitive process. And so if we put out that the government is interested to repurpose the Reeves Center in a competitive environment, we may get all kinds of ideas.

At this point we don't really know. My guess is that Akridge wants to build housing, but we haven't really seen a proposal.

MORE HERE VIA DCist

The Smucker's Birthday Guy Gets Married at 80 years old

Hang in there ladies, theres hope for you yet...

(Reuters) - Television personality Willard Scott, a former weatherman who has been with NBC's "Today" morning news show for more than 30 years, has wed his longtime girlfriend at the age of 80.

Scott and Paris Keena were married in Fort Myers, Florida, on Monday, according to Today.com, which posted a picture of the smiling couple.

A former disc jockey and weatherman in Washington, D.C., Scott is known for his happy birthday wishes for centenarians on the "Today" show. His first wife, Mary, died in 2002.

Scott and Keena first met in 1977. They had been together for about 11 years before tying the knot.

When asked about a honeymoon, Keena told the website: "Our whole life has been a honeymoon."