Your Blogger Buddy Pulls A Reverse Yentl: Let It All Hang Out

When one endures a divorce, I suppose it's fairly typical that among the first plans of action is to lose 20 pounds and tidy up with a dramatic makeover. Weight? Check! I'm down 8 pounds over the past six weeks, in part because at the beginning of the end of my 10-year partnership, I simply kept throwing up out of angst. Ultimately, I decided the Karen Carpenter diet was probably not prudent for the long term. Since, I've been taking good care of myself, mandating that self pity is more constructive than self destruction.

But instead of getting a swell new haircut to feel all confident and shit, I've taken the opposite tack. While keeping my goatee trimmed, I decided to let my hair grow out, no holds barred, just to see what the hell it might look like. To the right, you see what I looked like in August, before the shit hit the fan.

As a freelance journalist, I work from home, I certainly have no interest in dating or looking pretty for the boyz... so if there were ever time to indulge the seedy side, this is it. At this point, I'm willing to admit that I pretty much look like shit. My hair is not growing out a la Ben Barnes in Dorian Gray. In fact, I more closely resemble the portrait he had locked behind closed doors.

I'm referring to this as my Big Lebowski phase... and I like it just fine, dammit. In any case, this is the longest I've let my hair grow since 1988, when it was still lusciously curly and dark and I had a thick beard that got me stopped as a potential terrorist every time I flew internationally... oh, youth, how you have betrayed me (indeed, speaking of Dorian Gray).

Fun and all, but the exercise is ultimately to remain short-lived before I become one of those salt-and-pepper losers with a ponytail. I'm heading to Virginia to see the parents over Thanksgiving week. Not for one moment do I believe my mama would let me in her house looking like this. So within the week, chop chop. But for the moment, delightful defiance.

An Homage To Women Of Color: "Uh, Uh, No He Didn't"

We gays may think we have the market on free expression, but there's just something about a black woman making her feelings clear as a bell with a single glance. Here are two photos I recently took in NYC. Gotta love it.

Sheena Easton: The Singles Of 1993-1995 | 'No Strings,' 'My Cherie'

Following Sheena Easton's 1991 10th studio album What Comes Naturally, as she approached the age of 35, it was perhaps appropriate to reevaluate expectations for a pop career as the pantheon was supplanted by fresh, young "talent." MCA granted Sheena's wish to record the logical (perhaps requisite) next step: a standards album, which showcased her vocal talents and thankfully dismissed the grinding sexuality pervading recent efforts.

No Strings, recorded live, produced by Patrice Rushen and released in 1993, was a critical smash, heralded by jazz aficionados and music critics alike. Even Entertainment Weekly, which tends to sneer at anything without an attached hip factor, beamed that Sheena is "a warm, assured stylist whose affection for American classics is infectious."

Her reading of "The Nearness of You" was plucked for the blockbuster Indecent Proposal (Demi Moore, Woody Harrelson and Robert Redford), featuring Sheena singing in the movie.

She also delivered the gorgeous simple power ballad "A Dream Worth Keeping," from animated  environmental flick Ferngully: The Last Rainforest. The first time I heard the song, in my Arlington, Va. living room, I cried, yes I did, as Sheena reached higher & higher during the bridge to a rafter-raising vocal peak ("I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I know this dream's worth keeping...") on the final chorus. It's one of her finest recordings.

In 1995, Sheena released album No. 12, the underrated My Cherie, among her most consistent collections: melodic, sans any grand effort to appeal to top 40 radio and again, a focus on her beautiful, now mature voice.

It also marked her reunion with producer Chris Neil, who produced many of Sheena's early works, including "Morning Train" and "For Your Eyes Only"—and had now fostered his own acclaim as co-producer of Celine Dion's first English-language album Unison. Other producers on Cherie included A-listers Ric Wake, Narada Michael Walden, David Foster, Glen Ballard and Humberto Gatica.

The title track—an exhilarating midtempo straight-ahead pop nugget that I treasured—was serviced to AC radio, but never charted, followed in various territories by jaunty "Too Much In Love" and power ballad "Flower in the Rain" (which Sheena co-wrote), an ultimate post-break-up anthem of renewed strength.

While My Cherie delivered no hits, I stand by the album as a robust set of coulda-been hits, and it remains among my top five Sheena CDs (among all 15). Singable, sexy "Til Death Do Us Part," with its R&B-lite shuffle, could have easily been a smash earlier in Sheena's career, while swaying harmonic ballad "All I Ask Of You" is as delicious as Neapolitan ice cream, for god's sake.

And then there's "You've Learned To Live Without Me." Oh, mercy. While "To Anyone" (from What Comes Naturally) remains her consummate break-up accord of lament, this pained bombastic piano-driven ballad delivers superlative anguish: "I hear you're doing fine, found other things to take up your mind, you probably don't remember ever loving me." Oh, how it hurts!

On a personal note, shortly after My Cherie was released, my own life took a dramatic turn. I moved from Washington, D.C., after 11 years to New York, where I'd achieved my life-long dream to work as a writer/editor for Billboard magazine. I left the comfort of a three-level townhouse and moved into a 400sf studio apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. There was such romanticism about starting over at 34 in the greatest city in the world, pursuing my career with renewed gusto... and ultimately flourishing there for 14 years.

Admittedly, for me, by this point, Celine Dion was prime competition for Sheena, but with Sheena's memorable new CD, many a night was spent in my tiny apartment spinning My Cherie, singing out loud and strutting across my one room. That album still reminds me of those early NYC months...

And yes, I was still commandeering my own top 100 chart each year, and in 1995, Sheena was (again) the No. 1 artist with six songs: "My Cherie," No. 14; "Flower in the Rain," No. 18, "Til Death Do Us Part," No. 20; "All I Ask Of You," No. 27; "You've Learned To Live Without Me," No. 53; and "Too Much in Love," No. 57.

Meanwhile, Sheena also recorded several soundtrack songs in the early-to-mid 1990s: In 1993, "The Miracle Of Love" was the end theme for a Japanese TV show (released as a single there); 1993's "Is There Anyone" with Julian Lennon from TV movie David Copperfield (in which she provided the voice of Agnes); in 1995, "Now and Forever," a duet with Barry Manilow from The Pebble and the Penguin; and in 1996, "Count Me Out" and "I Will Always Be With You" from animated All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 (also the voice of Sasha). Sheena also acted in TV movies Body Bags and Tekwar, and in series Highlander and The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.—proving that there are career options when the chart hits fade... if you're talented enough.

Next up: The remainder of the 1990s, the millennium's Fabulous... and the grand finale wrap-up!

Sheena Easton: The Singles Of 1991 | 'What Comes Naturally'

In 1991, The New York Times wrote, "No one ever became a musician for job security. But in recent years, the length of the average pop career has dwindled fast. The 1980s and 1990 brought record sales to new peaks while performers tended to flash and burn out. Some deserve one-hit wonder status; few have much to say beyond a fifth album."

Considering that this same year, Sheena Easton was delivering her 10th studio album after renewed success with 1989's gold-selling MCA bow The Lover In Me, it persistently amazes me that the singer has never merited the historic credit she deserves for such extraordinary endurance.

Let's sum it up: In 1991, 10 years after launching her career with global chart-topping "Morning Train," Sheena had delivered seven top 10 U.S. hits, with a total of 25 top 40 hits in territories around the world. Winner of two Grammy awards and four additional nominations, plus an Oscar nod. Sales of 20 million albums worldwide. The only artist to ever score top 5's at top 40, AC, dance, country and R&B—a record that stands today. Like Olivia Newton-John, her sound evolved with time, from cute singalong pop and velvety ballads to R&B-tinged dance and more mature, impeccably delivered love songs—as she propelled from the girl next door to the vamp you eye through her bedroom window.

Perspective: 'N Sync may have sold 26 million copies of its first three U.S. albums between 1998 and 2001, but except for a Christmas set, that was the full extent of its studio output. In only three years, the hottest-selling pop act was burned out.

The fact that Sheena was destined to squeeze one more top 40 hit from her 1991 10th studio album What Comes Naturally is quite the feat. At 32, she was pushing the confines of the pop arena—though, ironically, overt sexuality overtook her musicality, to my grave disappointment. Despite an ongoing spate of releases that would continue throughout the 1990s, it's fair to say this was to be her final commercially viable set.

Sheena was aligned with a number of producers and songwriters du-jour, including Oliver Leiber (who would make Paula Abdul famous), Ian Prince, Antonia Armato and Siedah Garrett. Prince also contributed two throwaway tracks, ballady "Somebody" and grating cacophonous "Manic Panic."

In addition, Sheena was credited as co-songwriter on pretty ballad "The Next Time," midtempo dance track "The First Touch of Love" and silly, giddy "Half A Heart."

The title track and first single was a contemporary R&B new jack swing dance jam, packed with instrumental ticks, horns, orchestral hits, urban background vocals and a fluttery vocal from Sheena. Uh, she also rapped. It was catchy but gimmicky, accompanied by a music video that bordered on soft porn. Boobs, cleavage and lots of writhing, as her newly adorned long straight red hair whipped and Sheena wriggled. I was not particularly amused. She was too good a singer to resort to such a tawdry ploy.

All the same, "What Comes Naturally" reached No. 19 on the Hot 100, and grazed the top 40 at both R&B and Dance. In Australia, the song reached No. 4.

Still, I was apparently put off enough by Sheena's sexually driven persona (the album's cover image didn't help) that 1991 marked the first year on my own chart that she didn't peak at No. 1 for the year with new material: "Naturally" stopped short at No. 4, trumped by Corona's "Temptation" at No. 1, Mariah Carey's "Emotion" and—quite telling—Celine Dion's first English hit "Where Does My Heart Beat Now."

The follow-up to "Naturally" was another new jack swing dance track, "You Can Swing It." I was madly in love with this song; it was fun, hip, melodic, upbeat and catchy as hell. Apparently, the view was not shared. It was a flop at all formats. MCA didn't even bother with a video clip.

Third single "To Anyone" was a brilliant choice by the record label, returning Sheena to the grandiose ballads that helped make her famous. Co-written by Matthew Wilder and produced by Ric Wake, the melodramatic heartbreak song builds to a thunderous skyscraping climax, with a vocal that dismisses all the production tricks of the trade, focusing squarely on Sheena's consummate vocal.

Truly, except for Celine, there are few artists I can imagine delivering this tour de force with such passion and gut-wrenching anguish. "Anyone who's ever been in love knows why I'm crying," she sings... It remains my No. 1 go-to track whenever my soul aches, and a song I still listen to most every week. Every week. Twenty years... that amounts to about 1,050 spins, in addition to the 891375801435 times I played it in 1991... and it's still as affecting as the first time I heard it.

What Comes Naturally was Sheena's final album to chart in the U.S., peaking at No. 90. It was followed by her critically acclaimed standards No Strings in 1993 and a return to AC with My Cherie in 1995—her final two sets released in the States, before a string of Japanese one-off singles and lukewarm albums.

But after more than a decade in a business that the New York Times declared a loss leader for anyone counting on job security, Sheena's talent had propelled her into enough of a name brand to soon co-opt her success into numerous acting gigs, a Las Vegas residency and today, tour stops of her choosing. I'd say Sheena Easton made the right choice for a career.

Next up: The rest of the story.

So Why Wait? I Need Thanksgiving NOW

You can take the boy out of the south... When I saw a big fat turkey breast on sale at the neighborhood Key Food, I thought, "The latter part of this year has been a bit of a challenge (read: sucks). I need something to celebrate now." And so it was: turkey slathered with garlic, stuffing, cranberry sauce, a dash of petite peas and biscuits. Mmm, mmm, delish! (No, cool cats, I did not eat the entire breast; sandwiches for days.)

A Hallowed Brooklyn View

How clever is this? Saw the Brooklyn logo carved on a pumpkin post-Halloween on a crisp Sunday on Grace Court Alley while walking the dogs in Brooklyn Heights.

Turn Back The Hands Of Time: To The Endless Winter Of 2012 (Sigh)

Sigh... We're back to Eastern Standard Time, as of 2 a.m. Sunday... which, of course, means it's time to turn the clocks back one hour, check the batteries in your smoke detector, then lock the doors, draw the drapes and remain in deep hibernation until April...

Oh, those long, cold, dark days of winter. Ironically, after moving the hands of the clock, there's no turning back now. Dark at 5 p.m. So sad. So cold. So, so many months until the sun will shine again. Not a fan of winter. You got that, right?

Just Seein': Best Images Of The Week, Part VI

For the past few weekends, we've been dumping the best images found during the week on Facebook and other fave webbies. Like today's New York Marathon, we're off and running...

Dumbass Kris Humphries Finds A Job: As A Stripper

Following the oh-so-surprising demise of his fake 72-day marriage to opportunistic non-celeb Kim Kardashian, insta-ex-hubbie Kris Humphries has found work befitting his pea brain: The former NBA baller is guest hosting as a stripper at Chateau, a Las Vegas faux Chippendales show.

Good going, Kris. Nice to see you working to your full potential.

Suggestions for 2012: wax jobs at the local car wash in Minneapolis, dog grooming at Petland in Indianapolis or doing nails at Pinky's in Newark. So many possibilities for a man of such means.

Janet Jackson Covers Arabia's November 2011 'Harper's Bazaar'

Janet Jackson hasn't appeared on the cover of a fashion mag in a good long time. She certainly dazzles on the front of the November 2011 Arabian version of Harper's Bazaar. The photo shoot took place during her "Number Ones: Up, Close & Personal" tour at Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina Circuit ahead of the Formula 1 races, which takes place the weekend of Nov. 11-13.