Digital Ink Los Angeles

On the turn from a profile of how celebrity awe can put someone in harm’s way — see ESPN‘s Erin Andrews — Digital Ink presents Susan Boyle and her struggles with fame.

Always on the bleeding edge, NBC‘s Today Show reporter Meredith Vieira interviewed Susan Boyle this morning to discuss her brief-lived turn in the “Britain’s Got Talent” spotlight.

Susan Boyle described her play with the fame-fire as being hit with something “like a giant demolition ball.” Bam! Susan’s lost her mind.

David Bowie had a great song from his Young Americans album — co-written and recorded with a famous Beatle, John Lennon — called FAME.

Fame, (fame) what you like is in the limo
Fame, (fame) what you get is no tomorrow
Fame, (fame) what you need you have to borrow
Fame (fame)

Check out hottie judge Amanda Holden cooing and crying over Ms. Boyle’s now-famous rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables:

April 2, 1939 — April 1, 1984

25 years ago yesterday, Marvin Pentz Gaye was shot and killed by his own father, in his parents’ home, after an argument over insurance papers.  It was one day before his 45th birthday.

If you’ve ever listened to the power soul ballads. “What’s Going On,” “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology),” “Trouble Man,” “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler),” or his rendition of the Motown standard, “Heard It Through the Grapevine,” you know the depth of his music and lyrics.

Most people would know he was on top of the “quiet storm” power-soul movement throughout the 1970s, selling millions of records and becoming an international superstar.

What most people don’t know, he was a bankrupt, drug-addicted manic-depressive who owed millions of Federal back-taxes when he was living in a van in Hawaii in 1979.  His divorce from his second wife, Janis Hunter, led him into a spiral of wayward woe.

The legend of Marvin Gaye begins here.  His self-imposed exile led him to seek refuge in Europe, where he landed in Belgium, eventually recording his most-popular album, Midnight Love.

Many critics had written Marvin Gaye off, imagining him tragically lost and without any hope of returning to his once eminent state of popular culture.  Marvin Gaye proved them all wrong.

In February 1983, at The Forum in Los Angeles, in front of a national television audience, Marvin Gaye sang his version of our national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner, which left the audience and the participating NBA All-Stars with tears of joy and amazement.

WATCH THE YouTube VIDEO HERE.

Marvin Gaye had gone from the top to the bottom and back to the top.  In the final days and months of his life, friends and associates said he was again slipping into his depressive state.  All in a short life of 45 years, as his father ended it all with a gunshot from a revolver Marvin had given him for protection.

You can hear Marvin Gaye singing it, “Mercy Mercy Me…“

Happy 70th Birthday, Marvin.

Let me start with this — James Joe Brown, Jr., was not a perfect man, nor was he the absolute finest singer or dancer.

But, James Brown was the “Hardest Working Man in Show Business,” who believed in one thing — entertaining his audience to the best of his natural and supernatural abilities.

So, for today’s second installment of “HEROES,” I choose a man who was egotistical, drug-addicted, maniacal, and, at times, just plain strange.

There’s one story I’ve heard on different days in several ways, and it’ll be repeated here as factual.

In his youthful exuberance, James Brown was an amazing dancer.  His “Get Down!” dance included numerous splits and twirls.

On one occasion, while performing at some ramshackle venue with a less than stellar stage, James Brown did a twirl and dropped to one knee in his half-split.

Here begins the lesson, because when James tried to remove himself from the floor, he found a nail protruding from the wooden stage, which had lodged his knee in place!

James grimaced — a face seen as natural in his fitful performances — placed his hands upon the wooden floor and pulled his knee from its painful place.

Not to miss a beat, or even express concern for his health, his burning desire to keep the show rolling let him do just that.  Bloody knee and all, he kept tempo, grabbed the microphone, and handled his business.

In this time of excuses, dilemmas, predicaments, circumstances, obstacles, uncertainties, and genuine angst, we need HEROES who have fortitude, moxie, and complete confidence that, no matter what, nothing can stop them.

James “Godfather of Soul” Brown is a man who may not be a hero to most, but he’s a hero to me.

Here’s a link to James Brown teaching us how to dance.