What am I doing these days? I am busy writing music with Jenan, a sixteen year old soul singer from Brooklyn. We are working with Singh Birdsong, who is co-producing with me. Singh has played guitar live with me since the Luscious Jackson days. We are blown away by Jenan, who I don't want to hype too much cause she is the real thing.
I will be posting music and video here for Jenan in the coming weeks and months as she moves ahead into performing live around NYC. She just did a concert at my house which was beautiful.
Other news includes Gabby Glaser of Luscious Jackson having a baby a couple weeks back. Mom, son and dad are all happy and healthy. The other Luscious Jackson ladies have small children as well so that is why we have not performed together for a reunion, though the intent is there. You never know! It would be sweet and fun to get back together for some shows at some point.
Brooklyn continues to be a great place to raise kids, our public school is great (except for the No Child Left Behind stuff which involves masses of data collection and testing, but all US public schools have to deal with that). Our teachers do an amazing job of keeping the kids interested and having fun despite the paperwork they as teachers are stuck with.
Quick rant: I hope the new US government puts someone in charge of education who is a true educator, not a corporate bureaucrat. We don't need to waste millions of dollars as we do in NYC paying for data crunching. That money should be in the classroom where teachers need supplies and children need enrichments. Let's remember to foster creativity in our children, not just test them for literacy and math skills. Creativity will be valuable in the coming decades!
Celebrate ideas and art,
Jill
Hey Party People, Rainbow Posse, Disco Daddies and Move-a-liscious Mamas,
I've just put up a free download (a dance mix of the song The Last Summer). It's on my website, JillCunniff.com. I love this version, which is called the Sparkle Mix in honor of my friends Gabriel and Jeffrey at Sparkle Beauty Studio in New York City. Gabriel made a special request for this one, so here it is!
The Last Summer: written by Jill Cunniff, Sam Hollander and David Schommer. Produced by Duke Mushroom, S*A*M and Jill Cunniff.
Keep on dancin',
Jill
Gee, I haven't written my mamalog for as long as my daughter has avoided writing in her homework journal. Like mother like daughter.
Ok-on the C Train. Someone is ranting about Corinthians. Redemption. Do we see the crime rate as it was in the days of Noah. You can't trust anything around here. Everything is gonna fail. Revelation. The bible says an earthquake etc etc.
a young woman next to me seems to be having a revelation as she follows the speaker up and down the car with her eyes. The train noise is drowning the speaker out. Some young men are making loud sounds over her words. I think they were a crew trying to do a performance on the car. Someone asks her to speak a little lower. His ipod is not covering it. A young angry guy next to me starts yelling at the ipod guy about civil liberties saying the woman has the right to speak in public, says go to the Ukraine if you want to see your civil liberties erased. Ipod guy says she does not have the liberty to scream in my ear. Young 'n angry says that law was written by a whiteman. Ipod guy says she's just too loud and furthermore she is spouting nonsense from the nineteenth century. I am chuckling at the display of it all.
I guess this is seen as fun by people like me and my father. Ya gotta love it not to leave it.
Jill
Hey What's Up- back to songwriting. Inspired by politics, X-Ray Spex, Love (as in Arthur Lee), Erykah Badu's new record, making good music, my friend Michael Patrick MacDonald's book "Easter Rising" out now in soft cover, and searching for moments of true expression. I was just listening to these old recordings by the 1960's and 70's folk/psychedelic/blues group Love. The singing is sometimes out of tune, but real. Guitars are often out of time, but not time corrected and pitch corrected on the computer. We need to bring back imperfection. Then we hear someone in their true state. I feel like I am experiencing Arthur Lee when he is singing. He might be rough, but it's packed with feeling. Love was an early "blender" of musical traditions and one of the early integrated bands. Also revisiting late 70's teenage punk with X-Ray Spex, whose singer Poly Styrene sang about consumerism and disaffection with such poetry I wanted to be lost in the underground. Erykah Badu just released her political, funkadelic inspired "New Amerykah" a an opportune time.
Last time I put my contact info in-got some letters but nothing about being maxed out which was the subject. No sweat. Write whatever. JillCunniff@JillCunniff.com
My husband Scott just sent me his writing on the state of the country. Here it is:
"Clinton Sold the House., Bush Spent the Money"
During Clinton's White House, America signed agreements with Mexico, Canada and China. These deals came with profound short term benefits for our capital markets and domestic economy (these don't necessarily go hand in hand).
The long term benefits of these gains didn't even last out the Clinton administration. During that time, the economy was showing signs of inflation and the "Tech Bubble" had already burst. However, the country was still fat with borrowed cash, most of it sitting on the sidelines in the form of potential credit.
Eight years later, six of those war years, and Bush has spent all that money and maxed out our credit.
Thanks to Scott Gregoire for that take on our maxed out, mixed up mess of an economy.
How maxed out are you and in which way?
You can write back to jillcunniff@jillcunniff.com and tell me.
I'll put the best responses in the mamalog.
Ahoy Matey, you can still jump ship on that crap mortgage-look up a company called You Walk Away that I just read about last week in the New York Times. Especially helpful if you didn't put your life savings into the down payment. I knew the mortgage industry was devious when they were trying to sell me a refinance loan with crazy adjustible rates and they RUSHED through the sales pitch like they were on speed.
Let the buyer beware. Be very, very wary.
Jill
My father's memorial was sweet, inspiring and well attended, with one to one hundred fifty there. Speakers were as follows: Malachy McCourt(author and actor), Barbara Feldon (actor and poet), Thomas Meehan (writer and colleague), Leslie Fuller (writer and musician), Dick Cavett(writer and television host), Lee Stern (high school buddy and member of Chicago Board of Trade), cousin David Fitzgerald and my brother Stephen. With so many writers in attendance, the eulogies were beautiful. Everyone emphasized my father's wit, erudition and sunny personality. We also showed a video of my father's career highlights including Sesame Street and the Dick Cavett Show. This was courtesy of Joshua White (of the Joshua Light Show). Robert left behind a lot of admirers and we all miss him dearly.
Robert Cunniff memorial website with room for guestbook entries:
http://www.legacy.com/NYTimes/GB/GuestbookView.aspx?PersonId=102483606
We had the service at All Souls Unitarian Church. Unitarians are about uniting all faiths. Minister David Robb fit himself into the agnostic program with humor and ease. He decided to forgo the prayer after hearing the speakers talk about Bob's rejection of all things religious.
We met two more Cunniffs in their twenties, both named Kyle, who live within a couple of miles of us in Brooklyn. Hey Cunniffs! I hope to meet more of you in the future. With hundreds to choose from, it's hard to know where to start. Some of the little ones I met in Chicago while touring with Luscious Jackson are now in their teens and twenties. We have three of them in NY right now. This is what happens when there are nine kids in a family and a bunch of them have six to nind kids each! Exponential Cunniffs. My father gave so many tours of Greenwich Village to relatives and many of them have been contacting us. Steve and I better start those tours up where he left off!
While you are at it, check out Jean Fitzgerald's art website Jeancfitzgerald.com. She is a Cunniff who does gorgeous murals in peoples' homes and sells art through her website.
Jill
One of my jobs in respect to my father's memorial has been collecting videos and footage from his years in television. All of his proudest moments on the Today Show (Vietnam anti-war protesters, Chicago Convention of 1968, Duke Ellington live etc). were either lost or destroyed by the time he went looking for footage in the 1980's. His 16mm film of Washington Square Park in the late 60's for the Today Show was chopped up by another producer who needed some of it for something else. That's how it was in those days.
What we do have to work with is The Dick Cavett Show with Sly and the Family Stone, Woodstock Musicians and the famous episode in which Norman Mailer spars verbally with Gore Vidal and Janet Flanner. We also have a Sesame Street bit called "Morty Moot Mope" which is a true rap tune done in the early 1970's for Roosevelt Franklin Elementary School (you can't find this on Sesame St. Old School DVD). We have Robert talking about Barbara Walters for her A and E special. We have Mousterpiece Theater, the show he created for Disney in the 1980's. We have Balanchine from Live from Lincoln Center. We have a photo montage of Robert from childhood on. We have musical selections ranging from Ella Fitzgerald to Berlioz to John Coltrane.
People will be speaking at the memorial about my father, including old and dear friends who happen to be "famous". One of the things that has struck me as we all remember my father is how much he connected with people and how they basked in his jovial company. I really enjoy the company of his friends, too. I would love to continue his yearly Oscar Party...if I could get all of his people to travel deep into Brooklyn, I'd have it at my house.
One last note: remember to care for and visit with your elders...they need the company and you'll get there someday, too.
Jill
Okay-those of you who know me know I like shopping. Luckily I am a great thrifter. Following is a link sent to me by my husband Scott. It must be flying around the eco world right now. It's a twenty minute cartoon of our consumption driven economy that explains why we need to stop buying so much junky toxic stuff-
www.storyofstuff.com
I guess those juice boxes will have to stay at the store from now on because they are some of the worst offenders!
Jil
I am finally taking my walk in Chinatown in honor of my father. I have been thinking about doing this all week and today is the first chance I have had.
Growing up, lower Manhattan was our family stomping ground. I have always wandered around Chinatown to get perspective, and today I knew I needed to come here. It is below freezing outside so I am holing up in Silk Road Mocha on Mott Street. I passed Mon Wah Tea Parlor at 11-13 Doyers Street, the "oldest dim sum parlor in Chinatown". I can't vouch for the dim sum, but they haven't touched the decor in about 60 years. I implore you, visit this place before it is gone! Gabriel and Jeffrey, I recommend it for tea. Anyone who enjoys tracing the past should get over there. The owners are getting on in years and there is no way it will be there as it is for much longer.
I have been meaning to mail an important letter for days. It is a bit crumpled from being tossed around in my bag. My bag is also a bit crumpled from being tossed around, so I am waiting for Maple Fashions on Grand Street to open, home of amazing bags For 40 bucks. These are not cheesy Vuitton knockoffs, but unique and sassy bags by a company called Pink. Anyway, we had no stamps in the house so I was thrilled to pass the Chinatown Post Office and pick up two pages of gorgeous Chinese New Year postage stamps. My father loved these kind of "meant to be" city occurrances.
Why are there no nice boots anywhere for less than 400 dollars? Maybe there will be when my favorite secret boutique on Mott Street opens. I'll let you know but not before I check out the stash myself first! Isn't shopping for shoes a time honored way for women to deal with the blues?
We are collecting examples of my father's work (Sesame Street, Dick Cavett Show Rock Icons footage, Mouseterpiece Theater and others) to prepare an audio visual display for his memorial on February 9th (at 5:30 at All Souls Unitarian Church on Lexington and 80th Street in his beloved Manhattan).
All are welcome.
Jill
Dear Friends,
My father, Robert Rody Cunniff, passed away on January 20th, 2008. He was a loving and kind father who adored his children and for that my brother Stephen and I will always benefit. His wonderful companion Kate Resek has been his rock during this time and we are forever grateful.
He had been quite ill for the past year but earned the nickname "Mr. Hurrah" for his love of life and for his ability to come back from seemingly impossible periods of weakness. He read the New York Times cover to cover each day, almost to the very end. He listened to Ella Fitzgerald in the hospital, and recreated Leonard Bernstein's music in his head when outside information became too much. It was only when he had no quality of life left that he finally let go. My brother Stephen was with him at the time of death.
Following is an obituary written by a family friend highlighting his career as a television writer at the the center of the zeitgeist. His Rolodex is a piece of history. Culture was my father's religion, not that he had one.
In Peace,
Jill Cunniff
ROBERT CUNNIFF: GREAT, “GREY EMINENCE” OF TALK TELEVISION *
From Disney to ‘the Duke,’ from ‘Today’ to ‘Sesame Street.’
Emmy Award-winning television writer and producer, Robert Cunniff, 81, died January 20 in Brooklyn, New York, after a long illness.
One of his generation’s most astute creative forces in “talk” television, Mr. Cunniff’s prominence “behind the scenes” in the 1970’s inspired The New Yorker magazine to publish a cartoon showing his unmistakable figure plotting the elements of a daily TV talk show on a bulletin board, a rare cartoon which required no caption.
As a writer for “The Today Show” in the mid-sixties, he worked closely with Hugh Downs and Barbara Walters, then the country’s first female TV anchor. Mr. Cunniff was often credited with elevating that program’s news reputation with what was then unusually penetrating coverage, for a morning show, of the Viet Nam war, the riot-ridden 1968 Chicago Convention, U.S. political assassinations, and the emerging American drug and music culture. He also helped launch “broadcast news” into the satellite era with the first Early Bird Satellite Broadcast, from Rome, where Mr. Cunniff also wrote a speech for Pope Paul VI, which garnered him a nickname: “The Holy Ghost Writer.”
From 1969-72 Mr. Cunniff’s wit brightened the late night version of “THE Dick Cavett Show” on ABC, much of whose content has been newly released on DVD and repeated on the A&E Network. His formidable knowledge base always came in handy on this high profile series, such as the time in 1971 when he decided to book Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal on the same show, and then, correctly anticipating a
blistering intellectual row, flew in the elderly, mild-mannered New Yorker writer Janet
Flanner as, he said, “referee.” Mr. Cunniff’s often provocative contributions to
that show during its most influential era included booking Salvador Dali, Lillian Gish and Satchel Paige on a single program, in 1970. A popular, unpredictable show on which one guest died [Publisher J. I. Rodale, in 1971] and another walked off in rage [former Georgia Governor Lester Maddox, in 1970], it was also, for Mr. Cunniff, a chance to spice up the standard talk show format with what was then an unusually rich offering of live rock music, such as the appearance - fresh off the Woodstock concert stage, some of them with Woodstock mud still on their boots - of the venue’s major superstars [Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Crosby Still & Nash, Joni Mitchell]. A devoted film buff, Mr. Cunniff was also the force behind Ingmar Bergman’s and Laurence Olivier’s first appearances on an American TV talk program, another Cavett Show milestone. It was even Mr. Cunniff who selected what became known as the Cavett theme song: “Glitter & Be Gay” from Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide.” Mr. Cunniff reprised his role as a primary editorial force behind Mr. Cavett when the host returned to public television in the early 1980’s and then to CNBC in the 1990’s.
From 1972-75, Mr. Cunniff was a Producer for “Sesame Street” for which he wrote countless memorable sketches, winning, along with the show’s creator, Jon Stone, the EMMY for “Outstanding Achievement In Children’s Programming” in 1973.
In 1976, Mr. Cunniff signed on as Managing Editor of “Good Morning, America” [originally known as “AM America”]. His often highbrow tastes could collide with those of the ABC network brass, but he formed lasting friendships with a then little known writer he had hired, Broadway author Thomas Meehan [“Annie,” “The Producers”] and with the actress Barbara Feldon, who occasionally hosted the program.
One of his most enduring achievements is the long running, critically acclaimed Disney Channel hit “Mouseterpiece Theater,” a deadpan parody of “Masterpiece Theater,” conceived, produced and co-written by Mr. Cunniff in 1983. Now a cult classic, the series featured vintage Disney cartoon shorts outlandishly introduced by George Plimpton in a saucy send up of Alistair Cooke. Publisher’s Weekly called it “one of TV’s finest hours” [March 23, 1984].
A devotee of Manhattan and its culture - he liked to say he came to New York in 1953 because of a passion for the work of his other idol, the choreographer George Balanchine. He was able to celebrate Balanchine and many other artists he admired, during his tenure as a writer with LIVE FROM LINCOLN CENTER on PBS in the 1970’s. A lifelong jazz and classical music aficionado, he was one of the first to bring live jazz to national television, when as a young writer for “The Today Show” he created a groundbreaking multi-part concert series with his idol, Duke Ellington.
First and always a writer, Mr. Cunniff’s early freelance features for Newspaper Enterprise Association, Show Business Illustrated, and Show Magazine led to his first job in television, in 1961, as co-writer (with John Mosedale and Andy Rooney) and editor for CBS News’ pioneering live, daytime series “Calendar,” anchored by Harry Reasoner,. In the 1980’s, he wrote for ABC’s revival of “Omnibus” and scripted a USIA international documentary “Let Poland Be Poland.”
Robert Rody Cunniff was born September 13, 1926 in Chicago, eighth of nine children born to Elizabeth and Luke Cunniff, a longtime associate with the Chicago Democratic Party and the Mayor’s Office. He served in the U.S. Navy in World War Two’s Pacific Theater, one of five brothers who returned from overseas military service,
a test of family patriotic sacrifice which defied the “Sullivan Act” because not all of the brothers were in the same military branch.
After earning his Masters Degree in Literature from the University of Chicago on the GI bill, Mr. Cunniff went on to write for the Chicago Sun Times and TV Guide, a job he was forced to leave in 1953, after what was perceived as a conflict of interest - his winning $4750 on the TV quiz show “Break the Bank.” He bounced back with a highly successful syndicated newspaper column about television with childhood friend Tom O’Malley. “Cunniff and O’Malley,” launched in 1954, was shut down three years later after running with the sensational report that “What’s My Line” panelist Dorothy Kilgallen could see through her mask.
Mr. Cunniff is survived by his daughter, Jill Cunniff Gregoire, son Stephen Cunniff, of New York, longtime companion Kate Resek, granddaughters Chloe and Piper Gregoire and Madeline Cunniff, and a brother, Joseph Cunniff, of Chicago.
A Memorial Service will be held at 5:30 pm, February 9th, at The Unitarian Church of All Souls, 1157 Lexington Avenue @ 80th Street, Manhattan. Donations may be made “in memory of Robert Cunniff” to the fund to preserve New Orleans’ Jazz Heritage at The Tipitina’s Foundation, 4040 Tulane Ave, Ste 8000, New Orleans LA 70119; 866-372-0512);https://tipitinasfoundation.org/donate 2/.
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