Beautiful Stranger
The Best Voice in the Business!

WHAT DO YOU HONESTLY THINK?  DUDE WAS ALMOST TO THE POINT OF TEARS, ADMITTED HE NEEDED “TIME OFF” & ”HELP” 

If there is one thing I agree about during the Whitney Houston/Oprah Winfrey interview Part I is that “A Man Must Have His Own” or it (the relationship) WILL NOT WORK…that has and always will apply in my love life and that is why my love life has changed..TRUST

“You know you are getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.”

-BOB HOPE

 WHO GOT BEEF? LOL

Here is a letter from former Executive Editor of Music at BET.COM

Mr. Andreas Hale to apparently everyone  in the industry…Read Below

As of today (September 8, 2009) I am no longer the Executive Editor of Music at BET.com.

Upon entering the position at BET I said that I needed one year to see what really went on inside the belly of the beast. I needed 365 days to sleep with the enemy and infiltrate the system. One year to see if they REALLY wanted change at BET.

As someone who has been critical of BET for many years, it surprised many that I would leave my post at HipHopDX last year to take a position at BET. But it was an opportunity I absolutely had to take. I could no longer be critical of this company without accepting the opportunity to change it when given. Although I was hired to bring about change, I was systematically shut down. I wasn’t hired to make noise, I was hired to be silenced.

The truth of the matter is that everything that you thought was wrong with BET is true.

Over the past year I’ve seen a lot to reinforce my position that BET is too far gone in the negative to turn into a positive. We have all always thought the worst, but to actually see it in action is another thing in its entirety. The unprofessionalism, the tom foolery, the favors, the misappropriation of resources, the bad ideas that reinforce negative stereotypes, the emasculation of men, the meetings that break down in full fledged cursing battles, the unpaid overtime, the tears from employees scared for their underpaid and overworked positions and ultimately the unwillingness to change are all harsh realities that I’ve witnessed firsthand.

That is not to say that there aren’t some good people who have sat in the offices of BET. Unfortunately, the good people are not in positions of power to instill any change. Instead, they work their fingers to the bone just to keep their jobs in this harsh economic climate. The other good people ran out of the door as soon as an another employment opportunity presented itself. To say BET was a revolving door would be an understatement.

I came in with a plan to provide balance and to deliver good music to the masses and help make BET relevant again – at least in the dot com world. Those attempts were shut down by out of touch executives who run a dot com but could barely turn on a computer. By those who judge their metrics by page views over absolute unique visitors (that‘s ad sales talk). By those who simply don’t understand the internet.

They brought me in because of my track record but never once took a look at my body of work. If they did, they would have known that I was the pen behind editorials such as “BET’s Coon Picnic” or were aware of the many times I have been critical of their award shows and programming. All they knew is that I played a major role in making a once unknown website into a online media outlet that surpassed theirs and they wanted a piece of the action. Too bad they never researched who I really was.

During my tenure I worked long hours and sometimes succeeded at bringing in decent content to try to reflect the change I wanted to achieve. But it wasn’t without opposition. While some interviews and content initiatives were able to make it through, many others were either shut down or met with ridicule. I offered ideas to incorporate the blog world and to spotlight new talent before MTV did. Those ideas were met with comments such as “This isn’t HipHopDX” or “You don’t know what you are talking about.”

BET is not about the quality of your work. Rather, BET is about the relationships you have with powerful people within the company. BET is not about challenging. Instead, BET is about accepting and saying “yes.” If you have known or followed me over the years, you would know that these are things that simply are not in my character and ultimately resulted in my removal.

For the artists and labels that I have worked with for years, I tried. I did whatever I could to achieve that balance many of us wanted to see happen. To the writers who wanted to writer for BET, I made an attempt but was never given a budget to work with.

Upon my arrival, I was told I would be given a staff. Not true. I had a staff of one to carry out daily operations on a website. I fought tooth and nail to accomplish the minimum (an embeddable player and a site people could navigate) and was constantly brushed off. It was a position that was set up for failure. But I endured as long as I could.

Alas, I have been removed from my position after infiltrating the system and the timing was perfect. I wasn’t let go because the site’s numbers were down. Not because I didn’t work hard. Simply because of a personality clash with an individual whose proverbial ass I didn’t kiss enough. Again, not about the work you do but about the relationships you keep and the sides you take.

I’d like to thank BET for covering the cost of my relocation to bring me to the great city of New York/New Jersey. I’d also like to thank them for putting me in close quarters with people who think like me and will hopefully work with in the near future. I’d also like to thank them for providing me enough controversial content that I observed firsthand and will make for many tales to be told.

I said it and I meant in: One year to either make changes or move on. I left HipHopDX on September 16th 2008. Today is September 8, 2009. Eight days short of a year. Most thought I wouldn’t even last that long. But in that year I’ve had my greatest fears about Black Entertainment Television affirmed.

There is so much wrong with BET that I’d rather not break it down in a single email.

It is pretty good fodder for a book don’t you think?

As of today, Andreas Hale is a free agent.

“It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”
-Mother Theresa

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born in 1910 in Skopje, now the capital of Macedonia. When she was 18, she became part of Ireland’s Order of the Sisters of Our Lady of Loreto. She trained in Dublin, Ireland and Darjiling, India.

Agnes took her vows to become a nun in 1937, the vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and service to the poor. She also decided that her name would be Theresa after the patron saint of foreign missionaries, Saint Theresa of Lisieux.

Mother Theresa worked as a principal at a high school in Kolkota, but the sight of the sick and dying in the streets made her change her mind of what to do. In 1948, she was allowed to leave her office to help the sick. In 1950, she and her helpers formed the Missionaries of Charity and Mother Theresa was the leader.

In 1952, Mother Theresa established in Kolkota the Pure Heart (Nirmal Hriday) Home for Dying Desititutes and in 1979, she received the Nobel Peace Prize for her accomplishments.

In 1990, Mother Theresa’s health was declining and she had to cut back on her activities. However, a book of her quotations and anecdotes Mother Theresa: In My Own Words was published. A year later, she chose Sister Nirmala to be the next leader of the Missionaries of Charity. She died on September 5, 1997.

Cleopatra, actually known as Cleopatra VII, was born in Egypt in 69 B.C. In 58 B.C., her father Ptolemy XII was expelled from power, so Cleopatra helped him regain his power. However, her father died in 51 B.C., and Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy XIII took the throne. In 48 B.C., Cleopatra was exiled by her brother, who had taken control as supreme Pharoah. So, Cleopatra created an army in Syria and joined forces with Roman Julius Caesar, who became her lover and supported her cause. With his help, Ptolemy XIII was killed in 47 B.C. and Caesar pronounced Cleopatra as queen of Egypt.

As it was a custom, Cleopatra married her younger brother, 11 year old Ptolemy XIV. Cleopatra also had a child whom she named Caesarian and later became Ptolemy XV. He was thought to be Caesar’s child, not Ptolemy XIV’s. Then, Caesar was assassinated and her husband, Ptolemy XIV, was poisoned and died. Although Cleopatra has been implicated with possible having poisoned him, we are unsure if she really did poison him or not.

After knowing him for a few years, Cleopatra married Mark Antony around 35 B.C., even though he was also married to a woman named Octavia. Together, they had a pair of twins who they named Cleopatra Selene and Alexander Helios, and also another child who was named Ptolemy XVI. In 32 B.C., war was declared upon Egypt from Octavius, the brother of Mark Antony’s other wife, because Antony had left Octavia for Cleopatra. Antony and Octavia soon divorced, but Cleopatra still was forced into war.

Sadly, Cleopatra’s army was defeated in the Battle of Actium, and many sorrowful events followed. Mark Antony heard that Cleopatra had died, so he fell on his own sword in 31 B.C., effectively committing suicide. Cleopatra built a temple in Antony’s honor called the Caesarium, which had the two small obelisks called “Cleopatra’s Needles” in it. These obelisks were later given to America and Britain as gift in the 1800’s. One is now in the Embankment in London, and the other is in Central Park in New York City.

Saddened by Antony’s death, Cleopatra killed herself in 31 B.C., although it is much disputed over whether she simply poisoned herself or let her asp (a type of snake) complete her death. Although her life has ended, her fame continues. She has been the basis for many works of literature, including Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra, John Dryden’s All for Love, and George Bernard Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra. She has also had many movies titled and made about her, including ones in 1914, 1934, and 1963, among others.

“Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace with yourself.”
-Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart was born on July 24, 1897 in Atchison, Kansas. She planned to go to college, but after encountering four wounded World War I soldiers on the street, she decided to go into nursing. Hence, during World War I, Amelia worked in Canada as a military nurse, and after the war was over, returned to her family, where she became a social worker at the Denison House in Boston, Massachusetts. There, Amelia started to teach immigrant children the English language.

In 1920, Amelia took a ten minute plane ride that changed her life. After that flight, she knew she was meant to fly. So, she earned $1,000 to use as a fee for flying lessons by working many different jobs. After ten hours of instruction, Amelia was ready to fly alone.

Amelia took her first solo flight in 1921 and bought her own plane a year after. Still, flying was only a hobby at hers; she still taught English at the Denison House. However, from June 17 to 18, 1928, Amelia was a passenger on a plane called Friendship that flew from America to England. She became the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Her story of the flight was covered by publisher George Putnam, whom Amelia later married in 1931.

From May 20 to 21, 1932, Amelia crossed the Atlantic solo and also established a new time record for the flight: 13.5 hours. For this feat, she received a medal from president Herbert Hoover.

A few years after 1932, Amelia became the first woman to fly successfully from Hawaii to California. Then, in June 1937, Amelia and navigator Fred Noonan set out to fly around the world. They left Miami, Florida, and passed South America, Africa, Thailand, Singapore, Java, and Australia. But when they left New Guinea for Howland Island, they disappeared. The only thing left was a frantic message to the US Coast Guard at 8:45 p.m. on July 2, 1937.

Amelia Earhart, Fred Noonan, and Amelia’s plane were never found. In 1939, Amelia’s husband, George Putnam, wrote a book in tribute to her titled Soaring Wings

“If fame belonged to me, I could not escape her; if she did not, the longest day would pass me on the chase, and the approbation of my dog would forsake me.”
-Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts. She attended Amherst Academy for two years and Holyoke Female Seminary for one year. At Amherst Academy, Emily met the principal named Leonard Humphrey, and he gave her her interest in books. But it also seems as if a law student, Benjamin F. Newton, gave her her love of literature as well.

For most of her life, Emily was a recluse, staying in her house by herself and never really coming out or seeing anybody. Her one true acquaintance was Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who published her poetry after her death. It was in the 1850’s that Emily is thought to have begun her poetry, but it wasn’t till 1858 that she began writing her poems in ink and put them in little booklets (meaning they were worthy enough for her to keep forever).

In May 1855, it is thought that Emily met a man named Charles Wadsworth who touched off an explosion of her creative poems in the early 1860’s. A number of letters to Wadsworth were found among her poems.

Although Emily was considered a recluse most of her life, her last years were even more reclusive. She spent her days baking bread, tending her garden, and staring out the window. She grew obsessed with death, almost as if she knew that her time would come soon. Legends were even begun about her: the woman in white and the eccentric recluse.

Emily Dickinson died on May 15, 1886 of Bright’s disease, leaving behind over 2,000 poems that were published by Higginson after her death. Many of her poems are compared today to those of to Henry David Thoreau, for her writing seems to echo how he wanted to live. “close to the bone, concentrating on the very essence of what she saw and felt in phrases that strike and penetrate like bullets, and with an originality of thought unsurpassed in American poetry.”