How Mr Dynamite May Have Prevented An Explosion
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday December 26, 2008
AS IT HAPPENED 8.30pm, SBS: In April 1968 America was ready to burn. Martin Luther King had been assassinated and in cities across the nation, vengeance-driven blacks went on a rampage, venting their tears of rage and grief with fire and fury. The soul singer James Brown, a friend but no ally of King, was scheduled to perform in Boston, a city divided along racial lines. The segregated suburb of Roxbury was the East Berlin of the metropolis: a district where, given King's association with the city, the potential for the ignition of impacted emotion was high. Aware of the realities and appalled by what was happening in Los Angeles, the mayor, Kevin White, decided to postpone Brown's gig. But black leaders advised him to think again, saying that if the long-awaited concert didn't take place, all hell would break loose. The Reverend Al Sharpton claims Brown and King were two sides of the same coin - with Brown the better dancer and King the master of impassioned oratory. Some neat editing combines moments of Brown's stage act with King's speeches. Born in a brothel and jailed at 16 (and again in 1998), Brown was adamant that the show should go on and no one wanted to see Mr Dynamite go off - and take the city with him. So the concert was approved and commenced in a volatile atmosphere. But a powerhouse performance - much of it seen in this doco - ensued. Did he stop a riot or prevent one happening? You're nobody til somebody loves you and the charisma evident 40 years ago reminds us of the restrained version employed by Barack Obama as he prepares to take the reins and, hopefully, fulfil some of King's vision. Brown died of pneumonia on Christmas Day, 2006, aged 72.
CRICKET 10am, Nine: The Boxing Day Test - a game watched around the nation and emulated in any number of places by ordinary people playing in their backyards, local parks and camping areas. Hopefully the encounter at the MCG will have some of the same backyard spirit and "right stuff" as the beaten (but hardly humbled) Australians look to evening the score against the South Africans. And hopefully Australia will win - if for no other reason than to prevent further unsavoury bleating and whining of Ricky Ponting.NOAH'S ARK AND THE MYSTERY OF THE FLOOD 2.20pm, SBS: For reasons that defy logic and a decent sense of occasion, SBS isn't screening a Hitler documentary today. Surely a program involving Der Fuehrer's Christmas - or Carols From Berchtesgaden - could be found somewhere in the vaults? Still, there's a profile of the German cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - better known these days as Pope Benedict XVI - on SBS at 1.30pm.BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS 7.30pm, Seven: Tara has a great idea for storing books - a segment that will be of no concern to Elle Macpherson. Graham offers tips for bringing colour to a dull, shady garden. Shade isn't dull! Shade is contrast - unless the backyard is being used for Boxing Day cricket and someone appeals against the light.FOR THE WEEKENDAMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL, Sunday 6.30pm, Ten: The Herald's Corset Writer, Ms Adrienne Whopper, rhapsodises over this program in the foreword to her new coffee-table book A Timely History Of Briefs And Underpants (750pp Fairfax Books, $89.95 rrp). She reveals how her attractive volume (co-written with our Motoring Correspondent, Dr Dadswell Camshaft), was specifically written with fans of the supermodelling milieu - and those who aspire to its narcissistic excesses - in mind. In tonight's scintillating instalment, the stick insects are subjected to a blast of emotional distress when one of their number receives a phone call from home that reduces her to jags of weeping. Where is Agatha Christie now that we need her? Nowhere! As the world descends into chaos and intractable stupidity, with cross-pollinating crises in health, transport, finance, education and climate, it's heartening to know that beauty offers some sense of salvation.
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald