Greetings all!

Commentary — By Buddy Sampson on July 1, 2010 at 10:40 am

Lately, I’ve been reflecting, for personal growth and a lot more. I learned a lot about myself. Most of all, I learned that I have to let things roll off my back more and that a saying in the Bible reflects a shift I need to adopt. “To forgive an affront fosters friendship.” Without going into details, I’ve gotten punched a lot lately. No, not literally, but I’ve been the recipient of some pretty mean treatment. Some things are just part of the territory that goes with Los Angeles. Because many people come here to be stars, there’s a mentality of do what it takes to get where you want, including if it means doing it at someone’s else’s expense. But I saw evidence of my own mortality recently, I had a hospital stay, (no worries-I’m fine) and when that happens, you begin to think about relationships and making sure you take time to enjoy the journey.

I didn’t get a chance to say congratulations to The Lakers, to Kobe Bryant, Phil Jackson and that class act of a guy Derek Fisher. And speaking of enjoying the journey, I want to take time to congratulate Doc Rivers and the Celtics as well for giving basketball fans an amazing show, one of the best NBA Finals, we’ve seen. In the seventh game, I don’t think there was ever any better defense that’s been played. Some people say it was an ugly game, but the “D” was amazing. When I heard that Doc Rivers cried after the game, you just have to feel for such a class act, a giant of a man. How he motivated that team, by doing things like collecting $100 from last year’s team and hiding it in the ceiling tiles of Staples was masterful and creative. And he just seems so pure and honest. Hope he remains with the team and I definitely hope that the Celtics organization isn’t stupid enough to break up that team. They were perhaps a Kendrick Perkins injury away from a championship. There’s no reason to rebuild. I just heard The Lakers lost Jordan Farmar. What a shame. I just think he was more playing time away from being a real star in the NBA. So happy that Phil Jackson decided to stay with The Lakers another year. Also, watch The Clippers (stop laughing, I mean really). If they pull off an upset and get LeBron James, they will immediately become a championship team. Either way, I think The Clippers will be exciting next year.

Donna Summer is still an amazing talent. We saw her at The Hollywood Bowl and she was nothing short of amazing. We’ll be doing our review of the show this week. Neshia Brathwaite Farhangi performed at the House of Blues and she was fantastic. Her review is now on the site.

Jennifer Day

I had the pleasure to serve as Publicist for The Jennifer Day Show on June 22nd. Now I will tell you, as all Publicists know, that being a Publicist is a lot of work and stress, but we pulled it off. You must check out our coverage of the show in this issue. We had our columnist Eugenia Wright review the show, our new writer and Sales staffer Carmen Chaffin do an article and Greg Thompson, our special correspondent, chimed in as well. Also, a great new addition to our staff, Anjali Fernando was a monumental help to us at the event.

Photographers Andre Cohen, L, Tracy Saunders, Jon Scudder of Jon Scudder TV, Daniela Hubbard, Starmaker David Harrison Levi, Tisha Rivera, Jeff Knight and Nelson Shen. Photo by Paul Batson

At this time I want to give a shout out and thanks to Paul Batson, a photographer and friend who shot the event, but somehow didn’t make it in any of the photos at the event. He’s loved whether he’s pictured or not. He took the picture above. As a Publicist, I don’t take clients that don’t believe in treating media like they are VIPs. Media can make or break you and you should treat them as important. I never understand why Publicists treat the media badly then expect coverage. I scratch my head on that one. Not on my watch.

But Jennifer Day is a star, with the old star mentality of sultryness, mystery and glamour. Her show was amazing and the journalists and photographers that came had a great time and loved her show. The next time she performs, you’ve got to check her out. Your life won’t be the same afterwards.

At this time, I’d like to give a shout out to her manager, Ron Eckstein, a class act in every way. We don’t always agree, but he’s a great guy and I look forward to working with him for years to come.

Oh and thank you to Andre Cohen, who everyone loves for good reason. I can’t resist running this picture to show what a fun loving guy he is.

You must check out Shine On 2, that will be put on by our good friends at Diversity News Publications. It’ll be on July 15th. Check out our advertisement on the Home Page for details. We’re publishing our article on Shine On 1 this week and it was a very good event. By the way, we are in the planning stages of putting on an event in September with Diversity News Publications, with Jennifer Day being one of the featured acts. I plan on putting together a band myself for the event and while I’m a journalist, I’m anxious for people to see some of the other things I do. Some people accuse me of playing a mean bass. So I hope you can show up to see if there’s anything to their statement. Even if I don’t play well, I promise to entertain you.

Xango Henry

We plan on running an article on Xango Henry this week that Eugenia Wright wrote. Henry is an exciting, ruggedly built dude that makes me nervous every time he’s around any of my lady friends. I call him the “no shirt dude,” but there’s more to him than that. Check him out this week.

We’ll be doing an article this week on the dynamic Phil Jones, President and CEO of the Presidential Inner Circle. We apologize that the story has taken so long to publish, but you’ll find him a very interesting guy. He has the formula of making his job fun and I love hanging with him.

We have a new Ms. Scoop. Women of color are among the most beautiful women in the world and our new Ms. Scoop is no exception. Melissa Grummond is a stunning woman of color and she aspires to be the first petite Victoria Secret model. With her gorgeous looks, I wouldn’t bet against her, as her bio says.

Finally, I want to say thank you to all of our readers. We will be walking around the community next week and plan on introducing ourselves to you. If you have a business, we encourage you to advertise with us. We reached 103,000 readers in the last couple of weeks and thats all thanks to you. We have packages that fit any budget and we hope that we can help you with your business. Drop us a line and we’ll try to answer as best we can. Lately, we’ve gotten so many comments (thank you, thank you, thank you!) that we can’t answer them all, but we hope to be able to answer as many as we can. Thank you all for your support and God Bless you all. Blessings and Light, Buddy Sampson, Publisher, The Scoop LA.