Celebrity Chef Mario Batali Goes on Food Stamps Budget

Can you get by on $1.48 per meal for a week? That's the campaign challenge that the Food Bank for New York City has posed to those interested in seeing what it's like to live on food stamps. Celebrity chef Mario Batali and his family have accepted the challenge and are living on $31 a week per person. Batali, his wife, and their two teenage sons are doing something that 1.8 million New Yorkers and 46 million Americans depend on.

Will you take the challenge ? Can you do it ? Alot of people in this country and around the world are feeling the pinch. Hang in there and keep a positive spirit.  Remember summer is the perfect time for listening and dancing to reggae music. Rising Lion will be out on the road to help you out with this. Check http://www.risinglion.com/ to see when The lion will be near you. Next stop : Rasta Dog Entertainment Presents Reggae @ The Well on Saturday May 26 (Memorial Day weekend) in Knoxville, TN. Roots, Rock, Reggae !

Rising Lion Live @ Seville Quarter :: 2012 Reggae Festival

Come check out your Florida favorite,  Rising Lion returns to his native Florida after a long winter of national touring. Located in beautiful historic Pensacola at Seville quarter this promises to be a great show. See you there! Roots, Rock, Reggae.........
Seville Quarter :: 2012 Reggae Festival

Reggae bash: Rising Lion to play at Mickey Finn’s

Reggae bash: Rising Lion to play at Mickey Finn’s

Written by Mike Bauman | | mbauman@toledofreepress.com

Danny Dred

For veteran reggae artist Danny Dred, playing music is not just for his own personal well-being; it’s also to spread love and positivity to those he performs for.

“There’s a division and all these things, but the way I really look at it is like this: There’s always going to be something in life,” said Dred, the singer/songwriter behind Florida-based Rising Lion. “There’s always going to be something negative. There’s always going to be something challenging. Thing is, it’s like John Kennedy said — what can we do to make a difference?

“And I think that’s the way we should think because tomorrow’s going to come up with the sun shining and it’s going to be a new day.”

Rising Lion has been spreading those positive vibes through its music since 1992. On Feb. 3, it’ll bring them to Toledo for an early Bob Marley birthday bash at Mickey Finn’s Pub with a new six-piece band that features a second guitar player and a female vocalist.

Rising Lion’s fourth full-length album, “Changes,” is nearly complete and being released as singles. The first, “Feelin Irie,” debuted on May 18, 2010.

The title of Rising Lion’s most recent effort came from the struggles Dred was dealing with in his marriage as well as the United States’ economic and social changes.

“Things just change, you know?” Dred said. “And so I looked around, and I just saw a lot of other people going through changes, going through things. When I looked at it I was like, ‘This is the worst I’ve ever seen it in my lifetime,’ as far as the economy and all those things. People not [being] able to handle the pressure, and going through divorces and losing their homes and all of this.

“And so I was just like, ‘This needs to be talked about.’”

One constant Dred has always addressed through Rising Lion’s music is his own life experience, something he has passed on to his 16-year-old son, who is trying to find his own voice through music. Having never known his own father, Dred is happy to be able to guide his son in whatever he pursues.

“All of his life I’ve been a touring musician,” Dred said. “And if you’re going to do it, I tell kids this — it’s not the easiest business in the world. That is for sure. But if you love it and you find it’s really what you love doing, then you’ve just got to get out there and you’ve got to do it.”

Dred speaks from experience. He has bachelor’s degrees in sociology and Spanish and was a case manager at Columbia University before he started Rising Lion. While he appreciated what his college experience meant, ultimately music was his true passion and calling. With influences ranging from Peter Tosh to Jimi Hendrix to Bob Marley, it was difficult for Dred to ignore his gift.

Over the years, Rising Lion has performed at “The Legends of Rasta Reggae Festival Tour,” “The Annual Bob Marley Reggae Festival” and “The New England Reggae Fest,” to name a few. In addition, Rising Lion also has songs on compilation records with the likes of Gregory Isaacs, George Clinton, Fats Waller and Dennis Brown, among others.

“Just like anything else in life, the greatest happiness I think you’re going to find is to find something as a job that you love doing and then get good at it,” Dred said of being a musician. “And that way, it won’t seem like you work.”

Some of Dred’s philosophy can be attributed to Marley’s vision. One quote that stuck with him over the years was when Marley said, “If my life is just for me, my own security, then me don’t want it. My life is for people; that is the way me is.”

“If you’ve been blessed with certain skills and talents and abilities, then you should use them for the upliftment of mankind, for the upliftment of people [rather than] to just keep them for yourself,” Dred said. “It’s therapeutic for me in that way, but I definitely look at music as a vehicle for social change and spiritual growth and all these things.”

Rising Lion will perform Feb. 3 at 9:30 p.m. at Mickey Finn’s Pub, 602 Lagrange St.

For more information, call (419) 246-3466 or visit mickeyfinnspub.com.

Tags: Mickey Finn's Pub, Red Lion, Reggae

Life On The Road

Have been on the block for a minute.  Still getting organized and wanted to get you all caught up with what's happening on the road. I will make a better effort moving forward to keep you updated with the 2012 tour. We started out the last week of January and played several clubs in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana before turning left and heading west. The first show in Chicago at "The Shrine" club was amazing - packed dancefloor and tons of positive feedback from everyone. The new lineup of musicians each have special and unique talents and we are playing to everyone's strengths in the band. Lots and lots of driving.....trapped together in a tight space and you get to know your new peeps really quickly!  Did I mention lots and lots and lots of driving? Wintertime driving in Vail and Alma Colorado was challenging and also stunningly beautiful. Meeting tons of new friends and playing music every night - what's better than that? Great show in Taos, New Mexico where we met Mario and Heather. They locked eyes at a Rising Lion show 15 years ago and have been together ever since - beautiful! We've had some good CD sales so far and are getting some new fun merchandise coming soon. More Soon - Peace Love Joy - Let Light Shine!

Rising Lion in Cincinnati

Rising Lion is in Cincinnati rehearsing for their upcoming winter tour 2012. The rehearsals are going nicely and they are looking forward to being on the road seeing old friends and making new ones. Check out http://www.risinglion.com/ to see when they will be near your area.

Feelin Irie- Rising Lion

Feelin Irie- Rising Lion

R I P Steve Jobs, Mr. Apple

Steve Jobs — the man who brought us the iPhone, the iPod and the iMac — has died. The co-founder of Apple was 56 years old. Jobs had been battling a rare form of pancreatic cancer for years. Jobs was an incredible innovator, described as the Thomas Edison of our time. He brought us the The Mac, the first computer to use a mouse, Ipod, Ipad, Iphone, and had an amazing effect on movies with his Pixar Pictures and Disney, as well as a tremendous impact on the telephone industry. Not to mention is impact on the music industry with the Mac G series of computers which are no. 1 with music and video software. All of the Rising Lion albums were recorded, mixed, and or mastered using these products. So reggae music, another horizon that he impacted.

" McNamee says that in addition to introducing us to desktop publishing and computer animated movies, Jobs should be credited with creating the first commercially successful computer.

"Any one of those would have qualified him as one of the great executives in American history," McNamee says, "the sum of which put him in a place where no one else has ever been before. To me he is of his era what Thomas Edison was to the beginning of the 20th century."

"Jobs was eventually fired in a 1985 boardroom coup led by John Sculley — the man Jobs himself had hired to be CEO of Apple. But Jobs was driven to make computers vehicles for creativity, and after he left Apple, he purchased a little-known division of Lucas film and renamed it Pixar.

In 1995, Pixar released the first animated feature to be done entirely on computers. That film, Toy Story, was a huge success, and Pixar followed it with other big hits including Monsters, Inc., The Incredibles and Finding Nemo."

"In 1998, as interim CEO of Apple, Jobs introduced the iMac and once again helped remake the computer industry. According to venture capitalist McNamee, the iMac was the first computer made to harness the creative potential of the Internet.

"The iMac reflected the transition of consumers from passive consumption of content to active creation of entertainment," McNamee says. "People could write their own blogs, make their own digital photographs and make their own movies. Apple made all the tools to make that easy and they did at a time when Microsoft just wasn't paying attention."

Three years after the iMac, Jobs announced Apple's expansion into the music industry with a breakthrough MP3 player — the iPod.

"This is not a speculative market," he said as he introduced the iPod in 2001. "It's a part of everyone's life. It's a very large target market all around the world."

The iPod was a classic Jobs product — easy to use and nice to look at. Apple sold tens of millions of iPods, and the iTunes store became the No. 1 music retailer.

Six years later, Apple released the iPhone — a device whose elegance and user friendliness blew other phone/music players out of the water.

In 2010, Apple created yet another groundbreaking device with the introduction of the iPad. With its color touch-screen, the tablet gave users the ability to surf the Web, send e-mail, watch videos and read e-books.

Book publishers weren't the only ones to embrace the new tablet. A host of magazines, newspapers and broadcast news organizations, including The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal and NPR, created iPad-specific apps that helped showcase stories — and images — in a tabloid-style layout.

And in January 2011, Apple reached a milestone by surpassing 10 billion downloads from its App Store — a sign of just how popular the company's devices have become with consumers.

"Simplifying complexity is not simple," says Susan Rockrise, a creative director who worked with Jobs. "It is the greatest, greatest gift to have someone who has Steve's capabilities as an editor and a product designer edit the crap away so that you can focus on what you want to do."

Rockrise believes Jobs touched pretty much anyone who has ever clicked a mouse, sent a photo over the Internet, published a book from a home computer or enjoyed portable music or a computer-animated movie."