brooksie said:

NaughtyKitty said:

Hmmm, I dunno about that. I hafta say this family gives them a run for their money

Naw...the Jackos have their own level of batshitness, but they got nothing on the De Barges or even the Womacks, IMHO. The De Barges are a very incestuous family and that's their main problem....way ahead of dope.. at least from what I can see.

Joe was a mean mofo and Katherine an enabler, but generally speaking they seemed far more of an average family of that era than the De Barges. They lacked the interracial drama in their homes/lives which made the DeBarge sitch far more complicated. JMHO, but if Joe had acted as PapaD allegedly did, so blantaly and so extremely, he'd been in jail or pushing up daisies decades ago. PapaD's white card saved him some serious aggro.

Well since you put it that way....although the you do also have the Jermaine, Randy Alejandra mess but that pales in comparison to incest. Didnt realize they had that much dysfunction going on

NaughtyKitty said:

brooksie said:

Naw...the Jackos have their own level of batshitness, but they got nothing on the De Barges or even the Womacks, IMHO. The De Barges are a very incestuous family and that's their main problem....way ahead of dope.. at least from what I can see.

Joe was a mean mofo and Katherine an enabler, but generally speaking they seemed far more of an average family of that era than the De Barges. They lacked the interracial drama in their homes/lives which made the DeBarge sitch far more complicated. JMHO, but if Joe had acted as PapaD allegedly did, so blantaly and so extremely, he'd been in jail or pushing up daisies decades ago. PapaD's white card saved him some serious aggro.

Well since you put it that way....although the you do also have the Jermaine, Randy Alejandra mess but that pales in comparison to incest. Didnt realize they had that much dysfunction going on

In their Unsung, Bunny always pointed out that because of Father DeBarge's background that authorities didn't bother to arrest them when they found out the racial background of his wife and children...

NaughtyKitty said:

brooksie said:

Naw...the Jackos have their own level of batshitness, but they got nothing on the De Barges or even the Womacks, IMHO. The De Barges are a very incestuous family and that's their main problem....way ahead of dope.. at least from what I can see.

Joe was a mean mofo and Katherine an enabler, but generally speaking they seemed far more of an average family of that era than the De Barges. They lacked the interracial drama in their homes/lives which made the DeBarge sitch far more complicated. JMHO, but if Joe had acted as PapaD allegedly did, so blantaly and so extremely, he'd been in jail or pushing up daisies decades ago. PapaD's white card saved him some serious aggro.

Well since you put it that way....although the you do also have the Jermaine, Randy Alejandra mess but that pales in comparison to incest. Didnt realize they had that much dysfunction going on

Well actually that Jermaine and Randy thing w/ Alijandra IS incest. These two brothers had sex and bred w/ this woman which made their children by her doubly related! Ya know, Uncle Daddy! It's the Mary Wells-Womack brothers sitch revisited

Not to mention, Randy found this woman the same place Tommy De Barge found his women...high school! Here you had grown ass rock star men trolling high schools finding dates!

Well in defense of the De Barges, they didn't spend tons of $$$ and pain trying to look as they look, quite unlike the Jacksons who seemed to take the De Barges looks as a personal/family wide goal!

I'll give the DeBarges this: they're proud to look exactly as how they were born.

Timmy84 said:

NaughtyKitty said:

Well since you put it that way....although the you do also have the Jermaine, Randy Alejandra mess but that pales in comparison to incest. Didnt realize they had that much dysfunction going on

In their Unsung, Bunny always pointed out that because of Father DeBarge's background that authorities didn't bother to arrest them when they found out the racial background of his wife and children...

Yeah, he really managed to get away w/ stuff because of the whole race thing. It wasn't just about how he did his kids, but other kids in the neighborhood too. Bunny said he was screwing their babysitter and it's rumored he molested some daughters of one of his side women too. Then when Etterlene's brother kicked his ass, guess who was gonna get carted away? Tommy says PapaD shut that down hard and quick by refusing to press charges or anything.

Something tells me he didn't do that out of the kindness of his heart, but out of CYA.

On a sadder note, I suspect this also explains the lack of CPS and church/community involvement in their case.

I'm intrigued....you mentioned something upthread about Joe being involved w/ the De Barges at some point. Seems I recall this from when I was a kid, but I forget the details. Give us a run down if you can.

[Edited 3/15/12 22:43pm]

Timmy84 said:

I'll give the DeBarges this: they're proud to look exactly as how they were born.

I'll say this, I've never gotten any impression that they're hung up on their looks either positively or negatively. It seems that it's always others who make a big fuss about it. Babyface, this means YOU playa!

El an 'em know fully well that "light skinned men went out of style" was a bunch of BS. They got the 11 million kids to prove it!

brooksie said:

Timmy84 said:

I'll give the DeBarges this: they're proud to look exactly as how they were born.

I'll say this, I've never gotten any impression that they're hung up on their looks either positively or negatively. It seems that it's always others who make a big fuss about it. Babyface, this means YOU playa!

El an 'em know fully well that "light skinned men went out of style" was a bunch of BS. They got the 11 million kids to prove it!

Exactly.

brooksie said:

MadamGoodnight said:

I sure didn't know that. Things were so different back then. The DeBarges would've been all over the 'net, and blogs. They're lucky they came about at a different time. Motown wouldn't have been able to keep all their dirt hidden.

I'm not so sure this is true because these days celebs have their own massive PR machines and we still (usually) get a sanitized version of them even w/ all this 'net stuff. The De Barges put most of the info about themselves out there themselves, but I don't think it's changed all that much for celebs who wish to be more image concious.

I think the net gives people the impression that they know more about about X famous person than they would have in the past, but don't think it's really true. IOW, we still have the "Motown machine" covering up for them...only far broader and more powerful. The public image is probably even more protected now than it ever was in the past.

[Edited 3/14/12 13:41pm]

*** from MadamGoodnight ***

They had too many jumpoffs, kids, the drugs, so on and so forth.

They had the family, good guy image before the days of texts, & camera phones. They had a huge teen following. People still stan for them now, so back then with technology it would've been crazy. Back in the day news traveled by word of mouth, fan magazines, & press releases. In all honesty their image was so much different from what was put out there by Motown. Now what went on inside of their home was put out by them, but the other things, there would've been no way to keep a lid on all that. Just my opinion, I do see where you are coming from, but I gotta disagree.

[Edited 3/15/12 23:38pm]

MadamGoodnight said:

They had too many jumpoffs, kids, the drugs, so on and so forth.

They had the family, good guy image before the days of texts, & camera phones. They had a huge teen following. People still stan for them now, so back then with technology it would've been crazy. Back in the day news traveled by word of mouth, fan magazines, & press releases. In all honesty their image was so much different from what was put out there by Motown. Now what went on inside of their home was put out by them, but the other things, there would've been no way to keep a lid on all that. Just my opinion, I do see where you are coming from, but I gotta disagree.

[Edited 3/15/12 23:38pm]

Speaking of Black celebs in general and the De Barges in particular, I think you're underestimating the differences between the culture of the mid 80s and today. Back then not just Motown, but the Black press and even Black public protected their stars far more strongly than today. The charts and media were far more segregated too. There was an ethic of "uplift" that Black celebs had a place in. I don't know if you're familiar w/ Vanessa Williams' sitch, but she's the prime example from this era. The Black public rejected the kind of prurient interest that White folks had about their celebs, but even that it was far more subdued then vs now.

It's not just about technology either, it was more about a feeling of collective interests and investment in celebs as being more than just celebs. Even if all this tech had been available back then, I doubt it would be used the way it is today w/ celebs...esp. Black ones. Frankly I was surprised that El's arrests in 07-08 made it to TMZ because De Barge had relatively little mainstream press in their heyday....IOW, I was surprised that the White media even knew who they were.

For example, we'd heard that El got picked up on an assualt rap back in '86 or so, but the Black public kinda let it slide. Usually when Black stars were covered in the mainstream media, it was always something bad...so the Black public was skeptical. I'm saying all this to say that it's simply too complicated to think that things would be diff then if things had been diff! The times were entirely foreign to the world we live in now. People thought and behaved differently in many ways. It's just a different world now, in part because of technology and partly because there's far less segregation than there was in the mid 80s.

Just my take tho.

This vid is crazy. El went straight gangsta on Big Hump! I guess El didn't take too kindly to somebody saying they punched James in the chest. According to Tommy, that's how PapaD used to go after his boys, esp Bobby and himself. El's anger makes perfect sense knowing that tidbit of info.

scriptgirl said:

re people still thinking Debarge are Latino-the names Chico and El didn't help any with that and the name "Debarge" also threw people off. It is so obviously French.

For the millioneth time, when my Uncle Teddy was recovering from a Wild Turkey induced bender while watching Motown 25, he saw Debarge and said, " I didn't know Motown was hiring Puerto Ricans" and passed back out.

Thank you for finally giving me a laugh on what is such a sad thread . I was getting depressed trying to digest all this tragic information!

People really thought that that the De Barges were Latino cuz they had names like Chico and El? Seems to me that lots of Black/mixed boys had Spanish type names back then: Andre, Santino, Mario, Antonio, Chico, etc.... shit that's how I knew they were at least half Black American cuz of those names and how common they were then.

brooksie said:

People really thought that that the De Barges were Latino cuz they had names like Chico and El? Seems to me that lots of Black/mixed boys had Spanish type names back then: Andre, Santino, Mario, Antonio, Chico, etc.... shit that's how I knew they were at least half Black American cuz of those names and how common they were then.

True! And don't forget the name "Orlando", cause I swear, back in the 80's between that one and "Mario", you had one of those on every other block in black neighborhoods and at least one or the other in jr.high Homeroom

[Edited 3/19/12 14:08pm]

Ottensen said:

brooksie said:

People really thought that that the De Barges were Latino cuz they had names like Chico and El? Seems to me that lots of Black/mixed boys had Spanish type names back then: Andre, Santino, Mario, Antonio, Chico, etc.... shit that's how I knew they were at least half Black American cuz of those names and how common they were then.

True! And don't forget the name "Orlando", cause I swear, back in the 80's between that one and "Mario", you one of thsoe on every other block in black neighborhoods and at least one or the other in jr.high Homeroom

How could I forget Orlando?! Tons of those cats around being a certain age. Let's not forget the "D" names too...D'Angelo, D'Andre, D'Marco, and even Dante. Lord I swear Black folks were on some kinda Latin kick back then.

I always wondered if we had so many Chicos because of the show "Chico and the Man"? Seems like many dug the sound of it. I think Chico De Barge was nicknamed by his Puerto Rician step-dad tho.

I love this pic of Tommy

Randy, Tommy, MamaD, El

The book cover

Tommy front and center....fly in Switch. I love this pic cuz Tommy's expression is all like "I'm here and y'all ain't. How ya like me now playa!?"

More to come...

Dang, Tommy look like a toothpick in that photo with Randy, Etterlene and El...

Timmy84 said:

Dang, Tommy look like a toothpick in that photo with Randy, Etterlene and El...

Yeah, he's looked a bit frail for the past few years, but I think that's down to him being on dialysis. I've come across some more robust pics of him in later years and I'll post them.

Hey are y'all ready for some more tidbits from the book? Tommy, if y'all haven't figured it out yet, is a hot ass mess!

brooksie said:

Timmy84 said:

Dang, Tommy look like a toothpick in that photo with Randy, Etterlene and El...

Yeah, he's looked a bit frail for the past few years, but I think that's down to him being on dialysis. I've come across some more robust pics of him in later years and I'll post them.

Hey are y'all ready for some more tidbits from the book? Tommy, if y'all haven't figured it out yet, is a hot ass mess!

Oh yeah that's right I almost forgot about the kidney dialysis. By the way it's weird how he and Randy look alike...

But yeah I'm ready for more tidbits.

Tommy says he tried to pull the torture-intimdation route on Chico that he'd pulled on Marty, but that Chico wasn't having it. He says Chico had some kind of natural meanness to him even from a very young age. He goes on to say that Chico well and truly kicked his ass when he was 15 and Tommy 24. From that point on, he took a different approach on how to step to "Baby Bro" as he calls him.

Interestingly and scarily enough, MamaD has also descibed Chico as a person w/ a wide mean streak.

Given what he's claimed about Bobby's behavior during their child, I find his post teen relationship w/ him to be truly disturbing. They roomed together for years during Switch and Tommy says Bobby was very open about his sexuality around him. From page 108:

“I watched as homosexuality manifested itself in Bobby’s life. Anyone could see, or at least I could clearly see, that he had a stronger attraction towards men than women. He had a male friend, Tony, whom he had met in California, and who accompanied him everywhere after a while. Bobby kept his composure around him; they didn’t carry on as a couple out in public-they hung out as friends. I found Tony to be a nice young man who had interesting conversation. I didn’t question it at first. I just accepted Tony because Bobby did.

After a while, though, Bobby removed all restraints from his sexual desires. He didn’t care if his private life was private or exposed. He was staying at the Howard Weekly Hotel in Hollywood where he paid for his room by the week, and Tony stayed there with him.

I tried to ignore the obvious inordinacy of affection between them by laughing things off and often looking the other way. I didn’t want to believe that my brother was involved with a man. I would invite Bobby to parties and places where I knew women would be prevalent in order to break him away for a breath of something different. He refused because he was into Tony.

I was with Bobby in his hotel room one evening when he pinned Tony against the wall and kissed him like he was kissing a women. His tongue was in Tony’s mouth and he embraced him. They kissed and caressed each other without shame.”

He goes on to say that he then confronted Bobby, but he also wanted to show him his support and here's how he did so... (page 111)

"In my acceptance of him, I went along to clubs for gays when he invited me. Until he became somewhat of a regular and got to know people, I danced with him. We did the hustle, the bump, the freak, and the rock as the popular upbeat dances of the time. I stuck by him and did what he enjoyed."

LOL...and y'all thought the DeBarges couldn't dance!

[Edited 3/18/12 17:20pm]

brooksie said:

Tommy syas he tried to pull the torture-intimdation route on Chico that he'd pulled on Marty, but that Chico wasn't having it. He says Chico had some kind of natural meanness to him even from a very young age. He goes on to say that Chico well and truly kicked his ass when he was 15 and Tommy 24. From that point on, he took a different approach on how to step to "Baby Bro" as he calls him.

Interestingly and scarily enough, MamaD has also descibed Chico as a person w/ a wide mean streak.

Given what he's claimed about Bobby's behavior during their child, I find his post teen relationship w/ him to be truly disturbining. They roomed together for years during Switch and Tommy says Bobby was very open about his sexuality around him. From page 108:

“I watched as homosexuality manifested itself in Bobby’s life. Anyone could see, or at least I could clearly see, that he had a stronger attraction towards men than women. He had a male friend, Tony, whom he had met in California, and who accompanied him everywhere after a while. Bobby kept his composure around him; they didn’t carry on as a couple out in public-they hung out as friends. I found Tony to be a nice young man who had interesting conversation. I didn’t question it at first. I just accepted Tony because Bobby did.

After a while, though, Bobby removed all restraints from his sexual desires. He didn’t care if his private life was private or exposed. He was staying at the Howard Weekly Hotel in Hollywood where he paid for his room by the week, and Tony stayed there with him.

I tried to ignore the obvious inordinacy of affection between them by laughing things off and often looking the other way. I didn’t want to believe that my brother was involved with a man. I would invite Bobby to parties and places where I knew women would be prevalent in order to break him away for a breath of something different. He refused because he was into Tony.

I was with Bobby in his hotel room one evening when he pinned Tony against the wall and kissed him like he was kissing a women. His tongue was in Tony’s mouth and he embraced him. They kissed and caressed each other without shame.”

He goes on to say that he then confronted Bobby, but he also wanted to show Bobby his support and here's how (page 111)

"In my acceptance of him, I went along to clubs for gays when he invited me. Until he became somewhat of a regular and got to know people, I danced with him. We did the hustle, the bump, the freak, and the rock as the popular upbeat dances of the time. I stuck by him and did what he enjoyed."

LOL...and y'all thought the DeBarges couldn't dance!

Just wow. Chico look like he wouldn't take no shit anyway.

Randy, Tommy, MamaD, El

James looks a lot like his mother to me....

^ That's Randy.

Timmy84 said:

^ That's Randy.

I know....I'm talking about his brother James not in the picture. I think he looks like his mama...

Timmy84 said:

Dang, Tommy look like a toothpick in that photo with Randy, Etterlene and El...

and I dare say Mama D is almost looking younger than her own sons!

Ottensen said:

Timmy84 said:

Dang, Tommy look like a toothpick in that photo with Randy, Etterlene and El...

and I dare say Mama D is almost looking younger than her own sons!

She'd look younger if she get rid of that blond yak off her head.

brooksie said:

MadamGoodnight said:

[Edited 3/15/12 23:38pm]

Speaking of Black celebs in general and the De Barges in particular, I think you're underestimating the differences between the culture of the mid 80s and today. Back then not just Motown, but the Black press and even Black public protected their stars far more strongly than today. The charts and media were far more segregated too. There was an ethic of "uplift" that Black celebs had a place in. I don't know if you're familiar w/ Vanessa Williams' sitch, but she's the prime example from this era. The Black public rejected the kind of prurient interest that White folks had about their celebs, but even that it was far more subdued then vs now.

It's not just about technology either, it was more about a feeling of collective interests and investment in celebs as being more than just celebs. Even if all this tech had been available back then, I doubt it would be used the way it is today w/ celebs...esp. Black ones. Frankly I was surprised that El's arrests in 07-08 made it to TMZ because De Barge had relatively little mainstream press in their heyday....IOW, I was surprised that the White media even knew who they were.

For example, we'd heard that El got picked up on an assualt rap back in '86 or so, but the Black public kinda let it slide. Usually when Black stars were covered in the mainstream media, it was always something bad...so the Black public was skeptical. I'm saying all this to say that it's simply too complicated to think that things would be diff then if things had been diff! The times were entirely foreign to the world we live in now. People thought and behaved differently in many ways. It's just a different world now, in part because of technology and partly because there's far less segregation than there was in the mid 80s.

Just my take tho.

Hey Brookise, technology has alowed the public to cut out the middle man. I think that would've changed back then because people would've taken it to the streets like they do now. Nobody has to go through a label or publicist anymore.

I went to two DeBarge concerts at their height, and little girls, teens and ladies were falling out. It was a scene. Babyface didn't lie. I went with a chaperone, and even the older ladies who came to see Luther had to give it up (Loofah didn't want them anyway, but that's a different topic )

So with that, I'm saying hot in the tail, hormonal teenage girls weren't thinking about Jesse Jackson and uplifting the race. They wanted a DeBarge!!! The DeBarges were out and about, they weren't in seclusion like some other artists. They mixed it up. Somebody would've blown up their spot! That wholesome family image would've been out the door. Somebody in the dope house would've sold them out too, & had them on the black blogs like Bossip. You nor I would do this, but that's what it's come down to with social media. Your business is hard to hide. Oh well, that's my last on it in any case, back to this book.

brooksie said:

El's hair is LAID! juices and berries

Timmy84 said:

Ottensen said:

and I dare say Mama D is almost looking younger than her own sons!

She'd look younger if she get rid of that blond yak off her head.

Lord have mercy Timmy...if Etterlene looked any younger, she'd look younger than almost all her kids and even some grandkids! She was born in 1934....so that makes her 77-78 now.

People can say what they want about her, but the woman is gorgeous and very young looking for nearly 80! Etterlene is Black woman inspo as far as her face looks.

MadamGoodnight said: El's hair is LAID! juices and berries

Dare I admit that I don't get this part.

Yes, his hair is fly as hale....as is the rest of him He looked so innocent and boyish sitting next to Bishop Don Magic Juan, right?!

I'll bet plenty women ran their fingers thru that gorg mane during what El coyly referred to as "social life"! We all know he was telling nothing but the truth on his DJ Quik stuff!

BTW, can anyone tell me what "the E-Lo" is that he was talking about?

brooksie said:

Timmy84 said:

She'd look younger if she get rid of that blond yak off her head.

Lord have mercy Timmy...if Etterlene looked any younger, she'd look younger than almost all her kids and even some grandkids! She was born in 1934....so that makes her 77-78 now.

People can say what they want about her, but the woman is gorgeous and very young looking for nearly 80! Etterlene is Black woman inspo as far as her face looks.

Can't say you're lying, I love how young her face looks.