25 January, 2005

Jolie Christine Rickman July 9, 1970 - January 19, 2005


Peace and social justice feminist musician, activist, and humanitarian watchdog Jolie Christine Rickman of Brooklyn, New York passed away January 19, 2005 at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York City, eleven months following her diagnosis of ovarian cancer. She was 34 years old.

Jolie is survived by her loving husband Bill Mazza, her mother Jacqueline Rickman of Chicago, father Donald Rickman of California, three younger sisters Aimee Rickman, Elisabeth Williams and Margaret Mary Rickman, her beloved dog Roo, and many very close friends and family far and wide, including in her homes in Australia, Syracuse, Chicago, Champaign-Urbana, and New York City. She was the first grandchild of John and Christine Dreznes of Beverly.

Jolie gave freely of her voice, compassion, humor, and empathetic leadership to actively support human rights and social justice action, most recently in such organizations as SOAWatch and CISPES, where as New York City’s Chapter Coordinator (2001-2003) she initiated the now on-going Spanish Camp for Activists, an alternative Fourth of July weekend immersion in language and Latin American issues, and the People’s Referendum on Free Trade which mobilized people from all sectors in the New York City area to struggle for economic fairness and equity. Early on into her life-long study of non-violence, Jolie took on an internship with The King Center in Atlanta. She often spoke of her work there with Coretta Scott King as a key factor that inspired her to music.

Pronounced legally blind at age 11 due to juvenile onset macular degeneration, Jolie went on to graduate with honors from Richards High School in Oak Lawn in 1988, and suma cum laude from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Department of Political Science in 1992. While at UIUC, Jolie took part in many politically progressive efforts, including the movement that launched the University YMCA’s Alternative Spring Break program, which, to this day, continues to connect young people with important nation-wide social justice issues. She later earned a graduate degree from Syracuse University’s department of Peace Studies.

Jolie was the driving force and artistic genius behind such music-based projects as ArtCar, the HEN Foundation, and Sing it Down! – all designed to connect music and social movements in effective and educational ways that reached diverse audiences throughout the country. She released four original CDs including Sublime Detonation (1998), Sing it Down!: Songs to Close the SOA (co-produced with Colleen Kattau, 1999), and Suffer to Be Beautiful (2000). Her original composition, “Romero” remains a signature song of the movement to close down the US Army School of the Americas (WHISC), while her song “Emma Goldman (Rosa’s Pride)” continues as an anthem of hope in struggle for young and old alike.


Jolie’s emotively crafted lyrics, spectacular performance skills, and charismatic personality drew her many fans and brought her critical acclaim. Her inimitable voice and powerful spirit - optimistic and brave - will live on in her music:

You show up and you smile for no reason, like it’s all so simple and clear,
Like we’re the hope of a hundred generations,
Like you and I have no fear…
-Jolie Rickman “Emma Goldman (Rosa’s Pride)”

Following a commemoration gathering at her home in Brooklyn, NY, a memorial service will be held for Jolie Rickman on Sunday, January 30, at St. Gertrude Church, 1420 W. Granville Avenue, in Chicago. A subsequent celebration of her life and music will take place in Syracuse, NY in the near future.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that all donations be directed to either Friends of Dorothy, 212 Wayne St, Syracuse, NY, 13203, or to Jolie's partner Bill Mazza, 23 Virginia Place, Brooklyn NY 11213, to assist in deferring medical expenses.


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Pacifica Radio's "Democracy Now" memorialized Jolie's work on its Monday morning broadcast, with an excerpt from "Romero," a track from Jolie's 1999 release Sing It Down : http://www.democracynow.org/index.pl?issue=20050124

http://www.jolierickman.com

8 january, 2005

So, January.

The years ended and started out very well. Some unexpectedly balmy early springtime-ish weather allowed for lots of expectation-free launches from the front door into wildly meandering walks and park bench sitting -- sometimes among the skateboarders or handball players, sometimes just to sit -- almost every time punctuated at least in part by the animatedly underslept and uncontainably creative folk who choose to linger on the lower east side. Spent the beginning of my birthday unpacking and wanding about the hood due to delayed flight arrival. Later, lost in Queens, quick pass theough Laguardia to pick up Spencer, lost in upper Manhattan, dinner in Brooklyn with Jolie and Bill, and drinks down the street from home with the roomies. Having my first visitor kept me giddy for days, and helped me take advantage of the extended break from work and cold well, as kind veteran New Yorkers proactively volunteered directions on the street along our way, fought over us in Curry Row, offered to peddle us drugs in Washington Square Park, and provided us "Happy Last Days of Guided By Voices" drinks at midnite at a mighty dinna and some more drinks in our low-key new years' bar of choice from the barkeep who i usedta share my shift meal with, along with a familiar dose of the drunk Irish lovin that the two of us are getting kinda accustomed to.

Saw for the first time, among other things, the lights of the city sprawling out on all sides from beneath the Empire State Building, the castles and pretty lanes of Central Park, and some of the tuxedoed and fat cat-midriffed older guests of the Park's ritzy hotels puffing on cigars and waiting for the cars that would chauffeur them off into their black-tied new years festivities. Also laced up ice skates, clasped gloved hands, and gingerly laughed our concentratedly stilted ways around the outer edges of the Rockerfeller Center rink in the center of Manhattan below a ring of onlookers, emerging surprisingly unscathed. All and all, generally loaded up on the wonderfully passive entertainment that aimless wandering of NY generously provides. Lots of nourishing things. A good strong beginning to the year. A blissful reprieve, and reminder.

January, since then, has gone back to complicated. In response, i started up swimming again, and doing what i can think of and muster to keep myself stable in the midst of crazy times. Cause it's crazy times.

Yep. January. Just learned that, thanks to the true-to-form apathy and cost cutting measures taken in updating my building's heating system by our theoretically charmingly, all-too stereotypical east village slumlord, i will have no heat in my apartment for the winter. Also have, at this point more than ever, a dying sister. i hesitate writing such things, since writing about anything makes it take on a much more pronounced level of reality for me. But maybe mentally taking on the really personal tough things is best. Maybe.

Though my sister is the primary reason i've moved out here, i haven't turned my writing attention to this area at all. Incrementally, i think i probably will. For now, though, suffice it to say that January daytimes are spent sitting in a windowless cubicle doing a bit of interesting work and lots of filler to take up eight hours (speckled, these days, with spontaneous busts out into the stairwell to run up flights until i can't take any more, and cross-town lunch break walks. found coo Hell's Kitchen last week.), early evenings taken in a hospital room, and nighttimes in NY are a blur of subway innards, traffic sounds, passed east village storefronts, and cheeks stinging from winter once again asserting its dominance within difficult conditions.

tonite, after writing this, i stopped in one of the small taverns that speckle C Street on my way home from l'ospital. jazz. red wine. this, Ellen's email, and realizing that making myself be in places outside of those that present themselves easily when im sad, im learning, help. yep. a lot. this city also, without trying, makes music. i just need to get myself in a space where i am able to listen. maybe we'll try, and see where it gets us.

in the meanwhile, my reseach has been completed, and super-cold-busting-not-gonna-burn-the-apt-down space heater buying moves up to the top of the so far pretty dag dreary to-do list for the week. gonna have to spice that up a little. ok.

xo