"Ed Sullivan and Black Baby Boomers... Living the Years"

"Ed Sullivan and Black Baby Boomers, Living the Years"

By Glenn Peppers                 11-14-2018 8:47am

I look at some of the reruns of the old Ed Sullivan Show from back in the day on the Decades retro channel. And I like them! A younger person and I got into a conversation about the Ed Sullivan Show, and the entertainers from that era from the late 1950's on into the early 1970's! And I mean this guy acted as if he was there when all this great music and groundbreaking entertainment exploded back in the 1960's! Then he started in on trying to correct me about things from that day and time that I knew were wrong!

Hmmm! Well, if you know me, you know that I couldn't just sit there and take that malarkey for much longer from this clown! I finally had to tell this guy. Don't try and play it of as if you know what it was like to live and come along back in the day, during the 1960's!.... Because, YOU DON'T!

Growing up, I actually liked The Ed Sullivan Show! In the 1960's, it was one of maybe two national TV shows where you could see black folks on Television! So in a way, for the newbies coming along today, watching the reruns clips on an historian level is sort of like cheating! Firstly because they never show you the entire TV show. Just clips! 

We baby boomers paid for those memories that people are watching by actually living and experiencing those years. We were the ones who waited that whole week long to see who was going to be on The Hollywood Palace on Friday nights, and The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday nights! 

Remember, some of us had the TV Guide in the newspaper and knew ahead of time; and our parents and many of kids had the national TV magazine, TV Guide as well!

Back then, all those things like Soul from Motown, and Stax records, and Rock and Roll from Sun Records were new to all of us, young and old! New music, new brands of comedy and even wild an crazy circus acts on Sullivan made it the thing to watch on a Sunday Night!

The time and era in which folks my age grew up in during the 60's was special. It was filed with turmoil and beauty, and war, and protest, and groundbreaking music, in every genre! It was just what an ailing nation needed just after coming off grieving President Kennedy's Assassination; when out of nowhere came, The Beatles!

Ed Sullivan and The Beatles

Even though I love those Ed Sullivan clips and excerpts on the Decades Channel. There was and is nothing like having lived those years, and watched and waited with bated breath, every week for each new singer to come along! You watched for every new band, and every new performer straight out of the starting gate of the 1960's and 70's, an wondered who'd become a star! And all of it new! Something never seen before!

Sure I'm glad a whole new generation of people are being exposed to this old school brand of variety TV on the Decades Channel; but as far as impact goes. There will never be anything like sitting crosslegged on the living room floor, watching that floor model 25 inch, or 19 inch TV on its TV cart with our parents, waiting to see The Beatles or The Jackson 5, or Barbara Streisand, or The Temptations, The Supremes and Joan Rivers and a very nervous Richard Pryor, and the ever funny, Rodney Dangerfield, and George Carlin, Lily Tomlin and my childhood crush, Shirley Bassie for the very first time, on our Black and White TV sets!

The Jackson 5, Ed Sullivan and Diana Ross

That was a time when ever there was going to be black folks on TV. There'd be a network of mainly older black folks calling one another going, "Ya'll better turn to channel 2! Colored folks on Ed Sullivan!" As television and hollywood was basically devoid of black folk, unless you played a maid, a butler, of a buffoonish clown! No leading man roles for black men! They emasculated black men on television and in the movies to the point of making them nothing short of sexless hamsters on TV! That is until The jackson 5 came along! Girls screamed over these guys, just like they did the Beatles!

So on a Sunday night, if there was going to be black entertainment on Ed Sullivan, no matter what you were doing around that time, everything stopped! Because we were able to watch ourselves on national TV! And it was a prideful thing too! Because we here in Detroit represented Motown with class and talent!

On national TV, we shined! We were dressed to the nines, sounding and looking good, on that Black and White TV set that let us use our imaginations as far as what colors and textures things could be! Our minds were filled with many colors like crayons that washed our brains with a million colors of the mind! 

We assigned red's and blues and silver and gold sparkles to whomever's gown or jackets. the many shades of gray and charcoal fed the artistic romantic part of right brain!

We imagined gold color to the tailored suits of the Four Tops, or wondered what color Peter Noon's hair was, as he and his Herman's Hermits sung "Mrs. Brown you've got a Lovely Daughter!" 

We all tripped on Mick Jagger's antics and Jim Morrison and the Doors! Then around 1965, color TV kicked in. And if you were lucky enough to catch Ed Sullivan in Color. You saw James Brown's red sport coat! Or those colorful silvery sparkly suits the Temptations wore!

Folks like us Baby Boomers, black or white lived those memories... day to day, week by week! And all on basically three television channels! NBC, channel 4. CBS, channel 2, and ABC channel 7! Then came WKBD, channel 50 in 1966, and to be honest about it! We had Windsor Canada's CKLW, channel 9 right along side our three major network affiliates of NBC, CBS, ABC!

Of course, if you had a UHF antenna, you could get Public Channel WTVS, channel 56! A television station that was Detroit based, and has been around since 1955! 

But basically, overall. The nation had only three major channels, and on those three channels, we was a lifetime of good and interesting national and local television programming!

But Sunday night's at 8pm was a night for everyone in america, on CBS! It was time for The Ed Sullivan Show! And to me, even up until today, that era adds up to more than just video clips of James Brown singing "Its a Man's World!" Or Bobbie Gentry singing "Ode to Billy Joe," or a two minute clip of Frank Fountain's comedy, and Tom Jones singing "Its not Unusual" or Gladys Knight and the Pips jamming "I Heard it through the Grapevine!"

Ed Sullivan was a reflection of an era of change in America, and was a time bursting at the seams with expression and creativity! That's why Ed Sullivan reruns and clips are fine for younger folks discovering old school entertainment. But don't play it off and try to act like you were there! 

As the old folks say!... "You don't know nothing 'bout that!" So just sit back, watch and learn something!

For us Baby Boomers and old schoolers from all walks of life! Ed Sullivan, and shows like The Hollywood Palace and national dance shows like Shindig, and even Windsor, Canada's, "Swinging Time" dance show (every weekday at 4:30pm in Detroit and Windsor), pre-dating Detroit's WGPR, channel 62's "The Scene by a decade. 

This was our time! Our musical fix! We here in Detroit were blessed in that we saw the Temptations and the Supremes and Smokey Robinson sometimes way before the whole county did most times, because of Windsor's Swinging Time! 

Even Windsor's AM radio station, CKLW had the first real all hits radio format in north america, where they played everything! Rock, Pop, Soul, Country, Folk you name it! Motown was a big staple on AM 800, CKLW!

But on a national scope, The Ed Sullivan Show was a chronicle, and a gateway to other national groundbreaking TV shows like NBC's Laugh-In, and eventually The Flip Wilson Show, Soul Train, and of course one of the most incredible variety TV shows ever, The Carol Burnett Show!

So there it is! Try as one may. You cannot condense time and life's era's down into micro-video clips and then count them as equated life experiences! You can mostly-only just enjoy them! No one can live or relive those times as they were originally! Trust me, growing up in the 1960's, believe me. Day to day, week by week. Month and year by year.... We lived it!

Glenn Peppers

“So Evil Wakes up Early in the Morning...”

Evil Lurking about

“So Evil Wakes up Early in the Morning...”

(How ‘bout You?)

By Glenn Peppers          

A Minister once told me something in short that was really quite wise indeed! It is something that has rang true in my life so many times I can't even count how many times its proven itself! I've expounded on his words a bit in order to write this piece! And my expression from his wisdom, and my personal recollections of the topic at hand goes something like this. 

"Evil things and Evil People are always on time! People who are Evil will get they're butts up early in the morning and get right dead on the job of being EVIL! Up and at at’em! Testing your faith, and causing you havoc! Evil will waste no time at the business of being Evil! Evil things and people are never late! They are never tired, and they never miss an opportunity to go after anything good in order to destroy it! 

Good and decent people often Lolly-gag, procrastinate, and become complacent, lazy, unbelieving, and walk around completely in denial that there are forces out here in the works that literally wants to destroy you and yours! Be they Evil people, or just plain Evil incarnate, lying in wait for you at every turn!

Evil most times sits in the front row, at school and at church! It is often sitting by you at home, and on the bus! I don’t even have to tell you that Evil is always lurking around you at your Job! 

Evil is always waiting for you to give it just one inch! To turn your back just one time, and to be weak and careless as often as you can, because Evil will always be there, every time to catch you in your weakest hour... To temp you! 

To make you stumble, and to eventually take everything away from you, if you let it! The one good thing that comes from all this brazen acknowledgement of Evil is that you can in fact, resist Evil!

Good people are like Gold, we’re beautiful, yet foolishly malleable in that we bend way to easy before we show any signs of breaking! Good people are generally often quite gullible, and far too easy going, and Andy Gump blind to the fact that there is always someone or SOMETHING out and about in the world, slaving behind the wizard’s flowing curtains; pulling the marionette strings of Evil in your life, trying to drag you down! 

When you are not in tune to this wisdom. If you do not have God in your life in order to fight off and resist Evil, that means you are indeed late getting up in the morning! 

And if you are late to the table, you are late in your own realization and mindset of life! As a result, The Evil Early Bird who has awakened before you will indeed nab you and your juicy little worm, and devour you both all in one big swallow! 

I suggest that today is a good day to follow what James says in James chapter four, Verse seven!... 

James 4:7 KJV

“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you!” 

God’s Love and Speed my friends!

Glenn Peppers   

3-3-2017 10:30am --- 

Updated November 2, 2017 4:34pm

"Kid Rock and the Little Caesar's Sports Arena.... Who Cares!... I Don't!"

Bikers taking Flip the Bird Pictures at The Little Caesar's Arena

"Kid Rock and the Little Caesar's Sports Arena.... Who Cares!... I Don't!"

By Glenn Peppers                                                         Sept 16, 2017

This sad display in front of the newly built Little Caesar’s Sports Arena in downtown Detroit isn't really so much disturbing to me as it is sad! In fact, in all actuality, it is kind of pitiful! Mainly because it is only a throwback, and a continuation of just how things have always been here in Michigan... under the skin! 

Nothing's really changed racially, or other wise here. Especially in Southeastern Michigan! From that racially inspired dividing wall on 8 mile road, to the sharp tax and insurance redlining of black citizens, to the negative and exclusionary treatment of Detroit's Public Educational System, and its children! Which I'll touch more on that later! 

This whole Kid Rock thing though, com’on now be honest about it! No one should be surprised at this whole fiasco! Its all Publicity! So tell me, “Why are You all Surprised?”

White mob chasing black man with sticks and clubs in the 1943 Detroit Riot

From the white supremacist generated race riot that white auto workers started in 1943, that no one in the press, or in our local television media outlets in Detroit ever talks about. To the dangerous bullying/head-whippin' racist, Big Four police squads of the 1960's (A band of hooligans cops, that as a child, I myself witnessed in action going after black men and boys like slave chasers)!

 

Big Four Squad Car

The Big Four (they were called) Were notorious for violence against people of color! Big Four and other rouge cops were the ones who incited, and pretty much exploded the city of Detroit into a full scale riot and/or uprising by rousting people within a longtime Speakeasy. Pushing folks way too close to the edge! In fact, well over the edge that hot night back in 1967!

Well it’s 2017, and in essence, not a lot has changed (especially in Detroit)! Not as far as some people evolving past their core brained neanderthal behaviors and treatment of people of color in Michigan. To be really honest about it. In that respects; absolutely nothings changed but technology! We all just communicate a whole lot better is all!

I guess my shake on all this is that I am not really excited about the building of a brand new sports arena in downtown Detroit! As a matter of fact! As far as I’m concerned, they can gang up a whole new slew of arenas and stadiums, and soccer complexes all along Woodward avenue like big ole’ bowling pins. I could care less! 

And what would the people all gain from this? Nothing but mad sport home-team pride (if any of our teams ever start to win games), and great places to eat Hot Wings!... Oooo, yay! 

Those enterprises would be just like all the other Rich Guy enterprises springing up in these gentrified invaded areas of Detroit. They’ll be the crowning glory and the achievements of a family owned pizza business of a passed on Billionaire Pizza Mogul, and a Quicken Loans Billionaire Land Grabber! And I say again.... What about the people? We'd eventually end up being stuck with some sort of higher tax rate in something, somewhere down the pike! 

Its all about Big Business folks! So if the likes of a less than talented, overgrown confederate flag waving fame hound on stage finds victory in claiming this new arena as some sort of victory or trophy; or some kind of fort captured. I say Great! Its all yours Mr. Rock!

Believe me, I have no real interest or inkling to ever set foot in that arena! I don’t care that much for Hockey! And I’m figuring that I’m not going to go see a basketball game anytime soon (I don’t think). And my Big Hair, Rockin’ in the USA Arena Concert going days just may be far behind me! So for me, Fort Illitch is nothing to fight over! And it has nothing to do with Kid Rock!

Kid Rock Biker support on Woodward in Front of the Little Caesar's Arena

Nor does it have anything to do with a slew of the mad angry bikers or all the confederate flag waving Trump Zombies in the world! Its just that "I Don’t Care Anymore!" 

Detroit is only showing itself to be what it has been since blacks made their way up here in the 1930's, 40's and 50's and 1960's to work in the auto plants! Detroit and southeastern Michigan has been one big giant caldron of churning hate and discrimination ever since blacks came north in search of work! 

Black Auto Worker 1963

Hate and discrimination has only budged mere inches from where it once was decades ago. Living in the 1950’s was hard for my parents! Racially narrow minded people, made life a completely unbearable situation for people like my father, and many other black men like him who suffered horrible treatment and racism working in those auto plants in the 1950’s!

Black Foundry Worker

They did awful things to thousands of black men whose only aim was to earn an honest living, and feed their families, and live a peaceful life! White foremen would put only black auto workers in the hot foundry areas of the plant in order to punish them! I remember the stories those older men would tell of how hot it was by that furnace! 

On a more serious tip; you won't ever see this brother going out to march in the streets, waving protest signs and the like over something like Kid Rock Opening a Sports Arena that was no designed with people of color in mind! Ask yourself. What in the hell did any of that marching ever get anyone protesting for either their right to hate, or their right to freedom?... Not much at all! 

I feel that in order to show just how you really feel about an injustice done on to you, you have to do more than burn a hole in your shoes walking the streets! It has to be more personal than just marching and waving slogans signs! In order to make an impression you have to, (How do you say?) “Affect the Money!” 

Spend your money where you are treated good and fair! I don’t trade with people who look down on me! If I feel that they are disrespecting me. I take my money elsewhere!

I'm no millionaire! But I'm one of many regular people out here with just chump change, actually!... But its my chump change! 

Therefore, I've made it up in my mind that I will henceforth refuse to willingly, and knowingly support anything to do with any enterprise that has stolen well over $300,000,000 from the Detroit Public School's educational fund in order to build this big giant, eyesore of an arena that sits on the edge of Woodward avenue, in downtown Detroit! 

Now that may not seem much to you, but if more people stuck to their guns, and quit supporting people, places and things that exploit them. You’d be surprised at how things will start to change somewhere down the road! As I said. it may not be much. But its all I have to offer!

This is why I will not support this place! How many lies were told to all of us over the years that the Detroit Public School system was flat broke? "Detroit is Broke People! Oh, we have to file bankruptcy, and everything looks bleak for Detroit! We need an Emergency Manager to hash things out financially for Detroit, and for the Detroit Public School System!" They scared everybody to death, making folks think that Detroit was going to get swallowed by a great big Sinkhole!

Eventually, Washington actually did get the monies sent to Michigan with the aim of rebuilding DPS, in order to give Detroit kids a better education and shot at life. Maybe even making our schools look and feel, and possibly even match up to at least some of those Big Beautiful college campus-style Schools in Oakland, Bloomfield and many other suburban counties here in lower Michigan! And then quietly, under everybody's noses, suddenly all the money was gone!  

Like a late night burglary! Over $300,000,000, just Gone! And as bad as these children in Detroit (those who are left) needed a new jolt! An Educational-Rejuvenation. It was all gone! And it was all hush-hush!$300,000,000 would have been a pretty good start for those kids! A start that never even got out of the starting gate! 

To many, this further shows just how those who are suppose to help Detroit, really felt about the people who've lived here in the city for so long! Those who paid taxes, and who’ve struggled, and waited out the promised resurgence of the city, and help, for so long! And now this!

So yes! Therefore, I will not partake in anything involving any product made or produced by the Illitch Companies! Money is everything to some people, and the numbers don't lie! I don't know about any of you, but I don't ever have to purchase any food products from the Illitch Co. I don't care for their Little Caesar’s Pizza anyway! 

And as far as The Fox Theater is concerned! I was going to the Fox well before Mike Illitch ever dreamed of renovating that old place! Howard C. Crane's (the Fox Theater's architect and designer) signature is all over that place from its core to its rooftop, to the Lions on the inside and outside of the place! All Illitch did was clean the joint up a bit!

So, there it is! If these five nights of a loosely copy-cat version of a musical charged Trump Rally/Concert is the Christening of this New Detroit Sport's Arena. Then so be it! 

In the annuls of history, such a thing would prove to be kind of a sad commentary! And in saying that, I forgot that there are those among us who have no shame in what it is they do to others. 

And when they re-write history (as they often do to glorify themselves), the story will come out shiny clean. Making folk heroes of those who stole, and committed great crimes and injustices against the people!

And how truly sad because, despite all the achievements and legendary things Detroiters had done. Been apart of, and become over the last 75 to 100 years. Racism eventually had to almost always took a backseat to hate! 

Detroit was once a city that was on the move! I felt it! I grew up during this time, and I saw this! And the good that got accomplished in Detroit had nothing to do with hate, or with just one group of people! 

Detroit back in the day, after the 1943 riot. Everyone enjoyed Downtown Detroit. Black or White

Everyone had a hand in Detroit’s great legacy, from its automotive integrity, and its ground breaking broadcasting history! To its music and entertainment and manufacturing roots! Marks that are iconic, and have left an impression on the world! And all despite racism! 

But like anything negative, hate and greed begins to creep in, and drags weak minded people down to a lowly place! Believe me, as far as an overall city is concerned. Detroit will never be what it once was on a retail level! 

People everywhere are all about One Stop Shopping! Retail in Warehouse shopping and Internet purchasing Online by folks who sit at home and order things from the Internet, instead of getting out to buy them has made sure of that! 

Back in the day, All of Detroit was utilized! There were shops everywhere! people don’t shop like that anymore! if it ain’t at Sam’s, Costco’s or Meijer. It may not get purchased!

People shopped back in the day! They got out and shopped!Black and White!

Especially with Detroit’s present mindset of exclusion and hate! You have to do business with everybody! Not just a chosen few! You’ll go broke eventually! So no matter how many stadiums and arenas and coffee shops, and Q-Lines, and Wayne State parking lots they build! Detroit will never be the place it once was! It will never be as good! 

No matter how many nice new shiny things that are built and erected! 

Detroit has always been its best when everyone had a hand in its growth and progress, and includes its home-team revelry! Its the people... It was always Everyone who made the difference in Detroit! 

It has always been Red, Yellow, Black, White and Brown people who made Detroit as great as it ever was! Not a building, nor a business! It was always the people!

Detroiters doing it together

No city can survive without a Melting Pot! Cities are truly Metropolises! Cities should be wonderful Cultural Habitations reflecting a fine exhibition of various views, lifestyles and peoples, and businesses from places near and far! This is what makes up a city!

From each other, we've all learned how to work, how to play and how to cook and live life together, as best we could considering the crummy circumstances sometimes! 

A Melting Pot like Detroit was and is makes up the sum total of what comes out to be, Humanity in Action! 

No city should ever be some Stuffy Upper Crust, exclusionary population of just white people, or just black people! Why that would only be the stuffy ole’ Suburbs all over again.... only this time with Skyscrapers! 

Glenn Peppers 

“What does Kid Rock’s Debuting at the Little Caesar’s Arena Really Mean?”

Kid Rock

“What does Kid Rock’s Debuting at the Little Caesar’s Arena Really Mean?”

By Glenn Peppers

Tuesday evening, Sept 12th, 2017. Protesters marched up Woodward Ave. in Detroit, protesting Kid Rock’s opening of the new Little Caesar’s sports Arena. And well they should, but at the same time, they really should have been protesting those who are behind Kid Rock’s opening of this big giant elephant in the front room!

People Protesting Kid Rock at the Little Caesar's Arena

Kid Rock is in all actuality just capitalizing on all this hype! The once crossover/Hip-Hop influenced recording artist turned full country/rock is making a mint out of all this hoopla! 

Bikers Protesting and taking pictures in front of the Little Caesar's Arena

I say protest The Illitch Co., and all its financial supporters, and those involved in taking all that money from the Detroit Public Schools in order to aid in building of (what I think was) this unnecessary sports arena! They are the ones who sanctioned all this! Kid Rock's debuting at the Little Caesar's Arena is just representative of just how those in power in Michigan actually feel about a lot of the original “Longtime” inhabitants and citizens of Detroit!

All of this is akin and related to ignoring the problems and issues, and water shut-off's, and home foreclosures, and various other forms of "Quietly" continuing the act of bulldozing, and socially engineering america's long awaited and anticipated operation of this giant nationwide program of an "Urban Renewal Project!" 

This is a program started decades ago which would eventually include the gentrificationing of people of color out of the equation in Detroit, and in most american cities all over the country!... Little by little! Day by day! House by house! One burned out crack house, and dead crack baby at a time! One inner city shooting and car jacking, and Trump/Ice deportation and any smattering of racially charged police profiling's and police abuse incidents at a time.

Now that Kid Rock is once again considered officially to be a (country rock and roll) recording artist, and not the Hip Hop/crossover act he started out to be. Kid Rock's debuting at this arena is meant to be more of a symbol than anything else! 

Forget all that confederate flag business! That's old news! You don't have to look far to know where Kid Rock's loyalties and ideals and mindset are concerning people of color and politics! Recent pictures of him cavorting in the oval office with known racist and resident nut case, Ted Nugent and Donald Trump says it all right there!

Kid Rock, Sarah palin and Ted Nugent in the White House

By way of the photo’s they all took together in the White House, if you didn't get the subtle insinuations, and other inferences, and digs, along with those big "Screw You Gestures that clearly showed through their poses and Body Language!" You need a reality check! Especially if you are someone who feels victimized by this administration, and yet doesn’t see a problem with this kind of consorting in a snide sort of way, then you are so far out of touch, it's not even funny! 

Kid Rock's Opening night at the Little Caesar's Arena, coupled with his new restaurant located just inside the sport complex is Big Business and New Detroit's clear and present Sign-Post! A virtual Sign-Post that openly implies the same sentiment that has been thick in the air in New Detroit’s Downtown/Mid-Town areas for quite some time now. And it is that, "In this New Detroit, People of Color, Are Not Welcomed Here!" 

Kid Rock is the reflection of just what those in Lansing, and in state and local government and big business in Michigan think of people of color! Remember that giant photo mural plastered on the side of that building in downtown Detroit by Dan Gilbert's Bedrock Detroit Co. that had the caption, "See Detroit like we do!" and there was nothing but white people in the picture?

Bedrock Detroit's Message to People of Color, and Everyone Else!

That was not an accident! It was a Declaration! It was Dan Gilbert and his New Detroit companies and supporters telling people of color in Detroit that they can and will do their level best to exclude, expel and eradicate Blacks, Arabs, Hispanics, and yes, even poor folks out of the city! Not leaving out the elderly of course, and anyone else of non-white origin Out of the City of Detroit!

Little by little!... One street shooting, and opioid death and communicable disease and illness at a time! One water Lead Poisoning and lessoned food program at a time! One discontinued basic necessity program for children at a time, and one more axed benefit, and raised tax and insurance rate at a time! They are phasing out blacks and anyone else who they deem unfit to inhabit the city of Detroit!... Slowly!.... Quietly!... One block at a time!... One renovation of those classic old houses at a time, that you will never get a chance to inhabit or purchase, at a time!... And so it goes! 

Kid Rock's representation of this New Detroit sends a clear message! It should be an eye opening revelation that you should not trust very many promises made concerning your health and wellbeing from those running this big machine who say they mean well with you. Not without strict examination and scrutiny!

People who send such strong symbolic messages in such a grandiose tangible way mean what they say, and say what they mean! Yet in some strangely perverted kind of a way, these individuals also like to send out codes and innuendos to taunt and pick at those they go after, before they stick it to you. 

Do you feel like a mouse?... Is New Detroit Chasing all of the mice out of Detroit!...
RUN mice RUN!

Like a cat toying with the mouse he has injured, but hasn’t killed yet! Like the comic book character, The Riddler in those old Batman Comic Books! Offering a riddle to further vex your predicament of figuring out where he’s going to shrike next! 

The Riddler before doing a Dirty Deed!

So if these people so boldly and blatantly mean what they say, and say what they mean concerning your life, livelihood and existence.... Then why shouldn't you!

Glenn Peppers