Plots during the 1975-76 season: the family throws a rent party forĪ neighbor, a hood wants to exhibit JJ's paintings and James brings His character in case he chose not to return. Out until the eleventh hour, and writers were prepared to do away with Both actors were given fat raises to stay, but Amos still held Quit if something wasn't done about the show's shifting focus and negative The 1975-76 season rolled around, both Amos and Rolle threatened to That exposure, is get me where I'm goin' a lot quicker.' His part, Jimmie Walker stayed above the fray, concentrating on his

Signed to do 'Good Times', Lear didn't dare immediately cast anotherīlack woman as Maude's maid, so the part went to acclaimed British actress To Bea Arthur's 'loveable' liberal, someone of color that could comment These stereotypes, not create a new generation of them, critics complained.īut Lear was looking for a character that could provide a credible counterpoint Lear cast a black woman in the role of the maid - it was time to bury Rolle was already used to controversy by the time 'Good Times' aired.ĭebuted in 1972, there was an uproar when executive producer Norman Slipped in on us through the character of the oldest child.' The artist, I suppose, because they couldn't do that to me - they have CBS wanted a sitcom about a single mom.Įighteen and he doesn't work,' Rolle commented to Ebony MagazineĪbout the JJ character in 1975. Reason, it was Rolle's insistence at the beginning that the Evans beĪ two parent family. Role models for young people in similar surroundings. In nature, that the characters on 'Good Times' could provide positive

The lead actors were led to believe that the program would be more serious Way they could waste a few minutes and not have to write meaningful and have him pranceĪround saying 'DY-NO-MITE,'' John Amos blasted. Writers would prefer to put a chicken hat on J.J. Turned to what they believed was offensive comedy. Spending bigger bucks buys you higher degrees of precision in all regards, but the core requirement is simply even, repeatable control of azimuth and elevation angles along with fixed positions for centers of rotation, truss up your concept enough and you should be able to do something like it, but you will be constrained severely by the small choices of angles dictated by your polygon template.Rolle and John Amos were furious that the direction of their show had Then again, the art comes in to selecting the combinations of angles and working with the properties of the stone.

Sure native cut stones are produced by the ton, literally a hand, a stone, and a grinding wheel, and they look pretty enough, but if you want to cut perfect stones from good rough, get a proper faceting unit.Īctually I'd say the jam-peg is about as 'hillbilly' as a faceting machine functionally can be, but it does capture the key ingredients, that your sketch misses- the 'mast' regulates the position of the top hinge on the dop, which fixes the angle from the face, while the dop has a gear (look closely- the flange-looking thing in the middle is a gear that sets the rotation angle of the dop axis) - so rather than a hard template as your depiction has- the same basic concept- a repeatable fixed 'stop' to maintain even, flat symmetric faces. This is why good faceting machines start at a few grand and the best are five. perfectly repeatable, or you screw up the angle and every angle affects every other angle, screw up one and you get to redo them all. You need to grind and then polish 50+ tiny facets, and you need to do it with perfect precision your stops have to be repeatable. it's a precise business with very tolerances. You'll never hear 'quality faceting' and 'hillbilly' in the same sentence. Good on glass, makes pretty stones if you can stand the time it takes and the horrible screeching noise of the grinding process. Very low tech and torturously slow, if you can build a perfectly flat flat lap that would speed it up. Basic faceting is done with a hand-held unit that grips the stone and allows it to be turned to cut the basic facets, with the grinding done by hand on glass and grit or waterproof sandpaper.

Hillbilly rock landscape