fresh.

last night, i ventured over to the west village for my free dj class at scratch academy. a comedy of errors (slow cooking chicken masala, what i believe to be a mild kimchi related allergic reaction) made me about 15 minutes late but luckily nothing aside from the “welcome to…” had occurred.

i arrived hot and bothered but enthusiastic. i kept grinning during the intro session. the three instructors (one head instructor, two TAs) were all fly white boys who nodded their heads in quiet unison to tribe beats. one of the TAs affirmed my belief that i was, in another life, a model scout.

this guy was probably 15 pounds overweight, with greasy blonde tresses, and zit calling out to me on the side of his face. imperfections aside, he was beautiful – unique bone structure and straight-edged teeth. there was something aquiline about him. he could have easily been a model.

i digress.

the class is a 101 on the fundamentals of scratching – the baby scratch, the cross fade, and “dropping on the one.” i played on the “ones and twos” – their lingo, not mine – for about an hour. i enjoyed it. each trainee gets their own station with scratch dj records that help you work through the basics. for example, track 1 of this 4 track record is compiled of a 2 minute loop that says, "fresh" followed by "woooosh." get it? the point being, each dj-in-training is supposed to manipulate these sounds to come up with a catchy interim beat. i tried to go for a sound where the "f" in "fresh" sounded like a censored "fuck," only to let the track go to reveal "surprise" the secret word was fresh and not some expletive. i have put turntables on my short list of adult gadgets to purchase.

it seems the most vital thing to deejaying is knowing tracks and their counts. he explained that in 202 you learn how to blend tracks with different counts (16 count versus 32 count) for example so not to fuck up the song, or irritate a fucked up party crowd.

rock the vote: mexican style

how appropo? rock the vote of early 90s mtv fame has reached mexico. as el presidente fox leaves office, there is, according to mexican news outlets and the washington post, a spot for youth to have a voice in the election (which i am all in favor of).

this commercial along with a few others have been running as the mexican election heats up. the basic message: angry about poverty? angry about corruption? rock the vote.

hearing soundbytes likes these make me excited to be heading to mexico. speaking of, i need to get on some plans for that trip seeing as i am going to the most populated city in the world notorious for kidnappings with not a place to rest my head at night.

the color purple.

i bought severely discounted tickets for my mother's birthday to see the color purple on broadway. thank you to viacom for my employee discount.

columbus & the new world order.

the following is taken from columbus' journals by way of autobiography of a blue-eyed evil: my life & times in a racist, imperialist society by igna musico. he wrote about the arawak people in the bahamas.

ahem:

they...brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. they willingly traded everything they owned...they were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features...they do not bear arms, and do not know them, for i showed them a sword, but took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignornace. they have no iron. their spears are made of cane...they would make fine servants....with fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.

pride 2006.

sunday, i went to pride 2006 with russ, his roommate jeff, mauricio, seth, and jeremy. nothing quite matched the spirit and energy during the parade since coming to new york city. we started off at a bar on christopher, then to a rooftop party, followed by a 20 block walk up west end avenue to hop to one more bar, and finally a lounge called opus 22 featuring amazing post-operative transsexual performer, candis cayne.

i can't even begin to explain how high energy the crowd was. people willfully wished one another "happy pride" and shouted out "you're beautiful." my favorite float was an HIV awareness non-profit with a black queen shouting "you positive, you negative?!" as a chant to encourage people to test themselves. speaking of, yesterday was national HIV testing day. plus, this year marks the sad but hopeful 25th anniversary of the first HIV diagnosi back in '81. a news program i watched recently re-aired the first news story on what was then called a "strange disease." it's hard to think back to a time when there was not a working arhcive of knowledge concerning the disease.

my love is too saturday night.

"my love is too SATURDAY night to be thrown back on my face."

the lovely ladies and i at sutra in the east village.

...more than a good time.

i seem to have unintentionally shyed away from political blogging lately. to be perfectly clear, my life is more than cocktails, museums, and netflix. i have a summer internship, good friends, and a zest for political fodder.

for this reason, i have decided to begin a blog mini-series around 1 news article a day. let's see how long this holds up.

in a girl's world.

i met up with my favorite latina, leandra, along with her sister to head to spice, a spaceship style thai restaurant on university place. i had curried chicken with hard noodles and a lychee martini.

more to the point, the three of us went to an art opening at the showroom gallery on second avenue. i read online about a grafitti and fashion gallery called in a girl’s world, a showcase of 5 young women creating urban art. the place was packed with the downtown hip & trendy, pierced noises and natural ‘fros abounded.

the art is amazing. there are tampon dispensers turned into canvasses, sneaker collections dating back to ’81, and wild style grafitti marking the walls.

the next day, i returned to the gallery with russ and got a chance to speak to one of the artists, too fly or maria castillo as her mother named her. i also got a chance to speak with a cute photographer snapping photos of the event. russ called him “dirty,” i call him “gritty.” this is really no more than the splitting of hairs, but he’s a photographer, ya’ll – that is undeniably sexy.

russ and i walked around alphabet city. i discovered little india and a-1 records, a record-store that specialized in “music for Shawna.”

la-di da-di.

netflix never disappoints. this time, i opened by summer mailbox to find that joyful red envelope with legendary hip-hop documentary style wars inside.

style wars follows a group* (see addendum) of grafitti artists in new york city in 1982. the youth tag, or “bomb,” as they called it mta subway lines in an effort to go “all city” or have their names on every line of all the trains on each track. i learned that the early advent of grafitti happened in the mid-70s and fully bloomed in the early 80s. there was a time when mta cars were fully covered, inside and out, with tags of local youth. common themes included arrows, tags with your street address, or what was called "wild style" a style i consider to be the most familiar.

the documentary is a classically good, not great. i fully recommend it.

*i have noticed that when referring to youth of color pop press often calls them “gangs” in a happy-go-lucky manner when the term is obnoxiously rife with racial undertone.

edgy meets boring.

the moment i landed in london last march, i said, “get me to topshop.” having never been to the UK before, topshop was a mythology in my mind. i understood it to be like the 5th avenue H&M times 10 – and live up to the myth it did.

the new york times has announced that top shop is scouting nyc locations to bring its trendy wears stateside. the article says the average topshop enthusiast is “knowledgeable and demanding, with a near insatiable appetite for novelty and a bargain.”

my traveling companions and i were told we made a pseudo-mistake going to the flagship store at oxford circus on a saturday afternoon. truth be told, i felt like i was at an impromptu fashion show – skinny jeans, faux hawks, and african émigrés wearing baggy jumpsuits and intricate corn row designs.

london is much edgier than nyc, in my opinion. people are more risky, more european. i will say, however, that goddess like worship of so-called fashion queens siena miller and kate moss has turned london girls into commie-style clones. there’s nearly a uniform for the hipsters heading into brixton for a good time.

my black drainpipes are smarter than yours.

fun-filled.

i had a fun-filled night with harvard ladies and dudes from my business program at taj, a club on west 21st. the club was nothing spectacular, just pricey, and ladies got in for free before midnight. that’s what i like to hear.

russ and i bar hopped around chelsea and midtown saturday night. we hit up 5 or so bars. i felt like an excited kid on the first day of school enrolled in a class “gay clubbing 101.”

tanya and i lounged in central park all day sunday. i felt like a shiftless negra seeing as i did not wake up until 2:30 sunday morning. tanya and i drank smirnoff all day and talked about gender stuff and the book tanya hopes to pen about the “sex kitten revolution” and accidental virginity.

i recommend tasty falafel nyc on st. mark’s. one reviewer calls it an oasis of yummyness in the east village. i whole heartily agree. the service is great plus the server held my hand so tightly as i ordered that tanya asked "do you know him?" i didn't. i just assumed he was flirtatious.

the next j dilla.

my current art du jour is j dilla, slum village and kanye collaborator who died of lupus. he pieces together soul music with deejay spins. check out his last album donuts on limewire, or itunes if you're a do gooder.

remember this post? anyway, i caught wind of a free class being offered on the 28th at scratch dj academy, a studio started by jam master j and his partners. i signed up for a 1 hour turntabling class. this should be fun.

mama's advice.

i went to a "celebrity" last night at the museum of the city of new york. i heard, though did not see, that assorted reality television and d-list celebrities were in attendance. a fabulous man once said, "in the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." (andy warhol) so clairvoyant, mr. warhol.

the house drink was an "ex-boyfriend," a tart pink drink that's heavy on the rum. i cannot find the recipe on any of the umpteen web pages devoted to drinks named such crazy things as woo-woo and yog. if i see a fool ask for a "woo-woo," i'll be sure to taser him.

precious brought along her friend jessica plus drunk joanne (that has a special ring) and joe. we smchoozed a bit while joanne anxiously waited to see if she had won a diane von furstenberg bag? dress? it's unclear.

the reason why i call this post mama's advice is because presh, jessica, and i walked through an east harlem housing project to the museum on 5th wearing short, tight cocktail dresses. i noted at the time the scenario had only the ingredients for "what not to do" including the men on the corner calling jessica "snowflake."

after the gala, we rode down to alphabet city to the luca lounge, an expensive bistro where the chef gave me a comp mushroom and chicken pizza (plus his number). i won't call.

all in all, a good thursday night.

just be fabulous.

i caught up with daisy, my favorite british girl and two of her friends from across the pond at peasant, a wine bar in little italy. daisy moved to harvard from cambridge and is heading for nyc permanently with no job, no housing, great clothes, and a derailed plan of becoming a design architect. her current goal is to “just be fabulous.”

i like it.

i have decided to apply for my master’s at the london school of economics gender institute. maybe i can be fabulous over there?

the wee hours of the morning.

tuesday morning, i woke up at 5:30 am to meet my cousin lloyd, the numerologist, at power 105 on 6th avenue in midtown. if you live in the tri-state area or love hip hop dearly, you know power 105 by name. it’s one of the two biggest hip hop stations in new york city. i prefer 105 to hot 97. i can’t quite tell you why because their formats are nearly identical brands of mainstream urban music. according to wikipedia, 105 barely edged out 97 during the fall 2005 ratings.

i got to sit in on tigger (former host of BET's the basement, come on ya'll) and egypt’s morning show for about 2 hours (7 – 9 am) as lloyd read people over the airwaves. the sound booth is unimpressive. it’s about 40 square feet with a sound island curving through the middle. the décor is ironically neo-soul-esque with burnt orange and pea green couches with natural fiber accents. the atmosphere is casual, unassuming, and low-key.

what wasn’t down-to-earth, however, was tigger’s fully diamond encrusted watch. it caught the light every time he went to click on the mouse attached to his 12 inch powerbook. hip hop stars use macs these days?

either way, a cool experience.

i called another cousin later that evening, a radio deejay at atlanta’s major hip hop station. he raised an interesting point. radio lingo is quite extensive from alternative to urban contemporary to classic rock, etc. some pop stations choose to play, say, eminem and the occasional mary alongside a host of jessica, kelly, and your average crybaby rocker. those stations, by definition, are classified separately from stations that stick exclusively to TOP 40 sans “the darkness” aka urban artists.

my cousin Kenny b remarked that only in the urban market are deejays asked to “coon it up” or sound decidedly urban employing proper slang and wearing cultural signifiers when making public appearances. the same is not asked of rock or country deejays instead they are expected generally to have crystal clear radio voices. kenny argues that this industry policy is blatantly racist and, in my opinion, smacks of minstrelsy.

it's showtime, i guess.

¡boricua!

this past sunday, i went to the puerto rican day parade 2006. if to the above statement you thought "ugh," "be careful," or "why," you're probably a hidden racist.

addendum.

i forgot to mention that i discovered a great panini place on 14th owned by an israeli with a lisp, ended up at a strip club on west broadway at 3 am with precious, and spent the night up in harlem with my cousin. one bouncer at the club informed me that he had appeared in 5 porno flicks yet strangely he sought us out while we were at the club to say that he was "above" making porno. are you serious?

i did discover, though, that there is an amazing church downtown called united progressive church that gives free coffee on sunday mornings and has a weekly movie series -- this week is transamerica. i accepted the coffee (which was horrible but a king gesture nonetheless) and the man commented on my glitter gold shoes at 10 am.

pop.

my birthday party was glorious. i am happy for the 11th hour switch to pop in the east, instead of mixx in the west. pop is more under 21 friendly and the owner brian young, former chef at le bernardin, is offbeat, quirky, and handsome. he gave me a pop and lock style high five to confirm that i would come back the next night with 30 guests in tow.

early on the 10th, some friends and i (see below) went to cuba café for a authentic cuban brunch. tanya gave me the autobiography of a blue-eyed devil: my life and times in a racist, imperialist society by igna musico (author of cunt). nothing says “i love you” like weighty books on topics concerning feminism and race. the present sort of reminds me of the time i gave diary of a slave girl in a secret santa trade. precious gave me a book simply titled diego rivera by pete hamill. i love coffeetable books or any attempt to beef up on my knowledge of mexican art. annie gave me chocolate strawberries, lauren got me a necklace and wine, & al and rach got me some records – prince’s 1999, mj’s thriller, pointer sister’s break out, and one other that i am forgetting. what better way to celebrate a mid-eighties baby than with mid-eighties records?

happy 21st birthday to me!

today, i went out to brunch at my favorite restuarant in nyc - cuba cafe - in celebration of my 21st birthday (holla). the photo is hopelessly blurry but a good attempt on the part of the employee to capture the event. i had some sort of cuban omelette with a mimosa and later a mojito. tonight, i'm off to pop to celebrate my 21st. i actually went to this bar last night and did a shot with the waitress.

my friends and family are more incredible than i realized. i got calls from 2 or 3 cousins, 2 aunts and uncles, my wonderful chilean friend, and an international call from michael in athens. the summer is off to a great start....

a night in harlem.

i can happily say that this summer is going to be crazy. first, i turn 21 tomorrow. secondly, i got a phone call a few nights ago (1:14 am) from a distressed 17 year old friend in need a help. she reported that she was stuck at the 125th street station with no way of getting to her final destination. i live over 100 blocks away in the east village. i threw on a sweat shirt, covered my crazy looking bedhead and proceeded to take the local train up to 125th street. the major problem, however, was that the train deposits onto lenox avenue leaving me to walk crosstown (time now 2:15 am) to 5th avenue. i walked quickly with a strange half power walk, half job thing. let it be known that i tripped over a homeless man and was later confronted by a man in a black escalade asking for my services. our late night adventure ended lethargically at 4:15 am. i was up for work the next morning at 7:30 am.

on the train, i caught glimpses of people coming home from double shifts and booty calls. my major observation though is that 125th at night is filled with unnerving groups of men in of 2s and 3s. she owes me, but i love her.

i <3 sushi.

two nights ago, i connected with my homegirl annie at sushisamba. we decided that this being our ceremonial first dinner in nyc, it was only right to splurge abit. we shared four rolls – a neo tokyo, spicy tuna, el topo, and california (old faithful). sushisamba has covered the creative marketing hook. for one, it has jumped on the fusion bandwagon. two, it completely brings in the always sexy, though slightly exploitative, “hot brazilian” character. three, considering that i am trying my damnest to get to brazil (a nine hour flight) for spring break 2007, the restaurant choice was fitting. i ate myself silly.

it's bitchin'.

you heard it here first: rio spring break 2k7.