the weekend.

i spent friday at the seaport, saturday at a kitschy bar called bourbon street on the upper west, and sunday at a club called apt in the meatpacking district.

saturday, rachel and i headed uptown with ana, a fellow mtv intern and rachel's long lost swim friend from home headed to the moma. i took a few photos of some goodies. i was able to get in for free because of rachel's jpmorgan chase fringe benefits. saturday night, we headed uptown for an open bar. i certainly got my money's worth, rachel did too, she just can't remember.

sunday, the lovely katie came to town from providence. we ate dinner at the pink tea cup in the west village, a soul food place on grove street that my roommate l has recommended earlier in the day at starbucks. the restaurant played early 90s r&b and i warned katie that i am one of those people whose "jam" comes on every third song.

later sunday night, we met up with the beautiful boys i spent pride with to celebrate jeremy's birthday - then onward to APT, where a shirtless black man wearing chaps let us in.

i left the club at 4 am to the sight of a rack of pig hanging in the street (i guess it is the meatpacking district). i nearly threw up a bit in my mouth.

the original nathan's hot dog.

coney island.

last night after work, i met tanya (and her friends jon & mona) downtown for $3 margaritas. we decided rather impromptu & drunkenly that we would go out to coney island. we were temporarily side tracked when tanya successfully fooled 2 men into believing she was egyptian and i got the urge to get pierced. i needed to do 2 things on coney island - eat a nathan's hot dog & drink on the beach. i accomplished both.

we drank for about 2 hours, sat on the lifeguard's chair, and talked about sex and movies. i unfortunately did not have my digital camera, but i did buy a 27 photo disposable. perhaps these old style pictures will be charming, at the very least.

jon poignantly pointed out that the subway ride to and from coney island (about an hour from west 4th) was quite possibly the sobering ride of his life - his and mine both.

"if paris is french, coney island, between june and september is the world." – george tilyou

you sho is ugly.

in celebration of my mother’s birthday, i treated her to dinner & the theatre – the color purple & dinner at a midtown turkish spot called akdeniz, a cute date place with attractive, attentive waiters.

i had lamb chops (apparently my favorite meat seeing as i eat it all the time), my mother had chicken chops. the food was good and i think middle eastern, lower adriatic food may be my favorite at the moment. i gorge on falafel, lamb, shwarmas, etc.

nothing, however, can beat maoz in amsterdam – holler at miguel for turning me onto it.

the show was phenomenal. it was feel good from start to finish so much so that i am going to run out and buy the soundtrack. the score is a healthy, heavy handed dose of gospel and other african american standards.

my mother had been looking forward to the show since its debut. a few of her sisters had seen it so she was especially excited to be able to talk about it with them. i was glad to be able to give her something she really wanted as opposed to a present out of obligation.

sophomore spring, i took a course on black women and religious expression covering primarily black women in the south and their political and social negotiations of their faith. the color purple was on that reading list along with the spielberg film adaption. i wrote my paper on womanist theology in the color purple – that is, women loving women, sexually or otherwise.

what i love most about musical theatre is that the performers are always always triple threats – singing, dancing, and acting. there is most certainly tons of raw talent overflowing on the stage.

i urge everyone to see the show.

dinero, dinero.

i just paid 37.76 USD for a 7 day hostel stay in mexico city.

i just paid that much for an H&M sundress on newbury street, boston.

i love cheap travel.

sidekick III.

i am normally not a techie person but i want a sidekick III. considering my addiction to email & growing addiction to phone calls, this seems like the perfect device for me. t-mobile service is laughable in cambridge as i recall so i'll just get one when i'm on my first job & paying my own phonebill (ugh).

brown study vs. nyt (sexyback, part II).

stay locked to this blog for the all new commercial free hip hop & r&b (and pop, in this case). i would like to thank every urban radio station known to man for the above line.

anyway, i was one step ahead of the new york times in offering my words on timberlake’s new single “sexyback.” check out the times review here.

the review is largely favorable but begins with a somewhat mocking “feminist critique” of pretty boys in the music industry. the time hip hop reviewer, kelefa sanneh, does tease out a narrative storyline in what may sound to some as a redundant merry-go-round of narcissism.

we agree on 1 major point – that is, the song’s attempt to evoke what i call a princetonian vibe (no relation to the ivy). she says, “mr. timberlake isn’t the new prince, not by a long shit. unlike prince, mr. timberlake hasn’t made a career of acting as his own object of desire.” we both called the prince comparisons; i just called it first. i would wager sanneh and say that prince fans will secretly enjoy the song the song and if they don’t they should because it’s on honest attempt at musical creativity.

sexyback.

pay attention to pop culture & you’ll find that justin timberlake has pseudo released his new single ‘sexyback’ (listen here) off his new album futuresex/lovesounds set to drop in september. the song is set to a schizophrenic, fast break beat where jt cries in distorted sound “i’m bringing sexy back.”

bold.

the song will appeal to people who fall into one of 3 categories.

1) musicheads
2) timberlake devotees
3) prince devotees

casual music listeners be damned. you have to appreciate sexyback, not simply listen to it. # 3 is my personal hypothesis. on this single, at least, timberlake is embodying a princetonian spirit. he cooes in the highest register and talks about juicy sex, prince’s favorite topic. i’m excited for the album. he's daring to be non-pop. perhaps he'll get the same amount of play on urban radio as he did the first time out of the gate as a solo artist.

a dream deferred.

this weekend was spectacular. it began with sushi, angie stone at b.b king's, and drinks in hell’s kitchen and ended with an andretti-style fung wah bus ride with annelise at 3 am, one of my two new friends.

take notice of the french flag temporarily tattooed on my back in the photo. i watched the world cup final in boston city hall plaza with 5,000 boston metro area residents alongside presh, laurel (new friend #2), and annelise. french fans were outnumbered. even my illustrious company rooted for italy.

i began rooting for france in the quarter finals. feeling no specific allegiance to a country at this point, i decided to root for zidane this being his swan song, his dream if you will.

i rooted for france for another reason. i see the make-up of france’s very multiracial team as a symbolic and hopeful answer to football’s very racist politics. star player zidane is algerian, henry is from the french west indies, vierira is from senegal, ribery is married to a north african muslim, just to name a few. so imagine my disappointment when zidane head-butted an italian footballer during the 110th minute of play.

i liken back to the langston hughes poem “a dream deferred” in this post because i guarantee that zidane’s head butt was inspired by a racial comment. am i positive? no. am i nearly sure? hell yes.

what disappoints me most is that many bloggers and editorial columnist (la times, new york times, bbc) are playing the fool pretending as though zidane’s temper combusted with little prompting. writer after writer has spoken of a zidane frustrated at the tie score in double overtime, fatigued from intensive play, or pressured from having his countrymen and the world watching him. surely, all of the above are indeed true but aren’t we overlooking the pink elephant? i find this non-mention insulting and a strategic move to push under the rug racial tensions that exist throughout the world cup and in football, generally. look no further than thierry henry’s anti-racism campaign called stand up, speak up, a call to arms to end racist politics in football (created back in 2004 when spanish fans made monkey sounds in the stands) or the paris race riots or the european obsession with lovers of christ and the public rejection of immigrant muslims.

george vecsey of the new york times, a man whose opinion i respect, called zidane’s action “thuggish.” i don’t necessarily disagree but i can’t help but grimace at the characterization.

much in the way black katrina victims became “refugees,” zidane is a thug for retaliating. i'm frustrated by the puzzled faces - it seems crystal clear to me.

maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
or does it explode?

angie stone live at b.b king's.

i get an email from russ friday at work saying that angie stone was coming to b.b king's in times square that same night. always up for a good concert, i put down 31 dollars for an amazing show. the show was about an hour and a half, but i swear it felt about 20 minutes. angie stone is currently taping celebrity fit club & her trainer, a black man named doctor evans, was invited on stage during her rendition of "brother."

the only curious thing, however, was during her rendition of brother. she mentioned that black women should allow their brothers to lead. she said, "you lead & i'll follow." hm. i'm a black feminism & that shit doesn't sit well with me. hm.

sushi fridays (my creation).

kush.

i smoked hookah for the first time down in alphabet city at a bar called rico once patroned by ms. britney spears. the bar is a chic dive intended for the tragically hip on avenue c.

cultural relativism?

i must
i must
i must increase my bust

first, if you do not know where this quote is borrowed from, you better ask somebody. it’s taken from my favorite book of all time - a children’s literary classic - and was a point of conversation during my harvard interview as well as comedic references on the simpsons’, the daily show, south park, lost, and wille & grace to name a few.

this being an arts & society blog, i want to point out an article that ran on the cnn website today. the headline read, “breast ironing to stunt girl’s growth widespread: 1 in 4 girls in cameroon suffer this abuse to protect against rape.” curious this morning at my internship, i clicked on the link to find tragic words about small girls having their chest stoned with hot objects to delay the onset of breasts.

this brings me to the tricky topic of cultural relativism, or "the principle that an individual human's beliefs and activities make sense in terms of his or her own culture." (smooches wikipedia) despite my fiercely liberal politics, i simply can’t condone it. children are in pain, men are exonerated, and i can’t quite seem to balance the equation between regional culture and standards – albeit western standards– of human treatment.

what irks me most, however, is the underlying sentiment that women leave themselves vulnerable to rape in cameroon, or, that women “get raped” like i “get the flu.” perhaps, cultural relativism is a way to turn narccisus’ mirror back onto the west? in the us, rape is “psychological,” a perverted scheme to assert dominance through a sexual means. in cameroon, the logic is diametrically different – the comments suggest:

big breasts + ample bottom + juvenile mind + male dominated society = rape

we (whoever we is) see that rationale as too simple, too rough. perhaps they are on to something? i work at the office of sexual assault prevention and response and the mother's rationale goes completely against what i teach to unsuspecting first-years. maybe rape isn't always that completed - a horny bastard, bitch, or tranny simple taking advantage.

i hate to say that the “answer” is probably located at a cliched diplomatic crossroads. for now, that’s all i got.

untitled (land of the free)

"this is america, land of the free." (union square, 4:30 am, a non-american)

take this as you will...

afro-punk.

last week (?) or so, i was reading my favorite blog, status ain't hood, a music blog by resident suburban baby tom breihan, hip hop connoisseur and village voice blogger.

he wrote about this documentary film called afro-punk, the 66 minute story of four black protagonists in the punk scene. i recall hearing about this documentary some time ago as it's original release was back in 2003. the story line tries to tell the tragic, sometimes romantic, sometimes adventurous tales of these black aliens in an overwhelmingly white genre. there is not a music genre more overwhelmingly white than punk rock.

i must admit that my classic "punk rocker" image is of a thin, white, cry baby who screams for fear of crying. that's my own prejudice. i fully respect the art form & those truest to its real message.

i was flipping through a paper voice only to see an advertisement for an afro-punk screening in brooklyn at the brooklyn academy of music (BAM), an urban cultural art center. i decided to go, venture to another borough, and see the film last friday.

the crowd was a healthy group of about 40, perhaps 50. the director, james spooner, was there to answer questions following the screening. i asked a question about the decisions he made in filming the protagonists faces in partial shadow & obstruction. james spooner is a fairly thin, light skinned black guy with scrawing arms. he was wearing suspenders a top hat at friday's screening.

i recommend seeing the film if you can. put bluntly, it offers nothing than any other "race" film. each character is navigating their racial identities amid whiteness. i did that in my connecticut suburb.

i learned a bit about the punk scene, including an early 80s all-black punk band called bad brains.

weekend in review.

this long weekend, i celebrated the 4th:

- went to the 40 40 club on saturday
- dined at cafeteria with alex, back from paris
- went to a rooftop cook out on a harlem rooftop packed with hennessy and alize
- watched assorted quarter final world cup games